Inner Spark, Outer Spark

 

I have two new stories in anthologies and they make a nice contrast in answering the age-old question: Where do you get your ideas?

For instance, I was biking one day and saw a phone lying in the street.  It was still functional but it was locked and there was no way to contact the owner.  I put up a message on NextDoor and got no response.

Eventually I brought it to the local shop of the service that ran the phone.  I don't know whether they cracked the code and contacted the author or cannibalized it for parts, or just chucked it in the trash, but I had done all I could do.

Except.

A Nurse Log (National Park Service) 

I could write a story about it.  "The Nurse Log" appears in Agatha and Derringer Get Cozy: Thirteen Tales of Murder, Mystery, and Master Detection, edited by Gay Toltl Kinman, and Andrew McAleer.

It's about a somewhat eccentric biker who finds a phone on a road and tries to contact the owner.  Turns out the device is connected to a crime and he winds up stuck in the middle.

I would call this story the result of an inner spark.  I was reacting to something that I experienced.

Sometime after I wrote that story I received a call from Colin Conway.  He writes police novels set in Spokane and has edited three anthologies, with each story and set in Spokane.

He asked if I would like to write a story for his fourth anthology.  Each tale would involve someone finding a gun (always the same gun), using it in a crime, and then leaving it somewhere where someone else could find it.

Spokane Convention Center

 I thought that was intriguing and wrote back that I would try if he would agree to two points. 1) I had only been to Spokane once and that was for the World Science Fiction Conference, so I would focus my story on the Spokane Conference Center. 2) I wanted to avoid the obvious gun-related crimes (shooting or threatening to shoot someone).  

Colin approved my plan.  The result was ""The Book Deal," a story about a publishing conference and two editors dueling over a new book my a hot influencer.  it is now available in Lost and Loaded: A Gun's Tale. 

So that is an example of an external inspiration: Someone other than me suggested the topic for the story.  

I prefer the internal ones, since they tend to be close to my heart.  But it can be fun to work from another writer's suggestion.  And hey, it's nice to be wanted. 

Afternote: I have since found two more cell phones.  In neither case could I get them back to the owner.

My Favorite Read of 2024

I have become an audiobook devotee. When I first started listening to books about fifteen years ago, I did it only when driving. Listening and driving seemed to require different parts of my brain, enabling me to pay attention to the road and a book at the same time– similar to listening to the radio. I didn't have the same experience at home. If I tried to listen to a book at home, I found myself itching to do something with my hands or eyes and became distracted from the book.

But in the last few years, I realized that there were things I could do at home that allowed me to stay busy and yet focus on an audiobook. I can do laundry and listen. Empty the dishwasher and listen. Make meals and listen. Eat meals and listen. I can brush my teeth, wash my face, change my clothes, and even lie in bed awaiting sleep and listen.

Sure, in the morning I may have to rewind a little to find the last spot I recall, but that is easy to do. And at the end of the workday, when my eyes are tired from reading books and short stories on my computer for clients, I can turn on an audiobook and do online jigsaw puzzles or game at the same time. The brain is a miraculous thing.

It is thanks to audiobooks that I was able to read (can you use the word read for listening to an audiobook? I feel like the answer is yes but it also is not quite right)158 books, as well as three novellas and two novelettes, for pleasure in 2024. What about short stories, you may be wondering. I read those on paper or Kindle. I find I am kinder to authors I listen to, am more willing to shrug off some problems that might have me reaching for my red pen with a paper copy. Since I buy reprint rights to short stories for Black Cat Weekly, I want to ensure I am always vigilant with shorts.

That said, I'm no pushover with novels, novellas, and novelettes. I keep notes on the ones I really enjoyed, what I liked, what concerns I had, and I rank them. It makes things easier come award season to figure out what to list on my nomination ballots. And should a book I enjoyed be named a finalist, I already have notes about that book to help me make up my mind before I vote.

That's not to say I won't reread a book or story that is named a finalist. Indeed, either last year or the year before that I narrowed my Anthony Award choice in one category to one book I had read a few months before and one I finished shortly before voting time, so I read the first book again to better compare the two. Anyway, this is all building up to my saying that I read– okay, listened to– a whole lot of books in 2024, and one easily topped my list. It is… drum roll, please…

“Blood Moon,” a novelette by Linda Castillo. It came out in 2022 from Minotaur Books. The print length is sixty-four pages. Audible says if you listen to it at regular speed, it should take about ninety minutes.

Castillo writes a series about Kate Burkholder, a formerly Amish sheriff in the village of Painters Mill, nestled in a rural Ohio county. When the series began with Sworn to Silence in 2009, Castillo had a book come out each year. A few years later, Minotaur started publishing a novelette by Castillo midway through each year for fans like me who needed their Castillo fix. The novelettes often are a bit lighter and more humorous than the novels. The crime might not even be murder. “Blood Moon” is a perfect example.

In this tale, there is a monster afoot in Painters Mill. Several people have an encounter with it. From their stories, you can imagine different urban legends, and Sheriff Burkholder and her significant other, John Tomasetti, an agent with the Ohio Bureau of Investigation, are on the case.

“Blood Moon” has great suspense, fantastic dialogue, and a solid ending. This novelette is set quite a ways into the series, and I think you would enjoy it even more if you read all the books and novelettes that came before it. There is character development throughout the series that would make the interactions in “Blood Moon” more meaningful to you if you followed the characters from the start. But you certainly could read “Blood Moon” as a standalone should you choose to.

Linda Castillo

You may be wondering why I read a 2022 novelette in 2024 if I love this series. I read so many series that I sometimes fall behind, and that has happened here. But don't worry. I will catch up. I have much to look forward to, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Books in this series have landed on the New York Times bestseller list, and just last year, Castillo's novel An Evil Heart won the Sue Grafton Memorial Award and her novelette “Hallowed Ground” won the Edgar Award for Best Short Story. If you like reading police procedurals, you won't go wrong by picking up anything in this series.

Want to learn more? Castillo has written interviews with Burkholder and Tomasetti. You can find them here and here.

Before I go, a little BSP. If you would like to read my short story “A Matter of Trust,” which his eligible for the Agatha Award, among others, you can find it on my newly revamped website. Just click here.

Happy reading!

The irresistible Sciurus carolinensis

            One of my writing spaces looks into the woods that stand directly behind our house. It’s full of oak, cherry and birch trees, and teeming hordes of chipmunks and squirrels.

            Also the occasional coyote, bear, deer or bobcat, but they’re infrequent visitors. The dominant species in charge of the woodland are squirrels. Since this year we’ve had the biggest crop of acorns in Connecticut history, there are a lot of those guys out there, and conditions promise to produce even more. It’s rodent heaven.

            Squirrels are the least appreciated of our Northeastern wildlife.

            They‘re often called “The Common Grey Squirrel.” Only common because they’re so successful, more than any other mammal in the neighborhood aside from the homo sapiens looking at them through the window. I also think their behavior is anything but commonplace. I know this because when I’m not working on my computer, I’m watching the squirrels.

            Their industry is phenomenal.

            They leap through the leaves and root around the forest floor with unabated enthusiasm. Their forepaws may not be hands, technically, but they hold things like I do, and munch on acorns the way kids attack an apple. However, I can’t use my hands to climb a tree, balance on a narrow branch, or catch myself after diving several yards from one tenuous hold to another with no fear or hesitation.

            Squirrels are all about work hard, play hard. Much of the entertainment comes from two, or three, chasing each other through the leaves, up a tree, then over to another, around a thick branch, back to the ground and over a split-rail fence into our yard for some open field running. There doesn’t seem to be any practical reason for this, leaving the inescapable conclusion that it’s just pure joy.

            For over twenty years we’ve had a steady supply of terriers, who are the squirrels’ sworn enemies.

            When we let them out, a mighty chase ensues. No squirrels have ever been caught, since they are very fast with plenty of trees at hand to facilitate escape. Our terriers are never discouraged by this, and never hold back, despite the lack of success. In this, they and the squirrels share the unrelenting tenacity of nature.

            We have a birdfeeder guaranteed to thwart squirrels, and it hasn’t failed us yet. That doesn’t mean the squirrels ever stop trying. The feeder is right outside a kitchen window, and after a heroic, gymnastic attempt to get at the bird seed, the squirrel will retreat to a nearby branch and look back through the window reproachfully, though with fierce determination.

“Never give up, never surrender.”

            There are many things that can distract one from writing, some of which are beneficial.

            I think high on the list are making a sandwich, letting out the dogs, putting wet clothes in the dryer, getting another cup of coffee or going to pee (the last two components of the same general process). If you’re looking for something that doesn’t entail getting out of your chair, I suggest monitoring squirrels.

            It doesn’t really undermine concentration and can even provide a bit of inspiration. No fictional character is pluckier than a squirrel. Conservative in his acorn husbandry; liberal in his tolerance of competing chipmunks. Courageous to a fault, innovative in pursuit of life’s rewards, yet always ready to just goof around. Living freely with unchecked abandon. What’s a better model?

            The way my writing space is arranged, there’s a little less than three feet between where I gaze outside and the split-rail fence.

            This means that a squirrel can perch on top of a fence post and look right at me. This happens frequently. When we stare into each other’s eyes, I wonder if he’s thinking, “What the hell are you doing in there? Why aren’t you out here collecting acorns? Don’t you know winter is coming?”

            Or it might be, “Can you please do something about those terriers?”

---

2025: The Year of The Bizarre Legal Questions

 

With 2025 in it's infancy, it can already be dubbed The Year of The Bizarre Legal Questions. One of the weirdest of the lot, and one none of us have ever heard before is: if Canada is attacked by the United States, what protections does Canada have? 

This is a rather breathtaking question, given the longstanding friendship between our two countries, but here we are. How we got here and where we go from here are the crucial questions. 

The GOP began threatening Canada around the convoy protests, when in February, 2022, Republican congresswoman, Lauren Boebert, claimed that the United States has, "neighbors to the north who need freedom and who need to be liberated.”

Then entered Tucker Carlson, with comments and a film, proclaiming, "the US should invade our neighbors in the north."

Many Canadians thought this was an extremely odd way to object to how Canada handled a domestic issue, but most of us shrugged and continued on with our lives. Then, in November, 2024 when Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, met with the incoming U.S. president-elect, Trump talked about the potential annexation of Canada to make Canada the 51st state.

Since then, this conversation has become one where the issues are a moving target. 

After threatening 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports if Canada didn't improve border security, Trump responded to Canada's proposed border investment of $1.2-billion with a new spin that the United States pays to protect Canada. Since Canada has never required protection from attacks, this must mean NATO investments, but Canada's ramping up their investments in NATO also doesn't seem to satisfy Trump. He responded by saying, "Canada and the United States, that would really be something," Trump said. "You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like, and it would also be much better for national security." 

After meandering around this issue, trying out many narratives, Trump seems to have settled into the idea that he will use, ''economic force to acquire Canada." 

Others in the GOP are lining up on this with Rep. Brandon Gill, a Republican from Texas saying, "I think that the people of Canada, for that matter, should be honored that President Trump wants to bring these territories under the American fold." 

The moving of goal posts is breathtaking, but worse is the misuse of language. 

"In his essay “Politics and the English Language” (1946) Orwell observed that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” In other words, certain political language (propaganda) uses words and phrases to hide ugly truths. He foresaw how politicians would misstate and mislead in order to stay in power, using words to distort more than to inform, not to convey meaning but to undermine it." 

The deliberate misuse of of language is hiding a potential march to war.  

Clearly, Canada is an independent and sovereign country and is not a 'state' or 'territory' but by refusing to call Canada a country, Trump et al suggests that 'annexation' of Canada is easy. 

But we all know that any attempt to 'annex' another country is a declaration of war and we only need to look at Russia's attempt to 'annex' the Ukraine to know the dire consequences of such actions. 

So, as we meander along the path of Trump and his sycophants, it's understandable why Canadians - who are generally a calm people -  are asking about international laws. 

I really hope that someone with true expertise answers the questions that are arising from all this. Certainly, Canada has many multilateral defence agreements, but the most significant and most talked about these days is NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Canada was one of twelve founding members of NATO in 1949, and now there are 32 members. Of these, three of NATO's members have nuclear weapons: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 

Since the United States and Canada are both founding members of NATO, perhaps this article analyzing this question in the context of the 2020 tensions between NATO allies Turkey and Greece, helps clarify the issue: 

"what if this altercation between two NATO allies did escalate, leading to the beginning of a new armed war? Considering there are no such precedents, what would this mean for the fighting allies and in what way will NATO interfere?

"The goal of collective defence is codified in Article 5 NAT. It states that an attack against one member of NATO should be considered an attack against all. In this case, all other NATO allies will assist the said attacked member...it is important to note that this article does not make a distinction between NATO members and external attacking parties. This could imply that the article could even be triggered when the attacking party is a NATO ally. Since an event like this never occurred, there are no precedents to look into.

"Another Treaty article that could give us more insights into the consequences of such conflict between allies, is Article 8 NAT. The specific article states that ‘Each Party undertakes not to enter into any international engagement in conflict with this Treaty’. Knowing that the main purpose of the Treaty is peacekeeping and preventing attacks against NATO members, this could imply that fighting allied nations means disobeying the article and therefore breaching the Treaty." 

The last point is crucial. The main purpose of NATO is to prevent attacks against members. So, will NATO act as a form of deterrence? Will the United States, if it attacks Canada, be expelled from NATO? Given that the United States is a major contributor to NATO, this will give everyone pause. However, the United States attacking a peaceful country like Canada, with a stellar reputation around the world, will worry all NATO nations that their country could be next on the list and joining Canada in this fight would be a form of self-defence much like the Ukraine is seen as the frontline of Russia's aggression and, if it falls, other countries will be that frontline. 

Underlying all this Orwellian language is the key deception by Trump et al: that mild and meek Canada can easily be invaded by the mighty United States. I leave it to experts to analyze the real numbers in terms of military might of the United States verses the military might of the other thirty one NATO nations combined, as well as other nations Canada has military and cooperative agreements with, such as Canada's defence relations in the Asia Pacific . However, if I can be forgiven for spitballing in lieu of expertise, the United States has touted its large military contribution to NATO of 1.3 million troops. Let's put this in context. Canada contributed  1.159M  troops to World War II, when Canada's population was a mere 12M. Today, Canada has a population of 40M. And we are just one country in NATO.  Also, despite Trump's claims that the United States contributes two-thirds of the NATO overall budget, that number is actually only 15.8% of the total NATO budget as of 2024. Add to this the other two NATO nations besides the United States that have nuclear arms and we have the makings of a real mess. This is why an actual expert is needed to gauge the military might of the United States verses all other NATO countries because if NATO is to function as a deterrent to war - and it should - the might of NATO should be stated as a counterweight to the spin emanating from Trump et al. 

After walking down this road, one can't help wondering how the road ahead will look. First, it could go like all the other trade and tariff wars Canada and the United States have had over the years and end up at a negotiating table with a deal hammered out. We will then have proof - lacking at this time - that all this talk of war was just a negotiating strategy, however, the moving goal posts of how to resolve this makes this narrative a tad questionable. Second, Trump et al could be forced to back down by Americans - citizens and members of the government - calling out the Orwellian language and demanding a stop to calls for war. These first two options are the preferred choice for all those who want peace and a continuation of the long, fruitful friendship between our two nations, so we can go back to walking our dogs, sipping lattes and pondering real problems such as what to make for dinner.* Third, it could end up as a war where the United States attempts to take Canada by force with NATO and other allies of each country being involved. As Canadian citizens from coast to coast and Canadian governments at all levels have clearly stated:  Canada, an independent country, will not become a part of the United States without a fight. Avoiding that war is a crucial issue for 2025. 

*Update: while I was writing this article, my husband made dinner so, that problem is solved. 

The Holmes-Inspired Bank Heist, on Baker Street

January is a time for new inspiration, and for many of us, inspiration came from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Many of us read his Sherlock Holmes stories and decided to keep reading mysteries. Some of us tried writing a mystery ourselves. Or maybe, as really happened, someone digs a forty-foot tunnel into a bank vault. 

And the plan worked.

Mostly. 

The Holmes outing that inspired the crime is, of course, "The Red-Headed League," up there with my favorites. The story has nothing ingenious about it, by such standards, except the Holmes stories usually hide their humor more. This one nails a mystery that--in my opinion--only works as comedy. 

The plot: A pawnshop owner, at the great insistence of his clerk, scores a paying gig with a benefactor society dedicated to the advancement of red-headed men. All the bloke has to do is hang around League HQ all day. He turns to Holmes when the League abruptly closes shop. Holmes deduces a distraction. The clerk is in fact an aristocrat criminal genius who set up a front and uses his alone time to dig into the bank vault next door. Holmes is waiting when the aristocrat genius surfaces inside the bank.

In 1971, a British criminal gang tried the plot in real life. They targeted Lloyds Bank, no less, the renowned securer of London society lockboxes. 

The bank sits at 185 Baker Street.

Now, everyone knew London's wealthy kept serious loot in Lloyds basement vault. No heist team had tried the job for a simple reason: The idea was pure insanity. Lloyds was a high-tech fortress, with trembler alarms and feet of reinforced concrete protecting the vault. Getting in and out couldn't be done.

Enter Anthony Gavin, the real-life genius if not aristocrat. Gavin was Army-trained and connected in the London underworld. And Gavin was properly inspired. 

Nobody was busting in the front way. But somebody equipped and disciplined could tunnel in, Conan Doyle-style. And in May 1971, two doors from Lloyd's at Number 189, the leather goods shop Le Sac had just gone under. Blueprints said its basement sat on the same level as the vault. 

The game was afoot. Gavin worked through an associate Benjamin Wolfe to secure the lease. Wolfe's job was financing and cover. He would keep Le Sac open so that Gavin's crew could come and go as renovators. Not open personally, mind you. For plausible deniability, Wolfe stayed clear of Le Sac.  

The exact size of the crew isn't known. Gavin had a security systems expert. He had a lookout, a demolitions guy, a tunnel man who could navigate tight spaces. And crucially, he had an insider, Reg Tucker, a friend with no criminal record. 

Tucker fashioned himself into a Man About Marylebone and in December 1970 deposited £500 at Lloyds. In February 1971, he returned to rent a safety deposit box in the basement vault. Over six months, Tucker revisited the vault and mapped its layout and dimensions using an umbrella as a yardstick. He walked Baker Street between Le Sac and Lloyds until the crew had precise distance and direction for tunneling. Forty feet, no more, no less. It didn't pay to pop up at the fried chicken joint in between. 

The news got better. Baker Street was torn up for repairs. The security expert checked around and learned the utility work set off so many false alarms that the tremblers had been shut off altogether.

The tunneling started in late August and went on for two weekends. They dug after hours only to lower the risk of being heard. And it wasn't loose dirt they dug through. This was decades and decades worth of old London foundations. A cave-in was one wrong shovel or loose brick away. 

Foot after foot they dug, no ventilation, no calling for help. And nights or not, they were making a lot of noise picking away and clearing tons of debris by bags and a pulley as they moved deeper. The chicken place staff eventually came banging on Le Sac's door to complain. Gavin's crew didn't hear the knocking at first because they were busy mining directly below the chicken place. 

By Friday, September 10, the crew was ready. They had cut forty feet and loaded eight tons of rubble into Le Sac's basement. They'd constructed a chamber 7x4x5 feet where they loaded a 100-ton hydraulic jack onto railroad ties. The vault would time-lock at close of business, as the manager had bragged to Tucker. No one, not even the manager, could open it until Monday morning. Gavin's lookout confirmed over the walkie that the branch had emptied. The crew had all weekend--if they could crack through the reinforced concrete. 

On Saturday, the crew gave it a go. As happens in a heist, the plan immediately frayed. Their staging chamber sat above wet earth from an underground spring. The hydraulic jack pushed the floor down rather than the vault concrete up. 

Gavin was ready for contingencies. Next, and this is not embellishment, they took a thermal lance to the vault floor. That's right, they shot molten slag upward in a tiny space filling with noxious fumes. And for naught. The reinforced concrete held. 

It was time for old-fashioned methods. The crew drilled chunks out of the concrete and stuck gelignite inside. A detonator did the rest. 

Explosives. In the makeshift tunnel. But the crew's engineering was up to the task. As for noise, the lookout confirmed that Baker Street didn't seem to notice a blast under their feet. Which left only basic physics in the way. Bank vaults are airtight. Gavin and his crew pried upward into a thick brume of smoke and dust, too much for starting on the deposit boxes. The crew argued over their walkies about whether and how to change the plan.

Which was a problem Gavin hadn't accounted for. One mile away, a ham radio enthusiast was recording their transmissions.

The ham radio guy was Robert Rowlands, of Wimpole Street. He'd been trying to catch Radio Luxembourg but instead had tuned into the heist. He listened on and even reported a suspected burglary--somewhere--to his local precinct. The cops advised him to record what he was hearing if he wanted anyone to believe him. So Rowlands did. On his home cassette recorder, he caught Gavin's crew wrangling about pressing on or retreating before being overcome by fumes.

By 2am Sunday, Rowlands phoned in a second report. This time, he called Scotland Yard. The Flying Squad drove to Rowlands' flat and listened with him as the crew chattered their progress reports. Eventually, the crew switched channels, but not until the evidence had mounted.

Scotland Yard knew a bank job was happening, but they didn't know where. So they put teams on the streets and canvassed banks in an 8-mile radius of Wimpole Street--all 750 branches.  

One of those banks was Lloyds. 

There wasn't any sign of foul play outside Lloyds, but no one was taking chances. The cops and bank manager went into the basement and listened inside the sealed vault, likely while the crew was inside thinking each breath sounded like thunder. But after a good listen, the police called Lloyds all clear.

Which it wasn't, as was obvious when Lloyds opened Monday morning. The crew had broken into 268 deposit boxes, a quarter of the vault count. A note scrawled in paint challenged Sherlock to solve the case. Also obvious was the hole in the vault floor. That led the cops to Le Sac and the discarded equipment, which quickly led them to Benjamin Wolfe. He had signed the lease under his real name.

Shocked. Wolfe was shocked, shocked, to learn that a crew had used his basement for thievery. Yes, he'd let a crew use the property, but he'd understood it to be for legitimate storage. 

Needless to say, Scotland Yard wasn't buying Wolfe's story. They put him under surveillance and made note of his contacts and movements. Wolfe made repeated contacts with Anthony Gavin, whose voice on the police recordings sounded an awful lot like the crew leader from Rowlands' tapes. Eventually, the police tracked Wolfe to a pay-off. That was that. Gavin, Wolfe, Tucker, and a few others got rounded up. But some of the alleged crew had left England, and possible others have never been identified.

Also needless to say, this was a public sensation. Headlines were written. Fingers were pointed. The job had been ambitious, the crew had gotten away, the police sported a black eye, and rumors sprouted over what other incriminating evidence might've been taken (the 2008 film The Bank Job indulges the conspiracy theories). More than a few Lloyds customers refused to disclose their contents stolen.

Only £231,000 was ever recovered. Some estimates speculate the haul at £3,000,000. In today's money, that is £50,000,000 ($64,000,000), plenty to disappear or pay off bent cops or set aside for retirement. Gavin and Tucker did twelve years. Wolfe did eight.

And that is London 1971 and "The Red-Headed League" come to life. Brilliant criminals, bold plot, and inept police who get their man eventually. And even its sublime ridiculousness, in the form of fake identities, simple mistakes, and irate fry cooks. All that was missing was a great detective. 

Good thing, though, that no real-life Holmes waited there to nab the crew. Gelignite packs a punch.

* * *

In researching this piece, I came across this entertaining dramatization of the crime. They set the stage nicely and visualize the tunneling and the twists and turns of the crime. Like any good heist drama, you're not rooting for the crooks, but you're not not rooting for them, either.

The whole Great Heists series is worth a watch for caper or true crime buffs. 

The Force Beyond You

The closest I have come to believing in divine insight, inspiration, or intervention—or maybe magic—is after I have written something that surprises me. I have created characters who are smarter (or nastier) than I am or ever will be. I have typed dialogue for these beings that shocks or humbles me because I know I don’t have the ability to be so kind, wise, or even so cruel. (A word to non-writers: if you want to write crime fiction, you want to access the darkness. It’s a good thing.)

When someone asks how a particular idea came to me, I always make a joke. Because I have no freaking idea. Sure, I can point to a string of plot points that I scrawled in a notebook before I started—proof of my complicity—but the finished story never quite adheres to them. And yes, I can often recall how or when I first learned certain factoids that I worked into a story, but when they pop up in my prose they are often employed in a manner I had never previously considered.

What I’m saying is that I have come to accept that Creativity is ultimately a mystery. I must leave it at that. I have no choice. The process is too ephemeral to explain any other way. In fact, I’m worried as I write this that words will fail me. We have all heard certain writers claim that the story just wrote itself, or that their characters took on a life of their own. Those sorts of pronouncements are often parodied because they sound fatuous. (Please enjoy the scene below from the film Wonder Boys that marvelously skewers that type of writer.) That’s why I have today brought into the lecture hall the words of other creatives that I have collected. These folks are far more eloquent than I am about this mystery, so I’m going turn it over to them.

The writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch, recently discussing a novelette for which she won a Reader’s Award from Asimov’s, wrote:

“‘The Nameless Dead’ has an opening that I actually heard in my sleep and managed to wake up and write it all down. I really don’t know where these stories come from, but I’m so pleased that readers like them.”

Ever since my wife and I bought two paintings by the fine artist G.C. Myers some years back, I have enjoyed reading his daily blog. He’s an eclectic reader, and often the words that a writer, poet, or philosopher wrote somehow inspires his work, or suggests a title that he contemplates as he creates his canvases. Here is what he says about the process of bringing a painting to life:

“I have often written of sometimes feeling surprised when I finish a piece, as though the end result, the sum of my painting, is often far more than what I have to personally offer in terms of talent or knowledge. Like there is a force beyond me that is arranging these simple elements of this work into something that transcends the ordinariness of the subject or materials or the creator.

“This feeling has remained a mystery to me for almost twenty years, driving me to write here in hopes of stumbling across words that would adequately describe this transformation of simple paint and paper or canvas into something that I sometimes barely recognize as being my own creation, so marked is the difference between the truth of the resulting work and my own truth.”

Someone, possibly Myers, referenced a Rolling Stone interview with songwriter Jeff Tweedy, lead vocalist of Wilco. I went digging, and found a couple of interviews the magazine did with him. Here’s just one that spoke to me:

“I’m not sure I can demystify something I feel wholly inadequate to explain. For me, the moments that make my scalp tingle a little bit are when I hear myself sing a lyric out loud for the first time. On occasion I make myself cry. Not because I’m marveling at my songwriting genius or I’m overcome with my poetic gifts. It’s a moment that feels more like I’m witnessing something better than me, or better than what I imagined I could make, being born. Certain things I’ve written that, at first, didn’t strike me as being remotely worthy of being sung have, when sung for the first time, startled me by uncovering truths about myself I had no intention of revealing.”

By the way, in the same interview he talks about having to write 50 songs or “almost-songs” to get to one, or to reach a point where he is “supernaturally in touch” with his abilities. I liked that turn of phrase immensely. It beats saying what I have always told people: “It came from my subconscious—where the eff else?”

Tweedy’s phrasing reminded me of an essay on writing that I first read in my twenties, and which I have reread over the years. I’ve recommended it to readers here in the past as well. In a 1993 piece in LA Weekly, the writer Michael Ventura said he thought there was a difference between writing and other kinds of creative arts. I think he’s touching on Jung’s idea of archetypes, but you tell me:

“The psyche is dangerous. Because working with words is not like working with color or sound or stone or movement. Color and sound and stone and movement are all around us, they are natural elements, they’ve always been in the universe, and those who work with them are servants of these timeless materials. But words are pure creations of the human psyche. Every single word is full of secrets, full of associations. Every word leads to another and another and another, down and down, through passages of dark and light. Every single word leads, in this way, to the same destination: your soul. Which is, in part, the soul of everyone. Every word has the capacity to start that journey. And once you’re on it, there is no knowing what will happen.”

If Ventura is a little too heavy, then let’s get back to belittling the very question of where art comes from. In a book called The Daily Pressfield, writer Steven Pressfield asks:

“Have you seen archival footage of the young John Lennon or Bob Dylan, when some reporter tries to ask them about their personal selves? The boys deflect these queries with withering sarcasm. Why? Because Lennon and Dylan know that the part of them that writes the songs is not ‘them,’ not the personal self that is of such surpassing fascination to their boneheaded interrogators. Lennon and Dylan also know that the part of themselves that does the writing is too sacred, too precious, too fragile to be dumbed down into sound bites for the titillation of would-be idolaters (who are themselves caught up in their own Resistance). So they put them on and blow them off.”

Pressfield, whom I’ve also discussed before, thinks that creativity springs from a Muse, defined as a part of ourselves that is hidden from us but ever present and powerful. He says:

“People ask me sometimes, ‘Don’t you get lonely being in a room by yourself all day?’ No. I’m not lonely because I’m with this other ‘me,’ who is me and not-me at the same time and whom I have spent my entire life trying to find, to prove myself worthy of, and to labor in collaboration with.”

In his most famous book, The War of Art, Pressfield admits that before he starts work each morning, he prays to this Muse. His practice is to recite a few lines from the beginning of Homer’s Odyssey, believing that all any of us can do is show up for work, signaling to the universe that we intend to labor in good faith.

If you’re in the chair, determined to write, good things can’t help but show up. Or so the theory goes. The opposite corollary, of course, is that if you procrastinate, you cannot be surprised that that Muse has passed you by.

Pressfield’s “show up for work” concept reminded me of another story drawn from the world of music. The songwriter Tom Waits, who doesn’t do too many interviews, once shared this experience with the writer Elizabeth Gilbert. He was driving down the freeway when, out of the blue, a great idea for a song popped into his head. In that situation, flying down the road at sixty-plus miles per hour, Waits couldn’t exactly hit the brakes and jot down the idea. Gilbert, who has told this story a bajillion times in various interviews and her famous TED Talk, describes Waits railing at God or his Muse through his windshield:

“Excuse me, can you not see that I’m driving? Do I look like I can write down a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more opportune moment when I can take care of you. Otherwise, go bother somebody else today. Go bother Leonard Cohen.”

Ok, so let’s say you know all that. You accept that you either have a Muse, or a genius mini-you-who-is-not-you within you, or you accept that you are jacked into the divine source of creation. Would it really be so bad if you ignored that call?

Well, no. Not if you want to get through this life. In an interview with Ken Burns, the late Kris Kristofferson talked about how his family disowned him when he gave up a promising career as a pilot to take a job as a janitor so he could write music on the side. In the middle of this interview, Kristofferson, who studied the Romantic poets, begins quoting from a famous letter by William Blake, which Kristofferson summarized thusly: “He’s telling you that you’ll be miserable if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do.”

He’s referring to an 1803 letter by Blake to Thomas Butts. Here’s a bit of it. You’ll forgive, I think, Blake’s punctuation and mode of expression:

“If you who are organized by Divine Providence for Spiritual communion. Refuse & bury your Talent in the Earth even tho you Should want Natural Bread. Sorrow & Desperation pursues you Thro life! after death Shame confusion of face to eternity —”

See? I started by saying that I don’t know what I’m talking about. And I think I have proved it. But I am grateful that so many people I admire have had exactly the same feeling. Bottom line: Those of us who create really don’t know know where our art comes from. We only know that it comes when we apply ourselves joyfully to the task. That is at once beautiful and relieving.

It seemed appropriate to wait until the turn of another calendar to share these quotes with you. I do so with a prayer that you will get out of your own way in the coming months and let this indescribable mystery lead you into a wonderful, productive new year.

The Fatuous Writer. A scene from the film Wonder Boys.

---

Happy New Year. See you in three weeks!

Joe

josephdagnese.com

2025 and A Wee Bit of Nostalgia

You have to admit that 2025 started off rough: the terrorist who drove a truck through a large crowd on Bourbon Street, New Orleans, and killed 16 and counting. The army vet who blew up a Tesla truck (with himself in it) in front of Trump Casino in Las Vegas. And the gang shooting in Queens, where 4 gunmen shot 10 people (who thank God survived). All on New Year's. I think that's enough to make Baby 2025 go off and put bourbon in the baby bottle.

We didn't have it that easy here, either. In Sioux Falls, we were greeted on January 2nd with the news that a meth head in Yankton had killed his girlfriend and then beheaded her. (LINK here for the gory details.) They had been having a meth party - 

WHICH IS NO EXCUSE FOR BEHEADING YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER, FOLKS! - 

which isn't that uncommon. It's one of the reasons that I laugh as hard as I do at Kathleen Madigan's bit on meth labs:

The truth is, we all know up here that meth is everywhere (here in Sioux Falls it's either meth or fentanyl or heroin and for all I know they're mixing them up together). And there's some small towns that are just one giant meth lab. There are also some small towns that don't want any strangers coming in, through, or by them. I don't know what the Venn Diagram is of that, but I am willing to place a few bets...

And, right now, we're going through a bitter, bitter cold snap, with single digits overnight (if lucky) and barely in the teens, then the 20s. With a wind. Every joint I have is hurting, and the rest of me doesn't like it much either. I'm getting too old for this! I rail at the universe, but the lottery money hasn't come yet. Will keep you posted.

Meanwhile, I do remember when we moved up here to South Dakota. I was 36 and still able to do 99% of whatever I wanted to do, and considered winter a challenge. I drove twice a week at night in the winter to finish my Master's Degree in History down at USD in Vermillion. I remember one night, after a good thick snow that wasn't going anywhere, it was a full moon, and it was so bright, reflecting off all that snow, that I turned off my headlights and just drove without them for a couple of miles. (Don't worry, there wasn't anyone or anything else out on the road with me.)

And I remember taking hikes at the park, and taking pictures of the ice and the snow and wonder of it all:

Looking up, one cold Christmas day:

A picnic area frozen tap, turned into the Ice Walker:

I had such fun. It was good while it lasted.  Meanwhile, I think I'll go mull some ale...

Happy Time

Looking for something to cheer us up over New Year’s, we streamed The Happytime Murders.  Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, what’s not to like?  It’s got puppets, mixed with live action, so like Roger Rabbit, you might be thinking, those cute ‘toons.  Well, first off, I have to warn you, it ain’t for the faint of heart.  It’s incredibly crude, beyond Dumb and Dumber, for example, with the explosive laxative scene.  Happytime Murders tops that, with puppet ejaculation.  (And if you’ve stopped reading, this very minute, I get it.)  There’s a barrage of graphic language, and violent dismemberment – although it’s doll stuffing, not blood squibs – but disturbing, nonetheless, to picture Raggedy Ann and Andy, torn limb from limb, before your very eyes.

Pull up your socks, snowflake.  This movie is hysterical.  I was laughing so hard, I thought I was going to wet my pants.  I know, I’m a sick puppy.  There are some extremely troubled minds behind this picture, led by the late Jim Henson’s son Brian, and it’s an acquired taste, but I have to say it’s demented genius.  It calls up Mel Brooks or Don Rickles, at their most demonic.

It is a mystery, a parody of hard-boiled, actually, with first-person voiceover narration, and all the genre tropes.  The private dick blows cigarette smoke in the cop’s face when he’s being interrogated; the puppets snort sugar – puppet cocaine – in the vice den; the (human) stripper bites the tip off a carrot while she’s pole-dancing, to get the (puppet) rabbits in the audience worked up.  I want to give you the flavor, but avoid giving too much away: half the kick of the movie is not being anywhere near ready for what they come up with.  Admittedly, it’s shameless, and they’ll stoop to anything for a laugh, but there are throwaway bits you’ll miss if you blink.  The private eye goes to a porn shop early on, tracing a lead, and on the back wall are posters for X-rated DVD’s.  I’m not going to tell you the titles, which are jaw-dropping, my point is the attention to detail.  The camera only glances in their direction, and your glimpse is fleeting, but the set design is a shock reveal, intentional and gratifying.

Granted, you’re not in this for the plot twists, which you see coming.  The surprises are in how they hit the expected beats.  A nod to Basic Instinct, say.  You’re going, WHAT?  A lot of it is that you can’t believe what you’re seeing.  Did they really do that? you ask yourself.  And then there’s the gag reel, over the end titles, which is of course a peek behind the scenes, and you get to see how they did do that.  Chinatown it ain’t, clever as it is in execution, but it ain’t Steamboat Willie, either. 

They got sued by Sesame Street. 

Worried at Noon

On New Year's Day, my first short story of the year, "Slow Ride," published. What a great way to start a year. On that day, I felt like Joe DiMaggio. I had a streak. 

Alas, then January 2nd came along. 

Still, I had my day. I'm grateful to fellow SleuthSayer Michael Bracken. He created and edits the Chop Shop novellas. The series tells tales of car thieves and the chop shop that buys their stolen products. In "Slow Ride," Michael's series enabled me to spin the story of Woody and Tommy, a crime-committing duo. The pair work together to successfully boost cars and trucks from across North Texas--or do they? 

In "Slow Ride," tension and suspense lie at the story's heart. Before beginning, I had to think about the tools writers have available to create these driving forces. How do we raise the stakes when telling stories? 

Although I use the terms interchangeably, writing pros tell me that there is a difference between tension and suspense. I like LibreTexts example. Imagine you have a large stick. Tension are the forces bending the stick. Suspense is the unanswered question of whether the stick will break. 

Both tension and suspense start with conflict. In a story about a pair of car thieves trying to steal a vehicle that they will sell to a chop shop, there are four natural sources of conflict. 1. The owner of the car is at odds with the thieves who want to steal it. 2. The thieves may disagree with the chop shop owner. Their transaction is unregulated capitalism, after all, and there is conflict between the buyer and the seller. (Among the lawless, the disagreements might get rougher than between me and Target.) 3. The pair of criminals might also not agree as to means or ends. They may have different goals. 4. Law enforcement's efforts to apprehend criminals and to protect property rights offers another possible area of conflict. 

Having identified the sources of potential conflict, how do we as writers build to that unanswered question? Often, we employ foreshadowing. Hint at a future problem. The suggestion causes readers to begin to guess what will happen next. 

Frequently, we use a deadline. A ticking clock is the most direct method of creating suspense. Consider the movie High Noon. Gary Cooper plays Will Kane, the sheriff of Hadleyville, New Mexico. A train with Kane's nemesis will arrive in town at twelve o'clock. What will the sheriff do? Will Gary Cooper flee? Will the town support the sheriff if he stays? The camera cuts back to the clock ticking closer to noon. Suspense builds. 

Ticking clocks abound in stories. We all have seen them. There are time bombs to be defused, contagions to be isolated, airplanes boarding for departure. The race to resolve the problem before the clock reaches the appointed hour creates pressure on the protagonist. The challenges that must be overcome engage the reader. 

The ticking clock works if the stakes are sufficiently high. The author needs to make the reader care about the characters. Do the parties grab the reader's interest. The characters do not necessarily need to be likeable. To return to High Noon, I was never really fond of Will Kane. I wouldn't want to hang out with him. But he had a code that he needed to adhere to. His wife and friends encouraged him to abandon it. He had to make a hard choice. The story forced him to overcome both external and internal conflicts. The struggle engaged me even if I didn't love the character. Those recurring challenges created tension and suspense. 

We like to cheer for victims and root against bullies. Will Kane is doing his job. We got to know him. We want him to succeed. Viewers want him both to stay alive and remain true to his code. We get tension when it appears that we can't have both. With each failed attempt to rally support, we see the proverbial stick bending. 

The bullies remain relatively anonymous in High Noon. They outnumber Will and want revenge. A faceless, anonymous foe scares us. 

Will Kane had to make deeply personal choices. His wife, Amy, did too. The pending gunfight violates her personal religious beliefs. Will she abandon her code or her husband? The characters' opposing goals created tension within the story.  High Noon offers will they/won't they moments. If the town came together, the small band of outlaws could quickly be dealt with. Will anyone join the sheriff? Some agree, and then melt away away as the crucial moment approaches. False starts keep us as readers/watchers uneasy. Gary Cooper becomes increasingly isolated as the train's arrival looms. As writers, we can model the filmmaker and raise the stakes. Solving one problem begets another. 

High Noon presents Will Kane with internal conflicts. Conflicts also exist between him and his wife. Kane is also challenged by his community and the desperado arriving on the train. As with the car thieves, there are four readily available sources from which to build tension and suspense. 

To further raise the stakes, writers might taunt. Voices, internal or external, can forecast failure. The voices and the action can push the protagonist to feel anger, despair, desperation, or alternatively, confidence. They can highlight conflicts. 

Word choice and sentence length help with pacing. Clipped sentences at critical times force the reader to accelerate the pace, creating momentum. But after a sprint, readers also need time to breathe. Slower pacing allows for more suspense. 

The goal is to create curiosity. Who will win?  How will these conflicts be resolved? Will Gary Cooper escape from this insoluble dilemma? 

In "Slow Ride," I tried to use these tools to create a tension-filled story of suspense. I hope readers like it. Thanks again to Michael for the opportunity to participate in the Chop Shop series. 

How do you create tension in your stories? What techniques work best for you? I hope you'll tell us. Or just leave a hint. That will make us start to guess. 

Until next time. 

What Matters Today

I've written a number of New Year's blogs about how long it's been since I made yearly resolutions—how futile they are, how quickly broken—and how helpful it is to concentrate on living one day at a time without obsessive regret or anticipatory dread. So what's important on this day, today, that's all I've got for now?

Let's start with what it's not. It's not whether I lose weight or who won the election (not today or in any way I can influence). It's not whether someone I love says, "shoulda went" or a writer friend think it's okay to split the infinitive. It's not how many steps I walk or how many stories I write. It's not whether a small press accepts my new poetry manuscript or I have to publish it myself. It's not even whether my work sells any copies. The IRS claims writing is just a hobby anyway (unless you're James Patterson, Michael Connelly, or Lee Child), and I'm beginning to suspect they may be right.

What does matter is art, and that includes well executed fiction and poetry that connects the artist to the reader and/or listener. Art. Nature. Love. Affection. Kindness. Friendship. Belonging. Language. Emotion. Spirit. Beauty. Connection.

If I can touch another person today, I've done something of value. It may be as simple as hugging a friend met unexpectedly on the street. Mailing my annual holiday letter to the widow of the friend in Australia with whom I exchanged such letters for fifty years. Seeing by my sales for Kindle that a new reader is bingeing on my series and laughing and crying over my characters. Reading my work to an audience and knowing they are moved by the quality of the silence. And speaking of silence, shutting up and listening when that's what another person needs. I've been a therapist for forty years now, and I still have work to do on that particular skill.

It's hard to stay in the present when the future beckons. Whether that future is enticing or terrifying, it's the realm of anxiety. And thinking about it today won't make a bit of difference. A simple acronym, WAIT, may pull me back: Why Am I Thinking? Instead, I can connect with something that matters right now: someone I love, some facet of art or nature that moves me, some part of myself that connects with something deeper or higher, however I may conceptualize it. My role model for existing utterly in the moment: a breaching whale.

Our Town

Fans of Midsomer Murders and Agatha Christie know villages are dangerous places, and I’m pretty sure Miss Marple made a tidy living from hamlets paying her to stay away. But the other afternoon there I was, minding my own business, half-listening to a crime podcast… actually a video of five homicides titled ‘5 Cases Solved With The Most Insane Twists’. The episodes had little in the way of twists, but I mentally noted how many crimes take place in out-of-the-way villages no one has heard of.

Then Case 5 queued up:

Valerie Tindall was born on August 29 2005 in Indianapolis, Indiana. She had a big loving family: her parents, a brother, and four sisters. They decided to leave the big city and move to a tiny town called Arlington, about an hour's drive from Indianapolis. With only a few hundred residents, …

Wait! What? What a shock. I know Arlington. It’s my hometown, I know it well. I graduated from high school there. My brothers and I sold the volunteer fire department land to build a new fire station. In upcoming issue 17 of Michael Bracken’s Black Cat Magazine, I set a story in and around Arlington and the county seat of Rushville. But deliberate death of a teenage girl?

Proximity from eastern edge of Lundin farm (at left edge of map) to crime scene.
Fire Department sold to the town is depicted immediately to right of property.

It’s not that we’re not exposed to sudden demise. Farming is the second most dangerous occupation, a percentage point or so behind construction. Indeed, the two professions account for a third of work-related loss of life. If heavy machinery, angry horses or bulls, open field lightning, blizzards, or drowning don’t kill a farmer, then carcinogenic chemicals could bring him down… or her… Everyone pitches in. Running a small farm is a family occupation for adults and children alike.

Childhood is a litany of don’ts: • Don’t reach into moving machinery. • Don’t go near the bogs. • Don’t go near the ponds. • Don’t go near the bullpen. • Don’t go near a wild boar. Don’t flip the tractor. • Don’t play in the grain silos. • Don’t play in the hay mow. • Don’t drown in the sugar bins– that’s a real thing.

Three classmates died, a girl and two boys, one of encephalitis and another from a tractor rolling over him. We grew up with this, but no one expects a teen to be intentionally killed. I can’t compare the violence with our colleague Fran Rizer’s ordeal, but the impact shocked me. Our home had been willfully violated.

The village of Arlington is perhaps six or seven blocks wide and maybe five blocks north-to-south counting the ‘new’ addition. Census generally claim three hundred or more residents, but I’m hard pressed where two hundred of them are hiding. I suspect the census includes domestic rabbits and hunting dogs.

My mother and a handful of friends used to keep me updated on current events, but after my parents died and friends either moved away or passed away, I lost touch without realizing it. I knew a number of Scotts in Rush and Shelby counties including in-laws, but not Patrick Scott involved in the case.

I didn’t know the Tindall family at all, but it turns out Haboob knew the grandparents and probably great-grandparents. The great-grandmother, according to her calculations, taught piano lessons to Haboob.

Setting aside my work, I rewound to the beginning of the story, listening carefully. The case made national news, but for reasons unknown, I missed it entirely. Other than a few reporting errors, the homicide and resolution are well documented, so I won’t go into detail.

Summary

On the 7^th of June 2023, seventeen-year-old Valerie Tyndall left her family’s home, presumably to go to work for her neighbor and boss, Patrick Scott. He owned properties in Arlington and operated small businesses including landscaping and lawn care. When Valerie didn’t return that evening and her parents couldn’t locate her, they called Rush County Sheriff’s Office.

Soon the FBI, the US Marshals Service, and the Indiana State Police joined Rush County deputies. Authorities questioned Scott early on, who insisted Valerie was not scheduled to work.

Scott turned out to be a remarkably poor liar, and virtually from the beginning, detectives had an eye on him. For reasons unknown, he set fire to a garage he owned, but police couldn’t connect it to the case. Some news outlets stated Valerie’s corpse was found in a barrel in the burned-out shed, but that was not the situation.

Position of victim and perpetrator properties, and detail of search areas.

Cadaver dogs signaled at a nearby pond, but divers turned up nothing. However, a couple of investigators noted prevailing winds and realized a breeze might have wafted scents from Scott’s home and office.

Spade work turned up nothing, but at last the crew turned their attention to a mass of construction debris. Under a pile of dirt, they turned up a large, hand-crafted box. It turned out to contain VHS video tapes. Police have not said what the tapes contained.

But under that, they found another box that gave off an odor of decomposition. Inside, they found young Valerie.

Scott admitted killing her, claiming she tried to blackmail him. He denied having a sexual relationship, although he had strangled her with his belt. Observers noted at times he acted like a jealous lover. One article suggested another reason possibly hinted at by the mother Shena Sandefur, which I’ll leave to you to discover. Following a plea agreement, he was sentenced to 57 years.

Aftermath

No offense to city dwellers living in an atmosphere of anonymity, I’m not sure urbanites could understand the impact. At this moment, Haboob resides seven miles from the crime scene. She didn’t believe it when I first told her. She had to research it herself and then try to internalize it.

The surrounding towns mentioned in articles we know well. My cherry bedroom suite came from The Sampler in the hamlet of Homer. My high school girlfriend lived in Carthage. I loved reading in the quiet of the Rushville library. I worked summers in Shelbyville. Andrew Jackson signed the land grant for my mother’s people outside Morristown. The land and inhabitants resemble a small budget Tara, under the skin and affecting the heart.

Tindall family during happier times

Worst of all, a family moved from the big city to a village, looking for a healthier, quieter, safer life. Instead, they lost their daughter and the promise of her future. It hurts us all.