You Name the Prize!

I think I have an idea for a contest. But first:

Yesterday was another appearance day for me, this time in Winona, at a charity affair, raising money for a hospital. There were three authors present. Two of us write mystery fiction, the third writes true crime books. Well . . . book. He’s only got one at present, about the Congdon murders, a very big deal in Minnesota. Over lunch – a slice of baked chicken over an Asian salad, carrot cake for dessert – each of us got to make a fifteen-minute presentation about our writing. The audience was appreciative to all of us, but I think I got off the best line: “As Fred Allen once said, ‘I don’t know why anyone would write a book when for a few dollars he could buy one.’” After lunch, the three of us moved to a long table and sold/signed our books. My hat got quite a few compliments.

There was a big crowd present, over a hundred. And while we didn’t sell a hundred books, we sold quite a few. So despite the long drive – about three hours each way for me – it was a worthwhile journey. I think we each made a few new fans.

Today I am off to buy some purple flowers and take them to the Science Museum of Minnesota where they will be turned into dye. I will use the experience in the book I am writing called, curiously enough, And Then You Dye. I understand the color of the plant material doesn’t always forecast the color of the dye, so this should be interesting. I’ll let you know next week.

I want to offer a contest next week. Win a free book. But which book? How about I leave it up to you? Let me know if you would prefer a copy of the first book in the Betsy Devonshire series, Crewel World, or a copy of the newest one, Buttons and Bones. Or would you like a copy of my first published novel, Murder at the War? Or a copy of the first in my Dame Frevisse mystery series, The Novice’s Tale? Or some other book? Let me know. Whichever gets the most votes is the one I’ll offer next week.

Buttons & Bones

Announcement: You can now buy “Buttons and Bones” at your local bookstore. Please.

This book started with the title. I have a standing offer of a free, suitably autographed book to the friend or fan gives me a title I can use. The rules are simple: Four or fewer words, a needlework term, an element of threat. Someone gave me the title Buttons and Bones and I carried it around in my head for quite a long time. Then a friend at water aerobics told me about this cabin up in Cass County (northern Minnesota) she had bought and how, when taking up a very old carpet, she found a previously unknown trapdoor in the middle of the floor. It led to a root cellar that had not been described on any of the legal documents involved in the sale. “What did you find down there?” I asked. “Oh, just some trash,” she replied. And I thought, No, there were buttons and bones down there. Rita kindly gave me permission to visit the cabin, even stay up there a couple of times while I explored the area: Longville, Remer, the county seat in Walker. And the story began to take shape.

I think it’s a good book, one of the better in the series. It’s not a “thrill-a-minute” book, but a solid puzzle that has its roots in the events in the United States during World War II. How many of you know that during the war, the United States brought over thousands of German prisoners of war and kept them in camps all over the country until the war ended? I’m a big-time history buff and somehow I missed the reports of that important part of the war. Anyway, on finding out about it, I made it part of the book. I talked with people who remember seeing the soldiers, and visited the scene of one of the camps – there were three in Cass County.

I’m doing a signing tonight at Once Upon A Crime mystery bookstore in Minneapolis. We’re making a pub party of it – December 7 is the official publication date of Buttons and Bones. But my publisher allowed a special advance sale of the books in Excelsior (where my sleuth lives), and they sold out all they had in the advance shipment. It was a great day! I hope we do as well tonight.

On December 10 I’m going to a black tie affair that is a fund raiser for a charity that offers low-cost and even free pet neutering in the area. Part of the affair is an auction, and I’ve donated a chance to be a character in a Betsy Devonshire novel. I’ve done this before; in fact, one of the “characters” in Thai Die won her place as a result of a charity auction, and her husband has asked me to do it again. More, they’ve invited me to come to the event. This should be fun and exciting. Maybe I’ll get a good photo of the goings on. Maybe I’ll be able to post it next week.

Decorating for Christmas

I finished my novel, Threadbare. I was beginning to think it was going to miss its deadline of December 1, but all it needs now is a final reading looking for typos and grammatical errors. I am starting to hope it’s not a bad novel. I love the title, anyway.

Starting this Saturday I'll be doing a series of local appearances to promote Buttons and Bones, whose pub date is December 7. It's interesting when a pub date and a due date cross like this, I don't know which is more exciting.

The Christmas season is upon us. This past Sunday was the first Sunday in Advent, only three more, then, the following Saturday is Christmas Day. It seems we practically leaped from Thanksgiving to Christmas, but helping the switch is fresh snow on the ground this morning. Interestingly, there are not a lot of houses all lit up with Christmas decorations in my neighborhood. Usually the outdoor decorative-lights business starts before Thanksgiving with some houses, but I saw only one house with colored lights on the big evergreen shrub in their front yard the week before Thanksgiving. I got out my enormous artificial evergreen wreath on Sunday, checked its lights, and tied it to the railing of our balcony. It has a double drape of garland that extends to either end of the balcony. That’s the extent of our outdoor display. Sometimes it’s very convenient to not have a front lawn.

When do you decorate outdoors? Do you perhaps not decorate at all? Or are you one of those families that goes all out with moving figures, Christmas Creche, lights outlining roof, doors and windows, perhaps even broadcasting music? Carson Williams’ house comes to mind - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmgf60CI_ks – aren’t you glad you don’t live in his neighborhood? (I should say, didn’t live in his neighborhood. This huge display – a new one every year – generated so much traffic that he was persuaded to move its location to a nearby park.) In the neighborhood of a late friend of mine, there was a family that covered their front yard with lit Christmas figures of every sort, from snowmen to Santa’s helpers to Baby Jesus in the manger, all scattered haphazardly. It was, as they say, gaudy but tasteless. I looked forward to it every Christmas season. I should drive by this season to see if they’re still at it.

I haven’t begun to decorate inside our apartment, nor have I done any Christmas shopping. How about you?

MOVING DAY

It’s Tuesday, and here I am on Killer Hobbies. I’ve moved a lot in my life, but never quite like this. Usually moving calls for lots of boxes and weeks of settling in.

I had really settled into Wednesday. I wrote it Monday and Tuesday – sometimes just on Tuesday – and posted it early (really early) Wednesday morning. I got to post it early because I am up really early on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I go to a water aerobics class (which I send my sleuth to in my Betsy Devonshire mysteries, too), the one they call “Early Bird.” It begins at 6:30 in the a.m., which is awfully early. On the other hand I’m back home around 8, washed, dressed, exercised, and ready for my day. Any of the other classes would put an ugly hole in my day, but not the Early Bird class.

Now Tuesday is my day to sleep in. I try not to schedule anything too early on Tuesdays so I can luxuriate in bed. There are two problems with that. One is, I wake up early anyhow – though not as early as on Monday, Wednesday and Friday – and the second is, my cat Snaps has an uncanny ability to sense when I am awake, even when I lie still and breathe gently. And if I’m awake, he thinks I should get up. He’ll nudge and bump and paw, purring ecstatically because this is a great game to him. If I lose my temper and rise to toss him out of the bedroom, closing the door on him – well, I’m up, aren’t I? And annoyed enough that I can’t go back to sleep.

But we’ll see how this works. Though I won’t be posting before six anymore, we’ll see if I can’t post before seven.

One of the great things about Bouchercon by the Bay – San Francisco, that is – was the chance to meet some of my fellow Killer Hobbiests. I got to teach a class on counted cross stitch. Camille Minchon, late of this blog, was wonderful, there ahead of time, ready to help anyway she could, bringing supplies, offering advice. I am not a great crafts teacher – heck, I’m not that great a stitcher – so I was pleased there was also a great stitcher present who had taught classes on counted cross stitch, and who was especially helpful with a young woman who had never tried the craft before. (I even learned a few things from her!) I had volunteered to assist Angela Daniels in her craft class on Saturday, and Joanna Campbell Slan came in with all sorts of handouts. Angela showed us how to take an old book and turn it into an exotic gift box, or perhaps a place to hide a small valuable. Very clever and not desperately difficult. It’s something I think I’d like to try again, as soon as I find that rarity, a book I don’t want to re-read or sell to Half-Price Books.

My thirteenth Betsy Devonshire mystery, Blackwork, is now out in paperback, and I’m looking forward to the publication of the fourteenth, Buttons and Bones, due in bookstores December 7.

Random Thoughts

I’ve played golf twice in the past week, the last time just yesterday. The weather in this part of Minnesota has been amazing for November, after a cold and rainy October -- it’s as if the two months traded places. My game is improving, not a lot or quickly, but noticeably. My drives go farther down the fairway and sometimes my putting is quite satisfactory. Yesterday, however, there was a definite trend into slices -- the ball goes off to the right. (To the left is a hook.) Frustrating.

One thing golf does is take one’s mind off writing. It does mine, anyhow. I’m having a tough time with this one section of Buttons and Bones and it’s great to be able to escape it now and again. Problem is, once back home, there the problem is, big as ever. But it’s fixable. It’s got to be, I don’t have time to tear the whole book down and start over. I have a feeling that pretty soon I’ll be struggling with it and it will just detangle itself and knit together like a good, obedient story and I’ll wonder later what the problem was. I’ve had that experience before, thank God, and hope to have it again -- soon.

I’ve started getting some kind notes from fans about Blackwork. It’s heartening to an author to get a note praising her work. This is not a hint I’d like some more, but encouragement to any of you who like a particular book to say so in writing. Many, if not most, authors have a web site with a “contact me” button on it. If not, write care of the publisher -- publishers forward these fan letters to their authors. You can get the address of the publisher from the library or on the Internet. Brighten someone’s day, okay?

The holiday season is upon us and for those who think they might have trouble getting in the mood, there is a new book called “101 Ways to Keep the Spirit of Santa Alive.” It’s by a friend of mine, John Hagerman, and it’s not a kiddie book, but a parents’, godparents’, grandparents’, aunt-and-uncles’ book. It tells the origin of Santa Claus, how Santa is named and described in other countries, and offers a great many suggestions for things to do with children to make the season more real, more wholesome, and more satisfying. It’s published by The Inspired Elf, a very small press.

Later this week I have to get out my killer Christmas wreath, which is about four feet in diameter, and pull off all of last year’s lights and decorations and put it back together again. I bought the thing at Sam’s Club about four or five years ago as the Christmas season was winding down. Got a heck of a buy on it and it sure looks snazzy hanging from our balcony, but somehow the lights, bows and artificial fruit get all droopy and tangled and burned out from just being stored and need renewing. I have a friend who is going to come over and we’ll spend a couple of hours getting it all prepped for the season coming up. I felt kind of odd doing the work this early, until I saw that two or three houses right in the neighborhood already have their Christmas lights out and turned on. The other houses still have their Jack o’lanterns on their front porches! My wreath isn’t going out until Thanksgiving -- and I can remember my mother complaining about Christmas advertising starting right after Thanksgiving. Now it starts right after Halloween. I know it’s important to merchants to extend the season, but the result is that by the time Christmas actually gets here, a lot of us are heartily sick of it. Of course, by Christmas, I should be well into plotting the next Betsy Devonshire novel -- and I think I’ll set it around Easter . . .

Next week we -- the Killer Hobbies Crew -- are going to publish a series of helpful (we hope) articles on writing. I’ve got the one on Plotting. I believe I’ve already published something on that topic, but it won’t hurt to give it some daylight again. I’ve seen a preview of Joanna Campbell Slan’s item on Character, and it’s really good, very helpful, whether you’re a beginner or deeply experienced. I know I learned something from it. So please stay tuned.

More Random Thoughts

I didn’t play golf yesterday, I had to make a return trip to New Ulm, Minnesota, to do a little more research on the owner of a needlework shop there called Nadel Kunst, Cindy Hillesheim, and interview the owner of a German-style restaurant called the Kaiserhof – plus have lunch there, of course – and talk with someone who works in the Visitors Bureau of the Chamber of Commerce, who told wonderful stories about the charming little city. I don’t know how much of the material gathered today I will use. I always gather more than I’ll need, but I never know in advance which portion I’ll use.

My husband’s fiftieth high school reunion is this weekend, and I’m going along to see what it’s like. I haven’t been to any of my reunions, but I may go to my fiftieth, coming up in a few years. Fewer than I’d like to think, actually.
Buttons and Bones is still trotting along. Not galloping, which I’d like, but trotting is better than walking. I’m starting to envision the end, which seems kind of quiet this time. I had an exciting end to That Die, and there will be another one in Blackwork, so it’s a little disappointing that I don’t envision yet another one for Buttons and Bones. Still, it should be a satisfying one, which is always nice.

I’ve been reading books by the authors I’m sharing a panel with next month at Bouchercon. I sometimes find I’ve gotten into a rut in my reading, so something like this is good for me. I’m enjoying all of them, so far – I’m actually reading three at a time, keeping them by my bed. I just reach out and grab one and read a couple of chapters before I go to sleep. I’m not having any trouble keeping the plotlines separate, which says good things about the authors.

Michaelmas is coming. It’s September 29th and the official name of the holiday is The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. There is a very old superstition that if you eat goose at Michaelmas, you won’t want for money for a year. We’ve been following that maxim for a great many years and it seems to work; that is, we haven’t had any fiscal emergencies for a very long time. Of course, a great deal of the credit must be shared with my husband, who is very fiscally responsible. Me, I’m on the spendthrift side, though less so as the years have worn me down. Still, we wouldn’t dare stop the goose feast now. Besides, it’s fun, and roast goose is delicious.
　

Random Thoughts

The golf game last Thursday was a disaster, I was off my game nearly the whole round. The ninth hole was my best, it was like I finally woke up. On the other hand I played yesterday and actually made par on the fourth hole – I couldn’t believe it. My first par. On the green in two and so close to the hole it just went straight in when I tapped it. Of course on an earlier hole I shot a twelve – seven strokes to get the ball in the cup. I don’t know why that happens. It’s one example of why I love golf and another of why I hate this maddening game - in the same round!

Buttons and Bones continues to trot along. It’s very satisfying when a story just about writes itself, I put my fingers on the keys and things start to happen. It’s almost like what people who don’t write think it’s like for people who do.

Have any of you ever seen pole bending at a horse show? They had a competition of it at our State Fair and it just happened to occur when a friend and I went into the arena to watch the horse judging. Pole bending is a timed event during which a horse and rider run up a row of six poles about twenty feet apart, weaving in and out as they go. They make an impossibly sharp turn at the far end and weave their way back down again. The competition we saw was for female riders fourteen and under – I think one rider was only six years old and I know another was only eight. One child rode a very tiny pony lickety split and finished third. The poles are set on small, round bases and they tip over very easily – the lightest touch from a horse going by would set a pole wobbling. If it fell over, the rider was eliminated. The fastest times were just over eleven seconds – first and second place riders were thousandths of a second apart – the slowest something over seventeen seconds. I could probably do it in a minute and a half. What was interesting was how many of the horses came into the arena dancing with eagerness to have a go.

Right on schedule, some of our maple trees are starting to show their brilliant fall colors. Autumn is my favorite season, even though I know it means winter is coming hard on its heels. I’m not as eager to embrace it as I’ve been other years, because we didn’t have a roasting-hot summer, but a rather cool one.
Attendance at our State Fair set records on several days because the weather was so pleasant. Normally sticky-hot, there were early mornings when a jacket was actually welcome.

My eyes are just about healed. The right eye is about as good as it can get, the left is still lagging, but much improved. I am so relieved and grateful!
　

A Weekend in Morris, MN

All the changes I’ve been making to Buttons and Bones at last had me confused about what was and what was not still in the book. So I finally had to stop writing forward and go back to do a chapter-by-chapter synopsis. These synopses are aggravating because they take up quite a bit of writing time, but in this case it was absolutely necessary. Already I can see my way forward much more clearly. I guess that’s a helpful hint for when you’re trying to write a novel and get stuck. Go back and do a chapter-by-chapter, just a few sentences on each chapter. It just may clear your vision amazingly and prepare you to go forward.

We had a great time in Morris, MN, last weekend. They were holding their 25th annual Prairie Pioneer Days and had pulled out all the country town stops: parade, talent competition, arts and crafts fair, kiddie inflatable fun, art show, fireworks, BBQ dinner – and me. The least understandable part of that was me, as the only connection I have with Morris is that my husband graduated from high school there. I came as Monica Ferris, needlework mystery author, not Mrs. Kuhfeld. On the other hand, I had a great time. Everyone was kind and friendly, I did two appearances, one at the little gem of a museum made out of the old Carnegie Library, the other at the new library. I brought books to sell and sold a lot of them, and read from the Prologue to Blackwork, the book coming out this fall. At the new library the audience and I had a great conversation done in Q&A. They asked good, solid questions.

In honor of Pioneer Prairie Days, the museum had mounted an exhibit of artifacts dating to those good old days, including the wreck of a covered wagon, photographs of local one-room schoolhouses, Indian beadwork, and an actual buffalo hide coat that covered its wearer from neck to ankle. The fur itself was so coarse and itchy that around the neck and wrists another, softer fur was substituted – a little detail that, for someone writing about that time, could make the story sing with authenticity. You’re welcome.

I was surprised at the variety and quality of the amateur talent show, from a young man who played something very esoteric and difficult on a bass guitar to a Native American pipe player to a set of belly dancers. A young man performed "Folsom Prison Blues," and as as he did a train came through town blowing its lonesome whistle as if specially ordered for the occasion.

An old high school chum of my husband’s was charming and funny. Brent told great stories. One of them went something like this. He and his grandsons were traveling out west and saw a Hells Angels biker pushing his Harley Davidson motorcycle into a service station. Down the street was a group of Hells Angels at another service station. Brent pulled into the second station to get gas. The attendent came out to ask, "Is th-th-th-there anything I-I can d-d-d-do for you?" Brent said no, thanks and started a casual conversation with the bikers. He was surprised to learn how civil and ordinary they seemed to be. About then the lone biker rode his now-repaired (or gassed) bike in to join his companions. "What the hey?" asked Brent. "How come you left to go on your own to that other station?" The biker replied, "I d-d-didn’t want him to th-th-think I was mo-mocking him." You find nice people in the most surprising places!

The Writing Life

I’ve been listening to "Fibber McGee and Molly" radio programs on CDs. One of my characters in the Betsy Devonshire mysteries is fond of old-time radio and sometimes quotes from these old shows, so I get to listen to them as research. Life is sweet when you can combine your work with something you’d like to do anyway. Catch phrases from "Fibber McGee and Molly" include, "Heavenly days!" and, "I’ve got to clean out that closet one of these days." I’ve been listening while I work on a piece of crewel I started a long time ago and abandoned. It’s a pretty piece, of sheep standing in a pasture under an autumn-leafed tree with various colors of fields in the background. If I ever get it finished I’ll post it on my web site.

Today I’m going to try out a recipe that’s new to me as a treat for my writers group – it’s my turn to host the meeting. I had them at the bed and breakfast up in Longville, where I was doing some research for the next novel. They’re called Swiss Butterhorns and they’re shaped something like miniature crescent rolls, except they’re crisp, and filled with chopped pecans, sugar and cinnamon. My, they are delicious! If this were a cookery blog instead of Killer Hobbies, and if they came out as delicious as the ones we had up north, I’d type out the recipe.

I always thought an aid to getting organized was to have lots of places to put things, but now in our new apartment, I’m finding a little room with a tiny desk works even better. I have to keep putting things away to make room for the mess I need around me when I’m writing. You know, a dictionary, a telephone, my notes on interviews, maps and photographs, a cat toy or two, a stitching catalog, a few samples of floss and/or fabric, a box of Kleenex, a pen and pencil holder (mine’s actually one of those rubberoid things used to keep pop cans cold and is shaped like the head of a large-mouth bass), and the miniature file cabinet that holds names and phone numbers of people I need to get in touch with when I have a question. Oh, and my book of baby names, useful for naming characters. So you see, there’s not much room for extraneous items on my little desk. Though I manage to let things get stacked up somehow.

I played a round of par-three nine-hole golf yesterday morning and hit a couple of shots off the tee that were almost respectable, plus a pitch onto the green from the rough that landed inches from the hole. It’s enough to keep me thinking I may be able to play this game well enough to report a score without shame or apology some day.

Work on Buttons and Bones marches slowly – I keep finding things out that mean I have to go back and do re-write. Oh, well, such is the life of an author, too – it’s not all beer and skittles.

BASKETWEAVE KNITTING

Excuse me for barging in early, but I want to post two pictures and I'm not sure I can do it without help -- and my web mistress is NOT an early riser.

Another thing I ran into at the Quilt Show in Duluth two weekends ago was a yarn booth. I don’t quilt, so you’d think I’d be safe from buying things at a quilt show, wouldn’t you? But noooooo. The woman at the booth was knitting a scarf in this fascinating pattern, and showed me how it was done. It didn’t seem terribly difficult, and it was a very interesting pattern. So I bought a skein of yarn, as that was the only way to acquire the instructions for knitting it. She calls the pattern Basketweave and it took me several tries with scrap yarn to acquire the skill. I’m still not terrific at it -- you can see a couple of errors in the pattern -- but I’ve started the scarf on the yarn I bought which is a fabulous blend of silk, wool and mohair, and a gorgeous color. One thing I didn’t realize until I was well into it is that the backside is a completely different pattern. The pictures here show the front and the back – amazingly different.

We have a bed that is very high off the floor – I literally have to take a flying leap to get up into bed at night. There are drawers in the bottom of it, so you can’t get underneath. I knew I’d had at least one pair of reading glasses fall between the head of the mattress and the headboard onto the floor, so when a paperback I’d been reading went missing, I took a flashlight and peered into the narrow space and sure enough, there it was, out of reach. I pushed the mattress out of the way and squeezed my forearm down between the box spring and headboard and still couldn’t reach the floor. I resorted to a pair of kitchen tongs and came up with the book and three (!) pairs of reading glasses. I didn’t realize that’s where they’d all gotten to. On the other hand, it makes me feel competent to have figured out how to get them back without dismantling the bed.

We’re going up to Cass County this coming Sunday, will be there till Wednesday evening. Look for a report next Wednesday on loons, a German POW camp, the source of the Mississippi River, and whatever else I can learn in aid of Buttons and Bones, the book I’m currently writing.

I took a one-hour lesson in driving, as that is my weakest part of my golf game. I think I came away more confused than helped, but we’ll see next time I play. Meanwhile, I’m going to go hit a bucket or two of balls to see if any of it has matured in my head since the lesson. Whoever thought hitting a ball with a stick could be so complicated?

Speaking of slow learning, I think I’m slowly starting to get the hang of writing a synopsis for film as opposed to a book. Think visually, that’s the ticket. But oh, how much easier is that said than done!

Speaking of visually, I think my eyes have at last started to improve.

A friend and I are planning a long train trip around this time next year and she came over this past weekend and we got out the schedules and maps and timetables and started plotting the stops we hope to make along the way: Fargo, Wolf Point, Cut Bank, East Glacier Park, Spokane, Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, Reno, and Salt Lake City. We figure we’ll be on the rails something over two weeks. If any of you are from one of these places, I hope you’ll come and see us wherever we're appearing, a library, a bookstore, or a needlework shop!

Life in the City

Another wildlife in the city report: Day before yesterday I heard some songbirds, robins and finches, going absolutely berserk outside our front window. I finally went for a look. And there on an electrical wire sat a short-tailed hawk looking very grumpy about all the fuss. We’re thinking he came into the neighborhood drawn by all the juicy young rabbits that infest every back yard. He sulked on the wire for about half an hour – the robins (a male and a female) never shut up the whole time, while the finches came and went – then flew into a big tree across the street. An hour later he was back, and the songbirds went back to creating a racket. He lasted about fifteen or twenty minutes this time, then flew off for good. He was a handsome tan bird with an oddly-short black tail.

We have a balcony in our apartment that our cats just love to visit. They become a nuisance in fine weather, always asking to go out – and sometimes they’ll take up a quiet stance under a chair or table and get forgotten out there, which they hate and I’m sure our neighbors don’t think much of either, as they yell to be let in. So we bought a cat door that fits onto the screen of the sliding door off our bedroom. At first they were baffled by it. We took turns shoving them through and became convinced we own two very stupid cats. Then Snaps caught on and now he’s in and out as easily as if he invented the door himself. But Panzi, poor Panzi, still doesn’t get it. She’ll sit and watch Snaps go through, then sit and stare out the screen, hoping one of us will notice and shove her through. I wonder if some of it is stubbornness or some other syndrome because she has, on at least two occasions, been abandoned out there only to turn up in the kitchen in time for supper. We have stopped pushing her through, which makes life easier on the pansies I planted out there this spring. She adores eating roses but if there are no roses around, she will eat the blossoms off pansies.

I am discovering how incredibly simple it is to stitch an argyle pattern in cross stitch. I love argyle, I keep meaning to learn how to knit it. I’m making a bookmark in just two colors, orange and black and debating whether to graph it into a traditional charted pattern or just do it in words, since it’s so easy.

Buttons and Bones is making progress but more slowly than I would like. I’m hoping it picks up speed once then identify the skeleton they’ve discovered in the root cellar.

I learned a whole lot about beer for the forthcoming Blackwork, but wish I’d run across this story while it was still in the planning stages. I could have used this. Meanwhile, I’d sure like to taste at least some of the beverages described here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=9000-year-old-brew-hitting-the-shel-2009-06-05

Progress?

Because my mother may be moving into a nursing home later this year, I have taken to volunteering there one day a week, reading two different novels aloud to two different people. I was assigned these two and while it was at least partly chance (they were in their rooms when the man in charge of activities brought me around), he could hardly have chosen two more different people. But both are alert, funny, cheerful and opinionated, neither is really elderly (one is in her forties, the other I’d estimate to be in her early sixties), and I’m really glad I signed on for this. I’m reading an Elizabeth Peters Egyptology mystery to the older woman because she is just fascinated by ancient Egypt, and a Terry Pratchett fantasy novel about a cat named Maurice to the younger because she loves animal stories.

I’m getting a second chance to read a notated manuscript of Blackwork. By chance, the method changed at Penguin-Putnam between the two times. First time, I got the manuscript back in the mail, with notes scribbled on it and queries written in the margin on Post It notes. This time I get the manuscript electronically with words, phrases, and even a paragraph highlighted in yellow and when I run my cursor over the yellow, I get a box with a question or comment in it from my editor. Other changes are made in sky blue or red by my copy editor or editor – and changes I make are in maroon. The original text has a dotted line run through it with the new text following it in the bright color. Too cool – except my old computer’s antique word processing program isn’t very fond of the attached program to deal with the copy-editing. For one thing, I can’t leave my own replies to the notes and am having to send them separately. For another, having finished with the thing (I just left my computer running the several days it to9k to run through the ms.), I saved it and shut off the computer. When I realized I wanted to do some more work on it and tried to call it up, I got gibberish. I guess this new program is still a work in progress. Fortunately, I had already sent the ms to my home-grown editor, Ellen, who is having fewer problems with it. Sometimes I think I’m up to date on most things, then I get reminded that in many othere I’m a troglodyte.

My eyes continue to improve, but very slowly, and I’m still very bored by it all. At least I don’t have to wear goggles at water aerobics anymore.

Meanwhile, Buttons and Bones seems to have dragged to a stop. I did have a good idea that is causing me to do an extensive re-write of the two chapters that are written, but with a deadline starting to loom a bit (December), I’m getting anxious. The story’s there, it just doesn’t want to come out and play. I think there’s some bit of information I’m missing and as soon as I figure out what it is and go get it, the thing will tumble out like the contents of Fibber McGee’s closet. I sure hope so.