The Lure of the Mystery

I love mysteries.  I always have.  I started out with those Encyclopedia Brown books in first grade.  I thought it was so clever the way Encyclopedia solved one case by realizing the reflection in a spoon is upside down.

Then I moved on to Nancy Drew.  Nancy was IT for a long time.  She was determined, smart, had great titian hair (a word I had to look up in the dictionary in second grade), and even had a neat boyfriend, Ned (who wisely didn't discourage Nancy from crime-fighting.)  The books had just the right level of spookiness and danger.  Sometimes I had trouble going to sleep, but that was mostly because I wanted to go on reading and find out what happened next.  I read all of the books in the series--many more than once.

After Nancy came Trixie Belden.  Trixie was different.  She sometimes got in trouble with her parents, and even with her much-older brother, Brian.  They were more of the "meddlesome kid" variety of detective (sort of like the Scooby Doo kids.)  These books had strong characterizations, cool plots, but maybe weren't quite as spooky as Nancy.  Well, there was one in particular that gave me chills, but I'm talking generalities here. 

Once I found Agatha Christie, I was hooked.  I had to read all of her books immediately.  Hercule Poirot and his odd idiosyncrasies was my favorite, but Miss Marple came in as a close second.  Some of her books scared me to death.  I really couldn't sleep after several of them, and it wasn't just because I wanted to go on reading.  It was because Mrs. Christie had totally freaked me out.  I remember one, not even one of her well-known books, where we discovered at the end that the narrator was the killer...he was psychotic.  Arghhhhh!!  I was up for hours.  And loved it.  

Since then, I've had many favorite mystery series.  Mysteries remain my favorite genre for one major reason: escapism. By identifying with the sleuth/detective/police, I can be plunged into danger in the pages of a book and escape by the skin of my teeth.  It's terrific stress relief. All of your tension can be tied up in this one place....and you know that somehow everything will work out in the end. 

Right now I'm in between books and I've got to go shopping for more.  It's been a rough week, news-wise.  I watch waaayyyyy too much television news and after a week like the past one, I need a good mystery to dive into.  If I'm trying to solve a murder, I'm not watching Jim Lehrer or the Dow Jones numbers, and that's an excellent reason to read, right there. 

Places I've hung out online this week: The Renegade Writer blog .  Cool tips on developing a writer website.

The Post MFA Blog  :  Apparently it's pretty rough out there right now for recent Masters of Fine Arts graduates.  As they state in their "About Us": Musings on the daily travails of three MFA graduates. Faced with the unsettling future(s) of to-be-determinedism, we seek plans, jobs, and constant distractions. We hope to share the above in all of its uncensored glory here. For you.

Blogger Tags: mysteries, children's mysteries, Agatha Christie

The Deer In The Drainage Ditch

Every once in a while, I run across something that reminds me that work isn't everything.

As I've mentioned, I live back in the trees in southern North Carolina, about six or seven miles from the South Carolina border. It's peaceful, especially now that we're nearing the first frost and the leaves in our hardwood forest behind the house have started their slow burn into a multi-hued palette of reds and yellows and oranges. As the afternoon sun shines through them, the entire back of the house takes on a glow of reflected rays that shine through the skylights and the window-wall that lines our den opening onto the deck.

It is, after all, my favorite time of year.

The other day, as I started out the front door to get the morning paper to read with breakfast, I stopped short as I glanced something through the glass beside the door. A large animal was walking across our front lawn.

I crossed into the dining room and deftly pulled open the shutters on the window.

There, on the grass, were five white-tail deer, grazing quietly between furtive glances to check for predators. We've seen deer regularly here in the woods, but never so close to the house, and never in such numbers. I don't know if they could see me through the glass - I have no idea what the visual acuity of deer might be - but if they could it didn't seem to bother them. They remained there for several minutes, until a school bus from the local elementary school chugged up the hill, and they scattered across the road into the pine barrens on the other side.

My daughter tells me that she's seen them several times, and that they live in the sheltering evergreens in the field across the street. I've seen them running there from time to time, but when I go walking over there I never seem to run across them.

On Saturday morning, I saw ten or so turkey buzzards circling over the field, swooping and drifting with the updrafts and thermals. I know what they eat, and what it means when they congregate in such numbers.

I quickly took a census of our cats, to make certain that none of them had come to a bad end, and then took a quick walk out in the field. Didn't see anything, but the next morning I only counted four deer in the front yard.

This is the season of the deer in the drainage ditch. White-tails have exploded in numbers in our community, and during the fall they have little on their walnut-sized minds except eating and making little deer. That makes them easy prey for automobiles. It seems that, every day, I see a new carcass lying by the side of the road. Somehow they disappear by the evening, but I can't help wondering if one of our deer wandered in front of an SUV and got scattered, and whether that isn't why we now have flocks of turkey buzzards circling over the barrens.

Ya Learn From Everything ...

Yep, it's true. Remember that great line Gene Hackman had in SUPERMAN (the original, with Christopher Reeve, for those of you who are old enough): "Some people read WAR AND PEACE and come away thinking it's a simple love story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing-gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe."

I'd like to think I'm the latter, not the former (hey, wouldn't we all?) -- but truthfully, I can be so dense at times that I can't bear myself.

The big question I've been grappling with over the last few weeks (since we returned from a much-needed and much-enjoyed trip to Walt Disney World) is: Why am I so unhappy?

Well, okay, a lot in my life is changing, and I expected it. A lot of things are breaking down (principally my beloved car), getting worn out (like my furniture) and just plain no longer needed (like my wedding china). Clearly I'm in a period of transition.

But what can I do to make myself feel better during this extremely stressful time?

Guess where I got the answer.

Nah. You'll never guess.

So here it is:

I got the answer -- from reading earlier posts on the Carolina Conspiracy blog.

Yep -- sometimes it's that obvious.

And what I got, from all these highly professional writers who spend their days thinking about their writing, then writing multiple books, then promoting them with a fierce devotion you have to see to believe, is -- I'M NOT WRITING ENOUGH.

Yeah. It's that simple.

Sure, I've had plenty to do since we got back from Disney World -- tons of mail and calls and emails to catch up on, errands to run, job applications, endless paperwork -- big deal. It piled up and I'm trying to get rid of it.

In the process, guess what went by the wayside? Yep. The writing itself.

In previous CC blog posts I've noted authors talking about daily word counts -- something I usually disdained, because if I set a word count, I almost always exceeded it anyway by the first morning, so it seemed silly.

Doesn't seem silly anymore.

I NEED something with hard concrete numbers and perimeters to give me a sense of structure, especially now. And if it's just x number of words per day -- hey, I can handle that.

I've been thinking, naturally -- how many words is a decent word count that I can expect to fulfill daily? I mean EVERY WEEK DAY -- what's enough? And what's too much to expect me to reach every day?

Well, during Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), I write 1,700 words/day, and it's always a little breathless. Usually, of course, I stretch myself to do more, because the 50,000-word limit that denotes Nano winners from Nano losers (er, non-winners) would mean roughly 1,700 words/day. And my Nano finishes have always been higher -- 76,000 words the first year, 62,000 the second, 54,000 the third. (Hm -- I'm continually trending downward -- maybe in this year's Nano I'll barely make 50,000 -- but I hope not.)

How about starting smaller -- like, 1000 words per day? Seems to me I could handle that. It's a little over three double-spaced pages/day -- something that seems eminently doable. (I'm usually a pretty quick writer when I know where I'm going -- what slows down the express is not having the vaguest clue what to do next.)

Also, 1000 words/day usually means you're writing a draft. As I'm actually rewriting a book now, that may mean working on another project in draft stage, just to prime the pump.

But prime it I will -- I'm tired of feeling, at the end of a day, as though I haven't done anything worthwhile, whereas (like the bumper stickers) the worst day writing is usually better than the best day doing something else. And it allows me to focus on something I like, something for myself. As mother of two active boys (ages 13 and 10), I can testify that that's all too rare in my recent experience.

So ... I'll report in my next post how things are going. But I promise you that tomorrow, I sit down and knock out 1000 words -- no matter what -- even if I skip around in my manuscript, even if I don't know exactly how those words will fit in the final project, even if ... fill in your own favorite.

The important thing is to plant my butt on the seat and my fingers on the keys and GET ON WITH IT.

Writer's honor.

Midland Magic

Is thinking outside the box good for book sales? We've done just about everything outside the box that it's possible to do. We've talked to gardeners and attended garden events for our garden mysteries. We've gone to NASCAR events for our stock car racing series. Now we're attending Renaissance festivals and fairs for our Renaissance fesstival mysteries and next month, we'll be at a psychic fair for our pet psychic mysteries.

Whew!

In between, we've talked to writers at writing groups, cooked garden meals at garden groups, talked to students at career days and other events and signed books at vineyards, car festivals and shows, senior citizen's groups and created murder mystery dinners where we signed books and talked about our work.

Last weekend, we were at our hometown festival, Midland Magic. We sold a decent number of books but not more than we do at bookstores. There are good and bad events. Mostly, we do what we do for exposure, meeting the most people we can and talking about our work. It makes me feel a little like a politician, "Hey! Look at me! Read my book!"

I'm not particularlly shy about it but sometimes I wonder if it makes any difference. I know several authors who seem to do all right and never go out to bookstores or other wild events. They might attend a conference or two each year (although they mostly disdain those too) and their schedule must be less hectic. It has to be cheaper. We invest heavily in promotion each year before and after a new book comes out.

I've been told by some authors and agents in the know that the only REAL way to sell a buttload of books is to have the publisher work with distributors, booksellers and send the author on a nice book tour. If that's true, are we all wasting our time and money on promotion?

Joyce Lavene

All Those Notebooks

My one hundred plus notebooks and journals, some of them more than thirty years old, bear witness to my inability to curb my writing habit. As witnesses, they serve me well. As antidotes to blank screen syndrome, they serve me best.

In the dark ages before I got my first personal computer, I did my typing on an old manual typewriter. In those days, Wite Out was my best friend. However, using the typewriter was reserved strictly for preparing stories for submission. The stories were written first in a notebook. Always.

Eventually my computer programmer husband bought me a computer, probably one of the first personal computers off the assembly line. This little gem had an amber display monitor if that tells you anything. After an initial period of whining about how a low tech woman could not possibly master this machine, I gave in and learned the joys of the backspace key.

But I still typed from my notebooks into the computer. I don’t care what anyone says—that’s double work. I then spent a painful few months learning to bypass pen and ink and write directly into the computer. And though this happened some years back, there’s something about that blank screen that tends to paralyze my thoughts at times. Doesn't matter that yesterday and the day before I plunked myself down in front of the whirring machine and filled page after page with sentences. Doesn't matter that my fingers tapped out letters almost faster than I could think of the words. What matters today is that sometimes the screen stays blank no matter how many times I poise my fingers over the keys and prod myself to write something.

Here is where I pick up a pen and my latest notebook—most recently a spiral bound beauty with a shiny, navy blue cover and the wide ruled pages I need to accommodate my generous scrawl. When the words won’t appear on screen, I allow myself to turn to my notebook. So what if my heroine doesn’t know yet she is going to be roped into solving a murder where the only witness is a palomino mare. Who cares if I can’t seem to figure out who sneaked into the stable and offed a friend of the mare’s family? Or maybe a character is trapped in the guesthouse while the villain busily sets fire to the roof, and I have no idea how she is going to free herself. Today my notebook is my freedom to write anything I wish. Sentence fragments, titles that tantalize, character sketches, outlines, catchy phrases, bits of conversation overheard in the grocery line, and whatever other words flow from my pen.

Most often before I've written a full page, my pen starts to move faster and my thoughts turn to the latest plot twist. When that happens, I know exactly what comes next and soon I am well on my way to completing my scene and thinking about the next. But when the pen and notebook don’t help, I keep writing anyway until I’ve written my word count. And that’s why I’m still accumulating notebooks.

KNOWING YOUR ABC's

Some time ago I sat down and made a list of the ABC's as they pertained to my writing goals. I keep this list on my bulletin board beside my computer and when I get discouraged or want to throw up my hands and get a real job selling make-up or flipping hamburgers I read through them. They always seem to get me back on track.

Today I thought I'd share this list with you with hopes it will encourage you when you get down in your writing. By the way, if you don't like my list, it's not set in cement. You can change any of them or make your own from scratch.

A - Aspire to reach your full potential as a writer
B - Believe in yourself and your writing
C - Create the habit of writing daily
D - Dare to write the things you want to write
E - Eagerly greet each new day for the opportunity it gives you
F - Forgive yourself for the mistakes you've made
G - Gather facts before you put them down as true in your work
H - Help other writers along the way
I - Indulge in day dreams for a few minutes each day
J - Judge no one or what they choose to write
K - Kill negative thoughts as soon as they enter your head
L - Live each day fully and thoughtfully
M- Meditate on what you want in your writing career not what you don't want
N - Notice the beauty of words and everything else around you
O - Open your heart and mind to new ideas
P - Pray and/or ponder what you want to accomplish with your writing
Q - Question things you don't understand because someone will have the answer
R - Relax and be calm when you write
S - Strive to do your best work, but don't get bogged down trying to be perfect
T - Thank God as you know Him for the talent you have to write
U - Underestimate no one - not even yourself
V - Value the things which are important such as family, friends and your writing
W - Welcome each new idea and challenge as it comes to you
X - X-rate nothing in you life - keep to higher standards
Y - Yestearday is gone with it's mistakes/triumphs - don't try to live there
Z - Zero in on your writing goals and keep them in front of you

Out Of All The Blogs On The Web, You Walked Into Ours

Today I’m writing a blog about blogging on writing. A bit like eating turkey in Turkey. I googled "writing blogs" and came up with 22,799,875 hits, So, even though our writing blog is well-written and insightful, and for sure the only mystery writing blog you’ll ever want to read, we are by no means unique. You have 22,799,874 other blogs you could be reading right now. I decided to check out a few of those other writing blogs to see what’s out there.

Here’s a few examples: Joelysue Burkhart, Dreaming in Rhyme. Fantasy writer Burkhart describes the agony of revisions, posts pictures of herself in kindergarten and offers a tasty chicken and dumpling recipe.

If you want someone a bit more well known, there’s always Harlan Coben’s blog. . A lovely account of what it’s like to be the author of wildly successful books that fly off the shelves, the way our own books do in our own fantasies.

There are also blogs for genres. There’s speculative fiction, which back in the day, we referred to as science fiction or "sci-fi." There is a blog specifically for paranormal romance. That involves shape shifters, time travel, and falling in love with ghosts and vampires. And if you’re just interested in writing about vampires, there’s a blog for that too.

My favorite though is the blog for bad writers, Actually, it’s not intended for bad writers, but, as the blogger says, honest encouragement for the "almost good" or the "good but clueless" writers out there. Something we can all use.

With all those writers blogging about their writing, I always wonder when they find the time to do their real writing. Much as I enjoy it, blogging doesn’t count as real writing.

I am perfectly happy to post a blog every other Wednesday on Mystery Writing and Other Stuff. And I’m just as happy to have other Carolina Conspirators picking up the slack the rest of the time. Nobody, not even Harlan Coben, can be interesting every post, every day.