Five Little Lifestyle Changers

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Leaving aside the major life changing household miracles (electric washing machines, clothes dryers, central air and heat, cellular phones, color television, and desktop computers) these are the top five things invented during my lifetime that have impacted me the most (listed in no particular order):

a. The remote control – remember when you had to get off the couch to change tv channels and risk bodily injury from other viewers? Now you can just click and duck.

b. The hair dryer – remember when you had to attempt sleeping on rollers because your hair wasn’t dry yet? I say attempt because I never actually managed it. Now you can wash your hair any time – day or night, winter or summer – without risking catching pneumonia from going outside with a wet head. I doubt many ever died from washing their hair during inclement weather but my grandmother believed it was a distinct possibility.

c. Flash (thumb) drives – Remember floppy disks? Remember trying to format CDs so you could use them to store computer data? Sometimes it took hours. Flash drives are incredible. You can store enormous amounts of information on these little lipstick-sized electronic units – more information than boxes of floppies could contain– more information than stored in a row of filing cabinets.

d. The VCR and now the DVD Recorder – remember the generations of little girls who never saw Cinderella because the networks always aired it on Sunday night during church services? Remember scheduling your college classes so you could still see your favorite soap opera? The VCR freed people to watch movies and tv programs when they wanted, instead of when the networks scheduled them.

f. Mr. Coffee and the slew of programmable electric coffee makers – the ease of having hot, fresh coffee waiting for you when you get up in the morning is a luxury I wouldn’t want to give up.

What’s been invented during your lifetime that’s impacted your lifestyle? Cable tv? Garage door openers? On-line shopping? Contact lens? ATMs? What?

Rhonda
aka The Southern Half of Evelyn David

The End Is Near

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The End Is Near

The last fifty pages are the hardest.

That’s what I tell myself–and know to be true–as I pass page 130 (I’m on page 132, to be exact) of an approximately 180-page, single-spaced manuscript. Because that’s what translates into a 380ish page text, which is what the Alison Bergeron mysteries usually come out as when they become a book.

Page 130 or so is pivotal because I’ve already laid the groundwork for the mystery, thrown in a few red herrings, established my secondary characters (those who aren’t Alison, Crawford, Max, Fred, or Kevin), and am barreling toward the conclusion.

The only problem is that I don’t know how the story is going to end.

This is a common problem for me, as you know if you’ve been reading The Stiletto Gang since our inception this past winter. I race, race, race to the end only to find that I have nothing left to say. Or I have too much to say and would need another hundred pages to say it. Either way, it’s not pretty. So, I’m trying to take my time and figure out what would make the most sense given the story, the characters, and the setting.

I’m much further along than I was last year at this time, which is a very good thing. Last year, as I sat writing on New Year’s Eve (my deadline), I wrote myself into a corner where all of my major characters were at a crossroads, and not in a good way. Fortunately, my agent had the good sense to tell me that the ending that I had conceived (which amounted to, essentially, “…and then they all died”) really wasn’t going to please the reading public. I went back to the drawing board and was surprised to find that I was able to end the novel in a pleasing and suspenseful way, if I just took a minute or two to figure out what would make the most sense in this imaginary world that I had created. In my haste to make my deadline, I had created an ending that would have upset a lot of people (nobody died but relationships were put to the test with some not making the grade). Had I just gone a day or two over the December 31st deadline—and face it, was St. Martin’s really going to give me grief about that—I would have been able to see the forest for the trees. Or write a convincing ending to the story.

I’m determined to not make the same mistake. So with fifty pages to go, I’m going to take my time and think about what makes the most sense. Nothing fantastical, nothing jarring—just a neat tie-up of the story and the characters’ lives, leaving open the possibility of novel #5, for which I already have a title, but not a story, which is not usually how things go. (For “Quick Study” I was down to the wire before I came up with that one and now? I love it.)

I’ve always thought of myself who works best under pressure but in the case of finishing a novel, I’m finding that pulling an all-nighter or writing down to the deadline just doesn’t cut it. So check back as I try to stick to a five-page per day writing regimen, which will allow me ample time to write and then rewrite, and then, if necessary, rewrite again before my New Year’s due date.

Today doesn’t count because I just got back from vacation. And also because after I finish writing this post, I’m going to head downstairs and continue reading Evelyn’s Murder Takes the Cake manuscript, which if I don’t finish right away, will definitely derail me from my own writing!

I’d love your feedback? What are you writing regimens? And do they work? And how soon after you write, do you revise? And have you ever written anything as ridiculous “…and then they all died”? Inquiring minds want to know.

Maggie Barbieri

Oh, My Goodness!

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No matter how hard you go over edits or galleys, mistakes creep into our books. I don’t even have the copies of my latest, Kindred Spirits yet and I’ve found a glaring error!

No, it’s not in the content of the book–this is worse. The person who actually gave me the first seed of an idea for the story is the one to whom I dedicated the book, Junie Mattice. Unfortunately, in the dedication, her name is printed as Junie Mahoney.

Of course I didn’t notice it when I went over the edits–because it wasn’t in them. What it was in, and I should have noticed then, was the dedication page in the galley.

Where did the name Mahoney come from? It’s the last name of one of the main characters in the Crescent City part of the book–one that was inspired by Junie. Junie has such a multi-faceted personality, I actually based two major characters on her. All I can think of is the spell-checker changed the name from Mattice and Mahoney. Of course I’m the one who is at fault for not noticing it.

In my defense, I was hard-pressed for time because I have to receive the copies of the book this week in order to have them to cart with us when we leave for Crescent City this week. I went over the content of the book carefully and obviously overlooked the dedication page.

What am I going to do about it? I’ve already apologized via email to Junie. I’ll hand correct the copies that I sell in Crescent City. It’ll certainly give me something else to talk about as I speak about Kindred Spirits–something I’d rather not have.

Do I have advice for other authors because of this? Sure, check out your dedication page when doing edits and going over the galley. Certainly from now on that’ll be the first place I check. Too late for 200 copies of this book. Hopefully it’ll be corrected for anymore that are sent out.

Will other mistakes slip by me and other authors? Unfortunately, that’s part of the process. Our eyes seem to correct mistakes and we don’t even notice them.

I hope Junie will forgive me–my intentions were to honor her. I have tremendous respect for this strong Tolowa woman who has for years stood up for what she believes in and continues to fight for the Tolowa people.

Kindred Spirits is available for order at http://www.mundania.com/books-kindredspirits.html

Marilyn

To Infinity, and Beyond

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If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.

On Friday, my daughter leaves to spend the semester at the University of Glasgow. She’s probably 90 percent excited and 10 percent nervous. If I were to analyze my own emotions, it would be more like 90 percent worried and 10 percent jealous.

It’s not the trip that I envy. It’s her sense of adventure. Sure she’s a little worried about making new friends, questioning the difficulty of her courses, and daunted by the sheer logistics of moving so far away from home. But mostly, she’s eager to begin this exciting new chapter of her life. She’s got this self-confidence that fills me with such pride as her mother.

There’s a difference between taking risks and risky behavior. And while no parent ever wants their kid to be in danger, we do want them to use their intelligence, education, and instincts, to try new things and chart new paths. Because it’s in the trying of something new, that we learn the most and take the greatest leaps forward.

Next month, I’m going to Bouchercon, a huge mystery conference featuring authors I’ve admired and been been reading for years. I’ve even been asked to moderate a panel (Cat Scratch Fever, Saturday, October 11, 10-11 AM). It’s an honor, it’s exciting…it’s scary. I’ve got to move outside my comfort zone. Writers are often shy – maybe it’s why we invent characters with all the daring traits we lack. So I’ve got to force myself to “get out there.” I’m determined to avoid that eighth grade dance experience that is imprinted in my brain: hovering around the punch bowl, eating chips, tapping my feet, and checking my watch to see when my father is going to pick me up. Instead I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to take chances — sit next to someone I don’t know; begin conversations rather than waiting for someone to talk to me; and embrace the unknown, rather than stick to the familiar.

Please tell me – how do you approach new adventures?

Marian, the Northern half of Evelyn David

Don’t Hate My Amygdala: The Reality of Violence

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Julia Buckley is a mystery writer who lives in the Chicago area. Her first mystery, The Dark Backward, was released in June of 2006; her next book, Madeline Mann, received glowing reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal. Julia is a member of Sisters in Crime, MWA, and RWA. She keeps a writer’s blog at www.juliabuckley.blogspot.com on which she interviews fellow mystery writers; her website is www.juliabuckley.com She is currently at work on a new mystery series featuring an amateur sleuth and English teacher.

I have two sons. The other day, I asked the little one (ten years old), if he’d like to go for a walk. He agreed that would be fun, but said he wanted to leave a note for his older brother, who was not home.

The note, in his sweet childish handwriting, said this:

“Ian: Mom and I went for a walk. I killed Winston.”

The last part was jarring; I knew that he had to “kill” people in his video game, but I didn’t realize what a matter of pride it was that he had finally achieved this particular murder. There is some honor attached, apparently, since Winston is “bad.”

As a mother, I’m always a bit torn about video game violence and my sons. On the one hand, they are boys. Even if I gave them only soft dolls to play with, they would pretend those dolls were guns or bombs (believe it). Their level of testosterone has grown to the extent that, while they tolerate me and love me, they are jubilant when their father gets home and they can all mock-attack each other with various made-up martial arts.

On the other hand, I hate to think that by letting them play violent video games with words like “kill” and “assassin” in the titles, I am somehow warping their minds. A study posted here suggests that there is actual evidence in brain scans that shows the amygdala (the tiny emotion center of the brain) is highly affected when young people play violent games.

A part of me is suspicious of this study. It seems, in a way, as though they are trying to prove that these video games are bad—and yet it’s common knowledge that the amygdala is affected when we feel ANY strong emotion. No one took a brain scan of me after I stubbed my toe yesterday, but I’ll bet it would exceed the red area of the kids who played these games.

I feel like a bit of a hypocrite telling my sons not to play violent games when I write violent books. In my first mystery, which was labeled a cozy by many reviewers, a woman died when a lit torch was thrown into her car. A man was shot at close range. Another woman was shot through her screen door. None of this violence was gratuitous, in my opinion, but what if a study was conducted about mystery writers and their amygdalas? Would we all be told to stop writing violent books because it could warp us as human beings? If so, it’s probably too late.

When my brothers were kids, they didn’t have tons of violent toys. They made up for this by creating violent games. In one game, which my brother Bill called “Stalk,” they pretended to be carnivorous jungle creatures seeking prey. In another, which was merely called “Tackle,” the brothers yelled “Tackle!” at the top of their lungs, and this was a sign that little sisters should run away, screaming, if they didn’t want to be pummeled into the ground. Those boys had plenty of violent imaginings and they worked them into their games.

Violent video games, although more visual, seem to me to be the technological equivalent of the “Stalk” instinct. People like my brother grew up, learned to design software, and said, “What would boys (and many girls) like to play?” They are tapping into the basic human desire for conflict.

As a final note I must admit I have not seen the MOST controversial violent games, and I wouldn’t buy them for my sons. The games they have contain plenty of violence, and it seems to be enough to satisfy the flow of testosterone.

At the end of the day, though, my sons are still willing to sit next to me, put an arm around me, and say “I love you.” I am watching carefully for any signs of antisocial behavior, but so far they seem like really nice people. It just so happens that after we hug, sometimes they go back to thinking about killing Winston, and I try to think up another murderous plot. But try not to judge us by our amygdalas. If the truth were to be told, I think violence finds its way into every human life—I’d prefer that ours be mostly in our imaginations.

Julia Buckley

Fresh Apple Cake

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Do you have some recipes you’d like to share? Here is one of my family’s favorites.

Fresh Apple Cake

1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla
1/3 cup apple sauce

Mix items above in a large bowl and beat until smooth.

3 cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Sift items above and add to apple sauce mixture. Mix on medium speed.

Add 1 cup chopped pecans and 3 cups finely chopped red delicious apples.

Pour mixture into a greased and floured 9x13x2 pan. Sprinkle generously with sugar and cinnamon just before putting cake in oven.

Bake at 350 degree open for approx. 1 hour.

Rhonda
aka The Southern Half of Evelyn David

Murder Takes the Cake – Coming May 2009

Back to School!

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When did it become so complicated to go back to school?

I’m not talking about medical school, college, or even boarding school. I’m talking about fourth and ninth grades, the grades being entered by my children. It should be easy; we’ve done it before. But all things in life have become much more complicated, and going back to school is one of those things.

When you take into account the laundry list of school supplies that must be procured before the little cherubs head back to school, you may be tempted to keep them home and school them yourself with just a little blackboard and an abacus to help educated them. (Just tempted–I haven’t completely lost my mind.) Back in the day, I was given a leather messenger satchel—the likes of which I would kill for right now—with the insignia of St. Catherine’s school on the front, a new box of crayons, a few pencils and I was sent on my way. (Oh, let’s not forget the frozen bologna sandwich and equally-frozen Devil Dog that resided in my paper lunch bag. THAT combo is definitely a blog for another time.) Today’s children—namely, child #2 in the birth order—are sent home with a list of items that includes pencils, markers, highlighters, dry erase markers, pens, calculators, dictionaries, index cards, notebooks by the dozens (spiral AND marble-covered), and loose-leaf paper. AND NO TRAPPER KEEPERS!

Did you hear me? I said NO TRAPPER KEEPERS.

I didn’t even know Trapper Keepers still existed and I am still wondering why the ban. Seems like for your garden-variety disorganized fourth-grade boy this would be the ticket to order and calm. But they’re on the banned list, along with a host of other items that in my day, were considered de rigueur for school. (I think frozen bologna may be on the list, but I’m not 100% sure. Frozen Devil Dogs definitely are; if thrown, they could blind another child.)

I went to a large store yesterday whose logo is a bulls-eye and did hand-to-hand combat with the other harried mothers in the “Back to School” aisles. One mother was talking so loudly to her children (you know the type—she talks loud, trying to either a) show how good a mother she is by buying little Freddie and Flossie everything they want or b) how she is more frazzled than everyone else or c) enlist you in her running monologue on her life) that it occurred to me to scream “Stop talking! I can’t think! I can’t find low-odor dry erase markers with your constant chatter! Can’t you see that?” But I’m way too civilized for that, so instead, I walked through the giant circular area with its giant cardboard storage containers of supplies muttering to myself like a crazy person. Which I suppose I am.

Child #1, who is going into high school, needs fewer supplies. However, she plays field hockey, and Monday was the first practice. She left in the morning after procuring two used mouth guards from her brother for both herself and her best friend, A. (who couldn’t find a previously-used one in her own brother’s room), boiled them to get his cooties off and headed over to practice. She wasn’t gone ten minutes when I received a phone call.

D.: Hi, Mom? I need that medical form and permission slip or else I can’t play.

Me: (Disgusted and exasperated having just gotten to work in her home office) What? What permission slip? Where is it?

D.: In my room.

After doing a complete search of her room and not turning up the form, I called her back.

Me: Not there.

D.: OK. You have to go to the high school, get a new one, fill it out, and bring it to me at the field. Otherwise, I WON’T BE ABLE TO PLAY!

Me: (More disgusted and exasperated than earlier) I’ll be there in ten minutes.

I left my office, went to the high school, tracked down the form and with another exasperated father, began to fill it out on a narrow slice of counter. When I got to the signature part, it all started to look very familiar.

Me: Hey! I already filled this out!

Dad #1: (perusing form more carefully) Me, too!

Me: And I already handed it in!

Dad #1: Me, too!

Me: Then why are we filling it out again?!

Dad #1: Because they said we had to!

I drove over to the field in a fit of pique and confronted 1) several Moms in mini-vans throwing the form out the window at their own daughter, 2) a few dejected field hockey players whose Mom’s hadn’t arrived yet, and 3) two girls who were vacating the field completely because their mothers weren’t home to re-fill out the forms and bring them over to them. To her credit, as I flung the form out the window, my daughter called after me, “I love you!” which unless you’re cruel and cold-hearted, will assuage any feelings of ill will.

We’re almost there, though. I am missing three marble notebooks and one package of multi-colored index cards and then they’ll both be set to go. This morning, I gave child #1 a blank check—which I’ve decided is really my name…hello, my name is Blank. Blank Check—to purchase $93.00 worth of “practice” field hockey gear, which in my day, were called “tee-shirts” and “shorts”.

They couldn’t possibly hit me up for anything else before they go back, could they?

Maggie Barbieri

Amazing Stuff…to me at least

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I’m amazed by what interests some of my fellow bloggers. Shoes. Of course this is the Stiletto Gang, but all I care about in shoes is that they are comfortable and decent looking. Yes, I know, it’s all because I’m the ancient one here.

I had a momentous birthday on Sunday. My great-grandson said, “You look pretty young for 75 and you even walk good.” I reminded him that since he’s a sophmore in high school now, I sort of have to be old. He’s the oldest of my greats–but I have a granddaughter who is the same age. None of this may seem amazing to you, but it does to me. I can hardly believe I’m at this point in my life.

The other day I retired from a job I’ve had for over ten years, being the training chairperson for an organization for residential care providers. Sometimes it seems I’ve lived several lifetimes.

I began working when I was 10, babysitting all sorts of kids and an invalid woman. In high school I did inventory for a department store and worked for a hot-rod store.

Married the fall I graduated from high school, traveling by train all the way across country to do so. Shocked by how it was in the south (this was in the early 50’s) and very glad when hubby and I moved back to California. (We moved back to Virginia again when we had two kids but didn’t stay long.) Experienced a couple of hurricanes.

Back to California, raised our five kids, said goodbye to Seabee hubby three times as he left for Vietnam and greeted him enthusiastically when he made it home in one piece, worked as a telephone operator on and off for years, had a Camp Fire group for 10 years, was a teacher in a school for child development for 10 years, worked in day care centers in the ghetto, planned weddings for my children, greeted grandchildren, moved from our long time home on the coast to the foothills of the Sierra, owned and operated a licensed facility for 6 developmentally disabled women for over 20 years, and all the time I wrote and wrote and wrote, finally getting published.

Now, really retired, I’m putting all my energies into writing and promoting. Well, not quite all, I’m still teaching Sunday School and various other things that I won’t go into. When you have as many kids and grandkids and greats as I do, there are some family things to do also.

Shoes aren’t really top of my priority list though it was fun to read about them in the previous post.

That’s all for now–think I’ll run around barefoot for awhile.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

Shoe-a-Palooza

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I am a shoe whore. I love the smell of soft leather and the look of shiny patent. I worry over the question of open toe or closed like it was a question that involved our national security. I delight in espadrilles and flats; sandals and loafers; and even though my stiletto days never were, I still have a few super-high heels that I bought because…well, just because. My husband can’t fathom why I would ever buy another pair of black shoes since my closet is already bursting at the seams with black footwear. But like a mother with identical sextuplets (oy!), I absolutely can tell them all apart.

So it was with an extremely heavy heart that I discovered that my personal shoe heaven has now been shuttered. May I have a moment of silence for Filene’s Basement.

Fie on you who say: Wait! Filene’s Basement still exists. Sure that’s true if you believe that Cool Whip Lite tastes the same as Whipped Cream made from actual heavy cream. Filene’s Basement, in its present incarnation, is a perfectly nice discount store chain. You can find some good deals, but where’s the sense of adventure – and the educational component – that was part of the original Beantown bargain store?

Let me tell you the sorry tale.

In less than two weeks, my daughter is off to Scotland to spend the semester at The University of Glasgow. (Yes, I know. We all want to come back as our kids.). So, my thought was to grab a few days once her summer jobs ended, and head off to Boston for a weekend of theater, good meals, and shopping. We would bond over my credit card. We landed in Beantown a little after noon, and within fifteen minutes, headed over to Downtown Crossing, the location of Filene’s Basement.

For those who aren’t familiar with this cultural landmark, here’s the basic concept. Filene’s Basement was literally the bottom two floors of Filene’s, a traditional Boston department store. It bought up odd lots of high-end merchandise from manufacturers and other large department stores. But the fun – and that’s what it was – the fun was in the pricing system. The price tag for every item in Filene’s Basement included the date it was first put on sale. The original sale price was usually significantly lower than what you’d pay at most other stores, but there was the promise of even better deals. Fourteen days after the article entered inventory, if it hadn’t sold, the price was reduced by 25%; 14 days after that, the price was reduced by 50%; 14 days after that, the price was 75% of the original sale price. And if it still didn’t sell, then after 14 more days it was donated to charity.

At the age of seven, my daughter learned how to do fractions by calculating the savings on a pair of designer shoes that I could at last afford because they had been stuck on the shelf for 28 days. I still remember the day I found a set of 800-count, queen-sized blue sheets and matching pillow cases (and there will someday be a blog on the luxury of high-count sheets) that were just $20 because they had languished in the Basement for 42 days. Ah, those were the days.

But all good things come to an end, I guess. It was a traffic cop who took us aside to explain the brutal truth. Filene’s Basement had closed last September. The building was undergoing a massive renovation that was to last two years. It’s supposed to reopen in 2009 — but the owners have made it clear that they are under no legal obligation to do so. Sigh.

It took me a little while to figure out what it was I was going to miss. Does this make sense? We all have to shop for the basic essentials in life. Some of us enjoy it; many don’t. I probably fall in the middle and my patience when shopping usually wears thin far sooner than my daughter’s. But Filene’s Basement made it a game. I probably didn’t need the sheets — but the price was too good to pass up. It was a win-win for the store and for me. I won’t say I didn’t need the shoes, because well, just because I always need shoes. That’s the way it is for shoe-a-holics.

But mostly, I think I’ll miss the fun I had rummaging through the piles with my daughter. Calling out to each other when we found an item, even if we hated it, that was 75% off. We might not have bought it, but we enjoyed the hunt.

RIP, Filene’s Basement. We’ll miss you.

Does anyone know of a similar bargain store??

Marian, the Northern half of Evelyn David

Collaboration in the Stygian Swamp

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Marilyn Victor – In her real life, Marilyn is an administrative assistant for a construction company. She started her writing career in grade school, penning Dark Shadows, Man from U.N.C.L.E. and James Bond stories for her friends, none of which she ever finished. It wasn’t until years afterward when she started brainstorming on how she could combine her love of writing and love of animals that she and Michael came up with the Snake Jones mystery series.

Michael Allan Mallory – Michael works with computers in the Information Technology field, which must be amusing to his old college professors because he has a degree in English Literature. He also managed to sneak out a degree in Electronics, much to the consternation of those who tried to peg him as only a liberal arts kind of guy. He studies and teaches wing chun kung fu in Minneapolis and trains in Chen style tai chi. His favorite mysteries come from the classic period of the 1930s and 1940s, although he enjoys a good yarn no matter what era it was written

Marilyn: “Hey, our guest blog is due for the Stiletto Gang. What should we write about?”

Michael: “What? Don’t you have an idea? I’m blank.”

Marilyn: “You can’t be blank. We’re writers. Creativity is supposed to flow from us.”

Michael: “Yeah, well, my flowing days are long gone. I got nothing.”

Marilyn: “Me neither.”

Michael: “We’re so screwed.”

Marilyn: “We should be able to talk about our writing. Like how rich and famous “Death Roll” has made us.

Michael: “Except we’re not famous-well, perhaps less obscure. We’re almost recognizable in the vast stygian swamp of authors. And rich? Let’s not go there. Too depressing.”

Marilyn: “Stygian swamps, huh? You like those murky metaphors. Okay. There is a Nancy Drew thread happening on the site. We could talk about that.”

Michael: “Um. I’ve never read Nancy Drew. Have you?”

Marilyn: “Does it have horses?”

Michael: I don’t think so. She had a dog, Togo and a cat, Snowball. They didn’t show up very often.

Marilyn: When other girls were reading Nancy Drew, I was reading Misty of Chincoteaque, King of the Wind and The Black Stallion.

Michael: I bet our own heroine, Snake Jones, grew up reading Nancy Drew. Snake is spunky, resourceful-

Marilyn: And she has a dog.

Michael: We do have one thing in common with Nancy Drew. More than one author wrote the books. The stories were outlined by one person and written by another. Several others as I recall.

Marilyn: Hey, I thought you said you never read Nancy Drew.

Michael: You’ve heard of the Internet?

Marilyn: Ah, instant expertise. Hmm. Does that mean if our Snake Jones mysteries become a huge success, that forty years from now some other author will be writing them and calling themselves Marilyn Victor and Michael Allan Mallory.

Michael: You wish.

Marilyn: Along with a million other authors. Sigh. Ok back to business. Thinking back on all those animal books I read as a kid, it makes me think of how animals have played a part in the genre since the beginning of the modern mystery.

Michel: Good point. Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue featured an orangutan—or ourang-outang as Poe called it. Then we have the title character there’s the horse in the classic Sherlock Holmes tale Silver Blaze. And Toby, a blood-hound, appears in the Holmes stories several times. In the 1920s and 1930s the popular Philo Vance novels by S.S. Van Dine included The Kennel Murder Case and The Canary Murder Case, which leads us to there’s Dashiell Hammett’s masterpiece: The Maltese Falcon. (And will you please stop editing what I’m writing.)

Marilyn: That’s what co-authors are for. Besides, we’re going over the word count. And that wasn’t a real falcon in the story. It was a statue.”

Michael: Still counts. The falcon iconography lends the story intrigue and a sense of danger, like the real bird. Who’d get excited about a book called The Maltese Bunny? The use of animals in the title or as a character helps create a mood.

Marilyn: True, true. (Revenge is not sweet, Michael. Knock it off)

Michael: Hey, you edit me, I edit you, hopefully it makes for better writing.

Marilyn (ignoring him): But things changed in the ‘60s when Dick Francis published Dead Cert, his first horse racing novel. After that, animals often became more than background characters. Stories often centered around them.

Michael: You know what my theory is on that? It coincides with the environmental movement in the late ’60s and ’70s. Since then, people have become more aware of the planet and its wildlife. They care more about animals and what happens to them.

Marilyn: I like that. Which reminds me….

Michael: What?

Marilyn: I have to go feed the dog.

Marilyn Victor and Michael Allan Mallory
http://snakejones.com/