A heartfelt weigh-in

Normally, I’m the kind of gal who takes a light-hearted approach to diet and exercise.

For example, in The Fat City Mysteries, one of my characters likes to brag about how she trades in her Weight Watcher points for Frequent Fryer Miles at In-N-Out.

But earlier this week, I received a sobering reality check. As we used to say in the evangelical south, I had a real “Come to Jesus” meeting.

This particular meet up with Himself began with an impromptu visit to an urgent care clinic. It ended with my staring at an echocardiogram image, wondering if the beating muscle inside my chest was about to flame out.

I started out that particular morning feeling not so great. Then it dawned on me—I’d been feeling not-so-great for more than a week.

It’s probably just stress, I thought, this sense of being run down, accompanied by shortness of breath and a little pressure in the chest area. But just to be sure, I traipsed down to an urgent care facility. Heck, I thought, I might even be able to get a little something to take the edge off, like a prescription for beta-blockers.

As the technician hooked me up to an EKG machine, I could tell by the doctor’s expression that he was already warming up his lecture to “relax, get more regular exercise, and lay off the recreational beverages, young lady.”

But minutes later, he came hard-charging back into the patient room, brandishing my EKG read-out.

“Abnormal,” was the verdict. This might mean, he explained, that I’d had a heart attack in the past. Or it might mean that I could have a heart attack in the future. Or it might mean…gulp…that I was having a heart attack—right then. Or, it might mean nothing at all.

“In an abundance of caution, I’ve written a prescription for nitroglycerin and booked an immediate appointment with a cardiologist," the doctor said. "Take the nitroglycerin if the symptoms get worse before you get there.”

That got my attention. Nitroglycerin is the pharmaceutical equivalent of TNT. It’s what they use to depth charge your ticker back into keeping time. The other striking words were “abundance of caution.” Abundance, my ass. That’s what NASA says when they send their astronauts out on a risky spacewalk to make sure the shuttle won’t burn into a cinder upon reentry.

Next thing I knew, I was at the cardiologist’s office, getting bumped ahead of all the seventy-and-eighty-year olds who were waiting for their pacemaker appointments.

After doing a stress cardiogram, I lay on the technician’s table, watching the images of my heart beating on the screen. The pictures looked like an entry into Jupiter’s atmosphere in a Stanley Kubrick film. All misty, swirling grays, illuminated by electric storms of neon red and blue. It was an amazing display. It was my heart.

That’s the thing that keeps me going, was all I could think.

In reply, my heart beat back, And what have you done for me lately?

The answer was, not much.

Eventually, the cardiologist came back with a new verdict: everything was normal. I was perfectly okay, and could go home. I didn’t even get any beta-blockers out of the ordeal.

But this week’s false alarm has really changed my attitude about heart health.

As I’m probably the last person on earth to discover, heart disease is the Number One killer of women in the United States. Number One! More women die of heart disease than the next six causes combined. And, as I learned from Oprah Winfrey and Doctor Oz: one out of every two women will die from cardiovascular disease (which impacts your body beyond just the heart).

Yet, we women don’t seem to have the same level of awareness about our hearts and cardiovascular disease that we do about, say, breast cancer.

I, for one, am getting religion on this subject. I have resolved not to take matters of the heart lightly anymore.

There’s a free program sponsored by the American Heart Association, targeted at raising women’s physical activity and levels of heart health:

http://www.choosetomove.org/index.html

For ongoing updates about women and heart disease, see The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease:

http://www.womenheart.org/

And if you haven’t seen the Oprah Winfrey shows about heart health, take a look at her web site, which contains some awesome information and advice:

http://www.oprah.com/

I’m not forgetting the men: you count, too!

So I’m interested to know, what do you do on a daily basis to improve the health of your heart?

Signing off now, to take a brisk, aerobic walk!

Pet Heirs

Leona Helmsley, the wealthy woman sometimes dubbed the “Queen of Mean” died this week, and the news has been filled with the lowdown about her estate. She left a trust fund of $12,000,000.00 to her dog, Trouble, an apparently ill-tempered Maltese. One interviewee I heard on the radio who had met Ms. Helmsley holding Trouble in an elevator said that her kids were not permitted to pet the pup, since apparently Trouble is troubled by children.

Trouble herself will go to Ms. Helmsley’s brother. I didn’t see who the trustee is, nor did I learn what happens to the remainder of the estate when Trouble is gone. Presumably, not even a spendthrift trustee can spend $12 million and any income from it on a dog during its lifetime.

And Ms. Helmsley’s human family? Well, she did manage to disinherit two grandkids, but I haven’t heard any speculation about why. Even more important, she left a fortune to various charitable trusts... so maybe the Queen of Mean wasn’t so mean after all.

In any event, the important lesson to me in all this--the method of inheriting for a pet-- makes sense. I did some research for one of my Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mysteries beyond what I already knew as an attorney, since estates and trusts is not my area of expertise. But pets, despite being family, are considered property, and property can’t generally be official heirs.

This is especially important to know for people who have pets that are likely to outlive them. Macaws, for example, live a long time, and since people don’t generally acquire one until they themselves are adults, their birds will probably be singing goodbye to them someday.

So what do you do? Even people who haven’t got much to leave should do a little estate planning to figure out what happens to whatever they have once they’re gone. And if you have a pet, who can’t inherit what you’ve got, setting up a trust on its behalf, with directions about how to take care of your baby when you can’t, is a great idea! At a minimum, why not put something in writing about who’s to get custody of your pet when you’re gone, even if you aren’t leaving a fortune in trust for its care?

Trouble, when she becomes a doggy angel, is to be buried near Ms. Helmsley. Maybe they’ll even meet on the legendary rainbow bridge. Hang in there, Trouble. I hope your trustee and guardian give you lots of hugs along with all the biscuits the trust will buy for you!

--Linda

Minnesota State Fair

This past Sunday a friend and I went to the State Fair. We go every year. I have a little list of "must dos" at the Fair: Poultry Barn to see the newest varieties of chickens, Horse Barn, one fairly tame ride on the Midway, and the Arts and Crafts building to see what won ribbons in stitchery. Oh, and eat. The Minnesota State Fair is famous for putting foods on a stick. I love the pork chops on a stick. They'd put sweet corn on a stick, except it sort of comes already on a kind of stick. The shuck is just pulled down to make a kind of handle, and that is wrapped in a napkin to keep the butter from running up your elbow. This year the new thing was deep-fried fruit, which was really good. A wooden skewer held pieces of pineapple, strawberry, apple, cherry, etc., which was dipped in a batter that puffed up crisp when it was deep fried – you can get almost anything to eat at the fair if you like deep fried food. Well, there is a milk bar where, for a dollar, you can get a cup of whole white or chocolate milk and they will refill it for free as often as you care to come back. But what's milk without cookies? And there's a stand that will sell you quantities -- up to a half-gallon bucket! -- of oven-hot chocolate chip cookies. And they overload the container, so there are a *lot* of cookies. Many people buy a smaller, cone-shaped paper of them. Ann and I did that, and carried them down to the milk bar. Heaven!

I took lots of pictures, and some came out. I’ll be posting them on my web site.

There was a lot of needlework worth looking at. I tried to get some pictures, and there should be one on here. It looks like shell or fabric flowers in a necklace, but it’s really BEADS! Thousands and thousands of white beads worked into three-dimensional flowers. Very striking as well as beautiful. There was a quilt in a merry-go-round theme, lots of bright colors. There was a windmill-themed quilt – I’m sure there’s a name for that pattern – that made me dizzy just to look at. I can’t imagine putting it together. There were two large pieces of Hardanger, gorgeous work. Every single tiny square was filled with identical perfect, tiny, braided threads in a kind of double loop. One quilt – I didn’t get a photo of it – won every single blue ribbon offered, a State Fair one, one offered by a quilt shop, one offered by a quilt club, and, I think, the Swedish Institute award.

We didn't see any chickens. The 4H (a future farmers club, very old and venerable) had won or lost all the ribbons there were for them, and were loading chickens, bunnies and sheep onto trailers. The adult competition hadn't arrived, so there were no chickens for us to see. But we did see the biggest boar hog, who weighted 1200 pounds, a considerable portion of which were testicles. Boar hogs are very obviously male, but this creature looked as if he had two huge pink balloons attached to his backside. There was also a mama pig with over a dozen piglets. A man inside the enclosure would pick up a piglet for the children to pet, and when the piglet screamed his head off the mother pig didn't so much as wiggle an ear. I remember back in my teens going with the family to visit Uncle Paul, who was then into pigs. Dad slipped over to the pigpen and snagged a piglet for us to play with. Then, as a joke, he pinched its ear. The piglet screamed and I thought that mother pig was going to rip down the boards of her pen and come have a word with us. She was roaring and banging so loud and hard us youngsters decided it was getting near our bedtime and retired into the house. But here this State Fair mama was totally indifferent to the plight of her baby. Sad.

We spent about two hours at the horse show. First came the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, about fifty strong, all on matched black horses. They did maneuvers to music, circles, "thread the needle" (making a big X and riding toward each other in the center, barely missing one another as they passed through). They did it one at a time, then in pairs. They did lance drill, thrusting the lances in different directions in unison, including to the sides and rear. The horses stood stock still, even though each lance had a little red and white pennant on it and often flew near their ears and eyes. We noticed each horse had a maple leaf on it, made by putting a stencil on its rump and combing the hair the wrong way.

The horse judging started with draft horses, seven teams of six percherons pulling big wagons, the drivers holding a huge mass of reins (two from each horse) in their hands. The horses had to trot, walk, and do a fast trot. They pulled into the center and the judge asked them, one team at a time, to back up four steps and come forward again. Some members of one team didn’t want to and the lead team went practically down on its haunches trying to push both the wagon and the other four huge horses backward. That team finished last. The team Ann and I picked out came in third. Then came the Morgans, being ridden Western style. Nice-looking horses, with beautiful heads. The very best, obviously best, horse was quiet, obedient, did everything called for perfectly. He was ridden by an older man with a big paunch, who sat in that saddle as if he'd taken root. He came in second, and I thought he'd been cheated. Then came the Arabs, ridden with English saddles, English Country Pleasure style -- no fancy stepping. They had to trot, canter and gallop. The horse I picked as the most beautiful had a bad rider or was badly trained, it was hard to tell which. He swung out of line, and kept trying to canter when he was supposed to trot, and refused to back up at all. He came in last. OTOH, my second favorite came in next to last, which surprised me. Then came the miniatures. Normally I don’t like miniature horses because, apart from being shown, what good are they? They can’t stand watch like a dog, or catch mice like a cat, or give milk, and I don’t think they’re good to eat. These bitty horses were pulling two-wheeled "sulkies," one ridden by a very tall and fat man, which didn't seem fair. Every one of them looked like miniature horses, except one, which was the littlest Shetland pony I've ever seen, complete with bushy mane and tail, very short legs, and a pot belly. He was the slowest one in there, but he was dead game, trying hard right up to the very end. I started to feel sorry for him, but pity doesn't work in horse shows, and he finished last. My second favorite won, a dark horse with a light-cream colored mane and tail. Then came the saddlebreds, with their curiously upright necks, but by then we were both tired and left for home. Anyhow, I just can't see why anyone would want to ride a horse who carries his head perilously close to his rider's nose. Go here and see some pictures of them:
http://www.american-saddlebred.com/

But no chickens this year. sigh

SINK REFLECTIONS – my favorite self-help book

by Deb Baker

I shined my sink today, step one in my goal to put order in my life. Marla Cilley, a.k.a. The FlyLady, is helping me. The FlyLady recommends BabySteps, beginning with the sink. Here’s the way to do it:

Empty the sink.
Fill the sink with hot water all the way to the brim, add one cup of bleach, let sit for one hour.
Rinse the sink out.
Get a cleanser like Comet or Ajax and scrub, scrub, scrub.
Clean around the faucets, around the rim, and all over the drain.
Give it a shine with window cleaner.


There! Doesn’t that feel good? If you’re smarting than I am, you’ll keep a dishtowel nearby and dry it every time you use it, so it stays that way.

I love this book. SINK REFLECTIONS is my household “bible” and it’s crammed full of motivational suggestions. I’m going to skip over a few of the recommended BabySteps and head right to the biggest messes, but I’ll take care not to burn out.

Here’s what’s next on my agenda – Unloading.

I’m taking piles of books to the library. Not only is my massive collection considered a donation, thus a great tax write-off, but I’ll know exactly where they are if I ever want to reread them.
Ditto with the five years of Bon Appetit magazines. Most of the recipes are online.
I’m going to throw away junk mail without opening it. Well, at least most of it.
All old phone books and catalogs are goners.
I’m going to set a timer for 15 minutes every day and tackle a specific area of chaos. In those 15 minutes I will either throw away or give away 20 items. They don’t have to be big things, some throwaways may only be papers. The giveaways will be all the things in my closets and drawers that I don’t even remember that I own. They will be the hardest to part with, but I’m determined.

Well, I’m off to gaze at my sink. I didn’t realize until now just how coffee-stained it really was.

Writers Retreat

Our Critique Group Goes on a Retreat...

Each week I meet with Judy Moresi and Donna Ross to critique our manuscripts. When Judy offered the chance to have a writers’ retreat at her “cabin” at Lake of the Ozarks, I was all over that! Turns out her “cabin” is a gorgeous home on the water with four bedrooms and oodles of room. The three of us drove down last Monday, and a tiny voice within me chanted, “Road trip! Road trip!” the whole time. I think it was the kid inside, squealing with joy. I really needed a break. I hadn’t realized it, but I did. Judy and Donna were excellent traveling companions. We stopped at an Amish shop and bought quilted items. We paused to poke around in an antique store. We bought groceries—and I got a State of Missouri Fishing License. Judy proved a patient teacher. She taught me to tie a hook on the line, to secure the rods in the holders, and to listen for the bells that signaled catfish on the line. I caught six catfish and two crappies. It was great fun!

But Did We Get Any Writing Done?

Now you’re probably wondering, did you do any writing?

We did. More importantly for me, we worked on plotting. I’m tackling a new book, and I like having a pretty good idea where my story is going. I filled up page after page in my notebook with suspects, background, and other details. But I wasn’t happy with the general direction. I wanted to write a book about redemption, a love story, set on Kiawah Island SC, and the mystery portion had taken over. So, I talked with my pals, and by the end of the trip, I felt much more clarity—in fact, I came home eager to get my ideas down.

But Field Trips are Important, Too!

To keep ourselves fresh, to get exercise, and to refuel our creative juices, we took “field trips.” We visited Judy’s neighbor, Gary, and met his pet raccoons. (He bought them from a licensed raccoon breeder after getting permission from the authorities.) Gary is a modern day “mountain man,” whose motto is “it’s better to be hated for who you really are than to be loved for who you are not.”

And How Those Field Trips Improved My Work-in-Progress...

That’s an important idea. When you write, in order to be successful, you have to find who (or what) your book really is. (I know, sounds weird, but it’s true.) You peel away layers to discover the essence, the message and theme. Otherwise, you are simply tossing words around, willy-nilly. I needed this time to really dig down deep. To discover why this particular idea intrigued me, and how I needed to proceed so I could do my best work.

Why I Write Mysteries

I write mysteries because I appreciate having a structure. I also like the fact that every mystery has at its heart a wrong that must be put right. There is to be a REASON behind the activity within the book, and that REASON is always the same: Tikkun Olem, which is Hebrew for “repair of the world,” the fixing of that which is wrong. We are coming up upon the Jewish High Holy Days. It’s a special time of year where we are required to think of the wrongs we’ve down, and how to make amends, to make things right.

A very good time of year, I think, to begin a new mystery.

Belly up to the (coffee) bar

by Ann Parker

When dear friend and Killer Hobbies blogger Camille Minichino asked if I would like to write a guest blog, I was pleased and honored … and couldn’t come up with a single hobby (pretty sad, I know).

After some mulling, it finally occurred to me: The sort of energy and passion some folks give to, say, creating beautiful miniature scenes, quilts, paintings, etc., I put into my never-ending quest for that perfect, killer cup of coffee.

So, if you take a close look at the accompanying photo, you’ll see that, yep, I’m holding a fistful of cards in one hand and a cup of Peet’s finest in the other. The five cards, prepaid, reside in my wallet, ready for a quick draw when I need a shot of caffeine, which happens, oh, several times a day. “The stronger the better” could be my motto. A passion (or is it a need) for coffee is probably the only common ground between the protagonist of my Silver Rush historical mysteries, Inez Stannert, and her creator: me. Inez is a 19th-century saloon owner who imbibes very strong coffee (usually mixed with a little something such as whiskey or brandy). Moi? I’m the wimpy 21st century mirror image—gimme a latte with an extra shot and lace it with (ahem) soy milk, please. Chocolate soy milk, if I’m feeling particularly adventurous.

In any case, I’m always on the prowl for java. The five cards in my hand represent some—but not all—of my haunts. A word about each, starting with the red one in front, and then I’ll throw in another handful of my faves from my Colorado haunts.

Panama Red — Nooooo, not THAT Panama Red. This card is for my favorite local independent coffee bar. The kids can get fruit smoothies while I indulge in my drug of choice and sink into one of their comfy chairs. P.R. has a nice funky atmosphere. Eclectic music. Takes me back to my Berkeley days. And speaking of Berkeley…

Peet’s — I have a special fondness for Peet’s. It could be because I was in Berkeley back in the ‘70s, when Peet’s (and I) was young. But it’s more than the memories … they make strong coffee and it’s good. Plus, they play classical music, at least at my local Peet’s, and the baristas are friendly and know my name…

The Library Café — Okay, who was the genius who came up with the idea of having a coffee bar in a library? However he/she is, I’d like to raise a cup of the local finest in his/her honor and send him/her a love note. Coffee and books! Books… that you can read for free. Is this heaven or what?? I could live here. Oh wait, they don’t do overnights. Okay, in that case just drop me off in the morning when they open and come get me when they close….

Starbuck’s —Yes, it’s true, I have a card to the Microsoft equivalent of the coffee world. But hey, when you’re faced with unfamiliar terrain (driving on California’s I-5 or rushing around Colorado on I-70, for instance), that ubiquitous green sign looks pretty darn friendly.

Barnes & Noble — Yes, this is a wild card, so shoot me, okay? But I got it as a gift and, yep, there’s coffee to be had at B&N (and Border’s too, for that matter). Some might think I’m cheatin’ at cards, but I’ll maintain that it works in a pinch.

Now, a few of my Colorado favorites that I’m not a card-carrying member for:

In Leadville — My Silver Rush mysteries take place in Leadville, Colorado, so it behooves me to head up there a couple times a year or so and conduct (ahem) research. Caffeine and historical research go together like … like … well, I don’t know, a double mocha and See’s chocolate, maybe? My two favorite places for coffee in Leadville are Cloud City Coffee House (which also has great soup and wireless internet) and Provin Grounds (no website for this one).

In Boulder – I spend a fair bit of time in Boulder, catching up with extended family and trekking out to Denver for more research. Boulder is coffee heaven, like Berkeley, and by mentioning only two places I will no doubt be snubbing (quite unintentionally, I assure you) any number of other great places. All that said, one of my faves is Caffé Sole (take a close look at the t-shirt I’m wearing in the photo and you’ll see the logo). I can walk to it from my brother’s house, and boy, is that nice for this writer from the Northern CA suburbs, where I need to drive darn near everywhere. My other big favorite is the Trident Booksellers and Café. Again, coffee and books. Yeah, I’m there.

So, what about you? Do you have a favorite place to pick up a cuppa Joe? Let us know. I love to learn about new places! (Note: I’ll be at Bouchercon in Alaska, so if anyone has suggestions for Anchorage or Nome, bring ‘em on.)

As a writing chef, are you a slow cooker or a flash fryer?

Maybe I’ve been watching too much Top Chef on TV this week, but my two obsessions in life—writing and food—have started to converge.

Because I’m on a killer deadline for A KILLER WORKOUT, I’ve been doing some stressed-out musing about my personal writing practices. And I’ve decided that as a writing “chef,” I am a slow cooker. You could even call me a crock-pot.

My forward progress through the first draft of a novel is chunky and irregular, like an ice cutter breaking its way across a packed-solid river. There’s the occasional hang-up on the ice as I stall for a few days, working and reworking difficult sections. My average forward progress rarely exceeds a page a day. Barely tugboat speed, in other words.

On the plus side, I write every day. Every day, at the same time of day: before dawn. Over the past year, I’ve missed only two days of writing—once when I was stuck in an airplane (when I fly, I can’t concentrate on anything more challenging than a Danielle Steel novel). And once when I was retching my guts into the toilet from a bout of stomach flu.

As a practitioner of this relatively stately pace, I reel in shock and awe when I read in blogs that some writers can tap out thousands of words a day. I figure those writers must be the flash fryers.

My best friend from college is a flash fryer. As a student, she redefined the time-honored, collegiate art of procrastination. She’d wait until well past midnight to start a paper that was due at eight a.m. the next morning. Finally, in a Selectric burst of typing and crumpled pages, she’d bang out her essay. And receive an A. One time she procrastinated so long on a paper about Chaka, King of the Zulus, that it endangered her graduation status. We still call it “Chaka time” when one of us is desperately behind on a deadline. (These days, my friend is an uber-successful sitcom writer. And still procrastinating, but man her shows are funny!)

I admire the flash fryers, but I am resigned to chugging along at my crock-pot writing pace. I have to go back (and back, and back) over sections, layering in changes, rethinking descriptors, building connections, to make the prose sing. Or at least, warble.

I figure that no matter what our cooking style, all writers are heading toward the same goal: to serve up sizzling prose to the reader’s table.

What about you? Are you a slow cooker, fast fryer, or something in-between?

Cats!

No big surprise here, I’m sure, if I admit to being much more of a dog person than a cat person. Even so, I’m always happy to hear cat tales that warm my heart.

Some of them come right from my family--well, my husband’s family. Fred grew up on a farm in Ohio, and there were always cats around, primarily feral. In those days, with all the grain kept around, having cats helped to keep the rodent population down, so the family wouldn’t feed them but would encourage them to stay around. When Fred was a child, he would milk cows and occasionally point the udders in the direction of the kitties, who’d get a really fresh drink. Then, he would leave milk in an old hubcap for them to lap up later.

When I met his family, they had a shed in the backyard that they called the “cathouse.” By then, they stored less grain but had gotten into the habit of feeding the cats who happened to hang out on the farm. They also generally brought one at a time into the house as a special pet. My two sons, who visited the farm often, helped to feed the cats and got to see many a litter of newborn kittens. My younger son, Keith, often chose which of the kittens became the housecat. Since the feral cats must be brought into the house early to become pets, Keith would pick up a kitten and bring it inside, then help to train it.

The cathouse is still there, and it’s still a place where feral cats are sheltered and fed. The current housecat is a real character. Her name is “Beadie” or, actually, B.D., short for “Black Diamond.” She was my father-in-law’s constant companion, always curled up in his lap, plus he would roughhouse with her. Very vocal, she always let everyone know what was on her mind--going outside, coming in, demanding dinner, whatever. When my father-in-law passed away almost 2 years ago, she mourned along with the rest of the family. She didn’t understand at all when his special chair that had helped him stand as his arthritis got worse was given away. Now, much gentler, she has a special relationship with my widowed mother-in-law.

In fact, Beadie enjoys having conversations with my mother-in-law--and being the center of her attention. One evening, Mother was reading the newspaper, and Beadie began complaining. Mother started reading the paper aloud to her and Beadie curled up in her lap and went to sleep.

Then there’s the story of a cat that my husband’s brother saw just a couple of months ago on a visit to the farm. This one was having a showdown with a deer, and neither one appeared to know what to do about it. Eventually, the hissing cat strutted away.

Yes, I know these stories show my vicarious, and not personal, interaction with cats. I enjoy cats, but with all the dogs in my life I’ve never seriously considered becoming owned by one.

Maybe one day I’ll also use this blog to describe the felines who rule my Los Angeles neighborhood.

From Down to Up

I hate it when books stall, or when they slow to a crawl. I hate it when my mind balks and I can’t remember the surnames of my characters and have to go crawling through past books to find them. I hate it when I sit down and work on a research needlepoint piece for several hours and somehow only move an inch or two down the canvas. Time on the calendar flees at the speed of light, but my work crawls like a three-legged ant with a head injury. What’s the matter with me? Why can’t I get my work moving?

I suppose we all have periods like this. When everything comes attached to lead weights except the clock, tick-tocking the minutes away, never to be recovered, and all he while there’s a deadline approaching, and the work is not getting done. I am so bummed out!

I wrote the above on Tuesday afternoon, and then Tuesday evening we had a meeting of the Red Prairie Bonnets (Red Hat Society) at Bucca de Beppo’s for good food and good conversation. And funny stories. The funniest I can’t repeat because this is an open web site and we shouldn’t tell a story a youngster might read and ask his mother embarrassing questions about. But it was a true story – well mostly – and involved squirrels rolling on the grass laughing. The other story Robin also told, after somehow the subject of long lines for gasoline came up – remember them in the 70s? And remember how there were people who’d go around with a hose and a gas can and siphon gas from other peoples’ cars? I told the story of a man who was a very firm believer in the Second Amendment, and who heard a noise in his driveway one night and looked out to see a stranger kneeling at the back end of his car. He took his biggest gun and slipped out of the house to creep noiselessly up on the thief, who had the hose in his mouth and was feeding the other end into the guy’s gas tank. He stuck the gun in the thief’s ear and said just one word: “Swallow.”

When we were done laughing at that, Robin said, “That’s why they put locks on gas tank covers. I was at a gas station and having trouble getting my gas tank cover open and this guy came up and helped me. He told me it automatically locked when I stopped and shut the engine off, but unlocked when I was driving. I thought that was very clever of me, buying a car so advanced as that.” Then one of us asked, wasn’t it a nuisance to lock the cover just when you need to open it? And why complicate things by unlocking the cover when you put the gearshift into Drive? She said, “Can you imagine someone driving up alongside you on the highway and stealing gas?” We began laughing at the silly image of someone in the passenger seat leaning out of a car, lifting the cover and feeding a little hose into her gas tank as they rolled down a highway. But she went on, “Or suppose you are out on the freeway and suddenly you’re surrounded by Hells Angels on their bikes, and the leader comes up alongside and growls through the window at you, ‘Don’t slow down.’ And the guys behind him are taking turns filling up from your tank.” By now we’re hysterical with laughter and I told Robin I was going to retell the story on Killer Hobbies.

See what an evening with friends who tell funny stories can do? I’m not sad or depressed anymore.

Visiting Craft Clubs

by Deb Baker

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a meeting with The Enchanted Doll Club of the Northwoods in Eagle River, Wisconsin. This was my second visit, since I’m lucky enough to vacation there each year in the same week they have their monthly meeting.

What fun! They discussed their last doll show, what worked, what didn’t, ideas for next year’s show. I received a warm welcome, donated a copy of Dolled Up For Murder and handed out information on Goodbye Dolly, which comes out in thirteen days, six hours and…(but who’s counting).

Club members talked about and showed their boy dolls, while I happily sipped coffee, munched on homemade treats, and scribbled down notes for future books. One of the baby boys presented that day was anatomically correct. I had no idea!

Anyway, I loved it. I wish I could get on the road and visit every single one of the doll clubs. That’s the beauty of writing crafting mysteries—the camaraderie, the chance to share a passion. It doesn’t matter how far from home I am, I always feel like I’m with family.

If you’re a member of a doll club, please visit my website and email me with information on days and times of your meetings. If I’m traveling through your area, I’d be honored to meet your group. http://www.debbakerbooks.com/

How about you? What clubs do you belong to?

A Big "Shout Out" to Cat Lovers!

"What should I put on my website?"

That's a common enough question. Cathy Clamp polled more than forty thousand prospective readers for answers. The respondents included readers of romance, science fiction, fantasty, mystery, horror, literary works, non-fiction, biographies/memoirs and even...gulp, Westerns.

Amazingly, 17% said they'd liked to see photos for the authors' cats. As Cathy added, parenthetically, "Weird, huh?"

Maybe not.

We've all noticed how this site gets a lot of comments when we write about our dogs. Maybe we've been, uh, barking up the wrong tree. It's furry, it's four-legs and a tail, but...we've missed the mark.

With those readers in mind, I dug through my many, many boxes of unscrapbooked photos to unearth pictures of my two favorite cats: Stanley and Seymore Kitty.

Seymore's mother was a Persian, and I still think that this little grey-striped guy with his adorable pink nose and white blaze is the most beautiful cat I've ever seen. He single-handedly--uh, single-pawedly--turned me into a major cat lover. I chose him from a litter of pure white cats because...I thought him lovely. He was a sweetheart, too.

Stanley's real name was Stanley Cup. He was dropped off at the pet shop where I worked. Unwanted. Well, I fell for him. He has the distinction of being the smartest cat I ever owned. So smart, in fact, that he taught himself to urinate in the toilet. One night my mom got up, stumbled into the bathroom, pulled down her panties and started to sit--only to discover a furry feeling, um, down below. It was Stanley. And he was already busy. Yep, she thought she was dreaming, but it happened again and again.

Both cats have since gone to kitty-heaven. I have discovered I'm major league allergic to cats, which is a real shame because I absolutely love them.

Apparently I'm not alone.

Why Aspiring Authors Should Attend Writers Conferences

Thank you for your kind invitation to contribute to your fascinating blog. OK, just who am I and why am I here? I’m a writer and an actor and also the producer/director of the annual Columbus Writers Conference, celebrating its 15th year, August 24-25.

My goal on this blog is to answer an interesting question someone asked me this week. It went something like, “I’ve been surprised by writers who say they never attend a writers’ conference. I get the impression they think conferences are for literary types. How would you overcome that type of response?”

I’m like a horse at the starting gate, can’t wait to answer the question.

Writers’ conferences are for writers in just about every genre, but each conference has its own personality. First and foremost, writers must review what each conference has to offer to be sure there’s a good match in terms of presentation and workshop topics, speaker interests, and conference activities. Some of those activities include one-to-one consultations, advance critique of manuscript portions, writing competitions, and open mikes. A wonderful resource that lists what appears to be almost every writers’ conference in the world is ShawGuides. The direct link is http://writing.shawguides.com./

Learning something new about writing and connecting with authors, literary agents, and editors are obvious conference benefits. But let’s also consider the “icing” on the cake.

1) A writer has the possibility of discovering new ideas for or his or her work either through attending sessions or networking.

2) A writer may hear something in a session he or she already knows, but finds the reinforcement valuable, and/or discovers an important “twist” on a familiar theme.

3) Conferences often have handouts and other free information, which are helpful for later reference. Many have bookstores with titles you might not readily find elsewhere.

4) Meeting other conference registrants, from beginners to polished professionals, is one of the highlights of attending a conference. Writers can learn from one another no matter the stage of professional development. A number of Columbus Writers Conference attendees have become fast friends or professional colleagues and meet each year at the event.

5) Creativity and inspiration take a front seat. I’ve talked with conference attendees at the end of each event and so many express feeling energized. They can’t wait to get back to their desks and start writing!

6) Although conferences do not make promises regarding this, some attendees do get published as a result of their networking with literary agents and editors.

In a nutshell, a writer can expand his or her horizons on so many levels by participating in a writers’ conference.

Eight editors, six agents, and 14 other speakers who will be presenting more than 50 sessions at the annual Columbus Writers Conference. The quick list can be accessed through creativevistaSpeakers.com Full bios are also on the web site. Four would be of particular interest to mystery writers.Lee Lofland is an expert on police procedure and crime-scene investigation and author of Police Procedure & Investigation: A Guide for Writers.Tom Sawyer, novelist, screenwriter, and playwright, was head writer/producer-showrunner of the CBS series Murder She Wrote.Karen Harper is a best-selling author of contemporary suspense, historical mystery, and historical novels.Antoinette Cross is co-owner of Foul PLay Mystery Bookshop, a bookstore devoted to crime fiction.

A stitch in time

I wish having a miniatures hobby meant that it takes a miniature amount of time to work at it. But each little scene takes mega-, not mini-time. It took longer than you'd think for me to knit the afghan on the sofa in the photo, with size 000 needles and embroidery thread.

Everything else in my life, from my day jobs to committee work to driving up and down the state of California to address hordes of fans (3) also takes large chunks of time.

So when is there time to write? For those who might still be struggling with how to fit it all in, I have some tips to share.

1. No chunk is too small. The best thing I've taught myself to do is to use small amounts of time productively.
If I have as little as a ten-minute window of "free" time at home or away I open my writing project notebook, or my computer file and make some progress. Even if it's just to tweak one sentence, change that character name I haven't been happy with, or dump those random scene ideas I had on my way to work. It's a way of keeping the story at the front of my mind no matter what else is going on.
Waiting for the perfect long stretch of quiet (which might be necessary at times), with the perfect temperature, and the perfect snack food, can stall the process. The loss of momentum makes it harder for me to get started when that quiet evening does come along.

The afghan on the sofa was done in mini-chunks. Two minutes while I was waiting for my printer to discharge pages gave me a row; being on hold with the phone company got me three rows, plus an update of my Google calendar.

2. Sleep through household chores. I never use prime time for tasks like folding clothes or waxing the kitchen floor. (Does anyone do that anymore?) Those are things for times when I'm least alert. You might hear my dryer going at one in the morning, which, by the way, is better for the power grid.

3. Embrace technology. I know it gets a bad rap, especially when it's in the form of cell phones, but how great is it to be able to access my calls while I'm in line at Safeway? Headphones allow me to iron or write thank you notes while I'm hold for my doctor. I say thanks to the geniuses who make it possible for me to screen my calls and TiVo my favorite crime dramas (for research of course!) for viewing at my own convenience.

Today I sat in a physical therapy room, electrodes attached to my frozen shoulder, and edited this blog. I hope it was worth the time!

Albert Einstein said, “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” I interpret that as: take everything ten minutes at a time.

She ain’t heavy—she’s Venus, dammit!

Recently, one of my beta readers demanded to know how my book’s protagonist, Kate Gallagher, can attract men so easily, even though she is—to quote Beta—“stout.”

As described in the books, Kate is five foot five and a hundred and fifty-five pounds. Is she trying to lose weight? Yes. Is she unattractive? Not in the least. In fact, she’s a traditional Irish beauty, with wavy auburn hair, sculptured cheekbones, and an hourglass figure.

But Beta kept complaining about how “portly” she is. He had trouble believing that she could attract a high-powered boyfriend.

After several go-rounds, I finally told Beta—who is an older gentleman—that it is quite possible for someone of Kate’s height and weight to attract a desirable partner. “I speak from personal experience,” I told him.

“But you’re thin,” he said to me. “That doesn’t count.”

I stared at him, then burst into laughter. “I’m the same height as Kate, and I weigh more than she does,” I said.

Beta was genuinely shocked. “I had no idea,” he whispered, as if I’d just revealed that I was harboring the Ebola virus.

The whole discussion got me wondering—is this gentleman just exceptionally uninformed about what women-of-a-certain weight actually look like, or is there something else going on?

As a society, perhaps we’re simply not used to seeing average-weight women—women who are not obese, but who are definitely not thin—presented as sexual beings.

In films, literature and the media, there don’t seem to be very many examples to choose from.

One heavy woman character (if you can call her “heavy”) who was also sexual, was Bridget Jones. She was wildly popular—especially with women readers.

Back when the movie came out, I recall attending a screening in Hollywood. When Renee Zellweger, who played Bridget Jones, first appeared onscreen, there was a audible gasp from the audience. The Hollywood wives and moguls recoiled as they got their first glimpse of the actress, who’d gained weight for the role.

Like my gentleman reader, they were shocked. And disgusted.

That gasp notwithstanding, I think that there are many heavier women out there who are gorgeous, and who know it. They have no problem attracting men. But they don’t see themselves accurately reflected in popular media. And they’d like to.

Hmmm….do I hear “target audience”?

Who'd Have Thought?

I recently bought a book called How Dogs Think. It was a translation from German, I believe, and at times the translation could have flowed better. The conclusion, though, makes sense. Can dogs think? You bet!

Of course, a lot of the book was about figuring out your dog’s own personality and emotions, then using them to teach him or her by using some recommended exercises. It also addressed whether dogs reason. But I didn’t really need a book to convince me that dogs have some ability to reason. Sure, it’s far from being as sophisticated as human reason--well, that of most humans, maybe--but there’s something there!

Even my husband, Fred, who’s had to make peace over the years with the fact I’m a dog person, has been impressed now and then by Lexie’s reasoning ability. For example, she was standing in our backyard one day and saw him emerge into the outdoor dog run beside the house. In a couple of minutes, she’d joined him. She couldn’t get there directly, but had to figure out that she needed to run up the stairs at the back of the house, into the kitchen, down the stairs inside the house, through another room, up some more stairs, then outside. Okay, so she knows where her dog run is. Even so, she didn’t even attempt to go through, or around, the fence separating her from Fred. Instead, she used the right route. Reasoning? Maybe, at least on some level.

Some of what appears to be possible reasoning is instead conditioning. For example, Fred has been taking Lexie on car rides to pick me up at the subway stop midday, when I get home from my morning law job. Now, she leaps around and squeals her special “I want to go for a ride” tone every time anyone seems to be going for a midday ride, even me. Her begging is often unsuccessful. But she listens and watches for signals, just in case--like Fred’s cell phone ringing when I call him to tell him I’m on my way, and his getting her leash.

I’d like to know how dogs tell time. Lexie comes to paw at my arm or leap around my office till I pay attention to her every day around 6 PM--her dinner time. Does her tummy wait until then to get hungry? Not likely, considering how spoiled she is by treats during the day. The sun isn’t always in the same position, we don’t always have a radio or TV on to signal her with some familiar-sounding show, and she won’t tell me what her clue is. But she sure is aware when 6 rolls around.

Okay, I admit that I love dogs. Lexie is definitely my fur kid. I’m therefore predisposed to assume the best of them. But even if their only kind of reasoning and intelligence is to be there for their people and astound and amuse us, who can ask for more?

--Linda

Research

One of the most pleasurable parts of being a writer is the research, even the part where you have to read some musty old book on history or medicine or the Holy Rule of St. Benedict. Why? Because it tells you things that will make your story sing with authority, and to an author that’s golden. But there are other kinds of research that are even more exciting. Take this past Saturday. It was the twenty-first annual Antique Car Run, in which cars nearly or even more than 100 years old go tottering down the by-lanes between New London and New Brighton, Minnesota. I wrote about these wonderful old cars in A Murderous Yarn, in which Lars Larson, a running character, had purchased a 1910 Stanley Steamer. Stanley Steamers are my favorite antique car. They look pretty much like any other really old car, with their big wooden-spoked wheels and shining brass trim (auto manufacturers hadn’t discovered how to stamp steel when these cars were made). But look closer at the Stanley and you will see odd instruments and valve handles on the dash, and several levers on the floor. And if you venture to open the round-fronted hood, you’d see this big, white cylindrical thing instead of an engine. That’s a boiler. The engine is on the underside of the car, and unlike internal combustion engines, its two pistons both push and pull, so it’s very powerful. And it doesn’t go whacky-doodle, or PUTT-putt-putt, or make a sniggering sound as it goes down the road, like the other old cars. When it first moves off, it chuff-chuff-chuffs, but as it gathers speed it turns quiet. It can go about 55 miles per hour in a marvelous silence, though at that speed its old suspension and steering become a bit iffy. (The rest of these old cars can maybe hit twenty-five going downhill in a strong tailwind; most of them are content at fifteen or twenty miles an hour.) This early model of the Stanley doesn’t have a condenser, so it has to take on water about every forty-odd miles. The problem is, if you reach the end of your journey and you still have a head of steam, you have to let it off – and when you open the valves to do that, it comes out with a huge hissing and big clouds of steam, which makes people standing around jump sideways in alarm. This, by the way, is where the expression, “letting off steam,” meaning someone making alarming noises comes from.

The reason I wanted to see Mr. Grengs, the owner of the car, was that I want to have Lars Larson’s Stanley stir into action again in Thai Die. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to Gene because first of all, the person who was supposed to have a water hose available for him had instead locked it inside a shed, and he had to run around awhile to find someone to open it. Then, after he’d filled up and parked to have a quick lunch and answer a few questions from people, he began to get ready to set off again. Some fuel from the pilot light (steam-powered cars have pilot lights) leaked out the lower front of his car and started burning briskly. Not a big fire, but a fire nonetheless. He calmly shut down the fuel and slapped the flames away with his heavy gauntlets. (This gives a partial explanation of the jest that you can usually tell a Stanley owner by the burn and scald marks on his hands and arms.) Anyway, we didn’t have much time to talk, so I and two other people are going to drive down to Eau Claire in a couple of weeks to talk to him some more. The topic will be “Steam and Its Many Uses.” Like boilers, steam-powered boats, and the wonderful Stanley Steamer. I’m hoping he’ll start it up for us (it takes twenty minutes from a cold start) so I can refresh my memory of how it’s done. Maybe he’ll even give us a ride.

I finally finished the last stitched piece (a punch-needle of a weather vane with a rooster on top of it) for my chicken-themed quilt, and sent the fabric and pieces off to Ms. Kerner in Wisconsin. She’ll make the top, send it back to me to put a couple of applique chickens on it and stitch the fox’s tail so it runs onto the border (done in chicken-wire-patterned fabric!), then send it back to her to finish. She seems to think she can have the thing done by December, which is great, because I’d love to bring it to signings for Knitting Bones – in which a customer of Crewel World makes the very quilt I’m having done for myself.

Even my fun projects, like the quilt, are research for the books. Life is sweet.

My Own Private Museum

Museum hopping is another hobby of mine—I'm a card-carrying member of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. So, in another effort to combine my interests with miniatures, I've assembled my own private museum in my living room. Here I'm showing a view of the six-floor structure (bought as a holder for CDs and DVDs), plus a shot of one of the floors.

In the long view you can see the whole building, which is four feet tall.

On the ground floor is a gift shop in process, with a few special pieces for sale on the shelves. The piece on the lower right, bottom shelf, is the fancy top of a perfume bottle. In front of the information desk is a holder (the plastic cap from a razor) that contains copies of a flyer I made using a greatly reduced image of Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks."

Every decent museum has a café, and mine is on the second floor. It features Toulouse Lautrec posters, tables made from pizza cover inserts (see my first blog, in May for details), and assorted baked goods. The counters are made from small Lucite boxes that you find in any container store or all-purpose drug store.

The next three floors have paintings, furniture, and sculpture. The "carpet" on the third floor is the back cover of an art bulletin. The "hard wood" on the fourth floor was downloaded from the Internet and glued in place. The black border is from a roll of an adhesive pattern that I've had since the days of rub-ons.

My museum is unique in that I can display all my favorite pieces, no matter which real museum owns them. The Met, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, all come together in a corner of my living room.

The second photo shows a close-up of the fifth floor. The sculpture is made from cardboard cutouts. One interesting feature is the back wall. What you see looks like a doorway leading to a courtyard beyond, but it is simply one piece of cardboard glued to the back wall of the room, giving the false impression of three dimensions.

For your convenience there's a restroom on the top floor, next to the storage area.

Next week I'll be heading for a real museum trip, to New York City. There's no better place to satisfy a museum craving. During moments of calmness between breathtaking views of master paintings and Tiffany windows, I'll be taking notes with ideas on how to improve my home collection.

Perhaps a roof garden like the one that graces the top of the Met? It will be hard to reproduce Central Park below, but I can give it a try.

Confessions of a Rexophiliac

I plead guilty to a case of rexophilia.

It’s my own little term combining “rex” for “king” and “philio” for “attraction or affinity.” Feel free to share it; spreading this linguistic spore will surely make its usage grow.

Yes, I’m admitting it: I savor tidbits of knowledge and little brushes with royalty. I think it started when I learned as a child that my mother’s family is descended from Robert the Bruce. Our coat of arms includes the lion rampant, a symbol reserved for those of royal blood. King William I "The Lion" (1143-1214) adopted as his heraldic device the king of beasts 'rampant' i.e. rearing up with three paws outstretched. This became the Scottish royal coat of arms and was incorporated into the Great Seal of Scotland for official documents. Legend has it that the inspiration came from King William's own lion that he supposedly kept in Edinburgh castle. (My name, Joanna, is Hebrew in origin, but the first Joanna in the United States came from Scotland and was my ancestress.)

With this in mind, when we moved to the UK, I found myself in royalty nirvana. Watching royals there is like celebrity spotting here. Or like talking about our sports teams. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone has a story, and you can connect with all sorts of folks in all sorts of strata by chatting about the royals.

Here’s one of my favorite encounters: When we moved to the UK, we needed furniture. (We discovered that what we thought was the annual cost to rent furniture was a monthly fee.) Especially mattresses. So we were shopping and wound up in the place where Queen Elizabeth bought her mattress. (I have no idea how; we certainly didn't have "aspirations" to expensive mattresses.) The salesman started telling us about her, how cheap she is, and how she calls up every couple of years and says, "HRH here."

Can you imagine? It's rather like Trump referring to himself in third person. Evidently, Queen Elizabeth gets her mattresses re-stuffed on a regular basis with--stand back--HORSE HAIR!

Fortunately, I'm extremely allergic to horses, so my husband David and I could nod solemnly and say, "Oh, so sorry. We'd love to buy one of your ridiculously, excessively, stupendously expensive mattresses that won't fit any beds at home in the US but because of allergies we must decline...."

Now I’m curious. How many of you are rexophiles? If you are, and if you leave a comment saying so, I’ll write about my correspondence with Prince Charles. (Yes, and I’m not joking. I’ll even scan the letter and add it to this blog. But you have to let me know…)

I'll also upload my photo of HRH taken when we both were at Ascot--as soon as Blogger fixes its uploading glitch.

But...YOU have to let me know! Are you interested? Do you, too, harbor an interest in the doings of royalty?

Where In The World Did This Story Come From?

by Marta Stephens

Embarking on my first virtual book tour has taken time and a bit of work to come up with a fresh approach to many of the same questions I’ve been asked over the past several months. The best thing about a virtual book tour though is that I haven’t had to move from my desk. I must say that the process has been as enjoyable as it was enlightening.

I thought I knew my characters and the story line, but this has forced me to analyze my motivation to write Silenced Cry and the other three books in the Sam Harper Crime Mystery series. One of the best questions I received was, “How much of yourself is in the book?” I didn’t dwell on the question at first, but surprisingly, it forced me to think more than I had anticipated.

Consider the plot and setting. Silenced Cry is a detective crime mystery that takes place in a fictitious city of Chandler, Massachusetts. I’ve never worked in law enforcement and although I’ve always wanted to visit Massachusetts, I haven’t yet had the pleasure. That’s probably why I chose it as a backdrop for the book. Ah! I’ve influence the setting. My sister claims that Homicide Detective Sam Harper has my dry sense of humor. Maybe so, but aside from that similarity, the greatest “crime” I’ve ever committed was not putting enough postage stamps on an envelope filled with my bookmarks destined for a library event this past July. Thanks to my oversight and a late notification from the post office, they didn’t quite make it. As far as the characters, I’m pleased to say I’m nothing like them. I’ve never dealt in drugs, killed anyone, been arrested or raped so the question remains, where did this story come from?

I’ve loved mysteries since I was a little girl; the more complicated, the better. My passion began in grade school with ghost stories and eventually led to Agatha Christie and other greats. Since I am the whole of my life experiences, my writing has also been influenced by the classic noir films I’ve enjoyed over the years. So as I thought of how I would answer the question, I decided to first consider the emotions that millions of people around the world relate to: grief, anger, joy, fear, resentment, worry, suspicion, etc. Next, what would trigger those emotions in my characters and how uniquely would they each respond?

It took some doing getting into the antagonist’s skin and viewing the world through his or her eyes. But in truth, I thoroughly enjoyed writing their characters. It was what I would call a liberating experience. These contemptible creatures do all the vile things I would never dream of doing. Still, as much as I tried to step back away from my own viewpoint, I think it has every bit to do with the way the main character, Sam Harper feels about the case. His hatred for one of the suspects and his desire to avenge his partner’s death nearly pushes him over the legal line. He struggles with his sympathy toward one of the victims who snaps, retaliates, and becomes his next suspect.

The story could have ended any number of ways, but knowing Harper as well as I do, there was only one path for him to take.

Maybe that’s where I’ve snuck into to book; my idea of morals and ethics, the belief in the golden rule, acknowledging the difference between right and wrong, and the expectation that justice will prevail. Then again, one reviewer called Silenced Cry a “... convoluted and complex story that demonstrates a vivid imaginative gift ...” Alright, imagination or not, I’m sure a part of me is in there someplace. I only hope Silenced Cry is as enjoyable for others to read as it was for me to write.


(The entire interview mentioned in this blog was posted on August 9, at http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/)

The Next Generation Hobbyists

Anthony is 13 years old and loves to work on his grandmother's dollhouse. If he were my grandson and touched MY dollhouse, things would be different.

But even when Anthony was little, his grandmother, my cousin, Jean, encouraged him to do what he wanted with the house. She let him move things around in the tiny rooms, cut up photos for mounting on the wall, and arrange the lighting as he wished.

When he was only eight, he decided the dollhouse needed an attic. He lifted the roof off and constructed a fourth level, which is now a rec room.

Last week he became aware of the serious lack in the dollhouse neighborhood: there was no place to play basketball, his favorite sport. He remedied the situation by adding a small court to the side of the house.

He started with a metal ring. Who knows where this came from since Jean keeps scraps of everything: fabric, wood, metal, paper, string—anything that won't decompose before Christmas. The metal circle might have started life as a piece of jewelry, a key ring, or a distorted paper clip.

Anthony cut a piece of net fabric to size and taped it around the ring. The backboard is a piece of cardboard. He taped the ring, net, and backboard assembly to the house. The free-throw and other court markings on the "ground" are from Anthony's clever use of a Sharpie on a thin piece of wood.

When he's a famous architect, all this will be in his biography. And he will have his grandmother to thank.

Me? I won't let anyone touch my dollhouses unless I am personally supervising. I would have put the house under lock and key every time Anthony visited and, thus, deprived the world of his wonderful creations. Since he lives on the other side of the country from me, I don't have to make that decision, so we still love each other.

Recently two children came to visit me unexpectedly. I had a very elaborate bedroom scene in progress on my crafts table. Nothing was glued down yet, and some of the pieces were as tiny as one-eighth inch. The children, about 6 and 8, headed straight for the scene, proceeded to finger things and, before I recovered from that shock, to throw them at each other.

I nearly behanded them.

How do you share your hobby? Do you hide your crafts materials when kids or clumsy adults visit? How do you react when someone who has just licked barbecue sauce from his fingers picks up your scrapbook materials, your dolls' clothes, your yarn, your embroidery thread?

I like to think of myself as a generous person. I send so many presents to family and friends all over the country that the postal clerk thinks I sell on ebay. I even make and decorate dollhouses and room boxes to give away at charity events. But when it comes to a work in progress, or the houses and scenes I have around my home—hands off, unless you're invited to touch! And no one under 21 has that privilege.

I know that the only way to make sure our hobbies survive is to encourage young people to take them up. If for no other reason—we don't want yarn, doll, and hobby stores to close for lack of new crafters, making it harder to find get supplies.

And I'm depriving Anthony and all the other budding miniaturists out there of hours of pleasure. My bad.

Jean says I need to get over this protectiveness about my crafts. I'm not sure I'm ready!

Word by word

So, I’m deep in the throes of writing my second book in the Fat City Mystery series, which is titled A KILLER WORKOUT.

I’m sure each writer is different, but during the writing process I’m prone to mood swings. I experience creative highs, followed by troughs of despair. Mid-cycle, there’s often a disturbing echo of Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s Five Stages of Death.

Here’s an example of one of my cycles:

1. Shock, Denial: "The deadline cannot be this short. It took me two years to write Book One. I’m expected to write Book Two in ten months? That can’t be right—someone must have torn a page out of the calendar."

2. Exhilaration, Self-delusion: "I’m the Next Great American Novelist. Every word I tap into Prose Pro is worth its weight in diamonds. I’m a Writing Phenom! Bwah-ahh-ahh-hh!”

3. Bargaining, Depression (For me, this strikes at approximately page 200. And then repeats): “Just let me get to the next page without the plot bogging down or developing a fatal flaw. Please.”

4. More Depression, Anger: “I cannot believe I set up this secondary character like this. I’m gonna have to go all the way back to the beginning and tear sh*t up.”

5. Serenity, Dollop of Happiness (upon rereading what I wrote yesterday): “Hey. This is okay. This is even sort of…good. Hallelujah! On to the next page.”

To regulate both ends of my bipolar swings, I keep a stack of books about writing by my elbow. These books function for me kind of like literary Prozac. When I’m riding a high, they remind me how far I have to go to achieve perfection. When I’m in a funk over a flat line or paragraph, they’re full of useful tips and guidelines for making things better.

Here are the books on writing that are currently keeping me sane:

On Writing, by Stephen King

Natch. Stephen King is the master of writing popular fiction. I loved seeing the example of how he edited his own work. But even more than the writing advice, it’s Stephen King’s voice that I find soothing. Just knowing there’s a writer like him in the world gives me hope.

Don’t Murder Your Mystery, by Chris Roerden

The author walks you through the most frequent “manuscript killers,” and tells you how to fix them. There are great examples by authors of how to put all the advice into practice. Recently, I lent my copy of the book to a friend. After a week, I was in such a state of withdrawal that I demanded it back.

Bird by bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott

When I first started to dare let myself dream of becoming a novelist, Lamott’s book inspired me to try. When I stumble, I reread this book for a shot of hope.

What about you? Do you experience “cycles” while writing? How do you cope?

Celebration!

There’s little to rival the sense of accomplishment felt when a writer sends off a manuscript under deadline to a publisher, as I just did yesterday for my sixth Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery. On time, too. My deadline is August 15, and even when I’m done early I tend to sit on a manuscript for a while and re-read it a couple of times when my mind is fresh.

But there’s more than a sense of accomplishment when I kick my babies out the door for other people to read. There’s angst, too. Did I catch all the typos and inconsistencies in the final draft? More important, did I overlook something even more major--something even Kendra didn’t catch and complain about?

I had my story reviewed by critiquing friends before it became final, and they were great at catching a couple of timing issues I’d initially missed and making other suggestions. And before typesetting and publication, the manuscript will also be read by my editor, a copyeditor and others who hopefully will see anything I didn’t note and give me an opportunity to fix it. Better yet, they won’t find any problems, not even nits, since none exist!

Things have certainly changed since I started to sell novels. I mailed a hard copy of this book off by snail mail. Priority Mail, but snail mail nonetheless. I also e-mailed a version to my editor. I could have put it on a disk and sent it with the manuscript, but this seemed faster, and less likely to disappear by the time the story is ready to get typeset--assuming that’s still what they call it these days, when the type isn’t either cold or hot metal.

Oh, yes. My main blog subject is pets, so I’m not necessarily on topic today. Well, my Lexie, whose counterpart stars in my Kendra books, is proud of me for my accomplishment. She sat on my lap yesterday afternoon after I returned from the post office and licked my chin.

I like this story. Kendra likes this story, even though she goes through a lot, murder magnet that she is.

Soon, I’ll have to start getting my jumbled thoughts together for the next Kendra book. I’ve got some ideas already jelling, but in the meantime I have some work to do on other books as yet unsold that are tormenting my mind....

--Linda

Patching a Quilt -- and Me

I finished the Picasso hen. You can see it on my web site, Monica-Ferris.com. I am working as fast as I can on another needlepoint canvas, a small one of three hens. It’s one of a set of the Twelve Days of Christmas. I am stitching over the numeral 3, and the holly trimmings, and changing the colors of the French Hens and the background. Otherwise, it’s just as painted. LOL This was supposed to be my last piece of needlework for the famous (infamous?) chicken quilt. But I came across a punch-needle weathervane with a rooster on top, already bought, tucked into the back of a drawer. Punch-needle works up fast, and this is a small piece, and I only have one other punch-needle piece for the quilt . . . It’s going to depend on how fast I finish the French hens.

There seem to be two – at least two – schools of thought about changing colors on needlework. One school holds that if the designer went to all that trouble to design something, the least the stitcher can do is honor her (or his) choices. The other school says that if the color choices clash horribly with the décor of your house, then by all means change them. I am of the latter school.

The reason I came across the punch-needle piece was because I am going through drawers, looking for stuff to discard and stuff to take down to the craft room for others to pick over or pick up. I have two chests of drawers full of needlework stuff!

Our Wednesday at One stitching group is up to eleven people now, which is just great! We give one another hints, advice, and praise. And we gossip – it’s kind of tentative right now, as this place is brand new and we’re still getting to know one another and the place. It should heat up considerably over the next six months.

I have a large painted canvas of a very fierce-looking rooster with black feathers and a lot of wattles. I took him to Needlework Unlimited to pick the wool to stitch him – I’m thinking he’ll make a great pillow on that quilt. Well, it turns out the artist loves subtle touches and the rooster’s black feathers have hints of blue, brown, lavender and even white on them. His wattles and comb are three shades of red, his beak three shades of brown. I had imagined he would work up quickly. I imagined wrongly. But he’s going to be just gorgeous when he’s done.

We put the couch in our new living room right under a big window, and I have discovered the intense pleasure of stitching in bright sunlight. No lamp made can equal it. It’s not blindingly bright, but I can really see the colors and the pattern and the holes I’m trying to poke the needle through. Our old place had a big window, too, but it was shaded by two mature trees, and that made a difference.

I have discovered the displeasure of “cascades” of disease. I have sciatica in one leg, which sometimes makes me limp. The limp gave me bursitis in the hip, which made the limp worse and woke me up nights when I'd roll over onto it. I’ve been going to physical therapy twice a week to straighten things out – because if I don’t the continued limping will give me back trouble. I thought it was a jest when people warned me: After fifty, it’s patch, patch, patch! But it is. And if you don’t patch, you get into yet more trouble. Our new place has an exercise room, which I thought was merely interesting. But now I’m going to have to find time in my day to go down the hall and get serious. Is exercise a “patch”?

Help Raggedy Andy reunite with Raggedy Ann!

by Deb Baker

Remember this happy duo? These cloth dolls have been around since 1920. Button eyes, red yarn hair, the distinctive noses. I saw quite a few at the doll club convention in Detroit. I smile every time I see one.

But Raggedy Andy isn't smiling inside.

Raggedy Andy needs your help, so I'm getting the word out. It seems that Raggedy Ann was inducted into the National Hall of Fame without him! Yes, it's true. She left in 2002 and joined Jigsaw Puzzle, Tonka, Silly Putty, and others who qualified as the best of the best. But what about Andy?

You can nominate him by adding his name to the list of nominees. Click here.

Don't let him down.

That SCRAPBOOK Author!

Someone called me "that SCRAPBOOK author" this week.

She meant it as a perjorative. But all I can do is laugh. You see, I'm proud to be called "that SCRAPBOOK author" for a variety of reasons.

First of all, I love scrapbooking. And scrapbookers. Scrapbookers are the loveliest folks in the world. They care about their families, their friends and the stuff of life that matters. If you had seen as many pages as I have, you'd know that scrapbooking is what I call "a love letter to life." We find the sacredness of the ordinary by saluting the daily joy we're all so fortunate to receive.

When I first told my motivational speaker friends that I was writing a book on scrapbooking, they rolled their eyes. "That's a fad. Why waste your time?" my mentor added.

Huh. That fad now extends to one in every five homes in America. It's been around for years, as I can attest because at the antique markets in England I saw some early examples.

And, let's be honest, scrapbooking has been very good to me. I've met all the scrapbooking big names: Lisa Bearnsen, Stacy Jullian, Michelle Gebhardt, Debbie Mock, Vicki Breslin, Jill Davis, Angie Randall, Shimelle Laine, Mary Anne Walters, Jane Dean and more. My articles have appeared in Creating Keepsakes, Memory Makers, PaperKuts, and Scrapbooks Etc. reviewed my last book. I've gotten to teach scrapbooking on a cruise, and I've flown to the UK to appear at scrapbooking conventions. Best of all, I've struck up email conversations with women all over the world. Women in Israel, South Africa, Europe, and beyond who share their love of families on their pages.

Now about that "author" part of "that SCRAPBOOKING author." Yep, I plead guilty. I'm the author of 14 books. (I just finished a Young Adult yesterday--and it's off to my agent tomorrow.) Ten are published and three are under contract or spoken for. (One's a work-for-hire book that we've decided to publish as an ebook. It's called Leaving a Legacy: How to Write a Letter That Can Change Someone's Life.) My first book was a college textbook, Using Stories and Humor: Grab Your Audience, and Benjamin Netanyahu's speechwriter lauded it in an Israeli newspaper. I have the article!

Okay, my first fiction doesn't come out until Fall 2008 when OverExposed will hit the shelves, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Yep, you can call me "that SCRAPBOOK author" all day long. Suits me to a T. In this blog I've added a graphic of the poster they used to promote my UK visit.

See, you can call me "that SCRAPBOOK author," but in England, they call me "America's Scrapbooking Queen."

Bow a little lower, folks!

Whale Song

First, I’d like to say thank you for agreeing to have me visit this very interesting blog during my “Touring the World” virtual book tour to promote my novel Whale Song. Much appreciated, and I’m excited to be here―virtually…in spirit. Since this blog revolves around hobbies, I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite hobbies from when I was young. Yes, back in the “olden days”.

I’ve always found hobbies to be exciting, fascinating, a way to escape life at times. My mother, an avid reader who ‘gobbles’ up books every week, is the one responsible for turning me on to reading. When I was young, she always had a book in hand, or lying on the coffee table. At 11 years old―the same age as Sarah Richardson at the beginning of Whale Song―I was a serious book collector. As I grew older, I went from collecting Nancy Drew and Bobbsey Twins, to Harlequin romances, to Barbara Cartland romances, then Stephen King. Yeah, quite the range in interests and genre, I agree. I used to keep my books filed on shelves by collection, and then by number if a series, or even alphabetically. (I think they have a name for that now.) I don’t really collect books anymore, but my house is still full of them. Of course now, some of them are ones I’ve written―Divine Intervention, The River, Whale Song. (Filed alphabetically, of course.) J

As a pre-teen I tried my hand at leather craft, since my father was very good at it. There is something to be said for pounding designs into strips of leather. I still remember the smell of the leather, the scent of the stains used to color and gloss. I made bookmarks, necklaces, wallets, belts, even a small purse. Next, I joined the lapidary club―finding agates and other rocks on the beach and learning how to cut, polish and set them, making my own jewelry. Then I learned to play guitar. I even won first place in a talent show, and second place the following year. These hobbies were influenced by my father.

My father was also an avid stamp collector. So of course I tried my hand at that too. I loved getting letters from people and soaking the stamps in water so I could remove them from the envelopes and display them in my stamp album. But I didn’t have the patience to learn about the stamps, to learn dates, history, country statistics. I just liked the way they looked. My artistic eye saw them as works of art. And they are. I even collected first day plates, some from Bermuda. I still have my photo album. And I have inherited my brother Jason’s album too. I believe that there is a hidden fortune in them. I just have to have them inspected and appraised. Or I can always sell them on e-Bay!

As a teen my hobby turned to something cheaper, yet more satisfying than all the others. I started to write more seriously. But it was a short-lived hobby. And I say that because once I started to receive encouragement from teachers, I became more driven to write, to learn everything about writing…and publishing. It became a passion and something I wanted to do as a career. At 16, I wrote my first novel. It was stolen. And that was long before MS word. There was no copy. Anyone see a novel called Beckoning Wrath? Perhaps translated into Zimbawean?

So here I am today. An evolved hobbyist. Writing now is my life―my every day, every waking thought, every breath. I am as fascinated by the story concepts that come to me as my readers seem to be in reading them. Characters like Sarah, a young woman who is forced to look at her life, at her past and the tragic death of her mother, are a blessing to create because they have a life of their own. Sarah is in many ways very much like me. Some people have asked if Whale Song is my life story. I have to say, ‘No’. But there is more of me in that novel than in any other I’ve written to date, and Sarah and I share one fascinating hobby: the love of a great story!

Thank you so much for inviting me here. This month I am giving away free books at some of my virtual book tour stops, so be sure to check my schedule and drop by. http://www.whalesongbook.com/virtual-tour-2007/

Please note: A portion of my royalties for Whale Song is going to 3 nonprofit organizations to help combat social issues like poverty, homelessness and addictions, in honor of my brother Jason who was murdered last year.

To order Whale Song, please order from Amazon.com this month. If you order on my birthday, August 12th, you may qualify to win one of 44 prize packages. For more info on this special contest, please see 44 Prizes. Also, if you order Whale Song plus two other Kunati titles, you can qualify to enter Kunati’s Great Summer Reads Contest.

Thank you!

~ Cheryl Kaye Tardif, bestselling author of Whale Song
http://www.whalesongbook.com/

Obesity's Typhoid Mary

Recently, researchers came out with a study that indicated that obesity is a socially communicable disease.

When a newly obese person gains seventeen pounds, according to this study, the studied-person’s friend gains five pounds.

Humph. That study is really annoying.

Allow me to present a counter-argument for the defense.

The information that I will share with you now should put this study’s results to rest, forevermore. (Admittedly, this data is based on my own anecdotal evidence. So, empiricists, I ain’t talkin’ to you, you got that?)

From time to time over the course of my life, I have been overweight. You could even say that I’ve been significantly overweight during certain periods. Like, during the 1980’s. And the 1990’s. And portions of the new millennium.

(Because I have a creative bone in my body, I’ve been able to make lemonade out of this lemon in life. For example, my experiences led me to create the Fat City Mysteries and DYING TO BE THIN, which debuts on October 2nd, 2007.)

But, have I been a Typhoid Mary of Obesity, in terms of my impact within my circle of friends?

No.

My best friends date back to my college years. As a group, they would be rated as “normal weight to thin,” according to the Ediets rating system. A couple of them might even be considered to be verging on the anorexic (especially those friends who reside on the West Side of New York).

My knowing these fine ladies hasn’t added an ounce to their thighs, nor has it reduced the readout of my weekly weigh-in at Weight Watchers. There is no discernible “friend effect.” I wish, wish, wish there were. If you could get thinner by hanging out with skinny people, I’d be dogging every social X-ray on the planet, vying to become their new best friend. You say you’re an addict? No problem. Homeless? Nada problemo. If you’re thin, you’re in.

To be fair, I have to admit that my very best friend in the world does have a slight weight problem. More than slight, actually. She’s morbidly obese. But am I to blame for her not losing weight? Or vice versa? I think not.

On the other hand, when we’re at dinner and talking about clothes shopping, I do reassure myself that as long as I can shop at Banana Republic, and not at Lane Bryant, I must be okay. Maybe that self-reassurance does allow me to carry the odd pound or two in excess of what I’d feel comfortable with if my dining-mate shopped at the 3-5-9 store.

Bottom line is, when you’re dining with your best bud at Hamburger Hamlet and you’re eying the Brownie Mountain on the dessert menu, you just don’t want to think about it, yanno?

So maybe that study was right, after all.

But still, it's really annoying.