Lea Wait's Blog, page 139

Baseball and the Amateur

One of the reasons I love baseball (and boy-howdy, do I miss lying back in the recliner after a long day of word-wrangling and sinking into those rhythms and sounds), is that for the most part, it’s played by normal-sized people. While I love a good high school basketball game, both the college game and the professional seem to be staffed mainly with pituitary freaks of strength and size. [image error]I remember sitting in a courtside seat in the old Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon, and watching Bill Walton run (sort of) past, like a giant huffing creaking heron in size twenty-one sneakers. Couldn’t relate.

Which may be why I’m so dedicated to reading and writing about what we call in the industry the amateur sleuth. No one who’s been reading this blog doesn’t know of my love for John D. [image error]MacDonald’s Travis McGee series, dated and hoary as they are at this point in time. I’ve always been attracted to the amateur crime-solver.

The notion of a talented unofficial player sticking his or her nose into people’s problems, whether because of money, a world view, or a set of moral values, intrigues me more than a professional investigator, public or private. Because, for a cop, no matter how driven by a code, the investigation is a job, a duty. And even the PI who takes on a case, at least originally, is doing so as a business venture first.

Readers respond well to amateur sleuths, too, as far back as Hercule Poirot [image error]and Miss Marple, Sherlock, et al. Even Jack Reacher, despite his MP background, is essentially an amateur. So what’s the attraction?

My take is that, as in baseball, the reader/watcher can identify more easily with an amateur, a normal person with no special skills, someone who involves themselves in someone’s problems out of an emotional response rather than from duty. The amateur sleuth normally has a more personal stake in the crime and the solution than the professional. I also believe an amateur sleuth allows the reader to enter the story more easily, empathize with the protagonist and even the other characters affected by the crime.

The amateur’s motive makes it easier for a reader to empathize. A more personal story, an emotional motivation can make a reader more inclined to say: “I could see myself reacting like that.” If not actually taking action in the same way the sleuth does.

As a writer, I get certain advantages, too. For me, it’s a great deal of fun trying to figure out how to intertwine character with a plot that fits the emotional truth of the protagonist—a good character-based fictional reason for the sleuth to be involved. For a cop or a professional PI, again, while the plot may illuminate a personal code, he or she still has a job to do. And the investigation, especially in the case of a police procedural, usually follows a fairly predictable sequence of events.

And, not least, an amateur is less necessarily tied to a location. An amateur sleuth gives me more geographical scope, too. It’s harder to move a cop out of his or her jurisdiction, or a PI out of his or her town. One of the reasons I think a series can go sour on a writer is an inability to change up the surroundings. A setting can become too familiar, even stale.

Which is not to say I don’t love all kinds of crime fiction, dark and light. But the thing that turns my crank most, as a writer and a reader, is how an average person feels and acts when touched by a crime and how such a person decides to get involved. What impels the amateur to want to set the world right, when it really isn’t his or her job?

Weekend Update: April 25-26, 2020

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be a posts by Dick Cass (Monday), John Clark (Tuesday), and Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Friday).

 

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

We are celebrating, a bit belatedly, National Library Week with some photos of our events in Maine libraries. We love libraries, and our Making a Mystery program has been very popular.

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: Let’s go way back. Here’s one of my very first signings, from 1985 at my hometown library in Wilton, Maine. The book, The Mystery of Hilliard’s Castle, was my first novel (second book) and was written for ages 8-12.

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I still have the same hairstyle but the brown has gone gray, or as one of my characters puts it, my hair has turned “that shade of gray that’s sometimes mistaken for blond.”

 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

 

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

The Comforts of Routine

Darcy Scott once again, coming to you on Arbor Day with a post that has nothing even remotely to do with trees. April is normally the time we begin readying our sailboat (read summer home) for her annual mid-May launch—a long month of cleaning, waxing, system repairs and upgrades, and all the provisioning necessary for a summer of cruising. All of which is officially on hold this year until we figure how Maine’s current stay-at-home order, with all its social distancing and attendant precautions, is going to play out for the state’s boating community. No use trying to live on the water, we figure, if all the services, boat yards and marinas are going to be closed, not to mention our favorite shops and restaurants. The thought of even writing about this grueling process (my original plan for this month’s MCW blog contribution) is far too depressing. Sooooo, I’m instead opting for a healthy serving of self-indulgence to mitigate my disappointment and hopefully ease some of what we’re all collectively going through.

Being officially retired from a career in all manner of business writing, I’m pretty much able to pursue whatever grabs my fancy. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. I’m a creature of habit, a lover of established routines (many of which were home-based long before Covid-19 came to call), and despite all the changes of late, I’m still a very busy lady between the research and writing of my next Maine Island Mystery, the phone/video conferencing relating to said pursuits, and keeping up with friends and family in the virtual sphere. 

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I admit that by the end of that first disorienting week of forced at-home-ness, I was a bit out of control—serial-napping and binge-vacuuming as I struggled to get my bearings. After a week or so of this nonsense, culminating in several bizarre, hours-long “Words With Friends” benders, my normal routine was shot to hell. Get a grip, I remonstrated; learn to relax into it as I might, say, an extended sailing trip—embracing lots of time for creativity, cooking and deep contemplation, without the self-imposed feelings of guilt for not being constantly producing. In other words: Just. Slow. Down. It’s become my new mantra. Did I mention the cooking?

I’ve been at this long enough now to have settled into a newly pared-down routine that’s not half bad. Thought I’d invite you to my place for a look-see—take you through the highlights of my new normal, peppered with a couple recipes for my favorite comfort foods. After all, what’s more relaxing than having friends to your home for a hearty meal, if only virtually? So welcome!

[image error]The Nook

First up is breakfast, of course—something I admit I never really spent much time on, seeing it as nothing more than a necessary start to the rest of my day. But with all the recent changes, I find myself taking time to actually cook (see recipe for “Goggy’s Wicked Easy Homemade Waffles” below—Goggy being me), and then chilling for a half hour or so in a sunny corner of the kitchen my husband and I call “The Nook,” where comfort literally surrounds us in the form of thank you notes and birthday cards from the various grandchildren and great nieces/nephews who so joyously people our lives.

Goggy’s Wicked Easy Homemade Waffles

(Make the batter 12-24 hours beforehand to allow it to “breathe.”)

1 ¾ cup milk (whole, low-fat or skim)

8 Tbs. unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

2 cups unbleached flour

1 Tbs. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 ½ tsp. instant yeast

2 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Heat milk and butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until the butter is melted.  Cool mixture until warm to the touch. Meanwhile, whisk flour, sugar, salt and yeast in large bowl to combine. Gradually whisk warm milk/butter mixture into flour mixture until batter is smooth. In a small bowl, whisk eggs and vanilla until combined, then add to batter and whisk until incorporated. Scrape down sides of bowl with spatula, cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate 12- 24 hours before cooking.

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If it’s a chilly morning, I might lay a fire after a second cuppa and settle in for a bit of a read—a calming ritual that sets me up for my daily hours of writing and research. I find it hard to sustain focus when I’m anxious (which seems to be most of the time these days), so I’ll take a two-mile walk up the road sometime before lunch to mentally process the morning’s work.

After lunch (more greatly relaxed meal prep), I’ll grab a quick, or maybe not so quick nap before going back to the writing, random bouts of housework, more reading, and hour-long stints in the garden. This takes me to around 5:00 when I call it a day and rollout the mat for a streaming yoga class, often as not taken in my pjs. 

Finally, no post about the pleasures of routine would be complete without an easy dinner recipe that’s both self-indulgent and ultra-flavorful, if not particularly good for you. Here’s one of our favorites, ultimate comfort-cum-pub-food perfect for that Zoom dinner party or a repast before the fire on a rainy night. Serve with a loaf of ciabatta bread sliced on the bias and grilled for dipping. 

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Cheesy White Bean Tomato Bake

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

3 fat garlic cloves, thinly sliced

3 Tbs. tomato paste

2  15-ounce cans white beans

½ cup boiling water

Koasher salt and black pepper

1 cup grated mozzarella

1 loaf ciabatta bread, sliced on the bias and grilled

Heat oven to 475 degrees. In 10-inch ovenproof skillet, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Fry the garlic until it’s lightly golden, about 1 minute. Sir in the tomato paste (being careful of spattering) and fry for 30 seconds, reducing the heat as needed to keep the garlic from burning.

Add the beans, water, and generous pinches of salt and pepper, stirring to combine. Sprinkle with the cheese and bake until the cheese has melted and browned in spots, 5 to 10 minutes. Serve at once, with the grilled bread on the side. Enjoy!

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Darcy Scott (Winner, 2019 National Indie Excellence Award; Best Mystery, 2013 Indie Book Awards; Silver Award, 2013 Readers Favorite Book Awards; Bronze Prize, 2013 IPPY Awards) is a live-aboard sailor and experienced ocean cruiser with more than 20,000 blue water miles under her belt. For all her wandering, her summer home and favorite cruising grounds remain along the coast of Maine—the history and rugged beauty of its sparsely populated out-islands serving as inspiration for much of her fiction, including her popular Maine-based Island Mystery Series. Her debut novel, Hunter Huntress, was published in Britain in 2010.

The Attention Span of a Gnat

Kate Flora: Seems like we’re all asking the same questions of each other these days: How[image error] is everyone doing out there? You okay? In some ways, it seems like we are more in touch than usual. Adult children calling their parents. Parents in touch with their children. Neighbors stand six feet apart and catch up. Many Zoom events or Facetime chats going on. Cocktail parties and webinars galore. Yet a lot of us seem to have lost our attention spans. Our focus. Get up. Check the news. No sign of the curve flattening. Fall into lethargy.

On the news, we see people in full armor toting scary guns demanding their right to have the world open up. Beaches jammed with people while we huddle responsibly at home or wear masks whenever we leave the house. We learn that in one Southern state, bowling alleys and tattoo parlors are deemed essential businesses. In New England, we act like misanthropes, taking precautions to not infect each other. Our color grows out, our hair is gray, the men look like they’ve reverted to hippies.

There is a lot of public generosity to appreciate during these trying times. It seems like every vendor in the world wants to send us reassuring advice. The pharmacy wants us to have fun doing family portraits. There is plenty of entertainment available. Opera and Broadway are available for free, if only we can remember which night of the week the shows are on. Musicians–and The Rolling Stones–offer concerts from quarantine. The wonderful Farnsworth Museum in Rockland has an art and poetry presentation for Earth Day that I hope is still available when you read this: https://www.farnsworthmuseum.org/about/fam-blog/in-celebration-of-earth-day-poems-and-images-from-the-farnsworth/?fbclid=IwAR0HoejsXl-bL4I-H4Gn27guNIL9RBfc4XJXrtlga4huMouduGxlqsc7mPw

[image error]And yet, for me, and many writers I know, concentration has become difficult. It is hard to create an imaginary world full of danger and misdeed, with morality and goodness ultimately triumphing when the actual world seems so out-of-control and can’t seem to be righted despite our best efforts. As I dither through the day, trying to meet my little daily goal of writing a thousand words, I remind myself that for some of us who write mysteries, it is that righting of the world, the return to order, and the reassurance that good will triumph despite the loss and wrong and death and characters feeling the ripples of the crime, that keeps us writing and you reading.

We write because we believe in good guys and gals. In heroes. In the idea that despite all the bad that happens, in the end we want the world righted again. We want wrongs punished. We want leaders–in our books the heroes and heroines, professional and amateur–who will stand up to wrong-doers and restore some measure of justice.

So if I’m slow these days, if I pace more than I type, if I put my characters in difficult or [image error]seemingly impossible situations and the plots seem to be going awry, my writing may be reflecting the state of the world. Things won’t be righted in a day or a week or a month, but in fiction, at least, if I, if we writers, can swat away those distracting gnats, things will  get better. The world will return to some semblance of order. And readers will have new books to take them on wild journeys with reassuring endings.

Welcome to my daily briefing: Writing, book store stats, cat trees, leaf blowers…

We are now in the locked-in era of the daily briefing — they’re ubiquitous and they’re not going away soon. At least there’s a little something for everyone. I like the calm and rational updates by Maine’s Dr. Nirav Shah, with his trademark orange pen in hand and Diet Coke at his side. I love the way he cheerfully says the name of each reporter, as though they’re old friends he can’t wait to talk to. And as I’m writing this, he just chided himself for mixing metaphors. What’s not to like?

Then there’s the no-nonsense good old-fashioned Italian New York anger of Andrew Cuomo. I recently heard someone describe herself as a Cuomo-sexual. I love the way pandemics spur new phrases!

And, of course, there’s the surreal circus of you-know-who.

A little something for everyone.

Anyway, I know everyone’s a combinatoin of bored and jumpy, or overworked and jumpy, no matter your situation. So, I’m not going to get deep today, just a daily briefing of some random stuff that may or may not interest you. With photos.

My writing hasn’t been going great. I’m one of those lucky folks who still has a job, but it seems to be all-consuming these days and doesn’t leave much brain room for fiction writing, even the crime kind. That said, I had one of those nights last night where I couldn’t sleep because a scene for my book was hammering itself out in my head and I couldn’t stop it. I finally gave in and got up a few times to take notes. And they actually made sense this morning. So when that starts happening, it means the writing has to become a daily immersive thing. It won’t let me ignore it.

[image error]Lack of sleep, though, is not making me any more happy that apparently it’s essential work to have six guys blow the leaves at the house across the road for 90 minutes every week. And in one of those truly perverse Maine situations, the people who own the house are from somewhere else and are rarely ever there, even without stay-at-home orders. And the leaves are in a grove of trees that no one every uses. For anything. It used to at least be much thicker woods with a lot of songbirds and critters. And yeah, the leaf-blower crew used to come by weekly then, too. Because the last thing you want in woods is leaves on the ground. SO ESSENTIAL. SO VERY ESSENTIAL.

OK, another annoying thing now that I’m on a roll. When local reporters are patching in to Dr. Shah’s briefing, they really need to turn off the notifications on their computer, put their phone on “do not disturb” and put the cat and dog in another room. Seriously.

And before I get started on my stuff — I know how anxious you are — April 23 is World Book and Copyright Day. The 2017 U.S. Census County Business Patterns program counted 7,482 establishments as book stores and news dealers, down from 12,127 in 2007. Let’s hope the number’s back up by 2027. And what a world we live in now, where nonsensical air and noise-polluting leaf blowers in the woods for a house no one lives at is considered essential, but the powers that be can’t find a way to make bookstores work with social distancing rules.

[image error]Speaking of essential, as writers, we’re often asked who our influences are. I’m not too proud to say Mad magazine definitely had an influence on me in my tween years. Irreverant humor was a very exciting discovery.  I was sad to see today that Mort Drucker, Mad’s legendary cartoonist, died the other day. The summer we moved to Maine, 1973, the Mad issue with Drucker’s “The Poopsidedown Adventure” lived in our car as we lived at campgrounds. By mid-summer my five siblings and I could recite Poopsidedown from the first frame to the last.

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Almost $200… hmm, get heating oil for the nearly empty tank, or a cat tree?

One thing I’ve found myself doing as I watch all those briefings is scrolling through Amazon, Etsy and other places looking for things I might buy if I ever get my federal stimulus payment (YES I KNOW HOW TO GET IT. THANK YOU. Sorry. I’m a little jumpy. Blame the leaf blowers that just… won’t… stop. Going on hour two now). For some reason, I’ve started to think my cats need more stuff, things that that I never would’ve bought before. Like the above cat tree. I don’t believe I’ll actually buy stuff like that (if I ever get the money), but it’s fun to dream. Ditto for Zillow, the home sales site. Pick a town. See what’s for sale. Decide whether you’d buy it or not. And come on people, if you’re taking photos for a real estate site, at least take the dirty dishes out of the sink.

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Andover Public Library. It’s octagonal!

I’ve been able to add to my photo collection of libraries across Maine as I drive around looking for new places to go — while distancing, of course, and not going into stores or other establishments unless I combine a drive with the now-dreaded Hannaford trip. This weekend I drove out to the nether regions of Oxford County to see if there’s any sign, besides the miniscule town-square plaque in Andover, of the earth station where the first TV satellite was launched in 1962. While checking out the town, I came upon the Andover library. BTW, just like Ed Muskie’s childhood home in Rumford, aside from the plaque that’s nowhere near the spot, no sign of Earth Station Andover.

Speaking of going to far-flung places where I can get off the couch and get some fresh air while also avoiding people and leaf-blowers, I took some snaps to share.

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This view is usually reserved for golfers this time of year.

This is the summit at the Belgrade Lakes Golf Club, a very short walk from my house. From the top of the hill you can see two lakes. An awesome view, worth the climb.

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There were a lot of rocks, and the one the sign is pointing to is not THE Curitis Rock. Just so you know and don’t think it’s all hype, no show.

The three-plus miles of trails at the Kennebec Land Trust’s Curtis Homestead Conservation Area in Leeds is quiet, uncrowded and relaxing, with some neat stuff. LIke the Curtis Rock, which is one of the many glacial erratics on the grounds. Pro tip: Land trusts and conservation areas, like those overseen by the Maine Woodland Owners, often have pleasant trails and no company. And with Wednesday being the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, it’s a great time to check some out and show the love. Personal note: This 246 acres was donated to the land trust by former Gov. Ken Curtis and his sister. I went to grade school with Curtis’ daughter, Angela. A really nice family.

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The Hallowell quarry is a beautiful spot, with little sign that it was once THE teen hangout place for Augusta-area kids. Ah, the 70s…

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Speaking of the old school days, I took a nice walk around the Hallowell quarry a week or so ago. The quarry was the hot swimming/party spot when I was in high school. A decade or so ago, someone began working it again and it was drained, but the owner is now selling it and it’s full of water again.

On a writerly note, it’s places like this that we Maine Crime Writers love. Get out and check out some places off the beaten path and see what you can find.

That’s it for today. I have some leaf blowers to throw dog poop at.

Stay healthy and take care until next time!

Stonington – “Sea Kayak Heaven”

My absolutely-favorite-place-in-Maine is Stonington. Famous for lobstering and granite quarrying, the town sits at the tip of Deer Isle. Out on the water you can see Acadia National Park to the north.

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For me Stonington is “kayak heaven”. For twenty-five or so years, I’ve joined a group of Maine sea kayakers in June for a week of paddling. We rent the same houses right on the water.

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My photos show Stonington from a paddler’s point of view.  The scatter of islands makes for lovely boating. Many are on the Maine Island Trail so we can enjoy the beaches at lunchtime or when we need to rest. Views from the top are lovely.

Sea kayaking Stonington can be dangerous. The water is very cold, waves and swells are common, and storms brew up fast. A couple of years ago several of us were caught in a gale. Shaken and grateful, we made it to shore safely. I nearly fainted when I learned that two kayakers off Acadia paddling at the same time did not.

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Funny thing, but Mara of my Maine oceanographer Mara Tusconi mystery series got caught in an identical storm in Secrets Haunt The Lobsters’ Sea.

Weekend Update April 18-19, 2020

Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be a posts by Charlene D’Avanzo (Monday), Maureen Milliken (Tuesday), Kate Flora (Thursday) and Darcy Scott (Friday). On the weekend, we’ll be sharing photos of some of our favorite Maine (and a few other select) places.

Kate Flora: I’m always torn between telling people how gorgeous Bailey Island is, and keeping it a secret. But the walk to the Giant’s Stairs, or those amazing sunsets? Can’t be beat. Plus, there’s that photogenic shack adorned with lobster buoys.

 

 

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John Clark: Hard to choose a few as Beth and I have taken thousands of photos of Maine, but here are a few.

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Dick Cass: Haven’t figured out the mechanics of social distancing on the streams yet, but here’s one of my favorite[image error] (unnamed for now) trout streams:

 

 

 

And a reminder of what we’ve just come through–in the winter marsh in Scarborough.[image error]

 

 

 

And a photo  just because I like it–[image error]not Maine, but moonrise above a bluff over the Pacific Ocean in Manzanita, Oregon.

 

 

 

Maureen Milliken: I have many favorite places in Maine, but one of my favorite is our monument to nature and social distancing, Baxter State Park. Because they limit the number of people who can get in, you’re never crowded out. Our family has been going there since I was a kid. Here are some snaps.

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My sister Liz kayaking on South Branch Pond in, I believe, 2015.

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Lots of places to go!

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The Millikens all like a good book — even in the woods.

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Even when it rains, it can’t be beat. That’s sister Liz in 2017.

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That’s me on North Traveler Mountain, I believe in 2015.

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Me enjoying the wild blueberries in 1975.

I can’t wait to get back there, and if you’ve never been, plan a trip.

And I’ll leave you with this, something to think about as we all try to get through this weird, but tiny tiny, moment in time. Percival Baxter, on donating the first land for the park, which included our beautiful Katahdin, said:

“Man is born to die. His works are short-lived. Buildings crumble, monuments decay, and wealth vanishes, but Katahdin in all it’s glory forever shall remain the mountain of the people of Maine.”

UPDATE: Since I wrote this a few days ago, the Baxter State Park Authority announced it won’t open to camping, vehicles and above-the-treeline hiking until July 1 this year. At least we know it’ll be there when we’re on the other side of this!

Brenda Buchanan:   I’m glad I’m not the only one unable to confine myself to one beautiful photo of Maine.  Here are four for your viewing/remembering/aspiring to visit pleasure, and a bonus photo from our 2017 trip to Ireland. We were scheduled to travel there this week, and Scotland, too, but the pandemic changed our plans:

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Rosa Rugosa in bloom on the shore of Swan’s Island on a June afternoon. I can almost smell them . . .

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The sea on a memorable January beach walk at Pine Point in Scarborough

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Lobster traps frame the boats at Cape Porpoise Harbor in Kennebunkport.

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A sublime sunset on Allen Cove, Brooklin.

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View from the other side of the North Atlantic, taken from Slea Head Drive along the Wild Atlantic Way, Co. Kerry, Ireland, home of my maternal ancestors.

 

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

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Maureen Milliken: Still working on a standalone domestic thriller and hoping to get to the fourth Bernie O’Dea mystery once I’m done, but meanwhile, if you’re looking for something a little different, check out the true crime podcast I do with my sister artist Rebecca Milliken, Crime & Stuff. We’ll have a new episode up shortly (some technical issues), of a New Hampshire crime, but we have plenty of Maine ones and others — 73 and counting — to keep you entertained.

In case you missed it yesterday, Susan Vaughan says: If, like me, you’re at home, here’s your chance for new reading matter. The e-book of the first book in my DARK Files series, Dark Vision, is free on Amazon starting today, April 17, and ending April 21.

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

English Can Be Weird

Being sequestered during this coronavirus crisis is difficult for us all, and will become more so as the weather warms and spring growth explodes. Although I’m working on a new book (set in summer, so maybe this is getting to me already), I’m spending more time online reading the news and laughing at memes about hoarded toilet paper. For this language nerd, it’s also an opportunity to edit mentally as I read and listen. If you hate grammar, you have my permission to read no further. This post is about changing and meandering usage and spelling in English.

Although I taught seventh grade language arts for eight years once upon a time, I did not major in English, but have long enjoyed the peculiarities of the language. The English language began and developed over a thousand years into the tongue we speak and write [image error]today. Invasions by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes brought its beginnings to England. Christianity brought by St. Augustine and his followers introduced Latin and Greek influence, and the language was further transformed by the French language because of the Norman Conquest. Many words used in courtrooms today derive from Old French—attorney, bailiff, defendant, jury, mortgage—to name a few. If you’ve ever wondered why English is so hard to spell and has so many variations, as well as silent letters, you have all those invasions to blame. Living languages change and grow with new discoveries, new technologies, new immigrants, wars, and wider communication. One example is something I read often in novels and hear and read daily on various media by the media.

MEDIA. According to grammarphobia.com, the word media is considered a plural noun and should take a plural verb, as in “The media are all agog over the latest Tweets.” Radio is a medium of communication, TV is a medium, and together they are media. But of course, language changes, and given the daily misuse, it won’t be long before media will be considered acceptable by all as plural. We may already be there.

[image error]ALL RIGHT VS ALRIGHT. The spelling variation (or error, depending on your viewpoint) alright has been creeping into informal writing since the 1980’s, although its first usage appeared in the 1880’s. I’m convinced that when Pete Townshend wrote “The Kids Are Alright” for The Who, he simply made a spelling error. However, the creators of the 2010 film The Kids Are All Right couldn’t bring themselves to use the informal variant even if the title was a clear nod to The Who. And today in informal writing, you’ll see alright, but it should never appear in edited text, according to Dictionary.com. At least for now.

ALL OF A SUDDEN VS ALL OF THE SUDDEN VS ALL THE SUDDEN.  All of a sudden may not seem grammatical because we generally use sudden as an adjective, as in “the sudden storm” or “his sudden outburst.” Many idioms defy rules, however. At one time sudden was a noun, derived from the Latin into the Anglo-Norman French sudein, and becoming sudden in the 1500s. All of a sudden is an idiom that has been in the vernacular for a long time. But how did we get the alternate forms? [image] All of the sudden and all the sudden started popping up in the 1980s as slang variants, and with the advent of social media have become more prevalent. Maybe in another hundred years, the new options will be the standard, but according to Motivated Grammar, all of a sudden is the standard idiom in contemporary English.

FARTHER/FURTHER. These are words that both mean “at a greater distance,” but have gone different directions on either side of the Pond. In the U.S., farther is most often used to refer to physical distances, and further to refer to figurative and nonphysical distances. I might say, “Moosehead Lake is farther away from me than Damariscotta Lake,” and “Before we go any further, how much further has your investigation gone, and has the suspect run any farther away?” In the British Commonwealth, further is preferred for all senses of the word. That seems a lot easier for all, and is possibly how that usage evolved.

AWESOME/DECEMBER/DECIMATE. Sometimes words stray from their roots. Awesome originally meant “deserving of awe,” and awful to mean full of awe. The Latin root decem means “ten, but December is our twelfth month. The same discrepancy crops up for September, October, and November because the ancient Roman calendar had only ten months in the year. Two more were eventually added, shifting the numbering but not the words.

Decimate also contains that pesky root meaning “ten,” and originally meant “to select by lot and kill every tenth man” or “to take the tenth (or tithe) by exacting a tax of ten percent.” The former usage, killing a tenth of a group, comes from a brutal practice of the ancient Roman army. A unit or regiment that was guilty of a severe crime, such as mutiny [image error]or desertion, was punished by selecting and executing one tenth of its soldiers. A certain way to scare the rest into compliance. Merriam-Webster also includes the meanings that we hear most of the time now: “to reduce drastically in number  and to cause great destruction or harm, “ as in “Carpet bombing decimated the city” and “Spraying decimated the mosquito population.” I’ve found decimate used recently in reporting on the effects of the coronavirus stay-at-home policies. Here’s one example. Cleveland, Ohio journalist Peter Krouse wrote that hotel taxes were down by about ten percent of normal revenue, “as occupancy rates have been decimated.”

Detours and developments in English have many causes, perhaps more in the twenty-first century than in the past. We are a more diverse society. Grammar is not being taught as rigorously, partly because so much more must be covered in school at all levels. More slang is creeping into our speech and writing from TV and other media. Speech in general is less formal than in many previous generations. The greatest and fastest changes may stem from the speed of technological development and the availability of communication and prevalence of travel. Our English language is changing almost daily.

Does anyone else find it hard to keep up? Does anyone have a new word or phrase to mention or an old one that you see/hear changing?

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If like me you’re at home, here’s your chance for new reading matter. The e-book of the first book in my DARK Files series, Dark Vision, is free on Amazon starting today, April 17, and ending April 21.

Insult Added to Injury

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, staying at home because I’m old. I thought I was handling social distancing pretty well. After all, I’m something of a hermit anyway. The biggest difference in my schedule was a switch from going into town six days out of seven to get the mail and pick up odds and ends of groceries to staging a once-a-week-do-everything-all-at-once marathon.

Then, on Thursday, April 9 at mid-afternoon, the rain changed to heavy, wet snow. At 5:30, just after we finished an early supper, the power went out. Given the snow and wind, this wasn’t unexpected, but it hit me hard. After shutting down the computer, still running on the UPS backup battery, I curled up on the sofa and declared I was taking a nap. The husband got a fire going in the wood stove [image error]and dug out the battery and attachment that provides enough juice to power a lamp and recharge our iPads. We were already prepared for winter storm outages. It’s only April, after all, and this is Maine. Twenty-two years ago we lived through the ice storm of ’98—a whole week without power. Some lessons you never forget. We have a large bucket of water in the bathtub for flushing (no power=no pump to bring water into the house from the well) and a supply of camping gear: [image error]propane powered hot plate, lantern, flashlights, even an old-fashioned coffee pot. Did you know you can open up pods and use the contents like ground coffee? We keep lots of jugs filled with well water around, for washing and cooking, and a supply of bottled spring water for drinking and making coffee.

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A half hour later, power was restored, but we didn’t trust that it would stay on. We were right. At 8:30, it went out again, and this time it stayed out . . . for sixty-four hours and forty minutes. That’s right. It didn’t come on again until Sunday afternoon.

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We knew when we got up on Friday that we were in for a long haul. Trees and powerlines were coated with snow and there was about eight inches on the ground. One of our apple trees had been uprooted by high winds and a pretty birch in the yard was broken right in two.

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No electricity means no cable, no Internet, no WiFi, and no running water. For a while our landline still worked, but then it went out, too. Yes, we have cell phones, but they’re not smart phones—that would be a waste of money because we live in a “dead zone” for cell service. In short, communication with the outside world was pretty much cut off from Thursday evening until Sunday afternoon, and even after the power was restored, cable and WiFi were still out, so we couldn’t check email, Facebook, or blogs, or search for news of what had happened in the rest of the world while we were cut off. More on that later.

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If we hadn’t been in the middle of a pandemic, we might have driven somewhere (Pizza Hut comes to mind) that still had power and offers free WiFi . . . but maybe not. As it turned out, about two thirds of the state of Maine lost power at about the same time we did. The governor ordered Central Maine Power and Emera Maine to focus on hospitals and group homes and other similar facilities before the rest of us. Sensible, but I felt sorry for anyone who was at home and sick, a not inconsequential number even in rural Maine. The worst health issue we had to face was the loss of power to run the CPAP machine I use at night to control my sleep apnea. As an alternative treatment, I spent the three nights of the outage sleeping semi-upright on the recliner end of the sofa.

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As the hours dragged into days, the effects of the storm added insult to the injury we’ve all been enduring with self isolation. Things we’d been counting on to see us through were suddenly gone or in danger of disappearing.

Food was no problem at first. We had plenty, and by not opening the freezer or the refrigerator door any more than necessary, we knew it would keep . . . for a while. The ice cream went first. It was a hardship, but we poured it into glasses and drank it through big straws. Waste not, want not, right? After the first forty-eight hours, however, the food situation was getting worrisome. We’d already put the contents of the fridge into coolers, added snow, and put them on the porch to keep everything cold, but all the extra food we’d bought and put in the freezer, to reduce trips to the store during the pandemic, was starting to defrost. We cooked and ate some, but there’s a limit to what you can prepare in a skillet and a saucepan. The frozen vegetables were first into the trash. A lot of meat was destined to follow.

In the adding insult category, that night the temperature outside dropped to twenty-two degrees. It got down to fifty-eight inside, since we were deliberately letting the wood fire go out while we were sleeping. A lot of what we’d transferred from the refrigerator to coolers on the porch froze, while what was in the freezer continued to thaw into pulpy, watery masses. By Sunday morning,  packages of chicken and hamburger had gone past the point where we dared eat them. The frozen pizza might still be good, but only if we could eat it that day. We were seriously considering digging the grill out of the garage and trying to use it like an oven. When the power came back on that afternoon, it was pizza for supper after all.

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Have I mentioned the challenge of washing dishes when the power’s out? Cleaning plates, glasses, mugs, and cutlery isn’t easy when you have to heat the water to wash with on the wood stove and then pour more out of a jug to rinse off the soap. Pots and pans in need scrubbing get a lick and a promise. First priority when the power came on and hot water was available again, however, was not doing the dishes. It was taking a shower and washing my hair!

 

We missed getting news of the outside world while the power was out. Without WiFi or cable, we couldn’t watch the news on television or read newspapers and magazine articles online. We couldn’t tune in for the daily news briefing from the Maine CDC. Maybe it wasn’t entirely bad to take a few days off from hearing the latest death total, but not knowing was hard, too. We have three different battery operated radios in the house, but lousy reception. None of the stations we could get seemed to have regular news or weather forecasts, or if they do, we weren’t lucky enough to stumble on them. After a while, we gave up trying. A little talk radio goes a long way!

Entertainment we’ve come to take for granted also disappeared. There was no TV, no streaming from Amazon Prime or any other service, and no power to run the DVD player. Yes, we had plenty of books, both downloaded onto our iPads and in print format, but one disadvantage of using a wood stove for heat is very dry air. The eyes give out after a while. To alternate, I did some writing and editing by hand, worked on the current jigsaw puzzle, and listened to the book on tape I’d had going in my car. Yes, I do mean book on tape. On the principal of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” I still listen to audio cassettes on a Walkman.

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On Sunday morning, my husband finally dug out his cell phone, found a spot where he could get reception, and called Central Maine Power. The phone tree was a disaster. Their computer couldn’t understand why we weren’t calling from our landline, the phone number they have on file for us. Then they wanted phone number, account number, and social security number (say what?). Declining that option, he finally reached a real person, and without being put on hold, either. She was delightful. She had just gotten her power back that morning herself. She told us that at 6AM Easter Sunday morning there were still 30,000 outages in the state but that everyone was expected to have their power back by 10 PM. We didn’t necessarily believe her, but her words were encouraging. The contact was also proof that we were not, after all, the last survivors of a zombie apocalypse.

I passed the day proofreading the book I have due June first, reading, listening to that book on tape, and cleaning the refrigerator. Hey—it was empty. How often does that happen?

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When the power came back on, the first thing we did was flush the toilets. Then we waited for the water heater to heat up again so we could take those showers. Then I washed lots and lots of dirty dishes. Not too surprisingly, although we also got phone service to our landline back, we were still without cable and thus without television, Internet, and WiFi, although we could now watch DVDs again. A call to Spectrum confirmed that there were outages due to the storm. Unfortunately, as we soon discovered, that’s not why we’d lost our connection.

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The cable line runs to our house from the telephone pole on the other side of the road. The heavy snow made it sag low enough to be snagged by something sticking up from the top of a passing truck and it was literally ripped free. We weren’t the only ones this happened to, and no one can say how long it will take Spectrum to fix the lines. The upshot is that in order to access the Internet to check email and Facebook, I have to drive into town and sit in the car in front of the (closed) public library. And this blog? Well, it’s on my pc. As I composed this, I had no idea if I’ll be able to post it at Maine Crime Writers on schedule on Thursday the sixteenth.

That was definitely adding insult to injury!

EPILOGUE: When did the cable and Internet and WiFi come back on? Our original call for service on Sunday apparently got lost. When we called again on Wednesday, working our way through another of those wonderful phone trees, and finally convinced a real person that it wasn’t just a matter of throwing a switch (the cable is lying on the ground, folks!), they promised someone would take care of it that day. At around one, a computerized phone call informed us that “Matthew” was on his way. The same computer with the same message phoned us at four, at five-thirty, and at seven. At seven-thirty (dusk), Matthew arrived. He came to us from New Hampshire by way of Bangor. Don’t ask! Until almost nine he was still sitting in his truck in our driveway waiting for the bigger truck with the bucket to arrive so they could run a new line from the telephone pole on the other side of U. S. Rt. 2 to our house. We were back in business at 9:13. Yea!

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With the (now possibly tentative) June 30,2020 release of A Fatal Fiction, Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett will have had sixty-two books traditionally published. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries and the “Deadly Edits” series as Kaitlyn. As Kathy, her most recent book is a collection of short stories, Different Times, Different Crimes but there is a new, standalone historical mystery, The Finder of Lost Things, in the pipeline for October. She maintains three websites, at www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com and another, comprised of over 2000 mini-biographies of sixteenth-century English women, at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women.

Birds Of a Feather, Not Flocking Together

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MAJOR DISTANCING VIOLATIONS …

Good news! Despite birders’ tendency to flock together in groups and share their spotting scopes, birding is actually a fine way to explore the outdoors with a friend or even grand-kids, without getting too close. You can drive separately, walk six feet apart but be close enough to ask, “What on earth was that?”

[image error]I once stood on a dirt road with the amazing Bob Duchesne while he heard and identified every bird around us. Now you can stand on a road in the Maine woods with Bob too. You should be smiling watching this video because he doesn’t seem to notice the bugs— just a wealth of birds. Spring migration and nesting time is birding time. (This will make you smile, guaranteed. He’s so into it.)

Maine owes a huge debt to Bob Duchesne, not only for his years of service in the Maine legislature, but also for most everything to do with the creation of the Maine Birding Trail.

At this time of distancing, with the help of the Merlin Bird ID (my favorite), you, too, can discover birds you never knew existed. (Merlin info below.)

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You can even order your grand-kids special “kid” binoculars and, meeting up somewhere and keeping your distance, walk a field or woods road, or watch a pond together … apart but also sharing wildlife in intimate ways. [image error]Create a “seen” list and share it back and forth on line. Here’s a good check list.  http://www.mainebirdingtrail.com/Checklist.html

Find kid binoculars here. https://www.birdwatching-bliss.com/binoculars-for-kids.html

The Maine Birding Trail consists of 82 official sites. A free guide to download is available.

If you want more, get the “Maine Birding Trail: The Official Guide to More than 260 Accessible Sites.” Many are off the beaten track away from crowds. The guide has over 100 maps and secrets for finding various species. (Call your local book store. Most are happy to mail it out or deliver curbside.)[image error]

Now about the Merln Bird ID. It’s free. It’s perfect for a phone. In the Bird ID Wizard, answer three simple questions about a bird you are trying to identify and Merlin will come up with a list of possible matches. Merlin offers quick identification help for all levels of bird watchers to learn about the birds across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia.

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Tip: Cup your hands behind your ears and pull them forward a bit. This weird move acts like a sound funnel. Kids like this.

Or snap a photo of a bird and Merlin Photo ID will offer a short list of possible matches. Photo ID works completely offline, so you can identify birds in the photos you take when you are far from cell service.

Birds are central to my long delayed and now even more delayed novel, Deadly Turn. (Publishers are having a hard time, too.)  In it, birds and bats and Maine’s mountains and wind power are all wrapped into a murder mystery. I learned a lot about eagles, and while my husband thinks they are inferior to osprey, I am now a certified bald eagle fan.

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In the following excerpt, the novel’s narrator meets one close up, and  initiates or imagines …  a conversation. (Sign up to get publication news and read the first three chapters.)

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I didn’t see the deer carcass on the far side of the dam until a bald eagle landed on it. Each jab of his curved beak brought up something red and stringy. He may have been eating, but his intense yellow eyes tracked every move I made.

He wasn’t bald. White feathers overlapped his head and cascaded around his shoulders in a fashionable shag haircut. His feet looked like bright yellow rain boots with knives at each toe. I had a flash of a James Bond movie where lethal objects snap out of everyday items and kill people. A bit of white brow sagged over each eagle eye, gathering darkness into his stare.

I reached down to scratch my ankle. He swiveled his head almost one hundred and eighty degrees until his eyes locked onto mine—eyes so close across his narrow skull they didn’t even look cross-eyed. He just looked like the most intelligent, pissed off being I’ve ever seen. The huge bird had eyes that didn’t blink, not even when I sat on a log and hung my feet over the edge of the dam into the pond. Not even when I pulled off my shirt, dragged it in the water, and put it back on wet.

The eagle was offering a serious inquisition from a top predator to someone lower and more lackluster in the food chain. I felt like I was about to get arrested, so I thought about being polite. That looks tasty. Bet that’s something yummy the boy left you. Don’t worry about me. I’ve got a granola bar.

No closer. I already spared you once when you arrived.

Got it. You on personal terms with the boy?

I watch him. He watches me. He leaves me meat when he finds it on the road.

Roadkill? That sounds extra special.

Most humans would drive on by. You as well. This boy is not like other humans. The eagle ripped more flesh and gave it a slight toss to catch it in the air. Your kind doesn’t even eat what it kills.

When he buried his head in the carcass, I turned my face into the sun, feeling the edge of cool as shadows grew longer over the pond. At the sound of a rough engine, the bird grabbed a stringy chunk and struggled to lift it and himself into the air. One wing cuffed the edge of my ponytail, so I bent double and grabbed my ankles. At lift off, wind from his wings rippled the water. His shadow was as wide as the pond.[image error]

Sandy’s novel “Deadly Trespass, A Mystery in Maine,” was a finalist in this year’s Maine Literary Awards, a recipient of a Mystery Writers of America national award, a national finalist in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association “Rising Star” contest, and a runner- up in Maine’s Joy of the Pen competition. She lives in the Maine woods and says she’d rather be “fly fishing, skiing remote trails, paddling near loons, or just generally out there.” Find more info on the trailer and her website. Her Mystery in Maine novel, “Deadly Turn,” will be in bookstores sometime in 2020