What Do You Do In Your Free Time?

 By Kait Carson

A friend asked me that question, and it gave me pause. It wasn’t one I expected or had anyone ask before. Unless you are a well-known author or under contract to a publisher, the more usual question is: But what do you do all day? Writing is work, hard work, but it doesn’t entail regular hours or punching a time clock, and years can go by before a writer’s efforts bear fruit, so civilians may not recognize our labor. Those of us in the trenches know better. My friend is not a writer, but she was a full-time mom. She understands that perception often differs from reality. Her husband once asked her what she did all day. She had a wonderful, pithy response, but not one I can share in this space.

Because most people think writing is what I do in my free time, the question took me by surprise. And I had to think about it. The answer is: a lot. I haven’t thrown pots in a while, but if I can find a place to rent kiln time, I hope to get back to it. I crochet and have graduated from afghans to sweaters. Living in Maine, I’ve paused scuba diving in favor of snowshoeing in the winter and hiking in the snowless seasons. Wildlife and nature photography is another passion. And let’s not forget baking, much to my waistline’s detriment. Spring is coming, and that means gardening. I’m grateful for the sixteen-hour days we have in my part of Maine. Lots of time to write all day and still head to the garden after work. So, that about wraps up what I currently do in my free time, but wait, as they say on daytime game shows, there’s more!

I’ve got a fistful of bucket list projects. My mom was a fantastic knitter, but she never had the patience to teach me. Last week’s Wirecutter (the product review section of the New York Times) featured the best fiber craft kits for adults, including two scarf knitting kits. Coincidence? I think not. Now I’m on the hunt for a needlepoint kit. That’s a skill I’d like to refresh. And while I’m at it, embroidery sounds pretty good.

What about you? What do you do in your free time?

Kait Carson writes the Hayden Kent Mysteries, set in the Fabulous Florida Keys, and is at work on a new mystery series set in her adopted state of Maine. Her short fiction has been nationally published in the True Confessions magazines and in Woman’s World. Kait’s short story, “Gutted, Filleted, and Fried”, appeared in the Silver Falchion Award nominated Guppy Anthology Hook, Line, and Sinker. Her nonfiction essay was included in the Agatha Award-winning book Writing the Cozy Mystery. She is a former President of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime, a member of Sisters in Crime, and Guppies.

 

Life and Other Plans

Life and Other Plans by Debra H. Goldstein

In his 1980 song “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy),” John Lennon sang “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” Although the line is often attributed to Lennon, a version of it appeared in a 1956 Mary Worth cartoon written by Allen Saunders. The line in the cartoon was “…life is something which happens while we’re waiting for something else!” The quote, as attributed to Saunders, was rephrased in 1957 in Reader’s Digest as “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” 

Even older references to this thought date back to B.C. Specifically, “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.” (Cor hominis disponit viam suam: sed Domini est dirigere gressus eius. - Old Testament: Proverbs, xvi, 9. (c. 350 B. C.); “Man intends one thing, Fate another.” (Homo semper aliud, Fortuna aliud cogitat. Publilius Syrus, Sententiae. No.253. (c.43 B.C.); and from The Imitation of Christ (Thomas à Kempis 1400s/ translated from the Latin in 1881 by Reverend W. H. Hutchings), “For Man proposes, but God disposes.”

There are two ways “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans” has been interpreted. The first is that no matter what one plans, “sh-t happens.” The other is that people are so busy striving for the next thing in life, whether in terms of schooling, jobs, or possessions, they miss what is happening in the present.

Writers tend to experience both interpretations of the quote. Even as an author tries to write the best story or book, a part of the brain is thinking about the launch and the potential success of the work. Will it make the NY Times bestseller list? At the same time, the publishing business can be cruel. One can be thrilled producing a work only to see it be orphaned or publicity not put behind it.

Sometimes, though, an author is focused on writing, but life occurrences – illnesses, births, deaths, caretaking, or natural disasters – interfere with the writing process. When any of these occur, despite the best intentions, plans to write can dry up or be so interfered with that nothing of quality can be produced.

For some, life destroys plans to write or read. For others, it is merely a temporary blip that distracts from the master plan. The interesting thing is how one weathers the storms and if one can maintain a present presence. As a writer or reader, how have you functioned when life and plans collide?

I'm Not a Magician!

I’m Not a Magician! by Debra H. Goldstein

Recently, I shared a phone conversation with a fellow author who was upset because a reader had left a bad one-star review on Goodreads. The review faulted her cover, the beginning of the story, and the fact that there wasn’t a murder in the first chapter. There was a death in the second chapter, but this reader closed the book before reaching that chapter. My friend acknowledged that the reader’s failure to go beyond the first chapter, but willingness to leave a negative review, had my friend dismayed at having failed her reader and having her star count impacted. 

A few hours after the phone call, I went to get a haircut. While there, I noticed a sign posted in the next hairdresser’s station. It read: “I’m a Beautician, not a Magician.” It made me chuckle.

Later, I thought about that sign in reference to being an author. It might be rewritten as “I’m a Writer, not a Magician.” As a writer, I weave words together to create a plot and characters that I hope will engage readers. I try to write the most cohesive and enjoyable book that I can. My goal is for readers to have fun while escaping into a new world from the one they normally live in. Based upon reviews on Goodreads, Amazon, and in periodicals, I usually succeed; however, there are exceptions. When the few negative reviews are posted, I can be lost in the weeds for days and weeks like my friend, or I can remember, “I’m a Writer, not a Magician.” 

Authors do you agree? Readers, do you cut us slack or do we need to be magicians?

Call of the Wild

 By James M. Jackson

We live deep in the woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Our property has 3/8ths of a mile of shoreline on a 248-acre spring-fed lake and consists of upland hardwoods and lowlands filled with tamarack and black spruce. We are blessed (and sometimes cursed) with wildlife. It is a big part of why I feel called to live here.

When people ask what kinds of animals we have, they mainly want to know about big animals. Do you have wolves? Yes, we do. We named our property “Wolf’s Echo” because at night the ululations of the resident wolf pack would echo up and down the lake. We have other canines as well: coyotes and red fox, but people can find them everywhere.

They ask, “Aren’t you afraid of being out in the woods with the wolves?”

Nope. Over the years, I have met dozens of wolves while I’m jogging. I see them, stop, and start talking to them. Those encounters always end with the wolf cutting into the woods and, after a few yards, magically disappearing.

I will admit to being concerned one time while jogging. Near the end of my run, I startled a wolf that had been sleeping under a pine tree by the side of the road less than a half mile from our house. If he was there when I had jogged past at the start of my run, neither of us noticed.

By the time he heard me and sprang to his feet with his hackles raised, we were only fifteen feet apart. He and I remained statues for the longest time, during which I calmly told him that he could go anywhere he wanted. These were his woods, I said. I’d wait right where I was until he chose whatever direction he wanted. He eventually trotted away, stopping every few paces to look over his shoulder at me. After the run, when I looked at the statistics my Garmin watch collected, it didn’t surprise me to see my heart rate had spiked a half-mile from the run’s conclusion.

Those who hunt ask about deer. Yes, we have deer, although our area is not great deer habitat. The main thing that keeps deer numbers in check is adequate food supply and winter snows. We have had generations of does bring their fawns into our side yard to snack on young red maples and use the salt lick we provide them. Hunters blame the paucity of deer on wolf predation. Wolves do take deer, but a study in our area conducted by Southern Mississippi State biologists proved black bear predation causes many more deaths than the wolves. And automobile strikes killing deer dwarf those caused by other animals.

And moose? Oh yes. There is nothing quite like meeting your first moose in person. Those suckers are big! We love our moose and even name them. Adult males are easy to tell apart once they grow their racks. We especially love seeing the calves. My all-time favorite calves were Frick and Frack, named before we determined they were, in fact, sister and brother. We spotted them at an early age, all spindly legs topped by enormous heads, and watched them for nearly two years before they went their separate ways.

It’s not all fun and games with moose. Bull moose during rut season are the most dangerous animals around here (other than humans). Of course, you never want to come between any mother animal and her young, but bull moose can and will charge anything when their hormones are running high.

You can’t outrun a moose. The way to escape a charging moose is to get a big tree between you and them—or better, climb the tree. That said, the only time I was concerned about a moose was during the rut when I had already run past a bull. The first I sensed its presence was when it snorted. I looked back into the woods and saw it fifty feet away. It stamped a hoof, and I took off lickety-split, looking for a suitable tree. Fortunately, instead of chasing me, it used its rack to thrash a thicket of young trees.

Once I knew I was safe, my concern changed to what would happen when I had to run past that spot on my way back home. I spent the run strategizing how to handle my coming encounter. On my return approach to the place I had seen the moose, I began talking in a loud voice—a very loud voice.

I didn’t see or hear the moose. Whew!

We have black bear. They can be a nuisance. They love bird feeders, both seed and the sugar-water feeders we leave for the hummingbirds. We have lost more than one trail camera to bears’ curiosity. The most fun we had was last year when we got to watch (via trail cameras) the antics of triplet cubs as they explored docks and a mineral block I have set out on a table for the moose. Here's a short video for your entertainment:

It’s always a thrill to catch sight of a bobcat. Others, sadly not me, have seen lynx. Cougar records are becoming more common in our area—mostly, I suspect, because more people have trail cameras in the woods. So far, they have not bred in the U.P.

We frequently encounter river otters. They do know how to enjoy life. Porcupines and skunks can be an issue if you own too curious dogs. This past winter snowshoe hares girdled many of the young maples near the house. The members of the weasel family are often as curious about us as we are about them.

I have annual battles with beaver that want to plug culverts over the roads we travel. And the mice, moles, and voles have a penchant for setting up housekeeping or storing seeds in automobiles, ATVs, and snow machines under cover. Bats are great consumers of mosquitoes, and more often than we’d like, find their way down our wood stove’s chimney.

Sightings are special, but I also love the calls of the wild. I never tire of hearing the wolves. My heart thrills to hear the birds. I often fall asleep to the duet of barred owls. Mornings often start with eagle calls or the blare of trumpeter swans. Sometimes my wake-up call is the buzz of ruby-throated hummingbirds as they perform their aerobatics at our feeders. I never complain about these early alarms. They are my calls of the wild, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

* * * * *

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense, these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what happens when they mix. You can sign up for his newsletter and find more information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

Bad Choices, by Kait Carson

One of the most popular questions at writer in-person events is “Where do you get your ideas?” Every writer has their personal favorite response. The safest is to claim one-hundred percent imagination. The strangest is to claim they come from the idea store. That always makes me think of the Horn & Hardart automats of my childhood. Put in a quarter, pull out an idea—as if. My reality is, well, reality.

 

“Write what you know” is a famous axiom. It’s attributed to Hemingway, and sometimes to Twain, but it isn’t strictly applicable unless you’re writing a memoir. My personal creative mantra is a sign I photographed at a Fort Myers restaurant. Let me point out three things: Not all of the choices I write about are mine. Not all of them were bad choices, simply the result of making the best of a bad situation, and ya gotta do something when you’re hip-deep in alligators. Might as well make it into a good story!

 

One of the most exciting scenes in my novel, Death by Blue Water occurs when Hayden Kent is diving the wreck of the Humbolt in one hundred twenty-five feet of water. Her first stage malfunctions, causing a rapid escape of air from her scuba tank. Her dive buddy has swum out of sight. Hayden’s training takes over, and she makes a controlled ascent while breathing from the tank. Hayden didn’t make a bad choice, but I did. I separated from my dive buddy leaving him fifty feet above on the deck of the wreck while I made the deeper dive to the sand. Writing this scene gave me the opportunity to re-write one of my bad choices.

 

“What if” are two of the most powerful words in a writer’s vocabulary. We take experiences, our own or others, and ask, “What if?” The answer to the question fills novels and stories with scenes, details, and sometimes humor. 

 

Writers, do you use your choices to inform your scenes? Readers, do you wonder how much of the author’s life is in the story?

 

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The Gifted Writer by Kait Carson

Last week I treated myself to some shopping at Bogan Books, our local indie bookstore. The store is arranged in two rooms. The front room holds the checkout, various items of interest, and the bulk of the books. The rear, where you’ll usually find me, has the mysteries, thrillers, and suspense novels. I was checking out the new releases when I heard a woman say, “Oh, try this series, she is such a gifted writer.” I looked around the mystery room. No one was there. The voice had to be coming from the front of the store.

 

Curious, I peeked through the entry. Much to my chagrin, (and delight since business was obviously good) I spotted four pairs of shoppers. All had books in hand. It was impossible to determine who made the gifted writer comment. The overheard remark made me wonder how the unknown author might feel. Gratified, and perhaps a bit amused.

 

I strongly suspect that every writer is gifted. The gift lies in the way an author selects and strings words together. The mechanics if you will. The innate ability to mix a jumble of words into a pleasing and satisfying stew that imparts information, elicits emotion, and makes the reader want more. Yes, that is a gift.

 

So, why would an author feel amused? To acknowledge only the gift is a little like believing the author waved a magic wand over the keyboard and the story sprang forth. Not happening. The story evolves through years of study of the craft. There is scene and sequel to master, building a world for your characters that is believable, the characters themselves must be dynamic. Then there are the ever-changing conventions of genre to learn and adopt. All of that is tradecraft. And it’s hard work. No author wants the craft to show. In a good story craft appears seamless and disappears behind the gift of words. After all, no one wants to see the sausage made.

 

The unknown reader paid the author the compliment of believing the act of writing came easily. The author, on the other hand, might quote Ernest Hemingway. There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. As any writer will tell you, how you hide the blood is where the art and craft of writing collide.

 

Writers and readers, what do you think?

Things I Wish I Knew About Being an Author I Didn’t Know Before by M K Scott

My mother taught me to read and write at age four. She joked she did it to get some peace and be allowed to go about her tasks without me following her around asking questions. This resulted in me being a major pain in first grade. I read the reader in one day and told all the struggling readers how it ended. This didn’t make me popular with the teacher.

 

I redeemed myself, at least in my eyes, by writing alternative endings to the deadly dull reader. My classmates had to conquer reading to read my tales. You’d think my teacher would be grateful, but she disliked the action tales filled with bank robbers, train crashes and cowboys.

 

The first truth I learned at the tender age of six was not everyone will be a fan of my work.

 

Whenever I had time, I wrote and shared my efforts with classmates. Every one of them had ideas for character names, plot lines, and even settings. Often their suggestions came from popular television shows. This taught me my second lesson: everyone will tell you how and what to write, but keep your own voice.

 

In middle school, I developed a gossipy tabloid, but I switched out the name of students and teachers with animals. Only a few knew who was giraffe or kangaroo. The rest guessed, including the teachers who picked up copies of the forbidden newspaper. As hard as it is to believe, I didn’t have access to a printer, which forced me and my friends to hand copy the paper to have several copies. It was never enough, especially with teachers ripping up copies. Third lesson was to have stock on hand.

 

Be positive. This sounds simple, but not all authors do it. I’ve read rants about other authors, publishers, even politicians on social media. A reader put it in perspective by saying she didn’t want to know what an author didn’t like. She wanted to know what they were working on, influences, and what the writer was currently reading. Not one person wished for a long tale of a woe about a publisher who had done the author wrong.

 

One pen name only if possible. I have four pen names, which sometimes make it seem like there are large blocks between books. I’m writing four series currently. The pen names are Morgan K Wyatt (Romance and Romantic Suspense), M K Scott (Cozy Mysteries written with my husband), Morgan Kay (Romantic Comedies) and Rayna Noire (Time Travel, Coming of Age, Fantasy)

 

Write the entire series or trilogy before publishing the first one. I wish I had done this! Things happen from job, family, to a computer crashing that slows down the series.

 

These are some of the things I wish I knew at the start. Not every author will have the same opinion or experiences. As a reader, what can you tell me? I learn a great deal from the readers. One gentleman asked me to make the chapters shorter, which I have.

 

 

The Writing Team of M K Scott and Celebrity Pals.

Righting the Wrongs by Copy Editing by Martha Reed

Whether writing short fiction or a novel length work, a new creative writing project can present a minefield of hurdles from initial blank page paranoia through chapter structuring terror until finally a satisfactory conclusion is reached and I type those ever-blessed words: The End (or ###.)

And then the real fun begins. Copy editing.

It’s never easy handing my brand-new baby over to a professional editor, even when I’d trust that editor with my soul. The new story is still so fresh, so delicate there’s a fear that if I jigger it too much, shift too many pieces, I may lose the vital essence that brought the story to vibrant life. I’m sure there are writers out there who are so knowledgeable about the craft of writing that they can grammatically dissect their stories into bits and then fit the tiny bits back together without a bobble, but I’m not one of them. When my story is as complete and polished as I can make it, I’m terrified that if I edit it too much it will end up looking like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, all patched up paragraphs with thick obvious sutures, a shaky house of cards that may come tumbling down with one harsh puff or worse: that I may change something vital that I can’t fix.

There’s a definite left brain/right brain thing going on with mystery writers, and I think it’s the difference between imagining whole new worlds and new characters (right-brain) versus developing plot points, twists, and logical conclusions (left-brain). This difference may explain why some writers are gifted “pantsers” (e.g., writing by the seat of your pants) versus gifted plotters (e.g., following a step-by-step story outline.)

I’ve decided that editors are neither one of these two types. They are an entirely separate and alien species. These folks take copy editing to another, higher level. They spot story flaws from outer space, from Mars. I also know that when an editor agrees to review my work that I need to throttle my fragile ego, calmly close my eyes, listen to their advice with an open ear and step off into the void, trusting that in the end all will be well and that they fundamentally do come in peace.

Recently, I had the opportunity to work with an amazing professional editor. She gave me exactly one hour via a Zoom call to review three hurdles she identified in my story while at the same time offering such excellent fixes that I was in complete agreement with her from the start of our over caffeinated conversation. One of her suggestions was even so good, so much better than what I had written that I felt a twinge of professional jealousy that I hadn’t come up with it on my own. My only real difficulty was in accepting that my “final version” was really and truly final and that I couldn’t make any additional last-minute tweaking edits after I sent the “final version” off, probably some form of separation anxiety.

To be fair, any emails that I send out that start with “But, wait…” should be ignored.

In podcasts and at conferences you repeatedly hear that working with a professional editor is about developing a long-term relationship, that it’s never about one single book, that editors are looking for publishing career partners. What has your editorial experience been like?

Change and Creativity by Kait Carson

One of my favorite books and movies when I was a child was Auntie Mame. My Aunt Annie, a denizen of Greenwich Village and a contemporary of Marion Tanner, the real Auntie Mame, shared the same zest and philosophy of life. Aunt Annie also taught me that life is meant to be lived, and change is a good thing. Even unexpected change. Maybe especially unexpected change. Most of the family found her an embarrassment. I thought she was wonderful.

In this time of COVID-19, my husband and I had been living in Southwest Florida. I was crafting mysteries (not so often as I would have liked) and working more than full-time as a probate paralegal. With COVID numbers climbing in our county, and my entire office working remotely, hubs and I decided it was time to fly the coop. We have a home in Maine and becoming COVID refugees seemed ideal. So, I took three weeks’ vacation, we packed the house, rented an RV, and set off in our hotel on wheels for the Crown of Maine with our three cats and six conures.

I’d forgotten how much I missed Maine. It’s too far away to come for a long weekend, so we hadn’t visited in nine years. As soon as my feet hit terrafirma I raced up the hill to visit my woods. We have 167 acres of which 142 are wooded. The trail was overgrown, and mosquitos were gnawing at my ankles and I didn’t care. On the way back to the house I felt my creative well filling, a feeling that had been absent for eight of the past nine years.

It occurred to me on that walk that all of my short stories but one and all of my books but two had been written in Maine. They were polished and sold in Florida, but Maine had birthed them. Now ideas were bubbling so fast that I didn’t have time to commit them to paper. Instead, I fingered the audio recorder on my phone and started dictating. It was a delirious time.

The other shoe dropped when I got home and found a message from my office telling me that by moving to Maine, I had resigned. There was a brief moment of shock followed by a feeling of joy. I channeled my internal Auntie Mame/Annie and rejoiced in the opportunity. I could follow my dream and live my life as a full-time writer. None of those newly hatched ideas would go to waste because I didn’t have the time. Now was the time.

I’m excited by the possibilities. For the first time in my life I’m able to wake up and not only smell the coffee, but be part of the delicious mix of caffeine and richness. The first book of my new series has three more chapters to edit before it goes to beta readers. I’m writing a blog post earlier than the week before it’s due, and I’m surfing an embarrassment of story ideas for magazines.

Yep, life is a banquet – and I’m filling my plate.