Susan Hunter's Blog, page 4

I’m Glad You Made It

If you’re one of the readers who followed me here from a redirect link at my former site, leashnashmysteries.com, thanks for making the journey with me. If you’re a new reader just checking out the Leah Nash series and the website, I’m happy you’re here.

The post I’m Glad You Made It appeared first on Susan Hunter.

Tell Me a Story

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My husband Gary is a man of many stories. He’s served in the Army, worked as a teacher, a school administrator, a firefighter, and as a business manager at a university. He’s traveled extensively, and never met a person he didn’t enjoy talking to. Thus he has collected many anecdotes which he enjoys recounting. He often doesn’t recall the exact details, but it never stops him from telling the tale. Not so long ago, we watched an old movie that prompted him to tell me a story about an incident that happened years before I knew him.

Gary was on a plane seated next to a woman who “used to be really famous,” he said. Because he is almost completely devoid of interest in popular culture or bygone celebrities, he didn’t recognize her. She introduced herself and explained that she was flying to Michigan to be honored at an event, and that she had retired and made only limited public appearances. They chatted, and at the end of the flight she gave him her autograph. He tucked it in his pocket, forgot about it, and at some point lost it or threw it away. He had remembered the story because the female lead in the movie we were watching, Loretta Young, was the woman he’d met on the plane. 

Impressed, because I’m a fan of old movies, I
grabbed his arm and said, “You sat next to Loretta Young?!”

He hesitated for just a fraction of a second before
saying yes. But it was long enough for me to flash on other confidently told
Gary stories that have a fact-based core, but often dubious supporting details.
Upon repeated questioning he gradually acknowledged that it might not have been
Loretta Young, it may not have been on a flight to Michigan, but it was
definitely someone famous. That I believe. But whether it was Loretta Young,
Loretta Lynn, or Coretta Scott King, is lost to the ages.

I’m not sure why this page from Gary’s Book of True (Mostly) Stories popped into my head today. Maybe because of two conversations I recently had with two different friends, during which I learned some previously unknown things about each of them. I’ve had a number of good, in-depth conversations with both women in the past. But somehow the tragic story in the case of one friend–her mother’s loss of multiple family members in a tornado, and in the case of my other friend, the happy story of her interviewing a favorite writer of mine, Robert Parker, had never come up before.

That in turn reminded me of something my first editor told me. I was whining about an assignment to do a feature story on an elderly woman’s doll collection. It wasn’t exactly the cutting-edge journalism I’d signed on for. But I’ve never forgotten what my boss said in response. “Everybody has a story. If you listen well, you’ll find it.”

This week I’m going to listen for a new story. I hope you
do, too.

Lost in Facebook

Where’s Fim?

Growing up in a family with seven children and two adults, the phone was always ringing for someone. My sisters and I fought over phone time, often interrupting each other’s really important phone calls with demands that the phone be relinquished for our really, really important phone calls. We sparred verbally, and on occasion physically, as we struggled to claim what we perceived as our fair share of phone time.

Not so my brothers. Neither of them were on the phone often, and never for the long, intense conversations that my sisters and I engaged in with our friends. My youngest brother had an almost pathological dislike of talking on the phone, and would go to great lengths to avoid answering it. If forced to pick up an incoming call, he would just hang up the phone if the caller failed to make her need clear within the first five seconds. As he got older, he became more at ease with communication technology, but for a long time he refused to make the switch from flip phone to smart phone, and he resolutely refused to engage in the next communication wave, social media.

So, when one of my sisters mentioned that a friend had said our youngest brother—let’s call him Fim—was on Facebook, we were all astonished. My sister Barb—her real name, Barb has no privacy concerns—and I immediately went online to verify, but were unable to find his profile. We checked to make sure we’d gotten the story straight, and were assured that his profile had definitely been spotted on Facebook.

We searched again and again came up empty. This time, Barb messaged a good friend of Fim’s, thinking that he, if anyone, would know if Fim really was part of the Facebook Nation, but had contrived somehow to stay invisible to his older sisters.

Her message was worded thus: “Hey, we can’t find Fim on Facebook. Do you know where he is?” It seemed innocuous enough. But remember that old game “Telephone,” wherein one person whispers a message to the person next to her, and that person passes it on to the next and on and on until the circle is complete? The last person to receive the message then repeats it out loud for the group. Usually, it’s become such a mishmash of original content and misunderstanding, that it seems like an entirely different message.

Well, with lighting speed Barb’s original query traveled throughout the universe of Fim’s friends, both on and off Facebook. The final version of the message was that Fim was missing, and his family didn’t know where he was. As a result, both Barb and Fim received responses from concerned friends inquiring and theorizing about Fim’s fate. In addition, Fim, who had no idea any of this was happening, was flummoxed to find his phone blowing up with voicemail and text messages from friends asking if he was all right.

On one hand, the level of engagement and concern from friends could be seen as gratifying. On the other, to a person like Fim, who uses the phone for talking and texting as sparingly as if he were being charged $5 per word,  the result was extremely unsettling.

When we finally got hold of Fim ourselves, we learned that he had, in a moment of weakness, agreed to set up a Facebook Page for a business he was launching. However, instead of a flood of interest in his products, he received a number of messages from former girlfriends, some of whom were single and interested in reconnecting. Which was rather awkward, given that Fim’s significant other, with whom he was and is very happily partnered, was handling his Facebook business page. Thus, he had some ‘splainin’ to do.

His deep-seated wariness about modern communication having been validated, he took the Facebook page down immediately, which, in keeping with the law of unintended consequences, ultimately resulted in him playing the leading role in his own version of Where’s Waldo.

I don’t think we’ll see Fim on Twitter any time soon. It wouldn’t even surprise me if he reverted to his flip phone. But his Facebook misadventure is a permanent and welcome addition to the collection of family stories that never grow old–except, perhaps, to the person they’re about.

Note: this post first appeared December 2017, and is back by popular demand (for which I don’t set a high bar, one request is enough. 

A Secret Order

[image error]Behind the scenes

My name is Susan, and I have a very messy desk.

I’m hoping that out there is a chorus of people shouting “Hi, Susan,” in recognition, solidarity and non-judgment. Though I’m sure some looking at the actual, real-life photo of my desk that accompanies this blog will be recoiling in horror and disbelief.

I’m a washout in the clean desk brigade. Before anyone calls the health department based on the above picture of my desk, I’d like to say that my appalling ability to allow clutter to build up around me does not extend everywhere in my environment. My used dishes are put in the dishwasher (mostly), my floors are dusted (periodically) and my bathroom is clean and clutter free. Though full disclosure requires that I admit a significant part of that is due to my very tidy husband, who never met a piece of paper he didn’t want to throw away.

The inability to maintain workspace order is a lifelong condition which has followed me from messy lift-top desks in grade school to overflowing desks in college and continued on to extremely cluttered work stations in my various places of employment. The situation became even worse when I was given my own office with a door I could close when the desk was no longer in condition for public viewing.

When I’m working, whether on a fifth grade book report, a grad school thesis, or a mystery novel, silently, unknowingly, unintentionally I begin piling up detritus, until my desk appears as it does now, in the throes of writing the sixth book in the Leah Nash Mysteries series. At this point my work area includes, as the sharp-eyed among you can see:

An oversize mug for water A reference book for the writing software I use, sitting on my printer Colored markers (underneath which is the charger for my Fitbit)A small notebook A cameraAn open file drawerA cup full of pencilsA small cactusA file stand filled with folders I want quick access toA family photoAn empty can of sparkling waterA staplerA stack of notebooks, reference books and reading booksLots of sticky notesReading glassesA discarded sweaterA pile of yet more papers

However, there comes a point in each messy desk growth cycle when the scales tip, and my  need to hold that thought, capture that phrase or write that chapter is outweighed by my need to find my cell phone, locate a hastily scrawled message, or retrieve a lost earring. At that juncture, I regroup and declutter by tossing, filing, discarding and/or returning to their proper places all the leavings I’ve deposited, and reclaim my workspace, restoring it to a place of order instead of chaos.

I always intend for it to stay that way, but it never does.

I have finally come to accept that something there is [in me] that doesn’t love a clean desk, and sets about festooning it with notebooks, pens, books, manila folders and piles of paper and doesn’t stop until it once again resembles a hoarder’s paradise.  But I take some solace in Carl Jung’s observation, “In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.”

However, to all those who shut every drawer they open, re-file every document they review, discard every used item in its proper receptacle, and sit down to a well-organized workspace every day—I salute you. But I am not one of you, nor will I ever be.

Note: This post first appeared four years ago. I’ve updated the photo, the list of items on my desk, and the reference to the book I’m working on, but sadly, nothing else has changed.

You’ve been warned …

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When writing, I go to my office and close the door. When seriously writing, I put a do not disturb sign on the door handle. When I am on a get-5,000-words-done-or-else deadline, I do both, and add in a firm warning to my husband Gary to forget I exist until I exit my office.

You see, Gary, unlike me, is not a procrastinator. He is a man of action–for him, to think is to do. He is also equal parts persistent and persuasive. So, unless I’ve steeled myself against the unstoppable force that is Gary, I can find myself typing away at my computer one minute, and the next I’m in the backyard helping to move a pile of stones.

On a recent day when I was struggling with a plot point and
really, really needed uninterrupted writing time, Gary had plans to do some
internet research. You might think that was a happy coinciding of activities. I
would be busy, and he would be busy, and neither would interrupt the other.
However, Gary is to computers as I am to arts and crafts. Anything that can go
wrong, will go wrong. And when something goes wrong, he wants it fixed. Now.

Knowing this, I suggested he wait until I had finished writing for the day, and then I would be at his disposal. Soon, I was immersed in my plot, writing my lead character out of a tricky situation. After a while, I dimly heard sounds of frustration coming from downstairs, but I kept on working. Then I heard footsteps coming toward my office, and Gary speaking loudly into his phone, “I tried that. It won’t work. The warning won’t go away. The screen is stuck!” 

I opened the door. He handed me the phone, saying, “It’s
Apple Support.  This guy keeps telling me
to click something, but I can’t find it. There’s a warning on the screen. I
didn’t do anything. He needs to talk to you.”

I took the phone, but having just been wrenched from a cemetery in Himmel, Wisconsin, I needed a minute to reorient to the real world of computer problems. But the man on the other end of the phone plunged right into instructions to click here, enter this, check that. It wasn’t until he said, “So now, I take control of your computer,” that my writing-induced brain fog lifted.

“Wait a minute, tell me again what the problem is.”

“Your system is operating illegally. You did not pay the
renewal fee for firewall protection. I will need to fix your computer and …”

That sounded very like a scam. When I pressed him further,
he hung up. Then I did some research and discovered it is indeed a scam, and a
fairly common one. You can fall into it if you inadvertently click a phony link
on a search results page. A message will pop up on your screen that says
something like “Apple Support Alert,” in alarmingly large and bold letters. The
message warns of dire things that will happen if you don’t call the fake
support number immediately.

If you try to close the window to clear your screen, you
can’t. The screen is locked. So, lots of people, Gary included, call the
number, and that’s when the scammer on the end of the line says he can help,
but he needs your credit card number to pay for the repairs. If he gains access
to your machine, he may also drop malware into your system that can harvest
other personal data. I had our favorite IT expert (who makes house calls!)
check out Gary’s computer just to be safe, but it was clean, and we hadn’t
given out any credit card information.

If you run into the scam (and it’s all over the internet) never call the support number, just force quit your machine, and you should be fine. This public service announcement is brought to you by  Gary and Susan, who have each learned an important lesson.  

Gary now knows how to recognize a scam and force quit his
computer. Susan now knows to take Gary’s laptop and put it in her file drawer
while she’s working.

If it talks like a duck …

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Quite often we have a gathering of ducks on the lawn in our
backyard. Once they make their ungainly trek up from the edge of the river,
they settle themselves in small clusters on the grass. They seem equally
content on both sunny and cloudy days to sleep, groom themselves, and get up
for an occasional waddle across the lawn or a periodic reentry into the water.

It’s quite peaceful to watch them blissing out in the sun,
and nice to think of them each pursuing their separate needs—sleep, food,
feather fluffing—while remaining part of a companionable group.

But inevitably one of the group will begin posturing,
quacking, and making menacing head-lowering moves at a fellow mallard, for no
obvious reason. Sometimes, the surprised duck under attack will take a stand and
quack back, darting into the aggressor’s space, but he rarely gets any help
from the crowd. 

Instead, the other ducks either stay neutral or they join
the bully duck in chasing the hapless victim away. The alpha duck then beats
his wings in the air and struts back to his place on the grass, while the neutrals
return to grooming and sleeping. Until the next bully picks on a new victim.

I’m thinking of that today because I’ve been spending a bit more time on social media than I usually do, and I’ve noticed how often a seemingly innocuous or well-intentioned post or Tweet is met by the human equivalent of a madly quacking flock of ducks. If the poster attempts to explain the comment, or parry the thrust, it only intensifies the incensed quacking. Eventually the poster retreats to the margins to lick his or her wounds. It’s disheartening to see.

I get that we’re never going to always
agree about everything, or even ever agree
about some things. But we’re never going to get anywhere randomly squawking at
others like deranged ducks, which seems to be the state of much of our online discourse
these days.

And I’m not excluding myself from the problem. While I’m not prone to joining flocks or herds or social media mobs—as a committed introvert, I rarely join anything—I can be quite insistent on promoting my own point of view, both “in real life” and on social media. Which in turn means that I can also be quite resistant to ideas that conflict with it—and sometimes loudly enough to drown out information that doesn’t support my position.

Certainly staying off social media is an option—though it comes with the cost of less, or even losing, contact with people not in my immediate circle. Sticking only to “safe topics” is another, but sometimes we have to speak out. After all, there is that whole the-only-thing-necessary-for-the-triumph-of-evil-is-that-good-men-do-nothing thing to consider.

Instead, I think I’ll try making an effort to refrain from throwing stones in my particular glass house—and to avoid the online feeds of (and the real-life contact) with—people who substitute personal invective for persuasive evidence. If I falter, and an exchange of views has devolved to the point where I’m about say, “You are a moron,” I will substitute “Quack, quack,” spoken at a very low volume, as a reminder to myself to step away from the crazy. Wish me luck.

All in Good Time, My Pretty

I’ve been watching the cardinals outside my window–don’t tell anyone, they think I’ve been working on book 6 in the Leah Nash series.

The Only Constant

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Not long ago I saw one of those posts that periodically make their way around social media, asking you to cite your favorite song, or TV show, or book. This one asked for a favorite quote.

Now, one of the things I like best about reading is the way you can suddenly come upon a sentence that makes you pause and say, “This. I feel exactly like this.” The books I own are rife with highlights, underlines, notes in the margins, and circled page numbers indicating I found a treasure there. So, I was ready to jump in. But I don’t actually have one favorite quotation. Instead I keep a collection of them on my laptop in a folder marked “I love this.”

When I looked through the file, I came across a quotation I hadn’t thought about in a long time. It’s from The French Lieutenant’s Woman. A character in the story is strolling through a meadow not far from the sea. His senses are awakened by the sight and scent of a colorful profusion of flowers, the melodious songs of birds, the blue sky above, and by the sunlight playing on the water in the distance. He feels a thrill at the lovely moment, but at the same time he also feels a wave of melancholy. The author describes the sensation this way:

“His statement to himself should have been ‘I possess this now, therefore I am happy,’ instead of what it so Victorianly was: ‘I cannot possess this forever, therefore I am sad.’ ” 

And that is me in a nutshell. I have lots of reasons to be happy, and I am, but that happiness is almost always tempered by the knowledge of and the resistance to the inevitable passing of the moment.

One of my sisters and I had a conversation about whether or not we would take a test that could definitively determine whether or not a person will develop Alzheimer’s disease, knowing that there is no cure at present.

My sister said yes without hesitation—that if she knew Alzheimer’s was inevitable, she’d spend all her money traveling and enjoying life before it was too late. I’d like to think that would be my response as well. But I’m pretty sure that instead of packing my bags, grabbing my passport, and heading for adventures unknown, I would be busy crushing the life out of any joyful experiences under the weight of my knowledge of what was to come. Sadly, I’m pretty much back in the meadow with the Victorian guy in the quote.

Still, I continue to strive to accept that the only constant in life is change. And that it’s not a bad thing, in fact, it’s a necessary thing. That’s why I chose this Chinese proverb as my favorite quote of the moment.

“When the wind of change blows, some build walls, others build windmills.” [image error]

Bob’s your uncle

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Silent Fighting

Probably all families have a store of catch phrases–familiar “in house” sayings that serve as shorthand for getting a point across, or calling up a common memory.  Some are universal, like “Don’t make me come up there,” or, “Do you want me to stop the car?”

But others are particular to an individual family’s experience. My mother would often put an end to a litany of our desires for things that weren’t going to happen– I wish I was an only child; I wish I didn’t have to do the dishes; I wish I had my own room–with the proverb “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.” And my siblings and I still say it, with a smile and a silent nod to Mom.

Recently my daughter mentioned that she’d wrapped up an explanation on how to complete a task with the words, “And Bob’s your uncle.” She was met with a puzzled stare. The phrase is old-fashioned British slang, meaning “you’re all set.” It caught my fancy years ago. The first time I said it to my young children, the words sent them into fits of giggles because of our dog, Bob. The thought of dog as uncle was quite hilarious to them (did I say they were quite young?). They  picked up the term and used it, until it became part of our store of particular, and perhaps peculiar, family expressions.

Other adages we use that others probably do not developed out of specific family situations. On an afternoon that had been filled with petty arguments and tears, I sternly told my children that I didn’t want to hear another fight that day. About half an hour later, my youngest daughter, Brenna, wailed in frustration, “Sara is silent fighting with me!”

She then proceeded to demonstrate the loophole her older sister had found in my edict. By mouthing words without sound, accompanied by fierce expressions and menacing hand gestures, Sara proved it was possible to tease and annoy without breaking silence. The phrase “silent fighting” thus came into general family use.

Another go-to family aphorism is the phrase, “I would prefer not to.” It comes from the Herman Melville story “Bartleby the Scrivener,” wherein the title character refuses all requests with that simple, but implacable, response. I had always liked the subtle insubordination of it, and used the decree both in jest and for real, depending on the circumstance. I didn’t realize Brenna had adopted it until at age 5, she answered a request from her teacher with the words, “I would prefer not to.” Which I correctly read as a harbinger of the quiet but steely force of will lurking beneath her blue-eyed, curly-haired angelic demeanor.

In the eighth grade, her older sister Sara made another contribution to the family lexicon, when she chose an ambitious topic for her first research paper, the Watergate scandal, which was akin to ancient history to her. The concluding line of her paper revealed both her boredom with the topic and her hope that an abrupt ending would be attributed to forces beyond her control. “Nobody knows what happened to the Watergate Seven.”

To which I had to answer, “Yes, Sara, yes they do. Quite a few people know exactly what happened to them, and I think you need to find out, too.” She completed her assignment, received a respectable grade, and added another axiom to our family. It’s still our go-to phrase for any half-formed effort or ill-conceived project that dies aborning, as in “Nobody knows what happened to … Susan’s 6 weeks to fitness challenge.”

The language of families is a strange and wonderful thing. Rejoice in yours.

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Bob, gone but not forgotten.

This post first appeared two years ago and is back because it popped up in my Facebook memories feed at just the moment when I’m battling an epic cold that turned into a respiratory infection. The drugs to combat it have left me a little fuzzy-headed and low on creative writing juice.

It’s not you, it’s me.

[image error]In my last post, I repeated what I’ve said many times before—I love hearing from readers—and I do. Most of the correspondence is fairly similar: questions about publication of the next book, or a plot twist, or whether they like or dislike certain characters. However, this past week, I had an email exchange with a twist that left me both surprised and amused. So much so, that I’m sharing it with you. The only thing I’ve changed in what follows is the name of my correspondent.

Hi

I started book 5 and Leah is not going to get with Gabe is she?

Is she ever going to get with Coop?

Thank you. Harvey

Clearly, Harvey liked to get right to the point. I answered promptly.

Hi Harvey,

I don’t know how far into Dangerous Flaws you are, but you’ll see that Leah and Gabe do get closer in the story … I think it’s quite possible that Coop and Leah will eventually find their way to each other, but it may be a pretty tangled journey. Of course, I could be wrong. Leah will have something to say about this, and she can be very unpredictable .–Susan

Harvey responded just as quickly.

Hi.  I appreciate your reply and i understand where you are coming from. While I have enjoyed the books I usually pick one guy at the beginning and I do get emotionally involved with the characters ( which is on me ) and I don’t like it when it takes so long and they might not get together. Books are entertainment to me and when I might not get the ending that I am looking for I tend to move on and find something that will. I am not trying to be critical but this is the way I like things and at my age I want what I want. I have stopped [reading your book] for now but I will keep checking to see what happens. I apologize for this but I am what I am. I have learned this the hard way because I usually pick the wrong guy and I don’t like it when it is dragged out. Again I apologize.  Thank you 

There it was. My first literary break-up. I’ve been dumped. Kicked to the curb. Cast adrift. Tossed aside. Left behind. Harvey even broke up with me using the old, “It’s not you, it’s me,” line. I tried to maintain my dignity in the face of the inevitable.

Hey, Harvey–

No need to apologize. It’s one of the nicest things you can say to a writer—that you emotionally engage enough with her characters to want things to go right for them.  I hate to lose you as a reader, but I’ll keep your email, and if things move definitively in one direction or the other in the next book, I’ll let you know. Provided, of course, that you swear yourself to secrecy, no spoilers allowed.–Susan

Actually, I do understand where he’s coming from. I still haven’t forgiven Louisa May Alcott for pairing my first favorite heroine, Jo March, with the middle-aged Professor Bhaer, instead of the much more appealing Theodore “Laurie” Laurence. Louisa didn’t lose me as a reader, but she did teach me to be a bit more wary about where I give my literary heart.  Harvey has learned the hard lesson, too, and I respect the firm stance he’s taken against being the pawn of cavalier authors. Although I lost him as a reader, I have to thank him for an email exchange I truly treasure.