Girl Power

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I wanted a little blue roadster – even before I knew what a roadster was. I knew for sure that it was cooler than my Dad’s Plymouth.

I didn’t want Ned Nickerson. He seemed like a vain pretty boy who just got in the way of the real star of the show.

I did want a friend named George who wasn’t embarrassed to be a tomboy, but still went to all the dances. My best friend was Myrtle (and while she was great at hopscotch, she didn’t have the curiosity of a hedgehog.)

But most of all, I wanted to be the heroine who was smarter than all the grownups in town and had thrilling adventures where she rescued herself from danger. Who didn’t want to be Nancy Drew?

My childhood library didn’t stock Nancy Drew mysteries, although for some reason, you could find student nurse Cherry Ames who also solved mysteries. Still I managed to accumulate my own shelf of the blue and yellow mystery books, anxiously determined each time to crack the case before Nancy revealed the answer to the whodunit in the last ten pages.

My daughter, on the other hand, had zero interest in Nancy Drew. She loved the Alanna series by Tamora Pierce, that featured a fierce young woman who disguised herself as a boy to enter training as a knight. She found this fantasy series far more exciting, but also more realistic than the Nancy Drew mysteries. “Alanna got her period, had trouble with boys, stuff that happened to me even if I wasn’t a knight-in-training.”

So why my personal fondness for Nancy Drew? Was she my inspiration to write mysteries? Probably. I recently re-read The Secret of the Old Clock, the first book in the series. It had been reissued in 1959, cleaned up of any of its original racist references. The mystery is slight, at best. But even as an adult, I’m struck by the creation of a young girl heroine who is resourceful enough to rescue herself from a locked closet – look out Macgyver. I am delighted that her father Carson Drew doesn’t try and stop her from investigating the mystery, but instead encourages her independence and declares, “I’m glad you have the courage of your convictions.”

But if Nancy Drew was the spark, it was Mary Stewart, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Rex Stout who fanned the flames of my early interest in mysteries. I quickly realized that their protagonists were more layered, their mysteries far more challenging, and their storytelling more sophisticated and intriguing.

Still, let me raise a toast to Nancy Drew. She filled a void in my childhood for a female adventurer who didn’t need a boy to give her the answers. She taught me that the search for solutions could be as much fun as the end result. And she gave me the confidence to say that I too could solve mysteries – or even better, create them!

Marian the Northern half of Evelyn David

Desperately Seeking

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Peggy Ehrhart is a former English professor who now writes mysteries and plays blues guitar. Sweet Man Is Gone, featuring sexy blues-singer sleuth Maxx Maxwell, is just out from Five Star/Gale/Cengage. Visit her at www.PeggyEhrhart.com .

Agatha Christie was in her thirties when she hatched Miss Marple. But other than Christie, I doubt whether any female mystery writer has created a female sleuth who is older than the writer herself. My sleuth is thinner, blonder, and younger than I am, and I like it that way.

Sure, writing can be an exercise in vicarious living–and genre fiction more than most. Robin Hathaway once said that she loves writing her Jo Banks novels because when else can she be a thirty-something again, and a motorcycle-rider at that?

My sleuth, Maxx Maxwell, is a thirty-five-year old singer in a blues band. She lives in a funky apartment in Hackensack, New Jersey, modeled on my first apartment, one room and a kitchen in San Francisco. She rehearses and plays gigs with her band in scruffy rehearsal studios and sleazy bars in New York City. And she has a hopeless weakness for guitar players, especially her unfaithful ex, Sandy.

I wouldn’t trade my comfortable house in suburban New Jersey or my sweet, loyal husband for anything–not even to be thirty-five again. And I certainly wouldn’t want to be the broken-hearted relic of a failed romance. So what, aside from the vicarious thrill of feeling young again, leads us to lop decades off the ages of our sleuths?

Young people are at a stage of life when the big questions are still to be answered, the questions about love and work, and the all-important “Who am I?” Questions like this can provide rich and interesting subplots in our stories–and even explain how our sleuths happen to find themselves in crime-solving situations in the first place.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Desperately Seeking Susan. I think I had it in mind subliminally as I wrote Sweet Man Is Gone.

The NPR program “What’s the Word?” featured an interesting commentary on Desperately Seeking Susan the other night. The speaker, a professor of film studies, pointed to the contrasting worlds in the film: stodgy northern New Jersey and hip lower Manhattan. And she saw desperation as a key theme. But, she said, there’s desperation and then there’s desperation. The desperation of the Rosanna Arquette character, the New Jersey housewife, was the desperation that comes from fearing one has made all the choices one is going to make in life. The result might be settled middle-class comfort, but if something seems missing, it may be too late to rectify the lack.

The desperation experienced by the young is a different kind, no less painful, in fact maybe more so. It’s the desperation of knowing one is in the very act of making the choices that will shape one’s future, the sense that one is standing at a crossroads; once one path is chosen the other will forever be left behind. Sometimes the necessity of making crucial choices like this results in paralysis–or a frantic and even self-destructive lifestyle designed to distract one from the ever-present nagging voice that demands commitment to something.

But all this is great fodder for the novelist–and a good reason to ignore the passing of time and keep one’s sleuth young forever.

Peggy Ehrhart

Save My Show

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He had a boyish charm, a sweet smile, and a terrible sense of fashion. Some found him boring.

Me? I fell in love with Fred Rogers the first time I met him in the neighborhood.

Which is why I was so upset when I heard that PBS will stop transmitting Mister Rogers Neighborhood as part of its daily syndicated lineup beginning in September. Local public television stations can still choose to broadcast the program daily, but they are less likely to do so without the program being included in PBS’s syndicated feed.

Kids lose.

Unlike Sesame Street which never captured the attention of any of my children, low-tech Mister Rogers with his trolley and hand puppets was must-see tv for years. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like PBS was the only station that was programmed on our television. My kids watched the same crap that everyone else, including Mister Rogers, decried. Violent cartoons? Sure. Stupid sitcoms. Bring ‘em on. World Wrestling Federation? Sigh, yes. I confess, I even took two of my kids to a rumble at the County Center (and boy, was I the coolest Mom for at least three days).

But Mister Rogers was the perfect counterpoint. With his familiar routines and comforting songs, he spoke to my children and taught them more than all the clever 30-second educational scenes that flashed on Sesame Street. Mister Rogers reassured them that “the very same people who are good sometimes; are the very same people who are bad sometimes.” He taught them that make-believe is a land you should visit everyday. He made it clear to each child, “It’s you I like; It’s not the things you wear. It’s not the way you do your hair, But it’s you I like.” He wanted children to love themselves and others.

Son number two adored Fred Rogers. For his fourth birthday he wanted nothing more than a zip-up sweater like Mister Rogers wore every day. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration. He also wanted wrestling action figures, a new baseball mitt, a bike, and an assortment of other toys that had zero educational value. But, he did desperately want that sweater. I searched high and low for a mini-Rogers sweater and the look of sheer delight on my son’s face when he opened that present is still vivid all these years later. He promptly ran to get his dress shoes and faithfully re-enacted the shoe swap that Fred Rogers did at the start of each show, then zipped up his new sweater with a flourish.

Without bells and whistles, Mister Rogers dealt thoughtfully, gently, and age-appropriately with the fundamental themes of childhood. Write to PBS and tell them that Mister Rogers Neighborhood belongs in all our homes.

For more information, check out: http://savemisterrogers.com/

Evelyn David

The Comfort Zone

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It’s been a long time since I can say I went “clubbing,” but this weekend, I actually think I did. (It’s been so long that I’m not sure what I did or what it’s called.)

I find that as I get older—and I am now officially middle-aged as of this past Sunday…if I live to be ninety, that is—I can find a host of excuses to turn down invitations; many of them are outside of my natural comfort zone. The activities in my natural comfort zone, as you know if you read this blog, run from vacuuming to reading with some personal training thrown in just so my body doesn’t become flabby and mushy. I usually turn to some of my tried and true excuses to invitations that would take me outside of my comfort zone, which are generally 99% true (thank you, John Edwards for that apt equivocation): “Oh, I don’t have a babysitter.” (Yes, I do; she’s fourteen and a half and lives with us and can take care of her brother ably.) “Oh, I have other plans.” (Only true about 10% of the time.) “My lumbago is acting up.” (I don’t know what that is, but it got several family members out of many a family event, and I’m sure I’ve got at least a mild case of it because as I mentioned, I am middle-aged.) But I have made a vow that if something sounds like fun and I don’t have plans or a flare-up of my lumbago, I’m going. Enough of this hanging around the house, waiting until eleven or twelve o’clock at night to find out whether or not Michael Phelps won another gold medal or if any one of the female beach volley players has busted out of her very tiny swimsuit. (Hasn’t happened yet, but don’t let any man tell you that’s he’s not waiting for that with baited breath.)

So when I was invited down to the lower East Side of Manhattan to see a friend’s band play, I accepted, thinking that this was a perfect excuse to venture out of my c.z. (aka comfort zone). I invited a friend, C., who after two glasses of chardonnay, was a willing partner. The day after the invitation, in the light of day, C. called me. “The place we’re going…that’s in the Bowery, right?”

Images of sooty-faced men playing dominoes in the street next to a soup kitchen floated into my mind. (And yes, all of my references date back to the 1920s and every Shirley Temple movie I’ve ever seen.) I mustered up all of my enthusiasm and responded, “Yes! It’s on Avenue B!”

“That’s in the Bowery, right?” C. asked again.

“I think so,” I said, not exactly sure. I hadn’t been south of 34th Street since 1986. “But I’ve been reading that the lower East Side isn’t like the lower East Side anymore.”

“Ooohhhkaaayyy,” C. said, not believing me.

To make matters worse, the friend who invited me to the band performance wrote and said, “We checked the place out. It’s a dive. Wear jeans.”

C., who wanted to get the most out of a purchase of a summer linen tunic with beading, was disappointed, now having to go back to her closet to plan her revised outfit. We met each other at the train station in the prearranged jean/tee-shirt ensembles and headed downtown, trying to mask our nervousness—and our suburban Mom status—and headed down to a part of town that was once known for its extreme seediness.

“We’ll get off at Bleecker and head east,” C. said with complete confidence as we boarded the 6 train.

“Ok,” I said, reminding her of my lack of travel experience below 34th Street. We traveled downtown, getting off at a stop completely unfamiliar to the two of us. I started to head up the stairs, but C. smartly decided to stop at a map and take a look. It indeed looked like we needed to head East for several long blocks, but it looked doable.

We emerged from the subway, ready to fend off the catcalls of the sooty-faced men playing dominoes in front of the soup kitchen. Instead, a massive Whole Foods rose up before us, hipsters and clean-faced moms and dads going in and out of its shiny silver doors with their recyclable grocery bags filled with organic chickens. Small boutiques and cafes abounded. We walked off in search of a restaurant and found one that had been opened a month, served tapas-style food and ate enough to feel ready to drink pints at the “lounge” where our friend’s band would be playing.

Divey, yes? Friendly, certainly. We walked in and purchased a couple of $5 pints, which if you don’t live in New York and don’t know about our consumer-unfriendly pricing, was a steal. The bartender was lovely. Our friends were already there and we headed into the back room where the band got set to play. Two more delightful servers waited to take our drink orders, smiling and clapping along with the music.

This place was safer and more congenial than my own home when the kids are hungry. I considered moving in. The only drawback was the toilet with no toilet seat, but I figured that lent the place a little “atmosphere” as I looked for something to hold onto in the airplane-sized bathroom. (Which, incidentally, opened right up onto a pool table.)

The band, Lieder, was fabulous. (And if you want to check them out, go to http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=90519476.)

C. and I left around 10:30 which in Mom world is officially one hundred o’clock. We rolled back into our town a little before midnight, exhausted but thrilled that we had done something that we hadn’t attempted since we were young, childless, and adventurous.

C. looked at me when she dropped me off. “Hey, that was fun,” she said. “You know, that’s something we should do more often.” I opened the door and got out of the car.

“Sure,” I said, getting out of the car. I had a thought and leaned into the car. “You wanna go to Whole Foods when the kids go back to school for some organic chickens?”

Maggie Barbieri

Movies, Casino, Camping, Festival, Oh My

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While my eldest daughter and hubby were here visiting (the tail end of a long trip for them) we went to the movies twice. We saw Swing Vote which we loved and Mama Mia which we also enjoyed. At the end of the movie while the music still played, both my daughters danced down the aisle.

We also went to Eagle Mountain Casino which is on the Tule River Indian Reservation near where we live–and the one that appears in my later Tempe Crabtree mysteries. Though I’ve spent quite a bit of time on the rez, I’d never been inside the casino and I wanted to make sure what I’ve written is accurate. Amazingly it is. Everyone played the machines but me, it isn’t something I enjoyed.

After our company left we headed for the Angelus National Forest (the mountains above La Canada where Mt. Wilson Observatory is located) and a church camp that we haven’t been to for years. Because my cousin and their children and grandchildren attend and a lot of people we’ve known from long ago, my sis and hubby and three grandkids were talked into going. We slept on hard beds in the nurse’s cabin which fortunately had a bathroom down the hall. Everyone else had to use a communal bathhouse which is a walk from nearly everywhere.

Meals were great though it was about 1/2 mile up and down hills to the dining hall. We visited and laughed a lot and sat under a great shade tree with a cool breeze, I read a mystery all the way through, and played cards with a lively bunch of folks from 11 to my age–hubby and I were the oldest campers.

From there we headed to San Luis Obispo and the Women’s Creative Arts Festival. During our emailing about the festival I asked if I need to bring anything and was told no. As soon as we arrived I knew I was in trouble when I saw people putting up tents and setting up tables. Fortunately, I spotted one of my friends in the Central Coast Chapter of Sisters in Crime and she had someone bring me a card table. My assigned spot was under a shade tree so that took care of the problem of no tent.

I actually made a lot of sales–as usual, the only way to do this is to stand and talk to everyone who passes by. I noticed not many of the vendors did this. Most sat behind their wares or visited with others in the booth or with other vendors. One of my sales was made to a woman who said she bought from me because I was the friendliest of all the vendors.

Despite the snafu about equipment (which I had a home) I did very well at this sale.

Now the “oh my” part. A good friend is planning a wonderful book launching for Kindred Spirits, the next in my Deputy Crabtree mystery series. It’s going to be a luncheon at a Bed and Breakfast in Crescent City, CA. She was talking about the event at the historical society and a controversy was spoken about–one that is in the book but I had not been given all the facts by my resource person. Needless to say, it has to be fixed. I’ve alerted my publisher and since I don’t have the edits yet, I can make the necessary changes. It could have been a horrific problem.

Last week was full, perhaps a bit too full, fun, exciting, surprising and a bit on the challenging side.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

Collecting

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My co-author asked me the other day if I collected anything. Thinking of an old roommate who collected thousands of key chains, my boss’s daughter who collected all the Beanie Babies ever manufactured, and my brother’s TVGuide collection (the original size not today’s version), I immediately answered, “No.”

My dozen or so porcelain dolls don’t qualify me as even a “novice” collector. My hundreds of books (okay, it might really be thousands of books but if I don’t acknowledge the number I don’t have to figure out how much money I’ve got invested in paper and words) might qualify.

I’m not sure total numbers is the key to collecting anyway. There has to be a certain intent to collect for collecting’s sake. I buy books to read them. I don’t buy “first editions.” I don’t focus on just one or two genres of books. I mix paperbacks with hardbacks. I don’t have my books catalogued and properly displayed. So … I’m probably not a book collector.

Movies? Televisions Shows? DVDs? I like to have copies of my favorite movies on DVD. I have all of West Wing and the new version of Battlestar Galactica on DVD. But I watch them. I don’t keep them in pristine condition on a shelf. A friend of mine’s father collects movies and has them all listed in a computer file. He knows exactly how many he has and doesn’t loan them out. He’s a collector. I’m not even close.

What else? Clothes? I have three closets full of old clothes that I need to throw away. Or maybe find some poor soul who desperately wants a prom dress from circa 1977, some suits with Dynasty style shoulder pads, and lots of bargains that never saw the light of day after I brought them home. I don’t think my inability to get rid of clothes I can’t or won’t wear means I have a collection. Collecting and hoarding are two different things.

I admit I’m a hoarder. But that’s genetic, not a choice like collecting. I come from a long line of hoarders. Broken lawn equipment? Save it – you might need a part for another mower. Extra plumber’s putty? Save it for an emergency. Left over paint? Save it (ignore the shelf-life issue). Rusted exercise equipment? Old mismatched dishes? Ugly drinking glasses? Odd jars? Stray screws? You get the picture.

I’ve been trying to overcome my genetic predisposition to hang onto junk. Did I say junk? I meant useful items that I’ll need some day. As my grandmother always told me as she cut the hooks and eyes from old bras, “When times get hard again (i.e. the Great Depression), you’ll have what you need to get by.”

Yep. Hoarding is a good thing. Someday I’ll need all those extra buttons, plastic butter tubs, twist-ties and tiny hotel soaps. I’m almost sure of it.

Don’t laugh too hard. A couple of years ago an ice storm devastated the area where I live. Around three in the morning, during the worst of the storm, a limb fell and broke out one of my windows – a serious problem since I had no power and no heat. I needed to cover the broken glass quickly to keep the cold and rain out. Those old leaky, vinyl pool mattresses I had stuffed in a box in my utility room came in handy. The mattresses, a few nails and a lot of duct tape, sealed that window for more than a month. The insurance adjuster was appropriately impressed.

How about you? Are you a collector? Or a hoarder? How did you get started?

Evelyn David
http://www.evelyndavid.com/

Writing Long and Short

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Derringer Award winning author Earl Staggs has seen many of his short stories appear in magazines and anthologies. He served as Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Magazine and as President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society.

His novel MEMORY OF A MURDER featuring Adam Kingston is available at most bookstores or online at www.cmptp.com, Amazon and B&N.

For a signed copy of MEMORY OF A MURDER or for a free copy of the first Chapter, write him at earlstaggs@sbcglobal.net.

“What’s the difference between writing novels and short stories?”

“One’s bigger than the other.”

I don’t mean a novel is bigger only in number of pages. The story is bigger. There are more characters, more depth in the development of those characters, more plot twists and complications, and there are usually sub-plots. The emphasis is as much on the characters and how the plot impacts their lives as it is on the plot itself, sometimes more so.

To illustrate this, let’s take a simple plot and outline it first as a novel. Then we’ll come back and use the same plot as a short story.

Here’s the simple plot: Betty Brown, a wife and mother, is murdered in her home. There are no signs of robbery, no DNA evidence or fingerprints in the house other than family members, leaving no obvious motive or suspects. Homicide Detective Todd Taylor is assigned to the case.

Bill Brown, the victim’s husband, automatically becomes the primary suspect. During his investigation, Todd learns Bill and Betty had marital problems, and Betty was having an affair with a neighbor, Steve Smith. Todd now has two more suspects to investigate. Perhaps Betty wanted to end the affair, Steve objected, and in a fit of rage, killed her. Steve’s wife, Sandy, may have found out about the affair and killed Betty.

Bill and Betty’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Brittany, left home because of the tension between her parents. Todd feels Brittany has crucial information about the murder and finds her living with a rough gang, drinking, and on the way to ruining her life.

In Todd’s personal life, his wife talks about leaving him, and his ten-year-old son barely speaks to him at all. Both claim he spends too much time being a cop.

Now we have a cast of characters, Betty’s murder as the primary plot with three viable suspects, sub-plots involving the runaway daughter, the extramarital affair as well as Todd’s problems at home.

How does it all work out? With information provided by Brittany, Todd proves Bill Brown killed his wife Betty when he found out about the affair, resolving the main plot. But what about those sub-plots? Todd helps Brittany get her life back on track. Steve and Sandy Smith divorce. After revealing looks into the failed marriages of the Browns and the Smiths, Todd takes a hard look at his own and resolves to work harder at it. He’s also seen, with Brittany, how children get on the wrong path without proper role models at home, and commits to being a better father. The sub-plots have provided a character arc for Todd.

To develop the same plot as a short story, only the main character (Todd) will have any depth and the plot is less complex. In a short story, while there can be exceptions, there is usually one event requiring resolution (the crime), the path toward that resolution (the investigation), and the resolution itself (the solution).

We’ll toss out the sub-plots involving Steve and Sandy Smith and Brittany except to say Betty was having an affair with a neighbor. The only sub-plot we’ll keep is that Todd’s wife nags him about spending so much time at work.

In our short story, Todd proves Bill Brown killed his wife because of the affair. He also comes to terms with his own marital problems and promises to be a better husband.

So there we have the same plot developed as both a novel and a short story. Same killer, same victim, same resolution. The difference is. . .

. . .one’s bigger than the other.

Earl Staggs

Smart Women, Toxic Men

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“He’s a very engaging guy with big ideas…I trusted him completely.”

That’s a description of Clark Rockefeller, the faux-scion of the Rockefeller clan, who has maintained a variety of fictional identities for 20 years. But here’s my question. Did his ex-wife know the truth? How did Sandra Boss, a smart woman earning in the high-six figures, marry such a cad? What drew her to a man who deceived her and then kidnapped their child?

And Ms. Boss is by no means the only intelligent woman duped by her man. Hillary Clinton, Silda Spitzer, Christie Brinkley, these are all women who have excelled in their professional lives, but ended up with men who lied, cheated, and betrayed them?

And they were the lucky ones. They’re still living. How about Stacy Petersen, now missing, but presumed dead, allegedly killed by her husband who, according to their pastor, had also killed wife number three. Or Jessie Marie Davis and her unborn daughter, murdered by her policeman boyfriend, Bobbie Cutts, Jr. Or Lacey Peterson and unborn son Conner – slaughtered by her husband, Scott Peterson.

But let’s talk about the less extreme situations. Smart women; caddish husbands. Why do they stay? Does the woman accept the bad behavior because she doesn’t think she deserves better. Is she convinced that she can change the bad behavior over time? Is she embarrassed to be in the situation and doesn’t think she can afford (economically, professionally, personally) to get out? Do the couple have an unspoken agreement that she will ignore the behavior as long as it doesn’t impact on her daily life? If he doesn’t get caught by outsiders, can she live with his dalliances or betrayals? Lots of things could play into the mix – religion, gender roles, power, education, personality type, familial history, learned behavior, ability to cope with stress, etc.

Or, and this is the one that troubles me the most, are some women genuinely surprised when they discover their partners’ secret lives and the world comes crashing down around them?

Look, there are certainly times in my life when you can call me Cleopatra, I’m the Queen of De-nial. Ask me about my weight, and I live in ignorant bliss. I don’t know (I literally don’t own a scale), and I don’t want to know. But I’d like to think that I’m honest with myself about the big stuff. I trust my husband with my life. I believe in him completely – but I assume so did these women.

So I open for discussion: Is it possible to live intimately with a man for years, and have no idea that he’s leading a secret life? Do you not know – or do you choose to not know?

Evelyn David

A Day on the River

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Week three of Maggie’s return to physical fitness began yesterday with a trip down to the River to go kayaking.

I KNOW! KAYAKING! Amazing, huh?

If you recall, I’m not an outdoorsy gal. I much prefer staying indoors, watching television, working on my computer, cleaning out closets…anything that prevents me from going out in the sun. (And no, I’m not a vampire and I feel I must offer that admission since I’m knee deep in “New Moon,” the second book from Stephenie Meyer on the topic of vampires and love.) You can do plenty of physical activity inside—if vacuuming were an Olympic sport, I’d be a gold medalist—but I’m finding that to get the true benefits of exercise, going outside helps.

So, I expressed an interest in kayaking to a friend. She immediately put the word out in the local, thriving kayak community in my town that she had a new potential member and I got an email from another friend who we’ll call R., inviting me to join she and another friend this past Sunday for a couple of hours on the River. I accepted readily, via email on Saturday morning, and then had twenty-four hours filled with regret and second thoughts. I approached R. after church on Sunday and said, “I have two things to tell you: one, I am a spaz. And two, I can’t swim.”

Bless R.’s heart because she didn’t bat an eye at the spaz part, nor the inability to swim part. And I was grateful because having admitted to a few other people that I can’t swim, I have found that their reaction is akin to my admitting that I can’t read. Or walk. “What!? You can’t swim? Why not?” I just can’t. There’s nothing to say. I didn’t have a near-drowning experience—though I did spend a few seconds too long underwater as a kid and that frightened the heck out of me—and I although I am spaz, I’m sure I could learn to move my arms and legs simultaneously while submerged. But I have had a few other things on my plate over the years and learning to swim has always taken a back seat.

And of course, because one has to swim in a bathing suit, that complicates things. Is there anything more unflattering or uncomfortable than a bathing suit? That alone contributes to my reluctance; I don’t see putting myself (willingly) in a position of being taught how to do something while not wearing jeans and a long-sleeved tee shirt with a hoodie tied around my waist.

But back to kayaking. R. and H.—who claims to be 110 years old but who is really an incredibly fit and gorgeous woman in her sixties—picked me up and we went down to the “put-in.” The put-in is at the end of the train station parking lot and prior to my engaging in my new favorite sport, I referred to it as “that place at the end of the train station parking lot.” The put-in was jammed with cars, people, kayaks, and other water sporting equipment. R. advised me, after we hoisted the three kayaks out of H.’s car, to crouch, get my center of gravity, and leap as quickly as possible into the kayak and onto the seat. Easy, right? For R. She, too, is incredibly fit, graceful and athletic.

I stumbled on my first attempt to locate my center of gravity but after that, I managed to throw myself into the kayak’s small seating area without capsizing, although I did almost violate the town’s “NO WAKE” admonishment, sitting just a few hundred feet away. Fortunately, we were in two inches of water, so even if I had, I hopefully wouldn’t have drowned. R. was kind enough to bring a life jacket for me anyway, so even if I did overturn—my greatest fear—and I didn’t knock myself unconscious, I would have been okay. And oh, did I mention that R. is a nurse practitioner! Who can swim! We had every emergency covered.

R. put my oars together and we set out. I went in a circle a few hundred times but then found my rhythm and we took off down the River and under the highway and into an area of my town I didn’t even know existed until this past Sunday. It is a place of overhanging trees, mild rapids, beautiful birds, and tranquility. I’ve been here twenty years and had no idea that this three-mile offshoot of the River existed. We cruised along, R. staying by my side, making sure that I had gotten the hang of it. I had. I was kayaking and immensely proud of myself.

I looked to my left and saw a cluster of kayakers returning to the put-in, already having finished the three-mile loop. One of the kayakers—about fifty feet away from me—put his paddle across his kayak and even with the distance between us and the sun in my eyes, I could tell he was squinting at me and trying to figure out if I was indeed who he thought I was, his shut-in of a neighbor. He turned to his wife, a few feet behind him and muttered something. She, too, stopped and put her oars across her kayak, shielding her eyes from the sun.

Finally, he called out across the water, “Maggie? Is that you?” he asked, still unsure.

I waved back. “It’s me!”

His wife, still shielding her eyes, her face screwed in a mask of disbelief kept her eyes on me. “That’s not Maggie. Is it?”

Now I was starting to get indignant. Ok, I don’t leave the house very often but a girl can kayak if she wants to, right? And is capable of doing so with the proper instruction and safety precautions, correct? I called out that indeed, it was Maggie, I was outside, on the water, in a kayak and doing it with aplomb. (So said R., so I have a witness. Or just a very kind friend who wouldn’t hurt my feelings.) My friends passed by, still waving, still not completely sure it was me and floated back to the put-in where they stood for a few minutes trying to ascertain why Maggie—someone who has been outside a total of thirty-seven minutes this whole summer—was in a kayak in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

I came home wet and exhausted and told Jim about what great time we had. Like the aftermath of one of my training sessions with S., I can’t lift my arms, but I figure that with enough practice, that will gradually become a thing of the past and I might just end up with the upper arms of Michelle Obama, my upper-arm icon.

The only thing I have to figure out is how to transport a kayak—which I’m determined to buy before the summer’s out—on top of a Mini Cooper. That might be a problem.

Maggie Barbieri

Blogging, Promoting, Random Thoughts

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I’m writing this blog on Saturday because I know I’ll be busy next week and may forget. Things have been wild around here. First, the bathroom is finally done, but next we want to do some remodeling in the two bedrooms next to the refurbished John, which means moving lots of stuff around. When you move things, cleaning follows.

We’re expecting our eldest daughter and her hubby on Monday. They’ve been traveling all around in their motor home–to Kansas to a family reunion, South Dakota for sight seeing, back to Omaha for the Jr. Olympics because a granddaughter was competing, more sightseeing on the way to our house. I want to spend as much time with our visitors as possible. When they leave on Wednesday, we’re heading to the Angeles National Forest to a church camp where we’ll be spending time with my sister and my cousins and various other relatives until Friday noon. We’ve been to this camp before and it’s notorious for its bear visits.

From there we’re headed to San Luis Obispo for a Creative Women all day event on Saturday in the Mission Plaza where I’ll be selling my books. Also the members of the Central Coast Sisters in Crime will have a booth there and so I know I’ll be seeing a lot of my SinC sisters there. The whole point to this is I need to do my blogs ahead of time because I’ll be away from my computer. I will have my Blackberry so will be able to read my email. (I love my Blackberry. I used to have to look for computers in hotels where I could rent computer time.)

I have one other book selling event this month but will spend most of this month promoting on the Net. I’m gearing up for September when I’ll be doing one event after another because I’ll have a new Deputy Tempe Crabtree out.

My promotion begins with a talk at the San Joaquin chapter of Sister in Crime. I love this chapter and am one of the founding members.

I’ve only planned three booksignings at book stores and these are at independents, and at two of them I’ll be giving talks–which I believe works the best. I will be having a blog tour in September also. I’ll be presenting at two writers’ conferences–something I really enjoy.

As for my random thoughts, I’ve had a great time with the promoting part of being a writer. My husband and I have traveled to so many places we’d never have seen in order to attend mystery cons and other writing conferences–from Maui to Florida and lots of places in-between. On my own I’ve visited Alaska twice, and went to the Edgars in New York with a good writing friend–great experience. We’ve made wonderful friends all along the way. All-in-all, it’s been a most rewarding experience and I’m looking forward to even more.

Marilyn Meredith
http://fictionforyou.com