Things My Critique Group Won’t Let Me Get Away With

My book club is going to hate me.

I read our book club section this week, a popular book by a popular author and was so very disappointed. This was a best seller, with a starred review in Kirkus. I don’t get it. There was a family secret, a mean mother, cute brothers, a murder, a suicide. All of the elements for dramatic tension. So what wrong with the book I just read?

Since my book club is tried of my curmudgeonly reviews, I’ll vent here.

Here’s what happens. I’ll be reading, along, trying to get lost in this new world, and a buzzer goes off in my head. You know the sound. The game show contestant has given a wrong answer. AAAAAANNNN! That awful sound. Wrongo. My buzzer goes off whenever I hit a major sin the writer has committed. A sin my critiqueers would have circled and given back to me for revision.

Look, writing is hard. I know that. I’m in the midst of the 600th rewrite of Ocean Waves, the third Dewey book. But there are certain things that just don’t fly.

I’ll take “Things My Critique Group Won’t Let Me Get Away With” for two-hundred, Alex.

Car breaks down in the town she’s traveling to. AAAAAANNNN! Coincidence? No. Something my critique group would never let me get away with. Rethink this, they’d say. You can come up with a better reason why she’s in town. Something that will reveal a bit about her character other than she has no money for a good vehicle.

Four hundred: Stock characters: silent Indian, rebellious teen, hard-working single mom, aunt who loves her nephews more than their mom. AAAAAANNNN! Cliché, my critique group yells out. As run of the mill as the tattoo on the teen’s lower back, as treacly as the barren aunt’s love for her boys, as boring as the one-note I-was-poor-and-now-I’m-rich mother.

Six hundred: Heroine does not investigate. There was a murder years ago, the facts of which are crucial to the story. Halfway through the book, when she literally stumbles into the library, the heroine looks up articles about the case. Because she’s never heard of the periodic guide, she looks at microfiche for four years worth of news, and finds out stuff. But does she go talk to the reporter? Who is, after all, the brother of the woman she’s befriended. No, not until much later when the pseudo-hero suggests they talk to the newspaper reporter. Who is instantly accessible AND has easy access to the courthouse files. Do I need to tell you after all this, these files amount to nothing? Critique group hits the buzzer. AAAAAANNNN! Where’s the payoff? What was the point?

Eight hundred: Daily Double!!! Change points of view strictly to make the storytelling easier. Make no effort to have unique voices. AAAAAANNNN!

One thousand: Final act. Teen goes missing, running away into a dangerous spot in the middle of the night. Heroine and pseudo hero go after her. But only AFTER they know she’s okay. Hello? Talking about diffusing the tension. The Heroine and pseudo hero have a four hour car ride ahead of them. But who cares? We already know the kid’s fine, being looked after by a kind stranger. AAAAAANNNN! Loss of tension.

I know I’m lucky to have the best critique group ever. (You may get lucky, too, as one of them is writing a book on critiquing.) I know writing has ruined me for reading. But don’t these things bother you too? I think they do, even if you can’t quite figure out why. It’s like good food. You may not know the specific ingredients that go into a dish, but you sure as heck know when it tastes good. And when it doesn’t. AAAAAANNNN!

This next sentence should be read very fast and in a very low voice, like a late night announcer. A word of warning to any wannabe writers out there. Writing professionally will ruin you for reading for pleasure. If you like being swept away, put your laptop down. Now. Pick up a book and start reading.

Working Out While “Workin’ It”

I’m always on the prowl for unusual and bizarre information, especially when it has to do with bodies and exercise.

My latest find is an exercise class called “Stiletto Strength,” and it’s taking the gym world by spike heel.

The classes were developed by a gym called Crunch, which offers them in Los Angeles, New York, and Miami.

Here’s the stiletto class description from their online site:

Stiletto Strength
B.Y.O.H. – Bring Your Own Heels and strut your stuff runway style in this calf-boosting, posture-building, cat-walking diva class.

Evidently all calves are simply not created equal when it comes to teetering around in tarty heels—some of us require a workout just to learn how to hobble.

I wouldn’t even try. Along with practically every other muscle group, I’m a member of the calf-muscle deprived group. But there’s a reason for this: I grew up as a member of the “Stiletto Gap Generation.” Back in the late 70’s, when I was going through maximum adolescent angst, no one dreamed of wearing high heels, not even the girly-girls in the southern town where I lived. Heels meant you were overdressed. They meant you were trying too hard. They were too obvious. I don’t recall seeing a single pair of high heels in anyone’s closet during college. Later, during the 80’s, most of us switched to power heels—which meant two inches high, max.

Then I clobbered one of my knees and stopped thinking about heels altogether, except for avoiding them whenever possible. If an occasion demanded me to wear heels, I’d go for a cunning little kitten style. And I didn’t feel the least bit out of step—to my way of thinking, stilettos were what my five-foot tall mother had worn, to make herself look taller. They were strictly for the cocktail crowd, which meant O-L-D.

Fast forward twenty or so years, and I must have snapped awake—I think it happened sometime between Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. I realized that torture shoes had made a roaring comeback, even for women my age. (Like all things fashion-related, I probably discovered this bit of news about ten years late).

So, should I take an exercise class to pump up my calves, and learn how to improve my range of motion in my ankle and great toe, which is evidently critical to acquiring a proper stiletto stride?
Hell, no! I’m already doing major damage control on my abs, thighs and triceps. There’s no stamina left over for building up ankles and toes.

So ladies, I give you your Jimmy Choos. Hand me my Easy Spirits. I guess won’t be seeing you in Stiletto Strength.

On the other hand, I won’t be seeing you at the orthopedic surgeon’s office in five years, either.

Collecting Useful Junk... Er, Information

Too bad I didn’t save my tag for today’s blog. Maybe I wouldn’t be subjecting you to one of my pet peeves and pleasures about myself.

I’m a pack rat--except that, despite my enjoyment of pets, I’m not fond at all of rats, even of the pet kind. But when I think I may need something, sometime in the future, I have to collect it now. Even if I can’t find it again when I do need it. Or even if I forget that I have it.

I started thinking about my bad--or, perhaps, good--habit this week, when I was organizing the stuff I always save on pets. Maybe I can use some of it for research for my Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery series, and maybe not. But I collect articles and even entire magazines that have interesting information about pets. A number of the actual magazines have Cavalier King Charles Spaniels on the cover--which is enough of an explanation of why I save them. Others have articles on things I’ve either addressed or want to address in my mysteries, like separation anxiety. Some articles are on people who take their pets to cheer up sick kids or seniors. Some are on soldiers who bond with their service dogs while at war. Some are on interesting people and their more interesting pets. Some are... well, I could go on for a while about this.

And how much of this stuff do I have? TOO much! I go through it now and then and weed out a few odds and ends that don’t seem as interesting any longer, but I’ll never be able to use it all in my mysteries, or even in this blog! Even so, I’m not sure what will eventually come in handy, so I keep it. Sometimes organize it. Sometimes not.

I didn’t mention some of the other research materials I happen to save... like travel books.

How about the rest of you? I realize those of you who do different kinds of needlework must have a lot of your supplies in reserve, but do you also collect articles about them? Books? What else do you collect? Surely I’m not alone in this....


--Linda

YAWN

I stayed up late last night putting what I hope are the finishing touches on That Die. It goes in the mail later this morning. I hope it really is finished. The pub date is December 2, a date we will miss if it isn't finished. Later today I may celebrate by going to a driving range. I played my first game of golf a week ago Sunday. Despite being almost spectacularly bad at it, I really enjoyed myself. One big surprise: The hills. I've watched a lot of golf on television, and somehow the camera seems to flatten out the hills. After years of miniature golf, I can putt pretty well, but my driving is just terrible. If the ball went more than a dozen yards I cheered. When we came to a brook I took no chances but threw my ball across. But I want to go again. At dawn on a weekday, preferably, so no one can see again how bad I am.

That tag game:

What were you doing ten years ago?
I was working with Gail Frazer on the Dame Frevisse series. We wrote as Margaret Frazer. The original idea was mine, but her role got bigger and bigger until finally I just turned the whole thing over to her. She's done very, very well with it.

What are five things on your to-do list today?
1. Write this blog entry.
2. Pack up the book manuscript and take it to FedEx.
3. Go to the stitchers' meeting in my building and resume work on a needlepoint rooster.
4. Take a nap.
5. Attend my writers group (Creme de la Crime, God bless them!) this evening.

What would you do if you were a billionaire?
Never fly tourist class again. Hire a hatmaker to make a replica of the hat Camilla wore when she married Prince Charles, that one that looked like a sheaf of wheat. Travel.

Tag day

It's tag day. Terri started it on Saturday.

She tagged all us killer hobbyists. When I'm tagged through an email I delete the message. But she didn't leave me much choice, going public like that. So, here goes.

What were you doing ten years ago?
Ten years ago was eleven books ago and still no movie based on those novels, starring Meryl Streep and Al Pacino, for example. That's depressing.

What are five things on your to-do list today?
1. Pack for a trip to Boston and my umptieth college reunion. Without telling you the number of years, I'll mention that dinner for whoever is left of my class is on the house.

2. Write the Killerhobbies newsletter – sign up by moving your cursor over there to the right! We have a great interview with our newest blogger, Betty Hechtman, author of "Hooked on Murder: A Crochet Mystery."

3. Check in with my online students in Science and Cultural Change and try to figure out if Gan, who lives in Singapore, is a girl or a boy.

4. Finish the review of the copyedit of "Malice in Miniature," book three in this series. Did you know that wineglass is one word; bread basket is two? Backseat is one word, but front seat is two. There's a hyphen in fund-raiser, but none in monkeypod tree. I'll never learn.

5. Plan my Oscar outfit just in case that movie gets made. I'm thinking black chiffon.


What snacks do you enjoy?
Carrot sticks, sunflower seeds, and raw cauliflower. This is fiction, right?

What are three of your bad habits?
I usually break the continuity of chain letters, uplifting mass mailings, and tags.

What would you do if you were a billionaire?
I am a billionaire and I'm doing exactly what I want. (See "snacks.")

That was more fun than I thought. Thanks, Terri. Anyone else out there want to be tagged?

I Thank God My Life Was Spared

One of the many reasons I love scrapbooking is the insight it gives me into other people's lives. Especially lives of family members.

I called him "Grandpa" Lindell, because Lindell Alvin Parrott was my grandmother's second husband the whole time I knew him.

What else did I know about him? He loved having my sister Jane comb his hair as he read the newspaper. He was a gardener, and he made birdhouses to put around his yard. He enjoyed square-dancing with Grandma. He had been a professional painter, house painter that is. A meticulous person about his things, in their basement he kept small baby food jars with nails and screws all sorted by size and type. He used leftover paint to paint each of the concrete blocks a different color.

I also knew that he loved us.

After my grandmother died, my sisters and I cleaned out her house in preparation for selling it. That's when I learned about Lindell's past as a war hero. In his own words, he wrote,

For the last year of my Navy life until the end of the war, the USS Franklin, a new aircraft carrier, was my shop and my home. (On March 19, 1945, a Japanese plane...dropped a bomb on our quarter deck.) There were nearly 1000 killed or burned or drowned in our compartments. Many of them I knew personally, and everywhere you went there were bodies. It was hard to tell for several hours if (the Franklin) was going to sink....All the suffering and death I'll never forget as I realize how easily it could have been myself.

I thank God that my life was spared.

Until I found what Grandpa had written, I knew nothing of his life in the service. So many who have served don't speak of their time in uniform. Grandpa didn't. It was only after his death that I learned the ship was saved because another ship rammed into the side of the sinking Franklin. I guess the nose of the ships are the most strongly constructed. The second ship literally held the Franklin up until help could arrive.

Today, we should all thank God for those who have served our nation. And I will add a plea to my prayers, "Dear God, please help our nation to find its way out of this situation in Iraq. Bless those who serve in every capacity. Give them judgement, clarity of thought, courage and most of all compassion. Because only with compassion can we begin to heal."

(As I was writing this, a ruby-throated hummingbird came to my office window and hovered. I'd like to think Grandpa sent it!)

Tag, you're it

I feel about memes about the same as I feel about chain letters. I try not to pass them on. But I was memmed by my friend, author, Jana McBurney-Lin, author of My Half of the Sky, which is about to come out in paperback. This is a great book club read, so get your copy. You can read the answers to her questions at her blog: http://www.myhalfofthesky.blogspot.com/

Why not? It's a way to get to know people a little bit better. Here we go:

What were you doing ten years ago?
I was taking classes to figure out what to do with my life. I’d recently moved to CA and was ready for a change. In the class, we were instructed to cut out pictures from magazines and collage our fantasy life. How very Californian, I thought. Mine was all about a quilt shop I would open. Plenty of fabric, fab teachers, cute displays. But then, waaayyy down in the corner, in the teeniest, tiniest spot was the cover of a mystery novel I’d written. This was a bit of a surprise to me. I’d thought I’d laid that particular dream to rest in the late eighties. As I was making the collage, I knew I didn’t want to open a quilt shop at all. The teacher said that might happen, that you might find out what you don’t want to do. It took me a few more years of looking at that tiny cover to get up the courage to begin to write Wild Goose Chase, but that was the seed.

What are five things on your to-do list today ?
Blog at Inkspot, the Midnight Ink Author site http://midnightwriters.blogspot.com/
Send out ARCs of Stamped Out.
Experiment with blueprint fabric to use as a clue
Write a new scene for Ocean Waves, the next in the Quilting Mystery series
Clean up sewing room

What snacks do you enjoy?
Eat between meals? MOI? I don’t think so. Actually, all my meals are between meals. I’m particularly fond of Starbucks lattes, and the occasional original coffee cake.

What would you do if you were a billionaire?
Travel. Build a huge quilting studio and fly all my friends in to sew when I get back from the traveling. Feed people who don’t have enough. Endow a scholarship for people who want to write and sew.

What are three of your bad habits?
Biting my nails
Reading instead of writing
Not entering in my check register when I use the ATM card, so at the end of the month, I have to force the balance, and own up that I spent $234 more than I thought. Every month!

Who have you tagged?

I’m tagging the rest of my Killer Hobbies team:
Play if you want to!

Reaching out to readers through Sisters in Crime

In author blogs and chat forums, writers are always asking each other, “How do I reach more readers and the public?”

Well, this week I’d like to talk up an organization that provides fantastic outreach opportunities: Sisters in Crime.

Last weekend, for example, I appeared at the Burbank Public Library on a panel called “So You Want to be a Writer?” that was sponsored by my local Sisters in Crime chapter in Los Angeles. About 30 people attended, and by all accounts it was a great success. From left to right, pictured in the first photo are moderator Eric Stone, Yours Truly, Darrell James, Gay Degani, and Jeff Sherratt.

Libraries are one of my favorite venues for panels and author events, because the program is organized around topics that attract a general audience rather than author BSP (blatant self promotion). And my chapter of Sisters in Crime is wonderful at working with libraries to bring writers and readers together. Sure, as a writer you get the chance to mention your work and sell a few books, but the primary focus is on communicating with readers about writing-oriented topics that appeal to a wide variety of readers.

By the way, you don’t have to be female to join Sisters in Crime; plenty of “sisters” are men. And you don’t even have to be published—the group includes booksellers, editors, librarians, teachers, and readers. It’s an incredibly nurturing, supportive group of people who have helped along many writers with their careers. I first joined Sisters in Crime a couple of years ago, when I had an unfinished manuscript in my hands and a dream of launching my own mystery series. I feel as though I’ve learned “the ropes” of meeting and greeting the public, networking, and—yes—even knowing when to throw in a little BSP from time to time.

How about you? Are you a “sister,” and what have been your success stories or events you’ve participated in through Sisters in Crime? I’d love to hear how some of the other SiC chapters go about connecting writers and readers.

Milestones

Yesterday was a very happy day in my life, my Baskin-Robbins wedding anniversary. Yes, I’m addicted to ice cream, but that’s not why I called it that. It was number 31!

My husband and I went to a new shopping center in the Glendale, California, called Americana at Brand, where we ate at a restaurant called Granville. The food was good and the ambiance was even better, partly thanks to our very attentive waiter. The fact that I drank a beer called Bison Chocolate Stout, and that our waiter, on hearing it was our anniversary, brought us a really decadent piece of chocolate cake--even called evil on the menu--made it really memorable, a great place to celebrate. I didn’t even mind that my husband watched part of the Lakers’ basketball game on a television mounted on the wall behind me.

It’s fun thinking about milestones like our anniversary and sharing them with family. Especially now, when our older son’s wedding will be in a few months. Yep, I’m going to become a mother-in-law. What a scary thought!

Our son is marrying a very sweet and lovely young woman. I knew I was going to care for her when I saw how great she was with our dogs!

I’ve been thinking about the advice I can give them, how to help them through the hard times that inevitably come. I’d love to think that everything will be smooth sailing for them, but no matter how wonderful a relationship is, life tends to toss roadblocks into it, usually unanticipated.

Plus, love changes and grows and matures--hopefully. My wish for them is that what they’re feeling for each other today will provide the basis for even more wonderful emotional connections to come.

I guess the best advice I have for them is to focus on that love. Try to be caring and patient with one another. I’m lucky enough to have a husband who lets me seethe and scream at life’s inequities, and even hint, at times, that he may have something to do with my irritation, but he’s still there for me--despite the occasional dirty look. There were some sticking points between us that I once considered huge, but over time they lost at least some of the edges.

Plus, we both got into this marriage as a partnership in many ways. Some of the time he was chief breadwinner. Other times, I was. We encouraged each other to take chances, to change and follow our dreams. We’re also tolerant of each other’s not-so-wonderful habits.

I think our relationship one of the main reasons I’ve been able to write romance novels, and mysteries with romantic elements. I mention him in nearly all the dedications in my books. Didn’t do it once, and I was asked if there was something wrong between us!

What’s your favorite bit of advice I can pass along to the happy couple? (Humorous is best!)

--Linda

Take off! (and landing)

All last week I kept hearing an ad on the radio – when I’m driving, I listen to the radio (much safer than cell-phoning or texting). It said that in honor of Minnesota’s sesquicentennial; that is, its 150th birthday, there would be a flyover of antique airplanes above the state capitol in St. Paul on Saturday around noon. My very dear friend Ellen and I love antique cars and planes, so I told her about it and we agreed we’d like to see it. But where were the planes coming from? She got on the Internet and found out they were gathering at the Anoka Airport (Anoka is a distant suburb of St. Paul), and there would be an air show out there. So we changed our plans and went instead to Anoka on Saturday. Another friend, Greta Lynn, was coming into town to visit grandchildren (and sleeping on our couch), so we asked her if she’d have time to come along and she would. So Saturday morning we drove out. They do an air show every year, but never before had they had these magnificent birds to display, and, despite the lack of advertising, the crowd was much larger than anticipated. A veterans’ organization had offered a five-dollar pancake breakfast and there was a very long line waiting for it (which we joined). When we finally got to the head of it, the man taking money asked us how we found out about the air show, noting how stunned the planners were at the turnout. But this was the sort of event that a person finds out about and tells all his friends.

On the taxiway in front of a row of hangers were warplanes from World War II. While we waited for our breakfast, a big silver plane landed and after awhile came taxi-ing up to park, its engines running very raggedly, pocketa, paki, boppety, BAM! and belching blue smoke. It was a B-25 called Miss Mitchell, who was depicted as a scantily-clad young woman on the left front fuselage. On the other side were black bomb silhouettes in clusters of five, each bomb representing a bombing mission. Total: 147! One hundred and forty-seven forays into the teeth of fighter and ground fire. What stories that plane could tell! And now it sat calmly in the warm spring sunlight, its war wounds covered over, Miss Mitchell's paint brightened, its defensive machine guns still bristling in all directions. We were permitted to peer into her open bomb bay, which was surprisingly small. She is privately owned, as were all the planes on display, an amazing fact all by itself. See one like her at http://www.aviation-history.com/north-american/b25.html.

Next was a P-38, one of the oddest-shaped planes I’ve ever seen. At the front end is a cockpit, and the wings each have a big propeller engine – but there’s no back to the fuselage. Instead, the engines run back in stems to where they join the tail, leaving a square hole in the center of the plane. The German pilots who had to deal with it called it the fork-tailed devil. P in front of a plane’s number designates a Patrol craft, but this thing was also a fighter and a bomber. It even sometimes carried torpedoes and went after ships. To see one, go here: http://www.world-war-2-planes.com/lockheed-p-38.html.

There was a Curtiss P-40, which is the kind of plane the Flying Tigers flew – they were Americans who got involved in the Asia theater of World War II before America formally entered the war. The P-40 in Anoka wasn’t a flying tiger, but it had the traditional fierce, snarling animal on its nose, much like this one: http://www.fighterfactory.com/airworthy-aircraft/curtiss-p-40.php.

There was a flight of six single-engine trainers – single-engine combat planes with enlarged cockpits used to teach fledgling pilots the deadly arts. They were painted differently to show designations for use by the Army Air Corps, Navy, and Marines – one had a tail hook! – but again, all were privately owned. See one here: http://www.warbirdalley.com/t28.htm.

One of the hangers out in Anoka is owned by the Golden Wings Museum that collects antique planes. And one was a big old "trimotor." That’s right, three engines, one on each wing and one on the nose. Built in 1931 as a passenger plane, it carried nine passengers. It flew so slow and so low that passengers could actually slide the windows open while in flight – though I imagine it blew things around a bit. The seats look like padded upright leather chairs. No seat belts. I had only heard of Ford Trimotors, I didn’t know anyone else made them. The one in Anoka is a Stimson, and here is a photograph of the actual Anoka plane: http://www.goldenwingsmuseum.com/Aircraft%20Pages/Tri-Motor%20-%20B.htm.

Did any of you see that PBS series on the aircraft carrier Lincoln? Remember the "look of eagles" about the pilots? Well, that same look is all over the people who fly these planes, when a pair of them walked through the crowd, it was as obvious who they were as if a spotlight shone on them. More than merely in great physical shape, these people are intelligent, competent – and cocky.

The pilots started the engines of all these planes and trundled slowly off, making a most tremendous racket, to the runway, and took off. In the sky, they gathered into formation and went off to their flyover, then came back to land at the Anoka airport. (And to think, we might have been over at the Capitol to get a mere glimpse of these planes passing overhead!)
Perhaps it’s because I served in the U.S. Navy, or maybe I’m just patriotic, but it moved me to tears to see these grand old veterans, these heroes and survivors of a very different and dangerous time, race their still-mighty engines and go charging into the air. It was the same feeling I got seeing all the human veterans who were out at the airport greeting one another, sharing memories of these old times, laughing and telling war stories. They are, by and large, gone to fat and walking sticks and hearing aids, but when sharing stories they become young again, falling into the cryptic terminology, the esoteric references only their fellow veterans truly understand.

CORRECTION: The bird I’ve been hearing some mornings and identifying as a robin is, apparently, a grosbeak. I went to a store that specializes in bird houses and feeders and baths to buy something to attract orioles – they love grape jelly and will return with their fledgling young to a feeder that offers it. Anyway, while there I told the story of the robin who taught me his song when I was a child and how I listen for the robin’s song every spring. And how the robins in my adopted state of Minnesota seem to have this little gurgle or glitch in their song. "But that’s not a robin doing that, it’s a grosbeak!" the woman behind the counter said. Apparently the two birds have similar songs, except the grosbeak’s is longer and more complex and it has this curious gurgle in it. As Bertie Wooster would say, I am dashed. Dashed if I’m not.

Nature - at arm's length

Here are two of my favorite paintings, from the permanent collection of the Met in NYC. I could sit in front of them for hours, and I have come close to doing that. They're representative of countless other landscape paintings that I love, like those of Millet, Corot, Church, and Pissarro.

What's so strange about that? Most of us relish the moments of meditation and pleasure we get from works of art. What I can't figure out is this — if I were actually standing in one of these landscapes, I'd be freaking out. So why do I love them?

In Cezanne's "Mont Sainte-Victoire and the Viaduct of the Arc River Valley" there's grass everywhere, plants all around. I'm allergic to grass and I don't like plants. Though I can't see them, I'll bet there are bugs everywhere, too. I doubt that there's a coffee shop or a bookstore, or even a gas station within cell phone range. I doubt that AAA would be able to find me in case of a problem, and the nearest hospital — who knows how far away that is? I'd be hyperventilating after one minute.

Bierstadt's "The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak" is even worse. The sun is strong. I don't like sun, in general. And there are animals. Eeek! I'm afraid of one half of the animal kingdom and allergic to the other half. Besides, they tend to add organic matter and odors to an open area like this meadow (valley? grassy knoll?), both of which I would find unpleasant if I were to stand at the focal point of this painting. I'm cringing at the thought of what would be on the soles of my shoes. And still no Starbucks or even a family-owned bistro. Nor a convenience store to buy bathroom tissue — oh, right, there's no bathroom.

My idea of roughing it on vacation: a couple of galleries at MOMA are closed, my theater seats are in the balcony, and late night room service takes more than fifteen minutes.

Thinking about this phenomenon — why I love paintings that depict scenes I'd go out of my way to avoid — it's a lot like my relationship with fiction.

I love reading and watching movies about crime — the ensemble heist, the perfect murder, the "lovable" serial killer, like Dexter — but I don't want it to touch me in real life.

There must be a name for this syndrome?

CONTEST: You Can Own (a SMALL) Part of a Steinway Piano

Okay, bear with me here...I got lost today. In the parking lot. Of the grocery store. I walked ‘round and ‘round pushing my cart up and down. A very nice man hustling his way into the store said, “Don’t you just hate it when you lose your car?”

Um, I had to explain that I’d lost my car WITH my husband and my dogs in it. And this was a Sunday, so it’s not like the place was that crowded. So I decided to go sit by the flowers on the bench outside and think about what I needed to do. (I’d neglected to bring my cell phone. Dumb, dumb, dumb.) Then got up and I tried again to find my husband. This time another man, cuter than the first, called to me from his convertible. “I bet you lost your car.” And golly, he was so darn adorable with his tan and his sunglasses—and his car was pretty hot--I thought, “Hm. Maybe I’ve tumbled down some fantasy Alice-in-Wonderland hole and he’s come to take me away. Forget the groceries!”

Nah....

I snapped out of that pretty fast.

My Brain is Addled...

By way of explanation, I have been thinking a lot about paranormals lately. I’m gearing up to start another series, so all sorts of weirdness has taken root in my addled brain. Gosh, when I start creating a new book or a story or even a project, I am lost to this cruel world. My brain moves into another realm completely.

Then I realized, I’d been looking for the WRONG car. We own four. We’d driven to the grocery store in David’s car, not mine. And sure enough, I started my aisle-by-aisle trek again and spotted my husband grinning at me from behind his steering wheel. We laughed and laughed. The dogs were happy to see me.

But I'm Evidently NOT the Only Person Who Gets Lost in a Creative Funk

I could feel really stupid. But I got home and dug up this article I cut from the New York Times last Sunday about violin soloist Phillippe Quint who left his $4 million instrument in a cab, as has Yo-Yo Ma (cello, taxi trunk), Gidon Kremer (violin, Amtrak train), Lynn Harrell (cello, taxi), and Peter Stumpf (cello, front step).

Which makes me very glad we sell Steinways. So far no one has misplaced one. (At least not one of ours.) Which is not to say, we've never had other problems. Three weeks ago, we were sitting through the first number in a concert with Leonard Slatkin featuring his friends, including Peng-Peng Gong, an amazing 14 year old. Check him out at http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/user_page.pl?url=pengpeng

Midway through, I heard a ping from Peng-Peng and with a pang, I realized he’d broken an A string. One of our favorite tuners Liz Baker was in the house, but Liz didn’t have an extra A string on her. (She was, however, wearing a pair of shoes that totally rocked. I’m sure she just didn’t pack an extra A string when she dressed for the evening.) She did manage to fix the Model D (Steinway's 9 foot concert grand) so that the broken wire didn’t fly up and hit the next musician in the chops. (He graciously told us after the concert that he managed to “play around” the missing A. I swear these high-caliber musicians are totally amazing.)

Which is a Very Roundabout and Sneaky Way to Introduce My Small CONTEST for You to Own Part of a BIG PIANO.

If you have ever wanted to own a Steinway—and it just hasn’t happened for you yet--I have FIVE genuine hammers from Steinway pianos to give away. I picked them up at the Steinway factory in New York. You can take the amazing tour of the factory by hitting the link above. (Sadly, they are rejected hammers, but no one needs to know that you and me!) If you send your name and postal address to killerhobbies@aol.com, I’ll pop one in the mail to you. First come, first serve until they run out.

Then you can tell all your friends that you own a Steinway, but that you happened to leave MOST of it in the back of a taxi….

The Miniature Museum of Greater St. Louis

A Special Report
By Fay Zerb

I have been asked by Joanna Slan to write a little something about our miniature museum (the Miniature Museum of Greater St. Louis). This group was started in 1989 because a group of ladies were concerned about their miniature collection because their kids weren’t interested or didn’t have the space to keep them. The ladies didn’t want their stuff ending up in a yard sale. A lot of people downsize or go into a different living arrangement, and we get their stuff. Most of the things we have came from families once the miniaturist died.

When Owners Die

Several museums have folded once the owner passed away. (Joanna’s note: This, sadly, happened just this year to the entire Delaware Toy & Miniature Museum.) A lot of the museums were started by wealthy people had quite a collection of stuff, and they started their own museum.

How the Building Fund Started...and Plans to Expand

The group started sponsoring local miniature shows in 1991 to make money to buy a building for our museum. We actually bought our building in 2000, renovated the building and opened in 2001 with our first floor open to the public. Since then, our volunteers have been renovating the second floor, and we hope to open that level to the public this year.

The museum still sponsors miniature shows in the spring and fall where dealers from all over the country come to display and sell their miniature creations (dollhouses, roomboxes, dolls, furniture, food, landscaping, and everything imaginable) to the public.

Our museum is run by an all-volunteer board of 15 people. Our general members help staff the museum during our open hours. The museum costs a small fee to enter. If you are interested, you can visit the museum's website: http://miniaturemuseum.org/ and look at some pieces of our collection, information about the museum, information about the miniature show and much more.

Fay Zerb

Where Will Your Treasures Go When You Are Gone?

Note by Joanna: Fay’s post got me to thinking. What will happen to your hobby when you die? Have you thought of finding a good home for your collection? Does your family know who might enjoy or benefit from your supplies—that stash you haven’t used? Take a moment this week and write a letter of intent. I don’t know how legal it would be, but surely it might help your family make good decisions about your belongings. After all, you can't take it with you.

To be read pile

I'm on a list where people are posting pictures of their to-be read pile. Giant leaning towers of prose stacked up on the nightstand. Mine includes two manuscripts (Old Maid's Puzzle and Stamped Out), research on mountain lions, Pacific Grove and Julia Morgan, architect, the first mystery of friend (and soon to be KH blogger) Betty Hechtman (Hooked on a Murder)and the usual array of books.

TBRs and UFOs (unfinished projects in quilt lingo) are just a fact of life. I struggle to be non-judgmental and see them as bountiful abudance rather as anxiety-producing, brow-furrowing, stomach-churning to-dos. I try.

If it all gets too much, I purge. In fact, I'm getting rid of a UFO right now. Email me if you want it. It's a Judy Niemeyer paper-piecing project called Autumn Splendor. I believe all of the papers necessary are there. There are about 7 blocks complete, done in batiks in a wide variety of colors. I'm not guranteeing anything, but you should be able to get a lap quilt out of what's there. There's not enough fabric cut to finish. First one to email me gets it. terri@territhayer.com

So some pictures of my TBR pile:



TA-DA!

SUVs and idiot drivers – a lethal road mix

I hate SUVs.

I know that sentiment doesn’t exactly make me unique. But I have a personal grudge against them. More specifically, I’m angry at many of the people who drive them.

Here's why: my eighty-year-old mother’s life changed forever this year, when a woman driving a luxury SUV blew through a stop sign (while yakking on her cell phone, of course). She barreled into the driver’s side of my mother’s compact little Subaru without ever slowing down.

My mother and her passenger, who had been driving back from tea, survived, but they were both injured. My mother fared the worst. After several months of care and physical therapy she recovered physically, but emotionally she will never be the same. She refuses to drive anymore. Practically overnight, she went from being an active, vibrant, confident senior citizen to a fearful shut-in. Even now, whenever she rides in a car, she’s terrified during the entire trip. That accident was the turning point that ushered in the moment in her life when she became truly old. Old, frail, and frightened.

To help Mom recover, one of my sisters moved into her house; the rest of us talked her into getting a lawyer. But we quickly discovered that the state of South Carolina has some incredibly antiquated laws regarding consumer protection. The most my mother could hope for, even with good legal representation, was repayment of the value of her car and the cost of her medical expenses. Nothing for pain and suffering. Nada. Not one red cent.

I’ve never met the woman who ran that stop sign, but I despise her. My mother will suffer for the rest of her life due to one nincompoop’s incompetence and inattention.

I’ve changed, too. I’ve become an enthusiastic advocate of strong consumer laws and litigation redress. I’ve even started to look favorably on the much-maligned trial lawyers—I think they've got their work cut out for them to change some laws in South Carolina. Hell, let’s cut right to the chase—get me John Edwards on the horn. He’ll know what to do.

I know my anger shouldn’t be directed exclusively at SUV drivers. Any driver can be dangerous and incompetent. But in California, anyway, SUV drivers are notorious for rudeness, lack of consideration, and poor driving and parking skills. They often drive like they own the road—especially the luxury SUV drivers. I’ve started glaring at them when they cram their behemoths into a compact parking space (at crooked angles), and when they cut me off in traffic. Pretty soon, I'll probably become one of those irascible note-leavers. I’ll shove little pieces of paper under SUV wipers with messages like, “How do you spell p-a-r-k, moron?”

Well, I hope they're enjoying their hundred-dollar tanks of gas, which is what it’s starting to cost in California. It's a small comfort that fuel costs are finally starting to kill the American consumer’s love affair with the humongo-mobile.

Already, SUV drivers around Los Angeles are trading in their vehicles for the current trend du jour, hybrids.

But at least against a Prius, moms will have a fighting chance. As for me, I'm thinking about attaching a pair of giant antlers to the front of my two-seater.

I want a little something pointy to greet the next yahoo who cuts me off.

Changing Hats

I’ve always prided myself on being able to change writing styles from moment to moment. I’m a lawyer as well as a fiction writer (same difference...?), so I can be drafting a contract or demand letter one minute, and writing about the perils of my fictional heroines the next.

At the moment, my nearest deadline is for my second Silhouette Nocturne, working title MORTAL OPTIONS, which is about Skye Rydell, a woman of part-Valkyrie heritage who can sometimes save lives of those who are mortally wounded, and sometimes helps ease the dying to the other side. She’s a K-9 cop, and her love interest is a dark and hunky SWAT Team guy who has his own opinions on what constitutes justice.

It’s a very different style from my first person, light-toned Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mysteries. And this time, it took a little more effort to move from Kendra to Skye. I’m well into the story now, and it’s going smoothly, but I had to really think about how to darken my style, make it, and the characters, a lot sexier. And interweave the paranormal elements so they seem real, at least for this story.

A challenge? Sure, but a fun one. My writing career has been full of different styles, most often, but not always, at different times. I mentioned in a blog comment earlier this week about how I started off my career as a novelist writing time travel romances. Before that, though, I had a few mystery short stories published (and the first won the Robert L. Fish Award for best first mystery short story of the year, before I’d ever heard of the award!), and they were mostly in the light and breezy Kendra tone. When I started moving away from single-title paranormal romances for a while, I began writing romantic suspense for Harlequin Intrigue. And then Kendra came along. But I still was driven to write paranormal stuff. Hence, the Nocturnes.

Some themes do run generally throughout my fiction, though. I love romance, so there’s nearly always a romantic interest in my stories. I love suspense and mystery, so there’s generally a suspenseful story line as well. And--surprise!--I love animals. That’s why Kendra, who’s a lawyer like me, has a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Lexie, like my older pup, and it’s why she’s become a pet-sitter. One of my time travel romances used Cavaliers as a device for the heroine to move in time from the present to the time of King Charles II of England, during the Restoration. The dogs are named for that King Charles, who helped to popularize the small spaniels of his time. Not all my novels have had animals in them... but my first Nocturne, working title MOONLIGHT AND FIRE, is about a lady veterinarian and the sexy werewolf who captures her attention. And then there’s MORTAL OPTIONS, with its K-9 cop heroine.

But the stories are all different, and the style fits the genre in which I’m writing at that moment.

How about the rest of you who write--do you change styles often? Do you like to?

Right now, I think I’ll go draft a contract...


--Linda

Cheers!

There’s a bar-restaurant not far from where we live called Granite City. It’s become a chain and so the "micro-brewery" in back isn’t really one, because the chain, in total, brews more than 50,000 barrels of beer a year. On the other hand, the setup in each place is micro-brewery in style, because they make beer in each bar-restaurant. The master brewer in the St. Louis Park one has become my source for micro-breweries. Kevin has a degree in chemistry and in biology, and actually persuaded his biology professor to allow the class to make beer one semester. His interest, you see, is both professional and passionate, a marvelous combination!

I had lunch there yesterday – their Asian chicken salad is to die for – and took advantage of a beverage offer they have. Instead of a glass of beer, they will bring out six small glasses of different beers. I’m not a beer drinker, mostly because I don’t like the bitter flavor of hops. But this is research. As I’ve been saying, a character in the novel I’m writing owns a micro-brewery. So sitting at Granite City, enjoying a delicious salad, talking with the master brewer, and tasting six very different kinds of beer is a tax-deductible research expense. Have I mentioned (more than five or six times) than I love my work?

Starting with the darkest, I tasted Broad Ax Stout first. This beer is almost black. The head is meager and cream-colored. It has a thick, creamy texture, and there are undertones of something like coffee or maybe chocolate. Kevin says this is entirely a product of the malt (roasted barley) and the yeast – different mixes produce different flavors. The stout wasn’t as hoppy as some stouts – Guiness almost bites your tongue off.

Next was Brother Benedict’s Bock, a dark copper color. I almost liked this one, it was not very hoppy at all, and had a "malty," roast-grain flavor that was very nice.

Then came a blend of Bock and a light lager, a copper-colored beer that was, well, beer. Have I mentioned that these are all Granite City’s own beers?

Then Duke "IPA" – India Pale Ale, a light copper beer that had a distinctly citrus flavor, very refreshing and unusual. I was sure there was a grapefruit peel in its background, but Kevin says nope.

Then the golden Spring Ale, fresh from the fermentation vessel, a light-colored beer that had a taste that actually made me think of grass and flowers.

Last was the Northern Light Lager, which was extremely pale in color, light in flavor, and seemed to be about half ginger-ale. This is a beer for people who don’t like beer.

Interestingly, there is only about one or one-and-a-half percent difference in alcohol level between the darkest and lightest of these beers.

The reason I am late posting this morning is because we are having our carpets cleaned and I was so busy shoving furniture around last night, I forgot all about writing a post.

And I apologize to those of you who know, somewhat vaguely, that there is a beverage called beer, and don’t wish to know more about it.

As time goes by

Last week I finished up a mentoring project with a high school senior who wanted to research the plausibility of time travel. He put out a request for a mad scientist to help him, and came up with me.

B. D. and I read several science fiction books together, from the Jack Finney classic "Time and Again" to more recent ones like Michael Crichton's "Timeline." The idea was to come up with a chart listing all the ways that time travel is presented in sci fi and compare them to what we know from conventional physics (not that worm holes are that conventional). How far off, if at all, are these stories?

It was fascinating enough to explore the texts and match the sci fi writers imagination with that of 20th century physicists. I called on fellow mystery writers Ann Parker and Simon Wood for their insight also.

But as the student and I were talking during our last session, I couldn't help make it personal.

What if I could travel in time? No hand-waving, like, "well, it can happen on the quantum level where particles live for only fractions of a billionth of a second." What if we life-size people could travel back and forth in space-time?

The dream of time travel isn't new. But the reality of it has never seemed closer. Reading just one issue of a high tech magazine can lead us to believe it's no longer an academic question.

Would I take that trip in time? Would I go back to the past or ahead to the future? For what purpose? To interview some of my heroes, like Amelia Earhart and Susan B. Anthony? To watch the world's first dollhouse being built? Or, just to be nosy?

How about you? Maybe you'd like to see your 6-year-old granddaughter — in the future, when she's a grandmother herself. Or interview Agatha Christie.

Would it matter if you couldn't come back?

The Weight on My Heart

Yesterday, my husband brought me a tray with breakfast in bed to kick off Mother’s Day. As he handed over a box of tissues, he knocked down a glass of water, which flew all over me and the bed and gave me a good soaking. We laughed and laughed.

I’m so lucky to be married to a man I can laugh with. I thought to myself as we cleaned up the mess that I was smart to marry my best friend…after all in about 90 days, it will just be David and me in the house. (Plus the dogs.) Our son, our only child, will go off to college. There’s a heaviness in my heart, a weight that presses down, squeezing and hurting. It’s the weight of sorrow, of knowing my life as a mother is coming to another phase, one of being separated—perhaps forever—from my child. I’ve heard tales of boys who go off to school, find their wives, and don’t come home. And I get this lump in my throat which competes for space with my breath.

But it’s all good. It’s all right.

David and I and Michael have been a threesome for nearly 19 years now. We’ve traveled the world, starting with a trip to Paris when he was 22 months. Then to Cairo when he was 10. Living in the UK, and traveling for 6 weeks in Europe when he was 11. We raised our boy to be a citizen of the world. Did I really think he’d stay within driving distance? No.

The school he’ll attend is a perfect match for him. He’s going to University of Miami in Florida and he’ll study to be a civil engineer. He told us he plans to wear cargo shorts, tee-shirts and sandals every day. He’s asked for a surf board for his graduation gift. He’ll move into his dorm the same week our niece, Lexie, is having her baby, a little boy, so he can learn to change diapers. (We’ve assured him that babies are “chick magnets” for college girls. He’s skeptical….)

It’s all good. So why does this feel like the saddest Mother’s Day I’ve ever had?

Hobbies

by Dana Fredsti

To quote Wikipedia:"An important determinant of what is considered a hobby, as distinct from a profession (beyond the lack of remuneration), is probably how easy it is to make a living at the activity. Almost no one can make a living at cigarette card or stamp collecting, but many people find it enjoyable; so it is commonly regarded as a hobby."

According to Wikipedia, my entire adult life has been spent in the pursuit of hobbies strung together with a series of short-term temp jobs the financial glue holding my life together. I've been, in my 20 or so years of supposed adulthood, an actress, singer, writer, percussionist, volunteer keeper/docent at an exotic feline breeding facility, and stuntwoman specializing in sword fighting. I have not made enough money at any of the above to quit my day job(s), but I have enjoyed myself immensely and am rich in eclectic life experiences. I have spent a fair amount of time wondering why I never settled on a profession that brings in a serious salary, at a level that would support such habits as purchasing real estate and traveling to far and distant climes every year. Any one of my hobbies has the potential for raking in major bucks, but the odds are somewhere up there with winning a lottery jackpot. And when it comes to anything involving animals, trust me when I say there is no one out there waiting to pay a person for bottle-feeding motherless kittens or raking up leopard poop.

My current day job (or paying hobby, as one co-worker put it) is at a venture capital firm, so I work with and meet a lot of people who earn great flipping wodges of cash. A pricey dinner is a drop in a very deep bucket to them, whereas to someone like me it's the difference between covering my bills and keeping my cats in expensive no-carb kibble or being harassed by collection agencies and feeding my little darlings Purina cat chow. If asked, however, if I'd trade my life experiences for a career path that involved 4-8 years of college, a high-powered job requiring 24/7 attention to a Treo and no time for a social life, my answer would be no. For one thing, I haven't given up the dream of someday making one of my hobbies pay off on the material level.

Also, I've found I can live vicariously through the characters in my writing. In MURDER FOR HIRE: The Peruvian Pigeon, for instance, my heroine Connie and her best friend and business partner Daphne make their living running a theatrical murder mystery troupe. True, they have a theater-struck landlady who gives them dirt-cheap rent for a Victorian style house in the seaside community of Emerald Cove (a thinly veiled pseudonym for La Jolla, a very ritzy neighborhood in San Diego County), but even still they rake in enough income to keep them in nice clothes, chocolate chip cookies and cocoa, with an occasional splurge for a decent bottle of single malt scotch. My best friend Maureen and I really did run a company called Murder for Hire based in San Diego and most of our gigs were in La Jolla, but neither of us lived there and we both had other jobs to subsidize our baking and hot chocolate addiction (baking was another of our hobbies--both the creation of the goodies and subsequent consumption thereof).

We had lots of good ideas, enough drive to implement some of them, but not the financial wherewithal or time to turn our theatrical hobby into a full time, lucrative career. I eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and theatrical combat while Maureen stayed in San Diego and fulfilled one of our goals by moving to La Jolla. I worked on, acted in and wrote some movies of questionable value to society (B movies a bit further along the alphabet, but nothing X-rated, thank you very much!), still have a few scripts I'm quite proud of under option, but haven't yet cracked the magic 'no longer a hobby' barrier. And that's okay. I can live out this dream (hopefully to someday be my reality) of making my living as a writer and in the meantime, Connie and Daphne will continue to make their livings as writers/actors/directors/producers of the fictional version of Murder for Hire. Thank you, Killer Hobbies, for hosting me as a guest blogger! I'm looking forward to reading all of your books and hopefully withstanding the urge to add more hobbies to my list!

**

Dana Fredsti (http://www.danafredsti.com/) and Jess Lourey (http://www.jesslourey.com/) are planning a pacifistic Thelma and Louise type drive from San Fran up to Seattle mid-May. The only problem is they both wanna be the Susan Sarandon character. Which is okay, 'cause even though they won't get laid, they won't get their money stolen by a sexy drifter either.
To win a free copy of Murder for Hire, email Dana Fredsti at zhadi@aol.com with your favorite hot chocolate or cocoa recipe. The person with the best one (to be judged by myself and Jess) is the winner!

Perfectionism: Creativity Killer.

What’s a contest without a winner? Becky Levine had a winner over at her blog contest, winning the autographed copy of Wild Goose Chase. However, she signed her comment Anonymous, and we need a little more info than that. So please email me at terri@territhayer.com and claim your prize. On Tuesday, we’re going to pull a new winner, so hurry.

Perfectionism: Creativity Killer.

Camille got me thinking with her earlier post about being intimidated by a wonderful miniaturist. Confession time – I’m not a great sewer. I’m not being modest. I’m just not a great technician.

This used to bother me. I started sewing when I was twelve and I loved it, despite my lack of ability. I persevered, because I loved to sew. I tried to get better, I did. I took classes, read books, practice, practiced, practiced. I should be in Carnegie Hall if there was one for sewers.

But I never got better. I took up quilting thinking that would be easier than clothing construction. Instead, I found accuracy was key. So my blocks were a little wonky, and my corners never matched.

Still I strived for perfection. Isn’t that the American way? Aren’t we a little suspicious of people who don’t care if their seams are crooked? Or if their quilt blocks don’t match? Some of those went on to become art quilters. The rest of us kept trying to get it perfect.

I took a lot of classes, learned a lot of techniques. Found short cuts and helpful tips. My color sense and design sense improved. But my piecing skills never did. I didn’t get better – I got better tools. (Don’t let anyone tell you a good engineered sewing machine isn’t worth every penny.)

Eventually, I had to give it up. I wasn’t getting any better and I wasn’t having any fun.
Letting go of perfection is the most liberating thing I could do. My quilts are my quilts, flaws and all. Not as good as some, better than others, All mine.

Does perfection keep us from even trying or from enjoying whatever level we’re at? It can. It does. I heard it in the quilt shop where I worked and the classes I taught.

I wonder if perfectionism is not at the root of the younger generation not learning to sew. This is a generation used to matching suites of furniture and the name-brand clothes on air-brushed models. Making quilts is messy and takes time, and can be frustrating.

Perfection is not an option. In my opinion, it’s not even a worthy goal.

Is there a reason why we become “cat people”?

I know I creeped out a few people last week with my post about corpse brides.

If it makes you feel any better, this week it’s my turn to freak out. That’s because I've learned that a strange parasite is trying to get cozy with our cats. And the bug might be capable of affecting human behavior.

I discovered this odd bit of news when I spoke to my daughter, who is doing some research into the Toxoplasma parasite. Toxoplasma is excreted by cats. The parasite can be found in cat litter. (It’s the reason why women shouldn’t clean the cat box while they’re pregnant.)

It turns out that in most infected people, the Toxoplasma parasite is fairly benign. Which is a good thing, because up to half the people on the planet carry the parasite’s tiny cysts in their brain (ugh). But Toxoplasma causes birth defects in fetuses, and I’ve also heard that it can cause blindness if the parasite migrates to your eye (so much for being benign).

Cats are the natural hosts for the parasite, which gets very crafty in its attempts to reach a feline. Research has shown that when a rat is infected with Toxoplasma, the rat’s brain is altered so that the rodent loses its fear of cats. The infected rat becomes much more likely to get eaten by a cat, and then—voila!—the parasite has reached its target host.

Some research I read about suggests that even human behavior can be affected by the Toxoplasma parasite.

A parasitologist (who knew such a field existed?) once reported that women who are infected with Toxoplasma tend to be more extroverted and caring—to what end, is not known. My personal theory is that perhaps the parasite is trying to make us take better care of its feline hosts.

I’m freaking out about the possibility that the bug might affect human behavior, because everyone in my family loves cats.

As a clan, we like dogs just fine. But we’re nuts about cats. For example, I have an aunt who has nine indoor kitties. She also feeds and takes care of dozens of feral cats.

My sister is another fierce protector of all things feline. She has appointed me executor of her estate on behalf of her two cats. I have precise instructions for where and how they’ll be cared for if they outlive her (her will even includes funding for a long-term kitty haven).

Then there’s me. My husband calls me a “cat whisperer.” When I see or hear a cat on the street, I’m magnetically drawn to it. I’m strangely drawn to it, I’m thinking now.

Our familial tendency to adore cats and care for them makes me wonder—could it be that we’re all infected with the Toxoplasma parasite, and we’ve been passing the bug down through the generations? Maybe the parasite has altered our brains to make sure that we take excellent care of its host, Mr. Cat.

Bottom line: Is a bug pulling our strings?

Technically speaking, I’m not even sure that a parasite is a bug (science teachers, help me out here). But I’m sure it looks like one under a microscope. I’ll bet it looks really disgusting, too.

The whole thing makes me think about some signs my relatives have hanging all around their houses. The signs say things like:

“The cat owns the house. We just work here.”

Things may be worse than they know.

We might all be working for a damned bug.

Update on treatment

I had a question from Sheila about treatment for toxoplasma. There are treatments available for the parasite (primarily with antibiotics), but--and this news won't reassure too many people--the treatments may not cure "latent" cases, where the brain cysts are just hanging out, biding their time. Also, some species are evidently exhibiting immunity to the treatments. Here's more from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Treatment

Potty Training for Pets

Let me start out by saying I adore Mystie, our 4-1/2-month-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Of course Lexie is still number one pup of the house, but the two of them get along famously, just as I’d hoped. Mystie’s cute and cuddly and playful and mischievous and utterly puppylike. And Lexie enjoys being chewed on by her, or at least she pretends to.

But I have a bone to pick with Mystie. She’s still too much of a baby for me to get too upset, but I am a bit frustrated. I’ll put this as delicately as I can and still make my point. In the housebreaking department, she’s got one bodily function down almost perfectly. She holds it till we get outside to the dog run nearly every time.

Not so in the other department. She seemed to do much better when we first brought her home. Now, she produces some of the time where she should, but, more often, she evacuates inside our house. On the carpet.

I’ve been reading up on what to do. We’re crate-training her. According to the books, she should be averse to producing while in her crate. She’s not. She has no interest in the housebreaking pads that are on the market these days--except to eat them. And our house isn’t set up to allow her to use a doggy door at will.

I take her out ever 10-20 minutes or so after she’s eaten till she produces, which is time-consuming and frustrating, especially when she comes back in and too often does what she should have done while outside.

I keep her near me almost all the time when I’m home, but she’s adept at doing her thing when my back is turned.

She sleeps in her crate at night in our bedroom, and when she wakes up and whines I put her outside. Occasionally, she sleeps through the night... but usually not.

I admit I’m not a dog whisperer. Instead, I hold one-sided conversations with my pups, even though they don’t talk back. I play with them. I love ‘em. I know they’re canines and pack animals and have their own heritage that doesn’t make them people, and I attempt to understand and deal with that.

Right now, Mystie is lying beside Lexie on the floor near my computer, looking up at me quizzically and adorably, as if she knows I’m writing about her. Lexie is cute and smart and housebroken, and when she has an accident I think it’s on purpose, to teach me an occasional lesson.

One day, perhaps Mystie will show up in one of my Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mysteries, where Lexie is already the star. Maybe Kendra will have better success than I’m having right now at training this puppy.

On the other hand, surely by then Mystie will be old enough that I’ll look back on this blog entry and laugh at my frustration. I hope.

In the meantime, if anyone has any magic solutions, I’m ready to hear them!

Hey, guess what! Mystie must really have known what I was writing about. I started writing this entry yesterday around her dinnertime, and after she ate, she did what she was supposed to where she was supposed to do it. I knew Cavaliers were smart, but this is exciting!

Let’s see what happens next time....

--Linda

Random Thoughts

I gave my office a thorough cleaning yesterday. One great thing about doing that is how much bigger the place appears. But another thing is that my "in basket" -- actually, the pile of stuff on the left side of my desk -- has been winnowed down so much it seems that I could actually finish all the tasks the stack represents today. Then I'll have a completely clear desk. Can you imagine?

From a web log called, "Popehat," comes this odd item:

'The Greek Isle of Lesbos is suing the group Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece to stop using the term Lesbian. Seems they are tired of having the term for people from their isle be synonymous with the followers of Sappho. "Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos," said Dimitris Lambrou, one of the plaintiffs.

'The group is quick to point out that they have nothing against Lesbia… er, gay women who have made Lesbos a popular vacation spot, they just want to take back their name. Lambrou points out that Lesbian is a relatively new term for gay women, whereas they have "been Lesbians for thousands of years…"

'I’m not sure how I feel about this one. Could England sue New England to change it’s name because they aren’t happy with being associated with them? . . .'

Don’t these Greeks know their own history? A female Greek poet from classical times, named Sappho, lived on Lesbos and wrote very erotic poetry to other women. Some of it survives to this day. Though she wrote in a difficult dialect, her writing was greatly admired in her day and down the centuries. Her poetry is why gay women call themselves, rarely, sapphic, and, more commonly, Lesbians. Nothing usurping about it.

The above has nothing to do with writing mysteries, it just caught my eye.

Actually, I don’t have anything to write about this week. So, like the newspaper editor I used to be, here’s some filler:

'If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there is a man on base.' --Dave Barry

'My Mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim.'' --Paula Poundstone

'Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography.' --Paul Rodriguez

When he divorced reality, she got everything in the settlement.
-- Some commenter on Farc.com

If you make a fool of yourself in front of your dog, not only will he
not laugh at you, he will make a fool of himself, too, just to keep you
company.

If you take a dog in, feed him, shelter him, treat him kindly, he will look
up at you and think, "You must be God."
If you take a cat in, feed him, shelter him, treat him kindly, he will look
Down on you and think, "I must be God."

Good, better, best

Most of the time, I think of myself as a miniaturist. I've been decorating dollhouses and making room boxes all my adult life (except for that stint in the convent, where hobbies were frowned upon — they require too much clutter and too many material possessions).

But yesterday at The Elegant Dollhouse in Sacramento, California, where I did a signing, I met a woman who should get the Nobel in Miniatures.

I had considered taking along a small scene I made to use as show and tell as I signed. At the last minute I left it behind, thinking it would look shabby in an environment that showcased the best of the hobby. I was right!

The photos show arrangements by Jan Kimbro who makes one of a kind, miniature flower arrangements. Her fans think she uses a brush with one bristle to paint the tiny bits of paper she assembles into an iris or a rose, green leaves or baby's breath. There's nothing to show scale, but let me tell you that the rose buds are less than one-quarter inch around. Jan declined an invitation to have her own picture taken, but she did give me permission to use these photos and invite you to call her if you have a special request. (916) 349-1340.

I had a wonderful day. Miniaturists are great mystery readers; some of the reasons for this were put forth nicely by our recent guest blogger, literary agent Jessica Faust. The Elegant Dollhouse staff, especially Barbara, Anna, and Ethel, and all their customers were very welcoming and are very talented.


When I got home I was tempted to sweep everything on my crafts tables into the trash. If I can't be as good as Jan, or Anna, who put together the amazing bookstore in the photo, why bother? The books in Anna's store are about one inch high. There's a coffee shop and a loft with tables and more books. Every detail is perfect.

My lesser self prevailed, however, and I decided to continue with my imperfect works. Maybe I could be as good, I rationalized, if I had only one hobby, no job, no classes to teach, and no writing deadlines. Also no family or friends. I doubt it!

But I wonder, how "good" do you have to be to claim a hobby as your own?

Scrapbooking Ourselves

Continuing our string of wonderful guest bloggers, here's one from Nicole P.



By Guest Blogger Nicole P.

My grandmother bought my first scrapbook for me back in 1980. It was a non-archival safe scrapbook, the standard of that time period. Basically it was a big blank empty book with construction paper-type pages, and we would….gasp…tape our memorabilia inside.
To this day, I have my first scrapbook. It is filled with Cabbage Patch Doll Birth certificates, greeting cards and letters from friends and family, school attendance certificates, tickets stubs, post cards, newspaper and magazine clippings, a 5th grade state capitol test that I got 100% on, and every single item is yellowed and worn. This scrapbook is one of my most cherished possessions and not because of all the “stuff” that I taped to the pages, but because it has a sample of my grandmother’s handwriting inside of the front cover. She signed and dated the scrapbook before she gave it to me. My grandmother died in 1988. This book and a few photographs are the only material possessions that I have to remember her.
When I think of all the special memories that I have of my grandmother, I know that I would do anything to have something tangible to keep those memories alive.
My Grandmother loved gardening. She has the most beautifully landscaped yard full of flowers, tree, and bushes. What I wouldn’t give to have photographs of her in her home and in her gardens as well as journaling in her handwriting telling her life story.
I spent many years of my life hiding behind my camera, taking photos of my loved ones and documenting every event of their lives in my scrapbooks. It dawned on me one day that although my children will probably (hopefully) love looking at the scrapbook pages that I made of their childhoods, they will have their own memories of these events. But will they remember what my life was like? Will they remember my favorite food? Will they remember the things that I loved? Will they remember what my handwriting looked like? The answer is more than likely no.
So I have made a vow to myself to get myself in front of that camera more often. I need to stop worrying about those extra 40 pounds that I carry around. I need to stop worrying if I remembered to apply concealer and if my freckles are showing. I need to stop worrying altogether and put myself in the books, so that my children and grandchildren will have a piece of me when I am gone.
So, I challenge all of you who are reading this, whether you are a scrapbooker or not, to record your life in one way or another. Share the things that you are passionate about with your future generations.

Scuba Diving and Gardening

by Jess Lourey

Thank you to Joanna for allowing me to guest blog on this lovely day. I have met and am a fan of most of the Killer Hobbies crew, and I appreciate the opportunity to hang out with such a crafty group of mystery writers.

By the way, does reading mysteries count as a hobby? I ask because in Minnesota, where it is not uneard of for the temperature to fluctuate 60 degrees in the span of a week and most of us are so busy worrying about offending people that we don't move much, we have a limited number of hobbies to choose from. Fishing and hunting are the two most people pick, with a little snowmobiling and fourwheeling thrown in for good measure. If you’re feeling wild, you can mix and match, for example snowmobiling out to your fish house.

I don’t eat much meat, I think fish smell, and I can't afford the big toys. As a native Minnesotan, that left me to become creative in finding recreational pursuits. I came up with two that I enjoy, the second more regularly than the first: scuba diving and gardening. Because both hobbies define my life to a certain degree, I hoisted them onto Mira James, the protagonist of my Murder-by-Month series.

Scuba diving was surprisingly easy to work into a plot. My series is set in the real-life town of Battle Lake, Minnesota. Turns out there is an enormous diamond nestled in the silt at the bottom of a lake in that area. It happened in the 1920s, when wealthy east coasters regularly took the train to Battle Lake to “summer” on any of the crystal-clear, fish-packed lakes. At a local resort, nowadays known as Xanadu, a rich female vacationer went into the water for a dip wearing a diamond ring with a rock the size of a gumball and came out with no jewelry. The diamond has never been found, and so I made a fictionalized version of that real-life mystery the center of June Bug (http://www.jesslourey.com/june.html), the second in my series.

Gardening has never been a central plot in the series, but like all good hobbies, it leads to deeper character development. What our protagonists like to do to clear their minds and connect with something larger and more organized than themselves is very telling. Mira likes to garden for the same reasons I do: it’s a family tradition, it combines physical and mental focus, it creates visual order, and it has tangible results. As women, a lot of what we do during our day is either erased every 24 hours or so, like cooking and cleaning, or never particularly visible in the first place, like teaching, nursing, or selling. Not enough of us are carpenters or painters or masons, but we’ve got some killer hobbies.

**

Jess Lourey, the guest blogger for today, has just released August Moon, the fourth novel in her Lefty-nominated Murder-by-Month series. Of August Moon, Denise Swanson, author of the Scumble River Mysteries, writes, "Lourey has a gift for creating terrific characters. Her sly and witty take on small town USA is a sweet summer treat. Pull up a lawn chair, pour yourself a glass of lemonade, and enjoy."

CONTEST ALERT!

Jess will be touring the West Coast with mystery author Dana Fredsti in May and hitting the Midwest in June. Check her website (http://www.jesslourey.com/appearances.html) for more details. Also, the first person to email Jess through her website and correctly identify the Minnesota state flower will win a free copy of June Bug. Be sure to tell her Killer Hobbies sent you!

Guest Blogger: Jessica Faust,

We have a guest blogger here at Killer Hobbies today. My agent extraordinaire, Jessica Faust of Bookends, LLC.

Before we get to her post, I have two business items to attend to. Last week at Becky Levine's blog, she gave away an autographed copy of Wild Goose. The commenter, Anonymous won. This was the anonymous who read WGC through her husband's doctor appt. and dinner and beyond. We don't have a name or email address, though, so if you're that person, please email me. Also, please register for KH's monthly newsletter until the end of business today to be eligible win the bag o fabric mentioned in last week's blog.

Jessica Faust is the co-founder of the literary agency Bookends, LLC. A former editor at Berkley, Jessica's knowledge in her chosen field runs deep. She's here today to talk about craft mysteries in particular and her view of the future.

Here's Jessica:

Like many of you, I recently returned from the Malice Domestic conference, home of cozy mysteries including craft and hobby mysteries. In the last few years craft mysteries have been all the rage. There was a period of time there where it seemed that as long as the craft was popular enough I could sell the book. Of course times have changed and it’s getting harder and harder these days to find a craft that hasn’t been done. On the BookEnds list alone we have rubber stamping, knitting, quilting, crochet, glassworks, baking contests, and sewing (and I’m sure I’m missing a few).

I’ve been asked time and time again why craft mysteries are so popular and I think that’s really a question for the reader. Why do you love craft mysteries? My answer is that the audience for both things seems to go hand-in-hand. Like a good craft, a good cozy mystery makes you feel just that, cozy and homey. It makes you dream of a warm fire, a soft afghan, and a quiet day filled with hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookies. Cozy mysteries, like crafts, take you back to simpler times, before CSI, before we heard about what really happens to a body that’s been laying in the woods and without blood and gore.

But where are these mysteries headed and what’s the market for them? Well let me say that I don’t think craft mysteries are going away anytime soon, but I do think it’s getting more and more difficult for new authors to find a place with them. After all, what hasn’t been done. The truth, as I tell all of my clients, is that Berkley Prime Crime is the King of cozy mysteries. While a few other publishers are buying—NAL, St. Martin’s, and Kensington—there aren’t many. When considering a new mystery I always look at the Berkley list first. If they have the subject already on their list it’s not a subject I usually think is worth pursuing. In the cozy market you have only four publishers to choose from and I don’t advise going out with a mystery that already can’t be submitted to one of those houses because, for obvious reasons, Berkley is not going to do a second rubber stamping series when they already have the first one and now you’ve eliminated the biggest house in the cozy market. Publishing is tough enough without giving yourself a handicap going in. If you are a crafter and mystery writer my advice is really to pay close attention to those crafts that are becoming popular in the mainstream. Crafters are one aspect of your market, but if you notice that bead shops are popping up all over town maybe a beading mystery has potential (by the way, it’s been done).

Before heading out I want to address something Terri asked me when approaching me for the blog. She asked me specifically why one particular person hates cozy mysteries and it’s an issue that comes up for me a lot and one I feel the need to talk about a little. It’s obvious that there’s a huge market for cozy mysteries. Berkley has built an incredibly successful imprint on them and take a look at the BookEnds list, I’m not eating dog food folks. These books sell. So why is it that I so often hear people put down these mysteries, including the authors themselves? To put it simply I think people just like to criticize that which they don’t understand. If you’re going to write a cozy or craft mystery be proud of what you’re writing. Don’t feel like you should be embarrassed or what you’re writing isn’t big enough. Be proud of what you write and the audience who reads them. I say that to all authors.

Thanks for inviting me to your blog and feel free to ask any questions. I’ll try to pop in and answer as I can.