Random Thoughts by Nancy L. Eady

1) The best anti-rain talisman known to man is the umbrella you remember to take to your office.  The best rain talisman known to man is the umbrella you forget in your car. 

2) If your browser history would make you the top suspect if your spouse died suspiciously, you probably write mysteries.  If you don’t write mysteries, your spouse should worry.

3) Free tip: 95% of computer problems can be solved by unplugging the computer and rebooting it. Caveat: Call in the professionals for the remaining 5%.  Fact of Life:  If the computer displays the black screen of death, it’s dead, Jim. 

4) Do you realize that modern civilization is almost totally dependent on the health of a handful of orbiting satellites? If you don’t, think back to the last time your cell phone service or internet went out.

5) If your first thought on passing a nook or a cranny is what a great place it would be to stash a body, weapon or assailant, you are either a mystery writer or a contract killer. 

6) Never let the office copier know you are working on a deadline. 

7) The worst typographical error that you don’t catch will be on the first page of the document in a prominent position. 

8) Important tip in planning a murder: Do not list the name of the person you intend to kill in the contacts on your phone under “sacrifice” or “victim.”  (True story.)

9) Home is not a place. Home is people. 

10) It is impossible to proofread your own work with 100% accuracy. 

11) Age is just a number. I know this because my joints have counted every single year. 

12) God has a sense of humor. Ask the young elementary teacher who prayed for patience. The next day? A new student enrolled in her class. Her name was Patience. (True story). 

13) You always find the thing that you lost in the last place that you look.

14) Writing is hard work. It requires time and dedication. While writing, I am not free to discuss homework, our plans for next weekend, what to watch on TV or whose turn it is to walk the dog or take out the trash. I may not even hear the non-writer the first three times he or she speaks.

15) To be fair, if I’m reading a good book, I won’t hear the non-reader the first three times he or she speaks, either. 

What random thoughts are running through your head today? 

An Occupational Hazard by Nancy L. Eady

I am a gentle soul. Acting out in violence is foreign to me. My demeanor is such that in a store or park where someone is searching for directions, I am the person they ask. (Bad choice by the way; I am terrible at giving directions.  I once sent an attorney trying to find our office thirty miles in the wrong direction by trying to “help” them with directions over the phone.)  But I am also a mystery writer. An occupational hazard of which is the musing that leads to the question “Would this work as a murder?” 

For example, the other day, I was alone in the house and taking a shower. That doesn’t happen often. Usually, either my husband or my daughter is within shouting distance. But since I was alone, I used more care than normal. I have reached the age where a broken hip from a fall is less than desirable. But it’s difficult to keep my mind in one place, so the next instant my mind flipped over to, “I wonder if you could commit murder by making a shower floor extra slippery and how you could get away with it.” 

My law firm has two offices in two cities. Both offices have break rooms with refrigerators. The unwritten rule is that something in the refrigerator is off limits—inside the refrigerator is where people put their lunches for their exclusive use. However, food left out on the table is free to all comers. Treats like cookies, brownies, leftover birthday cake and cupcakes regularly find their way to the table anonymously. I have long thought that one way to commit murder in a law office would be to slip a few poisoned goodies among the tempting treats. No one would know how they got there or who put them there, and no one would think to question how they ended up on the table before eating them. 

Another time, a case was being mediated. (A mediation is a formal, but non-binding settlement conference between two or more sides with a person trained to be a go-between.) The person mediating told me about the case, a terrible civil lawsuit involving the death of an infant. The mediator, who was borrowing our office, had put the two sides as far away from each other in our office as she could to minimize the chances of either side running into the other. My mind started spinning again—how could someone murder either the defendant or the plaintiff at the mediation, who would be the least obvious perpetrator out of all the people present in the office that day, and could you craft a believable story out of it. 

What unusual murder methods have you contemplated while planning your mysteries?

Where Do Story Ideas Come From? by Nancy L. Eady

During the Writers Who Kill annual holiday break from Thanksgiving through New Year’s, we take a breather and instead of daily blogs spaced out on a schedule, members volunteer to provide short stories as a gift to our readers. I’ve been a WWK writer for many years now, but never had I volunteered to write one of those stories until this past Christmas. I was a little scared, to be honest; I rarely write short stories, and I wasn’t sure how I would do with producing one on demand. I worried around with it in the back of my mind, where I allow things to percolate, and somewhere from its depths a story beginning with a blessing of the animals at an Episcopal Church right before Christmas, with the owner of a golden retriever, a rescue cat with lots of Maine Coone Cat in him and an African Gray parrot, popped in my head. Actually, it was the first phrase that popped into my head: “I had no idea why Father Donnelly decided to schedule a blessing of the animals on December 16….”  The story morphed over time. Originally, I thought the golden retriever would be the narrator, but eventually I settled on the pet owner instead. And both you, my fellow blog mates, and you, our loyal readers, were kind enough to give my little story a good reception. 

The point of this post, though, is that I have no idea where that phrase came from. Other writing ideas emerge from news articles I come across. A few years ago, I came across one about an outfit that trained military dogs somewhere in the Carolinas, and how certain activities of that outfit were questionable, one of which was the fact that the dogs, which were rented to the military, were not allowed to remain with one of their military handlers but were instead returned to the company where, according to the article, there were rumors they ended up working for certain, shall we say, less than legal outfits. I have a start on a story centering on that idea. 

Another interesting article talked about a company that processed e-commerce transactions, illegitimate ones, for a huge profit. It sat in a quiet office park in a small city somewhere close to the boondocks, the last place anyone would expect an illegal enterprise to exist. That knowledge is still swirling around in the primordial soup part of my brain waiting for the right circumstances and characters to match up with it when I least expect it.

Last week, for the first time, I came up with two titles that might lead to good mysteries. I haven’t tried this approach before, but I’ve stuffed the names into the same primordial soup they emerged from. I think Potiphar’s Wife and The Last Will and Testament of Iliana Marquette are both good names for as yet to be determined mysteries. 

How do you come up with ideas for your mysteries? Do you start with a plot, a phrase, a character, a title or some combination of all three?

Bibliophilic Friday: The Miracle at Belleau Wood by Alan Axelrod (Review by Nancy L. Eady)

For this month’s bibliophilic Friday, we’re going to take a brief detour into military history. World War I in America often seems to be the forgotten war. As a nation, we remember World War II much more clearly and talk about it more. We certainly were involved in World War II much longer than we were in World War I, which might explain it. However, there are lessons still to be learned from World War I, and those military members who fought in that war deserve to be remembered as much as the fighters from World War II. 

 One book on World War I takes a snap shot of a single battle. The Miracle at Belleau Wood by Alan Axelrod deals with one of the first battles fought solely by a battalion of Americans – in this case, a group of United States Marines.

 As a rule, I find military histories hard to follow – I get lost in a maze of place names and general’s names and dates and lose track of where I am in both time and space. This book, focusing on a single battle, is an exception.

 The book provides the reader with a good description of trench warfare in World War I at its full maturation. It delivers a hard-hitting, clear view of the reality of terms tossed around in history books such as “the fog of war.”

 More than anything else, this book is a coming of age story about the United States Marine Corps. The author’s contention is that this battle consolidated the position of the USMC in the public eye as the leading edge fighters of the United States military, the all-volunteer force that is proud to be “the first to fight.” The USMC, of course, needed no such consolidation in its own mind; it has always known who it is.

 Alan Axelrod does a good job of presenting the build-up to the battle and the battle itself in an engaging manner, but without glorifying the concept of war. The book is replete with anecdotes from people who were in the battle which highlight not only the bravery but the humor men seem to find in even the grimmest situations. One of my favorite anecdotes is the Marine officer who received a message from a French officer that the Marines were supposed to retreat as the French were retreating. The Marine looked up and told the messenger, “Retreat? Hell, we just got here.” My second favorite anecdote is the exchange between one officer and another when the first officer, Major Thomas Holcomb, came forward to meet with Major Frederic Wise, whose battalion he was to relieve shortly. As he arrived, the Germans cut loose with a fierce artillery barrage. Holcomb looked at Wise and asked, “Is this celebration due to my arrival?” Dead pan, Wise replied, “No…This is only routine.”

 Axelrod does not shield the reader from the horrors of war in the trenches, either. The casualties in this battle were horrific – over 120 officers and over 5700 men. As Americans rediscovered in another war a generation later on the shores of Normandy, in spite of their heavy losses, the Marines at Belleau Wood ultimately succeeded because American commanders and officers explained to their troops their objectives and how they intended to achieve them. American soldiers then used their ingenuity, experience, and gut determination to achieve that objective – if they were cut off from their squad or platoon, if the higher ranking officers were killed, the individual soldiers still strived to forge forward to win the battle.

 During the battle, the Marines were commanded by an army general, General Harbord. By the end of the battle, the Marines voted to make General Harbord an honorary Marine, an honor he ranked personally as the highest honor he ever achieved.

 One reason the battle of Belleau Wood was important was that it was the first time that United States fighting forces would fight the Germans essentially on their own. (See footnote.) The Germans hoped that they would be able to squelch and demoralize the American Marines completely, gaining a psychological edge on the battlefield. The Germans also were racing against time – the sheer number of men the Americans would be able to field on behalf of the Allies would ultimately overpower Germany, which was reaching exhaustion. For the Germans to win the war, this last offensive push had to succeed – and at Belleau Wood, only the Marines stood between them and a break in the lines to reach Paris.

 The extent to which the German troops were able to “squelch” and “demoralize” the Marines can be judged by the nickname the German soldiers gave to them – the Teufelhunden, which means “Devil Dogs.”

Surprisingly, among the forces on the field during the battle, only the Marines emphasized the importance of marksmanship in regular battle as well as for snipers. Common military practice at the time was to teach troops to simply point in the general direction of the enemy and shoot, the theory being that you would have so many bullets flying at the enemy at one time that he was bound to suffer casualties. Not so the Marines – each Marine aimed at a target when he shot, and what he aimed at, he hit.

 It does take the author several chapters to ease the reader into the battle – about four – and I would have liked to know a little bit more about what happened to various people after the battle throughout the rest of the war. The first four chapters, however, provide the reader with important background information without which the reader would be unable to appreciate exactly what the Marines did at Belleau Wood.  There are a few references throughout the book about what happens to certain of the Marines in the future but I would like to have known more.  

 The author’s assessment of the final result of the battle is unusual. Many historians credit the Marines in this battle with preventing the fall of Paris in Ludendorff’s last offensive to break through the trench lines. However, most historians also believe that once the Marines had done this, early in the battle, the rest of the fight to take the wood, which cost so many Marine lives, accomplished little. The author agrees, and yet, as he explains, after listing the terrible tally of the battle – 126 Marine officers and 5057 Marine men killed along with many more Germans: 

For the U.S. Marine Corps, this investment in blood has never been subject to question or controversy. It was a mission. That in itself is all that really matters. Beyond this however, it was a test of American military capacity and American character, and the Marines felt fortunate that they were given the responsibility for taking and passing this test. … The reputation of the marines as America’s fiercest warriors, the nation’s elite fighting force, was forged in this battle. After Belleau Wood, the Marines claimed the right to be regarded as the American vanguard, the first to fight and if necessary, the last to leave.

 

Kindle Loc. 2842-2845. 

This book is definitely worth your time.

   Try reading this book, or another outside of our beloved mysteries, then play around with ideas for a while to see what mysteries you could put together from it. What ideas might you come up with? 

FN. An army unit temporarily “on loan” to the French had acquitted itself well a few weeks earlier as well in stopping a German advance. As a rule, General Pershing, the overall commander of the American Expeditionary Force, wanted the U.S. troops to fight as their own units rather than interspersed between French and English troops; however, one of the Ludendorff offensives compelled him to loan the artillery unit to the French. 

Drowning in Idea Debt

by Linda Rodriguez

I have been reading about “idea debt.” This is an important concept that I had never given any thought to. This concept refers to the baggage we carry in our minds of all the old ideas and ambitions we had at one time, in which we've invested great energy and thought, that keep us from doing the new important things we want to do and should do, because they're stopping our energy and thought. I first heard about it from Sarah Swett and Beth Smith, two highly regarded fiber artists whom I respect greatly. They referred me to Jessica Abel's website, https://jessicaabel.com/, where she discusses idea debt in great detail.

Abel talks about the importance of going through and listing all of these old ideas and ambitions, in which we have invested so much, and deciding which ones we will let go, just discard and no longer pour our time and energy into them. She talks about the immense amount of creative energy and excitement that was freed up when she went through this step. I think it would be a good idea for me to go through this stuff, as well.

Abel also talks about developing systems to support and bolster your creative work, systems based on your individual mind and way of doing things. She is an award-winning cartoonist and graphic novelist (editor of the Best American Comics series for six years) and art professor, who teaches people to do their creative work by using tools that she has developed to help them make their work rather than simply dream about it. She has written the book, Growing Gills: How to Find Creative Focus When You’re Drowning in Your Daily Life, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07284HSHQ?tag=jessicaabel-20. She has a blog, https://jessicaabel.com/blog/, and a podcast, https://jessicaabel.com/podcast/, as well as lots of free advice and articles on her website.

Abel asked if imagining my future work was holding me back from creating the work I should be doing right now. She told me I was doing too much thinking and too little making. Unfortunately, she was right. The term, “idea debt,” came from Kazu Kibuishi, a name for this struggle with creative sunk costs of energy, time, and passion. Kibuishi points out that “no matter what you do, it will never be as great as it is in your mind. So you’re really setting yourself up for failure in some ways.”

As Abel points out, this huge amount of idea debt not only sets the artist up for failure on this great dream of a project, but also robs him/her of the energy, drive, and passion needed to create the project that s/he wants to create right now. As Abel explains it, “Idea debt is when you spend too much time picturing what a project is going to be like, too much time thinking about how awesome it will be to have this thing done and in the world, too much time imagining how cool you will look, how in demand you’ll be, how much money you’ll make. And way too little time actually making the thing.” Sound familiar to anyone?

According to Abel, “Avoiding idea debt is about acting before you think too much and get overwhelmed by how hard and how important your project feels.” If you're willing to ignore your fears and shortcomings and just keep on moving ahead, she says, you will eventually bridge the gap between now-you and future-you. But when you carry idea debt for too long and your life moves on, it becomes a weight hanging around your neck and keeping you from moving ahead into the projects that your creative vision of now needs you to explore. It's only too easy to become weighed down by old ideas that hold you back from creating the fresh new work that you as an artist need to be making.

We grow up. We change. We learn. One day, those old ideas that were once so exciting and fascinating are no longer useful to us. As writers, we know that ideas themselves are a dime a dozen. It's always what you invest in them and what you do with them that makes anything worthwhile. I myself have more ideas, that I've been listing in journals and notebooks for years, than I could ever develop if I live for another hundred years. According to Abel, if I kick those old ideas to the curb, I will regain huge amounts of psychic energy and imaginative drive. I think maybe it's time for me to go through those old ideas and be ruthless, weeding out everything that I've truly outgrown, anything that gives me any hint of a pause, trying to cut them down as drastically as possible. We'll see if that doesn't give me new drive and energy to focus on the projects that I want to focus on right now.

What do you think about the concept of idea debt? Are you carrying around old ideas and fantastic goals that are robbing you of energy and drive that you could use currently?

Linda Rodriguez's Dark Sister: Poems has just been released. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited, were published to high praise in 2017. Every Family Doubt, her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief, Skeet Bannion, and Revising the Character-Driven Novel will be published in 2019. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last Secret—and her earlier books of poetry—Skin Hunger and Heart's Migration—have received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

How To Catch a Wild Idea

Go ahead. Ask a bunch of writers to name the most common question they get asked in interviews, and I guarantee one of the top five will be “Where do you get your ideas?” And most writers also rate it as one of their least favorite questions.

Theodore Geisel—best known as Dr. Seuss—was one of those writers. He once answered it thusly: "I get all my ideas in Switzerland near the Forka Pass. There is a little town called Gletch, and two thousand feet up above Gletch there is a smaller hamlet called Über Gletch. I go there on the fourth of August every summer to get my cuckoo clock fixed. While the cuckoo is in the hospital, I wander around and talk to the people in the streets. They are very strange people, and I get my ideas from them." (You can read more of Geisel’s writerly wit and wisdom in this great Mental Floss article).

And yes, I get asked that question quite a lot, but unlike many other writers, I enjoy it. It requires fresh thinking every time it comes down the pike, which is probably why my answer is different every single time. So…where exactly do I get those weird, fascinating, relentless sparks that with the proper kindling become plots and characters?

Friends sometimes drop them in my lap. I was having lunch with my friend Donna, a fellow Sisters in Crime member, and she told me about a controversy in the running community concerning bib mules.

“Bib whats?” I said.

“Bib mules,” she replied. “A really good runner who runs a marathon with a slower runner’s timing chip so that the slower runner can get credit for a very fast time.” She went on to explain that this was just one of the many ways that amateur athletes try to cheat their way to medals and prizes and entries in prestigious races like the Boston Marathon

That conversation was the spark for my upcoming novella “Trouble Like A Freight Train Coming,” a prequel to my Tai Randolph series. It’s being published in two weeks (!) in Lowcountry Crime, an anthology that also contains a story by Writers Who Kill author James Jackson). And like any well-tended spark, that idea soon burst into a conflagration of fictional lies and deceptions and all manner of criminal shenanigans

Some story ideas are harder to trace—I still have no idea how Tai’s name came to be, or even when it happened. She has always been Tai in my head. Once I started researching, I was surprised at the various meanings that name has in languages across the world (for example, in Polynesia it means “tide,” in Romanian, “yours,” and in Mandarin Chinese, “too too much” or “extreme”). All of these meanings are appropriate for my character, but I wasn’t aware of any of them when she first started appearing on the page.

Where do my ideas come from? I’m not sure I want to peel off every layer of that process. The mystery fiction I write always comes with a solution, but I prefer some mysteries to remain…mysterious.

How about you? If you’ll permit the question, where do you get your ideas?