Blog dilemmas—what to write?

 

The first Kelly O'Connell Mystery
published in 2011; republished, 2016

No post last night because I had nothing to say, except maybe to jump into the political fray or the great mask hullabaloo which I generally avoid doing in the blog. I have strong feelings about masks, as you might suspect—I can sort of understand vaccine reluctance, though I pretty much view it as superstitious or stubborn—but I can’t understand all this crowing about masks and freedom. How did the two become intertwined? Your freedom ends at the point it intersects mine, or as someone put it, your freedom to swing your arm ends at the tip of my nose. There, that was more than I wished to say.

And Afghanistan: I feel strongly that the media is crucifying Biden when they should be praising him for managing the largest human evacuation in history—nearing 100,000 tonight. Yes, he and his administration made mistakes, but I am weary of Facebook experts who know just what he should have done. Truth is, even with all I’ve read, I don’t understand the complexity of the Middle East and couldn’t begin to discuss it intelligently. Questions about how many Americans are left in Afghanistan and how many Afghans we’ve been able to get out are all over the net, with a lot of accusations and misinformation. I shared a couple of informative articles on my Facebook wall. Check it out if you’re interested.

I was accused tonight of being a racist because I posted thoughts on the difficulty of getting Afghan citizens out of the country—I failed to mention women and the terrible fate that awaits them under the Taliban. Yes, I am heartsick about it, but that wasn’t what I was posting about. The subject was evacuation, and how my accuser went from that to claiming I only care about white women, never those of color, I will never understand. Here’s the funny part: I was so indignant when I read the criticism that only the first name registered, and I thought it came from someone I considered a friend. Turned out it was a stranger. Whew! Glad I didn’t jump my friend. But the huge problem of racism is not something I’ll tackle in my blog.

I did have a couple of successes today: after two days of fruitless effort, I managed to create a series page on Amazon for my eight Kelly O’Connell mysteries. Now I have to wait 72 hours to see if it really worked. But you know the satisfaction you get from figuring out a computer tech problem? That was me. And I registered a dispute with Discover over a pair of shoes for which I was charged but which never arrived. (Seriously, thirty minutes after I filed the dispute, the shoes arrived.)

I do have writing news that makes me happy—I’ve started editing the second Irene book, Irene in Danger, and I’ve reached out to editors, readers, and a designer, tentatively scheduling the publication for late October. With two books, Irene’s story is now a series, and I need a series title. You can help. My thought so far is to call each book “An Irene in Chicago culinary mystery.” That gets Irene and Chicago in there but leaves out Henny and Patrick. Still, it’s the best I can do without creating a title that is an entire paragraph on its own. Your thoughts? Comment below or write me at j.alter@tcu.edu.

I even had vague thoughts about a third book—Irene Saves the Day. Irene has been on the victim side in the first two books, so maybe it’s time for her to switch roles. And maybe Henny opens a restaurant—or becomes a chef in an upscale Chicago restaurant? I won’t get it written for over a year because I have two more major projects on my desk. But it took me that long to think about the second book, so who knows?

And those are all the things on my mind tonight. The writing and cooking parts make me happy because they are the only ones I can control. Know that feeling?