Kiki Lowenstein and the Missing Gift, Part I

By Joanna Campbell Slan

Author's Note: I'm going crazy finishing my project for the 2016 Creatin' Contest, a dollhouse contest. But this is National Novel Writing Month, and therefore, I'm also feeling guilty for not doing more writing. So...I thought I'd challenge myself by writing an ongoing short story. I'm doing this live--and I sure hope it works! I plan to end it around Christmas. 

The sight of my scrapbook and crafting store, Time in a Bottle, always gives me a thrill, especially during the holidays. We've decorated our front  window to the hilt. The roof line is festooned with bright lights. Vibrant colors bounced off the pristine snow that had fallen overnight. I hate the cold, but I love the sights when Christmas is right around the corner.

There is so much to look forward to!

I laughed out loud thinking of all the festive activities documented on our calendar. With two small kids and a teenager, my husband, Detweiler, and I will be busy in a ho-ho-ho-happy way. Already there has been a lot of buzzing around, whispering of secrets, and giggling after lights out. The children have holiday fever. Their excitement keeps ratcheting up, as does the noise level. These days, when I'm in my car alone, I keep the radio off and savor the silence.

Slowly, I pulled into the parking lot. The fresh snow crunched under my tires in a satisfying way. I've owned the store for nearly a year, going on two. When my friend and mentor Dodie Goldfader found out that she had cancer, she sold the place to me, on contract. In the beginning, I had many sleepless nights, wondering whether I could make the payments. Somehow, by the grace of God, and with a ton of hard work, I've managed to keep this train on the rails, chugging down the tracks.

Craning my neck, I realized I wasn't the first person here. In the parking space next to the back door was Margit's car, an old white Buick. Margit also owns a portion of the store, although hers is a teensy-tiny share. I offered to buy her out, but Margit says the store gives her a reason to get up in the morning. She's a widow whose mother has Alzheimer's and is in an assisted living facility.

According to Margit, we're her family. I like it when she says that.

She's right. We have only three full-timers. There's Clancy--my right-hand woman, and a Jackie Kennedy look-alike--and Margit and me.

Margit is a seventy-something-year-old German woman, who typifies what the locals call "Scrubby Dutch." "Dutch" being a perversion of "deutsche," which means "German." My friend is incredibly precise. Her desk is a monument to the slogan, "A place for everything and everything in its place." She knows exactly how many ink pens, paper clips, and so on she has. At the end of any work day, she arranges her pencils in their cup with the lead tips facing the ceiling. Her in- and out-boxes are tidy to the point of ridiculous. She wears the same outfit each Monday. Another is specified for every Tuesday, and so on. Every part of her life is exactly that organized.

I drive her nuts.

With great care, I climbed out of my car, a black Lexus SUV we'd recently purchased. The slick surface of the snow threatened my balance. For a minute, the world seemed off-kilter. I grabbed the door handle, blinked, and realized...the world was fine.

The problem was Margit's car.

Not only was it parked crooked, but one side was noticeably higher than the other.

What on earth?

**

Part II of Kiki Lowenstein and the Missing Gift will be posted here on November 27. You'll find out what's wrong with Margit.

Auction Action at Malice and How We Wrote Our Progressive Story

THE AUCTION ITEM FOR MALICE



Yesterday I finished the scrapbook page above, which will be auctioned off at Malice Domestic this coming weekend. It was truly a labor of love! To read more about it, go to my blog.

I'm also hosting a table, and the kind folks at Spotted Canary gave me the cutest bags to give away as table favors. They are simply adorable!

In my session on Sunday, I'll give away a cute tee shirt. Betty Hechtman and I will also make appearances in the hospitality room. I hope to give away candy and bookmarks. I've been adding ribbons to my newest bookmarks, which are purple to match my book cover.

Yes, it's a busy time! When a book first comes out, you have a nice window of six to eight weeks where it feels like every second counts.

HOW WE WROTE THE PROGRESSIVE STORY

Once we decided this was something we wanted to do, we noodled around different ideas. The emails flew back and forth. With so many creative minds at work, we had plenty of ways to commit a crafty murder. We discussed exactly whom we should kill. That was pretty easy. But the killer? Well, we didn't want to be too obvious or too trite, so that was a bit more dicey.

We started with a premise, a simple "who does what to whom, and where, and how and why." Monica had a great idea for how to do someone in. Then Terri Thayer got us started with a wonderful introduction. We each contributed a portion starring our protagonists. We quickly noticed a problem: We write in different POVs or Points of View. That stumped us. We didn't want the piece to seem choppy. So we had to figure out how that could work.

That took a bit of doing.

If we all changed to a single POV, we worried that we'd lose the "voice" of our individual characters. And that was the goal. We hoped that those of you who were fans of one of us might discover another character that you'd like to get to know better. So diluting the "voice" of each author wasn't an option.

Finally, we realized that we could have each protagonist "report" on what she saw.

Big aha! That worked!

Along the way, we'd changed few names of suspects. We also needed to figure out what the clues were and how exactly we'd share them. That was more of an editing challenge than anything else.

We realized we needed to figure out how to bring any new readers up to speed each day. Hmmm. The idea came to us while watching a TV program. I'm curious as to whether you'll be able to guess which program when you read the second day's intro.

Betty Hechtman was kind enough to pull everything together with a conclusion.

I have to say, while this was all a creative challenge, it was also a great joy. It was fascinating to see how each of us worked. And everyone was such a pro. When we noticed a problem or a concern, we shared it. No one got fussy. Everyone understood that our goal was the best possible end product...for YOU.

I can't wait to hear what all of you think! The final novella weighs in at more than 12,000 words. So we've created a "short story" that is actually the length of a short book.

I hope you love it! Please tell your friends so they can read along, too!