Mike Befeler's Blog, page 65

Geezer Literature

When I give presentations as an author of geezer-lit mysteries, occasionally people in the audience recommend other good books with older characters. One of these I’ve recently read is The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. Set in Japan, this is the tale of a retired mathematics professor who has a rolling eighty minutes of memory. A housekeeper hired through a placement agency comes to help him. She discovers that if she runs an errand under eighty minutes the professor will still remember her, but if she returns after eighty minutes he doesn’t know who she is. The professor takes a liking to the housekeeper’s son and the threesome become friends, given the limitations of the professor’s memory. He keeps notes attached to his suit coat to remind him of people and events. I enjoyed this story immensely.

In my Paul Jacobson Geezer-lit Mystery series, Paul Jacobson has a memory that resets overnight, so he experiences the same problem on a daily basis. He keeps a journal much like the professor relies on notes.
Have you dealt with a person who has short-term memory loss?

Genealogy Research

I’ve never done much genealogy research. I had a cousin on my dad’s side of the family who did extensive research on that part of the family and passed the results on to me. My mom did some research on her family, and I have those papers as well. My wife inherited some genealogy analysis done by one of her relatives. She then assembled genealogy books for each of our three kids and ourselves, so we have the collected information.

I’m currently writing stories that have been told to me by a 94-year-old World War II veteran, who was a prisoner of war in Germany. Along the way, I’ve done a little research of his family. I’m now intrigued by this line of research. It’s one of those things that you can put an unlimited amount of time into. There is always one more name, one more database, one more piece of evidence to track down.
What’s been your experience with genealogy research?

Book Signings

When my first novel, Retirement Homes Are Murder, was published I did quite a few signings. With the release of the fifth book in the Paul Jacobson Geezer-lit Mystery Series Care Homes Are Murder, I’m doing two launch signing events: Who Else Books, Broadway Book Mall, 2 PM Saturday July 13, 2013, 200 S. Broadway, Denver, CO, along with Liesa Malik, author of Faith on the Rocks and Boulder Barnes and Noble, 11 AM- 2PM, Saturday, July 20, 2013, 2999 Pearl St., Boulder, CO.

I now do fewer pure book signings. Typically, I give presentations to libraries, book clubs, service organizations (Rotary, Optimist, Kiwanis, lions, Sertoma, NARFE), and retirement communities. The current speech I give is titled, “Rejection Is Not a Four Letter Word,” and discusses rejection that everyone encounter, whether new writers or famous authors. At the end of my talks I sign books for people who want author signed copies.
I have a bias against doing “readings.” When I go to hear an author speak, I like to hear about their writing life and their work, but don’t enjoy listening to an author read part of one of his or her books. I can read the book, but I want to know more about the author.
What do you think of book readings versus presentations?

Halfway Point to Hawaii

I grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, and after moving first to California and then to Colorado, I’ve returned numerous times, visiting my mom and stepdad when they were still alive and since for family vacations.

When we’ve flown on United Airlines, the crew often has a contest for passengers to guess the time the plane will pass the halfway point to Honolulu. They provide the takeoff time, total expected flight time and anticipated wind speeds for the first and second halves of the trip. From this information passengers can  make their calculations and turn in their estimate on a sheet of paper given to the flight attendants.
I’ve tried this for years. I go through all kinds of elaborate calculations and have never won. Then last summer when we went to Hawaii on a vacation, I decided to not do any calculations but wing it with a gut estimate. Wouldn’t you know it, I won. I became the proud owner of a Hawaii travelogue book, which I did use during the trip.
Have you ever entered this type of contest, and if so, what happened?

Racquet Sports

I played competitive tennis as a kid and in college. Afterwards, I retired to social tennis. Then about twenty years ago, I started playing another racquet sport called platform tennis. It’s played on a court a third the size of a tennis court and surrounded by a wire mess fence. It’s tennis rules except you only have one serve and you can play the ball off the screen, using a paddle.

I’ve written a mystery novel with platform tennis as a central part of the mystery. This manuscript has not been published yet.
A number of years ago when I was visiting my daughter in Venice Beach, California, I played paddle tennis, which uses the same type of paddle as in platform tennis but with a tennis ball, deflated by sticking a nail in it.
Recently, I’ve started playing another racquet sport called pickleball. It also uses a paddle on a small court but with a waffle ball. You serve underhand and there is an area six feet from the next that you can’t step into to hit a volley.
What various racquet sports have you tried?

Forty-fifth Anniversary

Tomorrow my wife and I will have been married forty-five years. As the saying goes, the first forty-five are the hardest.

In addition to being a wonderful wife, mother and companion, Wendy is my first reader and first editor of my manuscripts. After I complete my dozen or so editing passes of a completed manuscript, she reads it through and finds every grammatical error and inconsistency.

Although the thought had not occurred to me forty-five years ago, it’s a good think I married an English major.

Historical Walking Tour of Boulder

Yesterday I took a walking tour of part of Boulder led by a local historian. We saw houses of different eras and heard stories of residents.

We stopped at the Sink, a local joint near the University of Colorado. Boulder instigated Prohibition in 1907 and it lasted into the 1960s. The Sink was the second place to serve 3.2 beer after Tulagi’s. The Sink also had a distinguished employee in the sixties, Robert Redford. When President Obama visited Boulder in April, 2012, he added his signature on the wall (it’s the portion of the picture below covered with plastic).

Care Homes Are Murder

My latest geezer-lit mystery, Care Homes Are Murder (ISBN 978-1-4328-2692-5), will be released by Five Star, an imprint of Gale/Cengage Learning, on June 19, 2013. This is the fifth in the Paul Jacobson geezer-lit mystery series, following Retirement Homes Are Murder, Living With Your Kids Is Murder, a finalist for the 2009 Lefty Award for best humorous mystery, Senior Moments Are Murder and Cruising in Your Eighties Is Murder, a finalist for the 2012 Lefty Award for best humorous mystery of 2012. I also have a published standalone paranormal mystery, The V V Agency.
In Care Homes Are Murder crotchety octogenarian Paul Jacobson returns to Hawaii for a vacation with his family and becomes involved in a series of crimes, while struggling with the problems of his short-term memory loss. He faces a number of strange coincidences involving acts of vandalism, drug dealers and two murders. Paul puts all the pieces together, escapes a watery grave, and with the help of his friends, solves the murders.
Care Homes Are Murder is available on Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com or contact your local bookseller.
What others say about Care Homes Are Murder:
“A Hawaiian vacation goes awry for memory-challenged Paul when a death at an assisted-living facility seems suspicious. Enjoy the laughs as he tackles his fifth case.”—Library Journal
“The lighthearted fifth Paul Jacobson mystery takes the crime-solving octogenarian and his family to Hawaii . . . this combination of travelogue and Keystone Kops humor, with a geezer joke or two thrown in, will appeal to most cozy fans.”—Publishers Weekly
“An older man continues his sleuthing streak. Despite the fact that Paul remembers very little, someone thinks he knows too much. It will take family, friends and a lot of luck to keep him alive . . .often amusing.”—Kirkus Review

Meet Christy Dyer of Oak Tree Press

My guest today is Christy Dyer who is working at Oak Tree Press (OTP), the publisher of my paranormal mystery, The V V Agency. She’s a recent college graduate from Western Illinois University and majored in English, with a minor in Professional Writing. Most of her free time is spent reading for pleasure (mostly fantasy novels), writing, and watching movies (loves animation movies). During her time at Oak Tree Press, she has met wonderful authors who have given her great advice about the publishing world. While at Oak Tree Press, she’s also looking for work as an editor.

Mike: What is your interest in the publishing industry?
Christy: I am a huge reader, even when I was little, and I always wanted to work with books no matter what. I have entertained the idea of being a writer, but that would require me to actually have time to write down my ideas. So I thought about the publishing houses and helping authors get their stories out to the readers.

Mike: What are your responsibilities at Oak Tree Press?
Christy: I am the Acquisitions Editor. I read over people's queries and manuscripts to see if they would work well with OTP.
 Mike: How did you make a connection and get an internship at Oak Tree Press?
 Christy: I found OTP by Google search, saw an email, and decided that I should give it a shot. I have already tried several publishing houses in Illinois, and they all told me that I needed experience. I was very surprised that Billie Johnson of OTP contacted me back. After that we met and discussed what I would be doing. And that is how I got the internship!
 Mike: What should my blog readers know about you?

Christy: After college, I am trying to live in the "real" world, as many people put it. I am also interested in editing, so I will be working as one separate from OTP. I will read everything and anything!
 Mike: What's the most interesting thing you've learned so far with the internship?

Christy: Reading fast is a must! Seriously though, there are many queries that come through us and I have to read them all, including the manuscripts, so I'm learning how to read faster than I normally do.
 Mike: What are your career goals?

Christy: I am hoping to continue working in a publishing house, possibly as an editor since that is what I studied in school, and maybe try to write my own stories.
 Christy, thank you for joining me and best wishes with your new career. Anyone who wants to reach Christy can contact her via email: cjdyer5791@gmail.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/christy.dyer.56 or Twitter:  pixiedust5791

Johari Window

I recently came across a concept I had used many years ago called the Johari Window. It specifies four quadrants, with the intersection of what we know about ourselves and what other know about us. In one dimension are two columns, What I know about myself and What I don’t know about myself. Two rows are What others know about me and What others don’t know about me. The intersection provides the four quadrants of:
-          Open – Known by me and others
-          Hidden – Known by me but not by others
-          Blind – Known by others but not by me
-          Unknown –Not known by me or by others
This provides a good model to learn more about ourselves with input from other people.It can also be a good model for developing characters in fiction writing. Put together a list of what is Open, Hidden, Blind and Unknown about your protagonist and other key characters.

Have you heard about the Johari Window before or is it new to you?