Lori Rader Day

Stuff and things and all that

2012-02-15T18:39:00.003-06:00

Time does go by, doesn't it?

Sorry. Busy. But busy with good stuff, I promise.

-Working on the book. My goal is to have it in shape to start submitting to agents within the next month.
-Why that timeline? Well, because I'm going to be busy developing a course in mystery writing for a certain community writing center I may have mentioned before. Details when they are set.
-In the next few weeks, I'll also be reading some fiction in this series. Come over and eat some tamales and hear some stories.
-I'll also be moderating a panel at the largest gathering of writers ANYWHERE WHAT WAS I THINKING WHEN I PROPOSED THIS?

Deep breath.

I'll be fine. This is the job. You don't like public speaking? Don't become a writer. That's just part of the deal these days. Maybe Hemingway didn't have to do panels at writers' conferences but, as we can safely agree to say to each other, you are not Hemingway, and neither am I.

Wedding anniversary (nine years of wedded bliss, baby) and husband's birthday and plans to see a college friend after ten years apart and two dog walks a day.

That's how time goes.

The 2012 Reading List Comences

2012-01-28T11:06:00.005-06:00

I don't remember if I made reading a resolution, but frankly? I don't have to. I read.

My goal on Goodreads.com is to read 75 books this year. That's ambitious, but far from impossible. Especially since I've already read six books already:

1. Wicked Autumn- G.M. Malliet
Cozy as cozy mysteries get, except that the amateur protagonist, a couple of chapters in, turns out not to be amateur. Solid mystery, cute characters.

2. Revenge of the Spellmans- Lisa Lutz
I'm an all-out fan of these books. They're fast, funny, and I really like the way the protagonist has evolved. I have one more before I have to wait for the new book to hit the shelves.

3. The Fiddler on the Subway- Gene Weingarten
This is the best book I've read in a long time. The book is a collection of long-form narrative journalism pieces written for the Washington Post; two of the pieces earned the writer Pulitzers. Two Pulitzers. And rightly so. The title piece is a bit of stunt journalism, where the WP set up a famous violinist as a busker in the NYC subways to see how people reacted to him. They didn't. But the best pieces are the ones about parents who've made the most careless errors of their lives, costing them their children, and about a far-flung community losing the fight for its own survival. There's also one about non-voters, about one non-voter in particular, that ends up being a really humbling image of middle America. If you like to read non-fiction at all—or if you want to write it—you need to read this book. It's a textbook.

4. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?- Mindy Kaling
I'm afraid this book suffers from the comparison the author can't help but make herself. Tina Fey's book is better. This is still enjoyable, but perhaps lighter and less purposeful.

5. Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife- Mary Roach
And this book suffers from comparison to Mary Roach's other books, in my opinion. I liked it a lot, but I liked Stiff better. I want to read her newest book, which means I enjoy her style (she's snarky), but maybe it's the subject I didn't quite warm to.

6. The End of the Wasp Season- Denise Mina
Really well-done and engaging Scottish suspense novel. About 100 pages in, I realized it was the second in a series, not the first. Ouch. I soldiered on, and am glad for it. I'll definitely check out her other titles.

Building a mystery community

2012-01-26T20:56:00.004-06:00

One good piece of news I've been waiting to sort out so I could announce:

I've been asked by StoryStudio to curate (that's the verb owner Jill Pollack and I most enjoy) mystery content for them.

StoryStudio has two locations. Chicago, where I've taken a couple of great classes (and where I have referred many, many people), and the new location in Winnetka, which has the sweetest writers room you ever saw (above). This location is also conveniently located ten minutes from my job.

So what does "curate" mean? We have some ideas, Jill and I. Primarily it means that I'm going to be looking for ideas out in the Chicagoland mystery/crime/suspense community for classes to propose, resources to share, and connections to make. I hope to teach some mystery-specific one-night courses over time, but I won't be keeping all the work to myself. My role, as I think we both see it, is to be a conduit for Jill into the genre and our community.

I'm seriously excited about this. Curator. Conduit. I'm on it.

And the bonus? I get to use that gorgeous writers room.

Anybody writing on the North Shore? Come check out my new home away from home.

My friend John

2012-01-16T11:58:00.000-06:00

One thing I haven't written about here is that just before Christmas, my husband's dad died.

It happened just that quickly, too.

When I first met Greg's dad, I called him the very respectful "Mr. Day." During that same visit, it didn't take him long to tire of that. He said, "Now, Lori, if we're going to be friends, you need to call me John."

OK, John!

And we were friends.

That was a shocking number of years ago. It's hard to get used to him being gone, and not just because my husband is now, at 38, an orphan. (His mother had died before I met him. He swears she would have liked me.) And not just because my husband takes after his dad enough that I get all mortality-aware about him, and myself, and other members of my family and his. Or that he raised a son I'm happy and proud to be married to.

It's hard to get used to, because, well—John was my friend.

The holidays were a little subdued, and rightly so. I got to see my sister and my adorable nieces, got a few gifts (books!) that I've enjoyed or will, soon. Or won't (exercise pants!), but what are you going to do? But I didn't want such an important milestone in our lives pass by without saying that we are changed, and missing him.

Big plans

2012-01-15T11:39:00.003-06:00

This is my 300th post.

...

...

Probably not going to live up to any expectations you may have.

What I've been doing since the big silver ball dropped and it was suddenly not 2011 anymore:

-Being glad it's not 2011 anymore

-Working very very muchly

-Revising my book

As these are the things I'm supposed to be doing, perhaps you're already yawning.

How about: I...used my treadmill today.

That shouldn't be so notable, but I did manage to hurt myself just before Christmas (slippery step, butt to step, bump, bump, bump to bottom of steps) so that's why I'm noting it.

My treadmill figures greatly in my plans for 2012. Yes, I'm going to be one of those people. I need to be. I'll never walk the fashion catwalks, people, let's be realistic. I'm not looking for perfection. But, even though every time my cat throws up I think "This is my life?," most of my life is rather good and I'd like to have it for a long time. I have a lot of books to write, for one thing.

My book figures greatly in my plans, as well. I'm revising now, then I'll get some first readers (well, second readers, since my friend Yvonne already took first place) while I let the book sit for a while. And then one more pass, and I'm going to think about agents. Really think about them, in a way I've never really gotten to. And then I'm going to start another project.

Because that what we crazy writers do. We're like SHARKS. Gotta keep moving.

So. 2012. I have plans. Some of them have to do with what happens in 2013. There's a very round-numbered wedding anniversary in 2013, and both my husband and I will be turning an age that ends in O, as in O MY GOD. I have plans to stop mucking around in the amateur league. Time to go pro.

These are my big plans. What are yours?

Photo from Morguefile

Best Reads of 2011

2011-12-31T12:00:00.000-06:00

I did a list of my best reads of last year, and y'all seemed to like that.

Best "reads" means that I read it in 2011, not necessarily that the books were all published that year. I'm way behind in everything, why not in books, too?

So, drumrrrrrrrroll.

1. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
I have been shoving this book down everyone's throat because it's just a really good read. It's a crime novel, but it's also just a great novel. You don't have to be obsessed with Agatha Christie (c'est moi) to enjoy this book.

2. Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran
Crime novel with a little supernatural thrown in, good novel. I hope this is a first in a series deal; I liked the tone of this book and these characters.

3. Mrs. Somebody Somebody by Tracy Winn
Linked short stories that take you deep into another time in another place. I should really check to see if Ms. Winn has other books. Not a crime novel, although lots of terrible things happen. Crime, in fact.

4. The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton
Again: good crime novel but also a good novel.

5. Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward
This was the meta crime novel in which the authors' catty notes to one another are included in between their alternating chapters. Pretty hilarious, and a pretty interesting teaching tool for someone trying to write a crime novel.

6. The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes by Marcus Sakey
Protagonist with amnesia, lotsa trouble to face, well-told. This one probably shows up on a lot of best of lists, and rightly so.

7. Missing Persons by Clare O'Donohue
Protagonist TV producer gets pulled into solving ex's death. I love amateur detectives. I know this one is a series starter, so I'm looking forward to the second book this spring.

8. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Nonfiction that is rare and beautiful and harrowing. Read it.

9. The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure
Nonfiction that is fun and nostalgic and smart. You probably had to have been a fan of the Little House books, but of course you are, right? RIGHT?

10. The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
You'd have to be a fan of the creepier Little House TV shows to read this one. Shakespearean body count, beautiful book.

I re-read a lot of stuff this year. I don't include any re-reads here, but I did enjoy some old favorites that I'd also push on you, given half a chance: To Kill a Mockingbird, Bird by Bird, On Writing by Stephen King, Winnie-the-Pooh.

Resolutions 2012

2011-12-30T17:14:00.005-06:00

Two posts so close together? And over the holidays when no one is posting? Might spoil you guys.

I was reading some articles about literary resolutions for the New Year. Literary, as opposed to the usual LOSE 1,000! POUNDS and DRINK FAR LESS stuff most of us usually churn out.

I always do resolutions. Despite a less-than-100-percent success rate, I sometimes pull out some wins.

Like last year, when I said that I wanted to finish the first draft of my novel.

Well, I did that. Maybe it shouldn't surprise me that I can pull off something like that, but I do have a rather rigorous day job.

I wrote that resolution back at the end of 2010, when I hadn't yet reached 50,000 words (about halfway). The year before, my resolutions didn't even mention this manuscript, because I was still working on the other one (now safely in the metaphorical drawer) and had barely anything at all started on The Black Hour. It's kind of amazing how a little bit of work several times a week can add up.

I may need to be reminded of this mathematical theorem occasionally this year as I try to tackle a few more projects.

My literary resolutions:
-To finish an agent-ready draft of The Black Hour.
-To submit to agents. (Not to GET an agent; that's not up to me. But to try, which I really haven't done. Slush pile ahoy.)
-Write some crime/mystery short pieces for submission.
-Engage more fully with the Chicago mystery writing community.
-Present at AWP in March. (gulp)
-Start a new novel. (gulp again)

OK, now someone remind me what I just said about a little work several times a week.

Last reading post of the year?

2011-12-29T11:47:00.003-06:00

My friend Carsten pointed out that I haven't posted here in a while. He's usually the one who says I shouldn't apologize for not posting, so this must be serious.

Been busy, yes. With things that would interest you? No.

For now, let's just talk about books. Can't go wrong there.

66. How to Write a Damn Good Mystery: A Practical Step-by-Step Guide from Inspiration to Finished Manuscript- James N. Frey
The problem with quite a few mystery-specific writing books is that they aren't mystery-specific. (Leave out adverbs. Yes, it's been covered.) This one was, though, and I liked reading about techniques that, so far, I've just been doing without a net. He does push the "damn good" thing a bit too much, but I found some good info here.

67. Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend- Susan Orlean
I would read anything Susan Orlean wrote, and a dog book? That was a no-brainer. I didn't grow up with "Rinty" in any way, but I still enjoyed reading about this one dog's amazing legacy.

68. No Biking in the House Without a Helmet- Melissa Fay Greene
I would also ready anything Melissa Fay Greene wrote. This is a more personal book than her others. Enjoyed it. You should go read Praying for Sheetrock. Yes, right now.

69. 84 Charing Cross Road- Helene Hanff
A re-read. This is a wee little collection of letters between a writer and a bookseller over the course of many years. Charming, funny. I think it's going to be my holiday reading for life. Now if I only had a fireplace, life would indeed be perfectly cozy.

70. Purgatory Ridge- William Kent Krueger
This is the third in a series that I started reading this summer. Still like the series, although I took a slow-go through this one for some reason. Not sure there was a reason. I have the next few of these for my Nook, but I'd better take a break.

71. Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks: Fifty Years of Mysteries in the Making- John Curran
The only problem with this book is that now I really want to read ALL THE CHRISTIE. Not sure I'll ever get to, but I've enjoyed a few of her best this year. I'm a fan. Reading this book always made me itch to write—a very nice side effect except that I read most of it right before bed.

So that's the end of my reading year, I imagine. In the time I have left this year, what I really need to do is WRITE.

Reading list

2011-11-27T15:14:00.004-06:00

Apparently the only thing I'm doing is reading.

63. Crush: 26 Real-life Tales of True Love- ed. Andrea Richesin
I actually finished this a while ago and forgot to add it to any of my lists. My friend, Chris Coake, has an essay in this book, and I had to see who his first true love was. He chickened out, but you'll have to read the book to see what I mean. I ended up liking this book a lot. It was the nicest, most pleasant thing to read during my lunch hour one week. You like love stories? You'll like this.

64. Murder Most Persuasive- Tracy Kiely
The third in the series in which Jane Austen plots and quotes are layered over contemporary cozy mysteries. I still haven't read the first one, which bothers me no end. These are charming. You like charming? You haven't had enough Jane Austen? You'll like these. For the love of God, start with the first one. For me.

65. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows- Alan Bradley
This is the fourth in the series starring Flavia de Luce, a terribly precocious 11-year-old British girl after World War II. I have to admit that I didn't think much of the first of these books. I probably even said so on this here blog, didn't I? I have a history of going lukewarm on certain books, but getting engaged later in the series. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. The Spencer Quinn Chet the Dog series. Lisa Lutz's Spellman series. I like them, but I can't gush. And then when the next one comes out? I have to read it. They're *stealth*. They sneak up on me until I'm a fan. Now I'm foaming at the mouth for the next Chet mystery and the next No. 1 Ladies. I have the fourth Spellman in my stack, and I'm saving it.

So yeah, I'm a fan of Flavia. She's a funny little unreliable narrator. You know how much I like those. You like 1940s England mysteries? You've never read one quite like these.

Silly willy nilly ol' Bear

2011-11-20T17:52:00.006-06:00

If anyone is still reading this, I'm so so sorry. I have lots of excuses—busy time of year at my job, trying to do right by the students I'm working with in independent studies, some fun writing/teaching stuff in the works for spring—but the excuses don't put words on the page. Not here, and not on my manuscript, either.

I finally broke through this weekend and picked the book back up. I'm doing line-by-line edits on the whole thing with the hopes of getting it out the door to an agent around the first of the year. My first new year's resolution, right there.

I've managed a little bit of reading, so let's start there.

61. Murder on the Bride's Side- Tracy Kiely
I met Tracy at Bouchercon this fall. Very nice lady, and what's this? Mysteries that use Jane Austen plots—without making Jane Austen either the murder victim or the investigating detective, this is very key for me—and Austen quotes aplenty? Don't mind if I do. These are charming, though the completist in me cannot stand that I started with the second book in the series. GAH, it burns.

62. The Complete Winnie-the-Pooh- A.A. Milne
I hear you laughing, but I don't care. One of the gifts I got as a newborn was a Pooh, and it is the companion of my childhood. And adulthood. I love it beyond reason. I also renamed it Sue (Winnie-the-Sue, not quite getting how these things work) early on, and started dolling it up in dresses. This didn't seem odd to me until I took my transvestite Pooh to college. Sue was an institution in my family that's hard to explain to anyone who wasn't there. For instance, it took no time at all to find this:

My sister, me with Sue (in a dress, yessir), my grandma, a car the size of the missing civilization of Atlantis. In which we never ever wore seatbelts. See all that corn in the background? Welcome to my childhood. See the scrunch-face I'm making? This is why I wear sunglasses all the time. Scrunch-face gives you wrinkles.

REGARDLESS. I love the Pooh stories, too, and thoroughly enjoyed revisiting them. There's a lot of writing advice bits and bobs in these books. They were a nice surprise.

Like:
Eeyore was saying to himself, "This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it."

And:
Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you.

And the best one:
When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

So I'm still just trying to make the thing that seemed Thingish inside my Very Little Brain to be Thingish enough to share with you. Thanks for hanging on until I can.

Reading list update

2011-11-06T18:28:00.003-06:00

As with most things in my life right now, the reading list is behind.

(I mean, when you feel self-congratulatory when you make it, finally, to the post office, maybe you're not firing on all cylinders, life management-wise.)

I can't fix everything tonight, but I'll fix this.

54. Shop Til You Drop- Elaine Viets
Mystery series (this is number 1) where the protagonist has a different dead-end job each book. Dead-end, get it? I'd pictured it a sort of Nickeled and Dimed mystery series, but this is much lighter. Maybe I should just WRITE a Nickeled and Dimed mystery series. Yeah, yeah, idea. Get in line.

55. Night of the Living Deed- E.J. Copperman
Mystery series (this is number 1) where a do-it-yourselfer fixes up what turns out to be a haunted house. The humor was actually funny, which is a tough thing to find. My only complaint is as a do-it-yourselfer: There is no EFFING WAY that one woman could do all the fixing up she does in the span of the first book. However, I can forgive this, since the humor didn't make me cringe.

56. The Dog Who Knew Too Much- Spencer Quinn
Mystery series (this is number 4) in which a dog is the narrator. I know. I apologize every time I read one of these, but one thing I can't apologize for: These are good. If you fledgling writers are having trouble with point of view or voice, read one of these. It's masterful point of view. Yes, I do think you need to love dogs. Yes, I will continue to read these.

57. A Wrinkle in Time- Madeleine l'Engle
The less I say about how I feel about this book, the less hate mail I'm likely to get. I read it too late in life, end of story.

58. I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in this Relationship- ed. Wade Rouse
Do only women and gay men own dogs? Just wondering. Cute stories about dog ownership and dog love. Yes, I'm a disaster about dogs. You've noticed. Whatever. I love my dog. Also something I won't apologize for. The book benefits charity, if you're also a dog lover. I bought another copy of this for my friend, Kristi, the other person I know who is crazy obsessed with her dog.

59. Pippi Longstocking- Astrid Lindgren
Yes, this counts. Re-read of an old childhood favorite, and you know what? It stands up. This is what happens when you read something at the RIGHT time of life.

60. Raven Black- Ann Cleeves
Suspense series (this is number 1) set in Shetland. I have no idea where Shetland is, oopsie.

...

Shetland is apparently in Scotland. Huh. Thanks, Internet.

Good characters, well written, suspenseful, slightly unlikely solution. Probably will check out later additions to this series.

--Probably will check out later books in the series when I'm through some of the high stacks I have about my house. I actually cleaned out my book cases this past week, because we certainly had a problem. OK, me. I'm the one with the book hoarding tendencies. A stack of books actually fell on me while I was sorting things out. Fell on me. Not a metaphor.

In short, I have giveaways. Come visit.

Puppy love

2011-10-22T22:20:00.002-05:00

I have another (last) guest post at my friend's blog. It's about MY DOG. And writing. But we all know what you'll be there to see.

Writers group

2011-10-15T17:45:00.003-05:00

Dilemma:

A writer friend of mine is starting a writers group, and she's invited me to join.

There are rules to this group. It's going to be small and serious. I don't have a problem with the rules.

The reason I'm waffling is that I want to join a writers group, but I want other mystery writers in it.

I know. I can learn from other writers, no matter what they write. Variety might even be a great idea recharge for me. However:

Poetry.

I...don't like poetry. I've only encountered a couple of poems in my entire history as a reader that have resonated with me. Here's one.

I admire poets, but I'm not sure how I'd help one make her work better. That would make our relationship one sided, and how could I shortchange someone that way? A small, serious group needs everyone working hard for everyone else.

My friend is going to try to talk me into it. We'll see. I'm tempted, but I certainly don't want to be the weakest link in a new group.

If Louise Penny, Gillian Flynn, and Sophie Littlefield want to start a writers group, I'm in.

Anybody have a success story of a mixed genre writers group?

Guest post: Inspiration

2011-10-15T16:06:00.001-05:00

I have a guest post up over at my friend Meghan's blog. Stop by to read it and check out her cool style.

Don't sound insane

2011-10-08T18:27:00.002-05:00

Last post was...ouch. A while ago.

I'm not superhuman, apparently. All that talk about writing during lunch hours? Well, sometimes that doesn't work.

Right now I'm going to demonstrate how to write a blog post while cooking dinner AND playing with a stuffed octopus with my foot for the enjoyment of my dog.

Take that, super powers.

I HAVE been working on my book. In fact, my first beta reader has finished the first draft and given me some good feedback I'm working into the second draft. Then: a few more beta readers. Then?

Then I might test out the new query letter I wrote and actually put something out there. Into the world. In the hopes that someone might like it other than me. (And my beta reader. She was gushy on Twitter, which was really really fun.)

Pause for octopus maneuvers.

Which reminds me. I hear myself say things to and about the dog sometimes that makes me think—

I must be insane.

The other day I heard a voice very much like mine saying, "Please don't lick the bed."

The dog bed. Must have been a cookie crumb somewhere in the vicinity. But still. I was hoping not to sound incapacitated until far into my sixties.

(Not even close.)

Some of my friends will post things their kids say or things they find themselves saying to their kids, and I suppose this is just my way of throwing my hat in. Pet owners can lose their minds, too.

Actually, don't lick the bed is good advice for us all.

Reading list

2011-09-25T13:39:00.002-05:00

51. On Writing- Stephen King
A re-read. Apparently (according to Goodreads.com) I re-read this every two years. Still good. Still fun and diverting but still on the task. Feel like I've visited with an old friend. Also think I might try reading some of his later work. I stopped reading at The Dark Half, so I have some catching up to do. Some of his later works sound interesting. (Though I cannot recommend The Dark Half.)

52. Missing Persons- Clare O'Donohue
Picked this up at the conference after hearing Clare on a panel. She seemed nice, funny, normal. And from Chicago. I really liked this book and look forward to more in the series.

53. The Boy in the Suitcase- Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis
Just finished this a few minutes ago. Liked it, although I wish I'd spent more time with the main protagonist, who is apparently a series protagonist. I don't mind many points of view in a book, but I hate to leave the main point of view before I'm invested in him/her. Things got a little over-explainy at times in my opinion, but overall a good read. Met these ladies at the conference, and they were lovely.

My first Boucercon

2011-09-18T13:22:00.005-05:00

Got back yesterday from my very first Bouchercon. As it was a topic of rabid discussion with the friends Greg and I stayed with while we were in St. Louis for the conference, I'm going to tell you outright what Wikipedia doesn't.

It's pronounced BOW (as in to bend from the waist)-chur-con.

Bouchercon is a conference for mystery writers and readers. I've been to several writing conferences by now, but this is the first mystery-specific conference I've attended.

I'm in love with Bouchercon.

Hundreds of people who are geeks for the same thing I am? Yes, please. Books and books and more books? The second I signed in at the registration table, they handed me a 60-pound book bag full of freebies. But was 60 pounds enough for me? Nay! I spent lots of time in the book seller's room, finding 10 more pounds.

I left home with one single book and came back with 15.

Someone on Facebook asked me what the 15 books were so here we go—

1. A Bad Day for Sorry- Sophie Littlefield (Took it with me to read, but never got the chance. Got it signed, though. Sophie was very nice and had some thoughtful things to say during one of her panels about how the publishing industry needed more diverse characters, in particular women over 26. I agreed and put in that some of them could maybe be larger than a size 4. If you're looking for some reading like that, pick up Sophie's book above to get started with her series, and also take a look at The Calling by Inger Ash Wolfe.)

2. Missing Persons- Clare O'Donohue (Purchase. Met Clare, a Chicago writer, after one of her panels. I think she needs to be my friend. She's cute as a button and this book is really good. Just finished it this morning.)

3. Crimes in Southern Indiana- Frank Bill (Purchase. Like I was going to pass that title up. Would only be more perfect if it were Crimes of Central Indiana.)

4. The Boy in the Suitcase- Lene Kaaberbol and Agnette Friis (This was a free ARC I got for attending a release party in the hotel bar. Bribe me to take a free book by Danish authors along with a free mojito, Soho Press? Win, win, win. Met the authors and they were delightful.)

5. Murder Most Persuasive- Tracy Kiehly (Purchase. Met Tracy and she was also adorable. I'm not sure I think it's fair that cute girls can also write. Leave the not-cute girls something, OK? This is a retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion with a murder mystery, set in present day. This is not one of those Jane Austen as detective books. Yes, Kim, you can borrow it when I'm done.)

6. The Matters at Mansfield- Carrie Bebris (Freebie. This is one of those Jane Austen as detective books. I'll...let you know.)

7. The Devil's Bed
8. Blood Hollow- William Kent Krueger (Freebies. I just started his Cork O'Connor series this summer and love it. Was very excited to see Blood Hollow in the freebie bag, and I'll definitely try the other one, which is a stand-alone.)

9. Shop til You Drop- Elaine Viets (Purchase. I know what you're thinking, but give me a second. These books are about a woman who meets up with murder and mayhem on the job. The interesting thing to me—besides the fact that the author seemed really funny and charming when I saw one of her panels—is that the jobs are all Nickel and Dimed jobs, low-paying, low-skills-building jobs. I wanted to see how that was handled.)

10. The Messenger of Athens- Anne Zouroudi (Freebie. I know nothing about this book.)

11. Heads You Lose- Lisa Lutz and David Hayward (Purchase. I already own this book, but I lent it out. I got this one signed to give it as a gift, but if I don't get my other copy back, this is mine. Lisa is really funny and she and David have a funny relationship that made everyone uncomfortable at the panel they did together. I really like this book. If you want to write funny mysteries, read it. Also, more of you should be writing funny mysteries. I was very happy to see how long Lisa's signing line was, because I want to write funny mysteries, too.)

12. A Trace of Smoke- Rebecca Cantrell (Freebie.)

13. The Sixes- Kate White (Freebie.)

14. Delta Blues- ed. Carolyn Haines (Freebie.)

15. Spycatcher- Matthew Dunn (Freebie. Almost didn't bring this one back with me, as it doesn't look like something I would ever pick up. But who am I to look a gift-book in the mouth?)

So... besides picking up a lot of free books, I also just loved being in a room with people who liked the things I did. The panels I went to were great. I caught glimpses of people I'd only ever seen in author photos (including Harlan Coben, who retweeted that I spotted him on the escalator. Which is charming enough that I need to read one of his books now.)

I really liked that the writers at this conference weren't just on the panels. They were sitting in the audience. At AWP, the people in the audience are mostly the people who want to write and don't or do, but aren't published, or are still students. The published are either on the panel, or they don't show up in the room at all. Bouchercon, on the other hand, had a nice, friendly, inclusive vibe. I met a lot of people I only knew from Twitter, and got to tell some really good writers in person how much I liked their books.

All in all? I can't wait for next year. And, one of these days, I can't wait to be on the other side of Bouchercon's signing table.

Reading list

2011-09-05T12:04:00.002-05:00

48. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
A re-read. This is one of my all-time favorite nonfiction books. I don't really like to camp that much, but once in a while when I get the urge, I read this book. And it cures me. Love Bryson's sense of humor, love his companion Katz. Reading this book is like a summer vacation I don't have to pack for. Also: no bears.

49. Kill Me Again by Terence Faherty
I met Terry Faherty when I was a Midwest Writers Fellow a few years ago. I was surprised to be assigned to his group of mystery writers, but then very glad I was. Our group had a lot of fun, and I got great advice and quite a bit of momentum from the experience. Now every time I hit some mystery writer milestone, I email Terry and thank him for letting me know I was one.

I'd never read anything by Terry when I met him (I was very mal-read in the mystery genre at the time) and hadn't done my due diligence to get my hands on his books until recently. This is the first of his Scott Elliott series, set in old-timey, post WWII Hollywood. Elliott is an ex-actor turned movie-business security type, and in a word, this book is great. I was a fan of Terry's before, and now I'm a fan of Terry's writing.

Also, he's from Indiana. This is a plus.

50. A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny
This is the latest in the Armand Gamache series by Canadian writer Louise Penny. Who I love. These are the coziest damn things being written in our time. Think Agatha Christie with a little Food Channel menu p0rn set among a set of friends you'll wish were your own in a town you'll want to track down and visit. It's fictional, alas. Or maybe not, since lotsa people seem to die there. Love the series, and have turned at least three people onto them.

Stop Worrying

2011-08-29T19:31:00.005-05:00

A while back I read Ainé Greaney's book Writer with a Day Job and told you how much I liked it.

Ainé either has a Google Alert on her name or some kind of spidey-sense, because she stopped by to thank me and asked me to write a guest post at her blog.

I'm honored to be the guest on her blog right now. Go take a look and check out Ainé's site for more tips on getting the writing done, y'all. Also, if you're trying to figure out this working for The Man thing and still trying to finish your novel, go get a copy of her book. Lots of helpful tips for finding time, and then some firestarters for when you do.

Maybe it doesn't go without saying (I'll say it!) that you can use getting-the-writing-done advice for almost any other pursuit you think you don't have time for. Reading, knitting, scrapbooking, talking to friends, writing letters. If it gets pushed to the bottom of the list while you're home, think about how you might take it on your lunch hour instead.

Let me know what you think of my guest post, and thanks to Ainé for the opportunity.

Revision

2011-08-24T21:02:00.003-05:00

Worth noting that I'm actively revising The Black Hour now. Had a writing date with my friend Yvonne and she was interested in reading some pages. Next thing I know, she's my beta reader and is one-third through the book and full of encouragement. The fact that she's waiting anxiously for the next chapter is highly motivating, so I've blasted through 146 pages since this weekend.

Warning, Voni. The second and third sections will need more detailed revision. Calm yourself, lady, and we'll get there.

It's really great to be sharing my work with someone. I'd not thought of it, but it's been a while since I had a reader. I graduated my MFA program. My writing group broke up when the alpha member, Mary Anne, moved. (I blame you and your suburban charms, Oak Park.) And while she and I still write together, we don't do as much sharing. We're just too busy. I was thinking I might like to get a dedicated writing group together at some point. At the moment, though, I have a great deal of Other Stuff to get done. Like figuring out how to teach three advanced writing students who cannot be in the same room at the same time. I think they might be the same student, messing with Alma Mater's admission system.

Nice trick, ladies.

It's going to be a busy fall.

2011-08-23T08:30:00.000-05:00

Interesting article here. Happens a lot, I think. What's interesting to me is that I put my first novel in a drawer myself. Was I wrong to do it? Not to give it a chance?

Maybe someday I'll take it out of the (metaphorical) drawer and see if there's anything salvageable. For now, though, I'm not as sad about it as I probably should be. I'm working on what's next, and I'm liking this book much more.

So maybe it's the having the next thing that's made this process easy. Or maybe it's just my own rising standards, over time. Either way, writing this book has been fun. Revising this book has been fun. I like the way my life feels when I'm working on it, and that's saying something, isn't it? Whether it sells or not.

Oh, HI.

2011-08-16T19:19:00.002-05:00

Don't hate me, but I kinda forgot I had a blog there for a minute.

I'm here. Busy at Major U. Figuring out what to do with my class at Alma Mater U this fall. Trying to get the energy together to start draft two of The Black Hour. Not reading a lot. Not writing a lot. Probably spending too much time on Twitter.

Let's reward people who are actually getting their writing done. Read this instead of whatever I would blather.

A bit of reading

2011-08-06T12:00:00.003-05:00

While my vacation certainly helped out my reading list progress, we are now at a stand still. Which is too bad, as I keep finding new books in my house. OK, I bought them.

46. Bird by Bird- Anne Lamott
I was reading this in bed one night when my husband looked over and said, "Haven't you read that before?"

Oh, Greg. Greg, Greg, Greg.

Yes, like six times. And this is not the last time. In fact, it's become a bit of a summer tradition to re-read it, so I'll see you here next August, Anne Lamott.

I love this book. It's a writing book, but so different than any other writing book out there. So funny and true and inspiring. It makes my life better. It makes me happy.

I liked it so much, I commissioned a birthday present from my best friend, who makes the coolest stuff.

It hangs over the outside door to our back porch, where I often write. Where I'm writing right now, as a matter of fact. Now that it's finally not death-to-us-all hot.

47. The Devil All the Time- Donald Ray Pollock
Speaking of death to us all...

This isn't for your squeamish grandma, OK? But if you can take a little (or a lot of) depravity, Don Pollock's your guy. Loved his book of short stories, Knockemstiff, and managed to get him on as a reader at Roosevelt when I still went there. He read a few early chapters of my first novel and had some really encouraging things to say.

Since I just scrolled through all my photos to find that bird one above, I can also post this:

Don, in green, listens to one of us spout off. Scott, the director of my program, looking amused to Don's left, and Jamie, one of the students, looks very Gap over there. Someone help me remember the name of the guy at the far left, the teacher writing the book on the Chicago fire. Good book. Nice guy. Bad memory.

My barbaric (y)AWP

2011-08-05T20:17:00.003-05:00

I was asked to guest blog about how I write while holding a full-time job—which is, for my money, the best way to shut down a functioning writing-while-working process.

But I'm over whatever that was—the heat, I swear—and am back at it.

Soon to begin the second draft of The Black Hour. As my friend Tricia would say, stand by.

I'll let you know when and where on the guest blog post, of course.

In other news, I'm going to be a real, live AWP presenter! AWP is short for Associated Writers and Writing Programs (where did the other W go, one wonders?), and I've been to their annual conference three years running. This year I proposed a panel of fabulous writers I know/know vaguely/want to know better and got accepted. This is big, as the acceptance rate is traditionally rather tiny.

I think I must have wowed them with my audacity to propose a panel on (gasp!) commercial fiction. Are they allowing me to hang myself with my own, commercial-grade rope? We shall see in March.

In the mean time I have to try to remember the lessons I learned from the last time I accepted a speaking engagement.

What I do know is that many good writers and many good ideas must have been turned down. I will count myself lucky and make the most of the opportunity.

Miscellany

2011-07-31T11:50:00.006-05:00

We went on vacation a few weeks ago. Two weeks in the upper regions of Wisconsin. Sorry I didn't tell you about it beforehand, but I figured you'd all come over and loot my house.

We took our pup. Ursa learned the word "swimming" (which means standing around in shallow water) and was otherwise bored as heck while her humans read a thousand books.

This tree branch fell during a storm long before we went to Wisconsin, but it bears documenting. Look at that beast.

That's Greg. He's 6'2", for reference. He had to saw it down to workable pieces (we don't own, in case you need the visual, a chainsaw) that we stacked for the city to pick up. Here are some Chicago vocabulary words. We piled the pieces on the PARKWAY (little grassy spot on the other side of the sidewalk) as TREE DEBRIS (if it's small enough to fit into a city trash can, then it's not TREE DEBRIS, it's YARD WASTE, and that's what you should do--put it in the trash can for the garbage dudes to pick up). But no, we had TREE DEBRIS and so a special truck came around and got it. Rather quickly, too.

One day Greg went to the hardware store for...something and later in the day when I went outside to head to the grocery, this cute little pineapple bird feeder was hanging in our yard.

Maybe you don't know this about me, but I like pineapples. They're really the cutest and most whimsical fruit. And they grow in Hawaii, where I should live or at least visit quite often. They also mean "welcome," but that's not necessarily what I'm going for (see the part where you loot my house, above).

See those little brown sparrows? They're jerks. But they're cute, so we feed them. Every sparrow in the world has been in my backyard since I got my new birdfeeder. Little gluttons.

TA-DA.

2011-07-14T17:48:00.001-05:00

One more thing to report:

I just typed The End on the first draft of The Black Hour last night.

Revision begins!

Reading lots!

2011-07-14T17:46:00.002-05:00

Reading a lot recently, but that’s pretty much all I have to report.

33. Curse of the Spellmans- Lisa Lutz

I was amused by sort of ambivalent about the first in this series, but after a bit of time passed, I decided that I’d liked the first book enough to read the second. I’m now in the ambivalent cycle on the second. Which will pass, and then I’ll probably read the third. Funny, charming, and, in this one, there’s a full-fledged mystery.

34. Death’s Door- Gail Lukasik

Disclaimer: This author and I know each other. She teaches at the same place I do. Always a relief when you enjoy something written by someone you know. This is an amateur detective story, a journalist who gets curious and then embroiled in a series of killings in the Door County region of Wisconsin. (You know, I have two degrees in journalism, but I’m glad I gave that career a pass if this is the kind of curiosity you need.) Apparently Door County is a peninsula? (Two degrees in journalism does not a smart person make.)

35. Never Tell a Lie- Hallie Ephron

This one was good. An old schoolmate comes to a couple’s yard sale, goes inside the house for a tour, and no one sees her again. Lots of secrets revealed, etc. Tightly written, and a page-turner.

36. Iron Lake- William Kent Krueger

This guy taught at the Midwest Writers Conference I went to (and from which I hauled back a wholly unexpected prize) in 2009. Early on in the conference I figured out he was the guy I needed to follow around—the mystery guy. His sessions were good and thankfully so his is writing. I liked this book a lot, although these tough guys who solve crimes for the benefit of mankind are not my favorite protagonists. He also has a LOT of backstory. Like, maybe some of that backstory could have been the first book? Also, I couldn’t stop picturing this author as one of the (fake) authors tweeked in How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely. If you’ve read that book, all I need to say is that the protagonist of Iron Lake is one quarter Native American. I don’t remember WKK wearing dreamcatchers and a white-man’s ponytail, but that’s what came to mind. There’s a series, and I’ll probably be on the lookout for book the second.

37. Heads You Lose- Lisa Lutz and David Hayward

Second Lisa Lutz of the week! This one I loved. The premise is that Lutz and Hayward are writers who used to date and have decided to exquisite corpse a book together. She takes odd chapters; he takes even. If that sounds like hell to you writers: yes. But it’s fun to read. The writers leave notes for each other after each chapter, and respond to one another with messages back and in footnotes. After, say, one of them kills off the other’s favorite character. It’s all very meta, and really funny. This book made me want to get back to writing, which is a very high compliment in my book.

38. The Quality of Life Report- Meghan Daum

I just this minute finished it, so I might not have enough distance on it. It’s a tough book to characterize, one of those books that should have a place in women’s fiction, but probably didn’t find it. Too heavy to be “chick-lit” (and packaged wrong). But also a little light for those books that demand to be “serious.” I’m tired of labels like that, but I also know that packaging does help me find books I’m likely to enjoy.

I’ve only had one book fail lately, a cozy that I want to like, but don’t think I can. It’s thin. I don’t know how to describe it except this way. Thin. My personal taste (your mileage may vary) is that I want depth somewhere. If not in character development, then in humor. If not in character motivation, then in suspense. Something has to pull me through. I hope that my own writing does this. Oh, I hope.

I’ll probably give this cozy another try before I give it back to the friend who loaned it to me, but I don’t have high hopes. There are so many books I want to read. Why force myself through something that I’m not enjoying?

One book I’ve read this week had me thinking about the intersection of good writing and good storytelling. That’s not a 100 percent overlap. You can be a good writer without writing something than anyone wants to finish.

I think I’m a good writer. What I hope is that I’m also a good storyteller, that the stories I put on paper have something that will pull a reader through to the end. For me, writing feels like a natural thing, but it’s not. I’ve just been doing it so long that it feels like a natural thing. Crafting a story isn’t as natural to me yet, but I think I’m getting better at it. And I certainly recognize—as a reader—when, four chapters into a book, I have no reason to turn the page.

Reading list

2011-07-07T21:46:00.002-05:00

I guess I haven't posted my reading list for a while. Not sure why. Oops?

I know you've been biting your nails, so...

28. The Thin Man- Dashiell Hammet
Buy this book for the neato cover art or for the awesome, old-timey noir. Good read.

29. Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead- Sara Gran
One of my favorite reads of the year so far. It's weird and quirky, a mystery and an origin story of a series. My only (minor) complaint was that it was a bit repetitive on how crime was different in New Orleans, even before the flood. Nothing to get in a twist about, however. Go read it so that there will many in the series.

30. Before I Go to Sleep- S.J. Watson
There's a lot of hype for this one, but I'm sorry to report that I didn't end up thinking it was the end-all. One problem, and I don't think this gives anything away that the back of the book hasn't already, is that the point of view character has amnesia. My writing teacher Lisa has a specific stance on whether this can be done, and I'm not sure this book disproves her. If the character doesn't have any backstory, doesn't know who she is...then why do I care about her? Tough one. See number 32.

Also, I would like to point out that, despite the Library of Congress key word "women authors" in this book, the author of this book is very male. It doesn't matter, really, but I do like to know. Probably, so do you.

31. Writer With a Day Job: Ainé Greaney
I am a writer with a day job. I didn't really need a book to tell me how to pull this off. I write during my lunch hours, and sometimes I convince myself to get up early and write. I also write in the evenings sometimes, and almost always at some point during the weekends. But I also like to read writing books as a way to keep in the conversation about craft and the writing biz, even if it's a conversation with the pages of a book like this one. Liked it. Lots of good ideas if the concept is new to you. One thing she touches on is writing AT YOUR DAY JOB OMG DON'T DO THAT. That's not just for the people at my work who read this (hi, people at my work). That is a bad bad baddy bad bad road. If you get an idea at work, jot it down and get back to your paying gig. Sweet pickle relish, I can't even believe they put that in the book.

32. The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes- Marcus Sakey
Second book told from point of view of amnesia sufferer in the last month. This one? Is so so so much better. Really good, in fact. Terrific, one might say. I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about Sakey, who is a graduate of the (weird) MFA program (cult) I got into but decided against (ran for my life). He's a good read, and I'll be checking out his back catalogue. The only tiny thing about this book I didn't like was the internal monologue. It's a personal thing; I don't like internal monologue that seems like, well, monologue. We don't think in full sentences and paragraphs, in my opinion, so it smacks of "writerly" to me. Again: small thing. This book is a BUY IT. Chicago writer, for one thing. Making us all look good.

I would join YouFace.

2011-06-30T19:55:00.004-05:00

Friend of mine basically accused me of posting too much on Facebook. Which really means Twitter, as that's where I post my Facebook stuff.

Isn't that what we're supposed to do? Have an online presence?

Sometimes I do get sick of it. But it's genuinely fun, or I wouldn't do it.

I don't think I'll be looking into this Google+ business or, my God, did someone say MySpace was a going concern? No, thanks.

At least I'm also putting words down on my manuscript.

Ddddrumrolllll.

I hit 80,000 words today.

Not sure how many more to finish, but I would be surprised if it took more than 90K. Closing in on it.

Running into the sun

2011-06-27T21:30:00.004-05:00

Today at work I was talking to my co-worker about The Swell Season (they were in town tonight, but I'm not a crowd person and decided to skip it). She knew one of their big songs, but hadn't really heard of them, or seen Once, the film they and their music star in.

[If you haven't seen Once, please go do that.]

The album after the movie soundtrack has been in my car since we bought the car in October 2010, and before that, the CD was in my old car. The CD has been in the car I've driven to work since I started working there, nearly two years now.

I was trying to articulate why, but I didn't do a good job of it.

The thing is, that album isn't my favorite album of all time. There are several more CDs in my car, and they've changed in and out over time. But this one—I can't take it out.

Let me try here:

The first song (side one, track one if it were vinyl) is a song that calms me, every time. In the beginning of the last two years, I needed it. I relied on it. I listened to that song, sometimes on repeat, every day on the way home. It became a code, a signifier. When I heard that song, I was leaving one version of myself behind and picking back up the version of myself I liked better. I was going back to being Lori, the writer.

I listen to music while I write. Most of the time, at least. I have a handful of songs on heavy rotation right now that have become code, but a different one. When I hear one of these tunes, I know that I'm writing. I put one of them on repeat until I can't stand to hear it one more time, but in the process, I produce a few pages.

Which song depends on what kind of scene I'm writing. At this point, I'm in the thick of things. My characters are about to sail into some trouble, and the song that I use right now—"Sail" by AWOLNATION—hypnotizes me completely.

Back when I needed the help of The Swell Season to get home, I listened to whatever was on the radio on my way in. NPR was too depressing to start my day, so I found music I didn't hate, caught the traffic reports of areas of town I wasn't going to get near.

One song kept popping up. That's what happens when you don't have actual DJs, right? (I hate the actual DJs of Chicago. I cannot stand Lin's Bin or whatever it's called. SHUT. UP.) The song? "Running on Empty" by Jackson Browne.

Maybe you're stable enough as a human being not to read too much into song lyrics as you're driving toward a job you're not sure you're capable of doing. I was not. I kept hearing:

"Gotta do what you can just to keep your love alive
Trying not to confuse it with what you do to survive"

Jackson Browne, I didn't want your damn help.

I heard that song today. I finally don't feel like slapping Jack's face when he sings this part.

Progress.

--

In other news, I'm also making progress on my book. I've managed to get a whole lot of characters with a lot to lose in one place at one time. Two big chapters and two shorter chapters away from The End, I think.

#amwriting

2011-06-24T18:14:00.003-05:00

If I haven't been posting my miraculous success as a morning person, you can interpret that fairly easily, right?

I did get up early today, but I couldn't THINK. How am I supposed to finish a book without thinking?

I've definitely learned a few things about myself in this process. One thing: getting up early isn't as difficult as I thought. But: If I don't have the right kind of writing to do, it's hard to STAY UP.

(Yes, I went back to bed after twenty minutes of trying and failing to make traction. For a blissful thirty minutes of extra down comforter snuggle time. I'm not ashamed.)

The kind of writing I can do with my eyes squinting at the screen is raw, new, pile-on-the-words drafting.

Not plotting. Not editing. Not revision. The plotting has to be done already, and the next scene bullet-pointed out so I know what bells I need to ding before we close down and move on.

Ladies and gentlemen, I've turned into a PLOTTER.

I've been a Pantser my whole life—

What? Pantser? It's from “by the seat of my pants” and it's an actual term.

—my whole life, I was saying. I have scorned the idea that I'm a Plotter. And in fact I'll admit that I didn't plot the first half of this book, so maybe this new label is premature. Need to start my NEXT book and then we'll see.

(A cold shiver just went up my back. I might be a little superstitious. As in, don't talk about your next book before the current book is finished, you fool.)

At the moment, I'm living and dying by the outline. If I didn't have it all marked down on my notes file or in my little notebook in my purse, I'd be the new poster child for insomnia.

Instead I'm the poster girl for Can I Get My Novel Done This Week?

Maybe. Stay tuned.

Experiment in sleep deprivation, day the fourth

2011-06-16T06:05:00.002-05:00

Yes. I'm up. 6 a.m. I shouldn't be tired, but my eyes beg to differ. Have to dial down the screen brightness every morning.

Here we go.

EDITED: Fail. Thing I have learned about writing in the morning: I need to know what my next scene is and does. The plotting/planning part of my brain doesn't wake up until long past 6 a.m.

Books you should check out

2011-06-15T19:14:00.002-05:00

Another survivor of Harney Elementary School in Lebanon, Indiana, has started an imprint for women writers. BAD-ASS women writers. Engine Books. You should check out what she's up to. Two good titles are available, hey, TODAY.

Tennis balls from heaven in no way make up for my day

2011-06-15T19:08:00.007-05:00

I guess my morning count is going to stand for today. I'm really busy at work right now, and if I weren't writing in the morning, I probably wouldn't be getting anywhere at all.

Having a glass of wine after another long and busy day. Might read a little. Husband is making me dinner. Dog is at my feet with an ill-gotten tennis ball.

(That story is too incriminating. Of me. OK, there was a tennis ball by my car door today. Probably from one of the mah-HENNY camps suddenly on Major U's campus. So. Many. Minivans. It was a different camp—different sport—by the time I saw the tennis ball, so I hell-yes took it for my dog.)

She liked it.

Life is good, in case I forget to say that.

Wednesday a.m.

2011-06-15T06:05:00.004-05:00

And I'm up and typing. My eyes, they don't work. It's raining here—that does not help. If it keeps thundering, though, I will have saved myself a dog walk. Ursa won't go out in thunder. That's her new thing.

EDITED AT 7:13 a.m. 609 words this morning. Wish I could go back to bed.

Today

2011-06-14T20:49:00.003-05:00

My total word count for the day, writing for an hour this morning before I could be trusted to be coherent and for probably 45 minutes at lunch, is 940.

That is a total I can live with.

I was feeling a little down on myself for a bit just now because I couldn't get it together to write some more when I got home, but let's be honest. I have a full-time job—not an easy one, by the way—and I'm trying to do this. (This is in addition to the many boring things that everyone has to do, apparently, like remember to pay the utilities, unload the dishwasher, and plan their 20th high school reunion. What do you mean you don't have to do that?) But sometimes, yeah, I'm going to need a few minutes not doing anything.

So instead, I had a popsicle (mango—thanks to my neighbors, Jason and Jen, whose house has become the retirement plan stop of the ice cream guy) and watched a little Life on the D-List and clicked about on Twitter and now I'm going to charge my computer for tomorrow morning, because I'm going to get up and do it AGAIN.

Although I would like to figure out if my alarm clock has a volume button. It has a dimmer for the display—AWE. SOME. Lights really bug me when I'm sleeping. Greg calls me the Princess and the Pea, and probably not very kindly—so surely you can also control a little thing like sound. But what do you expect from a $10 alarm?

Thanks to everyone who's been cheering me on. This little experiment has been interesting. I'm finding that I'm a lot more motivated in all aspects of my life suddenly. Maybe at a vegetable today, not kidding.

687 words this morning!

2011-06-14T12:51:00.003-05:00

This is probably going to get tedious for anyone who isn't a writer. I'm sorry. This is just where I need to be right now.

I'll scrape together some new dog photos for the rest of you soon.

687 words this morning before work. Now: work. In a few minutes: lunch break. I don't really feel like writing, but that's what I thought when I woke up at 6 this morning, and it still worked.

You know what I wish I had right now? A picnic blanket and a pillow and some sunshine.

No, getting up earlier is having no effect on me. Zero. None effect.

6:04 a.m.

2011-06-14T06:04:00.002-05:00

And typing.

Greg doesn't like my new alarm. It sounds like his pager from work.

Well, I never liked how his alarm had to go off five times before he got up. And now he can snooze as much as he wants.

I'm up.

Words today: 818

2011-06-13T20:21:00.002-05:00

Eight hundred words isn't a gasp-inducing take for the day, but it's a respectable haul, and the story is still moving.

I'm going to do it again.

The downside is that it's 8:22 pm and I'm seriously tired. (Probably because I didn't sleep well last night, not because I got up 45 minutes early.)

Or it might have been the Goose Island 312 I had with dinner.

See you all tomorrow, boot campers!

New thing follow-up

2011-06-13T12:00:00.001-05:00

This morning's experiment in getting up earlier to write might have been made better by

-Going to bed a bit earlier. I was up until 11 reading Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, and basically had to force myself to PUT IT DOWN.

-Maybe not read such interesting stuff before bed. My copy of Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks is actually the perfect pre-bedtime read. It's the most interesting book that has ever made me completely ready to put it down and go to sleep.

-Getting up when the alarm goes off. I'm awake already. Snoozing the alarm is awesome, but those six minutes are not going to make a difference. I don't go back to sleep in six minutes. I start thinking about what a schlub I am for breaking promises to myself. Get up.

Things I did right:

-Got a new alarm clock. Ursa is a good alarm, but sometimes she's sleepy. And if it's thundering, forget it. She's not leaving her bed, and neither am I. (My other real alarm clock stopped working a while back.)

-Set up my computer the night before: on lap desk, fully charged. Cord packed in bag to take with me to work (since I intend to write at lunch as well).

-Set up my writing goals the night before: I don't outline, but about halfway through a book, I start to keep a list of beats and scenes I see coming down the pike, things I know have to happen, people I know have to interact, ideas on how all these loose ends will tie up together. Bleary eyes only have to open up the notes file, check to see what's next. Start typing.

-Don't care how good the writing is. Seriously, that is what editing is for.

-Stopped at the allotted time. If I end up being late, it's not a workable plan and I won't make it part of my regular schedule. At 7:00, I closed the computer, changed from pajamas to sweats, fed and walked the dog. We got back from the walk at the time we normally do. The only difference? I was feeling pretty kick-ass for having written before work. I even took Ursa for a longer walk, I was feeling so good. (She wasted it by sniffing everything.)

My friend Mary Anne and I are doing this together. Anyone want to join us?

New thing

2011-06-13T06:23:00.001-05:00

I'm up early to write. New alarm clock makes awful electronic beep sound. Effective.

Reading

2011-06-10T07:49:00.001-05:00

Not writing as much as I would like. Not reading much, either. There's nothing on TV.

Where is all my time going?

Uh...social networking?

I might have to put some parental controls on my own Twitter access.

I have managed to read a few things.

26. To Fetch a Thief- Spencer Quinn
Yes, another dog-told mystery. I've read all three in the series now, and I can't lie. I'll read the fourth when it comes out. These are cute, and the mysteries are good. The mysteries are often animal-related, too, but humans die in the process of the crime, which raises the stakes. For the human readers.

27. Murder at the Vicarage- Agatha Christie
A little slow to start, but your basic vintage Christie. This is where I reached overload, though. Had to pick up something with a little grit to follow this.

Recalibration

2011-06-01T19:34:00.004-05:00

I put this on Twitter (and therefore Facebook), but not in the one place I should have:

On Sunday I rolled over 70,000 words on The Black Hour.

Woot!

Done? Nope. But getting closer. My original deadline was June 5. My new goal is July 8. That's 38 days from now...carry the one...if the book is 100K words, that means I need to write 789 words everyday until July 8 to have a rough draft.

[Which means I should stop spending my time revising. My writing process could be modeled by a Slinky, stretched out into a long line of loops: Write, loop back and edit, write, loop, loop, loop, loop. Not exactly a process I would encourage anyone to use, and yet I do it.]

789 words each and every day. That's still rather steep for me. I need to either get up earlier, stay up later, or clone myself a Lori to go sit at my desk at Major U. All equally likely, I'm afraid.

If I only count the 33 weekdays (yes, sometimes I'm better at getting work done during the week instead of the weekends), I'd have to write 909 words a day.

In any case, a good goal would be 1,000 words a day, five days a week.

WORDS TO LIVE BY. But can I do it? Let's see.

--

I have to miss the Printers Row Book Fest once again. I'm a sad about it, but I'll survive. You should go, though, and tell everyone I said hi. Maybe I'll see them next year.

God, maybe I'll BE ONE OF THEM next year. You go and tell them I'm on my way.

Getting cozy

2011-05-25T13:04:00.002-05:00

Lunch break. Not really that cozy. I'm at Cosí, but it's cold outside and, on the way over, I realized that I didn't actually feel that well. Tired, head sorta heavy, basically blah-ish. Probably just tired. It had better not be another Major U-provided case of The Icks, right before a holiday weekend. A holiday weekend that is rumored to be quite nicely weathered, for a change.

Good thing I have to work late tonight, amiright?

An update on my book progress:

66,118 words. 12 days until my deadline.

Oops.

It's very likely that the answer to this dilemma is to move my deadline. It was rather arbitrarily set, to begin with. One of those 12 days is today—the working late day I already mentioned—and two of those days at the end are going to be spent getting to, being in, and coming back from Indiana for my nieces' third birthday party.

(THREE! I can't believe it. They are so AWESOME, these girls. Had a full conversation with them the other day on the phone, asking questions, getting answers, providing follow-up information. What do they want for their birthday? Sprinkles. On their cake, they mean. But they also liked the sound of getting presents, too.)

So technically, that's probably only more like...9 days. If I assume that the first draft is going to run me somewhere in the hood of 100K words, then my writer math for the next 9 days (not going to show my work on this one): 3,764 words a day.

If you don't write, you may not know how ridiculous that is. It's severely ridiculous, especially for someone who works full-time somewhere. I can probably kick up production over what I've been doing, but 3,764 words a day would only be in the realm of reality if I were going on vacation.

Which I might be. But not in the next 9 days.

So. Fail? I'm not going to look at it that way. I'm still closer to the end of my novel than I was when I set the goal. I've done a lot of note-taking and idea-generation, too, so that I know fairly well at this point what the rest of the book will hold. I just need to knock each scene out, one at a time, until I get to the end.

One thing to consider: the end might not take until 100K words. Maybe if I could churn out 2K a day for nine days...

But for now, I don't think I want to play the writer math game. I just want to make time to get the pages done. The writer math I need to be doing: counting minutes I can spare. Whittling time that is spent elsewhere into the shape of writing time.

Lucky for me, most of the TV shows I like just went into hiatus. Excellent timing, TV. Well done.

But TV? Do NOT kill off Beckett, OK? I'll never speak to you again.

Reading books before the world ends

2011-05-20T20:50:00.004-05:00

I can do better than this. Sorry. How about I catch you up on my reading list as an olive branch?

The rapture's this weekend, anyway, so I'm not feeling the need to put out a lot of effort.

Oh, I know I'm not getting pulled up. I'm not to clear on what's supposed to happen to the rest of us. Fire? Brimstone?

Whatever. I read some books.

23. The Lock Artist- Steve Hamilton
This book won the 2011 Edgar Award for Best Novel, nosing out the book I loved more than anything else I've read recently, Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin. I LOVED CLCL, so I had to read what beat it. And I have to say, the Edgar committee knows a good read. I enjoyed this book very much. I'm not sure I loved it more than Franklin's book, but I did like it. I would have liked it even better if I had believed the romantic relationship at the heart of the book. Maybe I'm a jaded old woman who can't believe Romeo and Juliet-love anymore, but there you have it. I don't. So my advice to you is to read both the Hamilton and the Franklin, and oh, the Pizzolatto (below) and basically anything else that is up for an Edgar if you like this sort of thing.

The Edgar nominations list makes a handy bookstore checklist.

I will try not to be sad for Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter. It won some awards, too. And so did Louise Penny's book Bury Your Dead, which just won the Agatha Award for Best Traditional Mystery. Her FOURTH in FOUR YEARS. Look, if you like mysteries and you're not reading this series, I don't know what to say to you. I just hooked my mom on the series and am about to hook my best friend (Kim, don't buy the first one, is all I'm saying). Do you mind a little food p0rn?

Then you need to check them out. Run along.

24. My Own Two Feet- Beverly Cleary
I have a special relationship with the work of Beverly Cleary. When I was very young, six or seven, I loved her books. And then one day it occurred to me that someone had written Ramona. And I was learning to put letters on a page. And if I used my letters to write down R-A-M-O-N-A, suddenly I was the someone writing Ramona books.

My first attempt at writing: fan fic.

I haven't read the Ramona books in a long time, but I'm looking forward to getting them for my nieces in a few years. Mrs. Cleary turned 95 not long ago, which reminded me how much I liked her and didn't know about her. So I picked up her autobiography at the library and enjoyed the heck out of it in a weird way that might not translate to someone who didn't lovelovelove Beverly Cleary as a kid.

I did have one revelation about 40 pages into reading it. This book started with Mrs. Cleary going to college, and it suddenly seemed odd to me that she hadn't written about her childhood. She wrote for and about kids, entirely, but she had skipped her own childhood?

Oh, no. That's another book, and I had skipped it. Added to the reading list: A Girl from Yamhill.

25. Thereby Hangs a Tail- Spencer Quinn
Just finished this tonight. Is Spencer Quinn a pseudonym? His author photo is in total shadow, and Spencer Quinn? Seems like a fake name. Maybe his Google Alert will spin him over here to set me straight.

I like this series. Not everyone is going to, but the voice is really cute and the point of view is always spot on. The dog is telling the story of how he and his partner, a private investigator, solve crimes. Once in a while I get a little tired of the dog having to dog-think every single thing, but it's a really fast, enjoyable read if you like dogs and mysteries. If you don't like dogs, don't bother. The charm is in how the dog is a dog. He's got half his brain cooking on what he smells and his next meal at all times, just like a certain dog I happen to know. Ursa and I haven't solved any mysteries yet, except for the mystery of the bumper-stickered car.

--
I feel like I should read something a little better, with the world ending.

No, not the Bible, silly.

I was thinking Pride and Prejudice or—oh! World's End by T.C. Boyle. That's not just a joke, that's rapturous reading.

It's time for bear devouring, clearly

2011-05-15T13:16:00.006-05:00

Thanks to The (award-winning) Bloggess (who you should be reading) for this award.

Thank you all for voting for me.

Oh? You didn't? What about this one?

Fine. I gave them to myself with The Bloggess's permission. I deserve them, yo.

Check up

2011-05-07T14:23:00.003-05:00

A check-in, I mean. On the book.

When last we spoke of it, I was flinging ambitious word count goals around. How am I doing?

Drumrollllllll.

60,860 words. That's less than 10,000 words from where I was when I proclaimed that I would write...5,000 words a week. It's been almost two months.

So. Yeah. That goal isn't going to hold. I do feel good about the writing I've done since I set the bar high, but obviously I'm not clearing that bar.

Not going to fret about it. I don't find public shaming to be a good motivator for myself.

Why go public, then? Because this is it. This is what writing is. There's nothing to do about it but to try again tomorrow. (No, not tomorrow—today.) Writing is hard. It's hard to fit into a real life. Someone said once that if you can do anything else but write, you should. I don't prescribe to that. I can do what I do at my job, but I can also write. On the days I do it, I'm such a better person. I'm kinder. I'm more patient. I'm more focused. And I can't wait to get back to it. But I have to, and I do. I do wait, and sometimes I have to wait a while. This week got away from me for various reasons. That's OK. Next week. This week, I mean, starting today. I can do other things, but this is the thing that belongs to me.

In other news, I'm having a late-adapter love affair with Twitter and have added my feed to this page. Boring? Can't tell yet. At least there might be fresh content here more often.

A ring

2011-05-04T21:23:00.001-05:00

If any of you called the house, left a message, but haven't heard from us, do not fear. We are alive. And we have lost our voicemail code.

And by “we,” I don't mean “me.”

You should probably call again. Or send a nice letter.

Reading list

2011-05-01T08:55:00.003-05:00

I suppose I can handle this kind of post.

21. The Wilder Life- Wendy McClure
I already posted about this a bit, but not in Official Reading List Form. I really liked this book, and if you were a fan of the Little House books—not the TV show, the books—you will also like it. I happened to be a fan of both the books and the TV show, but Wendy McClure didn't catch the TV show during her formative years. She writes that she literally didn't know that the TV show existed. It ran up against a show she liked better. I can see that. I have no idea what ran up against "The Dukes of Hazzard," but it didn't have a chance.

This book did give me a dose of nostalgia for my grandpa, who died almost 15 years ago. I Googled his name for some weird reason and found that some long-off cousins were looking for information on our side of the family. Now I'm friends on Facebook with these gals. Modern living.

22. Galveston- Nic Pizzolatto
This was a book recommended on Janet Reid's agent blog for a first chapter that really sold the book. I gave the sample from Barnes&Noble a whirl on my Nook and surely enough, that first chapter sold the book and I was reading the whole thing minutes later. Oh, the dangers of being able to shop for books with WiFi while lying in bed. Danger, danger, danger. I really liked this book. I wouldn't call it a mystery, although it was up for an First Novel Edgar (didn't win, which means I'm about to start reading the book that did). It's more of a suspense/noir thing, a little overwrought in places and I had some trouble with the female character, but overall, a nice find and a writer I look forward to reading more of. (I know that's a sentence-ending preposition, but did you know that rule is bull? I need to find the link to the story I'm thinking of that says it's bull. In the mean time, I don't feel at all bad about that preposition.) Anyway, Galveston. The ending makes up for any flaws earlier in the book. But don't go looking for a happy one.

Crankypants

2011-05-01T08:53:00.001-05:00

I don't feel like a grown-up anymore, because I have an earache and I can't think of anything interesting to say here.

Try this. Alan Rickman could read the proverbial phone book, you know what I'm saying?

Making plans

2011-04-25T21:15:00.003-05:00

I feel so grown up.

I just submitted a proposal for a panel at next year's AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs, I know there's a W missing) conference.

This is something that adults do. It's not like I have Peter Pan syndrome. I have impostor syndrome. Look it up.

The conference is in Chicago again, which makes it super likely I'll be spending some time down there, whether I'm on a panel or not.

Technically, I'd be the moderator of the panel. And the organizer—I populated the panel with people I knew from various parts of my life who write and teach writing. It was fun to plan and organize. Fingers crossed that it will be among the not-even-40% of the proposed panels submitted each year. If not? Well, I tried, and it was a learning experience.

Speaking of learning experiences: I signed up for another stint as an adjunct at Alma Mater. I have the summer to plan out the course this time, and now that I've done it once, I have a better idea of what to require and expect from the students.

It's going to be another busy fall, in other words. But I should have a first draft of The Black Hour by then. I'll have to figure out what I'll write-a-thon with the students. Another first draft? That is getting far far ahead of myself.

Ahoy, mateys

2011-04-24T15:55:00.002-05:00

The caption I want to use:

“What happens when I send my husband to the grocery.”

The caption he said I was allowed to use:

“Winter’s comin.’”

One in a million or so

2011-04-20T18:51:00.003-05:00

Writing news that I shared in other social media places but forgot to post here: My story, "The Summer Ahead," is on the storySouth Million Writers Notable Stories of 2010 list.

Better news: There aren't even close to a million writers on that list.

Best news: There's some good stuff there. Good company to be in; go find some new favorite writers here.

This might have some overlap from when I was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The editors of Freight Stories, which is always good, nominated me. Once you know how Pushcart Prizes work, they don't have quite the magic the name might suggest. But I'm not going to lie to you: I liked being nominated, and I certainly like showing up on a list that I didn't myself apply to be on.

This makes me want to get back to writing some short stories. I've been very focused (or, er, not working at all) on long-form work. I haven't produced any shorts in a while.

It's good to have goals.

Even if you're not meeting them every day. Like my writing goal, which is a guideline I'm not being guided by lately. I've managed to get back into The Black Hour and write several more chapters, but it's not going as smoothly or as quickly as I'd like. I wrote 800 words on Friday, 1,000 on Monday, but 70, seven-zero, yesterday.

Today, so far: just zero.

I'm not going to let my disappointment with that amount of work spiral into something else. I'm just going to keep coming to the page and see what I can get done. Some days it will be 1,000 words and others, nada. Try again and try again and try again. I'm liking what's happening on the page right now, so I'll hang on to that and be happy when I like all 70 words, or when the 70 words give me an idea for how the story can twist. Which is what happened. Thank you, 70 words, and welcome to my book.

Wild

2011-04-14T21:10:00.005-05:00

I have but three words for you. The. Wilder. Life.

Bought Wendy McClure's new book for the nook. Here it is, all pretty and electronic.

There's a bonnet, with strings flying in the wind. It is, you see, about Wendy's love for Laura Ingalls Wilder. A love that I share. Check it.

Not a costume. Actual sleeping gear, made by my grandma. That's my grandpa there, amused by me. This is one of my favorite photos of just the two of us. I miss him. He rode a Gold Wing up to the night before he died, and check those boots. Grandpa Pete was bad ass.

Pete wasn't even his real name, and he fixed everybody's broken Bobcats for a living. He smoked for something like 40 years and one day he wrote the date on his empty pack and quit the old-fashioned way. Cold turkey, babies. Bad ass.

Grandma Ann was quite a seamstress at the time of this photo. She hasn't been able to see very well in a long time, but my sister and I spent a lot of time with her learning to cook and sew and kick 4-H butt back in the day. Those summers were hot, but Grandma's house was kept at a brisk 50 degrees Fahrenheit. We stayed inside and sewed while watching Little House in syndication.

That's right. I liked the show AND the books, and I wore the hell out of that nightgown. I had a pretty wild life myself.

Me & Oprah & lotsabooks

2011-04-11T12:30:00.001-05:00

I guess I'm allowed to talk about this by now: Tomorrow, on the Oprah Winfrey Show, several former cast members of Saturday Night Live will reunite.

Somewhere in the audience, me.

Oprah being very careful to own her own news, I signed something at the taping that said I wouldn't "report" on my visit. I haven't. I'm not. Please don't kill me, Oprah. I love your magazine! All I want to say is, if you like SNL, you should be checking your local listings to watch and/or record the show tomorrow, April 12. Tina Fey is there. And so am I.

You won't see me, though. I was sitting way up in the seats reserved for people with faces for radio. I don't mind at all; I didn't want to see the show taped for 15-minutes-of-fame reasons. I really have grown up with SNL and enjoyed hearing the stories they shared.

Which I can't tell you about BECAUSE YOU NEED TO GO TO THE SOURCE.

(I'm NOT getting sued by Oprah, y'all. She has an army of lawyers, and if she can take on the beef industry, I'm not calling next.)

***
In other news, I reclaimed my back porch for writing/reading/wine-drinking. Every winter, it turns into a disaster back there, and then every spring I have to dig out the mud and snow boots and throw away all the boxes that tend to accumulate, put our vacuum through its greatest test. Get the Swiffer wets out to try to get three months' worth of paw prints up. It's a real project, is what I'm saying. It was gorgeous and summery most of the weekend, so that's how I spent it.

That and reading. No, I wrote not a single word. But I read like all the libraries of the world were closing down. (And frankly, with the way politics are going these days, who knows?)

17. And Then There Were None- Agatha Christie
I actually read this last weekend, but never told you about it. Keeping secrets! Another good 'un from Aggie. That gal just does not stop. Well, she did eventually, but not until she's written more than 80 books. HOW? Aggie, talk to me from beyond the grave and tell me how you did it.

Actually, don't haunt me. Haunt my friend Meghan. She loves that stuff.

18. Bossypants- Tina Fey
I managed not to pee my pants when I was in the same room with Tina Fey (see above), but I did develop a major crush on her. She's adorable. And five months pregnant (that's not giving anything away, Oprah, the press releases already went out!). Bought her book that night for the nook, and love love loved it. I don't usually like celebrity books of any kind, but the difference? Tina is a writer, not a celebrity, and her book proves it. Interesting thing I learned from the book: Tina used to work at the Y in the town where I now work for Major U. And the stuff she includes on how you learn to improv was really interesting.

19. Mrs. Somebody Somebody- Tracy Winn
Linked short stories about a couple of generations of Maryland mill owners and workers. Really good. The thing I like about linked stories is how the author brings back people, images, and knowledge the reader has from things they've already read in the stories as they go along. You meet people a second or third time, get a second chance to see an event from another perspective. Sometimes they're just little hints, but those are the most satisfying. I recommend this to James. But you have to get your own copy.

On a related note, what linked story collections can you think of? I need a theme for Sticky Notes, and I can only think of Olive Kitteredge (Elizabeth Strout), Later at the Bar (Rebecca Barry), and the mothership itself, Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson). A couple more would be good. Of course, it helps if I've read them. Cathy Day, I'm looking at you for this. Which reminds me: I need to read Circus in Winter.

20. No One You Know- Michelle Richmond
I just finished this last night, so I'm having trouble collecting my thoughts on it. I enjoyed it; it pulled me through; I even managed to get through the mathematical portions of the story with the narrator without having to skim. I liked that the book was essentially a story about how stories work. It's a bit like a literary mystery, although it definitely leans in the literary side and gets away with a few things that I wouldn't try, like lots of first-person rumination instead of scenes, monologueing from certain characters...still, I liked it. I'm sending this to you, Kim.

Photo essay: I also have a cat

2011-04-03T13:28:00.003-05:00

Meet: Miss Molly, otherwise known as "Pants."

She's currently breaking some rules that were set specifically for her. Also, she doesn't like humans.

A post in the barest form

2011-04-03T12:43:00.003-05:00

The writing is going...slowly. But it's going. The reading is also going quite slowly, but here's some proof that it is also going along.

14. The Distant Hours- Kate Morton
I was gung-ho on this book for the longest time, and you have to be—it's a doorstop. I love a good, solid doorstop, if the writing keeps me happy. This one was doing the job, until about 400 or so pages in. I couldn't just give up, but I did start to wonder if everything had to be so spelled out. What's wrong with letting the reader figure out some things? Because they can. They do. I did. I don't need to have every little scene played out, if I've already put the pieces together myself. That's why the book is 600 pages long, honey. If you don't have to explain so much, it could be shorter. I finished it, but as a disappointed reader who will not be seeking out anything else by the author. A shame, because she can definitely set a tone and a situation that intrigues.

15. The Saturday Big Ten Wedding Party- Alexander McCall Smith
As promised, I bought pre-ordered this for my nook. Loved it. These books are so idiosyncratic; not everyone is going to love them the way I do. My review from goodreads.com:

These books are the only nearly-plotless books I can stand and, in fact, I love them beyond reason. They wander, they dilly-dally. Sometimes mysteries get solved. I can't explain why they've grown on me, except to say that they star charming characters who deal with the problems people bring them in charming ways. I am charmed. And now I have to wait months and months for the next one and hope that Alexander McCall Smith lives forever.

16. Dog On It- Spencer Quinn
I went through a dog book phase a while back. That's mostly over (ruined by one in particular, which I won't rehash here: sleeping dogs, etc.). This one is pretty cute, though. Dog narrator. If that sort of thing infuriates you, this one will not change your mind. But Chet, the dog narrator in question, is a good narrator, despite short memory and being easily distracted by treats and dropped Cheerios at crime scenes. Fun exercise in point of view.

--

This week is busy, but I do hope to get some new words down for The Black Hour. What's the week busy with? One word: Oprah. Two words: Work. Hmm. That word isn't as fun as the first.

Report on Oprah Show visit to come.

Reading list

2011-03-21T20:22:00.002-05:00

This year's list is going to be shamefully short. But if I get all the writing done I want to do, I won't feel bad about it.

Some progress, at least.

12. Baltimore Blues- Laura Lippman
My first e-book purchase, second e-book read. First in the Tess Monaghan series. I've read a Tess book from much later in the series and wanted to start at the beginning. Liked it enough to get the next in the series, too.

13. Don't Murder Your Mystery- Chris Roerden
Writing book with lots of advice we could all use for a brush-up. It's not all mystery-specific, but all the examples are mysteries. Man alive, there are a lot of mysteries out there. (Most of them series!) Room for one more? That's what I'm taking away from it.

I also spent some time this weekend trying out a new mystery novel that I knew I'd like...and didn't. One hundred pages in, I had to give it up. It was a gimmick book, but it was a gimmick of which I am a big fan—and still no. So disappointing.

Of course I have so many things I want to read right now, I just can't justify sticking with something I'm not enjoying.

Writer math be damned.

2011-03-21T16:47:00.003-05:00

So I read the whole draft-in-progress of The Black Hour in order to get back into it, and now I'm 102 words SHORT of where I started.

Hey, if I saw a problem, I wasn't going to skip it.

But now I'm ready. New words, at last. Ready, set, go.

Life's little mysteries

2011-03-20T10:07:00.003-05:00

I like mysteries. I think we've established that. But what you may not know is that I like mysteries in real life, too—or at least I seem to.

I went out to dinner with Greg and our neighbor-friends last night and it was revealed that both the females in the group prefer to sit in restaurants so that their backs are to the wall.

In case of a mob hit, you see.

That was her reasoning, anyway (she got the habit from her dad, who was a cop). Mine, when I had to qualify it, was that I am a nosy parker and needed to be able to see all the people in the room. I needed to see all the stories in the room.

Revelatory, although it shouldn't have been. I'm not necessarily the world's worst eavesdropper, since sometimes I'm hoping NOT to hear what people at other tables are saying (and they always thwart me). But I do like watching people live their own lives. They're like little mysteries, each and every one.

The other day I was waiting for my car to be serviced and spent the time at a (chain) cafe. Within the hour and a half I was there, I witnessed not one but two bad relationships a table away. It was like the table itself had bad juju. And when I say bad relationship, in one case I mean a possibly abusive one. After the second weirdness, I started to think I was on one of the TV shows in which they stage awkward situations and see what people will do.

Apparently what I will do is gape and then remind myself not to stare. And then try not to stare but fail. Someone else was braver than I was and, after Bad Boyfriend #1 stomped out, gave the girlfriend some advice ("get out now, trust me, I've been there") that she will likely ignore.

The Mystery of the Jerk at Panera, I fear, has just begun.

Come along with me, however, on the Mystery of the Bumper Stickered Car.

So you see how I get caught up in other people's drama in public places. (Yesterday, I got caught up with the deaf couple in front of me in line at a sub place. I was very anxious that they have an easy time ordering, but it required lots of team work behind the counter, and that's not really what I've come to expect from sub makers.) These little mysteries must be solved to my satisfaction, or I give them too much free rent in my brain.

A while back, one of these free rent situations took up lodging when I noticed an aqua car with lots of bumper stickers idling on a street near my house as I walked the dog. The car had out-of-state plates, and the driver sat inside. I didn't think I had seen the car before, but whatever. On our first encounter, that's all I noticed. No biggie. Lots of reasons to pull over and idle in a neighborhood.

But I kept noticing this car, idling, driver inside, day after day. Same approximate location on the same street. Then one day the car passed me (and Ursa pup, who is a sloooow walk) and took up idling residence a second time, further down the same street. We passed her twice, driver in the car, idling. This happened a few times, and it would not leave me alone. Why is she hanging out in her car this early in the morning, and for so long? Why move and idle some more? Is she picking someone up? Then why move?

It didn't keep me up at night, but every time I saw the car, I wondered all over again. I thought to post the mystery here so that you could all posit scenarios for me. If only so I could stop trying to come up with scenarios myself.

And then last week I walked the dog later than normal, and I saw what happened next. She parks at one end of the street, idles and phones/texts for a while, and then moves up the street and idles/phones for a while. And then she turns off the car, gets out, and goes to the house on the corner where it looks like she's the damn nanny.

Mystery solved. She's probably a college student (out-of-state plates) and gets there early on certain days (wasting of time pre 8:30 a.m.).

Yeah, it won't be the central mystery of any Sherlock Holmes reboot, but at least now I don't have to wonder.

That's how my brain works. I need to face the room, so I can make up the scenarios that will explain you all.

Next, let's figure out the Mystery of Why My Car Alarm Went Off in the Garage By Itself This Morning.

Writer math. Others, look away.

2011-03-16T18:51:00.003-05:00

Now that work has returned to (still rather busy but) normal, my hope is to begin writing again.

And by that, I mean take back writing by the throat.

What I'd really like is to have a full first draft of this book done, then let it sit for a month or so, and then edit it by, say, September. Labor Day is a fine deadline. End of summer, etc. That's the deadline for revision. September 5, 2011. And then maybe it will be strong enough to start sending out.

Not sure how much revision time I need, but let's guess...two months. I would start back on The Black Hour (this title still works for me, and for the book, hurrah) on July 5. Which means to give it a month, I'd have to be done with the first draft by...JUNE 5.

Gulp.

No, I can do this. Right? Tomorrow I begin in earnest, and I have two days set aside this weekend for momentum-building. I'm at 51,429 words right now. If a novel is (approximately) 100,000 words, then I'm just over halfway there. That's 48,571-ish left. Tomorrow is March 17. If I just did my math right (snort), that's 74 days until June 5.

That's 695 words a day, every day, until June 5.

Hmm. Every day.

Let's be a little more...flexible. Nobody's perfect, etc.

Seventy-four days is about 10 weeks, plus a few. Divide the 48,571 (ish) by 10, you get (yes, I used a calculator for this one) 4,857 words a week. But instead of counting all seven days, what if I could write a solid five days a week? That would be 971 words a day, five days a week.

That's still ambitious, if you think about ten weeks in a row. If I pull this off, I will have a definite writing habit on the other side.

So let's try this: 1,000 words, five times a week, ten weeks. My own little Mount Everest of words.

Starting tomorrow.

Or tonight, if I can stop talking on Facebook about how I got tickets to Oprah. Oh, yes, I did.

June 5, by the way, is the third birthday of my twin nieces. Aunt Lori is gonna give them a BOOK this year.

Detail

2011-03-12T18:38:00.002-06:00

I though this article from Gotham on significant detail did a pretty good job of being explicit and giving good examples.

Shameless plug for other blog

2011-03-12T12:38:00.005-06:00

Just a reminder that I have another, much less wordy blog over at Sticky Note Reviews. My friend Kim and I can't keep up with the demands of the blog. (Posting is quick, but reading takes a while. Especially if one of us is reading the fat Outlander series. AHEM.) Follow us over there and if you're reading something you want to tell people about, send us your sticky note review!

For one thing you can see how I'm handling sticky note reviews on e-books. Good thing sticky notes aren't that sticky.

E-reading

2011-03-10T20:47:00.006-06:00

Well, there goes the decorative bookmark industry.

I'm hooked on my nook.

Not that long ago I thought I'd never go e- when it came to books, but I finally tried it and now I live on the dark side.

Not entirely.

I still love paper. Technically, I still love paperbacks. I've never been a real fan of reading hardcovers, although that's primarily what I read from the library and when something I really want to read first comes out. Often, though, I might put off a purchase until something comes to paperback. My favorite format has always been trade paperback. (Just in case: That's the larger, flatter size, priced at about $14, as opposed to the pocket-sized format known as mass market paperback, which sells for about $7-8.) It's hard to marry a love for new books you're raging to get your hands on AND a preference for trade paperback—

Except I think I just have. The nook is about the size of a trade paperback, the same weight, and easy to carry around in my purse. The "pages" are easy to read. The device, in a snazzy case I got for it online (see above), fits nicely in my hands. Or in one hand, if it's freezing and I want to be as snuggled under the blankets in bed as possible. (I'm always freezing. My best friend calls me "Chillypants.") When I take the nook to read at lunch, I can fold the case under and read pretty much hands free.

Which is important, because I can get pretty messy. Don't make me tell you about the white sweater I wore today and the salsa I tried to eat.

I'm a convert.

Almost.

What I think I'll like about the nook is that I can buy new, hardcover books in a format I like better than hardcover. License to buy newly published books? Don't mind if I do!

But I think I'll probably still manage to bring in the occasional trade paperback—copies of things I just heard about that have been in paperback a long time, for instance. Or paperback originals (which I LOVE).

And don't forget about Half-Price Books and the library. I think I'm still likely to use any and all outlets to get books into my life that I've ever used. I have an addiction. The nook? Is possibly only going to give me immediate and unfettered access to books I might have put off buying until they were in paperback.

Basically, I'm saying I think I might buy more books.

I'm also carrying around a copy of Pride and Prejudice at all times. That's called right living.

Speaking of books I've purchased...

11. A Red Herring Without Mustard- Alan Bradley
I bought another nook book first, but this was my first recently published, still in hardcover nook purchase. It's a series. I've felt a little ambivalent about the two earlier books. I'm mildly ambivalent about this one, too. There's something missing from it at times. I keep thinking of it as "connective tissue." The protagonist moves from one place to the other without a great deal of urgency; she's a strange little crime solver. But I still like something about these books, and I think I've narrowed it down to two things. The tone. It's an England-between-the-wars setting, which is apparently one of my favorite things in the world. The other, a surprise to me, is the protagonist. She's a little girl, waaaay too precocious with her inherited chemistry lab. But she's also a very unreliable narrator, and if there's one thing I swoon hard for more than England between the wars, it's an unreliable narrator. She's at her best when she's making assumptions that make sense for an 11-year-old.

The tone is also charming; this series reminds me of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Which I also love. There's a new book in that series coming out in two weeks.

I believe I will own it before the sun sets on its publication date. On my nook.

Shaped like a humidifier, actually

2011-03-10T20:15:00.001-06:00

Sore throat. Bought a humidifier for my bedside table today. Sadly, it is not shaped like a bear or a dragon.

My triumphant return to Dover, Indiana

2011-03-08T18:10:00.008-06:00

To follow up on my last post, I didn't get any reading time that Sunday, as I'd planned.

No. No, I had to sort through piles of receipts looking for writing expenses.

There's no way to make that sound sexy, except that I did find a receipt for something for work, which meant that I got to turn in a 7-month-old receipt. And fill out the exception form for the 90-day rule...

O, the paperwork you have to do to get your $28 back from The Man.

In other news, I did indeed return to the scene of the crime and speak to a group of smartypants juniors at my high school. The whole experience couldn't have been more lovely, and I only had a small heart attack when I realized I'd gone to school with some of these kids' parents. I got a (possibly unwarranted) standing ovation that I almost didn't see because of all the stage lighting, and they laughed at the right places. Public speaking isn't my favorite thing ever (mentioned in the speech, actually), but I'm glad I did it, and had a great time seeing some former teachers and MY ENTIRE FAMILY. Who might have led the standing O, now that I think about it.

I won't post the entire speech, because it was written for a very specific audience and a very specific moment. The full speech really belongs to them. But a portion of it has some usefulness (I think) to beginning writers. So here you are. An excerpt, after I've talked a bit about the main activity of the Honors Society while I was a member, tutoring fellow students.

...Tutoring with the Honor Society was one of the ways I gained confidence in myself. Years ago, when I was the kid crossing this stage, confidence was something I didn’t have much of. I thought that someday I would have all the confidence in the world.

I have bad news for you students. There’s only about a cup and a half of confidence for the whole world to share, and like most of the things that the whole world has to share, a few horde it away from the many. The rest of us get doubt, of which there is plenty to go around. Which means I don’t have to tell you about it. You already have some, and will have more as you begin to make decisions about your life after graduation.

As a writer, I get to think a lot about doubt. More than the average bear, I mean, because writers get a hundred times their fare share. Just saying the catch-all word “writers” and including myself, it takes a Herculean effort not to qualify myself. I’m a writer, but not full-time, and I don’t have a book published yet, but I have some lovely short stories published and maybe someday—

Do you hear that? Doubt.

Since leaving high school in 1991, I’ve earned three college degrees, two of them master’s degrees, held steady employment with increasing levels of responsibility, moved to a great city, made excellent friends, married happily, published some short stories I still like and won some awards and yet there’s always something to doubt.

That’s because doubt isn’t something you conquer entirely. I think bouts of superheroism are possible, though, if you can stuff doubt back into its commercial packaging and put it away for a bit. How do you do that? You don’t all want to be writers, but you have a dream hidden away that gives you opportunity to doubt its likelihood. Everyone does, and not just the seventeen-year-olds. How do you squish doubt down long enough to leap over it? How do I, for instance, put away crippling self-doubt to take words I’ve written for myself and publish them in places where even the exchange student I tutored in high school has access to them?

A few tips.

Number one: Talk the talk. From a very early age, my parents said they didn’t know how we’d get there, but my sister and I would go to college. Now, nothing in our family’s history would have predicted that outcome, but you know what? We did. True to my parents’ word, my sister and I both went to and graduated from college, the first but thankfully not last people in our family to do so. When I think about what made that possible, we get pretty close to the line between positive thinking and voodoo. By talking about the future in a way that left no room for doubt, no doubt crept in.

In my first week as a student in a creative writing MFA program many years later, one of my professors told us to start calling ourselves writers. If we didn’t, who else would? The caveat, of course, is that you also have to write something. But you don’t have to be publishing, you see. All very sneaky. But yet again, there is magic in saying things aloud. There’s a saying in the writing community: Talking about writing isn’t writing. So you’ll need to walk the walk, as well. If I wanted to call myself a writer, hadn’t I better go write something?

Tip number two: Just say yes. Doubt is skinny. It can slip in sideways. When I started preparing to speak here today, it slipped in and did a choregraphed Glee-like song and dance. If, when Mrs. Parker asked me to do this, I’d stopped to think about it, I probably would have said no. Who volunteers for public speaking? Only insane people. Sorry, Mrs. Farris [my high school speech teacher, who still teaches there], but it’s true.

Insane people, by the way, have access to the full cup and a half of confidence any time they need it.

Of course, good things come from saying yes even when you want to say no. When I first decided to send some of my stories out for publication, I knew how bad my chances were. I sent them anyway. One story went to a contest I didn’t think I had a chance at. I won. That phrase—“didn’t think I had a chance”—is the vocabulary of self-doubt. No matter what your dream is, the vocabulary you need to achieve it should have more yeses than nos. Thank you, Mrs. Beck [my high school English teacher, who still teaches there], for, among many things, contributing to my vocabulary.

Number three: Be prepared to hear “no.” Writing is about 99 percent rejection. Or more. If you ever decide to pursue it, lots of people will tell you this, and you will dismiss them—until you send something out and it comes back with a form-letter rejection. Dear Sir or Madame. Maybe they couldn’t even bother sending you a full sheet of paper, so your rejection letter falls out of your return-postage envelope like a piece of trash.

It’s all well and good to say PERSEVERE. SOLDIER ON. The thing is, life—the other, non-writing parts—are full of little rejections, too. You won’t always pay for the first-class postage to have it sent to yourself. That’s the cruel world of the writer. The trick is to expect it, and have a plan B. In writing that means knowing to which publication you’ll send your story next. It means trying to talk yourself into seeing the rejection process as narrowing the field, so you’re one step closer to finding the right magazine.

In real life, this probably means applying to more than one college and keeping hold of good friends who’ll be there for you in a tough time. Expect that times will be tough, expect that you will get a “no” once in a while. Because if you’re not getting an occasional rejection, you may not be reaching far enough.

Number four: Reach for something. Writers want to share their words, but they’re a skittish bunch when it comes to public display. Like…now. That’s because we don’t want attention; we want praise.

The only reason I can share my writing with people is that, even if I can come around to being appalled by something I’ve written—you should, for instance, never again crack the spines on your high school journals—even though I don’t like some of the stories I published a few years ago, I’m never ashamed of writing. It is the thing I am.

You will need to find the thing you are. And when you do, fly that flag. We live in a pretty ironic time, when earnestness isn’t encouraged. In high school, caring about something a lot can earn you a label. You’re choosing an identity when you say that what you really love is to, say, run trivia questions with the Brain Game team…Did I not mention that in my bio?

But in college and beyond, what you find is that everyone you meet is a nerd for the thing they love. Every single person out there is a geek for something, and when you’re honest with what you love, you’ll find the community to which you belong.

We live in cynical times and we live in challenging times, too many things seeking our attention. You don’t have to care about everything, but if you care about something, and care entirely, you can forget your doubt for a while, long enough to do amazing things and to surround yourself with amazing people.

Number five: Be your amazing self. The word “unique” gets overused. Your experiences might not be unique in all the world, but don’t let doubt keep you from owning your perspective.

A few years ago I saw a call for stories for an anthology about the Mexican holiday—and here comes my one year of high school Spanish—Dia de los Muertos. We celebrated turning leaves where I came from, not the Day of the Dead. But then I realized that a small-town, Indiana non-experience of the holiday was my experience of the holiday, and a story I could write. In fact, it would be so different from everything else the anthology was likely to get, it might have a better chance of making it. The story made it into the book.

In the novel I’m writing now, the main character survives an attack that leaves her injured. What do I know about walking around with a cane? Nothing. Most of us don’t. But we have our own disabilities, real or imagined. Those old scars, some of them from high school, inform how we see the world. Better to turn them outward—into a novel, into the energy you need for your dream, or into empathy for other people and their dreams, than to cling to them or let them become something else, like regrets or grudges.

Trusting your experience, saying yes—until now we’ve been talking about circumventing doubt, fooling it into giving us five minutes of peace. But the last tip I have, number six, is different. I say Embrace the doubt. If everyone has self-doubt, at some point you just have to go with it. You could wait a long time for the cup of confidence to come your way. As a writer, I lean heavily on this quote from author and writing instructor Richard Bausch:

He said, “I don’t teach writing. I teach patience. Toughness. Stubbornness. The willingness to fail. I teach the life. The odd thing is most of the things that stop an inexperienced writer are so far from the truth as to be nearly beside the point. When you feel global doubt about your talent, that is your talent. People who have no talent don’t have any doubt.”

What does he mean? I think he means that our self-doubt gives us the chance to work on ourselves and whatever we care about. Instead of shoving doubt aside, instead of pretending we don’t feel it, we can wield it. Embracing doubt means that we give doubt the floor; we let doubt be our prosecuting attorney. Does doubt have a point to make? Can we do better? We almost always can.

As a writer, I think doubt is a double-edge sword. A good amount will keep you from publishing too soon, or from dumping your diary onto paper and calling it fiction when everyone can tell it’s not. Too much, though, and you risk never picking up a pen.

Risk doubt by embracing it. Sometimes you will get it right, and every time you do will be worth the other 99 times you didn’t.

You students have a few months of junioring to do and then it’s on to the big show, Class of 2012, and a lot of major decisions that might already be on your mind. You already have your share of the wealth of doubt. The bad news you might be getting from me by now is that—Doubt? Doesn’t go away. Your parents have some. Your grandparents probably still have some tucked away. The good news I hope you’ll take, though, is that it’s normal, and that you should probably be able to find a friend to talk to who’s just as freaked out as you are.

But no matter what you want and how far you are from making it happen, don’t let doubt keep you from beginning. A single beginning can lead in a hundred directions you couldn’t have imagined. I think it’s quite simple to imagine what will happen if you let doubt stop you.

So to you students inducted tonight into the Honor Society: Congratulations on the honors. Take advantage of the society. And I hope that something out all of this helps you as you make some of most important decisions of your life. Maybe in a few years you’ll be standing here talking to the students who follow you. If you find yourself in such a position, one thing I can tell you as a short cut: You will not be able to call your former teachers by their first names. [all my teachers who still teach there] Mr. Dale, Mr. Schlemmer, Madame Threlkeld, Mrs. Beck. Nope, just not going to happen.

And one last thing, if you get asked: Feel honored, as I do, to still feel welcome at Western Boone. Thank you.

Light at the end of the tunnel

2011-02-27T11:54:00.004-06:00

I think I've finally got down what I'm going to say at the event at my high school. Good thing, since it's a week from today. After that's over, I'll come back here and post some of it.

In the mean time, I'll try to keep from freaking out re: public speaking. I need to do some adventurous, thrill-seeking things this week to give me some perspective. Speaking in front of an audience is a lot less scary than, say, confronting a giant snake or zip-lining. If I could arrange a quick zip-line off of the Sears Tower this week...

(I'm not calling it the Willis Tower. Whoever Willis is, he can forget it.)

This event and the return of my teammate at work coincide on March 7. I'm so looking forward to March 7. The light at the end of the tunnel is not a train.

After March 7: writing! And some reading. I bought another e-book—this instantaneous shopping from your couch thing is going to be quite dangerous—and I conquered most of my chores and to-dos yesterday. So today might be a reading day.

You can tell I'm a book nerd by how glorious I think the phrase "reading day" sounds.

I read a book last week that you need to go get. Right now.

10. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter- Tom Franklin
I loved this book. One of the best things I've read in a long time, and I broke my no ratings rule on Goodreads.com in order to give it 5. It's a mystery, but it's also very literary. Great characters, Southern gothic settings, great description and a slow reveal on the past. I read it slowly to make it last, and that is my highest compliment. It's up for a best novel Edgar award, and I hope it wins. I've only read one of its competitors, but still, you can tell: This one deserves an award. Got it from the library, so now I owe this guy some backlist purchases.

Greg had never heard of the way to spell Mississippi that this book title refers to. Maybe he didn't spend as much recess time jumping rope as I did?

M-I-Crooked Letter Crooked Letter-I-Crooked Letter Crooked Letter-I-Humpback-Humpback-I.

What's the last great thing you read? Taking wishlist recommendations for my birthday in March.

Catrinas Dance

2011-02-20T10:01:00.003-06:00

OH! I forgot something. I finally finally finally got my contributor's copy of the anthology Dia de los Muertos, in which my story "The Catrinas Will Dance With Any Boy They Like" appears. The cover looks like this:

My story is the last in the book, which I consider a good thing. First story is best, but last story is next best, in my experience. Or maybe it's that my story doesn't go with the other stories (it's a Day of the Dead story, but in a strange, non-Day of the Dead way) and last was the only place they could think to stuff it.

Who cares? Yay, book!

My not-writing life

2011-02-20T09:45:00.005-06:00

This was supposed to be a writing blog, but guess what? I'm not writing.

This is a problem on a couple of fronts, but I have high hopes that after a few more hurdles I will be able to pick up my lunch-hour habit again.

One of those hurdles? I need to figure out what to say to a group of students from my high school and their parents. What could I possibly say to this group that won't bore them to tears?

Send me an email if you have ideas for me. Seriously.

Haven't been reading all that much either.

9. (Wow, at this pace, my year's list is going to be dismal.) The Spellman Files- Lisa Lutz
I always wonder why I don't read more humorous fiction, but maybe it's because my idea of humor isn't always in line with publishing's idea of humor. I liked this book. It was a little madcap. The characters are weird and wild, but a little flat. There's a mystery, but only very late in the game, after you've had the entire family history. I did end up enjoying this one. I've landed a copy of the next one in the series to give it a try.

I have my new nook e-reader up and running, by the way. I haven't read on it much yet, since I had some paper books in the works I wanted to finish. I've been using it as a sudoku machine, enough that my husband mentioned that we could have gotten a puzzle book for me if that's all I wanted it for. Never fear, I bought my first e-book last night and can't wait to get started.

What was my first e-book, you wonder? Drumroll...

Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman, the first of her Tess Monaghan books. Squee!

Other books I have on my e-reader: Pride and Prejudice (mmmm), Tale of Two Cities, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I checked out of the library. WITHOUT LEAVING MY COUCH!

Now I just need about a thousand more hours a week to get all the reading done I want to do.

But first. Maybe I should go write something? Like a speech?

New blog design

2011-02-13T14:12:00.001-06:00

Yeah, new layout. Am I sick of the two feet of snow outside? How could you tell?

Who's posting? I'm posting!

2011-02-13T13:53:00.003-06:00

Once again I come here to post because I've run out of other people's blogs (OPB) to read. Everyone (except, yes, you Mary Anne) takes the weekend off. What the heck? The weekend is the only time I have time to do anything.

So far this weekend I've run some errands (haircut) and gone to lunch at Chili's because we had a gift card. I like Chili's, I think, and then I eat there and remember why I don't go there much. The menu is like the winning entry in a contest to fatten up the population. Still. Free lunch.

Also: laundry, pot roast in the Crockpot, and the house is clean, if only for the next five minutes. I've started reading a fat new historical novel, and we have two movies to return to the video store to get new ones.

The world is full of possibility right now, is what I'm saying. I think I feel this way because we've taken tomorrow off work. Celebrating the anniversary by...well, we're not sure. But it won't be by going to work.

One of the movies we're returning today I watched yesterday. Home for the Holidays, starring Holly Hunter and Robert Downey, Jr. I saw it in the theatre a very long time ago and didn't care for it, but I saw it again later in life and understood it better. Now I think it's the beginning of an at-home film festival: Robert Downey, Jr Plays a Crazy Dude Film Fest. Next up: Wonderboys.

Update on reading:
7. Murder on the Orient Express- Agatha Christie
How did she do it? I figured out who did it half through again, and I still liked it. This is not how things usually go.

8. Dark Places- Gillian Flynn
Re-read. I loved it this time, too. Such a good narrator with a real and realistic arch. I pushed this book on a friend who didn't like the ending, but I can't really think of a better ending for it. Let me push this book on you, and you tell me.

Things in the hopper: I need to write. I need to plan my high school reunion. I need to use the treadmill. I need to figure out what I'm saying to a group of high school juniors being inducted into my high school's Honor Society in a few weeks. I need to remember that I hate public speaking when these sorts of questions come my way.

For now, back to the historical novel. And the laundry, which never ends.

Barbaric yAWP

2011-02-09T21:38:00.003-06:00

Survived SNOWPOCALYPSE by, basically, staying inside as much as possible. Ursa did not get a walk one morning. We paid our neighbor $20 to do the walk up to our front door (he has a snowblower, and we don't.) My flight was canceled and rebooked automatically for another flight later in the day. Other than that, my travel was actually quite on time. Almost suspiciously so.

Survived AWP as well. I don't think the location in DC made for a great conference space. Too many people in too small a place. Two of the sessions I really wanted to see were so packed, I couldn't get in. I don't know what AWP's problem is, but apparently they can't pick a popular program from a yard. Popular might be the problem, actually. One of the panels that was jammed was the panel on young adult fiction. I can live without that session, but it bothers me that AWP didn't think more than 30 people—out of 7,000 or so—might want to learn a bit about the fastest-growing market in fiction.

But it's not just young adult fiction that got the short shrift. A panel on linked short stories also sardined into a 60-person room. Hello? Linked short stories—a panel on how to turn little publishable things into big, publishable things. Who does AWP think is going to AWP every year?

No, strike that. They know who goes to AWP. What they don't seem to know is who goes to panels. Not everyone does. But the people who do? Are still learning, still trying to get published. At AWP Chicago two years ago, a session on first books got a room the size of a hotel room. The fire marshals had to come and thin the herd. People lined up the hall to listen.

AWP, your old pros are either speaking at the panel or they are down in the lobby bar. The people who come to sessions are the grad students, undergrad students, recent alumni, recently hired teachers, and teachers who still kinda want to have a book out someday. The great un- and underpublished. The readings are nice, but these aspirational, craft sessions are like candy. And if you didn't bring enough candy to share, don't get it out.

I've announced a hostile takeover of next year's room assignment plans. Who do I talk to?

Other news: I convinced my friend Mary Anne to write a mystery story. And she did, over about 24 hours. I started the book by Karen Russell that is making her gratifyingly famous. And my friend Christopher Coake sold his novel to be published summer of 2012.

Also, tonight, I bought an e-reader. Yes, I have conflicted feelings.

That's it for now. I've been working at home tonight and I could use a screen break before my eyes fall out of my head.

Snowpocalypse 2011

2011-02-02T08:32:00.003-06:00

Ursa was parked at the Barking Lot over the weekend. She got a bath before we picked her up, and this is what we found.

A bandanna. Greg was beside himself, such a sport-utility dog (SUD) thing to have happen to our good-girl. But I think it's cute. The pattern is skull and crossbones and hearts. It takes so little to please me.

Today Major U is closed due to snow. History-making snow out there. I'm not exactly sure what to do with myself. A day home is great, but I'm also supposed to be heading to AWP in Washington DC tomorrow. I'm thinking that might not happen. O'Hare Airport is closed and about 3,000 flights behind at the moment. I don't plan on spending two days at an airport three miles away from my house to catch what is probably going to turn out to be a half-conference because of all the other people who won't be making their flights.

So I should pack, right? In case?

And read? Because a day at home is a day at home.

What I've been reading:

6. The Happiness Project- Gretchen Rubin
I was having some light-blues one day and decided to pick up a copy of this. Everyone could use more happy, right? The book had its good points, but by the end, I was sorely tired of this woman and some of her chirpy goals. I could have used a little less of her "being Gretchen." Still, some of the work she does to have more fun, live more in the moment—that's advice I should take.

My copy of Swamplandia! by Karen Russell arrived yesterday. The beauty of pre-order. So happy for her. I met Karen after she was named a Best New American Novelist by GRANTA with my friend Christopher Coake. She's awesome, unassuming, and young enough she almost could have made the cut-off for the next GRANTA list. This book was my going-to-AWP book. I'm going to save it for the flight.

In the hopes that there is a flight.

Stuff and things

2011-01-25T19:56:00.001-06:00

Today it was finally above freezing for a while, and it was like Tahiti, in comparison to the last few weeks.

So lame. Give me spring, please.

Forgive the radio silence. Was sick Sunday/Monday, actually had to take a day off to recoup. Spent it on the couch with the quilt my great-grandma made for me when I was kid (it used to be bigger, right?) and reading—without my glasses.

It turns out I don't need the progressive lenses I've been wearing for a year and a half. Someday I'll need them back, sure, but for now I have yummy new glasses with only one correction in them.

When I put them on, the angels sang. I can actually see. Peripheral vision? I have it. Welcome back, friend. It's probably a safer world out there, now that I'm driving AND can see.

Things I've read since last I reported:

3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks- Rebecca Skloot
Felt like I needed to read something other than cozy Canadian murder mysteries. Don't worry. It won't last long. Had heard a lot about this book. Glad I got the chance to read it. I wish Skloot was a little less present in the book, but I get why she was there. The story is fascinating, inspiring, and vexing. You should read it.

4. Bury Your Dead- Louise Penny
Sob. These are over until Louise, sweet Louise, writes another one. I'm glad for this one. The last one was a little odd and unsatisfying, but this one made up for it.

5. The Murder of Roger Akroyd- Agatha Christie
So you already know who's going to get axed, and anything else I say to praise/complain about it will ruin the whole thing. This is part of my effort to be better read in the classics of the genre. Got another Agatha lined up.

What I've been up to

2011-01-16T18:08:00.002-06:00

New project. Is it a distraction from writing? Most definitely.

Sticky Note Reviews

My friend Kim and I are doing this jointly. It was, after all, her mother who gave me the idea.

Working on SNR doesn't take much time, but trying to post often over there is showing me how slow of a reader I've become.

Clearly we need to build more hours into the day. It's the only solution.

I need to read more, write more, use my treadmill more, and I'm still on season five of Grey's Anatomy. (It's currently season seven on TV.) What am I doing wrong? Where is my time going?

I have read two books already this year, so let's get that going.

1. (How exciting to type 1. again!) A Rule Against Murder- Louise Penny
2. The Brutal Telling- Louise Penny

Yes, I'm still obsessed with these cozy murder mysteries. Just like when I was reading through the No. 1 Lady Detective Agency series, I have favorites, but so far these have all been just as cozy as they can be. Intricate mysteries, interesting characters, gorgeous settings, and total foodie p0rn. I have one more before I run out, and I'm hoping it picks up just where The Brutal Telling left off, because that one, unlike any of the other so far, had a sort of vague and unsatisfying ending. Perhaps I just didn't like whodunit this time.

At least in this book, someone finally acknowledged that this small charming burgh sure does have a lot of murders.

Sister Guppy

2011-01-10T17:52:00.004-06:00

Another shiny headache day, but YOU LOSE, shiny headache. I drowned you in Excedrin Migraine and Coca-Cola. Just try to get up from that.

Also, I just joined Sisters in Crime AND their Guppies group.

That's right. My first professional writer's association, and it ain't AWP. What gives?

All I'm saying is that next year, if AWP and Love Is Murder are on the same weekend again, I'm going to have a much harder time choosing AWP. Even if it's in Chicago.

So this is a plea to the group planning the 2012 Love Is Murder conference. NOT Feb. 22-25, OK? Pretty (murder) please?

Hmm. I wonder if they need some help with the committee?

This is not what I meant by "new experiences"

2011-01-09T14:22:00.003-06:00

Whenever I'm clicking around the Internet and nobody is updating, I have to come here and update, lest I become a hypocrite. That all works out for the 2 people reading my blog, but not for me.

This week was incredibly busy. Next week looks to be the same. I guess I'm pretty resigned to being crying busy until at least March.

Which may be why I had my first visual migraine today. If that sounds sexy, believe me, IT WAS. The lights! I sat very calmly on our couch next to my husband, freaking the hell out while a little spot of shimmering light in the center of my vision grew into a crescent that widened, widened, and finally moved out of my field of vision. After it was gone, I said something about having figured out what is was on the Internet (it was hard to search for it because I didn't know how to describe it and I COULDN'T SEE) and Greg made fun of me a little.

I told him where he could put his derision. Maybe I am a hypochondriac. Wouldn't you be?

This weekend all I've done is chores. Yesterday I took Miss Mollypants, her highness, to the vet. My cat is a mystery to most people I know casually or at work. They think we only have a dog. But no, Molly has been with me since before I met Greg. She's a cranky old lady of 14 with a heart murmur. See how we deserve each other? But she's hanging in there, and I finally switched her to Ursa's vet who is right around the corner from our house and so so so much nicer than her old vet. Also, the new vet says there's absolutely no reason to pull any of her teeth. Suck it, old vet.

Also yesterday: bank, library, Best Buy exchange, Target exchange and supplies, Costco (oh, god, the humanity), the fruit and veg market, home. All that running around and yet today I had to go to the grocery because needful things were forgotten while I was out yesterday. Like some Coca-Cola. Which cures migraines.

This morning, after my NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE, GREG, we took down the Christmas tree and swiped down the entire house. I still have laundry to do. God, there is nothing more depressing than being 5 on and 2 off and then spending 1-1/2 days of your weekend doing nothing but work.

Life, you know. Everybody has to do this crap over and over. Where are the robots we were promised? The jet-packs and teleporters? WHERE, I ask you.

I have about 8 hours left awake in this weekend. Could just about finish another Louise Penny book in that time. As long as my head doesn't try to firework off my body again.

Cute little Edgar Allan Poe

2011-01-06T20:23:00.003-06:00

Remember when I got a scholarship from the Midwest Writers of America to take a course of my choosing? You should apply, too. (Although apparently I broke the program. They aren't allowing online instruction anymore. Oops.) The course does not have to be a mystery-specific course, by the way.

Here's a run-down of the program from Chris Roerden:

Subject: Two $500 scholarships for mystery writers

You pay NO entry fee.
You need NO membership in any organization.
You need submit ONLY:
* 3 chapters of the mystery (any subgenre) novel you're working on and brief synopsis, OR
3 short mystery stories, OR
a complete mystery script, OR
mystery nonfiction, plus:
* a one-page essay,
* specifics about the writing class, course, or workshop you will register for with your scholarship, if you're recipients,
* 2 letters of recommendation (which take longer to get than you'd think so start now), and
* a completed application form, downloadable with full details from mysterywriters.org/?q=AwardsPrograms-McCloy (or work your way from mysterywriters.org to Awards, then to the McCloy scholarship).

Bundle it all in one big package postmarked no later than February 28, 2011, and send to the address on the form. The panel of judges -- all published mystery writers located in 5 different regions of the country -- might award you one of two $500 scholarships to use in registering for writing instruction that takes place in the US (but not online) in the summer, fall, or winter of 2011 or spring of 2012.

Why are these scholarships awarded? The annual Helen McCloy/MWA Scholarship program was established to encourage two promising mystery writers who value learning to develop their skills.

Chris Roerden, 2011 Chair, McCloy-MWA Scholarship Committee

For your nearly daily funny

2011-01-05T20:55:00.000-06:00

"People keep asking me what my New Year’s resolutions are and I tell them that I don’t have any and then they get all pissy because they assume that I think I don’t need to change but it’s really just that I’m too bored with myself to invest any more time thinking about me, and also because 'What are your new year’s resolutions?' is kind of code for 'So tell me what you think is wrong with you.'"

You should be reading the Bloggess.

50,000 words

2011-01-02T22:19:00.002-06:00

Just rolled the odometer over on the first draft of The Black Hour. Have reached 50,000 words, 200 pages, just about half way.

Exclamation point earned: !

Anthologized!

2011-01-02T12:12:00.004-06:00

Totally geeked out that the anthology Dia de los Muertos, which includes my story "The Catrinas Will Dance With Any Boy They Like," is now available...on Amazon.com! It's like I'm a real writer or something.

It's also available directly from the publisher (using Paypal or by sending a check) for slightly less here.

Now that is a good way to start the year. Thanks to Angela Craig and Elektrik Milk Bath Press for the opportunity.

Reading list and 2010, finis

2010-12-31T21:55:00.004-06:00

And to wrap up the 2010 year of reading (or, more accurately, of reading less than I should):

60. The Killer of Little Shepherds by Douglas Starr
61. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

Wow, those books don't go together.

The Killer of Little Shepherds reminds me a bit of The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, but perhaps less narrative nonfiction and more, well, nonfiction. But good. Although...well, I did have a few moments where I understood better than ever my own mortality. So if that kind of thing gets you revved up, go for it. [Dear family, please have my body cremated when I die. Thank you.]

The Pursuit of Love is the kind of thing you should read if you've already done your Jane Austen and want more period drama, although not Austen-time, but England-between-the-wars. This one is both of its time (watch out for racism and a rather light-handed attitude toward Nazis) and really very funny and affecting. There's a passage near the end where one character says to another (paraphrased): No one will remember us. We weren't born at the right time to be remembered. But the entire book is narrated by the cousin of the woman who says this, and she's wrong, see? We remember each other.

--
All in all, I read 61 books this year. [38 by women, by the way.] [Uh, oh. Only two off my targeted "classics" list.] Not great. I read 72 in 2007, 80 in 2008, and 81 in 2009. What have I been doing with myself? I think we all know the answer to that. Working and writing, same as every damn writer out there.

I'll take a shorter reading list, I suppose, for the amount of revising, editing, and new writing I got done in 2010. Reading a lot of books was a resolution for last year, but I also had others:

-Revise and submit novel manuscript to an agent. The manuscript I meant was (now called) The Girl from Sweetheart, which technically? I did TWICE, and the revision this last time was no small project.

-Publish two short stories. I published FOUR. [Not getting saucy about this, since many of them were placed before the year began and, uh, I haven't written a short story in a long, long time.] To recap, in case you have some time on your hands.

"Man Remade," Stirring, July 2010
"Low Life," Southern Indiana Review, May 2010
"The Summer Ahead," Freight Stories #6, 2010
"Layers of Love," Good Housekeeping, May 2010

-Go see friends in far-off places. Check and check. I went to see Kim in Pittsburgh and Kate in Denver.

-Learn something new. I think it's safe to say that I have developed some new skills in the workplace.

Maybe I'm burying the lead (lede? I never liked that), but my 2011 resolutions won't sway too far off the mark from last year. I still want to work on the things I didn't accomplish last year (agent shopping!)(using my treadmill!)(read Dickens!) and I'd like to keep seeing my friends in far-off places (this year it should be Melissa in DC and Kristi in Anchorage).

But the number one goal I have for 2011, which I have control of and I actually WANT TO DO, is to finish the draft of my second novel, The Black Hour.

A resolution I'm excited about. How's that for a happy new year? You guys go ahead and have one, too.

Free-dumb

2010-12-29T16:08:00.003-06:00

I do set resolutions, and I'll get to that in a few days (maybe a short recap of how I did last year and a few new ones for 2011) but right now? I need a writing goal. I'm languishing, even with the week off.

5,000 words on The Black Hour (still love it!) by Jan. 1

I already did one day's work. In the three days I have left, I need to produce 1,250 words each day.

I'd forgotten to make this official by posting it here, so just as I was ready to start writing I tried to come here and my Internet wouldn't work. I was connected, but no sites showed up. I flailed until Greg came over to see what the problem was. He had me re-boot. What an IT guy he is.

Turns out I'd already started an hour of the application called Freedom. Which I use so I won't be tempted by the Internet while I should be writing.

Turns out I'm dumb.

1,250 words, starting nnnnnow.

Lobbying firm of Ursa J. Pup, Esquire

2010-12-29T14:51:00.003-06:00

Staying home from work this week, you'd think I'd have all the freedom in the world. And yet, what I get is the first-thing dog walk and the starting-at-3pm lobbying for her dinner/pm walk.

How is it my dog rules my life?

Because I don't have KIDS.

Feeling good about that. Going to take my dog for a walk now.

Monkeys

2010-12-28T19:19:00.001-06:00

What I did with my Christmas morning:

Watch my nieces get fire-hosed with gifts (including the smart monkey robes, from us). A good day, in other words.

Now with MORE books!

2010-12-28T19:03:00.003-06:00

I got a lot of books for Christmas. My stocking? Like, 89 percent books. Plus gift cards to buy more books.

That's the way I like it.

I didn't feel like updating my reading list, but then I read another book that walloped me soundly, so now I have to jot down my thoughts on it while I'm still feeling the...wallop?

[Is that a real word? Spell-check is letting me get away with all manner of sins.]

56. So Cold the River- Michael Koryta
Tough one. I liked the writing in this one enough to finish, but there was something wholly unsatisfying (to me, your mileage may vary) about the resolution. I did, however, enjoy all the Indiana in this book.

57. A Fatal Grace- Louise Penny
58. The Cruelest Month- Louise Penny
Louise Penny is my new girlfriend. She'd better get to cracking on her next book, though, because I'm getting caught up rather too quickly. Should you read her books? Check yourself: Do you like mysteries? Did you grow up on Agatha Christie? Do you like roaring fires and food p0rn descriptions and lots and lots of suspects for every body? Then, yes. Otherwise, stay away. She's all mine.

59. 84 Charing Cross Road- Helene Hanff
This is the one that socked me in the gut. Mary Anne said I'd like it, but the conversation we were having at the time made me expect something very different from what this book turned out to be. In a word? Lovely. It's epistolary (I'm not usually a fan), and nonfiction. Basically, an American writer and a British bookseller correspond over the sale of books, and NO THIS ISN'T A MEG RYAN movie, they don't fall in love, not in the way you might think. They become friends, and the writer finds a way into the lives of lots of people she never meets. It's short, sweet, stunning. I'm glad I have my own copy (get yer own) so I can re-read it. It's really funny, too, which is part of the surprise. One of my Christmas prezzies from Greg. Out of the ballpark, honey.

If you celebrate Christmas, hope you had a good one. If you don't, hope you had a really quiet day with all the Christians and Otherwise-Celebrants tucked away.

The Girl

2010-12-20T17:28:00.002-06:00

I got it together and sent my novel to another agent on Sunday. Trumpet blare! The book is now called...

The Girl from Sweetheart

I fought that "the girl" thing. SHE HAS NO DRAGON TATTOO, you hear me? NONE TATTOOS.

But that's the title that kept speaking to me, so that's where we landed.

Now it's off having its own little life and I'm off to the races on my second book, hoping to get some new words down before The Girl from Sweetheart (see? awesome) comes back, dejected, from the agency and I have to figure out how to write a query letter. Second book, for which I also have a new title.

Can you people take two titles in one post? Is that too confusing? The two books are not related in any way, except that I'm the one who wrote them. OK, but keep them straight, allright? My second novel, still in progress, is...

The Black Hour.

That one gave you a cold chill, right? Good, it's supposed to.

I'll keep you posted on both. I've got some time off for the holidays that will be spent trying to get some black on white on The Black Hour, and I'll keep you posted about The Girl from Sweetheart.

(Do you see how I'm still getting used to them? But I love them both and now they know it.)

Cynicism break

2010-12-17T20:08:00.004-06:00

If you're having a hard time getting into the ho-ho-ho spirit, might I suggest reading this? And, to break your heart, read all the comments, and then the next day's follow-up.

The short version? There is a Santa Claus, and we are him.

It's completely draining to read the comments and see all the need—but more than completely inspiring to read a comment from someone just scraping by themselves who wants to GIVE, not receive.

I don't talk about this much, but I grew up in a young, struggling family. We never wanted for dinner, though, and Christmas somehow always magically happened. Now that I'm an adult? I have no idea how my parents did it.

It looks like things are fairly under control over there at The Bloggess's site (although I'm not sure the Bloggess is getting a break any time soon from all the do-gooding she's brought on herself), so if any of this inspires you, consider a gift to your local food bank, homeless shelter, or Toys for Tots, so that other kids can have Christmas, too.

Below are a couple of links for charities that have good support ratios (they give out most of the money you give, and don't have a lot of overhead) and can do a lot with the money you give (the Greater Chicago Food Depository can work up four meals for every single dollar you donate—how amazing is that?). Take a look or search for something in your area.

Toys for Tots
Greater Chicago Food Depository

Also: don't think that a small gift won't make a difference. Over at The Bloggess, the people receiving help are getting $30, $40. Doesn't seem like it could change the world, does it? But it is. Right now, it is. Small amounts do matter. A buck for the bell ringer, or just tip well when you're out celebrating.

I'm really grateful right now. Not to have, but to be a witness to stuff like this. How lucky are we, really, to have each other?

Come on, ol' Kris Kringle, down the Milky Way!

2010-12-17T17:07:00.004-06:00

Update on the title: None.

I've put a lot of time into this, and I'm getting closer. Thanks to Mary Anne and James for making suggestions.

Update on everything: Tired.

Had a short but filled work day today at Major U and now really just want to couch. In fact, it's 5 p.m. and I could honestly use a little nap in front of the Christmas tree.

Update on reading: Yes, please.

Plans for the weekend: pizza and beer, two episodes of Castle season two, hair cut, book title, writing with Mary Anne on Sunday, tracking down a copy of the second book in the Three Pines mystery series by Louise Penny, watching every dang Christmas cartoon the TV can throw at me. They'll never show my favorite, though. Anyone else remember the 'Twas the Night Before Christmas starring the mice and the clock tower? I have true love for that cartoon. Also, Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas, but my copy flaked out last night.

Bah and humbug.

In short, I'm too highly socialized today and need to hibernate.

I guess "Best Book Ever" is already taken?

2010-12-14T18:34:00.002-06:00

OK, it's go time, people.

I have one newly slimmed-down manuscript in need of a new title.

And I have no idea what to call it.

Old title? Let's not dwell in the past. That title made sense for the short story from which the novel grew, but not for this final product.

And yet—

What's the alternative?

I'm spelunking into the draft now and I'm not coming out without a better title.

Wish me luck.

Books suggested in the comments

2010-12-14T18:32:00.002-06:00

My friend James needs his own blog. From the comments, his books:

1. Await Your Reply - Dan Chaon

2. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned - Wells Tower

3. We're In Trouble - Christopher Coake

4. How It Ended - Jay McInerney

5. Knockemstiff - Donald Ray Pollock
[He remembers that I suggested this one to him, but doesn't remember that number three up there is by one of my best friends from high school. I totally agree with numbers one, three, and five. The others I'll have to check out.]

Thanks, James. Also, James, I need to retitle my book. Help.

Reading list update and best books LAST year

2010-12-12T10:04:00.005-06:00

Am behind on my reading update. Just in case any out there is biting his/her nails for this stuff.

51. 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might- Pat Walsh
The author friended me on Goodreads, which reminded me how much I liked the book. As I am a slave to revising right now, I decided to carry this around with me for a while. Still good. If you're still trying to write a book, it's too early to read this. Go write the book first.

52. The Daughter of Time- Josephine Tey
My friend Mary Anne suggested Tey to me—winning suggestion. I believe the original suggestion was because of a specific problem I had in my book (how does a protagonist get around and investigate when part of the story is that she's hurt and can't get around very well?). Tey's very properly British and witty, and this detective story occurs entirely in a hospital bed. No, really. It works. It's one of those books that has a map of characters at the beginning, though. If that kind of thing drives you crazy (and actually, it does turn me away at times—Wolf Hall, I'm looking at you), don't bother with this one.

53. The Maltese Falcon- Dashiell Hammet
I like the name Dashiell. Why don't one of you baby-having people name your kid Dashiell?

Goodish book. Classic of the noir, which means you have to forgive the cliches. Dash was creating them, you see.

54. Still Life- Louise Penny
A cozy-lover's cozy. The first few chapters were perfect. Of course, it couldn't go on. Flaws. Still loved it, will still hunt down the rest of this series to see if she keeps it up. The perfect kind of reading for days like today, when the snow is stacking up outside and you're just not planning on going any damn where.

55. You Had Me at Woof- Julie Klam
I may never read another dog book. This one made wonder who Julie Klam owed. Also, at last, that we've seen enough dog books. Dog books are over. The only person who needs to read this book? Someone who is considering dog rescue as a hobby and needs to be talked out of it.

As a follow-up to the list I posted earlier this week, I want to put out another plug for two books I read last year that I truly still think y'all should read. The bonus is that they're both now in paperback.

Dark Places- Gillian Flynn
The Little Stranger- Sarah Waters

What are the books you keep pushing on people? Push them on ME.

Best books I read this year

2010-12-10T21:49:00.002-06:00

I can't believe I forgot A Christmas Story. Another all-time fave.

My friend James wonders what good books I read this past year. Let's take a gander, shall we?

I've read 54 books as of today. I'm behind on listing them here, but I'm seriously behind in my reading. What my husband calls my "stretch goal" has been flushed down the loo. For past few years I've kept track of what I read (geek!) because it's satisfying to see how many books I've read. It's always more than I think I have. For instance, I've read upwards of 75-80 books every year since 2003, but this year—54.

Yes, I know it's only December 10 (happy birthday to my friend Alan!), but I'm unlikely to read 20 books in the next few weeks. I'm a fast reader, but I am employed now. Even last year I think I did better than 54 books, though, and I was employed last year. Employed with a vengeance (first year in a new job).

The difference? I think I wrote more this year. Revised/wrote, same diff. I should be proud of that. That's good news.

I'm not going to think too hard right now about why I'm not thrilled with that revelation. It probably has something to do with the state of both my projects right this minute, and how little I've worked on them lately.

So. Change of subject. James?

Right. Out of the 54 books I read this year, the best were:

1. Normal People Don't Live Like This- Dylan Landis
Depressing short stories. What other kind of short story is there?

2. Columbine- Dave Cullen
Depressing nonfiction. You know the story.

3. and 4. The Calling and The Taken- Inger Ash Wolfe
Really well-drawn police procedural stuff. The only thing I didn't like was how intricate and, in some ways, violence-p0rn the crimes are. So well-done, though. I would like this writer to come forth so I could read all his/her other books.

5. and 6. The Devil and Sherlock Holmes and The Lost City of Z- David Grann
Quirky nonfiction about obsessions. Favorite. Topic. Ever.

7. and 8. The Franchise Affair and The Daughter of Time- Josephine Tey
Old-school mysteries, British countryside and royalty, natch.

9. The Likeness- Tana French
These are series but I really like this one the best.

10. The Order of the Odd-Fish- James Kennedy (hi, James Kennedy's Google Alert! Happy holidays!)
Weird young adult fiction. I'm into weird young adult fiction lately.

Also, a couple of re-reads I did this year where the books stood up to a second (or third) reading:
11. Bird by Bird- Anne Lamott
Love!

12. The Writing Class- Jincy Willett
Love! Beach reading for writers.

Festivities

2010-12-05T16:43:00.004-06:00

Apparently the holiday season is going to come whether I have time to celebrate it or not.

This weekend we managed to get our tree and decorate it, and I just finished the last of the cards. Glue stick for the win!

I've also begun my ritualized watching of holiday movies. I love holiday movies. A few of the standards:

It's a Wonderful Life
Miracle on 34th Street (the little Natalie Wood version)
A Christmas Carol (all of them!)
Elf (This is what we watched while decking the halls.)
Scrooged (Possibly my all-time favorite.)
Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas (Wait. This is my all-time favorite.)
Muppet's Christmas Carol (It's amazing how closely to the book this one is. And meta-fictionly.)
Love Actually (Watched this today while doing the cards. It's flawed, but I don't care. I love it, actually.)

There are other movies that I sort of consider holiday movies. It's a tone thing, I think. Or the fact that they feature pivotal holiday scenes. Bridget Jones' Diary. The first Harry Potter.

Send suggestions!

I love this time of year. There's so much to do, but I try to get the musts over with so I can do the other things I want to do. Cook in the crock pot, watch movies with the tree lit up at my elbow, read fat, Victorian mysteries. Very Dickensian.

What do you like to do for the season? And if you have suggestion for fat, Victorian mysteries, send those, too.

Mysterious

2010-11-19T12:43:00.003-06:00

I started watching a new TV show.

Watching TV is probably bad for the word count, but one cannot live on words alone.

The show is Castle, a police procedural type show, like Law & Order, but with one difference: one of the investigators is a mystery writer.

Technically I think he's a writer of thrillers. Think James Patterson. In fact, James Patterson guest-starred on the pilot episode. The fictional character writer, Rick Castle, plays poker with a bunch of other writers.

I might have a crush on this show. I can't help it. I like the cult of the mystery author. God, I'm about two minutes away from adding Murder, She Wrote to my Blockbuster rental queue, aren't I?

I'm still trying to write what I want to write and let the marketers sort it out at the end. (Assuming I ever get to be marketed, of course.) I'm trying really hard not to let what other people write or read sway me. I love short stories, but I'm not writing them as much. I love literary fiction, but I find that I'm not reading it as much. I love mysteries. I read almost everything these days trying to figure out whodunit, and sometimes? Nothing got dun. It's very disconcerting to me when there's no mystery. I think I'm converted.

In other news, what awesome things are you asking for for Christmas?

Quick.

2010-11-18T22:04:00.003-06:00

Mary Anne said she was having trouble seeing my blog this morning and I felt bad there was nothing new to see if she could see it.

Guilt post.

All I'm doing is working. Working at Major U and then working on the book at home. I wrote a few mornings before work this week. That sets a nice pace for the day. But sometimes that half-hour of sleep is very very precious.

Especially to someone who started using her treadmill for the first time in a while.

Yeah. Basically I'm just trying to be a better version of myself. So much to balance, but it's not like I can stop doing any of it. I just have to do it better.

Tomorrow is Friday. That is good news. A weekend, two quick days of work—did you hear me, Major U? I said QUICK, not QUA-RAZY—and then a long, fat weekend of family, turkey, writing, movie-watching, reading. I believe I need to do some stuff for my class, and probably some laundry.

Being the better version of myself is never done, y'all.

What I do like, part II

2010-11-15T07:35:00.002-06:00

Writing in the morning before work.

Cranberry orange bagels with plain cream cheese.

Hot tea with milk.

What I do like

2010-11-14T20:27:00.003-06:00

Was cranky in my last post. Could you tell?

I'm currently sitting in front of a hockey game, in overtime, but don't be impressed. I'm mostly waiting for it to be done so I can write a bit more before bed.

REVISIONS!
(should be sung to the tune of that song from Fiddler on the Roof)

That's what I've been doing. I'm come around on revision; I totally love it now. Sorta. All right, it's not as sexy as brand! new! words! but it's easier, in a way, to sink into --

HAWKS WIN!

--sorry--

and get back into something that you left the day before.

Here's the problem I'm having. (You can decide for yourself if it's a problem.) I'm busy trying to get Book I--which I think I retitled this weekend, and it gave me a boost of energy--ready for agents. But I so so so want to work on Book II--which I think is finally titled. Maybe.

[Calling them Book I and Book II makes it seem like they are part of a series, but they are not. Or if they are, they're both first books in a series.]

I keep having ideas for the book I'm not working on. I'm jotting them down, but that energy makes me want to spend time on the book that's creating it.

But I did have a good day working on Book I. REVISIONS! (I really do hear this in my head to that music. If I were a good book, la-da-da-di-di-di.)

Maybe a little shut in, why do you ask?

Actually, Saturday night Greg and I had dinner with our neighbor, Jen. She made her husband stay home with the kids and bestfrienddogCHLOE! and all their big, scary cats and we went out for yummy pasta. Don't feel bad for him, though. Apparently he was out the night before and had enough to drink to last him a good while. This may be the first time in my life I've had neighbors I wanted to hang out with. I think. I've only had real neighbors for going-on-nine years. Only met this couple because of their puppy. Get a puppy, meet your neighbors.

OK, there's one good solid hour left in my waking weekend. One more chapter before bed, what do you say?

Lori Rader Day

Stuff and things and all that

The 2012 Reading List Comences

Building a mystery community

My friend John

Big plans

Best Reads of 2011

Resolutions 2012

Last reading post of the year?

Reading list

Silly willy nilly ol' Bear

Reading list update

Puppy love

Writers group

Guest post: Inspiration

Don't sound insane

Reading list

My first Boucercon

Reading list

Stop Worrying

Revision

Oh, HI.

A bit of reading

My barbaric (y)AWP

Miscellany

More reading

TA-DA.

Reading lots!

Reading list

I would join YouFace.

Running into the sun

#amwriting

Experiment in sleep deprivation, day the fourth

Books you should check out

Tennis balls from heaven in no way make up for my day

Wednesday a.m.

Today

687 words this morning!

6:04 a.m.

Words today: 818

New thing follow-up

New thing

Reading

Recalibration

Getting cozy

Reading books before the world ends

It's time for bear devouring, clearly

Blogroll

Check up

A ring

Reading list

Crankypants

Making plans

Ahoy, mateys

One in a million or so

Wild

Me & Oprah & lotsabooks

Photo essay: I also have a cat

A post in the barest form

Reading list

Writer math be damned.

Life's little mysteries

Writer math. Others, look away.

Detail

Shameless plug for other blog

E-reading

Shaped like a humidifier, actually

My triumphant return to Dover, Indiana

Light at the end of the tunnel

Catrinas Dance

My not-writing life

New blog design

Who's posting? I'm posting!

Barbaric yAWP

Snowpocalypse 2011

Stuff and things

What I've been up to

Sister Guppy

This is not what I meant by "new experiences"

Cute little Edgar Allan Poe

Cynicism break