Edith Maxwell's Blog, page 119

Wicked Wednesday: True Grit

One more July Wicked Wednesday on grit. Today let’s discuss the novel and the movie (both versions), True Grit. The story is about loyalty, even if reluctant.

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The novel, by Charles Portis (1968), portrays fourteen year-old Mattie Ross (no relation to Barb, that we know of), whose father was murdered, and bounty hunter Rooster Cogburn. The 1969 movie featured Kim Darby as Mattie and John Wayne as Cogburn. The Coen brothers’ 2010 remake gave us Hailee Steinfeld and Jeff Bridges, with Josh Brolin as the father’s killer. Talk about some star power.

From the New York Review of Books, I gleaned this: “So what do we learn about loyalty in True Grit? That it doesn’t prevent disagreement, or out-and-out fights, but it is often the coat love wears—a tattered and ragged coat, as in this fine movie—but maybe, just maybe, the best thing we have.”

Wickeds, let’s dish on the grit involved in loyalty. How do your characters show it, and what kind of grit does it take? When are they reluctantly loyal? Do your protagonists’ supporters consider them loyal? Have you watched either True Grit movie, and what did you think? Go!

Sherry: I haven’t ever read the novel or seen the movie. Loyalty drives Chloe Jackson to go to Florida to help her friend Boone’s grandmother, Vivi, run her bar. Even when Chloe realizes Vivi doesn’t want her there, Chloe stays because of a promise she made.

Liz: Sherry, I’m glad I’m not the only one because I haven’t either! Violet Mooney is extremely loyal to her family – some say too loyal. It’s this loyalty that drives her to give her long-lost mother a chance when she shows up out of the blue and drops a giant bombshell on her.

Jessie: I don’t think I’ve seen either movie either and I know I haven’t read the novel. I have read the non-fiction book Grit by Angela Duckworthy and found it a fascinating read! My characters tend to be loyal in the ways that make sense to them. In my Beryl and Edwina mysteries, Edwina displays a strong sense of loyalty to her community and also to the traditions she holds dear. Beryl is loyal to the true north that is her authentic self; she never betrays herself by contorting into a people pleaser to fit in or to win approval. Both of them are fiercely loyal to each other.

Barb: I saw the John Wayne movie but decades ago. I haven’t seen the remake, but I should. I like the Coen Brothers, the cast and westerns. I think of loyalty as being a defining trait of both of my sleuths. Julia Snowden in the Maine Clambake Mysteries is loyal to her family, the family business, the town of Busman’s Harbor and the island where they hold their clambakes. Jane Darrowfield is loyal to her great and good friends who have seen her through the ups and downs of thirty years.

Edith/Maddie: Like my blog sisters, loyalty also defines my protagonists (and I will watch anything the Coen Brothers make!). It takes grit to stay loyal when your aunt, brother, or fellow-churchgoer is suspected of murder – but the loyalty is well worth the price.

Readers: Any “True Grit” fans? Who is your exemplar of loyalty in books or films? Or who has negated the idea?

New Moon on Monday

By Liz, who is technically in book jail AND copyedit jail – a new double sentence

For all you 80s junkies out there – yes, I stole the name of a Duran Duran song for this blog. But it was so fitting I couldn’t resist. Yesterday (Monday) was the new moon in Cancer, the second one of the year, which means a heavy focus on family and home. And new moons always mean a restart, so this is the perfect week to think about anything new you want to create in your life.

I’ve been learning a lot about astrology and moon cycles, both because it’s a personal interest and because Violet Mooney, the protagonist in my new Full Moon series, is very in tune with the moon. I think I first became obsessed with it because of Stevie Nicks, who was very moonchild-like.

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In my quests for information, I’ve found some awesome resources, like Moonology, which also has a planner that shows all the different phases of the moon and gives you prompts to set intentions at both the new moon and full moon, as well as things to do each week and month based on the moon cycle. For example, this week is a week to focus heavily on yoga and meditation – for me, two things that have fallen by the wayside with all my deadlines. It’s a good reminder to try to fit them in no matter what.

I like the ritual aspect of the moon phases – focusing on what I want to manifest, what I need to let go of, what’s important to me – and putting those things on paper. There’s something powerful about that sort of ritual. Before quarantine, I had also found some amazing women who held moon circles and went to a few of those. Being around all that energy was so positive and empowering, and I learned all kinds of new things. One night we even called in a pretty big storm – which was very cool!

This week with the new moon in Cancer, it’s all about facing insecurities, focusing on giving family and loved ones the proper time and attention, and of course being clear about what it is we wish to create in our lives. Write them down, visualize them becoming reality, and then take the next right actions to start bringing them to life.

I, for one, am looking to create more peace in my day-to-day life and more space for additional creative projects.

Readers, what are you manifesting during this new moon? Leave a comment below!

Then and Now

Jessie: Enjoying the heat of summer finally finding its way to the coast of Maine!

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As I have mentioned on the blog at least a few times in the past, I adore the research part of writing historical mysteries. The past is filled with so many intriguing tidbits and inspirations and I never leave off a session of poking round in historical archives or boxes of old photographs without a few new ideas whirling through my mind. Sometimes I am even lucky enough that things I have researched and events and experiences in my present converge. So often peeks into the past make the present feel more endurable, less unusual, or even more beneficent.

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The fourth book in my Beryl and Edwina series, Murder Comes to Call, takes place in June 1921 in the U.K. and as I was researching events that were current at the time I discovered that the census had taken place then. The census was taken two months late that year because there was a tremendous amount of unrest throughout the country. When the soldiers who managed to survive the horror of the trenches returned to the country they had given so much to defend, they were promised a nation fit for heroes. What they got was a country with rather less on offer.

The economy was in terrible straits and most of the population was feeling the strain. Unemployment numbers were through the roof. Families were stilling reeling from the grief of loved ones lost to the war or the wave of influenza that had swept across the globe, another sort of world war.

In times like that the rules that have always gone unquestioned were more easily held up to scrutiny. People who had never questioned the notion that there were some people who were better, at least not aloud, found themselves far less likely to simply accept the status quo. Suddenly working-class people were not willing to stand by without comment as the government forced miners back down below ground for less than a living wage.

Instead, they organized into unions and joined socialist causes. Unions banded together into alliances that had enough clout to grind the nation to a halt. Surplus women chose to live on their own, or with female housemates, in large numbers for the first time in history. Multitudes of women also embarked on careers rather than putting their energy into raising families. Motorcars, household appliances, and contraceptives all became commonplace.

All of these changes led the powers that be to worry that so many members of the public would feel sufficiently disenfranchised to refuse to participate in the census as a form of protest. The government delayed the census long enough for some of the support to ebb away from the unions before they felt certain that they could trust the people to do what was asked of them.

I thought about these things as I filled out the census this year for my own household. So much feels similar now to the situation then. The economy has taken a discouraging downturn. Illness romps across the globe. Technologies make work different than it has been in the past. People are speaking out about what is unfair and are questioning in droves the way things have always been for some members of society. Even the census is running on a different timetable than it has in the past with the government allowing the results to trickle in to them more slowly than usual because of the state of affairs across the nation.

It wasn’t easy for the people my sleuths Beryl and Edwina would have known. It isn’t easy for us now. But it turned out that there was so much ahead to look forward to for people then, much of created it because of all the struggle and strife. I like to think that we may have just as many wonderful things ahead for us before long too.

Readers, if you were alive for the 1920 census what do you think you would think was the most amazing, surprising or delightful thing about today?

Jessie: Enjoying the heat of summer finally finding its w...

Jessie: Enjoying the heat of summer finally finding its way to the coast of Maine!

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As I have mentioned on the blog at least a few times in the past, I adore the research part of writing historical mysteries. The past is filled with so many intriguing tidbits and inspirations and I never leave off a session of poking round in historical archives or boxes of old photographs without a few new ideas whirling through my mind. Sometimes I am even lucky enough that things I have researched and events and experiences in my present converge. So often peeks into the past make the present feel more endurable, less unusual, or even more beneficent.

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The fourth book in my Beryl and Edwina series, Murder Comes to Call, takes place in June 1921 in the U.K. and as I was researching events that were current at the time I discovered that the census had taken place then. The census was taken two months late that year because there was a tremendous amount of unrest throughout the country. When the soldiers who managed to survive the horror of the trenches returned to the country they had given so much to defend, they were promised a nation fit for heroes. What they got was a country with rather less on offer.

The economy was in terrible straits and most of the population was feeling the strain. Unemployment numbers were through the roof. Families were stilling reeling from the grief of loved ones lost to the war or the wave of influenza that had swept across the globe, another sort of world war.

In times like that the rules that have always gone unquestioned were more easily held up to scrutiny. People who had never questioned the notion that there were some people who were better, at least not aloud, found themselves far less likely to simply accept the status quo. Suddenly working-class people were not willing to stand by without comment as the government forced miners back down below ground for less than a living wage.

Instead, they organized into unions and joined socialist causes. Unions banded together into alliances that had enough clout to grind the nation to a halt. Surplus women chose to live on their own, or with female housemates, in large numbers for the first time in history. Multitudes of women also embarked on careers rather than putting their energy into raising families. Motorcars, household appliances, and contraceptives all became commonplace.

All of these changes led the powers that be to worry that so many members of the public would feel sufficiently disenfranchised to refuse to participate in the census as a form of protest. The government delayed the census long enough for some of the support to ebb away from the unions before they felt certain that they could trust the people to do what was asked of them.

I thought about these things as I filled out the census this year for my own household. So much feels similar now to the situation then. The economy has taken a discouraging downturn. Illness romps across the globe. Technologies make work different than it has been in the past. People are speaking out about what is unfair and are questioning in droves the way things have always been for some members of society. Even the census is running on a different timetable than it has in the past with the government allowing the results to trickle in to them more slowly than usual because of the state of affairs across the nation.

It wasn’t easy for the people my sleuths Beryl and Edwina would have known. It isn’t easy for us now. But it turned out that there was so much ahead to look forward to for people then, much of created it because of all the struggle and strife. I like to think that we may have just as many wonderful things ahead for us before long too.

Readers, if you were alive for the 1920 census what do you think you would think was the most amazing, surprising or delightful thing about today?

Welcome Guest R.J. Lee

 

I met R.J. two years ago at the SOKY Book Fest when we were on a panel together. R.J. told me about his new series with Kensington at the time so I’m delighted to welcome him to the Wickeds.

[image error]R.J.: The second novel in my cozy mystery series, PLAYING THE DEVIL, was released at the end of February, but, as it turned, out, the devil was in the details.  The details being Covid-19.  No, the virus does not appear in the plot of this Deep South mystery connected to the game of bridge.  How prescient would that have been?  Instead, most of my book tour got cancelled due to safety reasons—mine and those of the book store owners, librarians and festival directors who did not want to take any chances.

My very last event was at a federal library in Fort Knox, Kentucky, which usually drew 30 to 40 patrons; but even back then on March 11th patrons were rightly skittish about group appearances and only 3 people showed up. Such is life for an author in the era of the pandemic. Instead, I SIP (shelter in place) and write on the fourth novel in my series. Actually, authors SIP during ordinary times as well. We live in other universes and hear (pardon me Truman Capote) other voices in other rooms.

Readers have asked me how I came up with the idea of the BRIDGE TO DEATH MYSTERIES, and I tell them that I have always enjoyed the game of contract bridge as a cerebral exercise. As a lifelong fan of Agatha Christie’s work, I recall CARDS ON THE TABLE, in which a murder is committed during a game of bridge; but I do not recall a series in which every novel contains a murder related to the game in some fashion or other.

In PLAYING THE DEVIL, my amateur female sleuth and reporter, Wendy Winchester, whose previous bridge club was wiped out by a quadruple poisoning in GRAND SLAM MURDERS, forms her own new club at the Rosalie, Mississippi Country Club. There, she encounters the most obnoxious hurdle possible in the form of a toxic male contributor who is, at once, a sexist, xenophobe, homophobe and bully. Needless to say, Brent Ogle is the one who is found clubbed with a bartender’s pestle while he is soaking in inebriated fashion in a hot tub. There is no shortage of suspects, as the man was an equal-opportunity offender and former college and pro quarterback who has never withdrawn from his addiction to the roar of the crowd. Wendy has her work cut out for her, as there are too many suspects with an abundance of opportunities to have committed the murder. But with help from her police detective boyfriend and police chief father, she is able to discover the who and how in time to prevent another death.

Readers: Although you do not have to play bridge to follow the plot or solve the crime, have you played the game yourself or do you know someone who does?

[image error]AUTHOR BIO: R. J. Lee follows in his father’s footsteps, those of R. Keene Lee, who wrote detective and fighter pilot stories in New York after the War. R. J. obtained a B.A. at the University of the South (Sewanee) where he studied Creative Writing under Andrew Lytle, then the editor of the SEWANEE REVIEW. Lee has had fourteen novels published by small presses, Putnam and Kensington, and is currently under contract to Kensington-for two more BRIDGE TO DEATH MYSTERIES to be released in 2021 and 2022. He is a native of Natchez, Ms, currently living in Oxford, Ms.

July Thankful Thursday

We are nearly a month into true summer, Wickeds. Despite our need to wear masks, distance ourselves, and avoid crowds, we still have much to be thankful for. Many barns in the Midwest and Canada display a five-pointed star. I found this one labeled, “Thankfulness.”

[image error]Barn star of thankfulness. (MikemoralVector: Richardprins / Public domain)

We are all thankful for our readers, always, and will each give something away today. Wickeds, what are you thankful for this month? Three-two-one : go!

Jessie: I am thankful for morning and evening walks along the beach and the new rush of ideas that have been flooding into my mind of late, especially during those walks. I’d love to give away a copy of Murder Cuts the Mustard to one commenter.

Edith/Maddie: I am thankful, as you can imagine, for our new 12-week-old rescue kitty Ganesh. He’s soft and sweet and playful, and he lifts our spirits daily. He likes to nestle next to me on the couch for his naps, and has made me both slow down and get more playful. I’ll give away a signed copy of Murder at the Taffy Shop.

Barb: I am thankful our family got away for vacation. The nine of us hadn’t been together since Thanksgiving and I missed everyone terribly. I’m also thankful for the people in the emergency room at UMass Memorial Hospital where I ended up on my vacation. (I’m fine.) When I think about what the last few months must have been like for them and how kind and careful they were with me, it makes me teary-eyed. I’m giving away a copy of Jane Darrowfield, Professional Busybody.

Liz: Barb, glad you’re ok! While I’m missing beach walks terribly, I am thankful for the time I’ve been spending outside. The dogs now have a lovely fenced-in area to call their “second home” and I’ve been spending mornings and evenings out on the porch steps watching them play, and enjoying the squirrels and bunnies that are on the other side of the fence. I will give away a copy of Witch Hunt to one commenter.

Julie: Also glad that Barb is ok, and loving Edith’s pictures of the kitten. I’m grateful for the internet. I’m launching a “Write Your Novel 5-Day Boot Camp” next week, and I’ve been thinking about how that would have worked in other times. A day in a space where I taught and people took notes. Great for the folks in the room. But being able to teach online in a Facebook group means that anyone can come and they can participate live or watch videos. Much as we all complain about being connected all the time, what a great gift this connectedness is right now. I’m going to give away an ARC of Digging Up the Remains.

Sherry: I am grateful for air conditioning. We are on day 20 of ninety or above temperatures and there is no end in sight. I’m also grateful for a couple of days where the humidity wasn’t bad so I could write outside on my porch. I’ll give away a ebook of any of my books.

Readers: What’s your July thankfulness?

Wicked Wednesday: Sandpaper

For today’s group post on grit, Wickeds, let’s talk sandpaper. Like, real sandpaper. (I know it’s silly. Bear with me…) It’s sold by grit size, which has many categories and two different standards by which it’s measured. (See? You didn’t know this level of detail either, did you?) You got your micro grit sandpaper and your macro grit sandpaper, both of which have ratings from CAMI (Coated Abrasives Manufacturing Institute) and FEPA (Federation of European Producers of Abrasives). Read all about it here!

[image error]Photo by Emilian Robert Vicol from Com. Balanesti, Romania – Rough-Sandpaper-_28805-480×360, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38382703

Yeah, it’s mid-July, a pandemic has been raging for months, and the world isn’t safe yet. We’re allowed to get punchy (figuratively). I do have one protagonist, Robbie Jordan, who knows way more about sandpaper than I do.

Tell our readers, Wickeds, how have you experienced sandpaper? Do you love to use three grades to sand a piece of wood ever smoother or have you never touched a piece in your life? Do you wish you could sand off the abrasive edges of someone in your life (whether personal or otherwise)? How about your protagonist(s)? Are any of them good with sanding wood – or people?

Julie: Edith/Maddie, I love the way your brain works. I have used sandpaper. My father was a woodworker, and he showed me how. I’ve also had more than one piece of unfinished furniture in my life. I’m also enjoying the metaphor of sandpaper, especially since I’m polishing the manuscript of Book #4 in the Garden Squad series. I’m in the fine grit phase of sanding off the edges and making it smooth.

Jessie: I love the notion of the fine grit phase, Julie! I don’t use a lot of sandpaper at this point in my life but I did love shop class as a middle schooler and used it there. I think my dual protagonists in the Beryl and Edwina series function a bit like sandpaper for each other. They are very different sorts of women but they each want the other to be seen in the best light and to develop their potential. Without the friction in their points of view neither would likely reach the heights of their capabilities.

Barb: I have definitely used sandpaper, though the last home project I did last summer was a metal bistro set, so that required a metal brush instead.

Sherry: There was always sandpaper in our garage growing up. I always loved to run my fingers across it, but I’ve always been very tactile. I do my own nails and emery boards are really small sanders so I used them every couple of weeks.

Liz: I’ve never been much into home improvements…but like Sherry I have been doing my own nails, so I guess that counts!

Edith/Maddie: Emery boards count, of course! I have refinished furniture, built a cedar blanket chest, and sanded down spackling before painting a wall. I think I am becoming less refined in sanding down edges between people. These days I’d rather walk away from a rough-edged attitude than focus on how to smooth things out between us. Midwife Rose Carroll is a lot better at it than I am…

Readers: What’s your experience with sandpaper, actual or virtual? Which of our protagonists is better at smoothing rough edges, and do you like that in a character? Or should they have more abrasion?

Ask the Expert: Maps and Rhys Davies

Edith/Maddie here, awed to have book map artist Rhys Davies as our guest. Yes, he is the person who drew the famous map of Three Pines! He has illustrated many more author’s towns, too, including Nether Monkslip in the Max Tudor books written by our friend G.M. Maillet and the 17th century London of Susanna Calkins‘ fabulous Lucy Campion mysteries. He agreed to let me ask him some questions today, and he has a special giveaway for one commenter.

When and how did you get started drawing maps for authors?

As an artist and designer, I’d done a variety of creative things over the years. I’ve always had a real interest in maps since I was a kid back in Wales and can remember unfolding the huge OS maps (Ordnance Survey) we had in the house and spending hours looking over them. They were so beautiful and detailed. My dad and I did a lot of hiking in the Welsh mountains where an understanding of maps and how they related to the land was crucial.. and fun.

It wasn’t until years later when this came back into focus again and merged with my creative life. A lucky conversation with a friend who’s an art director at St.Martins/Macmillan in New York started me off in this new direction. It suited me right away and I’ve been fiddling with real world and fantasy maps ever since.

How do you work with authors? Do they send you a sketch and you elaborate it? Or do they describe the town in words, you mock up a map, and you both revise?

Projects usually come from art directors at various publishing houses though more and more self published authors are requesting maps these days which is great.

I usually get a pretty basic scribble of an idea (sometimes very rough:). I’ll have an initial stab at general shape and some features and send it back to the art director. I don’t usually get to have direct contact with the author (poor, sensitive things ! :):).. and work through the art director and editors in endless e-mails. It seems the bigger the author, the more the layers of input. I’ve just finished a high profile book where there was a committee of people giving input

#quarancleaning

by Barb, in Portland, Maine, where it’s hot today. (Hot means 84 degrees in Maine in July.)

My husband and I moved to Portland in the summer of 2017. Though our house is plenty large enough for two people, it doesn’t have a basement or an attic, so the move involved a lot of sorting and dumping. The truth was, the problem went back a ways. In last decade we have helped clean out three houses of my parents’ and two houses of Bill’s mother’s. My dad and both my grandfathers were only children, so a lot of stuff has wended its way in our direction.

We did pretty well with the cleaning, if I do say so myself. But when we hosted Christmas for the extended family in 2018, every box that hadn’t been unpacked by then got shoved into a closet.

I had the best of intentions. I was going to dig into those boxes as soon as we got home from Key West in April 2019. But…I had two books due and three wonderful weddings to travel to, family gatherings in Boothbay Harbor, ME and Stone Harbor, NJ and lots of book stuff–Malice and Bouchercon, Barbara Vey’s conference in Milwaukee and a Kensington Cozy Con.

Somehow the whole year went by. But this year, 2020, I had no excuses. No house guests. No dinner parties. No book contract. If the job was ever going to be done, it was going to be done now.

I’ve set up a folding table in the living room and I’m bringing down the boxes two by two, going through them in the evening as Bill and I watch TV. I’m not being ruthless, though I should be. Do I really need the Malice program from the year Fogged Inn was nominated for an Agatha? I decided to save the cover, the Agatha page, the Wicked ad, and my bio. The rest is gone. Which means it will all need to be gone through again. Unless I make that scrapbook about my writing life I keep threatening.

It’s been a walk down memory lane. That’s for sure.

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I stared and stared at these notes trying to figure out what they were about. It’s the numbers of the photos from the photo shoot that resulted in the image on the cover page of this blog. I’m trying to figure out which photos are acceptable to all six Wickeds.






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My daughter’s Christmas list from 1987. Little did we know that first item, Phoebe’s brother, would become Derek, the Cabbage Patch doll who traveled to camp and college, France, Italy and Australia. Now he and his extensive wardrobe live at Kate’s house with her two little girls






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The case that should have contained my high school diploma but did not. I’m still a little bitter about it.






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A collection of my old business cards. I have more somewhere from later in my career.






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The recycle bag from this session. Paper maps from past travels, college papers (sadly not as brilliant as I remembered) and about fifty Playbills

Readers: Have you been #quarancleaning? Kondoing your condo? Shoveling your stuff? How do you decide what goes and what stays?

Guest Shannon Baker

Edith/Maddie here during a hot July week. So it’s apt we have author Shannon Baker on as a guest. She not only lives in the desert, she writes about it! I only started reading her books during this lockdown and am rather kicking myself I didn’t start sooner. Still, she’s provided great entertainment with her tough, brave female protagonists (the Kate Fox books are not to be missed) in various western settings. I just finished her new book, The Desert’s Share, featuring border patrol agent Michaela Sanchez, and highly recommend it. I grew up in the Southwest and I love the desert. Shannon’s writing brings it to life.

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Caring is not a crime…until someone dies. Newly-minted Border Patrol agent, Michaela Sanchez discovers a murdered humanitarian aid worker and clues point toward a patriotic vigilante. She realizes the biggest evil might be on her side of the border. With lines blurred between the good guys and the bad, threatening those Michaela loves most, she races to untangle the mystery before the killer strikes again…much closer to home.

Wait For Signs

Hello, Wickeds, and a big thank you to Edith for inviting me. I hope everyone is staying well and finding joy.

I don’t know how all of you are feeling these days, but I’ll freely admit I’ve felt a little like Chicken Little convinced the sky is falling. We’re in Tucson and as of right now, our COVID-19 numbers are skyrocketing. And the Catalina mountain range, one of my favorite hiking areas and a rare spot for respite from desert heat, has been burning for over a month. As I glance at the local news, I see nothing but three-digit temperatures forever, with no chance of rain.

I’ve studiously avoided writing about the bizarre and disturbing state of the world. No one needs, or wants, to add my hand-wringing into the mix. Despite my determination to keep my wits about me and continue to write, in May, it finally came clear to me that my normal discipline of keeping to a daily word count was only producing drivel. I wrote backstory, and then my backstory started to have backstory. It became an endless spiral. So I did something I haven’t done before.

I quit.

I decided the old saw about the definition of insanity—where you keep doing the same thing and expecting different results—applied to me. I told myself: no thinking about writing until at least July 1, and then I’d reassess.

I’ve gotta tell you, this hasn’t been the worst month of my life. My husband gave me those Master Classes that have been calling to me on my Facebook feed for a long time. It’s been great hearing words of wisdom from the experts. Okay, mostly on writing, but it’s relaxing and inspiring and I’m definitely going to branch out on other topics soon. Listening to podcasts has been delightful. (My Favorite Murder is top on my list.) The best fun of all, is that I’ve been reading lots of novels. Big, thick, juicy books, mostly not in the crime fiction genre. (You’ve got to read The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna by Juliet Grames.)

Slowly, the coils in my heart, head, and gut have started to unwind. As they have, the strangest things have begun to happen. My very practical father would have said I’m experiencing confirmation bias. *shrug* Maybe.

First, there was a big black bear who plopped down onto the trail in front of me.

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Then there were two sightings of horned toads (they’re supposed to be good luck).

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I’m not sure what the raccoon in the backyard meant, but no one I know has ever spotted a raccoon in this desert neighborhood. The birds are the kicker, though. It started with the roadrunner who’s decided our pool is now his, and he visits whether we’re outside or not, venturing within arm’s reach. A cactus wren flew in the door and after some hullabaloo while we tried to keep the dog from having a snack, it allowed us to pick it up and it sat on a hand until we deposited on a palm frond.

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One evening as I took a dip, a half-dozen bats swirled around me. (Yes, I know they aren’t birds, but dang, that’s never happened before, either.) The latest, was two days ago. I was standing in the pool with a hat on (did I mention it’s been 107 degrees here?) and a finch landed on my head. It sat there for a few seconds before flying off.

One at a time these encounters don’t mean much. (Though that bear was a once in a lifetime thing.) But all within two weeks? Maybe nothing, but I’m going to be grateful, no matter what it is.

You know what? After my break, the ideas are forming. The joy is back and the what-ifs of a new story are making me feel fizzy and happy. I haven’t started writing yet. Right now, I’m debating whether I’m still practicing self-care or being lazy.

I’d prepared another post for the Wickeds today. It was all about Border Patrol research, the desert, vigilantes, and humanitarian aid on the desert. It was meant to get you all excited about the book, The Desert’s Share, that launched June 30th. But it felt flat to me. Guess I’m straying from my normal logical, reasonable, practical ways and just doing what feels good.

Readers: what about you? Do you find yourself changing in unexpected ways? Have you ever had a series of seemingly common experiences pile up on you? Do you think there’s something to my wildlife encounters?

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Shannon Baker writes mysteries about strong women in dangerous situations. Her books are set in the iconic landscapes of the American West, from the Colorado Rockies to the Nebraska prairies, to the deserts of southern Arizona.  She is proud to have been chosen Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ 2014 and 2017-18 Writer of the Year.