Our First Dog by Nancy L. Eady

Writing fiction is about synthesizing real events in our lives, running them through our imagination, and coming out with something new but hopefully entertaining for our readers. My past is sprinkled with plenty of such fodder, both humorous and sad. As you may have guessed from my prior posts,  I prefer humor.

This past Friday, June 27, my husband and I celebrated our thirty-eighth anniversary. When we married on Saturday, June 27, 1987, we suffered from one fundamental difference in our belief system – dog ownership. Mark’s family never had indoor dogs; my family did. I figured my chances of getting a dog were slim to none. 

But fate intervened when my husband’s best friend, Gary, who had married a year or two before we did, brought home a cocker spaniel puppy and then, over the telephone, regaled Mark with tons of stories about how easy it was to deal with the puppy, how well it was doing, and how much fun it was. For some strange reason, even when they are separated by hundreds of miles, Mark and Gary’s lives are strangely parallel – they’ll call each other to find out that they had each read the same book or saw the same film independently. They still can finish each other’s sentences, and it is truly scary how their minds still work the same way after forty-six years of friendship. In this case, though, it worked to my advantage. With Gary and his wife in possession of an indoor dog, Mark’s resistance started to wear down. 

For New Year’s Eve, 1987, we went to a swanky party at a hotel in Charlotte, with a live band playing big band music and a sit down dinner. I can still remember, with a smile, how grown-up we felt. A perfectly lovely older couple sat beside us at our table, and somehow the subject of dogs came up. It just so happened that they had available one last cocker spaniel puppy for the bargain basement price of $100, and we were welcome to have her if we wanted. 

And then one of those moments occurred that wouldn’t happen now with 38 years of marriage under our belt. My husband turned to me and said, “It’s now or never. Do you want it?” His thinking: I would realize that New Year’s Day wasn’t the best day to acquire a puppy, especially with a two-hour drive ahead of us and the lack of permission from our apartment complex to own said dog, and say regretfully, “No.” My thinking? “If this is my only chance to get a dog, I’ll take it.” So, I said, "Yes."

January 1, 1988, found us roaming the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina in a maroon1985 Buick Oldsmobile with a three-month old black puppy in my lap, looking for a store that was open with pet supplies. (Shadow turned out to be a mutt; she was maybe a cocker spaniel/labrador retriever mix, but no papers were forthcoming. We call it the best $100 ever stolen from us.) 

Life with a puppy required adjustments. We put her in the bathroom when we weren’t at home to keep her safe. That lasted two days, which was the time it took for her to completely destroy all our bathroom furnishings, including the shower curtain. She tore it in half horizontally on day one, then somehow managed to pull down what remained on day two. The curtain remnant was at least five feet off the ground, and she was maybe six inches tall. Things got easier when the vet introduced us to crate training, which worked so well we have used it with all of our other dogs. 

Since Shadow, there has been a steady succession of dogs through our household, including multiple dogs at one time. Shadow got a sister puppy when she was 7. At six weeks old, J. P. Wooflesnort, “Woof,” was the youngest dog we ever raised. Shadow was brilliant; Woof wasn’t the brightest bulb in the hall, but she had a lovely personality. 

Currently, we have three dogs, or maybe two and a half. Daisy and Penny are ours, but Max is, nominally, our daughter’s dog. When she moves out, he is supposed to go with her. I give it even odds as to whether he actually goes; she is not paying for his food or vet care.  His desirability may diminish once she starts having to pay that herself, in which case he will be ours.

One other thing is certain – since December 31, 1987, my husband has never once turned to me and said, “It’s now or never” about anything. 

Tell me Where you Write

By M.E. Proctor

Getting a peek at writers’ working spaces fascinates me. Faulkner’s office at Rowan Oak (Oxford, Mississippi) is simple and spare. I think his horses had more room. I love the picture of Stephen King’s messy nook on the cover of On Writing. Roald Dahl had a cozy shed. Jean-Paul Sartre (and other luminaries) scribbled at the Café de Flore, in Paris. Liters of coffee in the morning, harder stuff later on? What did that check run up to? Did they have a deal with the owner?

When people post a picture of their workspace on social media, I’ll look at it with a magnifying glass wondering what it says about them. Messy or tidy, whose books are displayed prominently, do they have posters of their covers, a resident pet (cat, dog, goldfish), a comfortable chair, a favorite mug? A Hall of Fame, a Board of Rejections? Everything tends to be curated in this world of appearances and influencers. Which begs the next questions: How much do these authors want me to see, and does it tell me anything about what they write? I know a science-fiction writer who has a model of the Millennium Falcon hanging over his computer. I’m green with envy!

I am a detective at heart, and these are clues.

 My husband, who’s also a writer (James Lee Proctor), has a small cabin tucked next to the house where he retires to work, listen to music, do research on our next trip, pay bills … The whole point is personal space, so when I have to ask him something, I go knock on the door. Or even better, I call him. It’s a wonderful place with old Texas maps on the walls and sports memorabilia sprinkled around. When I want to make a good impression, I borrow it for Zoom calls.

A few years ago, thinking I should have a similar setup, we arranged a space for me in what was supposed to be a garage and ended up being a woodworking shop. There’s a cool baroque desk that we found in a flea market, a swivel chair straight out of Sam Spade’s office, a lamp like in the Pixar logo, shelves, posters on the wall, everything a writer might need.

I’ve never used it.

Instead, I’ve set camp at one end of our long dining room table. When we have more than four guests, I have to clear out. Sometimes I’m ensconced in a big armchair with my laptop, or plonked down in a rattan chair on the back porch. I’m clearly not a ‘nester’. I also have a hard time working in quiet places. It goes back ages. I did my school homework in the kitchen with the entire family going about their business, studied for high school exams in the sitting room with the TV or the radio on, and have clear memories of hauling my books and notes to a blanket on the lawn, despite persistent hay fever.

 Noise doesn’t bother me. When I’m ‘in the zone’, I don’t hear anything. Right now, I’m deep in the follow up to Bop City Swing, a retro-noir written in collaboration with crime author Russell Thayer, and unless there’s a thunderstorm making the windowpanes rattle (there’s one looming on the horizon as I write this), I won’t stir. I’m in Kansas City in 1952 dealing with mobsters, dames, a cattle show, and an unnerving contract killer. Nothing around me is remotely related to any of that. Where I write won’t reveal anything about what I write.

But it might say a whole lot about who I am …

 So, what’s your writing space like? You know I want to know.

About Bop City Swing

According to one reviewer:

“…a tale that twists and turns like a brakeless ride down Mulholland Drive in a 1940s Caddy.”

San Francisco. 1951.

Jazz is alive. On radios and turntables. In the electrifying Fillmore clubs, where hepcats bring their bebop brilliance to attentive audiences. In the posh downtown venues where big bands swing in the marble ballrooms of luxury hotels.

That’s where the story begins, with the assassination of a campaigning politician during a fundraiser.

Homicide detective, Tom Keegan, is first on the scene. He’s eager, impatient, hot on the heels of the gunman. Gunselle, killer for hire, is no longer there. She flew the coop, swept away in the rush of panicked guests.

 They both want to crack the case. Tom, because he’s never seen a puzzle he didn’t want to solve, no matter what the rules say. Gunselle, because she was hired to take out the candidate and somebody beat her to it. It was a big paycheck. It hurts. In her professional pride and wallet.

 The war has been over for six years, but the suffering and death, at home and abroad, linger behind the eyes of some men. And one young woman.

(Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPJBGPT8)

M.E. Proctor was born in Brussels and lives in Texas. The first book in her Declan Shaw PI series, Love You Till Tuesday (2024), came out from Shotgun Honey, with the follow up, Catch Me on a Blue Day, scheduled for 2025. She’s the author of a short story collection, Family and Other Ailments, and the co-author of a retro-noir novella, Bop City Swing. Her fiction has appeared in Vautrin, Tough, Rock and a Hard Place, Bristol Noir, Mystery Tribune, Shotgun Honey, Reckon Review, and Black Cat Weekly among others. She’s a Shamus and Derringer short story nominee. Website: www.shawmystery.com – On Substack: meproctor.substack.com.

Murder is Always Popular

by Kait Carson

Do you have a collection of writer’s guides? I do. Shelves of them. Some are pristine. Purchased because they caught my fancy or because writers I admire recommended them. Others are well-thumbed, annotated, and decorated with stickies and post it flags. Most are cherry picked. I’ll occasionally run a finger across the row of spines, hoping to absorb the information without putting in the work. Hey, I’m honest. In fact, I recently read an interview by an author I like who published a book on plotting. The concept sounded interesting, and as a pantser, it seemed like a method I could adapt. Fortunately, Amazon told me I already owned the book. It’s been on my shelf since 2014. Might be time to open it.

My favorites are the Howdunit Series published by Writer’s Digest. Most of those books have my fingerprints all over them if anyone is looking to collect my DNA. Especially the books on poisons. Now, I’ve never poisoned anyone in real life or fiction—yet, but the concept is very appealing. They say poison is a woman’s weapon. The series is clearly written, well researched, and has a fabulous table of contents, index, and bibliography. Perfect to help a busy writer stay out of research rabbit holes. This is also important because, if you’re like me, you buy your reference books in trade or hard back. That means that they’re never updated. You either have to buy the newest edition or use all those wonderful research aids to frame questions of experts about updates.

My other favorite writing books are not so much instructive as they are humanizing. They’re books on writing written by writers I admire. Stephen King’s On Writing taught me nothing about the craft, but every time I read it, it’s like a shot of adrenaline. Same with Elizabeth George’s Write Away, and Anne Lamont’s Bird by Bird. Wonderful books, but with each book I learned more about my favorite authors than writing.

Lately, I’ve been reading different kinds of writing books. I’m considering expanding my writing horizons, or perhaps folding back my horizons is a better way to put it. I’m amassing a collection of books focused on writing romances. That’s where my writing life began, and while I love mysteries, I’d like to soften the edges a bit. The tropes and pacing of romance stories differ from traditional mysteries, but the similarities are striking. Body in the first three chapters? Er, not a good idea. Meet-cute in the first two chapters instead. Rather than climax with a resolution of the crime, a happy for now or ever after ending is required. Both satisfy the reader, but in different ways.

Books pertaining to different genres often contain sections about suggested plots. Imagine my surprise when I read in a romance novel guide that, ‘murder is always popular.’ I laughed out loud. Isn’t this where I came in?

Readers and writers, do you enjoy delving into a writer’s mind? Are your shelves bulging with how to books?

Kait Carson writes the Hayden Kent Mysteries set in the Fabulous Florida Keys and is at work on a new mystery set in her adopted state of Maine. Her short story, Gutted, Filleted, and Fried, appeared in the Falchion Finalist nominated Seventh Guppy Anthology Hook, Line, and Sinker. She is a former President of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime, a member of Sisters in Crime, and Guppies. Visit her website at www.kaitcarson.com. While you’re there, sign up for her newsletter. 

Different Words by Nancy L. Eady

On Monday, I wrote my blog post on “Point of View.” Originally, because I was using photographs to illustrate the idea, I wanted to call the post “Frame of Reference.” I considered the two phrases to be synonymous. But since I never like to take such things for granted, I googled the phrases and found out that the concepts are related, but different. 

According to Google, “frame of reference” in writing is the context and background that shapes a character’s understanding and interpretation of events. Something I think about every Fourth of July is fireworks. Here in the United States, the “boom” of fireworks, especially when cannons are included as part of an orchestral rendition of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, heralds a spectacular display we enjoy watching. Someone from a country or region where internecine warfare occurs on a regular basis probably reacts quite differently to the same sounds. 

The difference between the two is their “frame of reference.” “Point of view” is the perspective from which a story is told. If an American heard the sounds of a fireworks show in the distance, their memories and story about the sounds they are hearing will be very different than those of a person newly arrived from Ukraine who has been suffering constant battles since 2022. 

The close relation between the two terms stirred my inner word geekiness, and I thought of two series of single words where each word is similar, but different. The first set of words deals with groups of trees. I think of “woods” as a pleasant stand of trees with paths ambling through it, for example, Robert Frost’s “yellow wood.” A “forest” is still a group of trees, but it is a more extensive and wilder grouping. I had to return to Google to see if there is a difference between “jungle” and “rainforest.” At least according to the web page of the Mashdi Lodge in Ecuador, a jungle, while still a group of trees, has thicker undergrowth and more chaotic plant life than a rainforest. A rainforest has a “complex, layered flora structure and diverse fauna.” I think it might be enchanting to see a rainforest, at least a suitably tamed section of one, but a jungle would be more challenging. 

The second set of words deals with flattish patches of land, which include meadows, plains, prairies, veldts and savannas. I have a clear picture in my mind of an upland meadow, a rich green patch of land ringed with mountains and dotted with wildflowers. Since this meadow lives only in my imagination, it is bug free, with the exception of the butterflies that roam around. 

I think of plains and prairie interchangeably in connection with the Midwest and West before taming, when herds of buffaloes a million strong roamed freely on them. If I were to be precise, however, a prairie is a specific type of plain.  Or then again, maybe not. According to a presentation in 2012 by a professor at Hunter College, a plain is a “topographic term signifying expansive and relatively flat land.” “Prairie,” however, is defined as “a vegetation that refers to a variety of grasses.” Because most of America’s Great Plains were covered with prairie, the vegetation, they started to be called prairie, the place. 

Google’s dictionary, which is powered by Oxford Languages, defines a “veldt” as “open, uncultivated country or grassland in southern Africa.” Flippantly, I’d say that it sounds like South Africa’s version of America’s prairies, but perhaps I am mistaken. “Savanna,” also spelled “savannah,” is a marriage of plains and woods per Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s official entry states that “a savanna … is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses.”

If you’re looking for a point to this post or a grand ending tying everything together, there isn’t one. But I am curious to know if there are word groupings that interest you, or am I the only word geek here? 

Resurrecting Old Memories by Connie Berry

 

Last week I had a long telephone conversation with my best friend from college. We haven’t seen each other in more than twenty years, but she and I were very close during our college years and spent almost a year in Europe together, attending classes and traveling between terms in her little baby blue Karmann Ghia. She taught me to drive a stick shift. I introduced her to my relatives in Norway. Long before there was such a thing as the internet, smart phones, or streaming music, we bought a small record player and several albums. We wore those albums out--literally.

It’s fun looking back. It’s also interesting to me as a writer because as we were sharing our memories (many decades later), we realized that the moments we recollected weren’t always the same.

For example, she reminded me of driving in the hills above Monaco. A crazy driver overtook us on a blind curve. If a car had been coming from the opposite direction, we would all have been killed. My response (as she remembered it) was to say, “I refuse to die in Monaco!” 

I don’t remember that at all.

Then I reminded her that we met an elderly woman in our Monte Carlo pensione who claimed to be of Russian nobility. We thought she was making it up until she escorted us into the private, inner rooms at the famous casino. The attendants bowed to her, and she pointed out other Russian ex-pats ("That’s Count So-and-So").

My friend has no memory of that elderly woman. What???

Time flies, and memories differ. Writers can use that fact to create ambiguity and to obscure clues in a murder investigation. Police will tell you that even immediately after a crime, eyewitness accounts will differ,  After many years have passed, people may have completely different memorites of something they both witnessed. Is one of them lying or is it simply a matter of human psychology? 

What is it that cements a memory in one person’s mind but not another’s?

Right now I’m playing with this concept in my WIP.

How about you? How could you use the fallibility of human memory in your stories?

An Interview with Author Molly MacRae by E. B. Davis

 

When she’s not selling seashells by the North Carolina seashore from her shell shop, Maureen Nash is a crime-solving sleuth with a ghost pirate for a supernatural sidekick . . .

Maureen is still getting used to life on Ocracoke Island, learning how to play the “shell game” of her business—and ghost whispering with the spirit of Emrys Lloyd, the eighteenth-century Welsh pirate who haunts her shop, The Moon Shell. The spectral buccaneer has unburied a treasure hidden in the shop’s attic that turns out to be antique shell art stolen from Maureen’s late husband’s family years ago.

Victor “Shelly” Sullivan and his wife Lenrose visit the shop and specifically inquire about these rare items. Not only is it suspicious that this shell collector should arrive around the time Maureen found the art, but Emrys insists that Sullivan’s wife is an imposter because Lenrose is dead. A woman’s corpse the police have been unable to identify was discovered by the Fig Ladies, a group who formed an online fig appreciation society. They’re meeting on Ocracoke for the first time in person and count Lenrose among their number, so the woman can’t possibly be dead.

But Lenrose’s behavior doesn’t quite match the person the Fig Ladies interacted with online. Now, Maureen and Emrys—with assistance from the Fig Ladies—must prove the real Lenrose is dead and unmask her mysterious pretender before a desperate murderer strikes again . . .

Amazon.com

 

There’ll Be Shell To Pay is the second book in Molly MacRae’s Haunted Shell Shop mystery series. My interview with Molly on her first in this series, Come Shell Or High Water can be read here. Molly continues the adventures of main character, Maureen Nash, who became part of an amateur crime-solving team in the first book. They continue the investigation of another murder, but unbeknownst to the two other members of the team, there is another member who only Maureen (and it seems her children) can perceive—the ghost of an accidental pirate who haunts the shell shop.

 

The story takes place on Ocracoke Island, specifically in Ocracoke Village at its most southern tip. Because I live in nearby Hatteras Island, I not only can relate, but I also can verify many of the nuances Molly so effectively and accurately portrays.

 

Please welcome Molly, today’s WWK subject, as I interview her about the second book. We invite you to ask her questions in our comments section.

When Maureen gets off the ferry going from Hatteras to Ocracoke Island, (yes, there really is a ferry named Croatan) she experiences what her late husband described as the “Brigadoon” hypothesis. I can attest to this experience. In the Outer Banks, the National Park Service owns most of the beaches, and they are unreachable unless 4 Wheel driving. To get on the beach, most often, you must drive on a ramp (provided by NPS) up and over the dunes. When you crest the dune, you glimpse the ocean spread out before you—at its sight comes the “Brigadoon” moment. Molly, what is the “Brigadoon” hypothesis and what moments have you had?

 

The hypothesis (a made-up thing) is based on the classic musical, Brigadoon. In that story, an idyllic Scottish village appears out of the mists for only one day every 100 years. Maureen Nash’s late husband liked to think there are wonderful places like that in the real world, that they only appear as you approach them. Ocracoke Island has been like that for the Nash family who were only able to visit once a year at most. Ocracoke is like that for my family, too. So is Washington Island in Lake Michigan.

 

I never heard of a superstition about traveling on Mondays. What’s with that?

 

Dr. Irving Allred probably twisted a few superstitions together or read something in a book or online and forgot to note exactly where. He tells people that if you start a journey or vacation on a Monday you’ll drag all your bad luck along with you. There are Irish superstitions that caution against going into new situations on Mondays. Allred might have extrapolated from that.

 

Are there valuable shells?

 

Oh sure, though not in the same league as gems and jewels. The value depends on a number of things – size, scarcity, condition, etc. Glory of the Sea cone shells (Conus gloriamaris), were once thought to be the rarest shells in the world. In past centuries they sold for thousands of dollars. They have beautiful markings, like hieroglyphs, and grow to be just over 6 inches long. Only since diving technology improved, with scuba gear, has their habitat been discovered. They only live in deep water off the Philippines. They aren’t as rare as once thought, but they’re still valuable. They might sell for as much as $600, though they can also be found for less.

 

Why is it that I only like the other two members of her sleuth group, elderly brother and sister, Glady and Burt Weaver, sometimes? They don’t really seem like friends of Maureen because half the time they include her on the suspect list. Don’t friends believe in one another?

 

Glady and Burt are eccentric. And, to be fair, Maureen had suspicions about them in Come Shell or High Water. The three of them have only known each other for a few weeks. Considering all they’ve been through, in that short amount of time, they’re getting along pretty well.

 

The building housing The Moon Shell is actually owned by Glady and Burt. Maureen half suspects that they might sell the building out from under her. Why won’t they give her a long-term lease? I feel badly for Maureen inheriting a business without the building.

 

Maureen probably only one-quarter suspects they’ll sell the building out from under her. The shop has been there since at least the early seventies, though, and apparently there’s never been a lease. Plus, Maureen is trying out this new life. She might decide it isn’t for her and move back to Tennessee.

 

While Maureen was back in Tennessee packing up her possessions to move, Glady mounted a stuffed seagull from the ceiling in the shop where it peers at everyone. Why did she do that? What’s the gull’s name and why?

Glady thinks the seagull is perfect décor for an island shell shop. It’s also appropriate because it belonged to her mother, and the shell shop is in the house where Glady and Burt grew up. Their mother named the seagull Mrs. Bundy, after the ornithologist in the movie The Birds.

 

I know all of the shells you name except for an oyster drill. What’s that? Do you have a picture? It sounds like a bird, not a shell.

 

Oyster Drills, also known as American Whelk-tingles, are predatory sea snails found from Nova Scotia, in Canada, to Nassau Sound in Florida. They drill through the shells of oysters and eat them. Large numbers of them can wreck oyster and clam beds. Here’s a nice photo of an Atlantic Oyster Drill at WORMS, the World Register of Marine Species.

 

I was surprised that the shop carried shells that weren’t native to Ocracoke. Why have a Philippine Nautilus shell?

 

Dottie Withrow, the woman who started the shell shop, traveled the world with her diplomat husband. She collected shells wherever she went and stocked her shop with them. Her son, Allen, from whom Maureen inherited the shop, carried on the tradition of selling shells from around the world. He didn’t necessarily come by his stock honestly.

 

What is susurrus? I guess you really can’t hear the ocean if you listen for it inside a shell. But then, who would believe a word like susurrus?

 

A susurrus is a whispering or rustling sound. It’s an onomatopoeia—it sounds like what it is. It can be the whispering of leaves, or the sound of the sea’s gentle waves, or of ghosts gossiping in your attic.

 

Maureen’s cat, who came with the shop, is named Bonny after pirate Anne Bonny. Who was she?

 

Anne Bonny, an Irishwoman born in 1697, was one of the few known female pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy. She sailed with Jack Rackham, also known as Calico Jack.

 

I thought bear paws were a pastry made with almond paste. What are bear paws candies?

 

Bear paws are like turtle candies—a mounded patty of caramel and nuts covered in chocolate. Bear paws are bigger, though, and have some of the nuts stuck along one edge to look like a bear’s claws. Cashews are especially effective.

 

Glady and Burt tell Maureen about a woman’s body being found near the inlet. They also tell her of a couple who came into the shop looking for the former owner, who was murdered. Glady broke the news to them. They introduced themselves as Shelly and Lenrose Sullivan. When Maureen meets them a few days later, they seem very interested in shell art, which was the property of Maureen’s husband’s family. Why does this make Maureen suspicious of them?

 

Very few people know about the shell art. Allen Withrow, the previous owner of the shell shop, stole the art along with a valuable shell collection. Now here comes Shelly Sullivan telling Maureen he and Allen did business together and asking somewhat vague questions that might be about the art and the collection. Maureen is being careful as much as she’s being suspicious.

 

The history you present on William Howard, Blackbeard’s quartermaster is true. He was able to live when the other pirates were hanged, and came back to live on Ocracoke. (Some say his spirit is alive and pillaging tourists due to the prices charged at Howard’s Pub.) Have you gone through the graveyards on Howard St., which date all the way back to William?

 

I have. They’re wonderful. The oldest grave on Howard Street is that of William’s grandson, William III, who died in 1823.

 

Maybe because Maureen is the mother of two twenty-something young men, she gets along well with Deputy Matt Kincaid, and he seems to trust her. Tell our readers about him.

 

He’s a happy, eager guy. The kind of young man who jumps right in to help in any situation. After Hurricane Electra he got up on his grandparents’ roof to repair it, fell off, and broke his femur. He’s somewhat clumsy with his crutches—the way a bouncy young golden retriever might be.

 

What is sea shell folklore? What is shell art?

 

Shells have held significance in cultures at least since the stone age. Shell folktales are found all over the world. Here’s The Carabao and the Shell, a Philippine folktale.

 

Shellwork was a popular craft as far back as the 17^th century when European traders started bringing exotic shells home from faraway places. Crafters stuck shells on sewing boxes, jewelry boxes, picture frames, miniature sets of drawers, etc. They created miniature grottos out of shells and put creatures in them made of shells. Shells lend themselves to floral designs and artists created floral pictures out of them or floral bouquets they displayed in glass jars. As early as 1703 advertisements offering classes in shellwork appeared in newspapers. As you can imagine, antique shellwork can be quite valuable. Here are some pictures of 19^th century shellwork.

 

Did Edgar Allan Poe really write text books? One on shell species?

 

He only wrote one, as far as I know. He wrote The Conchologist’s First Book: A System of Testaceous Malacology, Arranged Expressly for the Use of Schools, in Which the Animals, According to Cuvier, Are Given with the Shells, A Great Number of New Species Added, and the Whole Brought Up, as Accurately as Possible, to the Present Condition of the Science. His work is a revised and updated edition of an earlier work. It’s the only book of his to go into a second printing in his lifetime. Some people accused him of plagiarizing the first book. He didn’t. He had a contract to revise and update the original. He did it because he needed the money. You can see the book here and download a digitized copy. It has nice illustrations.

 

Maureen finds out where the body was located, but when she does, she finds Emrys stuck in a loop at the site. How does Maureen get Emrys out of the loop so he can come back home to the shop?

 

She carefully wraps the moon shell—the large shell Emrys carved for his wife—and takes it to him, hoping he’ll see it and snap out of the loop. A loop is a pattern of repetition that some ghosts get stuck in.

 

I never heard that the inlet waters were tannin-stained. Where did that come from and why would they be?

 

The tannins come from rotting organic matter in the water—leaves, reeds, etc. The waters aren’t darkly stained. They look like weak tea rather than coffee.

 

Shelly Sullivan doesn’t value women. He wants to buy high-end shells from the shop’s owner, who he assumes is a man and Maureen just the shop girl. How did Maureen keep her cool?

 

She draws on her library training. Librarians rarely smack people.

 

I loved when Emrys quotes Shakespeare, Arthur Ashe, and Walt Whitman. They’re so good! Where do you find applicable quotes?

 

Emrys has me keep an eye out for quotes he might like.

 

Is the caveman mask experiment real?

 

Yes! Isn’t that cool? Here’s an article about in Science Advisor.

 

There so much backstory to tie up. There’s Maureen’s quest to find shell suppliers and delve into the boxes hidden by the former owner, Emry’s future, and whatever Maureen will do with the Sound front lot she inherited. What’s next for Maureen and Emrys?

 

I’ve just finished writing book 3, All Shell Breaks Loose. Tourist Martha Lee Wyatt-Beckington and her dog find an antique sword in the marsh. She picks it up and puts it in her car trunk. Later that morning she stops in the Moon Shell where Glady and Burt are telling Maureen what Irving Allred is crowing about—he’s buying a haunted pirate sword. Martha Lee mentions the sword she found and brings it in to show them. They, and Emrys, the ghost who haunts the shop, look at the sword and see what appears to be a bloodstain. Emrys also sees a ghost. Is this the sword Allred is buying? Is this new ghost a real bloody pirate? When Maureen and Martha Lee find a dead man not far from where she and her dog found the sword, all shell breaks loose.

 

 

Backstory Architecture by Martha Reed

A reviewer once told me that I don’t write stories – he said that I construct story architecture. Since I learned to write organically, I had never given much thought on how I actually built my stories. They just seemed to magically happen. But since he made that remark I’ve been studying the craft tools I do use when I draft, and his insight seems valid.

Now whenever I start a new novel or short story I notice that I immediately use these writerly tools:

1.     With my first draft I construct an initial framework or outline of dates, times, and events. Not that I keep all of these details in my finished story, but I start out labeling each chapter or section heading with this information. This knowledge gives me a base for who is in the chapter or the scene, and more importantly why they need to be there. If they don’t need to be in the scene, I heartlessly delete them. Dates, times, and events also keep the plot points tight, logical, and on track which creates a solid and satisfying story flow.

2.     Characters have real lives, other interests, and jobs. In addition to fleshing out my characters and making them more interesting people, I spend time developing their backstories. Characters are human - they have scheduling conflicts. Some are chronically tardy. Different beliefs and motivations can offer additional conflicts. A character may miss out on hearing a key clue under discussion because they’re not immediately on hand to hear it. This is a very useful writerly tool because when the reader knows an important something that a character has missed hearing, it heightens the tension.

3.     Rules to live by. It’s a given that each character believes themselves to be the hero/heroine of their own story and their journey. A great crafty tool to help me stay true to this axiom is to create each character’s individual Rules of Survival. These personal rules will guide their decision-making, direct their actions, and help me construct the plot.

For instance, in my Crescent City NOLA Mysteries, my ex-detective and new P.I. Jane Byrne lives by these seven rules:

JANE BYRNE’S SEVEN RULES OF SURVIVAL

1. Protect yourself, protect your family, protect your friends.
2. Follow up and follow through.
3. Adapt or perish.
4. Ask for help.
5. Ignore them when they say there’s something you can’t do.
6. Ignore the drama – don’t engage.
7. Keep it real.

So as I’m drafting when I come to a plot point fork in the road for Jane, I pause and review her Seven Rules of Survival. In each instance one of her rules will stand out more than the others because of the current circumstances. Following this rule then directs my writerly imagination in the direction of the story’s logical next step.

Here’s an example from my current WIP:

“Nothing.” Quickly rising from the decrepit wicker chair, Jane barely avoided trampling the startled poodle dozing at her feet. “All we earned from that time suck were tours of six more crumbling cemeteries. Alright. Enough already with the ‘Where.’” Jane sourly recalled ‘Keep It Real,’ her seventh survival rule as she started pacing. “What we need to do is to keep the investigation grounded in fact. We need to ID all of the ‘Who’ persons of interest like that unknown major people keep mentioning, and ‘What’ else was happening in NOLA in 1977.”

What tricks do you use to keep your story on track?

Point of View by Nancy L. Eady

In writing, “point of view” (POV) describes both the manner in which a story is told and the choice of voice for telling the story. For example, first person POV involves the protagonist telling the story either in past or present tense. If a writer wants to tell the story in first person POV from different perspectives, they can choose to have more than one narrator. The effect of POV on the story is profound; it affects what information is available to the character and thus the reader and it affects the frame of reference in which the story is taught. For example, no one thinks of themself as a villain; we all believe we are the heroes of our own story. So, the tale of Snow White from the perspective of the wicked queen is very different from the tale the woodcutter or the prince or Snow White herself would tell. 

Oddly enough, I have found a way to illustrate the effect of POV through pictures.

This picture is both striking and unusual. I didn’t notice this pattern when I bought the object that contains it. 

Backing out, you can now see that the first picture is part of a flower. 

Now you can see that the purple flower is one of several in a flower arrangement on a wooden table. 

And because I don’t want to be accused of false advertising vis-à-vis the true state of my house and my housekeeping, you can now see that the flower arrangement looks rather ordinary sitting on a cluttered kitchen table. 

You can see the same process in reverse with my calla lily bush.

Here, you see my calla lily bush in its place along the side of the house, droopy front blooms and all, coupled with the irises, who are drying out due to the time of year.

This close up of the top three blooms makes the bush look better.

This picture of just one of the younger calla lily blooms gives the impression of an even fuller, lusher bush than is really there.

And in this close up of two of the older blooms in the late afternoon, the afternoon sun makes them luminous and magical. 

As you can see, the POV in each of these pictures tells a very different story. In what ways have you used POV in your storytelling to delight and surprise the reader? 

In the Weeds by Annette Dashofy

Put a group of writers in the same room and inevitably, the question will arise, “Are you a plotter or a pantser?” 

For the uninformed, a plotter is someone who outlines their book, either in part or in its entirety, prior to writing it. A pantser writes by the seat of their pants, organically letting the story evolve. 

I started out as a plotter and gradually have shifted between the two practices. Back and forth. These days, when I need to prepare a proposal for my agent to shop to publishers, I basically create an outline in the form of the synopsis to go with the proposal’s sample pages. But if I’m not preparing a proposal, I lean more toward plotting a few chapters, then writing to see where it goes. 

For my work in progress (WIP), I’m ricocheting all over the place. I started with outlining the opening three chapters. But then I didn’t know what happened next, so I just started writing. After those three chapters, I kept going. Chapter Four. Chapter Five. And then—oh, no—I started running off track and into the weeds. Why did that character do that? What were they thinking? The action makes no sense. 

Time to go back to outlining and reel those crazy characters back in line, at least until I figure out the answers to those questions. She can’t just run away without motivation. Sure, it makes for high action and suspense, but it also has to make sense! Maybe not to the reader (at least not right now), but it has to advance the plot. 

For this current WIP, that’s been my routine, repeating on a loop. Outline for a few chapters, continue beyond the outline for a few more chapters, run off into the weeds. Rewind. Rinse. Repeat. 

I’m not recommending this technique to up-and-coming writers. Not at all. In fact, I’ve learned to not recommend any one technique. I can offer options and then hope the writer can try out one or more of those options and find what works for them. 

And please realize, you aren’t locked into ONE METHOD. You can outline one book, pants the next, and experiment with a hybrid technique for the third. Because that is exactly what I do. Ask me if I’m a plotter or a pantser and I’m going to reply, “Yes!” 

Even this wacky, mixed-up mess of a process I’m using for the WIP has its perks. Yes, it’s making me slightly crazy (so what else is new?) but it’s also offering some interesting possibilities. What if I just let my character run away, even though I don’t know her motivation and don’t know how to make it work with the rest of the story? What if I simply follow her into the weeds and see what happens? 

Because the Universe might just show me a better story than what I originally had in mind. 

Fellow writers, are you a plotter or a pantser? And have you ever run off into the weeds with no clue where you (or your characters) were going?

Putting a Mirror Finish on Your Final Polish by Martha Reed

I’ve blogged before about starting a new novel and the terror of facing (and filling) the blank page. Today I want to share the carrot at the end of the stick – the excitement of connecting the dots, tying up any loose ends, and polishing a manuscript to a glossy finish.

When I commit to writing another book and begin the drafting process, I give myself permission to take all the crazy new ideas and suggestions, throw them into the hopper, and see what sticks. At this point it’s crucial that I don’t prejudge or try to edit them yet because some of these ideas seem to be subconscious ‘placeholders’ – a necessary plot point that my subconscious doesn’t know enough about or even want to deal with at this point in the process, but something that I will return to in a future editing cycle when I have more information about the overall story. There is some fun here.

For instance, in my current work, I knew there were four people in a car. In my first draft, ‘four people in a car’ was as detailed as I got as I maniacally scribbled on. Today, as I tied up loose ends, I returned to that gappy placeholder. The fun kicked in as I paused to consider the possible options now that I knew the whole story. At this point I now know who the four people were, where they were sitting in the car, and why. I certainly didn’t know this level of plot detail when I drafted the initial placeholding scene, but evidently my creative subconscious kept bubbling away on it until those missing details popped up today when I finally needed to fill them in.

It's a great feeling when I connect the dots. It’s a kind of magic.

I also think this concern for detail might hamstring newbie authors if they feel they need to answer all the outstanding questions immediately. It takes some practice to learn to trust the process, accept the skipped bit, and simply write on. If I do start obsessively worrying about these manuscript gaps I remind myself that the same brain that painted me into this corner is the same brain that will get me out of it.

The second magical phase starts with editing. I usually go through two editing cycles. I wish I had a cut-and-dried answer on how to do this but how I go about it is different with each book. One of my favorite author friends said that writing is the toughest job you’ll ever love because the better you get at doing it the more you realize how little you really know. What I do know is that if I commit to putting in the necessary time the words (and eventually the better word choices and images) will flow.

The best electric editing excitement happens when two previously disconnected plot points click. This is when I find myself hunched over my keyboard quietly muttering: ‘Ooh, that’s good.”

I learned one final editing trick from reading Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (1939). Now with my final polish, I go back to my first chapter or my first 10 pages and insert hints and threats pertaining to each character’s individual deep dark secret(s). Planting any clues this early precludes any spoilers because the story is still so new the reader doesn’t have enough data yet to engage their understanding or their imagination. These clue seeds get planted but they go right over the reader’s head.

Here's how Raymond Chandler did it:

It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.

The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armor rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn't have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn't seem to be really trying.

What are your final polishing habits or tricks? Inquiring minds want to know.

The Fourth Dimension by Nancy L. Eady

In the physics of space-time, time is considered the fourth dimension. Twice in the last few weeks, I have had meetings in places where prior versions of myself dot the landscape. 

I don’t know if I was in a particularly reflective mood each day, but as I drove through my old haunts, I almost could see the teenager who regularly traveled to downtown Montgomery to go to the library and to visit her mother at the hospital (long since torn down) where she worked and the woman about to turn 40 who traveled with her husband back and forth to social services to take classes so she could be approved for adoption. 

The mother who was so excited the day she and her husband and her little girl went to adoption court to have the adoption finalized was roaming around there too, so happy, as was the young attorney who waited anxiously at the steps of the Alabama Supreme Court building to find out if she passed the bar. (In those days, the Bar didn’t send the bar exam results electronically; they mailed them. If you wanted to know as soon as possible if you passed, you had to wait for the list to be posted on the bulletin board at the Alabama Supreme Court building that first day. Talk about nerve wracking!) 

The older attorney who delivered briefs to the same building and on rare occasions visited its library showed up as well and even the woman who only a few months ago went downtown in order to judge a moot court event for the first time was there. 

The other city, Opelika (Oh-pa-lie-kuh, emphasis on the “pa”), is close to Auburn, where I finished my undergraduate work at Auburn University. A lot of different versions of myself wandered there, too, although the college age versions I’ll keep to myself. We’re all entitled to the privacy of our wild oats (or at least we were until social media came along to preserve all of our young idiocies – um, I mean exploits – in perpetuity). Post-college versions of me exist also, since my husband worked there for six years in the early 2000’s while we lived about forty-five minutes away in a small town and Auburn/Opelika was our go-to place for shopping and dinners out. 

I wondered what it would be like if you could see into that dimension, if like sliced sections of a loaf of bread, you could sit outside of the fourth dimension and view all the different vignettes of yourself through time in a single sitting. And I wondered what the younger versions of myself would think about me. What would they think about the triumphs, setbacks, and unexpected detours that changed me from the people I was in the past to the person I am now? I never reached any conclusion. 

Would you like to meet your past selves? What would you like to tell them if you did?