Tag Archive for: Skating Around the Law

One-humped inspiration

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by: Joelle Charbonneau

During the last few months of 2012, I got a bunch of e-mails asking me about Elwood the camel from my Rebecca Robbins mysteries.  So to start 2013, I thought I’d explain where the inspiration for Elwood came from. 

Until my mother heard me speak at a signing, she assumed I put a dromedary smack dab of a rollerskating mystery set in small town Illinois because there is a popular skating spin known as a camel.  You’ve all seen it.  The skater has one leg on the ground.  The other is stretched out behind them while they go round and round and round. 

Yes!  My mother was (and probably still is) capable of preforming this move.  Me…not so much.

But alas.  Sorry, Mom!  I was not being quite that clever when I decided to feature a one-humped mammal into the middle of this story. 

So, why a camel you ask?  Well, let me tell you.  As you all probably know, in additional to writing books, I teach voice lessons.  Over the years my student roster has included middle school, high school, college age and adult students.  One of my incredibly talented singers happened to own and jump horses.  A few years ago, just before I started writing SKATING AROUND THE LAW, she came into her lesson, said hello and mentioned that she wouldn’t be able to make her lesson the following week. 

“One of my horses has to go to the University of Illinois” she said.

Unable to resist, I responded, “Wow. Smart horse.”

She laughed and explained that she was taking the horse to the large animal vet clinic at the university and that she was looking forward to the experience since the last time she was there she met a guy with a camel.

Yep, the whole camel thing caught me off guard, too.  She then went on to say that the guy who brought the camel to the vet wasn’t even the camel’s owner.  Turns out the guy in the waiting room was the next door neighbor of the farmer who owned the camel.  While the camel lived with the farmer, the two didn’t have the best relationship.  The last time the farmer tried to bring the camel to the vet without the neighbor’s help, the camel broke out of the carrier and raced down Route 57.

Okay–if you haven’t been to the middle of Illinois, that stretch of road is flat and filled with soybean farms and corn fields.  Just imaging a camel racing down the pavement along an endless sea of corn made me giggle. 

A lot.

A few days after that conversation, I began writing SKATING AROUND THE LAW, the first of the Rebecca Robbins mystery novels, and suddenly there was an ex-circus camel named Elwood smack in the middle of the story.   It just goes to show that sometimes you never know where you are going to find inspiration.

May 2013 bring you your own one-humped inspiration.  I can’t wait to see what this year is going to hold.

Celebrate!

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By: Joelle Charbonneau

Get out the noise makers and the party hats.  Shove down the nerves and the feelings of
inadequacy and party like there is no tomorrow. 
(Okay the nerves and inadequacy part is all me, but hey!  It needed to be said.)  Last Tuesday, I celebrated a new book.  SKATING ON THE EDGE hit shelves on October
second.   And to top off the celebration,
the paperback edition of SKATING AROUND THE LAW came out on Monday, which made
the first week of October pretty special in my house!
A new book is a funny thing. 
All of us writer types peck away at our keyboards hoping that someone
will think what we have written is interesting enough to read.  We agonize over plot, character development
and each word choice, turn the book in to our editors, rework it and then wait
for it to hit shelves.  During that wait,
we do what writers do—we write something new. 
So by the time the new book comes out, we’ve moved onto something else.
For me, that process is always odd because while I love the book
that has just come out, I’ve often written the next installment in the lives of
those characters.  I know where they are going, but I have to remember that my readers
don’t. I know if Pop has had his heart broken (or more likely if he’s broken someone’s heart) or if Rebecca has made a choice that changes what she
wants out of her life.  But I have to
block that out and remember that those things haven’t technically happened yet
and that readers are just discovering the choices they have made in this story.
And I LOVE this story. 
SKATING ON THE EDGE is my favorite of the Rebecca Robbins novels thus
far.  I guess as writers we’re all
supposed to love the most recent book, and perhaps we always do, but I really
think this is the best of the books.  I
love the choices my characters make to move their lives forward and the derby
girls who are so full of life and loyalty and fun.  They are wonderful characters to write and
infuse the story with excitement.  And,
of course, Lionel and Sean continue to make Rebecca’s life interesting.  Lionel can’t help but want her to stay in
town and fall in love with him and Sean…well, you’ll see.
In order to celebrate the release of both SKATING ON THE
EDGE and the paperback of SKATING AROUND THE LAW, I am happy to give away one
copy of each to a commenter.  Please
leave your name and e-mail address so I can get a hold of you!  I will draw the winning names on Friday evening, so you have lots of time to stuff the ballot box.

The Worst Parent in the World

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The Stiletto Gang is thrilled to welcome friend Joelle Charbonneau today!

Are you the perfect parent? Not me!

I am the worst parent in the world. Okay, maybe that’s overstating. I mean, I’ve only been parenting for a mere three years. There are lots of folks out there who have been doing this for a lot longer, which means they have had more opportunities to screw things up. Right?

My son is three. He’s my first and after the scares he’s given me he might be my last. Like any parent, I try to keep him safe. The thing is, my best efforts to be a responsible parent seem to end in tragedy. Kind of like the time I took him to the park and he wanted to go on the big slide. He was a large nineteen-month-old, but the really big slide looked – well, really big. It seemed irresponsible of me to let him go down alone. I mean, what parent would let their kid go down a really big slide all alone when they were only 19 months? He could fall off or worse. So, I did the only responsible, safe thing I could think of – I went down the slide with him.

And he broke his leg.

No, I didn’t fall on him, although in retrospect that would have made far more sense than what did happen. My son squealed with delight, kicked his left foot out and caught the edge of the slide for just a moment – long enough for him to twist it perfectly and cause a tiny break. All because of my desire to have perfect parenting skills.

Just yesterday when he did as I insisted and went to pick up one of his toys he tripped and fell into the corner of the coffee table. Now he looks like a boxer ready to take on the next contender. Yep, despite my best efforts I seem to be doing everything wrong.

Or am I?

I admit that I have started to look for guidance for my parenting life in my publishing journey. The first four manuscripts I wrote I did with careful consideration for the subject matter and the tone. I tried to do them perfectly. None of them sold. In fact, despite my best “parenting” of those they weren’t and still aren’t publishable. However, the fifth book I wrote I did without worrying about being perfect or even selling. I sat down at the keyboard, let my goofiest ideas take over and had a blast. I wrote for myself and forgot about the need to be perfect. That book, as wild and wacky as it was, sold.

So, I guess I’m working on learning how to stop trying to be the perfect parent, but I need help. If you have any tricks you’d like to share about how to survive the parenting experience, please do! I have a lot to learn, but the one thing I know is that like my books, the kid is going to have some rough patches and he’s going to have some fabulous moments and I hope that when I go back and look at my whole parenting story I will find that my son and I both enjoyed the ride.

Joelle Charbonneau has performed in a variety of operas, musical theatre and children’s theatre productions across the Chicagoland area. While Joelle is happy to perform for an audience, she is equally delighted to teach private voice lessons and use her stage experience to create compelling characters in her mysteries. The first of the Rebecca Robbins mysteries, SKATING AROUND THE LAW (Minotaur Books) was called “Sexy and funny” by Kirkus Reviews. The second book in the series, SKATING OVER THE LINE, will hit shelves on Sept. 27th, 2011.