Tag Archive for: Debra H. Goldstein

Cause and Effect

/in /by

Cause and Effect by Debra H. Goldstein

Cause and effect. I find the philosophy of causality, that B immediately results from event A interesting conceptually; but as a mystery writer, I don’t believe things happen in a perfectly linear way. My vision is skewed. For me, rather than the main path being A to B, there always seems to be a few A++ along the way.

For example, my “A” this week was the receipt of editorial comments on a first draft. “B” should have been my rewrite. It hasn’t happened yet. Oh, I’ve been thinking about the changes I need to make, but the pluses I referred to have kept B from becoming anything more than a thought in my head. I wonder if your cause and effect ever runs like this:

A – Receipt of Editorial comments
A+ – Read the comments and scratch head to understand them
A++-Go to gym to clear head
A+++-Stop in gym cafeteria for a smoothie and think about how much I hate exercise
A++++-Go home and look at manuscript and manuscript comments. Play solitaire
A+++++-Glance at printer next to computer and remember the paper tray is broken
A++++++-Check e-mail. Notice, conveniently, Best Buy has new printer on sale
A+++++++-Run to Best Buy and purchase printer during twenty-four hour sale
A++++++++-Get it up to my office but notice the office is dusty and cluttered
A+++++++++-Begin two day cleaning-purge four boxes and a bag. Play solitaire
A++++++++++-Set up new printer but have to figure out how to do wireless set-up
A+++++++++++-Shower. Rush not to be late for Mah jongg game
A++++++++++++-Throw concepts around with editor. Play solitaire. Gym
A++++++++++++++-Research and draft remarks for Temple Selichot program
A+++++++++++++++-Review notes, deliver speech and participate in panel. Exhausted
A++++++++++++++++-Write Stiletto blogs and set up It’s Not a Mystery blog
A+++++++++++++++++-Take a nap. Worn out, but mind keeps working overtime
B – Adopt Scarlett O’Hara’s philosophy: “I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

Mystery writing compares to my A to B. Red herrings, turns and twists, and unforeseen character demands prevent the story from merely being simple cause and effect. I’m glad. Think how boring going only from A to B would be.

Flying With Mary Poppins

/in /by

Flying with Mary Poppins by Debra H. Goldstein

Last night, I saw a community production of Mary Poppins that blew my socks off. I can’t say enough about the acting, singing, dancing, or sets, but it was during the instances when Mary Poppins took flight that I felt a surge of “practically perfect” happiness. The only thing that made me fly higher was watching the face of a four-year-old child sitting in the row in front of me.

The little girl was the youngest of three sisters.  Seated in the third row, directly behind the family, I was concerned when I realized her parents placed her between her sisters rather than next to them. Was she the buffer to keep the older children from fighting?  How could the parents possibly reach and control her if she became bored?

I had my answer during the overture when she crawled over one sister and plopped into her mother’s lap. For the remainder of the performance, she quietly was shuffled between her mother and father. In the comfort of their arms, her attention was glued to the stage for the first act, but she became restless after intermission.  That is, until she sensed the actress playing Mary Poppins positioning herself on the edge of the stage, in the semi-darkness, a few feet from our seats. A moment later, when a now spotlighted Mary Poppins rose and flew over the audience – pausing for a second to smile down from directly above the little girl’s seat – the child’s eyes grew wide with wonder, awe, and the making of a permanent memory for both of us.

Hopefully, she will always remember the night she saw Mary Poppins fly. May I, as a writer, cling to the memory of how a child became engaged by the magic of storytelling.

I Wrote a Book

/in /by

I Wrote A Book by Debra H. Goldstein

I wrote a book this week. Or, maybe it was last week? The days seem to run together when I’m writing well. Hours go by before I stiffly realize daylight has faded.

I don’t know if the book is any good. I began writing it at the end of last year and thought it was a hoot. It incorporated everything that a cozy or a traditional with cozy elements needs: small town, a woman finding herself or doing something she’s not particularly comfortable with, nice language, mostly nice characters, food with a twist…you’re getting the picture. Then, my mother died and I stopped writing.

The words didn’t flow. The ideas came and I dutifully wrote them on a sticky or on a note on my iPad, but I didn’t look at them again. Short story contest and anthology deadlines came and went. Still, I didn’t write.

People asked me how my new book was coming and I told them the truth, “It’s not.” What was going well was my mah jongg playing, eating out, exercising, TV watching, volunteer meetings, traveling, and solitaire playing.

And then, one day, I woke up and remembered I wanted to be a writer. It dawned on me that a writer

needs to write. I decided to find time to do that again. For fun, I polished a story I had been tinkering

with and submitted it. I pulled up the manuscript that I had been writing and realized “No wonder I can’t bring myself to work on this manuscript. I’m not sad about my mother (well, maybe I am); the story doesn’t work because I’ve pinned the crime on the wrong character.”

I hit my head (okay, let’s pretend I hit my head), chortled, and wondered “How stupid could I be?” I edited and rewrote and suddenly I was beyond the point at which I’d stopped writing.

For the next ten days, I wrote with minimal breaks. I turned down invitations to play mah jongg and begged off attending meetings or long lunches. My fingers flew across the keyboard in beat to whatever music was being played on the Showtunes channel. I finished. 72464 of my own words.

The book will need to be edited and revised before I’ll send it searching for a home, but I held a hard copy of the manuscript in my hand today and I smiled. Good or bad, I am a writer.

My Husband is Living With a New Woman

/in /by

My Husband is Living With A New Woman by Debra H. Goldstein

My husband thinks he’s living with a new woman.  He isn’t sure who I am. Suddenly, I’m doing things and talking about subjects that are absolutely foreign to what he associates with me.

The fact is that we’ve been married long enough that he thinks he can predict what I like or dislike. Ask him and he’ll tell you that I love him, our children, books, eating out and theater (although he’s not sure what order, at any given time, those things fall in) and that sporting events, exercise, and cooking top my “forget it” list. Lately though, he thinks his wife has been replaced by a “foodie.”

Not only does he keep finding the television tuned to the Food Network, but he’s noticed that I keep coming home with cookbooks and new food gadgets. Even weirder, I’ve been turning down the option of going out to dinner to try a number of new recipes out on him. Of course, not all of them have been successful. For example, I made chicken soup from scratch for our Passover Seder, but I didn’t realize that the wide noodles I added a few minutes before the service would soak up all the soup during our short service. You can imagine my face when I peered into the pot to ladle out portions and could actually see my soup evaporating. The good thing, as we all agreed, was that the matzah balls, noodles, and chicken ended up being very well seasoned.

At least those things sans soup were edible. Recently, I made a fish dish that not only looked beautiful in the picture in the cookbook, but also on our plates. The only problem was that I got distracted when I was measuring some of the ingredients. Take it from me, 2 tablespoons of black pepper make a dish a lot spicier than ¼ of a teaspoon. Thank goodness we had plenty of water with that meal.

Last night, I dragged my husband to a new type of dinner experience – Dinner Lab. Young chefs come into town and serve a meal in a pop-up restaurant. Although the diner knows the chef and menu in advance, the location isn’t revealed until the day before dinner. The dinner itself is more like a tasting menu in that each course provides a different eating sensation. I liked the warehouse used, thought the menu novel, and enjoyed each course. My husband had the same reaction he had when he saw The Blue Men Group – “that was different.”

The reality is I haven’t changed. I still prefer to eat out. What has changed is that my newest work in progress (about 51,000 words so far) is a cozy with recipes. Writing accurately and interestingly requires research. Whether it is the voice, setting, or characterization, accuracy counts. So, I’ve become addicted to food shows, cookbooks, and cooking (okay, make that attempted cooking) for the sake of my craft. Can you possibly think of a more fun way to get the story right – even if it means my husband is living with a new woman?

Feeling Lucky – Friday the 13th by Debra H. Goldstein

/in /by

FEELING LUCKY – FRIDAY THE 13TH by Debra H. Goldstein

Walk under a ladder, admire the black cat that runs across my path, and not carry a lucky penny, rabbit’s foot, or charm are all things I’m going to do today. It’s Friday the 13th, probably one of the most feared and safest days when it falls. This year, 2015, the 13th day of the month falls on Friday in February, March and November.

According to Wikipedia, my main source of factual information for today’s blog, there is dispute as to when it truly became such a superstitious day. Some say the Middle Ages, others the 19th century, but all agree that it became a popularized day of fear through literature. Although it was mentioned in an earlier published biography, the 1907 book Friday the Thirteenth by Thomas W. Lawson, in which a broker uses the superstition of the day to create a Wall Street panic, was the first bestseller to dwell on the date. More modern books to capitalize on Friday the 13th include John J. Robinson’s Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry (1989) and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (2003).

Wikipedia references a study by the Ashville, North Carolina Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute as estimating seventeen to twenty-one million people in the United States are impacted by fear when the 13th falls on a Friday. These people avoid normal business activities, traveling, “or even getting out of bed.”

Not me. I have enough things happen on other days that Friday the 13th is simply one more day – good or bad. Hopefully, because of everyone else’s fears, I can get a discount on an airline ticket, be safer on the roads because people tend to drive more carefully on Friday the 13th, and not worry about a bucket of paint dropping on me when I walk under that ladder because my painter opted to stay home. I know already that I’m lucky – you’re reading this blog.

Tell me, are you afraid of Friday the 13th? Have any Friday the 13th experiences to share?

A Critical Eye For Weddings and Writing

/in /by

A Critical Eye for Weddings and Writing 
by Debra H. Goldstein

Weddings are a time of joy, unbridled nerves, and warm, sweet and catty family moments. Last year, as the mother of the bride, I was the chief wedding planner and put-out-the-fires” behind the scenes person, responsible for keeping everything and everybody balanced so that my daughter could relax and enjoy herself.  At the beautiful wedding I attended last week, people kept coming up to me and saying, “I bet you’re thrilled you’re not the one in charge” or “Nice to be a guest, isn’t it?” Smiling, I assured all of them how right they were, but that wasn’t true.

The truth is that I can’t help attending weddings without dissecting them. Rather than simply taking in the beauty of the flowers, I take note of the number and style of arrangements, if they vary in height, whether they are composed of flowers (and if so, what kind) or if they contain cheaper accent pieces like wood or candles.  If there is a chuppa or canopy, I look to see if the décor is carried down the support legs or simply greenery wrapped across the top.  I also mentally record if the evening is black tie, the bar is open all evening, if the better liquor tiers are served, and whether the menu is multi-faceted or disguised chicken.  I also look and listen closely to understand the interaction between the different family members.

My enjoyment of weddings hasn’t diminished, but my approach to them has been significantly altered. My reading habits have undergone a similar modification since I began writing seriously. I bring the same critical approach to works I create and those, written by others, that I read. Although I take the time to rave about books or stories that are well-written and engage me, my level of tolerance for repetitive language, poor grammar, shifts in viewpoint, and plots that don’t work has diminished.

Perhaps my current reaction to weddings and things I read is an outgrowth of the hours of research needed to plan my daughter’s wedding or it could be that it reflects my efforts to improve my writing techniques.  The irony is that whatever clouds my perspective when I read is the same thing that is helping to make me a better writer.  Technique and fundamentals colored by creativity are teaching me things that work, things to be avoided, and things to be experimented with. The result, I hope, is that although my ability to read for pure pleasure has been forever changed, I have and am growing from the experience.

PEEVISH by Debra H. Goldstein

/in /by

Peevish by Debra H. Goldstein

Peevish is my word of the day.  The dictionary says it means “cross, querulous, or fretful, as from vexation or discontent,” but that doesn’t begin to describe my present mood.  Put out, frustrated, angry, tired, and a word that begins with b and rhymes with witchy are ones that easily come to mind.  The funny thing is that I have no one reason to be feeling like this.

Oh, sure, my newest full-length work in progress (that’s finished) hasn’t sold yet, but I signed two contracts yesterday for short pieces that will be appearing in the next six months, along with one that was previously accepted, in two anthologies and one online magazine.  I’m having a kind of writer’s block but it isn’t from not having an idea, it is from having too many and not being able to focus on one.  My time doesn’t feel like my own, but that is because I’m overscheduled with lunch and dinner engagements with good friends, visiting the kids, exercising, and attending 2 weeks of kick-off meetings for the charity organizations I’m involved with.

Obviously, a lot of things going on are point counter-point of my own doing, but there are some things that nothing can offset a desire to pull my hair out.  For example, the telephone calls that come in for surveys, solicitations or proclaiming I’ve won something despite my number being on the no call list; my mother telling me what her doctor said and then doing the opposite because she knows best; or, a the neighbor dog leaving a deposit on my lawn during its walk that its owner fails to pick up.

I really blame my mood on a series of things that happened last night. Tired, I went to bed early. Being a person who doesn’t need much sleep, I found myself awake, but not in the mood of doing anything productive, in the middle of the night.  From that point on, my sleep was intermittent.  It was made worse when Joel took most of the blanket (too much info, I know…. but it was a major cause of my present dissatisfaction).  Joel then woke early and his cheerfulness was almost unbearable.  I thought about murdering him, but decided that would probably put me in a worse mood so, instead, I took back the blanket plus.  It wasn’t enough to change my mood.  Stymied, I got up and went to make coffee while I read e-mails, but the Keurig was too low on water to heat up. Annoyed, I opted to run errands and buy a cup of coffee.  As I turned into the fast food place’s parking lot, I had to pause while a black cat sauntered across the driveway in front of my car.  It was beautiful.  At that moment, watching the cat move with grace and poise, I didn’t think about bad luck. Instead, I decided I could wallow in pity or make my peevish mood work for me.

Funny thing, as I write these final words, I realize I found my focus this morning and I’m beginning to feel a lot calmer.  Can’t wait to see what I accomplish after I meet a friend for lunch.

Fulfilling a Passion by Debra H. Goldstein

/in /by

Fulfilling a Passion by Debra H. Goldstein

Passion.  Aging.  Wanting to fulfill my passion to be a writer (even a mid-list writer) before my arms go beyond their present flabby state.  These are things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately because of a wonderful award I received on July 31.  Positive Maturity, a United Way agency in Birmingham that addresses issues associated with senior citizens, in partnership with the city of Birmingham and B-Metro Magazine, honored an inaugural class of fifty individuals based upon their achievements in business, personal life and civic engagement.

Besides being 50 or older at the time of the event, the honorees must have demonstrated success in one of the following areas:  current career (including encore careers), civic engagement, personal goals such as training for a marathon later in life, or beginning and succeeding at a new career based upon a lifelong passion.  When I learned the 2014 winners would include University of Alabama Coach Nick Saban and 2011 James Beard Who’s Who of Outstanding Chef Frank Stitt, I was appreciative and a little unbelieving that I was included in their company.

In other words, someone goofed.  True, I have been active in the community and there were some pretty high highs in my legal career, but I’ve always tried, and for the most part succeeded, in flying under the radar. I thought about saying “no,” but three things made me agree to be an honoree:  1) to be a part of a fundraising event for an agency that does so much good; 2) that my son informed me that he would fly in from Chicago to attend the event – “oh, and do you think you could arrange for me to get a picture with Coach Saban?” and 3) when I was told I had been selected as the poster child for my success as an individual who walked away from a well-paying cushy judgeship to follow a lifelong passion – my dream to be a writer.

It didn’t matter to the nominating committee that my first book, Maze in Blue, failed to make the New York Times best-seller list.  They thought the weeks it spent on Birmingham’s best-seller list, how it engaged members of the public, and the support various community groups received from my book signings and talks was more important.  The selection committee didn’t look to see how the book was published by now defunct Chalet Publishers, LLC, kept alive through a Creative Space edition, and then purchased and published as a May 2014 Harlequin Worldwide Mystery book of the month.  Instead, the committee looked at the pure joy I have had being a writer of short stories, essays and what I hope will soon be two novels.  They chose to recognize the passion that consumes me.

Writing isn’t an easy path.  I marvel more and more at the writers I meet and their personal stories.  One thing those at the top of the pinnacle, the mid-list writers, and the wannabes like me have in common is our passion.  There are many other things we could do with our time – perhaps performing those things far better than we write – but we can’t help ourselves.  We have to write.  Our writings aren’t always pretty or perfect, but they are expressions of thoughts we must share.  It hurts when others reject our writings, but we simply put our efforts into a new project.  We can’t turn off the passion.

I was proud and humbled to be a 50 Over 50 award recipient. I am prouder to be part of the passionate group who make up the writing community.

The Meaning of Life by Debra H. Goldstein

/in /by

The Meaning of Life by Debra H. Goldstein
Recently I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the meaning of life and its other alternative. This isn’t a new topic for me to explore. I first started thinking about it shortly after my fiftieth birthday when I woke one morning to find my arms had turned to flab and I had become my mother. The thoughts were generated by a discussion with a friend who was in the last stages of cancer. She was questioning what purpose living in her debilitated state had and whether after we die, we are remembered or the life we lived fades away.
I couldn’t answer her questions. I was too focused on reaching outside my comfort zone to find ways to ease her journey. When she died, I decided her purpose was the seed of herself planted in others through charitable doing, mentoring, and touching people at the right time. Her nourishment of others left ideas, feelings, and values to reseed the next generation.
Time went on and I didn’t spend much time dwelling on the meaning of life. I was too busy enjoying the life cycle events that constantly were occurring in the lives of my friends and my own family. Trips to visit and cuddle new babies, writing events, the coming of age Bar Mitzvah ceremony of a nephew, graduations from pre-school through professional school, and the joy of watching my daughter walk down the aisle to be with the man she has chosen to spend the rest of her life with consumed my waking hours. Why dwell on life and death when so many things were going on?
I was attending a writer’s conference being held on a property in Disneyworld when I glanced down at my smartphone and noticed an email entitled “OMG.” Above “OMG” was an endless string of responding e-mails. A friend who was a wife, mother, respected professional, devoted kayaker, and person who was taking me out for a birthday lunch the next week had had a cerebral bleed and died within minutes the night before. Everyone, including me, was in shock that this young and healthy vibrant woman was gone. No “why” made sense.
My other friends and I went on living. At one of the other planned lunch celebrations for my birthday, one of our lunch bunch mentioned she was celebrating her 25th wedding anniversary. Knowing she had married a much older man and that part of his proposal had been he would be hers for at least twenty-five years, we asked what he had given her for their special anniversary. The answer: the promise of trying for another twenty-five years as wonderful as the first. Last week, our lunch bunch held our breath when this man who never gets sick was hospitalized with pneumonia and a low blood count. We all feared he wouldn’t be able to keep his promise. Happily, his positive response to medical treatment has given them the opportunity to share many more years together.
In Jewish tradition, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, it is decided who shall live and who shall die. At the time of Yom Kippur, one’s fate hopefully is inscribed in the book of life. I don’t know how or why the final decision is made. I cannot venture a guess as to our true purpose in living or if there is an existential meaning of life, but I do know I value every moment of it that I share with my family, friends, and those individuals I will meet in the future.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 
P.S.  I try to keep my personal blog “It’s Not Always a Mystery” – http://debrahgoldstein.wordpress.com or found through my website, www.DebraHGoldstein.com by clicking DHG’s Blog – separate from what I post on The Stiletto Gang, but the reaction to the recent posting of The Meaning of Life convinced me that it might be an interesting piece to share The Stiletto Gang’s readers, too.  After all, we are all searching for The Meaning of Life. I look forward to hearing your personal reactions to this post.  Debra

My Writing Vacation – Or Books I Enjoyed When I Let Myself Read for Fun by Debra H. Goldstein

/in /by

Many of you know I stepped down from the bench a year ago to give myself the freedom to write during the day.  The results were mixed.  In the beginning, I couldn’t get disciplined enough to do much more than organize my daughter’s wedding, travel, and watch every possible episode of How I Met Your Mother and NCIS. I finally found my writing “legs” and finished a novel that beta readers are now reviewing and wrote and submitted a number of short stories.  Four of them, “A Political Cornucopia,” “Who Dat? Dat the Indian Chief!,” “Early Frost,” and the “Rabbi’s Wife Stayed Home,” were published by Bethlehem Writer’s Roundtable (November 2013), Mardi Gras Murder (2014), The Birmingham Arts Journal (April 2014) and Mysterical – E (April 2014), respectively. At the same time, my 2012 IPPY Award winning mystery, Maze in Blue, was re-released by Harlequin Worldwide Mystery as a May 2014 book of the month.

When I received notice that Maze was reissued and the fourth story had been accepted for publication, I

decided to take a two week vacation from writing and rejoin the world of being a reader.  Some of the books I could have done without (diet books – I’ve gained weight since I decided to write), some were simply okay (a biography of Barbra Streisand), but some proved to be pure fun.  One of the exciting things to me, is that many of the books I really enjoyed were written by authors I have met at various conferences and who, in many cases, have written guest blogs for “It’s Not Always a Mystery.”(http://debrahgoldstein.wordpress.com)

For a good suspense read, let me recommend Hank Phillippi Ryan’s Agatha winning The Wrong Girl.  I read her Mary Higgins Clark MWA winning The Other Woman last year and eagerly was awaiting this book.  Then, I picked up the third book in the Skeet Bannon series written by Linda Rodriguez.  Every Hidden Fear was published the week I took my reading vacation, I couldn’t put it down – each book only has hooked me on Skeet since Linda won the Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition for Every Last Secret.

I wanted to get a little food and farm reading in so I turned to Edith Maxwell’s A Tine to Live, A Tine to Die which I followed with Leslie Budewitz’s Agatha winning Death al Dente. Food wasn’t my only companion during my reading excursion.  I added a little comedy and romance with Kendel Lynn’s Board Stiff.

Much as I enjoy mysteries, I needed to spice up my life with a few good looking men so my bedtime reading was Robert Wagner’s Pieces of My Heart.  Tonight, I’m snuggling up with Rob Lowe’s book, Love Life.  I plan to read fast because tomorrow I’m giving myself back to writing.