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The Amateurs and the Pros

by Kris Neri

Like many authors of amateur sleuth mysteries, I’m also a fan of reading them. That’s not to say I don’t read many other subgenres as well, and in my writing, I write a magical series that features both an amateur sleuth and an FBI agent, so that one straddles the fence between amateur and professional sleuths. I also write an occasional standalone thriller, which is a whole different category. But as both a writer and reader, I’ve always felt a particular fondness for amateurs who solve crimes, going way back to the time when


Nancy Drew first led me into this life of crime.

Some years back at a signing, a reader asked me whether, like the protagonist of my Tracy Eaton mysteries — a writer and detective wannabe — I secretly harbored a desire to solve murders. Nope, not even a little bit. I bet that’s true for most writers of amateur sleuths as well. But that I don’t long to follow Tracy down the path of actually solving crimes, doesn’t in any way lessen my love of amateur sleuth mysteries, especially fun ones.

Besides, I think we learn from their examples. To my mind, some of the appeal of amateur sleuths is that, when we see them take on the impossible in their lives, we’re inspired to tackle the looming obstacles in our own, even if ours involve something less life-threatening than solving murders. 

Of course, in amateur sleuth mysteries, it’s the amateurs that have to shine. But that’s not to say the police don’t play important roles. They do create stabilizing presences, even if, in the end, it’s our amateurs that save the day.

I’ve always loved the police detectives I’ve created in my Tracy Eaton mysteries. Each has been different, some more rigidly official than others, more resistant to Tracy’s free-spirited antics, and they’ve all made unique and engaging foils for her. But none have been more fun than the police presence I created for my new release, Revenge on Route 66.

Roy Fricker, the Chief of Police of the small town of Tecos, New Mexico, where much of the action occurs in Revenge on Route 66, makes an immediate presence on the page, although maybe not the one he might have wanted.

Here’s Tracy’s first impression:

In the doorway stood the world’s most glittery Rhinestone Cowboy, an African-American man, whose embroidered Western shirt and decorated leather spats sported so much fringe, he had drastically reduced the world’s supply of it. There must have been clackers hidden within that fringe, too, because when he strode into the place, he jangled.

Even more colorful than his dress is Chief Fricker’s speech:

He tipped a gigantic white hat, which matched the accents in his black shirt and spats, and said, “Ma’am. Hear tell someone blew out poor Woody’s light. 

That was just the beginning of Chief Fricker’s colorful lingo. Every time he spoke more of his Western gibberish came out:

Fricker removed his hat and ran a large hand over his closely shorn hair. “Can’t say I’m all that surprised someone flipped Woody’s hash browns. He’s always been like someone riding ’round with a wasp in his bonnet. Always looking for a pig to kick.”

Tracy’s reaction was predictable enough:

Huh? Was his getup and lingo a joke? If we’d been back in L.A., I’d have assumed this guy to be an actor in some Western movie parody. Here, I figured he’d been yanked from his other job, rodeo clown.

But she soon learns that his looks and lingo can be deceiving. Chief Fricker is actually a wily investigator, a former big city homicide detective simply living out his long-held Western dream, albeit in a pretty dramatic way.

He and Tracy continue to lock horns. He might be all about living his dream, but he’s not about to let some wacky amateur sleuth just passing through the flaunt the law and cut corners in his town.

Isn’t that the way it often goes when amateur sleuths and cops tangle? Amateur sleuths are all about the spirit of justice, while the police get tangled up in the letter of it. 

However the struggle goes in the course of a mystery, it’s always fun for those of us who love amateur sleuth mysteries.

What do you think about the cops in amateur sleuth mysteries? Have you enjoyed reading them as much as I’ve enjoyed creating them?

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When this is posted, I will be at the Left Coast Crime Convention in Colorado Springs. Let me share my appearances there and the others that I have scheduled for this spring. But check my appearance page often because I'll be adding new ones all the time:

LCC: Friday, March 22, 1 pm: Panelist on the “If there’s a bad pun in the title, it must be a funny cozy!” panel, with Donna Andrews, Bionnie Biafore, Jess Lourey, and moderated by Linda Joffe Hull.

LCC: Friday, March 22, 2 pm: Moderating the “This can’t be normal, can it: the panel for fantasy, paranormal,” with Ann Charles, Theresa Crater, Linda Hilburn and Alex Sokoloff.

LCC: Saturday, March 23, 10:30 am – 11:00 am: This is my time to chat with readers in the Blogs around the campfire rooms.

LCC: Sunday, March 24, 10 am: Panelist on the “Thrills & Laughs: A Conflict of Interest” panel, moderated by Chantelle Osman, and with Bonnie Biafore, Robert Downs, and Kathy McIntosh.

Tuesday, March 26, 3 pm: Radio interview with Sandy Moss, KQNA, Prescott

Saturday, April 13, 2 pm: Signing REVENGE ON ROUTE 66 at Poisoned Pen, 4014 N Goldwater Blvd #101  Scottsdale, AZ 85251. (480) 947-2974. I'll be signing with Deborah J. Ledford.

Friday, April 26, 4-6 pm: Pump House Readings. Ken’s Creekside, Sedona, AZ. I’ll be presenting a reading from REVENGE ON ROUTE 66.

Wednesday, May 15, 6 pm: I will be presenting a talk on humor writing, “Making Them Laugh,” at the meeting of the Sisters in Crime chapter, the Desert Sleuths of Scottsdale, AZ. Grimaldi’s Pizzaria, 4000 N Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale, AZ. For more information, email: DesertSleuths@gmail.com.

Friday, May 24 – Sunday, May 26, all days: Phoenix Comicon. Appearance schedule TBA.

Saturday, June 8, 2 pm. Book ‘Em Mysteries, 1118 Mission Street, South Pasadena, CA. (626) 799-9600. I’ll be signing REVENGE ON ROUTE 66.

Sunday, June 9, 2:30 pm. Mysterious Galaxy. – Redondo Beach, 2810 Artesia Blvd Redondo Beach, CA. 310-542-6000. I’ll be signing REVENGE ON ROUTE 66.

Monday, June 10, 7 pm. Mysterious Galaxy – San Diego, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., Suite #302, San Diego, CA. 858-268-4747. I’ll be presenting a writing workshop, Creating Memorable Characters, and signing copies of REVENGE ON ROUTE 66.

Secrets and lies

by Kris Neri

My next Tracy Eaton mystery, Revenge on Route 66, will be out in mid-March. Its central theme is secrets, and the lies characters tell to keep those secrets.

That got me thinking about the lies real people tell. Are they all the same? How about the ones we call “white lies”? Some people maintain those are merely the grease that make sticky social cogs run more smoothly. But are they really harmless? 

I mean, if a woman asks her mate whether her jeans make her look fat, does she really want a true answer, especially if they actually do make her look fat? Isn’t she really asking her significant other to help her engage in denial to boost her self-confidence? Wouldn’t telling her the truth just be cruel and unnecessary? Shouldn’t her SO want her to feel better about herself even if it means telling a little fib?

Still, it is a lie.

How about lies of omission? What if a friend wore something in a color that made her look sickly or blotchy? Would you tell her she should avoid that color at all costs? Me, I probably wouldn’t. It seems unnecessarily mean, even though some people might prefer to know it. I also probably couldn’t stretch the white lie limit by going so far as to tell her she looked good in that wretched color. However, I would make a note of it, and the next time I saw her wear a color that was especially flattering to her, I’d go out of my way to make sure she knew that was her color. What would you do?

Maybe the key is that lies told to avoid hurting someone, or truths held back for the same reason, are easier to justify.

But what if the lies were more serious? What if the person they could potentially hurt — is the actual liar? If there was something in your past that you felt sure would make people look at your differently, what would you do to keep that hidden? How far would you go? Those are the kinds of lies that are central to Revenge on Route 66. I won’t tell you everything my characters did, but like most real people my characters go to great lengths to keep their pasts from rising up to haunt them now.

I so enjoyed dealing with the secrets and lies in my characters lives, characters I’ve known for a long time, who kept those secrets even from me! Mysteries are often rooted in secrets and lies, of course, but rarely to this degree.

Personally, though, I’m more convinced than ever that I enjoy a cleaner past than my characters. I’m not sure I could handle the pressure of keeping such whoppers under wraps. Besides, doesn’t the truth have a nasty way of coming out eventually? And it’s worse for having been kept hidden for so long.

How about you? What’s your take on the harmless white lies? And how about the others, the ones told to hide the secrets that could make or break a life if they came out? What do you think about them?

Do people have a right to keep their secrets hidden?

2012 in the rearview mirror

by Kris Neri

My December is as busy as anyone else’s — well, actually, being in retail, my December is totally insane, especially the last few days before Christmas (Shop earlier, people!)! And yet, at some point before the end of the year, I like to take a gander back over the year just ending, noting the high points that deserve an extra measure of gratitude, and some the areas I might want to shore up in the year ahead.

To be honest, I take my December process of looking back more seriously than I do January’s resolutions. Although I do often set some January goals, I’m ambivalent about the whole resolution process, and all the attention we pay it. Mostly, I believe that life should dictate when we made important changes, not the calendar. It is, after all, just another day. Besides, how often do we follow through with them? My own track record of January resolution-change isn’t that great.

In the rearview mirror, 2012 has been a mostly wonderful year for me and mine, and I’d like to share a few of the more notable points with you.

On the career front, I’m absolutely thrilled that my last Samantha Brennan and Annabelle Haggerty magical mystery, MAGICAL ALIENATION, recently became a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award winner in the fantasy category. That I love the Southwest, the part of the country in which I live, and that this award is given on behalf of my home state and another of my absolutely favorite states, makes it an extra special milestone for me.

 In the health arena, things haven’t been as good as usual. In June, when I fell off a ladder (watch where you’re stepping!), I sprained all the joints on the right side of my body, my wrist, my knee, and my ankle. Tracy, the protagonist of my Tracy Eaton mysteries often says, “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing—that’s my motto.” Apparently, it’s also mine.

My wrist healed fairly quickly, so I guess it wasn’t hurt too badly. I felt especially grateful for that, since I didn’t lose too much writing time. My ankle followed the average sprain trajectory. However, my knee’s healing has proven to be a challenge. Its healing has actually been so slow, I often feared I’d be living with this one for a very long time, if not forever. Now I’m thrilled to report that it recently took a major leap in the right direction. Most days the worst I feel is discomfort, not pain, and on some days, it’s no more than a whisper of an ache. I take that as a sign that this injury is finally in the home stretch, and I probably won’t have to wait too much longer until it’s gone entirely from my life. I’m sighing deeply with relief over this one. If I ever step onto another ladder (highly unlikely!), I vow to make sure it's feet are securely positioned on the floor.

I’m also enormously grateful for my dog Annabelle’s ongoing health. She was diagnosed with lymphoma in October 2009. After six months of treatments that cost more than gold, her cancer was found to be in remission. I’m thrilled to report that it still is. If there’s one thing a serious illness teaches us, it’s to appreciate every day we get. I know how lucky we are to have enjoyed another 365 days with our precious fur baby.

Lastly, I’m happy to report that I’ve lost 25 pounds this year. It might sound as if I’m shouting that from the rooftops, but I’m not really. I’ve ridden the weight loss/weight gain yoyo for much of my adult life. I seem to only have two modes, losing and gaining. I don’t seem to come with a maintenance switch.

Yet I’m cautiously optimistic this time. Dieting hasn’t felt quite as burdensome as it has during past yoyo rides. And given that my losing period has largely overlapped the time when I’ve been injured, which dramatically reduced my exercise, which should have made it harder, not easier. Now, I secretly hope that I’m finally figuring out how to get off the yoyo

But…even if I am ambivalent about making reservations, you can bet that “maintain weight loss” will top my list.

How about you? What’s most memorable for you about the year just ending? What are you grateful for?

Wishing you and yours the happiest of holiday seasons!

Holiday Wishes for Femmes Fans

by Toni L.P. Kelner

Oops. I was supposed to post something to the blog yesterday, but you know, there was all this talk abou the world ending and I thought it would be silly to post something that wouldn't get read. But here we still are. (Rumor has it that the Doctor of Doctor Who and Buffy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer combined forces to defeat whatever evil the Mayans expected to take place, but I can't find reputable confirmation of that.)

And honestly, I'm really glad the world didn't end. I've got a lot to look forward to, and as this year ends, I want to send some good wishes your way for 2013.

First up, my husband Steve is starting a new job at the executive search firm Spencer Stuart. He's so excited about it, and that's just delightful to see. Too many people spend their days in jobs that are poor fits or working for dreadful bosses. So my first wish for you is that you're working at a job you love, or if you're not, that you find it this year.

Later on in the year, my older daughter Maggie will be graduating high school while my younger daughtet Valerie is set to graduate from junior high. I know they'll be sorry to leave their familiar worlds and good friends and terrific teachers, but the schools have been so great for the girls. They've learned so much, and their graduations will be tremendous accomplishments. So my second wish is that each of you complete something--a project, a book, a stage of education. I want each of you to be able to look back on 2013 and know that you've accomplished something wonderful.

In fall, both my girls will go to new schools. Maggie has been accepted at her first choice of colleges, and Valerie is sure to be accepted at the high schools she's applied to. They are both zig-zagging between excitement and panic at the change, of course, but mostly they're really looking forward to moving on to bigger and better things. My wish for you is that is that you start something new and exciting, even if it's a little scary.

As for me, I'm looking forward to my new series starting. A Skeleton in the Family will be coming out from Berkley Prime Crime in September, and I'm dying to introduce my character Sid the Skeleton to the world. Along with that, I'll be introducing a new me. You see, the book will be coming out under my new pen name: Leigh Perry. It's a chance to be a different person! I'm wishing that you, too, get the opportunity to reinvent yourself.

My last wish is on the melancholy side. Last week, my big sister Brenda died after a painful illness. Many of my friends and family have been telling me that they hope she rests in peace, and that's very sweet of them. Except for this. Wherever Brenda is, I don't think she's peaceful. At least, I hope she's not. Peace would bore Brenda to pieces! She'd want people to meet, and places to go, and things to see and learn about. Don't give her peace--give her fun and adventure, and above all, joy. So in Brenda's honor, let my wish for you to be this: may your upcoming year be filled with joy!

 

 

Mercury, you X#&% devil!

by Kris Neri

For those of you who are into astrology...mercury will be coming out of retrograde in a few days. Can’t come too soon for me. I’m used to little electronic oddities popping up during Mercury retrogrades — broadband slows down, small, inexplicable changes appear in files, computer applications behave in atypical ways, and other electronic roadblocks show up that require some little time to get around them. But this time, Mercury, that blankety-blank devil, has really beaten up the Neri household in a memorable way.

Back when I was younger and more of a skeptic, I considered all this doomsday talk about Mercury retrogrades to be pure hooey. The trouble was that even if I didn’t believe in it, my electronics and appliances did. If my appliances were going to break, they did it then. If my electronics were going to burp, those burps also came during retrograde periods. Hey, I might have been a skeptic, but I wasn’t stupid – even I could see the pattern that kept emerging.

If I weren’t a believer now, I'm sure I would be now. Our biggest mishap was that our bookstore (we own The Well Red Coyote bookstore in Sedona, AZ) crashed, taking with it our Point of Sale software, the only way we have to conduct our business, and our only inventory record. It took three dawn-to-dark, exhausting days, two computer consultants, and numerous calls to tech support , but at the end of it, we were up and running again. Since then my own personal computer has been doing odd things, such as renaming folders, changing them from words that describe that folder’s contents to a random assortment of letters, and has been falling into such a deep sleep, it’s almost impossible to wake it. And finally, the bright red LED lettering on my car’s radio/CD player has faded into oblivion. Those last two might seem minor by comparison, but I like knowing what my computer’s folders contain without having to guess, and it’s useful to know what my CD player is playing just by looking. Mostly, though, I’m fed up with electronic mishaps.

A side casualty in the Mercury-electronic-failings is that they take with us our confidence in those pieces of hardware and software. The absolute certainty we typically maintain that when we turn them on, they’ll always operate as we expect them to. When serious problems occur, that confidence can be replaced by a knot in the gut, and is often responsible for a financial outlay. Either a little, or in our case this time, a lot of money.

I’ve been told that retrogrades are merely planetary slowdowns, but with my schedule, I can’t afford  to go any slower. I’ve also been told that retrogrades  are times meant to teach us lessons. I can’t deny that. The backup software operating  in our store’s computer was part of a package we bought from a company providing bookstore POS software. We were assured it would save the day if the worst-case scenario occurred. It didn’t. So we did learn something important, albeit at a high price, financially and emotionally. Now we’ve rectified that with what we think is stronger backup system. I’m grateful for that, although I wish that lesson could have come in a less dramatic fashion.

Sure, I know other planets retrograde as well, but that never seems to affect things the way Mercury retrogrades do. What’s crazy is that Mercury is the ruling planet of Gemini – and my husband Joe is a Gemini, and I have Gemini rising. Maybe Mercury expects more from us. I have news for that $%&# devil – I expect more from it, too.

How about you? Have you had any retrograde mishaps?

The Mystery Writer's Revenge

by Toni L.P. Kelner

A lovely by-product of being married to a psychologist is the interesting magazines that show up in our mail slot. They often end up in to-be-read stacks, but when unearthed, provide some unusual, but often fascinating, reading. A recent discovery was the October 2011 issue of Observer, the journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

In very basic terms, a study gave test subjects the chance to avenge themselves on people who had wronged them in a economic exchange game. And as they decided whether or not to take vengeance, "The decision caused a rush of neural activity in the caudate nucleus, an area of the brain know to process rewards (in previous work, the caudate has delighted in cocaine and nicotine use)."

In other words, revenge really is sweet.

Sort of.

The rest of the articule points out the negative parts of the equation. One, a person seeking revenge tends to relive the unpleasant incident over and over again. Two, the target of the vengeance has to know he is being punished, and why. Three, the target often feels that he himself is being wronged, and the cycle repeats.

But let's just go back to that neural activity in the caudate nucleus--in other words, the fun part. I mean, who doesn't like a little neural activity in the caudate nucleus? Some mystery writers--and by some, I mean me--live on the stuff.

For example, many years ago I dated a guy who I will refer to as the-guy-I-should-never-have-dated, or for short, the Jerk. I won't go into the many ways in which the Jerk was the wrong guy for me to date, or the lousy things he did, most which I didn't find out about until long after we'd both moved on. Suffice it to say that I had a certain amount of animosity towards him. So when I was working on Country Comes to Town, my fourth novel, I killed him. Right there on the cover. And darned if it didn't get my caudate nucleus buzzing.

 

Of course, at the time I didn't know my caudate nucleus from my hypothalamus. I thought I was just (1) writing what I knew, which all the writing books recommended and (2) saving buckets of bucks on therapy. In fact, I've saved therapy bills in several of my books and stories. I offed an ex-boss in Dead Ringer, beat up an ex-great-step-aunt in Tight as a Tick, and made fun of the Jerk again in Blast from the Past. In the novel I just finished -- The Skeleton in the Armoire, due out in September 2013 -- I trashed the reputation of a former boss of my husband's.

Now, should any lawyers be reading this, I assure you that the serial numbers have been filed off of these characters. By the time I finish changing a character's name, ethnicity, job, and location, I'm the only one who would know who these people were based on. There's just enough of the original target in there to keep my caudate nucleus happy.

Now I don't want you to think I'm just thinking of myself. I take requests. In Tight as a Tick I killed of a co-worker of my brother-in-law's, and in Death of a Damn Yankee, the victim is the ex-husband of a friend of mine. In the "Where are they now?" books, I based every one of protagonist Tilda Harper's hellish roommates on a real roomate of a friend or family member. (And with each book, I was so very grateful I never experienced roommate hell.) 

So now you know why I'm hooked on mystery writing. I can wreak vengeance to my caudate nucleus's delight without ever having to deal with any of the nasty side effects. And if it's addicting, that's all to the good.

 

Note: I think I should get special recognition for using the phrase "caudate nucleus" more times in this post than in any other Femmes Fatales post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When did reading become uncool?

by Kris Neri

Long before I was a writer, I was a reader. I think I was practically born reading. Even before I understood what those marks were on the pages of my picture books, I made up stories that I pretended to read. You could also argue that was writing, so I suppose I was born writing as well. But it was also my way of expressing that, even as a toddler, I understood that reading was something I considered important, and something I wanted to be able to do.

I suppose it helped that my mother was a voracious reader, that I could see that the happiest part of her day was the quiet time she spent with a book. It wasn’t long before that was our shared reading time.

I can’t imagine a life without the pleasure of reading. Sure, I know we all have too little time. I certainly do. I’m a writer with too many day jobs — I own and operate a bookstore, I teach writing, and I edit. Still, while I’m pulled in too many different directions, just as I make time to write, I also make time to read. I breathe, I read.

For a developing writer, reading provides an amazing advantage. In addition to whatever personal pleasure a story provides, every book a newish writer reads also provides so many lessons in writing, which the aspiring writer absorbs unconsciously and effortless.

When I teach writing classes, I always ask my students to include, as a part of their introductions, the authors they read regularly, or the books they’ve enjoyed lately. Mostly, I want to know whether they’re reading contemporary mysteries or they’re more interested in the classics. While there’s plenty to learn from the authors of the crime genre’s Golden Age, it’s absolutely essential that new writers develop a sense of today’s mysteries, so they understand the expectations of modern agents, editors, and readers. Art always reflects its culture, and the crime genre has evolved enormously since the sedate days of the classics. While my job as a writing instructor is certainly to provide them with explicit instruction in the craft of writing, I also see it as my role to direct them to the authors I know they’ll benefit from for implicit instruction.

So, coming from a reading background, you can probably appreciate my shock when I report that increasingly a significant portion of my students insist to me that they have never read and don't intend to. It’s just not something that interests them.

Oh, they’re in the minority of my students — the majority are devoted readers — but the non-readers are a larger and more vocal minority than I would have ever expected.

I don’t get it. This is frankly a hard career. It’s hard to get published, and for too many, it’s hard to stay published today. Writers also have to achieve a publishable standard on their own — while we are edited, writers are no longer leisurely mentored by editors through draft after draft as they were in decades past.

 Why would anyone devote themselves to a difficult-to-learn craft and a difficult-  to-achieve career if they didn’t love the written word? And if they do love the written word, why wouldn’t they read.

If they merely yearn to see their names on a cover, a far easier route would be to simply print their names on some cover design and forget about filling all those pages in between.

I know I’m right about how much reading influences writers. I can always see the differences in the quality of assignments between the readers and non-readers. The quality of the readers’ prose is always more mature, their voices are more lively, as is their dialogue, along with their ability to weave in different types of dramatic beats.

The non-readers, by contrast, will often insist to me that their non-reader friends tell them they don’t need descriptions of places or characters, and they seem to find it annoying when I insist they do. If they read, this wouldn’t come as a surprise to them.

I don’t mind beating a very dead horse, so I expect to keep repeating what I’ve written here for my non-reading students. I even bring in bigger guns to sway them. My favorite quote is one Stephen King wrote in On Writing: “You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.”

Hey, maybe I should just stop reading their assignments.

Real Life Mysteries

by Kris Neri

When you consider that I write paranormal fiction, in addition to humorous traditional mysteries, and that I love fantasy fiction, I have no fondness for real life encounters with things that go bump in the night, or any other time.

When you write or read fantasy, it’s not necessary to believe in any of it. That’s why it’s called fantasy. You can buy into some of it, or just enjoy a trip to another world, which might be similar to ours, but really different in other ways, without believing in any of it.

I used to maintain a strictly skeptical bent on all things woo-woo. Although some questionable things did happen to me on occasion, I always found another way to explain them. I’ve also had prophetic dreams, but I wrote those off to coincidences.

Then we had an author come to sign at our bookstore, who was an EMT who claimed she communed with those who had passed over while she tried to help them during the course of doing her job. I didn’t necessarily believe, although I figured she did. I even enjoyed her nonfiction book, although I approached it as if it were fiction.

But when she appeared before the sizeable crowd she drew, a round shadow suddenly popped up on the wall behind her, where there was nothing to cast a shadow. To say I was freaked was a criminal understatement. I kept trying to find a logical explanation, but logic totally eluded me.

After the author left, I tentatively broached the subject of that distinctive orb cast on the wall with a customer. “Oh, sure, that was an entity,” the customer said. “I figured she brought it along with her.”

Wasn’t that nice of her? Shouldn’t she have asked permission first?

In all the years we operated our bookstore out of that suite, which was more than six, I never again saw anything like that, but neither was I able to forget it, or explain it away. Maybe there really are more things in heaven and earth… Even if this paranormal writer doesn’t want to believe it. I wish that incident were unique, but I experienced too, too many things I can’t explain.

We recently encountered another real life mystery that proved to be just as troubling and just as perplexing. While in New Mexico on vacation, we had repeated problems with a super loud TV in the room next door every night. While it playing at different hours, the TV was always tuned to a soccer game.

We put up with it one night. When it was repeated the next night, my husband initially went next door to talk to our inconsiderate neighbors. He knocked over and over, but no one answered. By then the TV was at a staggering volume, so he assumed they simply couldn’t hear. He went downstairs to report it to someone at the desk, while I remained in our room.

While he was gone, the TV went off. Joe came back with the night manager, who insisted there weren’t any guests registered in that room. We thought that an employee might have used his passkey to enter it, and used that place to hide out and watch a soccer game when he was supposed to be on duty. But the night manager insisted that there was no indication that anyone had used the room since it was made-up by the maid days earlier.

Maybe so, maybe not. Neither Joe nor I had gone into the room with him, so we weren’t able to verify it either way. The TV had gone off by then, which was all we cared about.

Next night, same thing. Televised soccer game played at maximum volume, though at a different time than the night before. This time Joe went straight downstairs. With the night manager off that night, the head of security accompanied him back upstairs.

Joe entered that room with the security guy. The TV was still on, still playing at full volume, airing another soccer game. But the room was dark. When they turned on the lights, the condition of the room was perfect. As the night manager had insisted the night before, there was no sign that anyone had ever sat on the bed to watch the game. There was nothing to indicate anyone had entered the room at all, apart from those checking on a TV that seemed to turn itself on.

Joe pulled the plug on the TV, and it never bothered us again, although we only spent one more night there. The security man maintained there was no way to program the TV to either go on or go off with the remotes the hotel provided. I’m still looking for that logical explanation, though. Maybe there were other remotes that the staff had access to, which had greater capabilities. Maybe some guest in another room had a way of activating TV sets through the wall or from across the hall, just to play with people’s heads. Maybe someone really did sneak in and out quietly, watching soccer games in stealth, and taking pains to leave the room in faultless condition.

The security officer also said that the hotel maids reported that strange things often happened in that wing and floor of the hotel. We didn't ask what they meant by "strange."

I’m still clinging to any one of the logical explanations I’ve managed to come up with. But it’s getting harder.

What do you believe? Have you had encounters you can’t explain?

 

A Wonderful Knight!

by Toni L.P. Kelner

 

I recently took my daughters to a talk by cartoonist Keith Knight, creator of the comic strips The K Chronicles, Knight Life, and Th(ink), and we really had a great time. 

My husband Steve was the first Kelner to discover Knight's work, either on the web or via our comic book haven The Million Year Picnic, but we've been hooked ever since. All the strips are terrific, though I tend to prefer the art in Knight Life just a bit. The strips are funny, his wordplay is witty, the characters are hilarious, and Knight makes great points about the world without hitting you over the head with a stick.

We were tickled to find out that Knight grew up in Malden, MA, where we live, so every now and then Malden shows up in the strip along with other area landmarks. He shows up every now and then in the area to visit family, and this time his appearance was fabulously convienient. He came to the Malden Public Library--right across the street from the high school he attended--to give a demonstration of drawing comic strips for high school students.

Since I've got two teenaged daughters interested in art careers, we jumped at the chance to attend. I figured they'd learn more about how a professional artist works. I was just there as a fan but I think I came away from it with as much as the girls did. (Not just the autographed books, though we did bring home several of them.)

 

 

You see, I always enjoy hearing creative people talk about their work, but I was suprised by how much of it seemed applicable to me. He's a black man who grew up in Malden and moved out west to Califorina--I'm a white woman who grew up in the South and moved up north to Malden. He's an artist and has always drawn at every opportunity--I'm write prose and I'm not even a decent doodler. 

But here's the commonality: we're both storytellers.

Well, that and we both like comics and Star Trek. But for the purposes of this blog, we'll stick with the storytelling. And an awful lot of the things he said that ring true for me.

• "People learn the language of comics." Knight was talking about how certain graphic conventions convey surprise, distance, cuss words. But it's true in mystery, too. Writers and readers learn the conventions of the genre: spotting clues, following investigations, establishing means-motive-opportunity, don't wait until too late to have a body.

• "You only need a picture of a pyramid--it's Egypt." Knight meant that it's much easier for a cartoonist to establish a setting than for a filmmaker. I'd say it's easier for a writer, too, and not just because you don't have to wait for good weather to film. A few very carefully chosen words of description set the scene immediately. Robert Heinlein once started a book like this: The door dilated. Three words, and you know you're reading science fiction.

• "You don't need to be realistic." Knight was referring to stylized art, and at first I was thinking this didn't apply. Then I remembered I'm working on a series about an ambulatory skeleton. He has a point. It's also true that writers don't need to be hyper-realistic anytime. Nobody needs to see my characters go to the bathroom, burp, or blow their noses unless it's important to the story.

• "I use routines, repeated pieces of business." The examples of routines that Knight gave were the myriad Charlie Brown strips where Lucy was sitting in her psychiatric help booth or Snoopy was on top of his doghouse. In my series mysteries, these are the moments recur without being duplicates: Laura Fleming catching up on family members, Tilda Harper's horrible roommates. The trick is to make these routines fun for the new readers and the established fans.

• "I start with real people, but they fall into a character. I'm not sure if they evolve or devolve." Knight's technique is defintely one I use. A lot of my characters start with real people, though by the time I'm done with them, they're nobody recognizable. Laura Fleming started from me--Southerner living up North, working in computer industry, husband in academia--but she never managed to adopt my sense of humor. 

• "To see if a character is designed strongly enough, draw a silhouette of it and see it it's recognizable." I think the comparable technique for writers is dialog. If you pull a bunch of dialog out without attribution, and you can just tell who said what, then you've got a strong character.

• "You only have to hit every third time to get into the hall of fame." Knight works every single day: Halloween, Christmas, his birthday. He started the demo late because he had to get a strip finished. Obviously, he said, some of his strips are going to be better than others. But here's his view, given to him by somebody whose name I did not right down. To get into the Baseball Hall of Fame, you need a .333 batting average--one hit out of three. So he figures if one strip out of three is really good, then he's doing fine. I don't think I could survive if only one book out of three was a homer, but maybe I can think of paragraphs that way. Not all of them are going to be golden.

If you get a chance to see Keith Knight in person, don't wait until it's fabulously convienient. If you can't do that, treat yourself to one of his books. I bet you'll learn a lot more than what I've put here. I know there are other lessons I could have come away with, but for the rest of the talk I was following Knight's advice: I was doodling.

A Novel Diary: Chapter 3

Water Boarding

By Elaine Viets

NOTE: This is a continuing series about my May 2013 Dead-End Job mystery from conception to publication.

 

My new mystery had a name: "Board Stiff." And a theme: beach concessions. But which one?

For that, I needed more research.  I walked along the beach at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, checking out tacky T-shirts slogans. Some tourists must feel they haven’t vacationed here until they buy shirts with unprintable sayings.  Something  . . . Hanes-ous.

At Fort Lauderdale Beach, I discovered a correlation between bars and T-shirt shops. The lower the dive, the grosser the closest shirt shops.

At a boutique, I bought a pink-and-black blouse with no slogan. Somebody has to support the silent majority. Shirtwise, anyway.

I also studied beach concessions: Ocean kayaking was too strenuous. Parasailing looked too dangerous. It was. A few days later, a Connecticut woman fell some 200 feet to her death while parasailing on Pompano Beach. 

But stand up paddleboarding caught my eye. I’ve secretly longed to hang ten, but lack the agility to surf the waves. Stand up paddleboarding, known as SUP, looked like a slow, easy-going form of surfing. Sure, SUPers could paddle through the raging ocean, like this man in Maui:

  

But the sport has a gentle side. You can paddle on a glass-smooth morning ocean or a lake. I signed up for one SUP lesson on Fort Lauderdale’s  Middle River at George English Park.

SUP photos often show lithe muscular women wearing the bare minimum.

If I could have found suits like these, I would have happily donned them.

Instead, I wore a knee-length T-shirt over a one-piece swimsuit, along with a cracked pair of sunglasses, in case I lost them when I fell off the board. I knew I’d fall off.

Mario gave me my first lesson at George English Park. He’s a good teacher. We waded out from a small crescent of sandy beach. The water was about three feet deep. Mario knelt on his board and rose up gracefully as a sea creature, paddle in hand. I got up from my knees with a shaky wobble, but I was standing. Sort of like a newborn stork, but not as cute.

"Don’t look down," Mario cautioned. "Keep paddling. Avoid the middle where there’s a current and stay away from that big corrugated pipe."

Then he gave the really hard command, "Relax."

I never relaxed, but I paddled. My SUP form won’t win any prizes, but my board was skimming over the quiet water. It was fun. I stayed close to the bank and watched a white egret. I peered into the backyards and living rooms of the houses facing the water.

I tensed at my first challenge: a Jet Ski roared by. My board rocked,  but I stayed standing in its wake. For 45 minutes, I paddled until my arms ached and my knees shook with fatigue. A speedboat roared by with a bigger wake and stronger waves, and I tumbled into nine feet of water.

Blech!

I thrashed around in the slightly salty water and surfaced, still wearing the cracked sunglasses. I crawled back on the board and stood up.

"You fell very gracefully," Mario said.

I paddled again, but I was tired. I finished my lesson a little early and left alive – and overconfident.

My second lesson was more challenging. This time, I went with another paddleboard rental company to a busy inlet on the Intracoastal Waterway in nearby Lighthouse Point. The water was rougher, thanks to lots of boat traffic. My instructor was about 30 years old and infinitely patient.

I stood up on the board, once again shaky, and paddled over to a brown waterbird who looked like a gnarled branch of a mangrove tree. The bird watched me with beady eyes. A boat roared by and my board rocked in the wake.

I fell off in four feet of water.

The bird still didn’t move. Maybe it enjoyed people watching.

I got back on, stood up, and followed my instructor in the other direction, paddling toward a house, avoiding a rusty ladder on a private dock. We paddled for about half an hour. Then a large dive boat went by and four big waves slapped my board. I wobbled but recovered for the first three. For the fourth wave, I lost my balance and tumbled into seven feet of water with a whale-worthy splash.

I surfaced and towed my board back to the shallow water by the twisted bird. He watched my humiliating struggle to stand up on the paddleboard.

At one point I was stuck on the board on all fours, rear in the air. Neither the bird nor my instructor laughed.

I stood up finally, but I was exhausted. Enough.

"Your paddling is good," my instructor said. (It wasn’t.)

"But you need to strengthen your center core. Try practicing standing up from a kneeling position."

I started practicing in the kitchen with a broom for a paddle. Our cat watched, fascinated.

This experiment gave me three things:

(1) In my novel, the novice paddleboarders needed to learn on a calm lake, not the ocean, as I’d originally planned.

(2) Some knowledge about the paddleboarding and some useful contacts to answer my questions.

(3) Deep gratitude that there were no photos or videos of my paddleboard lessons.

***

This week on the Dead-End Jobs Radio Show: Gondolier Capt. Pierre has heard hundreds of marriage proposals – and one spectacular rejection. He plies the canals of Fort Lauderdale, the Venice of America. Stream it Monday at 1 PM ET and Wednesday 6 PM ET on radioearnetwork.com