I'm Now …

by Louis Willis

… a Stephen King fan, which I owe to you. I wasn’t a fan before reading that many of you admire his writing. It’s not that I didn’t like his stories, I just never felt compelled to read them. I liked the movies based on his stories. My favorites are The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption. My least favorites are The Tommyknockers and The Dreamcatcher. The movies showed his storytelling skills but didn’t persuade me to read the stories. 

I read The Dreamcatcher when it was first published because of the title and the negative reviews. I wondered how anyone could catch dreams. Also, I knew King was a prolific and popular writer who usually received positive reviews, so, I wondered, why the negative ones? After I read the novel, I agreed with the reviewers, it is a bad novel, and the movie didn’t improve the story. 

I decided to read more of his stories because of your admiration. I bought two of his books at random: The Gunslinger: The Dark Tower and Just After Sunset. The third book, Different Seasons, I bought because it contains the story on which The Shawshank Redemption is based. 

For this post, I read the 13 stories in Just After Sunset. The protagonist in the story titled “N,” describes better than I can what King’s stories are like: “Reality is a mystery, … and the everyday texture of things is the cloth we draw over it to mask its brightness and darkness.” 

“N” is the best and most enjoyable story in Just After Sunset. N, an accountant, sees a psychiatrist for his obsessive compulsive disorder after a weird experience he had while taking pictures of rocks in Ackerman’s Field. When he looks with his naked eye, he sees seven rocks and strange shapes, but when he looks through his camera’s viewfinder, there are eight, and things appear normal. The aftermath of the experience causes him to see even numbers as safe, odd as unsafe, and he must make sure there are an even number of objects on tables, etc.. Although he fears whatever he sees or thinks he sees in the field, he returns again and again. No spoiler, so I won’t tell you how it ends, but the end is scary.

“A Very Tight Place,” involving a conflict between two men over a piece of land, proves that you can still enjoy a story even when you foresee the protagonist will escape a trap his enemy has laid. Such a story satisfies the reader’s anticipation. The incident in “A Very Tight Place “ involving the protagonist’s escape from a portable toilet occurs about a third of the way in the story and kept me on the edge of my seat. I knew he would escape – his being trapped was nowhere near the end of the story. Not only did I want to see how he would escape, I wanted to help him. King’s prose is so good that I felt right there in that sweltering, stinky toilet with him.

“The Gingerbread Girl” is the poorest story in the book where implausibility overwhelms credibility. A young woman who lost her child and is thinking of divorcing her husband goes to her father’s cabin in a deserted resort where she encounters a serial killer. To flee his house, (no spoiler here) after escaping from the kitchen chair he'd taped her to, she runs into the bedroom/office with him pursuing close behind, where she bars the door with a chair. She throws an old school desk through a window, wraps a blanket around herself, and jumps out the broken window. In escaping from the chair, she sprained her wrist and lower back. It seems to me that those injuries would have made it rather difficult for her to escape though that window. I just couldn’t suspend my disbelief.

I haven’t decided which book to read next. I am certain of one thing, I shall not read more of the stories on a dark and stormy night.

Playing Nashville

by Elizabeth Zelvin

I’m in Nashville this weekend. I drove the 900 miles from home in New York City, not to try my luck on Music Row, but to attend Killer Nashville, a mystery conference sponsored by conference founder Clay Stafford’s American Blackguard Film and Television along with Mystery Writers of America’s and Sisters in Crime’s national organizations and local chapters and a roster of bookstores and authors. It’s my second time at Killer Nashville, and the first time was such a grand adventure that I’m thrilled to be back.

I hadn’t yet started recording my own album, Outrageous Older Woman back in 2009. In fact, I had managed to forget both the lyrics and the melodies of the songs I’d written over the years. I spent long stretches of the two-day drive re-learning them by singing along to cassette tapes that I was lucky I managed to unearth in the mountains of stuff in my apartment. Along with the kind of urban folk songs I write myself, I’m a fan of the best of country music. So I’d always wanted to visit Nashville. But I didn’t expect to have the opportunity to perform.

At the awards banquet that year, guest of honor J.A. Jance was presented with a gorgeous black silver-inlaid acoustic guitar. I had to get my hands on that guitar! I’m unlikely to reach guest of honor status as a mystery writer in this life. So I sidled up to Clay Stafford and whispered, “Can I sing a paranormal murder ballad?” To my great pleasure, he said yes, and so did J.A. Jance. So I got to sing “Long Black Veil,” one of the greatest wailers ever. It was written in 1959, and everybody has sung it, including Lefty Frizzell, Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, and the Chieftains. I think the fact that I sang surprised all the mystery folks, and the big surprise for me was that I hit the high notes without effort—thanks to those 900 miles singing along in the car.

You could say that the journey to release my Outrageous Older Woman CD started that night. This year, the trunk of my car held a box of my CDs as well as copies of my three mysteries, and all are available in the book room at Killer Nashville. Even better, I got to sing a couple of my own songs at the Sisters in Crime reception on Friday night. None of my songs have murder in them, but they’re about a lot of the issues that provide motives: love, ambition, family, alcoholism, and abuse, among others. I just happen to write about the up side: love, perseverance, family support, recovery, and healing.

I ducked out of the conference for long enough to have lunch with a Nashville songwriter buddy, Mike T. Lewis, yesterday. He and his wife, MaryBeth Zamer, perform as the Twangtown Paramours. The panel I’m participating in comes up this afternoon: “Talk Is Cheap; Effective Dialogue Is Priceless.” Music at the banquet tonight will be provided by special guest and bestselling author Jeffery Deaver’s XO Band. Yes, he’s got an album. In Nashville, that surprises no one.

Pot, Boiler . . . where'd the "Space" come from??

I mentioned that there sometimes seems to be disagreement concerning the term potboiler -- at least, to me.

Does potboiler have only one meaning, or two meanings?  And, is it a term you want applied to something you write, or not?

Examining several dictionaries, I found similar definitions for the word, each indicating a potboiler is a mediocre or inferior work produced solely for financial gain.  Googling the term, however, took me to an Amazon webpage that described several well-respected mystery/suspense novels as potboilers.

Faced with this conundrum, I did what I often do, when faced with a difficult problem …

I headed for the cigar store.

There, over a period of several shifts, I took a non-scientific straw poll (I hesitate to call it an actual survey), asking customers if they had heard of a potboiler story or novel. And, if they had, what they thought the term  meant.

 Below, are the Polling Questions as respondents saw them on sheets of 8.5 x 11 inch paper:

 Gender: M F (circle one)
 Age: ______
 ( )Smoker  ( )Non-smoker

 I am a:
 ( ) Regular Ford & Haig Tobacconist customer
 ( ) Visitor (out of town)
 ( ) Visitor (live locally)

 On average, I read approximately:
 ( ) One or more books per week
 ( ) One book every two weeks
 ( ) One to two books per month
 ( ) One book every month or two
 ( ) I read books, but not that often.
 ( ) I read magazines and/or newspapers, but don’t usually read books.

 Please check the appropriate response:
( ) I am certain I know the meaning of the term potboiler as it pertains to literature.
( ) I am uncertain of the meaning of the term potboiler as it pertains to literature.

 Please check the appropriate response:
( ) I believe the term potboiler has a negative connotation, in literature.
( ) I believe the term potboiler has a positive connotation in literature.

 Please check the appropriate response:
( ) I would not read a book described as a potboiler on the back cover.
( ) I might read a book described as a potboiler on the back cover.
( ) I would definitely read a book described as a potboiler on the back cover.

 A Potboiler is best described as:
 ( ) A book about cooking.
 ( ) A book written by an author just to make money. It’s not usually very good.
 ( ) A suspense or thriller with great tension, in which the main character is under a lot of pressure.

Is that a TURKEY in the pot???

The Results

I asked dozens of customers, but only 52 were willing to fill out a Polling Sheet. The rest were in too much of a hurry, disliked reading all together, or simply thought I was a loon. (Go figure!)

Of the 52 respondents: 43 were male, 9 female. They ranged in age from 19 to 74 years. 41 of them smoked tobacco, the other 11 being friends of somebody who smoked (hence their presence in a tobacco shop).

Among the respondents, 30 were regular customers of the store, who knew me, while 6 were visiting The Valley of the Sun in July/August -- meaning that one must question their sanity! -- and the remaining 16 were residents but not regular customers of the cigar store.

Two respondents claimed to read at least two books a week. 14 said that they read one to two books a month, 29 said they read about a book every month or two, 5 said they read fewer than one book every two months, and the remaining 2 said they read newspapers or magazines, but not books.

Thus, as can be plainly seen: this survey is in no way random — the respondents all being smokers or friends of smokers, who happened to find their way through the door of the shop where I work. As such, the survey probably bears little real relation to cultural norms across the United States. On the other hand, my friends on the newspaper staff sometimes construct entire articles around similarly flawed surveys. So, let’s follow suit.

Of the 52 respondents, only 11 stated that they were sure of potboiler’s meaning, while 40 confessed to some amount of confusion, and one person initially thought I was asking his opinion about Chinese dumplings. (This person was provided with clarification between the terms Potboiler and Pot Sticker, at which point he confessed to some confusion concerning the term Potboiler.)

Of the 11 who were certain of potboiler’s meaning, 8 felt the connotation was negative, while 3 said potboiler had a positive connotation.

Of the 41 who expressed some doubt concerning potboiler’s meaning, 14 thought the term had a negative connotation, while 31 said they felt potboiler was a positive description of writing. (14 + 31 = 45 This is greater than the total number of respondents who expressed doubt about the meaning, because some respondents marked both answers.)

Of the 11 who were certain of potboiler’s meaning, 8 defined it in terms of a work created solely for profit (dictionary definition), while 3 marked that a potboiler was a suspense or thriller novel with great tension (how Amazon appears to define the term).

All 34 respondents who saw potboiler as positive (3 sure of the meaning + 31 unsure of the meaning), thought the term referred to a work with great tension.

Of the 22 respondents who thought it had a negative connotation (8 sure of the meaning + 14 in doubt), 13 indicated it was a work created solely for profit, while 13 saw it as a work of great tension (5 marked both responses), and one person marked “A book about cooking.”

12 respondents said they would not read a book described as a potboiler, but 31 said they might read such a book, and 9 respondents (over 17 percent!) said they definitely would read one.

Out of 52 respondents, the majority saw potboiler as having a positive connotation  referring to a mystery/suspense or thriller with great tension and an explosive climax. 

 And, 17 percent of respondents indicated they would be highly motivated to buy such a book. (And, like many a contemporary reporter, I’ll ignore the fact that 12 people, or roughly 23 percent of respondents, indicated they would NOT read the book.)

Thus, these numbers -- which in reality are quite meaningless, though I'm pretending they aren’t — would seem to indicate a trending change in perception concerning the phrase potboiler. Today, people’s perception is transforming the word Potboiler into something that hasn’t yet been officially recognized (by the dictionary folks, at least): the idea that a Potboiler isn’t just a negative idea for a work that puts food on the table; it can also be a sought-after high-tension suspense thriller.

One word: two almost diametrically opposed meanings (in the minds of many literati, at least).

 In the words of one respondent (a lawyer), “Maybe we should clarify things by writing it as one word Potboiler when you use it one way, and putting a space between Pot and Boiler when you use it the other.”

Hence the title of my last post:  Pot, Boiler . . . add a Space??

What do you think?  Should we start adding a space (i.e.: pot boiler) when using the term to describe a high-tension thriller or mystery?  And, if we do, can we get this practice to spread??

If that should happen, remember:  You saw it HERE first!  On Sleuth Sayers.

See you in two weeks,

Dix

Time with Art

 by Deborah Elliott-Upton

What's better than spending time with people you admire for their skills? Last week I had a leisurely lunch with a creative group of women. The assortment of talent ran the spectrum of the genres in the writing arena: one was a playwright, one a singer/songwriter, another a novel-length young adult writer, a children's author who handles novels and picture books, a historical fiction writer, a romance writer and me, the lone mystery author. (For some unknown to me reason, although my area in the state is known for its abundance of writers, few choose to write mystery.)

An eclectic gathering, we spoke of our current works in progress. A few won't discuss their work until it is finished, several only with their personal critique group members and a couple said it depended on which work at which specific time.

I am one that falls into the latter choice. At the beginning of  project, I tend to talk more about the basic idea with a few close individuals. This is more my way of seeing if the idea holds attention with the public as much as with me.

At that point, I tend to mull over the details of the plot and allow the characters to come to me with their own viewpoint. They need to talk to me!

Writing after this is usually kept more to myself until I am ready for someone else with a critical and unbiased eye to take a look.

This group -- like so many others in the writing community -- is less about stroking egos and more about supporting other artists in their artistic endeavors. Talking about writing to us is like finding a lifeline in a stormy sea.

Life hands out rejections like election ads during a campaign year: too many seem to bombard us at once. Many ads and rejections are too negative and lean on the nasty side. Negative remarks– whether they are meant to received as such or not– can bruise talent. I've heard each artist must suffer to find the truth in his work. Maybe. But I don't believe they must be beaten beyond recognition. Spread some of that random kindness around. Compliments are inexpensive and means much to the receiver.

Writers gathering to talk about writing is uplifting. It's good to hear what others are facing in their journey.

I enjoy spending time with people "new" to discovering their talents. Nothing is as contagious as passion.

The young playwright is reading every play she can find and attending avant-garde theatre productions. The singer is performing some new songs at a small town cafe. The young adult writer sings backup in the group. They're also collaborating on new songs together. The historian is finishing her novel and ready to take the next step to find a publisher. The children's author is finishing a six book series. The romance writer is new to writing and is fresh with anticipation. I advised her she is my newest protege and she didn't even laugh. (I like that in a writer!) I'm working on a hush-hush project I'm not ready to talk about to the masses. Soon though.

We laughed as we discussed introverts and extroverts and how even our small grouping was a combination of both. Writers don't come in one size fits all.

By the end of the lunch, we were full -- not just of the delicious food served (our singer is also a caterer -- lucky us!), but also of eagerness to get back to our own writings. Our own genres. Our own art.

Time spent with art and artists is never dull and always so very worthwhile. I think I just may mull on that thought for a few more days.

The Name Is Familiar

I recently stumbled over a book in our library called WORD PEOPLE, by Nancy Caldwell Sorel.  The first thing you are likely to notice about the book is that the illustrations are by her husband, the great cartoonist  Edward Sorel.

It is a book about eponyms, people whose names became words.  I was intrigued by how many of them are related to crime.  Some of them will probably be familiar to you, others not, so try to guess them before you read the definition.  I’ll start with the easiest.

Joseph Guillotin – He did not invent the world’s fastest haircut machine; he merely popularized it in France just as a whole lot of people were about to get de-lifed..  Dr Guillotin noted that noblemen were executed by sword, while peasants were hung, and suggested that it would be both more egalitarian and more merciful if all convicted criminals were decapitated.  The first guillotine was a bargain at 300 francs, plus another 20 for a bag to catch the head..

Sir Robert Peel -  Founder of the London police force, gave us the word Bobby.

Henry Deringer – Inventer of the banjo.  Just kidding.  His small gun was so popular that fakes were made in lifetime, including French guns called Derringer, a name that seems to have stuck better than his own.

Captain Charles C. Boycott – Agent for English landlords in Ireland.  Irish leader Charles Parnell said of such people “leave him strictly alone!”  People refused to work for Boycott, or even sell him food.  He and his family had to flee.  Interestingly enough, years after the reform laws the Irish had demanded were passed, Boycott returned to Dublin on a visit, where he was recognized and cheered.  People wanted him to know it had been nothing personal.   

Colonel William Lynch.  According to no less an authority than Edgar Allan Poe, the colonel started a vigilante gang in Pittsylvania, Virginia in 1780, thus giving rise to lynch law, and later to the verb.

William Burke – Irishman of Burke and Hare fame, They killed people in Edinburgh in order to sell their bodies to a medical school for autopsies.  To burke is to smother.

E.C. Bentley – This mystery writer’s middle name was Clerihew, the handle he hung on a form of poetry he created: a quatrain about a person, whose name is the first line.  For example:

E.C. Bentley

To put it gently

Earned no disgrace

With Trent’s Last Case

James Granger -  Never heard this one, but it is fascinating.  Granger was a British clergyman with a rather horrible idea.  His Biographical History of England had no illustrations.  Instead the reader was encouraged to buy OTHER books and slice them up to illustrate your copy of his book.  To grangerize means to mutilate one book in order to create another, ie. I personally prefer Monsieur Guillotin’s contribution.

And here’s one that didn’t make Sorel’s book (possibly because the word is trademarked!) but which I use from time to time.  I’ll bet Dale recognizes it, if no one else does:

Frank Shepard – in 1873 he invented Shepard’s Adhesive Annotations, which allowed attorneys to slap changes or revisions to laws and court cases directly on the page that contained them.  Today lawyers still shepardize  cases by checking Shepard’s Citations or competing services to see if legal opinions have been overruled or otherwise altered.

And here are a few more from the book you might not have thought of as eponyms: quisling, mesmerize, cardigan, derby, sideburn, silhouette, and dunce.

Breakfast On The Boardwalk

by David Dean


Morey's Pier Wildwood, NJ

 Last Monday (July 30), Robin and I started our week by having breakfast on a Ferris wheel.  This simple feat may sound difficult, but the magic of the Jersey Shore and it's signature boardwalks are more than a match for such challenges.  It was not, as you might imagine, the scarfing down of an egg and scrapple wrap (What... You don't know what scrapple is?) while trying to balance a cup of coffee on your knee...oh no.  We had a table with a white linen cloth and a breakfast that had been prepared to order, with actual plates, silverware, and the juice of our choice.  The operators even had the Ferris wheel rotate slowly for our dining pleasure; allowing us to stop near the top and enjoy the view of the great Atlantic on one side, and the bustling boardwalk and streets of Wildwood on the other.  Nature cooperated, as well, and we had a sunny morning with a cool breeze coming off the ocean.  Not a bad way to start your day, I can tell you.  It's moments such as these that make everything seem worthwhile.

There's something about shore towns that are engaging and evocative.  And they run the gamut here in New Jersey, we have everything from the hustle and bustle of such blue-collar destinations as Wildwood and Asbury Park, to the glitz and glamor (of a sort) of Atlantic City and its casinos by the sea, and just about everything else in between.  Looking down from my white linen breakfast, I was impressed with the sheer number of people hitting the boards and the beaches by nine o'clock in the AM.  I worked so many nights as a cop that I had almost forgotten that there is a morning out there.  It sure looked nice this day.

 

Haunted Freighter

To our north rose a great roller coaster, beneath which squatted a rusting hulk of a haunted freighter, while east of us lay a vast network of pools and slides comprising a water park.  Kids were screaming, splashing, sliding, and having the times of their lives.  If it had been up to them, the park would have opened at dawn and they would have been there since.  It made me nostalgic for my own family's youth and the raising of our children.  It also reminded me of how much all this ebb and flow of humanity at the seaside had influenced my life.  Besides my policing a shore town, my son had been a lifeguard for ten years, and Robin still teaches at an island school.  My first stories were set in a mythical Jersey Shore town, and many still are.  Yet, I grew up in Georgia, two hundred miles from the nearest salt water.  Life has a way of taking you places you never planned on.  It all began with a Jersey girl named Robin...but that's another story altogether.

Bahamas

Today is my birthday, and as you read this I have run away to the sea.  In fact, I am aboard a 43 foot sailing catamaran heading south through the Bahamas to Great Exuma Island.  I bet you didn't see that coming!  The captain has warned me that the Internet is often out-of-reach in these turquoise waters, so I may not be able to respond to comments in any kind of a timely manner, or at all.  I'm sharing the boat with my Jersey girl, Robin, my brother, Danny, and his wife, Wanda.  We are the merry crew of the "StrayCat."  Like I said earlier, life has a way of taking you places...

She Said WHAT?

Helen Gurley Brown, 1964

by Fran Rizer

A week ago today, Helen Gurley Brown died on August 13, 2012, in New York, at the age of ninety.  Wikepedia describes her as an "American author, publisher, and businesswoman...editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for thirty-two years."

When Brown took over the magazine in1965, it was rapidly declining.  When she was replaced as editor-in-chief in 1997, Cosmopolitan ranked sixth at newsstand sales and, for the sixteenth straight year, ranked first in sales at bookstores on college campuses.

Numerous articles about Brown appeared last week, and though I read a lot, I won't try to summarize them.  Suffice it to say that among Brown's accomplishments in addition to developing the Cosmo girl image and making the magazine such a success were ten published books as well as winning numerous awards.

Personally, I quit reading Cosmopolitan when I grew old enough that I thought I knew as much about sex as writers of the articles whose lead lines appear in the upper left of each issue's cover--you know, the ones like "How to Please a Man."  Bet you thought I was going to say, "When they quit publishing quality fiction."  The truth is that prior to Brown, the magazine DID publish fiction, but the fiction disappeared when popularity rose.


Brown as successful writer of Sex and the Single Girl

Before taking over Cosmopolitan, Helen Gurley Brown became known worldwide in 1962 when her book Sex and  the Single Girl was published.  She claimed women could have it all--love, sex, and money.  The book was filled with advice, opinions, and anecdotes on why being a single girl didn't mean being a celibate female.  It also was filled with info about "catching" men and even suggested settling for an affair with a married man if necessary. Needless to say, I disagreed with a lot of what she said in the book, but then, I'm not so sure she believed it all herself. One thing is for sure--the book got a lot of attention and sold lots of copies.  Later feminists such as Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer didn't support her philosophy any more than the traditionalists who saw June Cleaver as the ultimate accomplished female.

I remember reading that book, but the main thing I remember is that she recommended using Jello as a substitute for candy.  Five feet, four inches tall, Helen Gurley Brown kept her weight at about a hundred pounds her entire adult life, and one of her recommendations was to make sugar-free Jello using only half the recommended amount of water.  Pour it on a cookie sheet and conjeal.  Cut into small squares and use to satisfy that urge for a sweet bite.  I tried this way back when.   It's a lot like Gummy Bears.

While many young women (and young girls like me who snuck that book to read it) thought Helen Gurley Brown was younger than she was when she wrote Sex and the Single Girl, she was actually forty years old and didn't originate as the slick city woman she had become.  Born in Arkansas, she moved to LA at fifteen, to Georgia for a while, back to LA, and then to New York.  After working at the William Morris Agency, Music Corp of America and Jaffe talent agency, she went to work for Foote, Cone & Belding where her writing skills were recognized and she was moved to copy writing and became one of the nation's highest paid copy writers of the early sixties.

The Middle Years

Some readers assumed that Helen Gurley Brown was single herself and lived a wild life.  Her book titles would support that idea, but she was married over fifty years to David Brown, who produced The Sting, Jaws, Cocoon, Driving Miss Daisy, and other well-known movies before he died in 2010. Married in 1959, he suggested she write Sex  and the Single Girl.  He also wrote those sexually explicit cover lead lines for Cosmopolitan.  More than a decade older than his wife, David Brown was no doubt a strong influence in her success, but she made her own way, and part of that way was marrying successfully.

In her 1982 book  Having It All, Helen Gurley Brown wrote, "I never liked the looks of  the life that was programmed for me--ordinary, hillbilly, and poor--and I repudiated it from the time I was seven years old."  She is credited with numerous quotes, most having to do with sex, money, appearance, and success. 

A few of the better-known lines attributed to Helen Gurley Brown:

What you have to do is work with the raw material you have--namely you.

Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking, you are boring somebody.

Nearly every glamorous, wealthy, successful career woman you might envy now started out as some kind of schlepp.

Money.  If it does not bring you happiness, it will at least help you be miserable in comfort.

After you're older, two things are more important than any others:  health and money.

My success was based not so much on any great intelligence but on great common sense.

Her most famous, most quoted line sounds a lot like Mae West:

Good girls go to heaven; bad girls go everywhere.

Helen Gurley Brown in her eighties

Into her eighties, Helen Gurley Brown still loved big hair, big jewelery, short skirts, and textured or fishnet stockings.  Not only did she still love them, she still wore them to her office at  Cosmopolitan where she remained a workaholic as international editor until near her death.
Her boldness in following her own style is only one of the reasons I admire her enough to write about her.

The females I most admire are those who knew what they wanted, went after it, and succeeded while creating their own styles along the way.  Among those women are, in addition to Helen Gurley Brown, Dolly Parton, Liz Taylor, and Tina Turner. Their styles, outrageous; their successes, phenomenal.

I may be wrong, but I don't believe Helen Gurley Brown believed everything she promoted.  I think she was a good writer and fine PR person who knew that sex sells and had the talent to sell it.

Rest in Peace, Helen Gurley Brown! You made Cosmo girls out of a lot of mouseburgers.

---

Please be sure to check here two weeks from now for a very special column from a very special guest writer.

Until we meet again… take care of YOU!

Florida News– Mermaids, Murder, and Mayhem

by Leigh Lundin

Mermaids in Orlando © Orlando Sentinel

On the positive side, Orlando's hosting the Mer-Palooza Mermaid Convention. No matter how I try to prevent it or at least ignore it, Florida madness abounds, sometimes funny, often not. So, grab your coffee and let's check the headlines.

No Good Deed…

Hallandale Beach, FL.  You may have heard about the heroic lifeguard, Tomas Lopez, who saved a life and lost his job. His Orlando employer, Jeff Ellis and Associates, fired him for saving a man outside the area he was paid to oversee. When six fellow guards said they'd do the same thing, Ellis fired them too. After bad publicity, Ellis tentatively offered Lopez his minimum wage job back, which he declined.

You can save a life, but you can't save a company without soul.

Which Way the Wind Blows

Miami, FL  In what's called 'mob seduction', an Eastern European criminal ring imported women from former Soviet Bloc countries, making them collude in fleecing men at the notorious Club Tangia. Victims included a weatherman, taken to the tune of $43,712.25.

The memory forecast is dull to partly cloudy.

Amateur Detective (for Real)

Summerfield, FL  I wish I could say this is a light-hearted story– it isn't– but it's one of possible vindication. In 2008, Rodney Stanger murdered his long-time girlfriend, Chrystal Morrison. Her sister, Bonnie Kiernan, finally arrived a few months ago to clean out her sister's things… and believes she uncovered evidence Stanger kidnapped and killed a teen lifeguard twelve years earlier. Now the pros have arrived and among other things, opened a safety deposit box Ms Kiernan uncovered.

Losing a family member is a horrid event, but I hope Bonnie's investigative work helps others.

Shoot First / Stand Your Ground Law

Sanford, FL  SleuthSayers was one of the first sites to report on the Trayvon Martin case, in particular detailing Florida's senseless Stand Your Ground law. George Zimmerman's attorney will appear at a preliminary hearing, seeking to have charges dismissed, arguing Florida law is clearly on their side. After allegedly lying about finances, Zimmerman and his lawyer purportedly plowed through support and defense funds, some apparently raised via neo-Nazi groups, and is now asking the public to pay for his defense.

To recap, the Shoot First / Stand Your Ground law, reviled by police and prosecutors, supplants the castle doctrine, which meant you have a right to defend your home and your person. But the new law sets a far lower, more aggressive standard, which results in approximately a hundred acquittals and dismissals a year, triple what it was. This law allows people to get away with murder by claiming (like Zimmerman) they were afraid.

We mentioned previous incidents including an unprosecuted case of a double homicide of two unarmed men. Since then, Floridians continue happily shooting one another. Read on.

Sanford, FL  A woman in Sanford– the town where Trayvon was shot– invoked the Stand Your Ground law when she killed her husband. She eventually admitted she self-inflicted a knife wound. Her hearing is being conducted by the same judge assigned to the George Zimmerman case.

Cape Coral, FL  A man reportedly shot an unarmed door-to-door salesman, once in the torso and then in the back of the head. Invoking the Stand Your Ground law, he told officers, "I was in fear."

Port St. Joe, FL  When a Florida Panhandle man knocked on the door of another to complain about racial epithets, the resident shot the complainant in the face, then sat down to dinner. He seemed surprised by all the fuss.

Bithlo, FL  Robert Pascale and Michael Garay weren't able to invoke the new law due to a couple of technicalities. First, they claimed their fear was for neighborhood children. Second, they killed the wrong man, thinking he was a sex offender. Pascale doesn't feel remorseful, apparently believing God is on his side.

Pulling Deadly Strings

Largo, FL  The owner of a children's entertainment business called Puppets Plus was arrested, apparently hungry for children… literally. It may have been a close call, but crime students might remember Albert Fish who had a taste for children. It's been suggested Fish became the inspiration for Hannibal Lector.

Setting the Bar Code Low

Lauderhill, FL  A mother had a nice little eBay business that pulled in more than $30,000 a month. The only problem is that she's accused of effectively stealing the products from Target and WalMart by switching UPC labels.

And you thought those greeters weren't paying attention.

Tit for Tat

Fort McCoy, FL  Police tried to stop a speeding Ford pickup that accelerated, precipitating a high-speed chase. It turns out the speeder was a half-naked teaching assistant on the wedded side of married.

Despite an annoyed husband, boyfriend, and employer, she still managed to update her Facebook status saying it ain't so. (Oops, wedding anniversary next month)

The Internet Cloud

West Palm Beach, FL  And now, a peaceful wrap-up more suitable for a pleasant Sunday. Here's a 'fire rainbow' over Florida, not a true rainbow, but an iridescent cloud.

© 2012 Ken Rotberg, WPTV

A Woman's World Survival Guide

by John M. Floyd

Two weeks ago my friend R.T. Lawton posted a column here about writing mini-mysteries for Woman's World Magazine, and suggested that I write one also.  I promised him I would, but I certainly didn't promise him that it would be as well-written as his; R.T.'s piece provided some extremely helpful insights on crafting stories for that market, and if you haven't seen it I encourage you to go back and take a look.  Meanwhile, here's my take on the mysterious world of WW . . .

A little background info

My first Woman's World story appeared thirteen years ago, in their April 20, 1999, issue.  It was a mini-mystery called "Smoke Test" (they changed my title to "Switched Off"), about a guy plotting to electrocute his wife.  I followed that with stories in their July 20 and July 27, 1999, issues, one of which was a romance called "Elevator Music."  I tried a romance story not because I thought I was particularly good at writing them but because back then romances earned a thousand dollars a pop, compared to five hundred for mysteries, and I think I just got lucky.  In case you're interested, the max word count then was 1000 words for mysteries and 1500 for romances--now it's 700 and 800 words, respectively.  Payment for mysteries remains at $500 each, and romances are now $800.

The format was different as well, for mystery stories.  At that time they were just called mini-mysteries--a term I still use--and had a traditional story structure.  In late 2004 WW changed the mystery format to the one that still exists today, to make them more "interactive."  The new stories are called Solve-It-Yourself Mysteries, and they always end with a question to the reader and a "solution box" that R.T. has already explained.  The change was a decision that I'll admit I didn't agree with--I had already sold them eleven stories by that time, and I was comfortable with the regular narrative format.  But I once heard someone say that when the train of progress comes roaring down the tracks, you can either stand in the way and get squashed, or you can jump on it and ride.  I hopped aboard.  (The romances, by the way, didn't change; they are still traditionally structured.)

Hints and tips

If any of you haven't tried Woman's World but are interested in submitting a story to them, here are a few things about their mysteries that I've learned over the past years:

(1) Make the good guys win in the end.

(2) Include a lot of dialogue, if possible.

(3) Include a female protagonist.  She doesn't have to be the only protagonist--but she needs to be present.

(4) Include a crime.  If you have what appears to be a crime and then the facts prove that no crime actually occurred, that usually won't get the job done.

(5) Include humor whenever possible.

(6) Keep it fairly clean and fairly simple.  Avoid extreme violence, explicit sex, strong language, technical jargon, characters with physical or mental disabilities, overly complex plots, and exotic locations.  Familiar settings seem to work best.

(7) As mentioned, keep the word count below 700.  The last several mysteries I've sold them have all been between 680 and 690 words, including the solution.

I should note that on several occasions I have happily violated the above "rules"--sometimes intentionally and sometimes because of ignorance--and still made a sale.  In fact, the bad guys actually won in two of my first three mysteries for WW, and my first mystery included no dialogue at all.  And I can't seem to resist throwing a few technical terms around.  (On the other hand, I've written a lot of stories for them that followed all the rules, and still got rejected.  It's an inexact science.)

By the way, the fiction editor's name is Johnene Granger, and submissions should be addressed to her attention at Woman's World, 270 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632.

The creative process

As you writers already know, there are many ways to come up with a short story.  Some of us start with the characters, some with the setting, some with the theme, etc.  I start all my WW mysteries with the plot.  I dream up the situation and the crime and the solution, and only then do I populate the story with the folks who'll make it happen.  I'm not saying you should necessarily do it that way--but that seems to work best for me.

Once I have the "flow" of the story in mind, all the way to the ending, I sit down and type it into the computer.  For some reason, that first draft almost always turns out to be between 800 and a thousand words.  Then I start weeding out the things I don't need, and polishing the rest--especially the dialogue. I've found more success with the lighthearted mini-mysteries than with the gritty ones, so I also try to put in at least a little humor.

Another thing that's worked well for me is to come up with more than one vital clue to solving the case.  I have the main character figure one of the clues out and reveal it during the story, then I save the second (and more important) clue for the solution.  I don't do that every time, but when I do, it seems to add some variety and complexity.

Statistics

R.T. was asking about my WW track record, on submissions.  I suppose I'd have to say it's not good and it's not bad.  As for the "not good" part, I figure I've been rejected at least seventy times, and no matter how you spin it, that's a lot of misfires.  (I can't be certain of the number, because I've lengthened and reformatted many of those rejected stories and sold them elsewhere, while others sit there withering on the vine.)  Half a dozen were rejected with a note saying that if I would change something they'd reconsider the story, and in every one of those cases I made the requested change and it was then accepted.

On the asset side of the ledger, Woman's World has so far bought 46 of my stories--44 mysteries and two romances.  Two more mysteries were accepted but never got published.  I received kill fees (twenty percent of full payment) for both of those.  In answer to a question that I'm often asked, some of the titles of my stories were changed by the editor before publication and some were not; one story is scheduled to come out later this month, so I don't know yet about that one, but so far they've retained 25 of my original titles and changed the others.  The story that came out last week--the August 20 issue--was called "Caught in the Cross-fire," but my original title was "A Quick Stop."

In researching this piece, I found that the crimes involved in my published mini-mysteries have mostly been robberies and burglaries--at least two dozen of them.  Nine of the other crimes were murders, three were kidnappings, two were prison escapes, and the rest were a hodgepodge of fraud, carjackings, assault, blackmail, etc.  I was a little surprised at how many of my plots involved stealing of some kind, but I guess that makes sense in a way: a lot of my mysteries are sort of playful, which lend themselves more to theft than to killing.   And robberies--especially burglaries--often happen in familiar, domestic settings.

Afterthoughts

A taboo I forgot to mention: don't put pets in jeopardy.  I once sent WW a story about the dognapping of a Dalmatian puppy so young it didn't yet have its spots, which was of course part of the mystery.  That submission, even though no harm came to the puppy, was dropped like a hot potato, and when they told me why, I learned a valuable lesson.  Murder Aunt Clara if you must, but leave Fido the hell alone.

Also, don't get political or religious, and don't say anything potentially controversial.  In one of my older stories, I had the heroine ask the sheriff, referring to a possible suspect, "Would you trust someone who has blond hair and black eyebrows?"  He replied, "Hillary Clinton has blond hair and black eyebrows."  The lady said, "I rest my case."  WW bought the story, but changed the reply to "My wife has blond hair and black eyebrows."  Lesson: leave the Clintons alone as well.

On the subject of solutions, don't hinge the answer on information that not many people would know.  Don't have the murder victim leave a clue that's written in Chinese, or set the suspect's computer password to the date of the Hindenburg explosion, or kill the unfaithful wife using a poison with a ten-syllable name that can be found only on a tropical island her husband visited last month on a business trip.  Many of my rejections can be traced to an ignorance of (or disregard for) this rule.  The ideal solution should be something almost obvious, something hidden in plain sight, something that average readers might miss but could have figured out if they'd paid more attention.  Something that will make them slap their foreheads and say, "Whoa, I should've seen that."

A series situation

One final tip: I think part of my success with WW is due to the fact that I created, fairly early on, a series that features two recurring characters: a bossy retired schoolteacher and a pleasant but lazy guy she taught in the fifth grade, who is now the sheriff in their small southern town.  She's constantly butting in, hounding him to lose weight, correcting his grammar in front of his deputies, and generally making his life miserable--except that she almost always helps him solve the mysteries.

The main benefit of this is that it allows me to spend fewer words "setting up" each story.  Since I (and the reader) already know who these people are and how they'll act, I can jump straight into the action and not have to develop or describe the characters every single time.  Their nonstop bickering also gives me the opportunity to stir some humor into the mix.  I've strayed away from the series and sold them some standalone stories now and then, but I've always come back to it, for two reasons: (1) the editor said she wanted me to, and (2) these crazy people are fun to write about.

So that's that.  If you like mysteries and puzzles (Leigh and Rob and Dale, that means you guys) and if you like writing short, I hope you'll give WW a try.

You don't have to be a woman to visit that world.

Love and Gunpowder

by R.T. Lawton

One of the problems with working an informant is they continue to live their life on the streets, which seems to include brushes with violence, strong emotions, various crimes and the constant need to hustle. One man's possession becomes another man's hustle to get some of it.

As my informant Thomas saw it, Desdemona was his personal property. He loved her in his own way, but she had flirty eyes which sometimes made him uneasy. Lately, he had suspicions that his cousin Junior Obregon had been poaching on his personal property behind his back. Not a good thing. If nothing else, this quickly became a matter of respect. A man's reputation on the street could make it easier to hustle, or it could serve him up for ridicule and scorn.

Thomas wasn't having this. A confrontation with the love of his life during the early morning hours soon led to outraged denials, screaming, shouting and perhaps a backhand or two. This is part of the violence and strong emotions I mentioned earlier. In any event, Desdemona ended up being unceremoniously deposited into the trunk of Thomas' Cadillac. Her continued unladylike verbiage and pounding on the inside of the trunk lid was to no avail. Thomas merely paused for a smoke while contemplating his next move. Deciding that things might get a little dicey, he checked the cylinders of his .38 revolver to ensure it was fully loaded. Then, flicking his cigarette into the street, he got behind the wheel of his Cadillac and put it in gear.

During the long drive over to Junior's domicile on this warm summer morning, the volume of noise from the trunk gradually declined. Thomas took this as Desdemona finally recognizing the extent of her sins and perhaps even repenting a little for her indiscretions. However, regardless of any potential turnaround of the heart on Desdemona's part, Thomas still had a job to do.

Upon parking in front of Junior's one-story, wood-frame house, Thomas got out of his vehicle and walked to the rear. He lovingly patted the Cadillac's trunk lid and tried to reassure Desdemona that everything would soon be all right. He was about to rectify their situation. She made a response, but evidently the heat and bumpy ride had worn her down because her words were muffled enough that Thomas took them as nothing more than the beginnings of contrition.

Up the sidewalk and onto the cement front porch, Thomas tried the screen door handle. Locked. Damn. With his left hand, he rang the doorbell and alternatively pounded on the door frame. His .38 revolver was kept conveniently out of sight behind his right hip.

From inside the house, Junior, not being used to getting up at this early hour of late morning, staggered out of the back bedroom and into the the living room. Due to the summer heat, he was clad only in his best pair of black, silk, boxer shorts. Junior's idea of a fashion statement. While Junior's left hand rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, his right hand, being the cautious fellow that he was, concealed his faithful old Owlhead .32 pistol behind his right thigh. Discretely, he stopped on his side of the door with about ten feet distance between them.

"Cuz," said Thomas.

"Cuz," replied Junior.

The words which then followed are not fit to print in this public forum.

Having finished his part of the verbal discussion, Thomas brought  his .38 out of hiding and proceeded to blow three holes through the screen.

A little slower, but not to be outdone, Junior brought his Owlhead out of hiding and blew two holes through the screen in the opposite direction.

At this point, Junior noticed he had recently developed a few leaks in his torso. Deciding that a rest might do him some good, he lay down on the floor and curled up in a more comfortable position to accommodate his new circumstances.

For his part, Thomas also felt a sudden tiredness. He leaned his back against the door frame and slid down until his butt hit the cement porch. With three bullets still remaining in his .38, he had the urge to spend them in the direction of his cousin's reclined body, except that for some reason his gun arm had acquired an ache in the shoulder and no longer operated as it should.

Sounds of intense screaming and renewed pounding emanating from the Cadillac trunk now attracted Thomas' full attention. He turned his head in Desdemona's direction and sought to sooth her worries, however some foreign object seemed to be lodged in his throat. His voice box no longer worked for the time being.

In the silence that followed, except for the hysterical rantings of a woman imprisoned in a Cadillac trunk, neighbors came out of their bullet-proof hiding spots and prudently called the po-leece to handle this situation.

Miraculously, unlike many Hollywood movie shootings, no one died even though all five bullets were on target at short range.

Okay, so I've taken some artistic license in the telling, however it's not as dry as reading the police report. Thomas' exploits entertained me for a couple more years before I lost him, but I have to say that his voice was considerably deeper than earlier and his speech more difficult to understand.

Ah, young lovers, what can you say? There's nothing like romance and gunpowder to make for a dramatic event in one's life. Maybe I should have saved this one for Valentine's Day.

In Search of Lost Books

A while back, a friend of mine was going through treatment, and I read the 20 questions they give you to see if you're an alcoholic.  I looked up at the end and said, "Well, if you replace the word alcohol with books, that's me."  I am a bookaholic.  I get up planning what I'm going to read that day.  I have books in every room, and a stack of books by every chair that I claim as mine.  I read new books, re-read old favorites, and I am still searching for a few books that I read as a child but either can't find or never did find out what they were. Proust can have his madeleines; I have books.
When I was a little girl, in first, maybe second grade, in Escondido, California, our teacher read a Western aloud to us.  I’ve been trying to find it ever since.  Our teacher was Hispanic, with lustrous black hair and eyes.  Her voice read steadily, with meaning and accents in all the right places.  It was about a cowboy who came down into what was then northern Mexico, and today is Southern California:  the Salinas Valley, perhaps, or Escondido, or one of many other valleys. 

He came down over the hills, I remember.  The description of the brown hills, that look so bare from a distance, but are covered with tall grass, yucca, sage, short cactus, poppies, and all the plants of the chaparral, the description was perfect.  They were the same hills behind our house, once you went over the main hill, the one on which a thin ribbon of a one-street suburb rose to lemon and orange groves, which in turn gave way to avocado groves, which in turn broke open under the blue sky to a mansion on a hill, a mansion with fir trees, a pool, and a view.  Those belonged to the grove's owners, and they also had peacocks, which wandered, crying in the afternoon for love or rain as the clouds piled high and purple behind the dark glossy green of the avocado trees. 

I walked my way through the groves, avoiding the mansion – they didn’t like trespassers, even or especially not children – and emerged on the crest of rolling hills that went on forever.  Scrubby, brown, endless; mottled with color, blazing with poppies – I don’t remember the cowboy’s name, but I knew where he had been, and could hardly wait to see where he would go.

He ended up with a Spanish wife, another woman with lustrous black hair and eyes, whose voice was accented and soft.  They had a son, and I still remember the scene where they decided what to name him.  They chose his first name, which I have totally forgotten.  What I do remember was when his wife said that only one name wouldn't do.  You named a child after everyone who was important to you:  grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, best friends, and acquaintances.  But our cowboy was all alone, and I think what impressed me was that it was the first time he realized how alone he was, because I felt much the same.  He could only think of one friend, Joe.  “d’Joe” she said, pronouncing the “j” as “h”…  And it became the son's middle name. 

I remember that.  And no more.  I asked the teacher, at the end of the year, what the name of the book was – and she couldn’t remember.  But I’ve wanted to read the rest of that book for a very long time.  I want to know what the rest of his - their - journey was.  Maybe some day I'll find it.  If it rings a bell with anybody, please let me know. 

Imaginary Friends

by Robert Lopresti 

It has been an interesting summer, in many ways, but not least because I have been listening to a lot of fascinating conversations between people who, technically, don't exist.

I suppose that means that I am either in the middle of a first draft, or having a psychotic breakdown.  I think it's the former  but, hey, if it was the latter would I know?

I have written before about the fact that I started writing a novel last month and I hope you pardon me if I go back to the same old topic.  They say that writing a novel only teaches you to write that novel, and  I see the wisdom in that.  This book is coming a little different than my past efforts.  Mostly the characters are so damned lively.

I have heard thousands of writers talk about characters who come alive and develop minds and wills of  their own.  I have always said that doesn't happen to me, but this time it has come close.

Take Ray Ray, for instance.  I have mentioned him before.  He literally popped up from nowhere because I needed a delivery boy to make a chapter longer.  But the little rat seems to be trying to take over the book.  It makes a nice change from a lot of characters in the past who have seemed desperate to get out of my stories.

And then there is the computer nerd.  My book contains gtwo opposing groups and I knew that at some point the computer nerd was going to change sides.  Problem was, I had no idea what his motive would be for doing so.

But last week I was biking home one day, thinking about the fact that one of my major characters was due to die of natural causes.  It seemed like such a waste.  After all, this is a crime novel.   Why not have somebody kill the dude, seeing as he was about to die anyway?

And as I pedaled I realized who would want the fella dead, but this guy wouldn't do the killing himself.  Immediately another actor arrived on the stage in my skull, the hired killer, and she is as close as I have come to  that experience of having a character argue with me.  Techically she argued with the guy who hired her, refusing to fall into certain cliches of her profession.   Her employer had to respond by calling in his computer nerd --

And then I started laughing so hard I had to stop my bike.  I grabbed my notebook and started writing  brief outline for four more chapters.  Now I knew why the nerd changed sides.

So, like I said, it's been an interesting summer.  I assume at some point the inspiration will dry up and it will be a matter of grinding out the words.  Who knows whether the novel will ever get finished, much less published?    But it's a wild ride what it lasts...