Reflecting on The LA Times Festival of Books

By Jenny Hilborne
Author of mysteries and thrillers

As the Murder We Wrote team gathered bright and early last Saturday morning, we anticipated a fun-filled weekend on our booth at the LA Times Festival Of Books. We weren't disappointed.

First, if you've not yet attended the LA Times Festival Of Books, it's an exciting annual event and probably the largest congregation of authors and readers in the western US. The event attracts somewhere around 150,000 visitors each year. Live music, food, all kinds of books and all kinds of people can be found here. Famous authors and celebrity speakers meet and entertain their fans every year.

This year, TV crews were wandering the campus, interviewing authors on their booths. Perhaps that's happened before, but I hadn't noticed. Murder We Wrote attracted the attention of an interviewer from KPCC radio, Pasadena, who questioned Gayle Carline and me about our books, about the event, and asked about our concerns regarding safety in light of the tragedy in Boston. The presence of additional campus security helped put our minds at rest, so we could place our focus on enjoying the event and meeting our readers.

Murder We Wrote is a team of about ten mystery/thriller authors who gather several times a year at different book festivals and events in Southern California. Now in our 3rd year at the LA Times Festival Of Books - our biggest event - we've become great friends and we are becoming more well-known on the campus. We have our own growing fan base of readers who seek us out, compliment us on the books they purchased from us the previous year, and ask us about our new releases. It's a wonderful feeling, and a real pleasure to chat with these people who come back each year to see and support us.

Our team name attracts a lot of attention, and an interesting moment on our booth this year came when we met Tom B Sawyer. He'd noticed our banner and strode over to introduce himself. Turns out Tom is a novelist, screenwriter, and playright. As the Head Writer/Showrunner, he wrote 24 episodes for the TV mystery series Murder, She Wrote. He enjoyed the twist on the name and it was our pleasure to meet him.

We also had the pleasure of meeting Kate Yackley, Vice President of Advertising for the Los Angeles Times. As a fellow Brit, she and I enjoyed reminiscing a little about our homeland, before she purchased a copy of my latest release, STONE COLD; a Brit thriller she said she was looking forward to reading. My thanks again to Linda Boulanger, owner of TreasureLine Publishing, for such a great cover. Stone Cold was my biggest seller at the festival and the cover drew many compliments.

Murder We Wrote offers a varied selection of mysteries and thrillers, including humor from Gayle Carline, Terry Ambrose, and Jim Stevens; my own psychological and suspense; legal by Teresa Burrell; romantic suspense by Anne Carter (aka Pam Ripling), noir by Paul D Marks, and paranormal romance by Susan Griscom. We had a lot to offer and we encouraged readers to browse.

For 2 days talked about books with thousands of readers who wanted to hear all about them...or so we thought. One of the funnier things we heard came from one or two visitors to our booth who, when prompted: "what kind of mysteries do you like to read?" responded with: "Oh, I don't read books." Yes, it left us without a response and wondering why they were at the book festival.

Another cute visitor was a gorgeous little 11 year-old girl who tried her hardest to convince us she was "quite mature" and ready to read our dark and gritty thrillers. We gave her a lollipop instead and she went away contented.

Not everyone at the festival is a reader. Our booth attracts its fair share of authors looking for advice on how to get started, how to find an agent, a cover designer, editor and so on. We especially loved it when young people told us they write. We attracted other sorts, too...and certain types of behavior we don't encourage at a book festival (which Gayle Carline will cover in a later post).

We all worked hard in the heat, sold lots of books, and still found the time for a good laugh. Here's Gayle Carline to prove it. I have no idea what she's laughing at, but this was the mood on our booth for the whole weekend.

As 5 o'clock rolled around on Sunday, we sat back for a few minutes to reflect, made plans for other events, then packed up our booth, said our goodbyes, and headed out in 8 or 9 opposite directions.

I know we'd all like to send our huge thanks to the thousands and thousands of readers who attended the festival. Once again, you made this such a fun event for all of us authors, and we look forward to seeing you again next year. 

Below is editor Jodie Renner's very helpful link to a list of other book festivals across North America for 3013-2014 http://crimefictioncollective.blogspot.ca/2013/04/book-festivals-in-north-america-2013.html

Identity Issues Launches!

by guest blogger and mystery author Claudia Whitsitt

Some authors compare the release of their book to the birth of a baby, and while I see the similarities, this book for me, is much more like a NASA launch.

Whenever I envision a launch, I see fire shooting out from a rocket pad, hear the missile’s engines roaring and watch the building steam as mission control shouts, “And we’re off!” The years of labor, countless calculations, hours revisiting and refining the design, polishing, double-checking, sleepless nights, worry, angst…it’s finally over.

Of course, there’s that last second clutch of the heart. Will the rocket fly? Make it to the heavens without crashing and burning? But, look! The rocket’s boosted now, and it’s soaring. Deep breath. Collective sigh. We have liftoff!

In my particular case, there have been plenty of hiccups along the way. Completing round after round of edits. Hiring a professional editor. Finding a publisher. The rewrite of the last half of the novel. Delays due to MANY unforeseen circumstances. Yes, there were days when I thought this book would never see another reader’s eyes but those of my families and friends.

So, today is cause for huge celebration.

Writing IDENTITY ISSUES marked the start of my reinvention. In 2006, after teaching for thirty years, I decided to write a book. The idea came to me as the result of true events. My husband’s stolen passport led to all kinds of real-life intrigue (more about that in next week’s blog), and the thought of creating my own ending to questions left unanswered nibbled at me until I finally sat down at the computer and wrote the story. Plus, my cohorts at school egged me on. They couldn’t wait to see “The Don Whitsitt Story” in print!

As I neared completion of the book, I attended the Southern California Writers Conference. What the heck did I know about writing a book? What on earth would I do once I finished the manuscript? I had no idea. Thankfully, I met my fairy godmother, Jean Jenkins, at that conference, and she dished out the finest compliment I could have imagined. She told me, “I’d turn the page!” That, for me, meant that someone else might enjoy my story as well. So, I continued writing.

As many of you know, the road to publication is long and arduous. Enough so that this never defeated Special Educator felt ready to give up at times. Writing is my passion after all, not the querying, platform building, marketing and promotion. (I’m still honing those distasteful skills!)

Here, six years later after I first sat down at my computer and began tapping out one letter after another, I present to you the first in The Samantha Series…IDENTITY ISSUES!

For more information about Claudia or her novels, check out her website.

Red Herrings Stink

A guest post by Nancy Springer.

I’m not sure I really am a mystery writer. Up until I received my first Edgar, I thought I was a generic novelist interested in crime. I don’t plot, I don’t murder a character before chapter three, and I don’t plant red herrings. As far as I’m concerned, the less my fiction resembles a fox hunt, the better.

Fox hunt?


Well, you know how we refer to traditional mystery writing: Sleuth hounds sniffing out the trail of the criminal, but led astray by red herrings. That’s fox hunt imagery. In many a jolly good British fox hunt, a prankster dragged a red herring across the fields, because the odor of the smoked fish was so strong it would almost certainly throw the hounds off the track.

Contemplating overdressed people on expensive horses galloping behind a pack of dogs, Oscar Wilde dubbed fox hunting “the unspeakable in full pursuit of the inedible,” thus begging the question: why? Why kill a fox? I have often wondered similarly, why the first body, the second body, and the third body?

I prefer to write crime fiction that is corpse-optional, about missing persons, abduction, stalkers, family secrets, bad guys poaching endangered animals or other environmental crimes. There are many non-cadaverous alternatives to murder, and they occur to me naturally enough when I try to write a mystery novel, as opposed to a fox hunt. I consider plotty plots with red herrings to be egregiously deceptive. Instead, I try for an original, character-driven work, a well-crafted narrative with no need for artifice. I say fences, foxes, red fish, forget it.

Why? Because a fox hunt is essentially an old-fashioned, frivolous pursuit, and so is the contrived murder mystery. Many of us, self included, enjoy a good the-butler-did-it, but today’s world, crime is no game. Nor, I think, do we want it to be. In today’s atmosphere of bad news, domestic abuse, drug trafficking, violence in the schools, and worse, I think there’s a need to acknowledge that villainy is not a cozy, orchestrated logic problem; evil is here, now, and it is messy. I think we need to write honest no-tricks mystery. Red herrings stink.

Nancy Springer has written fifty novels for adults, young adults and children, in genres that include mythic fantasy, contemporary fiction, magical realism, horror, and mystery -- although she did not realize she wrote mystery until she won the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America two years in succession. Dark Lie is her first venture into adult suspense.

Born in New Jersey, Nancy Springer lived for many decades near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, of Civil War fame, raising two children, writing, riding horseback, fishing, and birdwatching. In 2007 she surprised her friends and herself by moving with her second husband to an isolated area of the Florida panhandle, where the birdwatching is spectacular and where, when fishing, she occasionally catches an alligator.

A review of Dark Lie is posted on Stuff and Nonsense today.  I'm also giving away a copy of Dark Lie, courtesy of The Penguin Group.  Please stop by and comment to enter!

The Ends Justify the Means

A guest post by Hank Philippi Ryan.


Guilty, guilty, guilty. Yes, I’m guilty, and here, since it’s just us, I will confess to it.

Sometimes I read the end of a mystery first.

Okay, not completely first. I’ll read the first chapter, and then, read the end. (Don’t groan! Don’t hiss at me and click to another article. Listen. It’s for a reason. And I do go back and read the whole book.)

Before I started writing mysteries, I didn’t read the end first. In the time before
Prime Time, I read mysteries and thrillers and suspense just the way authors hoped I would. Starting at the beginning in a really good book, turning the pages as fast as I could, and then getting to the end at, well, the end. And that method of reading, time honored, was completely successful.

Then (at age 55, so all of you who want to write but thinking: it’s too late for me—well, it’s not) I started writing Prime Time. I had no idea what I was doing, so I powered along, happily typing and churning out pages. Outline? NO way, la dee dah, I was a pantser before I even know what a pantser was. Writing by the seat of my pants. But I figured I knew the story, and who got killed, and how, and who the bad guy was, and certainly, as a result, the ending. I absolutely knew where this book was going.

So one night, late, lying in bed, I was, of course, thinking about the book. I was about half-way through Prime Time, maybe 40,000 words. And I had been dipping into a how-to book by G. Miki Hayden. In it, she suggests an exercise where you try out each character as the villain. The point, she said, was to get a deeper view of your characters’ relationships with each other. That made sense to me, and seemed like a fun idea to try.

On the other hand, it also seemed like a waste of time, because I knew who my bad guy was.

But, sleepless in Boston, I gave it a shot. “Person A as the bad guy,” I mused. No, that wouldn’t work. Person B as the bad guy. Hmm. Nope, that wouldn’t work. Person C as the bad guy—nope, that wouldn’t—wait.

Wait. A. Minute.

My brain started racing, careening through my manuscript, checking chapters and mentally turning the pages as fast as I could. Had I—chosen the wrong bad guy? Had I—written half the book thinking I knew whodunit—and was I wrong?

I couldn’t believe it. I tried to talk myself out of it (luckily my husband was asleep) but the reality was staring me in the face.

I had chosen the wrong bad guy. It was all I could do not to run down to the study and bang open the computer and pull up the half-done manuscript and check.

The next morning, I realized I was right. To change the ending to the new (and real) villain, all I had to do was change—ah, maybe four of the thousands of words I had already written. The bad guy was already there, lurking in the pages, guilty. I just hadn’t noticed it. And I wrote the thing!

Talk about a surprise ending. I had surprised myself!

By the time I got to writing The Other Woman, I learned to let go. I had no idea about the twists and turns along the way. It’s a thriller, right? And there were plenty of thrills for me along the way as I discovered—as you will!—what the story turned out to be. If I had known at the beginning what would happen, the book would be completely different. Because that ending I thought I knew would have pulled me along—and not let the magic of the story create its own true ending.

It’s gotten me thinking about endings. How, in a well-written mystery or thriller, something about the ending is right there in the beginning. It has to be. That the book is a cohesive whole, every little individual word of it creating the big picture. And when the author brings you to a terrific, original, unique ending, it makes the whole book work. The puzzle pieces rearrange, right? And you say: oh, now I see what the author was doing!

Shutter Island. Murder on the Orient Express. The Sixth Sense. Whether you like them or not, knowing the ending would make you read the book or see the movie in a different way, right? You would see the clues, you would see the foreshadowing, you would understand what techniques the authors used to fool the reader and how they lure the reader into believing one way—when reality is another. How they play fair—or how they don’t.

Knowing the ending, and reading “for” it, is a wonderful learning experience for me. It lets me reverse- engineer the story and the writing, and understand all the techniques that come into play.

And frankly, it allows me to take more time to enjoy it. When I was reading the new Think of A Number, I realized I was turning pages so quickly to find the secret, I wasn’t really “reading” the words. So—another confession—I asked my husband to just tell me what happened.


I’m not telling you what happened, he said, astonished. That would spoil the whole thing!

No, I said. Not knowing is spoiling it.

So he told me. And it was good. And then I read it, more slowly and even more appreciatively, because I knew what was coming.

And that is why, fellow readers and authors forgive me, I sometimes flip to the end. And then start at the beginning. Yes, I am guilty. Are you, too?

PS. Okay, fine. Do NOT read the last page of The Other Woman first. Still, even if you do—you won’t know exactly what happens. So go ahead. I dare you. And we’re giving away a first edition (they’re all gone!) of The Other Woman to one lucky commenter!




Hank Phillippi Ryan is the on-the-air investigative reporter for Boston’s NBC affiliate. Her work has resulted in new laws, people sent to prison, homes removed from foreclosure, and millions of dollars in restitution. Along with her 28 EMMYs, Hank’s won dozens of other journalism honors. She’s been a radio reporter, a political campaign staffer, a legislative aide in the United States Senate and an editorial assistant at Rolling Stone magazine working with Hunter S. Thompson.

Her first mystery, the best-selling Prime Time, won the Agatha for Best First Novel. Face Time was a BookSense Notable Book, and Air Time and Drive Time were nominated for the Agatha and Anthony Awards. Hank’s short story “On the House” won the Agatha, Anthony and Macavity.

Her newest thriller, The Other Woman, is already a bestseller and in a second printing. A starred review from Library Journal says “a dizzying labyrinth of twists, turns, and surprises. Readers who crave mystery and political intrigue will be mesmerized by this first installment of her new series.” The Booklist starred review calls it “A perfect thriller…” It is an Indie Next Great Read, an RT Top Pick, and is being translated into three foreign editions.

Hank is on the board of MWA and is president of National Sisters in Crime. 


Please visit  Stuff and Nonsense today for a review of Ms. Ryan's latest novel, The Other Woman.

Why I Love Conventions

By C.J. West

Last weekend I visited the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas as a volunteer for Mystery Day, several panel presentations by current mystery writers. This morning I was thinking about how energized I am when I come away from these meetings and wondered why.

For those of you who’ve never been to an ALA meeting, the exhibit floor displays everything from books, to furniture, to technology, hundreds of booths with hi tech displays offer anything you’d need to open a library save the bricks, mortar and plumbing. Major publishers display thousands of books, but very few authors have a presence. If you’re an author and you rent a booth at one of these shows, be prepared to give away lots of books. Publishers come with cases of them and offer them free by the hundreds.

My focus for the day was a room in the back corner, arranged with a stage and about 50 chairs for panel discussions.

You’d think I’d be tired of listening to panels by now. A few years ago I started going to conventions to meet people in the business. I was always that kid in school who followed the rules, so when I started attending conventions, I sat in the audience for panels, lots of panels. That's what's on the schedule during the day, so that's what I did. I’ve listened in on some great conversations and I’ve seen more than a few fall flat.

The success of a panel in my eyes comes down to two factors. A panel needs either a rock star or a fantastic moderator. A rock star needs no explanation. Certain writers like Tim Hallinan, Dennis Lehane, or Charlaine Harris can carry a panel no matter who is asking the questions. The only thing that can spoil a panel with a rock star is a newbie who hogs the conversation.

Absent a rock star, a moderator makes or breaks the panel. The irony is that the moderator does the most work by far and receives almost no credit whatsoever. Anyone can ask:

“What’s your writing process? Or schedule? Or office space?”

“Why is (insert main character name here) fun to write?”

“How much research do you do?”

Blah. Blah. Blah. Heard it all before.

I admit if you’ve never heard an author panel before, the answers would be interesting. After 50 times, not so much. 

I was really impressed at last year’s Bouchercon by the job Ruth Jordan and Judy Bobalik did coming up with unique ideas for panels. They helped the moderators and authors put on a brilliant show. A great panelist can also make a panel fun. JoAnna Slan told a story about a dead armadillo that she turned into a table lamp. I’d heard the story. I knew she was going to tell it. I still couldn’t help laughing.

But not every panel can have an armadillo-turned-table-lamp story. Even if it could, it’s important to have someone driving the ship on an interesting course the rest of the time.

A great moderator takes a topic and gives the writers fodder for thought. The discussion gets the writers to share great ideas about their latest book, the writing life, and society in general. It’s these ideas that inspire me when I get back to my desk.

So tell me, do you notice moderators ? Who’s your favorite?

Indie Doesn't Mean Solo

By Terry Odell, mystery author

http://www.terryodell.com, http://www.terryodell.com/editable_files/DS_buylinks.html

Thanks so much to L.J. for letting me post here at Crime Scene Collective. I met her at Left Coast Crime and became an immediate fan.

Indie publishing is, according to Carina Press editor, "the new black." Although I've never been much for fashion, this is one trend I'm happy to follow.

Of my nine novels, I've "indie-published" seven titles. Only two of them would qualify as "indie" books, since the other five are back list titles, previously released by several different publishers.

I opted to release DEADLY SECRETS myself for a variety of reasons.

First, I did approach a more traditional route. However, feedback from agents and publishers was that although the writing was strong, the book didn't fit into their neat little packages. It's a mystery with a police chief hero, so it should be a police procedural. However, there are also two main secondary POV characters who aren't cops. That makes it fit the cozy sub-genre, where crimes are solved by amateur sleuths.

Given the upsurge in indie publishing, I decided not to rewrite the book to fit inside the publishers' boxes. Readers don't really care about boxes if they like the story and the characters.

Instead I went indie. I'd had success with other titles, and I'd always preferred mystery, even though my other novels are all romantic suspense. But again, that's a definition imposed by the industry. Believe me, if there was a category called, "Mystery with Relationships" I'd be all over it. But if you're a relative unknown without mega sales numbers, publishers don't want to touch you. Add breaking into a new genre, and it's a virtual kiss of death, short of changing your name and starting from scratch.

Indie publishing. Self publishing. No matter which you call it, there's a subtext that you're isolated somewhere. Just you and your manuscript. While it may be true in some cases, I think anyone with a modicum of success publishing their own work doesn't go it alone. Sure, there are those who enter the world of indie publishing because they don't have the patience to learn the craft. Their friends say they've written a "great book" and that's enough for them to slap it up on Amazon. But once their friends have bought their copies, it's not likely they'll sell more.

So, it's me and my manuscript. And my critique partners. And my RWA writing chapter. And workshops. And when I think the manuscript is good, I ask people whose advice I respect to read it. (In this case, L.J. was kind enough to read the draft of DEADLY SECRETS and give me her professional opinion that it was ready for the next step.

But that step ISN'T publishing. No, it's hiring a professional editor. Someone who has an objective eye and isn't afraid to hurt your feelings when things aren't working. Someone who can show you where you might have strayed from the path and set you back. Or, in the case of one of my earlier books, where I'd tried to take the easy way out and gloss over a combat scene, insist that I write those seven minutes I'd merely mentioned in passing. And some authors will hire two editors. One for content, and then one to do line edits. They're different skill sets.

Then there's a cover artist. Cover design for indie books is a rising industry. It's not the same as a print cover, because you've got to catch a reader's eye in a thumbnail sized image. Less becomes more.

If you're not tech-savvy enough to format your book, you need more help, also at a cost.

And then, there's the marketing and promotion. Here, you ARE alone with your manuscript. Getting the word out becomes your sole responsibility.

Traditional publishers do almost everything I've mentioned above for you. In reality, you're more "indie" when you publish traditionally than when you become your own publisher.

A Baker's Tale

Before I get started on today's post, I need to post this. Cause it's funny.

I thought, in honor of Thanksgiving, I'd write about cooking. A few years ago, before my first book came out, I contributed a short story to an anthology and met some other writers, including Amy Alessio. She wanted me to contribute something to her blog, except that her blog is about cooking, which has nothing to do with mystery, unless you're at my house. Just kidding - I know how to follow a recipe. Don't ask me to wing it, though, or you'll never know what you're gonna get.

In an attempt to fit a square peg into a round hole, I wrote a little story about how my gal, Peri, can't cook but is trying to bake a cake. I've re-interpreted it here for your enjoyment:

* * * * *

    "Beebs, you gotta help me." Peri stood in the aisle of Albertson's Grocery Store, an index card in one hand and her cell phone in the other.

     Blanche Debussy, Assistant Coroner for the Orange County Sheriff's Office and Peri Minneopa's best friend, was nothing if not sympathetic. "Make it quick, Girlfriend. I'm in the middle of an autopsy."

    "This recipe you gave me calls for sugar, but there's so many different kinds." She curled the index card in her hand as she spoke. "There's brown stuff, and fluffy stuff, and stuff in paper bags. And what's a tisp?"

    "It's not a tisp. It's the abbreviation for teaspoon."
    "You mean I gotta buy a whole bottle of vanilla just for one teaspoon?"
    "Don't be a baby." Blanche's deep voice was stern. "You can flavor your coffee with it later. And get the kind of sugar you use in your coffee. How did you manage to grow to female maturity without knowing how to cook?"
    "My mother figured, if I wanted to learn, I'd ask. I never asked. I can make a salad and grill a steak. Why should I know how to bake a cake?"
    "So why are you baking one now? You know there are places that sell cakes."
    "Because Skip bet me I couldn't do it. And no, you can't help me. That's part of the bet."
    "Then I'd better let you get back to shopping."
    "Not yet." Peri read the recipe again. "Where do I find baking powder? How do I crush a pineapple? I still have questions."
    "And I'm apparently not supposed to help you, which works for me because I'm in the middle of a dead man. I'll check in with you later."
    Left with silence on the other end of the phone, Peri went back to reading the card, studying the boxes and mumbling softly to herself about getting into this mess. Why did I have to tell my boyfriend that anyone could bake a stupid cake, even me?
    Later that evening, a car pulled into Peri's driveway and the sound of women's heels clicked around the corner and up the back steps.
    "Peri?" Blanche opened the door. "How'd the cake turn out?"
    Peri looked up from her seat at the kitchen table to see her best friend's eyes grow wide. She followed her gaze and regarded the room. On one side of the sink, the counter was strewn with bowls of various sizes, serving spoons, and a frying pan. On the other side were bags of sugar and flour, a carton of eggs, and other ingredients. Everything had been dusted with white powder.
    Blanche continued to walk in. She picked up a plastic cup. "What's this from?"
    "I needed a measuring cup, so I used the one from my detergent," Peri said. Blanche scowled, so she added, "I cleaned it before I used it on the sugar. And how do you work with flour without it - foofing - all over the place?" She splayed her fingers to mimic an explosion.
    "It's a skill," Blanche told her. "Did you at least get some of it in the pan?"
    Peri pointed to the stove, then resumed picking the batter from her fingernails.
    "Peri…" Blanche looked at the brown and orange layer of lumps, a quarter-inch thick, crusted across the bottom. "What the hell happened?"
    "I have no clue. I followed the directions. They're obviously wrong." She picked up the recipe. "I put the sugar and oil together."
    Blanche looked at the bottle on the counter. "You used olive oil?"
    "The recipe says 'vegetable' oil. Olives are veggies, aren't they?"
    "Only on a pizza, dear. How did it stay so flat?"
    "How should I know? I scrambled the eggs, then added them to the sugar-"
    Blanche interrupted. "Wait. You 'scrambled' the eggs. You just mixed them, right? You didn't cook them."
    "Well, of course I cooked them. Raw eggs are unhealthy, right?"
    Blanche sat down beside her flour-spattered friend and began to laugh. She kept laughing until her sides were sore and eyes wept.
    "I'm glad I can provide your comic relief," Peri told her, before breaking into laughter herself.
    "By the way, what was the bet about?" Blanche asked, as her giggles subsided.
    "If I won, Skip was going to treat me to a day at Glen Ivy Hot Springs."
    "And if Skip won?"
    Peri stopped laughing and frowned. "I have to take a cooking class."
    The two women looked at each other, and their laughter began again.

* * * * *

In case you're dying from curiosity, here's the recipe she was trying to follow -

Carrot Cake

1 1/2  cups sugar

 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
 4  eggs, lightly beaten
 2 cups flour
 2 tsp baking soda
 1 tsp salt
 3  tsp cinnamon
 1/2 tsp nutmeg
 2 tsp vanilla
 3 cups carrots, grated
 1/4 cup pineapple, crushed

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325. Combine sugar, oil & eggs. Sift dry ingredients. Add to sugar mix, beating well. Add vanilla, carrots & pineapple. Pour into greased & floured pan(s). Bake approx. 45 min or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Just top it off with some cream cheese frosting and you've got a little slice of heaven. Easy, right?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Setting Up the Right Writers Group

By Judith Yates Borger

Before I began writing mysteries I asked my experienced mystery-writer friends for advice. The best piece  of advice I got was "Be careful whose opinion you ask."

Today, seven years later, I couldn't agree more. It's the most important tool a writer has.

So, how can a writer choose her writers group? I suggest that she think through what kind of feedback she needs. For example, I'm in two writers groups each chosen for different reasons. They both meet on Tuesdays, one weekly in the morning, the other monthly in the evening.

There are four of us in the weekly morning writers group, each of us with different strengths. One member  is a picky, picky copy editor, who catches my many mistakes. If you've read my posts you know I need her. Another member uses words like a fine violinist. She feels the prose rather than reads it. She tells me when the emphasis is wrong or the pacing is off.  The third member can look at the sweep of my work and tell me when it needs a different direction or a certain character needs better development. The three of them are wonderful writers but they're not mystery writers.

The monthly evening group is comprised of three mystery writers. If they find a typo or grammatical error they circle it and move on. There's no discussion of word choice, timing or character. We three spend most of our time talking about plots. Who gets killed? When? Where? What's the protagonist's motivation? What's the best device that will put the murderer in the right place at the right time to do the deed? Is a particular plot point plausible?

The two groups also have different rules. The weekly group requires that everyone bring at least one three-sentence paragraph, but no more than eight double-spaced pages. The idea is that no matter how complicated our lives are we can all write at least one paragraph. The discipline keeps us moving ahead. We meet at a coffee shop, with free easy parking, at 11:30 a.m. sharp. If someone is late the others go on without her. The tardy one's work is considered last so if we run out of time before the 1:30 p.m. adjournment that person's work gets the least attention.

As you might expect, the monthly mystery writers group is much more relaxed. We meet in each other's homes, 7 ish and wrap up about 8:30 p.m. Snacks are served. There are no requirements on what we submit to the group and it's ok to show up with nothing. The discussion meanders as we brainstorm.

I've been in writers groups that fell apart. There were many reasons, as I recall. In one people routinely showed up late and unprepared. In another one member monopolized the discussion mostly trying to prop up her own ego. She didn't know what she was talking about. In another absenteeism for no good reason was a common theme.

Is it unusual to be in two writers groups? I don't know. Probably. But being in two makes me feel twice as accountable in my work.

What's your experience? Are you even in one? How many members do you have? How often, and where, do you meet? What is the most important rule of characteristic of your group?

Let us know, please.

I'd Love to Visit Your Book Club

By Judith Yates Borger, who's offering free ebook to any book club that sets up a Skype or FaceTime visit.

A writer friend refuses to visit book clubs because, she says, they tend to drink too much wine and grill her about why her character has premarital sex. Well, actually, it only happened once but it put her off book clubs forever.

I, on the other hand, love to visit with book clubs. In my little intro I tell them that I have very thick skin after working on newspapers where a good day was when only two people called me up swearing. I invite their criticism as well as their praise. They have never failed to heap on both, and I have learned from each comment. In fact, I made some changes in my second book, Whose Hand? because of comments about my first book, Where's Billie?

I've also learned there are a few key questions book club members ask every time:

Q: What is your writing routine?
A: I'm highly productive between 10 and 10:15 in the morning. The rest is slogging through mud.

Q: Was your car really blown up as portrayed in Where's Billie?
A: Yes, I wouldn't let that research go to waste.

Q: Are any members of your family characters in the book?
A: Note to my children: NO.

Q: Are any of your characters real people?
A: Lots of characters are an amalgamation of people I know or have met.

Q: How long did it take you to write the book(s)?
A: Start to publishing for Where's Billie? took three agents and seven years. For Whose Hand? it was about two years. I'm getting speedier.

Q: Do you get paid more with ebooks or paper books?
A: This is a classic Minnesotan question. What they really want to know is am I getting rich but they're too nice to ask directly. The answer is I get 70 percent royalty on ebooks, because I self publish them. I get five percent on paper books — about 80 cents for a $16.95 traditionally published book.  A reasonable follow up question here would be: Why in God's name do you work with a traditional publisher? But no one ever asks it.

Q: What is the husband in Where's Billie? doing? Fooling around? Out on assignment? Going through chemo? Then they often debate that point for up to 45 minutes.
A: Buy Whose Hand? and find out.

Three days ago I was asked: What will you be in five years?
A: Eligible for Medicare.

All of this is great, but my problem is I can't drive/fly/bus/take Amtrak many miles to visit book clubs. However, I'd really like to chat with readers from outside the Twin Cities. So ....

I'm offering  free ebooks of either Where's Billie? or Whose Hand?—your choice—to any book club willing to set up a time for me to visit  via Skype or FaceTime. Let's face it folks, the technology is there to reach out and touch someone face-to-face. Let's use it.

Email me at Judy@JudithYatesBorger.com to set up a date/time. I promise I'll be there. Go to my website, www.JudithYatesBorger.com, for descriptions of both books.

A Fragrant Crime Writer

Guest post by Denise Hamilton.

I’ve never been a ‘girly’ girl. 

In childhood I was the short-haired, freckle-faced tomboy who climbed trees, rode bikes with the neighborhood boys and went out for track, not cheerleading. As an adult, I don’t read fashion magazines or follow trends. I abhor shopping. My one concession to make-up is lipstick and I keep my nails blunt and unpolished.

So you can imagine how perplexed I was, some years ago, to find myself sliding, almost despite myself, down the fragrant rabbit hole into the world of perfume obsession.

Wait, I remember thinking. This is so girly. It’s not like me at all! What on earth has come over me? But I couldn’t stop.

It was like a fever. A journey of discovery. A secret that I didn’t want to confess for fear people would think me shallow and silly. I still don’t talk about it much outside of those who share my obsession. I’ve learned to beware of the overly bright smiles, quizzical looks, lets-humor-her nods and slow backing away at cocktail parties.

But I don’t mind admitting it here. My name is Denise, and I’m a perfumista.

I refuse to say how many bottles are in my collection. The bald truth is that I’ve got so many I have a hard time keeping track.  But I cherish each one and I’m conversant on notes you’ve probably never heard of: galbanum, petitgrain, oud, indole. When I bring out my perfumes - often for curious friends – I feel like Gollum caressing his precioussssss. It is both a source of pleasure and shame for me that I covet and lust after these perfumes with the same intensity of the dragon Smaug lolling atop his gold treasure.

Perfume is a simple fix of pleasure in a world that grows ever more complex and dark.To put it in words that any three-year-old can understand, perfume makes me happy.

How did I get here?

Well, my mother was a French-Russian émigrée who always kept a shelf of perfumes in the bathroom. As a kid, they were a source of endless mystery and exoticism to me. Many an afternoon, I would take each bottle down with great reverence, examining its curves and labels, then spritz and dab to my heart’s content.

So, from an early age, perfume imprinted on me. I was curious about smells and found I had a good – and sensitive nose. At 16, I was bewitched by a boy who wore Aramis and followed him around like a heartsick puppy just to sniff him. I always wore perfume too, but in a haphazard way: Anais Anais because I’d smelled it on a girl in an Amsterdam hostel; Grey Flannel, a (gasp!) men’s cologne, because it smelled good on a boy I knew; Chanel No. 5 and Cristalle as hand-me-downs from my mother; Halston and Obsession and Fendi because they were popular at college and later.

But it wasn’t until I found a bottle of Donna Karan’s Chaos at the Goodwill some years back that I embarked on studying perfume as an art form. Spraying a bit on, I found it too spicy and rich. Back home, the smell wafting from my wrist intrigued me so I googled it and was shocked to find that Chaos was discontinued, highly sought after and fetching hundreds of dollars on ebay.

So I ran back and bought it, but instead of selling it, I grew to love it and avidly researched the notes to see why this mysterious perfume with notes of oud, cardamom, cinnamon, lavender, wood and incense had captivated so many people.

That plunged me into the online world of perfume blogs and encyclopedic review sites like Basenotes.net. The more I researched and learned about perfume, the more captivated I became by its art. Here was something that engaged me both intellectually and sensually. Not only that, but there were sites online where I could buy tiny samples of rare, niche, discontinued and vintage perfumes and experience the world’s great classic perfumes — or the newest niche offerings—without breaking the bank.

When I sat down to write Damage Control, I decided to make my protagonist Maggie Silver a budding perfumista.

I gave her the Chaos-at-the-Goodwill story from my real life. I found myself writing about the smells of Los Angeles – the tantalizing garlic and chicken whiffs from a Cuban restaurant; the rosemary and sage-scented hills; the smoky forest fire odors that often wreathed L.A.; the salt tang of the sea; the coconut oil aroma of suntan lotion. And I made perfume a clue that would help Maggie solve the murder. For several weeks, I congratulated myself on this cleverness. Smell is the most overlooked of our five senses, and I’d found a completely unique way to incorporate it into my crime writing!

So imagine my surprise when a bit of research showed that crime writers as far back as the late 1920s had done the same thing. Authors such as S.S. Dine, Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming and Ruth Rendell have all written magnificently about perfume. (And then of course there’s the novel Perfume, which I highly recommend.

For a while, I was devastated.  My clever little plot twist was anything but. But eventually I got over it. If so many authors have done it, they must be on to something good. Besides, everyone tells their tale a different way. My plot, my voice, my denouement, would all be different.

And so I relaxed. And I kept sniffing, and writing about my perfume.

Eventually, the Los Angeles Times Magazine gave me a monthly column in which to muse about the world of perfume – for which I’m extremely grateful.

I’ve found a wonderful community of kindred spirits online and in real life. In fact, several other Mommies and me meet regularly outside my son’s middle school an hour before classes let out. There in my family mini-van, we open vials and huff and roll our eyes with pleasure as we pass around the Carons, Guerlains, Diors, Chanels, Serge Lutens, Dawn Spencer Hurwitzes and other treasures that we’ve stumbled across.

Lord knows what the neighbors, joggers and dog-walkers think. I fully expect to see a policeman peering into the window one day, asking us what kind of drugs we’re doing.

“Here,” I’ll say, handing him a vial of Creed’s Russian Leather.  Or maybe Gendarme by Carriere.

“What do you think?” I’ll ask. “Is it you?”

***

Denise Hamilton writes the nationally best-selling Eve Diamond crime novels featuring a reporter who solves murders in contemporary multicultural Los Angeles. Hamilton is also an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in Wired, Cosmopolitan, Der Spiegel and New Times. She writes a monthly perfume column for the Los Angeles Times called Uncommon Scents.

Thrillers vs. Mysteries



by Jodie Renner, editor, author, speaker

Thanks to the legacy of Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes mysteries), the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, Murder She Wrote, Colombo, and many other old favorites on-screen and in print, most of us are familiar with the mystery genre.

But what’s a thriller?

How are suspense-thrillers different from mysteries?

Both are fiction stories involving criminal activity, catching the bad guy(s), and at least one murder.

The main difference seems to be in the delivery—how they are told. Mysteries are usually more cerebral, like solving a puzzle, whereas thrillers appeal more to the emotions and a quest for excitement and dangerous situations. A mystery, especially a “cozy” one, can unfold in a leisurely fashion, but thrillers need to be much more fast-paced and suspenseful.

James N. Frey, author of How to Write a Damn Good Thriller and How to Write a Damn Good Mystery, among other “damn good” books on writing, says, “In the United States, mysteries are not considered to be thrillers, though they share some common elements.” Frey describes the differences like this:

“In a mystery, the hero has a mission to find a killer.

In a thriller, the hero has a mission to foil evil.”

Frey goes on to elaborate, “a thriller is a story of a hero who has a mission to foil evil. Not just a hero—a clever hero. Not just a mission—an ‘impossible’ mission. An ‘impossible’ mission that will put our hero into terrible trouble.”

According to International Thriller Writers (www.thrillerwriters.org), a thriller is characterized by “the sudden rush of emotions, the excitement, sense of suspense, apprehension, and exhilaration that drive the narrative, sometimes subtly with peaks and lulls, sometimes at a constant, breakneck pace. Thriller is a genre in which tough, resourceful, but essentially ordinary heroes are pitted against villains determined to destroy them, their country, or the stability of the free world. Part of the allure of thrillers comes from not only what their stories are about, but also how they are told. High stakes, nonstop action plot twists that both surprise and excite, settings that are both vibrant and exotic, and an intense pace that never lets up until the adrenaline-packed climax.” (Source: James N. Frey, How to Write a Damn Good Thriller)

David Morrell, best known for his debut 1972 novel First Blood, which was the basis for the successful Rambo films, and author of 28 thrillers, most recently, Shimmer and The Naked Edge, posed the question several years ago, “What is a Thriller?” He decided to explain the difference between thrillers and mysteries because “some readers evidently have a porous view of who-done-its, crime stories, action stories, suspense stories, thrillers, etc, and group them all together as mysteries."

Morrell and the International Thriller Writers organization don’t consider thrillers mysteries. “What is a thriller?” asks Morrell. “It is an encompassing term into which many crime, action, and suspense stories can be grouped. It applies to a variety of types: the legal thriller, the spy thriller, the action-adventure thriller, the medical thriller, the police thriller, the romantic thriller, the historical thriller, the political thriller, the religious thriller, the high-tech thriller, etc. New types are constantly being invented. What gives them their common ground is the intensity of the emotions they create, particularly those of apprehension and exhilaration of excitement and breathlessness. By definition, if thrillers do not thrill, they aren’t doing their job. Sometimes, they build rhythmically to a rousing climax. Other times, they start at top speed and never ease off.”

So, asks Morrell, “…what’s the difference between mysteries and thrillers? According to him, “One crucial distinction is that traditional mysteries appeal primarily to the mind and emphasize the logical solution to a puzzle. In contrast, thrillers strive for heightened emotions and emphasize the sensations of what might be called an obstacle race and a scavenger hunt. It’s not that thrillers don’t have ideas. […] But in broad terms, the contrast is between emotion and logic, between an urgent pace and a calm one. True, the two genres can merge if the scavenger hunt of a thriller involves solving a puzzle. But in a thriller, the goal of solving the puzzle is to excite the reader as much as to satisfy curiosity.” (David Morrell, www.crimespreemag.com)

Which do you prefer, mysteries or thrillers?

It probably depends on your mood, but personally, I much prefer the pure escapism and “pulse-pounding suspense” of thrillers.

Who are some of your favorite contemporary mystery writers?

How about your most-read thriller and romantic suspense writers?

Mine include Lee Child, Sandra Brown, Harlan Coben, Lisa Scottoline, Michael Connelly, Nora Roberts, James Patterson, Allison Brennan, Robert Crais, Lisa Jackson, Janet Evanovich, David Morrell, and Lisa Gardner. Who am I missing? Any recommendations?

Then there are the fast-paced mysteries that seem to straddle both genres.

For suspense-mysteries, I love LJ Sellers' page-turning Detective Jackson series. And maybe I should put Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar stories and Robert Crais’ Joe Pike and Elvis Cole stories into the hybrid category of suspense-mysteries, too. What do you think?  Any others you like that have elements of both?

What about your favorite thriller characters?

I love Robert Crais’ Joe Pike and Elvis Cole, Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar, Michael Connelly’s Mickey Haller and Harry Bosch, and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum and the two men in her life — both hunks!

Do you have any other favorite crime fiction characters to recommend?

Jodie Renner, a freelance fiction editor specializing in thrillers and other fast-paced fiction, has published two books to date in her series, An Editor’s Guide to Writing Compelling Fiction: WRITING A KILLER THRILLER and STYLE THAT SIZZLES & PACING FOR POWER (Silver Medalist in the FAPA Book Awards, 2013). Both titles are available in e-book and paperback.

For more info, please visit Jodie’s author website or editor website, or find her on Facebook or Twitter.

 

Multiple Personalities?

A guest post by Clare O'Donohue.

Clare O’Donohue is a freelance television writer and producer. She has worked worldwide on a variety of shows for Food Network,the History Channel, and truTV, among others. Missing Persons* marks the debut of the Kate Conway mystery series. She is also the author of The Lover’s Knot, A Drunkard’s Path, The Double Cross and The Devil’s Puzzle (Oct. 2011) in the Someday Quilts series. O’Donohue lives in Chicago, IL.


My first three books, all part of the Someday Quilts series, were light mysteries. People were murdered, sure, but it wasn’t anything to get upset about. My main character from that series, Nell Fitzgerald, is nosy but she’s polite. She makes quilts, she hangs out with a multi-generational group of woman, and she’s dating a guy that anyone would be happy to bring home to meet the folks.

My fourth book, Missing Persons*, features Kate Conway. Kate is nothing like Nell. In fact, my guess is she wouldn’t even like her. Kate is sarcastic and a little bitter. She covers her vulnerability with cynicism, and she isn’t afraid to lie or manipulate if it gets her what she wants.

One of the comments I’ve heard from friends, reviewers and fans of my first three books is that it’s hard to believe both series are written by the same person. If characters are extensions of the writer’s personality, my friends say, then I must have multiple personality disorder.

I’m fine with that. Just as I don’t think most actors want to play the same part their whole careers (except maybe Susan Lucci), I don’t think most writers want to write from the same point of view all the time. Even a series that goes on for years grows and changes, and the author introduces new characters that bring different life experiences, different attitudes, different methods of getting rid of a body….

And isn’t that the fun of it? I love my Nell character, and her genesis may be in my years of quilting and my fantasies about small town life, but she isn’t me. Kate shares my profession (TV producer) and a tendency to make a joke out of everything, but she isn’t me either.

My characters live in different places (Nell in the fictional small town of Archers Rest, and Kate in the very real Chicago) and they have different interests (Nell quilts with a group of close friends, Kate tries to avoid human contact through TV and take-out).

The fact that these women see the world through very different eyes, isn’t the hard part. It’s the fun part. Through my characters I can have new experiences, or relive old ones – I can be 26 again, worried about my career and sharing a first kiss, or I can be facing down the cop who thinks I might be a killer. I can be rude, virginal, angry, generous… I can be smarter than I actually am. And much, much braver. One mystery series couldn’t do or say everything I want, so why not have two?

Like a pretzel dipped in chocolate, the opposite tastes actually improve each other. Which only makes me wonder what perhaps a third series, with another new character could bring to the mix. Or a fourth….

My friends may be right. Maybe I do have multiple personality disorder.


*Tomorrow on Stuff and Nonsense, a review of Missing Persons. I also have a copy to give away to one person who comments here or on tomorrow's review. U.S. entries only, please. Deadline is midnight on Saturday, July 2nd.