Mike Befeler's Blog, page 68

The 100-year-old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

As an author of geezer-lit mysteries, I particularly enjoyed reading the novel, The 100-year-old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jona Jonasson. This book is a whimsical romp through the aging process with a mix of crime and flashbacks to some of the most important events and interesting historical characters of the last eighty years. Like Water for Elephants if moves from the current point of view of an aging man back to the adventures of his earlier years. Like Forrest Gump, the protagonist, Allan Karlsson, has interacted with some of the most famous people in recent history. A delight.

Books That Help Writers

I’m in the process of preparing a workshop titled, The Art of Balancing Writing and a Full Time Job, for the Northern Colorado Writers Conference in April. In the workshop I’ll discuss a technique I adapted from Julia Cameron’s Morning Page concept described in her book The Artist’s Way. Recently when I taught another workshop, a book was recommended to me, Writing Down the Bones, Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. I’ve just completed reading it, and it has some excellent suggestions for all of us writers. Natalie recommends a technique called a Timed Exercise to write continuous for a specific amount of time such as ten, twenty or sixty minutes. She gives six rules:Keep your hand movingDon’t cross outDon’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammarLose controlDon’t think. Don’t get logicalGo for the jugularMuch like Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages, this is a way to get in touch with our creativity by diving in and writing non-stop. Try it. You’ll find the results fascinating.

Rant

I feel a rant welling up today. In the thirty-nine years I spent in the computer industry before I retired to write full time, I witnessed my share of unresponsive people and botched systems, but the publishing industry has amazed me with the black holes that requested responses drop into. Here’s the sample I’m dealing with today:I did a signing at a book store. The store made a mistake and no books were ordered so I used my own. The store was supposed to reorder books and replace mine. They forgot. After several emails and a phone call, the ordering process is in works. But they can’t get one of my books. On to #2I signed a contract to reissue the first book in my mystery series in October of last year. I found out today that the new books are not yet available. I’m awaiting resolution.I’m trying to get resolution with my publisher so the booksellers will stock my books at the upcoming Left Coast Crime Conference.I’m awaiting a contract that was promised to me three weeks ago from a publisher.I’ve been trying for two years to resolve an issue with an agent who no longer represents me.I sent an email to an author I know asking for a blurb two weeks ago. No response. Now taking the last one first, sometimes people get sick, have family problems or die—valid reasons for not responding. This person is actively posting on Facebook so is still alive and well. I also know that people are busy. I would expect a response that would say, “I can’t do it,” or “I will get to it in April,” or “Sure, I’ll get it done within a month.” I’ve learned that when I receive email, 90% of the time I can take care of it immediately in thirty seconds or less. Letting emails sit around is like old fish or relatives staying too long. I check email several times a day, and responding immediately saves me and the other person time.
To be fair, since I started writing this rank and took a break to check email, #3 and #5 appear to be partially resolved. I’ll take that as a sign that ranting works!

Historical Mysteries

I’m currently trying my hand at a second historical mystery. The research is interesting, but it’s a difficult task to get things right for a particular point in time. My setting is Rome in the middle of the seventeenth century. In doing research on my protagonist (a real historical person), I keep finding other intriguing characters and situations to further explore. In this time period, there was a woman who was the power behind one of the Popes; Queen Christina of Sweden who abdicated and converted to Catholicism; a woman who invented a poison and was accused of poisoning over 600 men; papal-nephews who were the trusted advisers to Popes; gobs of illegitimate children attributed to Popes and Cardinals including one who became the head of the Pontifical Swiss Guard; and nepotism up the wazoo. When a Pope died, the servants often stole everything in the Papal chamber including the clothes off the dead body. Needless to say, I’m finding lots of material.

Left Coast Crime Conference 2013

This year’s Left Coast Crime Conference takes place in Colorado Springs, March 21-24. I will moderate the Meet the New Authors Breakfast on Friday and the Meet the Established Authors Breakfast on Saturday. I am honored to be one of the finalists for the Lefty Award for the best humorous mystery of 2012. Here’s the list of finalists for the awards given at the conference:
The Lefty has been awarded for the best humorous mystery novel since 1996. This year’snominees are:§ Mike Befeler, Cruising in Your Eighties Is Murder (Five Star)§ Laura DiSilverio, Swift Run (Minotaur)§ Jess Lourey, December Dread (Midnight Ink)§ Lisa Lutz, Trail of the Spellmans (Simon & Schuster)§ Brad Parks, The Girl Next Door (Minotaur)§ Nancy Glass West, Fit To Be Dead (Southwest Publications)
The Bruce Alexander Memorial Historical Mystery Award (first awarded in 2004) isgiven to mystery novels covering events before 1960. This year’s nominees are:§ Rhys Bowen, The Twelve Clues of Christmas (Berkley Prime Crime)§ Rebecca Cantrell, A City of Broken Glass (Forge)§ Dennis Lehane, Live by Night (William Morrow)§ Catronia McPherson, Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder (Minotaur)§ Jacqueline Winspear, Elegy for Eddie (HarperCollins)
The Rocky, for the best mystery novel set in the Left Coast Crime Geographical Region(first awarded in 2004). The nominees are:§ Margaret Coel, Buffalo Bill’s Dead Now (Berkley Prime Crime)§ Chuck Greaves, Hush Money (Minotaur)§ Beth Groundwater, Wicked Eddies (Midnight Ink)§ Darrell James, Sonora Crossing (Midnight Ink)§ Craig Johnson, As the Crow Flies (Viking)
The Watson, for the mystery novel with the best sidekick (first awarded in 2011).The nominees are:§ Juliet Blackwell, In a Witch’s Wardrobe (Obsidian)§ Robert Crais, Taken (Putnam)§ Chris Grabenstein, Fun House (Pegasus)§ L.C. Hayden, When the Past Haunts You (CreateSpace)§ Rochelle Staab, Brouja Brouhaha (Berkley Prime Crime)

Overscheduled?

Last night my wife made a comment that I was overscheduled. My first reaction was: Me? Can’t be. I’m retired. 
Then I got to thinking. I retired into fiction writing, so I have a lot going on in my writing life, and, yes, I’ve added quite a few commitments recently. The good news is I’m doing things I want to do.
This morning I sat down and listed all my activities. First, was writing itself, which entails research, writing a manuscript, editing and critique groups. Second were the promotional activities: signings, presentations, selling manuscripts, blogging, social networking, followed by the administrative activities around writing. Then I moved on to my volunteer activities, including becoming president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and serving on the national MWA Board, co-chair of the Boulder County Aging Advisory Council, vice president of the Boulder Citizens’ Police Academy Alumni Association. a respite volunteer, assisting with the Left Coast Crime Conference and the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference, and serving as a teaching assistant in the Educurious program. Finally, was time spent exercising every day. I didn’t include time cooking or food shopping. To my amazement when I put hours to each of these, it added up to sixty-five hours a week. My wife was absolutely correct. I’m overscheduled. So my resolution is to not add more activities or if I add something, I need to cut back somewhere else. But I'm not giving up exercising.

Speeches

When a new book is published in my Paul Jacobson Geezer-lit Mystery Series, I put together a new presentation to give at book events, book clubs, libraries, service organizations (such as Rotary, Optimist, Kiwanis) and retirement communities. With the publication in December, 2012, of Cruising in Your Eighties Is Murder, I now have a speech titled, “Rejection Is Not a Four Letter Word.” It takes me approximately two months to prepare a presentation. I keep a manila folder full of ideas, quotes, stories, etc. I take this out and start organizing ideas. Then I write out a script. I review it a number of times to tweak it. Next, I read through the script to time it, since I want a presentation of twenty-five to thirty minutes. Finally, I practice it over and over. I find that it takes me a month to memorize a presentation. I practice at my desk and when I take my daily walks. The hardest part is memorizing names. Then after I start giving the presentation, I have to still practice it, so I won’t forget it. I do all this work because I owe it to my audience to have an entertaining and professional presentation, and I owe it to myself to do the best I can.

Boulder Citizens’ Police Academy Alumni Association

After going through the Boulder Citizens’ Police Academy a number of years ago, I joined the alumni association, which holds meeting once a month with interesting guest speakers. This week Detective Chuck Heidel spoke on the Marty Grisham cold case. Mary Grisham was murdered in 1994. Through perseverance and hard work, Detective Heidel solved the case, and Michael Clark was brought to trial and convicted in 2012. Although no one witnessed the murder and the police never found the weapon, the District Attorney and police build a solid case using only circumstantial evidence. The judge made a statement to the jury that the law makes no distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence, and in this case, the circumstantial evidence led to a conviction.

My Latest Life of Crime

Several times a year, I put aside my writing to become a “criminal”—not really committing crimes but becoming a role player to help train new police officers. A number of years ago I attended a citizens’ police academy, and I’m now a member of an alumni group that meets monthly but also volunteers to assist with police training.
Yesterday, my role was to be an aggressive panhandler. I learned that our city ordinance allows panhandling under the following circumstances: the panhandler can stand in a safe public place with a sign and can ask someone for money once. If the panhandler asks more than once, follows a person or touches a person, it’s considered aggressive panhandling and can lead to a police citation. I was an aggressive and obnoxious panhandler and received five citations for violating section 5-3-7 of the municipal code, which could lead to a bond of $250.

Would You Eat A Dead Lady’s Food?

Join me today for a post from author CJ West. Enjoy!Lorado Martin, star of my new novel Dinner At Deadman’s , loves to rummage around estates of the newly-deceased and prepare them for sale. He’s attracted to all sorts of collectibles, antiques, about anything lying around someone’s house that proves interesting.
The title Dinner At Deadman’s comes from a night Lorado is working in a woman’s home and decides to eat some cereal from her kitchen. I have been surprised by how revolting people find the idea of eating something from a dead lady’s home, so I thought I’d explore that idea with you a bit today.
One of my most surprising food finds was a can of peaches at the bottom of a set of cellar stairs. The can had rusted through. The peaches had seeped out and all that remained of them was a dark-colored spot on the wooden shelf underneath the can. The can must have been sitting there for several years and I wonder if anyone considered eating those peaches in the few years before I found them.
I think we can all agree we wouldn’t eat peaches from a rusty old can, but what about a can of soup in the pantry that was shiny and new? Could there really be anything wrong with soup that’s been lying around a while? If it was free, would you take it home? Would you check the expiration date first?
For me it would be an easy call. If it was canned food that I would buy anyway, I’d take any can that was in good condition. I’m not sure exactly what makes eating food from a dead person’s house weird. Is it the idea that whatever killed them might be infectious? Or is it a superstition that the food could be haunted? Or maybe the ghost of the previous owner would torment you for taking it home?
Let’s go to the kitchen next.
I remember eating cereal at my grandmother’s house. It was always stale. And she always filled bowls by hand, reaching in, grabbing a handful, and dropping it in a bowl like an excavator. That always seemed a little gross to me as a kid. The idea of a strange old lady’s hand on my cereal is enough for me to forgo an open box.
How about you? If you found an unopened box of your favorite cereal would you take it?
It’s a slippery slope once you get started. You open the freezer and see frozen steaks. The food starts to have value and in these tough economic times I think a lot of us would be tempted to take some of that free food home, especially if it was in a sealed container.
Whether this sounds like a great idea or a crazy one, I hope you’ll check out Dinner At Deadman’s and explore a sweet little old lady’s kitchen alongside Lorado.  ---

C.J. West is the author of seven suspense novels including The End of Marking Time and Sin and Vengeance, which was optioned into development for film by Beantown Productions, LLC (screenplay by Marla Cukor). C.J. blogs at www.cjwestkills.wordpress.com. You can also find him at www.22wb.com or at www.facebook.com/cjwestfans