Kassandra Lamb's Blog, page 45
May 18, 2015
How Random!
by Kassandra Lamb
How often we use this phrase! It’s come to mean that something is illogical. The word random also might be defined as scattered, something with no pattern, no rhyme or reason.
Rodin’s The Thinker (photo by Andrew Horne, public domain, Wikimedia Commons)
But there truly is such a thing as a random thinker. This is one end of a continuum that is part of a theory developed by a dude named Anthony F. Gregorc, Ph.D. The other end is sequential.
(There is another continuum in his...
May 10, 2015
What We Put Our Mothers Through… Even Before We Were Born
by Kassandra Lamb
In honor of Mother’s Day, I thought I would share with you all some tidbits from two small booklets I found amongst my mother’s mementos after she passed away. I’m not real sure why she chose to keep them, perhaps for their comic value.
One booklet’s title is “Instructions for Expectant Mothers” and its pages are quite yellowed (circa 1948 when my brother was born). The other is called “Information for Obstetric Patients” and is not quite as yellowed (circa 1952 when I was b...
May 4, 2015
Is It About The WHODUNNIT Or The WHO? (encore)
by Kassandra Lamb
I’m in editing hell at the moment, so I thought it would be a good time to offer up an encore presentation of a previous post. Indeed, this was the very first post I wrote here on the misterio press blog.
Is it the whodunnit or the who?
In the last afternoon session at a mystery writers’ conference, I was drifting a bit as the long day was catching up with me, when the presenter’s statement jolted me wide awake.
“Mysteries are not about the mystery. They’re about the charact...
April 27, 2015
Early Bird/Night Owl–which are you?
by Kassandra Lamb
My husband has been sleep deprived lately. He teaches part-time and this semester he ended up with an 8:30 class. This is problematic because he is a night person.
photo by Dominic Schulz, CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
I’m even more of a night owl. His normal bedtime is 12:30 a.m. Mine is 1 to 2 a.m.
“Well, why doesn’t he just go to bed earlier?” the morning people are asking themselves about now.
It’s not that easy. What people often don’t get is that being an early bird...
April 20, 2015
There Is a Season For All Things
With spring finally here, after a particularly brutal winter in a good part of the United States, we decided to reflect a bit about the seasons. So we asked our authors this question:
What is your favorite season and why?
Several of them waxed quite poetic with their answers.
Shannon:
The seasons pull my soul along as surely as the moon affects the tides. Right now we’re heading into spring. Spring births restlessness. The kind that makes me want to plant herbs and fairy gardens, clear out cl...
April 14, 2015
The Best Way to Resolve Conflict
by Kassandra Lamb
A couple weeks ago, I posted about how to handle bullies, those who promote conflict for its own sake to make themselves feel better about themselves.
But what about more everyday conflicts? What’s the best way to handle all those times when we find ourselves locking horns with someone who has no more desire to fight than we do?
I saw this approach to handling conflict in a video in graduate school many (many, many) years ago. It’s stuck with me ever since. I, in turn, taugh...
April 6, 2015
It’s in the Aether
by Kirsten Weiss
In the wacky world of Victorian science fiction, aka steampunk, machines are typically powered by steam. But the fictional Victorians discovered an alternate power source: aether.
Because seriously, powering a ray gun with steam is just ridiculous. 
But what exactly is aether? It depends on who you ask.
~ Ask an ancient philosopher, and he’ll tell you the matter of the universe is divided into four elements (much like this post): earth, wind, air and fire. Everything in creat...
March 30, 2015
8 Ways For an Introvert to Enjoy a Convention
by Vinnie Hansen
As authors, we often attend conventions. Probably you have done so as well in the course of your career.
After several Left Coast Crime Conventions and one Killer Nashville Convention, as a painful introvert, I finally have the hang of how to enjoy these events. This is the wisdom I’ve gleaned:
The Willamette River in Portland, Oregon
1. See the venue. On my trip to Nashville, exhausted as I was, I caught a hotel shuttle to the downtown strip at night and walked place to plac...
March 23, 2015
BULLIES
by Kassandra Lamb
Bullies have been on my mind lately for two reasons. One, they play a role in both of the stories I’ve been working on lately, one of which is releasing today (more on that in a moment).
Two, a friend of mine has been dealing with one lately–a forty-something adolescent who thinks it’s okay to disturb the peace in the neighborhood and harass those neighbors who object to his behavior.
Wikibully (public domain, Wikimedia Commons)
What motivates bullies?
I’ve wondered about th...
March 17, 2015
4 Signs that it’s St. Pat’s Day and not the Zombie Apocalypse
by K.B. Owen
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone! In honor of the holiday, here are:
4 Signs that it’s St. Patrick’s Day and NOT the Zombie Apocalypse:1. Things are green that shouldn’t be.
Green beer, green bagels…even green water in the White House fountain:
Image taken 17 March 2011, via whitehouse.gov (CC).I’m thinking the zombie apocalypse will bered…
2. Kilts. Ever seen a zombie wearing one, in anymovie or t.v. show? Me neither.
But…David Tennant knows how to rock a kilt:
David Tennant...
