by Pari Noskin Taichert

Pardon my enthusiasm, but . . .

I’ve experienced fall in the gorgeous Midwest, drank just-pressed cider, and admired the red-gold leaves. I’ve played in the snow of the East Coast and admired the trees in DC. But my heart and love for the season find full blossom in New Mexico.

I’m sharing these pictures with you today because they make me happy. I’m hoping that they’ll remind you to breathe this week, to take time to witness beauty in your own corner of the world.

For years, I’ve fought being called a "regional" writer. My response to that moniker is beginning to chance. How many other people in the world are fortunate enough to be born somewhere as glorious as my home state?

So, I’ll write about NM and share it with the world. Eventually, enough readers will come to see it as I do . . .

This summer has seen more rain than we’ve had in decades. This is my front patio. Basil has taken over. This crop came up from two small potted plants from last year.

I didn’t even realize they’d germinated.

When I was a child, I used to go to the park near our home and spread out under a tree and look at the sky. It always seemed bluer through the leaves. A few days ago, I was writing and decided to take a break. I went into our front yard and looked up. The sky’s color took my breath away for a moment and I remembered that childhood joy. Then and there I swore I’d look up more often.

Isn’t this tall grass cool? In NM, many people are now opting to get rid of their water-sucking bluegrass and replace it with xeriscape plants. Though some may claim that this new landscaping should be named "zeroscaping," when done right, it’s stunning.

The roses have been quite lovely this year. I learned about pruning them because of our Labrador puppy. He ate them all down to nubbins a few years ago — and they thrived. Now, I chop them down to size each spring and revel in their color all season long.

This purple aster, and the photos that follow for the rest of this post, are from a recent walk our family took in the mountains near our house. In Albuquerque, if you drive east, you end up in the mountains. From our house, which is in the city proper, it takes about ten minutes to get to the foothills.  When we went a week ago, we were astounded at how lush our mountains had become. Wild grasses, flowers — even the cacti — looked healthy and abundant. Animals will have a good winter this year — with enough food to survive. 

The mountains you’ll see in these photos are really the foothills to the Sandias. Notice the sky and the quality of the light on a late Sunday afternoon.

Notice the cacti in the photo on the left.

On the right, a little to the left of center, is a healthy yucca. That’s the state plant/flower. People around here can’t pick it or destroy it. However, the Indians can use its roots for shampoo and food.

The following photos are wild grasses. My family and I couldn’t believe how many varieties had grown this summer. We’d never seen some of them before.

My daughters and I dubbed the grass on the left, "Fairy Grass."

The grass on the right is so wacko and curlycue-y. It makes me feel good just to look at it.

There’s something about walking these foothills that consoles me. I think the fact that nature is so much bigger than we are, well, it gives me hope.

Thanks so much for indulging my little celebration of a New Mexico fall. Even though I didn’t include pictures of yellow-leaved aspens, I think you can understand why this landscape speaks so profoundly to my heart.

cheers,

Pari

Jeffrey Cohen

People ask writers what music they’re listening to while writing. To me, it’s kind of a silly question, equivalent to asking Picasso what he had for lunch before painting Guernica, but it seems to be a popular question. Personally, I prefer the Sound of Silence, and I don’t mean the Simon and Garfunkel song. I don’t play music while writing, most of the time. I find it distracting, much as my dog finds a shoe distracting.

I think the more interesting question is: What music do you think you are while you’re writing?

Some authors aspire to be Beethoven or Mozart; their every note is calculated and perfect. Some writers are more aiming for the Sex Pistols or The Ramones–they try to upend the conventions by which writers have been plying their trade for decades (or in some cases, centuries, even millennia). But that’s not what I mean when I ask the question, What music do you think you are? I’d love to be the Beatles, but I’m not the Beatles. I don’t push the envelope of the form; I don’t innovate so much as I take what came before and put my own personal spin on it.

What music do you think you are? That requires a sober, unsentimental vision of your place in the literary pantheon, a clear-eyed view of your own strengths and weaknesses and where they fall in with the rest of the authors out there. I’m not talking about the artist, or the artist’s life; writers who think they’re Jimi Hendrix need not string themselves out on heroin or learn to write left-handed; Dylan Schaeffer is a devotee of Barry Manilow (I don’t know if he thinks his writing is Manilow-esque), but he doesn’t have to get a hip replaced after winning an Emmy Award.

No, it’s more a question of style, attitude and perceived status (not real status, which is not easily quantified while you’re alive; perceived status, which is best manifested in the fact that everyone agrees the Rolling Stones are a bigger deal than The Who, even though both are highly respected). When you’re writing–or more to the point, when you’ve written–have you been Rachmaninoff or Dr. John? Carlos Santana (incomparable technique, needs others to do the singing) or Eric Clapton (can do both)? Phoebe Snow (amazing talent that never really found a wide audience) or Paris Hilton (no discernible talent, very large audience)?

Me? I’ve given this minutes of thought, and I have to say, when I’m writing, I think I’m Jim Croce.

Croce, who unfortunately is best known for having been killed in a 1973 plane crash at the age of 30, was an entertainer with a little edge. He wrote short songs, often with a strong sense of humor, that told stories (“Rapid Roy the Stock Car Boy,” “Roller Derby Queen,” “Five Short Minutes”), and did not aspire to be Important, so therefore was not terribly well respected until after he died.

He was a master of the three-minute pop song, having absorbed folk music, blues, rock and umpteen musical genres over an eventful but short life. He had worked with emotionally disturbed children, driven a truck, worked construction, been in the Army National Guard and toured the Middle East and Africa at the behest of the State Department. He could play over a thousand songs, from sex-obsessed ballads with lyrics by Robert Burns to “Okie From Muskogee.”

In the year that he finally became well known, he recorded and released three albums, and included some gems on each. The two major Croce hits were more or less variations on a theme: “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” and “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” followed after his death by “I Got A Name,” a song he did not write. But on those albums are such treasures as “Operator,” “These Dreams,” “Photographs and Memories,” “I’ll Have to Say I Love You In a Song” and “Time in a Bottle.”

Do I think I’m that accomplished? Of course not. Jim Croce should have long ago been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (a major injustice), and I’ve written three nice little books (four, if you count the one on its way next year). But his attitude and his mission are things I can emulate. I write things meant to entertain people. They don’t try to unlock the Secret of Life, nor to complain about how terrible life is, particularly when compared with its alternative. I’m here to give you a smile and a ride, and then move on to the next thing.

I’ve had some difficulty–not a lot, but some–writing more than 70,000 words in a novel. Croce once said in an interview that he wrote three-minute songs because “that’s all I have to say.” Which wasn’t entirely true; by one account, “Don’t Mess Around With Jim” once had upwards of 30 verses, but he knew how to make his point and wasn’t interested in embellishment.

I tend to write in a quick style–I write short chapters, a good deal of dialogue, and almost no description when I can get away with it. Croce knew how to encapsulate a person into a quick phrase: “ooh, that girl looked nice,” “a dancin’, prancin’, hard-romancin’ divorcee” or, in one case, “a refrigerator with a head.” That’s something I try to do. I have the advantage of not needing to make my descriptions rhyme.

Croce had a very strong sense of humor, writing about the people he met along the way. In describing the “Roller Derby Queen,” Croce wrote, “She might be nasty; she might be fat. But I never met a person who would tell her that.” And Rapid Roy, who drove stock cars on the weekend, could “do 130 miles an hour, smilin’ at the camera with a toothpick in his mouth.” In my own writing, I tend to think humor is the point, and don’t expect to be considered a Major Novelist, even by myself.

I have already outlived Jim Croce by 19 years, and hope to continue to do so for a good number more. But I admire his work greatly, and even though I don’t think about it when I’m writing, I think we have a good deal in common.

When I said before that I don’t listen to music while writing, I was being technically accurate. But sometimes, when I’m stuck on a phrase or a plot point, I’ll clear my mind by picking up the 12-string Yamaha I’ve had for upwards of 30 years now and I will, quite often, play a Jim Croce song not terribly well. So maybe I do think I’m Jim Croce, or at least, someone who continues in spirit what he did in song.

So… who do you think YOU are?

I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t want millions and millions of loyal readers—and dare I say it—fans.  I don’t think any scribbler can expect that.  Luck and timing are too big a factor.  If it happens, great, and if it doesn’t, that’s great too.  However, while I hope to garner as many readers as McDonald’s sells burgers, there is one person I hope doesn’t read my stuff—and that’s my dear old mum.

The problem is that I don’t want my mum to think less of me.  The rest of you out there, I really don’t mind what you think of me.  You don’t know me like my mum knows me.  You’ll take the book at face value because you don’t know any better, but mum, well, she’s going to be judging everything based on her parenting skills.  My stories are exposing parts of myself to my mum that she doesn’t normally get to see.

It would be different if I were writing kids books or something, but I write about nasty crimes or dangerous dilemmas, so “could contain adult themes” applies.  I don’t want my mum thinking that I know about “adult themes” well enough to write about them.  I’m her little boy.  I still believe in Santa and the Easter bunny. 

This takes me back to when I was teenager and the family would sit in front of the telly and a low and behold, a nudey scene would crop up.  My reflex was to shout out, “Nice!  Boobies on TV.”  But I couldn’t say that or mum would say, “And what do you know about boobies, Simon?”  So instead there’d be a deafening silence until I said, “Tut, boobies on TV.  How crass.  Shame on you BBC.” 

I’m not like this with my sister or my dad.  The difference being that my sister is my comrade in the trenches.  We’ve grown up together.  She has to walk the same minefield as I do when it comes to mum.  My sister will read something of mine and say, “Has mum read page 167?”  I’m more relaxed around my dad because he surprised me.  He was blown away that I wrote something that got published.  After he read my first book, I don’t think he put it down for a month.  I’m sure he wandered the streets stopping everyone he saw, saying, “My lad wrote this.  It’s really good.  Stunning for someone who fell on his head as much as him.  I didn’t think he’d ever learn to tie his shoes without assistance.”  He took the book to the local radio station, newspaper, library and anybody else who couldn’t outrun him.

I suppose I should back up.  I’m a little self-conscious about my writing, mainly due to esteem issues tracking back to my dyslexia.  I have this I-can’t-read-so-what-makes-me-think-I-can-write mentality.  Because of this, I procrastinated on telling my family about my writing.  Julie helped with this.  One day she just called my mum and dad, got them on the line, told them, “Simon’s got a book coming out next month,” and threw me the phone to explain.  Julie likes to solve problems through extreme measures.

I’m sort of making my mum out to be a bit of a monster, but she’s not.  A lot of my self-consciousness is self-inflicted.  I’m fearing ghosts that don’t really exist.  My mum has been supportive.  She does read my stuff, but I don’t go looking for a critique from her.  But mum, being a mum, isn’t scared of tossing in a few choice remarks.  Things like:

“I liked that one.  I thought it was the better than the others in the magazine.”

But I’ve also gotten ones like:

“That was twisted.  Why can’t you write something like that Michael Connelly or Harlan Coben?”

“I do.  I’m in the same league.”

She laughs.  “Of course you are, dear.”

Oh, mum.

Mum can say all the nice things in the world, but I know she’s thinking, “Where does dream up this stuff from?  I didn’t bring him up like that.”  Essentially, I don’t want to disappoint her.  She’s my mum and she deserves the best, number one son she can have.  So that means I have to write better.  I won’t duck a subject in a story—I’ll write the heck out of it.  I might be a demented little idiot, but the best endorsement my mum can give is—he’s best little demented idiot a mum could have.

Of course, admitting this is going to get me into trouble with mummy.  As long as she doesn’t read this, I’m fine.  She won’t have time to read this.  She’s busy.  Hmm, sounds like the phone is ringing.  It’s an international call.  She’s gotten to page 167.  I know she’s going to want to talk about that…

Simon Wood

Deni Dietz

QUIBBLES & BITS

Today I’m focusing on BITS rather than Quibbles.

BIT ONE:

Thanksgiving is celebrated in Canada on the second Monday in October, while in the US, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.

Why the difference?

Having researched the Pilgrims for the historical portions of my mystery, EYE OF NEWT, I know that the Pilgrims didn’t view their first harvest, held in 1621, as a thanksgiving act or feast. That custom began two years later as a religious observance of thanks, rather than a feast. The Pilgrims, as most everybody knows, were a group led by separatists from the Church of England, who arrived at Massachusetts rather than their intended destination: Virginia.

In truth, they sound like me, navigating a drive from one state [or province] to another. While traveling, you don’t want me reading a map. Trust me on that.

Anyway . . . While the Pilgrims were shucking corn, starching their white caps and aprons, hanging witches, and making those cute turkey place cards, a wee bit further north, settlers were already giving thanks. In 1578 explorer Martin Frobisher held a formal ceremony that followed the traditions of European harvest festivals, in what is now known as the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Frobisher was thankful for surviving a daring voyage, risking his life and crew in a fruitless search for a gateway to the Orient.

Thus, Canadian Thanksgiving.

Sometimes, when I think too much about the book biz, I feel like Martin Frobisher. While I haven’t risked my life, or – god forbid – the life of others, I’ve survived a daring voyage to publication. I am, however, still searching for a gateway to bestsellerdom.

SECOND BIT:

Genetic Savings and Clone of California shut down it’s pet-cloning operation because few humans were willing to pay $50,000 to have cats cloned.

While I deplore that rather unsympathetic attitude [are you listening DorothyL?], I have to admit that there are enough strays in the world already.

Speaking of strays, if you haven’t read Gordon Aalborg’s novel CAT TRACKS — a Story of Survival — you’re missing out on a gem of a book that addresses the issue of "dumping" cats into the Australian wild. The feral protagonist of CAT TRACKS is called "Cat," and he’s the narrator as well.

THIRD BIT:

British inventor Simon Rhymes invented a device that "boils" an egg with lightbulbs and then cuts the top off.

I know I’ll be first in line to buy it [she said sarcastically].

Have you ever invented, or had an idea for an invention, in real life? Or written about one in a book?

FOURTH BIT [hey, I’m finding this fun, in a weird sort of way]:

Following Bouchercon, I spent a heavenly week in Granger, Indiana, with my daughter, Sandi, my grandchicklet, Marley, 5, and my grandkidlet, Will, 2 1/2. Yes, I know, I look too young to be a Granny — if you don’t say it, at least think it  🙂

Sandi is in the process of "potty training" Will, so  we visited B&N and bought two Children’s books with that theme [Sandi had one book left over from Marley, but the illustrations showed a girl rather than a boy].

Since my daughter works part-time as a bartender at a sports bar/restaurant called "Between the Buns," I was, er, stuck reading the books to the kids before they went to sleep. The euphemisms were . . . interesting.

One book used the words pee-pee and poo-poo, but didn’t mention a penis [or vagina]. One book, specifically for boys, called the penis a "pee-pee" and — so it wouldn’t get too confusing, I guess — used wee wee and poo poo.

I tried to remember back to my youth, but all I could come up with was Number 1 and Number 2. In fact, my third grade teacher insisted we raise our hands with one finger or two . . . how embarrassing! This was the same teacher who gave me a failing grade on my short story – THE PENCIL WHO GREW UP TO BE A STUB – because I screwed up the assignment and broke the "rules" by writing 4 pages rather than one and using a pencil [the first-person narrator] rather than an "ink pen" . . . but I digress.

[Except I really must add that the above teacher looked exactly like Miss Grundy in the Archie comics!]

Until the day she died – in her 80s – my lovely, intelligent mother-in-law used the euphemism "tinkle." She’d think nothing of sitting amidst a dozen party guests and announcing, "Excuse me, I have to tinkle."

I used that for one of my characters in EYE OF NEWT.

Marley, Will and I also watched the DVD Curious George. Twice. To my mind, that was a terrific transition from book to screen, but I couldn’t help thinking about the last scene in Forest Gump.

And the feather. [Sniff.]

As you wish,
Deni, who has decided that, rather than spending 50k to clone a cat, she’ll re-read Stephen King’s Pet Semetery. And congrats to Mr. King, recipient of MWA’s Grand Master Award.

by Pari Noskin Taichert

One morning last week, I was treated like a peon.

I’d tracked down a corporate spokesperson for Wal-Mart to give me a couple of quotes for an article I was writing. Rather than respond to my questions verbally, the woman sent me an email that parroted what I could have easily picked up from the website. To me, that’s not an interview . . . that’s an insult.

Later that same day I had a wonderful book signing.

The two experiences, so closely timed, provided a poignant life-lesson about human interaction. They reminded me how often self-importance can trump respect.

At my first Left Coast Crime convention, I met the kind, wise and generous author Deborah Donnelly. She took me under her wing then and has since become a friend. One thing she told me that weekend was that books sell one at a time.

I’ve thought often about that comment.

In devising marketing strategies, public relations campaigns and making budget decisions, I’ve intuitively emphasized meeting readers and booksellers face-to-face. This approach has cost a tremendous amount of time, energy and dollars. Still, I remain convinced that one-on-one conversations, and connections, influence my career far more than television appearances, book reviews, or articles in the paper.

Obviously, I don’t ignore all of those other ways to get my name out. If I did, I wouldn’t be writing this blog.

It just seems to me that, as our world speeds up, the personal becomes increasingly important and meaningful. It’s just more, well, respectful.

If I do my job right, my books will always get better. Readers and booksellers will care about helping my career. They’ll want me to succeed, to keep writing and selling books. They’ll tell others about my work.

However, there’s a danger in this way of thinking. It’s easy to lose perspective, to view readers and booksellers as people there to do something for us . . . or that we can use in one way or another. Authors I’ve met who fall into this trap appear jaded or manipulative — whether they mean to or not.

It’s also easy for authors to fall in love with their own marketing myths and to become full of self-admiration.

Arrogance only goes so far. It can certainly attract for a few breaths, but during the marathon of most of our careers, it acts like a sick lung.

Respect, to me, means viewing others as our equals and treating them with the same courtesy we expect them to demonstrate toward us. Whether it’s a reader at a tiny book signing or a reviewer for a major newspaper, respect involves sincerity, effort and, usually, a dash of kindness. It involves listening as well as talking.

I’m glad I had both of those experiences last week. The Wal-Mart "interview" reminded me to be more aware of how I come across to others. The book signing buoyed my ego and gave me many chances to thank and be thankful for the people who spend time reading and selling my works.

Thank you for stopping by Murderati.com today.

cheers,

Pari

Jeffrey Cohen

Shut up and go away.

Now. Moving along to more important matters:

Yesterday, my wife and I attended a birthday party for her cousin (once removed, and please explain that one to me, because I never got the whole “removed” thing), who turned 100 years old last week. He looked great, by the way, and enjoyed his party immensely, from all outward signals.

It got me to thinking about how different things are now than they were in 1906. Obviously, there have been enormous technological advances, although humans have evolved at a much slower rate. As Will Rogers once said, “you can’t say civilization don’t advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.”

Has there been advancement in mystery novels? I don’t know. We don’t really kill our fictional victims in that many new ways. Guns, knives, poisons, the usual blunt implements. But that leads to a question that I think is central to writing a mystery novel:

Does it matter how the victim dies?

Many mystery writers spend a tremendous amount of energy figuring out exotic ways to off the hapless sap whose demise sets the plot in motion. They come up with poisons found only in the deepest regions of Zambia, knives made from the tusks of African elephants, but only female African elephants, guns that fire bullets made of ice, so that they’ll melt after use (I just thought that one up) or being hit over the head with the tire iron that was only made to fit in the trunk of a 1965 Karmann Ghia.

Are there really people out there saying, “I’ve got to buy that one! They kill the guy off with a frappaccino machine!”?

I’ve always contended (“always” being a relative term: I wasn’t born yelling this) that character is more important than plot details. I’ve gotten myself some really disgusted looks from mystery fans by saying that I’m more interested in characters and, in my case, jokes than in whether the plot always makes 100% sense. People get downright hostile about timelines in my novels that don’t add up, but they almost never say my characters are cardboard figures, or that my dialogue sounds like it belongs in a fourth grade pageant on Our Friends The Trees.

Now, I’m as concerned about telling a tight, interesting story as the next guy. Probably more, if the next guy is a supermarket manager or a house painter. But to me, character is the essential element of any story, mystery or not. You can write an amazing story in which the victim is done in through some intricate, exotic, shocking method I’d never dream of in decades of wracking my brain, but if the characters aren’t interesting, three-dimensional people, I’m probably not going to care.

I read series books less because I must see what crazy plot the author has dreamed up and more because I’ve been fascinated by the characters in the past and want to see how they’ll react to what’s going on in this book. Mystery fans will debate endlessly whether Stephanie Plum should end up with Joe Morelli or with Ranger, but ask them in which book the guy in the bunny suit was stalking our heroine, and they’ll be less likely to give you the title. I always read Robert B. Parker’s series to see whether Spenser is going to reveal more about himself, whether his core principles will be tested, and whether Susan Silverman is going to be less annoying than usual. I check in to get more of Hawk or Paul Giacomin, not to find out whodunnit. I’d have a hard time telling you the plot of any of the last six novels in the series, but I’ll keep coming back for more.

Edmund Wilson once very famously asked in print, “Who cares who killed Roger Ackroyd?” by way of putting mystery novels in the place of cheap, generic (in the worst definition of the word) fiction with disposable characters who did nothing but serve the plot and weren’t interesting on their own merits. Sure, that’s what happens in badly written mysteries, but it’s not endemic to the genre as a whole. Characters can be fascinating, fully living individuals who would carry a story in which nobody meets an unfortunate end, and still function in a high-concept mystery. It can be done, and it often is, if you’re looking in the right place.

Of course, actually doing that, and doing it well, is a talent that can take a long time to develop. But when one has just come back from wishing a sharp, spry gentleman a happy second century, it doesn’t seem impossible.