POE'S DEADLY DAUGHTERS

Mr. Monk Wraps It Up

2009-11-25T03:00:00.007-05:00

Sandra Parshall

Everyone who leaves a comment today will be entered in a drawing for a free copy of Mr. Monk in Trouble by Lee Goldberg.

Two more episodes, and Monk will be TV history. On December 4 we’ll say goodbye to this most unlikely of heroes, a phobic, obsessive-compulsive, self-absorbed, grief-wracked detective who somehow manages to be both lovable and admirable.

When the series started eight years ago, I didn’t think it would last long. Who could bond with a character like Adrian Monk? Who would want to watch him struggle with his demons week after week? I could and would, as it turned out, along with plenty of other people. Tony Shaloub’s unique creation has fascinated, exasperated, amused, and charmed us. The show’s web site caters to a legend of fans with Monk games, an interactive section for those who
want to try solving the murder of Monk’s wife, a Monk-fan-of-all-time contest, a Monk lookalike contest, quizzes to test your knowledge of the show, an Ask Randy Disher blog, and products such as videos, books, mugs, tee shirts, and hats.

As the show winds down, questions that have tantalized us for eight years are being answered. Last Friday’s episode, in which Monk’s desperate wish to return to the San Francisco Police Department was granted, ended exactly as I knew it would, with Monk realizing that he prefers to work freelance, with Natalie by his side. (Frankly, I’ve always wondered how he made it onto the police force in the first place. I can’t picture him, with his lifelong tics and phobias, getting through police academy training.) The final two episodes will settle the mystery of who killed Trudy. Then it will be over, leaving us with reruns and fond memories.

The episodes that stand out for me are the most poignant, when Monk had to cope with the death of the psychiatrist he relied on and when a Trudy look-alike surfaced to break his heart all over again. I loved those moments when Monk confronted criminals and displayed the tough, resolute cop side we seldom saw. He could subdue a suspect and use a gun when he had to. It was a kick to see Monk go undercover as a surly mob boss. The appearance of John Turturro as Monk’s brother was brilliant. An agoraphobic trapped in his own house with mountains of old newspapers, he made Monk seem well-adjusted by comparison.

I never liked his first assistant, Sharona (Bitty Schram), because I thought she bossed Monk around too much. I’m a big fan of Traylor Howard as Natalie, and now I get irritated with Monk when he mistreats her. Ted Levine as Captain Stottlemeyer is always pitch-perfect, and Jason Gray-Stanford as Lt. Randy Disher is a treat to watch, even when Disher is singing his dreadful songs.

I have a feeling these characters will stay with me. I’m always going to wonder what’s become of them, what they’re doing now. Will Monk’s life change after he solves Trudy’s murder? Will he ever find another love? Will Natalie fall in love, marry, and leave Monk? Will Randy ever get a recording contract? Will Stottlemeyer’s new marriage survive his bride’s fears about his work?

Lee Goldberg, who writes a series of books based on the show, will keep fans going for a while. Lee tells me that after Mr. Monk in Trouble, out in December, at least two additional Monk novels will be published. “I hope there will be more,” Lee says, “because I want to write them.” If you need more Monk after the final show, leave a comment today and you’ll be entered in a drawing for a free copy of Mr. Monk in Trouble.

What were your favorite Monk moments? Why does Monk appeal to you? Are you surprised the character became so popular and the show lasted so long? And – the burning question – do you prefer Sharona or Natalie?

The Fine Art of Paper Crafting

2009-11-24T06:00:00.002-05:00

Sharon Wildwind

Every manuscript reaches a point where it must be printed and read aloud. Every time I get to that point in a book, I try to cheat because printing over 300 pages, even economy setting, double-sided, and laboring over each sentence, looms as a horrendous task.

Alas, cheating never works. Eventually, exasperated, I print out the whole thing and devote about a month to reading the entire book, one sentence at a time.

Here’s what I gain from the experience.

I find niggling errors, such as leaving out tiny words:

He really, really had intended to meet his family. No, he already knows his family. He really, really had intended for her to meet his family. That makes more sense.

Or substituting a correctly-spelled incorrect word:

It took her fifteen minutes to locate the car in the back of a kitchen cupboard. Unless she’s looking for a tiny toy car, this sentence should say, It took her fifteen minutes to locate the cat in the back of a kitchen cupboard.

Ever wonder why we miss those errors even after multiple computer readings? I thought it was my inattention to detail, or perhaps leprechauns came in the night to delete and rearrange letters. In fact, it has to do with the differences in how the human eye sees words on a computer screen versus on a page.

This is why engraved invitations are considered elegant. Engraving enhances the letters the on-the-page effect and makes the text look richer. So reading from a printed page brings out subtle differences in word shape, emphasizing that car is a different shape from cat. If you’ve ever heard anyone say, “As soon as I looked at the printed copy, the mistakes jumped out at me,” they’re not making that up. That’s what happens.

Printing picks up only part of the errors; finding the rest requires reading aloud. No, having the computer read it to you isn’t good enough. Computer-generated vocalization was developed to make technology more accessible to the visually-challenged, not to turn written into oral prose. The Voice—known fondly around our house as Majel Barrett—doesn’t reflect the innate rhythm of well-spoken English.

Every language has its own rhythm. A long time ago—likely fifteen minutes before I walked into the last English test I ever took—I could name the parts of that innate rhythm and tell you how many accented and unaccented beats came on either side of the internal pause. All I remember today is that there are some accented and unaccented beats before and after a central pause. The pause was so the speaker could take a breath.

In Old English it looked like this:

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,

þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,

hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

Which is the beginning of the prolog in Beowulf. (The poem, not the movie.)

A good modern translation preserves the rhythm, and the breath points:

LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings

of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,

we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!

Both quotes from a web site provided by the Faculty of Humanities; McMasters’ University; Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Good prose like good epic sagas, needs rhythm, and breath points in the right places. The only way to check both is to reading out loud. A good reader—think of your favorite actress or actor—can use flow and emphasis to make even lousy dialog sound somewhere between adequate and terrific.

A good author knows her characters and situations so well that she automatically does the same thing. When I do a reading, I add lots of emphasis in all the right places so that the printed word sparkles.

The problem is that the story is going out into the world on paper, not (at least initially) as an audio book. If the written word makes more sense, or is more vibrant when read aloud than it does or is when it’s read silently, it’s time for revisions. The real trick is to come to that point of perfect synthesis of well-written and well-spoken language. This is one place that the computer can't do it for you.

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Quote for the week:

To pay attention to craft is to learn from materials and process, to find joy in the utilitarian and the commonplace, and to realize that powerful ideas are made manifest through the works of the hands.

~Jean W. McLaunglin, Director of Penland School of Crafts; Penland, North Carolina

Wandering Through Online Mysteries

2009-11-23T00:00:00.000-05:00

by Julia Buckley

Mystery lovers could waste an awful lot of time wandering through clips on You Tube. Just as film can forever preserve the images suggested by our favorite detective novels, so can You Tube forever preserve some of those wonderful movies and shows.

For example, look at this classic clip with Humphrey Bogart in a film version of Chandler's THE BIG SLEEP. Bogie is charming as ever as a surprisingly slight-looking Marlowe (I picture him tougher, more muscular) who engages in mild flirtation while keeping surveillance on a tough across the street.

And long before David Suchet played Christie's Poirot, Peter Ustinov did so. Here, in EVIL UNDER THE SUN, he indulges in one of Poirot's favorite things: bringing together the suspects for a revelation. SPOILER ALERT: don't watch this one if you don't know, or want to know, the ending of EVIL UNDER THE SUN!

British actor Ian Carmichael did a creditable job bringing the difficult character of Lord Peter Wimsey to life onscreen. I think Dorothy Sayers would have enjoyed his take on the character--especially those penetrating blue eyes!

Speaking of handsome detectives, I've always loved Jonathan Gash's Lovejoy mysteries, and only the devilishly attractive Ian MacShane has ever portrayed him onscreen. In this clip Lovejoy is caught in a bog.

Many an actor has tried his hand at capturing the personality of Conan-Doyle's great Sherlock Holmes. One of the most admirable attempts was by Jeremy Brett (I'm not sure I'll be able to say the same of Robert Downey, Jr. in the upcoming Holmes flick!)

Who are your favorite detectives captured on film?

Canada Calling: Phyllis Smallman

2009-11-21T06:00:00.001-05:00

Phyllis Smallman’s first mystery, Margarita Nights, won the 2007 Crime Writers of Canada Unhanged Arthur award for best unpublished novel. Margarita Nights was also short listed by the CWC for Best First Novel of 2008. The second book in the Sherri Travis series, Sex in a Sidecar, came out in 2009. Two more books, A Brewski for the Old Man and Champagne for Buzzards, are waiting in the wings.

PDD: Tell us a little about how you started writing.

Phyllis:

A bad case of insomnia led to my taking up writing. It was a time of big changes in my life. My kids were in university and, wide awake at three in the morning, I didn't want to think about what they were up to—ditto with the guy snoring beside me—and my own life was so boring there was nothing in it to think about, so I went back to a habit I had as a child, telling myself stories. When a friend asked what I was going to do with the rest of my life, I said, "I want to write." This was a long held dream and one I'd never spoken out loud before. My friend, bless her, thought writing was a perfectly normal thing to do. She even thought I might be capable of it.

PDD: It must be interesting to win an award before you’ve been published. You were short-listed for UK Debut Dagger in 2004 and won the Crime Writers of Canada Unhanged Arthur in 2007. How did those awards change your career?

Phyllis:

What career? All I had was a drawer full of rejects—so many rejects I made a papier-mâché bowl out of them. Winning the Arthur Ellis award led directly to being published - as part of the Arthur Ellis award my manuscript was read by McArthur Publishing Company. It went to them in early June. In August I called to see if it had really arrived. “Oh, yes,” they assured me, “It’s in a box here somewhere. We’ll read it by September and get back to you.” In November I called again. “Oh, we’re going to publish it,” I was told. “It will be out in

the spring.” Welcome to the wonderful world of publishing. But I'm truly grateful to be published and grateful to the CWC for that award.

PDD: Publishing and marketing are changing so fast. What advice would you give a new author who is just starting out?

Phyllis:

First let me say that I’m the wrong person to ask this question because my only view of publishing came from the movies and newspapers. I really knew nothing about the real publishing business and still don’t. For instance, I had no idea I would have to write my own blurbs for the books. I suppose I thought there was an editor somewhere responsible for bios and blurbs. I had about 24 hours to turn in my

first one and went totally blank so I called my friend who was my writing partner for Margarita Nights. In the middle of cooking his dinner he came up with most of that first blurb.

I think if new writers knew what awaits them many would drop out of the process. Only the truly perverse and committed would continue. Perhaps that’s true of all of the arts. I think of teenagers with garage bands. What are the chances of them making a decent living playing music? Or think of a teenage girl who wants to become an actress...too scary. Do it because you must, not because you want to have a career or make a living.

It's a huge ocean we are swimming in and right now I feel a little overwhelmed by it all so this is what I've decided works for me. I write for myself...well, and maybe the Vicar and the Duchess, two very odd friends, but mainly I write books that I would like to read. Marketing and publishing are outside my ability to control and it only gives me the heebie-jeebies when I try. Looking at sales numbers, praying for reviews and worrying about what others are doing adds nothing to the story between the covers.

I feel each new book is better than the last and that's where I want to spend my energy. I'm writing book number 6 now and have number 7 outlined. Will I see them published? I don't know. In that way I'm no different from any unpublished author. Should I stop writing because they might not be published? Not likely!

Today none of us know if our next book will make it into print. Best to just keep on writing, let the publishers do their jobs, the reviewers do their jobs and we’ll do ours. The rest is out of our control.

PDD: Tell us about your Sherri Travis series.

Phyllis:

Sherri Travis is a bartender in an upscale beach bar in Jacaranda, Florida. Secrets have a way of unraveling over drinks and letting the truth seep out. Sherri pours the drinks and listens to the stories, trying to make sense of it all...an ordinary person coping with what life sends through laughter and tears. A bar, a beach and murder, does life get any better?

For more about Phyllis and her books, visit her website.

Home Alone . . . but not like in the movie

2009-11-20T03:15:00.005-05:00

The winner of yesterday’s drawing for a copy of THE GIFT OF MURDER is Frankenpsych. We need your name and address so we can send you the book. Please e-mail the information to lizatelizabethzelvin.com.

By Lonnie Cruse

Are you someone who doesn't like the sounds of silence? Someone who has to have people around or music blasting from the stereo or the television flashing picture after picture or whatever you use to keep you company?

Okay, I confess that after my last chick flew the nest, headed off to kindergarten lo those many years ago, I usually turned on Captain Kangaroo every morning . . . just for the noise, for the company. And for the memories. I eventually outgrew the Captain.

Today we live in a world of constant noise and activity. Sometimes we need a break. We need to be home . . . alone. Without people, without noise, without anything but ourselves and the sounds of silence. Time to think. Time to plan. Time to find out where we are. And more importantly, time to find out where we're going.

When we moved into the modern age with all the modern appliances, somewhere back in the thirties or forties, we lost our aloneness, maybe forever. Young people today probably don't even know what that is. We're constantly with others either in person, on the cell phone, or by watching/listening to the television/radio. We don't even seem to be able to shop at the local grocery store without chatting on the cell phone to someone. It's hard for us to to think, much less plan. Drivers who chat on cell phone are so numerous and so distracted from simply thinking, thus causing accidents, that states everywhere are passing laws against it. That should tell us something. We can't even tolerate being alone in the car.

Women who stayed home back in the day had that alone time, at least when their children were in school. So did the men, if they worked on a farm or other outdoor jobs. We've lost a lot of that alone time with this brand new world. That's not always a good thing.

We need time to sit down and be with ourselves. By ourselves. Time to ask ourselves tough questions. Where am I going? What's next in my life? Where do I want to be in the next five years? In ten years? Because those days will be here before we know it, whether we plan for them or not.

And we need time to find ourselves. We can get swept up into the current of life and wind up in places we never wanted nor planned to be. And it happens if we don't take time alone.

Today's world is busier than ever. Noise and activity are a constant fact of life. When is the last time you took some time for yourself? It's not selfish. Really it isn't. It's necessary so you can focus, make some decisions, and ultimately wind up where you want to be, not just where life pushed you. The clock is ticking!

The Gift of Murder Makes A Great Present

2009-11-19T03:00:00.001-05:00

The winner of yesterday’s drawing for a copy of THE GIFT OF MURDER is SignLady217. We need your name and address so we can send you the book. Please e-mail the information to sandraparshall@yahoo.com. Everyone else, please note that we’re giving away a second copy today! Leave a comment on Liz’s blog and you’ll be entered in the drawing.

Elizabeth Zelvin

If we weren’t all mystery lovers, you might think that I was offering to whack your wife for Chanukah. Off your ex for Xmas. Kill a cousin for Kwanzaa (preferably the rich old cousin who’s about to take you out of his will). Thin out your in-laws for a more cheerful and less contentious holiday season. But no, you’ve already figured it out: The Gift of Murder is a book, and not just any book. It’s this year’s holiday crime anthology from Tony Burton of Wolfmont Press, all profits to benefit a worthy charity, Toys for Tots. This is the fourth annual such anthology, and it’s proven popular with both mystery writers hungry for good markets for their stories and readers happy to plunk down $15 for the combination of a good cause and a satisfying read.

Toys for Tots is a charitable program of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve that collects new, unwrapped toys for needy children in communities throughout the country, backed by a not-for-profit foundation that channels monetary donations to support the local programs. At least one author in this year’s anthology is getting the local Marines involved in an event to publicize and sell the book. All the authors, including me, are looking for creative ways to get the anthology out there between now and the holidays. The project raised more than $6,600 for the Toys for Tots Foundation in its first three years, and Tony Burton is hoping to push the cumulative figure up over $10,000 with sales of The Gift of Murder. Last year’s anthology made the 2008 bestseller list of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association (IMBA), and I, for one, would be thrilled if it happened again this year.

My story, “Death Will Trim Your Tree,” had already been written when the call for submissions went out. My series protagonist, recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler, does what he pleases in my head and tells me what to do about it. In this case, he ordered me to write about his first sober Christmas, which had its ups and downs. Bruce starts out sitting on his friends Barbara and Jimmy’s living room floor disentangling those pesky strands of Christmas lights and cursing, while Jimmy supervises from behind his computer and Barbara, who likes to mix her holidays, makes latkes. And that’s before the murder. In the first draft, I’m afraid Bruce was using the F word—justifiably, as anyone who’s had to get those strings of lights up will agree, I’m sure. But after reading the submission guidelines, I revised it for a family audience.

This year’s editor is John Floyd, a versatile and prolific writer with 300 published short stories in the fifteen years since he retired from his day job. And I’m in great company, with twenty-one authors including Austin Camacho, Bill Crider, Peg Herring, Anita Page, Kris Neri, Randy Rawls, Barb Goffman, Gail Farrelly, and Earl Staggs, among others.

You can buy the anthology directly from the publisher at http://www.wolfmont.com, on Amazon, and wherever the individual authors have signings or can place it. Buy one for everybody on your holiday list: the ones you love, the ones who love reading, and the ones you’ve felt like killing at least once since last year or expect to feel like killing by the time the holidays are over.

The Joy of Control

2009-11-18T03:00:00.008-05:00

By Barb Goffman, guest blogger

Hi. My name is Barb, and I have control issues.

This might be a problem for some people, but I’ve found ways to turn it to my advantage. For instance, I’m now in my second year as program chair of Malice Domestic, one of the biggest annual conventions for fans of the traditional mystery. My job involves promoting the conference, enticing authors to attend, coming up with panel ideas, and doing all the scheduling.

Most people would run away screaming at the very proposition. I embraced it.
About a year ago, I was chatting on the phone about Malice Domestic with author Pari Noskin Taichert. The conference was four months away, and I think I heard her jaw actually drop onto the floor (bam!) when I told her that I was nearly done with the programming. When Pari finally wrapped her mind around my statement and reattached her jaw, she said something profound along the lines of, “Huh?”

I smiled and shared my secret. I’m a control freak. I love coming up with panel ideas and figuring which authors will sit on which ones. “Donna Andrews, not only will you talk about how being pregnant affects a character’s ability to sleuth, but you’ll do it on a panel on Saturday at 2 p.m.” I have spoken!

This upcoming year at Malice Domestic will be even better. I’ll get to order around folks like our guest of honor, Parnell Hall, our toastmaster, Rhys Bowen, and our lifetime achievement award winner, Mary Higgins Clark. (Okay, fine, nobody orders Mary Higgins Clark around. Give me my little fantasy, will ya?) And we have a lot of other biggies in the traditional mystery community coming, too, including Margaret Maron, Dorothy Cannell, Charles Todd, Nancy Pickard, and Katherine Hall Page. And I have power over them all. Bwah hah hah!!!

Since becoming Malice program chair, I’ve learned that conferences sometimes have a hard time getting people to agree to do the programming, much less get it done early. (Or in my case, extra early.) I find this bizarre. All you conference organizers out there, you’re definitely not looking in the right place for your program chairs. Find your local meeting of Control Freaks Anonymous and go to town. (If you’re not sure if you’re in the right place, look for me. Believe me, I’ll be there. Taking attendance.)

Can’t find a meeting? Here’s another way to look for control freaks. In books. Sometimes they’re hiding in plain sight.

My most recent short story, “The Worst Noel,” provides a perfect example. In it a woman with an overbearing mother finally breaks and decides to get her revenge against her mom and her sister during Christmas Eve dinner. (Ah, yes, crime at the holidays. So festive!) Does the mother deserve it? Well, she does have massive control issues. Did I get those details right by accident? Nope. I wrote what I knew. (Some people wonder if the mother in the story is based on my mom; unfortunately, I think she’s in part based on me!) So if you read a spot-on story or novel involving a control freak, you might have to go no farther than the author’s page to find your next conference program chair.

Even as I type these words, I find it difficult to know that I have no control over you, dear reader. I can’t force you to attend Malice Domestic, even though I know you’d love it. (C’mon, you know it, too.) And I can’t force you to buy The Gift of Murder either—that’s the anthology in which my Christmas Eve-dinner story appears. (Go to The Gift of Murder to learn more.)

But, thankfully, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.

If you register for Malice at www.malicedomestic.org before January 1st, you’ll be eligible to nominate books and stories published in 2009 for the prestigious Agatha Award. (Everybody’s nominations are tallied by the Agatha Committee, and the top vote-getters become the official nominees, which are announced in February.) By registering early, you’ll also get a discount. And if you’re an author I know—or want to know— by registering early, you’ll save yourself from being hounded by me. Good, I see you registering right now.

And you, reluctant readers. You’re curious about my Christmas Eve story. I can feel it. But your pile of unread books is already teetering precariously, and you fear you can’t add one more book to the pile.

Hogwash!

Especially with me telling you that all 19 short stories in The Gift of Murder are set at the holiday season, that all 19 authors donated their stories, and that the publisher, Tony Burton of Wolfmont Press, is donating all the profits to Toys for Tots. Crime stories that benefit needy children! Have I tugged enough at your heart yet? Excellent, excellent. I see you dialing up your favorite indie bookstore at this very moment. Some of you are downloading it onto your Kindle, too.

And if none of that has worked, here’s my secret weapon: You’re all invited to comment below, sharing either your favorite memory of attending Malice Domestic or your funniest holiday memory. Everyone who shares one or the other before midnight tonight will have their names thrown in a hat, and I’ll send a signed copy of The Gift of Murder to the person whose name I pull out. Who could resist that? No one, surely. So now I know you’ll do as I say. Ahh, the joy of control.

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Barb Goffman is an Agatha Award-nominated author who toils as a lawyer by day to pay the vet bills at night for her miracle dog, Scout. (He had cancer three times, but now he’s cured!) She grew up on Long Island but figures she must have been Southern in another life because half the voices she hears in her head—oops, sorry, half the characters she creates—are Southern. In addition to the short story mentioned above, Barb has had stories published in the second and third volumes of the Chesapeake Crimes anthology series, and she will have a new story coming out this spring in the fourth: Chesapeake Crimes: They Had It Comin’, a wonderful book with twenty tales of murder and revenge. Barb’s website is www.barbgoffman.com.

The Old Gray Ad Ain’t What She Used To Be

2009-11-17T06:00:00.004-05:00

Sharon Wildwind

I’m mixing and mashing two icons here: the 1956 movie about public relations, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, which starred Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones, and a traditional song about an old gray mare. That’s nothing compared to the mixing and mashing going on in a current advertising campaign.

In case you turned in late, Kimberly-Clark is following up last year’s “let it out” campaign, where tough types let out all of their emotions on camera and mopped up their tears with the company’s product.

This year the same company is offering a choice of moms for the cold and flu season. There are two TV spots, one featuring a young man and one a young woman, with kids, who “try out” moms to find the one they like. If you’d like to do the same, you can visit the mom site where 8 stereotypical moms vie for your vote as the person you’d most like around when you get sick.

The most-picked mom so far is apparently the friend-mom, who looks way too young to have grown kids. If you’re sick, her solution is to bring you Chinese take-out and gossip, dissing on all your mutual friends, or discussing shoes. The least picked is the workaholic mom who tells you that you look just fine so get out of bed and get back to work because people are counting on you.

Okay, all of us can name advertising campaigns that prospered with even shakier premises.

But the ads are only the beginning. You’re encouraged to follow your chosen mom on Twitter or be her fan on Facebook. By registering your e-mail address and/or phone number on the web site, you can get personal e-mails and/or phone calls from your virtual mom. The messages range from sympathetic and inspirational mini-love taps, to tips on how to care for your kids when they are sick, to the best Southern comfort food to eat when you feel miserable.

I don’t need a phone message for this one because I already know, sick on not, that grits are my favorite Southern comfort food.

It’s not a coincidence that Twitter, Facebook, virtual messages, and the friend-mom favorite have come together in this campaign. All are aimed at the heart of the 18-to-35 year old, female marketing demographic.

Technorati, one of the leading researchers in on-line and blogging research, said that in 2008, 346 million people worldwide routinely read blogs. That is a huge number of people, but if you compare it to the world population base (something close 6.7 billion people in 2008), it means that only 5% of the world’s population is reading blogs so by focusing their ad campaigns on electronic media, companies have eliminated a huge section of potential customers.

Be that as it may, here are some differences that recent research has indicated about marketing to women in the 18-to-35 and the over-35 age groups. The comments were culled from a number of reports and resources.

The woman over 35 wants an easy-to-find, and easy-to-read site. Easy-to-find means that a friend gives her the address, or she reads it in a print ad, or it comes up on a basic Google search. The site loads quickly on both dial-in and cable hook-ups. There is no video introduction, just bang, straight into the site, which is clear and straight-forward. “To learn more about the author, click here” or “To see a list of the author’s books, click here” type of instructions. Text is text and graphics are graphics and they stay out of each others way. What the viewer wants most is a personal connection, things like a private e-mail response from the author or feeling that she knows the author better by having visited her site. Supplemental material, like maps and character biographies are favorites.

The 18-to-35 viewer values a different interaction. She’s willing to make the leap from one site to another and more likely to visit a site by accident or by following links from other sites. The more bling the better: background music, photo montages, a video introduction that plays before she actually enters the site. The book is only a starting place. She doesn’t want to read a character biography, she wants to discuss the character with other people who are reading or have read the book, maybe write her own version of how the character’s biography should read, maybe write some fan fiction. What she wants most is for the author to provide entertainment. The book is secondary, at most a spring board for a shared social experience on-line.

I was already going crazy figuring out to market on-line in general. Now it appears that I have to do vastly different things to appeal to two halves of the demographics. It sounds like one of those situations when a woman should phone her mom for advice.

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Quote for the week:

Every fiction story has a non-fiction story behind it. Push the non-fiction connection as your brand and platform.

~David Morrell, fantasy writer, October 2008

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This week I get to blog twice, once here today and once at Jungle Red tomorrow. So if you’re out surfing—the Internet that is—on November 18, you might pop in here.

The Winter Holidays Loom

2009-11-16T00:00:00.001-05:00

by Julia Buckley
The holidays create a yearly paradox for me: I anticipate their arrival with both happiness and dread.

There's no doubt that the holidays bring many good things, starting with Thanksgiving and the chance it offers to gather with family, to share a fine meal, to catch one's breath and relax after stepping off of the work-a-day treadmill.

Christmas, too, brings the beauty of tradition and the comfort of family, as well as many pleasing sights and sounds. If someone tried to make me stop celebrating Christmas, I would protest heartily for a variety of reasons.

However, the holidays are like any other time of year in respect to the rapidity of life these days. Is it my middle-aged perspective, or were holidays once celebrated at a slower pace, one that allowed for all of the preparations and festivities without the mandatory nervous breakdown?

Perhaps part of the pressure I feel is that my mother always created beautiful holidays. The house was perfect and she baked German breads, cakes and cookies for weeks beforehand so that they could all be put out on festive trays on Christmas Eve and given to guests and neighbors on Christmas Day. There was always time to go cut our own Christmas tree and eat cherry cobbler and drink hot chocolate at a little diner on the way home--one of our family traditions. There was time to decorate and to wrap presents for our whole seven-member family. There was time to attend Midnight Mass in our best attire. There was even time to sit and watch the snow fall.

Perhaps the biggest difference between then and now was that my mother did not work, and I do. Eight hours of my day is spent outside of the home (nine-and-a-half, if you count all of the dropping off and picking up), and yet I still want to create the same sort of Thanksgiving, the same sort of Christmas for my children that my parents created for me. This, I have found, is a mighty tall order.

When my children were young I would actually take the day off on St. Nicholas' Day (December 6th), so that I could wrap little presents and fill tiny boots with candy, and then watch my sons' faces when they stumbled downstairs in their footy pajamas and saw that St. Nick had been there. One year my husband and I actually stayed up late trying to create authentic St. Nick footprints on the floor (which should have been rather terrifying, but always ended up being wonderful instead).

These were some of my successes, but I often find that I have failed to live up to my own image of what the holidays should be, perhaps because my image of holidays past is rooted in illusion. Or perhaps things were just different then.

My sister and I often commiserate about our failure to create near-perfect holidays. We'll find ourselves on the phone after a long workday (she is a teacher, too), contemplating our messy houses with their big cat-hair tumbleweeds and the kid handprints on the glass, saying "Mom would have had the house sparkling; she would have done the floors and had us get to work polishing the silverware." Yes, polishing the silverware! My mother also ironed things--something I've rarely done in twenty-one years of married life.

In any case, the holidays are coming whether I'm ready or not. I'll have my yearly compromise of time off with family, but a bag of research papers hidden under a side table, casting a pall of obligation over my fun.

I think the key will be to do something differently this year: to start a new tradition that our family will look forward to for every winter holiday to come. Perhaps you'll share some with me so that I can embrace this holiday season, its joys and its obligations, as the best ever.

Writing Without a Net

2009-11-14T03:00:00.005-05:00

By Vicki Delany, guest blogger

Every writer has a different approach to how to structure their novel. Some outline extensively; some do almost nothing in terms of planning. Some concentrate on plot, and the characters follow along; for some character is almost all they have.

Me, I build a story this way: setting-characters-plot. That is, I decide where to set the book, who’s going to be the main character or characters and then come up with a plot. Now that I’m working on a series, steps one and two are pretty much defined before I even begin.

My newest novel is titled Winter of Secrets, and is the third in the Constable Molly Smith series, from by Poisoned Pen Press. This book was a total departure from my usual style of writing, and I’d like to tell you about it.

For most of my adult life I was a computer programmer and then a systems analyst. I write books like I designed computer systems. I start at the end – I know who did it and why – and then I go to the beginning and create an outline that will, hopefully, chart a course to get me to that end. Like designing computer systems: you really should know what you want to achieve (i.e. is this programme going to credit the client’s account or debit it?) before you begin. I have met some computer programmes that I don’t think were ever intended to achieve anything, but that’s another matter.

I was spending Christmas 2007 in my favourite place in the world, Nelson, B.C., the inspiration for the fictional town of Trafalgar. It was snowing, quite heavily, but as is the norm in those mountains, there wasn’t any wind and the snow was falling straight down and not drifting. This, I thought, would be a mess if they had winds like we get in Ontario. And then the opening scene popped into my head.

What a great idea, thinks I. I started writing the first chapter and carried on typing frantically away from there. I knew who died, but I didn’t know who killed him, or why, or even if anyone did! It was quite a strange feeling; a pure leap of hope, that I would find some inspiration down the line.

I was nearing the climax – I knew what I wanted to happen there – but I was still unsure between two possible candidates for the role of villain. Over the course of the writing, I had several people in mind, but as it evolved only two were good prospects. I felt sort of like a real Constable Molly Smith, judging the suspects and juggling clues until, with a burst of inspiration, I solved the crime!

My second drafts are usually a lot of work, but with this book, it was even more so. Because I didn’t know that X was the guilty party, I had to go back and make X know more than they seemed to and Y know less. The personality of X didn’t change much throughout the book, but it had to be tweaked a bit to make the crime more plausible, and to drop a few clues here and there. And all the clues that pointed to Y had to be toned down.

It was a fun way to go about it. Will I do that again? No. It worked because I had a very definite idea for the opening of the book and I was prepared to work my way forward from there. But all in all, I prefer to have a good outline before beginning. When I started working on the next book in the series, Negative Image, I put that net up first.

Visit the author's web site at www.vickidelany.com.

I'm addicted to colorful paper clips (among other things)

2009-11-13T02:22:00.008-05:00

By Lonnie Cruse

Hello. My name is Lonnie and I'm addicted to colorful paper clips. And anything else office or desk related.

I wore a black armband for weeks after Office Max closed their doors forever in Paducah, KY. I have to limit my visits to Office Depot. The office aisle in Wal Mart calls out to me, even when I'm taking milk out of the milk case at the back of the store. I really need a twelve step program for this. I may have to start one since there don't seem to be any around. Why? Because I'm addicted. Obsessed. And it's only getting worse.

I recently searched the office aisle in Wal-Mart until I found the colored paper clips. No plain metal paper clips for me, thank you very much. It's the same for bulletin board pins.

Notebooks? I adore them. I have them everywhere, for every use, grocery lists, to-do lists, sermon notes, notes to hubby, notes to friends, notes about notes. I even have a couple of tiny three-ring binders to hold notes.

Plain vanilla file folders? Surely you jest? Mine are all different colors, depending on the subject in that file. And if I teach a class or workshop on a particular subject, complete with handouts, the handouts are printed on color copy paper with matching file folders. Addicted? Obsessed? Yes.

If I happen to sashay by the journal aisle in ANY store, I'm in big trouble. I can't resist a pretty journal. Yes, I do use them, but I also have a stash in my closet . . . just in case. Meaning just in case I need one and haven't bought one in the last day or so. When I say journal, I mean those empty books with pretty covers that usually cost way too much.

One such journal holds my pictures of old barns (because I use those pictures as inspiration for my pencil drawings, which, of course, are kept in another blank artist's journal.) Another journal holds the dried flowers and leaves gathered from my nature walks, which are then glued to the blank pages with notes about where I gathered them. Another is my prayer/thoughts journal. Two journals contain memories of our adventures with our grandsons (one for each boy, of course) which I will give to them when they are too old for further adventures with Grandma and Grandpa. A large vintage journal was used to write down memories of my father and my father-in-law and the wonderful stories they told. It also has memories of our boys growing up. My eldest son loves to read that journal. I also have a writing journal (where I keep notes of ideas for future books, short stories, or articles I want to write, and notes from writing classes or workshops I've either taken or taught) and last but not least is a life journal where I jot notes about my life. I did warn you that I'm obsessed. I've even taught a workshop on journaling. And then there are all the beautiful but blank journals I'm storing for future use.

Nowadays, walking into Office Depot or Wal-Mart has become even more difficult. Suddenly ALL file folders are beautifully multi-colored. Ditto for folders with flaps and closures to carry important papers in. And I am now the proud owner of a green (with multi-colored polka dots) project planner. Yes, I *could* plan my projects on plain paper in a plain notebook, but this thing jumped into my shopping cart and refused to leave. I have the matching file folders but somehow managed not to buy the matching mouse pad. I hope it's still there, in the store, waiting for me. And the matching purse-sized notebooks.

Don't even get me started on all those lovely day planners. What to choose, what to choose? Day at a glance, week at a glance, or month at a glance? I actually prefer to be able to glance at a whole month at once before committing to anything on my calendar, so I know how busy that entire month is and I can shift things if need be. Did you ever see so many choices as to size, not to mention cover? Eeeek!

Antique stores can also pose a danger to the office obsessed. I have a huge metal bulletin board on the wall beside my desk that advertises Scotch O Lass Dried Molasses. It's vintage and it has clips to hold pictures and it lists the days of the week. It's huge, ugly, and I can't live without it. I also have a small Freedent display rack that holds small notebooks on my desk, a larger Dentyne version that holds various sized envelopes, and a VERY large Campbell's soup display rack that sits beside my desk and holds copy paper, large Manila envelopes, photo paper, empty file folders, etc. All purchased from an antique store at a very reasonable price. All in use every single day.

So, dear reader, is your desk colorful and color coordinated? Do your paper clips match your file folders? Does your day planner or your journal sparkle with sequins? If not, why not?

And if you need a twelve-step program for your obsession, just e-mail me. I'll set up a meeting for the first of next month. I'll bring the color coded notebooks. You bring the color coded cookies.

Pet Peeve #37: Self-fulfilling prophecies about the loss of culture

2009-11-12T03:00:00.001-05:00

Elizabeth Zelvin

The 37 is a random number, meant to suggest that I’m holding a lot of pet peeves in reserve for possible future blog posts. The title is my best shot at avoiding the term “dumbing down,” which might seem insulting to just about anybody. But there is indeed a trend in our culture, especially in its literature, to assume that Americans, in particular, will not understand sophisticated or even mildly historical cultural references. The current solution is to change those references to something that whoever is in charge of these decisions believes will be comprehensible even to illiterate cultural ignoramuses. (I told you it was insulting—that’s why I’m peeved about it.) And the consequence of these changes is that as new generations arise, they have never heard of the terms or bits of history that they’ve been protected from exposure to. Any part of “self-fulfilling prophecy” you don’t understand?

Let’s start with the universally popular Harry Potter series, written for kids but apparently enjoyed by adults across a broad spectrum of reading tastes from don’t-usually-read-at-all to highly literate (that would be us). In England, the first volume was entitled Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. If you’ve heard of the Philosopher’s Stone, raise your hand. Keep your hand raised if you learned about it by reading a book. The Philosopher’s Stone has been around since at least the 8th century. Well, not around, or alchemists, philosophers, and early scientists (including Sir Isaac Newton, John Dee, Paracelsus, and even perhaps St Thomas Aquinas) wouldn’t have tried so hard over hundreds of years to find or fabricate this legendary substance that was believed to turn base materials into gold and maybe confer rejuvenation or even immortality. I bet school kids even nowadays are told at least once in the course of their education who Newton was. Would it have been so hard to explain the Philosopher’s Stone? Yet thanks to a publishing decision, the millions of American kids who read and loved Harry Potter have never heard of the Philosopher’s Stone. The “Sorcerer’s Stone” they’ve read about is just a thing, a fictional magical object like the “Horcrux” in the later books, without cultural resonance outside the world of Harry Potter and easily forgotten.

Here’s another example from children’s literature, the source of many mystery writers’ and adult readers’ lifelong love of the genre: the Nancy Drew series, first published in 1930. The original Nancy was feisty and independent. She drove a roadster and always had a pocket full of tools (rope, flashlight, sewing kit) to get her out of the tight spots her love of adventure and desire for justice invariably got her into. Reading them in the 1950s, I didn’t know what a roadster was. But did it matter? A brave and active heroine of the 21st century, with a cell phone and a hybrid car, is nothing special. But against the cultural backdrop of less feminist times, Nancy shines. I recently found my ten-year-old cousin Emily reading one of the books. When I asked which version she had, she said she thought they were the originals. But when I asked her what Nancy drove, she said, “A convertible.” All that cultural texture is unavailable to Emily and her generation.

Some revisions are bowdlerizations, playing to our supposed prudishness rather than our supposed ignorance. As a kid in the 1950s, I learned a lot of history from Elswyth Thane’s popular Williamsburg series of historical novels. The Day, Sprague, and Murray families (from the Revolutionary War in Virginia to World War II in England) were probably, for me, the first fictional characters so well developed and likable that they felt like family. A few years ago I found them in library editions that took a kind of Victorian attitude toward certain cultural references. In one book, the fortyish male companion of the rather demi-mondaine seventy-year-old Cousin Sally, mysterious and unexplained in the original, is described as a “doctor” in the library edition, presumably so readers won’t be shocked that they are clearly intimates. (No sex scenes, but he sits at her bedside reading aloud. Horrors!) Elsewhere, references to champagne—a metaphor for a refined hedonism, life’s fizziness as opposed to its earnest Puritanism—are amended to “wine.” On the last reread I found one I’d missed—this one more of a dumbing down. A character in London in 1896 refers to his solicitor and business manager, saying, “I’ll refer the matter (the character’s divorce) to my man Partridge.” Nobody who’s ever read an English novel would have trouble with this, surely. But in the American library edition, Partridge has become a “handyman.” Ouch!

Finally, let me share a query I got recently from a young editor, passing on a query from the final proofreader before my new book, Death Will Help You Leave Him, went to press. It’s a scene in which two characters are brought to an office building on Wall Street after hours. The night security man at the desk in the lobby says, “Now stand on that spot for ten seconds, please. State your name and who you got the apperntment with for the camera.” The proofreader, and apparently the young editor as well, wanted to know, “Should this be ‘appointment’?” When I’d recovered from the shock, I wrote back that the passage was correct as it stood, and “apperntment” was “what used to be called Brooklynese.” I’m glad they asked. Otherwise, it would have been another nail driven in the coffin of American culture.

Characters Who Haunt Us

2009-11-11T03:00:00.009-05:00

Sandra Parshall

I can’t get the girl out of my mind. I worry about her. I want to know what happened to her after the book ended.

Throughout most of Elizabeth George’s Missing Joseph, I found the 13-year-old character Maggie Spence exasperating in the way a lot of teens are. Lying to her mother, sneaking out to rendezvous with a boy she was forbidden to see, engaging in sex long before she was capable of dealing with it emotionally. I wanted to shake some sense into her.

As the story threads came together, though, and I saw the full horror of this girl’s situation, I began to fear for her. How on earth could she emerge whole and healthy from the tangle of deceit created by the adults in her life? She couldn’t. My last glimpse of her in the book was one of the most heart-wrenching scenes I’ve ever read. George made the girl so real, her predicament so disastrous and her emotional response so raw that I will never forget her.

I want Elizabeth George to bring her back in another book and tell me what has happened to her. I suspect the news wouldn’t be good, but I still want to know. This character will haunt me until I learn her ultimate fate.

It may be a form of torture, but I have to applaud writers who can make me care so much about their fictional characters that I worry about them after the books end or mourn the loss when they’re killed off. I can’t help contrasting my feelings for the girl with my reaction when Helen, wife of George’s detective Tommy Lynley, was shot and killed. For some reason, Helen never seemed quite real to me, and I never liked her. I was, frankly, glad to see her go. Helen’s ghost, in designer shoes, does not haunt me.

Another character who won’t let go of my imagination is also a teenager, but several years older than the girl in Missing Joseph. Her name is Reggie, she’s an orphan who pretends her mother is still alive so she can maintain her freedom and self-reliance, and she is the emotional center of Kate Atkinson’s When Will There Be Good News? Reggie’s stoic perseverance in the face of catastrophe, and her determination to find out what has become of the woman doctor she’s been working for as a child-minder, drive the story, and Reggie all by herself kept me turning the pages. At the end, her fate is uncertain. I know what I want to see in her future, but even if I’m guessing wrong I hope Atkinson will bring Reggie back and let readers share her life.

I’ve wondered many times what became of Boo Radley after he broke out of his sad, self-imposed isolation to save Scout’s life in To Kill a Mockingbird, but I have no hope at all that Harper Lee will write another book.

I’ve created one character of my own who haunts me: Rachel’s mother, Judith Goddard, in The Heat of the Moon. I gave her a terrible background and more pain than anyone should have to bear. A lot of readers have told me they hated her, and my impulse every time has been to defend her. I’m grateful when someone says they felt sympathy for her and understood why she clung so fiercely to Rachel and her sister and tried so hard to remain in control. Her awful childhood, and the heartbreak she endured as an adult, are very real to me and so is her emotional distress. Although I wouldn’t have had a story without all those events, I find myself wishing I could have made life a little easier for her.

The legacy of a haunting character is something I take away from very few novels, but every book offers the possibility of encountering memorable characters. That’s the reason I read fiction. The characters, not the plot details and certainly not the blood and gore of murder, make a book memorable.

What characters have continued to haunt you long after you finished reading the books? Do you want the authors to produce sequels that will show you what has become of those characters -- even if the news is bad -- or would you rather go on wondering?

Here be Dragons

2009-11-10T06:00:00.001-05:00

Sharon Wildwind

A while ago, say 2002, being a new and naive mystery writer, I thought I had a handle on mysteries. So confident was I that I reduced the mystery spectrum to a simple diagram.

I listed authors under each category, but I’ll let you add your own.

My basic premise was that each category was fairly clean and could be identified by how much blood, violence and gore appeared on-stage; what emotion drove the plot; and how likely a reader was to laugh verses need anti-depressant therapy after having read extensively in a given category.

Recently, preparing for a talk at a local library, I revisited my original diagram. The mystery world has changed in the past seven years.

For a while we’ve had to deal with the mystery/thriller split, and periodic discussions over when does a mystery become a thriller and vice versa. “Mystery” and “Thriller” are, of course, marketing terms. We writers joke among ourselves that the definition of “thriller” is “we want you to buy this book.”

What surprised me is how polarized the second chart is. We’ve lost something in the middle ground, something I’ve called “here be dragons” after the markings on old maps.

Be that as it may, we’re stuck with those two terms, and often asked to explain the the differences to readers. I usually start my explanation with the two definitions in the above chart.

Personal disclosure: most of what I read falls along the procedural/traditional/funny axis in the older chart and solidly in the mystery corner of the newer chart. So I had no difficulty assembling a possible reading list of those kinds of books.

Reluctantly, in the spirit of inclusiveness and fair play, I grudgingly decided to explore that dark (and mostly unknown to me) corner, thrillers. Boy, did I get my eyes opened.

The first thing I discovered was that thriller writers seem to be incredibly prolific. Many have at least two series, sometimes three in active productions. The prolific champion so far was Dennis Lynds (1924 – 2005), who not only wrote literary books and short stories under his own name, but fiction under the pen names of Michael Collins, William Arden, Mark Sadler, John Crowe, Maxwell Grant, and Carl Dekker. His lifetime output was 80 novels and 200 short stories.

The second thing was that the gender discussion is not an issue. The old saw that women write traditional mysteries and men write thrillers is dead. And about time.

The final thing was just how dark some of these books have gotten. Talk about angst and the darker side of human nature. Here’s my take on the plot spectrum for thrillers. What they share in common is that none of them pull any punches; everything is on stage.

Disgraced professional or a professional who is trying not to be overcome by the dark side: criminalist; doctor; FBI agent, profiler, counter-terrorist; hard-boiled detective; high placed officers of multi-million dollar corporations; lawyer; military; police officer; politician; reporter; scientist or spy

End of the world as we know it: biological disaster; creation of super soldiers; ecological disaster; natural phenomena (often helped along by men meddling where no man should go); nuclear disaster; race against time to save the world; or scientific doomsday

Urban rot: America’s dispossessed; drug dealing; missing women; the underside of modern city life or vigilante

Myths, legends, and the paranormal: ancient symbols and myths; paranormal beings, such as vampires, demons, angels, or ghosts; or the use of science fiction/fantasy settings

Damaged people: children in jeopardy; childhood traumas resurface in adulthood; deeply disturbed young women trying to survive; people haunted by their pasts; ordinary people in extraordinary situations; serial killers; woman in jeopardy; or woman in jeopardy in a rural setting—the woman must not only outsmart the serial killer, but battle the elements as well

It was the children who surprised me most. The other old saw that is unfortunately dead is harm no child. There are many books out there now where childhood traumas surface after decades, and books where very bad things are done to children, or where children, whom adults and society have failed, must solve crimes and dispense vigilante justice and/or retribution themselves.

I think that is the saddest note of all.

-------

Quote for the week:

The break in private eye novels started with Michael Collins [pen name for Dennis Lynds]. At the end of the 1960s, he gave the form something new, a human touch needed for years. His novels are much more than entertainment. There is a philosophy behind the detective, and in each book we take a look at a special section of American society. ~Crime Literature Association of West Germany

Scary Movies and The Unconscious

2009-11-09T00:00:00.006-05:00

by Julia Buckley

I don't watch horror movies as a rule. I have no particular desire to be consciously afraid--at least any more afraid than I already am. I know I am in the minority in this, and that plenty of people love horror movies for the pure adrenaline rush that the fear brings them.

Still, I watched Paranormal Activity yesterday because all three of the men in my house assured me that it "wasn't that scary." And it wasn't, at the beginning. I watched the very normal-seeming young couple and their video diary with a sense of trepidation, of holding my breath. And like a coward, I continually asked, in whispered tones, what was going to happen in the next scene. (My husband and sons read spoilers).

So throughout the movie I was saying things like "Is that guy going to die?" and "Is she going to be okay?" and demanding that, in fact, they tell me the worst before I saw it. I was managing my fear by demanding information, and that's the only way you can drag me into a horror movie.

When the movie ended I was shaken, perhaps because I have a very good imagination, and much of horror is in what you don't see. A friend of mine dismissed the movie as "So boring! I fell asleep." I didn't find it boring. I tried to put it out of my mind, though, as we went home to watch Saturday Night Live and to indulge in the laughter and relaxation that is the opposite of fear.

My brave sons ended up sleeping on our floor last night; the elder said it was for his brother's sake, while the younger insisted that it was the elder who was "a little freaked out." They continued to assure me, though, that it hadn't been a scary movie.

So we all went to sleep.

I woke up at two in the morning in my darkened room. This is the setting for much of Paranormal Activity: a darkened bedroom, captured on video. I realized that I needed to go downstairs for an allergy pill; I also realized that I was too afraid to go, especially when I heard a noise coming from the other bedroom. Normally I would attribute any noise to our rambunctious cats and their nocturnal playground. This time, thanks to my horror template, the sounds seemed much more sinister.

I woke my husband, who had been snoring peacefully. "I need an allergy pill," I said. "But I'm afraid to go downstairs."

He started to get up without a word. "No," I said. "I have to go down anyway to use the bathroom. But I'm scared."

"I'll go with you," he said generously. "But then you have to wait for me."

Yes, even my husband, lover of all things horror, didn't want to go downstairs alone.

We made our way down the stairs, turning on lights as we went, and the normalcy of the scene, and the fact that our cats were, in fact, making all sorts of noise, allayed our fears.

Interestingly, I hadn't known that my fears were still there. I'd moved on to new thoughts by the time I went to bed. Waking in the darkness, though, brought up all that I'd stowed into my subconscious.

People who dismiss horror movies as "unscary" don't realize, perhaps, the way that those terrifying images embed themselves in the unconscious mind.

Great Writing Where You Least Expect It

2009-11-07T03:00:00.004-05:00

By Mark Arsenault, guest blogger

One of the tragedies of the decline of American newspapers is the decline of the obituary. The classic obit—treated as a news story and written by a member of the newspaper’s staff—is all but dead. In its place, many newspapers are selling obituaries as advertisements. So when Uncle Elmo passes, the five-grand price tag on the funeral may include about seven hundred bucks for obit space in the newspaper.

I wrote a zillion obituaries throughout my 20-year journalism career, and I’ve come to appreciate that obits are the most important part of the newspaper because every death changes a community, forever. That’s why the protagonist in my current mystery series, the world-weary Billy Povich, is not a hotshot investigative reporter, but a lowly obituary writer. Billy’s occupation helps set the tone for the story and defines Billy’s character—he believes a well-researched obituary is a way to pay respect for the dead. He goes out of his way to find the telling details about people he never met. As he says in the book, “The dead do not complain, but who says they don’t appreciate good service?”

In real life, guys like Billy are going out of business.

I cut my teeth in the newspaper business believing that every person should be mentioned in the newspaper at least three times: at birth, marriage and death. (When you’re hatched, matched and dispatched.)

One of the most important contributions to the national psyche after 9/11 were the obits of the victims that ran for months in the New York Times. These obits were so beautifully crafted; it was hard to read them without getting choked up.

A well-crafted obit also contains valuable lessons for writers. The ability to render a person in three dimensions with just a few words is a tremendous skill, and something every fiction writer has to learn.

I love this paragraph from an award-winning 2007 obit of a carnival performer named Don Leslie:

“He had gotten his first tattoo not long after running away from home. Many more would come. His chest displayed three horse heads surrounded by a lariat and flanked by draping American flags, while his back depicted a shipwrecked damsel shown before a setting sun and an oversized stone cross bearing the words ROCK OF AGES. Each elbow sported a spider’s web, while a panoply of cherubs, hula girls, and elephants adorned whatever bare skin was left.”

When I read that incredible description, the character bursts into my mind. I see him as clearly as my most recent memory of my morning waffles. I’m inspired by the writing, and by the research that went into assembling that paragraph.

By turning obituaries into a revenue source, newspapers gave up quality control over what goes in them—you don’t tell your advertisers what to write. That has led to some oddities. At one of the newspapers I worked for, a customer bought an official obit-ad for Pope John Paul II, which dutifully ran in the paper under “Out-of-Town Obituaries.” The paper’s policy was to run nicknames in quotes, so the departed pontiff became “Pope” John Paul.

And I’ve noticed that a new trend among these obit-ads is to avoid the verb “died.” Instead of dying, the deceased has “moved on to receive his eternal reward.”

That just sounds a little cocky to me.

There are still a few places to find good obituaries, and I’ll keep mining them for nuggets of great writing, and for inspiration.

**************************************
Mark Arsenault is a Shamus-nominated mystery writer, a journalist, a runner, hiker, political junkie and eBay fanatic who collects memorabilia from the 1939 New York World’s Fair. His new novel is Loot the Moon, the second book in the Billy Povich series that began with Gravewriter, a noir thriller praised for a fusion of suspense, humor and human tenderness. With 20 years of experience as a print reporter, Arsenault is one of those weird cranks who still prefers to read the news on paper. His Web site is www.markarsenault.net.

E-book reader wars . . .

2009-11-06T03:42:00.000-05:00

By Lonnie Cruse

In case you missed it, there's a war going on. An e-book reader war that involves various devices manufactured and sold by various companies. I think it started with Sony bringing out a device that readers could use to download and read e-books. Around that same time Amazon had its original Kindle e-book reader as well. Kindle was more expensive than Sony, but Kindle fans believed it had more capability than the Sony. Of course, Sony owners didn't necessarily agree. Some readers are so fond of the devices that they own both a Sony and a Kindle.

Just this year Kindle has introduced three new models, Kindle 2, Kindle DX, and this month, a Kindle 2 that could be used outside of the United States to download books directly to the unit without using a computer. The first three Kindles could only download books directly to the unit while inside the U. S. The Whispernet used to download didn't then reach outside the U.S.

Things really heated up in this war of the devices when Amazon cut the price dramatically on the original Kindle 2. In other words, Kindle was competing not only with Sony but with itself, bringing out newer products very quickly to entice new owners, but sometimes irritating those who had already bought a device, not knowing a newer model was just around the corner or that the price was about to drop. The drop in price particularly irritated those who bought Kindle 2 within this year. A one hundred dollar price drop. It didn't irritate me, mind you. Like many others, I believe I've gotten my money's worth on the difference I paid in January to what Kindle 2 is selling for now because the Kindle books are generally cheaper than a hard copy, so I've saved on what I've downloaded as opposed to what I used to buy at the book store. And I'm not good at waiting.

This month Barnes and Noble introduced its very own e-book reader device into the battle. It's called a Nook. Like the Kindle, B & N's books can be ordered to download directly to the unit via Whispernet, without using a computer. And they can be paid for that way (purchases are automatically charged to your account.) According to the B & N website, these e-books can be shared with and/or loaned to other device owners, as easily as me loaning you a hard copy of a book I enjoyed. And this is a perk not currently available from Amazon.

However, Amazon has tons of free e-books available to download to a Kindle. Some of these books are classics, no longer under copyright, like Jane Austin's books. Or a Sherlock Holmes series. And many modern-day publishers offer their current authors' books for free, at least for a short time, in order to entice new readers. And these aren't unknown authors, but some of the big names in the business. I didn't see a mention of free books on the B & N website, but maybe I missed it. Often these Amazon freebies last only a few days, then the books become full price, and those of us who were on the alert and managed to nab said freebie tend to look down our cyber noses on those who hesitated . . . and lost.

Word on the Internet is that more companies will be coming out with their version of an e-reader in the near future. It's the wave of the future. Yes, there are many people who love the feel of a real book in their hands. I'm one of them. But I'm also someone who owns multiple bookcases FULL of books. I'm out of room. My e-book reading Kindle allows me to read books that I want to enjoy but not keep forever. And I don't have to take them to the used bookstore or donate them somewhere when I'm done. Might sound selfish, but it also means fewer trees destroyed in order for me to continue reading.

Right now the number one item on the wish list for e-book reader owners is FOLDERS! We all want folders on our units so we can drop books that have been read into one folder, keep new, unread books in another folder, keep samples in yet another. (And did I mention that you can download samples of books on most of these readers for free, much the same as reading a chapter or two while standing in a book store?) Another item on our e-reader wish list is the ability to swap books with friends like we can do with hard copy books. We'd love cheaper prices for the units and the books, more freebie books, stuff like that.

So, dear book reader, do you think you will ever become an e-book reader owner? Which side of the war are you on?

Do People Change?

2009-11-05T03:00:00.000-05:00

Elizabeth Zelvin

Near the beginning of my new mystery, Death Will Help You Leave Him, Barbara is trying to explain the relationship between her friend Luz and Luz’s abusive boyfriend Frankie, who’s just been found murdered. Frankie had a habit of picking a fight and then walking out on Luz.

“And a few days later, he’d waltz back in, swearing he’d change, and she’d believe that this time he meant it.”

“Right,” Bruce comments. “Pigs may fly. But first you have to go down to Kitty Hawk and build them some wings.”

It’s one of my favorite lines in the book, even though I sometimes wonder exactly what I meant when I wrote it. To tell the truth, I didn’t write it myself. Bruce dictated it to me from his permanent position inside my head. And I do kind of know what I meant: that change takes time and process and plain hard work. Bruce’s take on it may be more pessimistic than mine. After all, he hasn’t been sober very long. He’s still skeptical about the possibility of change. But if it happens, he knows it doesn’t come easily.

I’m going to tell a story I may have told before, because it made a great impression on me. A while back, I was sitting around schmoozing with a group of writers including an award-winning author whose work I admire greatly. “People don’t really change,” she said. My jaw dropped. I’ve invested twenty-five years in a career as a psychotherapist, social worker, and addictions treatment professional—all aspects of the mental health professions, which are entirely dependent on the premise that people can and do change. So obviously, I believe they do. And the characters and stories I’ve created in my mysteries show it. In fact, their growth—and capacity for further growth—is what interests me most about my characters.

Let’s say that there are two kinds of writers: those who believe that people can’t change and those who believe they can. It follows that there are two kinds of mysteries: those with characters who don’t change and those with characters who do. Both of these approaches give authors plenty of latitude. Unchanging characters may be perennial, consistent, and beloved by readers: Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Miss Silver, Jack Reacher, Stephanie Plum. Unchanging characters can also exist within a single novel, in which their inability to change drives the story. Such a story can have great depth. Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River and SJ Rozan’s Absent Friends are both tragedies about people who have failed to outgrow—or let go—their childhood.

Since I want my books to show that people change, I’ve stacked the deck in choosing to write about people in recovery. You could say I’m cheating—or that I’ve picked the perfect theme to support my thesis. Recovery is a moving and inspiring process in which people overcome enormous handicaps—including compulsion, denial, and despair—to change radically. Recovering people change their values and beliefs, their health, their relationships with others, their assessment of themselves, and their behavior in every aspect of their lives. It’s difficult, courageous, and dramatic—and that’s exactly why I write about it.

Tongue-tied Writers

2009-11-04T03:00:00.002-05:00

Sandra Parshall

Speaking isn’t the same as writing. That seems obvious, yet a surprising number of readers expect writers to be the embodiment of their print voices. Just as they believe a stand-up comic will provide hilarious casual chit-chat, they're prepared for an insightful author to bowl them over with profundities each time she opens her mouth, and they may be annoyed when it doesn't happen.

Some people will actually stop reading books they enjoy if the writer proves disappointing in person.

The truth is, a lot of writers are disappointing up close, unless they’re spouting speeches or remarks they’ve written (and rewritten and tweaked and polished) ahead of time. In an essay titled "When Writers Speak" in the September 27 New York Times Book Review, Arthur Krystal recalls watching film of a late 1950s interview with Vladimir Nabokov and being impressed with Nabokov’s verbal eloquence – until he saw the handful of index cards from which the literary giant read his prepared answers. Krystal admits he was disappointed at first, but he reasoned that writers don’t have a duty to be brilliant conversationalists; they’re only required to shine when they’re writing.

Unfortunately, in a time when publishers do little to promote books, they hold authors personally responsible for the success or failure of their novels. Even the shyest mouse of a writer has to get out there and charm readers at signings, appear on conference panels, and speak to rooms filled with strangers. I know a few authors who are terrific at this sort of thing, and the force of their personalities makes people want to buy their books, but for the shy ones – I’m one of them – talking will never feel as easy and natural as writing.

I think Krystal was on to something when he speculated in his NYT essay that a writer’s brain requires the physical act of writing to unleash its full creativity. While a great raconteur needs the spoken word and an audience to excel, the writer needs the exercise of transforming thoughts and emotions into written words. Yes, a writer has the luxury of revision to get it right, but something about the act of writing taps into a well of perception and feeling that few of us could verbalize coherently. And the writer has the page to herself. She can develop a flow, a rhythm to her expression that would be impossible in back-and-forth conversation. Even written dialogue is significantly different from real speech. It has to sound believable, but it can’t be a literal transcription of verbal expression, complete with uhs and ums and digressions and stutters. Who would want to read that? On the page, even our confused, desperate characters express themselves better than they could in speech.

I’m slowly getting better at speaking in public, but only because I’ve learned how to prepare. Don’t believe for a minute that panelists at conferences are giving spontaneous answers to the moderator’s questions. Plenty of planning goes on behind the scenes before the authors mount the dais, and they know what they’re going to be asked and how they’re going to answer. After a few panels on the same general topics, the whole process becomes much easier because it feels so familiar. I don’t think I’ve ever disgraced myself on a panel – although I’m sure my nervousness in the first few minutes is obvious to everyone – and I hope I never will.

Person-to-person conversation, or chatting in small groups, is still a challenge for me, though. When someone tells me that he or she likes my writing, I have a moment of stark terror because I know that anything coming out of my mouth will fall short and disappoint. When I’m around someone I admire, I’m likely to be so intimidated that I freeze up and can’t produce a single intelligent sentence. I have a choice between babbling or remaining mute, and in either case I’ll probably seem about as smart as a box of rocks. (If you ever meet me and I behave this way, please realize that it’s only because I absolutely adore you.)

Although I’ve always known that I’m smarter when I‘m writing than when I’m speaking, and I had observed the same about other writers, I never fully understood what’s going on until I read Krystal’s essay. I have to thank him for that. This new understanding, unfortunately, doesn’t address the problem of readers’ expectations. Maybe I should start wearing a big button I can flash when someone tries to extract a memorable verbal statement from me: “I’m saving it for my book.”

Quality Over Quantity

2009-11-03T06:00:00.004-05:00

Sharon Wildwind

Back almost a decade ago, I came to a point where I was extremely frustrated about mysteries and mystery authors. I had been downtown to the main branch of my local library, which had then as now has a huge mystery collection. Faced with shelf-upon-shelf of books, most of them by authors I regret to say I’d never heard of, I threw up my hands and exclaimed, “Someone must have a clue who all these people are!Fortunately, I soon discovered half a dozen mystery discussion lists, and they were my salvation as a new writer. Lists circa 2001 were, outside of occasional flame wars, wonderful places to be. The discussions were akin to a daily shot of intellectual caffeine.

Alas today, lists are hardly ever interesting. For a week, I tracked what I call the Q/Q ratio. Quality over quantity. On the lists that I visit routinely—keep in mind that I’m referring only to lists, not blogs, web sites, Facebook or Twitter—the Q/Q ratio for that week was 62%. Only 62% of the messages had meaningful content. Actually, I was surprised that the ratio was that high. It was raised no doubt by an interesting and unusual discussion taking place on one list to which people contributed tons of thoughtful comments. Just like old times.

The remaining 38% of the postings were essentially advertisements: visit my blog, web site, photo gallery or review; agreement messages where entire previous e-mails were quoted, with a phrase such as, “I agree” or “Me, too.” added at the top; or well-wishes. I think it’s great to congratulate someone or express encouragement to “feel better soon” or “hang in there.” I suspect that those personal messages would be equally appreciated sent as private e-mails. Is it essential that the other 435 member of the list know that person A wants person B to get well soon?

What I could use today as desperately as I needed lists in 2001 is a electronic clearing house. One or two major questions up for discussion each week. Yes, I know that in any given week your blog and ten others might be about the pros and cons of writing series versus stand-alones, and that someone’s web site, somewhere, has a dynamite essay on the same topic, and the same topic has come up on your Facebook page, and so on and so on. What we need is a way to bring this all together so that we increase the quality over the quantity.

Here’s what my dream clearing house to unite us all might look like. Now all we need is someone to really create it.

-------

Quote for the week

The good dancer owns the stage, but the great dancer owns the audience.

~Sheri Gaia Chapin, mystery writer

The Winners Are . . .

2009-11-02T00:00:00.000-05:00

Thanks for playing The Stiletto Gang's Halloween Game here at PDD. We put all of those scary stories comments in a bowl and picked three. So here they are:
Sandra Parshall's Crime and Punishment mug goes to : PK the Bookeemonster
Lonnie Cruse's signed book goes to: Helen Kiker
Sharon Wildwind's signed book goes to: Shirley (boots9k)

Congratulations! If we don't have your e-mail below, please send it to us and we'll get your prizes out to you. Happy Halloween and Happy November. Thanks for playing, everyone!

And now, on to other Novembery thoughts. November is the eleventh month in the year, but it actually means "nine," since it became eleventh only after January and February were added to the Roman calendar.

Many significant things happen in November (and yes, I borrowed some of these from Wikipedia):

All Saints Day (yesterday) is a Christian holy day celebrating saints.

All Souls Day (today) is a day to remember the dead, and in the Mexican Tradition (el Dia de los Muertos) the entire month of November is meant as a time to pray for the dead, especially loved ones.

Here's one I didn't know: In Ireland, November 1st is the first day of winter.

November 5th is Guy Fawkes Night in Britain and New Zealand.

November 14th is Children's Day in India.

November 26, of course, is Thanksgiving Day.

Two new November-related events related to Thanksgiving are Black Friday (the day after) and cyber Monday (the Monday after). Both relate to the glut of shoppers that use this weekend as a sort of horrible preface to commercialized Christmas.

November 30th in Scotland is St. Andrews Day.

Are you a November baby, like my sister? If so, do you wear topaz in honor of your birthstone? And do people bring you chrysanthemums because this is the official November flower?

Despite the bleakness that happens after its bitter winds wipe all the colorful leaves away, I've always liked this month, perhaps because it does allow for time with family and--dare I say it--significant amounts of pumpkin pie. :)

What else do you celebrate in November?

Gender, Androgyny, and the Mystery Novel

2009-10-31T03:00:00.016-04:00

Steven Rigolosi (Guest Blogger)

As society gets more complicated and technology opens up new frontiers, nothing can be taken for granted any longer. Truths seen as self-evident by previous generations come under fire, new knowledge is created, and definitions are expanded. Among the concepts being expanded are constructs like gender and sexuality. (For the record, The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology clarifies the difference between gender and sex: “If the sex of a person is biologically determined, the gender of a person is culturally and socially constructed.”) We now have terms we didn’t have before; “transgendered” is relatively new, and “intersex” is even newer.

Old-time TV series may have followed the “rules” prescribed for men and women (think Donna Reed and Hazel), but it seems to me that the mystery novel has always been ahead of the curve in terms of exploring “male” and “female” roles and behavior. In some ways, Miss Marple was a product of her time, living in a quiet village and drinking her tea—but she took on the decidedly “male” role of investigating and solving crimes. Women soon became professional P.I.s (Cordelia Gray was in the vanguard), and Sara Paretsky took the courageous step of having V.I. Warshawski get the crap beaten out of her, which is of course an occupational hazard for all P.I.s. When the clueless Stephanie Plum decided to become a bounty hunter in One for the Money, we all thought how ridiculous it was—but here she is, still going strong fifteen books later. But for the woman who does the best job of pushing gender roles to their limit, I nominate Liza Cody’s Eva Wylie (Bucket Nut), an antisocial female wrestler who’ll take on any man in the room (and win).

What we haven’t seen much of, however, is male detectives taking on traditionally “female” roles. Sure, Adam Dalgliesh is sensitive and writes poetry; and Luis Mendoza is a loving father, but I can’t think of too many mainstream mysteries featuring, say, house husbands or male nurses. We do have Sarah Caudwell’s Hilary Tamar, but s/he is in that most gender-neutral of professions—law professor—and of course we never do find out if Hilary is a he or a she.

I think there are as many goals in mystery writing as there are writers—some write to create a cozy world, some to explore character deeply, some to create an intricate puzzle. For my latest novel, Androgynous Murder House Party, I wanted to pull the rug out from underneath the reader’s most basic expectations, which is the knowledge of each main character’s gender. I wanted readers to figure out not only “whodunit” (as there are two murders, whose perpetrator(s) must be found), but also to develop a sense of whether each character was male or female, straight or gay, without giving that knowledge to them directly. The narrator, Robin Anders, notes early in the book that of the cast, three are male, three are female, three are straight, and three are gay. None of this matters a whit to Robin, who is much too self-centered to think about anyone else for more than a second or two at a time.

And this is where the idea of “gender” plays so much into the book. Because gender is a social construct, the reader is challenged to figure out who is male and who is female based on personal habits, type of self-expression, hobbies, profession, and the like. And of course their names—Robin, Lee, Alex, Chris, J, and Law—are no help in deciphering the mystery. The great irony of the title Androgynous Murder House Party is that the characters themselves do not consider themselves androgynous in the least. Each clearly identifies as male or female; but readers will find no pronouns in the book to help them decide which is which.

I hope that Androgynous Murder House Party can be read at two levels. On one level, it really is a traditional murder mystery, with clues, and red herrings, and an amateur sleuth whose level of self-involvement is epic. At another level, though, I hope it can be seen as a rumination on the continuum of gender, gender roles, and gender expectations, as well as a satire on the snobbishness that exists at a certain level of New York City “society.” We think we need to know a character’s sex in order to “know” him or her—but is this knowledge truly necessary? How do we mystery writers keep our readers coming back for more—is it by giving them information, or by withholding it? Can an undefined gender be as much a cliffhanger as a superb plot twist?

Great Moments in Androgyny: A Photo Gallery

Julia Sweeney as Pat on Saturday Night Live

The infamous androgynous woman from the classic Dali/Bunuel film, Un Chien Andalou

From M*A*S*H: Jamie Farr as Klinger in the most unsuccessful attempt at cross-dressing in history

Robin Anders, narrator of Androgynous Murder House Party, contemplating a self-portrait

Steven Rigolosi is the author of the Tales from the Back Page series of mystery/suspense novels, including Who Gets the Apartment? and Circle of Assassins. The most recent is Androgynous Murder House Party, featuring genderless narrator Robin Anders. Steve can be reached at srigolosi@yahoo.com.

Halloween . . .

2009-10-30T03:24:00.001-04:00

By Lonnie Cruse

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. Is it because Halloween is a week after my birthday? Because I often got a cake shaped like a pumpkin when I was a little girl? Maybe. But the candy counts for a lot too, with me. And by the way, have you tried mixing salted peanuts with Candy Corn to treat yourself??? YUMMMMMM! Um, where was I?

Oh, yeah, Halloween. I love the decorations, I love the trick-or-treaters, I love the pumpkins, all shapes and sizes, I love watching the old scary movies like Dracula with Bella Lugosi, I love the fall smells, but most of all I love it because it IS fall and the trees are soooo beautiful. This year we got more rain than usual and the colors are fantastic. Such beauty before the browns and blacks of winter arrive (unless we get snow, of course.)

One of my favorite Halloween memories is catching our dog, Old Jimbo, sticking his head into one of our boy's trick-or-treat bags, searching for his favorite treat. I got him out of the bag before he ate something that would make him sick. Yup, Halloween is special.

This year I'm reading Halloween mysteries and Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party is my favorite. Halloween is a perfect time for murder, isn't it? Well, fictionally speaking, of course.

What's your favorite part of Halloween.? Would you like to share your favorite Halloween memory? Thanks for stopping by.

Now, pass me a treat or I'll have to trick you. Really.

Love is NOT never having to say you’re sorry

2009-10-29T03:00:00.001-04:00

Elizabeth Zelvin

“Love is never having to say you’re sorry.” The line from Love Story, Erich Segal’s 1970 movie, has passed into the collective unconscious. In our culture, it’s taken for granted that this statement is true, along with the six degrees of separation and anything you read in a fortune cookie. Wrong!

In the opening scene of my new mystery, Death Will Help You Leave Him, my protagonist Bruce Kohler finds himself driving uptown to East Harlem in the middle of a rainy night with his sidekicks Barbara and Jimmy. A friend’s abusive boyfriend has been found dead in her apartment, and Barbara, world-class codependent that she is, gallops to the rescue, dragging Bruce and Jimmy along with her. Here’s a somewhat abridged version.

“Tell me again,” I said. “Whose apartment is it? And who’s the corpse?”
“Her pigeon’s boyfriend.” Jimmy swiveled to look at me. Bad idea. The car skidded on the slick wet surface of Third Avenue.
“Pigeons have boyfriends?”
“My Al-Anon sponsee,” she elaborated. “Luz. Her apartment, and don’t say ‘corpse.’ She found her boyfriend dead on the floor when she came home. She was hysterical when she called me, and the cops are there.”
“So when do Al-Anons call their sponsors?” I asked. “Short of sudden death.”
“When somebody else’s life starts flashing before their eyes,” Jimmy said.
Barbara swatted his upper arm, not hard enough to endanger us.
“Cut it out, that’s not fair.”
“When they can’t stop saying, ‘I’m sorry,’” he said. “You know it’s true, petunia.”
“Cops. Do they think it’s murder? If so, ‘I’m sorry’ wouldn’t be the smartest thing to say.”

So saying “I’m sorry” all the time is codependency. It’s taking responsibility for everybody’s behavior, not just your own. It’s not your fault when the 800-pound gorilla steps on your foot. So don’t apologize.

But does that mean never saying you’re sorry is love? I don’t think so. It’s not even so much that not apologizing means you never admit you’re wrong. It’s more about the myth that if you really love someone, you can read each other’s minds. “You know I’d never want to hurt you,” this mythical unapologetic lover might say. “You know without my telling you that if I do, I’m sorry.” No communication needed. No acknowledgment of a mistake. No renewal of the connection. No proof of self-awareness. Would that really feel like love?

Let’s try an analogy. What if we said, “Love is never having to say ‘I love you’”? You know I love you. We can read each other’s minds, right? So why do we ever have to say it?

I’m reminded of a clever and delightful song by country artist Pam Tillis:

I knew he didn't have any money
Yeah that's why he couldn't buy me a ring
Oh and just because he bought himself a brand new pickup truck
Really didn't prove anything
And he never had to say he loved me
I could see it every time he smiled
Just call me Cleopatra everybody, 'cause I'm the Queen of Denial.

It’s important to be honest about your own behavior. If you’re wrong and you regret it, speak up. If you love your partner, spit it out. Frequently. If people don’t talk to each other about what’s going on and how they affect each other, how is the love between them ever going to grow into a durable intimacy? Erich Segal solved the problem by cheating: his heroine gets a terminal illness and dies at the age of 25. According to Wikipedia, the story is considered one of the most romantic of all times. I can’t help imagining countless promising relationships foundering on the rock of unrealistic expectations as young lovers get pissed off and break up, either because their partners don’t say, “I’m sorry,” or because they do, thus “proving” that it isn’t really love.

Stumbling Toward Windows 7

2009-10-28T03:00:00.007-04:00

Sandra Parshall

Why does every new version of Windows feel like a major life change? How did a piece of computer software acquire the power to thoroughly disrupt my existence?

In the past I’ve “upgraded” (ha!) Windows only when forced to, and the purchase of a new computer with Windows already installed was always involved. I became acquainted with Microsoft’s product back in the 1980s when my first PC, an IBM that ran on DOS and didn’t even have a hard drive, began to feel hopelessly inadequate. The first version of Windows I owned ran on an 80 MB hard drive and left plenty of room for other things. How quaint that seems now.

One by one, my subsequent computers failed as computers inevitably do, and I had to adapt to a new version of Windows with each purchase of a new system. My Windows 98 computer lasted longer than most, and I expected to stay with it until it died. Then we gave up our DSL phone line in favor of FIOS (a waste of money, in my opinion, but that’s another story). My husband’s computer was newer and had XP on it, and it could handle FIOS internet service. My computer couldn’t even connect to the in-house network. I bought a new one, and I liked Windows XP from the start.

When Vista arrived, I heard and read all the complaints about the behemoth that ate disk space and files indiscriminately, and I was happy to stay with XP. Then my motherboard died. Replacing it on an “old” computer didn’t seem worthwhile, so I gave in and bought a new machine with Vista on it. Oy. What a mess. What a headache. Inexplicable system crashes. Inexplicable program crashes. Software incompatibility (even between new and earlier versions of Microsoft programs). Lost files. Lost patience. Lost temper.

I couldn’t go backward, though, without wiping my hard disk and starting from scratch with a new install of XP and everything else, and the very thought gave me a headache. I waited for The Next Big Thing from Microsoft. Beta testers didn’t like what they were seeing and predicted that Win7 would be another disaster, but I figured nothing could be as bad as Vista.

Friends keep asking me why I don’t buy a Mac. It’s mainly because I don’t want to give up software programs I love that will only run under Windows and I don’t want the chore of converting a lot of files. My word processor, Lotus Word Pro for Windows, is dear to my heart. It has features I haven’t seen elsewhere, and whenever I’m forced to use Word or Word Perfect, I’m reminded again how much easier Word Pro is. I’ll put up with Windows to keep Word Pro.

As last week's Windows 7 release date approached, the opinions of the testers shifted. Windows 7 was suddenly something that everyone MUST have.

I wish I could have bought it, installed it, and moved on. Unfortunately, my hard drive has been making odd clicking sounds off and on. I don’t know what the source of the noise is, but I know it’s bad news. I decided to change hard disks, then install Windows 7.

I’d once had CompUSA copy the entire contents of an old hard drive onto a new, bigger, faster one, but CompUSA is gone now and I thought I’d handle the transfer myself this time. I read articles about cloning, printed out instructions from the internet, downloaded cloning software. With a trip to Bouchercon coming up, though, I changed my mind. I would have the Staples tech service do all the tedious work while I was away. I talked to a guy at Staples who said yeah, they could do that. Well, they couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Once they had my computer in their possession, they said that cloning a hard disk was illegal, a violation of copyright, and couldn’t be done. Never mind that Vista itself includes a utility, however cumbersome, for just this purpose.

I was back where I started. I could hire a rent-a-geek, but to heck with techies. I would do it myself. I re-read all the articles and instructions, giving myself pep talks.

I can do this.

Yes, I can.

I haven’t even started yet, and I’m a nervous wreck.

I’m not having major surgery or moving to another state. Those events would be relaxing by comparison. I’m doing something much more nerve-wracking: installing a new version of Windows, entrusting all the precious data on my computer to software I’ve never used before. If I suddenly drop off the edge of the online world, you’ll know it didn’t go well. Please send your teenage kid to rescue me and my computer!

How do you handle upgrades? Are you a Windows sufferer or a Mac snob? How many computers have you owned, and do you remember your first one?