Because a Writer Can’t Wear All the Hats, We Find Experts
Fiction writers may be great at creating characters and brainstorming plots, but sometimes real facts get in the way, and that’s when we turn to outside sources. For example, I’m playing around with a darker than usual suspense story right now that is only alive and thriving because I was able to interview an iron worker about his job. You see, I would never be able to walk confidently across the beams that make up the skeleton of a high rise building. Lucky for me, however, I found someone who not only could, but was willing to tell me about it so I could add color and authenticity to my story and main character. My source was male, and my fictional protagonist is female, and when I told him this he gave a great gaffawing laugh and said, “Let me know when the book is published. I can’t wait to Read more…
I Guess I Have the Bargain of the Week
I have two books coming out soon. The first, Organized for Homicide, is another featuring organizational expert Kate McKenzie as chief sleuth and bottle organizer. To coincide with this September 8th release, my publisher has discounted book#1 in the series, Organized for Murder, to 99 cents for a short time in all ebook formats. And the rest of this week I’ll be posting excerpts of the new book, Organized for Homicide, so everyone can get a sampling of that story as well. In my Organized Mysteries series, Kate and her sidekick, Meg Berman, find that starting a small business sometimes leads to having to do more than your mission statement implies. Sometimes it means figuring out whodunit when someone involved in their business contract gets killed, and law enforcement focuses on the wrong person as the murder suspect. In the first book, Kate is in the hot seat herself, so she is absolutely sure the state police Read more…
Bargain this Week & Great New Mystery Series
Whenever I’ve had a chance these past few days, I’ve been reading the first book in a great new mystery series by Jennifer L. Hart. Murder Al Dente had an official release date yesterday in all bookseller venues, but Amazon jumped the gun and released the Kindle version last Saturday afternoon and I snatched one up right away–at the release week bargain price of 99 cents! While I may be on deadline for the next Bodies of Art Book, and for the Sept 8th release of Organized for Homicide, I still suffer from a reading addiction that makes me an absolute b*tch if I don’t get my fix. My family puts up with me for awhile, but I don’t like to push their patience, so I try to at least read a little each day (it’s truly the least I can do to save family harmony–I am the glue that holds my loved ones Read more…
Day in the Life of an Artist
In the spring when my kid was in the third grade, she said she wanted to grow up to be Mary Englebreit. Not that she wanted to be an artist like M.E.–she wanted to be Mary Englebreit. After we explained the difference in terminology, she seemed okay with just studying to be an artist, and has always been unbelievably creative in her own right, but I’m not sure DD was every completely happy with the fact that she couldn’t just assume the persona of her favorite. Her words at the time made me contemplate who I’d wanted to be at her age. In the first part of 4th grade I read Little Women, and for the first time realized I could grow up to be an author. Before that I’d thought books just magically appeared on library shelves. My daughter was obviously much brighter than I at an early age. Just now, Read more…
When a Turtle Loves You
We have a resident turtle who lives somewhere (or maybe many ‘wheres’) around our yard. We have a couple of ponds at either end of our land, but they’re each more than 1000 feet away. So given the regularity we see our hard-shelled neighbor, we figure he’s pretty much a land guy. The main reason he’s made our house part of his regular circuit is he apparently loves cat food. And we feed two roaming outside cats who love to leave leftover kibble on our front porch that the turtle comes by and eats later. Who knew? This morning, however, I spotted the sweet little dear staring hopefully through the lowest window in our back door. Apparently he looked up and saw me eating breakfast at the table and thought it was worth a shot at getting kibble of his own on the back porch without having to walk all Read more…
Garage Sale; Friend or Foe
I posted this at Laffeinated Ink last month, and slipped a small post in here with a link that somehow got cross-ways between WordPress and Facebook, so I’m adding the post in its entirety here now. It’s that time of year, and we’re getting ready to have a garage sale. Originally, we planned to have it last month, but life and rain got in the way (yes, rain—we’d almost forgotten what it looked like) so things have shifted to probably next month. But it’s gloriously cool today, high to only reach 70 (unbelievable, right?) so I really wish I could sit outside and barter with people as long as they want to come and act like they’re interested in hauling my stuff away. This will be the first time I’ve had a garage sale that lasted more than one day. Generally, I throw open the doors at seven a.m. on Read more…
The Crazy Way Settings Happen (or Fast Times on London Streets)
A favorite setting I used in COUNTERFEIT CONSPIRACIES involved gunfire, London streets crowded with iconic double-decker buses, various-sized lorries (yep, we’d say trucks in the U.S., but lorry sounds much more Brit), and my characters escaping via a legendary black cab. Until bullets shatter the windows. I posted about the experience a few months ago on the Laffeinated Ink blog, but I’m reposting most of the story here along with pics to share with my readers. First, to clarify, I’ve never had windows shot out of any cabs I’ve ever ridden in, but some crazy vehicle-related adventures have happened to me while visiting Jolly Old London-town. One event occurred when we traveled there in spring 2008 with two 18-year-olds—who knew everything and constantly reminded us ‘oldsters’ we could just go off sightseeing and not worry about them. Fat chance. Instead, tables got turned. Armed with Oyster cards, we split up outside Read more…
Let’s Tour Harrods in London
We went to London a few years ago, and since PBS is starting a new season of Mr. Selfridge’s this weekend, and since I’ve spent this week blogging about London-related things, I thought I’d blog today about another famous London retailer–Harrods. This multi-floored upscale London department store is located in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge. Oh, and a note, there are doormen who will turn visitors away who arrive in disreputable clothing. We saw a couple get turned away when he was clad in raggedy-cut baggy shorts, and she was in a tube top and way too tight jeans with holey knees. But we were allowed to pass without incident, so thanks to my trusty camera you’ll find pictures below that I took during our shopping excursion. Everything about the store was carefully decorated, and lovely care was taken with even the smallest Read more…
Baker Street Underground Station – London
As a continuation in what I’ve now begun casually calling “London Week” for this blog, thought I’d look closer at a couple of places we found interesting when we visited London a few years ago. Today, I’m posting about the tube station for Baker Street. We’ve all heard about Sherlock Holmes’s residence at 221B Baker Street, but there’s a whole world underneath. And this station has a lot of history. First opened in January 1863, the station was almost 25 years old when the first Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet was published in 1887. The station has had extensions and renovations completed several times in the early 1900s, and an additional southbound platform and connecting tube tunnels between Baker Street and Finchley Road stations in late-November, 1939. They even had a bomb scare in 1973, but the device was luckily defused in time. Instead of listing all the trains that come and Read more…
Save Those Things You Could Use for Years
We get so busy that sometimes we forget to hang on to things we should–things that could help us avoid stressful situation, buy additional items we shouldn’t, or even keep family members from serious medical issues. Without getting into some of the first arguments hubby and I had, here’s a couple of tips that could save your life and definitely save budget and your relationship. Anytime you buy anything with a manual or a written warranty, file it. Stapling the receipt that shows where and when it was purchased helps even more, but definitely file the item’s paperwork. Here’s why — it will break. Your spouse may be able to fix it, or you can order replacement parts, or one of you realize the kids shoved a plastic piece of toy where it doesn’t belong because the schematic in the manual doesn’t show that piece of plastic ever being a part Read more…
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