Jan Dunlap's Blog, page 13

NOW I regret not taking the cruise…

Before I became a published author, I read about other authors’ promotional events with envy. For a while, it seemed like every best-selling novelist was going on a Caribbean cruise with fans, with all author expenses paid by the cruise lines. Other famous writers were paid to host ski weekends at glamorous resorts, or welcomed their fans to a luxurious spa vacation. I even read about a relatively unknown novelist who got paid by a tour company to spend a week touring Ireland with her readers.

Erin go Bragh.

One of these days, I told myself, I will be published, and the requests to accompany readers to exotic places will come pouring in. Hawaii would be nice. Or Tahiti. I’d even consider a cruise down the Nile or a trip to Australia’s Outback.

And then I had my first Birder Murder Mystery published in 2008. Lo and behold, within six months, I did indeed receive my first invitation to go on a cruise as a guest author.

To the Arctic.

In January.

I am not kidding. Somehow, an adventure tour company in Norway got my name and emailed me the invitation.

I thought it was a joke, so I ignored the email. I live in Minnesota – if I want to experience cold in January, all I have to do is walk to my mailbox.

Two weeks later, I had an email from my publisher. They’d received an inquiry from the Norwegian tour company asking to verify my email address because they hadn’t heard back from me about the Arctic trip.

It wasn’t a joke. I was being invited to go on an adventure cruise to the Arctic in January. Sub-zero temperatures, rubber rafts, and stormy seas. Probably icebergs and polar bears, too. Maybe even killer whales.

Fortunately – I mean, unfortunately – I couldn’t make the trip because I had a previous commitment…to survival. I passed on the Arctic cruise.

Now it’s years later, and I’m more experienced as an author. I realize I should have gone on the cruise and connected with new readers. I can handle a little cold.

Of course, it’s also July, and I’m sweltering in record 100-degree heat here in Minneapolis.

Now where did I put that email address for the Norwegian tour company?

Hello, icebergs.

Don’t forget the bear spray

Last Friday, I crossed the border into Canada just outside Warroad, MN. Because I was heading to my daughter’s wedding on Flag Island in Lake of the Woods, I was on my best behavior, and I made sure I didn’t make any stupid remarks to the nice Canadian border official when he quizzed my husband and I about our travel plans.

“Are you bringing any tobacco into Canada?” he sternly asked.

“No,” I said.

“Are you bringing any alcohol?”

“No,” I said.

“Any weapons or firearms?”

I briefly wondered if my nail clippers counted as a weapon. I know they do at the airport security lines. Heaven forbid you ever try to get on an airplane with nail clippers. And don’t even think about joking about it, either. The airport security people have no sense of humor. The last time I flew on a plane and the TSA wanted to wand me because I had on a long skirt, I offered to take the skirt off right there to allay their concerns.

They said that wouldn’t be necessary and wanded me anyway. I was probably lucky they didn’t lock me up for stupidity.

I decided the nail clippers weren’t a threat to Canada and said “No.”

“Do you have any Mace, pepper spray or bear spray with you?” the border patroller continued.

Whoa. I hadn’t put any of those things on my packing list.

“Do we need bear spray?” I asked with dismay.

Mr. Canada paused and looked at me in confusion. “Ah, no. I’m just supposed to ask that.”

“No, we don’t have any,” my husband quickly assured him.

“Are there bears in this area?” I asked. Now I was worried. I’d brought the mosquito repellant, the Afterbite, the sunscreen and the aspirin, but no bear spray. What Mother-of-the-Bride thinks to bring bear spray?

“Not that I know of,” Mr. Canada replied.

I gave a sigh of relief, but made a mental note to myself. My son is getting married next month in northern California in a vineyard. I don’t think they have bears there, but it wouldn’t hurt to call ahead…

 

About that lottery ticket

I have a confession to make: I don’t know how to buy a lottery ticket.

I didn’t even know there was a way to buy a lottery ticket. I thought you just walked up to the cashier at the corner gas station that advertises lottery tickets and you buy one.

I didn’t know I had to make choices, like which lottery ticket to buy.

This became painfully clear to me, and much to the delight of my husband and daughter, when we stopped for gas on our way to the North Shore a few years ago.

“Here,” my husband said as he got out of the car to fuel up. He passed me a five-dollar bill. “Buy us a lottery ticket.”

“You buy lottery tickets?” I asked him, dumbfounded. I’d never seen this side of him in 30 years of marriage.

“Only when we go on vacation,” he told me. “It’s just fun to fantasize what I’d do if I won. It keeps me entertained on long drives.”

“I don’t know how to buy a lottery ticket,” I protested.

Our daughter, sixteen at the time, said from the backseat, “You just go in and buy one, Mom.”

“And how do you know that?” I asked. “You don’t buy lottery tickets.”

“It can’t be that hard,” she replied. “Everyone buys lottery tickets.”

“I don’t,” I pointed out.

“Jan, just go buy a ticket,” my husband said as he began to fill the gas tank.

I got out of the car and inside the store. I walked up to the cashier and asked for a lottery ticket.

“Which one?” she asked, pointing to the display next to the register.

Oh my gosh. There were at least ten different types of lottery tickets – scratch-offs, powerballs, pinballs – whatever.  I had no idea what to get, and I could feel the line of people beginning to form behind me. I couldn’t decide which was worse – holding up a line of impatient customers – or looking like an idiot who didn’t know how to buy a lottery ticket.

Feigning a confidence I didn’t feel, I grabbed the closest one. It had a loon on it, and since Minnesota’s state bird is a loon, I figured it was the right ticket.

Back in the car, my husband looked at my purchase. “That isn’t the right one,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I said. “It’s a ticket. For a lottery. And it’s got a loon on it for Minnesota.”

“You were supposed to get a Powerball ticket,” my daughter clarified. “Those are the million-dollar ones.”

“So sue me,” I responded.

My husband went into the store and bought a Powerball ticket.

“So did you win?” I asked.

“I won’t know till tonight when they have the drawing.”

“So if you don’t win tonight, that,” I pointed to his ticket, “isn’t the right one either, is it?”

He didn’t reply.

Hah. I’m not the only one who doesn’t know how to buy the right lottery ticket.

Marching along…

With Independence Day once more upon us, I want to take the opportunity here to remember all the men and women who have served the United States through the decades in the armed forces. Growing up as an Army brat, I have always had a deep respect for the sacrifices so many have made in the name of freedom. I also got to see really impressive parades every Fourth of July when we lived on military bases, so I probably have heard every march that John Philip Sousa ever composed. I still hear Stars and Stripes Forever in my head every time I even think about a parade. Say the word ‘march’ to me, and I can’t stop myself from humming it. Oh no…here we go…..

So I thought today would be a good day to tell you about a character in my upcoming Birder Murder, because he’s a World War II vet and he makes me think of all the military folks that work so hard for us. In the middle of writing the new book (“A Murder of Crows” will be released in September!), I spoke at a Shriners’ dinner meeting. They didn’t bring the tiny cars they drive in parades, but they did have their hats, and though I sorely wanted to wear a fez, I managed to refrain from being unspeakably rude and I did not grab one from my table companions. In the course of our conversation, I learned that the fellow across from me was an ordnance officer in World War II. Being uncertain as to what ‘ordnance officer’ entailed, I asked him to explain, at which point he  said “Explosives!”, held up his hands, waggled his fingers and said “And a damn good one, too – I’ve still got all ten fingers!”

Yikes!

Talk about a character! He kept everyone entertained at the table for the whole meal, and I realized I’d found the inspiration for a wonderful fictional character for my novel-in-progress. As I put together my WWII vet/explosives expert, I researched memorabilia and accounts of the various deception plans run by the Allies to confuse the Axis war effort. Ever heard of Operation Mincemeat? Or the fake airfields in Britain? I found so much interesting material, I had to keep reminding myself I was writing a Birder Murder, and I needed to get back to Bob White and his story. In many ways, my character is my tribute to the men and women of the Greatest Generation.

Happy Fourth of July!

Keeping the world safe, one cookie at a time

The other day I was in a baking mood, so I whipped up a couple batches of cookies. My daughter asked me if I was the Keebler elf.

Which remInded me that I have a story about Keebler to share.

Last fall, I was eating a bag of Pecan Sandies – I mean I was eating a cookie from the bag – okay, two cookies from the bag – when I looked at the packaging and realized it wasn’t tamper-proof. Right on the package, it said NEW Easy Open, Easy Close and the big deal was that you could just peel back the top of the package and when you were done, you could smooth the top back and it would adhere again. Yup, that was definitely easy open and easy close. Too much so, in fact. I experimented and lined up the top exactly where it was before it was opened and you couldn’t tell it had been opened.

Being both an old-fashioned paranoid mom and a novelist who spends days thinking about how to murder someone without leaving a trace, I was alarmed by the Pecan Sandies packaging. If I could sneak a cookie out of the package without anyone being the wiser, how hard could it be for some crazed homicidal maniac to take out a cookie, taint it, and re-insert it into the pack? For the safety of children everywhere (as well as us cookie-eating adults), all packages need to be completely tamper-proof.

I sent an email to Keebler and explained my concern.  I also explained that I was a mystery writer who routinely thought about things like this, lest they think I was a homicidal maniac who planned to take out a cookie, taint it, and re-insert it into a pack.

Then I remembered we had Oreos in the house, too, so I had to check them out. Sure enough, it had the same NEW Easy Open Pull Tab. Taking my life in my hands, I ate a few of them, too, but nothing happened, other than that I suddenly wanted to eat more of them.

So I sent an email to Nabisco as well.

Guess what? The last package of Oreos I bought had a new addition to the NEW Easy Open Pull Tab package – there is now a red square next to the top where it peels back that says SEALED: Slit appears when opened. And by jingo, it does. You open a bag of Oreos and that slit appears right through the word SEALED. No tampering is going to get by that bag.

Although I do wonder what they put in those Oreos. It’s really hard to eat just one, you know. Okay, it’s hard to eat just two…

How to drive a teen crazy

My daughter recently got her own laptop. This is really a good thing, because now she doesn’t need to use mine, and I don’t have to kick her off when I need to do online work. The down side is that she now spends a lot of time in her room on her laptop, so I don’t see her as much, and I worry our relationship might suffer because we’re not having as many conversations as we used to when she was in the kitchen using my laptop.

When I shared this concern with my husband, he had the answer to my dilemma. He turned on my laptop and pointed at the message at the bottom right on my screen.

“She’s online. Let’s Skype her.”

“She’s just down the hall in her room,” I reminded him.

He made the video call to our daughter.

From down the hall, I heard her say “What the heck?”

“Hi,” my husband said when she answered the call. “We saw you were online, so I thought I’d call and see what you were doing.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m…online.”

Her voice came out of my laptop speakers and from down the hall at the same time.

Whoa! I had natural surround sound without any of the equipment.

“Good to know,” my husband told her. “Talk to you later.”

He signed off.

“See?” he said. “You can have conversations just fine with her. You could probably even talk more with her on Skype than when she was out here, using your laptop.”

My daughter shouted from down the hall. “That is so weird, Dad. Mom, don’t let him do that again.”

“But that’s how we’ll keep in touch when you go to college this fall,” I called back.

“Yes, this fall,” she agreed. “But not now!”

“You’re right,” I told my husband. “That was the longest conversation I’ve had with her all day.”

I looked in the refrigerator. “What sounds good for dinner?” I asked him.

“I don’t know. Let me Skype our daughter and ask what she thinks.”

“MOM!”

This is going to be fun.

The joy of research

I love doing online research for my Birder Murder mysteries because I find some of the weirdest stuff. Some of it is so bizarre, I can hardly believe it’s real, so I imagine a lot of my readers think I make it all up, but I don’t. Here’s an article I found about bird smuggling when I was working on “Falcon Finale” – can you believe this guy smuggled hummingbirds in his briefs?  I also read about miniature monkeys under caps on airplanes and gyrfalcons in suitcases.

But my new favorite find is a website that deals with conspiracies, even though I’m not a conspiracy nut.  I especially like the article and video about the poison shellfish dart. I found the site when I was researching ways to poison someone for my newest Birder Murder. It figures the CIA would be all over this area of expertise, right? Secret poisons, disguised dart guns, melting ice weapons that leave no evidence. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use it in my book because I couldn’t figure out how a Minnesotan would get hold of shellfish poison, not to mention the cobra venom that is also used in the dart. (We don’t have a lot of cobras snaking around up here in our backyards, readily available for poison formulas. At least, not that I’ve noticed.) The good news is that now I know where to go when I want to lose myself in conspiracy theory and paranoia.

Speaking of which, I sure hope I’m not being tracked through my computer. I mean, I was researching ways to kill someone and not leave a trace – does that raise red flags somewhere? Maybe deep under CIA headquarters? If I die of a heart attack, please have the medical examiner test for shellfish toxin. The truth is out there…I think…..somewhere….

Fatherhood is not for the faint of heart

During breakfast on Father’s Day, my husband was reminiscing about the births of our five children.

“I took out a sock with two tennis balls in it,” he told our 18-year-old daughter. “In our Lamaze class, the instructor said I should use it to rub your mom’s back to relax her during labor. Instead she yelled at me in the hospital room, ‘Don’t bring that thing anywhere near me!’”

“I did not yell that,” I said. (Although, I realized, maybe that’s why I’ve hated back massages for the last 30 years: they remind me of childbirth.)

“Yes, you did,” my husband insisted. “You just don’t remember because your head was spinning around, and you were screaming.”

“Not true,” I assured our daughter. “The room was spinning, not my head. Although I may have been screaming – I’m not sure. But by then, I’d been in labor for almost 24 hours, and since it was our first child, I didn’t know what to expect.”

My daughter looked a little pale.

“But your brother shot out so fast, he almost went flying across the room,” my husband recalled. “It was a good thing the doctor had a catcher’s mitt on hand.”

My daughter’s eyes looked glassy. “I’m never having children,” she announced and left the table.

“Well, that was effective,” I noted to my husband. “Have you considered a second career as an abstinence speaker?”

He shook his head in disappointment. “And I didn’t even get to the part about after the baby comes. If she thought the labor stories were scary, she hasn’t heard anything yet.”

I am never going to be a grandmother…

Connecting with readers at the Rotary meeting

I spoke to the Chaska Rotary club this morning over breakfast, and it was a blast! I talked about how the publishing industry has changed just since my first book in the Birder Murder mystery series – The Boreal Owl Murder – came out in 2008. Tons of changes, for sure, with the biggest challenges in distribution and marketing thanks to the internet. By the time I was done talking, I wondered to myself what in the world I was doing in this business since it is so tough and demanding. But then the Q&A reminded me why I write – to connect with readers. And that makes the rest of the busy-ness of publishing well worth it.

I got some good ideas for future characters and plot ideas, which always happens when I speak somewhere. I like to tell readers that so little of what I write is actually fiction, but no one believes me…as if I could come up with this stuff all by myself! Yes, it’s true – real life is much stranger (and usually a lot funnier!) than fiction.