My Accidental Career

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Have you ever bluffed your way into a job?

In my ongoing task of digging through the overwhelming amount of my family’s old photos and papers to form some semblance of an organized archive, I’ve recently encountered episodes of my life that I haven’t thought about in years. Including the one that turned me into a professional writer.

It started with accepting an emergency assignment for a job I knew nothing about.

One Friday morning in L.A., a friend called me at work to ask if I could fill in for a journalist who was scheduled to cover the opening of a new tennis camp in Lake Tahoe over the weekend. Apparently, the designated reporter fell ill at the last minute, and the magazine was desperate to find a replacement.

Would I take the gig?

I knew zero about the game of tennis, but the magazine didn’t know that. They hadn’t asked. That’s how desperate they were.

The job meant a few extra bucks for me, and I had no weekend plans. So, that evening, I borrowed a racket from a friend, packed a bag and boarded the next puddle jumper from L.A. to Tahoe to cover the event.

This was in pre-Internet days, so there was no way for me to access information about the game of tennis or the new camp, a reality that hadn’t sunk in until I was on the plane. I told myself that a reporter’s job was just to ask questions, which helped calm my nerves. After all, I’d written lots of reports in high school and college. What could be so hard about writing this one?

By the time I arrived, it was almost midnight. I’d already missed the welcome dinner and any chance to find out anything in advance of  tomorrow’s Opening Day’s activities.

The first thing I learned when I arrived at the courts the next morning was that the camp’s purpose was to teach tennis professionals how to teach tennis. All the attendees were accomplished players. All fifteen or so of them were there to get certified as tennis pros at various country clubs around the nation. Since they were already seasoned athletes, the training was sure to be exceedingly rigorous. And I was expected to participate.

After a long and excruciating first day on the court, I was ready for bed as soon as the sun set. When I woke the next morning, my legs were completely in spasm. I rolled off the bed onto the floor and belly-crawled to the bathroom, then hoisted myself into the bathtub. After a few minutes of soaking in warm water, the cramps relaxed just enough for me to hobble to the courts in time for a second round of torture. All the pros were already warming up, practicing their sleek forehands, twisty backhands, powerful overhead smashes, cunning lobs, and the rest of the words in my new sports vocabulary.

I returned to L.A., turned in my report, and collected the check. The next month, Tennis Illustrated  published the article. A few weeks later, they called to ask if I’d be interested in being their editor. The offer was almost twice what my job as Assistant to the Director of Production at The American Film Institute paid, so I accepted.

And then I really panicked. I wasn’t really sure what an editor did. And all I knew about the tennis world was from those two days at the resort. How could I possibly run the magazine?

Luckily, the friend who had loaned me his racket came to the rescue again. Not only did he know tennis, but he’d also been the editor of his college newspaper. He gave me his extra racket along with a manual of editorial squiggles (which I came to learn were called “proofreaders’ marks”) so I’d know how to mark copy.

That is how, while I was still in my twenties, my life as a professional writer began. After a couple of years of covering big tournaments and interviewing tennis greats, I moved on to the masthead of a lifestyle magazine, where I earned a national journalism award. And then I turned to writing novels, which also happened to me out of the blue. But that’s a story for another time.

Today, with my multi-award-winning Samantha Newman Mystery Series—and beloved writing colleagues all over the country—I’m thrilled to be part of the publishing community. And I’m working on another book. But that is another story for another time.

To all the aspiring writers out there, keep writing. You never know when good luck might lead you to your best life.

Gay Yellen’s award-winning writing career began in magazine journalism.  She later served as the contributing writer for the international thriller, Five Minutes to Midnight (Delacorte), which debuted as a New York Times “Notable.”

Her multi-award-winning Samantha Newman Mystery Series is packed with suspense and laced with touches of romance, heart, and humor. Available on Amazon or through your favorite bookseller. 

Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference, Waterfalls, & Wicked

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By Lois Winston

Cumberland Falls

I’m exhausted! But I’m not complaining. Just stating a fact. The last month has been a good exhaustion filled with family, writers, and accolades.

First, at the end of July, my husband and I took our soon-to-be nine and eleven-year-old grandsons to Cumberland Falls State Park in Kentucky for four days. The falls are billed as the Niagara Falls of the South. I’m wondering if whoever came up with that slogan has ever been to Niagara Falls. I have. Twice. Talk about false advertising! I’ve seen bigger waterfalls in New Jersey! That said, though, the boys had a great time panning for gemstones.

We also spent a day at a waterpark and another at an entertainment complex that featured bowling, a multiplex theater, an arcade, and a restaurant. We did it all because that was the day the temperatures hovered near 100 degrees. New Jersey is known for its hazy, hot, and humid Augusts. As a kid, I lived through many without benefit of air-conditioning. But after four years living in Tennessee, I’m still not used to the oppressive heat of the South. I may never get used to it!

A week after we returned to Tennessee, my nineteen-year-old granddaughter arrived, and the two of us flew to New York for five days. Zoe hadn’t been to New York since she was nine years old, and when I asked her where she’d like to go, she immediately said New York City. She’s definitely got my genes!

Luckily, the heat wasn’t too bad while we were in Manhattan, and we walked everywhere. We met a writer friend of mine for dinner in Chelsea, walked the High Line back to our midtown hotel, spent a day at the Museum of Modern Art, another at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and saw the Broadway production of Wicked.

Stiletto Gang members Debra H. Goldstein, Gay Yellen, and Lois Winston at the Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference

A week after arriving back in Tennessee, it was time for the Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference. I had been asked to give a Keynote Address at Saturday night’s banquet. I was also a finalist in the Best Comedy category of the Silver Falchion Awards for Sorry, Knot Sorry. I had no expectation of winning because A Crafty Collage of Crime had won the year before. Much to my amazement, my name was called!

 Lois Winston at Killer Nashville Writers’ Conference

Stiletto Gang members Gay Yellen and Debra H. Goldstein also attended the conference. That’s the three of us in the photo. The other photo is of me, either making my acceptance speech or giving the Keynote.

Anyway, like I said at the beginning of this post, I’m exhausted, but it’s a happy exhaustion, and I’ll be spending the remainder of this week catching up and hopefully adding to the word count of my current work-in-progress because the following week is going to be devoted to prep for that dreaded test we all have to go through every five years.

How has your summer been? Post a comment for a chance to win a promo code for a free audiobook download of any of the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries. 

~*~

USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com. Sign up for her newsletter to receive an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery.

What Ever Happened to …?

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Whatever happened to the classmates in your old school yearbooks?

What happened to their dreams? And what happened to yours? Are all the memories tucked away in a box somewhere, or proudly displayed on your bookshelf? Have you looked at them lately and reminisced? Or were those years best left to be forgotten?

In my continued slog through what remains from my mother’s storage unit, I came across a boxful of her college yearbooks, plus one from her high school, and one from my father’s high school, too. Together, they weighed fifteen pounds, and were large enough to overwhelm my already over-burdened  bookshelves. So I wondered…

… What to do with these old books book now?

I pored over the pages of Mom’s books, looking for her familiar young face and checking out her class activities. Most of them were familiar to me: French club, a campus play or two, a modeling job, a social club, etc.

My Dad had saved only one annual from his small town high school. Seeing his teenage smile was a moment to savor.

But, hidden among the pages was something truly wonderful, something I had overlooked when I was hurriedly packing them up.

The dreams of a young man from a small town

I finally decided to call our city library to ask if they had any interest in old school yearbooks. Yes, they replied, but only if they didn’t already have them in their collection. So I took them there, and just as I was about to hand them over, I had a last minute urge to check them again.

And that’s when I found the clipping from an old newspaper.

You see, my father once told me that his first ambition in life was to become a pro baseball player.

He was a Dad who shared his love of the sport with this lucky little girl. He taught me the rules of the game, and how to throw and catch and bat. Took me to local community games, where he coached a local team. And he was among the first to buy season tickets when our town got a pro baseball franchise.

After he died, I remembered seeing an old newspaper clipping with the headline “Ace Yellen Does it Again.” I don’t know what happened to that article. I hope it shows up someday. But for now, I’m planning to frame the one I rescued from his yearbook that day as I was about to leave the books there.

In case you can’t read the fine print, the article reports that in this game, he’d pitched an 8-0 shutout and hit a home run. And a double, too. No wonder he loved baseball. Apparently, he was pretty darn good at it.

It’s funny what happens when you start to see your parents as young people, after they’re gone. As a writer, I’m suddenly getting an urge to merge parts of their stories into something I’d like to write. Who knows? Perhaps Ace Yellen will spring to life in one of them and hit a walk-off homer.

Have you looked through your old yearbooks lately? 

Gay Yellen’s award-winning writing career began in magazine journalism.  She later served as the contributing editor for the international thriller, Five Minutes to Midnight (Delacorte), which debuted as a New York Times “Notable.”

Her multi-award-winning Samantha Newman Mystery Series is packed with suspense and laced with touches of romance, heart, and humor. Available on Amazon or through your favorite bookseller. 

 

Do You Play Games?

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In my ongoing effort to declutter, I’ve been taking books to the Family Garden in the park and filling the Little Library there. I’m always thrilled when the last batch I loaded has been taken, and I’m happy to fill it up again. 

But on occasion, there are a few oldies I just can’t part with, like my very yellowed paperback edition of Games People Play, by Eric Berne. I recently spotted it on a shelf behind two other rows of books. (Yes, my bookcases are overburdened, no matter how much I try to lighten the load.)

Mind Games

Berne’s New York Times bestseller was based on his theory of Transactional Analysis, a cultural psychology phenomenon he introduced in the early 60’s. I encountered the book years later when it was assigned reading for an acting class, and again just recently, among other text books from my early days as a theater nerd.

Inside its yellowed cover, I had dutifully underlined paragraphs of Berne’s theories with a red ink pen. Over the years, several pages became unglued. But they were all accounted for, and chock-full of the kind of mind games that define unhealthy interpersonal transactions (or, in non-psychobabble: toxic relationships).

There are 36 “games” identified in its chapters, spread among seven classifications. “Life Games” include Kick Me, Now I’ve Got You, You SOB, and See What You Made Me Do, among others. These are followed by “Marital Games,” “Party Games” (not the children’s party variety) and “Sexual Games,” followed by three more categories. You can see some of them listed on the book’s back cover.

As a treatise on psychotherapy, the point is to get patients to recognize harmful patterns of mind games that are present in their own lives, and eventually, to learn how to stop them, whether the patient is the player or the played-upon. In acting class, it was meant to help us decode the depths of a character’s motivation.

The book is way too technical to be anything but a slog. But on reflection, I realize that I’ve internalized much of its wisdom over the years. It definitely helps me create more fully rounded characters in my writing, especially for villains like E.B. Odom in The Body Business.

And in real life, thankfully, I’ve managed to avoid—or at least identify and remove myself from—most situations in which I might be feeling “played.”

Fun Games

Speaking of more pleasant games, my favorite is the one I play with my husband almost every day at lunch, when I take a break from writing. As I wind down the morning, he’s making a delicious chopped salad which we share over a backgammon table. We’re pretty evenly matched at this game, and the competition’s friendly. Afterward, I’m refreshed for the rest of the afternoon.

Any kind of healthy game can serve as an antidote to any toxic thought gremlins that invade our tranquility. Lots of people I know play Wordle or some variation of it to relieve stress. Group games like Bridge, Poker, and Mahjong are popular again, too.

It may be impossible to permanently shut the woes of the world away, but there’s no harm in trying to raise the fun quotient for a few moments of peace.

Of course, you could also lose the blues by reading a good book!

When you’re plagued by toxic mind games, what do you do to stay calm?

Gay Yellen’s award-winning writing career began in magazine journalism.  She later served as the contributing editor for the international thriller, Five Minutes to Midnight (Delacorte), which debuted as a New York Times “Notable.”

Her multi-award-winning Samantha Newman Mystery Series is full of suspense, with touches of romance, heart, and humor. Available on Amazon or through your favorite bookseller.

Rabbit Holes & Root Beer

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Help! I’ve burrowed down another rabbit hole, and I’m stuck in a warren full of of too many possibilities. So deep am I into the research for my next book that I lost track of time. Which is to say, I almost forgot to write this post.

With no plan for what to post today, I turned to a holiday calendar for inspiration. Maybe this date in history would spark and idea. Boy, did it ever, though it sent me burrowing even deeper.

Turns out, today is National Black Cow Day. Curious as to why we should celebrate dark bovines, I clicked and learned that today’s Black Cow hoopla is all about a drink I’d always known as a root beer float—that delicious concoction of vanilla ice cream melting inside a tall, icy glass of root beer.

Okay, I thought, a fun subject, but not meaty enough to write about—until I read more, and discovered sassafras.

Sassafras is an incredibly fun word to say out loud. (Try it!)

It’s also the original ingredient in root beer, first marketed in America in the 19th century by Philadelphia pharmacist Charles Hires. But that’s not what kept me deep inside that rabbit hole.

When I discovered how important sassafras was to native tribes across the eastern half of what became America, I had to read on.

Here’s why: Attentive readers of my Samantha Newman Mystery Series may recall a mention in Book 3, The Body in the News, of the discovery of a possible ancient Native American campsite on Carter Chapman’s Serenity Ranch. With the idea of that as a plot point in the next book, I’ve been researching indigenous people who may have once inhabited the region.

Cornell Botanic Gardens

Who were these people? What did they eat? What tools did they use? Were they peaceful, or warlike? What might they have left behind at the campsite? I’ve already done a ton of research based on those questions, with more to go. And, to that, I now add this question: Did sassafras trees grow on their land?

Today I learned that every part of the sassafras tree was used by Native Americans from the east coast to west of the Mississippi into Central Texas. Roots from which root beer flavoring is derived were used as toothbrushes. An emetic made from bark was used in purification after funeral ceremonies. Leaves, rubbed onto bee stings, wounds, cuts, sprained ankles, and bruises, were thought to have healing properties.

Ground Sassafras/Cornell Botanic Gardens

Timber from the sassafras tree was used in construction, furniture making, and—when explorers learned of its utility— shipbuilding. By the early 18th century, sassafras became the second-most exported American product, right behind tobacco.

I could tell you everything I’ve learned about sassafras and the possible tribes who may once have hunted on what’s now Carter Chapman’s Serenity Ranch in my books, but I’m running out of time to get this posted.

Also, I have to get back to my research.

bittersoutherner.com

But I’ll leave the foodies among you with one more sassafras fact: its leaves were also dried and pulverized for use as a thickening and flavoring agent. If you’ve ever had true Cajun gumbo, you’ve enjoyed the flavor of filé, made from ground roots or leaves of the sassafras tree.

All of which makes me hungry for some gumbo right now. Maybe I’ll chase it with a few frosty swigs of a root beer float.

Happy National Black Cow Day to you, and may your day be full of fun adventures, down rabbit holes or wherever you roam.

Gay Yellen is the author of the award-winning

Samantha Newman Mystery Series including:

The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News!