Lea Wait's Blog, page 140

Bosu Juggling, Vegan Pizza, and the End of the World as We Know It (?)

I just realized yesterday that I completely blanked out my March post. The day just…came and went, and somehow I missed it. I didn’t even realize I’d missed it, literally until Sunday, April 12th. I don’t know if that’s the way it is for you right now, but my days seem to be running in that vein lately. And it’s not even like things have changed that much for us in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, since Ben and I both already worked from home. I’m not able to take Marji to the dog park or the beach, but we take walks whenever and wherever it’s safe to do so given social distancing guidelines. But, suddenly I feel like I need hazard pay each time I go to the grocery store, I’ve learned how to sew a cloth mask, and I need to take a Xanax if I plan to watch all of the evening news broadcast.

Despite all that, we’re gradually adjusting to the changes. I like that life is slower, I love that carbon emissions are down, and I’m discovering that one tank of gas is totally sufficient for a month. I get up in the morning and do a workout, take Marji for her walk, and then do some light housecleaning and get down to the business of writing.

Here is a video of me doing part of my daily workout regimen, which involves juggling while balancing on one leg on a Bosu ball. My whole workout is not this, and this was actually shot back in February so I’ve gotten better (and also a little slimmer), but I feel like this is the most noteworthy aspect of my workouts.

Beyond that, life is mostly about what we’re going to have for dinner that night. So this week, I’m doing a daily post on Facebook detailing what we had for dinner the night before. Because this is our world now. Since I’m doing the posts on Facebook about our dinners, it seemed that would also work well here.

So… Ben is vegan. I’m mostly plant-based, but I do eat eggs and occasionally fish. Our dinners, however, are always vegan since we eat together. Last night was pizza night (my favorite night of the week).

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I make dough in advance following this recipe: https://www.foodnetwork.com/…/bo…/pizza-dough-recipe-1921714. They say it makes two crusts, but we like thin-crust pizza so we usually get three out of it. I divide the dough into three segments, wrap in plastic wrap, and pop them in the freezer, where they keep very well for weeks. In early afternoon of the day we’ll be using one, we take a dough out of the freezer and let it sit and thaw on the counter for a few hours.

We discovered Miyoko’s vegan mozzarella (https://miyokos.com/) a few months ago, and I was so incredibly happy. Vegan cheese has come a LONG way, y’all. I’m not a fan of Daiya or a lot of the early cheese options for vegans, but IMO Miyoko’s and Chao have really changed the game for plant-based eaters.

Ben is the cooker of the pizza ninety-nine out of a hundred times, because he knows how to do that thing where he throws the dough in the air and it spins and flattens out and stuff. I can’t compete with that. Also, his pizza tastes amazing. He makes his own red sauce using diced tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, pepper, sugar, as well as dried oregano and basil, and some balsamic vinegar and sometimes some crushed red pepper. Then, he adds the veg mozzarella, a Field Roast (https://fieldroast.com/) Italian sausage (again, obviously vegan), and whatever vegetables we have on hand. Last night, it was onion, red pepper, mushroom, black olives, and zucchini. I’m also partial to broccolini (which is what we had on the pizza pictured), spinach, or broccoli rabe. Once fully loaded, the pizza is baked in an oven preheated to 450 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.

And that’s what life looks like ’round here. What about you? Did you celebrate Easter? Are you sitting down to dinner, or just grabbing food when you’re hungry? How has life changed in your realm?

Weekend Update: April 11-12, 2020

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be a posts by Jen Blood (Monday), Sandra Neily (Tuesday), Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Thursday) and Susan Vaughan (Friday).

 

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

Here’s a link to the PW Review of The Faking of The President: Nineteen Stories of White House Noir, the new anthology Kate Flora has a story in: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-941110-89-8

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We’re all disappointed that the Maine Crime Wave has been cancelled, but better safe than sorry in these scary times.

 

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

Hunkering Down & Social Distancing

We’re hunkering down here in SoPo and waiting for the Corona Virus to run it’s course. All four of us. No work and no play. No restaurants or hitting the pub. No baseball or hockey games. My son is home from college taking online classes, when he’d rather be in Miami going to parties and enjoying the good weather. My daughter is also taking online classes. She’s the only one still working because pets need to eat too. It’s snowing as a I write this. Cold too.

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For me as a writer, it’s been a mixed blessing. While I’ve had plenty of time to work on my new novel, all my publicity events for my upcoming novel, THE PERFECT DAUGHTER, have been canceled. This has never happened and it really sucks. On the other hand, there’s not much you can do about it. It is what it is. Lots of family time, reading and watching movies.

We’re in uncharted waters here. Is this a real pandemic or an illness that’s been overblown for various reasons? Older people are especially vulnerable, as are people with compromised immune systems. The flu kills thousands of people each year. Everyone has their own opinion on the matter. Perception right now, however, equals reality.

I hope all this blows over by May and we can return to our everyday lives. I hope to have a new novel out by then and another novel in the books, no pun intended. Hopefully, the crime rate has been low and even the criminals practiced social distancing. Domestic abuse, too. I wonder how many infants will be born nine months from now, young couples cooped for so long. What will be the long term repercussions from this pandemic event? I’m sure there will be movies and books written about it, and we’ll look back on this time in American history with varying perspectives.

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Hope you all stay safe and healthy. Also hope you can pick up a copy of my new thriller novel, THE PERFECT DAUGHTER (Kensington), which hopefully will get published on April 28th. In any case, catch you on the other side of this pandemic.

Best and stay healthy!

Joe

You need Feet, Frost (you say), and Witty Ditties to Survive

John Clark checking in from solitary confinement where I’m serenaded by a new sump pump and sounds of semis rumbling on the I-95 overpass a couple hundred feet from our home. With Beth going to our daughter’s house in Belgrade 5 days a week, I’m left with Bernard Hagrid Dumbledore (our ten year old dog) and the thoughts in my head to occupy endless hours. Herewith are some of the coping skills honed during this nearly impossible time in our lives.

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Humor is my biggest salvation. Some is self-generated. In fact, I drive Beth nuts on the weekends while I come up with endless bits of absurdia while watching the squirrels search for acorns and taunting the neighbor’s cat in the back yard. We also have cardinals pass through once in a while, but I’m holding out for the Pope.

There’s online fun aplenty if you know where to look. Start with Maine humorist Gary Crocker. I met Gary some 40 years ago when I was the adult education director at AMHI and he worked for the Department of Education. He might be getting up there, but he’s as sharp as ever. If you like dry Maine humor, check hi Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL332834B20D672798 or look him up on Facebook where he’s doing a daily short video to keep up morale. (https://www.facebook.com/gary.crocker.33)

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If you’re a Facebook user, one of the funniest groups there is the Unitarian Universalist Hysterical Coffee Hour (https://www.facebook.com/groups/UUHystericalSocietyCoffeeHour/) It’s perhaps the funniest and most creative group online. I guarantee you’ll find some belly laugh worthy memes there.

For those who like and remember obscure and not so obscure ditties, almost every song, or bad movie reference you ever saw or heard is out there. Look at a clip from Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, Tom Rush singing Making the Best of A Bad Situation, Peter, Paul and Mary doing Talking Candy Bar Blues, Peter and Gordon singing You Need Feet, or any song that got stuck in your head over the years.

One last must see on Youtube is the fabulous Tom Lehrer in a 50 minute performance in Denmark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHPmRJIoc2k&t=41s

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Of course, there are books. I’ve read 131 thus far this year, and have an even bigger stash in case the apocalypse arrives in full bore. If you’re looking for funny books, consider Pest Control by Bill Fitzhugh, Mash and Mash Goes To Maine by Richard Hooker. Neither could be published today because of all the ‘isms’ in them, but they’re funny as hell. For sheer insanity, get a copy of Naked Came The Manatee, The ultimate ‘write a chapter and then see what the next fool does with it’ book, with the first chapter done by Dave Barry. Early Carl Hiaasen (before he let funny get trumped by outrage) is also good for times like this.

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Now, I’d like to hear about your coping strategies during this real time version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

My Thoughts Are Like Sanderlings

During this trying time my brain frequently skitters from thought to thought in approximately the same manner as this flock of sanderlings feeding along the line of an incoming tide. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh71ExBEXfI

The best I can do under the circumstances is to offer some random thoughts, connected and not.

   The Maine CDC is a model of responsible, informative communication.  Respect and thanks are due Dr. Nirav Shah and the entire CDC staff, as well as Governor Janet Mills for her clear, calm leadership.

   I’m awed by the courage of the nurses, doctors and first responders on the front lines. They truly are heroes.

   Great credit goes also to the Maine press. The substance and tone of the news coverage has been uniformly good. I feel informed and comforted, even as the numbers climb and the ramifications multiply.

   It’s not easy to find the focus to write fiction, but it’s a balm when it happens. This past weekend I managed to hang out in the world of my imaginary friends for a few blessed hours, spelunking for plot holes, having arcane debates with myself about grammatical construction, adding a dash more tension here, eliminating a bit of wordiness there. It was such a relief to have that escape.

   Watching binge-worthy TV helps. Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu is not to be missed. Various mystery/crime shows on Britbox and Acorn are a welcome way to tune out current events overload. World War II-era shows like Foyle’s War are valuable reminders that those who raised us survived years of uncertainty and heartbreak and somehow emerged the stronger for it.

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Crocus blooming in our yard.

   At least it’s spring. The long days are such a lift. Our crocuses are up, the daffodils will be soon. We’re preparing to seed the cold frame-lidded raised bed with spinach, chard and salad greens.

   I went online and completed my 2020 census data. Have you?  If not, stand up and be counted. Here’s the link: https://my2020census.gov/

   Hand sanitizer sure is hard to find in stores, but if you’re like me, you may have little stashes of it in various places around the house. I found a two-ounce bottle in a Crime Bake tote bag from last year, labeled “Creative Juices.” Thank you to whoever thought up this perfect piece of swag. I unearthed another couple of bottles in my golf bag. Happily, rubbing alcohol doesn’t go bad.

   Parents of young children stress the need to keep kids on a routine. We don’t talk much about that once we hit adulthood, but in times of stress there’s real comfort in knowing what’s going to happen in the next 24 hours. I find myself making detailed lists and laying out my clothing for the next day before I go to bed each night. Silly? Maybe. Calming? Absolutely.

   Isn’t it great how much new technology we’re all learning? Video chats with family and friends lessens the isolation, ours and theirs. One of my colleagues on this blog has been Zooming with his 93-year-old parents. So impressive.

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No crowds during our beach walk on Sunday, April 5.

   Regular readers of this blog are familiar with the Buchanan/Kenty Sunday beach walk ritual. Most Maine beaches are closed now, a sad but necessary step. In our experience, people are maintaining responsible social distance at those beaches that remain open. If you go out walking—whether at the shore or on one of the many trails maintained by Maine’s local land trusts—mind the need for a 6-foot minimum gap between yourself and others. The outdoors feeds our souls, in good times and bad. Remember to honor the privilege.

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Brenda and Diane, maintaining healthy social distance.

Brenda Buchanan is the author of the Joe Gale Mystery Series, featuring a diehard Maine newspaper reporter who covers the crime and courts beat. Three books— QUICK PIVOT, COVER STORY and TRUTH BEAT—are available everywhere e-books are sold.  These days she’s hard at work on new projects.

And I Thought I knew What NOIR Was

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Vaughn

Back in 2002, I attended New England CrimeBake, the initial one. Jerry Healy was the keynote speaker of the single day event held at Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill, Massachusetts. During the conference I was asked what I wrote and I replied Noir. The novel I was writing at that time was My Brother’s Keeper, Skyhorse Publishing, July 2019. I recently reread what I wrote–it was not nor will it ever be noir.

Noir is an offshoot of hard-boiled fiction, think Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain. It was strongly influenced by the cinematic works of Robert Mitchum, early Alan Ladd, and Humphrey Bogart. I believe that the first movie I ever saw that was truly noir was White Heat with Jimmy Cagney.

Noir consists of a number of elements.

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My Brother’s Keeper

a. The protaganist is usually an outcast. For instance, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. In the opening scene Hammer is introduced as having served in the military in WWII (in the latter novels Hammer was a Korean War vet — Spillane didn’t want his protaganist to be in his late eighties — a problem when you write a series using the same protagoanist for more than fifty years ) Throughout the series Hammer only has two friends, his secretary Velda and police Captain Pat Chambers, with whom Mike is often at odds.

b. The noir protaganist is not a hero. Hammer is a good example of this. In most of the books, he finds the antagonist but rather than turn them in to the police, he shoots them.

c. In noir no one on Earth has any hope and they are usually driven by some personal purpose. Be it revenge, greed, or any of a myriad of reasons. In Hammer’s case it’s usually revenge, but he also spends a lot of time uncovering a great conspiracy–usually rich men and politicians.

[image error]d. There is usually a sexy woman involved. How many detective movies have you scene where a young attractive woman walks into his office (seldom if ever was the detective a woman). When watching noir movies or reading some of the books keep in mind the time and place most that I have seen take place in the 1940s and 50s. Think Jack Nicholson in Chinatown.

e. Noir characters are usually (not always) nocturnal. The movies usually take place at night and are filmed in a manner that makes the viewer believe that all crime happens at night on rain soaked streets with streetlights that give insufficient illumination.

f. Noir is primarily written in first person so that the reader is in the protagonist’s head–in many noir movies the protagonist narrates. It leaves open the prospect that maybe the protagonist POV is isn’t telling the story the way it happened. Is he (or she) deluded, confused,  or just outright lying. Now before you write a comment on POV, you don’t have to use first person–use the one that is best for your story.

g. The mystery is usually the murder of a young woman. Your protagonist need not be a private detective or a disillusioned police office. It can be an amateur like a veteran returns from the war to learn that his wife has been murdered. You get the basic plot it’s been done [image error]enough. Keep in mind item a. above.

h. Very few noir stories take place in small town in rural America. Marlowe stayed in L. A. and Hammer the streets and allies of New York. However, don’t be afraid to take noir out of the city. The Postman Always Rings Twice takes place in a small country local. How about the Bates Hotel?

i. To satisfy the diehard noir fan you must have violence. Somewhere along the line the protagonist is going to get the snot knocked out of him (Nicholson’s detective in Chinatown has his nose restructured with a knife).

j. There ain’t no happy ending. At its core, noir is about broken dreams. In short, make sure your protagonist is left no better off than they started. In our example of the vet trying to find his wire’s murderer–he identifies the killer, but he is a wealthy politician and everyone in town owes him for something. Net result killer gets off and protagonist is forced to leave town.

k. Keep your writing simple, direct, and hard. Just get to the point and make it snappy.

In closing, as much as I would like to write noir, I don’t. I also better mention that if you are writing noir you do not have to hit all eleven elements. It may help to keep in mind that noir is protest literature. I’ll get into that in my next blog.

Weekend Update: April 4-5, 2020

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be a posts by Vaughn Hardacker (Monday), Brenda Buchanan (Tuesday), John Clark (Thursday) and Joe Souza (Friday).

 

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

Well…like the rest of you, we are all quarantined. But we’re looking forward to some of the great Maine events that lie ahead, if they don’t have to be canceled.

The Maine Crime Wave, June 19 & 20. Check out the details here: http://mainewriters.org/maine-crime-wave/

Books in Boothbay, Maine’s annual author event, perfectly combined with a trip to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. https://www.mainegardens.org

Books in Boothbay 2020

July 11, 2020, 9 AM – 1:00 PM, Boothbay Railway Village

We hope to be spending the summer in Maine libraries, doing our fun programs like Making a Mystery. This summer, if we can resurrect ourselves from isolation, we’ll be introducing a new program: Casting Call: How We Shape The Characters Who Carry The Story. We hope we’ll be seeing many of you at these events.

Here are some questions for those of you who follow Maine Crime Writers:

What Would You Like From Us? Are there questions we should be answering? Insights we should be providing? Do you want to know more about the writer’s life? Or maybe less? Are we keeping you up-to-date on our new releases?

Hope to hear from you. We’re a community, even if we’re currently isolated from one another.

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 Games We’re Playing to Stay Sane

Kate Flora: Probably being in quarantine is easier for me than for many, since except for trips to the store, the occasional dinner with friends, and going to the gym, my life is pretty much unchanged. As an over 70 person with an underlying condition, I am taking the advice to be careful very seriously. In fact, I just finished washing the batch of groceries that someone picked up for me, hoping I’ve been careful enough.

People are doing a lot of good things to support each other and stay connected. This weekend some of will attend a Zoom cocktail party and my book group will Zoom together on Sunday. I even had a Zoom tap lesson earlier this week, although that was a mixed blessing, since I was revealed as a total klutz after a month away.

There are a lot of games going around on Facebook, like sharing something true about yourself that sounds make-up. I shared that one summer I was an upstairs/downstairs maid for an eccentric millionaires on Islesboro, a job that entailed constantly being on poop patrol for untrained dogs, always carrying a can of Brasso and a rag to polish up all the sea-tarnished brass, and when I turned down the beds, carrying an iron so I could iron smooth the fold in the sheets.

Another game is naming 5 concerts you’ve been to, one of which is a lie. Mine would be Joan Baez, The Rolling Stones, Bob Seeger, Bob Marley, and Bob Dylan. Can you guess which of these is a lie?

Then there’s the game of name X (you can choose the number) things everyone likes that you don’t. For me? Lamb. The Office. Loud music. Most shades of green. Flats. Breaking Bad. Schitt’s Creek. Blue Fish. Okay…you’re on.

In my neighborhood, people are putting bears in their windows for the neighborhood children to find. I just put Joey the Koala in my little library, along with a stack of juvenile and Y/A mysteries. (If you look closely, you will see me, with my unkempt hair, reflected in the glass)

And of course, everyone is kindly posting pictures of flowers and beautiful places. So here are some of those. Enjoy. Stay calm if you can. Don’t hoard toilet paper. And let us hope this makes us all kinder.

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Feuding Brothers: Who Was the Femme Fatale?

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today writing about a real life mystery I’m trying to solve. I’ve written before about some of my adventures uncovering the truth behind family stories, both my own and my husband’s. Another puzzling tale resurfaced last month, thanks to some recently rediscovered notes I made years ago when I was visiting relatives with my mother. I wrote about that trip here and touched on the mystery in that post. Since then, I’ve been doing a little sleuthing, hoping to find out more.

My mother, Marie (age 8 in 1918), and her cousin Eleanor (age 12 in 1918) both remembered the basics. Their Uncle M. H. (age 26 in 1918) was dating the local schoolteacher before he went into the army in World War I. While he was away, his brother Howd (age 22 in 1918) started dating her. When M. H. got back after the war and found out, he wasn’t pleased (to put it mildly!) and literally stopped speaking to Howd. Although they were both living at home, sharing a room in the farm/boardinghouse their parents ran (and both sleeping in the barn in the summer to make more room for boarders), they communicated only by having my mother or one of their other relatives relay the message.

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Uncle M.H. in his uniform

To say the least, I was curious about who this femme fatale might have been. Neither brother married her. Howd married in 1933. M. H. waited until 1946 to wed.

I started by asking Howd’s daughters if they’d ever heard the story. Neither had, and I think they were a bit skeptical of its veracity.

The next step was to find out a bit more about my great uncle’s time in the military. I had a photo of him in uniform, so I already had proof that he served in World War I, but I didn’t know any details. The U.S. entered the war on April 6, 1917. It ended November 11, 1918, and the last U.S. combat division left France for home in September 1919. My uncle, however, was involved for a much shorter period of time. First I found his draft card. He registered for the draft on June 5, 1917. According to the information taken down at the time, he had brown hair and brown eyes and was of medium height and build. Then, thanks to Ancestry.com, I found his service record. He was inducted as a private on September 3, 1918 and was discharged on January 30, 1919.

Wait. What?

Yes, that’s right. Uncle M. H. was away from home less than five months and was never sent overseas. The war ended when he’d been in the army just short of ten weeks.

This narrowed the time frame significantly for discovering the identity of the schoolteacher in question, and I thought I had an ace in the hole. The local one-room schoolhouse in Hurleyville, New York, where M. H. and Howd and my mother all went to elementary school, is one of the best documented in the area and the person who has all the original records is a distant cousin through M. H. and Howd’s mother. Even better, he’s someone I’ve gotten to know on Facebook and with whom I have exchanged family information and photos. I emailed him to explain my quest. He consulted the Treasurer’s Book for Columbia Hill School for 1901-1927 and sent me a list of all the female teachers from 1907-1927.

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Columbia Hill School around 1918-19 with my mother marked with an X

I wish I could say that solved the mystery, but since M. H. left town in September 1918, the teacher he’d been seeing would logically have been the one who taught in Hurleyville in 1917. You guessed it. Between 1907 and 1927 there is only one year that has no entry—1917.

In the fall of 1918, Miss Agnes Krause was hired to teach for thirty-six weeks, which seems to have been the usual school year. That would put her at the school from just about the time M. H. left and throughout the period when Howd was dating his brother’s girlfriend. Had she also been there in 1917? Did she arrive enough before M. H. left to give him time to start courting her? We will probably never know, especially since the only Agnes Krause of roughly the right age that I’ve been able to find in the records on Ancestry.com is listed as a shirt maker, not a teacher.

It’s also possible that our femme fatale was teaching at one of the other small, one-room schoolhouses in the area. There were a lot of them and several weren’t too far away. Since those young women usually boarded with local families during the school year, however, it’s most likely the woman I’m interested in taught at Columbia Hill School.

Will the mystery ever be solved? Maybe not, but I’ve learned a few interesting facts along the way, thanks to my third cousin, Paul Lounsbury. He also sent along some scans from the Treasurer’s Book. The teacher at Columbia Hill School in 1910 and 1911, Miss Florence Haley was initially hired for sixteen weeks at the princely sum of $11.00 a week, the same amount her predecessor, Miss Mary Robinson, earned with a commitment for thirty-two weeks. Florence actually received a little more than that, on one occasion getting $77.80 for seven weeks of teaching. And you thought teachers were underpaid today!

If you want to know more about the one-room schoolhouse project Paul was involved in, you can click here

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With the January 2020 publication of A View to a Kilt, Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett will have had sixty-one 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. Next up is A Fatal Fiction, in stores at the end of June. 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.

On Our Own In Maine–Part Two

As we wrote yesterday, we’re all more isolated than usual, so some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers have put together two posts to let our readers know how we’re doing with the whole self-isolation and social distancing thing. Or as Maine’s CDC head puts it, physical distancing. Social contact is still possible.

Writers regularly hole up and avoid other people in order to write our books, so we’re also in a unique position to offer a few helpful survival tips. Please feel free to comment, let us know how you’re doing, and share your own suggestions to avoid going stir crazy.

Kate Flora: As the introduction to this group post notes, most of us are good at putting

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ourselves in a chair and staying there. When I talk about the writing life, I occasionally tell the audience that the word “discipline” comes right after “imagination.” Books don’t get written because we dream about being writers. They get written because we force ourselves into the chair and to work even when we don’t want to and even when what appears on the page is more like gravel than prose. Sometimes I admit that I do grow restless, and in order to get the work done, I have a few tricks that I use. First, I set goals, either a page count or a word count. Second, I use either the Pomodoro timer app on my phone, or my green apple kitchen timer, to keep me in the chair for a set period of time. Third, because I am a confessed chocoholic, there are treats if I reach my goals.

Have a project you’ve always wanted to pursue? This might be the ideal time. Maybe you are someone who has always wanted to write a book but never had the time. There may never be a better time to try that. Go look up some of the blogs about NaNoWriMo…or national novel writing month, and put them to work, see how much you can accomplish before the stay home order is lifted. Or maybe you have some genealogy you’ve always wanted to pursue? If I can find it in my basement, I have a box of the letters my father sent my mother while he was overseas during World War II. This is an excellent time to get out the box and start reading.

I confess that when we can return to some kind of normal, I am looking forward to going to a restaurant and letting someone else do the cooking. Also hoping that the kindness and connection we are seeing, at least in my neighborhood, will last. I suggested to my neighbors that we make a “walking rope” with knots at 7′ intervals, so we could safely walk together. No takers yet.

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: Since we live year round in Maine, preparing for a normal winter means keeping a good supply of necessities on hand at all times, in case of extended power outages during an ice storm or blizzard. It was a blow when the ski areas shut down with many days perfect for skiing left in the season, but since my husband and I fall into that over-seventy-high-risk category, we can’t really complain about something so minor. He’s back to making jigsaw-puzzle tables. When his orders are filled, he’ll keep going so he’ll have stock on hand for next Christmas. I’m not writing anything new at the moment, but I am revising the manuscript for my 2021 Deadly Edits mystery and proofreading a couple of nonfiction projects I hope to publish independently as e-books when things settle down out in the big wide world.

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That still leaves me a fair amount of free time. We’ve decided to go out, briefly, only once a week for the foreseeable future—to pick up the mail at the post office and whatever groceries and/or prescriptions we’ve run out of. To keep myself from going stir crazy I could catch up on house work, but cleaning, spring or otherwise, has never been high on my to-do list. That may change, but in the meantime reading, especially re-reading some of my comfort reads, doing jigsaw puzzles, and binge watching The West Wing are much more appealing pastimes. I’m also open to learning something new. The current project is mastering Zoom on my iPad. Thank goodness for WiFi! Once I figure this out, there are all sorts of groups I can participate in. It may not be as good as meeting in person, but it sure is a lot safer.

Maine Crime Writers alum Barb Ross: I haven’t been isolating in Maine. My husband and I have been in Key West, Florida since New Year’s Day. Tomorrow we begin the 1800 mile drive home to Portland. We won’t be alone there either. On March 14, my niece and her best friend fled their closed college in New York City and they’ve been staying at our house ever since. (They’re native Mainers so they’re not putting any additional burden on our healthcare system.) But like the other authors I do have advice about working from home. Most of it will have already been given. a) Go outside every day if you can. b) Get up from your desk and move around every hour or so. My third piece of advice is to allow time for “mode-switching.” If you’ve been commuting to your job, you have, consciously or unconsciously, been using your drive time to change modes. On the drive in your mind slowly abandons the preoccupations of home and starts working on the problems of work. On your commute home, the opposite happens. Working from home, it can be helpful if you find some routine that signals to your brain it’s time to go to work. I have been using my teeth care routine, which takes several minutes. (It feels like hours.) My brain now knows that after this we’re going to work and begins its transition. In the evening, before I shut down my laptop, I have a little routine where I add the day’s files to Dropbox and whatnot, and put all the loose stuff on my desktop back in its proper folders. Your routine may vary, but I find a “mode-switching” routine very helpful.

Sandra Neily:  I am looking for things to share to make families’ lives easier.  So I am repeating some of them here (below), in case folks missed yesterday’s posting. Today, I met up with my family and grand kids at a ski area (they are closed). The kids loved sliding. I could snowshoe up and down and keep good distance. The dogs loved chasing the sled. TONS of room to separate and still have fun together. Made us feel both connected and much free-er. No playground is safe, but the snow is. You don’t have to travel far inland to find spring snow. (See below.)

And I am making an online “flip” book of my pictures and some clip art I downloaded and sending it to my grand kids. I miss reading to them but now, they can follow along on their computer as I narrative a story I created … using pictures of family and places they recognize. Think this might be good for any older folks who are isolated and would love to receive this kind of book. https://bit.ly/2Jl8S0r

Free Audio Books for Kids.  Audible has curated a huge selection for kids, aged 0 and up. Bet the sound effects are good on the toddler ones. At stories.audible.com, you will find hundreds of kids’ titles available completely free. The collection has been handpicked by editors and is a mix of stories to entertain, engage, and inform young people, ages 0–18. The experience is completely free – no log-ins, credit cards, or passwords required. Just click, stream and listen. (As a big kid who drives a lot, I downloaded some Harry Potter. The award -winning reader of this serious is amazing. A very UP treat, except for Voldemort of course.) 

Kids Get Virus Questions Answered: [image error]The NYTimes Daily podcast recorded kids’ virus questions, plays their voices, and has a perfect person answer them. In fact, send this to any person you think needs an interesting, non-preachy, lesson. (Maybe the governors of Florida and Idaho.)  There’s an adorable girl, aged 4, who asked a great question. Kudos to her parents for opening the world to her. Fearlessly. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/podcasts/the-daily/kids-coronavirus.html

Ski Areas are Closed but Not For Us Walkers/Hikers. My social distance treat is a March snowshoe or hike up hill. Parks and trails are getting closed all over. There’s been way too many people using them for us to keep safe distances and also, restrooms are closed, so it’s just not a safe place. It’s worth a trip to your nearest ski area where there are either muddy trails that offer tons of room, or spring snow conditions. [image error]Snowshoeing or hiking on snowy trails is just soul-restoring. Doggies just love the space to run and roam. Find a list here:  https://skimaine.com/

See the Happy: Put a great, happy home-screen pic of loved ones on your computer so you see it first thing. (Mine.) [image error]