Does writing change the writer?

Today's topic is so interesting. Does writing change the author? Do you think your writing has changed you in any significant way? 

I remember writing my first novel, way back when I had no idea of what I was doing.  One night I found myself at a Sisters In Crime meeting at the Boston Public Library.  The president of the New England Chapter was making a presentation on the organization.  Good grief, why was I so nervous?  I was venturing into new territory and being a cautious only child, this little step took all my courage. And so I joined the organization and in a few years I was an office holder.  I knew women who had actually had their books published. 

The next baby step as a writer was to sign up for William Holland's "Writing Your Novel" course at Harvard Extension.  I never thought I would sit in a real Harvard Classroom with so many interesting, talented people. Since I was the beginner, it was helpful to have my work critiqued by writers who knew so much more then I did.  

I missed a class becasue I accompanied my husband on a business trip to Singapore.  And I came back with characters and a plot for my second novel.  The first remained on computer, but every now and then I steal something from that first ill-conceived novel. 

At the end of the term we had a party and people brought real booze. In a classroom.  I almost freaked out.  This writing life was even exciting.

Months later, I found myself going to Mystery Writers of America meetings at Kate's Mystery Books in Cambridge.  The Christmas party was wonderful with so many big name authors in the room, everyone talking at once.  

So now to the topic. How has writing changed me?  I've bad so many opportunities to make new author friends. To attend conferences.  To be on panels at conferences and libraries. To travel to new cities to attend conferences.  Hello NOLA!  To participate in the friendship and collegiality of writer's groups and make more friends there.

 I never imagined I would hold offices.  Run a conference.  Buy Sue Grafton a drink. Meet Lee Child. But it's really the friendships that have developed over the years.  We writers sit at our desks and stare at their computers.  But like everyone else, we need to be around people, laughing, eating, drinking, and talking shop.  Especially talking shop.So it's the getting involved and the friendships and the help I've had to become a better writer that has changed me.  I jointed Toastmaster in order to do better at public speaking which used to terrify me.   

I convinced my husband to write a memoir about growing up in Hitlet's Germany. Now we talk writing and home and critique each other.  

I cannot imagine my life if I did not write.  It's  an occupation that is endlessly fascinating and very social.  Who knew?  

I'm sure my fellow writers have their own interesting thoughts on this topic:  take a look! 

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea

Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com

Marci Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/

Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/

Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-2jz

Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/

Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog

Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/

Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

Rewards and Costs of Writing

 Thought provoking topic today which I am getting to a bit late.  Sorry, sorry, sorry.  Over-committed, under-energized.

Rewards of writing:  
1) Enhanced creativity
2) Fame and fortune (not!) but getting printed across several genres (poetry, memoir, novels, short stories, blogs (yes!))
3) Joining the writing community through Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, my writing group, blogging, and Facebook, Boston Book Fair.  Lots more
 4)  Volunteering and mentoring
5)  Keeping brain working past middle-age.  Never discount this.
6)  Discovering great new authors to read
7)  Persisting no matter what
8)  Learning a bit of public speaking.  Thank you, Toastmasters!
9)  Bringing husband into the writing community (great memoir)
10) Discovering the joy of writing conferences and the pleasure of weekends of everything writing and discovering new cities, too,
11) The joy of research
And so much more!

Costs of writing: 
 1) Rejection (500+ queries and still  no agent)
2). Got agent; wrong one
3)  Dues, meetings, conferences not cheap.  Will never earn back what I have spent, but that's okay
4)  Only small successes; no breakout books; no bestsellers
5)  Ego often deflated. Goes with the territory.  

You see that the rewards far outweigh the costs.  We've had some great vacations that were working vacations in that we visited a site where a book in process was set.  This always brings forth many ideas and introduces us to a place we would not have visited.  

Below are the blogs of some great writers who always have something unique to say.  Please take a gander (as my dad used to say).              


 Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1qD
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

Fish or Cut Bait: A Guppy Anthology

So how can small tropical fish have an anthology?  The Guppies are a branch of Sisters in Crime, a (mostly) female group of crime writers.  Originally, the Guppies were all unpublished writers, and usually when one was published one detached from the group, but the Guppies were actually so much fun and so supportive of one another that many writers, including moi, stayed in the group long after they reached the goal of publication.
The Guppies of Sisters In Crime

 Fish Or Cut Bait is the 3rd Guppy Anthology, with stories all vetted by judges.  The stories don't have to be about fish, but mine is.

Years ago, the CIA opened their museum periodically, and one of the wonders was a robot fish.  Don't think they ever used it, but my fertile mind thought that might make a good story, and eventually I wrote "The Insurrection"  and shopped it around and it has finally found a home in Fish Or Cut Bait.

The hero of the story is Francis, the robotic fish.  Francis is a Gaftopsail Catfish.

Isn't he lovely?    The female of the species  hatches her eggs in her mouth.  Francis gets involved with the Iranian navy, sea snakes, Somali pirates and Colombian drug subs.
This story was so much fun to research and to write.    If you need a gift for someone who likes to read crime fiction, but  is perhaps not into "dark" stories, Fish or Cut Bait would make a wonderful gift.  I like to read short stories on the treadmill, because while your body is getting a workout, so is your mind.

Here is a link to Amazon. Buy Fish Or Cut Bail at Amazon 
Take Francis and his friends home with you.  You won't be disappointed. 

Surprise, Reverse, Reveal!

The title of this post is novelist Joseph Finder's chief words of advice to writers.  Surprise, Reverse, Reveal. Finder was guest of honor at the eleventh annual New England Crimebake.  WTF, you ask is that?  It's a New England crime writing conference held every year in the Boston area over Veteran's Day weekend.  The fun starts Friday with six master classes taught by veteran New England crime writers.  Then there's some drinking (after all, we're writers!) and a pizza party followed by a couple of seminars and a movie, in this case, a film based on Finder's High Crimes.  More drinking.

Saturday a.m. comes breakfast, caloric energy for the panels on writing and forensics.  We cover a broad range of topics, such as female stereotypes in fiction, true crime,  traditional mysteries, the "dark side," agents and editors (on site and available for 5 minute pitches). We have parties sponsored by Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.  BTW, when I booked tour of the Norfolk County Jail for Sisters in Crime, you should have seen the eyebrows shoot up and the quizzical faces. Sisters in Crime?  Ho. ho. ho.

Saturday afternoon wrapped up with panels about setting, esp. New England, and how to write short stories.  Then comes the cocktail party (more boozing) and the Banquet and Costume Party, Femmes Fatales and Lady Killers.

On Sunday, the revelers drag themselves to a big fortifying breakfast, and two forensics presentations and a final panels on plotting, whereby the panelists come up with a serviceable plot in a short time amid much laughter.

Oh yes, books!  Did I mention books? We have a bookseller and the panelists will sign them.  The books, not the bookseller!  I've barely touched on the good writing info and the fun.  And the drinking.  It's amazing how people who sit in front of a screen or a yellow pad and write all day can get out on the dance floor and boogie.

I'll post photos when Significant Other has a chance to remove the omnipresent "red eyes" and email them to me.  Yours truly made a pretty good pitch and got dynamite suggestions for improvements to her manuscript which she is busily making this week.  Manuscript critiques are available from established writers. We have it all.

At home, this morning,  there's a huge ugly mess of programs, papers, books and even bookmarks to sort through as well as two days of mail and nine newspapers.   As there was no food in the house, we had popped over to the Longhorn after watching the Pats win.  Nice leftovers of prime rib and barbecued ribs for lunch.  My own chicken parm for dinner.  O.K., the diet starts tomorrow.  After walking the length of the hotel about 50 times, this may not be as necessarily as one would imagine. The conference hotel, the Dedham Hilton has been the scene of the "Crimebake" for several years and they know the drill and do an excellent job.

I sold a couple copies of World of Mirrors out of the trunk of my car, metaphorically speaking, and reconnected with writers from past Bakes.

So people, no matter WHAT you are writing, remember:  surprise, reverse, reveal!

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Freedom: Sunday New York Times Book Review

The Sunday New York Times book review sections always energizes me.  It's the first section of the times I read every Sunday.  Today features Jonathan Franzen's new book, Freedom.
I read The Corrections and thought it was up there right along with Beloved and The Poisonwood Bible.  A great novel, in other words. I am in awe of Franzen. I heard him speak a couple years ago at Boston's Grub Street, The Muse and the Marketplace.  He gave a thoughtful, even profound, speech. 
There is a brouhaha (isn't that a wonderful word?) to do with Jennifer Weiner (on the best seller list today) and another woman writer over the fact that women writers do not make the cover of Time Magazine.  Anyone who belongs to Sisters In Crime knows that women's books are reviewed less by major (and probably minor) newspapers and periodicals.  Folks, this is hardly news and it seems a bit mean-spirited to point this out and (maybe) diminish Franzen's place in the sun.

I have no doubt that Franzen would be able to make first rate fiction out of it.  He's no stranger to controversy what with the Oprah hoo-ha (another great word--why do words describing a dust up or tempest in a tea top event have a "ha" in them?) Ha ha! 
Franzen is a brave writer, the kind of literary writer I would give me genre-gnawed eye teeth to be.
From all discussions, Freedom seems to be a significant literary event.

Hmmm.  Maybe his publisher should have been hawking  Freedom out at the Lincoln Memorial yesterday.  Some of the people on the red and blue sides of the fence are portrayed in  the book.  Who of us will recognize our sorry selves?

Sisters In Crime

When we took a field trip to the Norfolk County Jail, the jail admin were amused by the group's name, Sisters In Crime.  We're having a meeting  today, the Sisters, not the jail admin.  We always have a brunch to which everyone brings goodies.  I made a raspberry yogurt cake (2 boxes of fresh raspberries) because I wanted to try the recipe, and you do not ever, ever, bake a whole  cake for two people who are on a perpetual diet.  No!  It must be shared.  We took a taste of it yesterday, to make sure that it was "fit to eat."
It was.  Decidedly.  Possibly more so now, as I put the glaze on this morning.  Here is the link to the recipe. Epicurious rocks!  Good stuff from the late, lamented Gourmet and from Bon Appetit. raspberry yogurt cake

This week I'm cooking for a dinner after a memorial service.  I volunteered for appetizers and desserts for 20-25 people.  The service is in New York, so the cooler on wheels will be put into service.  I have a funny feeling of deja vu that I blogged about this earlier.

The appetizers will be a savory cheesecake with smoked salmon, cheese straws with pimenton, and the retro, always tasty hot artichoke dip.

Desserts are:  Lemon loaf cake, pecan pie bars, and rhubarb crumble cake.  Both the loaf cake and the pie bars can be made will in advance.  The person who would immensely enjoy the food is the one the memorial is for. 

Back to the Sisters.  I recall going to the first event where I heard of the group.  It was a book event at the Boston Public Library and I never saw the then president, J. Danyne Lamb,  since, but she got me going.   Must be close to 15 years ago.     I've met some fabulous writers including the group that published my short story, "Bad Trip," last fall.   Still awaiting "traditional" publication.  And waiting.  Recall the name of this blog.

There was a great article in the weekend Wall Street Journal about Steig Larson and his writing and untimely death.  A writer's worst nightmare.  A long-awaited publishing contract, and then you die before publication, before best-sellerdom and movies and all the hoo-hah.  I really feel for the man.

I'm heading for the showers.  Lovely spring day.  Perfect for a drive thru the countryside to visit with my Sisters.  We're reading works in progress today.  I'm introducing Lotto, the Colombian Drug Lord who plays against all the stereotypes.  What fun.


Toujours,

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The Writing Life

Every February, the Guppies group from Sisters In Crime issues their "Chocolate Challenge."  The idea, February being a mostly dull month, is to write as many words as possible in the month of February, and the winner gets chocolate from the other participants.  Hence the name.  It's sort of like NaNoWriMo with treats.   The challengers also eat chocolate to speed them on their path.

I signed up hoping to get a leg up on the final chapters of In Flight, my fem jep novel.  And indeed I started well and wrote two scenes, one from the drug lord's point of view and another from the main character's.

Then, an idea that had been percolating in my head for years, actually an idea for a novel, came bubbling to the surface and I am writing it as a short story for submission to an anthology.  Probably won't get in, but I can submit it elsewhere.  So I'm 6500 words into the story, endlessly reedited while I write, and have made a winter weekend trip to Cape Cod, and a trip to the New England Boat Show.

I never know anything cold enough to write it off the top of my head.  If I wrote a story about scrubbing floors, I would be in the supermarket cleaning products aisle reading labels.  Maybe this super-picky attention to detail comes from my days as a computer programmer where you sure-as-hell better pay picky attention to detail. 

Anyway, this has been what they used to call a high-forceps birth, not easy in other words, and I've been laboring mightily.  6,000 words in a novel is nothing.  6,000 words in a short story are everything.   

Back to the salt mines.  Of course it is fun.  And gratifying.  I'm not expecting any chocolate for 10,000 words this month.  On the other hand, they may be 10,000 good words or 10,000 words I wouldn't have produced.

Long live chocolate.  The chocolate pound cake was soooo good.    Not too sweet.  The lemon squares are good, too. 

Life is uncertain.  Eat dessert first.

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Agatha Award Nominees at Malice Domestic

Congratulations to all the nominees!

Agatha Award Nominees
2009

Best Novel:

Swan for the Money by Donna Andrews (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
Bookplate Special by Lorna Barrett (Berkley Prime Crime)
Royal Flush by Rhys Bowen (Berkley Prime Crime)

A Brutal Telling by Louise Penny (Minotaur Books)
Air Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan (MIRA)

Best First Novel:
For Better For Murder by Lisa Bork (Midnight Ink)
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley (Delacorte Press)

Posed for Murder by Meredith Cole (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

The Cold Light of Mourning by Elizabeth Duncan (St. Martin’s Press)
In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff (Minotaur Books)

Best Non-fiction:

Duchess of Death by Richard Hack (Phoenix Books)

Talking About Detective Fiction by P.D. James (Knopf)

Blood on the Stage by 1925-1950 by Amnon Kabatchnik (Scarecrow Press)

Dame Agatha’s Shorts by Elena Santangelo (Bella Rosa Books)

The Talented Miss Highsmith by Joan Schenkar (St. Martin’s Press)

Best Short Story:
“Femme Sole” by Dana Cameron, Boston Noir (Akashic Books)
“Handbaskets, Drawers and a Killer Cold” by Kaye George,  Crooked ezine
“The Worst Noel” by Barb Goffman, The Gift of Murder (Wolfmont Press)
“On the House” by Hank Phillippi Ryan, Quarry (Level Best Books)
“Death Will Trim Your Tree” by Elizabeth Zelvin, The Gift of Murder (Wolfmont Press)

NEIBA

Yesterday we trekked from Boston to Hartford to help set up the Sisters in Crime/ Mystery Writer's of America booth for the New England Chapters at NEIBA.

Leaving Boston on the NYC route on a Friday afternoon is always frenzied, and once we turned off onto I-84 South, there were the truckers from hell and the lane darters from hell, making for a stressful ride. Instructions to the convention center were so-so, and we made one wrong turn.

NEIBA stands for New England Independent Booksellers Association, and they have a trade show in the fall every year. This must be m 8th or 9th year in attendance.

It's hard to beat a room full of books. Although the show looked small this year, and small wonder with the beating publishing and esp. independent bookstores are taking, many big publishers were on site with huge displays of books.

One starts to drool.

So we set up our booth and made it look nice, chatted up a few folks who stopped by early, and left for a dinner at Rein's Deli in Vernon. Well, you just can't go to Hartford from here without a stop at Rein's Deli.

Except there was a booksigning outside the main exhibition room, and hors d-oeuvres to die for, and we had to use extreme discretion so as not to trash appetites. Avoided the wine, but not the book signings and arrived home with three new books.

Rein's was the same as always. Lots of old folks eating there at 6:30 on a Friday. Lots of fat old folks. Everyone with a bit of heft doesn't die young. We had matzo ball/kreplach soup and potato pancakes, not exactly a pig out, but let me tell you the hot turkey sandwiches looked like they hung over both sides of a PLATTER. For some reason, served with fries not mashed, and everyone knows a hot sandwich with gravy screams for mashed potatoes.

Successfully avoided the bread pudding for dessert. Bought a loaf of rye bread for six dollars. Must weigh a pound and a half. I froze 2/3. It will be good with the saurkraut/sparerib soup later this week. We're still on our soup/salad routine and it's working well. Made a taco salad Thursday that was really yummy, with plenty of lettuce, tomato, onion, navy beans and avocado. Lean ground beef, but not too much. A mixture of two cheeses left over.
Dressing of green peppers, (canned Mexican), sour cream and mayo. Well, ya gotta go easy on the dressing.

I made cranberry squares for an "event" this week. I'll put the recipe in the blog when I get a chance. It's the easiest thing you'll ever make and mucho delicious. I had to find something with ingredients on hand. Challenge yourself.

Off to plan the weekly menus and make a shopping list. It's good to be semi-organized.

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NEIBA photos

The car is unpacked and the booth needs to be stashed on the garage shelves, a two-person job.

I'm drooling over all the books we picked up, including War and Peace, Christmas presents, and plenty of good airplane reading.

Toni Kelner and Dana Cameron are blogging NEIBA, as well as many other Sisters in Crime and MWA members. Isn't the blogosphere cool?

I'm going on one of my semi-annual pilgrimages to my tiny place Northern Nevada tomorrow, so postings may be scanty. On the other hand, I may write volumes. Photos will be fab. And the books come with. That's a Chicago expression that pains S.O., but I still like it.

Next post will be recipes, so come back soon.

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New England Independent Booksellers = NEIBA

This weekend, you'll find me at NEIBA in the Hynes Convention Center in Downtown Boston. If there's anything a writer loves more than writing it's reading and books, books, books.

We are representing Mystery Writer's of America and Sisters in Crime in the New York-New England areas. So, last year we used one of S.O.'s old pop up booths from aeons ago, something still in our garage along with other sundry items. This year, with yet a bigger floor space we brought two more sections. Now a few years ago, we had put up one in the driveway/garage area to make sure all the pieces were present, because we were going to put it on Craig's List.

Actually we did put it on Craig's List, and it didn't sell, no inquiries even, and that was the end of that. Until today. We got everything into our smallist car and tooled into town. We put the easy part together first and then tackled the unfamiliar.

Yikes! Put it together wrong not twice but thrice, and that was only the first section. Second section was missing a few pieces. We made do, hoping no one leans against it and sends it crashing down. Got all the signage up. Stuffed some "goody bags." Busy, busy with no time to cruise around and scope out all the really cool books. The University of Chicago always has a wonderful booth, but then I am an academic at heart.

Left everything looking a-ok. Up to P.K. Chang's for a Chinese Bistro meal that can't be beat. Home again, home again, jiggety jig to a mailbox full of crap and some stupid phone messages that made no sense at all.

Put the towels in the dryer and gave the cat and pill and hear we are. Exciting day, no? Tomorrow the show opens and we promote our organizations like crazy. Saturday, too.

I really need to work on this book, but duty calls. Seems like duty calls a lot. Is duty another name for procrastination? Someone tell me, quick.

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The State of the Mystery

The Sisters in Crime Blog has a multi-part report on the state of mystery writing in the U.S. seen from the standpoint of publishers, agents, editors and others in the business. I have to say it's rather disheartening if you are trying to publish a traditional mystery (Promiscuous Mode) or even a genre-bending not-quite-traditional (Festival Madness). The advice is to call it a thriller, whatever it is. It's awfully hard to call an amateur sleuth who solves a crime where there's a soupcon of romance, craziness, technology, and what have you a thriller. I wonder if I put in my query that the book is mainstream enough to require a big umbrella. . .

The other totally disheartening thing is that publishers now say one book a year is not enough. I can barely see myself writing one book a year, much less two or 2.5. It seems like a book requires two years to get it right. Maybe I'm a pokey writer. Maybe I want to make the Indian relish and the orange yogurt bread and see the art exhibits and do OTHER STUFF like till my garden and sit on the deck with a glass of wine and enjoy NATURE. Read other books (Hello again, Proust). Do stuff.

The odd thing is, that while I've been going through the 8th, yes, the 8th draft of Festival Madness, and thinking and researching the California book, and thinking the World War II YA, and thinking (hard) about my cat short story, that yet another book has come into my head. Unbidden.

I didn't need this. It's crime fiction, which I thought I had given up on. It takes place in Northern Nevada and the plot is kind of coming together. I suppose in light of the current market it should be a thriller, but it seems a little more like, I don't know, not a mystery but just a novel. With crime. And scary people.

When people ask, where do you get your ideas, well, the idea for this book came one night when I was (in Northern Nevada) and in the middle of the night awakened by the train rumbling thru town, making the mobile home vibrate, awakened again to someone going down the street playing a slide whistle, and yet again by a coyote howling at the edge of town.

I wrote a poem about it, and hoped that was it. Nope, here comes a book, saying write me, write me. Merde.

I've also got the Chaucer book (don't ask), the Elizabeth von Arnin short bio, and the Grace Hopper short bio in my head. Six books? Well, not in a year. At the rate I'm scribbling it will take 18 years. I'm going to be sort of old by then. Can't see myself doing tours and all that stuff.

Three books a year? Ha ha.

Que faire? Mon Dieu.

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MWA Approved Publishers: the Debate that Will Not Die

Now DorothyL posters have put on the boxing gloves to debate the MWA (Mystery Writer's of America) approved publishers debate. It started on the Sisters In Crime Internet Chapter and has segued to DorothyL, a mystery readers, fans (and writers) list serve.

In a nutshell, MWA decided to "vet" various mystery publishers, in terms of advance paid, length of time in publishing, number of copies printed. This was done to separate the sheep from the goats, but screams of "elitist" rent the air and writers who were not on the approved list (the have-nots) beat their breasts and accused MWA of arbitrary decisions regarding publishers, and pointed out, fairly I think, that some dreadful books are published by major publishing houses and some good books are either self-published or published by very small presses that do not meet MWA's criteria. The small (now defunct) e-publisher that first published The Shadow Warriors would no longer pass muster.

This is a debate that goes round and round and like many things in life there is no good answer. I was thirty-seven when I learned that, a bolt of lightning to be sure in my still young lfe. A right way and a wrong way and eeek, no good way at all. What a revelation! There is no good answer. Some people never learn that, so I consider myself fortunate. Consider: "what do we do about Iraq" as an example. No good answer.

I sit on the sidelines of the MWA/vs. small press debate, and only hope they don't change the rules to boot me. Grandfathered in is not a comfy place. Sort of like being a legacy at an Ivy League school. No, even worse.

Suck it up, the only alternative. Whatchagonnado?

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Writing Down the Moans

O.K., bad pun. There's been a dust-up, almost a brouhaha on one of the writing listserves I monitor. Seems Left Coast Crime and Murder in the Midlands, two mystery conferences, have decided that only MWA approved publishers can sell books at these conferences, leaving out scores of self-published and small independents who for whatever reason aren't on MWA's list of "real" publishers. Lots of bad feelings and name-calling. Seems a bit Draconian that, for example, the Hilliard & Harris authors can't sell books at these conferences, or the Oceanside, and a lot of other presses. MWA now says a "real" publisher must have a book run of 500 or more, which leaves out the POD presses. Bear in mind POD is a print technology that says nothing about the quality of the writing. And said publisher also has to pay at least $1000.00 advance. Well, one would hope.

I was grandfathered into MWA when the rules were loosey-goosey, not that I didn't have a "real" publisher who assigned editors and cover artists and all that stuff. No money upfront from the authors. Generous payments (not the right word) for each book sold. However, it was a no-advance, POD outfitt, long gone belly up. So I slink and skulk and realize that I am not one of the chosen, and that it was authors like me who they changed the rules to keep out. Not a happy thought. Just one more reason to suck it up of which there are always many. So I have a great deal of sympathy for the writers with their noses pressed against the fence.

Rumor has it that Sisters In Crime is going to the "not all writers are equal" stance in order to promote the more traditionally published , but that's just a rumor. Well, I've sat through a lot of meeting where I have to shut up. Builds character. The haves and have-nots are in a deadly embrace that nobody is gonna win anytime soon. Horse manure at five paces anyone? That is what Abraham Lincoln reputedly said when challenged to a duel. One of my favorite quotes.

I've finished the third draft of Festival Madness, and now it has to lie fallow for a spell. A good friend from college days has done a line edit of Promiscuous Mode, and I can't thank her enough. So need to revisit that book a bit. Haven't sent it out as often as I could. It's my writing group's favorite book and it had a rocky start with an agent requesting the full manuscript and never responding to email, mail, phone, or anything. Off on the wrong foot.
But it's a traditional mystery, not a cozy, not a thriller, and there aren't any crafts or really loveable old ladies. Medium boiled? One cat, two murders, a little adultery. Some food, some fishing, a sleazy casino. Works for me. So one more pass and out into the world it goes again. Another one of my babies.

Lots of plans underfoot. The Information Systems memoir, the 1928 California book, and now a young adult that takes place in Germany in the last months of the war. And a web site class that will be the kick in the pants I need to redo my long neglected site. So stuff is happening. Short stories. The Meth House explosion. (The book, not the real thing. ) Horrors!

Better get busy. What do you think?

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