Lea Wait's Blog, page 53

Weeding

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, assuming you’re tired of hearing about the new book (Death of an Intelligence Gatherer, just in case you’ve forgotten). Don’t worry, I’ll plug that one and others again. In the meantime, I thought I’d bring you up to date on what else I’ve been up to.

First you have to understand that I’m a compulsive saver with a deeply ingrained distrust of the permanence of electronic copies. That said, it won’t surprise you that I tend to print copies of just about everything—e-mails, drafts of works-in-progress, photocopies of pages from books borrowed on Inter-Library loan, copies of online articles on topics I needed to research, manuscripts to proofread or read for a blurb. You get the picture.

For those who worry about saving the trees—not as big a problem in Maine as elsewhere—I mitigate the negative aspects of making so many printouts by printing as much as possible on the backs of printed pages I no longer need to keep. Only when both sides have been used does anything go in the recycled paper bin at the dump.

file cabinet now filled ONLY with files on individual writing projects

Every time I’ve weeded my research files, I’ve ended up with a stack of one-side-blank paper. I still had more to weed when I made arrangements to donate numerous items in my “author estate” to the Maine Women Writers Collection at the University of New England. (See the blog I wrote a few months ago on that subject by clicking here: https://mainecrimewriters.com/2023/05/15/your-heirs-will-thank-you/ ). This advance planning meant I needed to go through everything relevant to inventory what the donation will include and where various items are located (so my heirs can find them!). “Everything” included a mass of paperwork. Now that I’m not writing any new books in my two series or any more historical novels, I no longer need all those folders full of notes on random subjects as varied as Celtic weddings, pythons, and travel times in the 16th century. I hadn’t even glanced at most of them for years. They were just taking up space.

Among the 8½”x11″ pages still available to be relegated to the “recycle at the dump” or “recycle to use the back” piles were research, copies of old e-mails, cover letters to editors from the days when I copy edits were exchanged by snail mail, and multiple printouts of manuscripts at various stages in their creation. There’s no point in keeping all the versions of every book, not even under the guise of an author estate. A couple of examples of how a book evolves should suffice.

At the end of the inventory process, I had a new stack of pages with blank sides sitting next to my printer. It was well over a foot high. The photo shows only part of the pile, about a third of what accumulated. The rest has been moved into one of the file drawers. Thanks to all my weeding, I actually ended up with a bit of empty storage space.

Question for folks reading this: am I the only one who still prints out everything I might need to refer back to? For the record, I make multiple electronic back-ups, too, although I will never be able to bring myself to completely trust “the cloud.”

 

Kathy Lynn Emerson’s newest book is Death of an Intelligence Gatherer. As Kathy, and as Kaitlyn Dunnett, she 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 omnibus e-book editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

 

Weekend Update: August 12-13, 2023

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Monday), Kate Flora (Tuesday), Sandra Neily (Thursday), and Dick Cass (Friday).

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

 Matt Cost just published the fifth book in his Mainely Mystery series, Mainely Wicked. Langdon is hired to find a man who answered a classified ad and then disappeared into thin air. And then a second person vanishes. What starts as a couple of simple missing-person cases quickly spirals into a diabolical world of witches, wiccans, and wendigos.

Cost will be at the Readfield Community Library on August 16th speaking of his recent release, Mainely Wicked. The event is from 6:30 to whenever it ends. “Langdon faces his most WICKED case yet, and not everyone will survive. When Chabal is taken, the chase takes Langdon to a climactic scene on an island in the middle of Maranacook Lake outside of Readfield…”  

On Friday, August 18th, Cost will be the 3rd Friday Bath Art Hop from 4-7 p.m. No hopping necessary but books will be signed.

Matt and fellow MCW writers Jule Selbo, Dick Cass, Maureen Milliken, Vaughn Hardacker, and John Clark at the Topsham Library Maine Authors Fair last Saturday

 A reminder about our Body Contest. Please share with your friends:

Yes, friends, it’s back: Our “Where Would You Put the Body?” contest

It’s Maine Crime Writers “Where Would You Put the Body?” contest – late summer/early fall edition. How do you enter? Send a photograph of your chosen spot to: WritingAboutCrime@gmail.com with “Where Would You Put the Body?” in the subject line. There will be prizes for First, Second, and Third place–books of course and other Maine goodies. You may enter no more than three photographs, each one entered separately. They must be of Maine places and you must identify the place in your submission. Photos must be the submitter’s original work. Contest will run through the middle of October.

 

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

Necessary Evils

We love living in Maine. But sometimes it’s good to get another perspective. Last month we flew across the country to Las Vegas. My husband worked his way through college in a variety of ways, one of which was playing poker with his unsuspecting (and richer) fraternity brothers.  He is still testing his skills even if he now needs glasses to see the numbers on the cards, and enjoys playing in tournaments when he can. There aren’t many (any) of those in Franklin County, so the bullet occasionally has to be bitten and the plane boarded.

We’ve been to Sin City together so many times, I’ve lost count; first as chaperones to 39 teens on a summer bus tour for 39 days from Denver to New Orleans, and then with our own four kids after exploring the West’s natural wonders. Now I usually read and write during our visits, and lounge by the pool wondering why the music is awful and awfully loud.

Las Vegas is justifiably famous for its tackiness and excesses so I need not pile on, and it’s ecologically egregious. But we enjoy it anyway. There are a few more restaurants to be found there than in Farmington, and the people-watching can’t be beat. (Sooo many inventive tattoos, piercings, and dubious bathing suits. My very proper grandmother would faint dead away if she wasn’t already dead.)

It was very, very hot when we were there, so hot (110+) that my Kindle and phone refused to work as I tried to sit outside. Without my devices, what was I to do? Slot machines are for suckers. (I speak from personal experience.) One can only drink so many strawberry daiquiris without face-planting on the scorching concrete. The heat of the metal bars to the pool steps probably burned off my fingerprints, so perhaps a life of true crime is in my future. Maggie the Murderess.

Who would I knock off? All the people who travel with “carry-on” luggage. I can’t tell you how many times I was hit on the head and shoulders on the airplane by people who were apparently fleeing to/from Nevada/Boston with everything single thing they owned. Crammed backpacks. Spilling-over shopping bags. Suitcases that were obviously way too big for the overhead bin. I had a medium tote with wallet, medication, laptop, Kindle, phone, hairbrush, lipstick, and spare underwear. My own carry-on-sized bag was checked. It was so expertly packed that only one shirt and one pair of shorts remained unworn, and I had absolutely everything I required. I bought nothing but a tube of sunblock and a cute pink T-shirt for the youngest granddaughter.

I did change my clothes each day, but really, who would have cared? I am never going to see any of those people again except my husband, and after 52 years I can tell you he does not notice my outfits except to fib and tell me I look great.

How much stuff do you need for a week away anyway? How much stuff do you need, period? Maybe because I’m old and cranky, I look at the crap people surround themselves with and shudder. Mind you, I could do with someone coming to our house to get rid of our own tackiness and excesses. My desk alone would provide a professional organizer with a considerable challenge.

But I look at the sentimental objects that “help” me write, and I get a little more forgiving of those who travel terribly. Maybe they really need the four pairs of lucky hooker shoes and the giant stuffed panda and their favorite pillow in its dirty pillowcase. I need my lemon-scented candle, pictures of the grandkids, two ceramic pigs, a fingerpainting, a vintage postcard, an antique perfume bottle, and an old Mother’s Day card.

But I left them at home.

Do you have a favorite vacation spot? Do you write when you’re away? (To my shame, I didn’t. I blame the lack of candle. And the daiquiris.) Any travel/packing tips to share? What’s on your desk?

This Too Shall Pass

John Clark sharing what happened a while back and how it’s currently shaking out. Several months ago, Beth’s laptop which she’d just upgraded to the latest version of Windows, locked her out. Since she’d had it since we lived in Hartland and hadn’t thought about updating verification, she was effectively screwed.

I thought to try creating a boot disk on a flash drive, so I proceeded to erase data on one, only to discover shortly after that instead of clearing duplicate files from a thumb drive, I’d wiped out everything on my 4 terabyte backup drive. That included everything I’d ever written.

Once I realized what happened, I went and laid on the bed, giving serious thought to getting drunk for the first time in almost 43 years. Instead, I did some breathing exercises, returned to my laptop and started looking for a recovery program. I found one and had to wait more than 24 hours for it to drill down and recover most everything. It was well worth the $132 it cost.

That was just the beginning because I had to open every single recovered file and if I wanted to keep it, it had to be renamed. That took another several weeks, but it was a learning experience. In the interim, my friend Clif Graves worked with me to create a linux boot disk that allowed us to bypass Beth’s locked laptop and recover all her photos and documents. She now has not only a new laptop, but her own one terabyte SSD drive to save stuff on.

When the dust settled, I got busy, starting by going back to Thor’s Wingman a book I stopped writing in 2017. It’s now finished and when I was done, I started thinking about crafting another anthology of my adult short fiction. Learning about the big author event in December at the Bangor Public Library was the last bit of impetus I needed. By Friday, it should be ready to send to Clif who will prep it for publication in print and ebook. It’s going to be called Dark Maine.

When I started putting all my adult short stories in a folder to decide which to use in Dark Maine, I realized one reason I’d been stymied when trying to put a collection together in the past was twofold. They were saved in different formats and I needed to remove footers in order for them to play nice. Once that was taken care of, I started selecting which to use. The anthology will have 21 stories in it. Twenty are dark as hell, the other I slipped in as a feel-good breather.

There are plenty left to go into what I’ll call Sometimes Dark, Sometimes Light, Always Maine. Time and circumstances permitting, I’ll have that put together in a timely manner.

Here’s the lineup for Dark Maine.

In Your Dreams

Posh Digs

With Great Relish

Bad Example

Lady Be Good to Me

Living Up To My Name

Tower Mountain

Fed Up

Knee Socks

In A Town Most Forgotten

Dead Letter Office

My Toes

Love Your Veggies

Martin Gets It

The Unexpected Gift

Snuff Bunny

A New Wrinkle

Not So Neighborly

The Smell Never Leaves

Just Passing Through

The Man In The Glass

Schoolyard Bullies

Perfect Choice

Getting Even

Backup Plan

And here’s the tentative cover photo.

Win-a-Book Wednesday: Death of an Intelligence Gatherer

Kathy Lynn Emerson here. Today is the release date for my historical mystery, Death of an Intelligence Gatherer, and I’m offering those who read the Maine Crime Writers blog a chance to win an autographed copy of the trade paperback edition. Names of everyone who leaves a comment below will be entered in a drawing to be held on Saturday, August 12. The winner will be notified by e-mail.

It is 1553 and England is plunged into turmoil by the succession of Mary Tudor to the throne. Unlike her father and brother, Queen Mary is a Catholic, determined to demolish the Church of England and force everyone to covert to her faith. Add conspirators, spies, a bit of romance, sibling rivalry, and a poisoning to the mix and you have the story of Cordell Ingram’s journey into exile on the Continent with her father and her struggle to find justice when she suspects he has been murdered because he was secretly gathering intelligence to foil a plot to overthrow the queen.

Here is an excerpt, the first of fifty chapters:

 

CHAPTER ONE

The windows in the upper room of the Catte Street house looked south over a half mile of narrow London streets and alleys. There were more than a hundred churches in the city. By day, even on an overcast afternoon, it was possible to pick out dozens of steeples jutting up above the closely packed houses and shops, but on the sixth of July in the year of our Lord 1553, an unnatural darkness obscured the view and painted everything murky gray.

At the first rumble of thunder, Cordell Ingram set her sewing aside and rose from the low bench she shared with her sister to cross the solar. Lightning flashed just as she reached for the shutters, intending to close the heavy wooden panels. It drew her gaze to the upthrust spire of one particular church. A second jagged scar of light illuminated the scene long enough for her to see a spiral of smoke curling with sinister intent around the bell tower. A moment later, yellow flames began to lick their way upward.

When Eleanor joined her at the window, the sisters watched, transfixed, until the spire, weakened by the strike, crumbled at its base and fell with excruciating slowness toward the street below. Eleanor gasped and retreated but Cordell, fearing what a shower of sparks might do to nearby wooden buildings, leaned out into the eerie mist. Unless a downpour followed the lightning, fire would spread rapidly, devouring everything in its path. All of London might burn.

As if in answer to a prayer, the deluge began. As rain fell in sheets, Cordell slammed the shutters closed and latched them, plunging the room into shadow.

Candlelight offered little reassurance while the storm raged. When Eleanor whimpered in fright, Cordell caught her hand and guided her to the padded bench where they had left their needlework. Although Cordell was younger by two years, she was taller and more sturdily built. She wrapped one arm around her sister’s shoulders and shifted her position until their heads nearly touched. Locks of Cordell’s dark, unruly, unbound hair, wet from the rain, mingled with the lighter-colored strands of Eleanor’s neatly combed tresses. That they were seated so close together created the momentary illusion that they each drew comfort from the other’s nearness.

Eleanor jerked upright, an expression of distaste on her heart-shaped face. “Your hair and clothing are drenched,” she complained. “Have a care you do not drip on my new silk sleeves. Water will ruin them.”

With a sigh, Cordell slid along the bench, putting as much distance as possible between them. Eleanor fussed with the dark green folds of her skirt, adjusting the opening at the front to reveal a forepart of brocaded ivory silk that matched her sleeves.

“I thought you were afraid of the storm.”

Eleanor sent a nervous glance toward the window. “It will pass.”

As if to mock her statement, thunder crashed so close to the house that the walls shook. The candles flickered ominously. Cordell held her breath, but none winked out. Rain continued to drum on the roof tiles as she picked up the shift she had been hemming, but she made no attempt to resume the chore. At her side, Eleanor sat stiff as a poker, hands clasped in her lap and eyes squeezed shut.

This was no brief downpour. It went on and on, terrifying in its intensity. Cordell lost track of time and could not help but feel she and Eleanor were cut off from the rest of the world. Her heart lurched when her father’s housekeeper, Ursula Ware, burst into the room.

“Not fit weather for man nor beast,” Ursula declared in a loud, carrying voice. Beefy arms hung from shoulders that sloped forward with age and her face was lined as a prune, but she could move as quietly and swiftly as a cat when she chose to. “Butcher’s boy says he saw blood‑colored hailstones near the banks of the Thames. An evil omen, that is. Means real blood will be spilt soon.”

“Superstitious nonsense,” Cordell said.

She doubted Ursula heard her. Between the rain, the thunder, and the wind rattling the shutters, the noise of the storm drowned out any words spoken more softly than a bellow.

“A church burned to the ground.” Ursula shouted. “You know what that means. It is an act of God when a house of worship is demolished, and a sure sign of more troubles to come.”

She set about lighting more candles, grumbling to herself all the while. Eleanor picked up her needle and embroidery frame and resumed stitching. Cordell glared at the shift in her lap, now sadly wrinkled where she had clutched the material too tightly.

She smoothed out the fabric and was searching for her dropped needle when she realized that the storm had abated enough to allow her to hear heavy footsteps approaching the solar. A moment later, her father stepped into the room.

Rainwater dripped from Sir Henry Ingram’s cloak to puddle on the floor. When he removed that outer garment, Cordell saw that the clothing he wore beneath it was drenched as well.

Eleanor was on her feet in an instant. “Whatever possessed you to come all the way from Greenwich in this weather?” she scolded him. “You will catch your death if—”

She broke off when he stepped more fully into the candlelight. His face was as gray as the stormy sky and his eyes were haunted.

“Father?” Cordell rose and started toward him. “What is wrong?”

“The king,” he said. “The king is dead.”

His words stopped her in her tracks. Although she and Eleanor lived in the London house or at Ingram Hall in Hertfordshire, Sir Henry had lodgings at the royal court and kept his family well apprised of what took place there. The young king, Edward the Sixth, had succeeded his father, Henry the Eighth, only six years earlier. Since he had not been old enough to rule on his own, a Lord Protector had been appointed to run the country. The duke of Somerset, who had held that post, had later been replaced by the duke of Northumberland, and from what Cordell knew of Northumberland, he would be loath to relinquish control of the government to a new ruler.

“What will happen now?” she asked.

“God only knows,” Sir Henry said, “for I do not.”

“Sit, Father.” Cordell took his arm and led him to the bobbin-frame chair near the hearth, but there was no warmth to be had from that source. As it was summer, the opening was filled with scented boughs. “Ursula, fetch mulled wine. Sir Henry is chilled to the bone.” The cooking fire in the kitchen could be revived even if it was down to embers.

“I do not understand,” Eleanor said when the housekeeper had left the room. “What is so uncertain? Surely the king’s sister will succeed to the throne.”

The rain still came down in torrents, but the thunder and lightning had ceased. It was possible to converse without shouting.

“Have you forgotten?” Sir Henry asked. “Both King Henry’s daughters were declared illegitimate and disinherited by their father. Moreover, King Edward, anxious to preserve the New Religion, made a will excluding both Mary and Elizabeth from the succession. He named their cousin, the Lady Jane Grey, to rule after him.”

Cordell felt a chill course through her that had nothing to do with the storm. “Was that his choice,” she asked, “or the duke’s doing?”

She might never have been to court herself, but everyone knew that the Lady Jane had recently been married to one of the duke of Northumberland’s sons.

“Does it matter?” Sir Henry asked. “The result is the same. The leading men at Edward’s court dare not allow his oldest sister, Mary Tudor, to take the throne. As a devout Catholic, Mary’s first act will be to restore that religion in England. She will force everyone to conform and punish those who were most fervent in establishing the reformed faith in place of the church of Rome.”

“How can she undo what it has taken two decades to build?” Eleanor asked.

Catholicism had been abandoned when she was still on leading strings and Cordell was a babe in arms. They had never known any other church than the one Henry the Eighth established in a fit of pique over the Pope’s refusal to grant him a divorce.

Sir Henry started to answer but broke off when Ursula returned with a goblet of spiced wine that had been heated until it steamed gently. He sent his housekeeper a pointed look as he accepted the offering.

“There are many people who only pretended to change their faith after King Henry broke with Rome. They have clung to the old ways in secret all these years and will not lightly accept anyone but Mary Tudor as her brother’s heir.”

“They will rebel?” Eleanor’s anxiety caused her voice to rise by half an octave.

Cordell, watching Ursula’s face, caught the flash of a satisfied smile before she made her features carefully blank.

“I fear so,” Sir Henry said. “In any case, the best and wisest course is to remain neutral until the succession is an accomplished fact. That is why I left court as soon as I heard of the king’s death.”

“But you have always supported the duke,” Eleanor protested. “And the New Religion.”

“I did not approve of all of Northumberland’s policies.” He sipped cautiously of the hot drink and some of the color returned to his face. “However, it is true that I hope to retain my position at court. If the Lady Jane becomes queen, little will change.”

“The duke will be the real ruler,” Cordell said.

Sir Henry nodded. “He will continue to run the country, as he has since Somerset’s execution. Queen Jane will have nothing to do but preside over a glittering court.” A fond smile brightened his countenance as glanced at Cordell. “If there is to be a new, young queen, there will be positions open for maids of honor. Perhaps you will be considered for one.”

Cordell, watching Eleanor, saw her sister’s eyes narrow at the suggestion. A delicately beautiful young woman, she possessed a winsome smile ideally suited to charm everyone she met, but just now it was nowhere in evidence.

Eleanor pursed her lips before bursting into speech. “I am the oldest. If one of your daughters goes to court, it should be me.”

Sir Henry’s face creased into a puzzled frown. “But you are to wed George Eastland next month. Maids of honor must be unmarried.”

Unable to offer an argument that could counter that fact, Eleanor retreated into sullen silence. Retrieving her embroidery, she resumed her seat in the bench and stabbed her needle into the fabric.

Cordell remained where she was, hovering beside her father’s chair. “Finish your wine,” she urged him. “Then change into dry clothes. You will take a chill if you continue to sit here in those wet garments.”

He glanced at her still-damp hair and smiled, but he obediently drained his goblet. “I will not argue, Cordell. Nor will I hear any argument when I tell you that it is late and well past the time you and Eleanor should already have been abed. We will talk more of the future in the morning.”

Cordell obeyed reluctantly. She tried to tell herself that it was just the storm that made her uneasy, but she could not shake the feeling that her father’s abrupt and unexpected return to Catte Street was even more worrisome.

Remember, you have to leave a comment to be entered in the drawing. Feel free to tell me what you think of the story so far.

 

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 omnibus e-book editions of her backlist titles. Her website is www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

 

The Invisible Man

Here’s something you might not know about me: I possess the ability to become invisible. Turn on an invisible switch and poof—you can’t see me. But I’m there with you while you’re standing there and talking with your friend, or husband or wife. Maybe you’re whispering because what you’re talking about is private, and you don’t want anyone else to hear. A divorce? A friend you know is cheating on their spouse? A death in the family? Someone you know addicted to drugs or alcohol?

Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe you’re at a bar and chatting up a lovely young lady or eligible, handsome man. The conversation is going well and you hope to keep it that way. She’s staring up at you with those big blue eyes and making all the right gestures. He’s holding his beer with his arm crooked at a ninety degree angle, grinning down at you. It’s a fun conversation and filled with surprises. You turn your head and see this writerly type drinking by his lonesome and watching the two of you conversing, and it is slightly unnerving, so you look away. When you turn around to see if he’s still staring, you notice that he’s gone. But he’s not gone. You just can’t see him. You can’t see me. So you resume your flirty conversation with the girl or guy, the one who might be “The One”. You say some funny things that makes her laugh. You stare up into his handsome face and talk about all the crazy things you did back in college. Or all people you have in common. Love is in the air.

Maybe you’re sitting at a coffee table with a friend, and this friend is consoling you about a family member who is dying. You look over and see a man typing into his iPad, and so you lower your voice so he can’t hear about all your crazy family dynamics: the quirky sister in Seattle who refuses to visit the dying family member; the financial strain; the crazy brother who has been cut out of the will; the dying family members’s shocking secret that they’d been keeping from everyone. When you look over, the man typing into his iPad is gone. This relieves you, and so you speak a little louder.

Maybe you and you’re friend are at the Red Sox game and sitting high up in the bleachers, and the two of you have drunk many beers and are discussing politics and religion, and various other hot button topics. Your friend is a great person but has some interesting views that you’d rather not have other people hear. You glance behind you and see this writerly type sitting alone and jotting something in his notebook. Is he keeping the box score or listening to you’re conversation? You try and change the subject, but you’re friend brings up another hot topic and starts going off. Slightly embarrassed, you look behind you, only to see that the writerly type is gone. Poof! Did he leave to get a beer? Or was he taken aback by your friends’s strong opinions, and moved to another seat?

A year later and you’re engaged to someone else, and you’re reading a book written by Joseph Souza, and you read the exact same conversation—word for word—that you had with that girl or guy you went out on a date with at that outdoor bar in Boston, and you wonder how that happened. Could that strange man have jotted down your conversation?

Your loved one has died and you’re reading a novel by a writer named Joseph Souza, and you read about the conversation you had back at the coffee shop. About the brother—your brother—who had been cut out of the will. The quirky sister in Seattle—your sister—who refused to visit the dying family member. The shocking secret the dying character had kept from everyone—your dying family member. But how? Had your friend told this novelist, Joseph Souza, all this conversation? But as you’re studying his photo, you recognize Joseph Souza as the same man sitting next to you that day.

In the middle of the novel you’re reading, penned by Joseph Souza, the two characters are sitting at the Red Sox game and having a spirited conversation after many high-priced ballpark beers. The Sox are playing the same team you saw that day. And it’s the same hot day in August you met your friend. Devers hit a home run in the sixth, exactly what happened that game, because you remember watching the arc of the ball. And then you read the dialogue and it’s almost verbatim the crazy conversation you had with your free-spirited friend. Wow! Had that guy behind you been writing down your conversation the entire time? Had that guy been Joseph Souza, the writer?

So from now on you’re careful about your conversations. You go to a bar and look for any writerly types hanging around. Check inside the coffee shop to see if the same man is sitting there. Glance around at the crowd and see if that pesky writer named Joseph Souza is lurking nearby.

Only you’ll never know that he has the power to make himself invisible. Why? Because he’s a writer. Because he’s the Invisible Man. Because he’s Joseph Souza.

Weekend Update: August 5-6, 2023

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be a giveaway on Win-a-Book Wednesday and posts by Jule Selbo (Monday), Joe Souza (Tuesday), John Clark (Thursday), and Maggie Robinson (Friday).

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

Today, Saturday August 5th, you can find many of us at the Maine Author Fair at the Topsham Library:

 A reminder about our Body Contest. Please share with your friends:

Yes, friends, it’s back: Our “Where Would You Put the Body?” contest

It’s Maine Crime Writers “Where Would You Put the Body?” contest – late summer/early fall edition. How do you enter? Send a photograph of your chosen spot to: WritingAboutCrime@gmail.com with “Where Would You Put the Body?” in the subject line. There will be prizes for First, Second, and Third place–books of course and other Maine goodies. You may enter no more than three photographs, each one entered separately. They must be of Maine places and you must identify the place in your submission. Photos must be the submitter’s original work. Contest will run through the middle of October.

Sandra Neily’s up at Moosehead Lake sharing a presentation with her good friend, Ron Joseph. “On August 8th at 4 PM in Greenville, Maine the Shaw Public Library will host two locally themed authors who—with laughter as well as some drama— bring the north woods and its wildlife to life. Ron Joseph’s memoir as a wildlife biologist and author Sandra Neily’s mysteries share a love of and concern for Maine’s woods, waters, and wildlife. (Books are for sale and the authors will hold a give-away raffle for free copies!”

Check out Sandra’s Ron Joseph interview for more background.

 

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

Summertime Readings

It’s a summer evening at a library in Maine. The soft light streams through big windows, and the front door is open to welcome the breeze. Folding chairs are set up in the front room, with overflow seats tucked into the stacks. The librarians bustle about as the crowd filters in, greeting familiar faces and newcomers. It’s an author night, something that happens every month of the year, but is especially sweet during July and August, when the long evenings encourage people who might not usually attend such events to get out and about.

Last week I took part in a conversation with my friend Cheryl Head, whose powerful novel Time’s Undoing has garnered rave reviews since its release in February. Cheryl makes her home in Washington, DC, but in July, she and her partner spend time here on Allen Cove in Brooklin, so this was the perfect place for our July 25 discussion. We had a good crowd at the historic Friend Memorial Library, where Cheryl spoke about the genesis of Time’s Undoing, which is fiction, but based on her grandfather’s death in 1929 at the hands of police in Birmingham, Alabama.

Cheryl’s protagonist is a thirty-something newspaper reporter investigating the death of her great-grandfather, and it’s powerful to hear her talk about how the book echoes her own family history. In fact, her technical research turned up some details—including a brief newspaper article about her own grandfather’s killing—never before seen by her family. We also discussed the book’s emotional impact on Cheryl and her 95-year-old mother, who was a toddler when her father was murdered.

The crowd was engaged from start to finish, and had many thoughtful questions and comments. I was especially interested to learn later that some in attendance had never attended an author discussion before, despite being regular library patrons.

Friend Memorial will host other writers this summer, as will other libraries and literary organizations in this area, including Word, a Blue Hill-based group that organizes an autumn literary festival and other events throughout the year.

To give you a sense of the richness of the local offerings: tonight, Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and the just-launched Tom Lake, will be in conversation in Blue Hill with Lynn Boulger, director of the Authors Guild Foundation.

On August 3, former College of the Atlantic professor William Carpenter will speak at the Ellsworth Library about his new novel Silence, about a veteran of the Iraq war returning to his Maine hometown.

On August 6, Brooksville Library director Brook Minner will discuss efforts to combat book banning at the Good Life Center in Harborside. And all of that is just here in Hancock County, where I spend my summer vacation.

The calendars of libraries across Maine are chock full of similar events. I know a number of my MCW colleagues will be in Topsham tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for an author event featuring 50 Maine authors who write in various genres.  More details here:  https://topshamlibrary.org/

Live author events were one of the things I missed the most during the pandemic, and it’s wonderful to have them back.

I invite my colleagues here, as well as readers of this blog, to add in the comment section details of events where they will be speaking about their books this summer and early fall, or events they plan to attend to meet their favorite authors.

Brenda Buchanan brings years of experience as a journalist and a lawyer to her crime fiction. She’s published three books featuring Joe Gale, a newspaper reporter who covers the crime and courts beat. Her short story, MEANS, MOTIVE, AND OPPORTUNITY, which appeared in BLOODROOT: BEST NEW ENGLAND CRIME STORIES 2021, received an honorable mention in the 2022 edition of BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE. Brenda’s hard at work on new projects. FMI, go to http://brendabuchananwrites.com

 

 

 

When the Fluttery Muse Doesn’t Arrive

Kate Flora: Over the years, I’ve talked with a lot of people who want to write but can’t seem to sit down and do it. Or can’t finish that book. Or dream of writing but don’t have any idea what to write. Or were so wounded by a teacher or a series of rejections that they’re too discouraged to try again. It’s a hard truth that those of us in the trenches all face: writing is hard. Yes, there are days when the words flow so fast our typing can’t keep up. There are moments in the zone when the experience is almost ecstatic. But most of the time, even though we love it, writing is hard.

So what’s this about the fluttery Muse, you ask? I often complain about those who don’t treat writing as a discipline and say they only write when inspiration hits them. I believe that the working write goes to the keyboard, or the pad of paper, regularly and not only when inspiration arrives. This honors our desire to write and strengthens our writing muscles. But maybe there is something to the notion that having a muse to call on can be valuable. Maybe it would be a good idea to begin our writing sessions with an invocation to a muse, or for inspiration.

Here is the end of Homer’s invocation to the muses from the Odyssey:

Make the tale live for us
In all its many bearings,
O Muse

Whether it’s an inspiring invocation, or a comforting one, a ritual to begin the writing process might be a good way to enter into the mindset for writing.

Here’s one from Teddy Roosevelt:

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Or perhaps you need simple encouragement, and this, from Shel Silverstein, might help:

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hoper, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer . . .
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

Anne Lamont, in Bird by Bird, reminds us that it is okay to write, as she puts it, “shitty first drafts.” So perhaps you own invocation will be a request to be allowed to write that awful draft. Or one to quiet the critical voices in your head. Or an invocation to remain undisturbed or to let your creativity flow without censorship. Perhaps your invocation will be a call to wake up your imagination or to have faith in your right to be creative.

When I was researching for this post, I found a very interesting school exercise where students were given the long version of Homer’s invocation and then guided to write their own. True, this makes the post too long, but I’m sharing it anyway. Who knows. Maybe this will inspire your own personal invocation.

Write Your Own Invocation!
Invocation – a convention of classical literature and of epics in particular, in which an appeal for aid (especially for inspiration) is made to a muse or deity, usually at or near the beginning of the work. The word is from the Latin invocatio, meaning “to summon” or “ to call upon.”

Homer’s Odyssey, for instance, begins:
Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven
far journeys, after he had sacked Troy’s sacred citadel.
Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of,
many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea,
struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions.
* The traditional Muse of epic poetry is Calliope, although Homer does not address her by name in his invocation at the beginning of the Odyssey.

Student example:
Tell me, Muse about the man of many miles,
Who many times dashed as he ran through the streets
of Santa Monica.
He saw the Fatigue of his teammates and knew their pain.
On the course, he too suffered great pains within his lungs,
Yearning for the finish line, and his teammates’ success.
He could not guide his team to victory, though he wanted to:
His teammates had lost the race because of their laziness.
The slackers had disregarded the wise words
Of the well-traveled coach Cady, who knew the path to victory.
Tell the tale for us, beginning with the previous day,
Sometime after the piercing bell had sounded.
When all the others, seeking refuge from the torments of school
Had fled, light-footed to the safety of their homes.
Yet he alone, longing for the final mile and his own return,
Was confined by sound-minded Coach Cady, who strives for excellence,
To the fenced-in, crimson rubber surface that was his training
ground.

Now, create your own invocation (describing YOU).

Step 1: Play with epithets. A strict band director could be labeled “time-beating Sakow.” A popular cross-country coach “flat-footed Coach Cady,” A nagging mother “shrill-voiced Leona.” Play with Homer’s language. Imitate the first sixteen lines of The Odyssey by imagining that this is the opening to an epic about your life. How might your rhapsode begin?
Now write your own:
Call upon a deity / identify him / her by writing an epithet describing him / her
Call to the Muse next by first praising him / her, then by asking him / her to aid you in the writing of your invocation
Now describe who the story will be told about (YOU) using an epithet:

Finally, fill out the poem by writing a brief summary of your life story, or what makes you who you are – remember not to use complete sentences, play instead with epithets, similes, figurative language, etc so that it is in poetic form!

And excuse the language here, but yeah, it’s all about not letting anything get in your way:

 

Yes, friends, it’s back: Our “Where Would You Put the Body?” contest

It’s Maine Crime Writers “Where Would You Put the Body?” contest – late summer/early fall edition. How do you enter? Send a photograph of your chosen spot to: WritingAboutCrime@gmail.com with “Where Would You Put the Body?” in the subject line. There will be prizes for First, Second, and Third place–books of course and other Maine goodies. You may enter no more than three photographs, each one entered separately. They must be of Maine places and you must identify the place in your submission. Photos must be the submitter’s original work. Contest will run through the middle of October.

 

Death of an Intelligence Gatherer

Kathy Lynn Emerson here. Brace yourselves. This is another one of my long book-origin stories.

As I’ve mentioned here before, I believe in recycling. If an idea doesn’t work for one book or short story, I’m likely to end up using it somewhere else at a later date. More often than not, the first incarnation was just a bad fit and the eventual metamorphosis is what it was meant to be all along.

the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke

My very first attempt at writing a novel, begun in September 1976 and “finished” in February 1977, was based on the life of one of the daughters of a sixteenth-century courtier, Sir Anthony Cooke. It was titled, not very originally, One of the Daughters. He had five of them, and following the example of Sir Thomas More, educated them as if they were sons. One daughter died as a young woman. The other four were prominent in Elizabethan England, both as the wives of important men and in their own right. My focus was on Katherine, who may or may not have gone into exile on the Continent with her father during the reign of Mary Tudor, the queen who restored Catholicism to England from 1554-1558 and persecuted those Protestants who refused to convert. This tome, written in third person and totaling 562 pages typed on a manual typewriter, followed the tradition of Anya Seton and other writers I admired way back then and took the reader through her entire life. If I were reading it now, I’d rate it as boring . . . if I still had the manuscript. Mercifully, along with most of my earliest efforts, it no longer exists, in part because it morphed, through several stages, into what will be published on August 9 as Death of an Intelligence Gatherer.

That first attempt garnered six rejections (this was back when you could still send manuscripts to publishers’ slush piles) before I moved on to something else, but in 1982, after I’d begun to write for younger readers, I rewrote it, with a shorter time frame, as a young adult mystery titled The Die is Cast. The main characters was a well-educated girl in her late teens, Cordell Shelby, who travels with her father, Sir Anthony Shelby, into exile in Strasbourg, at that time a free city between French and German states. It came in at 49,000 words. I queried twenty-five publishers from 1982-1985 (yes, there really were that many back then) but no one was interested.

In 1987, I tackled the story again, this time thinking of it in terms of a first chronicle in a “Lady Allington” mystery series, since Cordell marries a young man  named Roger Allington in The Die is Cast. I kept that title, but now the characters were older and there was a spy subplot I borrowed from another early novel that had failed to sell. I worked on it on and off until I had a 71,000 word draft in July of 1989. By then I had an agent, but she couldn’t sell it either.

Fast forward to May of the following year at a mystery conference where I was chatting with an editor I’d worked with on my young adult novels. It turned out she’d briefly been an assistant editor at one of the houses where my agent had sent The Die is Cast. She’d wanted to buy it but been overruled. Now she was an acquiring editor for Harper Paperbacks, buying romance novels. She asked me if the book was still available and when I said it was, she suggested that I expand it to 100,000 words and beef up the romance angle between Cordell and Roger, making it possible for her to publish it as historical romance. I did (in fact the version I sent her ran to 117,000 words), and she did, and at 104,750 words it was published as Winter Tapestry in 1991. It was my seventh published book.

Now the story becomes two-tracked. Instead of the Lady Allington Mysteries, I created the Lady Appleton series. Although as well educated as Cordell, Susanna Appleton never went into exile, but she did help Protestants escape Mary Tudor’s England. Her husband, Robert, was vastly different from Cordell’s Roger—a villain, in fact. But yes, there are still a lot of similarities. Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie was published in 1997, the first of ten Face Down novels and numerous short stories.

In 1999, rights to Winter Tapestry reverted to me. E-books were still in their early days but I saw the potential. I retyped the book, adding back some material that had been cut and making a few other changes. In January 2003, the 95,602 word e-book version was released. It is still available at all the usual e-book outlets.

And now we come to the part I’ve written about before. It was just about a year ago that I decided to create an omnibus e-book edition of the three historical romantic suspense novels Harper published back in the 1990s. I started proofreading Winter Tapestry, planning to tweak it a little and eliminate the overuse of words like ’tis and ’twas, but the more I read, the more I realized that I wasn’t happy with it.

As published, Winter Tapestry contained multiple point-of-view characters and jumped back and forth between the romance, the murder of Cordell’s father, and a subplot involving spies. It isn’t a bad book, but I kept thinking of ways it could be better. For one thing, it had started life as a murder mystery. It ended up being published, according to the cover copy, as “a romantic adventure in Tudor England.” I really, really wanted to take it back to its roots. Then, too, there’s the fact that I’m a much better writer now than I was all those years ago. And I’ve developed a preference for using a single narrator. The “new” novel is written entirely in Cordell’s point of view.

On August 9, Death of an Intelligence Gatherer (now 73,933 words) will be released in trade paperback and e-book formats. Cordell Shelby is now Cordell Ingram. Some other character names have been changed as well, for various reasons. Roger’s has not, in part because a much older Roger Allington plays a small but important role in Face Down O’er the Border. He and Cordell are also mentioned in other Face Down novels.

So there you have it, the long tangled origin story. Hypothetical question: if you had read Winter Tapestry years ago, would you still be interested in reading this new version?

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others, including several children’s books. 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” as a Maine writer from the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. She is currently working on creating new omnibus e-book editions of her backlist titles. She maintains websites at www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.