Mike Befeler's Blog, page 29

Coronavirus Days Continued

In the last two week, I’ve only gone outside to go to the food store and pharmacy and to take walks on the weekend. I look at the food in the refrigerator and calculate how long I can put off going to the store again. There is some risk with each trip, so I want to make as few trips as possible.

Our four-year-old grandson has been a real trooper. He’s with us every weekday, and now he can’t go to preschool to be with his friends. We have done several Zoom calls with his cousins and neighborhood friends to give him a chance to speak with other kids. We have a small sand box in our back patio that he plays in some days, but other than that he’s inside with us. We have a white board easel and erasable markers which he has enjoyed drawing with. Even more than the drawing, he enjoys erasing. This has kept him occupied for hours the last few days. We’ve come up with some new games, treasure hunts and board games. So far so good.

Stay healthy.

Coronavirus Days

My wife and I are staying home during this phase of the Coronavirus pandemic. Our four-year-old grandson is spending the weekdays at our house while his parents work. Last weekend I took walks by myself and maintained the six foot social distance recommendation. Here are a few pictures from my walk.

First, the playground in our neighborhood is closed.
 



Next, the sidewalk says it all: 
 
Stay safe and healthy.

Socialization and Social Distancing

I’ve been struggling with the dichotomy of socialization and social distancing. My wife and I take care of our four-year-old grandson during the day when his parents are working. Even though our daughter has now started to work from home, she can’t do her job from home and take care of a four-year-old. Our grandson’s preschool has been cancelled for the rest of the month. This was necessary for social distancing, but it is bad for his socialization as he loved being with other kids. He likes his grandparents and we love him, but he also needs to interact with kids his age and not just us. He enjoys play dates with kids in the neighborhood, but this begs the question of social distancing versus socialization.

What are you doing to achieve the balance between socialization and social distancing during the Coronavirus?

Corona Virus and ConferencesI will be at the Left Coast C...

Corona Virus and Conferences
I will be at the Left Coast Crime Conference this week unless it is cancelled at the last minute. As of now it is still being held. As the moderator of the Meet the New Authors Breakfast, I have had two of nineteen new authors cancel. On the panel I’ll be participating in, Writing Older Characters, none of the panelists has cancelled. I have given up shaking hands and will be washing my hands regularly.

Final Preparation for The Left Coast Crime Conference

The Left Coast Crime Conference takes place in San Diego from Thursday March 12 through Sunday March 15. I’m in final preparation for several events at the conference.

I have the honor of moderating the Meet the New Authors Breakfast on Friday March 13. This is the thirteenth year of this breakfast event in which new mystery authors speak for one minute on the most important thing readers should know about their debut novel, and I have moderated for twelve of the thirteen years having only missed one for a family commitment. Currently, we have eighteen new authors presenting.
I will be on a panel Friday afternoon on Writing Older Characters, a subject I’m looking forward to since most of my seventeen published books feature older characters.
Also, I will be participating in the Author Speed dating on Thursday morning. Fellow author, James L’Etoile, and I will team up to speak to eighteen tables of readers for two minutes each. We move from table to table during the morning.
In a future post I’ll discuss highlights of the conference.

Book Groups

I belong to three book groups Two of these read a variety of books, and one is a mystery book group for which we each select a book to report on. I have had the opportunity to speak to a number of book groups both in person and through conference calls or Skype calls.

On Thursday March 5, I’ll be speaking to a book group at the Foothills Ranch Library, 27002 Cabriole, Foothills Ranch, CA, at 10:30 am. The title of my presentation is, “Becoming an Author Has No Expiration Date” about my experience starting to write later in life and writing about older characters.

A Story for Our Time

Once upon a time, there was a guy who wanted to be king of his country. He thought he was perfect, and he thought everything he did was perfect, but he also hated people who were different, and he especially hated anyone who disagreed with him. Now in this country, there were three groups of people who supported this guy. One group hated those who were different or felt they had been taken advantage of. A second group comprised rich people getting richer. A third group was made up of people scared they would lose their jobs if they disagreed with this guy. Some other people wanted to limit the power of this guy, but the third group did nothing to prevent this guy from doing whatever he wanted.

What’s the end of this story? Stay tuned for November 2020

Writing Older Characters Panel at The Left Coast Crime Conference

It’s always an honor to be selected for a panel at mystery conferences. I will be on the panel, Writing Older Characters: The Pros and Cons of Writing Senior Sleuths, on Friday, March 13, at The Left Coast Crime Conference (LCC2020) in San Diego. This is one of my favorite topics because the majority of my mystery novels feature older characters. This all began with my first published mystery, Retirement Homes Are Murder, which takes place in a retirement community with a protagonist, Paul Jacobson, who is in his mid-eighties and suffers from short-term memory loss. Even though he can’t remember the day before, he becomes an amateur sleuth and even has a romance with a young chick in her seventies. Thanks to fellow author, Christine Goff who introduced me to the term geezer-lit, I affectionately tag most of my novels as geezer-lit mysteries.

This panel at LCC2020 will be moderated by Rochelle Staab. Rochelle and I have worked together for a number of years to host The Meet the New Authors Breakfast at LCC, The panelists include Barbara Barrett, Janet Finsilver and Lisa Q. Matthews. I look forward to an interesting and entertaining panel.

American Dirt

The recently published book, American Dirt, by Jeanine Cummins has created a firestorm of opinions, both positive and negative. Full disclosure. I have not yet read the book. My comments here refer to the reactions to the book and author. My main concern is the author being attacked because she is non-Mexican writing about a Mexican migrant. People rightfully can have widely different reactions to any book. Even the most popular book will receive one-star ratings from some readers. Why? Because all readers are different. The thing I object to is that opposition to this book has reached a level of threats being issued. As a writer, I can appreciate the advice of writing what you know. Equally important is to write what you don’t know. This entails research and learning. Most of my books have male protagonist, but I have also written female protagonists. As a man should I not write about women? No. In my case, I received excellent suggestions from my wife and women in my critique group about improving my female protagonist. Many women mystery writers used to use initials to disguise that they were women authors. I like reading good stories no matter the sex, race or political persuasion of the author. The beauty of fiction writing is to explore characters, situations and stories. Writers should not be chastised for tackling difficult issues and writing characters different than they are. Valid criticism can be given about inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the writing.

Mystery Author Luncheon

I’m honored to be one of the mystery authors who will be on a panel for a luncheon sponsored by the Anaheim, CA, library in April. The moderator is Allison Brennan and the other panelists are Timothy Hallinan and Catriona McPherson. I’m particularly looking forward to this event because Tim, Catriona and I have all written humorous mystery novels among our published books, In preparation, I’ve read books by each of the participants to be current on their writing.