Kathy Lynn Emerson's Blog, page 80

My Dance of Fame

By Brenda Buchanan

Nobody writes songs about March. In New England at least, the third month is long on gray and short on poetry.  This year is the exception to the rule—warm days having begat bare ground and the early arrival of crocus and daffodil shoots. But more years than not, March is the dreggy end of winter, a 31-day slog of grubby snowbanks and freeze-thaw-freeze cycles.

If not for St. Patrick’s Day, March would have little to recommend it.

In my family, the holiday is a big deal. My mother and her siblings were born in America but my older relatives had brogues as thick as spring fog. Determined to hang on to their culture, they maintained certain traditions including teaching children (especially little girls) to step dance.

My older sister and I took lessons from a woman named Bernadette, who was off the boat from County Kerry. Irish step dancing involves complicated footwork. In her Saturday morning classes, Bernadette called out cues I remember to this day. Heel, toe, heel, toe, heel, toe, hop one-two-three-four. A jig or a reel played in the background, helping little feet keep the beat.

The more difficult skill for me was to keep my hands at my sides, fingertips pointing to the floor. That is a defining aspect of traditional Irish step dance, intended to direct attention to the intricate steps. My little sister—who when I first started would have been two to my four—was too young to dance but old enough to keep me in line. Kate sat in the front row during practice sessions and called me out when my arms flew out from my sides. “Hands!” she’d chirp. “Hands!”

One of the little dresses my mother made. Note the gold fabric on the underside of the skirt, which made for flashy kicks.

Thoughout the year, but especially in March, Bernadette’s troupe danced at various events around town. Our mothers made our outfits, green dresses with gold fabric on the underside of the skirt, designed to show when we kicked our tap-shoed feet. Somehow I have hung on to one of mine all these years. There it is at right, in all its tiny glory.

Our shoes were tied with Kelly green ribbons. On our legs we wore black tights. A back sash was pinned from left shoulder to right hip.

Such was the costume we wore the night a dozen or so of us were to be the entertainment at the 1962 St. Patrick’s Day party sponsored by the city’s Irish-American Club. We were the warm-up act for Ted Kennedy, who had just announced his first candidacy for United States Senate. His brother was president, of course, which made this gig a Very Big Deal to the older girls in the troupe. At the end of our performance we’d been instructed by Bernadette to skip down the stairs on the side of the stage—tallest to shortest—and shake the hand of the candidate, who was sitting in the front row. The oldest girl—my second cousin—had a small token of some sort to present to him as a gift from us.

I was four years old—too young to be nervous about anything but keeping my hands by my sides—but backstage jitters infected the big girls. We’d be dancing for the handsome president’s handsome younger brother, not to mention a hall packed with most of the Irish population of Fitchburg. The young teenagers were wound up. Moments before we went on one of them sidled over to me and said the plan had changed, I was now going to lead the troupe off the stage and be the one to hand the gift to Mr. Kennedy.

I suspect this photo was taken a year or two after the famous Irish-American Club party. I am seated. My sister SuEllen is the fair-haired girl second from left.

So out we went and dance we did and after we took our bow I led the way off the stage. Whenever my mother told this story she’d put her hand over her heart and exclaim that her relief at our fine performance gave way to dismay that her headstrong little Brenda was leading the march to Ted Kennedy instead of bringing up the rear. My memory is that he was very nice and people took pictures of all of us, then my older sister and I were whisked home because by then it was long past our bedtime.

The next day a telegram arrived at our house (yep, an actual telegram.)  It read: My brother tells me you are the best step-dancers ever. STOP. Congratulations! STOP. It was signed JFK. Now that impressed me. I may not have quite grasped who the man in the front row of the audience was, but I knew JFK was President of the United States.

I was probably 12 before I learned that the telegram had been sent by my uncle, John Francis Kane.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of the readers of this blog. My gift to you is this link to the fabulous McNiff Irish Dancers, performing in 1958. These dancers were the real deal. They performed on the Ed Sullivan show, not merely at hometown St. Patrick’s Day dinners. But we danced this same traditional style. Note that except for the parts when the piece called for them to clasp hands, the dancers’ fingers are pointed right at their tap shoes.

P.S. In my family, the tradition continues to this day.  This week my five-year-old grandniece Caeley danced in her first recital.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baseball, Politics, and Reason

Here Comes the Curve

Bruce Robert Coffin here, filling in for Chris Holm who is immersed in editing hell. What’s editing hell, you ask? It’s when you think the manuscript for your novel is in pretty good shape only to find that your editor has suggested major edits. It might seem as though I’m doing Chris a favor but in reality I have an ulterior motive. The truth is I loved Chris’s last novel, The Killing Kind, now I’m dying to read the sequel, Red Right Hand. Hurry up, Chris!

This week I’m going where nobody in their right mind would intentionally go. Join me, won’t you?

Spring training is in full swing (hit ‘em with a bad pun right out of the gate)(Hey, Dick Cass, since I no longer have NESN maybe you could invite me over to watch a game once in a while, just sayin’). I’ll be honest with you, I am a diehard Red Sox fan. Always have been, always will be. I’ll confess that I have a number of friends who are Yankee fans. Poor misguided folks. But I still love ‘em. Maybe one day they’ll come around.

The love of one’s team is a point of much discord. There’s nothing rational about it. We consider our team the best and we want to see them win. Every time. Sox fans throw around comments like: “Yankees suck” and “Bronx Bums.” Likewise, New York fans quip eloquently: “Sox Suck” and “Beantown Bums.” It gets nasty. As fans (an interesting abbreviated form of the word fanatical) of the game we often get into spirited discussions leading to putdowns and mud slinging. But, when it comes right down to it, what are we really doing? We don’t personally know any of the players. We’ve got no stake in how the game turns out. It’s not like we own these teams. No, the reality is we’re cheering for and spending our hard earned money on a bunch of out of touch grown men, strangers, who are paid millions of dollars, win or lose, to play a game. Period. We buy shirts, pennants, bumper stickers, and hats. Almost seems nonsensical. Almost.

Which brings me to my next point. Politics. The presidential race. The most watched, read about, and bandied about of all the races. The run for the highest office in the land. Leader of the free world. This is big time. The world is watching. And unlike baseball, much is at stake (sorry Red Sox Nation). Our very existence rides on the winner of the brass ring (I read it in the newspaper). Do you realize that our next president might well be charged with nominating not one but several Supreme Court justices? (But that’s a whole different topic for another day). And like baseball, everyone has an opinion. Some folks despise Hillary, some despise Trump, some aren’t quite feelin’ the Bern. I’ve heard some say that they don’t like any of the front runners, that they’d much rather have someone a bit more moderate in the White House. It’s a divisive world we live in. America has many problems. On this point I think most of us would agree.

I keep hearing people say that this country has never been more divided. That it’s getting scary. Really? I have two words for you, Civil War. Hard to imagine a country more divided than one whose citizens would take up arms against each other. And mud slinging? Nothing new here either. Thomas Paine once described George Washington thusly: A man of “grossest adulation,” a “hypocrite,” “incapable of friendship.” In 1800 President John Adams found himself running against his own Vice President, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson’s campaign referred to Adams as a fool, criminal, and a tyrant. While Adam’s people labeled Jefferson a weakling, atheist, libertine, and a coward. Interesting side note, both men were life long friends before the election, and again following the election… Hmm. Showmanship?

Historically, even First Ladies have gotten in on the action. Martha Washington called Jefferson “one of the most detestable of mankind.” Take that you wearer of support hose!

While all of this muckraking is nothing new to our relatively young country, it is a bit over the top. Our society does seem way too obsessed with so called “reality television.” And I’m not talking about the informative kind, I’m refering to the shows where the only entertainment value comes from watching people get beat down and belittled. The shows whose contestants are labeled the weakest link, or told that they’re fired, or that the food they’ve prepared tastes like garbage. Somehow it’s become the norm to disrespect others and get excited watching it on the tube. Given our fascination with this negative programming, is it any wonder that the front runners of both major political parties are causing many to shake their heads in wonder. If we as a society live for this negativity and mudslinging doesn’t it stand to reason that your choices for president would be representative of this. Moderates don’t rise to the top. Polarization is the name of the game folks. Stand at the far right or far left of every issue and you’ll get noticed. I guarantee it. By both sides.

Moving right along, let’s discuss reason. This may come as a shock but we don’t all get to have our way all of the time. That’s life. If we really want our nation to lead by example we must except this. Compromise is a trait that all of the greatest politicians employed. If we as Americans are no longer willing to compromise, traffic intersections deemed four-way-stops are about to become a lot more dangerous. Hey, I was here first!

And enough with the name calling. Seriously. I disagree in principal with many of my friends and relatives on a variety of issues, but guess what? They’re still my friends and relatives. We can agree to disagree. I’ll not engage in belittling or name calling over difference of opinion. This isn’t first grade. If I were to believe all of the rhetoric of social media pundits, I’d have to conclude that all Republicans, or Rethuglican’s, are wing nuts, lunatics, ideologues, and extremists out to destroy the country. Likewise, at least according to the social media experts, all Democrats, or Demoncats, are moonbats, morons, hacks, and extremists out to destroy our country. Extremist? Hey, can both parties be slandered with the same term? Folks, we may have found common ground here!

This isn’t another attempt to try and tell you what you should be for or against. There’s been far too much of that. I’m not writing this to try and sway your opinions. If you’re passionate about your beliefs, good for you. I get pretty passionate about some of my beliefs, too. All I’m asking is that we take a step back. Stop waving our fists in each other’s faces long enough to recognize that it’s okay to disagree. Our opinions are generally based upon our life experiences. Rarely are those experiences exactly the same. My position on many of today’s issues have changed as I’ve grown older (and not necessarily wiser).

Remember what I said about baseball players? Out of touch millionaires playing a game. Sound familiar?

To those of you who are happy with your party’s front runner I say congratulations and best of luck in November. To those of you who think your party can do a whole lot better I say perhaps it’s time to lead by example.

Go Sox!

Weekend Update: March 12-13, 2016

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Bruce Coffin(Monday), Brenda Buchanan (Tuesday), Jen Blood (Wednesday), Vaughn Hardacker (Thursday), and Lea Wait Friday).

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

from Lea Wait: On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I’ll be visiting the Hermon Middle School (in Hermon, Maine.) I love making school visits! I’ll be talking to classes about my historical novels set in Maine, addressing an all-school assembly, and running three writing workshops. Busy days — but always refreshing to spend time with young readers (and writers.)

from Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: Just to give folks in the area near Longmeadow, MA a head’s up, I’ll be participating in a mystery writers panel at the Storrs Library on Monday, April 4th, with Susannah Hardy/Sadie Harwell and Sharon Healy-Yang. The program starts at 6:30 PM and will run for about an hour and we’ll be selling and signing our books afterward. You can find the library’s website at  longmeadowlibrary.org There is a form there if you want to register in advance to attend the program, but we won’t turn away anyone who decides to come at the last minute.

from Maureen Milliken: April is turning out to be the coolest month for me (see what I did there, English majors?). The latest development is that 0n April 27, I’ll be talking about Journalism and Writing at the Belgrade Public Library in Belgrade, Maine. The library asked me this week, saying that patrons are familiar both with my work as a columnist for the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal, as well as my mystery novel Cold Hard News, which, of course, the library has on its shelves. The big question is, does more than 30 years as a journalist provide any kind of foundation at all for a mystery writing career? We’ll find out! I’m looking forward to the answer, too.

 

This joins a number of other upcoming events including one at my childhood library Lithgow, in Augusta, Maine; a panel appearance at Maine Crime Wave on April 9, reading from No News Is Bad News, the second in the Bernie O’Dea mystery series and due out this summer, as well as several other cool events. For details and/or to sign up for my “weekly” emailed updates, go to maureenmilliken.com.

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. Contact Kate Flora: mailto: kateflora@gmail.com

Out to Canaan, or Some Assembly Required

John Clark on the democratic process.

 

Some of many political souvenirs.

I got involved in politics during the Vietnam War and learned in the process that individuals really could make a difference. Unfortunately my addictions got in the way of continuing to have any positive effect, culminating one night in Portland following Brownie Carson’s loss in the campaign for the U.S. House seat he was running for. I can chuckle today, but at the time and for many years afterward, that night was cringeworthy.

When I started my recovery in 1980, I backed away from anything but local civic involvement, satisfying myself with 20 years on the budget committee in Chelsea, as well as serving as chair of the town planning board for six years. The latter was a real adventure in a town that was fragmented, mistrustful and populated with some real characters. I remember my neighbor Edna Morrison describing one local real estate magnate as being so crooked they would need to screw him into the ground instead of burying him when he died, while another broke down in tears when his business burned down with all his hoard of cash in the walls.

I have never missed voting in a state or national election and have only missed a handful of town votes, mainly ones where there was no opposition, or we were away at the time. My only foray into politics since moving to Hartland was as public relations person for Daniel Swain when he ran for the local house seat four years ago.

Despite a growing cynicism about the integrity of politics in general and living in a state that elected one of the world’s most notorious morons not once, but twice, I found myself ‘feeling the Bern’ this time around. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s hard to find a candidate running for national office who hasn’t sold part or most of their soul to the devil along the way, and that’s contributed to my general avoidance of political activity, but I remember how I felt when McCarthy ran in 1968…a sense of hope and excitement that he might really make a difference. That feeling is back.

After 25 years as a registered independent, I became a democrat three weeks ago so I could participate in the caucus last Sunday. Beth and I, along with Nick Berry, my replacement at the Hartland Public Library, arrived at the Canaan fire station to join a steady stream of people. That site served Canaan, Hartland, Palmyra and Saint Albans. I’d been to caucuses way back, but was hazy on the process. Given that at least a third of those who came seemed to be first-timers, coupled with the room not being big enough, there was an initial, but genial chaos.

I was happy to see several familiar faces and an agenda on the whiteboard, not to mention hot coffee and some great munchies. The crowd was a definite representation of Somerset county, a few tats, a few missing teeth, some toddlers, caps featuring logging, construction and New England sports themes as well as a solid core of well educated retired folks.

Hold the Mao, it’s Chairman Nick.

Craig and Randy (county and town chairs) helped establish order and we were on the road to democracy. I’d forgotten that citizen participation at this level requires more than simply raising your hand when choosing a presidential candidate. After we grouped by town at various tables, each needed to have a secretary and it was strongly suggested we choose a town party chair as well. With a whopping seven (eventually swelling to eight) from Hartland, I ended up being secretary, while Nick got elevated to the lofty position of Hartland party chair. We learned that Hartland would have three votes for a presidential candidate based on the number of registered Democrats in town. Before an actual vote, participants were able to speak on behalf of the person they supported. At least ten of the hundred in attendance did so, with speeches ranging from short and succinct to multi-minute rambles that had to be refocused by the caucus chair. It was another perfect example of democracy in action. Next up was opening and counting absentee ballots. We had two, while Saint Albans with a similar population had twelve. We noted who was selected on them, then discussed among ourselves before making our choices. The Hartland tally was six for Clinton, four for Sanders which translated to two Hilary votes to one Bernie for the state convention in May.

Fo sho.

There was more to do, beginning with finding three people willing to go to the state convention in May down in Portland. At first Mark and Deb who are also members of the library book discussion as are Beth and I, were willing to go, but they realized someone needed to stay home and care for their goats, so Beth and I, along with Mark will represent Hartland come May. The entire process was intimidating to some, exciting for many and hopefully satisfying for all. We headed home 2 ½ hours after things got started.

Did you attend a local caucus for either party? If you did, what was your experience like?

LOVE OF READING NO MYSTERY

Susan Vaughan here. Wednesday, March 2, was Read Across America Day in honor of the birthday of Theodore Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. The school where I taught as a reading specialist usually stretched related activities into an entire week and one parent-child evening to celebrate Dr. Seuss and his books and reading in general. Now that I’m no longer teaching, I thought I’d discuss the books that were my childhood favorites.

I loved books from the very beginning, and once I learned to read, I devoured books. I don’t recall reading Dr. Seuss books, I’m afraid, although his first, And to Think That I saw it on Mulberry Street, was published before I was born.

As an author, I found it interesting how the book got published. Geisel was about to give up after rejection by twenty publishers when he met a friend on a New York street. The friend worked for Vanguard Press, and the rest is history. Geisel said afterward that if he’d been walking on the other side of the street, he’d have given up and gone into the dry cleaning business.

When I was young, most of the books my family read came from the library, but the ones that were my favorites, to be read and reread were purchased and given to me. The bookshelf in my bedroom contained series as well as stand-alone novels. My very favorite stand-alone novel is The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, published in 1911.

I read it over and over. As I reflect on it now, part of the reason was that I related to Mary, not because she’s a neglected wealthy child, but because she’s an only child, like me, who had to amuse herself. I was and still am intrigued, like Mary, with the boy Colin hidden away in a secret room and the secret garden, where the two children heal each other. Yes, secrets and a mystery. Apparently the author was inspired by Christian Science theories and used the garden motif to explore the healing power in living things. The Secret Garden is beautifully written, emotional, and uplifting. No wonder it has stood the test of time.

I wasn’t a fan of fantasy usually, but loved the Oz series. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W.W. Denslow, was first published in 1900.

The movie version, retitled The Wizard of Oz, was released before I was born and wasn’t a television staple until the 1960’s, so my love of the stories was due to the books. The Library of Congress declared The Wonderful Wizard of Oz “America’s greatest and best-loved fairy tale.” Its success led Baum to publish thirteen sequels. I remember reading the first and a few others—Ozma of Oz, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, and The Emerald City of Oz. My bookshelf held at least three more, but the titles are lost to me, and the books disappeared on one of my family’s moves.

Another series I loved wasn’t great literature, but my first introduction to mystery novels (You knew this was coming, didn’t you?). Yes, Nancy Drew. I believe this is the cover on the book I had.

As a child and preteen, I believed there was a Carolyn Keene who wrote all the books. In fact, the series concept was created by publisher Edward Stratemeyer, who had previously created the Hardy Boys series. From the first book, The Secret of the Old Clock in 1930 onward, the books were a hit. For the uninitiated, Nancy Drew is a teenage amateur sleuth, often assisted in solving mysteries by her closest girlfriends, Bess and George, and her boyfriend Ned.

Stratemeyer created the character and many of the book outlines. He hired Mildred Wirt Benson to ghostwrite the first volumes in the series—The Secret in the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase, The Bungalow Mystery, The Mystery at Lilac Inn, and The Secret of Shadow Ranch.

As an adult author, I found Mildred Benson as fascinating as I’d found her stories. Not only was she a ghostwriter, she was a reporter, even until she died at age 96. She earned a pilot’s license and went to the Amazon on an archeological expedition that became lost for a time. In my novel Primal Obsession, Mildred Benson is an inspiration to my heroine Annie. Others joined Benson in ghostwriting as Carolyn Keene after 1932, possibly because it was hard to keep up with the eager readers wanting more of Nancy Drew.

Over the decades, the character has evolved in response to changes in U.S. culture and tastes, and the original books were revised and shortened both to lower printing costs and to eliminate racist stereotypes. Given the films, TV shows, and new book series, Nancy Drew has enduring appeal.

In case you need a book for a child or grandchild, you can find online several lists of the best. The National Education Association list is here.

Would anyone else like to share a memory of a favorite childhood book?

The Adventures of a Craigslist Junkie

(Note: I’m immersed in police procedure this week, so this column is recycled from a few years ago. I hope it still makes you laugh)

Kate Flora: I’m a confirmed Craigslist junkie. Have been since my students first told me about it. I have a Craigslist couch. A Craigslist coffee table. A Craigslist desk chair. But as a measure of the culture’s pulse, one only has to spend a little time on Craigslist to confirm something we old farts have known for a while: that sometimes the next generation, the computer-savvy, e-mailing, text-messaging generation, often presents as functionally illiterate. Whole rafts of them are out there selling products—often products that I, after working for more than thirty years, can’t afford—yet they cannot spell the names of the things they’re trying to sell. (I don’t think most of these can be blamed on the bane of our existence: autocorrect)

There are, for example, a lot of people out there who are trying to sell their lamps, wine racks, bookshelves, and coffee tables made of a material called rot iron. It doesn’t sound very appealing to me; nor does it sound very stable. Especially when I’m invited to purchase a queen sized bed made out of rot iron. Hardly sounds like it would last through one galloping good marital session. Some of them have items made out of rod iron. A little less unpleasant. One aspiring seller even told me that rod has generally replaced wrought as the proper term. I expect if I inquired of the rest, they’d tell me, as they learned in elementary school phonetic spelling, that as long as they can be understood, it’s fine.

Just as the roadsides everywhere are littered with discarded plastic water bottles, the homes, condos and apartments in the Boston area seem to be littered with small, round, dish-shaped chairs. These Papasan chairs are referred to, by Craigslisties, as Papusums, conjuring up small, ratlike nocturnal animals, papazums, papazans, papasams, and a whole host of other spellings. Every day, between three and ten are offered for sale. Sometimes with ottomans. Ottamuns. Attomans. Attumans. We live, it seems, in the papasan and ottoman empire. One thing is clear–even if their owners don’t know what they’re called–there are enough of them out there that if they banded together, they could take over the world.

Often, Craigslist consumers are invited to purchase products that seem to have lives of their own. One might become the next owner of an “antic MIT desk” for only $100.00. If you are interested in floor level interactions, there are rugs from Central Anatolia where the sizes, colors and motives vary. In a house where the desk is antic and the rugs have motives, you might want to be very careful about also acquiring a Craftsman 10” radio alarm saw. It’s hard enough to get up in the morning without so much worry and commotion.

Perhaps you’re new in town and trying to set up an apartment. Craigslist is the place to go. Everything a homeowner needs is available. Imagine becoming the proud owner of the following: carpet, table, lamp, dust bean, wardrove, dubei, etc. You could augment this with plates, glasses, cuttery, and tones of tuber-wares. Then finish that place by acquiring a “burrow, with attached mirror.” Maybe a house like that would be the perfect place for a Japanies stile bad or, if you’re looking for a more adventurous bad, you might get the queen bed with mattress and hotspring. You could trick this place out with three large droors and that breakfast tray where “one leg needs fixation.”

Some of these household furnishings really do have promise. I was extremely tempted by the “Beautiful White Amour.” I thought it would go nicely in my room where I’ve already placed “very Sheik Slate Top Teak Furniture.” But suppose the amour and the sheik didn’t get along? Would I have to break out my “whine glasses from Pottery Barn?”

Sometimes, dear reader, things do just get too personal. Who would feel comfortable brushing their teeth next to the 24” wide bathroom vanity assembly with sink bowel top included? Or, for that matter, buying Rover that Self-Feeding Dog Bowel? It’s all too much for me. I’ve passed, as well, on the seller who promoted her wares by saying, “This would be nice to have in a nursery if you have a girl instead of a glider.” Honestly, if I gave birth to a glider, no amount of nice furniture could comfort me. Indeed, the idea of these dangerous products is enough to send me to my “armoir, closeth or wardrove” where I’m going to put on my White Petty Coat (formerly the property of a navy man, perhaps) and go out for some air.

Author’s note: Despite my amazing collection of Craigslisties, I have gotten some lovely things from Craigslist, and I’ve met some splendid people, and collected great stories, in my travels.

Unsolicited Advice for Those Who Write Cozy Mysteries

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, stating up front that I love mysteries at the cozy end of the traditional mystery spectrum. Just lately, however, I keep encountering cozies that contain one or more of my personal pet peeves. These are things that don’t necessarily affect the plot or character development or make a good book into a bad one, but they sure do annoy me. And, yes, in the interest of total honesty, I admit I’ve committed most of these sins myself at one time or another . . . but, hopefully, only once.

So here, totally unsolicited and possibly unwanted, is my list of things I think mystery writers should watch out for if they want to avoid annoying me while I’m reading one of their mystery novels.

Number Ten:  If you must give a character a gun, take the time to learn the basics. You don’t have to go into a lot of detail. You just have to make sure that the details you do use aren’t wrong. With a nod to Lee Lofland, and to my friend Professor Robert Martin of New Sharon, Maine, that is not cordite you smell after a gun is fired. There’s also a difference between a revolver and an automatic.

Number Nine: If you have a cat or dog in the story (or a gerbil, or a parrot, or a rabbit), don’t forget about the poor thing. See Jen Blood’s recent blog for more on this subject. And here is the flip side: if you have a cat or dog in the story (or a gerbil, or a parrot, or a rabbit), don’t overuse the poor thing. We don’t need to know what the sleuth’s pet is doing in every scene. Yes, they’re cute, but a little goes a long way.

Number Eight: Don’t try to convert your readers. I’ve read way too many mysteries lately in which the author, writing about a character who has chosen a certain lifestyle, goes on and on about it. There’s nothing wrong with being a vegetarian, or making meditation part of your life, or being an activist of some kind, but it’s far too easy for a character to become preachy, especially if that character shares the author’s opinions.

Number Seven: Watch your transitions. Sometimes this is the fault of the conversion to ebook format, but when a scene or a point of view changes, there really needs to be a space between paragraphs or a segue of some kind in the text to alert the reader to the shift.

Number Six: Despite a recent controversy stirred up by a teacher who forbade her students to use the boring “s/he said” in their writing, “said” and “asked” are still the best choices in dialogue because they are invisible. They don’t slow readers down. Trying to let us know how your character said something? Show us what they’re doing as they are speaking. Yes, it’s okay for someone, occasionally, to shout or exclaim or whisper. But people rarely shrill their words, and I still remember an author I read back in the 1980s whose characters, when annoyed, “gritted” their words.

Number Five: Get rid of those repetitious words. I don’t just mean things like “only” and “just” and “even” that creep into our writing and don’t add anything to it. I also mean catching the places where the same word appears three or four times on the same page. This is a lot easier to do if you can let the manuscript rest for awhile before the last revision. With a break, the repetitions tend to leap out at you.

Number Four: Learn to read a map! Yes, I know it isn’t always possible to visit the place where your mystery takes place, but if you have someone driving along Rt. 1 and your character is admiring the view of the ocean, you’d better be darn sure she can actually see the water from there. If you made up a town, take the time to make a map, one that shows compass directions and on which you make note of distances to other places and who lives in what house. The last thing you want is for a reader to be pulled out of your story by trying to figure out how a character got from Point A to Point B.

Number Three: Get the law enforcement details right. Every state is different when it comes to what law enforcement agency investigates murders, but it isn’t hard to find out how things work where your novel is set. Most police departments have someone who handles public relations and will be happy to answer questions. Since the sleuth in a cozy is an amateur, you may not need to know a lot, but you should know the rank of the investigating officer and what department he or she belongs to. Check on where the body will be sent for autopsy, too.

Number Two: Give your sleuth a darned good excuse to get involved in trying to solve the murder. This is hard. Only so many relatives and close friends are likely to be wrongfully accused of murder. But since the protagonist in a mystery novel is supposed to be clever enough to figure out who dunnit, it only makes sense that she also be smart enough to let the police handle the investigation . . . unless there’s an excellent reason why she can’t. Don’t even get me started on the TSTL (too stupid to live) sleuth—that’s a whole blog in itself.

Number One: Make sure your amateur detective actually detects. In far too many books I’ve read in the last year or so, the sleuth is thrust into the middle of a murder case but doesn’t actually do anything to help solve the crime. She doesn’t actively pursue leads or ask questions and only stumbles over clues by accident. She has no idea who is guilty until that person confesses, usually while threatening said sleuth. A related rule of thumb, obvious as it may seem, is “A mystery should be mysterious.”

Did I miss any? Readers, please chime in with your pet peeves, or with comments about my top ten. And yes, also feel free to illustrate your pet peeves with examples from the Liss MacCrimmon or Mistress Jaffrey mysteries, or from any other books I’ve written.

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett is the author of over fifty books written under several names. She won the Agatha Award in 2008 for best mystery nonfiction for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2014 in the best mystery short story category for “The Blessing Witch.” Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries (The Scottie Barked at Midnight) as Kaitlyn and the historical Mistress Jaffrey Mysteries (Murder in the Merchant’s Hall) as Kathy. The latter series is a spin-off from her earlier “Face Down” series and is set in Elizabethan England. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com

 

 

Tuning The Ear

Dorothy Cannell: For the past several years I have been focusing much of my mystery reading on golden oldies in the tradition of Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey, Georgette Heyer, Patricia Wentworth, etc.. The reason – I enjoy them and they are relatable to my memories of growing up in England. Apart from the murders that is! No one I knew got ‘done in’ with a blunt instrument, stole information from the Foreign Office to aid The Enemy, or altered great Aunt Henrietta’s will before poisoning her snuff.

I’m talking about the days of steam engines, sending telegrams, sitting by the fire listening to plays on the radio, and going down the road to the telephone box to place a call. Also I wanted to write a series set in a time when conversation involved language – words and phrases that are vanishing from common usage – and only by immersing myself in such reading could I bring some of these snippets back into my head.

Before starting on Murder at Mullings, the first of my Florence Norris books set in the nineteen-thirties, I began a notebook of ‘talk” and continued to add to it through Death at Dovecote Hatch and through the plotting of Peril in the Parish. Here are some examples:

Expostulated.

Adjured.

Knocked around the world.

He’s (she’s) good value.

Put the touch on him.

How utterly ghastly.

My giddy aunt!

A dull dog.

Puling creature.

What a filthy thing to say.

Made the most frightful scene

Don’t be beastly, darling!

Uttered a strangled cry.

Nothing of the Sahib about the Colonel.

Respectable woman of straightened means.

Handsome of you.

Completely shattered.

Coming along a treat after his operation.

None of your lip, my girl.

That one would steal from a blind man’s mug.

You say another word and I’ll knock you into the middle of next week.

‘Nonsense’, he ejaculated! (My favorite).

I don’t know that this will be helpful to anyone, but I’ve typed out two of my handwritten pages. Short of taking a time machine back to the nineteen-thirties, reading my way there was not only useful for tuning my ear but enormous fun. I recommend the trip.

Happy March.

Dorothy.

Weekend Update: March 5-6, 2016

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Dorothy Cannell (Monday), Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Tuesday), Kate Flora (Wednesday), Susan Vaughan (Thursday), and John Clark (Friday).

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

from Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson: Good news from both of me this week. As Kaitlyn, I’ve just sold the audiobook rights to the next Liss MacCrimmon mystery (Kilt at the Highland Games, out in hardcover in July) to Dreamscape. They’ll bring the book out on CD, which is a first for me. No word yet on who will be narrating or when it will be available to buy. Meanwhile, as Kathy, I’ve sold another Lady Appleton short story, “Lady Appleton and the Creature of the Night” to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. This one is as close to writing a paranormal story as I get (that’s to say, not very) and features the sleuth from my Face Down series set in sixteenth-century England. It will be published some time in 2017.

From Barb Ross: Speaking of audiobooks, the downloadable version of the audibook for Fogged Inn, the fourth Maine Clambake Mystery was released yesterday. You can access it here. The MP3 version is coming in June.

 

 

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. Contact Kate Flora: mailto: kateflora@gmail.com

Micro-ideas from a high-definition world

Maureen here, still on a high from a three-day writing marathon that resulted in an (almost but not quite) completed first draft of the next book in the Bernie O’Dea mystery series, “No News is Bad News.”

A lot goes into getting that first draft done, big things and little ones.

First drafts are funny — don’t worry this won’t be a tortured “how I produced the first draft” post — in that, at least in my case, there’s a lot of stuff in them that may not make the final draft. People ask writers where they get their ideas. Frequently. I’ve written about that before. It’s difficult, yet easy, to answer because there are so many ways to answer it. The bottom line is that’s because there are so many types of ideas: big picture ones, themes, plot twists, plot frames. You get the picture. But one thing I thought a lot about as I got really immersed in this book are the micro-ideas.

I read once that a neighbor of one of the Wyeths (the three-generation artist family) said something like they couldn’t hang out their laundry because he’d come over and paint it. I’m too screen-fried right now to look it up on the Internet and tell you which Wyeth and what the exact quote was, but you get what I mean.

I feel kind of like that as a writer. The Wyeth not the neighbor. Everything around me is fair game. It’s not even like I’m looking for it, it’s just there. A spoken phrase, a mannerism, a moment, a feeling. I’ll see or hear or experience some little thing and — zing! — it hits me and I have to get it in my book. HAVE TO get it in there.

Here’s something you should know about me. I live in a high-definition world. Every morning the sunrise thrills me. The subtle differences, depending on the weather, are a fascination. Sunsets, too. My Facebook friends I’m sure get tired of the endless parade of the sun coming up and going down as seen through the lens of my iPhone.

Have I ever seen a sunset I didn’t like? Do you have to ask? A million photos of them taken from my front steps.

The world itself is a fascination. What people are doing. What they’re saying. What the thing is out the window. I can’t go in Target or Pier 1 because there are too many bright colors and I want to buy everything. Because they’re bright colors. Yeah, I know, okay? Smells, colors, sounds, feelings, impressions — they’re all popping out and zipping around, orbiting and dodging. I’m rarely bored. Some of things are just distractions, others irritations. Lots of them are momentary delights. Others land and take up residence, either as obsessions that I have to take a zillion photos of — sunrises, sunsets, the railroad bridge behind my workplace — or details that end up in my books.

Is this all a bad thing for a writer? Not if it becomes part of the process.

For instance, Trudi Knoedler, the producer of the audio version of “Cold Hard News,” the first in the Bernie O’Dea mystery series, mentioned to me recently she’s narrated German paranormal erotica. I couldn’t get the phrase out of my head. Boom! I worked it into the book. It’s just a moment, one tiny one, but it’s there.

I recently read the word exsanguinate. I had to have it. Not only for the look and sound of it, but what it means. Completely drained of blood. I’m sure I’ve heard it before, but we were only acquaintances. We didn’t know at the time how much we loved each other. Now we do. Again, couldn’t get it out of my head until I typed it on a page.

Here’s another one. This fall, when hunting season started, a line from the Talking Heads song “Life During Wartime” kept going through my head: The sound of gunfire, off in the distance, I’m getting used to it now… It got to the point that I not only had to listen to the song, I had to put it in my book.

I may get a variety of vibes from other people, but my kitty and doggie always make me feel good.

Another one: I realized at some point in my life, that almost everyone I come in contact with makes me feel something physically. Once I realized it, I knew it had always been there. I found it very interesting. I started noting the feelings, how strong they were, who triggered what. I don’t know if everyone has this or not. The feelings run the gamut. I’m not always thinking about them, but they’re always there and now that I know it’s going on, it adds another dimension to life. That got into the book, too.

So what happens, though, when all this stuff goes in a book? There’s a writing rule everything in a book needs to advance the story, whether it’s plot, character development, theme. I agree with that. Too many random things confuse and distract readers and can make for a slow, boring read.

But I don’t have total control, at least initially, over this. The book is taking shape even when I’m not writing. It’s feeding on all that stuff swirling and popping around me, grabbing it, stuffing it in. Some of it’s really good and healthy, like kale or carrots. Some of it’s Snickers bars and Giffords chocolate ice cream. So the first draft or two can end up being flabby, with bad skin and sticky hands. I won’t torture the metaphor further, you get what I’m saying.

So my rule with these things is that if they end up making the final cut, they have to be there for a reason.

German paranormal erotica? It’s already doing it’s job as a tiny bit of insight into a character.

Exsanguinate? Oh my yes. How could I not?

The bridge behind my office. Another obsession.

The Talking Heads song? As long as I can get permission to use the lyrics, it underlines some of what’s going on in the protagonist’s head. I don’t know if it was listening to the song or if the muse sent me the song, but there are a lot of lines in it that fit while I was writing. If it’s not going to work out, I’ll have to listen to REO Speedwagon or something like that for a solid month to purge my head of it.

The physical feeling from other people? My protagonist has that, too. I just have to fine-tune the writing so it works and is convincing to readers instead of being this weird thing that will just make her (and me) seem a little, um, creepy and someone to avoid.

There are hundreds of other things that landed in the book from that constant carnival that’s swirling around that may not make it. They were still fun while they lasted. I’m not sure where else a writer would get her ideas.

Maureen Milliken is the author of “Cold Hard News,” the first in the Bernie O’Dea mystery series. Follow her on twitter @mmilliken47. Like her Facebook page, Maureen Milliken mysteries, and sign up for email updates at her website, maureenmilliken.com.