My Weblog

Mystery Most Cozy

Today the Femmes are happy to welcome Jenny Hanahan, founder of the Mystery Most Cozy groups. Jenny was the owner of Overbooked, an online bookstore specializing in out-of-print books when she founded Mystery Most Cozy in 2002.  She has since changed professions and has been a Real Estate Professional for Russell and Jeffcoat Real Estate for nine years.  She specializes in Lake Murray properties as well as representing sellers and buyers in the metro Columbia, SC area.  She and her husband, Ralph, have a son, daughter-in-law, and two young grandchildren.  They share their home with their three Maine Coons and are currently writing a cozy mystery together. Jenny's husband Ralph Hanahan interviewed her for this blog.

Q.  When did you start MMC, and what were your most important motivations for doing so?

A.  September 21, 2002 and I don’t know. It’s a mystery! Actually, thinking back, I just enjoyed cozies and had been on forums with only readers, and I thought it would be good to have authors on a forum to discuss their books.  I've always been a fan of the cozy mystery, particularly the traditional British style.  They are more character based than action based, but there’s still a mystery to be solved.


Q.  Were you surprised at how quickly MMC took off?  Why do you think this happened?

A. Actually, I was, because when I first started MMC, I wondered if anyone would come – is there anyone else who might be interested in this idea besides me? At that time, it was a unique premise to have  an interactive group read discussion forum that wasn’t just readers. Very early on, there were some months where we had over 1000 posts per month. At the beginning, I had MMC in the general Yahoo directory, but soon I switched over to "word of mouth," but it still grew even after that.

Q.  How have authors received MMC?

A.  Very well. In the early days, I approached authors whose books I enjoyed and asked them if they would be interested in participating in an author Q&A with members of the forum. I asked if they would contribute an autographed book as a prize for the book discussion. It was always well received, since I think it was unique for them too. I often went to bookstores purposely looking through the mysteries for new authors, and then I’d contact them to see if they’d like to participate. Even then, I knew new authors needed their books promoted to stand a chance.

Many of the authors early on were fairly newly published, and they were  very receptive. Most of them are still writing better than ten years later.

Carolyn Hart's Death on Demand series was one of the first,  if not the first, interactive author Q/A reads we had. I was already a fan of her Henrie O and Death on Demand series and contacted her to see if she would be interested in participating with the forum as we read her Death on Demand series. She, of course was already a well established author, but she was very enthusiastic to answer the questions and send them back by email for me to share with the forum.

I met Carolyn several years later at a local book festival, and she’s been a friend  to me and to MMC ever since.



Joanne Fluke was also one of our first interactive reads with an author with her  Hannah Swensen series.  I think she had maybe three of them out at that time and, of course as we know,  she's gone on to write a long lasting series.  

Q. How about readers?  What sorts of comments and reactions have you gotten from them?

A.  One of the things that most of the readers have enjoyed is the sharing of recommendations about new authors and series that they have gotten from others on the forum. Many readers have commented on how enjoyable it has been to converse with authors and get their personal questions answered.

Q. You moved from the original Yahoo group several years ago and opened MMC as a Facebook discussion group.  How has that changed things?

A. We didn’t actually “move,” we added Facebook. The Yahoo group is still open and some members still post there regularly, though it's not active like the Facebook one is these days. Some people don’t use Facebook, which is why I’ve left the Yahoo group up, plus the archives of ten years of forum discussion is still on Yahoo.

The Facebook group is much larger.  We’re over 1100 members on Facebook now.

Q.  I think it’s quite remarkable that you’ve been able to keep MMC active as an invitation only group all these years.  Do you think having that restriction has hampered your intentions for MMC?

A. Well, that’s changed on Facebook, since Facebook  now offers “forum suggestions,” which has helped the membership there to grow. Originally, I did want to keep the group fairly “small and cozy,” and that’s harder with a larger group. Some of the things we used to do more often, like mailing a “book box” among members, doesn’t happen as much as before.

One of the reasons I chose to do this as a  Facebook group instead of a Facebook page is to allow better “quality control,” so we can keep down spam and help make sure that people who aren’t in the spirit of MMC can’t ruin the fun for the rest of us. People are required to request membership. Alicia Farage (helps moderate) and I still go through each request personally.

Q. I’m sure there have been some surprises and somewhat remarkable events during the time you’ve been running MMC.  Care to share some of them?

A. One of the most touching things that has shown the warmth of a cozy reader community  happened years back during a sad occasion.  We lost a MMC author member, Katherine Shepherd, who was a member from almost the beginning of the forum.  She was extremely supportive and active on the forum. When she was ill with cancer, the forum poured out affection and support to her. They sent a huge amount of cards for me to send along to her in one big package from us. Also, the forum did a handmade love quilt for her. There were MMC members who quilted and members wrote messages on squares that the quilters put together.  She is very much missed.

On a much happier note, I’ve met several authors who have had connection with MMC through the years, Carolyn Hart, Kathleen Delaney Koppang and, Mary Anna Evans who have come through my town on book signing tours, and it’s been very nice to have met them personally and spend a little time with them.  

 

 

Q.  Do you have any plans for the future of MMC?  Any changes on the horizon?



A.  We recently made changes of getting back to our founding roots of the forum...going back more to actual interactive discussions about cozies. I also recently opened up Mysterious DEADlineS on Facebook. I started this writing forum on Yahoo Groups years ago, but it has not been active in years. The membership is open to writers and readers of the Mystery Most Cozy forum. We've had some very good discussions on it and I am glad to see it active again.



We have found that we have much more in common than just cozies, so once a month we have Mystery Most Cozy Presents Off Topic Weekend and we can post about things other than cozies we enjoy discussing.  That has proven to be popular.

 We've also added another section to the forum for folks to post free ebook offers for mysteries that aren't cozy.

I have plans to add a blog one of these days. Also, there has been talk about putting together a MMC convention and maybe one day it will happen. I have a few more things I'm mulling over for its future.

Q. Any other comments or well wishes that you’d like to pass along?

When I knew I was going to be doing this, I asked the forum for some feedback, what they’d like for me to comment about.

Longtime member Liz Straw mentioned the group reads and discussions as being something she’d really enjoyed.  

As I've already mentioned, we recently incorporated a “MMC Presents:  Off Topic Weekend” where authors are welcome to promote their books other than cozies, and all members can have discussions (within reason), as a “get to know you better” event, and one of our newer members, Terrie Moran thought I should mention this as one of the special things about MMC.

Author/member George Jackson wanted me to emphasize that the forum is unique.  He commented, “It is a mixture of friendship between authors, readers, bloggers, and reviewers.  It is so unique and we have such good discussions –- I haven’t seen it anywhere else.  It’s a special place for all of us, and you have kept it that way.”

I personally would like to give my appreciation to all the forum members, long time members and new, who make the forum a very enjoyable place to visit every day. I'd also like to give special thanks to Alicia Farage who helps me with all the membership requests and daily moderation of the forum, as well as MMC forum member, blogger and author Karen E. Rigley, who did a wonderful job with  MMC member author interviews for our ten year celebration a while ago.



Thanks to Kris Neri and  Femmes Fatales Blog for letting me share Mystery Most Cozy with their readers. https://www.facebook.com/groups/MysteryMostCozy/

Thanks for being with us today, Jenny, and thanks to Ralph for his insightful questions. And especially, thanks for all you and Mystery Most Cozy do for readers and writers of cozy mysteries.

Careful what you wish for . . .

by Catriona

In a recent posting I was bemoaning the fact that I’ve got to be a four season gardener these days, since California has no winter to speak of.  (Thanks, by the way, to everyone elsewhere in the country who resisted sending me boxes of snow, even if only because it was too cold to go out to the Post Office.)

Well, since then the California drought has really kicked in and my first gardenless year since I first bust a sod is looming.

A good California resident would have drought measures front and centre no matter where their water comes from, of course. But our water happens to come from a well. And if the well runs dry there’ll be no showers, no clean clothes and NO TEA!

So I thought maybe I would let the farmers have the available water to grow the fruit and vegetables and then I’d give them money to help off-set the galactic irrigation bills that are coming.

I thought if I could just keep the trees and the rest of the permanent planting alive and spend all my gardening time on soil improvement, hard landscaping and killing star thistle (grrrr) I might end up ahead of the game.

It's amazing how easy it was to save water once I started thinking. The car was the first to go. I wrote "slumming for Jerry" in the dust on the back window and drove it around with pride. Then I washed the windows with Sparkle and kitchen roll instead of hot soapy water and a hose to rinse them.

But most of my wasted water is wasted waiting for it to run hot for dishes or washing. Enter the buckets. 

There’s a bucket in the kitchen for the clean water that runs before the hot comes through and the clean-ish water that comes when you rinse lettuce etc. (The dirty water from potatoes and swishing out the coffee pot already goes on the compost heap.)

This bucket is currently keeping alive primroses at the front door (I'm not made of stone) and the beginnings of a fruit orchard:- a cherry, a persimmon, an Asian pear, a pomegranate and a fig. As an aside, I'm sure it says something about your approach to design if a slop pail fits right in to your kitchen theme.

The other bucket is in my bathroom, a long way from the hot tank, and it gets filled to the brim before the water is warm enough to step under every day.  Then, if I put it back in there and stand beside it, I get another brimming bucketful during the shower.

So. The Monterey-pine-hedge-to-be, grown from seed and currently eighteen months old, is going to be the softest, shiniest pine hedge ever.

After all, it’s being raised on a diet of Daddy-oh shampoo, Pantene for Colored and Treated and Buffy The Backside Slayer, or as it’s called in my house “greasy grit”, from the time the undergardener came through, dripping wet and hopping mad, to say “Why is the shower tray full of greasy grit? I nearly fell flat on my [redacted].”

And, of course, I can’t resist the rising sap and the calling bluejays – the lure of springtime. I’ve already sown lettuce seeds in a tub and rocket seeds in a patch near the artichoke, which is going to need watered every day with shower water anyway.  Who knows? Maybe this year of no gardening will be the best gardening year ever.

I’m certainly enjoying the challenge so far.  And if anyone has any water-saving tips, I’d love to hear them.

A writer writes

By Catriona

In Fiddler On The Roof, Tevye says, in that growl that you hear through the soles of your feet, "I realise of course, it's no shame to be poor; but it's no great honour either." That's how all writers feel about bad reviews, I think. They don't always hurt, but they never get you dancing. They're something you live with.

Except - dun-dun-DUH - bad reviews from people who haven't read the book. They make even the mildest writers turn green and burst out of our shirts.  Although never, on a family show, our trousers.

So imagine how it would feel if a fellow-writer published not just a review but a whole article and said of your beyond-successful children's/YA series: 

"I've never read a word ... so I can't comment on whether the books were good, bad or indifferent. I did think it a shame that adults were reading them ... mainly because there's so many other books out there that are surely more stimulating for grown-up minds." [bold mine]

That's what the writer Lynn Shepherd said about JK Rowling's Harry Potter books in this Huff Post article at the weekend.

She then moved on to disparage Rowling's debut adult novel - "by all accounts ... no masterpiece" - and call the hype surrounding its release "drearily excessive".  But why would you depend on all accounts if you've read it yourself? And if you haven't, how can you say the hype wasn't perfectly pitched? (And anyway, Melvyn, The Lord Bragg, aka The Arts in Britain called it "a wonderful book" in The Observer. That's an account.)

Finally, Shepherd gets down to brass tacks. She's a crimewriter and last year, Rowling published a crime novel.  A good one. (I'm saying that because I read it, in case you're wondering). Yep, she published a crime novel and pulled off a masterstroke by doing it pseudonymously.  She garnered high praise from respected writers like Val McDermid and Mark Billingham, sold 1500 hardback copies in the UK which is not too shabby, got 37 out of 38 five-star ratings on Amazon and . . . well, in short, proved that it's not all hype, just like it wasn't all hype when a children's book was being passed around the playground by its excited little fans in 1997, and won the Smarties award and earned out its modest advance.

The Cuckoo's Calling big reveal was such a delicious moment for anyone with an ounce of generosity in their spirit.  Shepherd, though, isn't happy.  Yet again, she doesn't seem to have read the book - calling it "apparently well-written" - but nevertheless blames it for "making it even more difficult than it already was for other books - just as well-written ... - to get a look in." [Again, bold mine].

To my reckoning this is at least four flavours of wrong. 1. It's crummy to be so sour to fellow writers. 2. You shouldn't opine on books you haven't read. 3. Bestsellers keep publishers in business and able to support non-bestsellers. 4. If someone reads a book and loves it, they read more books.

We writers are in competition with HBO, Netflix, X-box, Wii, multiplexes and scrapbooking, not with each other. It's hard to believe that Shepherd doesn't get that.

But even if we were pitted against the next writer along, Shepherd's solution is breathtaking. Her article's title is "If JK Rowling cares about writing, she should stop doing it" and it's not a clever play on words. Shepherd really does seem to be suggesting that Rowling has delighted us long enough and should let the other young ladies have time to exhibit.

It's not only, or even mainly, the arrogance that takes my breath away.  It's the cynicism. Shepherd says: "Enjoy your vast fortune ... luxuriate in the love of your legions of fans" for all the world as though JK Rowling might be striving for more of either when she publishes a new book. For all the world as though Rowling isn't a born story-teller, helplessly toiling in what my friend Matthew Clemens calls the fiction mines, the same now as ever.

Shepherd really should read one of the books and then she'd see what's so clear to everyone else. JK Rowling is a writer and a writer writes.

 

 

 

 

Are you a good copyeditor?

by Donna Andrews

I'm not, so thank goodness for people who are.

Last week, the copyedited manuscript of The Good, the Bad, and the Emus landed on my doorstep.  The copyedit is the next-to-last time the writer sees the book before it goes to print--there's still the typeset galley to come--and for most of us, opening the fat envelope containing the marked up manuscript is one of the most stressful moments of the publication process.  (These days, sometimes the writer opens up an electronic copy of the manuscript, in which the copyeditor has marked his or her corrections using the track changes feature, but for the time being Minotaur is still sending hard copy, and I'm happy they do.)

Sometimes you hold your breath as you flip through the pages, wondering what the publishing gods have given you this time.  A stern but wise copyeditor who methodically corrects your mistakes and firmly but gently queries you about the improbabilities and inconsistencies? A do-nothing copyeditor who marks all the M-dashes and doesn't even catch typos that leap off the page at you? An overzealous copyeditor who tries to change colloquial dialogue into stilted, formal academic English? Or, worst of all, a copyeditor who seems to be a frustrated writer, interested not in perfecting your book but in rewriting it in his or her own style.  I've had all of those.  I've had the copyedit so bad I seriously thought of having a rubber stamp made that set simply, in tiny letters, "stet." Which is Latin for "let it stand," and is the word we writers use when we want to indicate that no, we don't agree with that particular change. (Some of us have been known to write "stet!!" or even "stet, dammit!" when confronted with particularly egregious changes.)

To my relief, this copyeditor seems sane and meticulous.  As I leaf through the pages, it appears that my biggest sin as a writer is not knowing which compound terms should be spelled solid, as a single word; which should be hyphenated; and which should be two separate words. 

I also carelessly confuse commas and periods more often than I'd expect.  Some of it arises from the fact that their keys are adjacent on the keyboard.  And others, I can tell, happened when I add or delete a dialogue tag.  Changing "Yes," he said to simply "Yes," without also changing the comma to a period.

I love learning things from my copyedits.  For example, that there is an accent on the second a in Galapagos, though I have no idea how to make it show up here.

I'm pretty happy with this copyedit. I won't get any new copyediting horror stories out of it to share with writer friends around the virtual campfire.  I'll have to stick to the old ones.

Like the the copyeditor who, in Murder with Peacocks, made an editorial note in the margin saying something like "Why are all these brides having outdoor weddings in the south?  And wearing velvet?"

The copyeditor who changed a line of dialogue in which Michael, my heroine's husband, said something like "Not something I'd ever thought of."  She changed it to "Not something of which I'd ever thought." And wrote in the margin, something like "Michael is a professor! Surely he would say this!" I wrote "stet" beside her change, and wrote, beneath her comment, "Yes, but he's not a pedant.  Colloquial usage."

I've had a copyeditor who read a passage that said "I must have told him that at least a million times" and told me how unlikely it was that Meg could really have done so.  Hello? Hyperbole, anyone?  A copyeditor who had never heard of--and couldn't be bothered to look up--News of the Weird.

The worst copyedit I've ever survived was for You've Got Murder, the first of my Turing Hopper books with Berkley Prime Crime.  In the Turing books, Turing's first person narration sometimes uses present tense, as if we were reading entries in an electronic journal that she is writing as the action happens.  The copyeditor did not seem to like this stylistic decision, and attempted to change every single one of these sections to past tense.  A passage reading something like "Tim and Maude are in danger!  I'm trying to signal them, and they're not answering.  What can I do?" would be changed to "Tim and Maude were in danger.  I was trying to signal them, and they were not answering.  What could I do?" Which completely undermined the effect I was trying, quite deliberately, to achieve.  And to add insult to injury, the copyeditor missed about one in five verbs, resulting in hideously ungrammatical passages. I stetted vigorously.  I probably tore holes in the paper with some of those stets.

I hope I complained to my editor about that copyeditor.  Most copyeditors are freelancers, and sometimes the editors may not realize how good or bad their work is unless the writers make it clear.

Thinking back over the Ghosts of Copyeditors Past, I'm appreciating this one.  Maybe I should have known that it's Allegheny County, Pennsylvania but Alleghany County, Virginia. Or that it's spessartite or spessartine garnets, not spessertine.  But I didn't, and thank goodness he did.  Or knew enough to look them up. When it comes to copyediting, knowing you need to look something up is just as good as knowing it to begin with.

I'll be sending this manuscript back tomorrow just a little cleaner and tighter.  And without any places where I was tempted to say "stet, dammit!" And that makes me happy.

And for all you aspiring copyeditors out there, here's a quiz.  Which is correct--using Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary, The Chicago Manual of Style 16, and The Bedford Handbook for Writers.

1. Race car, race-car, or racecar?

2. Back yard, back-yard, or backyard?

3. Semi retired, semi-retired, or semiretired?

4. Hmph or humph?

5. Back to the states or back to the States?

6. Bird feeders, bird-feeders, or birdfeeders?

7. Wrought iron brackets, wrought-iron brackets, or wroughtiron brackets?

8. Love seat, love-seat, or loveseat?

9. Home made ice cream, home-made ice cream, or homemade ice cream?

10. Non lethal toads, non-lethal toads, or nonlethal toads?

 

 

Femmes Fatales at Boskone

by Dana

Last weekend was Boskone 51; Boskone is the longest-running convention in New England devoted to science fiction, fantasy, and horror.  I've attended a bunch so far, but this was my busiest weekend yet.  Seven panels, a kaffeeklatsch, an autographing, and a reading.  That's a lot to pack into one weekend, and the variety of panel topics (and the discussions among the panelists and the audience) make for a stimulating con.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Above, the "Exploring the Whedonverse" panel.  L-R: Stephen P. Kelner (M), Gillian Daniels, me, Nancy Holder, and Erin Underwood.) 

While it is organized by the New England Science Fiction Association, there's a wide range of topics on genre fiction.  For example, I was on panels about "Doctor Who," Joss Whedon, New England as a setting for weird fiction, and examining what our culture says about comic book characters with disabilities, but I was also on panels about writing mysteries, Sherlock Holmes, and short story writing.  It's one of the coolest things going, crossing genres and taking subjects apart with writers (and readers) from all across the board.  (Below, the short story panel, with Fellow Femmes Fatales Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner (m); Paul Tremblay and I are in back.)

Another great thing about this con is the spirit of creativity.  There's an art show, and even the treats at the receptions are gorgeous and geeky (as well as being very tasty).  For example, here's some of the pastry from the reception:  below, you may recognize the One Ring (complete with high Elvish inscription) on this cupcake.  Most of us steered away from that one...  There were also ravens with skulls, Elvish leaf brooches, and more (from the Jostess Bakery in Medford, MA).

There were a few panels I would have enjoyed attending as an audience member.  The session on Doctor Who and gender sounded wonderful and I would have liked to see the panelists reenacting the scenes from cover art in SF/F and horror books.  I also missed Toni Kelner's (Leigh Perry's) interview with Special Guest Ginjer Buchanan, but since I had the privilege of being on panels with both of them, and Charlaine, I count myself well ahead of the game!

As seems to be traditional with Boskone, there was a blizzard.  Here's a view from the panel-room floor.  In keeping with the SF theme, I decided to call it “Hothkone.”  Here's looking forward to next year, and hoping we cheat the winter again!

 

 

 

How Can You Tell?

HANK:  Sometimes people ask me—did you always know you wanted to be a writer? Well, no, I always knew I wanted to be a—depending on when: cowboy, airline stewardess (this was the 50’s and that’s what they were called) waitress (they got to handle money, have whatever food they wanted and make people happy,) a geneticist, a rock star, a disc jockey, an actress, an English teacher, the lawyer for the mine workers...well, writer and author were never on the list.

However. You know those preference tests we all had to take in high school? When you had to fill in the little ovals and decide—would you rather twirl a fire baton or be a forest ranger?

 

When my scores came back, the guidance counselor told me-“according to this, you scored highest in literature and persuasion.”

She paused, then said “Perhaps you could work in a bookstore. " 

I am not kidding!

And all these years later, I kind of...do.

But Elizabeth Heiter—Femmes, meet Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Femmes, (her debut suspense novel HUNTED is brand new)—says she didn’t have to take no stinkin’ test.

She always knew. And here’s how she still knows.

 

How to Spot a Writer

Elizabeth Heiter

I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer.  And so did everyone else.

The Early Years

Like most kids, I climbed trees, played bike tag, took extracurricular activities after school.  Only I always had a notebook and pen with me.  I’d climb up into a high branch of a tree and write a story.  I’d bike as far and as fast as I could, find a good hiding spot and lay my bike down in the ditch and jot story ideas while the other kids searched for me.  During ski club, when it was too icy or too cold, I’d sit in the lodge and work on my latest novel.

Everyone Is a Potential Character

It quickly became a regular pastime for me to write stories featuring my friends.  Stories with aliens from made-up planets, stories with a friend’s latest crush, stories with side characters featuring truly ridiculous names (the stranger, the better – Bulldozer was one odd favorite of mine).  And, of course, every story needed a good mystery.

Guess Who

Pretty soon, I was getting regular requests for stories, and I realized I should start bringing these characters together.  So, I began writing short murder mysteries, featuring groups of my friends.  It became tradition to read them aloud at the beginning of our Odyssey of the Mind meetings.

Each week, I’d bring a new story, starring a group of friends, and a brand new murder mystery.  Much like my love of odd character names, I liked to find really bizarre ways to kill off a character (for example, being pushed off the roof into a pool of Jell-o, where the character drowned).  I’d read these stories, complete with red herrings and clues, and then I’d have pre-determined spots where I’d pause and make everyone guess who the killer was.

Yep, even back in middle and high school, I was tricking people into giving me beta reads and critiques.  To this day, I ask my early readers to tell me who they suspect at certain points in the story, and why.

It’s No Mystery

It didn’t come as a surprise to anyone I knew growing up that I’d become a novelist.  I use fewer strange character names and I no longer feature people I know in my stories, but I’m still fond of the odd method of murder (the serial killer in my debut buries his victims up to their heads deep in the woods).  I still read my books aloud – these days, to critique groups and to myself, as I’m polishing.  And I still carry a pen and notebook everywhere I go.

These days, you might catch me standing in the middle of a grocery isle, frantically jotting notes for a new book, or at the coffee shop, typing like mad and looking like I’m having way too much fun to be working.

And I probably am!  Writing HUNTED, my suspense about an FBI profiler who learns just how deadly it can be to get inside the heads of killers, was challenging and time-consuming.  It required loads of research and rewrites and restless nights.  But it was also fun, and like the stories before and those to come, it was something I always knew I wanted to do.

How about you?  Were there early signs of the profession you chose?

 ****************************

 ELIZABETH HEITER likes her suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists, and a little bit (or a lot!) of romance. Her research has taken her into the minds of serial killers, through murder investigations, and onto the FBI Academy’s shooting range.  She graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English Literature, and she’s a member of International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America.   You can visit her at http://www.elizabethheiter.com

HUNTED, Book 1 in the Profiler Series from MIRA Books:

Terror stalks a small Virginia town…

FBI rising star, criminal profiler Evelyn Baine, knows how to think like a serial killer.  But she’s never chased anyone like the Bakersville Burier, who hunts young women and displays them, half-buried, deep in the woods.  As the body count climbs, Evelyn’s relentless pursuit of the killer puts her career – and her life – at risk.  And the evil lurking in the Burier’s mind may be more than even she can unravel.

Terror is closer than she thinks…

The Bakersville Burier knows he’s got an FBI profiler on his trail.  He knows who she is and where to find her.  And he’s biding his time, because he’s planned a special punishment for Evelyn.  She may have tracked other killers, but he vows to make this her last chase. This time it’s her turn to be hunted!


Facebook: [www.facebook.com/elizabeth.heiter.author]www.facebook.com/elizabeth.heiter.author
Twitter: [www.twitter.com/ElizabethHeiter]www.twitter.com/ElizabethHeiter
Hunted Book Trailer:http://www.elizabethheiter.com/video/huntedtrailer.mp4

MUSHY OR NON-MUSHY?

 

from Mary

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

I planned to review some mysteries with great lovey-dovey romantic story lines. So I'm going through the titles of recent reads, and I'm scrolling ...

... and I'm scrolling .... hmm ...... scroll ... Dang, what is wrong with me ... 

But then I realized that, when it comes to romance in books, it's not the overt lovey-dovey I want. What I like is a REAL romance, that is, the interesting relationship that goes through a fire or two and becomes love. The wind-swept loosely-corseted maid who, upon meeting the young Duke, says, "A pleasure to ...," then jumps in his arms and puts her lips to his and says, "... meet you," just doesn't do anything for me.

 

A few examples of favorites:

 

 

 

Odd choice? Not at all. Odd's love for his girlfriend, Stormy, is central to everything in this book and the whole series. What makes it so compelling to me is that they are so very young, but both certain they have found their soul-mates.

 

 

One of my favorites series, the solid relationship between Holmes and Russell is what keeps me coming back. And the writing. And the great adventures. As I've probably said before, this is Sherlock Holmes as he really is.

 

Now, when it comes to movies, I like the mushier stuff.

 

 

Love LOVE ACTUALLY! What great romantic scenes. Could there be anything better than the guy in love with Keira Knightley, pretending to be a Christmas caroler and confessing his undying devotion with handwritten signs?

 

Or Colin Firth watching his maid strip to her undies and dive into the water to save his manuscript? Going to the restaurant and proposing so beautifully in despicable Italian? Ahhhhh .... great stuff. And Hugh Grant is so funny.

 

And then there's NOTTING HILL and Julia Roberts' teary mushy semi-proposal to Hugh Grant. <boo-hoo-hoo sniff> Which reminds me of TWO WEEKS NOTICE, where Sandra Bullock and her boss, Hugh Grant have a rocky but hilarious relationship. Uh-oh, I'm sensing a pattern here.

 

With books, there's one kind of romance category that I do love, the kinda magical romantic fantasy. More specifically, those in which the romance is fated. I'm thinking of Sarah Addison Allen's books and others where the protagonist and her soul mate are brought together through some kind of magical force.

 

 

My current read is one of those, a new book by Kathryn Magendie called THE LIGHTNING CHARMER, and boy is it a good one.

 

 

Oh my goodness, this book has everything I love. It's about a young woman who grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. Laura has been living in New York City for years, is in a relationship, and though her life seems to be going well outwardly, inside something is calling her back to the mountains.

Laura's voice is beautifully, quirkily written. Her joy of the woods is so real and expressive. And the other biggie for me - Cherokee legend is central to the story and the magical woo-woo stuff. Which, if you've read my THISTLE & TWIGG books, you know I love deeply.

This is the first book by Magendie I've read so I'm still high on discovering this new favorite author. Will definitely read her other books.

 

So what are your favorite romantic books or movies? Do you like all kinds or do you have specific types like me that you particularly like? Oh gosh, I've just remembered Olivier/Heathcliff.

 

 

Sighhhhhhh. 

 

 

Standing up (and not falling down)

Catriona writes: "In a particularly fine episode of that particularly fine cultural flowering Buffy The Vampire Slayerthe scooby gang find their worst nightmares coming true. Buffy's father rejects her and tells her she's the reason her parents divorced; Xander is chased by a circus clown; and Cordelia has bad hair and a membership of the chess club. It's the usual effortless mix of slapstick, horror and real emotional heft - Joss Whedon does it so well.

But's it's Willow's nightmare that resonated most with me:

She found herself backstage, in full make-up, about to go on and perform an unknown duet with a notable opera singer. To a full house.  ARRRGGGHHHHH.  I don't know about you , but that's pretty much the basic plot of most of my worst dreams.

But not today's guest, Clare O'Donohue.  Oh my goodness me, no.  Because Clare is here to tell us that she deliberately sought out just that kind of terrifying ordeal - deliberately! - and honed her writing craft that way.

Ladies and gentlemen, please - a warm Femmes Fatales welcome for tv-producer, quiltmaker and crimewriter, Chicago's own . . . Clare O'Donohue."

Years ago I performed improv in a club in Chicago. (For those of you unfamiliar with it, it’s getting up on stage with a group of people and making it up as you go along. And usually trying to be funny.)

I’d been urged to take classes by a friend of mine (the dangers of peer pressure) and once I started, I found I liked both the approach and the lifestyle. There’s lots of funny people who perform improv (not surprisingly) and a huge percentage are men. So for a single girl in her 20s it wasn’t a bad way to spend my time.

One of the things I learned early on when I was studying and performing improvisation, is that, surprisingly, there is structure – there are rules. They are designed to help performers get out of their own way, and actually create something amazing out of thin air. It’s been years since I set foot on a stage, but I still carry the rules with me, and I think in a lot of ways they are the biggest influence in how I write.

First and foremost, I make it up as I go along.

Catriona interrupts: I first knew Clare as the writer of the Someday Quilts cozy mysteries and - being a literal kind of mind, I assumed that a quilter would be all about structure and patterns when it came to plotting a mystery.  Show what I (don't) know.

(Back to Clare) I don’t start a novel with a strong idea of where it’s going or who the killer will be. I just write the first draft and see what happens. The worst improvisers I knew were the ones who got on stage with a joke in their heads, or a direction for the scene. Their scenes felt forced and their jokes didn’t match the rest of the action. In a novel, you can either let plot lead the story or you can let character lead. When plot leads, as far as I’m concerned, it’s like the guy coming on stage with a joke in his head - things feel artificial, as if no one would ever say or do what’s written. When character leads, you may have to change story lines here and there, but it always feels true.

Another big rule of improv is “yes and.” Basically it means that if I say, “Wow it’s cold.” Then you, as the other person in the scene, agree with and add to what I’ve started. You say, “You were the one who wanted to vacation in Alaska in February.” You’ve agreed that it’s cold, and you’ve added a location and given us a reason for being there. Nicely done. However, if you had said, “Are you crazy? It’s 90 degrees in the shade,” we’re at an impasse. I can either abandon my initial statement or I can argue with you. Whichever I choose, we’re confusing the audience and not building a scene together.

In writing, I try to “yes and” whenever possible. In Missing Persons, my main character Kate doesn’t feel well at breakfast, which leads to her late husband’s girlfriend, Vera, offering her a ride to a shoot location, which leads to Vera meeting the crew, which leads to a friendship with Kate’s camera crew… and more. Having Vera invade Kate’s work life is some of my favorite stuff in that book and it came unplanned by simply “yes and-ing.”

And finally, improvisers focus on the here and now. What people are doing in this moment is more interesting for an audience than watching two people discuss an issue from the past, or plans for the future. It’s more interesting for a reader, too. There are lots of ways to get information about the past, the future, and the character’s inner life into a scene without that becoming the focus of the scene. While there’s some leeway in a novel, and room for reflection, it should still move the character and/or story forward. It should pay off at some point.

These are the tools I carry with me into every novel, and struggle with sometimes. At the moment I’m finding them very helpful in the early stages of a new book. I’m just writing and seeing what happens, adding to each moment as I go, and trusting . . . always trusting.

Catriona again: how scary does that sound?! I'm brave enough to jump off the cliff when I'm writing, but standing up in a club in Chicago . . . gives me the collywobbles just thinking about it. How about you?

 

 

FALSE ASSUMPTIONS

No, I’m not going to rant again about Isabel Allende’s assertion that she understood mysteries after reading some bestsellers, understood them well enough to write her own with a heroine she was sure was one-of-a-kind – though any mystery reader would know she was wrong. Nope, not going down that road again.

Today I’m indignant about something else. And lest you think I spend my life waving my fist in the air, I don’t believe I do. I warn you, this is Olympic related, so if you’ve had your fill of Sochi already, don’t read further.

Last night, I watched Paul Bonifacio Parkinson, born a Canadian, compete for Italy in the team ice skating competition. He performed in the Men’s Free Skate division of the competition, in which Russian star Victor Plushenko was also competing.

Plushenko had the performance of his life, and since he apparently plans to retire after the Olympics, who can not be glad for him?
Then Parkinson took the ice. He fell. Twice. His first Olympics. But he kept smiling.

The female commentator for NBC (Sandra Bezic, I believe) said, during his performance, “Well, he came in thirty-third in the Internationals.” Pretty condescending, huh? And after Parkinson’s second fall, she went on (this is not verbatim, but close): “But he’s got to be thrilled with sharing the spotlight with Victor Plushenko.”

HUH? Oh, sure, that’ll make up for the low scores.

And then she went on, “At least he can get a picture and an autograph.”

REALLY?

Are you kidding me?

Because of course, that’s why Paul Bonifacio Parkinson left his birth country to get on the team of his mother’s country. That’s why he trained for hour after hour. That’s why he endured the physical hardship of being an ice skater, and the mental preparation to be a successful performer, good enough to qualify to skate internationally and to represent a country in the Olympics. So he can get a picture and an autograph from a much more famous and successful skater.

In the indignation of the moment, I told my husband that if I were Parkinson, I would track Bezic down and do something terrible. (I may have mentioned taking her head, though I’m embarrassed by that now.) Maybe Parkinson is a much nicer person than I am, and maybe he’s mature enough to take such comments with a shrug and a smile. I hope so.

Please, don’t ever tell me that if I lose something I’ve spent my life preparing to attain, that at least I got to brush shoulders with the person who actually achieved it.

Or is that just me?

But wait!

by Kris

The DVR, in my opinion, is one of the greatest inventions. I’m not a such a techno-lover that I glom onto any new technology automatically as a great idea — it really has to work for me. And the DVR does. Given the hours I work, I often can’t watch TV shows when they’re on. I’m also an occasional insomniac, sometimes going weeks when I don’t sleep much, followed by periods when I sleep well for a time.

A well-stocked DVR allows me to enjoy my sleepless hours by having personal mini-marathons of Castle, Elementary, NCIS, and others of my favorite shows that I’ve been neglecting. And nobody catching up on TV by watching in the middle of the night should be forced to watch commercials, which DVRs allow us to skip.

Unless they want to watch them, that is. And strangely, sometimes I do.

Getting back to clever inventions…I actually enjoy some of those commercials for the products mostly sold on TV. You know the ones, those for Pajama Jeans or Bacon Bowls and other such products. The ones discount stores also seem to sell in displays labeled, “Products Sold on TV” or “As Seen on TV.”

I always admire the ingenuity their inventors bring to those products. So much so, I always want to ask them the question authors also get, but can rarely answer: “Where do you get your ideas?”

I’ve even bought a couple of those products myself. Once, when I tried to eliminate fabric softener from our lives, which I regard as a chemical I’d like us to do without, someone told me there were a pair of dimpled balls you can buy in one of those “TV Products” sections, which worked as well as fabric softener, without the toxicity.

Turns out they didn’t work as well for me. The way they function is to beat up the fabric of your laundry items, knocking all the stiffness out of them so they feel softer. Unfortunately, in the process, they also knock a lot of newness out of them. Now I’m back to using fabric softener, toxicity and all.

I also learned later that any ball will work as well as the specially designed balls, even tennis balls. Though I’m not a tennis player, I have a bag of them, which was given to me by a friend for a dog we used to have before she went on to doggie heaven. At the time, we had a wolf-dog who thought fetch was the best game ever. But she preferred to fetch objects of her own choosing, which she usually found in the yard, so we didn’t use many of the balls. Now I have a dog who, when I throw one of those balls or anything else, gives me a look as if to say, “If you throw it, you have to pick it up.” We still aren’t using many of those tennis balls, so I could have beaten up loads of laundry with them without paying a penny.

I also bought a gadget that you stick on the end of a vacuum hose to better clean out the lint filter from your dryer. Now that one I have to give high marks to. See what I mean by ingenuity. Millions of people try to stick their fingers and other objects down into the dryer lint filter, but only one thought of adapting the vacuum hose that everyone has to do the job. I have a couple of issues even with that, and I don’t use it often — I mean, who has so much time that they clean out a lint filter regularly — but every time I do, I thank its inventor.

Those commercials also make me laugh. Their sales approach is so outrageously over the top. They  always say, “But wait! There’s more!” to better their offer, offering us two or more items for the same price as one. Is there anyone who doesn’t know that means the first item was priced at double what it should be?

Those commercials must work, though, or they wouldn’t spend millions in advertising dollars continually replaying them. Now, why can’t we sell books like that?

As for me, no matter how much I admire the ingenuity brought to those products or laugh at the over-the-top commercials, few of them would actually benefit me. I once considered buying a skillet that they demonstrated as indestructible by having trucks drive over them. Since we seem particularly hard on skillets, I considered it. But given that we don’t wreck our pots by driving over them, but by cooking with them, I really didn’t know how much longer those pots would last for us than what we have. As for some of the other products, if I sank to wearing the same clothes for my sleep and wakeful hours, that level of casualness would represent a new low even for me. And I’m pretty casual. It’s changing our night gear for daytime wear that separates us from the animals.

So, I watch ‘em, I just don’t buy what they’re selling.

How about you? Which are your favorite and your least favorite type of commercials?