More on guilt and chocolate

"The guilty think all talk is of themselves” Geoffrey Chaucer

JAN: Am I a little obsessed by the topic of guilt? Maybe. I'm going to talk more about misplaced and just plain silly guilt. Then, at the end of this post, I'm going to provide a payoff: A chocolate cake recipe that you can feel really guilty about.

Guilty because it's really heart-clogging rich, and guilty because its deceptively easy.

But that's justifiable guilt, let's get back to misplaced guilt.

The silliest guilt I feel is at the cash register. No matter what store I'm at -- CVS, the clothing store, the electronics store -- even if I've planned the entire purchase beforehand and have not gone overbudget,I feel a destinctive wave of guilt everytime I pay up. Like I'm injuring someone by spending my own money. (luckily, this doesn't happen when I make purchases online).

Even at the register, I don't feel badly enough to NOT buy the dress or shoes or month's supply of bath gel, mind you. Just enough to feel five or ten minutes of discomfort. I used to think I had somehow absorbed my mother's Depression Guilt (that's the GREAT DEPRESSION, not psychological depression.) But my eighteen-year-old son confessed to the exact same feeling in his stomach whenever he buys anything, so now I think maybe it's just some bad gene my mother passed to me, and I've passed onto my son.

I think some of us have acquired Environmental Guilt. I feel bad about tossing an old toaster oven instead of getting it fixed. I read once about a couple in New Jersey that devote their entire life to reusing everything so they don't add to waste disposal problem. Honestly, their whole mission in life was to have the smallest bag of weekly garbage. And then, there's Community Service guilt - We all know that one woman --yes, sorry, it's always a woman --who can't be happy unless she serves on every single town board and charity drive. How about the idiocyncratic guilts that go along with your job or your hobby? (I feel a little ping now and then when I call a tennis ball out -- was I right? Did it actually hit the line before it landed, and I didn't see it -- oh no!)

So I'm wondering, what's the stupidist thing you feel guilty about? And does confessing the guilt (not the sin) make it lose any of its power?

ROBERTA: I feel guilty about spending January in Florida while the rest of you are suffering up north--I'm working hard, really! (I know, your collective hearts are breaking for me:)

JAN: I'm crying real tears, Roberta. Not to increase your silly, misplaced guilt or anything, but do you realize it's snowing up here in New England, today. AGAIN???

HANK: I have a lot of t-shirts. You know, plain white ones and black ones. From, you know, the Gap, and JCrew. When they go on sale, I buy more. They're all stacked up in my closet shelves, still in their plastic wrappers. And when they go on sale, I'll buy still more. What if they stop making them? What if they change them? I think it's-- fashion guilt. I bet there are--oh, I feel too guilty to say how many there are. And no, Jan, I don't feel better telling you. I just feel more embarrassed. (Let me know if you hear of any sales.)

And job guilt? Are you kidding me? If I worked every minute of every day in my reporter job, it wouldn't be enough. I also have not-being-perfect guilt. And how about book-promotion guilt? For that, you need another 24 hours a day. On the other hand, how about doing-too-much guilt?

HALLIE: I've just passed a milestone...virtually all the 'work' I do now is writing or writing related. Predictably, I feel guilty about not looking for 'real' work--aka consistely paycheck-producing work. After years of being a freelance writer-for-hire and hustling for every gig, being completely self directed feels weird and sinful. And scary.

ROBERTA: Hallie, congratulations--it's about time! We're all going to be enriched by the things you write..._

JAN: And in the meantime, you can all be enriched by a single slice of this cake.

Jan's Chocolate Mint Cake recipe.
Take a box chocolate cake mix, follow the directions and make a single layer cake. I use a 8 inch cake pan that is fluted, but a regular 8 inch cake pan or a square brownie pan will also work.

While its baking, mix:

two tablespoons unsalted butter

two tablespoons cream or half and half

one teaspoon peppermint flavor

Optional: you can add two drops of green food coloring, but I think it looks better without the green.

one cup confectioners sugar

Melt btter, add the rest of incredients and stir into a paste.

Let cake cool about five or ten minutes, but not entirely. When it is still lukewarm, spread a thin layer of the mint icing over the top.

Melt one or two squares of semi-sweet baker's chocolate in 1 to 2 (respectively) tablespoons of unsalted butter.

Dribble over the icing while the cake is still warm.With a knife make decorative swirls.

Let cool and serve. Eat two pieces and feel really, really guilty.

Enjoy and try not to feel too guilty.

On Guilt

“Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway.”
Isabelle Holland

JAN: I'm fascinated by guilt, in part because it is so destructive, but also because I've known and profiled a few sociopaths. The complete absence of guilt is startling. You can actually see the ability to feel guilt missing from someone's eyes.I used to think I always felt guilty because I was Irish-Catholic, but I'm starting to think it's just an inborn trait. A tendency to self-criticism. Too much of that tendency is self-destructive. Too little and you can destroy others with abandon.Anyway, murder mysteries are all about guilt, right? Only I find that I use guilt more in the creation of my protagonist, Hallie Ahern, than in the creation of my bad guys.

In past books, Hallie has wrestled with the lines she crosses in journalism to complete her investigation. In this book, she is wrestling with the lines of humanity she crosses to do her job as a journalist.I know Hallie Ephron wrote an entire mystery entitled Guilt, and will have a lot to offer on this topic. But I'm also wondering how everyone else makes literary use of the incredible power of guilt.

RO: I've got the Catholic thing, too, so guilt is a part of my life. I feel guilty about something every day (I'm really revealing all of my neuroses in this blog, aren't I?)- even if it's something as small as not sending a thank you note fast enough. (Thank you Alice and Alison...the notes are coming.)Perhaps that's the reason my characters are remarkably guilt-free. Maybe that's my fantasy...the way nebbish-y guys write superheroes.Since I write cozies, I haven't dealt with hardened criminals yet. My bad guys seem to fall into the amoral greed-lust-revenge crowd, and - at least as I've created them - they have the ability to do what they think must be done unfettered by anything as annoying as guilt.

ROBERTA: I'm with Jan on this one though I was raised a white-bread Presbyterian. Even so, I generally feel guilty about everything and my protagonists do as well! It is a real motivator: Let something go long enough and the guilty feelings start to snowball until that item finally gets moved up the list. I think the kind of guilt we're talking about is related to feeling privileged too. Is is possible to feel lucky and happy without that underlying sense of guilt? The villains in my books tend to have some pressing need or grudge that feels strong enough to completely overwhelm any sense of guilt.

HANK: Guilt. On one end of the spectrum is feeling one "ought to be" doing something because of responsibility in a relationship, to society, to a job, to a loved one--but instead, they do something else.Something, probably, that's bound up with one of the other prime motivators, selfishness. But still, if I use frozen brown rice for dinner instead of making the 45-minute kind, or if I don't fold the fitted sheets perfectly because it's too much of a pain, or if I leave work the tiniest bit early because I want to work on my book--yeah, I feel twinges of guilt. But not GUILTY.

On the other hand..when the human foible selfishness twists and morphs into greed and vengeance and it outpaces responsibility and morality--then guilt turns to guilty. As in--the one who becomes the bad guy.And I think what makes the best bad guys so interesting is that they can all tell you a reason why they've decided whatever they're doing is okay. I love the moment in a mystery when you find out whodunnit--but whydunnit is more interesting and certainly more fun to write when you're creating a character. When the reader finds the 'why'--and suddenly all those clues that have been so carefully laid out in the 300 pages before click together like a Rubik's cube and you see the real picture--that's very satisfying. Because then you've got a real person.

HALLIE: Exactly! Guilt is what the villain in a mystery novel doesn't feel, because from his/her point of view, there were utterly compelling reasons for the and it HAD TO BE done. Whereas the rest of us feel overwhelming guilt for all sorts of things over which we, in fact, have absolutely no control (our children's unhappiness, the price of fish...) What I'm fascinated by, from a plotting point of view, is the difference between guilt and shame. Characters feel compelled to hide whatever it is that causes them guilt or shame, and secrets are the lifeblood of a mystery novel.

WE LOVE YOU, PATRY FRANCIS

We need to tell you three things:

1. Patry Francis' paperback version of her wonderful book is out. Right now. The hardback of her 'Liar's Diary' is already getting wild acclaim and rave reviews. And you probably have read it. But even if you have, please buy another copy. And one for a pal. And one for another pal.

2. She'd do the same for you, she really would. She's that wonderful, that caring, that devoted, that honorable, that unique.

3. And now, she's going to survive a bout with a really nasty cancer. She can beat it.

But she can't be on the promo road for the paperback Liar's Diary and be winning the cancer war at the same time. So, as we said. Go buy some books.

In fact, why not buy one for yourself and one for a friend? And if you like it, tell people!
Here are links to THE LIAR'S DIARY at Amazon,https://mail.whdh.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.amazon.com/Liars-Diary-Patry-Francis/dp/0452289157/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8%26s=books%26qid=1201406501%26sr=8-1 You can also buy directly from Penguin to save 15% (after you add the book to your cart, just enter the word PATRY in the coupon code field and click ‘update cart’ to activate the discount). Or go to your favoite bookstore. And ask 'em to sell the heck out of it.

Here's Patry at Crime Bake, before any of us knew her bad news. That's her on the left, smiling like there's nothing wrong. And the rest of us, (Patry, me (Hank Phillippi Ryan) Joe Finder, Kate Flora, Dorothy Cannell and Chuck Hogan) happy to be there, without a clue what was happening to our dear colleague.

After being introduced on line by our mutual pal Amy MacKinnon, I met Patry in person at her first--maybe her first?--reading for Liar's Diary. It was at the wonderful Porter Square books, and she admitted she was terrified. This incredibly talented author, and genius poet, was afraid, she whispered, to speak in front of people. Now you have to imagine, theres a room full of friends and family and fans. And our dear Patry has stage fright. Her loving and wonderfully supportive husband was there to cheer her on. And as it of course turned out, she was terrific.

She told me about her history, and her....well, you should read about it first hand. Not from me. Visit her blog...to be transported into a world where imagination and joy reign. http://www.patryfrancis.com/

But first: click over to Amazon or Penquin and buy the book.

Here are the publisher's words about the Liars Diary:
Answering the question of what is more powerful—family or friendship? this debut novel unforgettably shows how far one woman would go to protect either.

They couldn't be more different, but they form a friendship that will alter both their fates. When Ali Mather blows into town, breaking all the rules and breaking hearts (despite the fact that she is pushing forty), she also makes a mark on an unlikely family. Almost against her will, Jeanne Cross feels drawn to this strangely vibrant woman, a fascination that begins to infect Jeanne’s “perfect” husband as well as their teenaged son.

At the heart of the friendship between Ali and Jeanne are deep-seated emotional needs, vulnerabilities they have each been recording in their diaries. Ali also senses another kind of vulnerability; she believes someone has been entering her house when she is not at home—and not with the usual intentions. What this burglar wants is nothing less than a piece of Ali’s soul.
When a murderer strikes and Jeanne’s son is arrested, we learn that the key to the crime lies in the diaries of two very different women . . . but only one of them is telling the truth. A chilling tour of troubled minds, The Liar’s Diary signals the launch of an immensely talented new novelist who knows just how to keep her readers guessing.

And now, here are Patry's words, straight from her blog: "Though my novel deals with murder, betrayal, and the even more lethal crimes of the heart, the real subjects of THE LIAR'S DIARY are music, love, friendship, self-sacrifice and courage. The darkness is only there for contrast; it's only there to make us realize how bright the light can be. I'm sure that most writers whose work does not flinch from the exploration of evil feel the same."

I hope you've met Patry. If you have, you may not have gotten this far on the blog because you're out buying her book. That's great. If you haven't met her--seek her out the next ime you're at a conference. Tell her you're glad she's well, and writing, and that we missed her while she was in the hospital.

Then get her to autograph the books you bought today.

Get well soon, Patry.

With much love

Hank and Hallie and Rosemary and Roberta and Jan

On Guilt Again

“Guilt is the price we pay willingly for doing what we are going to do anyway.” Isabelle Holland

JAN: I'm fascinated by guilt, in part because it is so destructive, but also because I've known and profiled a few sociopaths. The complete absence of guilt is startling. You can actually see the ability to feel guilt missing from someone's eyes.

I used to think I always felt guilty because I was Irish-Catholic, but I'm starting to think it's just an inborn trait. A tendency to self-criticism. Too much of that tendency is self-destructive. Too little and you can destroy others with abandon.

Anyway, murder mysteries are all about guilt, right? Only I find that I use guilt more in the creation of my protagonist, Hallie Ahern, than in the creation of my bad guys. In past books, Hallie has wrestled with the lines she crosses in journalism to complete her investigation. In this book, she is wrestling with the lines of humanity she crosses to do her job as a journalist.

I know Hallie Ephron wrote an entire mystery entitled Guilt, and will have a lot to offer on this topic. But I'm also wondering how everyone else makes literary use of the incredible power of guilt.

RO: I've got the Catholic thing, too, so guilt is a part of my life. I feel guilty about something every day (I'm really revealing all of my neuroses in this blog, aren't I?)- even if it's something as small as not sending a thank you note fast enough. (Thank you Alice and Alison...the notes are coming.)Perhaps that's the reason my characters are remarkably guilt-free. Maybe that's my fantasy...the way nebbish-y guys write superheroes.

Since I write cozies, I haven't dealt with hardened criminals yet. My bad guys seem to fall into the amoral greed-lust-revenge crowd, and - at least as I've created them - they have the ability to do what they think must be done unfettered by anything as annoying as guilt.

ROBERTA: I'm with Jan on this one though I was raised a white-bread Presbyterian. Even so, I generally feel guilty about everything and my protagonists do as well! It is a real motivator: Let something go long enough and the guilty feelings start to snowball until that item finally gets moved up the list. I think the kind of guilt we're talking about is related to feeling privileged too. Is is possible to feel lucky and happy without that underlying sense of guilt? The villains in my books tend to have some pressing need or grudge that feels strong enough to completely overwhelm any sense of guilt.

HANK: Guilt. One one end of the spectrum is feeling one "ought to be" doing something because of responsibility in a relationship, to society, to a job, to a loved one--but instead, they do something else.

Something, probably, that's bound up with one of the other prime motivators, selfishness. But still, if I use frozen brown rice for dinner instead of making the 45-minute kind, or if I don't fold the fitted sheets perfectly because it's too much of a pain, or if I leave work the tiniest bit early because I want to work on my book--yeah, I feel twinges of guilt. But not GUILTY.

On the other hand..when the human foible selfishness twists and morphs into greed and vengeance and it outpaces responsibility and morality--then guilt turns to guilty. As in--the one who becomes the bad guy.

And I think what makes the best bad guys so interesting is that they can all tell you a reason why they've decided whatever they're doing is okay. I love the moment in a mystery when you find out whodunnit--but whydunnit is more interesting and certainly more fun to write when you're creating a character. When the reader finds the 'why'--and suddenly all those clues that have been so carefully laid out in the 300 pages before click together like a Rubik's cube and you see the real picture--that's very satisfying. Because then you've got a real person.

HALLIE: Exactly! Guilt is what the villain in a mystery novel doesn't feel, because from his/her point of view, there were utterly compelling reasons for the and it HAD TO BE done. Whereas the rest of us feel overwhelming guilt for all sorts of things over which we, in fact, have absolutely no control (our children's unhappiness, the price of fish...) What I'm fascinated by, from a plotting point of view, is the difference between guilt and shame. Characters feel compelled to hide whatever it is that causes them guilt or shame, and secrets are the lifeblood of a mystery novel.

ON GOOD NEWS

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.
**Stephen King


It's BSP Day on Anything Can Happen Friday.
We're so delighted with all the good news you sent us! Congratulations to all from Jungle Red Writers. And keep us posted. We love to hear the latest.....

Elizabeth Zelvin's debut mystery, DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER, will hit bookstores on April 15. That's just around the corner, especially if you haven't started working on your taxes yet. The book is available for pre-order at online bookstores and some bookseller websites. And everybody in New York is invited to the launch party at Otto Penzler's Mysterious Bookshop, says the veteran psychotherapist and addictions professional author. It's not just Liz's launch date and Income Tax Day--it's also her birthday.

http://www.elizabethzelvin.com/

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Murder On The Mind, by L.L. Bartlett
The mind is a complex entity; it can play strange tricks. Jeff Resnick's recurrent visions of a slaughtered buck take on terrible new meaning when a local banker is found in the same condition. Jeff sets out to find the killer--no matter what the personal stakes.
Dead In Red, 2nd in the series, debuts June 2008
http://tinyurl.com/3yp5xv

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Keep an eye out for the first book in Sarah Atwell's Glassblowing Mystery Series, appearing in March 2008! In Through a Glass, Deadly, glassblower Emmeline Dowell has made a home for herself among the artists of Tucson's Warehouse District. Between teaching her craft and selling her wares, Em has plenty to do–not to mention the occasional murder to put a crack in her routine. (Berkley Prime Crime, ISBN 978-0425220474)
(Sarah Atwell is the pen name of Sheila Connolly, whose Orchard Mystery series will appear in August.)

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From: Earl Merkel
My new website at Redroom.com: Where The Writers Are?? is now up and running with several audio interviews I've done for a talk-radio show I co-hosted and produced-- one of them involving Mr. Larry Block, MMA Grand Master.
On this audio segment, Lawrence Block talks about his work as a mystery-writing legend, his writing habits, and the ageless tips he first provided in his ageless writing guide TELLING LIES FOR FUN AND
PROFIT.
Another features Neil Gaiman (ANANSI BOYS, AMERICAN GODS) talking about his novels, graphic novels, screenplays... and the system he uses when he writes in collaboration.
What both writers share about their writing and their insights into the world of books is, I believe, well worth the listen.
They're available at http://www.redroom.com/author/earl-merkel
along with some other interesting stuff (including interviews with Alice Walker and Martin J. Smith, neither of whom write mysteries-- but are mysteriously intriguing in their own ways.)
For those in DL who are among the writers I'll be taping interviews with at next week's LOVE IS MURDER conference, you'll also find out just how crazy some of these segments can be.
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Felicia Donovan, author of THE BLACK WIDOW AGENCY series, continues her fundraising efforts on behalf of the Greater Squamscott Womenade . This dedicated group of women works tirelessly to provide grass roots assistance to neighbors in crisis or who have reached a stumbling block in their lives, without the complexity of red tape. Assistance can go towards things like groceries, automobile repairs, prescriptions and the like. Felicia is donating a portion of the proceeds from every book sold between Oct. 1, 2007 and Oct. 1, 2008. "Women helping other women is a subject very near and dear to the Black Widows' hearts," Donovan said. "It's a perfect fit to send the message that women are empowered when they help each other out." For more information, please visit Felicia Donovan's website at http://www.feliciadonovan.com/ .
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Susannah Charleson's SCENT OF THE MISSING, chronicling the author's adventures with her golden retriever as members of an elite Texas-based canine search and rescue team, taking readers from the wreckage of the space shuttle Columbia to the cold trail of a girl gone missing, to the trials and joys of living with a gifted search dog who isn't especially well suited to the role of obedient house pet, has sold to Houghton Mifflin for hardcover release in 2009.

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From: Jeffrey Cohen
SOME LIKE IT HOT-BUTTERED, the first in the Double Feature Mystery series (Berkley Prime Crime, ISBN: 042521799X) has been nominated for the Lefty Award for Most Humorous Mystery, to be presented at the Left Coast Crime conference in Denver on March 8. And that the second in the series, IT HAPPENED ONE KNIFE, will be available July 1. And I'm tickled to death about both those things.


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Betty Webb's new Lena Jones mystery, DESERT CUT, will be released February 10. Like all the Lena Jones books, it's set in the desert near Phoenix, Arizona, and this time, takes an entirely new look at immigration issues. As a journalist, Betty came across some information that shocked even her.
But for the cozy crowd, Betty is delighted to announce that an entirely new series of hers will hit bookstores early next year (March, 2009). "The Anteater of Death," is just the first. The books are all set in a California zoo, and star a new protagonist -- a non-neurotic zoo keeper who lives on a boat. These books will NOT be as dark as the Lena Jones books. Instead, they're actually cozies! And because they're so warm and fuzzy, Betty's editor at Poisoned Pen Press wants her to use a pen name, so Lena Jones fans won't get a nasty shock (well, a warm and fuzzy shock). So next year, be on the lookout for "The Anteater of Death," by Jo Howell -- Betty's new pen name.
Website at http://www.bettywebb-mystery.com/Blog at http://bloggingwebb.blogspot.com/

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From Jessica Park Conant and Susan Conant:
The Gourmet Girl returns to solve the murder of one bad egg when TURN UP THE HEAT, the third book in the Gourmet Girl series, arrives on March 4th.
Chloe Carter has a lot on her plate-exams for grad school are coming up, and her chef boyfriend needs her support as his fledgling trendy restaurant comes into its own. The staff of Simmer gets along like petits pois in a pod, everyone pulling pranks on one another now and then. Everyone, that is, except for Leandra, a waitress who treats the busboys like chopped liver-and can never take a joke. One morning, Leandra's dead body is found in a fish truck. So people start to wonder:
was this just a prank gone awry? Or did somebody actually want her to sleep with the fishes?
************************************ From Clea Simon:
OK, it's not much of a contest, but sort of...
I'm looking for ideas for the title of my next mystery and somehow I seem to have run out of cat pun/literary references. There are countless "claws/clause" variations I can use for a legal angle, but nothing is clicking yet. And while I love "Bright Lights, Big Kitty," I can't quite make that work either.
Anyway, I'm taking suggestions over at my blog - http://cleasimon.blogspot.com/ . If I choose yours, I'll send you a signed book and thank you in the acknowledgments. (Final title approval is up to my publisher, but if I like it, I'll send you the books and thank you anyway.)

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Pari Noskin Taichert will have the launch party for her third Sasha Solomon novel, THE SOCORRO BLAST, in Albuquerque this weekend. She'll be busy for the next few months with book signings throughout the West (and Alabama).
For more info: http://www.parinoskintaichert.com/

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I will be appearing on panels at Love Is Murder in Chicago the first weekend of February, Murder in the Magic City in Birmingham, AL the second weekend, and the Smyrna, TN library for SINC authors the last weekend of the month to speak about my new book, Fifty-Seven Heaven.
Lonnie Cruse
http://www.lonniecruse.com/

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The large-print edition of Beth Groundwater's A REAL BASKET CASE wasreleased by Wheeler Publishing on January 22nd, she signed the contractfor the sequel, TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET, last month and it will bereleased in early 2009, and her VIRTUAL DEATH manuscript is asemi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest and can be readand reviewed at: https://mail.whdh.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0011ZCAME.

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From: Ayn Hunt
I'm being interviewed Friday, Jan. 25th by Melissa Alvarez on her radio show on the Net from 11 to 12 noon EST at http://blogtalkradio.com/MelissaAlvarez We'll be talking about a few paranormal things like the ghost who took up residence at our house when I was writing my first Gothic about ghosts LOL. Talk about first hand experience! And we'll also be talking about my other books and my life down here in Texas as well.
The call-in number for anyone who'd like to ask questions or make comments is 347-215-8473. Thanks!
Ayn Hunt also writing as Ayn Amorelli
Author of Unwilling Killers, Obsessed, The Haunting and
Contract Bride
www.AuthorsDen.com/aynhunt
www.GottaWriteNetwork.com/aynamorelli

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Ken Isaacson’s SILENT COUNSEL was nominated for the Arty Award for best cover art on a mystery published in 2007, to be awarded at Left Coast Crime in March. The New Jersey attorney reports that the book has been doing exceedingly well, hanging in there this month on Amazon’s list of Bestselling Legal Thrillers behind only Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and John Grisham’s soon-to-be released THE APPEAL. He tells us that SILENT COUNSEL has gone into its second printing. Check out his TV interview on Good Day Arizona at www.KenIsaacson.com/GDAZ_Video.htm, listen to his radio interview on WBTC Talk Radio at www.KenIsaacson.com/WBTC.htm, or hear him read a chilling excerpt from SILENT COUNSEL at www.KenIsaacson.com/Excerpt.htm .

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You’re invited to join Rosemary Harris to celebrate the publication of Pushing Up Daisies
The first in The Dirty Business Mystery series from St. Martin's Minotaur

February 5, 2008, 7pm
Wine, nibbles, & dirty(business) martinis
Partners & Crime
44 Greenwich Avenue
New York City
212-243-0440
RSVP Hector.DeJean@stmartins.com

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Got Friends? Have them stop by the comments section--we'd be happy to include them. Should we do it again? Let us know!

ON WHAT WE CARRY

Boy, youre going to carry that weight,

Carry that weight a long time

**Paul McCartney

HANK: I was looking for my little black notebook, the one I use to collect all the fabulous words and observations that are certainly going to make my next book into a blockbuster, and I couldn't find it. I couldn't find it because it was lost in the black hole of my purse, buried among two black pouches (for bandaids, earrings, advil, library cards, unused gift cards, stamps, a safety pin and a lipstick in case I lose my other lipstick), a black makeup bag, a black checkbook, a black calendar, a couple of black glasses cases, and well, you get the picture. So I was going to ask you all, and I still will, about what you carry. And why.

And then, as so often happens, the world provided something else along those lines . The incredibly talented Jonathan Soroff, who does the interviews for the Improper Bostonian(a Boston alternative magazine), did a story on what the teenaged debs at the Boston coming out cotillion, the "WINTER BALL" carried in their tiny dressy handbags.

And wow. The book ideas came spilling out. Here, from Jonathan's article:

Deb #1: a cell phone, a fake ID, lip gloss, an extra set of false eyelashes and a bit of cash.

Deb #2: cash, a fake ID, a real ID, a cell phone, lip gloss, a diamond bracelet and a pearl necklace

Deb #3: a pack of Parliaments, a pink lighter, a cell phone, cash.

Deb#4: a camera, phone, hotel, fake ID, and Adderall

Deb #5: wouldn't say.

What's in your purse? (An *extra* set of false eyelashes?)What's in your main character's purse? How important is what they carry?

ROBERTA: Well now I really want to know what's in Deb #5's little bag!

Funny thing, I just wrote a scene in which Rebecca Butterman's purse is snatched. She very foolishly chases the perpetrator down an alley, when the strap on her purse breaks and all her stuff scatters at the foot of a dumpster. So I can tell you exactly what's in there: Sunglasses, Palm pilot, pens, lip gloss, wallet, tampons, comb, cell phone...not a diamond bracelet or pearl necklace to be found! You can see she's a practical sort of woman.

A friend asked me this week whether I'd ever gotten into buying fancy bags to match my outfits. Not a chance--just one big clunky back-saver that doesn't really go with anything. But that's certainly another kind of detail that could reveal character, right?

JAN: My protagonist, Hallie Ahern, is definitely too unstylish to carry a designer bag, real purse or laptop tote. She drags around an unsightly backpack which is an important part of her journalistic life.Inside? Notebooks, pens, wallet, Chronicle ID and cardkey, her cell phone, breathmints, files, sometimes saltines, and a digital recorder to capture "ambient sound" for the website. But it all spills out, and whatever she needs is rarely there when she needs it.

My own purse is somewhat smaller, although still in the large category. I carry sunglases, breathmints, wallet, checkbook, keys, Advil, small notebook, cell phone,an IPOD, and a PDA I almost never remember to use. I have dreams of being organized and prepared. Pipe dreams.

RO: When I saw the title for this blog I was reminded of a really great book called The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Vietnam story, very powerful. No debs as far as I can remember.

HANK: I thought of it too, Ro. And my Dad told me he carried a little book of poetry with him all though World War Two. (Which included the Battle of the Bulge and a prison camp.) He says it was to remind him there was still beauty in the world. And that's kind of why I thought of it all...it could certainly reveal character. Even if character is pack rat. Or paranoid.

ROSEMARY: Paula Holliday, my heroine, is a backpack kind of gal. She, like me, carries a cell phone, but, kind of, under protest. (Ask anyone who's ever called my cell...it's rarely turned on.)But she's also likely to be hauling around ziplock baggies, Felco nippers, two pairs of garden gloves, and a magnifying glass to look at bugs.

Like Hank, I have a collection of squarish black things, none of which is ever the one I'm aiming for when I fish around in my black hole of a handbag. Apart from the usual suspects - phone, wallet, card case, camera, Ipod, and makeup case (black, of course)I carry two Tibetan protection mandalas that my sister gave me when I climbed Kili. They worked, so I carry them everywhere.

HANK: That's very hip, Ro. I have a good luck coin that came from...well, another story. But my purse weighs, I bet, 15 pounds. I cannot leave it behind. So I wondered, wht's making it so heavy? Besides my wallet and a little black pouch of stuff, I just counted 10 pencils, 6 pens, a stack of bookmarks for Face Time, a 2007 calendar, a 2008 calendar, my notebook, a stack of gift cards just in case I run out of money, a checkbook, business card case, a little bag of almonds, gum, those listerine breath strips, car keys, house keys, a makeup bag that you don't even wanna know what's in, a little flashlight..should I go on?

Is there a way to ditch all this? I try to think of it as a kind of weightlifting exercise.

Oh and PS--oops. We didn't mean "anything can happen Friday" to include nothing happening. Our bad. But watch this space--in fact, check the comments on Wednesday for what's going to happen Friday. Newly published or soon to be published mystery authors? Better visit JR!

Taste

HALLIE: Eyeliner reveals character. It's all in the details. Put a character on the page wearing frayed cutoffs and flip-flops, her hair pulled back in a red plaid scrunchy, and you've got a very different vibe going from a character in pencil thin pants, gold stiletto sandals, her hair cut short and spikey. Pick the telling detail and you don't have to "tell" the reader a thing.

Food can do the same thing. One character gets depressed, she polishes off a half-dozen Godiva truffles, another character fights the blues with a box of Ritz crackers slathered in Peter Pan peanut butter.

So what do the foods you have them eat say about your characters...and you?

ROBERTA: Cassie Burdette, the protagonist in my golf mysteries, never did learn to eat well. Or to cook. Tons of readers commented on the junk food, the fried food, the hamburgers, the beer. The only recipe she was ever quoted as cooking had canned beans and sliced hot dogs as its main ingredients. Her eating style definitely reflected her youth and a self-destructive tendency.

My advice columnist character, Dr. Rebecca Butterman, is a gourmet cook who uses food and cooking to calm herself down, help herself think, and overcome any incoming bad news. My husband is pleased that she's brought my standard of cooking up quite a bit too! I have to try out new recipes in order to write about them, right?

JAN:I love to cook and am always trying out new recipes, but I never eat when I'm nervous. My protaganist Hallie Ahern is usually under a lot of pressure as the story closes in around her, so rarely does she eat. In fact, in a version of an early book, one of my editor/readers commented that Hallie almost seemed anorexic, so I had to go back and give her a meal or two. Now that she's got her life together a bit more, she eats better. But since her character is still single-minded and career driven, usually her boyfriend Matt cooks. Left on her own, she often eats a buttered Pop Tart for dinner.

I chose Pop-Tarts both because I love them(brown sugar cinnamon) and because as a main course, they show a certain recklessness.

HANK: Oh, I love brown sugar cinnamon pop tarts, but I don't eat them anymore. Sigh. Neither does Charlie McNally. Co, um, incidentally, Charlie is kind of calmly obsessed about her eating. And it's built in to her TV reporter job, because TV does indeed add ten pounds. So there are scenes where she extracts croutons from a salad, and eats a hamburger without the bun. And of course she lives on coffee.

Once, though, I had written myself into a corner. There needed to be some tension, but low-level, you know? Personal. So I made Charlie really really really hungry. Then as I went back into the chapter, I realized I had already tucked in several times when she ALMOST got to have a turkey sandwich without the bread, ALMOST got to have an apple, ALMOST got to have low-carb lasagne. And she wound up eating a fistful of almonds in the car. And that was a fun way of introducing her eating habits and her work habits at the same time. I deliberately had her producer, Franklin, be able to eat anything. And what's more, he eats it very neatly. Franklin eats onion rings with a fork. And his fried clam roll doesn't leak. Charlie is more prone to drip balsamic vinaigrette on her blouse. She eats in a hurry. So even how food behaves can be illustrative. And how and when someone *doesn't* eat.

Okay, now I'm hungry.

HALLIE: Food is also a great stand-in for sex. But that's another column...

On Libraries & Librarians

Ro: This week I'm in Philadelphia preparing for the American Library Association's MidWinter meeting. Twenty-five mystery writers from MWANY will be meeting and greeting librarians from all over the country.

Almost every writer I know has a favorite library or librarian story. Tell us yours. In the meantime here's one from best-selling author Clea Simon

Clea: How do I love libraries? Let me count the ways. While I was researching my last nonfiction book, “The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats,” I saw a mention on a TV special of a study done in England on predation by cats in a small West Country village. Seriously. Being the tech savvy girl that I am, I immediately went online to find it. Well, I did. In German. Which I do not speak. And when I tried the Google “translator” the result was wildly humorous, but not at all useful.

So I went down to my local brick-and-mortar (or, this being Cambridge with its beautiful 19th Century H.H. Richardson Romanesque castle of a library, hewn-stone-and-mortar) library and explained my predicament to one of the librarians. “No problem,” she said to me. “But it may take a few days.” Within two days, she had the original journal article – in English – copied for me. Once again, I was reminded that electrons in the ether are still easily trumped by human ingenuity, know-how, and (I suspect) a phone call from one research librarian to another, perhaps overseas. I thanked her profusely, and in the “Feline” acknowledgments, but it hardly seems enough.

I wish I could drop by my local library tomorrow, seek out that librarian and thank her again. But for now, I can’t. My library is being renovated – its beautiful lawn with the names of great Greek thinkers set in stone, its Japanese peace garden, and its shady walks are all torn up, replaced by a construction site that looks more like a crime scene. There is hope: The copper beach, such a pleasure to read under, is still standing. And all the plans posted along the makeshift fence promise everything else will soon be back, perhaps as early as this summer. But until then, it’s a mess, more than half the books in storage, accessible through a temporary library housed in a nearby school. And that’s not the same, somehow, and I miss my library something fierce.

So when I was asked to contribute to a small volume by local writers celebrating the return of our library – oh, soon, I hope! – I wrote a mini-mystery featuring a local cat, who waits under that tree, and waits and waits for the day her book-borrowing friends will come back. I guess at heart I am that cat, waiting and hoping. How could I not?

Neither libraries nor librarians figure in my current full-length mystery series, in “Cries and Whiskers,” “Cattery Row,” or “Mew is for Murder.” The heroine of these books, Theda Krakow, knows how to research, but as a freelance music journalist. One of her best buddies, Bunny, works in a newspaper library – aka the “morgue – but while she invariably helps Theda dig up useful and interesting background tidbits, she hasn’t had a huge part in the action. Not yet. But in a nonseries book that I’m working on, my grad student heroine spends much of her time in Widener, the main Harvard College library. It’s a place I came to know and love during my undergrad years, and I’ve recently signed up for an alumna pass so I can revisit the scene of my youth – and figure out where exactly a killer would hide. I have very mixed emotions about setting a scary chase scene in a library. But, hey, mysteries all resolve, so I won’t be chasing anyone out of the stacks, will I? Maybe a little bit of suspense will just lure more of us in to that wonderful world, a mystery of its own.

Clea Simon is the author of the Theda Krakow mysteries, most recently “Cries and Whiskers,” and three nonfiction books. She can be reached at http://www.cleasimon.com

ON EPIPHANIES

Epiphany: A sudden intuitive perception of or insight into reality or the essential meaning of something often initiated by a simple commonplace occurrence.



****The Random House Collegiate Dictionary


RO: I also refer to epiphanies as St. Paul moments. Not that I'm religious - I just like the image of someone falling off his jackass and "getting it" whatever "it" is. In this past year leading up to the publication of my first book, I've fallen off my jackass a bunch of times. I'm not sure what I've learned, but here are a few possibilities.
1.I'm thrilled to be getting published, it's a start, not an end.
2.If things work out for me, great. If they don't, it isn't the publisher's fault. Or Barnes & Noble's. Or Dan Brown's.
3.I love everyone who takes the time to read my book.
What have you learned this year?

JAN:
That....1. Opportunity comes when you least expect it.
2. Whether you call it prayer or positive energy or simply intention, it can make a difference.
3. Whether its writing, music, tennis, baseball or even buying the right gift, for me, it's all about the story.

HANK:
1. You never know if something that happens is "good" or "bad" until later. And even then it can change. So I try to just decide it's a good thing and go from there.
2. Worrying never helps.
3. My books mean so much to me it's impossible to have predicted or explain. Even my books that don't exist yet.
4. Ditto to Rosemary's number 3.
5. My hair doesn't always have to look perfect.

HALLIE:
I'll believe Hank's #5 when I see her with a strand of hair out of place.
The big epiphany for me is the one that whispers, "Move on already!" until you can't outshout or ignore it. This is especially difficult when you've done something really hard, like write a novel and sold it to a mainstream publisher, and then written another in the series, and another...and then a) the novels are a) good but not remarkable, or b) so-so successful or c) you just get tired of writing that same-old same-old but-slightly-different, or... it's time to grab yourself by the earlobes and yank. "Same" is safer and easier, but "different" is ripe with possibilities. It's especially hard because the mantras that got many of us where we are is "stick with it" and "don't give up"--it's true that a main difference between a published and unpublished writer is that the published one refused to cave in the face of rejection. But there is a time to move on, to step off into the abyss. Then dig in, pat yourself on the back for your courage, and hope you won't live to regret it. This year I took that leap--look for the results, "Baby, Baby," a psychological suspense novel from HarperCollins in Winter 2009.

ROBERTA:
First of all, hooray for Hallie! Okay, here are some things I may have learned.
1. It's the job of bookstores to sell books, but not just MY books.
2. Push hard, but also know when to back off.
3. You've got to have friends! Truly, that's the gift I never anticipated when I started this whole crazy business--the number of smart, funny, dedicated (driven even), lovely writer types I would meet and enjoy along the way. Not to mention the lovely people who have bought and read my books!

JRW: So what have you all learned? Or hope you've learned?

**BREAKING NEWS!**

Face Time, the second in Hank's Charlotte McNally Mysteries, has been named a Book Sense NOTABLE BOOK for January 2008! Thank you so much to Dede Gallagher of Book Ends of Winchester MA http://www.bookendswinchester.com/ for nominating Face Time--she called it "a fast moving and tense mystery" and said "Ryan tells the tale with highpowered energy." (Yay for the independent booksellers and Book Sense. And Hank is beyond thrilled.)

Where do YOUR babies come from?

“It may come as a surprise to those who don’t care for my work that I’d hardly ever doubted the significance of any idea I’d had, and I’d had very few ideas. I’d written twelve finished works. I’d had fourteen ideas.” Jane Smiley

“I have an idea once every 19 years…” Overheard on NPR


ROBERTA: A couple of months ago, I spent the weekend with my writer friend SW Hubbard to brainstorm our works in progress. We worked on the details of her thriller and then it was my turn.

“So the character is a woman psychologist,” I said, “and she’s written a self-help book that’s starting to gain momentum. She’s a guest on a radio talk show, and someone from her past calls in. She recognizes the voice.” Then I stopped and waited.

“Yeah, then what happens?”

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s all I’ve got.”

“Who’s the voice from the past?”

“I don’t know, that’s all I’ve got,” I repeated.

She tried to help me out with a number of leading questions but I’d hit a wall. Why is it, I wondered, that other writers seem to toss off an idea a minute? Take my friend, Lori Avocato. Spend a couple hours with her and she’ll have 3 or 4 ideas for books just in that short time span.

I do keep a file folder full of headlines and articles from newspapers and magazines. But I can leaf through all of them and end up with nothing. Zippo. Nada. Zero.

So that’s my question for the day—I want your secrets! Where do you get your ideas and what tricks do you use to keep them coming?

JAN: This is my trick. When all I should be doing is focusing on the end of whatever book I'm writing, all I can think about is the GREAT IDEAS I have for the next book.

But honestly, most of my ideas come from the newspaper or a real event. Or some social ill that's been bothering me for a long time. Like gambling and the lottery. Kids on the Internet. Or the potential for a scam or heist.
The murders are harder. I really hate to think about people taking a life.

HANK: Oh please. Don't bring this up now. Or maybe, do. At this very instant, I'm pleading with my brain for an idea. You have to picture me, sitting at my computer. Arms limp, slumped, head on the back of the chair. Eyes to the ceiling. Imploring the universe to present me with something. I can think of a million million ideas, but they aren't good enough. Boring. Derivative. Silly. No payoff.

I like to remember Thomas Edison--you know, who was encouraged and inspired when his first 2000 (or whatever) ideas for what to use in a light bulb didn't work. He said--now I know 2000 things that don't work. And that's so revealing about how things get invented. Like books.

But (and I hope this stays true) sometimes I just think and think and think. Deeply deeply think. Try Hallie's "what if" exercises. And then, I let go. Do something else. And soon after, something bubbles to the surface.

HALLIE: Hank is right about that bubbling when you're not trying thing. Always it's in the shower, or in the car, or when and I'm up to my wrists in bread dough. Or or or... the solution sometimes is to shake things up, to get out of my comfort zone and go somewhere or do something that isn't part of my usual day to day. Like...go to a Star Trek convention. Or a Tupperware party. Or a rocket launching. Once I HAVE a good idea, then definitely brainstorming with friends (what iffing it to death) is a huge help.

JAN: It's so true. I always say I get my best ideas on Route I-95. I think just like athletes play better when they are "loose," writers think more creatively when they are relaxed. Maybe the analytical part of the brain has to be silenced to let the creative side of the brain be free.

RO: I'm definitely a "ripped from the headlines" kind of gal - no, let me rephrase that. Not the headlines. My fave place to prospect for ideas is in the back of the paper. The tiny story that most people never read. The local misdemeanor that (at least in my "what if" scenario) is the cover-up for the bigger, deadlier crime.
Another thing I enjoy doing is ripped from a movie -The Usual Suspects - one of my faves. In it the Kevin Spacey character, the infamous Kayser Sosa, deceives the police by weaving an entire story out of the items in the cop's own office. Brilliant. I've yet to name a character after the manufacturer of my coffee mug, but it's a fun exercise and always gets me thinking.

ROBERTA: ok, now time for the rest of you to step up and tell us where YOUR babies come from!