Anthology Psychology

by John M. Floyd



I've often told my writing students that there are three markets for short fiction: magazines, anthologies, and collections. (You can also self-publish stories one at a time, if you need a fourth option.) Most of my shorts are targeted to magazines, but lately I've seen more and more routed toward anthologies, either via invitation or via an open call. And most anthologies are themed in that they feature tales that have something in common.

This common ground can be almost anything, from location to genre to time period. Here are some of the anthologies I've had stories in, along with their themes:



- the seven deadly sins -- Seven by Seven (Wolfmont Publishing, 2006)

- the afterlife -- After Death (Dark Moon Press, 2013)

- Texas -- The Eyes of Texas (Down & Out Books, upcoming)

- New England -- Landfall (Level Best Books, 2018)

- natural disasters -- Quakes and Storms (Lake Fossil Press, 2005)

- travel -- Passport to Murder (Down & Out Books, 2017)

- the moon -- Under the Full Moon's Light (Owl Hollow Press, 2018)

- the South -- Fireflies in Fruit Jars (Queen's Hill Press, 2007), Mad Dogs and Moonshine (Queen's Hill, 2008), Sweet Tea and Afternoon Tales (AWOC Publishing, 2009), Magnolia Blossoms and Afternoon Tales (AWOC, 2010), Rocking Chairs and Afternoon Tales (Doctor's Dreams Publishing, 2012)

- time travel -- Crime Travel (Wildside Press, upcoming)

- safe havens -- Sanctuary (Darkhouse Books, 2018)

- private investigators -- Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea (Down & Out Books, 2017)

- Joni Mitchell songs -- The Beat of Black Wings (upcoming)

- Florida -- Florida Happens (Three Rooms Press, 2018)

- the 1950s -- Pop the Clutch (Dark Moon Books, 2019), Mid-Cantury Murder (Darkhouse Books, upcoming)

- flash fiction -- Short Tales (2006)

- politics -- We've Been Trumped (Darkhouse Books, 2016)

- Mississippi -- Mississippi Noir (Akashic Books, 2016), What Would Elvis Think? (Clinton Ink-Slingers, 2019)

- horror -- Horror Library, Vol. 6 (Farolight Publishing, 2017)

- romance -- Meet Cute (Indiegogo, 2017)

- mystery -- Short Attention Span Mysteries (Kerlak Publishing, 2005), Crime and Suspense I (Wolfmont Publishing, 2007), Mouth Full of Bullets (Best of, 2007), Ten for Ten (Wolfmont Publishing, 2008), A Criminal Brief Christmas anthology (Criminal Enterprises Press, 2009), Trust and Treachery (Dark Quest Books, 2014), Flash and Bang (Untreed Reads Publishing, 2015), The Best American Mystery Stories (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015 and 2018)

- science fiction -- Visions VII: Universe (Lillicat Publishers, 2017)

- fantasy -- Children of the Sky (Schreyer Ink Publishing, 2018), Freakshow (Copper Pen Press, upcoming), Voices and Visions (Cyberwit Publishing, upcoming)

- food and drink -- Noir at the Salad Bar (Level Best Books, 2017)

- Louisiana -- Blood on the Bayou (Down & Out Books, 2016)

- the military -- The Odds Are Against Us (Liberty Island Media, 2019)

- the ten commandments -- Thou Shalt Not (Dark Cloud Press, 2006)



I suspect some of these titles were familiar to you, since I've been lucky enough to share space with many of you in these books. And I hope seeing them might remind you, as it reminds me, of just how you went about satisfying whatever theme each of them required.

Tailor-made

Writing a story to match a theme can be fun, but it can also be hard, at least for me. I know a few writers who love themed anthologies because writing to a particular subject is challenging and inspiring to them. Others find it difficult, and prefer sticking to their own story ideas. Occasionally I've stumbled onto a submission call for an anthology whose theme perfectly matches a story I've already written, which makes the process easier. That doesn't happen a lot.

Marketingwise, one good thing about anthologies is that they're sometimes receptive to reprints (some actually prefer reprints). Another is that--if you do have a story that fits the theme--the usually-short submission window can mean less competition. But there are two downsides to anthologies. One is that the pay can be less than what you might get from a magazine, and the other is that anthologies--unless they're widely-published best-of-the-year anthos--often get limited exposure.

A team effort

Another thing about anthologies. Depending on the project, one can often feel a definite bond with the other contributors. An example of that, for me, was the 49-story anthology Seven by Seven, edited by Tony Burton of Wolfmont Publishing in Georgia. Tony chose seven authors from seven different states to write seven stories each about the Seven Deadly Sins. My participation in 7x7 led to treasured and longtime friendships with the editor and with several of the other writers (Deborah Elliott-Upton, BJ Bourg, Frank Scalise, and Gary Hoffman). Probably because the project happened fairly early in our writing careers and included so many stories by only seven authors, I think all of us had great fun and learned a lot as well.

The latest anthology featuring one of my stories is a book called What Would Elvis Think?: Mississippi Stories. The common thread is that each tale must be set in a town in Elvis's birth state. It was edited by a friend and former student of mine, Johnny Lowe, and is being released today, June 15. One reason I'm pleased to have been included in this project is that 16 of the 22 other contributors are also friends of mine. Most of us plan to be at Lemuria Books here in Jackson for the launch signing this afternoon at two o'clock. If you're reading this on your phone and you happen to be down this way today, stop in.

Questions

What percentage of the stories you write are submitted to anthologies, rather than to magazines? What kind of payment do you usually receive (flat rate, royalty, pat on the back)? Do you tend to try anthologies first, or try them only after a magazine has rejected a story? Do you enjoy writing to a particular theme? Do you find it difficult (as I do)? Are most of your antho stories reprints, or originals? Are you often invited to contribute a story, or do you usually submit as a response to an open call?

Meanwhile, whether you're targeting your stories to magazines OR anthologies, I wish you luck. May the submission gods (another name for editors) favor you with hundred-watt smiles, all the way to the bank.

See you in two weeks.

Suspense Fiction

by O'Neil De Noux

These are not rules, not guidelines, not anything etched in stone. These are observations about suspense novels from publishers, editors and writers I've known.

What is a Suspense story/novel? Here are some notes taken over the years:

A subgenre of the Mystery genre, it is more about menace than crime. Most of the time.

Crime usually serves as danger. The layout of the story/novel centers on the rising suspense of the storyline, which is dramatic, exciting with a rising level of tension.

The intent of the suspense story/novel is to achieve an emotional reaction from the reader – fear or anticipation. It is not merely suspenseful, the focus of the story/novel is suspense, defined in the intention of the writer and the expectation of the reader.

It is realistic in his presentation and usually logical in its execution. If it jumps the shark midway with characters acting illogically, the writer can lose the reader. How many times have we read books or seen movies and thought – why did this character do something so stupid? Yes, stupid. Turn off all the lights and run around in their underwear. Not calling police when they can. Leaving the gun behind. Not scooping up a machine gun to use their snub-nosed revolver in a gun battle. #1 - not shooting the bad guy when they have the chance to end it all.

Tension results in the manner in which an expected conclusion is achieved. Often it is malice aforethought. In the novel Malice Aforethought, Frances Iles begins with the statement that Dr. Bickleigh will murder his wife.

The focus centers on the human passion, the results of action on the people in the story/novel more than the deed of series of deeds bringing the passion to the surface. For example – in a Techno-Thriller, the focus is more on the hardware than the people's reaction to the events.

The supernatural has no place in the straight suspense story/novel. If the supernatural appears, the piece enters another genre – horror, fantasy or science fiction.

As I said, these are not rules or even guidelines. Just observations.

Alfred Hitchcock's movies are excellent examples of the suspense story: The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Birds, Rear Window and others.

That's all for now.

http://www.oneildenoux.com

Cracking the Code For "Code-Switching"

by Brian Thornton

Code-Switching: (noun) The switching from the linguistic system of one language or dialect to that of another. (Merriam-Webster)

So my day gig includes a fair amount of something called "code-switching." It's something every human does, even if they're not familiar with the term.

Walk down the halls of the school where I work and you'll hear half-a-dozen different languages being spoken by kids who will switch to something approximating Standard American English once they hit the classroom. And of course there are the dialects (Mr. Mister famously sang about "The Uniform of Youth," but there are also any number of linguae franca associated with teenagers as well).

But more than that, we even code-switch within our own language: maybe you don't talk to your mom the same as you do the guys you bowl with, or the ladies you play darts with. Your child and your accountant may hear you speaking the same language, but they're not hearing you speak the same way.

I can hear my regular readers (BOTH of you!*rimshot*) saying, "Yeah, we know people do this. What does it have to do with writing crime fiction, Captain Obvious? I mean, after all, this is a crime fiction writing blog."

What does code-switching have to do with writing crime fiction?

Unfortunately, not too much.

To be blunt, there needs to be a hell of a lot more code-switching going on in crime fiction.

Why?

Because it helps make characters, conversations, actions, more realistic.

And to be fair, there are writers (especially writers of color) who excel at documenting the phenomenon of code-switching within their work. Walter Moseley, Philip Kerr, Sarah Paretsky, Chester Himes, Gary Phillips, Naomi Hirahara, and a host of others immediately spring to mind.

But it's not easy to pull off. And here's where the fine line difference between "reality" and "realism" comes in to play.

Because if you don't nail it, and you try to sell writing where you've tried code-switching on for size, you're likely to get it handed back, accompanied by the shop-worn criticism: "Your characters need distinctive voices. Ones where, even without dialogue tags, we know who is talking."

Because, again, code-switching believably in fictional conversations takes a deft touch and the ability to balance the individual's recognizable dialogical tics with the different ways they speak to those they encounter over the course of the narrative.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and not just when walking through the halls at my school. So I wanted to toss it out there to the hive mind.

So why don't we open this up in the comments section? If you're an author, and have tips for how to believably pull off code-switching with a voice still distinctive enough to be recognizable across a variety of social situations, what suggestions do you have for the rest of us? And if you're a reader, and have a favorite author who you think pulls this sort of thing off well, why not share a bit about said author with us?

Hope to hear from all of you, and see you in two weeks!

Wire in the Blood

Wire in the Blood is a Brit TV show based on Val McDermid's series of books featuring forensic psychologist Tony Hill. The character's played by Robson Green, who might be familiar to some of you from Grantchester, and who was also in seasons 4 and 5 of Strike Back, which is where he first caught my attention. He's had a solid career going back to the late 1980's, light comedy and heavy drama, but I wouldn't wonder if doing Tony Hill isn't one of the highlights.

Criminal profiling, in the formal sense, goes back at least to the Whitechapel terror - Jack the Ripper is said to be the first object of analysis. David Morrell would give you an argument, and suggest Thomas de Quincey's essay "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts," which examines the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811, predating the Ripper by some 75 years. The 'science,' disputed by some scholars, has gotten a lot of traction over the last forty years or so. The FBI commissioned their Behavioral Science Unit in 1972. Thomas Harris published Red Dragon in 1981. Popular imagination does the rest.

Wire in the Blood falls very much in hagiographic terrain. Tony Hill has an unsettling ability to put himself in a killer's shoes, but his insights aren't always appreciated by the more evidence-driven homicide dicks he works with. He'll make an intuitive leap; they'll be looking for a DNA match. In practice, it usually works out, and the bad guys meet their just desserts. In terms of narrative structure, it can be a little predictable, since Tony's so often proved right. This isn't, in the scheme of things, actually a weakness. It provides a two-track storyline, and even though you know Tony has his finger on the killer's internal mechanics, it's gonna be the cops who run the villain to earth.

There's a very definite something else going on with Tony Hill, though, and certainly in the way that Robson Green inhabits the character. Tony isn't socially adept. If he's not quite as bone-headed as, say, Doc Martin, he's obviously somewhere on the spectrum. This plays out as an interesting contradiction. Tony will walk his way through a crime scene, and try to experience it from the POV of both victim and killer. This kind of sympathetic vibration doesn't work for him, however, with what most of us think of as generic social interaction. He'll stop a conversation cold because he's had a sudden epiphany, he'll forget what he was saying, he'll walk out of a room. He doesn't realize his behavior is often careless or even hurtful. He doesn't mean it to be, of course, and he's embarrassed when he's caught out, but he's obsessive-compulsive. He's got tunnel vision.

This is a curiously common characteristic in our ratiocinatory detectives - is that a word? Sherlock Holmes, for one. Emotion clouds the reasoning process. On the other hand, empathy is a necessary part of it. Tony Hill is deeply affected by what he does, but he has to keep his distance. It's a puzzle in and of itself, and Robson Green makes the guy fascinating to watch. Not endearing, mind, but isolated, apart. Too much in his own head.

I should add a cautionary note. Wire in the Blood isn't a cozy. The theme is damage, the pathologies are unsettling, the prey are children, or the weak, or the damned. It's not terribly reassuring. It makes for one hell of a compelling narrative, though.

A California Crime Weekend

A double header today. First up are some thoughts on the California Crime Writers Conference that happened this past weekend. Next up will be my Father’s Day reading recommendations. And from the truth in advertising department, I posted this (the book list part) previously on another site, so I hope you don’t mind the rerun.

The CCWC is held every other year in the L.A. area, Culver City. It’s a joint effort by the LA chapters of Sisters in Crime and MWA. It’s not as big as some other conventions but it makes up in quality what it lacks in quantity. And since time and money for conferences is always finite and this one is local for me it’s one I always try to go to.

There were two guests of honor: Tess Gerritsen and Catriona McPherson. Tess was the keynote speaker for lunch on Saturday. Her speech was short but pithy and to the point. She spoke about something that writer’s rarely talk about: what not to do. Later in the afternoon, Catriona McPherson gave a workshop called “Deep in a Bowl of Porridge” about how to plant clues.

Panels ranged from “Demystifying the Hallmark Mystery” and “Marketing without a Budget” to “Indie Publishing: New Frontiers” and “Adapting Your Novel to the Screen.” There was some emphasis on Hollywood because of the close proximity.

I was on the “Bringing the Past to Life” panel with Anne Louise Bannon, Jennifer Berg, Rosemary Lord, and Bonnie MacBird, and moderated by Amanya (“A.E.”) Wasserman. We discussed writing mysteries set in the past and how we do our research for them. Our panel covered the 1870’s to the 1990’s.

Plus there were workshops on Forensics, Interrogation Techniques, Suicide Bomber Indicators, Compassion Fatigue and Weaponry (although not all at once….).

Audio of the panels are available from www.vwtapes.com and you can see a list of them at https://ccwconference.org/panels/.

But the main reason I go to these things is to “commune” with fellow writers and see people I might not have seen in some time.

It’s such a good conference that Walter Mosely showed up as a regular attendee, not even as a featured guest. And this isn’t the first time.

Unfortunately, I could only be at the conference a limited time this year due to personal reasons. But I enjoyed the time I had there and look forward to the next one. Only two years off. So, if you can swing it when it comes around again in a couple of years you might want to check out this two day conference in LA LA Land.

***

And some Father’s Day Reading Suggestions:

There’s so damn many good mystery-crime books out there. This list just covers crime novels, some of which I may have mentioned before. And maybe some time I’ll do a list of my five non-crime novels. Anyway, here goes:

The Poet: Michael Connelly is probably best known for the Bosch books. And I’m among Bosch’s fans. But I’d have to say my favorite Connelly book is the stand-alone The Poet (1996), though Jack McEvoy, the main character does appear in other books. The story follows reporter McEvoy as he investigates a string of cop suicides, including his own brother’s and ends up going down a hellish spiral into a world of pedophiles. It also introduces FBI agent Rachel Walling, who shows up in other Connelly novels. The Poet is dark and unsettling, but I think the reason I like it so much is that it is so well plotted, with a lot of twists and turns, and that it really keeps you on edge the whole time. I think this story is for anyone who likes a good crime yarn, but it’s not for the squeamish.

Tapping the Source: These days Kem Nunn is arguably better known as the co-creator of the TV series John from Cincinnati, as well as a writer on Sons of Anarchy and Deadwood. But he’s also the author of, I believe, six novels. Tapping the Source (1984) is his first and is something special. If it’s not the novel that invented the “surf noir” genre it’s certainly an early and foundational entry. This is not the Beach Boys’ version of sun, sand, surf and surfer girls, but a much darker vision of life on SoCal’s storied beaches. Ike Tucker, an aimless young man, treks to Huntington Beach (a.k.a. ‘Surf City’) to find his missing and possibly dead sister. There he gets hooked up with bikers, sex and drugs. No Gidgets or Moondoggie’s here. And Ike will be lucky if he gets out alive. I like this one so much that I looked into acquiring the film rights. Unfortunately they were already taken. Now, if whoever has them these days would just make the damn movie already. Tapping is good for anyone who loves surf, sun and murder.

Down There (a.k.a. Shoot the Piano Player): David Goodis has been called the “poet of the losers” and his stories of people on the skids certainly bear that out. I came to Goodis through the movies, which is how I’ve come to several writers and/or novels. I’m a fan of the Bogie-Bacall movie Dark Passage, so after having seen it a couple of times I decided to check out the David Goodis novel it was based on. I liked it enough that I began to read pretty much anything of Goodis I could get my hands on, but this was before he came into vogue again so mostly I had to pick up very scarred paperbacks (many, though not all of his books were only published in paperback), and I devoured his whole oeuvre. And, though I liked pretty much everything to one degree or another, Down There (1956) really stood out for me. It’s the story of a World War II vet, a former member the elite Merrill’s Marauders who, for a variety of reasons, is down on his luck – way down. Francois Truffaut made the book into a movie called Shoot the Piano Player which, to be honest, I don’t like very much, but that’s why the title of the book was changed from Down There and is probably better known today as Shoot the Piano Player. I think it would be good for fans of classic noir, old movie buffs, and others.

Mallory’s Oracle: NYPD detective Kathy Mallory is a hard-as-nails cop and not just because of her bright red nail polish. Even her creator, Carol O’Connell, describes Mallory as a “sociopath”. Mallory’s Oracle (1994) is the first in the Mallory series and probably the best place to start. I’ve talked with people about Mallory and recommended the Mallory books to several people over the years. And it seems people either love or hate Mallory. I’m in the former category. I love her no-nonsense, doesn’t suffer BS approach to her job. Nothing, including the law, will stand in her way. Not that I’d necessarily like to be friends with her if she suddenly came alive and jumped off the page. I think the Mallory books would be good for someone who likes solid crime stories, strong female characters and doesn’t mind one that’s a sociopath…

Devil in a Blue Dress: Pretty much anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for L.A., past and present. LA history. LA culture. And novels and movies set in the City of the Angels. Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), the first Easy Rawlins novel, hits all those bullet points. And, much as I Iike Easy, I really dig his psychopath friend, Mouse. Not someone you want to get on the wrong side of but certainly someone you’d want to have your back when the you-know-what hits the fan. (I wonder how Mouse and Mallory would hit it off?) Devil in a Blue Dress, and the other Easy novels, would be good for LA history buffs, noir fans, general mystery fans.



The Big Nowhere: James Ellroy’s The Big Nowhere (1988) is the second of his LA Quartet books [ the others are The Black Dahlia (1987), L.A. Confidential (1990) and White Jazz (1992) ]. All are good, but if I had to pick one as a fave it would be The Big Nowhere. To try to describe Ellroy’s fever dream style is an exercise in futility. The story is set in LA in the 50s right after WWII. In part, it follows Sheriff’s deputy Danny Upshaw through the investigation of a series of mutilation crimes and exposes corruption and hypocrisy amid the “red scare”. I used to go to many Ellroy book events and signings and he truly is the Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction. At one event he even had a band with him. He’s a trip. His writing is a trip. His books are a trip. They would be good for anyone who’s into new noir with a retro setting, LA history buffs and the usual suspects.

The Grifters: Jim Thompson’s The Grifters (1963) is a good book and an even better movie. If you like people living on the down low, if you like con artists, and if you like the grift, this is the book for you. It would be good for fans of Jim Thompson (how’s that for stating the obvious?), noir fans, hardboiled mystery readers.

Bonus Round #1: White Heat / Broken Windows / Vortex / L.A. Late @ Night (uh, all by me): Well, since I’m not above a little BSP I couldn’t very well leave out this trio. White Heat is a noir detective thriller set during the Rodney King riots. Broken Windows is the sequel to White Heat and follows P.I. Duke Rogers’ investigation of the death of an illegal immigrant in the turbulent 1990s L.A. Vortex is about a soldier returning from Afghanistan and finding more trouble in L.A. than in the war. LA Late @ Night is a collection of five of my previously published stories. And all four would be good for everyone! Well, anyone who likes hardboiled, noir and detective fiction.

Bonus Round #2: I didn’t mention Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald in my list above because to me they’re on a plane by themselves. And, as many of you know, I have a thing for both. I don’t think you could go wrong with any of Chandler’s or books – because he’s just such a damn good writer. And Macdonald blows me away with his explorations into the psychological aspects of crime and stories that boomerang back on the characters – the past always comes back to haunt them. I like pretty much everything by both of them, but if I had to pick I think I’d choose The Long Goodbye (1953) for Chandler and The Chill (1964 – a good year for the Beatles too!) or The Galton Case (1959) for Macdonald. These books would be good for pretty much anyone interested in mysteries and the crime fiction genre, but especially as an intro to a young or new reader of mysteries. And as an introduction to classic mystery and detective fiction.

What about you? What books would you recommend as gifts for the people in your life?

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

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Muddling or Mulling Mueller

Last week, I poured gas on a Facebook fire when I took people to task for bitching about how hard it was to read the Mueller Report. They complained that it was obscure, confusing, drenched in legalese, etc., etc., etc.

I disagreed.

I downloaded the cheapest version I could find onto my Kindle. That edition is 770 pages long and has no page numbers. It only tells me how much I have read and how much time I need at my current rate to finish the whole document. When I entered that discussion, I had read 25%, roughly 190 pages, and had more than three hours left in Volume I. Without timing myself or having page numbers to check, I guess I was reading about 60 pages an hour.

I am 72, have acute astigmatism in my right eye, have had cataract surgery in both eyes, and am mildly dyslexic. I also have a condition called "auditory subvocalization," which means that I hear a voice saying the words when I read. I can't read faster than the words in my head can be spoken. I don't know how fast that is, but in spite of all these "issues," I had no trouble grasping the content of the report.

OK?

My perception is that the average American doesn't read enough to be skillful, the academic equivalent of the guy who plays golf once a month and wonders why he doesn't get better. I see many (usually older) people reading at my health club, often on tablets, eReaders, or their cell phones, but few read a "real" book anymore.

Seeing a few words on a small screen changes the impact and effect of the prose because you may not be able to see how long or short a paragraph is, and it makes a difference. A paragraph is a form of punctuation.

Years ago, Chris Offutt warned writers at the Wesleyan Writer's Conference to proof-read and revise from hard copy instead of on a computer. He warned us about the "screen-sized paragraph" because it changes or removes context and rhythm.

As we dumb-down reading lists in schools and people read on smaller devices, they lose the ability to absorb and process words in a larger context. I suspect that's one reason so many people have trouble grappling with Mueller's report. That said, I give them credit for trying to read it at all. I don't know a single other person at my health club who has made the effort. Conversely, two of my musician friends have read more of it than I have (As I post this Friday morning, I have finished Volume 1).

Remember, Mueller was not trying to write a page-turning best-seller. He is a lawyer charged with investigating issues and presenting a report to the legal branch of the United States government. He was constrained by departmental guidelines and the rules of law and evidence. Naturally, the document uses legal jargon. My biggest surprise is that it doesn't use much more of it.

This passage is where I stopped reading to write the first draft of this post:

On February 26, 2017, Manafort met Kilimnik in Madrid, where Kilimnik had flown from Moscow. In his first two interviews with the Office, Manafort denied meeting with Kilimnik on his Madrid trip and then--after being confronted with documentary evidence that Kilimnik was in Madrid at the same time as him--recognized that he met him in Madrid. Manafort said that Kilimnik had updated him on a criminal investigation into so-called "black ledger" payments to Manafort that was being conducted by Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau [REDACTED: Grand Jury].

Manafort remained in contact with Kilimnik through 2017 and into the spring of 2018. Those contacts included matters pertaining to the criminal charges brought by the Office and the Ukraine peace plan. In early 2018, Manafort retained his longtime polling firm to craft a draft poll in Ukraine, sent the pollsters a three-page primer on the plan sent by Kilimnik, and worked with Kilimnik to formulate the polling questions. The primer sent to the pollsters SPECIFICALLY called for the United States and President Trump to support the Autonomous Republic of Donbas with Yanukovych as Prime Minister, and a series of questions in the draft poll asked for opinions on Yanukovych's role in resolving the conflict in Donbas. (The poll was NOT SOLELY about Donbas; it also sought participants' views on leaders apart from Yanukovych as they pertained to the 2019 Ukraine presidential election.)

The Office has NOT uncovered evidence that Manafort brought the Ukraine peace plan to the attention of the Trump Campaign or the Trump Adminstration. Kilimnik continued his efforts to promote the peace plan to the Executive Branch (e.g., U.S. Department of State) into the summer of 2018.

The passage uses long sentences (the average is about 28 words), but few subordinate clauses, appositives, or modifiers (I could do with a few more pronouns, but the repeated proper nouns are clear). It's less convoluted than Bulwer-Lytton, Thackeray, Trollope, Hardy, or most of the other Victorian behemoths we were forced to confront in undergraduate days. In the 20th century, Faulkner, Pynchon, Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy are much more complex. In a good translation, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy are easy to read, and Mueller's excerpt has a lot in common with the Russians (Yes, I see the irony).

The excerpt is not difficult to read because of the vocabulary, except for the unfamiliar Russian names. The normal structure is subject, verb, complement, over and over. The four words in bold caps are the only adverbs in the entire passage, and two of them have the common "-ly" ending. If you read the passage aloud, it moves smoothly and quickly. If the names are a problem, substitute "Smith," "Brown" and "Jones" for Yanukovych, Kilimnik and Manafort and listen to what I mean.

Mueller's document illustrates how adverbs weaken prose. Chris Offutt (above) said that adverbs are the weakest words in English, but I didn't appreciate how right he was until now.

Strunk and White bury their advice to "Avoid Qualifiers" on page 73 of my current coy of The Elements of Style, and they discuss "Little," "Pretty," "Rather" and "Very" in one paragraph. They don't expand to explain how and why adverbs in general are weak, but Mueller demonstrates it for us. Adverbs QUALIFY or LIMIT a verb. They don't add, they subtract. A strong verb DOES or IS. When you add an adverb, it DOES or IS only to some extent.

For vigor, Mueller's writing reminds me more of this writer, whom you might recognize:

Two other people had been in the lunch-room. Once George had gone out to the kitchen and made a ham-and-egg sandwich "to go" that a man wanted to take with him. Inside the kitchen he saw Al, his derby hat tipped back, sitting on a stool beside the wicket with the muzzle of a sawed-off shotgun resting on the ledge. Nick and the cook were back to back in the corner, a towel tied in each of their mouths. George had cooked the sandwich, wrapped it up in oiled paper, put it in a bag, brought it in, and the man had paid for it and gone out.

This paragraph from Hemingway's "The Killers" averages about 22 words per sentence. The average word in the Mueller excerpt is 5 letters long and in the Hemingway passage 3.8 letters.

I wonder how many people who had trouble reading the Mueller Report are still reading THIS.

How Long Does Grief Last?

In a few weeks it will be one year since Carol died. She was my dearest friend since childhood. I hesitate to write about Carol because using words to describe a friendship like ours is like trying to carve a sculpture from water. 

We met when we were seven years old and throughout our childhood we wandered our neighbourhood chatting and laughing. During our teens we talked intensely about every dream, every heartbreak and all the new feelings descending on us. As we became adults we discussed university - all our courses, all our insecurities and, eventually, our marriages. She shared her stories of students she taught in her lab and I shared stories of my patients.

When my children were born, she was the first one in the door. She spent countless hours with my children, wandering the woods, reading books and calling every birthday with her lovely rendition of Happy Birthday. My children were almost in their teens before they realized that their beloved Aunty Carol wasn’t related to them. 

Over our decades of friendship we never fought. We thought that was odd since we were both intensely passionate people. What we did do was to find the humour in every and all incidents in our lives - no matter how trivial or serious. The closest we came to fighting was when we had spirited discussions about who paid the restaurant tab. We discussed this intensely and decided it was not as serious as a squabble but also more serious than a quibble, so we named these squibbles. We found that so funny and even our restaurant tabs became hilarious.

Once as the tab arrived, I asked Carol if this was going to be another squibble. She said it was going to be an outright squabble. We were grinning ridiculously at each other and the waitress asked - as we were often asked - about our relationship. People were perplexed by this Viking Beauty and WOC with a mass of curls and how we were so impossibly close. Carol, completely deadpan, replied, "Twins." Then, without missing a beat when the waitress looked perplexed, Carol continued. She pointed at me and said, "The lipstick always throws people." I have no idea how funny the politely smiling waitress found this exchange but we chuckled about it all evening. 

Over the nine months from her breast cancer diagnosis to her death, I visited, spent as much time as I could at her home. When she had her mastectomy, I was there and stayed for her recovery. We chatted and talked as we always did about everything. When we found out that the breast cancer had spread to her bones, we continued talking about that too. All through that time, we found so many things funny. Including cancer. When she was in hospital I stayed in her room when she was frightened.

Near the end, I had left to go home and her sister called and said she was asking for me. I went immediately and spent the last conscious night of her life with her. She lay there so quietly when I walked into the room that I pulled up a chair and held her hand. She said, “Mary! I would know that tiny hand anywhere.” We hugged. And then she slept. As I watched her sleep, I marvelled how, with her brain full of cancer, she still knew my hand. Still loved me. 

Many people have wondered when I’ll stop grieving Carol’s death.

A friend recently sent me an article that looked at a study where “They collected data from 26,515 people over 14 years, and found a range of negative consequences experienced by those who had a close friend die. In the four years after a death, significantly adverse wellbeing was found in people both physically and psychologically.”



This reminded me of a question I asked my supervisor when I started practice. I was trying to understand a patient who appeared to still be in mourning 15 years after the death of his child. I asked  about the length of the normal mourning period. I was young, didn’t have children but that question, quite frankly, was incredibly stupid. My supervisor kindly answered that the normal mourning period for a child was a lifetime. 

But what about a friend? Not just any friend, but a friend who forged me, who made me who I am and when there is nothing, nothing at all I have ever done that Carol wasn’t a part of? That kind of friend. My supervisor was a wise and kind man. If he were alive today, I would call and ask. I long for that conversation. 

There is something else about Carol and me. 

I was never the person I wanted to be. I wanted to be carefree, bold and irrepressibly confident. What I am is hopelessly serious, full of thoughts when I want to just be easy going. Carol was bold enough to climb apple trees without fear as a child and throw a knapsack on her back and head to Europe on her own after high school. She was far more carefree than I could ever be. She was a brilliant research scientist and a talented teacher. Maybe more so because she treated the meticulous and painstaking work of molecular biology like an adventurous journey with pipettes and gene splicing.

But we were also similar.  We both were totally honest, so we talked about our insecurities, our painful embarrassing incidents with ease. We also deeply loved kindness and recoiled from cruelty so we talked endlessly about the treatment of animals, children and people of all ages.  

For me to have someone as wonderful as Carol love me so deeply, so loyally 

for so long, made me feel better. Somehow less serious. Less hopelessly awkward. 

Carol was beautiful. Tall and blond. She was also strong. Until the last few months of her life. This photo of her as a young student leaving the apartment now is so poignant - it is her leaving me.

This year has been tough. My father died. My mother is now ill. I so needed to talk with Carol - these were the first hardships that I haven’t been able to share with her. Also, my daughter won a prestigious award and got a cat. My son went to Australia and published some exciting papers. Carol would have been eager to hear all of this and we would have chatted endlessly - and then she would have called the children for more details.

I miss hearing about the adventures of her life - her story was cut off mid-sentence. I want to know what would have happened if her story went on till we were old and ornery.

This was one of our last texts:

If there was ever a testament to the calibre of Carol, this is it. With cancer in her bones, spreading to her brain, unable to breathe and this, this is what she worried about: not being there for me. Steel in her spine. Pure steel.

This is the story of Carol and me, but each death leaves people with stories cutoff in mid-sentence. While some friends wonder when I'll get over my grief - my longing for Carol - my children and husband don't wonder. They share memories - sometimes we cry, sometimes we laugh - but always we miss her. We expect nothing less. 

Since I can’t ask my supervisor, I’m going to call this one. 

I will miss Carol for my whole life. 

When I die, missing her will be one of the last thoughts I have.

Is it drafty in here?

The process of writing a book or short story is as varied as there are authors. Everyone has a different method. In this short post, I want to briefly talk about how I go about the business of write (I recently mentioned in social media that I always write five drafts, and someone asked me to explain).

I didn't always used to write this way. My five draft method has evolved over the years and become a thing. The last dozen short stories I wrote were all five draft works, and the book I'm currently writing, will, without doubt, be a five draft job.

DRAFT ZERO: The game is afoot.

It's not really a draft. Nothing is written down. I get an idea for a story. The idea sits inside my head, gathering and collecting other ideas around it, slowly growing in mass. A story might bubble away like that for years. At some point, critical mass will be achieved, and I will be compelled to put something down on (virtual) paper.

DRAFT ONE: The Basic Outline

I'll open a new MS Word document and start typing out all the ideas in my head. I'll start drawing out the characters and the plot: who and what is the story about, and how does the story flow? I'll often use index cards spread out across my desk (detailing plot points), to get a three dimensional feel of the story — to physically see it.

I structure my stories in three acts: 25% 50% 25%, with the middle act split in two. I do this because I learned to write, really, by writing screenplays (I'll write about this in another post). Because of that background, right from the start, I want to consider the structure and pacing. I want to know what the beats are, what the character arcs are, where the plot points hang. In my head, my stories are movies. I just write them down as prose.

Draft one can go on for weeks. A new idea will suggest three more. It's brainstorming. It's research and development. The point of this draft is to cook up something that has a decent beginning, middle, and end, interesting characters, and that has potential to be a story that's compelling, good, and all the other reasons we want to waste large chunks of our lives in servitude to the written word.

At some point, there's never ever any set timing about any of this, I will want to write the story's first page. You know, chapter one, It was a dark and stormy night...

DRAFT TWO: The Writing Begins

This is where I remind myself of something William Goldman once said about writing an early draft as fast as you can. No rewriting, no revision. Draft two is like a quick pencil typewriter sketch. I start on page one, then write furiously (spell check off) all the way to the end. Some "scenes" will spit out fully formed, and will change little through the following drafts. Some scenes will be random notes: "Bad man enters room and pulls out gun." 

Draft two is a proof of concept. Does the story fly? It might have sounded great back in draft one, but it might just as easily crash and burn in the second, when it starts to get laid out proper. (I have a lot of second draft debris smoldering on my desk.)

Assuming it does fly, and a solid story starts to unfold, then I'll start to look for plot holes and story bugs. If this is a novel, then a clear sense of the chapters will have emerged. The characters will have started to grow and develop, and I'll start asking the big questions: What type of story am I telling here? Who is the "reader" of this? Writing a story is really just answering a very long list of questions, and these start in the second draft: What names do I give these people? Short or tall? Does he fall in love with her? Does she betray him? Shaken or stirred?

DRAFT THREE: The Consolidation

The third draft is where the heavy lifting starts.

At this point, if it's a novel, I'll cut and paste everything from my Word doc over into Scrivener. Once a text gets to 30,000 to 40,000 words, it starts to get unwieldy to work with in a single file. In Scrivener, each chapter will get a folder. Scenes within chapters will get a separate text file and a descriptive label (Detective finds body, Boy kisses girl, etc.). And I'll create cards for each of the characters to keep a note of anything specific (has green hair, wears horn rim glasses, etc.).

Draft three isn't so much writing as repairing and fixing up, and upgrading. The first thing I'll do is nail down the plot points (do they work, are they in the right place?), and I'll look for continuity issues and lapses into illogicality. I'll fix any plot holes that have become evident. Long chapters might get split into two, or three. By now, the characters have started to come into focus and gain uniqueness; if not, I need to work with them, and give them more flavor. If the hero is still a two-dimensional stick figure at this point, I may as well give up.

Everything about the story is considered and examined. I will litter the pages with notes and references. Draft three is about taking all the random ideas and flights of fancy that I've come up with in the first two drafts, and throwing them into the fan. It's the draft that takes the longest, probably, because it's where most of the final heavy-duty thinking about the story, the structure, the pacing, the characters, and so on, takes place. All the questions need to be answered. Here.

DRAFT FOUR: The Writing Really Begins

This draft is where I start to make the text dance and sing, and spin plates, and juggle chainsaws. This is where I concentrate on the quality of the writing. I'll start at the beginning and work my way through the book, bringing each chapter up to a good standard. By now, I know the story every which way and the characters are rock solid (to the point of climbing out of the pages and walking around my house). Now it's all about writing mighty good sentences.

This draft is lots of fun, and the first one that actually feels like I'm writing; probably, because this is the draft I'm going to let someone else read.

When I get to the end of draft four, and I'm happy with it, I'll export the whole thing back into a single MS Word document. And I'll give it to someone to read: someone I trust. Someone who will call BS on any crap I've written.

The First Reader

The thing about having a Trusted Reader™ take a look at the work is the feedback: the cold, hard, subjective third-party opinion. Did the story make sense? Was anything confusing? High points? Low points? The trusted reader will think of things I never even thought of. They will see the trees, where I've been staring at a forest. And I will forensically examine and consider every item of feedback I get; what I learn will enrich the next draft.

At this point, I'll take a couple of weeks off from the writing. A little distance from the story will bring me back to it fresh when I launch into the fifth draft. And it gives me a quiet time to cogitate and reflect on the story... Yeah, I'll be making copious notes.

DRAFT FIVE: The Polishing

The fifth draft is the final draft (ho ho, before the publisher starts suggesting revisions). Armed with my reader feedback, and my own thinking and notes from my couple of weeks off, I'll polish and refine the text. I'll start back at the beginning and, page by page, go all the way through, rewriting where necessary, fixing typos, thinking of better words, and adding whole new chunks when they suggest themselves.

In theory, this draft should be the quickest. But I'm pugnacious persnickety.

After completing the fifth, I'll walk away and let the text rest — for as long as I can (deadlines, if any, permitting). Once I'm certain I'm not going to suddenly think of anything else to add or change, I'll submit (I'll have decided on the market (magazine, publishing house, editor) way back in the first draft).

Done.

Phew. I didn't mean for this short overview to run so long, but there it is.

FYI, I'm in draft 4 of  my current WIP (a book); a month's work has gotten me almost a quarter of the way through... and now back to it.

www.StephenRoss.net

Jane Harper

It is always a pleasure to discover a  good new – or new to me – writer, especially someone from an unfamiliar corner of the mystery world. The award winning Jane Harper, born in the UK, raised in Australia, educated in part back in the UK, and now living and writing in Australia, fits the bill.
Her novels, two so far with a third out this month, are rooted in the Australian landscape. The Dry, set in the backwater farming town of Kiewarra, is about the murder of a family. But it is also about the corrosive effects of prolonged drought, blistering heat, and looming fires on a struggling insular community. She creates the hardscrabble sheep-raising district with visceral intensity, a perfect scene for her tough, frazzled, anxious characters.

If The Dry is all about heat and looming impoverishment, Force of Nature offers upscale characters and an icy rain – Aussie weather apparently runs to extemes. A top female executive goes missing on a pricy bonding adventure in a wildlife reserve, a place of towering trees, impenetrable undergrowth, and sinister history. Rain and cold, missed trails, lost food and water lead to a breakdown, different from, but nearly as complete as that faced by citizens in bone dry Kiewarra. In both novels, Aaron Falk, joined by his new work partner Carmen Cooper in Force of Nature, provides a thoughtful, reserved presence.

The novels are skillfully well-plotted with an abundance of possible (and plausible) suspects and poignant collateral damage. What interested me, however, was her variation of the traditional and familiar device of past is prologue. The crime in each novel has echoes of long past misdeeds, mistakes, and relationships. Nothing new there.

What is original, I think, is the way that Harper has woven glimpses of the past into the ongoing narrative. Throughout both books, short italicized sections challenge, and sometimes correct, what characters claim in the present. In The Dry in particular, a scene may be presented more than once, the second time reversing the meaning of a remark or an event that had originally seemed quite straightforward, sending the investigation on a new direction.

Often the corrections or elucidations have to do with events from the characters’ own youth. Childhood is rarely a golden age for Harper’s characters and even those initially blessed with happiness rarely sustain it long. But if joy is fleeting, youthful friendships, hatreds, and rivalries have a long life in her fiction. It is perhaps not giving too much away to say that memories of the past both assist and hinder Federal Agent Falk in his investigations. Or that the investigator, primarily a financial sleuth specializing in fraud and white collar crime, is himself shadowed by long ago events in Kiewarra.


Although it may not be to every reader’s taste, I found Falk’s restraint in his personal relations a pleasant and realistic change from the heavy breathing romances that so often feature in mysteries and, especially, thrillers. A fleeting hint of attraction to his new partner and a nostalgic visit to a popular classmate back in his home town are enough to indicate Falk’s uncertain confidence and basic decency. He’s got baggage, but he’s an adult.

Jane Harper worked for a number of years as a journalist in Australia before winning a short story contest led her to begin taking her fiction more seriously. Apparently a 12 week online course in novel writing proved instrumental in turning an early manuscript into The Dry. Nice to know that contests and online courses occasionally can pay off!

A Foreign Field

Yes, today is exactly 75 years after the landings of the Allies in Normandy, D-Day, a/k/a Operation Overlord a/k/a Operation Neptune.






























First, the facts:  It was the largest seaborne invasion in history, with nearly 5,000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers participating.[186] Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on D-Day,[27]with 875,000 men disembarking by the end of June.[187] Allied casualties on the first day were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead. (Wikipedia)


Secondly - Blessings and thanks to all the survivors!  Blessings and thanks to all who died.

Relics left over from D-Day at Omaha Beach

D-Day still remains in the actual physical landscape of Normandy.  And in the memories of the soldiers, the Normandy citizens,  and of course the books and movies that have been made about it.  "The Longest Day", book by Cornelius Ryan, was made into a 3 hour movie (written by Ryan with "additional material" by Romain Gary and James Jones, among others) with a cast including (apparently) every male star they had on the  Hollywood lot.  And some that weren't.

Trivia:  According to the 2001 documentary, "Cleopatra:  The Film That Changed  Hollywood", Richard Burton and Roddy McDowall were sitting around, not having been used for weeks, and bored senseless in Rome (I find the latter hard to believe - Burton always had drinking), but anyway, they phoned Zanuck, the director, begging to for something to do.  So they flew themselves to location and did a day's worth of cameo work for free.  (Wikipedia)

D-Day is also recreated in both "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers."

But the most touching movie about D-Day takes place long after the event.  1994's "A Foreign Field" is written by British screenwriter Roy Clarke (who also wrote two of my favorite comedies, the miniseries "Flickers" and the longest running comedy series ever, "Last of the Summer Wine").  It stars Leo McKern as Cyril and Alec Guinness as Amos, two elderly British veterans, John Randolph as Waldo, an old American vet, and Geraldine Chaplain and Edward Hermann as Waldo's daughter and son-in-law.  These five gather for the 1994 D-Day anniversary, where they also look up Jeanne Moreau's Angel, the good-time girl who apparently took care of all the soldiers in 1944.  Let me assure you, even at 65, Moreau makes you believe she was worth remembering - and perhaps still worth fighting over.  Here's the original trailer:

With Lauren Bacall as the mysterious alcoholic who tags along.  BTW, Alec Guiness does a master turn as Amos, permanently brain-damaged by shrapnel at D-Day, who (as one reviewer put it) "brings more meaning to a flip through the channels on a French TV set than most actors find in a Shakespearean soliloquy."   (New York Magazine)  It's funny, it's touching, it's moving, it's full of memory and meaning.  Wonderful.   (It's also available on Netflix on DVD or at Amazon.)

Part of what works in "A Foreign Field" is the relationship between Cyril and Amos.  Which, in turn, is based on the great chemistry of Alec Guinness and Leo McKern.  That relationship also worked in "Monsignor Quixote", which starred Alec Guinness as parish priest Quixote, whose best friend is the Communist ex-mayor of El Toboso.  When Father Quixote is elevated - by a sheer fluke - to Monsignor, things get complicated.  Based on a short novel by Graham Greene (who also worked on the screenplay!) it's, funny, touching, moving, with one of the greatest endings (imho) of any film.  It's available here, on YouTube, in its entirety:

I wish that Guinness and McKern had made more movies together, but then I also wish that Paul Newman and Robert Redford had made a couple of more.  But "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting" are good enough.  So are "Monsignor Quixote" and "A Foreign Field."

We're going to watch "A Foreign Field" tonight.  It seems the perfect tribute to D-Day, and to all those who fought, and fought, and would not shift.  Watch, and you'll understand.

Five Red Herrings, Volume 11

1. Pictures from a Prosecution. Back in 2017 the Library of Congress held an exhibit of unusual art: drawings by courtroom illustrators. Fascinating stuff including such sinister types as Charles Manson, Bernie Madoff, and (?) J.K. Rowling.

2. Man, that's succubustic. I have mentioned Lowering the Bar before. A wonderful website about all that is ridiculous in the world of law. This entry concerns a California attorney who used (invented, really) the word "succubustic' to describe the behavior of a female judge who refused to grant him the attorney's fees he wanted. (Apparently the lawyer worked very hard on the case, clocking 25 hours in a single day, for instance.) He also referred to the "defendant's pseudohermaphroditic misconduct." Stylish.

3. Write like a girl. Useful for all of us boy author types: Women Share the Biggest Mistakes Male Authors Make with Female Characters. Here's one from jennytrout: "We have never, ever looked in a mirror and silently described our nude bodies to ourselves, especially the size/shape/weight/resemblance to fruit, etc. of our breasts."

4. Write like a cop. From Robin Burcell, Top Ten Stupid Cop Mistakes (in Fiction). "Only some of the bosses are evil or stupid..."

 5. "Dieoramas." Article from Topic Magazine about Abigail Goldman, who  is an investigator for the Public Defender's office in my county. Her hobby is making tiny 3-D "reproductions" of entirely fictional murder scenes. Creepy...

With Malice Aforethought

By Michael Bracken

Audience arriving for "Make It Snappy:
Our Agatha Short Story Nominees"

While attending Malice Domestic last month, I had dinner with several writers and found myself sitting with Susanna Calkins, who I met earlier that day when I moderated “Make It Snappy: Our Agatha Short Story Nominees.” Susanna—along with Leslie Budewitz, Barb Goffman, Tara Laskowski, and Art Taylor—provided the audience with an entertaining and informative fifty-minute conversation about their Agatha-nominated short stories, themselves, and writing. One question not asked during our panel discussion, but which often comes up in one form or another, sparked a significant portion of our dinner conversation:

What motivates you to write?

Susanna noted that many of us have pat answers—chocolate every five hundred words, perhaps—that are easy to toss off during a panel discussion, but which do not actually answer the question. As an academic, Susanna is interested in one day researching the answer to that question and in exploring both what motives writers to write but also what prevents would-be writers from writing. What she discovers through this research might then be applicable to other creative fields.

This intrigued me because my son Ian teaches (and practices) Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), a therapeutic model that trains caregivers to provide effective support and treatment for at-risk children, but which can be applied to all relationships. We have had several discussions about motivation and about how the desire for a dopamine rush can be a motivating factor in our decisions. Many of us drink, smoke, take drugs, and engage in risky behavior to trigger that dopamine rush. Some of us write short stories.

Friday evening Malice Domestic dinner companions.

Every time I have a story accepted, every time I receive a payment, every time I have a story published, every time I see a story mentioned in a review, every time I see the expression on someone’s face when they learn how many stories I’ve written, I feel that rush. It feeds me. It motivates me.

What motivates me may also serve as a barrier to growth. I have identified myself as a short story writer, and I have used that self-identification to expand into closely related activities that feed the same dopamine rush: editing anthologies (and, now, a magazine), moderating and serving on panels about writing short stories, writing essays and blog posts about writing short stories, and so on. When asked about writing novels, I have a pat answer that emphasizes the success I’ve had with short fiction: Why shoot the horse I rode in on?

But the real reason I no longer write novels may be fear. Not fear of failure—every novel I’ve written has been published—but fear that long-term projects such as novels don’t provide steady hits of dopamine. Without that repeated rush, there’s no motivation to continue the work.

I recently had an opportunity to pitch a partial and an outline. I presented two, was given encouragement to press forward with one, and promptly stepped on my own willie: I loaded myself up with short-story and short-story-related projects.

And I felt good.

My son and I will continue our discussions about TBRI, dopamine, and related topics, and through our discussions I may learn more about what motivates me and how and why it motivates me. And because I would like to know what motivates other writers—I know it really isn’t just chocolate—I hope that someday Susanna actually does her research.

Loss and Gratitude

by Travis Richardson

On May 23 crime fiction lost an angel when author and short story advocate Sandra Seamans passed away. For short story writers with a criminal slant, her website, humbly titled "My Little Corner", was one the best resources anywhere. At least once a week I would check out her site to see if there were any writing opportunities. Several of my publications came from her listings as were many other writers. She selflessly searched and vetted opportunities for genre writers. Many of us are eternally grateful to her.

Sandra's contributions were enormous. I touted her site on panels and to everybody I'd meet who was interested in writing short stories. But I don't know if she knew how much she meant to me. I believe I said thank you on her blog once or twice but that was it. I hope she realized how much she was appreciated even if she didn’t hear it from us often enough.

This got me thinking about other contributors who take time out of their daily schedules to either help writers or tout crime fiction. Last year at Left Coast Crime in Reno I put together a list of sites that promoted crime fiction. You can find it here: http://www.tsrichardson.com/mystery-and-crime-fiction-blogs-and-reviews/. There are several more that are not on the list and it woefully needs to be updated. (If you have any suggestions let me know and I’ll update the list.)

In the spirit of saying thank you to those who do, I’d like to give a few shout-outs of those not on my list, including Jesse Rawlins, Mick Rose, Jason Beech, Gabriel Valjean, Kevin Tipple, Angel Luis Colon, and Frank Zaffiro. They have promoted me and many others this year. Thank you for the time and energy you’ve given in this crazy, distractible world. I hope to return the favor soon.

There are many people who are promoting others and it is awesome. I often feel inadequate in promoting others (and myself at times.) Between work and a 4-year-old, I seem to have only a few scant hours to write and read each week. At one point, pre-child, I had a minimum daily writing goal of 700 words that I often exceeded…until I didn’t. After a couple of years of not achieving this goal, I dropped the word count to 250 a day and have mostly managed to hit it. (You can use and modify my writing spreadsheet here if interested: http://www.tsrichardson.com/2019/01/01/2019-writing-and-tracking-spreadsheet/) But as often as I intend to comment on blogs or interesting things that I run across, I never seem to have the bandwidth (or courage?) to say or promote like I’d like to. I hope to break out of this frozen carbonite of silence.

And what are my plans to help fellow writers and promote writing in general? A couple of years ago I bought the domain names storyjockey.com and storyjockeys.com with the idea of creating a portal of short story recommendations. Each week, dozens of reviewers/jockeys would provide a reading list of 5-10 stories. Kind of like a DJ playing a list of songs. Perhaps a little background or quick anecdote about how that story made the jockey feel with a link to the story. The majority of the recommendations would be contemporary and a few might be classics, or whatever they want. Readers could follow the jockeys who fit their taste the best. There would also be the best stories of the month, the season and the year by each jockey. I hope something like this would be a good way to direct readers to amazing short stories as well as create a new audience for those who didn’t know that they like short fiction. But, I haven’t found the bandwidth to do much more than buying the domain and dream about it occasionally. Perhaps “going public” on SleuthSayers might make this happen sooner than later. Who knows.

A final thought about Sandra's passing. When the great and kind short story writer BK Stevens suddenly passed away, Art Taylor stepped up took over her First Two Pages blog, letting writers show their first two pages of a short story or novel and the reasons why they wrote. I'm not sure if anybody wants to take Sandra's mantel, but the spot is open.

On a personal note, I had two stories come out last week. "I'll Be You" came out in THE DESPERATE AND THE DAMNED and "The Fatal Flaw of Those Who Listened" in Maintenant 13: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art.