Packing--With Very Little Method

I've tried being organized, laying out things a week in advance in order to not be last minute about what I will take to a con. It never works.
Whatever I've laid out, a week, a day, or even half a day before will become my most hated items of apparel when the time comes to actually put them into a suitcase. "What was I thinking? Those pants make me look a mile wide!" "And that necklace never hangs right." "Those shoes are sure to hurt after an hour."
Better to wait until an hour before. Forced choices tend to become efficient ones: these pants never wrinkle, this necklace goes with anything, and shoes don't matter anyway if the pants are long enough. And if I keep smiling, no one will care if I end up with one taupe stocking and one suntan.

My Life As Someone Else

I've never been particularly fond of Peggy. It makes me feel like I'm ten again (not that that was a bad time, but still). I go by Peg whenever possible, but for some reason, Peg often becomes Pat.
As a teacher, I worked with a woman who is physically similar to me: dark hair, glasses, tall and thin (well, I once was). Her name is Pat, and we understood when new staff members had trouble keeping us separate. I answered to Pat and she answered to Peg. It was fine.
As an author, however, it's important that the correct name gets inserted into the minds of potential customers. But for some reason, people quite often think/hear/say "Pat" instead of Peg. I've been listed in programs as Pat, introduced to audiences as Pat, and thanked for coming as Pat.
Maybe I should have stuck with Peggy...but would I then become "Patty"?

Autumn Whine

It isn't pretty any more. It takes a jacket and more to go outside. Walking in the woods is risk-taking behavior, what with gunshots and rampant bowhunters.
Thank goodness for football, or this time of year would be useless.

Why I Did Not Do My Blog Today

Miserable, rotten, nasty cold.

The Most Memorable Movie Lines

There are all those shows on TV with lists of the best of everything in entertainment, and they're kind of fun, but each person has his or her own best-loved lists. Families do, too--lines that they share among themselves and laugh every time, while those outside the group smile in slight confusion.
One of our family's sure fire laugh-getters is Monty Python's SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL. We know it's silly, but any one of us can say "It's just a flesh wound," and the rest of us will laugh.
Six of us are headed to see SPAMALOT tonight, so one can guess that there will be much merriment afterward. I hope the hotel people don't call the police...or the Knights Who Say "Neh!"

The "So What?" Story

History tells us that people of olden times listened to the same stories over and over. Within the story told around the fireside, there would be lots of repetition of familiar events and names, so each person felt a connection to the story.
With television, movies, and print books teeming through society, we have a situation that is similar, although not the same. Readers seem to have a yen for the same characters, even the same character types. If this season's TV offering has a detective with a personality disorder and it gets good ratings, count on more such characters in the future. Successful published books tend to be repetitious, too: the same plotlines over and over. A seasoned reader/watcher knows from early on what will happen. "Here's where the protag becomes conflicted because his father was undemonstrative and he wants to protect the kid whose father is undemonstrative."
I guess it's all right. We need entertainment, and we don't mind it being run-of-the-mill, at least most of the time, because it's only entertainment. But sometimes I long for classic tales, ones that tell, if not a different story, at least the same story differently. So much of what I read and watch leaves me with a "so what?" feeling. Did anyone change? Nope. They'll be back next week, next book, next sequel with the same story. Of course they'll move the location to Tel Aviv or Rio. People like that.

Living With A Mystery Writer

Yesterday was 41 years for us as a married couple, and I started thinking. What must it be like for my husband to live with me?
I spend LOOOOOOOONG hours in front of my computer, focused on protags and the WIP, terms he very possibly hopes he never hears again.
We drive all over the Midwest, schlepping books and hunting for libraries, conference centers, and the home of whoever is hosting this month's Book Group.
My tax accounting is always in the negative numbers.
I rant about people neither of us has ever met: dumb editors, uncaring agents, clueless readers, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
All this is in addition to the usual husband/wife things, like who left that suspicious container of something in the refrigerator and why did the garbage not get set out on time.
And of course, he has the worry that one of my biggest interests in life is how to kill someone and get away with it.

Too Close to Halloween for This!

Last night I was about to head to bed, and the chores thereto include letting the cat out for the night. When I opened the door, the most bloodcurdling howl you would ever want to hear sounded from my back yard. A dog, but a dog in a state of high emotion, for sure. It was...well, think Baskerville and you'd be close. I listened for a while, a bit of a chill creeping up my neck, but it is not unheard of for dogs to wander away from home and "visit", so I didn't panic.
Until the lights showed. Out my kitchen door, about forty feet away, is a shed, and suddenly I saw two lights in the woods behind it. They moved slowly around and around, shutting off for a few seconds and then coming back on. "Reflections of car headlights on the road," I told myself, but it was hard to see how something happening in front of the house could reflect around to the side, behind a building.
The lights kept circling. After watching for a while I gave up trying to figure it out and started for my bedroom. In the window facing the back yard was another light. This one shone straight up, lighting the tree branches high above. I could see the feet of someone holding the light. There really were people in my back yard.
Was I scared? Yeah, for a second. Then my husband came along, took one look, and said, "Coon hunters."
Yup. These crazy people hunt raccoon with dogs at night near cornfields. The animals tend to climb a tree to escape, so the hunters were tramping around my back yard, within a few feet of my house, looking for their prey.
The question is, what would they have done if they'd found it? It's bad enough that they made me think my home was under attack. What if they'd fired off a few rounds?

Updating

I spent an hour and a half this morning updating my computer, first the anti-virus stuff and then I found one of those analysis things where they fix all your registry errors and defragment and whatever. It says it will "increase performance, speed up response time, and improve efficiency."

I wonder if I could get one of those for my brain...

When You Get to the End

Often I leave the living room when that last commercial break before the end of a TV show comes, which has from time to time caused comment from others in my home. I don't care if I see the last ten minutes of a detective movie lots of times, either. And if I could, I'd let someone else write the last twenty pages of my books.
In most cases, writing the ending doesn't interest me as much as the build TO the end. Once I reveal whodunit, I don't care about the chase through the streets, the abandoned warehouse, or the Grand Coulee Dam. I don't really even care if the bad guy/girl lives or dies. For me, it's all about leading the reader to the point where together we figure out who and why. Once that's established, the chase and the arrest or whatever is just the icing on the cake, and icing is often very sugary and laid on too thick.
So when it comes to writing an ending, I sort of have to force myself. I know what readers expect, and of course I want everything to tie up neatly. But the running/ fighting/confessing part is hard for me. I have to remind myself that the story needs closure, otherwise I might simply do the outdated "I've gathered you all here to explain that there is a murderer amongst you" scene and skip the chase through the dark woods at midnight.

Peanut Butter and Other Bad Things

I liked it better when we didn't know stuff.
As a kid, I didn't know I should not sleep in the back window of my parents' 50-something Ford on long trips. I thought it was a cool place, just right for a kid to curl up in.
As a young mother, I didn't know that letting my children sleep with us from time to time was bad. I thought they were learning that sometimes, when you're unhappy or scared or unsettled, Mom and Dad sleeping on either side of you is reassuring.
And for the first half of my life, I didn't know peanut butter, my favorite food as a kid, was laden with fat and sugar. I thought it was the best thing ever, especially when we were at some relatives' house and they offered food I had never heard of before. "Can I have a peanut butter sandwich, please?" They always shook their heads at my finicky eating habits. But every one of them had a jar of peanut butter.
So many things can be enjoyed if one just doesn't know the pitfalls. And after all, a person has to die of something. Dying of peanut butter does not sound that bad to me.

Do You Have an "Ear" for Literary?

I spent twenty-six years in the tenth grade, twenty-seven if you count the year I was actually a sophomore. In that time, I tried very hard to make reading a good thing for my students, offering variety, encouragement, and gentle nudges on to the next reading level. One of the things I learned is that the "ear" for literary excellence is tricky. Age, ability, and inclination all enter into it, and while there are some who have a tin ear for literature, most can develop their sense of "good" literature if they try.
There are three facets of reading. We can teach people to decode words. We can teach them to find the pertinent facts and details as they read. We cannot teach appreciation, but we can develop it, or rather, the reader can, with practice. Life experience, understanding of character, detection of sarcasm, satire, and misdirection are all things that come with reading and discussing literature with others. Teachers have to focus on more than "Did they read the piece?" and "Can they answer the questions at the end of the chapter?" Students might read, might be able to tell you who the main characters are in a piece, but they often have difficulty with the tone if they are tuned in to only decoding and recalling details. They can miss Mark Twain's comedy genius entirely as they fight their way through "My Grandfather's Ram", trying to find the story line.
Appreciation comes from reading a wide variety of works, which to me is what the job of a literature teacher is all about. While we all might know what we LIKE to read, a teacher's job is to help us develop our literary ears, so we have a larger sense of what really good writing is.

It Won't Take Long--The Biggest Lie Ever

I planned to submit an older book to a publisher this week. It was one that several publishers showed interest in just before the Big Drop when everyone stopped buying everything.
Anyway, I thought I'd read through it and clear it up: move the dates up a year, freshen the clothing styles, whatever.
Ha!
I can't just skim through. I have to read, and then I find things that could be said better, things that should be clarified, things that need paring down. In other words, I'm in the middle of a full edit.
And it's going to take a while.

Fun with Kindle

I've only had the thing a month, and already I'm irritated if I want a book and it has not been "Kindlized". I just found my friends Laura Alden and Hannah Reed on Kindle (MURDER AT THE PTA and BUZZ OFFF, respectively), which is cool.
Living in a very small town, I used to have to make a list and then when I got to a town big enough to have a bookstore, look for books I wanted to read. Often, authors I meet at conferences are with small publishers, so the bookstores would have to order the book. Then I had to wait until I returned to that town to actually get the book. Now I just click "Buy Now" and I do.
I still like wandering through a bookstore to learn about authors and books I have not heard of before, and I always end up buying something. I don't think that thrill is going to disappear soon. There really is no way for mystery lovers to find stuff new to them except that method, and it's a lot of fun to pick, choose and anticipate.
But when you know what you want (and I know Laura and Hannah are going to provide a fun read every time) the click and download method is easy-peasey. And through the entire process, I never once have to put on shoes.

Gettin' Away

We've decided to take a few days and go hide in the U.P. (That's the Upper Peninsula for all you non-Michiganders.) The color is at its peak, my brother will watch the house and the cats, and we found a window of time when neither of us has a commitment. I can't recall the last time we went on a trip together that was not business related or required by family circumstances.
Traveling for fun? I'm not sure I remember what that is, but I'm willing to relearn. I'm even leaving my laptop home, so don't expect a word from me until Monday.

Don't Be in Such a Hurry

I'm about to give up on an author I know is good, at least on the piece of her work that I'm currently reading. It's pretty obvious that this one was done in a rush, and it suffers. I'm about done suffering along with her.
Someone told me once that a writer's first book is a luxury. She has her whole life to write it, if need be. She doesn't have to send it off until she feels it is ready, and even then, it might take years for someone to notice it. During those years, she can tinker with it from time to time, possibly responding to snippets from agents or editors. (You don't get much, but sometimes a phrase is tossed out: "liked the main character, no strong hook".)
If a first book is successful, the race is on. Now the publisher wants to keep things going, and the writer is expected to produce book after book. Some (notably Diana Gabaldon) refuse to be rushed. Others (better not to name them) write to a formula, repeating what worked in Book 1. In the case of the book I'm reading, it's obvious that the writer did not get a chance to let the story sit for a while and then look it over carefully and make it better. Mistakes everywhere: picky little things like "women" for "woman", use of the same adjectives every time a certain location came up, and a generally unbelievable opening premise that had me thinking "Where in the world would a group of adults actually act like this?"
The other thing that can happen, I think, is that a writer falls in love with all the things people say about her and becomes pretentiously literary in succeeding works. I see places in this book where the author is trying way too hard to recreate those beautiful descriptions praised in Book 1. Back then they flowed naturally; now they sound forced, like "Here's a spot where I can show my talent with words."
Will I give this author another chance? Probably. But I wish she had taken a little more time to be herself with this book. That's what got her where she is today.

Do I Tell 'em What They Don't Know Now?

Writers get requests all the time for "pointers", and I've had three in the last few days. A phone call from a stranger who wanted to know if we could get acquainted so she could learn about publishing. A request after a meeting for me to give a third party some advice she could pass on to an aspiring author in a nearby town. And a woman at church who wants to "let" me read her stuff to see if I like it.
I've learned to be kind but firm. Just like a lot of publishers, I don't read unsolicited material. And there simply aren't any two-minute recaps on how to get published. I recommend research, suggest WRITERS GUIDE, and tell them about my next workshop if one is scheduled anywhere nearby soon.
I hope that doesn't come off as unhelpful, but it's the only way I can deal with those who haven't got a clue where to start. Yes, I was in their shoes once, but I read everything I could find early on, and as a result I did not expect some other writer to a) critique my work, b) tell his/her agent what a gem of a writer I am, and c) have the secret of publishing all tied up in a bow to hand over to me.
I really don't mind people asking intelligent questions, and it's certainly wise to consult someone who has been through a process to learn how things work.
Signals that I won't be able to help a person:
Me: What do you write?
Person: Oh, I'm all over the place.
Me: Do you have something finished?
Person: No, I've started a bunch of things, and I thought I'd send them to an agent and let him decide which one would sell best.
Me: Has your manuscript been edited at all?
Person: My mom (or in the case of teenagers, "my BFFs) read it. She says it's really good.
Here's my advice for newbies: Immerse yourself in research about publishing. Listen to authors whenever you get the chance, but keep quiet about your own stuff until you know a tiny bit about the business. Ask questions like, "How did you get published?" and then take away what you can from that.
But don't offer to "let" them read your stuff. They've got stuff of their own.

The Browsing Reader

Your computer says it does, but it just isn't the same. I love my Kindle, but I sometimes want to go to a bookstore and just wander through the aisles, especially the mystery section. I look at the covers, read the back, the inside front, and often the author info. I don't know if the photo influences me to buy the book, but it's fun to know what the writer looks like. I put some back, take some home. Anticipation.
Amazon tries to give me the same experience, but it is not the same. Amazon works best when you know exactly which book you want. You go there. You buy it. Bam! It's on your Kindle. Instant gratification.
I guess there will always be room for both in my life. Sometimes I don't know what I want to read, and a bookstore is the place to help with that. Other times, Kindle is perfect, because there is no bookstore where I live, and it's inconvenient to drive thirty miles for a browse.
Having both options is the best of all possible worlds.

When Always Lives with Almost

Almost is a great help around the house, and he can fix just about anything. When he is finished, he puts everything away. Almost.
Always has a need for things to be where they belong. It is difficult for her to sleep if the dishes aren't done, and she has a little pattern that she likes for the items left on the table: salt here, pepper there, napkins just so. The leftover bolts and the un-stored duct tape that Almost leaves behind upset her. She puts them away, only to find (a week later) that Almost wanted them left there.
Almost gets his dirty clothes ALMOST into the hamper. When he leaves something on the chair beside the bed, he is ALWAYS irritated to find that Always has relegated it to the laundry, even though it wasn't very dirty. Her contention is that it is ALWAYS better to have clean clothes.
By now you might have guessed that Always does household chores on the same day every week, ALWAYS. And you can bet that Almost helps out, emptying ALMOST all of the trash cans, for example. That one he missed is a thorn in Always' side until the next trash day. He tells her to relax, it's just trash, and he ALMOST got it all.
Almost and Always love each other, so they make it work. But it is almost always irritating for them both.