Absolutely

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by Bethany Maines

Today I’m discussing the absolutes of art.

Absolute number 1: artists must sell.  So toward that end, please consider purchasing my latest book! It’s a five-star, “highly-satisfying, high-speed thriller” that readers are calling “hard to put down.”


Shark’s
Instinct: Fresh out of
prison and fresh out of luck, twenty-something Shark wants back into The
Organization. But when Geier, the mob boss with a cruel sense of humor, sends
Shark to the suburbs to find out who’s been skimming his take, Shark realizes
he’s going to need more than his gun and an attitude to succeed. With the clock
ticking, Shark accepts the help of the mysterious teenage fixer, Peregrine
Hays, and embarks on a scheme that could line his pockets, land him the girl
and cement his reputation with the gang—if he makes it out alive.


$2.99 on sale today! BUY NOW!




Absolute number 2:  Nothing is absolute and artists spend a lot of time thinking about that.

In our current climate of politics, disasters, and protest, I’ve been listening to what a lot of artists are feeling. And by artists I mean everyone from fellow writers and graphic designers, to fine artists and poets. I know from the outside that most people think of the creative set as a homogeneous mass of weirdos. Which, weird, I’ll grant you, but homogeneous is not, in any way, accurate.

Like any family there are fractured in-fights, cultural differences between the “cousins” of fine art and design (or poets and novelists), there are fights over pecking order and definitions and what it all really means. But most artists when pressed will say that although they have their preferences, their set rules that they use, that most of the time, there is no absolute. Don’t ever pair two serif fonts, don’t ever write a novel in the first person, don’t use Papyrus for a logo (ever, no seriously)… Unless it works, in which case, you should absolutely do that. Absolutes in art and artists are few and far behind.

Which is why I think our current political climate is striking artists particularly hard. It’s as though we’ve all been toddling along enjoying the gray areas and we’ve run smack into the thirty percent of our population that only believes in black and white. Not that they live in black and white (because no one can). But they only believe in black and white and they want everyone else to bow before the almighty absolute and give them the peace of mind of being right. Arguing with someone who refuses to see the gray is pointless. Showing art full of color to someone who doesn’t see the subtle shades of the rainbow only makes them turn away. Many of the artist’s I listen to feel despair. They feel like their art has become frivolous when they see the colors being eradicated around them, but they can’t seem to make the leap to protest art. Nine months into a presidency that does not see the value in anyone who isn’t male, straight, or white, I would like to say that all art is protest art. To create joy, beauty, and harmony, to paint with many colors instead of the ones that have been chosen for us is protest art. I encourage my artist friends to follow their passion, take action, make art, refuse to go away or step back. Use every damn crayon in the box.


Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. —Oscar Wilde

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known. —Oscar Wilde


Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, creeds follow one another, but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, a possession for all eternity. —Oscar Wilde

***
Bethany
Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, the Shark Santoyo
Crime Series, Wild Waters, Tales from
the City of Destiny and An Unseen
Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae YouTube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Finding the “real” United States

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By AB Plum

During a recent cruise from Barcelona to Miami I asked the young Indian cook preparing my egg-white omelet, “Have you visited the US?”

“No, madam. It is my dream. But someday I will go. Where do you think I should start?”

Obviously, this isn’t a one-minute conversation (about the time for my omelet to cook). But we discussed the question at length over his next fourteen preparations of my breakfast.

“New York,” he said next morning, flipping the concoction in his skillet—a skill I’ve never mastered and told him so to let him know I’m not an expert in either flipping omelets or mapping out cross-country trips. “I think,” he continued, “Manhattan and Hollywood-Los Angeles must go to the top of the list, don’t you agree?”

Someone behind me interrupted, “I’d like to order an omelet now because I don’t want to miss the lecture on Columbus’s discovery of America.”

So, my new friend and I tabled the question until the following day when I picked up our conversation. “Since you’re from New Delhi, I’d suggest places other than cities. Do you know about the Grand Canyon? Or Yosemite National Park? The Black Hills aren’t that far from Yellowstone or the Tetons …”

A hungry passenger elbowed in next to me and announced, “I’d like two eggs over easy.”

When I commented to other passengers about this on-going conversation, they all had definite ideas of places to go and places to experience. None recommended NYC or LA.

By the end of the cruise, I still lacked a solid plan but suggested beginning in Washington, DC. From there, I recommended the Black Hills, adding he should see the Crazy Horse Monument before proceeding to Yellowstone and/or the Tetons.

Next, I advised, head south and west to Salt Lake City, veering off to The Grand Canyon. Afterwards, fly to San Francisco to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. With any time, money, or energy left, I suggested flying to Seattle—maybe managing to hook up with a cruise ship destined for Alaska.

My new friend thanked me for my ideas, but I think he still felt the allure of NYC.

Yes, I recognize my itinerary leaves out huge swaths of our country, its history, and culture. I happen to love West Virginia and New Orleans. I know many would insist Mount Vernon and Monticello are a must for anyone visiting Washington. My preferences, Lincoln’s Tomb and Birthplace, probably do require too much travel off the beaten path. For me, they evoke more poignant memories than Washington’s and Jefferson’s plantations. I hope I conveyed the “real” United States is more than the East and West Coasts.

What do you think? Where would you send a foreign visitor with 21 days to see the USA? 

******When AB isn’t lolling on trans-oceanic cruises, she lives and writes just off the fast lane in Silicon Valley. Her American Journey began in Southern Missouri, after which she lived in Bolivia, Kansas, North Carolina, Florida, and Argentina. Book 3 in The MisFit Series, The In-Between Years is now available from Amazon.  Look for Book 4, The Reckless Year on November 17—just in time for Thanksgiving.










My Purple Passion ~ Ellen Byron

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We’re thrilled to welcome USA TODAY bestselling author Ellen Byron to the Stiletto Gang! Ellen shares her passion for purple and a thought or two about her fabulous Cajun Country Mystery Series.
My relationship with the color purple – the actual color,
not the book – has a history. When I was a kid growing up in New York, my
mother told me it was considered a low-class color. Where this judgment came
from, I don’t know. It’s not like my mother was some high-falutin’ society
matron who wouldn’t be caught dead wearing anything but basic beige. She was an
Italian immigrant who grew up on the mean streets of Depression-era NYC. But I
took what she said to heart and hid the truth – purple was my favorite color.
Cut to adulthood and the impending debut of my Cajun Country
Mystery series. These days, it’s not enough to write a book or a series, you have
to market it, too. I wrestled with how best to do this, and realized the
obvious answer was to brand my Louisiana-based series with the Mardi Gras color
scheme of purple, green, and gold. I’ve always liked the color green, and gold is
my go-to metallic. And purple… oh, you glorious combo of red and blue! Given permission
to go wild with the shade, I did exactly that.
 
The thing is, once I started buying purple I couldn’t stop. My
wardrobe now looks like a Concord grape harvest. I hit Target, thrift stores,
local shops, online sites, tag sales. I bought clothes, belts, shoes,
accessories, and makeup. I actually gave away two pairs of purple shoes I’d
bought because my daughter told me they were so ugly she’d disown me if I ever
wore them.
Shopping for purple has become a habit I have trouble
breaking. When I walk into a store, I force myself to remember there are other
colors in the world. But my purple passion has had an unexpected benefit. My mother’s
no longer prejudiced against the color. In fact, she’s embraced it. When I
visit her and we go out to dinner, there’s a good chance we’ll be purple
twinsies.

A CAJUN CHRISTMAS KILLING, the third book in my series,      
launches tomorrow and the fourth book in
my series comes 
out in 2018, so I’ve got at least two more purple-wearing years
ahead of me. I’m mulling over a new series set in New York City, 
but I’m
terrified to introduce another color into my world. 
I just don’t have the
closet space for it.

Body
on the Bayou, the second book in Ellen’s Cajun Country Mystery Series, won
the Left Coast Crime Lefty Award for Best Humorous Mystery, and was
nominated for an Agatha Award in the category of Best Contemporary Novel. Ellen’s debut novel in the series, Plantation Shudders, was
nominated for Agatha, Lefty, and Daphne awards, and made the USA Today
Bestseller list. Book three, A Cajun
Christmas Killing, launches October 10th. TV
credits include Wings, Just Shoot Me, Fairly OddParents, and many pilots. She’s also an award-winning
playwright and journalist. Ellen lives in Studio City with her husband,
daughter, and two spoiled rescue dogs. Visit her at http://www.ellenbyron.com/

Forgotten Arts

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by Linda Rodriguez
In
my series of Skeet Bannion mystery novels, Skeet’s best friend,
Karen, owns a shop called Forgotten Arts, offering knitting,
spinning, and weaving supplies, as well as a farm with a herd of
sheep. This shop is basically in the book because I love to knit,
spin, and weave, and I’ve always had a little daydream of having
just such a shop of my own.

It
probably all began with my grandmothers. One of them was an excellent
needlewoman who taught me to sew doll clothes and doll quilts, using
the scraps from her many sewing and quilting projects. This
grandmother even made spring corsages for each granddaughter from old
nylon stockings, cut up and dyed into violets, iris, lilies, and
roses. The other grandmother knit and crocheted afghans, sweaters,
even golf-club covers. Neither of them knew how to spin or weave, as
far as I know.

Both
of my grandmothers were great “makers from scratch,” though,
whether with food, such as bread, butter, cheeses, and such, or with
household items, such as baskets, candles, lotions, soaps,
washcloths, and dish towels. My Cherokee grandmother even made her
own medicines with herbs from her garden and wild-harvested plants.
Most of these medicines, foods, and household items were more
effective or better-tasting than the mass-produced versions available
in stores and pharmacies.

Beginning
as a childhood apprentice to these two grand old dames, I set off on
a lifelong quest for the forgotten arts. I have a huge library, and
one of the categories within it is that of how-to books. I have books
on how to design and make furniture from cast-off materials, how to
make braided rugs, how to make doll houses and furniture, how to make
canned foods and jellies, how to make your own purses and shoes, and
books on yogurt making and felt making—and I have made all of these
things and more. I seek out books on forgotten arts, such as
spinning, weaving, smocking, rug hooking, tatting, and bobbin-lace
making. (I’ve done the first three, but haven’t tried the last
three yet.) I even have books on how to build your own log cabin or
barn from scratch, how to raise and milk a goat, and how to grow and
use your own natural-dye garden. If all these dystopian novels and
movies come true and we have some kind of societal collapse, I’m
the neighbor you want to have.

Of
course, now that writing has taken over my life, my big floor loom in
one end of the living room has become a cat gymnasium, my sewing
machine sits permanently covered on a table where manuscripts have
replaced fabric pieces, and gorgeous hand-knit projects languish
neglected and unfinished in tote bags hanging from the doorknobs of
my combination office and studio. I still believe these crafts have
great value. I used to make time for them in a busy life, but I’ve
lost that knack somewhere and need to recover it for a sense of
balance, so I wrote into my books a character who has that balance
and that fibercraft store that I used to dream of owning.

Now,
I’m downsizing and moving. I am letting go many of the books,
including some of the how-to books (like building log cabins and
raising goats), but most of those and the loom,

spinning wheels, and
sewing machine are making the move with me. I’ve decided that a new
house can also equal a new way of living and am determined to put
more balance into my life. But I still won’t have my own fiberarts
shop or herd of sheep, except in the Skeet books.



In
your own writing, what aspect of your life finds its way as a part of
your story? Do you give a character some passion or aspect of your
own personality? And when you’re reading, do you like to see these
bits of the author’s personality embodied in the work?


Linda Rodriguez’s Plotting the
Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The
World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East,
an anthology she co-edited, are her newest books. Every Family
Doubt, her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police
chief, Skeet Bannion, will appear January 17, 2018. Her three earlier
Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust,
and Every Last Secret—and
her books of poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has
been optioned for film.
Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and
Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

Liars or Truth Seekers?

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by Sparkle Abbey

Ever play two truths and a lie? The ice breaker game where each person shares three facts about him or herself, but one is really a lie. The others must pick out the lie from the truths. The most successful players know that the best lie contains a truthful element.

According to Stephen King, “Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” Perhaps one can consider fiction to be a form of two truths and a lie.

Great fiction has the power to reveal truth through well defined and developed characters. Yet truth is a matter of perspective – especially in mystery fiction. Truth, lies and deceit are pillars in a great mystery. If the characters, for the most part, always told the truth, the mystery is quickly solved and well, that’s pretty darn boring. And a very short novel. Think about some of your favorite characters. They are most likely flawed, complex, and strive to do the right thing, although at times going about it the wrong way.

Are they liars or truth seekers? Perhaps both.


When do characters lie?

Secondary characters lie to the protagonist, the protagonist lies to other characters, and the protagonist lies to his or herself.

Self-deception is an important element in fiction. Like in real life, our characters are quick to justify and find excuses for lying—even the good guys. It’s only a white lie, to protect someone’s feelings. They didn’t actually lie; they just omitted the truth when asked if they had information. Or maybe they did lie to protect someone they love who is accused of a crime they didn’t commit, buying time to find the truth. Ah…a truth seeker!

 

Professional lie detector Pamela Meyer says, “Lying is a cooperative act.  Think about it, a lie has no power whatsoever by its mere utterance. Its power emerges when someone else agrees to believe the lie.” (Check out her awesome TED Talk: How to spot a liar). 

As writers we “lie” by planting clues of misdirection, red herrings, false clues, inaccurate witnesses, and false confessions. Our lies add tension and hid the truth until the appropriate time for the big reveal. In a mystery these types of lies are acceptable because the reader is already in on the joke or “lie” the second they opened the book. The reader “agrees to believe the lie.”

As writers not only do we want to entertain, but we also have a point of view, a “truth inside a lie” we want to convey to others by storytelling—redemption, love, forgiveness, justice. A truth seeker.

Though we are, you could say, “professional liars” we have a responsibility to the reader to play fair throughout the journey we take them on: to use the lies to weave the story, create the conflict, and eventually to reveal the truth. 

Sparkle Abbey is actually two people, Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter, who write the national best-selling Pampered Pets cozy mystery series. They are friends as well as neighbors so they often get together and plot ways to commit murder. (But don’t tell the neighbors.) They love to hear from readers and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, their favorite social media sites. Also, if you want to make sure you get updates, sign up for their newsletter via the SparkleAbbey.com website.

Clicking Our Heels is Moving – and swag for your thoughts!!!!!!

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Clicking Our Heels is Moving — and swag for your thoughts!!!!!!


Beginning in November, Clicking Our Heels is moving to the first Wednesday of every month! 

We know you’ve gotten used to finding out what we all have to say about different topics on the last Thursday of the month, but now you’ll get our wisdom during the first week. We’ve got a few topics up our sleeves, but leave a message in the comments about things you’d like to know.  If your topic is one we use this year, Debra promises to send you a treat (not a trick, but a treat).

We’re excited about some of the changes members of the Gang have experienced….and we’ve written about them.  New books, new homes, new family members, and new pets, to name a few we’ve shared with you. We even updated our logo from a red stiletto to a gold one (any thoughts on that?)  What’s most exciting is there’s more to come! 

We’ve been sad to see a few members of the blog leave, but we’re excited about the new gang members joining us in November.  Stay tuned!!!

The Framing of Tragedy

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by J.M. Phillippe

The numbers keep going up. At this point, it’s 59 people killed, and over 500 injured after another American mass shooting. 


When I was a journalism student, I learned about the power of framing a story. The best way to understand it is to think of taking a picture — there is only so much that can be captured by the lens. The frame is how much you zoom in or out, and what part of any given view you focus on. You can achieve the same effect with the words you use to describe an event.


Words matter. Describe a mass shooter as a terrorist, and one kind of narrative is created. Describe a mass shooter as a “lone wolf” and another kind of narrative is created. Is this a story about the enemies of America, or about the way a single, misunderstood and troubled man chose to act out? 

In the aftermath of the worst mass shooting in American history, different groups of people scrambled for a framing device for the story. In the immediate aftermath, before anything was known about the man who shot into a crowd of concert goers on the Las Vegas strip with high-powered automatic assault rifles, a group of alt-right followers were busy spreading fake news that the shooter was an anti-Trump democrat. Search engine algorithms picked up the story, and, as the saying goes, the lie got half-way around the world before the truth got its pants on. For those alt-right folks and the people who reposted them, this was a narrative that at least, to them, made sense.

As Monica Hesse writes in the Washington Post, every tragedy inevitably becomes a political tool, and no one is exempt from using it as thus: 

What “Don’t politicize this” often means is, Don’t politicize this if the shooter belongs to me. As personal details about the gunman begin to come out — old voting records, Facebook rants — “Don’t politicize this” is the placeholder statement we use while figuring out exactly which political knives need to be sharpened.

She goes on to describe the potential narratives that could come out and how different groups might respond to them. Facts, as they become available, help shape the narrative and frame the picture, but as always, how those facts are seen and used will vary dramatically from group to group: Hesse writes, “We waited, because knowing who [the shooter] was would cue Americans how to respond.”


Human beings are hard-wired to make tragedy make sense. The idea that a man would take 23 weapons into a hotel, break open the window, and open fire on a crowd, doesn’t make sense unless we name the hate we assume he must have felt. In the aftermath of horrible events like this, people look to blame something they feel safe blaming. People don’t actually want to change their world view after tragedy. Instead, they reframe the event so that it matches the views they already hold. 


There is a social work joke that I go back to on a regular basis: “how many social workers does it take to change a light bulb? One, but the light bulb has to want to change.”


As much as I’d like to think that yet another record-breaking mass shooting will change hearts and minds, I know that those hearts and minds have to want to be changed in order for these new facts to be seen in a new way. 


Things are not okay. They have not been okay. They will not be okay for likely a very long time. And no amount of thoughts and prayers will make them okay. There is no magic framing device that can erase the bullets that went into bodies, and the blood and tears that followed. People need to be willing to let those pictures change them in order for them to be willing to do something to prevent another mass shooting from happening.


Far too many people will zoom out, shift the frame, adjust the focus, and see what they want to see. They will chose a false narrative over a view-altering truth. They will insist that nothing has to change, that nothing can be changed. But the truth is that we have a mass shooting epidemic in America, and there is a solution to it (change gun laws, reevaluate safety standards, increase access to mental health care, and have a national conversation about how mass shootings could be avoided in the future)– if people are willing to see it.  


As satire site The Onion writes: “At press time, Americans nationwide agreed that years of taking no measures whatsoever to prevent mass shootings may finally be paying off.“ 


We can keep our heads in the sand, and hope that somehow by doing nothing bullets will stop flying, and bodies will stop falling. Or we can look beyond the frame and see what is actually contributing to mass shootings — and finally, collectively, work to end them. 

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.