A Life on Vacation

By Kait Carson

I was casting around for a last-minute blog topic this morning so I could finalize my Newsletter this afternoon and coming up empty. What a surprise, I thought. My brain is on vacation. That’s when the light bulb lit and pulsed. Vacations. Past. Present. Future. How perfect.

My Dad worked for the Otis Elevator Company. Like most 1950s kids, I’m clueless about how much annual vacation my father received, but I knew that somewhere in the two-week period that surrounded my July birthday, we’d be packing the car for a road trip.

Road trips were the quintessential defining events of the era. We drove from our New Jersey home to Miami, Cuba (the auto ferry assisted with the watery parts), Washington D.C., Northern Virginia, Upstate New York, Montreal, the 10,000 Islands, Boston, Philadelphia, and of course, the Jersey Shore (pronounced goin’ dinna shore). Many of these trips were pre-interstate highway systems. Traveling back roads was a joy for a kid, and Dad turned off at any place the AAA TripTik suggested a historical or scientific location. Sometimes he even found them! I didn’t appreciate the magic of those trips until I became an adult and air travel replaced the open road.

By the time my generation was self-supporting, recessions, sky-rocketing oil prices, and economic downturns plagued the world. So, let me begin by saying unless you consider retirement a vacation, I may hold the record for taking a grand total of one during my working life. Quite the accomplishment when you consider my work life began in 1974. But don’t hang out the hankies for me. My lack of vacations didn’t equal a lack of travel. Between 1980 and 1989, I had a part-time job running a friend’s company in Europe and the Caribbean. Every weekend and most holidays found me in St. Thomas, Sint Maarten, Saba, Stasia, Milan, Florence, Paris, and London. Cue the hankies. It was exhausting.

During the 1990s, I became a rabid scuba diver and spent most weekends in the Florida Keys. This hobby led to my only real vacation. A live-aboard dive trip to Belize in 2004. Maine beckoned soon after, followed by a return to Florida. The pandemic brought me full-circle with a return to Maine. In many ways, life turned into a vacation. Talk about good fortune.

These days, I’m retired, living in Maine and grateful for the journals I kept of my travels. When you’re a writer, no experience goes unrewarded, or unplundered. I’m in the vicarious vacation stage of my life. Giving the odd nuggets of past events to my characters and watching them grow into scenes and plots.

Writers: Do you plunder your past in the service of your art? Readers: Do you enjoy ripped from real-life events in fiction?

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, and a current member of Sisters in Crime and Guppies.

HOW PAUSES IMPROVE YOUR WRITING POWER

By Korina Moss

One of the best pieces of advice I ever read was to treat writing like a muscle – if you use that muscle on a regular basis, it’ll work better and more efficiently. I’ve found this to be true. It at least gets you into a habit of writing, and now the days I don’t write feel odd. There was a time (before contracts and deadlines) when I’d wait to feel my muse before I’d sit down at my laptop, which could translate to weeks of not writing. My muse no longer dictates when I write—I drag her with me to the chair if need be. (If only I could drag myself to the gym since my other muscles have atrophied, thanks to my writing habit.) 

It's great to get into a writing routine, but after a while of overusing any muscle, it can get strained. Since my Cheese Shop Mystery series has come to an end with my recently released sixth book, Bait and Swiss, I was able to take a trip with my son for the first time in six years without a deadline or a book launch looming. Even without my series, my daily calendar is still packed with writing, editing, and book marketing commitments. Which is why I’d decided I was going to take a hiatus from being an author for our nine-day trip. 

During our time in Quebec City, instead of sitting down at my computer every morning, I sat down at a café for a coffee and croissant. 

Instead of using my writing muscle, I used my leg muscles to climb the hills of the city for a great view.

Instead of getting my word count in, I got my steps in exploring every quaint street with antique shops, art galleries, cathedrals, and a grand hotel. 

Instead of doing Google research, I learned firsthand about the Canadian government with a tour through the home of Canada’s Governor General. 

Instead of staring at my computer, I stared out at the St. Lawrence River. 

But you know what I discovered? You can take a break from writing, but you can’t take a hiatus from being an author. I soaked in every quaint street I walked and interesting person I met and delicious meal I ate and piece of art I pondered and street music I listened to and facts I learned; every laugh and conversation my son and I shared, and every new memory we made—all of it was absorbed. Without intent, to later be used for new ideas, new stories, new words on a blank page. As it turned out, when I left my author cap at home, my imagination flourished, and my writing muscle was revitalized. 

Readers: What does a vacation do for you? 

KORINA MOSS is the author of the Cheese Shop Mystery series set in the Sonoma Valley, which includes the winner of the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, Cheddar Off Dead, and two novels short-listed for Best Contemporary Novel. Listed as one of USA Today’s “Best Cozy Mystery Series,” her books have also been featured in PARADE Magazine, Woman’s World, and Writer’s Digest. Korina is also a freelance developmental editor specializing in cozy and traditional mysteries. To learn more or subscribe to her free monthly newsletter, visit her website korinamossauthor.com.

My Author Vacation

 

My Author Vacation by Debra H. Goldstein

Sometimes, authors take vacations. Not in the sense of a trip to Florida, California or Europe, but an at home mental break.

During the past week, I took one of those stay-at-home mentally checked out vacations. After pushing and meeting several deadlines, I deliberately forgot about writing. Instead, I focused on catching up with weeks of episodic television, books on my TBR pile, and daydreaming. Pure fun, but now, the itch to write is returning. I’m feeling relaxed and energized – a perfect combination to start a new project.

Writers often get so engrossed in the mundane that they forget to take care of themselves. Whether by overeating, not exercising, or simply worrying about the words that aren’t flowing, they stress themselves out. This potentially begins a vicious circle where one concentrates on the word count but ignores the most important factor behind a decent story or book.

Sometimes, in order to be our best, we need to step back and “smell the roses.” My method is to take mental break. What’s yours?  

My Mysterious Adventure

by Paula Gail Benson

Have you heard about authors writing a short story that later is developed into a novel? Like Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees?

I’m giving Writers Who Kill this exclusive. The blog message you are about to read may one day be developed into a bestselling (how I wish!) novel, called “Killing Paula.” (After hearing this story, a friend gave me that title, along with some excellent plot suggestions, and told me I could use them. Thank you, Phil Lenski. I’ll be sure to mention you in the acknowledgements.)

HorryCounty.org

Dear readers, I begin with my journey to Myrtle Beach to meet with cousins and friends and enjoy a lovely vacation. I had dodged Hurricane Dorian, which came through the week before. (I would say “dodged the bullet,” but don't let me get ahead of myself.) The weather was hot, but beautiful, and I was anticipating wonderful company and food.

SC History Trail

WMBF News

To make the journey, I decided to get a rental car and signed up for roadside assistance. The trip to the beach was delightful. I enjoyed seeing sights I remembered from past travels.

On my route, I drove through the small town of Gallivants Ferry, a place which has been known for generations as the location of political stump meetings. In fact, the Democratic Presidential candidates were scheduled to appear there for a debate on the Monday after I returned home.

Just as I passed the Gallivants Ferry Convenience Store, I heard a loud pop and an electronic notice appeared on the dashboard that my tire pressure was low. I didn’t need to be informed. I’ve experienced flat tires before.

I pulled into the store’s parking lot. Sure enough, the rear tire on the driver’s side was flat as a chunk of butter sizzling in a hot pan. My roadside service paid off. A local company was dispatched and arrived sooner than predicted.

When my rescuer jacked up the car to put on the spare, he pointed to the dent in the rim of the hub cap. It had a red tint around the edge. We were both puzzled about what might have caused the damage.

I conferred with my experts (friends who know about guns and mysteries) and learned that some bullets contain a red substance that leaves a mark. A friend sent me a Guns and Ammo article about the FBI’s “new duty load” with a red interior.

From: https://www.gunsandammo.com/editorial/the-story-behind-the-fbi-new-duty-load/325989

The rental car company asked me to trade the car for another, so I wouldn’t be putting a lot of miles on the spare. After getting supper and checking into the hotel, I headed for the rental car office at the Myrtle Beach airport.

In the humid heat of the night, I followed the parking lot arrows to a place where a woman (I later learned her name was Nancy) sat in a lounge chair with a cooler. She checked me in and opened the trunk to look at the damaged tire. That was when we discovered the hole. Please consider the evidence:

What does that image suggest to you?

Nancy shook the tire. We heard no noise and no bullet fell out, but the hole was consistent with a gun shot. Although, it also might have been caused by my hitting some rebar in the road. Or, another rental car associate suggested, it looked as if something inside the tire might have exploded, bursting the tire and denting the rim.

Meanwhile, back to my bestseller. My friend Phil gave me his list of potential suspects who could be “aiming” for me, including someone who might have made a ghostly appearance. Now, to put it all together in a plausible story!

Anyway, that’s how I began what became a very happy vacation, with an experience that has stimulated my writing brain and, with tremendous luck, could be a bestseller. Remember, you heard it here first!

Have you ever had an experience like mine?

Choices

By James M. Jackson

With three weeks, one day, and—depending on when you read this post—some number of hours and minutes before the official launch of Empty Promises, my life is consumed with marketing efforts. I have blogs to write, interviews to complete, reviews to post. The list is as endless as I want to make it, and therein lies the problem.

I think that the biggest issue I have with the Seamus McCree series is exposure. Goodreads reviews for books in the series average 4.4 out of 5. Except on those days of self-doubt when I’m convinced I can’t write anything more engaging than a grocery list, I realize readers who enjoy my kind of story, enjoy my stories. But only if I can get my books into their hands. And so I search for blogs and reviewers with the right audiences.

So many choices, so many unknowns.

Iceberg off Antarctica in the early morning

One mistake businesses (and writing is most assuredly a business) make in attempting to gain new customers is to neglect their current customers. JC Penney provides a wonderful example unrelated to books. The brand was in difficulty, as were most of its competitors. Their new CEO tried to make the store a “hip” place to shop. Its customer base wanted traditional goods at a fair price. The CEO decided a fair price meant low everyday prices: reduced retail prices, but no more coupons and sales.

The net result was the hipper crowd never thought JC Penney was the place to go, and their loyal customers liked feeling special with coupons and sales events—even if it meant higher list prices and the same net prices. The CEO managed to alienate his base and attract no one to replace it.

The Three Tenors (Chinstrap penguins)

Now, besides writing more great books, how can I keep my fans happy customers? I provide my newsletter subscribers with discounts, free stories, and inside scoops. But I write at the tortoise pace of one book a year. How can I keep fans engaged in between book launches?

It turns out lots of my readers like my photography, especially shots taken while on trips. Since I recently finished an excursion to Antarctica, I’ve been taking time away from what I “should” be doing to promote Empty Promises and, instead, selecting and posting pictures from the Antarctica trip. My approach has been to have people take the trip with me by posting a day at a time. (Sometimes with really busy days, I posted morning and afternoon separately.)

Gentoo Penguins in the rain

Antarctica has nothing to do with Empty Promises, which takes place in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but I’ve discovered that penguins may be better than cats for getting likes on Facebook. Who knows how I might use that information in the future? Maybe Megan McCree (Seamus’s granddaughter who debuts in Empty Promises) will get a penguin doll for the next book.

That’s the choice I made: share commentary along with a very small subset of the 2,700 pictures I took rather than spending the time on more traditional marketing activities. The “vacation reprise” ended earlier this week, and now I’m full bore on writing interesting blogs. I hope my fans have been entertained and maybe even mentioned my posts to a friend or two and remembered to include the information that I write the Seamus McCree series. Well, that’s my hope anyway.

Authors – how do you balance promoting to new audiences with keeping fans happy? Readers, do you ever discover an author from an activity divorced from their writing—like, say, Facebook posts about an Antarctica trip?

James M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree novels featuring the financial crimes consultant, his family, and friends. The series has been well received by crime fiction readers who like their books darker than cozies and lighter than noir. Jim splits his time between the deep woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and the open spaces of Georgia’s Lowcountry. He is the past president of the 700+ member Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime. You can find information about Jim and his books at https://jamesmjackson.com.

A Writer Unplugged

By James M. Jackson

Antarctic Peninsula

Earlier this week we returned from our 23-day journey in and around Antarctica. During that time, I had no access to electronic news feeds. I missed the Super Bowl – although I did hear the score the next day. I missed five shootings in or around schools: Lincoln High School in Philadelphia (1/31), an “unintentional” shooting of two in Sal Castro Middle School in LA (2/1), Oxon Hill High School, Oxon Hill, MD (2/5), the parking lot of Pearl-Cohn High School, Nashville, TN (2/9), and mass murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, FL (2/14). I missed (I think) Congress passing a budget. I returned to find Dreamers are still caught in a nightmare and the Olympics in full swing.

Sheep with Magellanic Penguins on Falkland Islands

Each day, the ship I was on printed a multi-page news summary. It covered the world. Cricket, Tennis, Golf, and English Premier League Football each had more lines of coverage than the two or three allocated daily to US news, which was included under the subhead “The Americas” (lumping our bit of drama with that from the rest of North, Central, and South America).

Striated Caracara - Falkland Islands

While all those events (and much, much more) transpired, I spent oodles of hours on deck watching pelagic birds, cloud patterns, the work of wind on the water. During our numerous landings, we visited new places (Argentina, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island, the Antarctic Peninsula and surrounding islands), saw thousands of birds and unique landscapes.

The only time I consciously spent in writerly activities was during one day at sea. The birds had mostly left us, and it rained or drizzled all day. I stayed in my cabin and wrote the drafts of two blogs related to the April 3 release of Empty Promises. I suppose I should also count time I spent talking with fellow passengers about my writing. That should probably be counted as sales activity.

young Black-browed Albatross - Falkland Islands

Life itself is grist for the writer’s mill, and this was an experience unlike any other I have had. The problem is, if you tried to pin me down about what I learned or how I might incorporate something into my writing, I’ll have to admit that I have no clue. Maybe an expression I heard will pop up in a character’s dialogue. Perhaps I’ll describe how one passenger walked using a stabilizing boot on one foot—the way she shifted her body to compensate for the additional weight and bulk, or how she had to navigate the stairways in rolling seas. Wait! Maybe I’ll have a passenger use a fake boot to hoodwink an airport worker into moving her to the head of the customs line.

Or perhaps a character will incorporate some trait I saw a passenger exhibit: how they approached eating each meal, a sideways shift of his eyes when he didn’t agree with a statement but chose not to engage in argument, a chuckle that turned into a giggle that turned into a knee-slapping roar.

Chinstrap Penguin in the Southern Ocean

I’m sure some writers would have recorded everything in a notebook so they could tap those recollections as needed. I am not that kind of writer. I have no patience for that kind of recording. For some time I kept a diary—sort of. A typical entry might read.

Weather good. Beat Olympia 3-2. (Only by the date could I know if this was soccer or baseball!)

King Penguin colony on South Georgia Island

I’d rather experience something than worry about trying to record it. I only take pictures as something of an after-thought. I want to experience the scenery before recording it. I want to watch the bird, how it uses lift from the waves to pop high into the air, how it uses its tail as a braking device, how it hops on the ground kicking over leaves. Oh yes, I like taking bird photographs, but sometimes I forget in the joy of watching them.

Magellanic Penguin
"If I turn my back on you will you stop squeaking?

The trip reminded me how much I enjoy being outdoors and how little I enjoy talking back to politicians on the television when they lie or avoid tackling hard topics. I missed the part of social media that keeps me in touch with friends and acquaintances; I did not miss the part of social media railing against others (regardless of whether I agreed or disagreed with their position).

I could choose to remain a Writer Unplugged. In some ways it would be easier to ignore all that’s wrong with the world and go my merry way without a care. Except, I prefer making decisions based on facts rather than beliefs, and by ignoring injustice, I’d lose the part of my core being that cares about the plight of others.

Cape Petrel in Southern Ocean

So, I shall return to being a Plugged-In Writer but commit to controlling how I gather news and interact with others about interpreting it. I shall not allow it to regain control of my time or my energy.

Oh, and so I don’t leave you with any false impressions, let me confess: I did manage to take 2,740 non-blurry pictures during the trip. How about you—what’s your biggest take-away from your latest trip or vacation?

P.S.  I am posting photos and commentary of this trip on Facebook, as though you were traveling with me with a 20-day delay. You can follow me on Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/james.m.jackson.author Be sure to check the Album as well as the daily posts. ~ Jim

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

By James M Jackson

In two days I begin the Great Antarctica Adventure. I’ve read all the preparatory material—at least twice. My camera equipment is packed. Batteries charged. Clothing checked against my master list and set aside. Bird books studied. Google translate loaded onto phone (to make up for my nonexistent Spanish skills). Twenty-five days’ worth of medicine set aside. Passport and cash in wallet. Boarding tickets printed out.

I’m ready to go, already . . . except for one thing. I’m not ready to give up my connection to the internet. We’ll probably have internet access in airports and hotels, but for the nineteen days we are on the ship, it is unavailable—at least at a price I want to think about.

I’ve been working on curbing my obsession to the news of the moment. That’s gone about as well as when I tried to quit smoking by gradually cutting down. Something would happen and poof (or puff), I’d be back at my two-pack a day habit. I’m wondering if constant irritation over the news isn’t as dangerous as my smoking habit was. So, I’m going cold turkey. If there’s a newspaper available at port stops, I’ll catch up, but no more checking eighty-seven times a day to see what . . .well, you fill in the blank; I’d just get upset again.

I’m giving up Facebook, too, but only for the trip. I’ll go missing to my 886 friends (as of this writing), and they will go missing to me. I won’t experience three and a half weeks of their lives, because—and I’m just being honest here—I’m not going to check my friends’ back posts when I return. That admission may even cost me a few friends. You mean I don’t care enough about them and their cat Fluffy that I won’t check out each cat shot, each annoying GIF, each political rant. Yep, and I won’t be able to celebrate your book launch or new grandchild, either. When I return to Facebook, it might be like reading a Russian novel and discovering six pages from the middle are missing. I’ll just plow ahead. I’ll miss about 0.08% of each person’s total life. Sure, some important things will happen, but not many—the effect over my total friends is about 2/3rds of one life.

Admit it—you won’t miss my occasional math-geek or writer-geek post, either. Maybe I’ll schedule one or two, just to remind everyone I’m still alive. I have a Writers Who Kill blog due while I’m traveling, and I turned that in ahead of time.

I won’t waste a second mourning the loss of not having access to my Twitter feed.

Email is something else. I remember when all important communications were delivered by the US Postal Service. Back in those distant times, it might take a week or more for a letter to move from sender to receiver. Only businesses used express mail, and faxes were of low quality, slow (two pages a minute) and were sent over long-distance lines you had to pay for by the minute. Oh, and remember telegrams, with their pre-Twitter form of clipped communication as every letter was expensive. STOP.

I’m a writer – what will happen if an agent or publisher wants to contact me? Or a book club wants to schedule me for a meeting? Or someone wants to buy a signed paperback? I’ll employ an automatic responder: “Sorry, it will take me some time to respond to your email. I’m traveling to Antarctica. Be back on 2/22.”

That reminds me of the time my boss insisted he have a way to contact me while I was on vacation. I was whitewater rafting down the canyons of the Green and Colorado rivers. I thought a while and then told him that I supposed he could hire a helicopter rescue company to track down our raft and airlift me from the sandbar or beach we camped at that night.

Today, however, we’re used to being connected 24/7. One might still be forgiven for not answering an email for a day or two if you’d just had quadruple bypass surgery, but otherwise, we expect immediate responses. Well, other than the automatic responder I’ll set up, that just isn’t going to happen. Unlike my days working for corporations where there was someone to back me up, I’m a sole proprietor. It’s me or it’s not.

If that costs me some book sales, so be it. I’m confident the potential loss won’t cause me any sleepless nights or worrisome days. To find out, you’ll have to wait for my return.

Bucket Lists

By James M. Jackson

In 46 B.C. Julius Caesar did away with a flawed lunar-based calendar and introduced the Julian calendar, based (as the Egyptians had been doing for a very long time) on a solar year. He didn’t get it quite right, which required the change over 1,600 years later to our current Gregorian calendar. All of which is to say that we should blame Caesar for having to start anew during the days of shortest daylight hours instead of (say) near the vernal equinox.

I didn’t find anything that linked Caesar to the common practice of setting (and mostly ignoring) New Year’s Resolutions. For a time, I tried to be a maverick and set goals commencing on my birthday. That didn’t seem to work any better, and since the IRS insists that I use a calendar-year basis for my personal and business taxes, I’ve reverted to calendar-year based goals. And lists.

I’ve mentioned before that I am a person who keeps lists. Lots of lists, but fewer than there used to be. I still maintain my books read (80 for 2017). It has the practical purpose of answering the question: did I already read this? I also maintain a lifetime bird list, but I’ve discarded the practice of keeping track of the number seen each year, and in each state, and on my property, and . . . I no longer care.

One list I continue to maintain has nothing to do with calendar years; it’s a bucket list. In case you are not familiar with the term, it means a list of things you want to do or experience before you die (or “kick the bucket”).

My bucket list has changed over the years. Some things have come off because I completed them. My trip to Alaska in 2008 completed my objective to visit all 50 states. And in 2014 when we visited Newfoundland/Labrador, I finished off my Canadian providences list. (I still hope to visit all the Canadian territories, and that remains on my bucket list.)

I consider my list as a way to remind me of some of my inspirational goals, but I don’t allow it to exert pressure on me. (You’re past Social Security eligibility age and you still haven’t done that? Shame, Jim!) Over the years, I removed some items from the list because they are no longer possible to do, at least in the way first intended. I had to scratch “Hike the Appalachian Trail” when my shoulders deteriorated to the point it was too painful to carry a heavy pack for a full day, let alone three months.

I’ve flown in a hot air balloon and helicopter, but still want to fly in a glider plane during hawk migration. I’ve been to the Arctic, but not to Antarctica—that is about to be rectified.

We’ve booked passage on a birding tour that will take us to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island, and the Antarctica peninsula. We leave at the end of January and will be gone for three-plus weeks. I can’t wait to experience the remote habitats, see birds I have only visited in zoos, and experience—well, who knows exactly what I’ll experience? That’s why I’m going.

What’s on your bucket list and what do you hope to scratch off this year? (Oh, oh – there’s that calendar year thing raising its head again!)

My Changed Reading Habits After Kindle Unlimited

By James M Jackson

Sunrise over the volcano

I’m at the tail end of a nearly month-long Hawaii trip. On the first part of the trip, I read paperbacks I had picked up at Left Coast Crime. At the end of the conference, we shipped all those books home (not carrying/paying for all that weight on 10 more flights before returning home!) After that, I relied on my Kindle for reading material.

I keep my Kindle books in folders. Those I have already read are sorted by Excellent, Good, Okay, Poor, DNF (did not finish). Those not yet read are sorted into Paid and Free folders. I already had a strong tendency to read those in the Paid folder first, probably because I had a financial investment in them.

This was my first trip since I signed up for Kindle Unlimited (KU) during a promotion Amazon held last year. For less than $9 a month (normally it’s $9.99) I can borrow and read any books in the KU Library. Those books are primarily populated by Amazon imprints and indy authors who choose to have their electronic books exclusive to Amazon and in turn are included in the KU catalog.

Nene

I had a few books in the Paid folder, both those I had bought and those Jan purchased, which I have access to through our Amazon’s family account. After finishing all those in the Paid folder that interested me, I started to peruse the Free folder and then remembered my KU subscription. I began browsing that catalog for books with more than 1,000 reviews and higher than a 4-star rating.

I found one to read and enjoyed it; found and read a second, which I enjoyed; found and read a third – three for three; found and am enjoying a fourth.

On this vacation, I haven’t given a thought to the numerous books I have queued up in the Free folder (other than for this blog). My search criteria would not disqualify a free book, but it would need to have a lot of reviews, which few free books do. Given that the big publishers and most small publishers do not include their books in KU, my sampling is primarily coming from the Amazon imprints. This whole experience has me wondering about the effectiveness of free kindle books with Kindle Unlimited readers.

Kalij pheasanats

By signing up for KU, I have changed my purchasing behavior. Before KU, I would have sampled a bunch of free books, reading those that held my interest, and deleting those that did not. With KU, I didn’t open a single one of the free books I had previously downloaded. This, of course, is what Amazon hopes for. Am I unique in my approach to choosing what book to read next? What do y’all think?

Summer Vacation

Hearing those two words, “summer vacation,” takes me straight back to my youth. The phrase still carries connotations of the two months between school ending and school beginning. It’s been forty-nine years since I experienced the last of those summer vacations. Since then, it has more properly meant the activities I undertook for a week or two or three during the summer when I was not working.

So few years of the first variety of summer vacation, so many of the second; and yet it is the former that still resonates.

Perhaps it’s because those dozen years of summer vacations shaped much of my life in ways that only became clear from a distance.

My love of long road trips was likely founded in the month-long trip I took with the Boy Scouts between ninth and tenth grades. We traveled from the Rochester, NY area to the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, meandering through the northern states. I first experienced the Great Plains and caught my first sights of the Rockies; I realized how big our country really is and how varied its topography and history.

My yearning for inland lakes in north woods was certainly steeped from the experiences at our family cabin in Ontario’s “Cottage District” and the two weeks each summer I spent for a half-dozen years at Massawepie Boy Scout Camp in the Adirondack mountains.

My desire to walk the land to understand events that occurred on it may have sprung from visiting Gettysburg. My parents allowed me to run the same route Confederate soldiers under the command of General Pickett charged in July 1863. I faced only distance and heat; they also faced cannon and musket fire so strong it leveled wheat fields and peach orchards.

This year, Jan and I took one of our grandchildren on a two-week road trip during her summer vacation. It’s her first long road trip, and we’ve mixed a bit of everything: foreign country (albeit Canada, but Quebec is French-speaking), cities and country, land and sea, touristy kitsch and off-the-beaten track rambles.

I wonder what seeds we planted.

How about you? What long-term effects did your summer vacations have on you?

A Writer's Holiday

Border for LRWA Summer Event

With summer, students can look forward to a break from classes and different opportunities to learn through library reading programs, camps, special activities, and vacations. For writers, summer is a time of conferences, book festivals, and research trips.

Of course, any time writers gather it provides not just an opportunity for exchanging information and networking, but for finding new creative outlets through interaction with your peers. It’s great to keep in contact by email, but face-to-face can give writers a boost through encouragement and shared experience. It’s like the difference between calling your relatives on the phone and seeing them at a family reunion. In person, the information exchanged is of a different quality.

Anna DeStefano

This weekend, my friend Susan F. Craft and I enjoyed attending the Lowcountry Romance Writers’ Summer Event, which took place on the Isle of Palms, near Charleston, SC. Twenty two writers convened to hear from Anna DeStefano, a romance writer born in Charleston who now lives in Atlanta. She met with us Friday evening for dinner and a brainstorming session, then presented a day long program Saturday evaluating how we write and offering suggestions and methodologies for structuring, drafting, and revising a novel. I really commend President Christina Sinisi (who writes as Lexie O’Neill) and the members who organized the event for a cost of $40, which included handouts, some supplies, refreshments, and a goody bag. For those of us traveling, a special rate was available at the hotel.

But, what if you don’t have the resources to travel to meetings or explore possible new settings for your work? Are you stuck at home, surfing the internet? And, if you are, can you have fun doing it?

Definitely. Many of the same organizations that offer events also provide online courses at reasonable costs. The Lowcountry Romance Writers has a monthly slate of online offerings. Every month has at least two featured courses. In July, the two four-week programs being offered are about improving punctuation and writing short stories for an anthology call. In August, the selections are Beginning WordPress and Writing from a Male POV. The cost for each is $20.

If you are a member of the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime, you have access to the subsidized workshops coordinated by our own blogging partner E.B. Davis. She has arranged for well-known teachers like Ramona DeFelice Long and Kris Neri, who just completed a class on writing comedy. Cybercrimes was the subject of a recent well-received course and a short stories class is now being offered.

Thanks to Jim Jackson’s teaching a writing revision course in January, I learned about the online workshops sponsored by the RWA Kiss of Death Chapter’s College of Felony and Intrigue (COFFIN). Two tracks are featured. Murder One has experts in various forensic and other specialties as instructors while Killer Instincts focuses on writing craft. The cost is $15 for members and $30 for non-members. 

Hank Phillippi Ryan

Through the Murder One track, I’m currently taking a class with Hank Phillippi Ryan about how newsrooms and investigative reporters operate and how writers can use journalistic skills to improve fiction writing. Thanks to Hank’s wonderfully generous, interactive style, the information is terrific and student participation is high. In July, for Murder One, Chef Fran Gleason will provide an orientation to working in a kitchen and how you can commit murder there. For July’s Killer Instincts, Pam McCutchen has a course about writing convincing dialogue and other tips.

Writer’s Digest University has numerous online courses covering every possible writing topic at a variety of costs. If you’re interested in writing thrillers, take a look at WD’s thriller conference that takes place next weekend and features instructors like Hallie Ephron, D.P. Lyle, and James Scott Bell. In addition, it offers an opportunity to submit a query for agent evaluation.

Consider the opportunities that may be available in your community through libraries and bookstores. Authors on tour may be stopping by for signings. Check out the meeting schedules for your local RWA, MWA, or Sisters in Crime chapters. In South Carolina, our local chapters all feature monthly speakers. Most chapters allow interested persons to attend several meetings before asking that they become members.

Seek an experience that enhances your creativity. Go to a museum or ask to interview an expert at a law enforcement agency or university. Most people enjoy talking with interested persons about their specialties.

Taking a break from the routine tasks can bring you back to writing with renewed enthusiasm. So what do you have planned for a writer’s holiday?