Lea Wait's Blog, page 142

A Revising We Will Go

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. I’ve written before about my writing process, one that includes a great deal of revising. Usually, I start with a very short rough draft and the book gets longer with each pass. This time around, working on the fourth Deadly Edits mystery, now titled Murder, She Edited, things have gone a bit differently.

Maybe I was worried it wouldn’t be long enough. Maybe I was anxious to include everything I thought might work for the plot, since this is the last book in the current contract and you never know if the publisher will want more (HINT: if you want to insure that the series continues, you can help by pre-ordering #3, A Fatal Fiction, which has a release date of June 30, 2020). Whatever the cause, as I’ve been working on the current revision, with at least one more to come before the due date on June 1, I’ve ended up cutting, not adding.

 

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Boy have I been cutting! Lots of wordiness. Lots of unnecessary words like “just” and “very” and “suddenly” and “still” and the like. And I repeated myself way too often. You know that rule of three they talk about? Repeat important stuff three times to make sure it registers with your readers? That’s fine for some things, but if you hit readers over the head with the same theory about who dunnit and why too many times, you end up telegraphing what’s going to happen and end up with bored readers. Or you make your amateur sleuth look like an idiot, either because the theory turns out to be way off base or because it’s so obvious she shouldn’t have missed its significance. Once, maybe twice if it’s worded differently, is really enough to get the point across or plant a clue.

In general, though, my revision went pretty much the way it normally does. On some pages, like the ones shown here, hardly a word goes unchanged. In writing the early drafts I’m just trying to get ideas down on the page. Sometimes scenes are all dialogue—talking heads with no tags and, apparently, no reactions or movement or descriptive detail. It’s for good reason that this is sometimes called the sh*t draft. It’s during the revision process that the extraneous detail comes out and the telling details go in. I often move whole blocks of text around within a chapter so that the scene develops in a logical order. In this book, as I have in others before, I ended up switching the order of a couple of chapters and breaking another chapter into two.

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What’s left to do before my deadline? First, a big chunk of time away from the manuscript while I work on something completely different. I want to come back to the story able to read it as if I were coming to it fresh—as if someone else had written the book and I was just a regular reader. That distance is important if I’m going to catch errors, especially in continuity. In the interim, the text will go to my beta reader (aka husband) for his feedback. He’ll be catching typos, too.

On the next read through/revision, which I’ll probably start in mid-April, I’ll still be substituting better word choices for the ones in the current version, but hopefully not as often. I’ll be trying to add a few sensory details here and there. I’m always fine with what my sleuth sees, but letting readers know what she hears and smells and the feel of things she touches is harder for me to remember to include. Then, too, I need to go through the entire manuscript and make a “who knows what when” list, to make sure I don’t have any of my characters privy to information before they should be . . . unless, of course, that’s a clue to their villainy.

I worked on the revision I’ve just finished for nineteen straight days, a minimum of four hours a day. Most days I spent mornings revising on a printout and afternoon sessions putting those changes into the computer. Some days I revised three or four of the forty-eight chapters. Others I was lucky to manage one four or five page chapter.

 

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Proof that, somehow, it all works out in the end! With luck, #4 will be at this stage a year from now.

I have no idea how long the next pass will take, but unless my beta reader finds some major flaw in the plot, it should go more quickly that this last one. Will that be the end of it? Of course not. It has always been my goal to send a manuscript to my editor that is as close to perfect as is humanly possible. There will be at least one more revision, if only to catch as many as I can of those pesky typos that always seem to sneak into the doc file.

P.S. There is a definite upside to taking my time and doing this many revisions—it’s been a good many years since I’ve been asked to make any major changes in any book I’ve turned in. Even the copy edits tend to be light.

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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.

Weekend Update: March 14-15, 2020

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be a posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Monday), Susan Vaughan (Tuesday), Charlene D’Avanzo (Thursday) and Maureen Milliken (Friday).

 

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

 

 

 

 

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

Social Distancing in Maine Means ‘Get Out There!’

[image error]Sandra Neily here, admitting I’ve put way too many frozen veggies in the freezer. Given how some things are flying off the shelves as people prepare to stay home more, there does not seem to be a run on frozen peas and lima beans.

Seriously, this is a challenging time when daily the news sometimes makes it hard to breathe. Because it looks like I won’t be using all my Portland Stage tickets, but I will be using my skis and hiking boots, I decided to reprint part of a recent blog that helps people find wild Maine places (and support those places as well.)

I plan to take a good book, park myself on a rock near melting ice on Moosehead Lake, and be social with returning birds and deer drinking from widening puddles.

Find Wild Maine; Help Grow and Preserve Public Access

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Cold Stream Forest is part of Maine’s Public Lands

Maine’s Public Lands: Some of Maine’s most outstanding natural features and secluded locations are found on Maine’s Public Lands. The more than half million acres are managed for a variety of resource values including recreation, wildlife, and timber. See this GREAT Public Lands Video,“The Untold Secret.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=_otWtJlT_r0&feature=emb_logo

 

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Portland Trails is a land trust.

Land Trusts (Find 80 of them, here!)  One reason Maine has such an active land trust community is because Maine has the lowest percentage of public lands among all states in our region. At 6.5%, it is also one of the lowest percentages in the country, lower than 36 other states. Most of our iconic coastline (at least 95%) is privately owned.

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Boothbay Region Land Trust

Maine boasts more than 80 land trusts, community-supported, non-profits that have permanently conserved more than 2.5 million acres–12% of the state. ACTION: Find, walk, hike, hunt, fish, and paddle on Maine land trusts. Join a trust near you; donate and volunteer!

The Land for Maine’s Future Program is the State of Maine’s primary funding vehicle for conserving land for its natural and recreational value. The program was established in 1987 when Maine citizens voted to fund $35 million to purchase lands of statewide importance.

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Mt. Kineo was one of the first purchases of public land through this fund.

The prime focus remains the same – conserving the prime physical features of the Maine landscape and recognizing that working lands and public access to these lands is critical to preserving Maine’s quality of life. Most of these areas are managed as public lands.

LMF accomplishements:
59 water access sites
41 farms and 9,755 acres of farmlands conserved
25 commercial working waterfront properties
Acquisitions include 1,272 miles of shorelines of rivers, lakes and ponds, 55 miles of coastline, and 158 miles of former railroad corridors for recreational trails.
Over 600,919 acres of conservation and recreation lands. This includes 333,425 acres of working lands reflecting LMF’s efforts to conserve the working landscape and keep lands in private ownership with permanent land conservation agreements

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the Caribou Bog Recreation Area is also from the MOHF

ACTION: Contact your state Representative/Senator. Ask/her/him to always fully fund LMF bond proposals. Remind them that these purchases are always matched and supported by federal or privately raised funds. In other words, our state dollars attract millions more conservation dollars.

The Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund has been helping to fund critical wildlife and conservation projects throughout the state since it was created by the Maine Legislature in 1996, in response to a grassroots effort from environmental and sportsman’s groups who recognized that wildlife and habitat conservation were poorly funded … if at all.

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The MOHF and lots of dedicated volunteers made the Royal River Trail happen.

Supported through proceeds from a lottery ticket, MOHF often finds its funds lagging while grant proposals continue to pour in. The more tickets that are sold, the more wildlife and habitat can be protected.[image error]

Find tickets at convenience stores, gas stations, and other outlets where Maine State Lottery tickets are sold. ACTION: Buy MOHF tickets.Something simple you can do that will add up.) Thank You!*****

And from what I know of Wendell Berry, he would not mind his words being shared out at this time.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry 

Sandy writes about the disappearing Maine. Her novel, “Deadly Trespass, A Mystery in Maine,” won a national Mystery Writers of America award, was a finalist in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association “Rising Star” contest, and she’s been a finalist for a Maine Literary Award. Find her novel at all Shermans Books and on Amazon . Find more info on her website. The second Mystery in Maine, “Deadly Turn,” will be published in 2020..

Physics, Reality, Carl Jung and Why I Write

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I’ve been in a tiny bit of a rut lately. So I’ve been reading some different things, trying to loosen up my mind, studying quantum physics and the cosmos, catching up on a little Carl Jung. It has interested me in a unifying theory way and also has made me ask myself why I write these crime novels? Why I write at all?

I hated physics back in high school. It seemed too abstract, all formulas and equations. I only studied to do well on tests. But now that I’m older, I’m enjoying physics as an academic exercise, although without any of the math. It’s difficult wrapping my head around some of these mind bending issues, like the fact that there are infinities of varying shapes and sizes, but I’m trying.

One such phenomenon fascinated me and returned me to the question of why I write. It has to deal with electrons and how they are observed in experiments. Researchers have discovered that when electrons are observed, they act differently than when not observed. They act like particles and not waves, which begs the question of why? I’ve tried but can’t totally wrap my head around this phenomena. It boggles the mind, as do so many physical laws that are now being discovered.

How does this relate to writing? It made me realize that since humans are made up of particles, it’s possible that we react in the same way.. Think of a novel in a similar fashion. Does that novel sitting on the desk change itself, or the reader, in any fundamental way? But it surely undergoes a change when it’s being read. It transforms not only its ideal as a material object when being read, but it also changes the reader who is reading it. So in essence, observation really does change reality.

The universe has no morality, only physical laws that we (certainly not me) are still in the process of discovering. The universe is what it is. Does the universe care about morality or illegal and unethical acts being conducted on earth? I think not. It only abides by its own strict laws. Maybe what transcends the universe cares, a God for lack of a better term. It seems that the universe as we know it tries to maintain a balance between order and chaos.

I believe that the relationship between good and evil is similar to the yin and yang of the universe. Without evil, there cannot be good. Without knowing that evil exists within all of us, how can we ever come to terms with the true meaning of evil? The guards in Nazi Germany could just as easily have been us under the right conditions. To say that we as individuals would have ever performed such a brutal act denies the essence of our humanity: that we are endowed with both good and evil. Our unique purpose in life is to keep the evil in check. It is to understand the evil that lives within us and strive every day to reject it as an option. Only by admitting our duality can we ever hope to grow as a human race and prevent this from happening again.  I believe this is one of the reasons I write crime novels. The best villains are not just the simplistic bad guys, but nuanced and complex humans who have decided through free will to do bad things.

Here’s what Carl Jung said about it. “Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected.”

Most of the great stories throughout history seek to explain the balance between what is right and what is wrong. The Old Testament vacillates between order and chaos, and developing a moral society. So does the hit zombie show, The Walking Dead. Marvel comics continually tell these epic stories that ricochet between chaos and order. The goal of the writer is to continue to push human narrative and elevate the higher consciousness of humanity. Like beautiful music that takes our breath away, and speaks to us on a higher level, great stories and literature helps society develop a moral core that we pass onto future generations. Successful crime novels continue on this moral trajectory and stimulates the human brain in a way that helps build on these cultural traditions.

We humans are children of the cosmos and an inevitable result of the Big Bang. Thousands of years of evolutionary biology and cultural progression has led us to this point in time. Who we are and how we got here is a major part of why I write.

The power of your voice

John Clark talking about a power we all have, but might not think is one, reading aloud. Kate and I were extremely lucky to have parents who read to us on a regular basis from infancy until we were able to read on our own. We grew up in Union which had, and still has, the Vose Library. In those days, it was open on Friday afternoons and both of us lived for that time. Back in the late 1950s, the selection wasn’t anywhere as varied as it is today and by junior high, we’d gone through most everything age appropriate. Kate volunteered and was often second to the librarian when a new adult mystery or mainstream title arrived. I dove into science fiction with a vengeance. I remember the following quotation on many book plates at the library: “A million candles have burned themselves out. Still I read on. (Montresor).” It has stuck with me to this day.

When Beth and I had our daughters, we started reading to them regularly and each of us discovered favorite books as we read and watched their own love of reading develop. A monster is coming! A monster is coming!, One Monster After Another, and The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate The Wash were my top favorites to read. I also learned that I couldn’t read Fox In Socks, I had to sing it.

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Our daughters sharing a read

Sara and Lisa attended Chelsea School through eighth grade. As parents, Beth and I got involved in the school. One project the PTA came up with was for men to read and record on cassette high interest juvenile fiction so boys struggling with reading could listed as they read. Looking back, we probably were violating copyright. However, the kids we wanted to reach loved listening as they read along. I recorded books by Gary Paulsen and Will Hobbs. Another PTA project I participated in was reading to third graders. Again, the goal was to get men into classrooms to read because so many kids came from single family homes, they didn’t think men ever read. It was fascinating watching the group dynamics change over the several week period when I read on Thursdays. On week one, the kids who were used to having someone read to them clustered around my feet. As the kids spread further from me, you could see those who were slightly wary scattered ten feet or so back. The kids whose trust level was close to zero, hugged the wall. Each week, as I returned as promised. The wall huggers crept closer and by the final week, every kid was listening and part of a big semi-circle.

Fast forward to my years as the head librarian in Boothbay Harbor. At the beginning of one school year, I was invited to introduce myself to a fifth grade class by reading the first few chapters of a book. In this instance, I chose The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I learned later that several of the kids in the class picked up where I left off and finished the story. Mary Pinkham, my very talented children’s librarian at Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library, had regular story hours, but expanded them to a couple interesting venues. She went out to various daycare centers in the area and read to kids there. These became extremely popular. Even more popular (it was the most watched program we learned), were her story reads she did for the local cable TV channel. More older adults were enjoying the reads than kids.

In the latter years of our tenure in Hartland, Beth and I became involved as volunteers at the Saint Albans Elementary School, reading both to individual students and to classes. We generally let kids select from their assigned books and as the youngsters read, I was often able to pull out personal experiences that related to the story, or suggest more books in the same genre. We also got involved in the Hartland-St. Albans Lions Club Reading Carnival which is coming up on the second Saturday in April. Close to 200 kids and parents will get to explore different careers, participate in readers theater, face paint, meet game wardens and fire fighters, learn about recycling and gardening, and, best of all, go home with new books.

Come May, we’ll have Community Reads Day at the Somerset School with people coming in to read to the lower grades on each Friday during the month. Even though we have moved away from Hartland, these two events coming up are important enough so we remain part of them.

My hope in sharing these experiences with MCW readers is to get you to think about the power of your voice and encourage you to find a school or community center where youngsters are eager to hear you. Let me know how that happens.

Weekend Update: March 7-8, 2020

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be a posts by John Clark (Monday), Joe Souza (Tuesday), Jen Blood (Thursday) and Sandra Neily (Friday).

 

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

 

 

 

 

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

PLEASE DON’T HATE ME, BUT I GOT A BOOK DEAL AND QUIT MY DAY JOB: A GUEST POST BY REGAN ROSE

I’m delighted to welcome Regan Rose to MCW today, who has thrilling news to share. Like me, Regan juggled writing with her work as a Portland lawyer until last fall, when her life took a sharp turn in a happy direction.

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Regan Rose

Remember her name, folks, because soon it will be on everyone’s lips when talk turns to talented Maine authors. Her success is a fine example of what can happen when you work hard and keep your goals in focus. I’ll let her tell you the wonderful story.

First, I got my literary agent.

When I told my best friend, who worked at the same law office, she screamed, hugged me, and dropped her shoulders. “This is the beginning of you leaving me,” she said, predicting I’d get a big book deal and quit my job.

I’d read enough articles, interviews, and Instagram captions to know that getting an agent is not synonymous with getting a book deal. I also knew that getting a book deal does not mean you get to quit your day job. The little information I could find online made it clear that the average advance for debut novelist was tiny, not to mention that it would likely be split up into multiple payments made over a year or two. (And don’t forget the agent’s cut and taxes.) Sure, there were blips on the bell curve: lucky debut authors who got six-figure book deals. But even one big book deal does not equal a second and third deal, much less a well-paid career as an author.

“Oh, shut up,” I told my friend. “I am not leaving you.”

In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert urges her readers not to crush their artistic dreams by making that dream the sole source of their financial security. This struck me as very good advice, and it was not novel to me. When I was young, my dad had a sign in the garage that said “Don’t Quit Your Day Job.” I had no clue why he had that thing, but I’ve always remembered it.

My day job was lawyering; not a job one quits lightly. But a few years in, I’d begun to doubt that it was right for me. My original plan had been to work with at-risk children, but I didn’t anticipate the emotional and psychological toll of defending kids charged with juvenile crimes, representing parents in child protection cases, and making recommendations for children as a guardian ad litem.

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After a couple years, I switched gears and moved to the civil litigation firm where my best friend worked. It wasn’t the work of my heart, but I was feeling healthier, had awesome coworkers, and was making good money. I got up at 5:00 every morning to write, then went to the office feeling satisfied that I’d made some art that day.

Then I got my literary agent. I quietly basked in the thrill but tempered it with the expectation that nothing would change at work.

A week later, my agent sold the book to Pamela Dorman Books, an imprint at Penguin. My googling about the average advance had not prepared me for the offer. Deserved or not, I was going to be one of those blips on the right side of the bell curve. I went into my best friend’s office, shut her door, and told her. We did so much squealing and jumping around that the partner who shared a wall with her probably thought I was pregnant.

 

I worked the rest of that week at the office without telling anyone else the big news. I suspected that people would ask me how the book deal would affect my career at the firm, and deep down, I knew I needed to process things before I promised anyone else that I wasn’t going anywhere.

I answered a lot of emails and phone calls about the book. I sat around feeling (and probably looking) dazed. I tried to ignore how hard it was to come into the office and care about the work on my desk.  Then Publishers Weekly wrote a buzzy little piece about the book deal. My friend teared up when she read it and repeated her question about when I was giving my notice. Again, I said, “I’m not.” I mostly still believed this.

That weekend, my agent sold the UK publishing rights to Michael Joseph Books at Penguin UK. My family had to do the celebrating for me because I was weirdly stressed about the situation. There is something terrifying about having your dreams come true, and it doesn’t help when it happens like successive shotgun blasts.

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It wasn’t just that something new and exciting was beginning. Something else was dying. I knew I didn’t want to rely solely on the book deal for financial support, nor did I want to spend all of my working hours writing, but my time as a lawyer was over. If I was going to be one of those lucky debut authors out on the end of the bell curve, I wanted to go all in on my dream. That meant my work as an author taking center stage and something totally different propping it up . Something related to books…maybe working at a library or bookstore part time.

I talked it through with my husband and my parents, then I texted my friend. It was a Monday holiday, but she was at the office. I asked her to call me when she left. “So you can tell me you’re quitting?” she replied.

I hate when she’s right.

I didn’t feel like I was “quitting” when I told my colleagues the next day. I felt like I was leaving. Quitting sounded bitter; leaving, bittersweet. And happily, I got nothing but giddy congratulations.

I stayed at the firm for almost seven more weeks, winding down work and putting my law license on “inactive” status. One of the partners stopped by my door a few times a week to smile and tell me that he loathed me. The firm threw me a retirement party, complete with speeches, food and booze, and an ice bucket that read: “Regan Rosé all day.”[image error]

Thanksgiving was my first day as a full-time author, but I don’t write traditional full-time hours every week. Not surprisingly, there are challenges that come with being your own boss, working from home, and doing creative work for most of the day.

In February, I made good on my silent promise to Elizabeth Gilbert and got a job as a substitute at the library next to my house. The shifts are sporadic, but they help structure my workdays. I’m still experimenting and observing what kind of hours work best for my writing. I expect it will take a lot of patience to find my ideal schedule.

What does it feel like to quit your day job? I’d say it’s tidal. Some days I feel great, like I’m using the privilege I’ve been granted to be the best author I can be. Other days I feel guilty, like I’ve reverted back to my lazy teenage self after more than a decade of being Ms. Responsible. Most of the time I feel like I simply changed careers. I adjusted the amount of brain power and time I devote to my writing by putting it first, and I adjusted that further by swapping lawyering for librarying (let me verb my nouns, okay?)

Right now, the tradeoff feels perfect, but we’ll see. The beautiful thing about a law license is that you can put it on ice for a number of years and return to it relatively hassle-free, which I might do in the future. But for now, the only thing I’m going to reach for in the ice bucket is another glass of Regan Rosé.

What do you think: Have I made a terrible mistake? Have you ever quit your day job, or do you aspire to? If you write, where and how does it factor into the rest of your working life?

Regan Rose’s debut novel is slated for publication in the summer of 2021. It’s currently called A KINDNESS, but there’s a new title in talks. Kate Flora recently wrote all about the fun and headache of renaming a novel here: 

Set in a fictional town in southern Maine, A KINDNESS is equal parts family drama, crime story, and moral thriller. The story alternates between the past, when Julia Hall’s family was rocked by her brother-in-law’s sexual assault, and the present, when Julia is called to the home of the detective who investigated the crime. You can keep up with Regan and learn more about her book at http://regan-rose.com, where all of her contact information is available.

The Pig Farmer

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Vaughn

Vaughn C. Hardacker here: In her blog of February 21st, Kate Flora discussed the question every writer is asked at one time or another: “Where do you get your ideas?” Well, we get them from a lot of places. The idea for my second novel, The Fisherman, came from a pig farmer.

Obviously, this requires some explanation. In 2000, I was working as an instructor teaching sales people throughout the world about Wide Area Network equipment. When I told my wife that I was scheduled for a trip to Vancouver, British Columbia, she wanted to go with me–her father was Canadian and she had always wanted to visit there. The trip was great. So you may ask, “That’s nice, but where did you get the idea for your book?”

One evening, shortly after our return, I was in my office banging away on the manuscript for Sniper when she came in and showed me an article she had found. She said, “You could write a book about this. Here is what she showed me:

Robert Pickton: The Pig Farmer Serial Killer from Canada Who Confessed to 49 Murders

Dozens of women met a gruesome end on Pickton’s isolated property.

In 2007, Robert William “Willy” Pickton was convicted of murdering six women and sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of parole for 25 years—the longest sentence that he could possibly receive at the time. He was charged with the deaths of many more—and, while in prison, admitted to an undercover officer that he had killed 49 women, and that he wanted to bring that number up to “an even 50.”

The details of Robert Pickton’s crimes—which included the discovery of human remains in trash cans, feeding bodies to his pigs, and possibly even selling human flesh mixed with pork for public consumption—shocked the country and the world, and were uncovered by one of the largest serial killer investigations in Canadian history.

Who Is Robert Pickton?

Before he became known as one of Canada’s most prolific serial killers, Robert Pickton was described as a “pretty quiet guy” who, along with his brother, owned a pig farm in British

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Robert Pickton

Columbia. A worker on the farm later called it a “creepy-looking place,” and in 1998, the brothers were sued by the local government over zoning ordinance violations for neglecting the property and turning one of their slaughterhouses into an event venue.

In 1996, the two brothers had registered a nonprofit organization called the “Piggy Palace Good Times Society”—a disturbing name, in hindsight. Its stated aims were to “organize, coordinate, manage, and operate special events, functions, dances, shows, and exhibitions on behalf of service organizations, sports organizations, and other worthy groups.”

In practice, the farm played host to a variety of raves and wild parties which were held in a converted slaughterhouse. Among those known to frequent the parties held at the Picktons’ farm were sex workers from Vancouver and members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club. In 1998, the Picktons were served with an injunction banning any future events on the premises, and their nonprofit status was revoked the following year.

Robert Pickton’s First Encounter with Law Enforcement

Five years before he was arrested and charged with murder, Robert Pickton was faced with another charge—the 1997 attempted murder of sex worker Wendy Lynn Eistetter, who informed police that Pickton had solicited her services and brought her to the farm. There, he handcuffed her left hand and stabbed her in the abdomen.

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The Pickton Pig Farm

Eistetter managed to escape, disarming Pickton and stabbing him with his own weapon. At the hospital where both were treated, hospital staff used a key found in Pickton’s pocket to unlock the handcuff on Eistetter’s wrist. The attempted murder charge was eventually dropped, reportedly because prosecutors believed that Eistetter’s ongoing drug use made her an unreliable witness.

Pickton’s clothes and rubber boots were seized by police during the initial arrest and kept in a storage locker for more than seven years. They weren’t tested for evidence until 2004, when they were swabbed for DNA and found to be a match for two missing women.

The Arrest of Robert Pickton

From 1983 to 2002, more than 60 women disappeared from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, an impoverished community. It was an ongoing crisis that seemed to have no end in sight, although Pickton had been on the police’s radar for quite a while. In February of 2002, police finally searched the Pickton farm in an unrelated search for illegal weapons.

Both Robert Pickton and his brother were arrested, and the police obtained enough evidence for a second warrant in relation to the ongoing investigation into Vancouver’s missing women. While the two brothers were ultimately released, Robert Pickton was kept under surveillance and arrested again not long after, charged with two counts of first degree murder.

During their initial search, police had found personal items belonging to some of the missing women. Once Pickton was behind bars, the charges began to stack up. First three more charges were added. Then four. Then more and more, until Pickton had accrued a total of 27 first degree murder charges.

Robert Pickton’s Grisly Crimes

The details of Robert Pickton’s heinous crimes were under a publication ban for nearly a decade, and so it wasn’t until after the ban was lifted in 2010 that the extent of Pickton’s depredations became public knowledge. When they did, a grim and terrifying picture came into focus.

Pickton was linked to murders stretching back as far as 1991—long before his arrest for the attempted murder of Wendy Lynn Eistetter, and continuing for many years after the altercation. Police had found a variety of human remains on the farm, many of which were difficult to identify because they had been left to rot or fed to the hogs.

Among the grisly effects described in Pickton’s eventual trial were human skulls that had been cut in half with hands and feet stuffed inside, night vision goggles, human remains stored inside garbage bags, “Spanish fly” aphrodisiac, and a loaded revolver with a dildo attached to the barrel, which Pickton later claimed was used as a makeshift silencer. Investigators also found more than 80 unidentified DNA profiles on the property.

Robert Pickton’s Trial and Aftermath

Robert Pickton was ultimately tried and found guilty of six counts of second degree murder. The other 21 charges were stayed for a later date, but never tried, as Pickton had already received the maximum possible sentence.

The trial brought to public attention a number of missed opportunities for the police to investigate Pickton sooner and put an end to his killing spree. Besides his arrest for the attack on Wendy Lynn Eistetter, there had been several other attempts to bring Pickton’s activities to the attention of the authorities. According to Vancouver police detective constable Lorimer Shenher, the police had received a call to an anonymous tip line in 1998, indicating that Pickton should be investigated in relation to missing women in the area. In 1999, authorities received another tip, stating that Pickton had a freezer filled with human remains on his property.

Pickton was interviewed following the 1999 tip, and police obtained his consent to search the farm, but the search was never conducted. In 2004, before Pickton’s trial had even begun, the government issued a warning that Pickton may have ground up human flesh and mixed it with pork that he sold to the public.

During a press conference in 2010, Deputy Chief Constable Doug LePard issued an apology to the families of the victims. “I wish that all the mistakes that were made, we could undo,” he said. “And I wish that more lives would have been saved. So, on my behalf and behalf of the Vancouver Police Department and all the men and women who worked on this investigation, I would say to the families how sorry we all are for your losses and because we did not catch this monster sooner.”

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The Fisherman

The case intrigued me. I always wondered why cadaver-sniffing dogs found nothing when they were utilized. At a Sisters In Crime meeting on Cape Cod, the guest speaker was a former K-9 officer from NYC, currently the police chief of Wellfleet, Massachusetts. I asked him about it, withholding the fact that it was a pig farm. His first question was just that: “What type of farm was it?” I filled in the blank. I was shocked when he told us: “Cadaver-sniffing dogs are trained to detect a body that has not been embalmed. They cannot be used in two places: Jewish cemeteries and pig farms. The Jewish do not embalm their dead–the dog believes everyone buried in the cemetery is a murder victim.” He went on to say “There is something in pig excrement that smells like a body to the dog.”

I wanted my antagonist to be living on the coast of Maine and didn’t think that a pig farm in Kennebunkport would work. Pickton disposed of his victims by feeding their remains to his pigs; my guy, Willard Fischer, ground his up for use as chum. Once I had the premise everything else was academic. It sure makes one believe the old adage: “The truth is stranger than fiction.”

Note: In 2016, a book called Pickton: In His Own Words went up for sale on Amazon. While the 144-page book’s author was listed as Michael Chilldres, it was actually a hand-written manuscript that Pickton had smuggled out of prison. Chilldres had simply typed it up and added his byline. Pickton maintained his innocence in the book, which was eventually pulled down by both the publisher and Amazon after a public outcry. “It’s his kind of shenanigans,” the father of one of the victims told CTV News in the wake of the furor over the book’s publication. “The guy never goes away.”

New Settings, New Thoughts

Kate Flora: Travel is one way I keep from getting stuck in familiar old ruts–the same [image error]house, office, routes, books that surround me. At the moment, we’ve just arrived on Sanibel Island, on the Gulf Coast of Florida after a long drive down from New England. We’ve done this drive before, and so we’re interested to see what has changed. Some years, we leave mountains of snow and return to mountains of snow. Sometimes we see the effect of winter storms on states to the south. Sometimes, as is the case this year, trees as far north as Washington are buddings, their tips red with the anticipation of spring.

One question that kept occurring to my husband and me: where are the birds? Usually once we get into the Carolinas, and certain through Florida, there are lovely birds along the roadside. This year? Very few. And somewhat disconcerting to a crime writer, most of the birds circling overhead are vultures.

Our frequent companion on the journey is Charles Dickens. One audio Dickens novel (30+ hours) is long enough for a journey to California and back, so it is likely that when we’re not working at the places we’ve designated our “desks” here in a house set up for vacation, not writing, we’ll sit by the pool and listen to more of David Copperfield while the crows argue in the palm trees and busy flocks of pink-beaked white ibis peck at the ground outside the pool cage.

[image error]Since writers are especially attuned to people’s looks and behavior–we have to be to continue to create different and distinct characters–it is interesting to relocate to a new place with a new population. For a few days, we were in Naples, where we went to “seafood night” at the yacht club. Lots of fancy clothes, including entire glittery outfits. More makeup on some of the women than I’ve worn in the last twenty years. Their hair is “done.” The dresses, no matter the wearer’s age, are shorter and tighter. The gentlemen are mostly in sports jackets, except for the young ones, but there are fewer ties, and some of those are far more colorful than those in staid New England.

Driving habits, too, are different. Although Massachusetts drivers have a reputation for bad driving, here tailgating and passing on the right seem very common, and we are informed that the influx of new people in Naples has imported the habit of honking. Since there are many, many four-way stops, the sound of the horn in often heard in the land.

One benefit of long hours in the car is the chance to ponder on plot ideas. When the current WIP is sent off, I’ll need a new story in the series. Pondering on a new serial killer gave rise to the question: Can you get DNA from cremains? Answer: it depends. And there is also a clue that came to me in a dream: where is Kitty’s ring?

Naples is a city of very fancy cars. The vegetation is different. I’m looking forward to my month among people from all over the country, and Canada, and to a lot of nosy people watching. I’ll keep you posted about what I learn.

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Life With Shadow

[image error]Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. It’s been about six months since my last update on Shadow (https://mainecrimewriters.com/2019/09/03/an-update-on-shadow-lea-waits-cat/),who came to live with us last August. It was an adjustment for me and for my husband. We were used to cats who loved to cuddle (Maine Coons, mostly). Shadow, apparently, was never fond of being held. It was also a big adjustment for her. She’d had a pretty rough couple of years. Not only did she lose first one and then the other of her humans, she also ended up being left alone for long stretches. Someone came in to check on her and make sure she had food and water and a clean litter box, but when your regular person is frequently in the hospital, and occasionally has to make writing-related business trips as well, it takes a toll. All in all, we knew it would take a while for her to settle in.

Slowly, she’s warming up to us. I can pick her up without sending her into a frenzy trying to bite and scratch, and even hug her (a little). She allows herself to be stroked, when she’s in the mood, and warns us when she’s had enough with a little yip before the claws come out. Twice now, she’s pushed her way under the covers on a cold night and curled up between us to sleep for a while.

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Shadow obeying the order to look over there.

She still fights any attempt to clip her claws, and does not know the meaning of “no, no, bad kitty!” when it comes to scratching anything other than her scratching post, but she’s better about using “velvet paws” when she just wants to play. She has several times raced after me as I was walking away from her, whacked me on the backs of my legs, and taken off again a warp speed. I assume this is a game, but I’m still not certain of the rules.

Shadow exhibits typical feline behavior in many ways. She’s determined to get out onto the screen porch until she realizes it’s freezing out there. She has a habit of getting locked in the clothes closet because she streaked in there without anyone noticing. And she immediately jumps into any box or bag she happens to find. She particularly likes the grocery bag that lines my paper recycling bin, especially when it has just been changed and has only a few post-its inside.

She also has some distinct quirks not found in any of the many other cats who have shared our home over the years. She doesn’t drink water. Not out of her bowl. Not out of the sink. She’s not dehydrated, but I’ve been making “gravy” by adding water to her food to make sure of that. The one time I thought she was trying to lick water off the side of the sink, it turned out she was eating a blob of toothpaste I’d missed wiping up. She seemed to like it.

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Shadow with her favorite toy

These last months have been a learning experience for Shadow. Because she lived upstairs with Lea and Bob (to separate her from his studio and paintings downstairs), the refrigerator, the stove, and the wood stove were entirely new to her. Because their house was on a quiet street, the constant traffic, including pulp trucks, passing by our place on U.S. Rt. 2, meant all kinds of noises spooked her. She wasn’t used to other animals, either. We don’t have any other cats at the moment, but when a neighborhood cat dared come up to the outside of the sliding glass door to our back deck and look in at her, the result was a solid fifteen minutes of hissing and howling. We didn’t know Shadow could make sounds like those.

All in all, I think we’re making good progress. Just this past week, she’s started curling up in my usual place on the loveseat in the living room (when I’m not there, of course) and one of those times she let me sit down next to her without immediately bolting. I was even allowed to pet her without damage to life or limb.

Definite progress.

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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.