By Donnell Ann Bell
Look down. What are you wearing? Don’t worry; this isn’t going to be a pornographic blog. I’m just curious if you’re like me.
I don’t stay in my pajamas when I start my day, but I do slip into my most comfortable “grungies.” It’s hot where I am and as I write this, I’m wearing a sleeveless top and my once-favorite capris, which sadly I ruined by spilling Clorox on them. My point, it would take an emergency for me to leave the house in my current attire.
Which brings me to one of my favorite stories about my daughter-in-law. Well, this story takes place before she was my DIL. She and my son attended the same university, and on winter break, he asked if he could bring home a friend. This was his first year of college, mind you, which caused my husband and me to raise an eyebrow or two, especially when the friend in question turned out to be an attractive young woman.
I recall reacting in a way any reasonable mother might. “Who is this girl? Is it serious and you do intend to finish college, right?”
“She’s a friend, Mom.”
Uh-huh.
As kids tend to do at that age, they were coming and going, catching up with their peers. I was busy writing and didn’t pry too much, even though I was intensely curious. I did learn the basics. She was studying to be an R.N. and at the top of her class. Okay, neither she nor my son appeared to be on the verge of becoming college dropouts.
Source: Pixabay
But because I had so little to go on, I formed the wrong impression. Because my son was so adamant that they were just friends, I built it up in my over-imaginative brain that she’d come home with him because she was poor and had nowhere else to go. I mean the first time I met her; she entered our home wearing a pink coat that was so ripped in the armpit, the tear revealed the facing. Moreover, when she came for a visit a second time, she wore it again!
That was it. It was Christmastime and the mystery writer/amateur sleuth in me was no longer buying the “We’re just friends,” angle. I said to my daughter, “We should buy Dave’s girlfriend a new coat for Christmas. My daughter thought it was a stellar idea and the two of us went to work searching online.
Still, we didn’t know much about her, just that she might be partial to pink. Log on to the internet, enter pink + coat, and you’ll be smothered by an avalanche of that color. We wanted to get her a new coat but were at a loss to choose a style she might like.
“I know,” my daughter said, “Let’s ask her mom.”
“You know her mom?” I asked.
“Sure,” my daughter said.
Obviously, my son had confided in his sister, or unlike my daughter, I had medaled in not prying.
So, when we called my future DIL’s mother to ask her opinion, she was horrified. Not at us for wanting to buy her daughter a new coat; she thought that was sweet. But the conversation went something like, “I can’t believe she’s still wearing that thing!”
Needless to say, I learned something about making assumptions that day. My DIL could afford a new coat; she simply loved the one she wore.
In fiction, authors enjoy creating characters in which we sometimes share (and sometimes don’t) personality traits, odd quirks and deep dark secrets. Often, we let the reader know about these perceptions, while our protagonists or secondary characters are left stymied.
The case of the tattered pink coat stymied me.
P.S. These two married two years after they graduated and are the proud parents of three beautiful children. At least I got one perception right. I didn’t buy for an instant they were just friends.
How about you? Do you have something in your wardrobe you refuse to give up? Have you ever had to walk back a mistaken impression?
The Meet Cute
/in Paula Gail Benson, Anthologies, How to Write, humor, Ideas, Romance, Shakespeare, Short Stories, Writing and the Arts/by Paula Bensonby Paula Gail Benson
Cover from First LRWA Anthology
Currently, I’m working on an up-to-10,000 word short story for the third Lowcountry Romance Writers’ (LRWA) anthology. The story must somehow involve South Carolina and a vacation.
I’m basing mine on characters I developed in my story that appeared in the first LRWA anthology. It’s been fun to give this couple its own romance since they were the antagonists in the original story. Figuring out how two basically disagreeable folks become likable and get together has been both challenging and delightful!
During a brainstorming session with some of the other anthology contributors, I described the female protagonist’s situation, background, and desires. She was focused on finding a way to connect with her 10-year-old daughter, who seemed more in sync with the ex-husband and his fiancée. I was interrupted from describing my character’s angst with the question: what’s her love interest and where’s the “meet cute”?
I’d heard the term “meet cute” and recognized the concept. Wikipedia, referencing Merriam-Webster, describes it as: “a scene in media, in which two people meet for the first time, typically under unusual, humorous, or cute circumstances, and go on to form a future romantic couple.” Wikipedia illustrated the entry with a depiction of Romeo and Juliet’s first meeting.
Image that appears in Wikipedia
Romeo and Juliet opens with a “meet cute”? I had to reread the play.
So, Romeo is pining after Rosalind, who is a Capulet niece. The Capulets are trying to fix Juliet up with Paris. Then, Romeo sneaks into the Capulets’ banquet at their home. Tybalt protests his presence, but Mr. Capulet says, don’t call attention to him. Meanwhile, Romeo sees and zeroes in on Juliet. After some fancy talk about pilgrims’ hands meeting in prayer resembling kissing, they trade a few smooches.
Okay. I understand the setup as a “meet cute.” Romeo goes to romance the girl he’s fascinated by and instead falls in love with the daughter of his family’s worst enemy. It’s the story’s tragic overtones (not to mention all the pilgrims’ hands speeches) that obscure the humor of that scene.
I thought about some of my favorite Rom-Coms: Legally Blonde, where Elle meets Emmett at Harvard, or Shakespeare in Love, where the bard first sees his muse dressed in male attire and auditioning for a role. One of my favorite romances is Lisa Kleypas’ The Devil in Winter, one of her wallflower series. The couple are acquainted but have their actual first face-to-face meeting after the male has kidnapped the female’s friend in a previous book. Evangeline Jenner is the shy, stuttering daughter of a wealthy gambling house owner who approaches Sebastian, Lord Vincent, one of London’s best-known rakes to save her from her relatives’ manipulations. That initial scene sizzles with sexual tension.
Could I do that with my characters? I’ve tried by having them reconnect at a restaurant where the female does not at first recognize the male, who is her server. I asked for some feedback from another writing group and was fascinated to hear their reactions to this couple. The group had a lot of good suggestions and questions. I always find questions encouraging because it means readers want to know more.
What’s your favorite “meet cute” scene and has it ever involved unlikable characters?
Cover of LRWA Anthology Volume 2
Discovering the donair
/in Author Life, Uncategorized/by donalee MoultonIn my latest book, Conflagration!, food is the foundation for a friendship that springs up in 1734 between the main character Philippe Archambeau, a court clerk, and the jailer he befriends. Lunch becomes a means to extract information, then it becomes much more.
In my first book Hung Out to Die the main character, an American transplanted to Nova Scotia, discovers the delicious joy of the donair. Many people have never heard of this juicy, meat-filled, garlicky concoction, but it is the official food of Halifax. Popular history says the donair – spicy meat wrapped in a pita and embraced with lots of sweet sauce – was invented in Halifax in the 1970s where it rapidly became a must-have menu item for late-night partiers, snackers, and food aficionados.
As my main character, Riel Brava, discovers, the donair can be a little difficult to eat. There is an art to juggling a stuffed pita while licking sauce off your face and adjusting foil wrap to get more donair in your mouth.
The recipe below avoids that dilemma. It’s an appetizer compliments of the Dairy Farmers of Canada. I have adapted the recipe slightly.
Let me know how it tastes.
Donair Dip
Ingredients
Donair Sauce
Preparation
Marketing for Authors
/in Author Life, author promotion, Novels, Publishing, Series/by Bethany MainesCan an Author Really Do Marketing Too?
Example of a common marketing graphics.
For traditionally published authors the marketing happens without much input. Whatever ads are placed are done by the publisher who can adjust the price point at their discretion. This can be frustrating or blissful for an author depending on their viewpoint. I swing between the two. I love not doing the work, but I hate it when I don’t think enough marketing is being done.
However, for independent author things are a bit different. While can we run ads and control the price point (yay!) I must also keep track of ad vendors, types of ads, marketing copy, all the things that a traditional publisher pays another human being to do. It can be overwhelming and impossible if an author doesn’t have the skillset to do these tasks.
What’s New from Amazon Marketing?
The problem is that for most other marketing vehicles—social media, newsletters, BookBub—text is always paired with a graphic. So when looking at my collection of already created marketing images, finding one with no text is impossible. So now we’re making compelling custom graphics that tell the story—without words—and oh, yeah, it has to also crop to a square.
What did I do?
I figured for a few hours of work I could create some images and see if the ads really did make an impact.
For my San Juan Islands Mystery series I tried to pull imagery to match my heading: Deceit, deception, death… and a dog. The series is about Tish Yearly, her grandfather Tobias Yearly, and his Chocolate Lab Coats solving mysteries in the San Juan Islands. So I tried to select images that support the premise.
Interested? Buy at any online book retailer: https://books2read.com/AnUnseenCurrent
For my Shark Santoyo Crime Series with the heading, “An anything but typical new adult thriller” I used imagery that had already been created for Facebook. The series features an unusual mobster who is faced with finding the bosses money or ending up in cement. His solution is creative and relies on a mysterious teenager who is fast with her mouth and even faster with a knife.
Interested? Buy or read on Kindle Unlimited: https://amzn.to/3NgCX2h
What were the results?
Surprisingly, I’ve seen a sharp uptick in people reading the Shark Santoyo series. This delights me because I love the series. It was written during a phase that I wasn’t particularly interested in writing “to market” (crafting a book to meet specific genre expectations). I wanted to write something gritty, action-packed, violent, AND funny. All of those vibes combine to make something that’s a little hard to place genre-wise, so I love that people are enjoying it.
While I’m fortunate in that I do have the skillset to create graphics I’m not sure how Amazon expects most indie authors to fulfill these requirements. Or perhaps, as per usual with the Zon, they don’t care—they have selected the course that’s best for them. However, it does make me wonder what the future of indie publishing looks like. As more indie writers become outclassed by the marketing environment, what will we need to do to adapt?
**
New Lessons from High School
/in amateur sleuth mysteries, Author Life, Book Clubs, characters, life, Samantha Newman Romantic Mystery series, women sleuths/by Gay YellenHard to believe that the public school year opened here yesterday, especially when we’re still inside the blast furnace that is August. I remember sweating through those first days. It was pretty brutal.
As grown-ups, we know it’s impossible to escape high school as fully-formed adults. There are too many new lessons to be learned as years go by. Matter of fact, I caught up with a few new ones at the reunion.
If you plan to attend such a gathering, it’s common to question whether or not you have measured up to expectations. Maybe we feel we haven’t aged well, or weren’t successful enough, or didn’t meet our own hopes in some other way. Mercifully, most of my classmates at the party seemed to overcome those useless notions and decided to be there just for the fun of it.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Right off the bat, I ran into a couple of people I’d long remembered for having been cruel to me. The first was the grown-up version of a girl who had very publicly humiliated me my freshman year.
We managed to have a cordial conversation, but as I walked away, I couldn’t help noting that she would make a good villain in a mystery some day.
Come to think of it, that long-ago betrayal may have fed my subconscious as I created E.B. Odom, the villain in The Body Business. So, here’s a thank-you to her!
Also at the party was a person who, in elementary school, had a nasty habit of kicking my shins until they bled.
I remembered him as a little devil. But at the reunion, he went out of his way to talk to me, and spoke so kindly about my mother that I instantly changed my opinion. As mystery readers know, sometimes an apparent villain in a story turns out to be a hero. Something like that occurs in the third book in the The Samantha Newman Mystery Series.
Recaptured Memories
The absolute highlight of the evening was being able to reconnect with old friends, many of whom I hadn’t seen since graduation. Remembering with them what we were like back then and sharing our life journeys since those sweet days was a priceless gift. It left me longing to connect with others who hadn’t made the trip.
There’s something deeply satisfying about sharing memories with people who knew us when. Most special was excavating the hidden treasures of experiences we’d long ago forgotten. And feeling so very grateful for the new lessons, too.
Have you ever attended a class reunion? How did it go?
Please leave a comment below…
Contact her at GayYellen.com
The Case of the Pink Tattered Coat
/in Donnell Ann Bell, humor, life, The Stiletto Gang/by Donnell Ann BellLook down. What are you wearing? Don’t worry; this isn’t going to be a pornographic blog. I’m just curious if you’re like me.
I don’t stay in my pajamas when I start my day, but I do slip into my most comfortable “grungies.” It’s hot where I am and as I write this, I’m wearing a sleeveless top and my once-favorite capris, which sadly I ruined by spilling Clorox on them. My point, it would take an emergency for me to leave the house in my current attire.
Which brings me to one of my favorite stories about my daughter-in-law. Well, this story takes place before she was my DIL. She and my son attended the same university, and on winter break, he asked if he could bring home a friend. This was his first year of college, mind you, which caused my husband and me to raise an eyebrow or two, especially when the friend in question turned out to be an attractive young woman.
I recall reacting in a way any reasonable mother might. “Who is this girl? Is it serious and you do intend to finish college, right?”
“She’s a friend, Mom.”
Uh-huh.
As kids tend to do at that age, they were coming and going, catching up with their peers. I was busy writing and didn’t pry too much, even though I was intensely curious. I did learn the basics. She was studying to be an R.N. and at the top of her class. Okay, neither she nor my son appeared to be on the verge of becoming college dropouts.
Source: Pixabay
But because I had so little to go on, I formed the wrong impression. Because my son was so adamant that they were just friends, I built it up in my over-imaginative brain that she’d come home with him because she was poor and had nowhere else to go. I mean the first time I met her; she entered our home wearing a pink coat that was so ripped in the armpit, the tear revealed the facing. Moreover, when she came for a visit a second time, she wore it again!
That was it. It was Christmastime and the mystery writer/amateur sleuth in me was no longer buying the “We’re just friends,” angle. I said to my daughter, “We should buy Dave’s girlfriend a new coat for Christmas. My daughter thought it was a stellar idea and the two of us went to work searching online.
Still, we didn’t know much about her, just that she might be partial to pink. Log on to the internet, enter pink + coat, and you’ll be smothered by an avalanche of that color. We wanted to get her a new coat but were at a loss to choose a style she might like.
“I know,” my daughter said, “Let’s ask her mom.”
“You know her mom?” I asked.
“Sure,” my daughter said.
Obviously, my son had confided in his sister, or unlike my daughter, I had medaled in not prying.
So, when we called my future DIL’s mother to ask her opinion, she was horrified. Not at us for wanting to buy her daughter a new coat; she thought that was sweet. But the conversation went something like, “I can’t believe she’s still wearing that thing!”
Needless to say, I learned something about making assumptions that day. My DIL could afford a new coat; she simply loved the one she wore.
In fiction, authors enjoy creating characters in which we sometimes share (and sometimes don’t) personality traits, odd quirks and deep dark secrets. Often, we let the reader know about these perceptions, while our protagonists or secondary characters are left stymied.
The case of the tattered pink coat stymied me.
P.S. These two married two years after they graduated and are the proud parents of three beautiful children. At least I got one perception right. I didn’t buy for an instant they were just friends.
How about you? Do you have something in your wardrobe you refuse to give up? Have you ever had to walk back a mistaken impression?
Pens
/in How to Write/by DebraThere was a time that I wrote everything in longhand. Being left-handed, I had to be careful not to use a pen that allowed me to smear the ink with my pinky. In addition, because I have small hands (I can still wear a child’s sized glove or mitten), the pen couldn’t be too thick or too fat. Consequently, many of the popular thin Bic pens or other retractable ones didn’t feel right when I held them.
After many years of trial and error, I discovered Uniball Vision Elite pens. Like Goldilocks felt after trying Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear’s chair, food, and beds, this pen for me is “just right.” It fits my hand, glides across the page, and usually doesn’t smear. What more could I ask?
The irony is that now that I’ve found the perfect pen, I rarely use it. Although I write thank you notes in ink, I compose my books and stories on the computer, make most of my payments electronically, and have traded letters for emails.
What about you? Do you still use a pen (and which one is perfect for you)?
Clicking Our Heels – If We Could Be Any of Our Characters
/in Author Life, characters, Clicking Our Heels/by DebraWhen you read a book, do you ever imagine what it would be like if you could be one of the characters, even for a day? We thought it would be interesting to see, if given the opportunity, which of our characters we would each switch with.
Bethany Maines – Uh… eeek. My heroines have a lot of adventures. I’m not sure I’m cut out for some of that. This is a bit of a deep cut, but I’ll go with Ariana Grace from my short story anthology “Tales from the City of Destiny.” Ariana is a half-fae antique dealer who lives in Tacoma who also solves a few problems and mysteries. That way I would still be a small business owner and still live in Tacoma, but I would have a bit of magic and mystery.
Barbara J. Eikmeier – Julia. She’s so confident and fun.
Saralyn Richard – Nana, the sheepdog pup, who just wants to have fun!
Dru Ann Love – Lizzie.
T.K. Thorne – That’s a difficult question because they have all had really tough times that I would not want to go through! Perhaps Adira from my second historical novel, Angels at the Gate, the story of Lot’s wife. I love the romance between her and one of the “angels” and her bond with her desert dog, Nami.
Debra H. Goldstein – Mama Maybelle so I could say “Bless Your Heart” to people with a straight face and get away with it.
Lois Winston – This is a loaded question. My characters all deal with problems I’d never want—like constant dead bodies. However, if I could switch places without the dead bodies and other baggage I’ve dumped on her, I’d opt for Anastasia Pollack, my reluctant amateur sleuth, because of her strength, courage, and resilience.
Gay Yellen – It wouldn’t be Samantha, because she finds herself in trouble much too often. I’d choose her friend, Gertie, who has waited a long time for happiness and has finally found it.
Donnell Ann Bell – I’d switch places with any of my female protagonists AFTER the case was solved. 😊
Debra Sennefelder – Kelly Quinn from my Resale Boutique Mystery series. I’m so jealous she’s surrounded by clothes all day.
Anita Carter – Honestly, probably not a single one. They’re all very flawed, find too many dead bodies, and have more issues than I do. Ha!
Mary Lee Ashford – Oh, it would definitely be Caro Lamont from the Pampered Pets series. Who wouldn’t want to live in Laguna Beach and spend their days with cute cats and dogs?
Donalee Moulton – Riel Brava, the main character in my book Hung Out to Die, is a psychopath. Not the Hannibal Lecter kind of psychopath, the other kind — those who live and work among us without violence or animus. I’d like to step into Riel’s world for a few days.
Nancy J. Parra and the Dog Days of Summer
/in Cozy Mysteries, Give Away, Guest, Mystery, Summer Reads/by Mary Lee Ashfordwith Sparkle Abbey
Today we’re thrilled to welcome longtime friend and fellow author Nancy J. Parra aka Nancy Coco aka Nell Hampton to the blog. She’s a USA Today Bestselling Author and has over thrity-five published novels including five mystery series. And she’s also party to many of our conference adventures. Nancy take it away…
I’ve been wondering for a long time why we call the hottest days the dog days. I mean, doggies are cute and sweet and silly. Then why name the hottest days after them? So, I looked it up.
It’s a very old idea whose history tells the tale of cultural minds. The whole thing began when we looked up in the sky and observed the dog star rising. People associated it with drought, storms, heat, human ailments, and mood changes. One culture said the dog days “made women wanton and the men feeble.”
But for us, it’s simply the hottest time of our year.
Still, it would make for an interesting twist in a mystery, wouldn’t it?
Allie McMurphy from Three Fudges and a Baby doesn’t think so. She has enough twists on her hands. Especially with handling her best friend, Jenn Christensen’s erratic moods. In her last few weeks of pregnancy where all she wants to do is get the baby out, Jenn’s doula is arrested for the murder of her fiancé. Jenn has a meltdown. She’s tired of waddling, being unable to see her own feet and struggling to get up out of chairs. But she won’t have the baby without her doula and demands Allie as her best friend and the baby’s godmother to find the real killer. Perhaps the “dog days” could explain Jenn’s moods but nobody would dare tell her that. Besides it’s early May.
It’s a good thing Allie has her own cute pup who helps sniff out a killer before they all end up in the doghouse.
Tell me, how do you feel about the hottest days of the year? Are you someone who lives for them? Or are you ready to collect Halloween décor or start Christmas shopping?
Let me know your thoughts below and one lucky commenter will win a signed copy of Three Fudges and a Baby!
USA Today Bestselling Author, Nancy Coco AKA Nell Hampton AKA Nancy Parra is the author of over 35 published novels which include five mystery series: The Oregon Honey-comb Mystery Series (Kensington), The Candy-Coated Mysteries (Kensington), The Kensington Palace Mystery Series (Crooked Lane), The Wine Country Tours Mystery Series (Crooked Lane) The Gluten-free Baker’s Treat Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime), and The Perfect Proposal Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime). Her writing has been called witty and her protagonists plucky by reviewers around the world. Nancy is a member of Sisters in Crime and loves to hear from readers.
You can find her at:
Website
Facebook
Bookbub
Thanks for hanging out with The Stiletto Gang today, Nancy! We’ll be interested in everyone’s thoughts on the hottest days of the year. We’d have to say that we’ve had some challenging weather here lately and we’re definitely ready for some cooler days.
Wishing you and the rest of the gang a great rest of the summer!
Sparkle Abbey
A Master Class in Comedy
/in amateur sleuth mysteries, Author Life, Cozy Mysteries, crafting cozies, humor, indie publishing, Lois Winston, Mystery Series, women sleuths/by Lois WinstonArtwork from Pixabay with LOL! added.
By Lois Winston
Someone recently asked me which author would I most want to take a master class from? Hmm…here’s the thing: I don’t get much out of long workshops. I find that an hour is my limit. Maybe I have too short an attention span, but I find that after an hour, my mind begins to wander, and my eyelids grow heavy. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that most of the time, these workshops are held in exceedingly warm conference rooms. If there’s a PowerPoint presentation, it’s worse because the lights are dimmed to perfect nodding-off conditions. And if the presenter isn’t all that great a public speaker, no matter how fabulous a writer, that’s the Trifecta of Snooze.
So chances of me ever taking a master class from someone are slim to never-gonna-happen. I’d learn more by reading their books and any books and articles they may have written on the craft of writing.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t authors I’d love to hear speak. Just not for more than an hour at a time.
I write the humorous Anastasia Pollack Mysteries. Writing any humorous genre is hard, but adding humor to something as serious as murder is a real challenge. I’ve sat through talks by various humorous mystery authors, many of whom I greatly admire, but their talks are generally more about their journey to publication and less about the art of writing the humorous mystery.
I think I’d gain more knowledge from attending a workshop given by someone who makes a living writing humor as opposed to humorous mysteries. Years ago I watched Mo Rocca interview Kathy Griffin on CBS Sunday Morning. I learned more about humor from that interview than I’d ever learned listening to my favorite humorous mystery authors.
I’d love to have the chance to sit down with Tina Fey for an hour. Just me and Tina. No cameras. No audience. What I wouldn’t give to pick her brain about writing humor. Not to mention, I’d also like to convince her to option my series. Wouldn’t Tina be the perfect actress to play Anastasia? Still…if anyone reading this happens to know Tina…Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?
But the person I’d most like to spend time with is Alan Alda. Disclaimer: I think M*A*S*H is the best sitcom ever shown on TV. I own the complete eleven season DVD set. Every few months I’ll watch a season. I’ve watched each episode so many times, that I have all the dialogue memorized.
The episodes that Alan Alda wrote are my favorites. The man had an incredible knack for taking something as serious as war and adding humor while still maintaining the seriousness of the subject. He showed how humor can help get people through difficult situations. And he did it brilliantly. That’s what I try to do in writing my humorous mysteries.
If Alan Alda were to give a master class on writing humor, there’s no way I’d start nodding off, no matter how hot the room.
Who are your favorite comedy writers/actors? Post a comment for a chance to win a promo code for a free audiobook of any one of the first ten Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery.
~*~
And the Short Story Award Goes To . . .
/in Anthologies, Mystery, Paula Gail Benson, Short Stories/by Paula Bensonby Paula Gail Benson
It’s awards season again. Here are short story and anthology categories for Macavity, Anthony, and Silver Falchion awards. I’ll also note that the Short Mystery Fiction Society is currently polling its membership concerning a new anthology category to be added to the Derringers.
Many events on the horizon!
Mystery Readers Internation Macavity Awards Finalists
Best Mystery Short Story:
Anthony Award Finalists (to be given at Bouchercon)
BEST ANTHOLOGY/COLLECTION
BEST SHORT STORY
Silver Falchion Award Finalists (to be given at Killer Nashville)
BEST ANTHOLOGY (AWARDED TO INDIVIDUAL AUTHOR OR COLLECTION EDITOR)