Tag Archive for: bethany maines

The Other Research

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by Bethany Maines 


 After reading Paffi Flood’s article about that new Beaver Bum smell, I don’t feel so bad about today’s google searches, which include best easy-open pocket knives, MAPP gas, and a variety of facts about the Tacoma Police Department in 1922. My search history may imply an interest in violence, safe breaking and the local politics of the early twentieth century, but at least I have not learned anything horrifying about ice cream.

 It has been noted on more than one occasion that mystery writers tend to have rather disturbing research patterns. But really, of course we do. No one wants to get that detail about corpse bloat wrong. So embarrassing – how could I face the other writers at the conventions? But the other, less disturbing, research rarely gets mentioned. What gets served in high-school lunches these days? Hint: tater tots are still going strong. What are the three laws of robotics again? (Answer here) What brand would a black, vegetarian, female computer hacker smoke? Turns out it’s either Newport Menthols or American Spirit Organics. What do ballet dancers do strengthen their feet? (Video here)

 My point? There’s a lot more research that goes into a work of fiction than just what happened to the dead guy. But that research isn’t particularly titillating. It’s simply the stuff we bore you with at cocktail parties. What I find interesting is that almost every person I’ve ever met has been an expert in something, from baking, bagpiping, needlepoint, and cars, to wood working, plumbing, or how the brakes on busses work. I never know when I’m going to need that expertise, but I like to keep track of my various experts. After all, I never know when I’m going to need to know how to crash a bus full of bagpipers. Not that I would ever publically admit to mentally cataloging my acquaintances by how useful they could be to future research…

***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Binary Pie

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by Bethany Maines
 For me, Thanksgiving and the coming end of the year frequently combine to make me philosophical and prone to navel gazing. Just what have I been doing with my life? Am I grateful? Am I curating my life in the path of gratitude? Do I even want to? Why should I have to? Is this my problem? Is this my fault? Then I start humming Paul Simon’s “Gumboots” and then go shove some pumpkin pie in my face.

Tuesday’s Stiletto Gang post from J.M. Phillippe discussed the nature of gratitude, particularly in the face of difficult times – When Gratitude isn’t Easy – and struck a chord with me. I thought she expressed beautifully the idea that gratitude is not a binary thing, it’s a plus thing. Gratitude can be added like a spice to any recipe. Even if I’m feeling other things, it doesn’t mean I can’t feel gratitude.

But the very concept of binary got me to thinking about our radically non-binary human nature and how it is so very at odds with our consistently binary thinking. We all have that one relative who is “such a nice guy, except for (fill in the blank)” Fill in the blank could be anything from his random use of racial slurs, his insistence on patting the waitress on the behind, or the fact that he tells jokes about Asians. He doesn’t cheat on his wife (but maybe on his taxes), he doesn’t use drugs, he holds open doors for people. Except…

So is this character a good person or a bad person? Binary says: yes/no. Non-binary says: depends on other factors – I’ll have to really think about this. I’ll have to think about my own moral stand on multiple issues. And also, does he kick puppies? Because that’s a deal breaker.

From a writing standpoint, this is the kind of thing that’s fascinating to explore. But in real life, during an election season, it’s made Thanksgiving a cringe worthy holiday where we all go and wonder if Republican Uncle Bob is going to get more than his turkey sliced if he brings up Trump to Democrat Aunt Jane. I don’t have the answers. I’m not sure any of us do. That’s why binary is so attractive. Make the decision, yes/no, and then I don’t have to think about it anymore. Non-binary means I have to keep revisiting the topic – to keep thinking. If binary trims away the indecision, then it also trims away the additional factors – the pluses. Good/bad. Yes/no. Happy/sad. Grateful/non-grateful. Is that what we want the answer to be?

 If that’s the way it’s going to be, I’m going to call this whole thing to a halt.
– Gumboots, Paul Simon

And now if you’ll excuse, I hear a pumpkin pie calling my name.

Dystopian Games

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You’re stuck in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean with 8
strangers and no food or water, who do you eat first?
Dystopian novels have held a prominent place on our National
reading lists for the last few years and while I occasionally enjoy a jaunt into the
horrific futures that we could create for ourselves they don’t really speak to
me.  To me they frequently seem like the
ultimate lifeboat game. While occasionally it’s fun to work through the logic
of how to survive in a treacherous situation, the real answer to any lifeboat
game is to not get stuck in the lifeboat in the first place. 
I was reminded of this principle recently when I visited a
conference for my day job (graphic design). The conference was for public works
personnel (AKA everyone who keeps your city functioning) and their lunch
speaker spoke on how their department had handled an earthquake.  From personnel rotation, calling in
reinforcements, clearing roadways, reviewing housing safety, clean up – this department
moved swiftly with the goal of maintaining safety and returning their town to
normal in the shortest amount of time possible (and they did a great job).  But having just read a dystopian novel I was
struck by the realization that not one person in the room was thinking… “Bob, I’d
eat Bob.”  They weren’t playing the game –
they were strategizing about how to not get stuck on the lifeboat.

All of this led to four thoughts.  One – I’m incredibly grateful for our public
works personnel.  From sewer maintenance,
to bridge engineers, to water management, they deserve more recognition than
they get.  Two – All of you great public
employees are screwing up a perfectly good dystopian plot line RIGHT NOW.   We’re not supposed to be coming together to
overcome a natural disaster and working for the common good!  Come on, people.  Where is the divisive hatred and the reaching
for the shotguns? That’s it; I’m breaking out the zombies.  Bob is going to be dinner if I have to have
three plot contrivances before breakfast.  Three – We as society need to invest more in
infrastructure.  And four – Because we
don’t invest more in infrastructure we all need to have 3 days to 2 weeks of
supplies on hand depending on where you live. 
Be prepared. Don’t let a dystopian novel happen to you.
***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Writers vs. Readers

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by Bethany Maines

Writer’s Group:
to gather with others to read and critique excerpts of written work
Reading Group: to
gather with others to read and critique books, drink and snack
When done correctly, a writer’s group can operate as an auxiliary
brain or a training ground to push a writer forward in her craft.  They can be fun, inspiring and incredibly
helpful. They can also be a sucking hole of negativity and wasted time. 
With that in mind, it was with some trepidation that I recently
tested out a new group. The hostess had a dog (bonus points) and they had
established a rule of positivity and compliments before critiques (nice).  They had a time keeper and a word count on
the segments we read (organized!). Each writer was doing different genres and
styles, but that had the benefit of bringing diverse points of view to the
table.  In general, it was great. It
provided very valuable feedback and I can only hope that I was equally helpful
to the other writers.
However, in specific, it was wee bit disappointing as there
were no beverages or snacks.  The
reasoning – that hosting the group was enough trouble and that we were here to
do actual serious work, not carouse – makes total, logical, absolute sense.  But in the sense of “it’s been a long week,
and Bethany wants a potato chip and a glass of something” it was less than I
had hoped for.  
I think, possibly what I was really hoping for was a Reading
Group.  Every Reading Group I’ve ever
attended came with crackers, cheese, and wine – the three low effort food
groups. Now, in defense of the writer’s group, very few Reading Group’s I’ve
ever attended actually stayed entirely on topic.  There was a lot of… uh… digression, shall we
say.  And time keeping was absolute
disaster.  And learning was sort of ancillary
by-product of reading a book I didn’t pick out, but gosh darn it, the artichoke
dip was fantastic.

So next month?  I’ll
be packing my own snacks to the writers group. 
After all, that group comes with a dog.
***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Creepies, Crawlies & Other Scary Things Like Politics

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by Bethany Maines

Welcome
to the Halloween / Election Season where we’re all hiding under our covers and
hoping that come sunrise it will all be over and the tangerine menace will have
gone back under his rock.  I don’t know about you, but I long for the days
when October child safety meant checking the candy for tampering, not checking
the news for use of the word “pussy”.  When the boomers talk
about bringing back the “good old-days” I nod along, but I’m pretty
sure we’re talking about different old days.  My definition of good old
days was when I didn’t have to listen to a year-long build up to an election.
 So, basically, 1984. Can Back to the
Future happen now?  
Sadly, Doc Brown has not turned up
to rescue me. So I’m forced to devise my own escape plan.  It’s called
books. I’m going to bury my nose in a book or computer and read and write my
way through October. In case you wish to enact your own escape plan, I’m offering
this giveaway opportunity from my publishing company Blue Zephyr Press.
 Enter for a chance to win a $75 Amazon Gift Card, one of three print
novels (Exile by Karen
Harris Tully, An Unseen
Current by Bethany Maines,
and Perfect Likeness by J.M. Phillippe), and one lucky
winner will win five e-books (Exile and Inheritance by Karen
Harris Tully, An Unseen Current and Wild Waters by
Bethany Maines, and Perfect Likeness by J.M. Phillippe).
 Contest runs through 10/30/16. 
Tweet for extra entries!

***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

The Dingbat Approach

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By Bethany Maines

This month at the Stiletto Gang we’ve been talking about
transitions and how moving to a new stage of life can affect writing. But I
have to admit that as I sat down to think about the topic all I found myself
pondering was the actual literal transitions of writing. One of the primary
tasks of a writer is to choose not just what to include, but what to leave out.
There are very few (if any?) novels that are told in one long continuous stream
of time. And every time the writer skips over the trip to the bathroom or the
drive from point A to point B she must choose how to indicate that transition.
Chapter 1
The Hard, Fast Break

Some writers like to make each new location or time switch a
new chapter.  It’s concrete. It’s self explanatory. And pretty hard for
the reader to get confused. But others like to the soft break.
***
In the typography world those little asterisks are called
dingbats. They come in all shapes and sizes and can be themed to the text.
Karen Harris Tully‘s series The Faarian Chronicles is a sci-fi young adult
adventure centered on a planet that was settled by Amazon warriors of Earth.
This gives the featured culture of the planet a Greek historical context (and
strong feminist heroines) and makes the transition dingbats of the omega symbol
fun and appropriate.
The softest break of all is the extra space.  As a
graphic designer, I’m not in favor of these. It’s far too easy, in a longer
work, for the extra space to get buried at the end of the page. Then what does
the designer do? Force the text to start lower down on the next page? That
looks awkward and can lead to confusion on the part of the reader. In other
words, if I see these in a book I immediately think the writer is a jerk who
doesn’t care about how much extra work their designer has to do.
Foolishly, when I first got into the publishing biz I found
myself incredibly surprised when my layout manuscript came back for proofing
that the designer had kept all of my transitions as I had typed them. Somehow I
genuinely thought that I would send off my MS and somewhere out in New York
someone would do something clever with my transitions.  I was kind of sad. 
I didn’t want to manage my own transitions – I wanted someone else to do all
the work for me.
Which when I think about it, is about what I think about
life transitions as well. How unfortunate that there’s no magic wand or
designer to outsource those problems to.  I guess I’m just going to put my
lifestyle setting on “dingbat” and see what I get.
***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Clicking Our Heels – Our Summer Reading and What We Read Again and Again

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The Stiletto
Gang are all writers, but we also enjoy a good read. In fact, we have
summer reads and books we simply enjoy reading again and again. We thought you
might be interested in both our summer and comfort reading.
Marilyn Meredith: I love to read
anything by William Kent Krueger any time of the year – but there are so many
others, especially female mystery authors. I’ve read Gone With the Wind several times – though I must admit I skipped
over some of the parts about the Civil War. At my age, I can reread about
anything and it seems new.
Paffi Flood: Stephen King. It’s great
to read horror stories late into the night, because the sun is out J.
I was amazed how timeless Salem’s Lot
by Stephen King was. Although it was originally released in 1975, when I
re-read it in 2014, the cadence, the language seemed so contemporary. Of
course, there were the references to 8-track tapes and car carburetors, and
some things from the ‘70s.
Jennae M. Phillippe: I find favorites
so hard to pick! I have more reading time in summer and usually catch up on the
recommendations my friends have sent me over the year. Recent ones that stand
out are Gail Carriger (Steampunk fantasy action romance), Anne Mendel (humorous
post-apocalyptic), and James S.A. Corey (Science fiction). If you have
recommendations, send them my way! I love to revisit my old favorites,
particularly the ones from my childhood, like the entire The Song of the Lioness series from Tamora Pierce, or the Anne of Green Gables books from L.M.
Montgomery. There is something about reading books from your childhood that
makes you feel like a kid again.
Dru Ann Love: I don’t have seasonal
authors. I read all year round and whoever I’m reading at the time becomes a
favorite, especially if their book is part of a series. Naked in Death by J.D. Robb is the only book that I have re-read
multiple times and each time I discover something I missed the first go-round
and fall in love with Eve and Roark all over again.
Sparkle Abbey: Some of our favorite
summer reads are Laura Levine, Carolyn Hart, and when we’re looking for
something a little darker, Lisa Gardner. We’ve both re-read Laura Levine books
occasionally simply because they’re such great escapes. And sometimes you need
to escape! LOL.
Linda Rodriguez: I re-read many books. I’ve
read Shakespeare, the King James Bible,
most of Dickens, Austen, Trollope, and Virginia Woolf many times. I re-read
many favorite poets again and again. I’ve re-read everything Agatha Christie
and Dorothy Sayers (at least, her mysteries) so many times I couldn’t begin to
count.
Bethany Maines: I usually try and read
something fluffy in the summer. I’ll re-read a Terry Pratchett (British humor)
or pick up an L.J. Wilson (sexy romance). The
Blue Castle by LM Montgomery – I loved it as a teenager and even more as an
adult. The idea of casting aside inhibitions to pursue the life you want is a
message that is always good to hear.
Juliana Aragon Fatula: Manuel Ramos,
Mario Acevado, and High Times Marijuana
for Everybody by Elise McDonough, Denise Chavez. The first time I read Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie, I tore
through it with vigor because I wanted to know who did it. The second time I
went through, took notes, marked pages to review, and savored the writing. It
was once for pleasure and twice for writing style. I re-read it because I
switched genres from poetry to mystery.
Kay Kendall: There is no seasonal
difference in my reading habits. For me it is mysteries, every day, all the
time. Or whatever the broadest term is that includes suspense, spy novels, and
the occasional thriller. I am not fond of police procedurals or books featuring
serial killers. Jane Eyre by
Charlotte Bronte. It has everything. Historic sweep, feisty heroine, suspense,
a touch of Gothic horror, and Mr. Rochester. Each time I have reread Jane Eyre, I marvel at its depth. It
holds up very well. I first read it as a young teen so of course I understand
some of its underpinnings better now.

Debra H. Goldstein: Summers are meant
for catching up on light mysteries, biographies, and literature. This summer’s
books ranged from The Nightingale to
Sisters in Law (Ruth Bader Ginsburg
and Sandra Day O’Connor) to the new Harry
Potter. I’m not a big re-reader but there are a few I often refer to for
style or concept like Edna Ferber’s
Giant, Agatha Christie’s books, or anything I think might incorporate a
style or an idea I’m thinking about.

Market Research

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By Bethany Maines
As we have been exploring the question “Who are you like?”
this month on the Stiletto Gang, I’ve been exploring what other books in my
genres look like.  This is sometimes
gratifying on the base level of my fonts
are so much better than yours and also sometimes mystifying on the level of
why are there so many bared midriffs in
contemporary fantasy?  On the topic
of midriffs, and purely for example’s sake, I’ll put the cover of Shifting Jock in Love here.  The cover is obviously… uh… fully functional,
because I can’t stop staring at the uh… weight lifting bar.  Now that we’ve covered that topic (no, we
haven’t covered anything?), let me move on to my point.
Market research, which is what I call shopping and (gently)
making fun of book covers over a glass of wine, is important.  It’s hard to review my own book cover
submissions if I don’t know what the trends are.  Not that trends should inform every decision,
but I like to know how far out of the current I’m swimming. In addition to
finding the occasional good idea that I could be copying, I also find really
interesting authors.  Research shows that
most people buy books based on word of mouth, but in this online age, that can’t
ALWAYS be true.  From Facebook to google
ads, to the wonders of Amazon, we get a lot of recommendations about authors
and books online.  And without a person
to ask, readers are stuck trying to answer “so who are they like” question
based on the marketing surrounding the book. 
But as we all learned in grade school, you can’t always judge a book by
it’s cover.

One great resource I’ve found in my wading around the
internet is a great website – www.literature-map.com  Simply type in an author you like and it will
produce of an animated cloud of similar authors aka a handy new To Be Read list.  And you can click on the question mark in the
corner if you want to add authors to the database to improve results.  And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go
enjoy a little more market research and a Riesling.
***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Who are you like?

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By Bethany Maines

One of the most common questions a writer hears is: Who are
you like?  In other words, what (famous,
more talented, richer, that I would have heard of) author are you like?  Of course, as authors we would always like to
respond – I am like no one! I am a unique snowflake of infinite genius!  Bow down before my staggering work of
novelistic achievement!  Possibly at this
point is where we also start investing in a parrot, flowing robes, and a pencil
thin moustache to twirl.  I’m not saying
all authors would go full Disney villain. Clearly, the eyebrows and make-up
require a more high-maintenance lifestyle than most of us are cut out for.  I’m just saying, nobody likes to think of
themselves, as “just like” somebody else. 
However, temper-tantrums and eyeliner aside, it is a useful
question.  It does let people know where
they should look for you in the library and where you fall on their reader
spectrum.  For the record, I usually
answer this question with – Janet Evanovich. 
My series Carrie Mae Mysteries is female centered spy series, with
plenty of hunks, humor, and huge action scenes. 
However, I also write in another genre – contemporary fantasy.  I write modern day fairy tales about fairies,
vampires, and what happens when a mermaid meets a SEAL. 
Writing in multiple genres used to be very “not done”
because the publishing houses found it hard to market.  The prevailing wisdom was that readers don’t
read multiple genres (uh… say what?), Self-publishing has opened the door for authors
to write whatever their unique snowflake heart’s desire, but it’s still a risk,
and a challenge for those doing the marketing, to figure out what to say to the
question – who do you write like? 

I guess for now, I’ll have to go with this answer – I write like my
fingers are fire with sheer greatness and my mascara is totally, totally on
point.
***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

The Red String of My Mind

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by Bethany Maines

In the cop shows, whenever the intrepid detective (Watchingthe Detectives, Elvis Costello)
is working on the massive conspiracy that killed her mother/lover/those six
girls we never met, but who really give our character a reason to act, the case
is always shown as pictures (Pictures of You, The Cure) tacked up and connected
by red string.  I don’t know what set
designer came up with the red string, but they ought to get royalties.  It’s so common that if I worked at a craft
store and someone bought red string I’d think they were a serial killer, a cop
thrown off the force for refusing to quit the case, or a grandmother of
toddlers stocking up for Christmas.  I
bring this up for the reason that it is a fitting visual for the song lyric
littered wasteland (Teenage Wasteland, The Who) that is my brain. 
Whenever I have a story noodling around in my head, but
haven’t moved it to the level of having an outline, my natural writing style is
to pick out scenes that I want to write, type them up, and save each scene to it’s
own word document.  As you can imagine,
this creates a number of random word documents that might be hard to keep track
of.  But I have a system, most often I’ll
name the document the song lyric associated with it.  As a book grows, frequently these scenes
become chapters, and those document names become chapter titles.  Which is why the original table of contents for
Bulletproof Mascara, the first of my Carrie Mae Mystery novels, read more like
a playlist than serious literary subtitles. 
Sadly, editor made me change most of them – now they simply hint at the
songs they reference.  Apparently, the
only people more uptight that literary rights lawyers or music rights
lawyers.  But you can still rock out to
the Bulletproof Mascara playlist simply by visiting my youtube page  (youtube.com/CarrieMaeMysteries) – please enjoy
the musical stylings of David Bowie, James Brown, Simon & Garfunkel, Tech9,
Morcheeba, and (of course) more.

***
Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie
Mae Mysteries, Wild Waters, Tales
from the City of Destiny and An
Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video
or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.