Lea Wait's Blog, page 17

What You Got Going On?

Back when James and I lived in Minneapolis, there was a guy who worked at the liquor store by the Parkway. Whenever we went in, he’d say, “What you got going on?” by way of greeting. We’ve since moved and I don’t know if that guy, whose name I never learned, is still working at that particular liquor store. Sometimes I think about him and his greeting and hope that he’s well.

In honor of the “What You Got Going On” guy, I thought I’d let you know what I have going on.

Part I: What I’ve Been Reading

[image error]Everything by Megan Abbot, who was recommended to me by people I admire. And MAN do I like what she has going on with her short stuff, with her early stuff, with her longer stuff. Her earlier stuff is classic noir and hard-boiled with broads at the center. None of her characters are clean and I like them more for it. For those of you who read my last post and saw the Quadrants, Megan lives in the upper left and she’s so comfortable there she probably owns real estate. I especially liked Beware the Woman and You Will Know Me and I’m looking forward to El Dorado Drive.

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In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and do so. It was published in 1947 but reads like something from today. She subverts the “fair game” rules established during the Golden Age, including the one that says the murder cannot be the narrator. And that, my friends, is one of the elements that takes it from mystery into thriller territory. If, like me, you’ve only seen the movie, get your hands on a copy.

[image error]Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers edited by Joyce Carol Oates (2021). I’m about halfway through but I cannot shake the first story, “One of These Nights.” It’s dancing on the edges of a lot of things. The way the author takes the familiar: a crowded public swimming pool in the summer, teenagers on the precipice of all sorts of things, and turns it into something dirty has really crawled under my skin in the best possible way.

Part II: What I’ve Been Watching

[image error]The Double Life of Véronique (1991). Man oh man. It’s a little magical feeling and also a little like a thriller. I watched it and found myself thinking about it for a while after. The plot? Not entirely sure. Two ladies living parallel lives and somehow sensing each other and then one dies and the other is almost haunted by her but in a good way. And then there’s this manipulative creeper who has a puppet show. I like it because it has me thinking and that’s one of the reasons we do art, right?

[image error]Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). It is no secret that I love Spaghetti Westerns. There was this time when I was living in Italy and it was Halloween and it was late and a bunch of university students were running around dressed like cowboys and playing Morricone’s soundtrack from Fistful in the background pretending to shoot each other with capguns outside Santa Maria Novella. I still think about that night sometimes and wonder if it really happened. Anyway, I watched this movie with my kids (and did fast forward through a few scenes). It’s beautifully shot and my younger son was really conflicted about why he felt so sorry for the railroad tycoon, Morton. It was an interesting conversation.

[image error]Yojimbo (1961). See my note above about Spaghetti Westerns. Kurosawa influenced Leone. And, get this, I read somewhere at some point, that Red Harvest (1929), by Hammett, influenced Kurosawa. My kids also enjoyed this movie, maybe because there were swords and lots of fighting. I enjoyed it because it hits that stranger comes to town vibe in a way that I always find satisfying. I’ve added a bunch of other Kurosawa stuff to my watch list as a result.

Part III: What I’ve Got Going on

My short story “Vacationland” is out in Dark Waters Volume 2 Anthology. It’s a great collection edited by Nathan Turner and Kirstyn Petras (who also have a podcast that is pretty great). They’re doing a Crowdcast on 1/18 from 8-10 pm that I’ll be participating in.

“The Cottage” was just picked up by the noir/literary publication A Rock and a Hard Place, which is exciting. It’s due out next month and is a story that’s a bit of a stretch for me. It’s a great publication and I’m excited to be included.

“Quick Turnaround” will be out in the March/April Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. I had a lot of fun writing it and am still very proud of the twist at the end. This is my first AHMM piece, which is a big honor.

[image error]There’s a Noir at the Bar at Cafe Avellino on 2/20 in Swampscott, MA that John Nardizzi is organizing with a some amazing New England crime writers (including me). If you’re in the North Shore, come check it out.

Finally – I had the chance to attend the Maine Crime Writer’s event at the Portland Stage. It was really fun and I’m excited for Murder on the Links. Maybe I’ll see you there?

I’d love to know, if you have a chance and feel so inclined, what you got going on?

S. A. D. OR HOW A GRINCH IS LOOKING TOWARD 2025

Vaughn C. Hardacker

Once again, the holidays are over, and we start the infinite journey through January, February, March, and the first half of April. I suffer from S.A.D. (Seasonal Affected Disorder), a depression caused by life as a mushroom. I get up in the dark, and a few hours later, or so it seems, it’s dark again. Between the two, I deal with the B. S. I get inundated with. Today, it’s not too bad; the sun is out for the first time in a week (someone must have sacrificed a goat), but the temperature is in the single digits with a brisk wind creating a below-zero wind chill. Then there are the heating bills! I’m depressed enough without going there …

Having finished that rant, I can get to what is bothering me. For years, I have told people I will live forever. God doesn’t want me, and the devil is afraid I’ll take over.  Since I was stationed in Japan, I’ve not been a fan of Christmas. The Japanese are predominantly Buddhist, so why does every retailer have Santa Claus in their store windows every December? Maybe Japanese retailers are Christian; damned if I know. The entire holiday is a sham anyway. For example, Christ was born in the twelfth month. Okay, I can accept that. The only problem I have is that the year was based on agricultural seasons in the Hebrew calendar. The twelfth month was March, and April 1st was New Year’s Day.  Astronomers studied the descriptions of the stars as listed in the scriptures and have said that Christ was, in reality, born in the Spring. I’ve read that the early catholic church wanted to attract people to the new religion, so they moved the holiday to December because it was close to a major pagan holiday. The holiday has lost its true purpose to celebrate the birth of Christ. However, the three wise men hijacked it and started the gift-giving, which got out of control. Suicide rates peak over the holidays … enough on that.

I am not looking forward to my 78th trip around the sun. Why, you ask? I have been quite lucky in my advanced years. I have been able to stay involved in veteran issues and have had fewer physical issues than many of the people I know. I do have type II diabetes and suffer from PTSD (I still flinch when I hear loud noises, and the sounds of gunfire made me give up hunting–when I hear a gunshot, I still want to dive to the ground.  One day, I woke up and saw the obituary of someone I’ve known most of my life, and it dawned on me that I’m getting to the point where I know more dead people than live ones. I am the sole survivor of my nuclear family, and most of the people I knew led more sedate lives and took care of themselves better than I did. I am living proof that God has a special affection for drunks and idiots.

As I embark on 2025, I have realized that my body has finally convinced my brain that I’m old, and it makes me feel it, too. In December, I tripped and slammed my ribs into a nightstand. For two weeks, I was in severe pain. During the week before Christmas, Jane, my significant other, came into my room holding a paper towel. She opened it and said, “We have to have a funeral.” On Christmas of 2023, her granddaughters gave her two Society Finches, one of which was dead and enclosed in a paper towel. I have known many animal lovers, but none as avid as Jane.

A few years back, we hit a moose, and when I got out, she ran across the road. I asked, “Where are you going?” She said, “To see if the moose is all right.” I said, “You’re talking about an animal that may weigh a half ton–and I doubt if it’s in a good mood right now.”  I had hit the moose a glancing blow and saw it in the ditch beside the road. It got to its feet and trotted off into the woods, back to my story. I told her I’d buy her another bird. We drove to the closest pet store–in Bangor, where I bought her two birds. When we got home, one of them got loose. We chased it around the dining room, and it seemed to be having a great time observing the fools trying to catch it. It landed on our china hutch and got up on a small ladder, hoping to catch it in a net. Remember the fall I took a few weeks before, which had finally stopped hurting? By now, I’m sure you’ve figured out that I fell off the ladder and smashed the ribs on the other side. Today is the first day I’ve been pain-free. Fortunately, we safely captured the bird and placed it in its new home.

My next 2025 issue will be in the works shortly after this blog post. In late January, I’ll have cataracts removed. I’m hoping that it will give me a better outlook on life!

In closing, I HOPE YOU ALL HAD TERRIFIC HOLIDAYS AND A SAFE AND PROSPEROUS 2025

Weekend Update: January 11-12, 2025

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Vaughn Hardacker (Monday), Gabi Stiteler (Tuesday), Rob Kelley (Thursday) and Matt Cost (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, 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

My New Novel Just Published-Why I’m Freaking Out

My new novel just published and now I’m freaking out.

Marketing. Book selling. NetGalley. BookSirens. Double down on Twitter. No, make that X. Send out ARCs to readers. Book bloggers. Book tour bloggers. Tell people about my new novel. Tell more people. Spread the news on Facebook without totally annoying people. Create marketing visuals.

Oh, did I tell you I my new book came out the day after Christmas? That’s why all this marketing hubbub. All the publicity and worry lines and wrinkles and anxiety.

The name of my new novel is Cruel & Bitter Things, Book 1.

Thank the people who wrote great blurbs and penned advance book reviews. Convince myself I’m not a fraud and imposter but a real writer. Go to the post office and send out ARCs of wonderful new book. Tell the postal office that there are books inside the Manila envelope, while fighting the urge to tell them that they are my books. The books I wrote. Then I jokingly tell him I’m a novelist, but he grimaces and asks me for $19.80, and if I want any stamps.

Return home. Schedule podcast appearances. Call bookstores to make sure they carry my book. Read existing reviews of my novel and realize there are some errors and inconsistencies that made it through to the ARC. Damn. Make notes to fix errors before they appear in the final version. Keep track of email addresses to put into my mailing list—which I have yet to set up.

Sit down. Take a deep breath. Try to ignore the pain in my chest. Tell myself not to have an anxiety attack over the first world problem of being an author. Worry about the bad reviews that will come with publishing a novel (there are always bad reviews) and bad sales (there are always bad sales). Call my therapist and set up a session. Take some anti anxiety meds. Grab a box of tissues in the event I feel a tear coming.

Shit! I forgot I the blog post I have to write by mid morning. For Maine Crime Writers! That damn Kate Flora never stops with the reminding emails, although I loved her last novel. Stop thinking about marketing my book and think about what I’m going to write about in blog. Sip coffee and consider various topics, but dismiss each one. Procrastinate. Go into the kitchen and stare into the fridge for the nth time. Grab something to nosh on and head back to the desk to write. Hopefully, whoever reads this won’t think I’m a moron, but that’s near impossible.

Check the reviews on NetGalley and realize that my best review has been taken down by the reviewer who wrote it. Curse! Jump out and down. Tear out the three remaining hairs on my head. Spend the next three hours trying to track down this reviewer and demand to know why she has taken down such a such a superfluous review. Did I offend her? Did she go back and realize she hated my book,  it loved it? Just my luck. Grab a tissue and have a good cry.

Feeling better now. Until I glance at the orders on Amazon. Another quick crying spell. See that it’s near bedtime and hit the hay. Have nightmares about publishing this new novel.

Wake up.

It’s a new day in .

Do the above all over again. Except writing the blog.

Check out the first book in my new series, Cruel & Bitter Things, Book 1.

NEW YEAR: NEW RESOLUTIONS

Jule Selbo

Don’t worry about making the PLOT tick every every every minute. Allow the characters to breathe, think, have opinions.Character is plot. Plot is character. It’s sometimes hard to hold onto that mantra (that I believe in) in the crime/mystery genre. Hold onto it.Read. Read more. In 2024 I was asked to “judge” a non-fiction category for an award. Total? 48 books – all about 400 pages. And I had friends’ books to read. And other books I wanted to read. All this got me in the habit of reading from 10 am to 1 pm EVERY DAY, after putting in some time on the latest Dee Rommel book. Then I had lunch and went back to my students or to Dee Rommel and then, with books piling up, added a wonderful bedtime read instead of a BEST OF BRITISH BAKING SHOW. Now I wake up earlier some days (than regular 4:45 am) and get to work on Dee Rommel earlier so I can start reading at 9:30 am.Somehow combat that fear of putting oneself “out there” in the book world. Everyone’s books are singular, unique, the “voice” is different in every author’s book. Sameness is not the goal.Independent bookstores – love them even more.Libraries – love them even more.Okay to have writer heroes. They have been provided by the universe for inspiration and they come in all shapes and sizes and stories.Frustration that a book doesn’t ‘write itself’ is a waste of time. Love re-working a paragraph fifty times. Don’t worry about saving the world, just fix that damn paragraph.

NEWS:   7 DAYS A DEE ROMMEL MYSTERY (4th in the series)  is now available for pre-0rder on Amazon.  Paperback and Hardback available March 25. E-book available on March 19

NEWS:  Tonight, January 9th at Portland Stage Theatre Main Stage – (theater’s on Forest Avenue, Portland) I am joining Tess Gerritsen, Bruce Robert Coffin and Ron Currie for Crime/Mystery Writers Night.  Four Maine writers  whose crime/mysteries take place in Maine.  7:30. $15.00.  Wonderful actors will be reading from our work and there’ll be a talk after about Agatha Christie’s process/work as it might/might not relate to how we approach our work.  All getting ready for Portland Stage’s production of an adaptation of Christie’s MURDER ON THE LINKS.

SIDELINE: I had a particularly bad line editor on 7 DAYS, but the publisher saw how bad this person was and got “me” a new one who left Dee Rommel’s voice and story intact.  That was a huge learning curve for me –  that there are editors out there (who want to put my book into their own preferred sentence structures and word choices  – willy-nilly! – and feel that’s their job????). I am so grateful the publisher was as appalled as I was (this was a new editor for them, I guess I was the first in line for their red ink).  Publisher even tried to keep the news from me – but when the publishing date was pushed back a few months and I asked why – I got the news and they showed me some of what that line editor did –  we had to go back to the the latest draft I sent them and start afresh.  Oh!  I was fit to be tied!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

 

 

Lear and Foathing in Waterville

How my Muse is seeing the world right now

“Jesus on a pogo stick,” she moaned when I entered the bedroom New Years day. “Please turn off the spotlight and either take those drums away from the monkeys, or shoot the lot.” She abruptly leaned over the edge of the bed and barfed before croaking, “come back in a few months, or never.”

That’s when I realized my muse was in deep trouble. It could have been worse, while she did take most of my creativity with her, I was allowed to keep my sense of humor, and ability to get out of bed each morning. But how does a writer cope when their muse/creativity is incapacitated?

In my case, I am fortunate in that I have other pursuits to fill those hours created by retirement, and I’m not talking about shuffleboard. Let’s begin with a small rant. The world seems to be wetting its collective undies over AI…Half in anticipation, half in dread. I’m pretty much in the latter camp, particularly since almost every software application wants me to rely upon AI as if my brain suddenly turned into badly made Jell-o. Case in point, When I go to list another item ov eBay, it immediately offers to use AI to write a description of the item I’m selling. I’m sure as hell not that far gone, and hope I never get there.

There is one thing I’d like technology/AI to develop for me. I want a chip implant that can record and edit my dreams. I’d kick Fellini to the curb the first night. Imagine being able to rewatch your dreams while fully awake and then edit the best ones into short films. I’d have the mother of all Youtube channels and be rolling in dough. Best of all, there are no actors to pay, or set designers for that matter.

I do have one glaring example of where AI is shooting itself in the foot. Amazon is so reliant on AI bots that selling on the platform as a small business person has become so frustrating and unproductive that I’m gradually removing my books, music CDs, and movies from it. It’s so bad that I can’t even find some of my own listings ion there any more.

I decided to pony up the $21.00 monthly fee and expand on eBay to have my own store and sales have already jumped big time. Perhaps the biggest plus in doing so is having the ability to list an item nobody else has on there. Take a couple photos, add publication details, create a decent description, and add a price. I’m writing this on January second and will ship eight orders to start the new year. I can’t complain about that. It should keep me busy until my muse recovers. I can’t wait to run my latest story idea by her, It features Mary Magdalene, a trapeze, forbidden lust, and a group of slightly inebriated Hobbits playing accordions.

On a slightly more serious note, it’s been a while since I did a book review here, but I picked up a dandy British mystery at Bullmoose the other day. Deadly Animals is Marie Tierney’s first published novel and it’s a dandy.

Ava Bonney is fourteen and lives with her mother and younger sister Veronica in a rundown flat. Money’s tight and Mom is a somewhat narcissistic whiner, leaving the sisters to take care of each other. Ava is not only very bright, but inquisitive, and has developed an unusual interest in the macabre, notably a fascination with the speed and manner with which animals decompose. She’s completely unfazed by death, to a point where she sneaks out late at night to collect road kill which she places in a hidden boneyard. Her fascination has made her quite the expert in how death happens, what affects decay, and pretty much all there is to know about anatomy and physiology.

She’s gone so far as to read everything she can get her hands on about homicide and in particular, serial killers. When she slips out one night to check on a dead fox she’s been studying for a while, she smells another decaying entity nearby. It turns out to be Mickey Grant, a boy her age who is most assuredly dead. What strikes Ava as odd are the wounds that look like bite marks. She knows the boy was a bully, but that he was also kind to stray animals.

It’s this discovery that sets her on a very unusual and at times scary journey. After disguising her voice to sound like an older and more posh woman, she calls in the location of the body. By the time the very toe-curling climax has been reached, three more boys have been abducted, two of them found deceased with bite marks like the first victim, and Ava has become an integral part of the investigation, thanks to Detective Seth Delahaye figuring out just how smart and observant she is.

While readers know who the killer is well before the end, the why and how that propelled that person are revealed in a very adept manner. While there’s gore aplenty in the story, it (at least to me) never rises to a gratuitous level. I suspect many readers of this blog will find it extremely satisfying.

How I want my Muse to see things.

My Holiday Book Bounty

I’m a fortunate woman for many reasons, not the least of which is that every holiday season, my family and friends present me a bounty of books to enjoy during the coming months. This year brought a boatload of wonderful and much appreciated gifts, pictured below.

My 2024 holiday book bounty

I could barely wait to crack open History of the Rain by Niall Williams, a 2014 novel I put on my wish list after my friend, the brilliant writer Eleanor Morse (White Dog Fell From the Sky; Margreete’s Harbor) sang its praises last fall. A contemporary novel set in the imagined village of Faha, located precariously close to the north bank of the River Shannon in County Clare, Ireland, it’s about family love and endless rain, salmon fishing and poetry. As Eleanor promised, I was carried off to Faha for several days, wrapped in Williams’ beautiful prose and marvelous sense of humor. Even when I wasn’t reading History of the Rain, I was thinking about it. It’s that good.

Williams’ 2019 novel This Is Happiness showed up under the tree as well. Also set in Faha, this time in 1958, the persistent County Clare rain has stopped (precipitation that “came in clouds that broke their backs on the mountains in Kerry and fell into Clare, making mud the ground and blind the air”) and the modern world, in the form of electricity, is about to reach the rural village. I cannot wait to read how this development impacted the lives of Faha’s quirky inhabitants.

I’m also looking forward to Long Island by Colm Tóibín, a novel about an Irish immigrant who in midlife returns home to her birthplace in County Wexford after a shocking development in her marriage to an Italian American man. But before I jump back into Irish books, I’ve started The Islanders by Lewis Robinson, who I know from my days on the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance board of directors some years ago. I’ve  enjoyed his earlier work (Water Dogs, Officer Friendly and Other Stories). I’m four chapters into The Islanders as I write this, and Lewis already has taken me by the hand and pulled me in, as I knew he would.

Trouble in Queenstown by Delia Pitts made my wish list after I heard raves from crime writer friends. Set in small-town New Jersey, it’s about PI Vandy Myrick grappling with a murder of a member of a powerful local family, a case she took only because she needed the money to pay for her elderly father’s care. This is the first in a new series by Delia, and I know I’ll enjoy it as much as I have her Ross Agency Mysteries and her fine short stories because Delia Pitts’ voice is one that grabs me from the get-go.

The God of The Woods by Liz Moore has me hoping for a snow day, though snow days don’t really exist in my work world now that I can boot up my office computer from home. But I need to carve out a period of uninterrupted time to dive in, because Moore’s 2020 literary thriller Long Bright River kept me reading waaaay too deep into the night. From the rave reviews and many best-of-2024 lists on which it landed, I know The God of the Woods is as compelling and powerful.

Daniel Mason’s North Woods is another novel I was pleased to receive. At times like these there’s something comforting about taking a trip to the past, and this book, set in and around a house in western Massachusetts, travels from Puritan times forward for several centuries, chronicling the lives of its inhabitants. The premise is strong and I understand the writing is, too.

On the nonfiction front, I’m looking forward to The World She Edited by Amy Reading, a biography of the brilliant Katharine S. White, longtime (1925-1960) fiction editor at the New Yorker. As regular readers of this blog may recall from this post https://mainecrimewriters.com/2020/08/07/a-trove-of-garden-insight-from-katharine-white/ Katharine White is a hero of mine for many reasons, and I look forward to this book about her career, especially her commitment to raising the profile of women writers.

A Game of Birds and Wolves by Simon Parkin, about women who were members of a British naval unit, sounds intriguing. The women invented a board game that helped Allied Forces in World War II anticipate the moves of German U-boats, allowing critical countermeasures to be taken. Smart women helping the war effort in creative ways is a great starting place, and I’m eager to read it.

My sister-in-law Janice gifted me with Blood, Powder, and Residue: How Crime Labs Translate Evidence into Proof by Betha A. Bechky, an NYU professor and ethicist. Forensic science is an endlessly fascinating topic for me, and I expect the information and insights in this book will be helpful as I craft new plots for my stories.

Mystery writers love puzzles. That said, I’ve resisted the Wordle phenomenon because I know I’d become addicted to it and my mornings are busy enough already, but my niece Ellie has hooked me with Volume I of Murdle, by G.T. Karber, which contains problems ranging from easy to (allegedly) impossible-to-solve. This will be a great companion as I look for ways to keep myself entertained and my brain nimble.

Finally, because woman cannot live on words alone, I am eager to crack open two new cookbooks. Justine Cooks, a beautiful collection of plant-forward recipes by Justin Doiron was a gift from my niece and kitchen sidekick Joanna.  And my spouse Diane gave me Down East Delicious by the inimitable Maine food historian Sandra Oliver of Islesboro, whose cooking abilities and writing skills together elevate her cookbooks like a shot of balsamic enhances a hearty soup.  These cookbooks did not make the above photograph only because my holiday book stack was teetering, but they’re on the cookbook shelf, ready for action.

Happy reading in 2025, everyone!  Commenters, what books did you receive as holiday gifts?

Brenda Buchanan sets her novels in and around Portland. Her three-book Joe Gale series features a contemporary newspaper reporter with old-school style who covers the courts and crime beat at the fictional Portland Daily Chronicle. Brenda’s short story, “Means, Motive, and Opportunity,” was in the anthology Bloodroot: Best New England Crime Stories 2021 and received an honorable mention in Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. Her story Assumptions Can Get You Killed appears in Wolfsbane: Best New England Crime Stories 2023.  In 2025 she plans to stay busy with new projects.

 

Weekend Update: January 4-5, 2025

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Brenda Buchanan (Monday), John Clark (Tuesday), Jule Selbo (Thursday) and Joe Souza (Friday).

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

 

 

 

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

Getting Lost in the Worlds They Create

Kate Flora: When I was a kid growing up in a small Maine town, the high point of the week was the trip to the Vose Library. I would take out a great stack of books, read them throughout the week, and return the next week for another stack. Sometimes, of course, I would reread the same book many times. When I was around 12, I got to be the librarian’s assistant, checking out books, filing the cards, and shelving books. One of the greatest perks of the job was that I got to be second in line, after librarian, for the great gothic suspense novels by Mary Stewart, Phyllis Whitney, and Victoria Holt.

Back then, although I dreamed of being a writer someday, I didn’t seriously think I could be. I thought that someone would have to be especially gifted with a magic touch to be able to transport a reader from this world into the one they created. I’m still a fan girl today. Still love those books that hold me so totally in their sway that I don’t want to leave the fictional world to return to this one.

[image error]It doesn’t happen that often anymore. I enjoy the books I’m reading, or I put them down and find something else. But while I was running around doing holiday errands, I started listening to Kristen Hannah’s The Women. And it happened. I wanted to stay in the car and listen. I needed to know that Frankie would be okay. It also took me back to those war years. My sophomore year in college, my dorm room was a microcosm of what was happening nationally. I went to Ft. Dix on weekends to see my guy while my roommate would fly to Toronto to see hers.

I had initially hesitated to read the book because it was so popular. When a book is popular, there are so many opinions out there about it that it is hard to come to the reading experience fresh and have a satisfying experience of discovery. Luckily, I hadn’t read a lot of reviews, and so I was able to discover the story without outside influences.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is traditionally a time when I set work [image error]aside, do less cooking (except for NYE) and indulge in spending as much time as I want to reading. I’m lucky that we’re a bookish family and so I always have a stack of new books to tackle. Mostly I read fiction that week, but my husband bought me a book called The World-Ending Fire The Essential Wendell Berry, so I have been digging into his essays. The experience of reading his thoughts about the land and its timelessness have reminded me of how magical it was to grow up on so many country acres. We had trails through the woods. Imaginary houses or castles along the moss-covered ledges. Two hills to sled down to the pond. Skating in the winter and swimming in the summer.

Reading the book also puts me in touch with my mother, who was a great Wendell Berry fan. She was also a country-living writer who cared passionately about the land and the soil, about observing the seasons, about watching wildlife and the sunsets over the pond. Once, when she wanted to see a turkey vulture close up, she tied a rope around a roadkill woodchuck and dragged into the field outside the kitchen window so she could watch them.

Indulging in reading both the fiction and the nonfiction also reminds me of how, sometimes, when I’m writing a book, I am so deeply into the plot that it is just like when I’m reading. I will find that I can’t wait to get back to the story to see what happens next, even though I’m the one who is writing it.

What kind of a reader are you? Do you get lost in books? Sometimes resent the fact that you have to leave the world you are enjoying so much to come back to mundane chores like doing laundry or making dinner? Or are you someone who feels guilty taking time away from work to read?

Happy New Year. And here is another gift I got for Christmas, one that made me laugh out loud.

Kathy’s Rules for Commas

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today taking issue with style sheets.

One advantage of self-publishing in e-book and POD formats is that I am no longer bound by “house” styles, the choices on spelling, grammar, and punctuation issues that publishers used to set up, and probably still do, for their copy editors to enforce. When I was being published by traditional publishers, every one of them had preferred rules for punctuation, capitalization, and so on. If your usage in a manuscript differed, the copy editor would change it.

I prefer to play by the rules. The only problem was that I’d just get the hang of the way one publisher wanted commas done and another publisher would hit me with a different set of guidelines. I finally gave up trying to get it right in advance and just punctuated the text the way it made sense to me. I didn’t argue with a copy editor’s changes unless they altered the meaning of my sentence.

no, this isn’t real, but it’s not that far off either

 

Things are different now. I don’t answer to an editor or a publisher and I go by only two rules when it comes to commas. I use the Oxford comma in lists, for clarity, and I put a comma where there needs to be one to indicate a pause. This is especially important in writing dialogue.

I could stop here, but that would make a very short post, so I will go on to add that I also arbitrarily use lower case for titles like the duke of Norfolk and the queen, but tend to capitalize titles like Her Majesty and Principal Secretary. When I was writing contemporary novels I was in a constant battle over whether or not to capitalize Sheriff’s Department. Yes, I know there are style manuals, but the rules have changed over time and I’d just as soon stick with what I remember being taught back in the dark ages when I was in school. Altering those habits just seems wrong.

Spelling comes into this discussion, too. Sometimes alright really needs to be two words. I have a back yard, not a backyard, to go with my front yard. On the other hand, the area our driveway leads into is a dooryard. Maybe I’m just too lazy or too stupid to learn the “rules,” but it seems to me that when those rules keep changing, no one can keep up.

how I sometimes felt when trying to figure out comma rules

All this makes me wonder if readers care about, or even notice, a writer’s choices in spelling, grammar, or punctuation, as long as they aren’t pulled out of the story by them. That’s a serious question. I’d love to hear what MCW readers think. Please feel free to chime in in the comments section.

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.