Summer cooking without the heat

 

HALLIE EPHRON: As I do not believe I need to remind anyone but I will: It’s HOT out there!! And when dinner time crawls around I’m all in for a salad. Preferably with ingredients in my refrigerator.

Yesterday I posted my recipe for a quick Orzo and tomato, basil, and fetah cheese and salad. It’s my summer’s instant mac and cheese only healthier.

Today it’s over to the Reds to chime in.

What’s your go-to summer don’t-wanna-turn-on-the-stove-or-go-to-the-store meal?

LUCY BURDETTE: since it’s summer and the farmers market is open on the Madison, Connecticut Green on Friday afternoons, I can get the feta cheese that makes a Greek salad worth everything! It’s simple, good lettuce, and arugula. (hopefully from starlight Gardens, another stop at the market), cucumbers, Calamata olives, chickpeas for extra protein, tomatoes, and red onions, if you can handle them!

Whisk up a quick vinaigrette with French mustard, good olive oil and a little vinegar and a sprinkling of oregano. That’s it! I would add a homemade biscuit from the freezer on the side or else some good bread and butter, also from the market.

RHYS BOWEN: Since we don’t have air conditioning in our house and only a few days when it’s too hot we tend to go out to eat on those occasions. But if we stay home it might be crab legs with salad and crusty bread.

Or salmon grilled on the barbecue.

Or, as an easy choice, Trader Joe’s scallops and mushrooms that take six minutes in the microwave.

JENN McKINLAY: Those are sandwich nights around here. When Hub comes home with a loaf of Chompie’s marble rye, I know he’s decided it’s too hot to cook. Thankfully, we both love pastrami and swiss on rye with a pickle and cole slaw on the side!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: The super easy, “I don’t even want to spend more than ten minute” in the kitchen is one of those salad-in-a-bag kits with sliced cukes, cherry tomatoes and smoked turkey from the deli.

If I’m feeling a little more ambitious, I love tabbouleh. You don’t need anything else beside the chickpeas for protein, and the mint and lemon are SO refreshing.

Of course, there’s always the ultimate cook saver: pizza delivery!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I have not been cooking much lately, and am all in on Julia’s salad train.

Most days I’m making big salads for lunch with lots of tomatoes and cukes from the farmer’s market. Dinner, some grilling (because at least you don’t heat up the kitchen and there’s not much to clean up,) some delivery, and some ready made things from the farmer’s market.

One vendor does fabulous pizza, one does meal deals with cilantro lime rice, black beans, and sour cream chicken enchiladas, as well as a fabulous chicken tetrazinni with whole wheat spaghetti. Happy to let someone else do the cooking!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Lucy, that salad sounds amazing! I adore arugula, and love to make chicken cutlets pounded super-thin, then saute with bread crumbs til they are golden brown, then drizzle fabulous balsamic vinegar on the arugula, top weather chicken and halved tiny tomatoes with salt and pepper. Done!

(I can also make the chicken in advance in the sous vide, and it’s perfection, and takes about 30 seconds a side then to sear, but you guys hate the sous vide so I will not keep talking about it. -)

I am a big salad fan, I could eat it every day. Especially if it’s wonderful lettuce with avocados, and red and yellow peppers, and tomatoes and black olives, and bacon bits and parmesan. AND croutons since they are tiny and the carbs don’t count.

HALLIE: So what about your household--when the summer heat's on at dinnertime, are you likely to toss yourself a salad, shop the salad bar, eat out, order in, or sous vide it? (I still don't know what sous vide is.) 

Beating the heat with orzo and fetah cheese salad

HALLIE EPHRON: It’s been miserably hot everywhere, and the last thing I want to do is cook. So now is when I forage for a nice cold dinner that I can quickly assemble.

One of my go-to dinners is a cold orzo salad with tomatoes and fetah cheese.

It’s easy peasy, and you can adjust the recipe a million ways.

The basic involves:
Boil the orzo following package directions. Drain. Toss with some olive oil so it doesn’t clump. Add fixings (see below). Toss and serve.

Assemble fixings to go into the orzo, any of these in any combination…

• Chopped tomatoes (gotta have tomatoes)
• Crumbled fetah cheese
• Fresh dill, parsley, or basil (or all of them)
• Chopped green veggies (blanched sugar snap peas or green beans or cucumbers or green pepper or artichoke hearts or all of the above)
•  Chopped olives if you have some good ones in the fridge
  

Toss with a dressing: Two parts olive oil to one part vinegar (white, cider, or balsamic, your choice); salt and pepper liberally; optionally mix in a tablespoon of Dijon mustard

When it's too hot to cook, what’s your summer salad?

Words we’ve encountered lately…

 Happy to announce, winners of Edith Maxwell's (Maddie Day's) MURDER AT THE RUSTY ANCHOR: Brenda Gaskell and Judi (Brenda, Judi, please email Edith at edith@edithmaxwell.com)

HALLIE EPHRON: When I was in high school in California, we’d say this or that was “bitchen”—meaning super good. My parents thought it was a swear word.

Flash forward, and Gen Xers were saying the same thing was “rad.”

When you’re a writer these details matter.

Here’s some Gen Z expressions that I’ve cherry-picked (meaning: ) from an article in PARADE magazine.

Here’s one you probably know: CANCEL CULTURE

Here’s one I did not: STAN
It’s a verb that combines being a stalker at a fan. As in: I stan Taylor Swift.

DANK: aka bitchen.

GHOSTING: I know you know that one.

BOUJEE: An adjective that describes something or someone that’s extra fancy.

My favorite – BIG YIKES. Needs no translation.

How many of these did you know?

And what are some words or expressions that you’ve encountered lately that left you scratching your head. Or used yourself and induced head-scratching from the young-uns (aka pipsqueaks) around you?

(See PARADE's complete list.)

A traveler's tale: Strangers on the Acela

HALLIE EPHRON: Last weekend I went to New York to visit my sister Delia and attend my granddaughter's elementary school graduation. It's the first time in the better part of a year that I've felt up to traveling on my own and, despite the heat, it was a lovely trip.

Amtrak in. Amtrak home. So civilized, never mind that the return train ran 2+ hours late because of the heat.

On the trip in, I sat next to a young man and we got to chatting. He told me he was about to move across country and wa taking his parents on a trip to Washington DC. His parents were seated across the aisle, she in a sari and surrounded by bags of what looked like groceries, him snoozing.

The young man said he'd researched the Acelas and determined that the best seats for viewing are the odd-numbered ones. We were in Row 11 and sure enough, the view was unobstructed. I had no idea but now I'll pick my seats with that in mind--I love looking out the window.

I love to chat with people, if they're willing. And he was. He told me that soon he'd be moving across the country to take a job at a high tech company and live with his girlfriend.

Obviousy at a turning point in his life--moving away from parents, taking a new job--he asked me why I'd choose to live in the Boston area where houses are so expensive when I could buy a magnificent home for the same price or less in Texas. I tried to explain that then I'd be in Texas when all the people I care about are in the Northeast corridor. "It's not about the house." I didn't mention the politics.

We chatted amiably off and on the rest of the way to New York, and as I was leaving my seat, I leaned over and said to his mother, "Your son is very charming."

I was waiting in the aisle when the young man (whose name I never got) came up to me and said that it had been very nice chatting, and wished me well. It was lovely of him.

It was crowded and a family was sitting next to me was listening. I exchanged smiles with the mother and I said something like, "It's lovely when you meet someone nice on the train."

She said, "I met my husband on a train. On this train."

Her son asked, "What's the name of this train?" And I thought, such a kid question. The mother told him its name was ACELA. 

A woman across the aisle must have heard because she chimed in, "I met my husband on this train, too."

The encounters left me smiling all through the hot hot weekend. (Plus my granddaughter graduated wth honors.)

Have you had any close encounters with strangers on your travels?

On building community with Edith Maxwell #bookgiveaway

 

HALLIE EPHRON: Today it’s my pleasure to host a writer and friend of the Reds who needs no introduction here. Welcome, Edith Maxwell. And the great news is that she has a new book out, MURDER AT THE RUSTY ANCHOR. Such an intriguing title...

Carry it away, Edith!

EDITH MAXWELL: Hallie, thank you so much for hosting me on the front blog. I’m here to celebrate with you all yesterday’s release of Murder at the Rusty Anchor, my sixth Cozy Capers Book Group mystery and my thirty-fourth published novel.

And I’m waving hi to all my backblog friends. What a community the Jungle Reds Writers have fostered! With each other as bloggers, for sure, but also among those of us who leave a comment nearly every day and then reply to each other’s comments. It was so fun to meet some of you in person at Boucheron in San Diego.

Community. Isn’t that what we all want in some form? I’ve read articles about adults having trouble making friends, and that makes me sad.

According to the Etymology Online Dictionary - one of my favorite research sites (https://www.etymonline.com/) – the word “community” is attested by the late 14th century, with a meaning of:

"a number of people associated together by the fact of residence in the same locality," also "the common people" (not the rulers or the clergy), from Old French comunité "community, commonness, everybody"..., from Latin communitatem ... "community, society, fellowship, friendly intercourse; courtesy, condescension, affability," from communis "common, public, general, shared by all or many."

Fellowship. Friendly intercourse. Courtesy. Affability. Among the common people. Shared by all or many.

The Reds and Readers might not live in the same geographic locality, but we sure do have things in common and share online. Over at the Wicked Authors blog and at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, we also have communities of reader/commenters, and we the bloggers are good friends behind the scenes, as the Reds are.

On a professional level, most crime fiction authors are devoted members of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, or both, where we find understanding, support, information, friendship, and so much more. I have said many times I would never be a multi-published author without the support and networking I gained from my peers, especially through Sisters in Crime and the New England chapter. Every single Red here has boosted me along my path in various ways and always with affability and courtesy, for which I am ever grateful. Thank you!

Any published author has a community of devoted fans. Some help us promote our work, some cheer us on, some tactfully (or otherwise) point out errors of storytelling or typography, and all either buy the book or request it from their library (which counts).

We probably all have other communities we need and are attached to. Church congregations, neighbors helping neighbors, clubs, volunteer organizations, trivia teams, swimming or walking buddies, or just plain pals – who can live without those? I know my Quaker community (a few of which are shown here before our local Pride parade) and a group of decades-long women friends are super important to my life locally.

In the fictional town of Westham on Cape Cod that I created for the Cozy Capers Book Group series, Mac Almeida is part of several communities. One is her family – her husband, her parents, her tiny dynamo of a grandma, her (half-)brother, and little niece Cokey – who all live within a mile of Mac and Tim. Family is super important to Mac, and she and Tim hope to start one of their own sometime soon.

Mac’s book group, who are also her fellow amateur sleuths, play a big role in the books and in Mac’s life, especially when one of them is a person of interest in a murder, which has happened in most of the books. The Cozy Capers book group members often are too involved in helping solve the case du jour to get to that week’s cozy mystery.

Mac’s bike shop employees and customers are another kind of community, especially her repeat shoppers. Mac’s walking buddy Gin, also a good friend and fellow business owner, is a friend who means a lot to her. (I always want to stop into Salty Taffy’s, Gin’s candy shop, and then I remember I made it up). The two often hash over case details while they stride along the Shining Sea Trail.

In addition, by now Mac has a mini-community of law enforcement folks. State police homicide detective Lincoln Haskins has come to acknowledge her abilities in the crime-solving realm, as has Westham detective Penelope Johnson. Police chief Victoria Laitinen, Mac’s old high-school rival? Not so much.

Readers: Who makes up your communities (besides this one)? I’d love to send two commenters a signed copy of the new book.

HALLIE: Thank you so much, Edith! Community is something we can all relate to, and especially important as so many of us felt stranded during the covid lockdowns.

ABOUT Murder at the Rusty Anchor:
There’s deadweight behind the bar at the Rusty Anchor and it’s up to Cape Cod bike shop owner Mackenzie “Mac” Almeida to solve the murder in Agatha Award–winner Maddie Day’s latest Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery . . .

A rainy July weekend in Westham means the beaches are empty and business is dead at Mac’s Bikes but couldn’t be livelier inside the Rusty Anchor Pub. But come Monday morning one patron is not so lively when the chef opens up and finds a body behind the bar. It’s last call for Bruce Byrne, an elderly high school teacher who’s been around so long it seems like he taught everybody.

When Mac’s friend Flo, the librarian, makes the list of suspects, Mac gathers the Cozy Capers Book Group to clear her name. With no end in sight to the rain, the group has plenty of time to study the clues and sort through a roll call of suspects to determine who decided to teach Mr. Bryne a lesson. But with a killer desperate to cover their tracks, Mac and the group will be tested as never before . . .

ABOUT EDITH Edith Maxwell is an Agatha-Award winning and national bestselling mystery author who writes the historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries. Maxwell's short stories have appeared in thirty juried anthologies and magazines. She is active in Mystery Writers of America and is a proud lifetime member of Sisters in Crime. As Maddie Day, Maxwell writes the Country Store Mysteries, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, the Cece Barton Mysteries, and the historical Dot and Amelia Mysteries featuring Amelia Earhart as a sleuthing sidekick.

Maxwell/Day lives in an antique house north of Boston with her beau and their cat Martin, where she writes, cooks, gardens, and wastes time on Facebook. She blogs every weekday with the Wicked Authors and on the second and fourth Fridays at Mystery Lovers Kitchen. Look for her under both names on social media and at edithmaxwell.com.

Book to movie script? Andrea Clark smooths a bumpy path...

 HALLIE EPHRON: One of the best things about being a writer  is all the talented and delightful people I get to meet. High up on my list is Andrea Clark. She's had a career writing fiction and screenplays, and now she helps people who have a story idea but need a smart editor's help adapting it for the screen.

It's not a walk in the park.  

Andrea is here today to share to reflect on why.

ANDREA CLARK: When I was five-years old, I thought I could be a figure skater because I’d watched the Winter Olympics.

When I was in grammar school, I thought I could write a novel because I knew the alphabet.

When I eventually did write a novel, I decided to adapt it into a screenplay. Why not? Novels and movies both tell stories, right? Big mistake. Huge.

Writing a novel has as much in common with screenwriting as being an Olympic skater has to do with watching one on TV.

Here’s why.

Kids begin hearing stories shortly after they’re born. They have three acts: put a guy up a tree; throw rocks at him; get him down. (Dead or alive—your choice.)

No one grows up hearing bedtime stories in screenplay format. Screenwriting is as much of a foreign language to a novelist as Dolfin speak.

I should know. I worked for a film and television producer in New York in my twenties and read hundreds of scripts, but when I tried adapting my novel—epic fail. Turning a novel into a screenplay was like forcing my size-enormous thighs into a pair of Spanx.

Emma Thompson, winner of the Academy Award for adapting Sense and Sensibility—she wrote seventeen drafts—says her writing process involves a lot of weeping. People say words like “combine” and “shorten” and pretend it’s advice. Instead, let’s consider why and how Ms. Thompson adapted some scenes in Jane Austen’s novel the way she did.

First, the why. It’s up to the screenwriter to figure out how to efficiently mine the drama of a story, i.e., which scenes and characters can do that best.

In the screenplay, Ms. Thompon wrote a knock-your-socks-off, revelatory scene about how isolating it was to live in the English countryside in the late 1700s.

She chose Elinor to communicate this for several reasons. Elinor is a strict observer of social norms and doesn’t say much. She is also strong; not even the engagement of the man she loves to another woman can break her.

For the how to communicate such isolation, Ms. Thompson chose the scene where Marianne falls ill while at the Palmer’s estate at Cleveland.

The quickest way to reveal the soul of a character is to put her in crisis. So, the writer (a) made Marianne’s fever life-threatening, and (b) left Elinor completely alone with her.

Once the writer separated Eleanor and the dying Marianne in a strange house, away from the others, the script was ready for a new, heartfelt scene that dramatized one of the most difficult challenges of Austen’s world.

The scene takes place at night. As Elinor watches over Marianne, she realizes that if her younger sister dies, she will lose her only confidante and close friend; her life will be one of crushing loneliness.

Kneeling, Elinor lays her head next to her sister’s body. Eyes wide, she stares at a vision of a life she knows she could not survive.

“Beloved Marianne,” she whispers, “do not leave me alone.

Now that’s writing worth weeping over.

HALLIE EPHRON: Which is exactly what we all aspire to write. Hard enough in a novel or short story. But how to do it in a screenplay, harder still.

The good news is that Andrea is offering a developmental editing service to writers like me who are new to screenwriting. So we won't have to match Emma Thompson's 17 versions to get to "good enough," never mind weep-worthy.

 Andrea Clark can be reached at: StoryChefnyc@gmail.com

TODAY'S QUESTION:

Thinking about your favorite novels that have been turned into movies, which have been the most (or least) successful, in your opinion, and if you can please share why. Andrea will be checking in today and adding her insights.

Andrea Clark is a writer and developmental editor with over fifteen years’ experience. She’s the author of a retranslation of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Nutcracker published by Alfred A. Knopf, short stories (New Bedford magazine), and contributions to several humor collections, among them: Book: The Sequel (The Perseus Book Group), and I Remember When Mom: (Andrews McMeel). After graduating from Smith College, she worked briefly at The New Yorker as a typist, one of several over-qualified young women who struggled with Pauline Kael’s handwriting. She left that job to evaluate screenplays and manuscripts for producer David Susskind at MGM in New York. Andrea got her M.F.A. from the Graduate Film and Television program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her thesis film, a comedy entitled “My Divorce,” won an Academy Award in the Student Film Category. Andrea is an alumna of the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference and the Yale Writers’ Workshop in both Screenwriting and Mystery Writing. She greatly enjoys working with screenwriters and novelists whose goal for their projects is professional consideration. Contact: storychefnyc@gmail.com

Improvising in the kitchen... uh oh

 

HALLIE EPHRON: I love to cook. And experiment with whatever I have leftover in the fridge. Sometimes the results are fine. But….

For example, whenever I roast a chicken (or, to tell the truth, buy a roasted chicken from the supermarket) I take the leftover carcass, skin, and whatever… and turn it into a soup.

I sautee onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms. Add the leftover chicken carcass, broken up. Add salt and pepper and any herbs I have kicking around (e.g. parsley). Cover with water. Throw in 3-4 tablespoons of chicken bouillion. Bring to a boil and simmer for a couple of hours.

Cool. Remove the chicken from the soup. Return every scrap of meat to the pot; toss the bones and skin.

Usually I then boil handfuls of flat noodles and add them to the soup.

Voila: dinner for another week, and like eating for free.

But the last time I made the soup I got the bright idea: why not boil the noodles with the finished soup instead separately in its own water.

Why not, indeed.

Turns out the noodles DISSOLVED when I cooked them in the soup. And the resulting “soup” was the consistency of wallpaper paste.

Not yummy.

Do you like the experiment in the kitchen, and have you ever tried something that turned out to be spectacular, or a big mistake?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ohhhhh I used to make–(and I don’t know why I stopped, they were delicious) double-stuffed tiny tiny new potatoes.

I’d boil the potatoes til done, then when cooled, scoop out the middles with a melon baller, then mix the scooped out potato with sour cream and chives and salt and pepper, then put that mixture back into the potato cups, and top with crumbled bacon and cheddar cheese.

DEEEEELICIOUS.

So once, preparing for a party, I decided that it would be much faster to put all the ingredients into the Cuisinart, and mix them that way instead of with a big spoon and a big bowl.

And, indeed, it was easy.

But it was also a disaster.

The potato mixture turned into TOTAL GLUE.

I cannot begin to describe the texture further, except maybe to say, Play-Doh.

I have since learned that you can’t mash potatoes in a blender thing or food processor, because the speed of the blades tears the starch molecules and releases them, and they mix with the liquid in the potatoes, and the result: a gummy horrible UNFIXABLE glue.

I regrouped, used the oven to make potato chip-like things from the skins, and after they were crisped up, I added sour cream and bacon and cheese and no one knew.

And I learned a big lesson.

JENN McKINLAY: The only thing I cook these days (Hub took over during the pandemic and I said “no give backsies” when he returned to work) is the smoothie that Hub and I have for breakfast every morning.

The extent of my experimenting is putting a fistful of spinach or beet greens in the smoothie, which I tell my husband is kiwi to explain the green color as he is not a vegetable guy. LOL.

RHYS BOWEN: When we were newly married and had to entertain a lot my husband despaired that I always cooked recipes I’d never tried before.

Most worked fine. Some didn’t. My most spectacular failure was a turban of sole, stuffed with shrimp and mushrooms. In the picture it looked fantastic. A real show stopper.

I turned mine out onto the plate and it came out–swoosh–in a heap. A disastrous mess on the plate.

Business guests were sitting in the next room waiting to ooh and ah as I carried it in. Quick thinking required. I made a roux with sherry, added a little ketchup for pinkness, and served it over rice. Nobody knew but me!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: The thing I learned not to experiment with? Holiday meals. One of the first Thanksgivings we had in This Old House, I got carried away and decided to add an authentic Pilgrim pie, which was essentially a vegetable tart.

It was a disaster! Not because I messed up the recipe, but because the Pilgrims’ ate crappy, undercooked veggies in a thick pastry shell that tasted like overcooked bread mixed with sawdust. Now I know why they were such a grim people.

It was a true penance to eat. My father-in-law, God bless him, actually downed a piece and proclaimed it “Interesting!” I chucked the rest out and next year, saved the pie slot for pumpkin and pecan.

HALLIE: So time to 'fess up... what's your most spectacular kitchen improv failure?

What We're Writing: Ghosts Pirates! by Jenn McKinlay

 JENN McKINLAY: I am polishing up the first draft of my first run at writing a fantasy novel entitled BOOKS OF DUBIOUS ORIGIN (coming 2025). It's very fun as it's a fairly new genre and the rules are not yet set. As in, the only limit appears to be my imagination which is both intimidating and thrilling!

I was doing my final read through the other day and I hit a scene that felt flat when all of a sudden...ghost pirates! 

BOOKS OF DUBIOUS ORIGIN excerpt

     “Zoe, about last night,” Jasper said. 

     No, no, no. I didn’t want to talk about this. The potential for more embarrassment was too probable. Should I pretend I couldn’t hear him? Interrupt him with some other talking point? Listen to him? Ugh, I was so bad at all of this. This was why I was happily single and not dating excluding short lived hookups. Anything longer and I would inevitably humiliate myself.

     “I didn’t mean to leave you so abruptly,” he said. Even his charming British accent couldn't soften the words.

     Jasper was talking to the back of my head. I didn’t want to turn around. I didn’t want to see his pale gaze filled with pity at the lonely librarian who’d been hitting on him. I hadn’t been but if I denied it now, he’d think I was trying to save face—which was even more mortifying. A motion outside the window of the ferry boat drew my peripheral vision. I turned and felt my heart drop into my shoes.

     “I was unforgivably rude, displaying the sort of boorish manners—”

     “Pirate!” I yelped.

     “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” Jasper protested.

     I whipped around to face him and all thought of our previous evening’s awkwardness vanished. I glanced around the nearly empty lounge and pulled him down by the lapels of his freshly laundered coat. 

     His eyes went wide, his face mere inches from mine. “Zoe, I—”

     “Listen, I don’t want to panic the passengers but there is a ghost pirate ship floating above the water headed right for us.”

     Jasper turned his head slowly to the window. His eyebrows shot up and he muttered, “Bloody hell!”

Yeah, so that happened. The scene is definitely more exciting, at least to me. Now I just have to figure out how one gets rid of ghost pirates? Suggestions?

What We're Writing Week: Julia Doodles

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: May was a month of travel, travel, travel for me and not a lot of writing, writing, writing as a result. I was in DC to help my sister with some stuff, in Colorado to celebrate a dear friend's landmark birthday, and, importantly for this post, in East Hampton, where I joined in an artists' retreat at my friend Shari Goddard Shambaugh's house.

Shari is a painter, one of those seemingly effortless hostesses, and someone who draws all sorts of interesting and creative people into her orbit. I was there with Gail Donovan, who writes middle-grade fiction, and artist Meredith Cough, another painter. 

We worked, we ate really well (another one of Shari's talents) we talked for hours every evening and we made a pilgrimage to see the Jackson Pollock/Lee Krasner House, where we got to put on disposable booties and walk ON the floor of Pollock's studio, which was a lot like walking on one of his paintings. 

The visual artists went out for several plein air sessions, while Gail and I wrote. The Shambaughs live in the historic rectory of St. Luke's Church, which was built in the days when the residents were expected to have a half dozen kids and an attic full of servants. There was plenty of room for everyone.

Part of the pleasure of the retreat was hashing out ideas and issues with each other. I had been expressing my frustration at feeling stuck near the very end of the book - the big action set piece and climax of the mystery/thriller plot. These scenes are never easy for me, because moving characters through space and having them do action-y stuff like run, jump, shoot, fight - and keeping it all flowing and easy for the reader to visualize - is tough. (Sometimes I wish I could write 300 pages of my characters just talking. I'd be done in a month.)

This time, it was even more difficult than usual, because the denouement takes place in a real-world location and I've managed to collect six major characters and three side characters, all of whom do things, make decisions, affect the action, etc. Yes, I know I'm an idiot.

Part of the issue, as I explained it to the group, was having TOO much in my head - I had outlined the big strokes of the scene, but breaking that down into the granular moment-by-moment had me snarled and overwhelmed.

Shari suggested I try drawing a rough map of where the action takes place, and, using a different colored dot for each character, move them moment by moment through the scene. I'm not much of an artist (ie, not at all) but I figured I'd give it a try. She handed me a sheaf of sketch paper and a box of colored pencils and off I went to my room.

Reader, it was a breakthrough! I didn't cut out dots (I honestly figured I'd lose them at the first sneeze) and instead used the first letter of the characters names, each with its own color. Within sketching out the first two pages, I realized what had kept me jammed up was holding all the decisions each major player had to make in my head. Drawing the who-what- when-where, instead of thinking or even outlining, enabled me to break down the scene into it's component beats: decision -> action-> results-> next decision-> next action, etc., etc.

I spent all afternoon sketching (badly) and marking up the pages with notes, working my way through the scene and eventually positioning my characters for the second half of the climax, where they get spotlighted in their own individual/couple moments. 

 

When I finished, I felt as if a 500 pound rock has been lifted off my shoulders. Illustrating the events, rough as it was, turned out to be a terrific technique for busting up that mental logjam. I've been using and expanding on the original sketches since then (well, since getting home from Colorado at the end of May,) much to the pleasure of my cat Neko, who really, really likes stretching out on sketching paper. 

Dear readers, have you tried a new way of solving an old problem?

What We're Writing--Debs on Time Anchors

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I've been thinking a lot this week about Hallie's Monday post on anachronisms and frames of reference. I always look up the most popular UK names for the years my characters were born, for instance, and I try to get music right for their time frames.

But because my series is long running and sort of floats in time, it's full of anachromisms for current readers. Many of these are unavoidably technological. I mentioned in a post last month that we've been watching Grey's Anatomy, which debuted in 2005. The show has aged remarkably well because the scope is so limited: the hospital, Meredith's house, the local bar. Oh, and everyone is in scrubs, which pretty much takes fashion out the equation. You may notice that the doctors are using Blackberries (remember those??) in the early seasons, but other than that the show could be set today.

It's not so easy to limit the world in novels, however, and as the first Gemma and Duncan book was published in 1993, there have been a lot of changes (not necessarily progress!) (Duncan has a phone attached to his car in the first book!)

I made a decision with that very first book that while every book would be contemporary, the characters would not age in real time like Ian Rankin's Rebus, who is forty in the first book and has now had to retire! So while three decades have passed in the "real" world, Duncan and Gemma and their family and friends have only aged about six years. (The ages of the children help me keep track of this.)

The snag in this system comes when you bring things into the story that are fixed in real time. I've tried to avoid it, but have goofed up a few times. A good deal of the plot of A FINER END revolves around the Millenium, for instance--ouch. But while I thought when I was writing NO MARK UPON HER that it would be glaringly obvious that Becca was training for the 2012 Olympics in London, now thankfully that seems a little fuzzier.

Despite my efforts (with a few slip ups) to write around things that so obviously date the books, some are unavoidable. Although I've decided that the pandemic (a very specific fixed point in time) didn't exist in my books, l must from now on refer to the King, not the Queen, etc., etc. It's all very tricky and I envy Rhys having control over how her characters fit into their historical framework!

Readers, do you notice these things? Or do they worry me more than than they bother you? 

What We're Writing: Lucy's Throwing a Party

 LUCY BURDETTE: I’m deep into the first draft of Key West food critic mystery #15, as yet untitled and uncovered. You might remember that the book kicks off with the explosion of a boat off Mallory Square—the craft on which Hayley Snow and her mom and stepfather and many other Key West celebrities and characters are sailing.  Of course you’ll see a lot more about that event, but a second plot line runs alongside: the celebration of Miss Gloria’s 85th birthday. I love writing about parties and food in this series, woven around the murder investigations. I think it gives the reader (and me) a little break from the tragic events and consequences. The hat that Miss Gloria is wearing is like one that I bought for myself for a big birthday. (No it was not 85!)  

For once, my mother wasn’t having to cook all the food. She had insisted on preparing some hors d’oeuvres in advance—non-fussy dishes such as mounds of Key West pink shrimp, her famous cheese wafers, and a fancy Italian cheese, olives, and charcuterie board, so that Martha Hubbard could focus on the main course. Even with her cooking responsibilities minimalized, she’d been at the club house most of the afternoon to make sure the decorations were set up to her liking. The house looked even more stunning than usual, with glorious tropical flowers spilling out of their vases everywhere, amongst photos of Miss Gloria with her family and friends at all stages of life. Tables had been set up in the living room, dressed in white lace with pale pink napkins, good silver, and more flowers. Already the rooms felt alive with chattering guests, even though we’d had to make some hard decisions about the invitation list. Having lived on the island for over thirty years, my neighbor had befriended and was adored by a lot of people.

I found the guest of honor in the parlor, aka formerly the men’s smoking lounge. She looked adorable, positively radiant. We’d spent a lot of time last week trying out hair mousse and then combing her short white pixie so the little peaks stood up to her satisfaction. She pulled a fast one by showing me two different sweatsuits that she pretended to be choosing between, each of them baggy in the knees and elbows, though studded with her favorite rhinestones. In the end, she wore navy silk balloon pants, a white lace top, and a sparkling birthday crown with Birthday Princess written in sequins that I’d ordered for her on Etsy. It had roses and pink tulle scattered all over and glittery gold trim on the points of the crown. Wearing it, Miss Gloria reminded me of all the good fairies I’d imagined in my childhood. I hurried over to squeeze her into a hug and kiss her. 

“You little dickens,” I whispered. “All this time I worried you were wearing a saggy, faded old sweatsuit to your own party.”

“A gal has to have some secrets, even from you,” she said, her eyes sparkling with laughter. “It was fun to tease you and watch you be all careful and considerate of my awful taste.”

“You’re not only a dickens, you’re a little devil,” I said laughing and pulling her into another hug.

Question for readers: Do you enjoy nonstop, pulse-pounding action, or prefer to take a break sometimes with humor and fun?

Meanwhile, you can pre-order Lucy Burdette’s Kitchen (July 23) and A POISONOUS PALATE (August 6.)

Rhys and Clare Champion Women's Rights.

 Rhys Bowen: Hallie’s post on Monday talked about anachronisms in novels. It’s something that drives me bonkers. To read about a character in Victorian times who says she’s stressed and needs to relax, who calls other people by their first name is such a red flag to me. (Freud hadn’t published at that time and mentioned those words).

So when Clare and I write our Molly books together we really work hard at getting everything right. Clare reads the New York Times for every day we write about. This gives a feel for not only what was happening, what the concerns of the time were, but attitudes and vocabulary.  Then we decide on our setting and I have books of photos of old New York, exteriors and interiors, maps. For the first Molly books I went to New York and walked anywhere that Molly walked, noting what one heard, smelled, felt.

Now we are writing Molly 22. (We don’t have a title yet, but like something like As We Go Marching On). The story actually presented itself from the time. We are up to fall 1909 and in New York there was a huge celebration called the Hudson-Fulton. It celebrated three hundred years since Henry Hudson discovered the river that bears his name and one hundred years since Fulton invented the paddle steamer and thus brought commerce to upstate New York. The whole city was strung with electric lights--still a novelty at the time.

The occasion was marked with impressive parades for two weeks—floats that rivaled the current Rose Parade and also a naval parade that stretched sixteen miles up the Hudson and included battleships from other nations as well as replicas of the original ships of Hudson and Fulton.

What struck us was that the committee was composed of 150 men. No women invited to give input in the design or composition of any parade. Not a single woman was invited to the opening banquet. And suffragists were not allowed to participate in the parade. At the same time suffragettes in England were being force-fed in British jails. So we had a story waiting to happen. What if suffragists were planning to disrupt a parade? And Molly was asked to spy on her friends? And what if something went wrong???

So we have the basis for our story and we’re just working out who is going to wind up dead and why. But we love featuring the suffrage movement because we are very conscious that half the population couldn’t vote at the time, that women were the property of their husbands. We are also conscious of women’s right being eroded at this moment so we hope the story will touch a nerve.

I just had a lovely letter from a fan who thanked me for opening her eyes to real history. She said she hadn’t enjoyed history in school but through my books she has learned so much and now wishes she had been a history major. I feel exactly the same way. I did not enjoy history in school. It was all about learn these dates and these battles and I got in trouble for asking how people went to the bathroom. I wasn’t being cheeky. I wanted to know.

I've learned so much from other writers: Charles Todd, Jacqueline Winspear, Anne Perry... So do you feel the same way about historical novels? Do you enjoy learning new things as well as getting a good story?

What We're Writing: When A Mistake is the Answer

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It’s one of the scariest questions I’ve ever asked myself: what if I never have another good idea? I know I know, I have always had a good idea, the universe has never failed me, and all I really need is one.  

(The idea for ONE WRONG WORD came from a bit of dialogue I wrote in HER PERFECT LIFE.  So, hilariously, I got the idea from a fictional character. And a BIG bargain on it below!)

But I would like to put it out there, right now, that it would be very lovely if I got another new idea pretty soon. 

It’s funny, and I wonder if you’ve experienced this. The timing. A month ago, I was in the midst of editing my new book, and I searched my brain for a good idea for the next book. 

"Not time yet!" My brain saId. "Just keep editing." And I understood that was right, the timing was not correct yet. I was pushing, and I should’ve realized that it was too soon. Okay, then. 

I went back to editing.

And I cut 21,000 words!  And I'm still editing and polishing the rest.

A couple of weeks later, I inquired of the universe: is it time for the idea yet? "No,"  the universe said, "keep editing."

I knew that was correct, but still.... it was becoming worrisome. When you have a contract for multiple books, the deadline for the next one looms, closer and closer. 

When we were little kids, a year seemed like an extraordinarily long time, incalculably long, impossibly long. Now, a year is like – – oh, my goodness! That’s tomorrow! 

So I’m editing, editing, editing, deleting, try not to worry about the next idea, but focusing on this idea. The book I’m working on now.  It's called ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS.  (Which is due MONDAY. Just saying.)

It’s funny where this idea for ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS came from. 

It came from a mistake.

 I was doing a signing with another author at a local bookstore, which will remain nameless, and the proprietor sent me a gorgeous graphic for the event.

Well, it was gorgeous except that it had the title of my book wrong. Instead of THE HOUSE GUEST, they had made a graphic that said THE HOTEL GUEST.  

So I rolled my eyes, annoyed, and said to someone: "The book cover is right there! If they can’t even get the title right,  how is the event supposed to work?"

 And then I paused, and said, "You know, though, The Hotel Guest is  actually not a bad title. Too bad I already have THE HOUSE GUEST."

But somehow, that bad title did not leave me. What would a hotel guest have to do with a thriller? I wondered. What would happen to a hotel guest. Who would be a hotel guest, and why would they be one? And what might happen.

Oh, I thought, they find something in their room? What would they find in the room? And what would they do with it? And what might happen?  Then the next hotel room they are in, they find something too. Why?

Oh, I thought, that could really work. Who might be a repeat hotel guest?  Okay, traveling salesperson. A hotshot entrepreneur. A vacationer. Then I thought oh! An author on book tour.

Yes, yes, yes. And so ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS was  born, and more. And I will tell you more about it later. (You can be sure of that!) 

But what will happen next? What idea will emerge? My silly brain has recently come up with a terrific idea for a science-fiction novel. And a supremely perfect idea for a romcom.  

Thank you, universe, but I am still waiting for my next psychological thriller  idea. I trust you, though. It'll come.

I know Jenn touched on this last week, wondering where ideas came from. And someone in the comments suggested that everybody provide one element. Not a story, just one element that could be in a book. 

So let’s do that! And see if we can prime the pump. Reds and Readers, just tell me one thing.  

Like: a hotel room. A mysterious photograph. A back road in Maine. A vanilla ice cream cone. A fire alarm.  

Maybe we can all take the puzzle pieces, and mix them around, and we'll all  wind up with  something completely new.  I'll start: A phonograph record. A candle. A letter in the mail. A missing MFA student. 

And now, each of you add one more element or prompt to that. It doesn't have to connect.

And if a story pops into your brain, tell us that,too!

It would interesting, wouldn't it, so see what story we can make from the pieces you choose? Tell us just one line from the prompts like, oh, a medium who plays a certain record at her candle-lit seances, then gets a letter from a college with a surprising question.

But you can do better than that!

And one more thing in the cycles of a novel--my ONE WRONG WORD ebook is now, VERY VERY  briefly, on sale for $2.99!  (Just click on the title above.) Wherever you buy your ebooks.  If you don't have it, now's the time. (As I know you have heard me say: No pressure, it's just my career...)

So, Reds and readers! Tell us your story elements! And see if they spark any ideas.