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  Originally, the Guppies were all unpublished writers, and usually when one was published one detached from the group, but the Guppies were actually so much fun and so supportive of one another that many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. 

Writing Down the Nitty Gritty

You've always got to assume everyone in the English speaking world is going to read your novel. Well and good. You must also make the assumption that your readers will have an intimate knowledge of every place you mention, every intersection, every stretch of road, and the geography, flora, fauna, and all the details you have so carefully harvested in the research you do for your writing.

And the readers will all be critics and they'll be outraged in you don't have the most mundane fact correct.

That's why I made my trip to Florida which probably cost at least a dollar a word. Now my characters are leaving Florida in a motor home, heading up I-95 to Boston. Have I driven this road? Mostly. In a motor home? Never.

So I'm researching campgrounds like crazy, and all the little travel details of motor home life. We actually went to an RV show a few years ago when we wanted to rent an RV to go to Burning Man (book was Festival Madness, still looking for agent). I had no idea of ever writing another RV book. Shows what I know.

Now, the RV parks are all on the web, with photos and rates and amenties. The RV in question breaks down and I have to research where you can get these suckers fixed. And the distances, so everything makes sense. Jacksonville to Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach to Fayetteville, NC. Fayetteville to Philly. Philly to Boston and a huge backup on I-95 around New Haven. O.K., been there, done that.

Because, you see, I need to put the screws to my characters, make them late, make them sweat, make the crazy, so a few things can happen. Man, I've said it before, this plotting is hard work, and all the underpinnings, the towns, the campgrounds, life on the road, it's, well, it's work, so when I thought, I have to get the group from Boca Raton to Boston, that seemed easy enough, but plot points are huge and I better not screw up the versimilitude or the story.

Easier said than done. So we're slowly getting to Boston, one word at a time, and I'm surprised at how hard it is.

Because in a genre novel, every little detail is subservient to the plot and the whole story and of course, the characters, and I've just about forgotten about Lotto, by now in Colombia inspecting his fabulous drug sub kits from Russia. Ah, what a tangled web we weave!

Grapeshot

A Writer's Day

My life seems normal to me, but sometimes I wonder. Today--up early, read papers, and start up bean soup. The ham bone to die for, soaked beans, onions, celery carrots, herbs, chicken broth, all bean soupy ingredients. And garlic. Lots of garlic. Get the soup going and iron all the Christmas napkins, etc. Marathon ironing.

The infamous ham bone!

We run errands for the umteenth day in a row. Huge backlog of errands, still. Finally home and ready to start on the robot fish. Eeek! The CNN video of the Colombian Navy boarding the drug submarine has disappeared. I find lots of other stuff, including some very interesting details about the Cali cartel, and it turns out I have actually intuited lots of good stuff in my In Flight book. Save and print huge amounts of drug trivia and not so trivia. The novel fed the short story and now the short story is feeding the novel and I am learning all kinds of interesting facts about the cocaine trade. Just what every woman needs to know.

S.O. and Annie are taking a nap, and I'm going to sneak upstairs and watch the food channel. So far not one word written but lots of good fodder.

And the soup upstairs, looking yummier by the minute and calling my name.

Grapeshot!

Yup!