Lea Wait's Blog, page 16

Winter in Maine…Ayup

Slip Slidin’ Away

John Clark says Welcome to the Winter of our Disco Tent
While cold might shovel easier, the increasingly scant levels of snow have many outdoor enthusiasts scrambling for alternate ways to stay sane. Some are fortunate enough to spot the migrating Beluga whales as they cross country ski on their annual migration to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Others are eagerly awaiting the first annual Hieronymus Bosch ice sculpture contest up at Wyman Lake in Bingham. Then there’s the ‘how many musty newspapers can you read before sneezing to death’ competition over in Mechanic Falls.
The one I’m looking forward to the most is the ‘My paranoia can top yours’ tournament. I’ll have more details if the promoters ever decide they can trust me.

Kait Carson: Well, John, I actually live in the frozen northern reaches of our great state – think Canada My Canada a mere ten miles and a bridge away. When winter is unkind and snow fails to bring the normal compliment of genuine snowbirds, we revert to our roots and read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline – in the original. Let’s hear it for Acadian French. Spring will spring by the time I finish. Seriously, though. I am longing for the glorious landscape of prior winters. Especially that blue, blue sky.

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: In common with John and Kait, I have tons of winter pics. In fact, I’m thinking of continuing this theme in my next post (Feb.3). But for now, here is a typical shot from inside my kitchen, this one from 2022. If you look closely, you can see my husband just starting to plow out the dooryard. Dead center is our snow-covered sidewalk.

Do I love winter in Maine? Mostly. Especially since we’re retired and don’t have to go out.

 

Matt Cost doesn’t mind the ice-olation brought on by winter so much. It is a break from life, a chance to curl up at home and write. The cold is enjoyable, just as long as you dress for it, and if the snow is not too deep or the ice too slick for my two woods walks a day with the dogs–well, then, everything is just peachy keen. I have begun the process of setting up COST TALKS for when the roads thaw,  so soon enough I will be back ramming the roads, but not before a good morning of writing. As in phases of life, the seasons are something that we should live in the present and enjoy what is being offered.

Kate Flora: I used to spend plenty of winter time outside but in recent years, I’ve found I am a happy hibernator. I find, though, that I don’t actually hibernate. Instead, I do a lot of writing, rewriting, and playing around with ideas. But I also force myself to go outside, especially after a big snow or an ice storm. There is little more beautiful than a snow-covered world, or one where every single branch is coated in ice and the sun is shining. Winter is great for noticing the shapes of trees. For black and white photography. For trying to find all the letters of the alphabet in the tree trunks, fallen logs, and twisted vines.

Of course, I confess that one thing that makes it easier to the get through the winter is taking trips in January. This month (I’m actually just back and still jet lagged) it was a trip to South India. By the time we were done with crowds and traffic, I was more than ready to be back at my desk, editing a book.

 

 

 

 

Crime and Karma

On July 17, 2023, my morning coffee was interrupted with the sound of chainsaws twenty five feet from my bedroom window. Outside the window I saw a squad of five men on the side of the hill above our house, ripping into a grove of 50 or 60 year old oaks that sheltered both the ridge and the hillside below it. The noise, of course, was horrific, and while the sawyers whined away, I felt a certain amount of regret for those trees. I’m a fan of Robin Wall Kimmerer, though I wouldn’t go so far as to ascribe sentience to an oak. But it felt like a crime against those grand old trees as much as an annoyance to me.

The butchery was only the beginning. Once the trees were down, the now-dead logs cleared away, the weeping stumps pulled, the next four weeks were punctuated by warning whistles and ground shaking booms. The blasting company came to videotape our house’s foundation, inside and out, to insure against any later complaints we might make. What a great way to inspire confidence.

Then came the cranes and trucks and front-end loaders, moving the broken rock off the site. A foundation was dug and concrete poured. What was described in neighborhood gossip as a fifteen hundred square foot ranch house, we now refer to as “the hotel.” Skeletal walls of two by fours, paneled in ugly green wallboard, arose, and eventually, another crane came in and set the trusses in place for the roof over the main house.

The next morning, while drinking my coffee (again), and wondering if I could convince my new “neighbor” to ask her workmen to at least give us Sundays off from the noise and shitty rock music of her construction crew, I heard (and felt) a muffled crash. The wind had come up overnight, as the Weather Channel had forecast a couple days before, and was blowing a solid thirty MPH. I stepped out into the half-dark and realized the silhouette of the hotel on the hill had changed radically. The roof trusses, unbuttressed by plywood paneling or cross braces, had fallen in the wind, imploding into the open bay of the main house. I had a (short) moment of schadenfreude on behalf of the three yahoos building this house, though I knew the homeowner was likely to wind up paying for this, not them.

The collapse did make me wonder, though, if those 50 or 60 year old oaks weren’t exacting their own kind of revenge, punishment for being savaged out of their lives. It is a delicious feeling to wonder whether nature doesn’t have ways of rectifying our arrogance, and I can’t say I wouldn’t like to live in a world like that.

Weekend Update: January 25-26, 2025

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Dick Cass (Monday) and Kate Flora (Tuesday) with a group post on Friday.

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

MAUREEN MILLIKEN will join two other authors 6-8 p.m. Monday, Jan. 27, at Curtis Memorial Library, 23 Pleasant St., Brunswick, for the Local Author Spotlight. Joining Maureen will be Johnathan Pessant and Wes Baden. Each author will speak for 20 minutes about their books, then hang out with attendees.

Matt Cost has just finished the first draft of the 6th book in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, Glow Trap. There is no publication date yet, but stay tuned. On this past Thursday night, Cost was interviewed by the amazing duo of Sarah Burr and J.C. Kenney for the Bookish Hour podcast. Check out the interview HERE.

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, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

Have you seen my muse?

Hutch the Muse

Creativity and productivity have never been a problem. Early in my writing career, I decided that writer’s block was a myth. I had it on good authority from a fellow writer. One who made her daily bread writing romance novels for Harlequin books. This was back in the days when Harlequin writers were essentially piece workers who were assigned pen names and expected to pump out several books a year. There was a formula of sorts, and productivity was key to continued employment.

I acted as my friend’s first reader. She wrote four or five series, all under different pen names, all romances, but as varied as historical to what we’d now call romantasy. I was in awe. I asked her how she could be that productive. Didn’t she ever stare at the blank page and wonder what happened next? She laughed. No, she bellowed. Then she asked me if I was talking about the famous ‘writer’s block’. I admitted that was exactly what I meant. She gave me an owlish look and said, “There is no such thing. It’s all in how you look at it. I love writing. It’s fun. But as for writer’s block. Have you ever heard of a plumber having plumber’s block?”

My protest that plumbing was mechanics and writing was inspiration fell on deaf ears. She agreed that there was only one way to fix a clogged drain, but she also pointed out that writing stories required words on the page, and there was only one way to get them there. That was by doing it. “Look,” she said, “you can fix the words, just get them on the page. It’s mechanics. Your *&%tty first draft will spark the magic in the rewrite.”

Her words served me well. Until this year. Mid-October found me plunking words on the page of the fourth book in the Hayden Kent series. Things were moving along. The story was the perfect escape from all things political. Then the edits to the first book of a projected Maine series came back. I shelved the Kent book and dove into the Maine edits. Someday, I’ll master working on two books at once, but this was not the time. By the time the edits were complete, the election was in full swing and then the holidays arrived. I decided a break was in order. Bad idea.

With the New Year came new plans for productivity. I pulled out the Kent book and stared at the opening for Chapter 15, and stared at it, and stared at it. Nothing happened. I figured I’d left the story too long and had lost momentum. So I printed the pages and dove in. The story was good, it flowed well. I don’t outline, I do bullet point the plot points and structural chapters before I write. The story was where it should be and the upcoming chapter notes worked. All good, right? No. When it came to filling in the blanks, the words to bring the chapters to life, I had nothing. My muse failed me.

Is this writer’s block? If it is, then the act of writing should release the logjam. Except it didn’t. I want to tell this story. The second to the last chapter is written. Has been since the beginning. It’s the bridge that’s under construction. The muse will return, she always does. Right now, though, she’s playing awfully hard to get.

Has anyone seen my muse? Does anyone have any advice about bringing her back from vacation? Please let me know in the comments below.

Henry David Slept Here: Maine’s Wild Economy

  Because my post was published a day or two before the Christmas holiday, I thought I’d offer it again in January when we might have more time to relax, read, and reconsider Henry David.

*********************

(In 2006 I wrote this column for the Bangor Daily News. I’ve edited and updated it, but … wow … almost every word feels current. Now, nearly a decade later, I’m writing a murder mystery that is essentially about the murder of the north woods. My post’s pics are from my wild-feeling, winter archives.)

Henry David Slept Here: Maine’s Wild Economy

For millions of nature and literature lovers, Henry David Thoreau’s rhapsodic prose about living “simply” in nature is part of their outdoor, spiritual creed.

However, often when Thoreau lovers use his prose to justify conservation, many north woods residents (even folks who own dog-eared copies of his work) are more apt to grumble about “outsiders who know nothing about real life, spouting dumb reasons for not cutting trees.”

Thoreau believed there was a “higher law affecting our relation to pines.”  In his (diaries of his travels to Ktaadn (sic), Chesuncook, the Allagash and the East Branch from the years 1846-1957) “The Maine Woods” he asks, “Is it the lumberman, then who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best?”

And confirming some of the locals’ worst fears, he answers, “No, it is the poet, who loves them as his own shadow in the air, and let’s them stand. … It is the living spirit of the tree, not its sprit of turpentine, with which I sympathize, and which heals my cuts. It is as important as I am, and perchance will go to as high a heaven, there to tower above me still.”

Well, there you have it. Henry David takes ‘tree hugging’ to a new transcendence, anticipating how uncut trees will tower over him in heaven.  (I do like to think Thoreau is chuckling up there. Maine’s forests, now deliver more non-timber jobs and income than timber-related jobs and income.)

His classic volume is actually an early guide to Maine’s “wild economy.” Only one paragraph after Thoreau’s hymn to trees, Henry David rejoins his party, eats a hearty breakfast of moose meat (shot and prepared by his hired guide), walks around Pine Stream Falls collecting flowers (while guide Joe does the heavy work of navigating rapids), and arrives at Chesuncook Village.

There he describes a thriving north woods business that boasted a blacksmith and forge, large barns sheltering cattle and horses, ninety tons of hay cut on cleared fields, a garden of fresh vegetables “worth as much here as in New York,” and lodging for over a hundred men on the property.

There’s a link below for winter trail info here.

Thoreau was surrounded by Maine’s wild economy.  From his first visit to a bateaux factory in Old Town to his final “hot shave” at Joe Polis’ house on the Indian Island reservation, Thoreau’s “Maine Woods” is a primer on the requirements and value of Maine’s nature-based or wild economy.

An inventory of commercial enterprises supporting him as he discovers Maine’s north woods would include, guides, outfitters, restaurants, boarding houses, steamers and their crew, paddle makers, canoe and bateau craftsmen, lumbering operations that offered transportation logistics and remote camps, stores selling provisions and necessities, businesses that made tents, blankets, pots, boots, clothing and camping gear, firearms and ammunition companies, and train and stagecoach operations.

Finally, because his published essays became extremely popular north woods guides, the publishers, printers, and bookstores that disseminated Thoreau’s work also became part of the “wild economy.”

Thoreau’s Indian guides stopped and climbed a tall tree when they could find no points of reference deep in the woods. Maybe we also need to climb a proverbial tree; find some better perspective on how entwined our wild outdoors is with a vital economy.

Make no mistake, we are losing our wild assets. Rapid growth of both nature-based tourism and real estate development in our wild areas is happening, but we might be stumbling in the forest without a clear view. Seems that often we cannot boldly act on conservation as an economic strategy.

Wildlife recreation alone delivers $1.2 billion each year and thousands of jobs to Maine. If we added up the state’s significant recreational businesses (snowmobiling, skiing, rafting, windjammers), wildlife recreation would still … all by itself … be the largest outdoor recreation business sector in Maine.

If a “wild” economic fact like that could motivate local and state decision makers, would they have more to say about the loss of habitat, access, or wildness as they make decisions about land use and development? Or are local and regional entities mostly focused on advertising wild places without conserving them or adding more protected woods, waters, and wildlife habitat?

Intense pressure to develop the shores and adjacent woods of rivers, ponds, and lakes that surround Greenville and Rockwood, Maine (my home territory) is an excellent example of how development pressures might be stronger than our ability to secure our vital “green” infrastructure.

… forces stronger than our awareness of the wild world as a green asset.

Do we have information about the value of some of these same resources if they are not developed?  Do we have good information about how wild-feeling, north woods assets deliver billions of dollars to our rural economies?

Thoreau camped near these Penobscot River rapids.

The fact that we can still visit some of the same “wild” sites Thoreau immortalizes and have some of the same experiences he had is a small but special privilege. I can feel, see, hear, and smell what Thoreau heard in 1846 as he stood next to the Penobscot River.

“In the night I dreamed of trout fishing… So I arose before dawn to test its truth.  There stood Ktaadn with distinct and cloudless outline in the moonlight and the rippling of the rapids was the only sound to break the stillness. Standing on shore I once more cast my line into the stream and found the dream to be real. The specked trout sped swiftly through the moonlight air, describing bright arcs on the side of Ktaadn, until moonlight, now fading into daylight, brought satiety to my mind …”

Baker Mountain vista during a backcountry ski.

In that passage, the fish, the river, the stillness, the wildness, the sleeping guides, the people who manufactured the canoes, clothing and gear, and the people who fed, housed, guided, and transported Thoreau’s party are all contained in that one exquisite moment of pleasure, stillness, and peace. 

That experience and the wildness that experience requires are the core of our “wild economy” even as we cherish wild Maine in our own lives.

I think Thoreau might, sitting under his towering tree, remind us again about something he saw in his Maine woods travels. He’d probably be much more urgent about it though.

“… the mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest out of the country.”

***********

That line made it to my current draft.

I shook my head and squinted at a tiny footnote. Word-for-word, he’d penned a line from Thoreau’s The Maine Woods. “The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest out of the country.”

Oh, yes. Ian was always the clever boy. He knew we could technically have a bit of country without any real forest left in it. He’d chosen those words for a reason, a reason that had to be connected to his Maine mission. He liked missions and he wasn’t afraid of busy demons.

Kate leaned close to my ear. “Mum? Ian? Where’s Ian? You’re scaring me.”

I couldn’t manage an honest answer because no one had made it official.  I could guess though. My friend Ian had to be in a black body bag headed toward a Bangor autopsy.

 “I don’t have a good answer, honey,” I said, “not a good answer at all.”

PS: Share this with your local land trust or planning board. Ed is the country’s (and world’s) expert on the value of place. Here’s the link to Katahdin Woods and Waters Monument’s  winter trails.

Sandy’s debut 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 was a finalist for a Maine Literary Award. The second Mystery in Maine, “Deadly Turn,” was published in 2021. Her third “Deadly” is due out in 2025. Find her novels at all Shermans Books (Maine) and on Amazon. Find more info on Sandy’s website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Bernie O’Dea audiobook, reader’s companion on their way

Happy 2025 all! And I’ve I said every year since 2000, where the hell is my jetpack? Remember back when the 2000s seemed so far away? And we figured by 2000 we’d all have jetpacks? Anyway, that’s not what I’m writing about today.

A few weeks ago, we had a group post about what we have coming up in 2025. At the time I mentioned that readers can look for my fifth Bernadette “Bernie” O’Dea mystery, coming out in the fall. Title NEWS FROM AWAY. More info to come.

I wasn’t ready yet to unveil my two other projects, both of which I’m pretty excited about. Now I am!

Number 1 is the DYING FOR NEWS audio book, which is in production and will be out next month. I’ve once again teamed up with awesome narrator Trudi Knoedler, who also narrated the previous three books. When I first auditioned narrators, I asked for someone who sounded like a trusted friend telling a story. Trudi nails it. If you want info on how to turn your books into audio, hit up friend of Maine Crime Writers Dale Phillips. He’s awesome and he got me on my way with mine all those years ago.

The audio version of DYING FOR NEWS will be out in February, with a great cover by Tim Barber of Dissect Designs

I was also thrilled to have Tim Barber, of Dissect Designs, do an audio cover for me. [My previous three audio books still have the covers they were originally published with, when my print books were published by my former publisher.] Tim designed the covers for the reissue of my first three Bernie O’Dea print and ebooks books last year, as well as DYING FOR NEWS, and will, of course be designing NEWS FROM AWAY.

Trudi lives in Oregon and Tim lives in London, England. Equidistant in both directions from my home in Central Maine. Isn’t 2025 awesome? Who needs a jet pack when authors like us can partner with creative people 3,000 miles away that help make our books as good as they can be? Although a jetpack still would be fun.

Project 2 is something that’s been germinating in my brain since summer and has finally burst forth. I do a lot of, well, “busy work” as I write my books. Hand-drawing maps, writing twice as much content as I’ll use, just so I understand where the book is going and what characters are doing.  As a consequence, I have a lot of scenes, bios and all sorts of stuff that will never get before readers’ eyes. Until now.

My map of Redimere, Maine.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be publishing the Bernie O’Dea Reader’s Companion: A Guide for Fans of the Bernadette “Bernie” O’Dea Mystery Series — that’s the working title. I’ve created maps of my fictional town, Redimere, Maine, as well as bigger maps; am buffing up the character bios I’ve created; am doing a brief list of recurring characters; FAQs; timeline; book synopses; and a 60-plus page “vignette” made of outtake scenes and stuff I wrote that also I had no intention of putting in a book, but wrote because I wanted to get to the writing. If that makes sense.

Making a map of a fictional town is a slippery slope. I’ve done some by hand for myself, just so I can figure out where things are in the plot. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do one that would be publicly available, and paint myself into a corner. But my obsession with doing it won out. I explored online the map-making software that fantasy gamers and people like that use, but it seemed complicated and free trials were few. Then I was like, what the hell, the map doesn’t have to be fancy. I’ll just do it on Word. So I did. I also splurged on a simple Maine map on iStock, so I could do another map where certain things in the books happen. That was fun, too! And I did a third map, a more regional one than the downtown one, to show where fictional things just out of town are.

The book is aimed at people who have read at least the first three books and want to know more, and will also have some spoiler alerts, though I’ve tried to keep specifics that will spoil the books at a minimum. I wanted the outtakes in included to have some structure, and ended up doing kind of a mini-book that is vignette-like. There’s a situation that happens right before my third book that a lot of readers have asked me about. Spoiler alert! When my two main characters, Bernie and Pete are briefly broken up — Bernie thinks it’s permanent and has a fling with Pete’s best friend, Sandy, the fire chief. Since it happens between books, and is only referred to but not detailed in any big way, with only the necessary information included in the books, I get a lot of questions about what exactly happened. Now all will be revealed. Well, not all. It’s probably PG-14 rated. Bernie takes most of the hits from my readers on the whole thing, as she does for most things. Pete tends to get a lot of breaks from readers. I’m hoping this will help Bernie out a little. All three of them are good people. No one was “wrong” or “bad.” Including Sandy, the fire chief, who’s a living doll.

But I digress.

One thing I discovered this year when my fourth book came out, is how very very many people there are out there who read my books and are invested in my characters and who want to talk to me about them and know more. That was another motivation for the reader’s companion.

For now, at least, it’s only going to be a print publication. I don’t want to deal with the ebook issues with the maps. That doesn’t mean, though, I won’t do an ebook version int the future.

An author acquaintance I was talking to about this project recently said, “Gee, seems like a lot of work. Are you going to make any money on it?” [Don’t worry! He is NOT a Maine Crime Writer]. My response is the same one I have whenever the M word comes up in author discussions. Money is great. I love it. I sure would love more so I didn’t have to drive a car with 245,000 miles and clutch that’s about to go. But that’s not why I write or do projects like my reader’s companion or audio books. I’m not saying I’d turn down any money anyone wanted to give me. What I’m saying is, though, I love to write. I love my books. I love the world I’ve created and I love being immersed in it. I really love the fact other people do, too. I feel compelled to share it. It is a joy in life to be doing this stuff. I can’t imagine what life would be like without it. So, yeah, it is worth it.

For all my sarcasm and everything else, I’m an optimistic person. I always feel like something good is going to happen if we just stay persistent and do what we can. That just doesn’t go for books, but the world around us. At the end of your life, you want to be able to say you did what you could, right? My character, Bernie O’Dea, frequently says, when the chips are down, “Let’s move forward, like a shark.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. Whether it’s writing books and getting them to readers, or saving democracy, let’s do it, folks. We can, even without jetpacks.

Thanks to Amazon, Confusion Reigns

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett here. As regular Maine Crime Writers blog readers know, I am spending my retirement re-editing and reissuing backlist titles. The process goes pretty smoothly, if not at all rapidly, until the books are actually released. Then, thanks to good old Amazon, where most people these days do tend to look first at books they are thinking of buying, things get confusing. It’s hard enough for a writer to let people know when there’s a new book out. We don’t need a “bookseller” making it harder.

The new trade paperback edition of the tenth and final mystery in my Face Down series, Face Down O’er the Border, was released on January 9th. At present, Amazon also lists a Kindle version (shortly to be taken down and replaced with the updated version) and used copies of the original trade paperback edition. These come up first. To get to the new edition, you have to click on the Kindle version and then go to the $15.99 paperback. That’s annoying enough, but what is far more irritating is that when you find the new one and click on “read sample” the text that comes up is from the old version. In some of the other nine books, it’s from the original print edition and in some it’s the Kindle version, but either way, it isn’t the revised text that I worked so long and hard to produce! The note at the top claims the text of the new edition isn’t available.

What they mean is that there isn’t yet an e-book edition of this particular paperback, so they are taking the lazy way and assuming the text is identical to that in earlier versions. Since the decision is being made by an algorithm, or a bot, or AI (take your pick) no human intelligence is involved. The real irony is that the electronic text for each of these novels is readily available. It appears in the e-book omnibus editions. For The Face Down Collection Three (there are three volumes in all, containing all the novels and short stories), which includes the same text as the new trade paperback of Face Down O’er the Border, Amazon had no trouble finding a sample.

That’s good, right? Well, it would be if Amazon hadn’t also decided that Volume Three was the same as the fifth novel in the series, Face Down Under the Wych Elm. That one, incidentally, is included in the second collection, not the third. In their infinite wisdom, Amazon gets the sample and the product details and book description right, but offers (as if they were the same) links to the hardcover, mass market paperback, new paperback, and old Kindle versions of Wych Elm and includes editorial reviews and customer reviews for that single title (which, again, is not included in Collection Three). Since the reviews are good ones, I am tempted not to complain about that. Then again . . .

actual new Wych Elm edition

Confused yet? Meanwhile, I’m trying to get the current Kindle editions, published through Belgrave House, taken down. I’m not sure what the delay is. They hold no rights. This is a co-op of sorts that I’ve been involved in since 2002. Anyway, I have to wait until those are gone before I try to put up the new versions in e-format, and then hope none of the titles are available for free on some pirate site. Amazon is a royal pain about selling e-books if they think someone else is giving them away. I’ve had them refuse to list other e-book titles and there is apparently no appeals process. Thank goodness Barnes &Noble, Kobo, and other online booksellers make things easier. I’ve never had any of them refuse to carry one of my books.

Keep in mind that I publish my re-issues through Draft2Digital and thereby avoid most of the Amazon hassles. I hate to think what I’d have to go through if I was trying to publish each book there on my own!

Okay. I have finished venting, except to say that it’s a good thing I don’t depend on selling my self-published reissues to pay for food and shelter!

For those of you who, despite my bitching, have now developed an interest in the Face Down series, historical mysteries featuring a sleuth who is a sixteenth-century English gentlewoman and a expert on herbal poisons, please check my webpage for more details. Each trade paperback sells for $15.99, the e-book collections are $9.99 each, and the forthcoming Lady Appleton’s World: The Complete Short Stories from the Face Down Series will be $18.99 in trade paperback and $5.99 in e-book (including Kindle) when it is released on February 6th. Incidentally, all of my newly edited trade paperback editions (children’s books, YA suspense, romance, and biography, as well as mystery) can be ordered by any library or brick-and-mortar bookstore. The ISBN numbers are at my website.

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others. 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. In 2023 she won the Lea Wait Award for “excellence and achievement” from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

Weekend Update: January 18-19, 2025

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Monday), Maureen Milliken (Tuesday), Sandra Neily Thursday) and Kait Carson (Friday).

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

Matt Cost had an opportunity to have a podcast chat with New York Times best selling author Debbi Mack. Check it out HERE. Mainely Mayhem scored a nice 5 star review from Literate-LY Review. And the short novelette, Death on Out-to-Sea Island by BJ Magnani, Curt Wendleboe, and Matt Cost has been submitted to the Derringer Awards. It can be bought for 99 cents HERE.

 

 

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, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

2024 in the Rearview Mirror by the Numbers by Matt Cost

This past year was fantastic for my growth as an author. That does not mean it was easy. It was a day in day out grind. Every day I worked my fingers to the bone gathering coffee beans so that I had enough to grind up and make myself a pot of coffee for the next day. And then I had to do it all over again.

Would I have it any other way? Sure, I dream about becoming an overnight lit legend with books on the New York Times bestseller lists, my name in the credits of a Steven Spielberg movie or a Netflix series, and an Edgar in my pocket. But there is something about earning it, putting the work in, grinding it out—that makes each step up the ladder that much more appreciated.

My 2024 by the numbers is something to take pride in, even if the bank account doesn’t agree and the self-proclaimed pundits of the literary world haven’t yet taken notice.

Here are my numbers:

58

How old I am today.

3

Books published. April saw the arrival of Pirate Trap, the fifth book in my Clay Wolfe Trap series. July welcomed City Gone Askew, the second book in my Brooklyn 8 Ballo series. And November birthed Mainely Mayhem, the sixth book in my Mainely Mystery series. From searching for pirate treasure to the eugenics movement and mayhem in the judicial nomination process, it was a busy year for books. Write on.

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COST TALKS at libraries

One of my true joys as a writer is to speak to groups of people interested in books, and even more so, if they are excited about my books. Luckily, there is a magical place called libraries where this can happen. Libraries are usually located in the center of towns, because they are the heartbeat on which said town lives and breathes. It is always an honor to be invited to speak to the patrons of a library and share my writing with them.

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Blog Posts

Most of them right here!

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Podcast Interviews

Where I got a chance to chat with wonderful people about books!

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Panel discussions at conferences, libraries, and on zoom

The chance to speak with colleagues in writing and the arts in front of an audience is a special experience that I enjoy immensely.

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Bookstore Signings.

The bedrock of the business.

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Book festivals and sidewalk events

A great opportunity to chat with lovers of books and other authors.

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Mystery Making Events

A wonderful time of creating and solving mysteries with other writers and the audience.

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COST TALKS at retirement homes

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COST TALK at a rotary club

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Book Club

A wonderful time at the Illume Bookshop in Newburyport, MA hosted by my friend, BJ Magnani.

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Author Brunch

Two truths and a Lie was played. I did surprisingly well.

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Book Launch at a golf course

There was beer, food, and music. Need I say more?

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NEW PUBLISHER

I signed a contract with Level Best Books for my new thriller series debuting with The Not so Merry Adventures of Max Creed in April.

Write on!

My resolution for 2025: Be Better

And a bonus: 1 Santa Claus beard.

About the Author

Matt Cost was a history major at Trinity College. He owned a mystery bookstore, a video store, and a gym, before serving a ten-year sentence as a junior high school teacher. In 2014 he was released and began writing. And that’s what he does. He writes histories and mysteries.

Cost has published six books in the Mainely Mystery series, starting with Mainely Power. He has also published five books in the Clay Wolfe Trap series, starting with Wolfe Trap. And finally, there are two books in the Brooklyn 8 Ballo series, starting with Velma Gone Awry. For historical novels, Cost has published At Every Hazard and its sequel, Love in a Time of Hate, as well as I am Cuba.

Cost now lives in Brunswick, Maine, with his wife, Harper. There are four grown children: Brittany, Pearson, Miranda, and Ryan. They have been replaced in the home with four dogs. Cost now spends his days at the computer, writing.

Character Spirals

Rob Kelley here, exploring real-time character development, which I didn’t think was about characters spiraling out of control, but maybe it kind of is.

My initial character creation process has evolved some since my first novel in which I did detailed character studies and then tweaked them through the editing process. Now I tend to create a backstory that leads up to the moment of their introduction. Nothing super complicated, none of those character sheets with what food they like, what clothing they wear, or what astrological sign they are. That stuff I usually discover in the drafting, if I find I need it at all!

But when I’m doing the first hard edit of my manuscript there is an important character development test that I now perform on all of my point of view characters to ensure that I’m giving the reader the best possible experience. I call it “the complexity test.”

This is learned behavior for me after one of my earliest agent and editor submissions for Raven (High Frequency Press, 2025). A very generous acquisitions editor sent my rejection back with a few insightful observations, the most important of which was that she thought the protagonist was too passive, not driving action, not deeply characterized enough. She liked the other point of view characters, the secondary protagonist, the antagonists, even the secondary characters. But I’d failed to fully depict the tough, resourceful protagonist who rises to threats from a murderous colleague, the FBI, Boston’s Irish Mob, and agents of the Soviet Union, all while staying out of prison.

The backstory and the plot points weren’t enough. The reader needed to see my protagonist struggle and emerge victorious at every turn, both through her own native talent and her growth in the face of adversity. So, each time a decision had to be made, a challenge faced, a potential disaster dodged, I had the opportunity to strengthen her character. That’s what I worked on in the character edit for my protagonist.

In the untitled novel I’m currently doing that first hard edit on, I am introducing a new point of view character who is a Maine State Police Trooper. I have a good background story for her, and I have put her in a situation in which her personal values are challenged by circumstances and institutions. Good start. Now what? I know what purpose she serves in the novel, what key events she will be present for and what the impact of her decisions will be on the plot. But who is she, really? I know her motivations, but I need to see her in action to really know her. I was finding that I was writing her taking actions and moving around the room, but she wasn’t a character, a person. She was a placeholder.

In thinking about how to fix it, I came to the metaphor of a spiral. There’s the core, which is the background story and her inciting incident. She’s placed in a difficult situation and we wonder what will happen next for her. But I found that in subsequent chapters I had that same problem I’d had before. This character moved around the room, but was too lifeless. In Raven, I had all the challenges set out, I just needed to make sure my protagonist was at the center of them, growing from each hard decision she had to make, and dealing with the usually unfortunate consequences of those decisions.

For this new character I needed to invent new challenges for her in every chapter in which she is the POV. Some could be small–frustration with a superior, a friend who is being put in a difficult situation–but then her decisions in those moments could lead to future interactions–the superior makes questionable decisions, the friend’s life and liberty may be at stake–that both propel the plot and complexify the POV character. That’s the spiral, increasing threat for the thriller, increasing complexity for the character.

To be fair, I’m still in the early stages of this revision. I may return to you, dear reader, with a different view altogether in a few months!