Tag Archive for: Texas

Untitled Post

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Police
Blotter Fodder: “To Save Herself, She Bit the Cop on the Leg”

Where
to Go for Ideas When You Are Stuck

by Kathleen Kaska

Need an idea for a short story, blog post,
or a novel? Check out the newspapers. I don’t necessarily mean the front page.
In our town, the most entertaining reading comes from police blotters. The
reports are a wellspring of ideas for writers. Some are written
tongue-in-cheek, and I can imagine the fun police officers must have in
crafting them. 

Recently, the police in a nearby city
uncovered a murder-for-hire plot by an inmate in the county jail who was
enlisting the help of a fellow inmate to murder the man responsible for the first
guy’s incarceration. These were the instructions he gave to the would-be
killer: “Wet him with gasoline; dry him with a match.” That’s a pretty good
line; right out of a Mickey Spillane novel. If this guy ever went straight, he
might make it as a pulp fiction writer.

Or how about this one? A few weeks ago, the
police in my quiet, little town were called to a motel where a woman insisted
they arrest her. She was hiding out from her ex-husband and current boyfriend
who, according to the woman, were plotting to kill her. The cops explained they
could not fulfill her wish because she hadn’t committed a crime. With a
that’s-what-you-think attitude, she began pounding on the windshield of the
squad car. When one of the officers tried to restrain her, she bit him on the
leg. At least for the next few days, the woman had the protection she’d
requested.

And another: A guy was shoplifting at
Safeway. When the cops arrived to question him, he made his getaway on a
motorized shopping cart, which he drove down the middle of Commercial Avenue.
The shoplifter received applause from the bystanders who cheered him on as if
he were the Grand Marshall of a parade.

And one more: Several people complained
about a homeless man who was causing a ruckus in a downtown square. The police
arrived and realized the man was arguing and shouting profanities at someone
only he could see. The cops told him to apologize to his imaginary friend. He
did.

End of story.

This is an excerpt from my book, Does Anyone Have a Catharsis Handy? Five-Minute
Writing Tips.

Kathleen Kaska is the author of The
Sherlock Holmes Quiz Book (Rowman & Littlefield Publishing
Group). She is the founder of The Dogs in the Nighttime: Holmes Society of
Anacortes, Washington, a scion of The Baker Street Irregulars. Kathleen writes
the awarding-winning Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series and the Kate Caraway
Mystery Series. Her passion for birds led to the publication The
Man Who Saved the Whooping Crane: The Robert Porter Allen Story. Kathleen’s
collection of blog posts, Do You Have a Catharsis Handy?
Five-Minute Writing Tips won the Chanticleer International
Book Award in the non-fiction Instruction and Insights category.

Go to her website and sign up for her newsletter. Look for
her bi-monthly blog: “Growing Up Catholic in a Small Texas Town” because
sometimes you just have to laugh.

http://www.kathleenkaska.com

http://www.blackopalbooks.com

https://twitter.com/KKaskaAuthor

http://www.facebook.com/kathleenkaska

 

Fall — And More New Beginnings!

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Author Kay Kendall & her bunny Dusty
I wonder if you, dear readers,
are old enough to recall an expression from back in the day—sometime in the
80s—when we said this: “Well, color me _____.”
That saying no doubt linked to
having your colors done. When this was all the rage, I’d walk into a clothing store
and a saleswoman would often ask or state…”Are you a summer?” “You must be a
winter.” 
Myself, I skipped the color consultants, figuring out my best colors were
those I wore when friends said, “You look good in that.” (A magazine article
advised that was the easier way.)

I hark back to that time now,
and to that expression, since I wish to state two things:  Color me thrilled + Color
me fall.

My name is Kay Kendall, and as a debut mystery author, I’m thrilled to be joining the
Stiletto Gang and doubly delighted that two previous posters were
rhapsodizing about my favorite season, fall.

Last week Dru Ann Love asked what
readers’ favorite things were about the autumnal season. I will share mine now,
if a bit belatedly. It is the colors of fall that most beguile me.

Oh my, there is that word again. Colors. The trees are
vivid, in some falls more than others of course, but their leaves seem to come
alive in the crisp air and in the slanted light. Sunshine itself has a
different radiance in the fall. The sun’s light is not harsh, not coming
straight down from the sky but aslant. This light is softer and bathes things
in a kinder glow.

Even in south Texas where I live, where signs of autumn aren’t as profuse as in other parts of the US, fall is still my favorite
season. The light changes even here; the air cools some, gets a bit less
humid. The trees, however, rarely turn to orange and red. It’s estimated that once every seven years or so this corner of Texas will have some
fall color. That happened my first season here. I thought it would happen each time October came around thereafter. But nope, no such luck.


Fall of course is a prelude to winter, which I no longer
dread. Being married to a Canadian, I spent fifteen long winters in Ontario.
Not for the faint of heart. And mind you, those years were before global
warming altered things. Now in Texas I can look forward to the dark velvet
nights of winter when holiday lights shine, and they do not bounce off snow
banks down here. Hooray. As The Husband is fond of saying, “You don’t have to
shovel heat and humidity.”


My having lived in Canada explains why my debut mystery, Desolation Row, is set in Toronto. I
learned a lot about our peaceful neighbor to the north and in my book treat it
as a foreign country, not the fifty-first state that Americans often assume it
is. But I have plenty of time to get into all that in the months to come.




With my first post this fall, I start on my journey as a
member of the Stiletto Gang and look forward to many, many seasons to come of
sharing thoughts with you and the other gang members.

I’m just glad that it’s not a requirement that we wear
stilettos. At five foot ten, I’ve no need of extra height, putting it mildly.
My poor toes seem to shriek in horror whenever that Stiletto Gang logo pops up
on my computer screen. I assure my feet that never again will they be stuffed
into a tortuous shoe, a pointy-toed, high-heeled stiletto, all in the name of
glamour.

Have you given up anything since you left your teens,
twenties, or so on, and thereby become more comfy—if a pinch less glam? I
propose a new expression. Instead of saying “sadder but wiser,” let’s say “more
comfortable and wiser” as our years progress. What do you think?