Lea Wait's Blog, page 321

Weekend Update: March 15-16, 2014

Next week at Maine Crime Writers we’ll be featuring posts from Jayne Hitchcock (Monday) Kate Flora (Tuesday), Gerry Boyle (Thursday), and Kaitlyn Dunnett (Friday), with a special guest post from Earl Smith on Wednesday. 

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

Barb: Kate Flora and I  and eight other authors are creating a murder mystery on twitter in real time as a part of Twitter Fiction Fest. I’m not sure how Kate feels, but I have no idea what I’m doing. It could be amazing to watch–like a car crash. Join us Sunday morning at 9:00 am #grubmurder.

Kate: I’m with you, Barb. Not much of a twitterer. Tweeter? And when the idea was floated, I even had to look up the term “exquisite corpse.” But this does sound a whole lot like fun and a great nudge to try something new. We’re going to write the story as though it is all emerging in a writing class, and one student is writing about–or perhaps has committed–a real murder. The unfolding story can be followed at: http://twitterfictionfestival.com/

Kathy/Kaitlyn: Sounds like fun, Barb and Kate. Years ago, I was on a Malice Domestic panel where we were asked to make up a story on the spot. We pulled some of the starter ideas out of a hat, as I recall.  Mary Higgins Clark was great at it–she sounded like she was dictating one of her novels–the rest of us not so much. But “Death of a Sea Slug” was duly transcribed and printed up and sent to all attendees. I still have my copy somewhere. In other news, I was honored to be interviewed this past week on the Sisters in Crime New England blog. Here’s the link: http://sincne.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/writers-at-work-interviewed-by-hank-phillippi-ryan/#comments

Lea Wait: What fun — a tweeted plot! And congratulations, Kathy/Kaitlyn! I’m looking forward to the “History, Mystery and Murder” panel I’ll be on Thursday evening at 6:30 at the Bestsellers Café, 24 High Street, Medford, Massachusetts 02155. Joining me will be Leslie Wheeler, who’ll also moderate, and authors Beth and Ben Oak, who’ve written a mystery staring … Henry David Thoreau!

Vicki Doudera:  Chiming in a little late to say I will be speaking at the Waldoboro Public Library on Saturday, March 22 at 1 pm and would love to see you!

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: kateflora@gmail.com

 

Bad Internet, Wolf Moon and Mom

John Clark posting late today.  Internet in rural Maine is often flinky, particularly during bad weather. We got at least 20″ of snow and birch trees are bent like ancient grandfathers everywhere you look. the red gazing ball is completely buries as is the giant trash can we left by the back garden when cleaning up last fall. Our new metal roof has serenaded us with intermittent avalanches for two days and backing out of anywhere is an adventure.

I really miss Wolf Moon Journal. For the several years it was published, I enjoyed the freedom to explore a different kind of writing, mostly essays about aspects of life that were particularly personal. Over the course of 2014, I’m going to share my favorites beginning with Zen Sunday. I hope you like it.

Looking at Sennebec Hill Farm from Rt. 131

ZEN SUNDAY

 

Our house was silent and the lawn mowed. I was going down to the farm the next day to work with my sister, but today, something was telling me to make an extra trip to the farmhouse overlooking Sennebec Lake.

Mom died in late November. We had a memorial service a couple weeks afterwards, but not everyone in her wide circle of friends was able to make it. Life is like that when you write, garden and mentor for 50 years. We planned to have a memorial picnic this summer to give those who were not able to make the service another chance to say goodbye to the lady who lived behind the Orange Mailbox. Somehow, neither my sister nor I could muster the spirit to set a date; postponing things in the middle of grief has an almost narcotic appeal.

A couple weeks following the service, I received a letter from a woman in Oregon who had known and respected Mom. Laurie had met my mother through their mutual friend Karen Van Allsburg, one of the nicest folks ever to walk the earth. In her letter, Laurie said she very much wanted to come east and be part of Mom’s final picnic.

How our house looked many years ago

As spring flowed into summer, I would come across that letter and have another twinge of guilt because we were no closer to setting a date than we had been back in December. The people in the midcoast area could adjust their schedule for an upcoming picnic, but someone on the other side of the country would have a much harder time.

As I drove south on route 7 the hills seemed sleeker and the sky just a bit bluer. August gives us days like that, perhaps as an apology for preceding September with its first frosts. Sennebec Hill Farm overlooks the pond whose name it bears. Surrounded by fields sprinkled with goldenrod and wild asters, the house evokes mixed feelings every time I come there. It was my home from 1949 until I went west to attend Arizona State University. I’ve cleared field creep, gotten married by the lake and hunted the hill across the road. Much of my inspiration as a writer has come from memories of growing up on that farm. Every time I pull into the driveway and see it empty of life and full of memories my emotions go into a perilous state.

The little shop vac I brought did a stellar job of turning the room over the garage from an intimidating jumble of crap into a somewhat orderly array of boxes of minerals and old bottles. The long unused, but still sturdy doors and storm windows go out to lean against the famed orange mailbox above a sign that says “free for the taking.” Since we took all Mom’s markers on a previous trip, I made do by writing the sign in dark pink lipstick that probably cost a pretty penny thirty years ago when purchased in the fancy New York store whose name adorns the side of the still gleaming tube.

Looking at 1000 East Sennebec Road from the south hayfield

I was carrying the next to last pair of windows across the driveway when a car slows and pulls in. The driver rolled down the window; “Are you John Clark?”

I gave my standard response, “I was when I got up and probably still am,” and felt a funny sensation creep down my spine, even before she identified herself.

“I’m Laurie, Karen’s friend from Oregon. I’m on a pilgrimage back east. Can I stop for a minute or will I interrupt you?”

I welcomed her, adamant that her arrival is no imposition and that it was time for a break. We sat on the front steps and talked about losing loved ones, how grief changes the way you look at the world, what we remember of Mom and Karen and the farm. Laurie mentioned that part of Karen holds a place of honor on her mantelpiece. She asked if she could walk through the house and then visit the swimming area below the hill. I told her to take as much time as she liked and went back to get the final set of windows.

As she walked toward the lake, I looked over at the unopened box containing Mom. Something my mother said several years before her death echoed through my mind; “The hardest thing about being old is that so few friends remain.” I made an impulsive decision, realizing that Mom would find it the sort of thing she would do herself under the circumstances. First, to find the right vessel. In the living room is a small rose-green tinted bottle that will do. I opened the box, filling the tiny bottle with some of my mother’s ashes and seal it.

Sennebec Lake from Mom’s porch

When Laurie returned I asked, “Would you like to take part of Mom back to Oregon?”

Her eyes lit up. “That would be wonderful.”

We talked a bit more about Mom and Karen and their friendship. We hugged and she returned to her pilgrimage and I to my cleaning.

Love Affair

Dorothy Cannell: Big excitement two weeks ago.  My husband Julian returned from playing bridge with a box under his arm along with the announcement that he’d made a purchase for me.  I’d have preferred he’d walked it in on a leash as I’ve been wanting a puppy and my dog Teddy has indicated he wouldn’t mind, but unless it was the self-assembly sort of puppy that couldn’t be it.  Still I waited with baited breath for the item to be produced and ended up quite pleased.  I appreciate the need for utilitarian items except vacuum cleaners, irons and dishwashers requesting they be unloaded.  Why can’t they think of themselves as cupboards?

  My enthusiasm increased because I didn’t recognize the three silvery rectangles with charcoal buttons now ornamenting the kitchen counter, meaning I couldn’t possibly be expected to use them.  Julian has bought male (or handywoman) oriented items for himself before pretended they were gifts for me.  One Christmas I received a wall level.  I thought it was an iron bar for defending myself in case of burglars.  This quirk is his way of justifying the expenditure, and I’m willing to go along.  In another life he must have been a monk, unwilling to get himself a second hair shirt for fear of breaching his vow of poverty.  But I had it wrong this time.

“There you are,” he said, “what you asked for.”

“Really?”  A thrill of dread went down my back.  Was I having blackouts?

“An intercom system.”

“Ah!”  No need to faint.  I’d remembered.

When we’d visited our friends Margaret and Joe Maron in January we’d been impressed by their having an intercom system, allowing them to communicate from different parts of the house without sounding like lions roaring across the veldt.  I write in the basement and as Julian and I often can’t hear what the other is saying even when ten feet apart the same room, let alone shouting up or down stairs. An intercom struck me as a brilliant idea. It would also solve the question of who could hold out longest before answering the phone.   Usually I don’t mind the assumption it won’t be for him, but when I’m at the head down stage of a book, I hate to break the thread by to pick up, knowing nine times out of ten it’ll be a robotic voice asking:  ‘Are you a senior citizen?’  Bringing on the urge to respond nastily: “Yes, I’m a hundred and seventeen, but don’t let it bother you I had to crawl out of my coffin to take this call.”  Instead I’d realize you can’t crush a recorded message and replace the receiver struggling not to let my fictional murderer’s mind turn as spiteful as mine.

When driving back from North Carolina to Maine I outlined to Julian how an intercom system could work for us.  From ten in the mornings until two in the afternoons he would be on phone duty.  For the most part he’d explain I was working, take a message or say I’d ring back later.  Only if it was important or he knew I’d want to talk to the person he’d buzz me.  The rest of the time he’d be free to believe Alexander Bell had never existed. We agreed it was a good plan.  I felt quite professional thinking about it, but once home forgot to do it.  Hence, I was surprised on being presented with the purchase from Radio Shack.

I may be technologically deficient, but I understood that the system required two ‘stations’.  One for his office and one for mine.  Broadcast and receive.  I could not understand the need for the third ‘station’.

“Came packaged that way,” Julian explained.

“Oh,” I said, “maybe we can give one away as a present!”

“For the person who has everything but a gimmick for talking to himself?”  His point landed with a thunk.

“Mmm! Well, it’s always good to have a spare.”

He agreed.  “Or,” his face brightened, “we could put it in the guest room so we can buzz at 7:00 am to say time to come down; breakfast is ready!”

I could understand the usefulness of this for unwanted guests, because they’d be unlikely to return.  But we like the people who visit.  It dawned on me, however, why Julian had remembered our decision to get an intercom when I hadn’t.  Since shortly after our move to Maine he had worked two evenings a week as a desk clerk at a local motel, but this winter it closed for remodeling and won’t reopen until the spring.  I knew he’d been pining, he loves the job, and here was the opportunity to again handle some functions of the ‘front desk.’

It took a while for me to get the hang of transmitting.  In the trial test his voice would boom in on me without getting results. I knew I had to press the oval ‘talk’ button, but did not get that I had to hold it down when talking.  This failure required a perusal of the instruction manual, a voicing of the dire possibility that the system was defective, before the problem (me) was discovered.  My sister popped in later that day and was asked (not by me) if she would like a demonstration.  Being a dear she agreed with enthusiasm.  “He’s not as in love with it as he was with his new vacuum cleaner,” I told her later, “so this shouldn’t go on for more than three months.” What I didn’t admit was that I was already besotted with ‘Alfie,’ as I’d named my intercom desk mate.  He made me feel so central to his existence and I couldn’t wait to get back and press his buttons.  I’m hoping this is a one time fling, and I won’t find myself falling in love with a lawn tractor or snow thrower.

A History for My Maine Town

Hi, Barb here.

Back in the fall of 2011 when I first wrote the proposal for the Maine Clambake Mystery series, I named the fictional town where my stories took place “Busman’s Harbor.” At the time, I was committed to not over-thinking the proposal, to sticking with the ideas that danced out of my fingertips as they tip-tapped across the keyboard.

I knew at some level, without really examining it, that Busman’s Harbor was a play on the expression, “busman’s holiday,” which I thought was a good fit, because I knew my core characters would be the people in the town who worked their tails off to ensure that tourists had excellent vacations. Also, Busman’s Honeymoon is the title of Dorothy L. Sayers 1937 book, the fourth and last to include Harriet Vane, and what mystery writer wouldn’t want that association?

Some of my early readers didn’t think that the name was charming enough for a town in a cozy novel, but I grew attached to it, and neither my agent nor editor raised any objection, so Busman’s Harbor it stayed.

In the back of my mind, I knew someday I would have to write the history of Busman’s Harbor and explain the name. That didn’t happen in the first book, because Clammed Up “wasn’t about that.” But Boiled Over, the book coming out on May 6, centers on a Founder’s Day celebration in Busman’s Harbor, so the moment of truth had come.

I started reading Maine histories even before I started writing. Of course I knew a little from my general knowledge of American history and from visiting historic spots in Maine. But my knowledge wasn’t Maine-centric or particularly coherent. As I read, I was grateful, actually, that I hadn’t grown up in Maine and learned it’s history in elementary school, because I could approach the task with boundless curiosity and the thrill of learning something new.

One of my favorite texts was Colin Woodard’s brilliantly written The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier (Penguin, 2004). I loved this book and as I say in the acknowledgements of Boiled Over, Lobster Coast forms the foundation of the rather eccentric and truncated version of mid-coast Maine history that appears in Boiled Over. I add, “If this novel has piqued your interest in Maine or in history, or if you enjoy beautifully written non-fiction, I cannot recommend this book enough.”

Two other sources I loved and relied on were The Hidden History of Maine by Harry Gratwick, (The History Press, 2010) and The Boothbay Harbor Region, 1906-1960 by Harold B. Clifford, (Wheelwright, 1961).

So I had my town history. I still had to figure out how to work it into the novel. I also had to figure out who Mr. Busman was. Constructing the town history was about teasing out the facts I would use, and I worried constantly about getting it wrong. Answering the question of who Mr. Busman was required a complete flight of fancy, which felt like stepping off a cliff. And Busman’s story and the history of the town had to intersect, which was the scariest step of all. In fact, that scene was among the last ones written.

So why is the town named Busman’s Harbor? Sorry. You’ll have to read Boiled Over to find out!

Share of Eyeballs.

James Hayman:  Remember the old line by what once upon a time were called skirt-chasers,  “So many women.  So little time?”  

These days it seems to apply more to other forms of entertainment that it does to sex.  “So many things to read and watch. So little time.”

Last weekend I spent some of that limited time reading an op-ed piece in the Times titled “Barely Keeping Up in TV’s New Golden Age” by a man named David Carr.

Carr writes:

“Not long ago, a friend at work told me I absolutely, positively must watch “Broad City” on Comedy Central, saying it was a slacker-infused hilarity.

My reaction? Oh no, not another one.

The vast wasteland of television has been replaced by an excess of excellence that is fundamentally altering my media diet and threatening to consume my waking life in the process. I am not alone. Even as alternatives proliferate and people cut the cord, they are continuing to spend ever more time in front of the TV without a trace of embarrassment.

I was never one of those snobby people who would claim to not own a television when the subject came up, but I was generally more a reader than a watcher. That was before the explosion in quality television tipped me over into a viewing frenzy.”

I first heard the term “Share of Eyeballs” back in the dark, distant pre-internet days when I was a copywriter and creative director turning out TV commercials for one of Madison Avenue’s biggest ad agencies.

The term is still around and it’s an important one for writers like us to understand.  What “share of eyeballs,” basically means is whatever percentage of people who are looking at some other media product are not looking at yours. Whether “yours” is a movie, a TV show, a website, a blog, a magazine, a video game or a crime novel, the explosion in choices over the last dozen or so years means that the share of eyeballs any one entertainment option can attract grows ever thinner and the battle to break through grows ever more heated.

In his Times piece Carr goes on to say:

“My once beloved magazines sit in a forlorn pile, patiently waiting for their turn in front of my eyes. Television now meets many of the needs that pile previously satisfied. I have yet to read the big heave on Amazon in The New Yorker, or the feature on the pathology of contemporary fraternities in the March issue of The Atlantic…And then there are books. I have a hierarchy: books I’d like to read, books I should read, books I should read by friends of mine and books I should read by friends of mine whom I am likely to bump into. They all remain on standby. That tablets now contain all manner of brilliant stories that happen to be told in video, not print, may be partly why e-book sales leveled out last year. After a day of online reading that has me bathed in the information stream, when I have a little me-time, I mostly want to hit a few buttons on one of my three remotes — cable, Apple, Roku — and watch the splendors unfurl.”

Thankfully, the news for authors (at least for authors of Young Adult books) isn’t all bad.  It seems that in spite of the incredible overload of options, hours spent reading by teens has dramatically turned around and is now on the upswing. McSweeneys (an online magazine) recently ran a piece by Hannah Withers and Lauren Ross titled “Young People are Reading More than You,” in which they note

“In the past seven years, the young adult genre has exploded with a number of new book series [See list below]. Between 1995 and 1997, the number of young adult titles published per year fell dramatically, dropping from 5,000 to just over 3,000, according to R.R. Bowker’s Publishers Weekly. In 2009, there were over 30,000.1 In a 2007 Seattle P-I article, Booklist magazine critic Michael Cart writes, “Kids are buying books in quantities we’ve never seen before… And publishers are courting young adults in ways we haven’t seen since the 1940s… We are right smack-dab in the new golden age of young adult literature.”

I’m certainly not a young adult, but I know that I too am reading more than I was a few years ago.  Dazed and confused by the overload of choices available on TV and video, I find myself watching fewer and fewer shows, even the good ones, and spending more time with books.  Last night, the box didn’t go on at all, not even for our one staple, the PBS Newshour.  Instead, Jeanne and I spent the evening in easy chairs reading.  Jeanne’s book was called Courtesans by Katie Hickman.  Mine was  Bill Roorbach’s vastly entertaining novel, Life Among Giants. Tonight I expect we’ll do the same.

Unwritten Books

Lea Wait, here, just looking around my study and taking a deep breath.

I met my March 1 Kensington deadline for the first in my Haven Harbor Mainely Needlework series. Today I sent what I hope are final revisions on a middle grades contemporary mystery to my agent. Next challenge: writing an outline of the second book in the Needlework series.

But as I look around my study, I hear other stories calling to me.

Green, blue and yellow file folders marked with key words that mean nothing to anyone but me hold notes, paragraphs, character studies, sources to check and, even, in some cases, notebooks full of research materials that have at some point fascinated me and may someday again. One in particular tugs at me right now. It’s a book for young people set in 1970, and my agent would love me to write it. I’d love to write it, too.

So … why aren’t I doing just that? And why have all those other piles of research and folders of plots and characters not become books?

I could give you reasons. Because another book was under contract. Because my agent said “it’s not the right time,” for a certain subject. Because I started to fill out a plot and got stuck. Moved on to another folder. Had too many promotional opportunities or family obligations, and too little time.

I’ve completed the research and outlines for three of those books – the one set in 1970, another set in 1778, that was to be the sequel to a book that hasn’t sold, and a third set in 1848. That one my agent had serious doubt about, despite my enthusiasm. So I didn’t write it. I want to. I may still.

And there are other less assembled visions. Ideas; plots; settings. All of them are possibilities, and all of them wait, sometimes patiently, sometimes not.

For now, the brightly colored folders just remind me there is always another book to write.

My next Needlepoint book is due September 1, so that one has to be on top of the pile.

But if some days that writing hits a wall, I may pick up one of those other folders and write a little, or do a little more research, or a little plot thickening. Who knows? Some day one of them may become a book.

In the meantime, those folders are waiting for me. Always in the back of my mind. Just waiting.

Reminding me there is never enough time.

Weekend Update: March 8-9, 2014

Next week at Maine Crime Writers we’ll be featuring posts from Lea Wait (Monday) Jim Hayman (Tuesday), Barb Ross (Wednesday), Dorothy Cannell (Thursday), and John Clark (Friday). 

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

Barb: The other Level Best Books editors and I heard the good news this week that three, count’em three, of the stories in Best New England Crime Stories 2014: Stone Cold were finalists for the Derringer Best Long Story Award given by the Short Mystery Fiction Society: “Myrna,” the Al Blanchard Award-winning story by John Bubar, “Give Me a Dollar,” by Ray Daniel and “A Dangerous Life,” by Adam Purple. Congratulations, all!

Lea Wait: That’s fantastic news, Barb! I’m smiling this week, too .. Kirkus Reviews wrote about my UNCERTAIN GLORY (April 4 publication,)  ”Wait nicely captures the infrequently depicted Northern homefront effects of the Civil War, as well as the entrepreneurial drive that some teens shared when there were fewer age-based labor restrictions. Joe’s homespun voice captures the full flavor of a smart and determined kid with his eyes firmly on the future, richly evoking time and place .. a worth and entertaining trip back through time.”

My protagonist, Joe Wood, really did publish a town newspaper in Wiscasset, Maine in the mid-19th century, and went on to publish newspapers in other Maine towns and cities. Currently there’s a giveaway of copies of UNCERTAIN GLORY on Goodreads.

Kate Flora: A while back, I promised I’d let people know when my mother’s mystery became available as an e-book. I’m excited to say that it’s finally available on kindle. She published this when she was 83, and I always hold her up as an example for people who say they always wanted to write but it’s too late. Here’s a description of the story:

Sixty-year-old Amy Creighton, an independent small-town Mainer, has her life arranged the way she likes it. She’s got her work as a free-lance editor, her gardens, her dog, and a pond to swim in. When she uncovers a body in the sawdust pile at the local sawmill, where she’s gone to get sawdust to mulch her strawberry bed, everything is turned topsy-turvy. The investigating officer is her long-ago sweetheart Dort Adams. The dead young man looks familiar, though no one admits to knowing him. Together, Amy and Dort fall into a easy alliance to solve the man’s death—one that forces them to recognize that they don’t know their neighbors as well as they thought, and that some people will go to great lengths to keep their family secrets.

On the domestic front, John Clark became a grandfather this week, welcoming little Piper Alexis Lozefski to the family.

Kaitlyn Dunnett here, although my news is from my evil twin, Kate Emerson, writer of non-mystery historical novels set at the court of Henry VIII of England. Awhile back, my agent sold translation rights for one of those books, The King’s Damsel, to a publisher in Russia. I received an advance and in due time a copy of the book arrived. With most foreign editions, that’s it. Imagine my surprise when I got a call to tell me that because The King’s Damsel was issued as the lead title in a Russian book club, it had sold . . . wait for it!! . . . 140,000 copies. I have to tell you, that’s a whole lot more copies than any of my books sell in the U.S. Color me gobsmacked.

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: kateflora@gmail.com

 

What Lies Beneath

I became a diver in 1986, taking an open water SCUBA class at the YMCA on Huntington Avenue in Boston. I was in my early 20’s and had always been drawn to the ocean. Growing up through the 70’s, Jacques Cousteau and his boat Calypso were huge influences on me, but also my father was an early and enthusiastic diver, and I loved hearing about the adventures he had off the tip of Provincetown as part of a diving club.

Enter Ed, my boyfriend at the time (now husband of 28 years) who loved the sport, and showed me his log describing dives he’d done all over the world, including one in Mexico that took him to the Cave of the Sleeping Sharks. (He says he’s fortunate that they weren’t home.)

My motivation for getting certified myself was complete when we became engaged, and so, the spring before we left Boston, before we packed up and moved to Maine, before we got married (at which time Ed gave me a mask, fins, and snorkel) and before we honeymooned in Mexico (at which time I did my check-out dives)  before all that –  I rode the T every Wednesday night to the Y for my SCUBA instruction.

I will never forget one of the classes. The instructor had us:sitting on the bottom of the pool without masks, practicing something called “buddy breathing” with four other people. If you’re not familiar with SCUBA, buddy breathing is an emergency technique designed to save your life should you ever run out of air underwater. Back in the mid 1980’s when I was first learning, it meant sharing someone’s demand valve on a regulator, the piece of equipment that goes in your mouth and from which you breathe.  Today, virtually every regulator worn by divers has two hoses with a second mouthpiece called an Octopus, used by a diver in trouble. (In fact, buddy breathing isn’t taught anymore because of the new equipment.) But back then, there were only single mouthpieces, so buddy breathing meant relinquishing (temporarily, you hoped) the source of your precious air.

The exercise on the bottom of that pool felt like a kind of torture: the water pressing against my face, the rising panic as I waited for my turn at the regulator, my lungs desperately wanting that piece of rubber hose that meant life. Lifeguards know that a drowning person will do anything to get air, and after my experiences on the floor of that old pool, I  believe it.

Of course, I had only to swim upwards fifteen feet or so, and I could gulp all the air I wanted.  No fear of sharks, or nitrogen narcosis. We were in a pool, in the middle of Back Bay – not the middle of the ocean.

Now imagine that scenario in open water – 80, 100, or maybe even 140 – feet down, and you’ll see where my head’s been at the past few days.

Vicki Doudera here. Today I’m flying back to Maine after spending a week with my family in St. Croix, where our oldest son, Matt, is the Captain of a 120-foot yacht. It’s been a fabulous week of sunshine, sandy beaches, cool rum drinks and warm ocean water, along with several dives to explore the island’s coral reefs. Matt’s a dive master, and the yacht has all the equipment necessary – tanks, regulators, weight belts, buoyancy compensators – to take our family of certified divers out to explore what lies beneath the pretty turquoise waves.

All three days of diving were impressive, but our first excursion, on a part of St. Croix called Cane Bay, was one of the many experiences that got my writer’s mind thinking. 

We’d driven out to Cane Bay the day before for “Mardi Croix,” a fun, funky, all-day Mardi Gras celebration complete with a festive parade, strand upon strand of colorful beads, and the requisite rum drinks served from beach bars full of locals and a few vacationers like us. Located on the North Shore of the island, Cane Bay boasts beautiful sand, gorgeous vistas, and, a hundred yards or so from the beach, “The Wall,” a drop-off that descends 13,000 feet down from the reef. 

That’s right – thirteen thousand feet, down into a dark blue void.

Except it’s not a void, even if you peer into it and see nothing. Matt told us as we were strapping on our tanks and preparing to wade into the ocean that we might see humpback whales, and a guy at a shop (where I made the last-minute purchase of a rash guard to keep the steel tank from chafing my back) said he’d seen them from shore.  WHALES???  Never mind sharks, which Matt mentioned we might also see (and in fact did see, although on a different dive) but WHALES?

We dove that day to 140 feet, one of the deepest dives I’ve ever done. We did not see any whales, although on another dive we heard their eerie, echo-y underwater cries.  We did see some spectacular sights – massive, globe-like brain corals, schools of blue tang, skinny pilot fish, and big-eyed squirrel fish. And we saw the very impressive drop-off: The Wall.

I have to admit that it freaked me out a little. Okay – a lot, although I was the only one in our family that it seemed to bother. I just did not like the sight of all of that deep, dark blueness so close that it could swallow me up. I don’t think it was what could come swimming up from out of that blueness that panicked me (although I knew it would if I let myself ponder it for even a second) but rather the fact that it was so dark, and so deep. To say that I found The Wall unsettling is putting it mildly.

After our dive, while we sipped rum drinks (you do a lot of that on St. Croix) and ate burgers with a reggae band jammin’ in the background, Matt told us about the only recorded shark attack at Cane Bay.  It happened back in the 1980’s. Two guys were diving The Wall when a shark rose from the depths and grabbed one of the men, dragging him down into the cerulean fathoms.  His body was never found, and none of his equipment was recovered.

I took a big swig of my rum drink, thankful my son had shared his tale after the dive and not before, but he wasn’t quite finished with the story.

The shark attack is the official, accepted version of what happened some thirty years ago. But Matt, who has lived on St. Croix for close to three years now, says he’s heard a few locals describe a very different account.

Apparently the two men were more than just dive buddies. They were business partners, known to be in the middle of a disagreement regarding their finances.

We sat with our rum drinks and discussed how easy it would be to kill someone while diving, especially in that incredibly deep water. A simple matter of cutting the oxygen supply, watching the victim drown, and then weighting the body — perhaps by releasing any remaining air from the buoyancy compensator, or adding a weight from one’s own weight belt. In 140 feet of water or deeper, a body wearing a steel tank and other weights would never float up to the surface, and most likely an Apex predator or two roaming the depths would enjoy the unexpected snack.

I’m pretty sure most families don’t sit around sipping rum and contemplating murder, but when Mom writes crime novels, it’s bound to happen.

I used the drama of the deep in Killer Listing, writing the SCUBA scenes from my own experiences with Matt as my consultant.  I’d originally thought that my character, a depressed diver, would commit suicide underwater, but as I got further along with the writing, it became clear that a planned suicide with a last-minute change of heart was what needed to happen. Reading those scenes makes my heart pound, and hopefully yours does, too.

The thing of it is, diving is a dangerous sport, often done in very small groups. If two people are diving and one of them disappears, no one but the survivor can relate what happened. A shark conveniently putting an end to a messy quarrel?  Here’s my theory. Many misdeeds can be buried in the vast ocean – perhaps forever.

Detectives in Glasses

The other day I was noodling a possible scene for the Liss MacCrimmon mystery I’m currently writing. I don’t know if this scene will appear in this book (or some future book) or not, but the gist of it is that Liss is taken out into the wilderness and left there by the villain, who needs to get her out of the way for a certain period of time but doesn’t particularly want to murder her. She’s given a fighting chance to make it back to civilization safely. She’s not tied up. She is warmly dressed (it’s March in Maine). And a couple of hours of walking, if she doesn’t end up going around in circles, should bring her to a house with a phone. It is nighttime, which makes things harder. Maybe she’s been hit on the head and is still dizzy or seeing double. I’m not sure about that part. And that bad knee of hers could act up to cause her some problems. There was a story in the news here in Maine just recently about a man who, after breaking his leg in a nighttime snowmobile accident, had to crawl a mile and a half to reach the house of a friend and get help. It took him six hours. Liss could probably do that, but I’m not sure I want to put her through that much trauma.

Whatever I end up doing, she’s obviously going to survive the ordeal and get back in time to foil the villain’s evil plan. To create such a scene and make it believable, a writer (in this case, me) has to try to get into the head of the character, to feel what she’s feeling, react as she’s reacting. Liss is a lot younger and much more physically fit than I am. She’s also considerably braver. But the thing that stood out in my mind as I attempted to put myself in her place in this situation was that her eyesight is also a heck of a lot better than mine. If I was the one being abandoned in the wilderness and the villain wanted to make sure I’d have trouble finding my way out, all he or she would have to do is take away my glasses.

That may explain why most fictional series detectives appear to have excellent eyesight. I tried to think of mysteries I’ve read where the sleuth wore glasses, or even contact lenses. The only example I could come up with was Elizabeth Peters’s librarian sleuth Jacqueline Kirby (The Seventh Sinner), whose mood can be judged by how far down her nose her glasses have slipped. In search of other examples, I posted a request on two listservs, Dorothy L and Sisters in Crime, and Googled “Fictional Detectives Who Wear Glasses” and the results confirmed my suspicion that bespectacled sleuths are few and far between.  

Many of the names people came up with were older, either in the sense of series written quite some time ago, or because the detective is getting on in years. Terry Shames’s detective, Samuel Craddock (A Killing at Cotton Hill), wears glasses. So does James Montgomery Jackson’s Seamus McCree (Bad Policy). Ilene Schneider’s protagonist in Chanukah Guilt is “blind as a bat with its sonar jammed” without her glasses. Dennis Palumbo’s psychologist sleuth Daniel Rinaldi (Mirror Image) wears glasses. Marni Graff’s Nora Tierney (The Blue Virgin) wears them, but she switches to contact lenses for the third book in the series (The Scarlet Wench, 2014). In historical mysteries, Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell is nearsighted and Edith Maxwell’s Quaker midwife, Rose Carroll, in her new series in progress, set in 1888 (Breaking the Silence), wasn’t originally going to wear glasses but is now.

Bespectacled sleuths from days gone by include Ellery Queen (pince-nez glasses), Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion (horn-rimmed glasses), Dorothy L. Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey (a monacle), and Dorothy Dunnett’s Johnson Johnson (bifocals). Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple wears glasses, too, but only, apparently, when she’s knitting. There have been a number of detectives, past and present, who use reading glasses or wear contact lenses, but even they are somewhat rare in crime fiction.

Let’s face it. If a sleuth is going to flirt with danger, wearing glasses could put him or her at a distinct disadvantage. Vision problems may add dimension to a character and allow for a few interesting twists, too, but it isn’t hard to understand why most protagonists in mystery novels have excellent eyesight.

Then again, there have been at least two successful detectives who couldn’t see at all, Caroline Roe’s Isaac of Girona, a blind physician in a series set in medieval Spain (Remedy for Treason), and Bruce Alexander’s 18th century magistrate, Sir John Fielding (Blind Justice). 

In With the Old—and the New

Hey all. Gerry Boyle here, and I’ve been looking forward and backward of late. Forward because Islandport Press, a smart independent publisher in Maine, is going to publish my next Jack McMorrow novel, ONCE BURNED. Backward because Islandport has made plans to reissue the first eight McMorrow novels as well. So all those books written over the past 20 years will have new life, new covers, and new readers.

Yee-hah!

This is good news for a couple of reasons. For one, the business end of the book business—all those flipping percentages!) is work. Two, it’s been hard to hear in past years that readers who have just become acquainted with McMorrow have to search for the early books. Some have gone out of print (three of a writer’s least favorite words) and some are just hard to find. This is more and more common as major national publishers scramble to make big money and decide keeping a writer’s last six books in the warehouse isn’t a good return on investment.

That’s their problem. I’ve found a new publishing home, right here in Maine, with kindred spirits who care about good writing. A lot.

I’ve been fortunate in my writing life, in that I’ve had one (many very talented writers haven’t been so lucky) and it’s going into it’s third decade. That’s a lot of making stuff up, and you could fill a bus with the people I’ve invented, grown fond of, killed off. In that order. Now I’ve been given the bonus of looking back at the early books as I write new introductions to new editions of DEADLINE (1993), BLOODLINE (1995), LIFELINE (1996), and on up the line. Where did these books come from? What was I thinking?

That sort of retrospection is a hell of a luxury. When it’s coupled with immersion in a new book, with new characters (and some I just love to hate), well, that’s the sh–. As my characters would say.

I have a good friend, a renowned and wonderfully talented poet. We talk about baseball mostly, but when we don’t talk baseball we occasionally talk about why we write, and wonder if we would do it if there were no audience. We don’t come to a conclusion and, in the end, we’re glad we haven’t had to. We put pen to paper and words come out. Miraculously, people want to read them. I think I can speak for all of the Maine Crime Writers when I say we don’t take that—or you—for granted. Not for a second.

Yee-hah!

So that last bit is the point of this ramble. Sorry if I’ve indulged a bit here. Next time, back to business. Tonight I’m just sitting by the fire in my village in Central Maine. It’s cold outside but inside I’m just glowing.