Pass it on

There's always so much to love at our shows, isn't there? Whether quilting, scrapbooking, needlepoint, or miniatures, there's an excitement that's unbeatable.

Last Sunday I was welcomed at the Good Sam Showcase of Miniatures in San Jose and experienced the usual euphoria of being in a large hall of like-minded crafters. Barb Jones and Phyllis Hedman worked tirelessly to make it all happen.

But there was a special aspect to the Good Sam show that I particularly loved –- the children's corner!

Through the year, miniaturists send supplies and scraps for the children's corner to the show's organizers. They contribute paint, paper, glue, brushes, landscaping scraps, fabric, beads, foam, doll parts, material for bases, and miniature "anythings." They even have T shirts for the children to wear as aprons and take home with them.

Tables are laid out and the children get to work; no parents allowed. Adult volunteers are available for technical help (how much glue do I need for this?), but no judging takes place, only encouragement. The children can choose whatever they want from the large bins of supplies. What a wonderful way to ensure the continuation of a most satisfying way of life.

Pictured here are 3 generations of miniaturists: Phyllis in the middle, her wonderful daughter, Anne, on the right, and Anne's daughter Keshae whom I wanted to take home with me.

Throughout the day, children came by my table of books to show me what they'd created. Some scenes were more elaborate than others; all represented an afternoon of fun and creativity. Thanks to Jonesy for sending the photo of a finished product.





I'd love to know what other crafters are doing to attract the next generation.

America Is Great, Because...

“America is great, because it is good.”

Alexander de Tocqueville

I love this country. I was reminded of some of the reasons why just last week. My husband David and I drove down to Memphis for a business meeting he had to attend. The Gibson bus (a rolling "green room" that Gibson guitar provides for rock stars) took us to the highlight of our first evening in town was a trip down the Mississippi on a paddle-wheeled riverboat. I hung over the railing on the top deck to watch the paddle blades revolve over and over, churning muddy water. As a band played rock’n’rock, blues, and tributes to the greats, the able crew guided us up and down the waterway. After we docked, we climbed back aboard the bus and David played a little guitar, something he's very good at.

The next day, David went to his meetings, and I visited booksellers and scrapbook stores. I stopped in at Burke’s Book Store, established in 1875. Each time Memphis native son John Grisham brings out a new book, he holds his first signings at Burke’s.

From there I drove to Davis-Kidd Booksellers. I ate lunch in their restaurant, Bronte’s Café, which promised and delivered a novel experience. The food was terrific!

Next I visited Eclectica Scrapbooks and Stamps. This is a WOW of a scrapbook store, and I had to indulge in buying paper. Sigh. The selection was too yummy to pass up.

Back to the Madison to pack up. Stacey, the concierge, had put together a little gift pack for me of Molton Brown toiletries. Have you tried them? They are wonderful.

David finished his meetings, and we started the drive back to St. Louis. Along the way, we decided to eat at Lambert’s in Sikeston, a place famous for “throwed rolls.” The restaurant is huge, seating more than 130 patrons in a big area festooned with license plates from across the nation. After placing our order, we caught a few of the yeasty rolls tossed our way, and said, “Yes,” to helpings of fried okra, potatoes and onions, macaroni and tomatoes, and pinto beans. (They bring a big bowl to your table and offer you these as part of the meal.) Along with my chicken breast—which was seriously bigger than a dinner plate—I had cucumbers and onions in vinegar with sugar the way my grandmother used to make it.

Now you’re probably wondering…what does this have to do with your theme, Joanna? About loving this country? Well, seated across the aisle from us was a table full of soldiers in camouflage gear. David and I were enjoying our meal when the soldiers finished, stood and started walking to the cashier.

Lambert’s erupted in applause. Spontaneously, everyone was paying tribute to these men who are serving our country.

And that, my friends, is one reason I love America. The appreciation, the spontaneity, the heartfelt support that crowd gave the servicemen. De Tocqueville said, “It is good,” but what he meant, I believe, is that WE are good. Americans from all walks of life are the best advertisement our country has! From that the crew on the riverboat, to the band that sings Elvis numbers. From the bookstores which support new authors, to the entrepreneur who sells scrapbooking supplies. From the concierge who indulges a traveler with her favorites, to the folks who stop long enough to thank our troops. All of us make this the special place our country is, the beacon of hope still, despite the troubles we face.

So, please, honor our country. Be an informed citizen and plan to exercise your right to vote!

Images of the week

Jorge Luis Borges said, "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."




I'm having trouble deciding which library I'd rather be left in -- the cluttered one or the palatial one. Either one, I guess.

Food for Thought

My family’s favorite part of the crochet mysteries are the recipes. They are my official tasters and love their job. They love it so much that both my husband and son are urging me to put in more than one recipe per book.

In all fairness, I used to cook a lot, and I guess they miss it. Okay, I don’t guess, I know they miss it because I’m always hearing about what I used to make. But back to the recipes in the books.

Hooked on Murder (which I found out just went into a second printing) features Helen’s Pound Cake. Helen was my mother and the pound cake was her all occasion favorite to make. My mother always made a big deal out of birthdays, and she liked to make cakes for people who normally wouldn’t have had a birthday cake.

I followed in her footsteps and the pound cake became a regular in my baking repertoire. Even so, I wanted to bake it again when I was adding the recipe to the book. I was including a recipe for butter cream icing and planned to ice the cake when it was cool. But my husband and son were so excited about an actual home made cake in the house, pieces of it started disappearing before it stopped steaming. By the time it was cool enough to ice, there was a little over a slice left. I had to make the full amount of icing to check how it turned out, but there is only so much butter cream icing you can put on one piece of cake. So, I trashed the rest. I’m still hearing about that. I didn’t think there was much you could do with a bowl of icing, but they are still tossing ideas out about what they could have done with it.

I included a recipe for cheesecake cupcakes in the Dead Men Don’t Crochet. I don’t have quite the same emotional connection with that recipe. It was one I came up with a long time ago, long before cupcakes were such an in item. I made several batches of them when I was checking the recipe. The recipe made eighteen of them and with the buttery graham cracker crust and the cream cheese top, they were rich and delicious. They lasted a little longer than the pound cake.

The third book now called By Hook or By Crook has a recipe for California Noodle Pudding. You can eat it hot or cold, as a side dish or a main course for breakfast. It has fruit and nuts and a little bit of sugar and vanilla, so it could almost be a dessert. It was my standard pot luck entry and so good I’d find myself saying mmmm when I ate it. This is another reason I don’t cook that much anymore. I like my own creations too much.

When I was in Chicago, I spent time going through my mother’s recipe file. I found all kinds of good stuff like a chocolate cake made with mash potatoes, and another made with yeast. Then there was one she called the Truant Officers Carrot Cake. I’m guessing that since my mother worked in the office of an elementary school, that’s who she got the recipe from. But I decided to go with one of my mother’s party creations. Nobody liked to give a party more than my mother. She always said she’d be planning her next party in the midst of her current one.

Since we basically had no money, my mother always made everything and generally something inexpensive. My parents had lots of brunch parties with waffle. For evening events, she came up with a sweet and a savory variation of appetizer puffs. I’m going to use the recipes for both in the fourth book. After she baked the small puffs, she’d fill some with crab salad and the others with homemade custard and a dollop of whipped cream. Just reading over the recipe reminded me of her standing in the kitchen, stirring the puff batter in a saucepan (you have to heat some of the ingredients). She would say they were so easy to make and then worry they weren’t going to turn out. My mother always worried that whatever she cooked wasn’t going to turn out.

Of course, everything always did.

10 Lessons

Ten lessons I learned from quilting, stamping and writing

This is a version of the talk I gave at my launch parties last week, so if you couldn’t make it, you won’t miss out. In fact, I’ve added one lesson, so you’re actually winning.

10. There’s always a point where you look at what you’ve done and you’re tempted to throw it out and start over. Resist the urge.

9. You don’t need to know where you’re going. You’ve heard it before, but it is truly about the journey. Give in to not knowing where you’re headed. Often you find a more interesting path.

8. Quilts and books are like houses. A house needs a roof and four walls and a bathroom and a kitchen, but beyond that, the rest is up to you. Your quilt, your stamping project or book has to follow certain conventions, but there is a lot of leeway within that structure to make it your own.

7. Know that there’s a lot of work to be done, but don’t let that stop you. It’s helpful to work in chunks, and celebrate each time a chunk is finished.

6. Learn to take criticism. Finding someone who can be an impartial judge of your project, and can suggest new ways of looking at your work, will help you to soar to unimagined heights. Critiquing is a good thing.

Continued next Friday…

Blog or No Blog

I'm in another of those situations where time for blogging simply isn't there. However, on the pet front, I passed a laundromutt, and had a sweet, formerly standoffish cat elevate onto my lap and start purring when I petted her.

Sorry this is so brief. More next week, I promise!

What do you do when life doesn't let you keep up with your routines?

--Linda

Fame, Gratitude

I had an extremely pleasant experience last week, going to a library in Bloomington (that’s the suburb where the Mall of America is located). I was to give a paid talk. The room was crowded and virtually every person there was familiar with my books. The audience applauded and laughed at my jokes and asked good questions at the end. Some even had brought books for me to sign. Such experiences are good for a writer’s soul. Possibly a bit dangerous, too, when the author gets to thinking he or she deserves the plaudits. I write genre fiction for a very special subset of mystery novel fans; that doesn’t make me important. I tell myself that -- but sometimes I wonder if people in the creative arts who meet with any sort of success shouldn't hire a person to follow them around, murmuring in our ears, "You ain't so much."

Friday I am to go signing books at the Midwest Booksellers Association conference at RiverCenter in St. Paul. My publisher will be there and I get to go to a cocktail party ahead of time. I’ll be one of hundreds of authors, and it’ll be fun to rub elbows with authors who write other things than mystery fiction. I’ll wear one of my more spectacular hats.

I finally finished a short story, "It Slices, It Dices," for a Minnesota Mystery Anthology to be called Murder on a Stick, which will feature stories set at our State Fair. I will polish it in some haste, as it is due in the hands of the editor by October 1. And you know something? Acceptance is not guaranteed. (Though if it is rejected, I’m going to pitch a fit. Not because I’m important, but because I think it’s a pretty good story. I think I slipped a major clue into the story without being noticed, one of the kind that later you go back and say, How could I have missed that? I hope so, anyhow, know two people who have read an earlier draft who missed it. If everyone else does catch it, especially the editor, I'm cooked.)

We had a pretty violent rainstorm this afternoon and, as I have done bedfore, I went to a window and looked out at it. The rain was pouring down as if someone had unzipped the sky, and the wind blew it hard into the window. The gutters were overflowing. Our balcony is roofed, but the floor was wet back to the wall. Also as I have done before I thought how grateful I am that I live in a time and place where I was perfectly warm and dry. For a long time I was a member of the SCA an organization that studies the Middle Ages by behaving as if they were still around. I have also long taken an interest in camping, in studying the American Indian, and following the learning curve of anthropologists and archaelogists who study early man on the African and European continents. Not the very richest of any of them was privileged to live in such comfort as I have. Thanksgiving is a long way off, but I’m already grateful.

Here comes the bride

A few times a year I perform wedding ceremonies. There's no cleric's shingle outside my house—I do this only for relatives and friends, through a nondenominational California church.

Over the weekend I served as minister for the son of a friend and his bride. (Blank faces are used above to protect privacy!) It's a great honor to be asked to officiate on such special days, and I always take the assignment seriously.

Some couples want a rigid ceremony, without comic relief; others seem to have more fun. N. & P., for example, wore full get-up as bride and groom, but they and the whole wedding party wore Birkenstocks sandals. L., a large man, carried his bride up the stairs to the altar. J. & C. wanted me to touch their shoulders with a child's sparkly wand during the ceremony. They didn't tell me why, and I didn't ask.

Most of "my brides" choose to be "given away," insisting that their fathers walk them down an aisle and place their hands in the hands of their grooms. Given that all but one bride has lived with her groom for months or years before the wedding, I have to hold back what's on my mind: "Dear, you've already given yourself away."

There are many areas where people do symbolic things even when the meaning is no longer applicable. But it seems to me there's more of that in weddings than elsewhere, and it's largely sexist, dating to a time when the woman was the property first of her father, then of her husband.

Brides who list their addresses as the same as the grooms' still wear long white gowns with trains. Most of mine have worn veils; many have kept the veil over their faces until their hands are safely resting in the grooms'. I suppose they're too young to know the symbolism and what the white veil has implied for the last century. (Before that, brides often wore dresses that they could wear after the wedding. Marie Curie wore a dark dress that she could later wear to the lab.)


On almost every occasion, my brides and grooms have separated the night before the wedding, returning to their parents' homes or staying with friends. This past weekend the bride and groom stayed in separate B&B's across town from each other. It's for private reflection, I've been told, and I'm sure there's a lot of that. But I think it's also to keep the groom from seeing the bride's dress before the music starts.

Once in a while a couple will take my suggestion that the bride and groom both walk down the aisle, accompanied by their parents, to symbolize their equal partnership and the joining of the families, but for the most part, it's Here Comes The Bride while the groom waits at the end of the carpet with me.

The aunt of one bride still has not forgiven me for placing the bride and groom on "wrong" sides of each other. "The bride is supposed to stand on the left," she insists to this day. I checked it out, and she's right. The reason: this allows his sword arm to be free and ready to fight off other men who may want her as their bride.

Now that would be an interesting wedding. Have you ever seen that happen?

Hot Trends from Across the Pond

Whew. I finished judging “The Best of British Scrapbooking” a few minutes ago and sent my results to Rosie Waddicor, one of the editors.

It was hard. Really hard. There were so many great entries, and I wanted to give out a lot more prizes than allowed.

But enough of that. How about if I share trends I saw? Recently, someone forwarded an email to me from Debbie Macomber. Not only is Debbie a great read, she’s also a keen judge of the marketplace and emerging styles. Debbie noted, and I have reason to concur, that trends here in the US often start in the UK and work their way over. That’s particularly true of scrapbooking. So allow me to share some trends, and tell me if you think you’ve seen them, too.

1. 3 – D embellishments. Used to be, all scrapbook pages were flat. In this group of entries, I saw ribbons looped and stapled down to stick up like roller coasters. One memorable page had “google” eyes on a character. Those are those bubbly eyes where the pupils roll around. Yep, texture is definitely jumping off the pages.

2. Going green. Contestants used a lot of corrugated cardboard, ripping off the top skin of paper to expose the ridges beneath. Also used were bubble wrap, plastic wrap, and slivers of a Coke can cut into the shape of petals. No doubt about it, scrapbookers are recycling on their pages.

3. Doodling. Doodling hasn’t quite caught on here like it has in the UK. Folks here are too restrained. There, scrapbookers take a pen to about anything and add colors with abandon. The result? There’s a sense of playfulness to the layouts.

4. Cartoon art. Anime stickers, cartoon characters, simple line art, every aspect of cartoons showed up. I particularly enjoyed where one contestant cut out a photo of her head and put it atop a cartoon body and paperdollish arms. We’ve gone from one extreme to the other. Once upon a time, scrapbookers used templates to cut photos into stars and what-not. Then no one cropped anything, and now we’re cropping body parts and combining them with paperdoll limbs. It’s really fun.

5. Paint on pages. Paint was used to alter a paper’s original color, to create a background so journaling would stand out, to customize patterns by adding color or design, and to simply add seemingly random funky circles to a plain pattern to jazz it up.

6. Collage and simplicity. I saw both ends of the spectrum. Collage pages included fabric, plastic, charms, photos, fiber, ribbons, epoxy stickers, distressed paper, memorabilia, rubber stamped swirls, embroidery, stitching, ephemera, buttons, brads, and so on. But, a goodly number of layouts were spare, with simple combinations of paper, photo and journaling a refreshing change to the busy nature of collage.

7. Birds. Oh, golly. There were bluebirds, robins, owls, of every sort of paper, color, and pattern. Closely followed by dragonflies and butterflies.

8. Acrylic overlays. One was even cut into a body silhouette, secured at the top with a brad, and used to cover hidden journaling. This is such fun, and folks are getting more adventuresome with their usage.

9. Negative space. Okay, if you punch out a form, the empty space that's left behind is negative space. More and more of it is showing up on pages, and the background that peeps through makes this a fun and interesting addition. Not to mention, it can be a thrifty use of your apres-punch leftovers.

10. Flowers. In leather, silk, paper, and plastic. In fact, one trend I could rather do without was too many flowers on pages where flowers did NOT match the theme of the page at all.

You see, trends are great fun, BUT…just like in fashion, you have to be careful that you don’t sacrifice what “works” for what is trendy. Just because flowers are hot doesn’t mean you should use them to decorate a page about the Grand Canyon or road racing.

What’s hot in your corner of the globe? You can bet my heroine Kiki Lowenstein will be incorporating this cool ideas in her next adventure!

Thought for Sunday

Here's a thought from Proust:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

Viva Las Vegas

I am going to Las Vegas on Sunday. The outward reason is a convention for our family business. But I have my own personal mission.

Over the years I’ve watched Vegas change from the days when my husband was William Morris personal appearance agent and I’d tag along when he’d go to cover acts like The Letterman, The Carpenters, and Charo among others. The Strip had lots of open spaces and was sleepy compared with now. The big deal in those days was the coconut cake at the Riviera Hotel’s coffee shop.

No more.

The hotels are like theme parks with things like an indoor rainforest, shopping streets with ceilings that look like the sky, a lake with a water show and a fragrant conservatory that has it plantings changed every couple of months.

We always used to fly and I’d scoff at people that drove, thinking it was a long drive through a ruthless desert. Until we decided to drive once. This is why it is always good to keep an open mind. It turned out I loved the drive and we never went back to flying.

The ride goes by quickly and it has become a fun family trip. It even became the inspiration for a short story I wrote that appeared in Woman’s World magazine. The very coolest thing about it, is that when I fly back from Chicago and the plane passes Vegas it follows along the road we drive on. I always fly back at night and I can see the 15 from the plane. The car headlights are like a faint line through the darkness. I can pick out the giant thermometer at Baker and the huge conglomeration of fast food places are in Barstow. I can even pick out the line of cars looping around and coming down the Cajon pass.

You don’t usually think of Las Vegas and crochet in the same sentence, but for me there is a special connection.

Several years ago when we went to this same convention something happened to me that totally turned my life around. This is where my mission comes in.

Holly Golightly went to Tiffany’s to feel good. For me it is going to FAO Schwartz. I want to go back there and wander through the second floor and all the art kits and think about how when I walked through there a few years ago I had no idea my life was about to change big time.

It all hinged on a little blue suitcase with a banner across it that said Granny Squares. I have always loved granny squares, but had no idea how to make them. I had taught myself how to single crochet enough to make a hat, but that was it. Granny squares, with their open spaces and the way they seemed to go around rather than across, mystified me. But with a kid’s kit, I thought I’d be able to conquer them.

I bought the little blue suitcase with great excitement. But I didn’t open it until I was back from the trip. I didn’t want to mess up the yarn it came with, so I tried following the directions with some yarn I had around. The first one I tried turned out to be lopsided as I had missed a corner somewhere. The next one I made turned out to have all four corners, but since it was all one color and my stitches were loopy and all over the place, it was hard to recognize the design. I had to hold it at a distance to see that I really had made a granny square. After that I used the kit and got more yarn. I kept making granny squares over and over until I didn’t need directions, until I realized there were variations on the pattern and I came up with my own.

I had fallen in love with crochet and now that I could make a granny square, all things seemed possible. And then a light bulb went off in my head. Hadn’t my agent Jessica suggested I write a cozy mystery? Why not mix the mystery with the crochet? If nothing else I knew I would learn how to crochet more things because it would all be research.

The story has a happy ending. I did learn how to crochet and the book, HOOKED ON MURDER, turned into a six book series.

So, while all the people are pulling levers on slot machines and roasting themselves by the pool, I will be making my way to the Forum Shops in Caesar’s Palace. I’ll go past the giant horse that marks the entrance of the toy store and ride the escalator to where it all began and think about how great life is.

I hope the store is still there.

Emotion Motion

Find me on Fridays on Killer Hobbies while Kathryn is on hiatus. Join me at my launch party at the Jose Higuera Adobe, Wessex Place in Milpitas on Saturday from 1-4pm.

I just finished reading Brian Copeland’s “Not a Genuine Black Man.” Great read. I highly recommend it. Brian was a keynote speaker at East of Eden Conference and his story of how he came to write first the play, and then the book is full of drama and surprise.

When I stopped to analyze why Brian’s story of growing up black in San Leandro connected with me, I realized it was because he delivered his story with emotion. I was angry when the nun punished the eight-year old Brian for fighting instead of the four kids that jumped him. My stomach twisted when the tall white man followed Brian around the five and dime, hoping to catch him shoplifting. I cried when the young man lingered by the Golden Gate Bridge, trying to get up the courage to jump.

Emotion. The best stories—and the best quilts—are packed with it.

Think about it. Someone at guild shows off her latest creation. It’s pretty, nice colors, good construction. Okay, next. You’re ready to move on to something else. Then she tells you the story behind it, her voice cracking, eyes welling. Her best friend from childhood is suffering from breast cancer. The quilt is going to a soldier in Iraq. The colors are the favorite of a neighborhood autistic child.

The emotion is what we react to. Quilts and books give us an express train into the heart.

Dog 911

As always, I’ve been paying attention to animals that make the news. This week, one of the news stories that got around was about a German shepherd named Buddy who dialed 911 and saved his owner’s life.

Apparently the owner had health issues to start with as a result of an old military injury, and had 911 programmed into the phone. The dog had been trained to push the right button. But that still takes some intelligence. Plus, the pup whined, and the 911 operator apparently got the message!

Therefore, there was a happy ending.

The owner was prone to have seizures, and the 911 folks had his phone number flagged in their system as being one where a service dog was around. The dispatcher may not have been aware of this, since news articles quote the tape as having her say, “Is there somebody there you can give the phone to?” Buddy didn’t have anyone to pass the phone to, but he reputedly barked as the EMTs got to the door.

Buddy apparently rode with his owner to the hospital, and they were happily back home 2 days later.

I’ve been pondering whether I can work something similar into an upcoming Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mystery. Maybe a dog could press Kendra’s number into a phone and call for legal help when his owner’s arrested...? Well, maybe I’ll ponder a little more.

In any event, let’s hear it for hero dogs!

--Linda

A Poem Lovely As A Tree

Okay, here’s the image. Isn’t it beautiful? It isn’t a painting, or not exactly a painting. It’s fabric applied in layers and touched up with paint. The artist is Doris M. Deutmeyer, of Dyersville, Iowa. She also quilts.
The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels is coming up September 29. There is a very, very old belief that if you eat goose on Michaelmas (pronounced in England "Mikkelmuss") you will not want for money for a year. We’ve been doing it for more than twenty-five years and it seems to work. It won’t make you rich, it just stops the fiscal emergencies. You know, there are some of us always a day late and a dollar short. Now you still might be late, but you’ll have the money – sometimes barely enough, but always enough. The big problem with trying to celebrate Michaelmas is acquiring a goose to roast. They are expensive – if you can find one at all. It’s too early for the Christmas trade in geese, and free-range farms are often still fattening them. One year we looked and looked and finally found a butcher who had a frozen one in the back of a big locker, left over from last year. This year we’re having a very small dinner (eight guests), having lost our site (we sometimes feed as many as forty). Not knowing if it’s the goose or St. Michael the Archangel that does the trick, we hedge our bets by saying a traditional prayer to the angel ("Defend us in battle . . .") and singing a parody: "Amazing goose, how sweet the flesh / That saved a wretch like me. / I once was broke, / but now I’m flush; / I’m saved from penury." It’s a pot luck, everyone brings a dish to share – maybe that’s what the secret is. If anyone else out there does it, let me know how it’s working for you. If you want to try it, contact me for the rest of the parody and the prayer and a good recipe.

I Think That I Shall Never See

Last week Thursday I went down to Madison, Wisconsin, to attend a Quilt Expo at the Alliant Energy Center. This is an annual affair, I’ve been to two or three of them. This time I was too busy to have time to walk around and see the quilts or vendors – except the few booths I walked by on my way in or out.

But: One booth on that route offered a form of artwork that called for cutting out fabric and "fusing" it in layers to make a landscape. The person running the booth had models, of course, but also another piece to show the possibilities of her method. It was a naked oak tree rising against a multi-colored sky. She had used paint to color the sky and touch up the tree’s limbs. I have a weakness for trees. I love really big trees, especially cottonwoods, oaks and maples. (I also love badly-formed evergreens, the kind that grow where the prevailing wind or bad soil distorts their shapes.) This tree was for sale. It was beautifully finished and framed and it cost a whole lot more than I wanted to pay. I told myself I couldn’t afford it, and walked away. But I had to pass it every day on my way to and from the booth where I was sitting and signing books.
So I suppose you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s sitting on the floor beside my desk waiting to be hung where I can look at it every day.

I think I am going to try to post again later today, putting up the image of that tree. I am not very skilled at this computer thing, but I want to share this image.

A dime a dozen

"You're a writer. I've got an idea for you."

How many times have you heard that? You're sitting in a library or a bookstore and before or after your talk someone offers you an idea for a story. Or a true confession that only you can write.

It's the best story anyone has ever heard; it's so sensational, he's going to have to hide while you write it. It will be on the bestseller list quicker than you can say Ghost Writer in the Sky.

This weekend a man approached me in a library as our panel of authors was getting ready.

"I'm a political prisoner," he said, "and I know things that I really can't tell anyone." He then proceeded to tell me everything he could in the few minutes before show time. "I'm going to let you write this story," he said. Apparently I'm the only one in the world he can trust. Or maybe I look like I'm desperate for ideas.

What none of these people seem to realize is that writers have more ideas than anything else. More ideas than time, more ideas than computer paper, more ideas than money. We have ideas in our file cabinets, in notebooks all over the house, and on the notepads by our beds. Some of the ideas take up many pages in an old notebook; others fit on post-its in the bathroom.

I feel guilty not jumping on these proffered projects, but it's all I can do to manage my own ideas. Maybe there should be software that takes random ideas and works them into a book. Maybe there already is.

Mary Kay Ash said, "Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who implement them are priceless."

I'd better get busy.

Rock My World--Results of a Weekend at ScrapFest

This morning at 2 a.m., I returned home from three days at ScrapFest, the nation’s largest scrapbooking get-together which is held yearly in Minneapolis at Mall of America. The sponsor is Archivers, and they kindly invited me to sign copies of Paper, Scissors, Death at their flagship store there in the mall. My husband David came along with, to help me sell.

And sell we did.

More than 300 copies of Paper, Scissors, Death flew out the doors! People loved the idea, loved the story of Kiki Lowenstein, loved the coupon in the back for 50 free digital prints, and the whole idea of a mystery involving an expert scrapbooker.

You know, we write in such a vacuum. An author puts her dreams, her fantasies, and a lot of her ego into her characters. The acquiring editor makes a purchase, based on her own tastes and her assessment of the market. The publisher packages the book, hoping it will capture the interest of the target readership.

But until you put your product into the hands of the readers, it's all a big crap shoot.

And this one is paying off.

How successful was our launch?

You know you’ve done something right when the “buzz” starts, and demand builds--pulling the product you formerly pushed into the marketplace. By mid-way through Day One, we had to call Midnight Ink, my publisher, to ask them to drive over more boxes of books. (Midnight Ink's home office is in Wooddale, about 25 miles from Mall of America.) We went through the same re-stocking panic on Day Two, and this time the new head of publicity at Midnight Ink drove over boxes of books. He and two friends hand carried them into the flagship store.

By Day Three, well, the buzz about my book had reached a fevered pitch. Word had spread throughout the mall, and many of the 5,000-plus scrapbookers in attendance were talking about my protagonist, Kiki Lowenstein.

How do I know this? Well, folks came in to share their enthusiam.

For example, I learned that a woman waiting in line at a make-n-take booth in the Rotunda, started reading Paper, Scissors, Death aloud to the others in line. When she quit, three women who had been listening came upstairs to the Archivers store and demanded copies because they wanted to know what happened next! Another woman bought five copies, determined to send a book to everyone on her holiday gift list. And then there was the woman who bought books on Day One and made a special point of coming by on Day Three to say, “I’m so enjoying the book. I can’t wait to tell all my friends.”

Perhaps most gratifying was the reaction from the Archivers staff members. They weren’t allowed to make purchases until the last day (Sunday/Day Three). So early on they brought me a list of who all wanted the book, and asked me if I would have enough copies to sign books for everyone on the list. (That's a photo of me with the staff. They were so great to work with!)

Immediately before David and I left to drive nine hours back home to St. Louis, the Archivers store manager Jodi announced over the public address system that folks had ten minutes to get a signed book—and a small crowd raced over to ask me to personalize their copies.

It was like a dream come true.

So here I am today, back in my little office. My dogs are snoring. David is off at work. Everything seems so normal, except…my whole world has changed.

I'm not alone anymore. Now Kiki and I have friends.

Something New and Something Old

I came back from Chicago happy. I had two goals while I was there and accomplished both.
They really have nothing in common. They are almost opposite. The first involved creating something new and the second getting rid of something old.
I’m just starting my fourth crochet mystery. For now the book is called Murder and the Marshmallow Stitch. Adele Abrams, a character with rather flamboyant taste invents the marshmallow stitch in the book. Actually, I think creates is a better word. Okay, but in order for her to create the fictional stitch, I had to come up with it first. I knew I wanted it to look something like a marshmallow, but not much else. I had brought along some white Baby Cloud yarn left from the Cuddle blanket in the third book . It’s bulky, fuzzy and puffy, and seemed perfect for the proposed stitch.
The thing about crochet is that it is all about making loops, yarn overs and pulling the hook through loops. So, all I had to do was figure out what combination of the above would give me the effect I wanted.
It’s amazing what some time with no interruptions can do. My first attempts didn’t work, but as I kept working with the yarn, I began to see possibilities to getting it to do what I wanted.
And then I did it. I made a nice three dimensional nub that was round and puffy and deserved the title Marshmallow Stitch.
I made a whole row of them, writing down the instructions. Then I had fun thinking of what kind of wild uses Adele would figure for the stitch. Then I gave myself a high five.
My other goal regarded moving an air conditioner that had been in a bedroom window for at least twelve years. Since I come and go, the seasons pass by like a montage in a movie and it seemed either it was winter and too cold to start fiddling with open windows or about to become summer and the air conditioner would be needed.
The problem was that during the twelve years, countless pigeons had started to call the area on either side of the air conditioner home. Their soft cooing sounds were soothing and I had to admire their hardiness at staying through Chicago winters, but eventually I heard them knocking into the plastic barriers on either side of the unit. I began to get concerned that the next time I came, I’d find the birds had made their way into the room. I made a stronger barrier with cardboard and duct tape with books piled in front of it.
The window had taken on kind of monestrous look by now.
Finally last spring the building was supposed to have the windows washed which meant air conditioners had to be moved. My neighbor tried to take out the unit for me, but there was a mother pigeon standing over her baby, who though it was a bad idea. The window washing was delayed for other reasons and I decided to wait until the baby left the nest to clear out the air conditioner.
With pigeons, that turns out to be a long time. Most baby birds leave after a few weeks. Baby pigeons stay there for two months which is why you never see baby pigeons wandering around. When the leave the nest the only way you can tell them from adult pigeons is that their beaks are a little bigger in proportion to their bodies. No wonder they’re not in a hurry to leave. Both the mother and father pigeon sit on the two eggs that are laid at one time. And both of them care for the young, producing something like milk to feed their baby. Yes, Daddy pigeon produces this stuff called crop milk, too.
Last week, the baby was gone and so were the parents. I got the air conditioner out of the window and found the mess twelve years of pigeons can make. They had positioned their nest inside the storm window in the window frame. As is their habit, they had built nest on top of nest on top of nest which had become fused into a solid block of yuck. Of course, there was pigeon poop.
Too bad it isn’t the 16th, 17th, or 18th century in Europe when pigeon poop was so highly regarded as fertilizer there were armed guards outside pigeon coops to make sure nobody stole it. I would have been happy to pass it on to them. It was also the only source of saltpetre which is an essential ingredient in gun powder.
Finally, I got all the yuck removed and was able to pull down the storm window and close the inner window. It seemed so nice and plain after all my duct tape and piles of books. Best of all, much lighter.
The pigeons are in for a surprise when they try to come back.
And so I flew home satisfied. I had come up with something new and gotten rid of an old problem.

The radio interview I did for A Touch of Grey is going to air Saturday September 20 on WABC 77 in New York from 10 to 11 p.m. and Sunday September 21 on KRLA 870 in Los Angeles from Noon to 1 p.m..

Technology and Me

I seem to have a cloud over me. Some kind of electrical disturbance, causing my electronic gadgets to go kerflooey. I’m listening to “Stealing God’s Thunder” by Philip Dray on tape, a fascinating book about Benjamin Franklin and his discoveries about electricity. These eighteenth century thinkers know more about modern technology than I do. Back then, things were puzzling but by applying laws of science experimenting and noting the results, they were able to draw some conclusions. Now some of these explanations might sound a little nuts today, like that thunder and lightning was caused by the consequences of sin or giant birds flapping their wings.

But we might as well be talking about thunderbirds when it comes to me and my technology. I don’t have a better reason.

I hesitate to make this list, that by making it, I’m just asking for trouble. The techno gods might smite me with more troubles. But I believe that every appliance, gadget and plugged in thing has gone haywire on me in the last month, so what do I have to lose?

I know, I know, the water heater is over ten years old. Hey, this is 2008. We’re rational people, right?

Here it is. Computer failure. Phone won’t work. After one week’s time, I realized that the wall switch had been turned off by cat sitter. GPS on fritz. Time spent lost, at friend’s trying to make it do the dumb thing again and finally a trip to best Buy and a new cord. Bought a new vacuum sealer to capture the summer fruits. Won’t seal. Needs to go back where it came from. Ipod. Craps out at the gym. Sewing machine. Feed dogs won’t come back up. Washing machine blows a hose. Clock needs battery.

New computer is dead. Turns out to be a grounded plug that needs resetting.

Making this list is actually making me feel better. First of all, it’s not as long as I had imagined. Secondly, all these things can be fixed. Throw a little money (or a lot) and some time (way too much) and they’ll get repaired, or replaced. Sure, I may have no hot water for a day or two, but at least I have water, right? And have you seen the new Nano? Cute with a capital C. I treated myself to a red one.

Did I mention that all the plugs in all my bathrooms wouldn’t work? And then suddenly did. Wait, maybe it’s a techno poltergeist. That would explain the lights that go off and on for no reason.


Join me at my launch party. September 20th at the Higuera Adobe on Wessex Place in Milpitas from 1-4pm or the next afternoon at Always Quilting in San Mateo.

I wish I was John McClane

I wish I was John McClane.

I’ll bet even Bruce Willis wishes he was John McClane.
Here’s why I wish I was John McClane: Because, in every episode of Die Hard, you know the following about his character:

• He’s going to see a huge threat before the rest of us do
• He’s going to jump into action
• He’s going to get in way over his head
• He’s going to get scared
• He’s going to get hurt— hurt bad
• He will nearly get killed.

But all the while, no matter what goes wrong in for him in the story, here’s what you also know about John McClane:

• He will not give up. Not ever.
• He’s will kick the f*cking sh*t out of the bad guy.
• In the end, he will save the building/city/nation/planet.

If I were John McClane, I’d somehow know these things about myself, and I would not be worried about the following mundane facts of my author’s life as Kathryn Lilley:

• I have a full time “day job” as an editor, where they have apparently mistaken me for Superwoman (or Joan McClane), and so expect me to work miracles on an increasing number of increasingly difficult projects.
• I am the mom of one adolescent, plus one young adult woman.
• I have a book manuscript that is due at the end of November (really, it’s due October first, but my angelic editor has given me a much-needed extension).
• I am married to an amazingly tolerant and patient man, but he needs a bit of my undivided time every once in a while.
• I have taken on an unwise quantity of promotional and marketing tasks.
• I have a book tour coming up in October for the second book in the Fat City Mysteries, A KILLER WORKOUT.

All that being said, I have to make a very un-John McClanish announcement:
I will be taking a three-month vacation from my Friday blogging responsibilities at Killer Hobbies.

My Killer Hobby colleagues have heroically stepped in to fill my shoes. (All together, now: Let’s visualize Camille or Terry or Linda with an AK-47 slung around their shoulders, cigarette hanging from their lips, shouting Yippee-Kai-Yay!).

When my manuscript (MAKEOVERS CAN BE MURDER) is finished at the end of November, I hope to return to my regular posting duties at Killer Hobbies, if the hobbies gang still has space for me.

Meanwhile, you can find me on my web site, http://www.kathrynlilley.com/.

Until then…Yippee Kai Yay!

Oops…I have no idea how that McCain-as-McClane photo slipped in. That's why you gotta to watch out for those aging hero-types…they’ll survive no matter what you throw at them.

Answers?

While walking to my morning law job from the Metro station yesterday morning, I happened to notice a headline on a local newspaper in a row of many other publications in dispenser boxes. This one had a picture of a sad-looking dog, so I had to look it up online when I had a chance.

It was an article in the Daily News, a newspaper that’s published in the San Fernando Valley, and the article was about how employees and others who work with animal control in Los Angeles were calling for the resignation of the current animal shelter manager and his assistant. Why? Because of alleged mismanagement. Apparently animals in city shelters are victims of overcrowding in their confinement, and when there are too many to deal with, they’re euthanized --a euphemism I hate.

The thing is, there are too many animals, too few people adopting them, and too little money to deal with the situation. I’m in no way condoning what’s going on. I’m all for every pet-type animal being well-treated in a loving home. Absent that, they should still be handled in a caring manner.

But what do you do in this kind of an ugly, spiraling situation? Sure, we now have a law here that all pets are to be neutered--at a much-too-young age to be healthy. There are exceptions for qualified breeders, etc. But there are still too many unwanted animals now, and it’s unclear whether the new law will do much to change that in the future.

My heart bleeds for the poor, unwanted animals who could thrive in the right situation, but instead are mistreated, then killed. If anyone has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them. The comments posted on-line near the article are all over the place, some against the shelter management and some against the employees. But none have any real answers for the sad, suffering pets.

Your thoughts on this?

--Linda

Question, Strange-flavored Beer

It occurs to me that I am not the only author who has written more than one series. (Really, Mary Monica? How amazing!) What I mean is, the focus of my current series is needlework. But I also wrote a series featuring a fifteenth-century nun living in northern Oxfordshire, and another featuring a police detective whose wealthy wife raised Arabian horses. I hardly ever get to use that acquired expertise in my current series. It also occurs to me that many non-authors have expertise or have done studies in areas that they never get to use in their current occupations. How about some of you reading this tell us in the commentary what serious interest(s) you have that you never, or no longer, get to display?

I would like a set of my running characters in my Betsy Devonshire series to have a dog. They are Jill and Lars Larson, who have a toddler daughter, Emma Beth, and will soon have a new addition, Erik Lars. I would like to ask my readers to invent the dog. Is she (he) a purebred – what breed? Is he (she) a mutt? How did they acquire the animal? A chance wanderer? Humane Society? Rescue? Breeder? What is his (her) name? This isn’t exactly a contest, but the one I like best will turn up in the book, either Blackwork (in progress) or Buttons and Bones (being researched). Write to me via e-mail, you’ll find my address at my web site, Monica-Ferris.com.

I had company last night, a beer tasting party. It ran late, so I didn’t get to write a post for this morning. I will only say that The Four Firkins beer, ale and wine shop continues to amaze. Last night we had some interesting stout and a barleywine that would have been better if the brewmaster had a lighter hand with the hops. But we also had the Duchesse de Bourgogne, a very fruity wine with no hops at all. It tasted like new wine. There was Linderman’s Lambic, made of an ancient recipe. Antique beers didn't have yeast that came in packages. The makers of beer (and wine - and bread, too) would start the process, then put it out in the air to capture wild yeasts floating by. Often the result was not happy. So with Lambics they would add fruit and brew it again. This was a Kreik or cherry beer. It is made without hops. It tasted very much like an inexpensive cherry soda or a cherry cough syrup, not at all like beer. But then there was Lefman’s Lambic Kreik, also without hops and flavored with cherries. It tastes strongly of cherries but is not too sweet, and with complex undertones. Again it does not taste like a beer – well, it’s called an ale – at all! I thought it was fabulous!

I love my work.

Catchin' my soul

At about three in the morning last Thursday, I finished a complete draft of the fourth book in my Miniature Mystery series. Whew.

I thought I'd treat myself to some light reading, so I picked up a copy of a rare book catalog from Lakin & Marley Rare Books. The title: Frost and Fire—50 Depressive and Manic-Depressive Writers of Genius . . . a celebration.

Lakin celebrates writers with two things in common: they created some of the most moving and powerful literature in history, and they shared an illness that brought them pain, desperation, and anguish.

Not that all great writers were or are mentally ill, but the phenomenon occurs in disproportionate numbers.

Even if you're not ready to pay thousands of dollars for an unpublished letter of Henry James, Lakin's catalog itself is fascinating reading. Besides reflecting on the well-known cases of disturbed writers like Lord Byron, Sylvia Plath, and Eugene O'Neill, I learned about how Graham Greene liked to play Russian Roulette and how Ralph Waldo Emerson longed for a Farmer's Almanac that would help him chart the moodswings that took him from genius to imbecility and back.

Lakin's descriptions of the temperaments and episodes in the lives of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ezra Pound, Noel Coward, T. S. Eliot—and more—are brief, but captivating.

The catalog I have is from 1995, but I'm wondering if they still have the Vachel Lindsay letter, "seemingly written during a fully manic episode." It's listed as only $1250.

Lakin's thought-provoking introduction to the catalog ends with a question: (I'm paraphrasing) With today's resources in psychopharmacology and psychotherapy, are we in danger of curtailing literary genius?

(How would I know?)

True Blood Is True Success

True Blood, the television series based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire books debuted last night. If you missed it--poor, poor you. Go to www.hbo.com/trueblood/ to see the first episode. Then tune your television for every Sunday at 9 p.m. (Check to see if that's correct for your time zone, please.)


Okay, that's about as much as I can write without gushing--praise, not blood. I mean I am totally over the moon with what Alan Ball did with the books. And the intro to the show itself is breath-taking. What a fabulous montage of all things Southern, and faintly creepy.


I'm a big fan of the series. So much so, that when Michael had mono his junior year, I read him the first chapter of Dead Until Dark, the first book in the series, knowing he'd be hooked. And he was. He zipped through the books--a blessing when your kid is sick is to find a great distraction--and asked me, "When's the next one coming out? Can you go get it? NOW?"



My 17-year-old son was mesmerized by Sookie, vampire Bill, Sam the bartender, Merlotte's Bar, and the whole Louisiana setting. I knew he would be. I had "found" Charlaine and started with her Amanda Teagarden books, which I liked. But it was her Lily Bard series which starts with Shakespeare's Landlord that I admired as an author. Lily is scarred, tough but wise, and the gritty poignant portrayal of a woman who is down but not out was exactly the tone I wanted to strike when I wrote Paper, Scissors, Death. In fact, I think that Lily Bard and my character Mert Chambers, who is my protagonist Kiki Lowenstein's best friend as well as her former cleaning lady, as channeling Lily Bard.



Now let me tell you about Charlaine Harris. (Go to http://www.charlaineharris.com/ to read more.) She's the most unassuming, sweet-natured, wonderful woman. At every conference, she totally cracks up her audiences. I recall one particular interview with her. The moderator asked if she had any books she'd written but wasn't particularly thrilled with. Ones that had, perhaps, not fulfilled her expectations.


"If books are like children," she drawled, "I have a couple that would definitely be riding the Special Bus."


So here's to Charlaine. (She's on the right and I'm on the left in the photo taken at Malice in 2006.) True Blood is a true success we can all enjoy!

Blocked No More

What is my blog going to be about this week? The blinking curser moves on the blank screen and I watch with my blank mind. Whenever I feel so-called writers block, there are two ways out. They both start with E, and are sort of complimentary and opposite at the same time.

What are they? Eating and exercise.

Since I’m in Chicago, eating means a short trip across the street to a neighborhood restaurant. I have my notebook and pen. Sure enough, as soon as I order, the doors in my mind open up and ideas begin to tumble out. My french toast comes and I balance my notebook on my knees and write between bites. I’m not a syrup person. The ball of butter melts and slides over the triangles of grilled bread and I know the other E will come in handy to take care of all those calories when I finish.

This restaurant is filled with memories as is everything else in my old neighborhood. This particular spot used to be a different restaurant where I waited tables when I was in college. Random thoughts and memories pour out of my pen. Though I have lived far longer in Los Angeles than in Hyde Park, between growing up here and maintaining a connection, it still feels like home.

The french toast is gone in no time. If I were in L.A., I’d head for the gym for the exercise part of the unblocking, but here I just hit the streets. No car, all feet. There are choices about where to walk. I could go to the beach and walk along the jogging- bicycle path that leads toward downtown. I could go to the Museum of Science and Industry and walk around inside and see cool things like a giant heart and hatching baby chicks. Instead I head along 57th Street toward the University of Chicago campus.

As usual there is lots of action on the street. Is it my imagination or is there a higher level of excitement in the air. It’s not just my old neighborhood, but Barack Obama’s current one. Though I think he’s off somewhere else just now. When I look in the window of the Medici bakery, the counter staff are wearing shirts that say Obama Eats Here.

He’s not the only famous name connected with this piece of real estate. When I was a kid the bakery and the Thai restaurant next to it were Steinway’s drugstore. It had a small cafeteria and was where we went for cokes after school. There’s an oft repeated story connected with that cafeteria. It seems that one day a group of men were huddled in one of the booths, talking and scribbling on napkins. Apparently, they had been sitting there too long and the manager threw them out.

Who were they? How about Enrico Fermi and his colleagues. And their napkin scribbles were the atomic bomb.

Their lab was a few blocks away tucked under the athletic field stands. The stands and field are gone, replaced by a library.

It is quiet inside the confines of the campus. The students aren’t back yet. I stop at Botany Pond. And sit on the arched bridge that was a gift of some graduating class. Another spot loaded with memories. I used to bring my fox terrier here when I was a kid. He loved to go wading in the water. Much later, I brought my son here when he was small and he fell in. It’s only about a foot deep, so he was more embarrassed than in danger. My YA mystery BLUE SCHWARTZ AND NERFERITI’S NECKLACE is set in Hyde Park and has several scenes at this lovely little pond.

I pass through the heart of the campus and exit onto 58th Street. The Oriental Institute is open so I stop in. A lot of Blue Schwartz takes places in this museum and I remember stopping by and checking out the exhibits when getting the book published was still just a hope. I have spent so much time imagining Blue and all the action that goes on in this small museum that even now when I look around, I half expect to see her sneaking through a door.

On the way back, I swing by 57th Street Books. As you can see by the photo, it is located in the basement of an apartment building, but don’t let that fool you. Even though the windows offer a view of people legs as they go by, the inside is inviting and goes for rooms and rooms. Okay, I admit it, I checked the mystery section for HOOKED ON MURDER. A copy was sticking out as if someone had just looked at it. And I went in the kid’s section and made sure they had a copy of BLUE SCHWARTZ. Of course, I didn’t leave empty handed. I really did need another crochet book. This one even had a pattern for crocheted sushi. How can you pass that up?

By now ideas for all sorts of things beyond this blog were floating around in my head. Between the notes I had and all the ideas, I couldn’t wait to get home to the blank screen of my computer so I could fill it up. The double Es always work.

East of Eden

I’m giving a breakfast keynote talk at the (Can you be one of three keynotes? A minor key, I guess) East of Eden conference this morning. This is what I’m going to be saying. If you read aloud, it’ll be just like you’re there with me. Except for the sweaty hands and jumpy stomach.

I think this advice stands just as well for quilting, crafting or most things in life. Here goes:



I stand in front of you as an example. This is what a writer, a published writer, looks like. I’m a member of California Writers Club and alumna of this East of Eden conference.

I am the owner of two three-book contracts, from two publishers. I had two books released this month. The fourth book is at the publishers, and I’m working on the fifth. And I’m going to let you in on my secret.

Kurt Vonnegut put it like this: Get a Gang.

The one thing that added the most to my success was joining CWC and meeting other writers.

I’d always wanted to write, but I think I was a little afraid to be an Author. After all, Hemingway shot himself, Plath put her in head in an oven, and Fitzgerald drank himself to death. They seemed like an unsavory lot, a sure road to personal destruction.

Instead I dreamed about writing. A lot. I was forever composing the first scene in my head, trying to capture exactly how the curtain looked when the wind chuffed in inside the room. Without ever putting pen to paper.

Oh, I did write a book. In the mid-eighties, I got laid off from a job, we got a new computer and I sat down every morning to write. There was a book out then called How To Write A Romance, so I sent for the guidelines and wrote a romance.

The only thing I remember about that book was a hot scene in the locker room. The feeling of the cool metal against the heroine’s bare…

Not surprisingly it was rejected. I'd written it alone, in my attic (okay the room down the stairs from the attic). I'd written it without knowing another writer.

Fast forward a dozen years, a move to CA and a library author talk. Laurie R. King. A local author, with two great mystery series and a few standalones. And very real. Edie Matthews was there and encouraged me to come to a CWC meeting. So I did.

Amazing things began to happen. I took classes from great writing teachers like Elizabeth Lyon. I learned about screenplays, comedy writing, writing fast, writing slow. Writing queries. I heard wonderful writers speak, John Lescourt, Ron Hansen, Mary Shaughnessey, Stephen Saylor, talking about their process.

I met Becky Levine, which led me to my critique group, the single most important element in getting published.

I came to this conference when it was new and I was new. I’d submitted my first chapter for the Fiction Writing contest. My precious chapter, written and rewritten within an inch of its life. And I was thrilled when it won third place and I was able to come up on the stage with other writers.

I came in 2004, slightly abashed. I wasn’t a famous author by now, I wasn’t agented, I wasn’t even finished with a manuscript. I tried to be confident I was going to find the agent, the editor interested in my work. Or I would find that tidbit of information that would make my manuscript sparkle. I found instead a community.

Vonnegut’s advice for a long and healthy life is to find yourself a group of people who accept you for who you are, who get you on a deep level. Who are happy for you when you succeed and who can truly empathize when you fail.

Each time I went to a meeting or a class or a conference I met a few more writers. A few more soul mates. People who got it. Who get me. Who understood what is what like to face a blank page everyday. Who understood the importance of pacing, and character arcs and crossing the threshold. I added to my gang.

They were there the story wasn’t flowing, when my protagonist snuck off to have sex in a truck instead of solving the mystery.

A gang is especially necessary for mystery writers. The average person doesn’t like to discuss blood spatter and poisons over the dinner table. It gets people a little nuts when you suggest that their barbecue fork would be the perfect murder weapon or that their Aunt Susan is a teeny bit scary.


I came back to this conference in 2006, with an agent, and two newly minted contracts. That week I’d gotten two calls from Jessica, my agent. First a three-book deal with Midnight Ink, and then several days later, a 3-book deal from Berkley Prime Crime for a rubber stamping mystery. Again, I stood on this stage accepting the kudos of people like me. Taking in their good wishes.

So look around you. These are your peeps. People who share the dream that you have. Of seeing their words in print. You need them as much as you need to know the difference why particples shouldn’t dangle and which agency is looking for a paranormal vampire love stories.

Learn your craft. Meet the agents and editors. Get to know the market. But if you can take home one thing from this conference, I wish you’d take home a new writer friend.

Do that, and you’re on your way.

All I need to know in life, I learned from a koala

By Kathryn Lilley

I’ve never even been to Australia, but by reading, I find all sorts of wisdom from the continent Down Under.

For example, my life is filled with the odd bit of stress here and there. Now, have you ever seen a stressed-out koala? ‘Nuff said. Must be the power of those eucalyptus leaves, and lots of sleep.

I subscribe to a number of Aussie publications, and here are some recent tidbits that caught my eye:

• Generally, Aussies are not coffee snobs. They don’t waste their time debating the merits of Peet’s versus Starbucks versus a cuppa Dundee instant. It’s all good.


• Playing peek-a-boo with a kid on a plane can drive you bonkers, but it's really good for the kid's brain.


• To keep your own brain young, take a walk. This probably explains why Jack Lalanne still talks like an eighteen-year-old adolescent.
  
• A mother’s stress is linked to obesity in kids. Like we didn’t know that? Who likes their kids being subjected to taunts of, “Your mama’s so big, she couldn’t float through the Panama canal.” It’s enough to drive any kid into a Twinkie rage.
  
• Oh, and not to mention the fact that Australian men prefer larger women. I wrote about that happy news in a previous post.

They were the odd news items that didn't appeal to me so much. To wit:

• Being unique is a mental disorder. This one rule would send me and most of my friends and family straight to the loony bin.

Now, it's not as if my world-traveler-from-an-armchair reader's POV has any currency in terms of judging the real Australia. For that, I suggest you read a recent post by Clare Langley-Hawthorne, a real Australian. But for the most part, I'm a Down-Under kind of gal when it comes to my attitude toward life.

Any other Aussie-istic wisdom anyone can share? Keep it clean!

Blog on Blogging

As I sat down to start my blog post for today, I happened to start wondering why I’m doing this. I have fun in my attempt to communicate with the world, but is that what this is all about?

I did what anyone in this Internet age might do: Googled “blogging.” And got all sorts of results.

I found lists of articles on blogging, with names like: “Blogging for Dollars: Giving Rise to the Professional Blogger,” “What We're Doing When We Blog,” and “Blogonomics: Making a Living from Blogging.” I didn’t read any of the articles... but do people really make a living from blogging?

Then there are posts about the dangers of blogging. Apparently there are blog addicts out there who lose their jobs because they’re always on-line. There’s Internet stalking. And there are writers who fear that blogging saps their creativity for other writing.

You can create blogs easily. TV shows have blogs on their websites. Political candidates and pundits have blogs. Lots of writers blog, of course. Everybody can blog!

Fortunately, my mystery protagonist and alter ego Kendra Ballantyne, pet-sitter, lawyer and murder magnet, has never told me that she’s interested in starting a blog--although maybe she should. What do you think?

I suppose I blog because I think I have something to say--something not entirely fictional, as I do with the rest of my creative writing. Hopefully, it’s at least usually something that people enjoy reading, too.

Do you like to blog? Do you like to read blogs? How much time do you spend on posting or reading blogs every day?

--Linda

Selling Books, Researching Beer

Appearances and book signings are two major ways an author can improve sales. An "appearance" (these are my definitions) means giving a talk, answering questions, and, if some people in the audience brought along one of my books, signing it. I now have a speaker’s fee: $200. Sometimes I have to travel far enough to where the appearance is that expenses eat up most or all of the fee. And that’s all right, if the audience is large and happy to see me, because I make it up again in royalties.

At a signing, I’m there to sell books – or, anyway, to help a bookseller sell books. These generally happy in bookstores, but not always. I’ve done signings at quilt shows, conventions and in needlework shops.

I always dress up for these occasions, including a hat. I have a large collection of hats and delight in wearing them. They are becoming my "signature," which is wonderful. But also, dressing up makes it more of an occasion, it shows respect for the people who invited me.

I have found the most delightful store just a few blocks from where I live. It’s called The Four Firkins (a "firkin" is about nine gallons, or a small barrel that holds about nine gallons), and the proprietor sells beer, ale and wine in bewildering variety. As I probe deeper into the esoteric world of beer brewing, I am hearing about such things as gruit and barley wine. Without having to make it myself, I would very much like to taste these exotic varieties. And Proprietor Jason Alvey has them. Not just one or two, but large, broad shelves of them. Now, if you’re looking for a twelve-pack of Budweiser, you won’t find it at The Four Firkins. But if you want a Belgian saison, he has four or five brands. Also a large number of Anchor Beers – Anchor, of San Francisco, was one of the first microbreweries. And ales made without hops (one I bought was made with heather, another with juniper needles). He’s currently out of nettle beer – a very ancient kind – but will have it later. He has beer from several of the twelve remaining Trappist monasteries in Europe, whose recipes date to the dark ages. He has a German beer made from smoked (rather than roasted) barley. He has wheat beers. He has beers flavored with anise, coriander, and orange peel.

He knows the history of beer, he’s done some home brewing, he knows an enormous amount about what makes a good beer and a great beer and a stupid beer. I have signed up for his newsletter.

It’s so interesting, it’s enough to make me try harder to appreciate the taste of beer, maybe even to find a beer whose taste I really like. I hope I still have a working liver by the time I finished with Blackwork.

Why don't you get a real job?

Welcome Sheila Lowe, our guest blogger.
Sheila Lowe is a court-qualified handwriting expert and the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Handwriting Analysis, Handwriting of the Famous & Infamous, and the Claudia Rose Forensic Handwriting Mystery series. Check out her sites: www.claudiaroseseries.com and www.sheilalowe.com






When I first started making a living at graphology—that’s the generic term for handwriting analysis—I heard that phrase a lot.

My interest in graphology began long, long ago and far away—1967 to be exact, when my then-boyfriend’s mother, who had read a book or two on the subject, wrote several pages of analysis, telling me what my handwriting said about me. According to her, I had “an even balance between the emotions and the mind, a mixture of caution and critical faculty,” and “appears well poised, but is a victim of indecisive moods.” Wow! I thought. Someone who understands me at last.

And when I went to pick up some groceries for my mother and there, on a rack at the checkout line was a twenty-five cent Dell pocket book on handwriting analysis, my future was sealed.

That Dell book was followed by numerous trips to the library and bookstores, where I borrowed and bought every book on handwriting that I could find, and studied my little heart out.

When I went to parties, I usually found myself ensconced on the couch, surrounded by girls eager to hear about their handwriting and, of course, their boyfriends’. As I was fairly shy myself (my own analysis had described me as having “great reserve in conversation”), my newfound knowledge turned out to be a door-opener and made me more popular. I quickly learned that people love to hear about themselves, and they want the good, the bad, and the oh-so-ugly. In fact, if I didn’t tell them something negative, they wouldn’t believe me at all.

So, the years went by and this hobby became a passion and later, an avocation. But it wasn’t until some twenty-two years later that I decided this was how I wanted to make my full time living. By that time, I was raising three small kids on my own (one with some serious problems), had just lost my job, carried a mountain of debt, and then my car died an agonizing death. But sometimes the Universe gives us a prod, and for some reason it was then that I decided I was born to analyze handwriting. Go figure.

That’s about when I started hearing those words from so-called friends: “You can’t make a living as a graphologist. Why don’t you get a real job?” Well, I’d had “real” jobs before and I hated them. Hated working regular hours (I was always five minutes late, no matter what time I left home); hated working for someone else. To give you an example, when I worked at JC Penney in the women’s “foundation” department, two older ladies complained about me because I wasn’t friendly enough. Well, hey, my handwriting said I had great reserve—I was just being true to type. Okay, so I wasn’t cut out to work in a department store. Or in market research. Or in the corporate world, as it turns out. But analyzing handwriting, which really means entering the fascinating world of understanding what makes others tick—and being free to do it at midnight, or whenever else I felt like working—that was heaven.

It took a year of working temp jobs on the side until I could establish my practice, but since 1989, I’ve been my own boss, doing something that helps other people, and holds my interest. So, for anyone who has ever wanted to turn their hobby into a career, I’m here nineteen years later to urge you to Go for it.

I have this firm belief that success happens when preparation meets opportunity–I don’t know who first coined that phrase, but it’s been true for me. If there’s something you really want to do, refuse to hear the naysayers who are advising you to be a secretary or a nurse or a schoolteacher or a computer programmer, which are fine jobs, if that’s what you want to do, and follow your passion. It might not be easy, but if you do the preparation, which means learning your craft, then make the commitment and hold firm the vision of where you want to go with it, and you will certainly succeed. Then, when someone suggests you go get a “real” job, you can smile sweetly back at them and say, “I already have one.”

But guess what: after writing more than ten-thousand handwriting analyses, I was ready to kill someone. So I began writing a murder mystery series—about a handwriting expert, of course. It’s something I always wanted to do, and now, handwriting analysis has become my day job.

How’s that for irony?

Labor Day 2008--A Launch and a Remembrance

Today is Labor Day, and a significant day for me because it’s the official release date for my scrapbooking mystery Paper, Scissors, Death. You can read or download an excerpt booklet by visiting www.youpublish.com/joannaslan

You can order your copy by going to

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0738712507/ref=s9subs_c3_14_img1-rfc_p?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0VRW6EV987VCKF27NB8V&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=278240301&pf_rd_i=507846
And you can see where I'll be making personal appearances by going to www.booktour.com

My blog tour dates will be up on my website soon.

I should be excited and delighted, and I am, but because today is Labor Day, I woke up thinking about Della, Rose, Josie, Yetta, Anna, Frances, and Josephina.

And I can’t get them out of my mind.

Who were they?

They and 141 others died on March 25, 1911, in the Shirtwaist Triangle Factory fire which broke out on the ninth floor of the Asch Building in New York City. Many were Jewish, most were women, most were immigrants, some were as young as 12 or 13 and working 60-72 hours a week. There was no escape for them. The flammable fabric which hung throughout the building quickly ignited. The tissue paper patterns scattered throughout the floor fueled the blaze. With only a few buckets of water scattered here and there, it was impossible to contain the flames. It was the end of their shift, and the girls must have been tired and numb—too fatigued to quickly realize the danger.

Those who found their way through the smoke, fought their way through the press of terrified co-workers, and made it to the exits found one stairwell already smoke-filled and full of flames. The other was locked. The single outside fire escape twisted under the weight of those fleeing and quickly collapsed. Some stumbled to the elevator shaft and fell down it to their deaths. Sixty-two women chose not to be roasted alive and instead they jumped to their deaths as a large crowd of observers watched in shock.

Those who survived were plagued with guilt. The owners were eventually found not guilty, and each dead girl was valued at $75 when the death benefits were paid.

I have blouses that cost more than that.

One of those watching the terrible tragedy was Frances Perkins. The event caused her to become a lifelong advocate for workers and eventually she took a position as Secretary of Labor under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In the aftermath, Local 25 of the ILGWU (the garment workers’ union) protested the unsafe working conditions that led to the disaster. The union formed bonds with reformers and politicians that would last for decades to come, as they worked together to change factory conditions.

To hear an interview with the granddaughter of the last survivor of the fire, Rose Freedman, go to http://www.npr.org/programs/watc/features/2001/010325.triangle.html

Today, when you celebrate Labor Day, take a moment to consider the clothes you wear, where they are made, who made them, and under what conditions. Then take a moment from your busy life to say a prayer for the souls who perished in New York City’s largest industrial calamity. I do not always agree with Union labor. But I honor the progress they’ve made for all workers, the good they’ve done overall in our society, and I especially hold in reverence the strides they’ve made to protect the powerless, such as the girls who died in the Shirtwaist Triangle Fire.

So it was that the sacrifices of those young women who died so needlessly have created a society where a girl like me could work hourly wage jobs safely, until the day came when I would be able to tackle my dream job and write a book. So I guess it isn't silly after all that Della, Rose, Josie, Yetta, Anna, Frances, and Josephina are on my mind. I really owe them one day a year, don't you think?