A spot on the moon--and some fine food

There's a spot on the moon. I'm convinced of it. Yesterday I got all the way to the grocery store, only to discover I had left my list at home. I simply do not shop without a list, so home I went--probably a twenty-to-thirty minute delay in that shopping trip was I was trying to hurry through. This morning I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription--drove up to the drive-through window and realized I didn't have my drivers license or my debit card. Back home--a shorter trip.
Jordan emailed that she had taken to her bed. She had a melt-down at Jacob's baseball game--felt she was going to faint, over-heated, completely out of control. A friend got her Gatorade and helped her; what she wanted was to go home to bed but she wouldn't leave Jacob. Fortunately his other grandparents arrived--the ones who are good grandparents and go to baseball games (I went to one and gave it up). So she went home and left them to cheer and then take him to supper. They really are good to come all the way from a Dallas suburb to his games. Next week they'll come because the kids are both busy on his practice night, and I have a class to teach.
Then a good friend who was coming for wine and a catch-up session emailed that she was under the weather--I think the heat got her too. So no happy hour.
But it's been a nice, lazy day. I'm a bit stumped about my novel. There's a character who keeps appearing, and I'm not sure why or how she relates to the plot. But I'm letting her go her merry way. Tonight, though, I'm taking a break and reading The End of Your Life Book Club, written by a man who goes to chemo with his mother regularly and she turns their visits into a book club. They both have more highbrow tastes than I do, but it's a powerful book, based I'm sure on a real experience.
Good food lately. Last night I fixed vichyssoise--found an easy and good recipe on the blog, "Mystery Lovers Kitchen," so thanks, Peg Cochran, for that. And I made an old-fashioned, start-from-scratch Caesar salad, using the recipe in my original edition of The Joy of Cooking. The page is splattered with a thousand spots, proof that I used to follow that recipe often. The page for hollandaise is the same way. Tonight I made my favorite--salmon croquettes. Felt a little guilty indulging all by myself, without sharing with Elizabeth or Jordan, but I did it and enjoyed my feast. Cooked a fresh ear of corn that needed to be cooked, and tried a roasted cabbage recipe--cabbage didn't cook as quickly as I thought so it's for supper tomorrow night.
Now back to the reappearing character.

Why do we write?

A little BSP (blatant self promotion)--I got two nice reviews today. One, for Murder at the Blue Plate Café, called it fast-paced and said it makes you think about your view of life and what is truly important. The other, for the older Skeleton in A Dead Space, called it very engrossing and fast moving with characters you can identify with and advised adding it to your must-read list.  Needless to say, both reviews have me floating on a cloud of happiness. Heady stuff, since I still consider myself a fledgling at mysteries. But the reviews got me to thinking about something that's been niggling around in the back of my mind.
The other day I saw on a post that an author wrote that any one who thinks writing is not a business is fooling themselves. While I fully recognize that it is a business, I'm not sure money is why I write. I'm not good at following sales number on Amazon or Smashwords, so checks from those sources always come as pleasant surprises. Checks from my publisher are often a bit of a letdown because I hope for my sales of my current and brand-new works though she assures me I'm doing really well. I don't check reviews on Amazon or Goodreads often (never have figured Goodreads out completely). I'm no good at worrying about Amazon's algorithms or whether or not it's worthwhile to post for Nook or which is better--traditional bookmarks or business cards. Marketing just isn't my thing. I do blog, post on Facebook and Twitters, try to do lots of guest blogs, order bookmarks, hold a launch when I have print books, and that's all fun for me. If any of it were a chore, I wouldn't do it.
But I'm fortunate that I don't have to write for sustenance. I'm retired, have a retirement income and have other assets. My earnings from writing allow me life's luxuries, like my recent trip to Hawaii and the deck I'm thinking of putting on the back of my house. Once, at a gathering of five women, one of them said to me, "Pretty soon you'll be so successful you can retire a second time." I told them that I'd recently gotten a royalty check and if they weren't too fussy about where they went, I might be able to take them to lunch. No wine with lunch, though.
I write because I cannot imagine not writing. I write because telling stories gives me great pleasure, even when I have to struggle to figure out what's next and where the story is going. I'm a longtime believer in listening to your characters and they'll tell you where your story is going. I write because working things out in words gives me as much pleasure as a mathematician gets from working out a complicated formula. My life would be empty without writing.
When I retired, I joined Sisters in Crime and the sub-group, Guppies (Going to Be Published or Great Unpublished, whichever way you want to think about it). Those groups have opened a whole new world for me and kept me busy daily. I've always believed in getting involved in groups you join, so I monitor the listserv one day a week for SinC and I'm on the Guppies Steering Committee. Nothing to do with mysteries, but I also edit the monthly neighborhood newsletter and weekly welcome first-time visitors to our church.
Plus I have family and friends to keep up with, go out to lunch and dinner, and a household to run, a dog to care for. Life keeps me busy, but writing gives it a center and a focus. If I weren't writing, I'd be cooking but that's not a full-time occupation for several reasons--who would eat all that food, since I sort of live alone, sort of don't (one of my part-time residents is a picky six-year-old). And my back is getting too old to spend hours on that lovely stone kitchen floor. No, I write...and cook occasionally.
Writing gives meaning to my life and brings me pleasure--especially when I have a new book come out or, like today, I get a good review. Do I want the income to stop? No way, but it's not my primary reason for writing.

How to Write a Novel--or Not

I've been reading a lot of raves lately for Scrivener Publishing Software--apparently it allows you to write a document in chunks, lay them out in any order, integrate in various ways, and get an overview whenever you want. You can keep track of chapters, scenes, page numbers, etc.Other writers have been using Excel for those same features for a long time. I'm bumfuzzled. By the time I figured all that out (I don't master new software easily), plotted out the scenes, etc., I suspect I could have written the novel twice. I am also puzzled by story boards, white boards, etc. where people keep track of each scene and character. Too much trouble.
It's probably the reason I'm a minor novelist at best, but I just sit down and write. Granted, I have a very rough outline--maybe a page of handwritten disconnected notes--before I begin. But then it's important to me to get a first sentence that gives me some momentum and propels me into the story. I may go back and rewrite that opening ten times, but it gets me going.
And then as new ideas occur to me--they appear all the time as I write--I think, "Hmmm, if this happens, I have to go back and change that." The find function in Word does that for me. When I get all through I read for plot inconsistencies--and find many--among other things. And off it goes to a beta reader, who will find more inconsistencies and problems.
I'm trying to be a storyteller, not to write belles lettres, let alone the Great American Novel. But I will always remember the examples of two Western storytellers I was privileged to know. One was Dorothy Johnson--if you're old enough, you may remember A Man Called Horse, The Hanging Tree, or "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." Dorothy had a long career in New York and was there during WWII. After she returned to her native Montana, she worked on a novel, never published, called "The Unbombed," about New York's preparations for the enemy bombs that never hit the city. Once she wrote me that she'd just had a terrible shock: she'd just found out that the man she thought was going to be the hero of the novel was going to be killed in the war. Would that have happened with Scrivener or Excel? Somehow I think not.
And Elmer Kelton always preached to listen to your characters and they'll tell you what's going to happen. He started out to write a novel about a buffalo soldier--it became The Wolf and the Buffalo--and he incorporated a Comanche chief as a minor character. But the more he wrote, the more that Comanche demanded equal time, until the novel paralleled the disappearing lifestyle of the Comanche and the rising circumstances of the buffalo soldier, once a slave. In another instance, he sat at the bedside of his dying father and began to write about his father's young cowboying days, and, to paraphrase, as he wrote the characters took hold of the story like a horse takes the bit in its teeth and ran away with it. The words--and the tears--flowed. That became The Good Old Boys, adapted for TV by Tommy Lee Jones. Both are among the classic works of Kelton's large canon.
To me, that lesson about listening to your characters is about spontaneity in storytelling. It just doesn't happen if yoiu have all those moveable scenes and chapters and characters. A story flows--or it doesn't.
In a way I envy my fellow storytellers who can use these programs to plot--it must make the first draft a lot less painful. But they don't have the fun that I recently did of getting almost to the end of a novel still wondering how it was going to turn out, who is the villain, who the victim? And then--Eureka.
I think I'm old-fashioned.

Book clubs and the way they see your characters

I spoke to a book group last night, eight ladies, about Skeleton in a Dead Space, the first Kelly O'Connell Mystery. The subject of Kelly's character kept coming up. Most of the ladies liked her a lot. The hostess, my friend who had invited me (Joyce is on the far right in the picture above), found her a bit rash, though she didn't use that term in any derogatory way. But the discussion set me to thinking about how different people perceive a character in contrast to how the author (creator) perceives him or her. A recent review had good things to say about the book but found Kelly remote, snobbish, self-absorbed. Since I incorporated so much of myself into Kelly's character that came as a shock. So did rash, which I would never apply to cautious me. Others in book groups have thought Kelly placed her children in danger by bringing Teresa into her house (this only makes sense if you've read it). In one group, when I was trying to define a "cozy" by saying sex and violence take place off-stage, a woman said "Oh, that's why she never goes to bed with Mike." I had to bite my tongue to keep from revealing secrets of the second book.
My oldest daughter told her mother-in-law that Skeleton is a "highly autobiographical" novel, and of course in many ways it is. The single parenting, the conflicted feelings about an ex, the love of old houses, all come from me. I am puzzled that I, loving to cook, created a heroine who isn't a cook and takes her kids out to eat or orders pizza--but Kelly gets better at meals in subsequent novels. And no, my ex wasn't murdered--he died last week of natural causes--and he was never as slimy as Tim in the book. Nor have I ever been in a physical fight, which Kelly is in the book. So there's some me, some not. And, sigh, there was a Mike Shandy in my life but only briefly. I should be so lucky!
In another sense, I like to think that Kelly is the kind of person I am. One reason I blog and blather about family and Jacob and daily life is to give readers and potential readers a sense of who I am,
what kind of heroine they can expect. So when she comes out rash, snobbish, self-absorbed, I'm befuzzled.
Last night I said to the group, "Oh, but she helps Mrs. Glenn...." and then I realized that's the second book. Kelly and her world are so famliar to me now that I forget there are two books others haven't read.
But I hope Kelly grows and changes in the subsequent books (two are written, and No Neighborhood for Old Women launches as an ebook the week of April 8, probably appears in print a month later). You'll have to tell me. Meantime, most of last night's wonderful women liked Kelly, didnt' think she was rash, selfish, a poor parent, any of those things. And I think I made some more friends for Kelly.
Speaking to small book clubs has been one of the most rewarding experiences about publication of Skeleton. Women in these groups (I've yet to speak to one with a man in it) are open and honest in their reaction. Yes, they criticize but mostly they're very enthusiastic about the book--and I think they've helped me make Kelly's character grow.
About men as readers: I've wondered if the Kelly books are chick lit, wondered if men would read them. Several have and have told me good things, plus several women told me their husbands enjoyed the book. And last night, Joyce, the hostess, said her husband and son were both looking forward to reading it. I asked if she thought it was chick lit, and she said not at all, it had a lot of elements that both men are interested in. So another worry down.
A bonus today: I took out an ad, yet to appear, in the newsletter of a neighborhood that borders Fairmount, the setting of the Kelly mysteries. The woman I dealt with wrote today, apologizing for not getting in touch sooner. She was absorbed in getting the newsletter out and now she's reading a mystery that she can't put down and so can't be bothered with email, etc.--it was Skeleton. What a nice compliment.

Watching Cinderella

Yesterday in the car Jacob and I watched Cinderella. Surely I saw the same Disney verison when my kids were young, but it struck me as all new, somthing I had never seen and was charmed by. The characterizations are great, and you can't help but be fascinated even by the wicked stepmother. And when Cinderella's dress for the ball is torn by her wicked stepsisters, you ache for her. But the character I found most fascinating was the good fairy godmother, who creates her ball gown and pumpkin coach. The good fairy is a bit ditsy, forgetful, wondering where she put her magic but oh, so good hearted and kind and motherly. Watching it with more fascination than Jacob did I thought this is how you get characters for novels. You could transform the tired, time-worn Cinderella theme into a modern romance or even throw in a murder (the wicked stepmother?) and make it a mystery. I probably won't try that, but I do plan to work the fairy godmother into a book sometime, probably without the magic powers but still ditsy and loving and comforting and maybe solving all problems. I remember one of my mystery manuscripts that went nowhere, and it had a character much like that. I always loved her and was charmed by her, so I think I'll bring her to life again somewhere, sometime. To me watching Cinderella was a classic example of where authors get ideas for characters. And, hey, I was really into that movie. Monsters I didn't like to much, though the premise is pretty cool.
Today I went about the business of getting back to routine--lunch with my friend Fred to give him a manuscript to read. We ate at Cafe Aspen, a favorite restaurant that has recently changed hands, and I was interested to see the new layout and menu. I had sliders of a beef/pork/game mix, and Fred had crab cake sliders. Both good. But I missed David, the former owner and a good friend. Then next door to get a haircut, and on to Central Market, which was a zoo of people shopping for New Year's.Tonight I finally unpacked my suitcase and a paper sack of Christmas presents, wrote thank you emails to my children, and began to get a handle on being back in the routine.
The holidays are a time to gain weight, and I don't want to crow prematurely, but I actually lost about 3-4 lbs. I did watch what I ate but there are times on a trip when you just can't be careful. I expected to have gaied 5 lbs., so imagine my joy when I stpped on the scale this morning! Tonight I had a great dinner with few points--sauteed mushrooms, snap peas, and scallions, mixed with lightly floured and sauteed bay scallops. But I had to eat a bit of all that chocolate given to me for Christmas. Why did my kids fill my stocking with chocolate?

Guest blogger Roberta Isleib

As promised yesterday, Roberta Isleib is guest blogging today while on a tour for her third advice column mystery, ASKING FOR MURDER (Berkley.) Roberta is a clinical psychologist, the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity nominated author of eight mysteries, and the president of Sisters in Crime. Read more at http://www.robertaisleib.com.


My first mystery protagonist, professional golfer Cassie Burdette, was one hell of an athlete. She was also plenty neurotic, with a closet full of skeletons: her father’s desertion, a melancholy, alcoholic mother, a fog of self-doubt. She had lousy taste in men and tended to defer soul-searching in favor of the anesthetic effects of Budweiser. I finally talked her into starting psychotherapy (with the help of a couple of other characters) to address her low self-esteem and self-destructive tendencies. She began to play better golf, choose kinder men, drink less, and reconnect with her dad.
But despite my gentle urging, Cassie never did learn to eat well. Or to cook. Everywhere I went, readers commented on the junk food, the fried food, the hamburgers, the beer. The only recipe she was ever quoted as cooking had canned beans and sliced hot dogs as its main ingredients. And this was in a real, published cookbook, no less. How completely embarrassing.
Rebecca Butterman, the psychologist protagonist in my advice column mysteries, is a gourmet cook—but not the fussy kind of cooking you’d find in a Julia Child cookbook. Rebecca cooks things like roast chicken, peach pie, cheddar cheese scones, split pea soup, cheese puffs, stir-fried veggies with marinated flank steak, homemade cookies. I’m making myself hungry.
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Anything I have a hankering for, she ends up cooking. I’m a decent cook, but not a big fan of long, complicated recipes unless there’s a special occasion. Rebecca’s more patient than I am, even with most tedious tasks of cooking. Here’s an example: Right now we have an excess of tomatillos in our garden so naturally I want to make tomatillo/cilantro sauce for chicken enchiladas. But oh the misery of sorting and washing all those leaves and husking the slippery produce. Rebecca would find that relaxing!
When I was single, you might have caught me opening a can of tamales for dinner. Rebecca wouldn’t do that! She feels she deserves a good meal whether alone or in company. And she hardly ever eats standing over the sink. And she has a maxim against eating food from a pan—even if it’s just her at the table.
Where do I find Rebecca’s recipes? In my own recipe box, on Epicurious.com, and by closely watching my friends who are talented cooks. For example, my writing buddy, Hallie Ephron, visited last year for a plot brainstorming session. She brought the ingredients for our dinner—a lovely marinated antipasto platter and spaghetti carbonara. When the time came to write about a dinner party in ASKING FOR MURDER, the menu was set! All I had to do was add the dessert—a red velvet cake that one of my fellow Sisters in Crime had baked for a meeting.
Here’s the recipe for the marinated flank steak Rebecca uses in a stir-fry dish in Asking for Murder, from my friend Linda Mills. (This is good for pork, beef, and chicken.)

Korean Marinade
4 TBS sugar
2 TBS sesame oil
6 TBS soy sauce

Marinate the meat from 2 to 24 hours before grilling. Discard marinade and make a new batch to serve with entrée, if desired. You may also add coarse black pepper, sliced scallions, chopped fresh garlic, toasted sesame seeds.

Enjoy your dinner and Asking for Murder. Thanks for inviting me to stop in today Judy!