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Who Has the Craziest Drivers?

By Elaine Viets

"You're driving to Miami?" my Fort Lauderdale neighbor said. "Good luck!"
She acted as if I was doing something incredibly risky, like bungee jumping off a bridge, or reaching for the last piece of pie at a dorm dinner.
Granted, the 40-mile drive from Fort Lauderdale to Miami is entertaining. I've seen amazing displays of free-style speeding, stunt driving without a fire suit, as well as a devil-may-care attitude toward traffic signs.
But my neighbor's wishes had a familiar ring.

When I lived in St. Louis, Missouri, and would "cross the River" – drive across the Mississippi to neighboring Illinois – I'd hear the same routine. Missourians believed that our neighbors to the east lacked the skill and finesse, not to mention the sobriety, of the Show Me State residents.
That's a long-held belief among US drivers – the people in the next state always drive worse.

In Florida, where I currently live, the situation has international complications.
Florida is about 500 miles long, so we don't get many people from neighboring Georgia or Alabama this far south. Instead, we consider Miami our neighboring state – and it is.
Miami is a state of mind.
Because Fort Lauderdale is a tourist destination, we get a lot of New Yorkers here during the winter. We recognize them by their yellow license plates, blaring horns, and upraised middle fingers. New Yorkers, bless them, are very tense and it takes them several weeks in paradise to unwind.

Canadians are a more cautious breed. They rarely go faster than 30 miles an hour, even on the interstates, and drive like the roads are slick with ice. This excess caution is dangerous in South Florida. Worse, they insist on confusing the locals by using their blinkers to turn left and right. This time of the year, we have more Canadians down here than up north in Montreal.

Then we have the various island nations, who weave through traffic, horns blaring, brakes screeching. It's hard to know which is the worst, but we can tell they're not from here because they proudly display their national flag somewhere on their cars.
Possibly the most dangerous South Florida drivers are the tourists from other states, who cluelessly wandering the streets. Sunburned and brain-boiled, they're quickly lost, and who can blame them?
South Florida insists its preference for numbered streets is logical. That's why we have the bizarre spectacle of 2nd Avenue crossing 2nd Street, which puts a tourist on the corner of Second and Second.
I live on 48th Street, and it's on the same road is 48th Court and 48th Avenue.
If the numbers don't get tourists, the missing street signs will. Hurricane Irma blew away a slew of street signs, so only the locals know where to turn.
Welcome to South Florida, where we'll quickly drive you crazy.
So who are the worst drivers in your state?

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Win Pumped for Murder, my tenth Dead-End Job mystery, in hardcover. Go to www.elaineviets.com and click Contests.

Things You Might Not (Care to) Know About Me

Various memes pop up on Facebook constantly, and some of them have to do with personal quirks and/or unusual information about the person posting them. I've not yielded to temptation on Facebook, but I thought the idea an amusing one for a blog post. Feel free to disagree. :-)  Below you'll find facts, interesting or not, about me that, as the title of the blog suggests, you might not (care to) know about me.

• I can recite, in order, all 56 titles in the original Nancy Drew series, starting with The Secret of the Old Clock and ending with The Thirteenth Pearl.
• I have four degrees: a B.A. and M.A. in history, a Ph.D. in history, and an M.S. in Library Science.
• I grew up on a farm in north central Mississippi, in an area where my James ancestors and their descendants have lived since 1831.
• I couldn't care less who is playing in the Superbowl. Or the World Series (though I was happy that my former hometown team, the Houston Astros, finally won it).
• I have no interest whatsoever in anything to do with Kardashians and Jenners and others of their ilk.
• My favorite television show is "Bewitched."
• My favorite movie is "The Philadelphia Story."
• I do like watching tennis occasionally, especially the Grand Slams. Team Rafa; not an RFed fan. Other favorites: Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Serena Williams.
• I wrote my first book (actually probably a short novella) when I was about twelve.
• Nancy Drew greatly influenced my reading and my writing.
• My three favorite writers are Margery Allingham, Georgette Heyer, and Elizabeth Peters (aka Barbara Mertz).
• My favorite mystery novel is The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham. A close second is Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters. And if I had to pick one Heyer novel, it would probably be The Grand Sophy.
• I am an only child.

That's probably enough boring detail, but if you've persisted this far, thanks!

 

 

Trees vs Forests?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  If you're writing, do you use a beta reader? If you're reading--how would you like to be one?  The fab Linda Lovely is today's expert--and she might just change your life!  (And reading her new book from Henery Press might, too!)

 

 

 

Critiques vs Beta Reads—Trees vs Forests

By Linda Lovely

 

If you are lucky enough to have critique partners who red-pencil your manuscript from start to finish, do you really need Beta readers? My answer is a resounding “YES.”

 

I count on feedback from both groups—my critique partners (fellow authors), and my Beta readers, people who love books, but may never have heard of “deep” POV and may power through a run-on sentence without a shudder. Critiquers and Beta readers notice different things. Here are a few examples.

 

Critique Partners

I love my critique partners. Once a month, five of us submit five or six double-spaced pages prior to our in-person meeting. At the meeting, which often runs two to three hours, we bring marked-up copies for discussion. Month-to-month the pages we submit may not be sequential. If we’re worried about dialogue, humor, description or action in a certain section, we may share those pages for immediate feedback.

 

My local critique partners write in a variety of genres, but they’re all talented authors who can spot grammatical errors and accidental point-of-view shifts a mile away. Two are men who can tell me if any man would really use the words I’ve put in my hero’s mouth. The two women in the group excel at describing scenes and characters with exquisite, lean economy. All four have a great sense of humor and know how important it is to let the reader into the point-of-view character’s mind.

 

This very special group helps me steadily improve my craft and solve specific problems I’ve encountered with scenes. We’re honest, but never unkind. We trust each other. But no one’s feelings are hurt if we pass on someone’s suggestion. We all understand the work is personal and each author must ultimately decide what works.

 

I also exchange chapters with a couple of out-of-town authors, who write in the same mystery and suspense genres. These folks may pick up on clichés, holes or logic flaws in a plot or subplot, and problems with character motivation or goals. If I’m writing third-person POV, they may even suggest a scene would have more impact if seen through the eyes of another character.

 

By the time I’ve finished a novel, these dual author sounding boards have read most, if not all, of my manuscript.

 

Beta Readers

 

So why do I want Beta readers?

 

My Beta readers are readers, not authors. They belong to book clubs. They read voraciously in multiple genres. They come from backgrounds different from mine. While I’ve lived in the South for decades, I’m not a Southerner. Two of my Beta readers are.

 

My Beta readers may not notice point-of-view shifts, passive verbs, or misplaced commas. Their focus is the story and the characters. Does the story grab them? Do they find certain sections drag? Do they like the characters? Are the characters speaking or acting in ways that seem inconsistent?

 

In short, they are great for the “big picture.” They often pick up on things critique partners may miss, especially if they’ve been reading a manuscript piecemeal with a focus on craft.

 

Here are some Beta reader comments that spurred me to make changes in Bones To Pick, the first book in my humorous Brie Hooker Mystery series from Henery Press. I think the changes are major improvements.

 

#1 Beta Observation: “Based on your heroine’s language and attitudes, she seems more like a thirty-something. She acts older than the twenty-somethings I know. If you made her a bit older, she’d be more believable and it wouldn’t hurt the story a bit.” I upped my heroine’s age. The Beta reader was spot on. She was more believable as a woman in her thirties. The age shift also helped the plot since I was able to give her more life experiences to draw on when confronted with danger or dilemmas.

 

#2 Beta Observation: “I initially thought all your characters were Southerners. You might find a way to make it clear sooner that some of them are transplants from Iowa.” Right again. Only a few sentences were needed to solve this defect without a lot of backstory creep. I also addressed this reader’s issue with a few of the words and phrases I put in the mouths of Southerners. She told me these idioms were definitely Midwestern.

 

#3 Beta Observation: “Where are the ever-present cell phones of your younger characters? At the very least they should be mentioned, even if it’s just the veterinarian putting his cell phone on vibrate before sitting down to dinner with his date.” Done. Easy peasy.

 

Finding Critique Partners and Beta Readers Of course, what matters most is who you choose as your critique partners and Beta readers.

 

For critique partners, I’d suggest doing a “test drive”—exchanging a few pages or perhaps a few chapters to see if there’s a good fit. In addition to sharing the same attitude toward critiquing, you need to be certain you agree on expectations and workload. An author who feels she only has time to critique a chapter a month is going to feel pressured and resentful if she’s suddenly expected to critique a hundred pages.

 

My husband is one of my Beta readers. He’s brutally honest and very good at identifying sections that need more oomph.

 

But, in general, the best Beta readers aren’t family members and/or close friends who may be afraid of hurting your feelings. I find book clubs are an ideal recruiting ground for avid, thoughtful readers.

 

My final advice? Keep an open mind and listen to what these readers tell you.

 

Don’t feel obligated to agree or act on every criticism or suggestion. It’s YOUR book. Be true to what you think works. Just know the reason you’re making the decision.

 

HANK: Femmes? What do you think? Who reads your book before you make the sort-of-final version?

 

 

 

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Over the past five years, hundreds of mystery/thriller writers have met Linda Lovely at check-in for the annual Writers’ Police Academy, which she helps organize. While her new Brie Hooker Mystery series may be “cozy,” she weaves in lots of adrenaline-packed scenes. Hardly a surprise given all the options she’s scoped out at the Writers’ Police Academy. Lovely finds writing pure fiction isn’t a huge stretch given the years she’s spent penning PR and advertising copy. She writes a blend of mystery, thrills, and humor, chuckling as she plots to “disappear” the types of characters who annoy her. Quite satisfying plus there’s no need to pester relatives for bail. She served as president of her local Sisters in Crime chapter for five years and also belongs to International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. She’s the award-winning author of five prior mystery/suspense/thriller novels. To learn more, visit her website: www.lindalovely.com   

 

 

www.lindalovely.com

FB: @LindaLovelyAuthor

Twitter: @LovelyAuthor

 

 

 

Coming in from the cold

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

As I write this, I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new water heater. Accompanied, of course, by the plumber who's going to install it.

The old water heater chose to give up the ghost in full compliance with Murphy's Law. Normally that would mean I would first notice the problem Friday at around 5:30 p.m. But since I had firm plans to go into the District of Columbia on Friday to hear a lecture about the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, the water heater realized that it could go to that great basement in the sky late Thursday night and still cause me a reasonably lengthy period of inconvenience.

I did what I could. I called my plumbing company before taking off for the Nutshells and scheduled a visit for Saturday morning, grateful for the fact that my plumbing company considers the lack of hot water a minor emergency. (Not as much of an emergency as either no water or a flood would have been, but I'm grateful the now deceased hot water heater didn't feel the need to cause either of those problems.)

But alas! By the time the plumber had arrived and diagnosed the problem, there was no chance of fetching a new water heater, since the warehouse closed at noon. He did manage to call in before they closed and reserve one for Monday. And apologized profusely.

And then he departed, leaving me to cope with the minor inconveniences of a weekend without hot water.

Fortunately, I'd recently done laundry, so I wasn't going to run out of clean clothes. Less fortunately, I'd been slacking off on tidying the kitchen, so it was a mess. I knew from long experience that no matter how awful the kitchen seems, fifteen minutes spent rinsing the accumulated dishes and loading them into the dishwasher will usually restore it to a livable condition. Usually that fifteen minutes will also give me time to deal with the trash, the recycling, and any food containers that ought to have been put back into the pantry as soon as I finished using them, and the kitchen will be almost ready for its closeup. Alas, I could rinse dishes. I could load most of them in the dishwasher. But running the dishwasher so I could empty it and load the few remaining ones wasn't an option. So “somewhat better” was the best I could achieve in the kitchen.

Luckily, I have a Pollyanna side—remember Pollyanna and the Glad Game? My Pollyanna side pointed out I now had the perfect excuse for eating out. So I did. Nothing fancy, but it reduced the number of dishes that piled up.

My Pollyanna side also pointed out that hot soaking baths and long, steamy showers were a luxury, not a necessity, and a luxury I have to ration anyway during the winter, when the hot water tends to dry out the skin. Okay, doing without is a slight hardship, since a hot soaking bath is my cure for everything from insomnia to aching muscles to a bad sinus headache. But it is quite possible to survive a weekend without a  hot bath. And boiling water for washing—well, it builds character, doesn't it? Reminds us of how our hard our forefathers had it. Although actually I think it would have been our foremothers doing the water hauling and boiling. (And what kind of misogyny is built into Spell Check, which is fine with forefather and chokes on foremother?) And our foremothers didn't have an open invitation from nearby friends to come over and use their tub if I really needed to. 

Playing the Glad Game again, I was also reminded how nice it was that so far this winter we haven't had all that many power outages in my neck of the woods. Although the occasional power outage is useful making us appreciate our everyday lives. Or maybe just appreciating how thoroughly dependent our everyday lives are on power. “Well, the computer's down—I could write in long hand. Nah. I'll just watch some TV. No, wait. Okay, I guess I'll read a book. If I can find my little LED headlamp, because it's freaking dark in here.”

The plumber has arrived now, and turned off the water in the house, and disappeared into the basement with all his tools. There's a steady sort of buzzing, humming noise emanating from the basement. I haven't asked how long this will take. I'm assuming a while. That's okay. I have nowhere to go until evening, when I'm doing a library event with Shari Randall and Sherry Harris. I hope to show up still pink from my long hot shower, with my freshly washed hair still wet, secure in the knowledge that my dishwasher is finishing up its dry cycle.

In the meantime, I have some writing to do. You don't need hot water that for. The only hot water involved in writing is the kind I try to get my characters into, and I can supply that just fine without a plumber.

 

Busybody or Brilliant?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Hurray hurray hurray for Keenan Powell! Is there anything that compares in wonderfulness than a pal who has a debut novel? We all know the craziness and angst and second-guessing and crossed fingers and flat-out longing that comes with writing a book. Not to mention selling it.

And Keenan, who has paid her dues and worked hard and is totally committed to her second career(she’s a lawyer) deserves many standing ovations for her mad success. Her DEADLY SOLUTION comes out today!

And it’s got her to thinking about the authors—and protagonists—who came before.

And THAT got her to asking a pret-ty provocative question.

Miss Marple: Busybody or Feminist Icon?

   by Keenan Powell

Just the other day, I’ve heard Miss Jane Marple referred to as a “busybody” by a person of the male gender in a “pat-the-old-dearie-on-the-hand” tone of voice, and it just stuck in my craw.

Full disclosure: I’ve been a big fan of Miss Marple since my first visit to Ireland in 2002. My cousin, Teresa, and I stayed in a bed and breakfast near our great-grandfather’s village, Crossmolina, County Mayo. When we came in from dinner (fish and chips) in Ballina, the landlady was watching Miss Marple. I’d never seen the show. I still remember clearly the landlady patting the couch for us to come sit beside her as she said, “I just love Miss Marple.”

This was my first trip to Ireland. I’d been raised in a fierce Hibernian American family, who still nursed old grudges, and was unsure how those back in the Old Sod felt about anything English, so I was impressed when this Irish woman said that she loved this English character. We took a seat on the couch and watched the show. I’m not sure which episode it was, but I fell in love too. Upon my return, I soaked up all that was Marple, and then all that was Poirot.

This is what I loved, and still love, about Miss Marple: she was the quintessential scary old lady, the kind who knows everything you did and exactly what you’re thinking and can communicate all that with the tilt of her chin. I, for one, would not dare to pat Miss Marple’s hand.

To me, her superpower is not her old age and certainly not her ability to gossip. If that were so, all the old ladies in St. Mary Mead would be private detectives. No, sirree! Miss Marple’s super power, like all other amazing fictional detectives, is that she’s smarter than everyone else. Sherlock Holmes listed the qualities of a great detective in Sign of Four: she must have the power of observation, the power of deduction and knowledge. In Body in the Library, when Sir Henry Clithering identifies her as an expert, she responds, “One does see so much evil in a village.” Vicar Clement, in whose home the unfortunate Murder in the Vicarage occurred, had the same opinion. On several occasions, he stated that Miss Marple was smarter, and more knowledgeable, than everyone else.

And let’s not forget how many she is asked to assist in the investigation, to the chagrin of Inspector Slack. So, lo these seventy-seven years later, to hear a person refer to her as a mere “busybody” makes me think that individual fails to appreciate her significance.

My protagonist, Maeve Malloy, couldn’t help but inherit some of Jane Marple’s fictional DNA. Maeve is loner, running her own little criminal defense law practice. She is a ground-breaker – even at this day and age, approximately twenty per cent of criminal defense trial lawyers are female. Maeve has a male Watson, much as poor Inspector Slack ended up following up on Jane’s leads. And Maeve, like Jane, sees where the puzzles pieces should go.

I wonder if Agatha Christie understood the impact Miss Jane Marple would have. Not only was Dame Christie a self-supporting female writer, her character was a groundbreaking woman, of mature years, who carved herself a niche in what had heretofore been a man’s world, mystery fiction. Move over Sherlock. Move over Dupin. In 1930, there was a new genius in town and she is the literary godmother to all of our female protagonists.

So Femmes? What do you think? My vote is for Miss Jane Marple, Feminist Icon.

Hank: Oh,absolutely! Detective, psychologist, confidante, sponge. And knower of all poisons! Interesting how today detectives have to "grow and change. We rely on Miss Marple to stay the same. But whoa, I would not try to keep a secret from her!  What do you think about Miss Marple, dear Femmes?  And say congratulations to Keenan! 

 

 

Keenan Powell is the author of the Maeve Malloy series (named after her grandmother). The debut, DEADLY SOLUTION, releases from Level Best Books on January 23.

Born in Roswell, New Mexico, several years after certain out-of-towners visited, her first artistic endeavor was drawing, which led to illustrating the original Dungeons and Dragons when still in high school. A past winner of the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic grant, her publications include Criminal Law 101 in the June 2015 issue of The Writer magazine and several short stories. She writes the legal column, Ipso Facto, for the Guppies’ newsletter, First Draft. She lives, and practices law, in Anchorage, Alaska. When not writing or lawyering, she can be found riding her bike, hanging out with her Irish Wolfhound, studying the concert harp, or dinking around with oil paints.

Visit Keenan at: www.keenanpowellauthor.com

https://www.facebook.com/keenanwrites

A tale of two birders

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

My dad was an avid birdwatcher. He didn't keep a life list--no idea why. But he did tend to carry a telescope so he could get a better look at birds he spotted in the distance. And he always joined the Christmas bird census. And he hauled home huge bags of seed for the birds.

One year my brother expressed an interest in accompanying Dad on the Christmas bird census. No idea why--he missed getting the birdwatching gene. Maybe it was less the birdwatching than the location--Dad sometimes went with the group that did their census in the Dismal Swamp, which sounded pretty interesting to me. Of course, when I learned that the Dismal Swamp census could involve wading through parts of the swamp in near-freezing temperatures, my interest diminished considerably. Dad wasn't worried, though--he'd borrowed a wet suit from the lab for the occasion. ("The lab," in my childhood vocabulary, meant the Virginia Fisheries Laboratory, later the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, where Dad worked.) When Dad heard that my brother wanted to come along, he hastened to borrow a second wet suit.

Unfortunately he wasn't able to borrow a second wet suit in the right size--he and my brother were about the same height. The spare wet suit was two sizes too small. For some reason Dad didn't seem to think this would be a problem. So early in the morning of the bird census, he struggled into the too-small wet suit.

Now a wet suit's designed to fit snugly. Shoehorning yourself into one two sizes to small is . . . uncomfortable. In fact, downright painful for a guy. And however difficult it is to get into a too-small wet suit, it's even more difficult to escape from it. Escape could very well involve enlisting the assistance of your entire family, all desperately trying not to laugh at the painful yet ridiculous predicament Dad had gotten himself into.

I can't remember if anyone actually made it to the bird census that year. We tried very hard to let a lot of time go by before ever again mentioning the word "wet suit" in front of Dad.

Mom just enjoyed watching the birds who came to the feeder. (I say was because while she's still with us, she has moved from the house I grew up in to an assisted living, with more limited birdwatching opportunities.) She's always been fond of cardinals, because red's her favorite color. And of chickadees, because they're bold and feisty, chasing off larger birds for their chance at the seed; and because if you throw a little seed out, you're going to get some chickadees. Mom didn't go chasing after obscure birds. She watched whatever showed up.

And one day an unusual bird showed up. She watched it several days in a row. And then it disappeared again. She grew worried about it. So she called a neighbor who was a more expert birdwatcher.

"I've been seeing a bald cardinal at my feeder," Mom said. "Have you seen it?"

The neighbor said she was in the middle of something and could she call Mom back. No problem.

An hour or so later the  neighbor called back, fresh from an intense hour with her birding books and full of indignation.

"There's no such thing as a bald cardinal!" she reported to Mom. "You must be mistaken."  She was probably about to suggest all kinds of birds Mom might have seen instead--I can almost see the bookmarks in those birding books.

"Yes, there is," Mom said. "I've seen him the past several days at my feeder--he doesn't have a single feather on his poor head. Amazing how small their heads are with no feathers. But I haven't seen him today, and it's so cold I'm worried about him. I thought maybe he might have gone over to your yard for the suet."

The expert birder fell curiously silent.

And that's my tale of two birders.

 

 

 

 

A Sorry Situation

By Elaine Viets of the Femmes Fatales.

Recently, I chaired a writing contest. A woman I'll call Lisa, because that's not her name, sent in a short story instead of a novel, and a judge pointed this out to her. Lisa's answer?

I am an idiot. . . .I’m afraid I spread myself too thin . . . It is undeniably my error and I’m very sorry you invested your time . . . simply because I messed up. I feel dumb, dumb, dumb. (Picture me whacking my forehead with the heel of my hand.).

I rather smugly informed her, "Lisa, stop it! Nobody died or was crippled for life. You didn't understand some contest directions." I wondered why she was so hard on herself for a minor mistake.
But then I started listening to me. At a bookstore, I was standing in an aisle, looking at a rack of bookmarks. A man wanted to get around me to see the greeting cards. "Excuse me," he said.
"Sorry," I said. And apologized for my very existence. 
I was supposed to be in that aisle. All I had to do was step aside and let him through.
Then I realized my day was full of apologies.
I also said "I'm sorry" when I interrupted two colleagues because I needed to discuss business with one. They were both were gossiping.
I should have said, "Excuse me." I had nothing to be sorry about, but I apologized anyway.
I also had to nag someone to turn in a document. My email began, "Sorry to bother you . . ." In truth, I wasn't sorry. I HAD to bother that person. It was my job.
I ended the day by apologizing to the cat, when I tripped over him in the dark. The poor cat deserved that apology.

But the others? No way.
So what's causing this sorry situation? There's no proof to back this up, but women seem to apologize more than men do, I'm sorry to say. We're told that our constant apologizing makes us look weak in the workplace, and spineless everywhere else.

Lindsey Stanbury wrote in Refinery 29,"There's even a Gmail plug-in that will prevent you from using sorry when you compose emails. #SorryNotSorry we like to apologize."
So am I sorry for all those extra sorries?
Nope, but I'm now watching out for them.
What's your take on this sorry situation? Do women apologize too much?

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Win a hardcover copy of my 12th Dead-end Job mystery, Broad Stiff, my latest give away. Click Contests at www.elaineviets.com

 

Pack Rat

I’m up late doing something I hate to do—packing. Tonight’s adventure in carry-ons is in preparation for business travel related to my day job but it’s a harbinger of what’s to come.

It’s conference season. The Lefty Award nominations have just been announced, Agatha ballots are out. Left Coast Crime is right around the corner in March, followed by the Edgars, Malice Domestic, ThrillerFest, Bouchercon, and many others. Conferences mean travel and travel means packing. And unpacking. And repacking. I travel solo, which means I must manage my own luggage, so I try to pack in carry-ons. Airline restrictions create challenges. I’ve got the clothing part down. I choose a neutral color, usually black or navy blue, and pack coordinating separates that I can mix and match. I choose items that don’t wrinkle and I use packing cubes to keep them organized. I store travel-sized toiletries in zippered pouches that I can grab from the drawer and toss in my luggage. I have under-three-ounce containers of face creams, hair goop, and toothpaste in a TSA-approved see-through bag. I even keep a mini first aid kit, filled with analgesics and antacids and allergy meds ready to go.

I sound like Tammy Traveler, able to pack for a trip in nothing flat. And I would be, except… I can never decide what author stuff to bring. Laptop, yes or no? Tablet? Less weight and space but less functionality. Which of my many notebooks do I pack? Which pen? Pens? (I have a pen fetish. I’ve accumulated innumerable writing instruments in my quixotic quest for the Perfect Pen.) Which novel do I take? Do I take two? What if I finish one? Will I be able to find another at the airport? What research materials do I take? Do I take a copy of my latest book? Promotional materials? Do I pack something to occupy me when I need a break from author stuff? My embroidery? Some letters overdue for a response? If my clothing bag takes ten minutes to fill, my literary bag takes an hour.

What kind of packer are you? Enthusiastic or reluctant? Carry-on or super-size? Bare necessities or kitchen sink?

The quotidian

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

In an interview last year right after the release of Wilde Lake, Laura Lippman is quoted as saying “I have a fascination with the day to day, the quotidian. I’m interested in how other people live in their most ordinary days.”

What she said.

In me, the fascination with the quotidian is perhaps strongest when I'm traveling—to another country, another state, or perhaps just to an unfamiliar neighborhood. I catch a glimpse of a doorway or a garden and start wondering about the people who live there. Who are they? What is their life like? What would it be like to live there myself?

I think that's the real appeal of Facebook for many of us—that we get glimpses into the daily lives of the people we know—or don't know all that well; some of them even well-known people we follow. Not, please God, a relentless chronicle of every single meal eaten, followed by any resulting digestive issues; of every step taken in the course of the day; of every—well, you get the idea. Glimpses. Vignettes. Highlights, not an inventory.

For me, the word quotidian also invokes the ordinary routine of my day. It's fun to step out of that routine, as I did this weekend, making a trip to New York City for the 2018 MWA board orientation meeting. Also fun to have the routine interrupted by things like the announcement last night that Gone Gull is one of the nominees for this year's Lefty Award for humorous mysteries. If I were a better person, I'd express at greater length my delight in meeting old friends and making new ones in New York, and share my optimism and enthusiasm for the coming MWA year. And I'd pen more than a passing (though sincere) thanks to the readers who nominated me for the Lefty, along with more than a token shout out to Ellen Byron, Marla Cooper, Cynthia Kuhn, and Cindy Sample, my excellent fellow Lefty nominees.

But at the moment I'm basking in the quotidian. Settling back into my usual routines.

I 'll be walking the loaner dogs, as I often do when my brother has a busy day and doesn't need to spend his lunch hour driving home to do this. I can use the exercise, and it really is gratifying to hear the frantic barking when I pull into the driveway . . . to see them running around in circles at my feet, as excited as if they hadn't seen me in weeks . . . to watch the enthusiasm with which they trot along so briskly. And then if my schedule permits, I like to hang with them on the sofa for a little while, reading whatever book I have in progress. Brightens my day sometimes, knowing how eager they are to curl up next to me or on top of me.

I'll be unpacking, putting things away. Doing laundry. Tidying the house for tomorrow's visit from the cleaners. Filling the feeders.  Dropping by the grocery stores—yes, stores; my grocery rounds include regular visits to Giant, Safeway, and Whole Foods, each of which has items I want or need that the others don't have or don't do as well. Going through the inboxes, paper and virtual.

And eventually settling down to get at least a token amount of writing done. Not as much as I will later this week, when I'm back in the groove. But enough to remind my brain that that's what it needs to be focusing on—the book that's due in a few months.

And no, I'm not going to put all those routine tasks and chores on hold while I write my draft. Used to do that early in my writing career. I've learned it doesn't work. At first it felt wonderfully Bohemian to let the housework and the laundry go and the email pile up while I buried myself in the writing. My art! My art! But if you do that, at some point you come up for air to find that the house is a sty, there's no edible food in it, you don't have a single item of clean clothing, and if you've really been feckless and ignored the bills, you've got no power for the computer you want to be writing on.

Now, my motto is that it's easier to keep up than to catch up. I might feel resentful and afflicted when it's taken me longer than usual to reach the day's writing quota, and I just want to watch TV or maybe fall into bed. On days like that, I have no interest in behaving like a grownup, which would mean taking care of the dishes and the laundry and the clutter and the bills and the email. But they're not going away.

So I do my best not to think of them as chores, but as part of the quotidian. The routine that supports my writing and makes it possible. If that sounds impossibly mature and zen, I confess that yes, sometimes I abandon what I ought to be for bed or TV or a long hot bath. But not as often as I would if I thought of them as chores.

In fact, I've come to think of my writing as part of the quotidian. An important part, obviously—but a part that's woven into the normal fabric of my life, not something extra added onto it. After all, it's what I do these days.

So hoping for a week of satisfyingly ordinary days. Dog-walking days. House-tidying days. Writing days.

Here's to the quotidian!

Those #$%&* resolutions

by Kris Neri with the Femmes Fatales

Did you make New Year’s resolutions this year? According to online statistics, 45% of us usually do. Unfortunately, the other stat is that one in three of us will give up on them by the end of January, citing lack of time or no true commitment as the primary reasons.

I often do write resolutions, though they aren’t necessarily changes I expect to implement immediately, but those that would benefit my life if I made them over time. Some of them I will carry out invariably, while others, sadly, I never quite manage.

Change is hard. It’s a cliché, but only because it’s so true that we are creatures of habit. The best way to carry out altering habits is to come at them with a strong commitment, but that doesn’t necessarily conform to a date on a calendar.

Here’s a recent example of mine. At my day job, there is always loads of candy everywhere, since the company chooses to provide it for guests. Sometimes I’m the one who pours large bags of “fun” chocolate bars (How exactly are they fun?) into the bin where we store them, and that enticing chocolate scent wafts up at me. I resisted the appeal of candy when I first went to work there, but in time I joined all of my co-workers in nibbling it all the time. We eat it on good days, and especially on bad ones. And there’s nothing better than candy to fill boredom. When we started getting little packets of Twislers, in addition to chocolate bars, I was doomed —as much as I love chocolate, nothing beats licorice for me. And, like my co-workers — except for the genetically gifted who don’t gain weight — I now have an extra ten pounds thanks to those blankety-blank ever-present bowls of candy.

The day before I was to leave for my vacation, I felt especially excited. Naturally, that led to a few extra Twislers, washed down with those yummy dark chocolate Milky Ways. I guess I washed down so many that I began to feel disgusted by how tied to candy I’d become. Or maybe the candy high had become too great to manage, since I think I’d also pretty much skipped real food that day. It was in that mood that I gave up candy on the spot, and haven’t had a single piece since then. That’s been at least six weeks now. I still see them and smell them and touch the packages all the time, but I haven’t eaten any. I haven’t even had much of a desire. When the rare urge does overcome me, I simply remind myself, “I don’t eat candy,” and the desire passes.

That was a successful life change, performed not on a specific day, but on the spur of the moment, when I simply knew all the way through that it was a necessary step. Being away from easy-to-reach, ever-present candy on my vacation certainly helped to snip that
cord, but they do sell candy bars everywhere. If I really wanted one, I could have found it.

So, that’s how I’m approaching my life changes and goals this year. I know what I need to do — I don’t have to write them down. And when the time is right, when I can summon the necessary commitment to carry them out, I’ll begin. That’s the key: the commitment has to be strong, or the effort is doomed to fail. Change is just too difficult without it.

One-habit-at-a-time, too. Maybe others can carry out multiple changes at once, but I’ve learned from experience that overloading the effort is not for me. I need to focus on what’s most important at that exact time.

Happy New Year to you and yours! May all your wishes come true this year.

How about you? Have you made resolutions? How are they coming?