K.B. Inglee's Blog: The Shepherd's Notes

How Linda Barnes and Peter Abrahams Made My Day

I will go to Boston for any reason, but this time I went because the annual New England writers conference, Crimebake, was held in Woburn.

Let me get the worst part out of the way first. My lunch on Saturday was a lettuce sandwich. I ordered turkey, but I guess they ran out, so I had only greens with no dressing. In a couple of days I will think this was really funny, but right now I can still feel the crunch as I bit into the offering that even a vegetarian would have scorned.

Highpoints for me were meeting two authors who have influenced my work.
I met Linda Barnes at a previous Crimebake, and found her delightful. I had been reading her work for years and loved the setting and the character of Carlotta Carlisle.

When my mother was in a nursing home in Brighton, I gave her a Linda Barnes book to read and then drove her to all the sites in the book, ending with lunch in the restaurant where the protagonist ate. I don’t know how impressed my mother was, but I loved it.

I read all of the Carlisle books with map in hand and even decided that I had lived in one of the houses in a story. Or maybe across the street from it.

I hadn't started writing yet when I met Carlisle, but had when I met Barnes. I was really impressed by the character, and there was no question that I was going to use the setting. My Emily lives in Cambridge in the late 1800s. She is short and bland, the exact opposite of Carlotta. Emily would not be what she is if I hadn’t met Carlotta first.

Thanks Linda. (Hint, hide your money under your kitty litter.}

The second author was someone I thought I had never heard of. He was listed in the program as Peter Abrahams, and he writes as Spence Quinn. The panel was Hide: Using your own life in fiction.

I listened intently as Dana Cameron talked about being an archeologist, since I have often handed her books, when I finish them, off to the archaeologist I work with. Then it was Peter’s turn and I don’t remember a thing he said except, “And when I wrote Dog On It…”

Goodness me. I had picked Dog On It off the shelf in the library for no particular reason. Maybe because  it had “Dog” in the hilarious title. I instantly thought I can write from a dog's point of view. My dog is in training to be a service dog. My dog doesn’t do novels, only short stories. Nor is he quite as adventurous as Chet, in part because he is afraid of being sent back to the pound. Chet knows what that is like.

Thanks Peter and Spence.
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I guess Crimebake was worth going to in spite of the sandwich.

Anonymous Dog

Coming up with characters is the easiest part of my writing. I came up with one yesterday almost by accident. I had just bathed the dog and was about to let her out when I realized she didn’t have her collar on.

“You can’t go out without your tags, otherwise you will be just an anonymous dog.”

If cats can solve mysteries so can dogs. Thus my new detective was born.

I knew at once that Anonymous Dog was a pound dog who fancied himself to be a biologist because he could name ten species of bird. Pound life is pretty boring so as he stared out the barred window at the birds, his keeper told him what they were.

As it happens, he was adopted by a real biologist. She named him Hieronymus Bosch, her favorite painter. He hears it as Anonymous Dog.

These will be first person narratives from the dog’s point of view. They will be funny short stories where the dog gets it wrong because he is a dog after all.

I know way more detail about the dog and master, but haven’t come up with a single adventure.

Maybe I never will.  

​Suggestions?

​

Day of the Dark

Eclipses can be beautiful, romantic, creepy, soothing, agitating or mysterious. There is a story for each in this anthology.

A whole book of Eclipse stories, many of them mysteries? That should be the perfect read while you are waiting for the few minutes that the moon actually covers the sun next month. 

I will be in the range of a partial eclipse so I used one in my story.

I have two memories of eclipses in my own life. The first was when a bunch of us rushed home from college to Portland, Maine, to see the total eclipse, only to have it be so overcast that even the dimming of the light was hardly noticeable. The second was a total surprise. Walking home from an evening meeting in Boston to find the earth’s shadow creeping across the full moon as we stood in  the Fenway (That’s the park not the ball field). Way romantic.

I write historicals, so I knew right away what my story is going to be about some historical eclipse.  Charles Sanders Peirce, son of a Harvard Professor and well known scientist (look him up, he is a real guy) takes some students to observe the partial eclipse on a farm outside Washington, DC. He invites his friends Emily and Charles Lawrence, the detective duo. So of course there is a murder.

Day of the Dark is edited by Kaye George and published by Wildside Press. Find it here: 
​https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073YDGSL5/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1500199475&sr=1-1&keywords=day+of+the+dark%2C+kaye+george

Waiting

As soon as the call for a short story reached my mailbox, I sat down to write something suitable. This was a market I had been trying to crack for many years.

The problem with having a story accepted for this anthology was that I live in Delaware. Residence in all but a few states made one ineligible. The first year I was encouraged to submit because after all I was born and raised in New England, considered myself a New England writer and the story was set in New England. The rejection came with the caveat: no non New Englanders need apply.

Two years ago the small press changed hands and opened submissions to anyone who wanted to enter. The only restriction was that the story had to be set in New England.

This year I began with a running start. In January I vowed to write and submit a story a month. This one was number three. I wrote a story set in, of all places, Somerville, Massachusetts in the 1890s. I sent it out to a couple of my readers and incorporated their comments. I was ready with a revised manuscript the minute submissions opened.

The way it is supposed to work is that you send in the story, then you go on to something else and forget that you are waiting for a response from the publisher. That's easier said than done. I waited with some degree of decorum for submissions to close. I knew lots of writers revise until the last minute and then submit, or hear about the call for manuscript late and work up to the last minute. There would be a flood of manuscripts close to the deadline.

The first job of the editors is to go through and sort out all the unsuitable ones, those that were not set in New England, those that were poorly written, those that aren't mysteries. Yes, editors do get a number of manuscript that don't fit the call in any way, that are written by beginners who don't realize becoming a writer takes practice, or don't meet the requirements for length, formatting or inclusion of the authors name if it is a blind submission.

It is usual for me to submit a week or so before the due date. This time I sent it in as soon as submissions opened. That meant that I had to wait the whole length of the submission period plus how ever long it would take the judges to make their decision.

I knew I would hear nothing for at least a month. Nevertheless, I went to my email first thing each morning to see if the acceptance or rejection had arrived. Since I sent this manuscript out into to the universe, I've started two stories and written a whole one that still needs revising, so I haven't quite given up on my resolution of a story a month.

I can give you a fist full of reasons why it should not be accepted. Subject matter, setting, character development. I can give you more based, not on my writing, but how well written the other submissions are. I'm a good writer but not a great writer.

So here I sit at the end of June waiting for a response. I know I will be happy to get the email, but I wonder how long I will stare at it before I have the nerve to open it and see if my writing measures up.

Either way I will let you know.

Memory Gets it Wrong

Yesterday I met a man whom I see once a year. I wasn't even sure he remembered who I was.

Back in the days when I was tending sheep every morning, he would stay in the apartment at the side of the barn on his yearly trip to the States. While I watched the sheep to make sure they were OK, he would come out and we would chat. I cherished those mornings and missed them when things changed and I no longer fed the sheep and he no longer stayed in the barn apartment.

I've been writing mystery stories for years now and I have never dealt with the fragility of memory. I have never really believed in it, though my rational self knows it to be a fact. I know my own memory has a few holes in it, but nothing significant. Events I remember from my childhood happened exactly the way I remember them.

So this man came to speak to me while I was putting out fishing poles. Yes, times change and it is now fishing poles instead of sheep. I said "the best part of feeding sheep in the morning was when you came out to talk with me and smoke outside the barn apartment." 

His reply? "I've never smoked."

But I remember it so clearly. Why else would he come outside if not to keep the smoke out of the apartment? Surely not just to chat with me.

I've been trying to recover some childhood memories. Everyone who participated with me is dead, and the only proof of any of it is a handful of photographs. How old was I when I stood by the car in my blue coat and someone (my father?) took a black and white photo? I'm sure it was blue.

How would Emily or Iccarus or Faith deal with this shift in memory? Emily, being the being the professional detective, would be most aware of this problem, Faith and Iccarus as members of a community would simply think it odd. I feel a new story coming on.

I can still quote some of our morning sheep conversations verbatim. Or can I?

Where They Lived

When I started writing, Emily lived in retirement in Cambridge I thought about location a lot. I knew Emily lived in the house next door to the house where she grew up. But where was it? She was looking forward to a peaceful old age. Her fellow boarders at Mrs. Stevens' house were worse than Fagin. Each had a different reason for her to return to her life of crime (fighting).

I walked the streets of Cambridge looking for locations, the perfect house, the classrooms where Cox and Bryers taught, Emily's church, First Parish in Cambridge where my mother had been a member, the supplier in Inman Square where Mrs. Stevens bought food to feed the boarders. Even the house where the villain lived.

In one short story, Emily, at age 14, goes with her father to visit the very real Thomas Wentworth Higginson. So of course I had to trek off to find the house that he had lived in at the time.

After I had finished a draft of what I called Emily in Cambridge, or EIC for short, I started a group of short stories set in Washington before 1890 where she and her husband Charles set up the original agency. My plan was to write novels about Cambridge and short stories about Washington. The best laid plans…

I had chosen a location for the house she and Charles lived in, a site for the office, their favorite restaurant. As I was looking for a home for one of the clients I realized that, unlike the Cambridge locations, every one of the Washington buildings had been torn down and replaced. Only the Smithsonian Castle had survived the urban renewal. While I could photograph all the Cambridge sites, I couldn't do the same in Washington. Since I realized this, I have been consciously making sure few of the sites still exist. The short story that is coming out in Day of the Dark, about the 1874 partial eclipse happens on a farm that is now a hotel in the middle of Bethesda. Their church, now All Souls on 16th and Harvard, was in two other locations, one is now a Dunkin Donuts, or was when I last looked.

I have often wanted to do a walking tour of the Cambridge sites, easy enough and fairly close together. Not so easy for Washington. "Here is the Dunkin Donuts where Emily and Charles attended church. Here is L'Enfant Plaza, their old house is over there under that parking garage.

I have often wondered if my concept of each of the two cities, one based on historical reality, and the other on pure fiction, shows up in the writing.

My Real Fictional Characters

I often include real people in my historical fiction. Sometimes they are people no one has ever heard of, the minister at a certain church in 1872, sometimes they are more famous, like Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of Pragmatism. Henry James gives Emily a Christmas present in 1891. Josiah Whitney (Mt. Whitney is named for him) comes to dinner one evening. Emily attends a lecture by Louis Agassiz. She is a student at the school run by his wife Elizabeth, who is one of the founders of Radcliffe.

Early this year I received two calls for short stories that were due in the next couple of months. The first needed to include an eclipse. The second had to be set in New England in a snow storm. Before I had a plot, I had my historical characters lined up. Charles Sanders Peirce would do nicely for the eclipse story, since Emily is in Washington and so was he (maybe) working for the Coastal Survey. The setup was easy, Charles Peirce invites Charles and Emily Lawrence to observe a partial eclipse in what is now Bethesda, Maryland. All I had to do was write a story to go with it. Easy.

The snowstorm was even easier. Opening scene, Emily is on a train from Washington to Boston in a snowstorm. She has been summoned to help an old friend out of a sticky situation. I have no idea how I made the connection, but I knew it had to have something to do with one of the museums in Cambridge. In walks Fredrick Putnam, curator of the Peabody, a man I knew absolutely nothing about. He turns out to be quite nice. Emily has to track down a lead, and her pet policeman sends her to, who else, James Mills Peirce, the brother of the scientist in the first story.

It is pretty clear from the first story that I don't much like Charles Peirce and from the second that I do like his brother James.

I chose relatively obscure famous people because I am never sure how my interpretation of any well-known people will sit with those who love them. I read a fine historical mystery novel that included the men who worked with Longfellow to translate Dante's Inferno (The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl). One of those men was Oliver Wendell Holmes. The author's interpretation of Holmes was almost an exact opposite to my own. Both of our views fit perfectly with the historical record. Our difference were simply the views two people would have with a living person, I like this one and you think he is an idiot.

So if this is being read by any lovers of Charles Sanders Peirce, read "Women's Work" in Day of the Dark and then write to me. If you have never heard of him, write to me anyway.

Walt Whitman's Novel

A couple of weeks ago I was at my local independent book store (Between Books in Claymont, Delaware) and the owner forced me to buy a book I wouldn't normally have looked twice at, well, maybe twice, but not three times. "KB," he said, "I've got a book here that you might like."

It was Life and Adventures of Jack Engle by Walt Whitman. My most frequent protagonist would have read this. It was written in the year of her birth, 1852. I hadn’t known that Whitman wrote novels. In fact I don't know much about Whitman at all. Must fix that.

Did I, as Greg prophesied, like the book? Well, yes and no. But I learned a lot about both Whitman and myself.

I am so used to being told what the genre and sub-genre I have in my hand before I even open the book. In this case I was halfway through the book before I knew what I was reading. I found that disturbing. Has modern reading made me lazy so that I need to know a lot about a book before I pick it up? Yes, I think it has. The cat has to be not only IN the story, but on the cover before we will buy the book.
It was a struggle of will that kept me with the book until I figured out what was going on, sometime around page 50 or so. Besides, the other book I was reading was upstairs next to my bed.

Would I recommend the book? Yes, if you are a Walt Whitman fan, or you are writing historicals sent in the mid-1800s. Yes if you are looking for details about New York City at that time. Or if you want to know what your great grandparents read. Sorry no cats, but there is a pretty good dog.

No, if you are looking for a consistent well plotted tale with complex characters. Some of the characters have both good and bad aspects, but most either wholly evil or saints. Both the protagonist and the dog are named Jack which can be a bit confusing at times.
 
 
 

A Few Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

 I am working on three short stories at the same time. Unusual for me. One at a time always works better. One of my New Year's resolutions was to submit a story every month all year. That is 12 short stories. If a handful get published I will be happy. WRITE ONE STORY AT A TIME.

The first is very short and the detective is a fictional version of my dog. That one is going fine, probably because I have no plans, yet, to submit it.

The other two are more of a problem. One is due in a few days, the second at the end of February. One is set in 1875 and the other in 1889. Both involve my prime protagonist Emily Lawrence and each contains a member of a prominent and real Cambridge family, bothers, both Harvard educated scientists.  Both stories happen at times of natural upheaval, the real 1875 eclipse and a fictional blizzard in 1889. HAVE A STABLE OF CHARACTERS YOU CAN CALL ON IF YOU ARE IN A HURRY.

The first problem occurred when I met with my critique group last evening. They had just read the blizzard story, but I had not. I wrote the blizzard story first and then the eclipse story. I couldn’t remember a single thing about blizzard except the basic concept, the characters and the setting. What I really wanted to know was if the shift from one possible motivation for the bad guy to another worked smoothly. I found myself totally unable to explain this because I forgot everything about the villain. I was so confused by the end of the meeting that I have no idea how to fix the story or if it needs fixing. Ah, but I still have a month to work on it, and I have everyone's comments in writing. REREAD YOUR STORY BEFORE YOU GO TO YOUR CRITIQUE.

I've been part of a discussion lately on choosing character's names. I generally go through newspaper bylines, novels, the phone book (remember those?) and pick a last name I like. For the eclipse story I chose a prominent Harvard scientist who happens to have the same given name as my protagonist's husband. I was stuck with two characters named Charles.  NEVER WRITE A STORY IN WHICH TWO PEOPLE HAVE THE SAME NAME.

Then I chose Cartwright for my WASP bad guy. I wasn't altogether satisfied with it but it would do as a place holder. I didn't realize what a big error I was making when I chose Joseph for his first name until one of my critique partners pointed it out. Oh, no Little Joe Cartwright can't be my villain. CHOOSE NAMES WITH CARE.

The eclipse story is pretty straight forward. My real problem with it is that no one but me has read it and I need to get it out to readers soon (today) in order to comply with the submission date. I am having trouble keeping the clues in order and I am under the word count required by the publisher. If I had a month that would be no problem, but I have only a few days. ALWAYS HAVE SOMEONE YOU CAN TRUST READ YOUR STORY BEFORE YOU SUBMIT IT.

Wish me luck.
 

New Year's Resolutions

I don't usually make a lot of New Year's resolutions.

The two real ones for this year are to read 52 books and submit a short story every month to some market.

The fake one I make every year, because, after all, you have to have one you know you can keep, is not to smoke a single cigarette.

The 52 book a year is pretty much a yearly goal. Off and on I keep track of my reading in an Excel file. In 2015 I read only 50 books but 11 of them were nonfiction. Nonfiction takes longer to read. Only 6 nonfiction in 2016, thus the 52 book total was easier.

The nonfiction is important. I do a lot of research for my writing. Facts from works on domestic livestock in the colonial period, and family structure in Plymouth Colony will show up in my writing. Others are iffier, like Dead Wake by Erik Larson, which I read because I like the author. Others, like The Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowtiz, are simply because I am curious about the topic.

One of my favorite categories of reading is unpublished manuscripts. I read two or three a year. For some reason I don't include the ones I read for my critique group in the yearly count, but I do include ones from friends. Usually I am asked to read for historical errors, and I am likely to do a bit of research for them. Do you know how much a bicycle from Sears Roebuck cost in 1890?

Of course I love the mysteries by authors I know, and I enjoy getting to know authors whose books I have read. In 2015 I actually met one of my favorite Icelandic authors. One of the joys of writing comes from the other authors I get to hang out with.

The reading I don't keep track of includes a zillion Wikipedia entries (this morning I found out that the Wikipedia entry on Charles Sanders Peirce doesn’t include the name of his first wife), short stories, unless it is a whole anthology, and magazine articles.

I've never before resolved to submit a short story each month to some market. This one is new, and I am not sure I can actually keep it. I am considering submitting two in January. One is out being read by people who, like me, enjoy reading unpublished manuscripts. The other is only 300 or so words at this point. So this will be the one I have to work at.

Oh, yeah, the cigarette one. Well I have never smoked, so that is a sure shot for success. Everybody needs an easy win from time to time.