Lea Wait's Blog, page 298
December 26, 2014
Happy Boxing Day
Unless you are still sleeping off yesterday’s hot mulled wine or spiked eggnog, you know it’s the day after Christmas, but what you might not realize is that December 26th is actually a holiday in some parts of the world. Great Britain and Canada, as well as other Commonwealth nations, celebrate Boxing Day, while many Catholic countries mark the day as St. Stephen’s Day. In Ireland, the day is known as “The Day of the Wren,” and in some southern US states, December 26th is feted with the most unimaginative name ever: the “Day After Christmas Day.”
Vicki Doudera here. In Maine we don’t celebrate any of these things, which is unfortunate, because if the world is divided between people who like holidays and those who don’t, I come down squarely in the camp of those who love them. The more occasions to whoop it up, the happier I am. Wren Day, St. Stephen’s Day… I’d take any one of these monikers, although the name I prefer and the occasion I’d most like to mark would be Boxing Day.
For one thing, it’s fun to say, just like any word with an “x.” (Go ahead, say it out loud and see what I mean.) Someone once told me that the origin of the name lay in all the empty boxes laying around after Christmas, but I’ve since learned that’s balderdash. Most historians believe Boxing Day began because working class folk received their gifts, known as a “Christmas box,” from their bosses on the day following Christmas. Since these servants and tradespeople spent the day of Jesus’ birth working, they were given the day after off from their jobs to celebrate.
I will not be taking today off, although I would like to. Instead, I’m spending the day putting away all of those aforementioned boxes, getting my kitchen back in order after serving some terrific holiday meals, and organizing my office so I can start in earnest on a new writing project in January. (More to come on that next month.) Generally, this is the way I usually roll on the day after Christmas: I clean up and reflect, ease myself back into the world of winter and work, catch my breath after a whirlwind of a month.
What about you? Do you enjoy any special December 26th traditions? Here’s hoping your holidays this month were bright, no matter what they were, and that 2015 finds you happy and healthy wherever you are.
December 23, 2014
Merry E-Christmas to You
The star on Mt. Battie in Camden
We here at MCW are hoping you have a happy holiday, safe driving, and plenty of time to read. And since many people get new e-readers, or finally have time to sit down with a good book once the shopping and cooking are done, we’re offering links today to some of our newest books.
Happy Reading!
Kate Flora: I am actually a bit astonished to find that both of my new babies are available as e-books. This now means the whole Joe Burgess series can be read the way you might eat a box of chocolates, one delicious book after another. Here are the links to Death Dealer and And Grant You Peace:
Death Dealer buying link:
Kindle http://amzn.to/1Cy29b7
Nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/death-dealer-kate-clark-flora/1118198601?ean=9780882824765
And Grant You Peace buying link:
Kindle http://amzn.to/1zgmxaa
Tinsel Painting done by my mother
Barbara Ross: My books are:
Clammed Up
Nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/clammed-up-barbara-ross/1114146827?ean=9780758286864
Boiled Over
Nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/boiled-over-barbara-ross/1116150345?ean=9780758286888
Musseled Out (pre-order)
And, Kensington has recently released an “ebook boxed set” including Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (The First Hannah Swensen Mystery with Recipes) by Joanne Fluke, Death Of A Kitchen Diva (The first Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery–set in Bar Harbor) by Lee Hollis and Clammed Up (The first Maine Clambake Mystery) by Barbara Ross
Nook http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-taste-of-murder-box-set-joanne-fluke/1120627582?ean=9781617737022
Susan Vaughan: Here’s my Holiday feature:
ONCE BURNED, part of my Task Force Eagle trilogy, is only 99 cents Dec. 18-25, on Amazon: http://amzn.to/1bPOxIb
Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson:
The links for the ebook edition of my most recent Liss MacCrimmon Mystery, Ho-Ho-Homicide (w/a Kaitlyn Dunnett) are:
iBook
https://itun.es/us/Kp_VZ.l
Nook
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ho-ho-homicide-kaitlyn-dunnett/1118482477?ean=9781617736162
And here is a link for my backlist titles. The entire Face Down series (prequel to the new Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries by Kathy Lynn Emerson) and many others are also available at all the usual outlets but I get a bigger share of the price if readers buy them here:
John Clark: If you have a Y/A reader in your family who loves fantasy and adventure, how about The Wizard of Simonton Pond?
Lea Wait: Has been crazy busy promoting a Christmas book, so she hasn’t sent links, but the clever detectives among you can track her down now that you know, as Lea says:
For those still celebrating Christmas, my Shadows on a Maine Christmas is available in e-book formats, and for who’ve had enough holidays, Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding is also in e-book formats.
For those of you still going crazy entertaining, or perhaps with a New Year’s crowd to cook for, here’s another quick and dirty recipe from Thea, who loves to eat:
Boil a bunch of tiny potatoes until they’re crisp tender. Drain and chill. Then wrap in bacon (one slice will do 3-4 potatoes), skewer the bacon with toothpicks, and bake about 20-35 minutes at 400 degrees, until bacon is crisp. Serve with a dollop of sour cream into which you’ve stirred some fresh snipped dill. You will be a party sensation!
And if you’re just knocking about the internet and want some recipes to drool over, check out this link:
http://www.chef-in-training.com
December 22, 2014
Murder at Christmas
Kaitlyn Dunnett here, pondering the subject of murder at Christmas.
On the surface, this sounds like a contradiction in terms. Who would ruin a merry Christmas with murder? Unfortunately, as every law enforcement officer and medical professional knows, the holidays produce more than their fair share of domestic violence. Expectations that are too high? Too many people together in a confined space? Early-onset cabin fever? Something to do with the shorter days and absence of light? Cold weather? The effect of the full moon? Who knows what causes it, but more people do harm to their nearest and dearest during this “joyful” season than just about any other time of year.
Is it any surprise, then, that a huge number of crime novels take place during Yuletide? What is perhaps more peculiar is that statistics show that these books sell better than non-holiday-themed mysteries. As a result, editors often ask their authors to write stories set at this time of year. I even had that stipulation written into one of my contracts. This seems to be especially prevalent among those of us who write traditional and/or cozy mysteries.
No, murder isn’t funny, but solving one can be fraught with humorous pitfalls for the amateur detective. The gathering together of relatives and friends also provides an opportunity for the series sleuth to resolve personal conflicts that have been building from book to book. That’s what happens, along with murder, mayhem, and mistletoe, in both of the new Christmas books out this year from Maine Crime Writers.
Here’s what I said in my blurb after I read an advance copy of Lea Wait’s Christmas book:
“When shadows from the past darken the present it’s up to Maggie, and Will’s Aunt Nettie, to bring the truth to light. Like champagne with breakfast on Christmas morning, the aptly named Shadows on a Maine Christmas is a special treat.”
Then there’s my current Christmas story, Ho-Ho-Homicide, in which Liss and Dan spend time on a Christmas tree farm in rural Maine and solve not one but several mysteries from the past. The action doesn’t actually take place on Christmas, but rather ends with a scene much like those I’ve been experiencing all this month—groups of people tromping out into the snow-covered fields to select and cut down the perfect Christmas tree.
The most complete list of Christmas mysteries comes from Janet Rudolph at Mystery Readers Journal and this year’s update starts here:
http://www.mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/2014/12/christmas-mysteries-authors-d.html
Don’t go there quite yet. First let me tell you about some of my personal favorites. There’s my own A Wee Christmas Homicide, of course, which revolves around Liss MacCrimmon’s discovery that the shops of Moosetookalook, Maine have the last remaining supplies of what has unexpectedly turned out to be “the” toy of the year, the Tiny Teddy. This book has been around for a few years, but it can still be found in paperback and electronic formats.
Donna Andrews, whose amateur sleuth is a blacksmith as well as a wife and mother, has two very funny mysteries set at Christmas. All of the titles in this series have birds in them, so it won’t surprise you to learn that the books in question are Six Geese A-Slaying and The Nightingale Before Christmas.
Rhys Bowen’s The Twelve Clues of Christmas is great fun. Set in the 1930s, it features Lady Georgie, 35th in line for the English throne and a magnet for trouble. Another historical series, set just a bit earlier (1923), is written by Carola Dunn and features Daisy Dalrymple as the amateur sleuth. In Mistletoe and Murder, Daisy faces a formidable foe—her mother! Dunn modeled her Cornwall estate, the fictional Brockdene, on the real Cothele, a sixteenth-century manor house I visited back in 2001.
In the oldie but goodie category, you can’t beat Charlotte MacLeod’s Rest You Merry, the first Peter Shandy mystery, in which Peter, sick of being pressured by neighbors to get with the program and decorate his house for the holidays, decides to do so with a vengeance and then leave town. Needless to say, his escape from Christmas doesn’t go quite as he planned.
Another gem is Joan Hess’s O Little Town of Maggody, an entry in her Arly Hanks series. This one involves the return of a native son, now a country music star, and the disappearance of his elderly aunt. And, of course, there is a cast of quirky characters designed to drive level-headed Arly, the chief of police in this small town, right around the bend!
Finally, for those of you who also read in other genres, let me suggest Wolfsbane and Mistletoe, edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner, an anthology of paranormal short stories. I also recommend, for those who enjoy well-written tales of romance and adventure, Christmas Revels, a collection of five novellas by Mary Jo Putney.
Happy Holidays.
Have You Heard About Thunderclap?
December 9, 2014: Vaughn Hardacker here. A few days ago I received an email from a fellow writer who asked me the title question. My answer at that time was “no”. He directed me to the Thunderclap website (http://thunderclap.it) and I was intrigued. I’m not unique, like many writers I find the marketing end of the business to be a real pain in the keester. Publicity kills me. I have accounts on all the social media sites but seldom visit them. I’m not even a user of the telephone (even when I was in my teens I was not one to spend time on the phone–I found it much more satisfying to actually walk over to my girl friend’s house and spend a couple of hours there rather than talking on the phone until I lost all feeling in my ear). I am constantly being told: “You only call when you want something.” Well, Yeesss!I have always believed that people have better things to do than spend time on the phone with me…if I have something important to discuss or ask, then I’ll call. When we used to communicate regularly, a typical phone call between my daughter and me used to go like this: Me: Hello. Daughter: Hi Dad. Me: How you doing? Daughter: Fine. Me: How are your boys doing? (Note I didn’t ask about her first husband…I used to call him ZERO because those were his prospects.) Daughter: They’re doing great. Me: That’s good, here’s your mother. (At which time I handed the phone over and departed stage right…) However, there are two types of people on social media. There are people who spend hours each day monitoring their pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, then there are unsocial people like me. I use electronic communications when I need to, not as a way to kill time. For ten years my cell plan gave me 100 minutes a month and I don’t think I once used a quarter of them. But I digress, back to the subject at hand. Thunderclap is a crowdspeaking” platform that allows individuals and companies to rally people together to spread a message. The site uses an “all-or-nothing” model similar to sites such as Kickstarter, in that if the campaign does not meet its desired number of supporters in the given time frame, the organizer receives none of the donations. On Thunderclap, backers donate tweets and social media posts rather than money. Campaigns can range between activism, fundraising, films, creative projects, and product launches. Notable brands that have run Thunderclap campaigns include the White House, Major League Baseball, People (magazine), and the United Nations. In her article, Thunderclap: Is louder better when it comes to transmitting your message? (http://deeson-me.co.uk/blog/articles/benefits-and-downsides-thunderclap), Clare Aspin includes lists of Thunderclap’s benefits and downsides. Among the benefits are these:
By getting lots of accounts to send your message to their followers, you can significantly increase the reach of your message and people who do not follow you will see it.
It shows you the analytics and details of all of your supporters.
Among the downsides are these:
In order to support your Thunderclap, people have to connect with the Thunderclap platform and give it permission to access their social media accounts and send messages on their behalf. Many people will not do this as they do not want to give a third party that level of control.
The messages are all sent at the same time, so you will only really reach people who are on social media at that moment.
Thunderclap is a free service, however, it does offer paid campaigns which allow organizers more flexibility with richer pages, updates to members, and more. I have created a campaign to announce that my new novel, THE FISHERMAN, is available for pre-order on all of the major book sales sites… The creation of the campaign is easy and when you visit the website you can easily navigate through the process. Once you have written your 140 character message (the max you can Tweet) and uploaded your media you submit the campaign for approval (usually takes 2 to 3 days), my approval came back in less than one day. Now comes the hitch (refer to the first downside above) before the message will go out you have to get 100 people to support you. Thunderclap provides you with a link (mine was http://thndr.it/1yvW11j) which you must provide to potential supporters via email, facebook, twitter, or any method you can. Once 100 people have accessed the link and authorized the Thunderclap platform to send messages on their behalf, the campaign will go live and on the date and time you set up, a single post will go out via facebook, twitter, and TUMBLR. Sounds simple…maybe too much so. I’ll let you know how it works in a later blog. Oh yeah, Happy holidays!!!
December 16, 2014: With six days to go it doesn’t appear as if I’ll be meeting the 100 supporter requirement. I’ve posted so many reminders on facebook (I have over 500 so-called friends) that I’m starting to feel like an obnoxious telemarketer. The fact that if you don’t obtain the 100 supporters your broadcast doesn’t go pretty much neuters Thunderclap as a viable PR tool. On a positive note several of those who are supporting me (21 at this time) have passed my posts on to their friends–so maybe something will come of this yet.
December 18, 2014 (2:30 p.m.): With four days to go I have 23 supporters. I must say that Thunderclap is more like a moped backfire. The requirement for 100 supporters renders this useless from my perspective. I have over 500 so-called friends on Facebook and only 23 signed on. Looks as if I better spend my time and energy on some other means of PR. As for crowdspeaking software…doesn’t do much good if the crowd isn’t listening.
December 19, 2014
Weekend Update: December 20-21, 2014
Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Susan Vaughan (Monday), Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett (Tuesday), and Vicki Doudera (Friday). On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we’ll post an e-book round up—news about our titles in electronic format just in time to read them on all those new e-readers and tablets folks will be receiving as gifts.
This close to Christmas there isn’t much news from Maine Crime Writers. Just like our readers, we’re busy with all the usual holiday chores, as well as with getting our works in progress to the point where we can take a few guilt-free days off to be with family and friends.
As usual, we’d love to hear your comments on Maine, Crime, or Writing. Just use the link below to share. All comments are automatically entered for a chance to win our wonderful basket of books and the very special moose and lobster cookie cutters.
If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker in 2015, we hope you’ll keep us in mind. Contact Kate Flora at mailto: kateflora@gmail.com to ask if contributors to Maine Crime Writers are available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business.
December 18, 2014
Holiday Round-Up: Books We’re Getting and Books We’re Giving
Happy Friday, All. One of the most common questions we crime writers are asked at library and bookstore events is: What books do you read? So here, from some of our regulars, are our answers to the questions:
What books do you want to get for Christmas and what books are you going to give?
Kate Flora: When John and I were children on the farm in Union, one of the high points of the holiday season was when the Brentanos catalogue arrived. Each of us was allowed to pick on special book which our parents would order for us for Christmas. It was more magical than the Sears catalogue, and the choice was anguishing. It had to be a very special book, and we wanted it to be one that would last though as much of the school vacation as possible. I still have my volume of Amecrian myths and legends, one year’s prized selection.
These days, despite being passionate about books, there have been years when I didn’t get any books except a cookbook. Now that my sons are older, they choose books for me, and I love the fact that they will often pick something I’ve never heard of or would be unlikely to read. Dan Chaon short stories. Neil Gaiman. The Poisoner’s Handbook. I’ve set aside the two days after Christmas to curl up on the couch and read.
Giving? We have a five year old, so I’ve ordered Where the Sidewalk Ends, and Bendy Wendy by Jo Jo Thoreau, a Maine author who just turned 10. For the dog lovers, Cat Warren’s wonderful book, What the Dog Knows. And someone will get Sparta, by Roxana Robinson, because it is truly wonderful book.
Lea Wait: Books I’d love to get for Christmas? EUPHORIA by Lily King (a Mainer) and THE BURNING ROOM by Michael Connelly. I’m also really looking forward to reading the first in Maine Crime Writer Sarah Graves’ new series, WINTER AT THE DOOR, which will debut on January 6.
As gifts? My younger grandchildren who giggle a lot are getting PRESIDENT TAFT IS STUCK IN HIS
BATH by Mac Barnett and with hilarious illustrations by Mainer Chris Van Dusen. For the granddaughter who still wants to be a princes when she grows up – PRINCESSES ARE NOT JUST PRETTY by Kate Lun and Sue Hillard. The young man who’s just getting interested in American history will be unwrapping Philip Hoose’s WE WERE THERE, TOO: YOUNG PEOPLE IN US HISTORY. (Yup. Phil Hoose is also a Mainer.) And for the older granddaughters, Jacqueline Woodson’s brilliant and moving memoir, BROWN GIRL DREAMING, and I AM MALALA: How One Girl Stood for Education and Changed the World, by Malala Yousafzai and Patricia McCormick.
Vaughn Hardacker: I can’t think of a single book that I’d like to receive however, a gift card to a bookstore (although the nearest one to me is BAM in Bangor three and a half hours drive from here) I have sent out a couple of books as gifts though: Lee Child’s latest Personal and Deadline by John Sandford (his latest Virgil Flowers book). I have a couple of books available in eBook format: SNIPER and my book loosely based on my experiences in Vietnam (very loosely) ELEPHANT VALLEY.
Kaitlyn Dunnett: In what’s left of our tiny family, we no longer exchange gifts at Christmas but rather celebrate by getting together, pigging out on food, and catching up on news. The only exception has been our niece and it has been my habit to buy two or three hardcover middler grades books as presents for her. I was all set to order Dreamwalker (Red Dragon Academy Book 1) by Rhys Bowen and her daughter, C.M. Broyles, a fantasy novel aimed at kids in grades 4-8 when the family got together for Thanksgiving and I learned two things. One, said niece has only read a handful of fiction all year. Two, that what she has read is way beyond what I’d have expected for someone in her age group. On her teacher’s recommendation, she read Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper. Currently she’s reading a book about a girl from another country trying to adjust to living with an American family. Sorry, I didn’t catch the title or author. My conclusion? Give the kid cash and let her pick out her own present. Maybe it will be a book and maybe it won’t but at least she’ll be happy with her choice.
At her age, I always received a stack of girls’ mystery stories—Nancy Drew, Judy Bolton, and all the rest. I was always happy to get them and had probably read them all within a week. Then it was back to borrowing from the library and occasionally buying a title for myself at the local Woolworth’s. These days, when I real almost everything not for research on my iPad, I download a book as soon as I decide I want to read it. Combined with that non-exchange of gifts thing I just mentioned, I don’t expect (or even want) to receive any books for Christmas. An extra piece of apple pie, though, or some leftover fudge . . .
Susan Vaughan: I’m giving my husband THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN, book 4 in the Martin Beck 
series by Swedish authors Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. He enjoys the Inspector Wallander series by Henning Mankel and other mysteries by Swedish authors (in English) so this seemed a natural. It’s a mass-murder police procedural and thriller I think he’ll enjoy. If the title seems familiar, THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN was made into a film starring Walter Matthau, but neither of us has seen it.
I couldn’t put down Hallie Ephron’s stand-along thriller NEVER TELL A LIE, so I’d like the road the first book in the Dr. Peter Zak series she and Donald Davidoff write as G.H. Ephron. The idea of a forensic psychiatrist as sleuth intrigues me. So Amnesia is going on my holiday list.
John Clark: Now That You’re Here by Amy Nichols.
One minute Danny was running from the cops, and the next, he jolted awake in an unfamiliar body–his own, but different. Somehow, he’s crossed into a parallel universe. Now his friends are his enemies, his parents are long dead, and studious Eevee is not the mysterious femme fatale he once kissed back home. Then again, this Eevee–a girl who’d rather land an internship at NASA than a date to the prom–may be his only hope of getting home.
Eevee tells herself she’s only helping him in the name of quantum physics, but there’s something undeniably fascinating about this boy from another dimension . . . a boy who makes her question who she is, and who she might be in another place and time.
Barbara Ross:
Books I’m giving.
My husband Bill told me he had “bought lots of books for Christmas presents.” So, in preparation for this list, I went up and opened the box. They were all for our nineteen month-old granddaughter!
So, I can say without fear of anyone reading this and spoiling their present, this Christmas we are giving
The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm, by LeVar Burton
The Night Riders, by Matt Furie
Stories 1, 2, 3, 4 by Eugene Ionesco and Etienne Delessert
Symphony City, by Amy Martin
As for what is on my list
To Dwell in Darkness, Deborah Crombie
The Handsome Man’s Deluxe Cafe, Alexander McCall Smith
Tagged for Death, Sherry Harris
Death with all the Trimmings, Lucy Burdette
December 17, 2014
Thea’s Quick and Dirty Holiday Party
Kate Flora here, still busy doing my homework, way behind on holiday shopping, with nothing
wrapped and no holiday tree. So you won’t be surprised to learn that when I sat down to write a blog 
post, I came up kind of empty. Childhood Christmas, I thought. Dug through the old photos. Came up uninspired. Holiday baking, I thought. But I’m not a very good baker, so that was out. And then I remembered: Thea’s Quick and Dirty Holiday Party ideas. Everyone can use a little help from Thea Kozak, right?
So I dug through my old Thea Kozak mysteries, and there it was, on page 283 of An Educated Death. Thea is consulting on a student death at a private school, and the headmistress’s assistant is in a tizzy because she’s supposed to give a party and the school’s emergency has had her working overtime. Thea says: “Are you really in trouble with your own hors d’oeuvres? Because I’ve got some great quick and dirty recipes.” And when the answer is yes, she starts reeling off advice:
“Hope you don’t mind cream cheese. It’s the staff of life. . . .Get some smoked trout, about half a pound. You have a food processor? Okay, you mix it with a package of cream cheese, horseradish, and lemon juice. Thin it with some half and half it it’s too thick. Great on crackers. It’s also wonderful on cucumber slices. Use the English kind, they don’t had those big seeds. Next, a can of crab, another package of cream cheese, a little lemon juice, and a teaspoon or two of curry. Mix it together it the food processor, put it in a dish and bake for about twenty-five minutes.”
I dictated while she scribbled frantically.
“Now, everyone is impressed by piles of food. Doesn’t have to be special, just has to be massive. So get a couple pounds of shrimp, pile ‘em on a platter with a bed of lettuce, use a green pepper in the middle filled with cocktail sauce and lots of lemon wedges. Do the same with a platter of raw veggies. Use sugar snap peas, red, yellow, and orange peppers, those ready-peeled baby carrots, cauliflower and broccoli. Hollow out a small red cabbage and a small green cabbage, fill one with ranch dressing and one with honey mustard dressing. Belgian endive. Separate it into spears, fill the big end with herbed cheese, arrange on a tray like flower petals and sprinkle with sprouts.”
“Stop,” she said, “this is great but you’re making me hungry. But how do you know all this? You never entertain. You’re always at work. I know you are.”
“I used to have a life once. And my mom is the world’s greatest cook. Don’t forget little smoky sausages and Swedish meatballs with a dish of mustard. Don’t forget toothpicks.”
After a bit of back and forth, Thea adds that for dessert a giant chocolate cake and a cheesecake will make everyone feel like they’ve had an amazing treat. Just make it look opulent.
For my holiday parties, I add a spiral sliced ham, a basket of assorted breads, a variety of mustards, and a caviar pie. Here’s that recipe:
Mix 6 chopped, hard-cooked eggs with 3 T. of mayo
1 c. minced onion
8 oz. cream cheese mixed with 2/3 c. sour cream
Arrange in layers in a springform pan. Chill. Top with 2 small jars of caviar. Serve with crackers.
Thea and I wish you a very happy holiday.
And if you’re not happy enough yet, may I suggest the Peartini?
Pear vodka, St. Germain or other elderflower liqueur, the juice of a fresh lime. Shake with ice or pour over ice. And be careful. Be very careful. These are addictive.
Want to go fancier? Slice some pears, marinate in a bit of the vodka, and add to the drink.
December 16, 2014
An Unexpected Event
Hello again from Sarah Graves, writing to you from Eastport, Maine where I do still look like the photo at left, but the background doesn’t. The poor old car is there but the snow is gone, melted by inches of rain that soaked us all through but that at least did not have to be shoveled. And in December, if it comes out of the sky but doesn’t remain in the driveway or on the front walk afterwards, I’m all for it. A photogenic dusting is fine for the holidays but otherwise they can keep it on the ski hills, as far as I’m concerned.
The unexpected event was the collapse of the Eastport breakwater. As you may already know, it happened in the middle of the night, very suddenly. People nearby said the sound of a snowplow scraping on pavement woke them, the sound being tons of earth, steel, and wood falling. The caretaker on the schooner Ada Lore and his dog, asleep on the vessel directly adjacent to the collapse, barely escaped with their lives, and other boats were sunk or damaged as well.
Here’s the scene from above. (Both of these photos are by Jim Lowe – thanks, Jim!) It could have been much worse since just a few hours later dozens of fishermen and their trucks would’ve been on the breakwater. But as it is, they’ll have to find other places for their boats — not an easy task. Having them out on moorings instead of in the boat basin means having to get to them by dinghy, a dangerous trip in winter when things are icy. And there’s no storm protection like the kind they used to get inside the breakwater.
I wasn’t kidding about the rain. Fortunately, I have indoor work to do: the second book in the Lizzie Snow series, set in Aroostook County, Maine and called THE GIRLS SHE LEFT BEHIND, is in progress and I am chugging along on what I hope is the second-to-last rewrite. When I get to this stage I tend to remember without wanting to the theme music from “Murder, She Wrote,” that happy, tra-la-la tune that makes writing sound like such a pleasant occupation. The well-kept hands with their manicured nails moving lightly over the keyboard, the brisk, satisfied straightening of the finished pages…oh, how I despise that music. But I love Angela Lansbury, so there’s that. And even after all this time I do love the process, even when — especially when, actually — there’s no tra-la-la about it.
The first book in the new series, WINTER AT THE DOOR, is due out January 6th, 2015 — i.e., Real Soon, Now — so I suppose I’d better say something about ex-Boston homicide detective Lizzie Snow’s maiden voyage. This one sends her to Bearkill, Maine where her long-missing niece may have been sighted, where her faithless but still devilishly attractive ex-lover Dylan Hudson, now a Maine state murder cop himself, tries luring her back into his arms, and where a series of supposed cop suicides may turn out to be something worse. Before it’s over, Lizzie’s going to find out just how different the mean streets of Boston are from the rural roads around Bearkill — and why taking an unscheduled bathroom break in a northern Maine swamp is a Really Bad Idea, at least until after there’s been at least one hard frost.
December 15, 2014
Voice from the Past
Dorothy Cannell with a tale of remembrance and caution: A couple of weeks ago I received an email from Norm, a member of a writers’ group to which I also belonged more than thirty years ago. I was delighted to hear from him. His reminiscences brought back a flood of heartwarming memories of our every other Thursday meetings covering a period of five or six years. We called ourselves the Shagbark Scribes. I’m not sure why, but someone suggested it and everyone agreed. For a long period we were all about enthusiastically supporting each other whether we were writing for the enjoyment of it or hoping to get published. Norm asked me if I remembered when the ‘rot’ set in and I wrote back to say I certainly did.
The group was founded by Ivan Sparling who taught creative writing at the local community college. 
Our meetings were held in a classroom. He mailed invitations to likely people who had attended one or more of his classes, as I had done. At the end of the session I’d taken with him he’d told me I should write professionally. It was something I’d always wanted to do, but without his encouragement I’m not sure I’d done more than continue to think about it.
Joining the writing group set the seal on my commitment. It provided me with self-imposed deadlines – must complete something to read for each meeting. But of even more importance was the confidence boosting that came from being a cheering squad for each others work. Critiquing always came from the wellspring of desire for each of us to succeed. The Ivan Sparling approach. He was our core. His mentoring never heavy handed. He continued with us for several years after his retirement from teaching until his wife’s ill health necessitated his saying goodbye.
I’m not sure how much later the ‘rot’ and negative change that Norm mentioned occurred. It came in the person of a new member who had the status of being a published writer (something the rest of us had not yet achieved) having sold one story to a mystery magazine. Suddenly, he was our self-appointed leader, setting assignments rather than leaving us to bring whatever we wanted to read. And he proceeded more often than not, before anyone else opened their mouths, to shred our efforts. None of us balked. I suppose we were too dazzled by his ‘Success’, assuming he knew and we didn’t. One occasion springs to mind on my account. We had been instructed to write four pages that included a number of elements, the one I remember being a ghost. I had a ghost story in mind for sometime and set to work intent on getting part of it down, but became so caught up in it that I completed a nine page short story. Amazing for me, considering I’d never written one less than twenty.
I took it to the next meeting and when my turn came explained to our illustrious leader that I’d gone over the allotted amount but requested being allowed to read the first four pages. Permission was granted to real all nine. When I finished he eyed me over steepled fingers and uttered this pronouncement, “Dorothy you were instructed to write four pages, you wrote nine. Where there is no discipline there is no art.”
Silence from all sides. I shriveled. Went home, tossed the story in the back of a drawer and for at least a week considered never writing again. Forward a few years. By then I’d written three books. My agent phoned and asked if I’d like to write a ghost story for a magazine. I told her I had one, if I could find it.
A few weeks later my husband came home from work and I greeted him with a statement. “Remember that story – the one when I was told where there is no discipline there is no art? Well, there probably still is neither, but now there is $2,500!”
The reason I’m passing along this bit of smugness is as a caution to fledgling writers to share their work only with people who wish them to succeed, not ones whose own egos demand setting themselves up as experts.
Luckily there are far more of the other sort. I remember Norm with deep affection. Glad to hear he’s still writing.
Good luck.
Dorothy
A possible new publisher
Jayne Hitchcock here. I’m pretty disappointed with my publisher – my last book, True Crime Online, hasn’t been selling well and when it first came out, I did a flurry of radio interviews, but then that was all they did for publicity. I had to rely on my media contacts and contacting local media when I did speaking engagements or book signings (which I also scheduled myself) to promote it.
I was ready to give up on writing when I got an email from a publisher in Maryland in October. They wanted to know if I’d be interested in writing a book about online crimes. Would I?! Of course! Before replying, I did my research, found them to be reputable and with a good lineup of books and authors. I cautiously replied, talked to the publishing agent who had contacted me over the phone, wrote a proposal for a book about cyberbullying and sent that off to her, along with a copy of True Crime Online and my previous book, Net Crimes & Misdemeanors 2nd edition. She got back to me with what they provide for publicity/promotional events and I was pleasantly surprised at how invested they are in their authors.
I was psyched and posted on Facebook that I might be writing a new book. While most of my friends congratulated me and wished me luck, several (who mainly messaged me privately) asked if the publisher could look at their book as well.
What?!
I was a bit affronted. First, my books are mainly non-fiction and all of the people who contacted me had written a “novel.” They obviously didn’t know anything about the publishing business. I patiently explained to each one that there are different kinds of publishers and mine was strictly non-fiction looking to branch out into the technical/Internet areas. A couple of them actually got upset with me that I wouldn’t 1) Share the name of the publisher or 2) That I wouldn’t help them get published
Again, what?!
I patiently guided them to the Writer’s Digest web site and guide to literary agents and publishers, then let it go.
The publishing agent asked if I had five peers who could vouch for my expertise, so I set about contacting some Internet-savvy folks I know, some dealing with social media, and asked if they could be used as a reference for my new publisher. One was “too busy,” another wanted to know who the publisher, but I was hesitant to share. Is that wrong? But I did finally get five people who will vouch for me.
Now I have to sit and wait until the first of the year to see if my book proposal is accepted. I am thinking it will be, since they *did* invite me to provide one to them.
Some friends have been asking, online and in person, if I’ve written the book yet. I honestly almost laughed out loud. I had to explain that my proposal has to be accepted first, then a contract signed, then I will start writing, which probably won’t be until January or February at the earliest and again, only *if* it is accepted and approved. Then I have a year to complete the manuscript, then it goes to editing, proofing, etc. It probably won’t be out until 2016 if it all goes well. People are just boggled over that. They think getting a book published happens like magic!
Have any of you experienced this? Friends wanting you to help get them get published and not understanding anything about how it is really done? How do you handle it?
Cross your fingers for me and have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!
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