Bouchercon Bound

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In less than two weeks, over one thousand crime fiction fans will converge in St. Petersburg, Florida for one of the largest reader fan convention. . . Bouchercon.

Bouchercon is our annual world mystery convention where every year readers, writers, publishers, editors, agents, booksellers and other lovers of crime fiction gather for a 4-day weekend of education, entertainment, and fun! It is the world’s premier event bringing together all parts of the mystery and crime fiction community, and is pronounced [bough’•chur•con].

There are so many people who volunteer their time and effort to put on this massive affair and I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Without this convention, I would probably be a hermit or even a recluse.

Anyway, before arriving at the event, there is so much do to on our, my end to prepare oneself. First and foremost, everyone should enjoy the convention and have fun.

You don’t have to go to all the panels that interest you. . .I did this at the first convention I attended and it nearly wiped me out.

Some of the best times and one-on-ones I have had with authors and other readers is passing one another in a hallway, near an elevator, or standing on the coffee line, was chatting with them and forgetting the panel I wanted to go to. That time was precious and there you are bound to develop a long-lasting friendship.

Wear comfortable shoes and clothing. Walking back and forth from panels to bookrooms to side activities will take a toll on your feet. Also bring a light jacket or sweater as it may get cold in the meeting places.

Because most of us are more likely introverts, it’s okay to go to our room for a recharging session. Too many people, too much noise wipes out my energy quicker than the Energizer Bunny Rabbit.

Don’t be afraid to approach authors and readers that you have met on social media. We are a friendly bunch, even though I’m still afraid to approach some as well.

Because this is my ninth convention, I plan meet-ups with friends I only see once a year, so I try to get my meal and social activity card filled up as much as possible. My first year, I probably spent more time in my room eating my meals. Now, not so much.

As for the panels, again, I pick out the ones I want to attend, of course there are few that are “must-attends” for me such as New Author Breakfast, Author Speed-Dating, Anthology Signing, Opening Ceremony, Anthony Awards and frequent visits to the book room and the hospitality suite. I just have to make sure I attend the panel I’m moderating.

This year is special as my blog, dru’s book musings is a 2018 Anthony Finalist for Best Online Content. I’m so honored for this nomination and congratulates all the other nominees in this category.

So, are we ready for Bouchercon? – you betcha.

I hope to see some of my fellow Stiletto Gang members at some point – hopefully to get a group photo.

So, who is going to Bouchercon? I hope to see you there and again, HAVE FUN!

The Eye of the Beholder –TK Thorne

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   Writer, humanist,
          dog-mom, horse servant and cat-slave,
       Lover of solitude
          and the company of good friends,
        New places, new ideas
           and old wisdom.

Some things have confused me for a long time, such as why flowers are beautiful and spiders are not. What is beauty anyway? And is there any importance in asking or answering that question?
Obviously, there are some people who find spiders beautiful (yes, really), so the quality is not inherent in the object. I lost my father recently after a long illness and was thinking about my loss while walking to the mailbox. A crop of slender blue wildflowers on the road’s edge, caught my eye, their beauty an instantaneous salve to my grief.
How? Why?
Somewhere in the heart of a forest, an exquisite orchid is blooming, and no one is there to see it. Is it beautiful? No. Beauty is, indeed, in the eye of the beholder. Without the eye, it does not exist. The orchid exists, of course, but it is not “beauty” to the creatures that see or smell it, even those insects that it is meant to attract. If no human notices the wildflowers and deems them beautiful, they are just wildflowers.
A sense of responsibility followed this thought. Nature is harsh, relentless change. It is “eat and be eaten.” In our stellar neighborhood, two galaxies are colliding, gravitational forces ripping apart whatever life may have painstakingly evolved. Our own galaxy is destined to collide with another, our sun to die, our loved ones, ourselves.
We may learn that whales or elephants or other animals share our awareness of mortality, but, as far as we know now, people are the only creatures to seek meaning to life, perhaps because of that awareness. It is a burden. It is a privilege. In this chaos of change we call life, humans seek meaning, personal meaning.
The concept of beauty may be one of the unique perceptual structures of the human brain. Why did it evolve? Of what evolutionary value is it? Is it just that spiders pose a threat, so we instinctively recoil from them, while flowers pose no threat and may signal a source of food? Perhaps, but some people truly find spiders fascinating and beautiful. There are spider enthusiast groups. Honest.
Perhaps the concept of beauty is just an odd byproduct of the complexity of our minds, our thought processes. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it came into being to give us something we crave—meaning. I have occasionally been told that my book, Noah’s Wife, was “beautifully written.” This puzzled me. It is written in tight third person from the perspective of a young woman with what we now call Asperger’s Syndrome. She sees the world in literal terms. Looking at her straightforward words on the pages, I was befuddled at how they could be considered “beautiful.”

Le Rêve- Picasso

Woman with Mandolin-Picasso
But perhaps it is not the words themselves, but the fact that they create meaning for some readers, truths about being human, and that renders them beautiful, in the same way that Picasso’s art is beautiful to some eyes.

His paintings force us out of our typical perceptions, whispers in ways we may not be able to voice, even disturbs, but speaks the language of meaning and (some) find that beautiful, even in the harshness or starkness of his lines, just as some find beauty in abstract art or different types of music . . . or spiders.

Beauty is observable by all our senses, including our ability to see a beautiful act of kindness or a beautiful scientific formula. If we are uniquely capable of determining beauty, then we have a responsibility to see it, to open our eyes to it, to find meaning in it, our uniquely human meaning.


A retired police captain, T.K. has written two award-winning historical novels, NOAH’S WIFE and ANGELS AT THE GATE, filling in the untold backstories of extraordinary, yet unnamed women—the wives of Noah and Lot—in two of the world’s most famous sagas. The New York Post’s “Books You Should Be Reading” list featured her first non-fiction book, LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE, which details the investigators’ behind-the-scenes stories of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing case. Coming soon: HOUSE OF ROSE, the first of a trilogy in the paranormal-crime genre. 

She loves traveling and speaking about her books and life lessons. T.K. writes at her mountaintop home near Birmingham, Alabama, often with two dogs and a cat vying for her lap. More info at TKThorne.com. Join her private newsletter email list and receive a two free short stories at “TK’s Korner.”

Crime, murder, mystery, evil in my hometown. By Juliana Aragón Fatula

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Juliana at Red Canyon in Southern Colorado
Today I’d like to tell the story of the curse of Devil’s
Tower in my hometown. Crime, murder, mystery, evil live in abundance in my hometown.
Perhaps small towns with high crime rates appear to be more evil than large
cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Miami…. but my hometown
seems especially evil to me. I know the history, the sins of the men who
founded this community.
2018 Tracy Harmon Investigative Journalist Southern Colorado.
My best friend works as an investigative journalist; she
shares with me the details she uncovers about the corrupt Sheriff’s Department
who taint the evidence and ruin the ability to prosecute and sentence the
villains. I call the criminals, villains, because they do more than commit
crime; they perpetuate evil against humanity.

As the Christian era began, the Shoshonean speaking peoples
migrated to the Southwest U.S.

In 1670, the first treaty between Utes and Spaniards changed
history and began the war between the Spaniards and the Utes of breaking
promises and treaties.

In 1806, Lt. Zebulon Pike arrived in Ute territory in
Colorado. The Ute are the only indigenous people from Colorado. They lived here
and fought other tribes for their land.

In 1870, the Meeker Incident began the push to remove the
Utes from Colorado.

In 1899, the Southern Ute Reservation opened to Anglo settlement.

In 1924, the American Indians became U.S. citizens.

In 1937, the Restoration Act returned 222,016 acres to the
Southern Utes of Colorado.

In my research I discovered a legend about the Ute who lived
near my hometown and the battle at the Devil’s Theatre in Temple Canyon. The
same place where kids go hiking and party in the summer. The legend tells of a
curse: anyone who tries to stay overnight at Devil’s Tower will go insane.

The sacred burial grounds of the Ute were desecrated. The
Anglo settlers dug up the bones and artifacts and destroyed the graves of the
Ute warriors. This curse set off an evil that remains to this day.

I learned in the Family History Center about the Legend of
Devil’s Tower in Temple Canyon and the curse. I also learned about the men who
founded and organized the Ku Klux Klan that built the town and the evil they
perpetrated against anyone of color and Catholics. They hung African Americans
who came here after their freedom from slavery looking for work and a place to
live after the Civil War. The Klan harassed and murdered the black men and
women and drove them away. Today many of those Klan descendants live here and although
they no longer wear their white sheets; they hang onto their racism and hatred.

Another local curse began when the community chose to build
the State Penitentiary instead of a State College. Today the nine prisons
surround the area where the Utes once lived. Not all the men incarcerated here
are evil men, but the murderers, rapists, and violent offenders reek hatred and
an aura of darkness.

Today the community suffers from drug addiction, alcoholism,
and homelessness. The crimes committed here remind me of the evil that built
this town. The removal of the Ute, the Klan, the prisons, the murders of
innocent people in the pursuit of land and greed. 
Royal Gorge Bridge
This place of my birth and childhood sits on the river in a
canyon near the Royal Gorge Bridge, the highest suspension bridge in the world.
For years people have driven here left a suicide note in their car in the
parking lot and leapt to their death off the bridge. Every summer kids swim,
and some drown in the river. There are car chases, police shoot outs, and
police shootings. The rape and murder of women and children continues in quiet
neighborhoods. Recently the gun violence has increased, and young men have been
prosecuted for execution style killings in the name of greed. Evil still
resides here.

I live in a beautiful town with beautiful people, but the curse
continues, and the deaths of innocent victims tells a story of hate and evil
that began with the removal of the Ute and the Legend of Devil’s Tower in
Temple Canyon. I pray someday the curse will end and only beauty will remain in
our little town in Southern Colorado. This research led me to write my first mystery about the
history of the Ute and greed this country was built on. 

Nurturing Patience

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by J.M. Phillippe

Summer has never been my favorite time of year, as I am not someone that does well in the heat (and the summers keep getting hotter). But I am also working on several projects at once…and struggling. My progress has been slow, my motivating waning, and my desire to just get to what I’m trying to accomplish building.

So, of course, this blog is about patience, something I am trying to cultivate (with a lot of deep breaths) this summer.

Patience is not something I have ever had in much abundance. A hard core procrastinator, I never really had to deal with waiting for something to click in my writing (since waiting for the last minute put me in adrenaline-induced flow). But working on multiple projects at once means that I am actually having to practice writing discipline. Being patient with myself and my process has not been easy.

What I know about patience is that it is a necessary part of life. Worrying and waiting anxiously has never made anything happen any faster. Fussing and trying to force something has been equally unhelpful. Instead, I have been trying to make space for my feelings of frustration, and assuming that the pace things are happening at are happening at that pace for a reason. I have been trying to trust my back brain to come up with the answers, and trust the universe that those answers will come in time.

Patience is ultimately about keeping the faith. It is hope coupled with action, a plan put into motion that with luck with bear the fruit you have been waiting for. I suspect farmers and gardeners have more advanced patience skills than I do. They understand that whole “a time for every purpose” thing.

And I am sure there are writers who are more patient than me as well.

Somehow though, I bet they weren’t as worried about meeting their deadlines.

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of the novels Perfect Likeness and Aurora One and the short stories, The Sight and Plane Signals. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a clinical social worker in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free time binge-watching quality TV, drinking cider with amazing friends, and learning the art of radical self-acceptance, one day at a time.

Meet the 2018 Anthony Short Story Author Nominees!

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by Paula Gail Benson

 

What a true pleasure to host the 2018
Anthony nominees for best short story! Here for your reading pleasure is the
list with links to each story. [Please note: You’ll need to scroll down at some of the links
below to get to the stories.]

 

“The Trial of Madame
Pelletier” by Susanna Calkins, Malice Domestic 12: Mystery Most
Historical: http://www.susannacalkins.com/short-stories.html 

 

“God’s Gonna Cut You
Down” by Jen Conley, Just to Watch Them Die: Crime Fiction
Inspired by the Songs of Johnny Cash: https://www.jenconley.net/ 

 

“My Side of the Matter”
by Hilary Davidson, Killing Malmon:

 

“Whose Wine Is it
Anyway” by Barb Goffman, 50 Shades of Cabernet:

 

“The Night They Burned
Ms. Dixie’s Place” by Debra Goldstein, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery
Magazine, May/June 2017: http://www.debrahgoldstein.com/otherwritings/night-burned-ms-dixies-place-alfred-hitchcock-mystery-magazine-mayjune-2017/ 

 

“A Necessary
Ingredient” by Art Taylor, Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea
to Shining Sea: http://www.arttaylorwriter.com/books/a-necessary-ingredient/ 

 

Thank you to the nominees, Susanna
Calkins, Jen Conley, Hilary Davidson, Barb Goffman, Debra H. Goldstein, and Art
Taylor, for taking the time to answer a few questions and share their nominated
stories!

 

(1) Where and when does your nominated
story take place?

 

Susanna Calkins
Susanna Calkins: “The Trial of
Madame Pelletier” is set in Tulle, a town in central France, in 1840. It
focuses on the court trial of a “Lady Poisoner,” a woman accused of killing her
estranged husband with rat-paste and truffles.

 

Jen Conley: The story takes place in Ocean County, New
Jersey, present day. Ocean County is considered central-south New Jersey, known
for its Jersey Shore beaches, but mostly it’s a blue collar/middle class county
on the edge or in the Pine Barrens.

 

Hilary Davidson
Hilary Davidson: “My Side of the Matter” is set in and around
Minneapolis. I’ve only had the pleasure of visiting that city once, but I felt
compelled to set the story there because the story is part of the KILLING
MALMON anthology — and Dan and Kate Malmon live in that area.


Barb Goffman: “Whose Wine Is It Anyway?” takes place in the
litigation department of a large Washington, DC, law firm. I don’t specify when
the story takes place. I expect the reader will assume it is a contemporary
story.




Debra H. Goldstein
Debra H. Goldstein: “The Night They
Burned Ms. Dixie’s Place” is set in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1960’s, in a
house where they change the sheets more than once a night. The story reflects
Birmingham’s racial, civil, and political strife and their impact on a
particular night on a boy coming of age.

 

Art Taylor: “A Necessary Ingredient” was published in Coast
to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea, which covers (as that
subtitle suggests) a pretty wide geographical area. I was assigned my home
state of North Carolina, and instead of choosing an actual town, I created a
fictional one, a mid-sized Southern town drawing on several places I’ve lived
or known in Eastern North Carolina—Goldsboro, Kinston, and Richlands, among
them. The story takes place loosely in the present, but the main character,
Ambrose Thornton, has immersed himself in some ways, in a mythical past—the
world of the hard-boiled detective stories he lives to read—and the present of
this small town is also steeped at bit in some of that atmosphere, if only
because of Ambrose’s own perspectives driving the story. 

 

(2) What was the biggest challenge you
encountered in writing your nominated story?


Susanna Calkins: I adapted this
story from a real poisoning case that I had read about when I was working on my
doctorate in history. At the time I had focused on the media accounts of the case,
which were all in French, because I loved the notion of the woman being on
trial in the court of public opinion as well as in the courtroom.
Unfortunately, I had not kept my notes, so I had to go back to the original
source materials, only to realize that my reading knowledge of French has
considerably diminished over the last twenty years. Fortunately, I found a very
detailed contemporary description of the trial in a British medical journal, in
which the authors—both physicians—focused on the details of the poisoning and
the forensics they were able to use. Except for a few interesting details, I
completely changed the story, the characters, and of course provided a twist…

 

Jen Conley
Jen Conley: The biggest
challenge for me was writing a first-person male character. This choice can be
difficult to establish when you’re the opposite gender. Readers see the name “Jen
Conley” and assume the first-person narrator is female. It’s just natural for
any reader to do–assume the first-person narrator is the gender of the writer.
I must’ve re-written the first few lines of the story about twenty times. I
also found it challenging to create empathy for a murderer, especially a
murderer who killed my main character’s sister in a horrific and vile way.

 

Hilary Davidson: The premise of
KILLING MALMON was that Dan Malmon had to die in every story. (Before you
decide that we’re terrible people to do that to such a nice guy, you should
know that Dan was co-editor of the project, and it raises money to benefit the
National Multiple Sclerosis Society.) After I got over the idea of “killing” my
friend in print, I realized that the biggest challenge was building suspense
when the reader already knew that Dan was going to die. How do you keep the
reader intrigued when they know what’s going to happen? I solved that by
turning the story on its head, so that the man who killed Dan — and got away
with it — suddenly starts writing a confession. The suspense builds around what
led him to commit the crime, and the mysterious reason he needs to reveal the
truth.

 

Barb Goffman
Barb Goffman: Plotting. Plotting
is often a big challenge for me. I’d been asked to submit a story to 50 Shades of Cabernet, so I knew my plot
had to involve mystery and wine. Consequently I did a lot of wine research,
hoping to come across an idea that awakened my muse. I can hear the “research”
jokes now, but my muse isn’t a drinker. I learned there’s a spa in Japan that
uses red wine in its hot tubs. I thought for sure I’d get a plot out of that,
but no. I also learned about festivals celebrating wine and chocolate. Surely,
you’d think I’d devise a plot from that. But no again. It wasn’t until I
learned that people can be allergic to the sulfites in wine that things really
started clicking. Thank goodness!

 

Debra H. Goldstein: The biggest
challenge in writing “The Night They Burned Ms. Dixie’s Place,” was getting the
voices right. Being a white Jewish Yankee middle-aged female, I knew I couldn’t
call on my own experiences and dialect to bring to life a nine-year-old black
male protagonist, his mother, and a southern madame. Each of these characters
had to have a distinct personality and manner of speaking. They also had to
reflect southern society in the 1960’s and, in the case of the child, both
innocence and the way the world was changing. Consequently, it was important
that none of these characters be written stereotypically.  Rather, each needed to be treated in a
respectful manner which demonstrated their diversity to the reader. Although the
crime is an important element of “The Night They Burned Ms. Dixie’s Place,”
nailing the characters’ voices is what ultimately engages readers.

 

Art Taylor

Art Taylor: Balancing that
mix of small town and hard-boiled actually posed part of the challenge—but far
from a surprise, it was a challenge that I took as central to what I was doing
here. When my friend Paul D. Marks, the anthology’s co-editor, asked me to
contribute, I almost didn’t do it. I haven’t really written many private eye
stories—and none of the ones I’ve written have been “straight,” so to speak.
But then I liked the idea of crossing the private eye story—traditionally
hard-boiled—with the kinds of regional fiction that have inspired me in other
cases. How can you draw on both effectively? What happens when those “mean
streets” of Chandler’s famous quote are actually dirt roads dotted with
roadside produce stands? And can the class struggles that so often drive
hard-boiled fiction be found in equal measure in the hierarchies of proper
Southern society? Well, that was a challenge I enjoyed stepping up to, and hope
readers have enjoyed as well.


Here’s where you can learn more about
these wonderful authors and their work. Best wishes to them all!

 

Susanna Calkins was born and raised in
Philadelphia, and lives outside Chicago with her husband and two sons. Holding
a PhD in history, Susanna writes the award-winning Lucy Campion historical
mysteries as well as the forthcoming Speakeasy Murders, both from St. Martin’s
Minotaur. MURDER KNOCKS TWICE, set in Prohibition-Era Chicago, will be out
Spring 2019. “The Trial of Madame Pelletier,” her first published short story,
appeared in Malice Domestic: Mystery Most
Historical (Wayside Press, 2017). Read more about her work at http://www.susannacalkins.com/

 

Jen
Conley’s short stories have appeared in Beat to a Pulp, Just To Watch Them
Die: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Johnny Cash, Trouble in the
Heartland: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen and
many others. She has contributed to the Los Angeles Review of Books, has
been shortlisted for Best American Mystery Stories and is one of the
former editors at Shotgun Honey. Her Anthony Award nominated story
collection, Cannibals: Stories from the Edge of the Pine Barrens, is
available now. She lives in Brick, New Jersey. Check out her website at https://www.jenconley.net/

 

Hilary
Davidson is the author of the Lily Moore series—which includes The
Damage Done, The Next One to Fall, and Evil in All Its
Disguises. She also the author of the standalone thriller Blood
Always Tells and a short-story collection called The
Black Widow Club. Her next novel, One Small Sacrifice, will
be published by Thomas & Mercer in May 2019. Visit her online at http://www.hilarydavidson.com


Barb Goffman loves writing, reading, air conditioning, and her
dog, not necessarily in that order. She’s won the Agatha, Macavity, and Silver
Falchion awards for her short stories, and she’s been a finalist for national
mystery short-story awards twenty-two times, including eleven times for the
Agatha (a category record). Her book Don’t Get Mad, Get Even won the
Silver Falchion for the best collection of 2013. Barb is thrilled to be a
current Anthony and Macavity award finalist for her story “Whose Wine is it
Anyway?” from the anthology 50 Shades of Cabernet.  She works as a
freelance editor and proofreader and lives with her dog in Winchester,
Virginia. Learn more at www.barbgoffman.com.


Agatha and Anthony nominated Judge Debra
H. Goldstein’s is the author One Taste
Too Many, the first of Kensington’s new Sarah Blair cozy mystery series.
Her prior books include Should Have
Played Poker and 2012 IPPY Award winning Maze in Blue. Debra’s short stories have appeared in numerous
periodicals and anthologies including Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine,
Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and Mystery Weekly. She is president of Sisters
in Crime’s Guppies, serves on SinC’s national board, and is vice-president of
SEMWA. Find out more about her writings at www.DebraHGoldstein.com


Art Taylor is the author
of On the Road with Del & Louise: A Novel in Stories, winner of
the Agatha Award for Best First Novel. He has won three additional Agatha
Awards, an Anthony Award, two Macavity Awards, and three consecutive Derringer
Awards for his short fiction, and his work has appeared in Best American
Mystery Stories. He also edited Murder Under the Oaks: Bouchercon
Anthology 2015, winner of the Anthony Award for Best Anthology or
Collection. He is an associate professor of English at George Mason University.
Check out his website at http://www.arttaylorwriter.com/

Running and Writing

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       By guest author, Jennifer Klepper

     I love the name of this group of writers: The Stiletto Gang. It’s sexy and fierce, and while the Stiletto Gang probably doesn’t actually wear stilettos while they’re writing their books (do they?), I can easily imagine them traipsing about in their spiked heels and drinking martinis after they’ve put their keyboards away for the day.
Seeing the sparkly stiletto on the page made me think of my own newest pair of shoes–purple and orange (yikes!) Brooks trail running shoes. They have a grabby sole for traversing unfriendly ground cover, they’re sturdy to help keep the ankles from twisting, and they are frightfully clunky-looking. Pretty much the opposite of stilettos.
The reason I even have these trail shoes is my writing. Next week, my debut novel, Unbroken Threads, officially releases. So of course I signed up to run my very first trail race and my very first 10k three days prior to launch. Why in the world would I do that? (I’ve asked myself this numerous times, including the day I sprained my ankle on an errant broken branch.) 
As any writer can attest, you have to sit on your duff to write. Not just that, but you have to sit on your duff an awful lot for an awful long time to write, revise, and edit a novel. Let’s just say my muscle tone hasn’t kept up with my word count.
Scheduling a virgin run right ahead of my launch was tactical. I knew my summer would be nerve-wracking, with the prospect of my book baby being thrown to the wolves–I mean, world–in August. Having a goal, one totally and completely different from writing and publishing a book, seemed a mentally healthy diversion. Plus there was that muscle tone thing.
What I’ve learned in the ensuing weeks is that…running and writing? Not necessarily totally and completely different. Runners on the whole might look better in yoga pants, and writers might be better at Words with Friends, but the process and the experience of each have at least a few important things in common. 
1.     Writing and running are both solitary endeavors. Both activities require you to be in your own head, pursuing your own goal. Neither is typically a team sport. No one can run your hills for you and no one can cut 10,000 words from your draft for you. 
2.     And yet, writing and running both benefit from their supportive communities. Ah, the writing community! I love it so much and have gained friends and knowledge and good vibes. I’m starting to see the same in the running community. Established runners have been enthusiastic in their support and patient in their advice, whether it’s recommending I use bag balm on my feet (since I have to run through a river, of all things) or assuring me it’s perfectly acceptable to walk part of the race (I will).
3.     There’s always a “better.” Running and writing start small–first mile, first chapter, but no matter the achievement, there’s always another shiny goal glinting in the distance. Did you finish a marathon? Well, how about winning your age group? How about running fast enough to qualify for Boston? Did you write a complete manuscript? How about getting a multi-book deal with a Big 5 publisher? How about making the NY Times bestseller list? The pursuit can be exhausting and never-ending–the shiny horizon will always stay out of reach.
4.     And yet, just doing the thing–finishing the race, writing The End on a first draft–is a tremendous achievement. I will not forget that. Ever. None of us should. No matter how far you get (qualify for the Boston Marathon or get a multi-book deal with St. Martin’s Press), that first achievement of finishing a race or finishing a draft is what got you there in the first place, and it’s much farther than most people to begin with.
5.     Finally, each activity needs another activity for balance. Any activity that taxes the body or mind needs a complementary activity to keep us fresh. Just as strained muscles and tendons need a break, so do word-wrestling brains. Allowing ourselves to focus on a different aspect of ourselves, to exercise a different aspect of ourselves, permits recovery as well as growth.

            So, within a week (if all things proceed as planned), I will have finished my first 10K and published my first book. And then I will continue working on my second book. Maybe I’ll train for a 15K, who knows? No matter what, though (and I know I won’t be able to run for as many years as I’ll be able to write), I’ll maintain some balance and try to ensure that I always have good shoes while I’m doing it.

Making Hay

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By Cathy Perkins


[Cathy is traveling with internet problems, so we’re featuring a past post of hers today.]


It’s hay making season in our mountain valley. The process is interesting, even if it does play havoc with my husband’s allergies. One of the things that surprised me, though, was the parallels I saw between making hay and writing. 

Stay with me. 

Let’s look at the hay process first. There are three basic requirements for growing hay: land, water and sun. Lots of each one. Once the grass reaches the right stage—tall, but not gone to seed—the ranchers start watching the weather even closer than they usually do. Hoping the forecast holds, they cut the grass in wide swathes and let it dry. 


Over the next few days, the ranchers fluff—okay, the technical term is swath—the hay so it dries evenly. Once the hay is dry, they can bail it into bricks that litter the field at regular intervals. 


This year’s first cutting looked terrific and the initial bids from Japan were $300/ton. The earliest cutters started bailing and there was happiness in the valley. 


Then the unexpected happened. A storm boiled over the Cascades and drenched the valley. All the grass still on the ground went from being prime hay to cattle feed—not even dairy cow feed—at a price that will barely cover the expense of bailing it. 


As soon as the sun reappeared and dried things out, the ranchers fluffed what was there and prepared to get it out of the field and make way for the next crop. 


There are other ways things can go wrong. Balers break and things get stuck. Weeds invade from untended land. But the men and women who ranch for a living keep going, raising hay for their horses and other people’s cows. 


So how is any of that like writing? 


Well, you start with three basic ingredients to create a story: writer, imagination and paper—lots of each one. The author nurtures the story to The End and fluffs and cuts and edits, hoping for that premium bid for the manuscript. But things outside the author’s control can ruin that venture. A decision somewhere else that Steampunk/Chick Lit/Romantic Suspense/Whatever is “dead” means that particular manuscript isn’t going anywhere except a closest or thumb drive. (Hmm… considering indie-pubbing yet?) 


Like a bale in the baler, words can get stuck. It’s much harder to find a repair person for a broken or missing muse than a clogged machine. 


Like the rancher, the writer keeps putting words on the page, creating stories, because that’s what writers do. 


 Can you think of any other parallels?

An
award-winning author of financial mysteries, Cathy Perkins writes twisting dark
suspense and light amateur sleuth stories.  When not writing, she battles
with the beavers over the pond height or heads out on another travel adventure.
She lives in Washington with her husband, children, several dogs and the
resident deer herd.
Her latest release is In It For The Money, book 4 in the Holly Price mystery series. 
To celebrate, So About the Money, book 1 in the series is currently on sale for 99 cents! 

Power Trip

/in /by

If someone were to ask me what the Country
Club Murders are about, I’d tell them, “Women finding their power—and murder.
Lots of murder.”
Ellison Russell has spent most of her life
being safe and protected. Now a single mother, she has the opportunity to take
risks, to stand on her own, to own her life.
The problem is that almost everyone in her
life would like her to stay safe. Even her mother. Especially her mother.
“Ellison, we want you safe. Just
like you want to keep Grace safe.”
            I wanted Grace to be safe but I
didn’t want her to be packed in cotton until she found a man to take care of
her. I wanted her to have a life. I wanted a life. On my own terms. “I
appreciate the sentiment. I do. But I’m not going to apologize or consign
myself to marriage just so I can have a man take care of me.”
            The theme,
which was valid in the seventies, is still valid today.
            For
Ellison, power is the freedom to make choices.
            For
Ellison, power is owning the consequences of her choices.
            For
Ellison, power is the ability to protect herself from predators, from gossip, and
from well-meaning family members who would map the course of her life.
            Writing
Ellison’s journey, watching her find her power and realize she doesn’t have to
do it all alone, has been a joy. And a learning experience.
            Thanks
for joining Ellison and me on the journey.

Julie Mulhern is the USA Today bestselling author of The Country Club Murders and the Poppy Fields Adventures. 

She 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.


Ellison’s next book, Back Stabbers, releases October 23.

Magic Moments for Readers and Writers

/in /by

Magic
Moments for Readers and Writers by Debra H. Goldstein

Sometimes
a good thing only gets better. Last weekend, I was part of one of those perfect magic
moments as a participant at Mystery in the Midlands

Let me
tell you about how it came together.

A year
ago, Jeffrey Deaver, as president of Mystery Writers of American (MWA) offered
to cover his own expenses and put on workshops throughout the country. On
behalf of SEMWA (the Southeast region), he came to Columbia, South Carolina.
His program was such a success, that involved members of SEMWA and the Palmetto
Chapter of Sisters of Crime hoped they could partner for another dynamic
program. But how?

Perhaps
it was divine providence, but they discovered Sisters in Crime had started a
national speakers

bureau program that permitted a chapter to apply for one of a
finite number of grants which would sponsor designated speakers to come to the
chapter for whatever type of program the chapter wanted. The SinC educational
initiative, which was just starting, was designed to enable all SinC chapters
access to writers and programs they would never be able to fund.

Fingers
crossed, Palmetto’s leadership applied for a SinC grant and was awarded the
opportunity to

have Elaine Viets come to Columbia. Rather than simply inviting local
people to hear Elaine speak, Paula Gail Benson and Riley Miller put their heads
together and decided to forge a partnership between the Palmetto Chapter of SinC
and SEMWA to offer a mystery workshop for readers and writers headlined by
Elaine, but which would also showcase other authors as panelists and master
class teachers.

Because
of Paula and Riley’s vision, what could have been a local affair, became
Mystery in the Midlands, an event attended by eighty plus people from five
different states. Besides Elaine, eighteen other authors were showcased amidst
book sales, signings, and networking. Not only did the conference run smoothly,
but a silent auction of books donated by the participating authors generated
scholarship funds for three children to participate in My First Books SC, a
statewide partnership affiliated with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. It
provides books for registered children from birth to age five.

Mystery
in the Midlands was held in Columbia’s beautiful St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.
The church’s main fellowship hall was used for registration, refreshments, and
the panel discussions, but the three master classes were held in the boardroom,
choir room, and sanctuary. And yes, it was Jewish me, who was assigned to teach
my master class on conflict under the stained windows depicting the Good
Shepherd and other scenes from the Bible. Apparently, things went okay because I
had a good audience and none of us was struck by lightning or any other disasters.

Participants
left the day looking forward to next year’s Mystery in the Midlands. Amazing
what magic a simple idea, good leaders, partnerships and enthusiasm can create. Will I see you there or 


perhaps in Decatur, Georgia on October 6, when SEMWA
and the Atlanta Chapter of SinC co-sponsor an all-day workshop on the
Psychology of Writing featuring Toni L.P. Kelner – Leigh Perry, Dr. Stephen M.
Kelner, and fifteen other authors?

The Case of the Curious, Crazy Chicana in Catholic City written by Juliana Aragon Fatula photographs from friends, poets, writers, performers, healers, singers, artists, hunters.

/in /by



 This piece is a work of fiction. 
The names were changed, but
what the hell? 
I’m a writer I make shit up.

 
I love this sentence. It’s a survivors prayer. 
I love this photo because my husband, Pussy Kat, is in the group
shot. He’s the vato in the green shirt. He accompanies me to the award ceremonies and most community events, if
he’s not scouting or camping or hunting or chasing his dreams in the high
country. I’m such a witch, huh. 
What follows are some of my late-night ramblings when I have
been busy living my life and not sitting at the computer writing and blogging and
shit. So, excuse me if I feel too good to care. Medical Marijuana makes my
mania less manic. Just kidding. Seriously, my arthritis and depression are
livable because of an ancient Native American herb for healing called Cannabis.

The Case of the Curious Chicana from Catholic City, a
preview.

I’m furious. 
At myself.
I’m on a rant about writing.

Help me Lord. 
My husband never writes or reads.

I’m a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Hey ya hey ya
hey ya ya

Nervous breakdown hey ya.

I’ve tried to explain 
my artistic process to him 
but alas it would be similar to him 
describing to me 
how to track and
hunt 
moose, deer, elk, antelope. 
I just don’t care about hunting. 
He talks
hunting, scouting, camping, wildlife, non-stop.

I talk non-stop about my passion, writing. 
But he has no
concept of what it takes to read a book let alone write a book. 
Yes, I said it.
He reads the
newspaper every day and hunting magazines but not books. 
He’s not a reader. 
You
must be a reader to be a writer, 
so no wonder he fails to understand 
what I
need to be a successful writer.

I finished the m.s. rough draft. 
I made the mistake of
telling him I had finished the book.

He had no clue what that meant.

He thought we were off to the publisher and wala a book.

He sees me revising and asks, “What ya doin’?”

I tell him, “I’m polishing. Cutting words, adding scenes,
checking my research, looking for time continuity, checking the weather,
rainfall, and phase of the moon in Atlanta in 1992 on July 4th.”

“Why? I thought you were done. You said, ‘I finished my book’
unquote.”

He doesn’t actually speak like that. He says, “You know what
I mean, man.? You know? Man.” But he has a slight PA accent where they say
things like you-ins. So he says, “Ya know what I mean, man?”

“I finished the rough draft. Pendejo. I print it on my
printer at home in my kitchen. I read it for pleasure. I read it for typos. I
read it for…”

“Wait. Man, I thought ya were done, done and we could go camping. Ya
said ya was done.”

“I also said, I had to send it to readers and have them give
me feedback, remember?”

“No.”

“Well, I can’t proofread the novel on the computer screen. 
I
print it on paper and punch three-hole notebook and get out my highlighters and
post its. 
I read it to check for continuity, to make sure it’s whole and not
missing any important details.”

“And he says, “I’m hungry.”

This is my shero
in the seventies. Janis Joplin hippy chic, mujer muy mujer.
So today, I lost my temper and screamed at him, “That’s it,
pendejo. I’m never speaking to you about my writing, ever, ever again. Pinche cabrón. You leave me for an hour to work on my deadline due tonight
at 3am and I’ll forgive you, but don’t frickin’ speak one word to me now. I’m pissed. You just don’t get it. What I do. 
I’m a frickin’ writer, cabrón.

I read, and I write.

That’s what I do.

You.

You are an outdoorsman.

You scout, camp, hunt, harvest your game, tan the hide,
mount the antlers in the hallway, you photograph every kill.

I’ve seen my limit of dead animal photos on your phone. You
love that shit.

I love writing.

That’s the shit that makes me get out of bed in the morning.

I live to write.

And you have pushed me to my frickin’ limit with your
inability to respect my work and my process.

I’m not your cook, maid, chef, laundress, gardener…
I’m your
frickin’ wife. 
I deserve respect.

If you say one more negative word about my spending too much
time reading and writing and blogging and texting and going to writing
workshops…I’m writing a murder mystery and someone might end up dead or missing
in the sequel. The story goes… about a woman who writes mysteries. Her husband resents
her writing and so he torments her, nags her, preaches, yells, screams, cusses,
has hissy fits. So one day she goes into the knife drawer…dun dun dun. 
The Colorado Sisters 2017ish

I’m sorry if I’m too twisted for you, but I warned you,
readers, that I’m the Crazy Chicana in Catholic City and I am irreverent.

So, if not for my laziness, my love of cooking, gardening,
even doing laundry relaxes me; I would have finished my book and would be
submitting for publication.

So, like the dog that I am, I blame it on my puss, that’s
what I call him.

Pussy pie. Puss puss. Pussy cat…

He’s a great guy and an extraordinary successful hunter and
provides the meat on the table. But I long for an imaginary man that loves
dancing, cooking, and reading. A man that loves to read. I made the mistake of
asking Mother Earth for a miracle. I wasn’t specific and so she sent my husband
to me. 
We are very different, but also very much the same. He’s my best friend
and I shouldn’t kick his ass in print like this, but hey, I warned him, “I’m
the Crazy Chicana in Catholic City. BTW, we’ve been married since 1992. Most of
them happily. 
I hope if you enjoyed this post, you will leave me a note in the
comments. I’ll be back in two weeks on August 23rd 2018. I promise
you’ll enjoy the next post.