THEY’RE OUT TO GET ME!

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Am I
paranoid if somebody really is out to get me?

I am
convinced someone has posted a large bounty to anyone who will take out me and
my car.

I
drive a little red sports car, a Honda Civic SI with 6 on the floor and VTECH
acceleration. It’s a fun car, and I have fun driving it, especially since I got
the radar detector and don’t have to worry so much about those pesky cops who
like to give tickets to innocent speeders when they should be out looking for guilty
murderers.

But
now other drivers are out to get me, and not to give me a ticket!

One
evening I was coming home from critique group, thinking about my book in
progress and how to fix the egregious errors my critique partners had pointed
out, in the zone as I sped around a
long exit from one highway onto another. It’s a fun exit/entrance that curves
sharply and is really fun to zip around.

My
left brain suddenly exclaimed, “There’s a car coming toward you in your lane!”

Right
brain: “Impossible. So my heroine finds another gift on her front porch…”

Left
brain: “I swear! White car! Coming toward you!”

Right
brain: “Leave me alone! And the gift has another note…”

Both
sides of brain: “OMG! There’s a car coming toward me!”

I
swerved, thwarted his evil purpose and eluded him. This was a blatantly
deliberate attempt to take me out. There’s no way that driver could have accidentally
turned onto the entrance ramp of the highway. He was after me.

I
drove on, and in a couple of miles my heart rate and blood pressure returned to
normal. Almost home, I was driving in the right lane, going past a huge U-Haul truck
towing a car behind. All of a sudden the driver decided she wanted to be in my lane…while
I was still driving in it.

I
slammed on the brakes and slid around her with inches to spare, ending up in
the left lane, the one she’d been driving in. I straightened, hit the gas and
prepared to get past the second threat to my life and car that evening.

But
the U-Haul driver was determined to complete her assignment. She came back over
into my lane. I went into VTech mode, sped away with inches to spare, and
managed to escape with my body and vehicle intact. I hope that Kamikaze woman
was awake all night, obsessing about how she failed to complete her mission.

Having
established that my car is fast and easy to maneuver, THEY switched tactics.
One evening four Kamikaze drivers waited on side streets then, when one saw me
approaching, he eased out into traffic in front of me and slowed to a crawl.
Fortunately I have quick reaction time, very good brakes, a good horn and a
large vocabulary of curse words. I can only imagine how much money must be
offered to induce someone to look up, see a red sports car driven by a crazed
redhead barreling down the street, and decide it would be a good idea to pull
in front of her.

Then
one afternoon I turned onto my home street and saw a car approaching from a
side street. I was wary by that time, but the car stopped at the stop sign in
front of her. Whew! Not one of the potential assassins. However, as I
approached, she gave me an evil look and started to pull in front of me. I
slammed on my brakes and twisted my wheel, turning to the side of the street.
Thus thwarted, she stopped, smiled grimly and surged past me before I could get
her license number.

I
believe these events prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone with a lot of
money has it in for me. But who? I realize I can be a little irritating upon
occasion, though never without good cause. Well, sure, it could always be the evil
ex who hates me and has plenty of money, but he’s too stingy to pay to have it done.

How
long can I evade these people? How many more will come after me? What cunning
tactic will they employ next?

I can
see only one recourse. I will put all of them in a book, expose them, and kill
them. Thank goodness I have the power of words and a VTech engine behind me!

 

 

My Husband is Living With a New Woman

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My Husband is Living With A New Woman by Debra H. Goldstein

My husband thinks he’s living with a new woman.  He isn’t sure who I am. Suddenly, I’m doing things and talking about subjects that are absolutely foreign to what he associates with me.

The fact is that we’ve been married long enough that he thinks he can predict what I like or dislike. Ask him and he’ll tell you that I love him, our children, books, eating out and theater (although he’s not sure what order, at any given time, those things fall in) and that sporting events, exercise, and cooking top my “forget it” list. Lately though, he thinks his wife has been replaced by a “foodie.”

Not only does he keep finding the television tuned to the Food Network, but he’s noticed that I keep coming home with cookbooks and new food gadgets. Even weirder, I’ve been turning down the option of going out to dinner to try a number of new recipes out on him. Of course, not all of them have been successful. For example, I made chicken soup from scratch for our Passover Seder, but I didn’t realize that the wide noodles I added a few minutes before the service would soak up all the soup during our short service. You can imagine my face when I peered into the pot to ladle out portions and could actually see my soup evaporating. The good thing, as we all agreed, was that the matzah balls, noodles, and chicken ended up being very well seasoned.

At least those things sans soup were edible. Recently, I made a fish dish that not only looked beautiful in the picture in the cookbook, but also on our plates. The only problem was that I got distracted when I was measuring some of the ingredients. Take it from me, 2 tablespoons of black pepper make a dish a lot spicier than ¼ of a teaspoon. Thank goodness we had plenty of water with that meal.

Last night, I dragged my husband to a new type of dinner experience – Dinner Lab. Young chefs come into town and serve a meal in a pop-up restaurant. Although the diner knows the chef and menu in advance, the location isn’t revealed until the day before dinner. The dinner itself is more like a tasting menu in that each course provides a different eating sensation. I liked the warehouse used, thought the menu novel, and enjoyed each course. My husband had the same reaction he had when he saw The Blue Men Group – “that was different.”

The reality is I haven’t changed. I still prefer to eat out. What has changed is that my newest work in progress (about 51,000 words so far) is a cozy with recipes. Writing accurately and interestingly requires research. Whether it is the voice, setting, or characterization, accuracy counts. So, I’ve become addicted to food shows, cookbooks, and cooking (okay, make that attempted cooking) for the sake of my craft. Can you possibly think of a more fun way to get the story right – even if it means my husband is living with a new woman?

Mystery Novel Seeks New Home

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by Bethany Maines

As the release date for my newest mystery (An UnseenCurrent) approaches (April 28th – ahhhhhhh!!!) I find myself once
again pondering the cruel irony of nature that crafts writers to be introspective
sorts and then pits them against a task to which they are monumentally
unsuited.  That is to say: marketing. The
woman hours spent lovingly crafting characters, settings, and events leaves the
writer more than a little in love with their own book. To then have it
heartlessly thrust into the public where some reviewer will crassly thumb
through it and declare it to be passable is like being gently stabbed with
needles by someone who doesn’t really care about your problems.  We all want to be bestselling authors.  I mean, who doesn’t want to be RichardCastle? (I really am ruggedly handsome!) 
But in all honesty, I think most writers would rather have their books
treasured and loved than consumed like soda and disposed of.
I remember the first time I saw one of my aunt’s books at
Half-Price Books. My aunt, Linda Nichols, writes beautiful Christian fiction
with snappy plots and characters you want to hug. I had not yet, published any
books and I personally thought that seeing her books on the shelf of a used
bookstore was cool.  But Linda did not
think it was cool – there was wincing and the sad look of “ohh, I wish I didn’t
know that.”  Someone sold her book down
the river – the heathens, the Philistines! The bastards with not enough shelf
space!  After I had been published I
realized her pain.  How could someone not
love my book?! Why would anyone give my book away?  My books are awesome.  All right, yes, I recognize the shelf space
issue is a real thing – even libraries don’t have ALL the books.  But as each baby book flies out into the
world, forgive me if I hope that it will find at least one home where it will
be treasured.
And on that note – who wants a free digital copy of An
Unseen Current?  It’s looking for an
awesome home (and someone who will leave a review).  Leave a comment here or on Facebook to be
entered to win.  I’ll draw names on Friday morning.
AN UNSEEN CURRENT
When Seattle native Tish Yearly finds herself fired and evicted  all in one afternoon, she knows she’s in deep water. Unemployed and desperate, the 26 year old ex-actress heads for the one place she knows she’ll be welcome – the house of her cantankerous ex-CIA agent grandfather, Tobias Yearly, in the San Juan Islands. And when she discovers the strangled corpse of Tobias’s best friend, she knows she’s in over her head. Tish is thrown head-long into a mystery that pits her against a handsome but straight-laced Sheriff’s Deputy, a group of eccentric and clannish local residents, and a killer who knows the island far better than she does. Now Tish must swim against the current, depending on her nearly forgotten acting skills and her grandfather’s spy craft, to con a killer and keep them alive.
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Tales from the City of
Destiny and the forthcoming An Unseen
Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

What I’ve Been Up to Lately by Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith

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The photo is of the last event I participated in–The Jackass Mail Run. Since it’s in the little town where I live, I decided to participate again. This is a wild day, beginning at noon when we set up, with the help of our son, and lasting unitl 6 p.m.

Riders on horses and a wagon with mail and a load of people start in the morning from Porterville (17 miles away) and trek up the highway toward Springville. They make a stop at noon at a local watering hole for lunch and beverages and then continue the ride. Many of the horses end the trek at the rodeo grounds, but othere who are protecting the mail wagon ride into twon around 4. Bad guys with guns are waiing, and the gunfire explodes. Very loud and the kids love it. The mail always get through to the post office.

At 2, when the event begins in town, craft and food booths are set up in the park and across the street (where I was). Bands and singers performed in the park, raffle prizes given out, and the Jackass Mail Queen crowned. People did wander across the street to check out the booths and some bought my books, many took my cards, and a lot of folks talked to me and my husband.

I’ve also given a presentation at the Porterville Library as part of Library week. I talked about my Rocky Bluff P.D. series, how it began, and what inspired me to write each subsequent book. It was part of my promotion gof the latest in the series: Violent Departures.

I’ve also been busy with my blog tour which ends today with two posts.

A final interview here: http://blog.jamesmjackson.com
and http://kathleenkaskawrites.blogspot.com/  where I answered the question who influenced me the most.

People always want to know if I think blog tours help– I know they do, I can see by the uptick in sales–not huge, but enough to know people are trying my book.

In May,

The biggest thing I’ve got going is starting May 1, the first book in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series, Final Respects, will be free on Kindle. Of course I’m hoping that will tempt some folks to try out the series.

So far, the only other plans for May as far as book promotion is a neighborhood bookstore–something several of us did in the fall and worked out quite well. Because I’m a real person, my calendar has many other things that I have to do just like everyone else.

Marilyn aka F. M. Meredith

Meet the Authors of the 2014 Agatha Best Short Story Nominees!

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Each
year at Malice Domestic, writing excellence is recognized by the Agatha awards.
This year’s nominees for Best Short Story are:
“The Blessing
Witch” (PDF)
by Kathy Lynn Emerson, Best New England Crime Stories 2015: Rogue Wave
(Level Best Books)
“Just
Desserts for Johnny” (PDF) by Edith Maxwell (Kings River Life Magazine)
“The
Shadow Knows” by Barb Goffman, Chesapeake Crimes Homicidal Holidays
(Wildside Press)
“The
Odds are Against Us” (PDF) by Art Taylor, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Nov.
2014
“Premonition” by Art Taylor,
Chesapeake Crimes Homicidal Holidays (Wildside Press)
Please
enjoy the opportunity to read these stories, if you haven’t already. We are so
fortunate to have with us today Kathy Lynn Emerson, Edith Maxwell, Barb Goffman, and Art Taylor. All are not
only fabulous writers, but also delightful people. Thanks, Kathy, Edith, Barb,
and Art, for stopping by to share your work and thoughts with us!
How do you compare short story writing with
novel writing?
KATHY:
Writing short stories is much
harder. In quite a few cases, it took me longer to finish a short story than it
did to write an entire 80,000 word novel. With at least one story, it took me
years to get it right. When I write novels, they get longer with each revision.
When I revise a short story, it almost always ends up even shorter.
EDITH:
A heck of a lot shorter, for one thing!
When I had two-thirds of a novel in the drawer twenty years ago and then
reentered the paid work force while raising two sons, there was no way I could
carry the plot and characters of a book around in my head and fit them into the
tiny snatches of time I had available to writer. But I could manage a short
story, and wrote nearly a dozen, five of which were eventually published in
juried anthologies. Short stories are simpler. They’re not necessarily easier,
but they don’t take as much time or brain space to complete.
BARB:
For me, writing a novel is like the
long con. I start in one place, and I know that eventually I’ll bring the
reader to another place. But in the middle there will be detours and red
herrings and subplots. I want to keep readers from seeing where we’re going. I
want to fool them. To surprise them. I might set something up in chapter two
that will pay benefits three hundred pages later. That’s the long con.
With a short story, there’s no space
for the long con. I’m writing the equivalent of a bank robbery. I get in, get
the cash, and get out. No detours. No subplots. It’s a quick ride. Sure, short
stories and novels both should have a great beginning and ending and hopefully
a surprise or two, but the way I approach the middle is different.
ART:
Each time I’ve tried to write a full
novel, I’ve struggled with structure and pacing to the point that the results
have always been bumpy at best, dismal at worst—and none of them has seen the
light of day. With my upcoming novel-in-stories, On the Road with Del and
Louise (coming out this September from Henery Press), I’ve tried to
capitalize on what I think I do well: manage the narrative arc—the structure
and pacing—of a short story, and link those stories together in contribution to
a larger narrative arc featuring the bigger story of these characters. To some
degree, I think I just understand short stories better, for better or worse.
What advice would you give to short story
writers?
KATHY:
Keep it simple. In a short
story there is no room for subplots, information dumps, or complicated
relationships. I’d say limit the number of characters, but that would be a tad
hypocritical since I’ve never managed to follow that piece of advice myself.
EDITH:
Don’t send it in too early. Get the
first draft done and let it stew for a while. Then work to eliminate everything
unnecessary, whether a description that doesn’t move the story forward or a character
you can do without. And then work it over again, polishing, trimming. I’ve seen
a couple of beginning writers dash off a short and send it in (well, I did the
same myself when I was starting out) when it wasn’t quite ready.
BARB:
Read. Read novels. Read short stories.
Read, read, read. It gets your brain moving. It teaches you technique, even if
you don’t realize it as it’s happening. It helps you learn what works and what
doesn’t.
And when you write, keep two things in
mind: (1) Everything in the story should move the plot forward. If a scene or
character can come out without affecting the plot, it doesn’t belong in the
story. (2) But don’t make your plot move so quickly that your main character
doesn’t have the time to react to what’s happening. Reactions are interesting.
They bring the character to life and add richness to the story. So show us her
thoughts, and then move that plot along.
ART:
Write the biggest story you can and
then cut and fold, cut and fold, cut and fold until the only words left are
those that are key to the story—that’s the ideal for me, even I personally feel
like I’m always falling short of that goal. The novelist’s art strikes
me generally as one of accumulation, where the short story writer should
ideally focus on subtraction—the most effect in the fewest words—and training
yourself to see where to cut and combine and condense is a challenge. Beyond
that, read widely in the short story form. There are so so many great
short story writers out there, each of them with different stylistic and
structural approaches, and there’s so much to learn from them and then maybe
apply in your own way to your own craft.
For the Agatha banquet, what kind of shoes would you (or if
you prefer, your protagonist, a character from your story, or your spouse)
wear? [This is, after all, The Stiletto Gang!]
KATHY:
The same ones I wear every
year—black SAS sandals with one-inch heels. Definitely no stilettos. I have
trouble enough walking in the sandals. By rights I should be wearing old-lady-with-arthritis
orthopedic lace-ups!
EDITH:
I’m so shoe impaired in terms of what’s
conventional. I’m trying to come up with a pair of party shoes that aren’t
either stilettos or some version of little-girl shoes. I have short wide feet
and refuse to wear heels, so it isn’t easy! You’re going to have to wait and
see what I find. Maybe we can do a follow up post with a picture of all our
Agatha banquet shoes…
[Edith sent her picture early, so I
wanted to share it. I’ll see if I can get shots of the shoes actually worn at
the banquet!—Paula]
BARB:
Gus, my main character from my
Agatha-nominated story “The Shadow Knows,” wouldn’t go to a banquet. It’s way
too fancy for him. But if he were forced, Gus would wear plain, comfortable
shoes. I’m similar in that respect. My shoes will be black and nearly flat and
above all else, comfortable. I want to enjoy the evening, which means doing
what I can to avoid aching feet.
ART:
I’ve got a pair of suede saddle shoes that
I regularly want to wear (khaki green panel over off-white), but my wife Tara
says they don’t ever match what I put them with, so…. We’ll see if I can ever
come up with a good combination! [Here are Art’s shoes for your viewing pleasure!—Paula]

Seven Things

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Seven Things
By Laura Bradford

I have to admit, I’m so copying off Marjorie’s post idea from Tuesday (though, technically speaking, I, too, was tagged on this 7-things-you-might-not-know-about-my-writing thing by the Stiletto Gang’s own Lynn Cahoon a while back).

So here we go..

1) My first book was written in twenty-minute increments over a five year time period thanks to having two little ones under the age of four. That first book, JURY OF ONE (now called DEADLY READINGS in its resurrected E-book persona) went on to be an Agatha Nominee for Best First Novel at the 2006 Malice Domestic Conference despite being with a small press publishing house.


2) The first cover of that first book (a mystery, mind you) was pink…with a green sun. And no, you can’t make that stuff up.  The second cover of that first book (the book club version put out by Harlequin’s Worldwide Mystery) was better…although when I saw it for the first time in thumbnail form, I thought it was the Hamburger Helper Hand (again, can’t make this stuff up).

3) I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was ten. One of my first attempts was O’CASEY’S WISH. Which I still have to this day. Thanks mom. 🙂

4) That Agatha nomination at the 2006 Malice was not my only award nomination. Two of  my romances–KAYLA’S DADDY (I didn’t pick that title) and MIRACLE BABY (I soooo did not pick that title) were both nominated for the 2010 RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Harlequin American.  To have two titles in the 5 nomination spots was pretty cool.  Even cooler?  Having MIRACLE BABY land the award!

5) The hardest book I ever wrote was STORYBOOK DAD (Harlequin American 2012) as the story’s heroine had Multiple Sclerosis (like me) and I wanted to get it right. To date, that is one of the books I am most proud of.


6) I once got to talk to Mary Higgins Clark on the telephone. Thanks to Harlan Coben. 
Dream. Come. True.

7) My 20th (SUSPENDERED SENTENCE) and 21st (WEDDING DURESS) traditionally published novels came out last month and this month, respectively.  Pinch me now.

Well, there you go, my 7 things.

Comments? Thoughts?

~Laura

7 Things You May Not Know About My Writing

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by Marjorie Brody

My dear friend and colleague, Kay Kendall, author of Desolation Row and Rainy Day Women, challenged me to post 7 things
people may not know about my writing. I accepted her challenge and told her I’d share my behind-the-writing information here and now.


1. My first novel (the one prior to TWISTED) was written from 10:30 PM to 2-4:00 AM. I was working full-time as a psychotherapist and often attended the San Antonio Spurs basketball games at night so couldn’t write until I got home.


2. I enjoy listening to music while I write. Soft jazz or Spanish ballads are my go-to music, quiet enough to keep in the background. Sometimes I don’t
even hear the music, but when I start a writing session, music keeps me focused.


3. When I don’t write for any period of time I get grumpy—okay, that’s more about me than my writing, but it’s the truth. I imagine it’s like a runner
who must run regularly. Writing is something I have to do for my mental health—and the mental health and happiness of my family and friends.

4. I tend to drink a lot of decaf coffee with hazelnut cream while I write. (In the Spurs mug my critique partner, Rita Derbas, gave me.)


5. My short story “In the Underside” (later produced as a play) was the only piece of writing that just flowed from my fingertips and came out in one
complete, finished, piece. I remember staying up the entire night writing that story, sometimes my eyes blurring with tears. I had two thoughts in mind
while I wrote “In the Underside”: the 28-year-old mother who died after drinking an abundance of water during a radio contest. Remember that situation?
She wanted to win a Wii for her three children. The second thought: there is a lot that goes on inside people that doctors—and mental health
specialists—can’t possibly know. I hadn’t intended “In the Underside”

to be written with limited sensory awareness, (the protagonist can only hear and smell) but I’m glad the story wrote itself that way. I learned a lot.


6. I struggle to write non-fiction. Blogs are difficult for me. I blame it on having to write a dissertation. That might not be the core the reason,
but I’m too busy to try to figure it out. I’ll just need to write through my discomfort.

7. I tend to write with a lot of dialogue. Sigrid Nunez, award-winning author and Literary Fellow to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,

encouraged a group of us at the Vermont Studio Center “not to be afraid to use narrative” in our fiction. So I experimented with a short story, “It Was
Said,” written predominantly in narration. To my surprise, that story received a nomination for the Pushcart Prize. The positive reception to that
story doubly surprised me because I work hard to avoid “to be” verbs in my fiction. Yet here was a story where the passive voice almost becomes its own
character in the tale.

So there you have it, seven bits of information you may not have known about me and/or my writing. Thank you, Kay, for prompting me to share aspects of
my writing life. You know, perhaps another reason blogs are difficult for me (#6 above) is they go counter to my training against self-disclosure.
Whoops, didn’t I say I would stop trying to figure that out? I guess just because I’ve become a professional writer doesn’t mean I can stop being a
psychotherapist. But I must admit, it’s kind of nice to let others know a little more about me.

What 7 things would you include on your list?

Marjorie Brody is an award-winning author and Pushcart Prize Nominee. Her short stories appear in literary magazines and the Short Story America Anthology, Vols. I, II and III. Her debut psychological suspense novel, TWISTED, was awarded an Honorable Mention at the 2013 Great Midwest Book Festival and won the Texas Association of Authors 2014 Best Young Adult Fiction Book Award. TWISTED is available in digital and print at http://tinyurl.com/cvl5why or http://tinyurl.com/bqcgywl. Marjorie invites you to visit her at www.marjoriespages.com.

Summer’s coming. Are you ready?

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This weekend was swim team sign-ups–an annual exercise in chaos.

There are forms to fill out. There are team suits to try on. There are cookies and lemonade and countless kiddos zipping around as if they’ve never had sugar before.

Soon, swim practice will begin and initial excitement (yeah, pool!) will give way to Do I have to go?

In June, there will meets. Not my favorite. Think competitive parents, vodka and overheated concrete mixed with over-excited, over-tired kids…*sigh* There are no high-tech touch pads for country club swim. Nope. Instead, parents with stopwatches endure blazing heat and intermittent splashes.

I was not a swimmer (you’re welcome, Mom). I did play golf. Badly. Mom had to spend her Thursday mornings walking the back nine. So much better than swim team…

The summers of my childhood were filled with Tab and limes, peeling shoulders, playing kick-the-can until the evening news came on and my parents called me home. Idyllic, nostalgia inducing days. Days that inspired The Deep End.

As summer approaches I wish you lightning bugs and cicadas, Bomb pops and Bombay and tonic, at least a few days with low humidity and many days that will have you remembering them long after their gone.

 

Swimming into the lifeless body of her husband’s mistress tends to ruin a woman’s day, but becoming a murder suspect can ruin her whole life.

It’s summer 1974 and Ellison Russell’s life revolves around her daughter and her art. She’s long since stopped caring about her cheating husband, Henry, and the women with whom he entertains himself. That is, until she becomes a suspect in Madeline Harper’s death. The murder forces Ellison to confront her husband’s proclivities and his crimes—kinky sex, petty cruelties and blackmail.

As the body count approaches par on the seventh hole, Ellison knows she has to catch a killer. But with an interfering mother, an adoring father, a teenage daughter, and a cadre of well-meaning friends demanding her attention, can Ellison find the killer before he finds her?

Julie Mulhern is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean–and she’s got an active imagination. Truth is–she’s an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dog and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions. She is a 2014 Golden Heart® Finalist. The Deep End is her first mystery and is the winner of The Sheila Award.

Things Aren’t What They Used to Be

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Things Aren’t What They Used to Be by Debra H. Goldstein

I am a dinosaur.  The signs have been there for awhile – my friends are talking about or getting plastic surgery, cruise brochures are more exciting than the ones we looked at when we booked a trip to climb The Great Wall of China eight years ago, and I know what writers are talking about when they refer to the day they traded in their Royal or Olympia typewriters for an electric Smith Corona (remember the hard-shell case?).  More importantly, somewhere in the last few years I opted to work with a trainer so that I can stay fit without injuring myself.

My trainer is the one who brought my age home to me.  I was making my usual jokes about not being quite as flexible and he was giving me his usual assurances that I was doing fine even if I can’t touch my toes, do ups and downs, or hold a plank position for more than a few seconds. “I’ve never been much of an athlete.  In fact, in gym class or team sports, I was the kid everyone wanted to make captain so I wouldn’t actually bring the team down with my athletic prowess and because I could figure out and effectively utilize everyone else’s strengths and weaknesses so we usually won.”

The trainer smiled and tapped his head.  “Intellect,” he said.  “Very important.”  I agreed.
“That’s what Jeopardy players have and I enjoy watching the show everyday when I’m on the treadmill.  I understand those players go through a whole set of tests.”

“They do.  I was a contestant.”

“You met Alex Trebeck?  I think he’s fantastic!  What was he really like?”

“Actually, Art Fleming was the host when I did the show.”

“Never heard of him. Who’s he?”

“The original host of Jeopardy.”

My trainer looked at me as if I had lost my mind and then I realized where the disconnect was coming from.  “I was on the show in 1974.”

“I wasn’t even born then.”

I got it.  He’ll never know who Art Fleming, Smith Corona, or probably even John F. Kennedy was. It’s a shame.

Hashtag This

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by Bethany Maines

There’s a hashtag on Twitter for people who are writing –
#amwriting. An innocuous hashtag for tracking other writers, but sometimes… it
can be just a little bit smug. And given the nature of writers I was wondering
if we could have a more honest hashtag? #amsurfingtheweb #amwatchingcatvideos
#amdoinganythingbutwriting

Right now I’m doing anything but working on the outline of
Carrie Mae Book 4.  Because, no, I don’t
know how they ended up in a brawl to the death among the Amsterdam tulips.  Can’t I just wave my magic writer wand, do a
little jazz hands, and write by the seat of my pants? #pantsingit  The problem with pantsing it, is that I am no
Louis L’Amour.  Mr. L’Amour apparently
did not believe in rewrites or edits; he believed that rewrites killed the
freshness of the story.  Or he believed
that we would buy whatever he wrote. #hewasright  When I attempt to pants it, my stories go
sideways and I end up writing entire chapters that sound like vacation
brochures. #needavacation No story was ever moved forward by a character
actually stopping to smell the roses, or in my case, tulips.  Unless, of course, he got wacked on the head
while bending to smell one. #deathbytulip #nameformynextnovel #dontstealit
#mine

So here I am, forced into the drudgery of outlining.  Coming up with the answers before I even know
what all the questions are. Or in my case, procrastinating for all I’m worth.
#procrastination! I could say that I’m mulling it over or letting it marinate,
but let’s face it, at no point in my life have I ever mulled something over
while doing the dishes.  The only thing I
think while doing the dishes is that dishes suck and we all need to stop eating
so there will be less dishes.  #seriously
It’s productivity through hatred of the other available task.
#atleastsomethinggotdone Eventually, I’ll have to return to the outline –
figure out the who, why, where and how.  Eventually,
I will have to do the research and plug the plot holes.  Eventually, I will actually have to write.  #amwriting  
Sigh.  Can’t I be #amvacuuming instead?  
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Tales from the City of
Destiny and the forthcoming An Unseen
Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.