Lea Wait's Blog, page 160

Tribute to a WWII Hero

Susan Vaughan here. Veterans Day and the D-Day anniversary have passed, but I’d like to pay tribute to that Greatest Generation, and specifically to my father, Arthur N. Hofstetter. He died in 1993 at age 80 without having really shared his World War II experiences with the family. I think that was a trait many World War II veterans shared. An entire generation had gone to war, so they all knew the horrors and triumphs and wanted to move on and make a life in the safer world they’d helped create.

I knew growing up my father had been a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps, the precursor to [image error]the air force, and that he flew a Piper Cub Grasshopper. This image is a postcard that was tucked in with his medals. He was the pilot, and the spotter, also called an observer, sat in the rear seat. The missions were to locate Nazi troop and munitions trains and radio the coordinates back to the U.S. artillery. In those light and agile aircraft, the two men’s only weapons were pistols.

He told me he’d earned medals, the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross, but described only in general terms the reason. After his passing, my stepmother gave me those medals and the other items that accompanied them. I tucked them away and dug them out only recently after watching a program on the war. What I learned by reading the recommendation by his observer and the commendation by the general amazed me, humbled me, and brought tears to my eyes. I salute the many, many soldiers and sailors who fought bravely and the many, many who died in World War II. Here is my tribute to my father’s service, the story of the daring flight that earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross.

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I don’t know where their base was or how far they had to fly for the mission. This is an adaptation of the May 1945 letter his spotter, 1st Lt. Francis E. Randle, wrote recommending my father for commendation. Randle was the observer in the plane piloted by 1st Lieutenant Arthur N. Hofstetter. During the flight, Randle reported information by radio on the movement of two enemy troop trains in the vicinity of south of the Elbe and east of Wittenberg.

“Shortly after the adjustment of fire had begun, two enemy planes were sighted by Lt Hofstetter. These planes were Messerschmitt 109’s; they flew toward our plane to attack it by banking around us to get ‘on our tail.’ I had not seen the enemy planes, as my attention was focused on the adjustment on the target. Lt Hofstetter went into a steep dive and performed evasive action with his plane trying to shake off the faster enemy planes. Having missed us on the first run, the two enemy planes circled and came for us again. Lt Hofstetter turned to me and with calm confidence urged me: ‘You watch that train and forget everything else, I’ll take care of these planes.’ Lt Hofstetter thus chose to continue to carry out the firing mission even though the enemy planes were continuing to attack and at the same time that radio messages told us two more unidentified planes were heading into our sector. The two enemy planes made two more passes at us, but the evasive action taken by Lt Hofstetter made it impossible for them to line us up and destroy us by fire.”

During a fifteen minute period, three artillery liaison planes (spotter planes) were shot down not far away. The plane flown by my father was the only one remaining in the air. They had begun directing fire on a second enemy locomotive when they were ordered to return to base.

Randle concluded his certificate of recommendation by saying, “Lt Hofstetter at all times conducted himself with courage and coolness; his handling of the plane in evasive action was so skillful as to cause the enemy planes to pass on and attack other Allied planes nearby.” The effect of the fire was to destroy one train composed of twenty-five cars, [image error]including the locomotive, sending personnel in “wild flight” from the train, and to effect considerable damage to another. A recommendation similar to that of Lt. Randle came from the 549th Field Artillery Battalion. The commendation and medal award process took until February 1946 to go through. At that same time, he was awarded the Air Medal for “meritorious achievement,” 35 sorties completed.

After the war, he remained in Germany for a few years, serving with the occupation forces. My mother and I joined him for a year, but I remember little because I was so young. He then served in the army reserves, teaching at a flight school for his two-week annual service, until 1961, when he retired as a lieutenant colonel. It occurs to me now that this coolness under pressure and skill at evading an enemy may have been developed in his early training as a high school and college football quarterback in his (and my) home state of West Virginia.

I’m proud to have the safe keeping of his medals and the commendations of his bravery and skill. I have no children to pass them to, so I’m hoping to find a home for them with a veterans’ organization.

Escape from the Real World

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. As many of you already know, I’m a firm believer in reading as an escape from the real world. Relax, I’m not going to get political, or at least not radically so. On the other hand, the time escaping into a book is most necessary is when all the news on television, in newspapers, and on social media seems to be dark, depressing, and/or unrelentingly dismal.

There’s an interesting dichotomy at play here for writers. Even when we don’t intend it to, our work often reflects what we perceive to be going on around us. I’m not alone in this, but for the purposes of this blog, I’ll only talk about my own experience.

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The one with the con man

Since the fall of 2016, I’ve written one unsold historical novel and several cozy mysteries. Almost all of them have had one thing in common. They’ve featured characters—villains, although not necessarily the ones who committed the murders my amateur sleuths are trying to solve—who exhibit some of the worst characteristics of men who misuse power. I’ve created a character who is an evil, bigoted, charismatic cult leader, another who is a shady entrepreneur/con man, and a third who will do anything to win an election. You can probably guess at some of the other tendencies they exhibit. In the realm of sixteenth-century England, and possibly the reason that book hasn’t yet found a publisher, I went darker than I ever have before to write about false accusations of witchcraft and possession against women. Men were the ones who were witch hunters. Men were the ones who performed phony exorcisms. In many cases these were not based on any true religious belief. They were an excuse for sadistic, sexually deviant behavior. The details survive in historical records. I watered them down, but they’re still disgusting.

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the one with the bigot

Now anyone who has read any of my published books knows that, even in my murder mysteries, I don’t tend to dwell on the gruesome stuff. Half the time you don’t even see the body. That’s still true, at least in the cozies. My continuing characters are good people trying to right wrongs and there’s a lot of humor worked in, too. Well, I think the scenes are funny—opinions may vary. But there has also been this darker, more serious side to the last few books, a byproduct of the times we’re living in.

I’m making a concerted effort to be more upbeat in what I’m currently writing. The villains are back to having good old-fashioned motives like greed and revenge. I don’t want to deal with people who have serious psychological issues anymore.

I don’t want to read about them, either. They’re hard to avoid in news reports but when it comes to what I’m reading for pleasure, I choose to escape. And therein lies a dilemma.

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coming in 2020: another con man and a potential environmental disaster, but it also has Scottie dogs

I’m not the only writer whose stories have been getting darker over the course of the last few years. I haven’t stopped reading new books by favorite authors (many of whom are also friends), but I find that, more and more, I’m falling back on the books on my “keeper shelves” for comfort reads. There’s a dual advantage to this. If I haven’t read a certain title for, say, ten years, I probably don’t remember much of the plot. Even better, if I’ve kept the book, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be one in which there isn’t an excess of violence and depravity. If it’s a mystery, the criminal will come to a bad end. If it’s a romance, no matter how tangled, the lovers will resolve their differences by the final page. There’s something reassuring about such outcomes, and getting “lost in a book” is the best way I know to avoid being overwhelmed by the sense of impending disaster that can come from spending too much time in the real world.

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With the June 2019 publication of Clause & Effect, Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett will have had sixty books traditionally published. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries and the “Deadly Edits” series as Kaitlyn. As Kathy, her most recent book is a collection of short stories, Different Times, Different Crimes. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com and she maintains a website about women who lived in England between 1485 and 1603 at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women.

 

So You Can Go Home Again (Apparently)

Hi All. During the last year I’ve written several times about our decision to sell our house in Boothbay Harbor. See here and here.

For the past decade or more, our kids have made a practice of showing up at the house in Boothbay for the 4th of July. When I said to them, “This year we’ll be renting a place. We can go anywhere. Where do you want to go?” they said, “Boothbay Harbor!” Unanimously and enthusiastically.

So we rented the place right next door to our former home, a beautifully appointed three-bedroom apartment, which I heartily recommend if you are in the market.

I thought it might be weird to be next door to our old house, but it wasn’t. The people who own the place we rented are also the general contractors for the renovation of our former place so we got to walk through it. The new owners have gutted it back to the studs and are doing a beautiful, amazing job including all new systems and a new foundation. We were excited to see the house so well taken care of and happy that it will continue as a family home and gathering place.

We did all the Boothbay Harbor things.

We went on a Damariscotta River Cruise.

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And to the Botanical Garden.

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And of course there was a lot of porch sitting.

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Viola on the porch waiting for her aunt, uncle and cousin at 7:30 am.

And reading.

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And eating.

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Though sometimes the grown-ups just eat and eat and eat and talk and talk and talk and it’s ALL TOO MUCH

And then we turned in the key and left, which was also pretty cool.

On the 4th of July, the fireworks were directly in front of our old house. Even the forty feet to the left in the rental didn’t provide quite as good a view. So I wandered over there and sat on the porch steps. The fireworks were perfect. Directly in front. And I did have a moment, realizing that next year the renovation would be done and a new family would be there and I would never do this again.

We we sold the house in Newton, Massachusetts we brought our kids up in, I balled at the closing. Even though I wanted the move. It was pretty embarrassing.

Bill, always trying to help, said, “It’s just a house.”

I said, “It’s not the house. I miss the thirty-three year-old me with the two little kids who walked into this house and the forty-five year-old me with the teenagers and the crazy job. I miss all those mes.”

So on 4th of July I missed the big family gatherings at the old house in Boothbay Harbor, and my mother-in-law. But I was happy, too. Happy to see the family moving on. The kids having kids.

We’re talking about Sebago for next year.

All photos by my daughter-in-law Sunny Basham Carito, which is why she isn’t in any of them!

The Beauty and Power of Title IX

How great was that World Cup victory last week?

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What a team!

Were you, like us, glued to your TV Sunday morning at 11:00, ready to watch soccer played with grace and grit by a team of US women who love the game, thrive in the spotlight and deserve all the plaudits heaped upon them for beating a determined Netherlands team 2- 0?

Did your house echo with shouts when Megan Rapinoe buried that penalty kick at the 61 minute mark? Did you jump up and down when Rose Lavelle split the Dutch defenders and added an insurance goal at 68:46?

If you somehow missed it, here’s a link to a brief highlight video that captures the excitement of the 90-minute game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XzeUJIJ7Pc&feature=onebox

The US team’s victory was marvelous, and the movement toward equal pay it has spawned is fitting. My goal today is to put it in context.

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On June 23, 1972, Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, thirty-seven beautiful, powerful words: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.

That law changed our world.  It pertains to far more than athletics, but in celebration of last week’s World Cup triumph, in this post I’m going to focus on its impact on women in sports.

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Things weren’t quite this way when I was in high school, but it was close!

I was a freshman in high school when Title IX passed. Two years later, when the implementation gears began to grind, I was an editor of the student newspaper at my high school, The Page.

I first learned about Title IX through magazine articles, one published in Sports Illustrated and another in Ms. The SI feature summarized the nuts and bolts of the new law. The Ms. Article assessed what Title IX could mean for women and girls.

We aspiring investigative journalists at The Page promptly launched an investigation into the athletic budget at our public high school. After initial stonewalling gave way to several tense interviews, we went to press with an analysis detailing how much taxpayer money was spent on boys’ sports compared to girls’ sports. The ratio was 4:1, and it was obvious to all but the most gullible that the numbers had been cooked to spare the powers that be from having to admit the true disparity was far worse.[image error]

When we wrote our Title IX-In-Our-Town piece, only five girls’ interscholastic teams existed: The swim team competed in the fall, basketball was played in the winter, and girls could play tennis, softball or run track in the spring. One particularly brave and talented female classmate played on the otherwise all-male golf team.

Our exposé (such as it was) got a lot of local attention, and eventually progress came to my mill town in central Massachusetts.  Today my alma mater fields a dozen female sports teams: cross-country, field hockey, soccer, and volleyball in the fall; basketball, ice hockey, swimming and indoor track in the winter; softball, golf, tennis, lacrosse and outdoor track in the spring.

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Can and do!

Change came slowly, but it did come, not just in my hometown, but in cities and towns across the nation.

One tangible result is the USWNT, which has been a force to be reckoned with since it won the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1991, nineteen years after the adoption of Title IX. The soccer team has won the World Cup three more times since (including this year) and has brought home four Olympic gold medals.

The soccer stars have counterparts in many other team and individual sports (including Maine’s own Joan Benoit, whose victory in the first women’s Olympic marathon 1984 ranks among the greatest athletic triumphs of all time. [image error]

If you want to experience the thrill of watching her electrifying lap around the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum again, here’s a link for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0FWcbzHDXw

Title IX was the essential predicate that empowered female athletes at all levels. I applaud their hard work, patience and belief in themselves, and am grateful to the USWNT in particular for the joy they brought to our summer.

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Congratulations!

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.

Weekend Update: July 13-14, 2019

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be posts by Brenda Buchanan (Monday), Barb Ross (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:

Maureen Milliken joins fellow Sisters in Crime Leslie Wheeler, Edith Maxwell and Linda Matchett for a panel “Stealing from the Dead,” at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 13 (that’s today!), at A Freethinkers Corner bookstore, 652 Central Ave, Dover, N.H.

Maureen Milliken also joins fellow Maine Crime Writers Kate Flora and Sandra Neily will build a mystery novel on the fly with intense audience participation — or at least the plan for one. In the process, the audience will learn how writers make the decisions when they create their books. Hilarity generally ensues. 6 p.m., Monday, July 15, at Belgrade Public Library, 124 Depot Road. Light refreshments will be served.

 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

What I Eat, When I Write, In The Summertime

Come summer I like to eat, especially after a long day of writing tense thrillers that increase my appetite. Now, I like to eat year round, but summer eating holds a special place in my heart, er, stomach. So what do I enjoy eating after a long day of writing under the hot sun?

My son, who is home from college this summer, works in a deli. Lately, we’ve been having competitions to see who can make the best Reuben. But the best summer sandwich, for my money, is a real Boston Italian, which is different—and significantly better—than a Maine Italian. The Boston Italian is served on a crusty roll and has fatty mortadella, rich provolone, capicola—or gabagool, as  Tony Soprano would say, two types of salami, lettuce, onions and lots of good olive oil drizzle over it, and pooling over the wax paper. Having a son work at a deli has made it easier to indulge in the summer sandwiches I love. After a productive day writing, a hearty Italian with Cape Cod chips hits the spot.

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I live in Maine and we love our seafood. Now I know what you’re thinking. You believe I’m going to talk about a boiled Maine lobster. But no, I’m going to regale you about the singular deliciousness of fried clams done correctly. Good ones are hard to come by, as I’m very fussy about where I get my fried clams. But I have a secret spot that knocks fried clams out of the park. They are coated in unctuous crumbs—NEVER BATTER—with fat, juicy bellies that dissolve on your tongue. My secret place makes their own tartar sauce so that when you dunk the moist clams inside, they emerge with this glistening, yellowish dip that only enhances the intense, saline rich clam-belly favor. If you’re a Mainer, you understand what fried clams means to us folks Merely writing about it is making my mouth water.

Then there’s sweet summer corn from one of the nearby farms, slathered in butter and sprinkled with salt. Cold, decadent ice cream from one of the local dairies. Lobster rolls brimming with tended knuckle and claw meat (no tail) and mixed with just enough mayo to hold everything together. Then of course there’s pizza. Hot pizza on a hot summer night is something to die for. Then again I love pizza every season and for every meal.

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And while we’re at it, I must say that all of the above goes splendidly with cold beer. And since Portland has more breweries per capita than anywhere else in the country, I’ll be quaffing a 20 ounce Foulmouthed, Munchen Klempen with my fried clams. This beer is a German style Marzen lager, cold fermented, amber, malty and quite delicious. And with my Lobster roll I’ll be tipping an On The Point Pilsner brewed by Fore River Brewery.

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So now you know what I like to eat and drink during the summer months after writing my psychological thrillers. Admittedly, it’s a short list. So what foods do you enjoy come summer. Please leave a comment and add your two cents about the best meals to feast on during the dog days of summer.

Now, back to my coffee and writing.

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A Mixed Bag

John Clark watching the dust settle following our move. We completed the removal of everything (ye Gods what an abundance of stuff left after two rounds of decluttering) Monday afternoon including mowing the lawn and washing the floors (compulsive, much?), then closed on the sale Tuesday after going swimming for the first time in almost three weeks. We’re still facing the slightly overwhelming process of sorting box after box, but the task is lessened by the absence of a timeline, as well as a true sense of comfort we both feel in our new home. It reminds me of what my late friend St. Roland Dube often said. “Serenity is the ability to live with unresolved problems.” I can read happily while surrounded by clutter.

There are more aspects to moving than you can imagine if you haven’t done it in a while, even more when you’re a writer. For example, how will your new place affect your creativity and ability to sit and write? Haven’t checked that yet, save for slitting open pre-created sweepstakes entries and writing out 3×5 cards with the new address, phone and email. Then, there’s the tendency to mind-drift while making out new entries and mixing the new address with the old phone or email. One good note, the mail is generally here 2 hours before it arrived in Hartland. However, I can’t dump pick, orget all the latest news from the postmaster and we have to buy fancy purple trash bags or bury everything in the back yard. We also have a much quieter street with no semis jake braking down the hill at 3 am and there’s an abundance of cardinals serenading us.

Every time we think all the contacts (mostly online) are updated, another one comes to mind. The spectrum of difficulty required to change information is as wide as the Indian Ocean. One entity is even mailing me a keyword in order to do an update and informed me it might take two weeks for it to arrive. The process makes me realize how valuable a second email account is as the one that came with our TDS Telecom phone service died a day earlier than requested…I was prepared, Beth was not, but we learned how to export our address books to a spreadsheet, so at least that got saved. Various investment accounts and banking entities required patience as well. When chatting with my AA buddies and later, members of the Hartland Library board, it was eye opening to learn how many still had sealed and untouched boxes from moves made as long as twenty years ago. The more I look at ‘stuff’ the more I realize that the recognition process to accept what I can live without is an evolving and ongoing process. I am, however, determined to pare down until I can honestly say that each thing remaining is necessary. Stay tuned to see how that shakes out.

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On a different note, we enjoyed our annual week in Washington County over the 4th of July, staying at Cod Cove Cottages in Perry like we’ve done several times over the past twelve years. If you haven’t taken time to explore that part of Maine, I encourage you to do so. The Maine Coast Heritage Trust (https://mcht.org/) has accumulated and preserved many really unique parts of the Down East area. If you like hiking quiet trails through woodlands to ocean beaches, have they got places for you. Every year, we discover new ones to explore and unlike many public conservation areas in the more populated areas, we’ve often had trails all to ourselves.

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When we stop in Eastport, we always visit the Peavey Memorial Library (https://www.facebook.com/Peavey-Memorial-Library-133835136652440/). Dana Chevalier, the director, is one of the librarians I admire the most because she’s been able to so much with so little. If you’re looking for a place to invest some money in order to help make the world a better spot for your fellow Mainers, they’re trying to raise $50,000 this summer and everything up to that amount will be matched. As soon as I got home, I wrote out a check because I know how important a good library is to a small Maine town, especially in the winter when there are no tourists and most folks are trying to survive on what they earned in a four month season. The address is 26 Water St. Eastport, Maine 04631.

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What We’re Reading

[image error]Maine Crime Writers are readers, too, and here are some of the books we’re reading this summer.

 

[image error]Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: I’ve been rereading the paranormal “Arcane Society” series for a while now. These books are written by Jayne Ann Krentz, some of them under that name (set in the present), some as Jayne Castle (set in the future) and some as Amanda Quick (set in the past). Then, since it’s the beginning of beach reading season, publishers always release lots of new titles, so my TBR stack is especially high. I’m currently reading Dianne Freeman’s historical cozy, A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder. Next up will be Patricia McLinn’s Hot Roll, the newest in her series about a television reporter turned amateur sleuth, and Sheila Connolly’s Digging up History, the latest in her museum series.

Kate Flora: I have a ton of reading I have to do, but for those quiet afternoons when I’ve written my daily thousand words, I have three books set out. One is Kate Atkinson’s new Jason Brody, Big Sky, because I loved the other four. One is a book of Wallace Stegner essays about writing, On Teaching and Writing Fiction, which a friend suggested. The third is a book I know nothing about, but I read a review that said it was brilliant and everyone has to read it. It’s by Ocean Vuong and called On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

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Barb Ross: I’m reading Big Sky, too. I’m on vacation this week. We’ve rented the place next to our old house in Boothbay Harbor and the kids and grandkids are here. I was so excited when I realized this book was releasing the week before. I’m only 80 pages in, but I’d say it’s the perfect book for porch reading.

 

 

 

 

Maureen Milliken: I, too, am reading “Big Sky.” Or, let’s say, plan to. I rarely buy a hardcover anymore, but when I saw one of my favorite authors, Kate Atkinson, had a new one, I couldn’t resist. I have an issue reading fiction when I’m in the midst of writing a book — it’s not a choice, it’s a mental thing. People have tried to argue me out of it, but you can’t, really. It just is. So mabye “Big Sky” will be my reward when I finish my book.

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Looks like Kate Atkinson will have to wait until my book is done. The nonfiction books, mostly true crime, though, are piling up this summer.

I CAN read nonfiction, particularly true crime books that have themes that connect with what I’m writing about. I just finished “The Innocent Man,” by John Grisham. It’s his only nonfiction book and I became intrigued when I watched (twice) a documentary on the same topic and with the same name on Netflix.  I’m also reading, for the second time, “Erased,” by Marilee Strong. It’s not available in ebook and, written in 2008, it’s out of print, but I found a used copy online. I’m also deep into “The Franco-Americans of Lewiston-Auburn,” by Mary Rice-DeFosse and James Myall, which also has to do with what I’m writing. Next in the lineup is “The Skeleton Crew,” by Deborah Halber which I bought at Crime Bake a couple years and may have something to do with the book I’m working on, too.

Sandra Neily: Ohhhh I want to read Big Sky too and also On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. What an amazing title. I am on the road a lot lately. (Either that or typing madly for a deadline). I’ve never read Daishiell Hammett so I am lapping up the audio book versions of his various works. And drinking in lessons about crackling, unexpected dialogue. And as far as Sam Spade goes, taking note of emotional originality. (A quality I’m trying to infuse into my characters) Although I have to do deep breathing around Hammett’s female characters (versions of dames) and the rivers of booze. To stay in the mood of the novel I’m finishing,[image error] I am rereading Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, and dipping in and out of The Maine Woods by Henry David Thoreau, and want to revisit Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams. All three are non-fiction where the natural world jumps off the page, leading us onward toward better ways of seeing it and ourselves.  “Perhaps the wilderness we fear is the pause between our own heartbeats, the silent space that says we live only by grace. Wilderness lives by this same grace. Wild mercy is in our hands.” from Refuge.

New Beginnings

Bruce Robert Coffin here, hoping that you’re enjoying the warmth of summer.

This month I thought I might chat a bit about new beginnings. Having finished the latest Detective Byron manuscript, at least until my editor slashes through it with his red pen, my mind turns to different possibilities, new stories, new novels. I’ve even set aside some time to whittle down my massive to be read pile.

Completing a novel is a feeling like no other. It is actually quite freeing. We writers tend to chain ourselves to a project, dragging it around behind us for a year or more until it is finished. Much like towing a boat trailer, the novel manuscript never really leaves our sight until we send it off to our publisher. Of course there is still work to be done. Even so, the fact that I’ve untethered myself from it means I’m free to consider other projects. Those ideas for other novels or short stories that have been swirling in the recesses of my mind. I return to the many documents I’ve filed away, each containing the words “novel idea”. You’d be surprised how many of them there are. Some are barely more than a book title and an accompanying paragraph about the concept, while others are highly detailed mini synopsis and story arcs.

While I suspect most writers have more ideas than time, none of us truly have enough time to do all the things we wish, or tell all the tales we want to tell. But finishing a book opens the door to those other possibilities. Which novel idea will be the next Detective Byron Mystery? Which might make a great stand-alone? Which of these barely formed ideas will I grab hold of and chain to my tow hitch?

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Some of you reading this might be picturing the writer staring at a blank page with a look of horror. What do I write? the author thinks. But I don’t see it that way. I prefer to look at it with the wonder and excitement of a new student. What will I write today? What will I learn? Where will my story take me? What will my characters reveal to me?

The truth is fiction writers can create any world, and inhabitants of that world, we desire. And believe me when I tell you that is every bit as cool as it sounds. Much like walking into a movie theater to see the latest flick or curling up in your favorite chair and cracking open a brand new book, it’s the feeling of going on a journey to some exotic and far away land, with absolutely no idea how you’ll get there.

Now, if you’ll please excuse me, I have a novel to write.

Write on!

Weekend Update: July 6-7, 2019

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be posts by William Andrews (Monday), Bruce Coffin (Tuesday), John Clark (Thursday) and Joe Souza (Friday) with a group post on “What We’re Reading” on Wednesday.

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

Lea Wait: Lea will be speaking about both her mysteries and her historical novels from 6-7:30 p.m. the evening of Thursday, July 11, at the Mustard Seed Bookstore, 74 Front Street, Bath, Maine. [image error]

 Brenda Buchanan and Dick Cass:  Brenda and Dick will be at Walker Memorial Library on Thursday, July 11, discussing how and why reading crime fiction is good for one’s mental health.

[image error]The discussion will be held in the historic (though air-conditioned!) Gathering Room from 6:00 – 7:00 p.m.  Walker Memorial Library is located at 800 Main Street in Westbrook. There’s ample parking in an adjacent lot. FMI: https://walkerlibrary.org/event/summer-reading-speaker-series-the-health-benefits-of-murder-mysteries/

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