Rules and Regulations

by Robin Allen

I love rules. Really love them. They mean that someone a) is in charge and b) has considered the likelihood of things getting out of hand and c) has put measures in place to keep things neat and orderly. I love neatness and order.

A No Parking sign in front of a convenient place to park? I drive around until a spot opens up, even though I've had to use the little mademoiselle’s room for the past hour. No bottles allowed on the beach? That's why they make Shiner Bock in a can. Clean lint filter before each use? Always. Do not remove this mattress tag? Never have, never will.

I also love working in restaurants. The intrigue, the alliances, the gossip. The fun, the friendships, the factions. With every new customer comes a new challenge, a new story—an allergy to yellow cornmeal or the latest fad diet that forbids cruciferous vegetables to be eaten with red dye number eighty-six.

So when I set out to write a mystery series, what else could Poppy Markham be but a by-the-book public health inspector who has worked every job from busgirl to manager to chef in her family’s restaurant? And when an obnoxious Michelin-rated French chef invades the kitchen—currently under the command of Poppy’s cranky, territorial stepsister—what else could happen but murder?

Poppy loves rules, too, but only the ones she can enforce. Some of the others get a little bent and banged around as she tries to discover who really killed Évariste Bontecou. Yes, Poppy flashed her inspector's badge in a police station, but she was trying to see her stepsister. And, okay, she used her badge to detain and lecture a litterbug in traffic, but he messed with Texas right in front of her! Rest assured, however, that Poppy never wears white after Labor Day and she does not run with scissors. So far.

As readers, are there fictional characters you love (or hate) because you identify with them? As writers, what parts of you have you given your sleuth?


This post was previously published at Murder by the Blog.

Festering Over Festoon

by Robin Allen

As a person who makes her living with words, you'd think I would love every single one of them, but for no rational reason, I loathe the word festoon. It's a self-consciously jaunty word that shares its first syllable with fester, which is what I do every time I see it in print. (And that's the only time I'm aware of the word because no one actually uses the word in conversation. It's too stoopid. Say it out loud now: festoon. See? Stoopid. Festoopid.)

Two of my favorite writers, however, have used it in their essays. One is forgiven, the other is not.

"It's a[n]…Everest of shellfish, an intimidating, multilevel tower of crushed ice and seaweed, piled, heaped—festooned with oysters from nearby Belon, and slightly farther away Cancale." –Anthony Bourdain, "Lust," Medium Raw

Bourdain could have left out "festooned" altogether or substituted "shored up" or "scaffolded" or "strewn." I forgive Tony because later in the essay he writes about local red wines "whose rough charms have lately got a serious hold on you....The Baron Rothschild could back his car up to the door, trunk full of monster vintages, he's drunk and offering them for free—and you would decline."

Peter Mayle is not forgiven.

"Men were scarce. They would be picked up later, festooned with shopping bags, and led away to whatever joys awaited them that evening." –Peter Mayle, "Undressing for Lunch," French Lessons

Pete is trying make a weak sentence interesting. He could have used a less pretentious word, such as "ladened" or "garnished." This is, after all, an essay—an entire book—about food.

I dislike other words, of course, but writing festoon so many times at a single sitting has done me in.

What about you? Is there a word or phrase that makes you cringe or chaps your hide when you see it in print?

Robin Allen
Author of the Poppy Markham: Culinary Cop Mystery Series
If You Can't Stand the Heat
Now available on Kindle, Nook, and eBook
See my poem "A Friday Afternoon" in the 2012 Texas Poetry Calendar

HOW LAUGHTER HELPED ME HEAL

There’s an anniversary coming up soon that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. Actually, a day hasn’t gone by in the past 10 years that I haven’t thought about September 11, 2001. I remember every moment of that day. I was getting dressed to go into Manhattan that morning. The Duchess of York was touting her children’s book on Good Morning America when the cable went out. At least, at the time I thought it was the cable. I finished dressing, headed downstairs, and flipped on the radio. The first thing I heard was that a plane had flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I turned the TV on in the den and started flipping channels until I found one that worked, The Financial News Network. Moments later, I watched in stunned disbelief as another plane flew into the other tower.

Afterwards, I considered myself lucky. Although many people who lived in my town never again came home, I lost no family, friends, or even acquaintances that day. However, I do know many people not as lucky. The guy who lives two doors down from me lost his sister when one tower fell and his nephew, her son, when the other tower fell. There are countless other heart-wrenching stories throughout our area.

The lives of every American changed that day, no matter where you live, and we’re still dealing with the aftermath. We probably always will. The world is a more dangerous place now, filled with angry people who have no regard for human life, and their numbers are growing in staggering proportions. No one is immune. When I think about how our lives have changed since that day, the changes go far beyond the inconveniences of security checks at airports, bomb sniffing dogs at Penn Station, and surveillance cameras on every street corner.

For me, though, that day had a profound effect on my writing. Prior to 9/11 I wrote dark romantic suspense. After 9/11 I couldn’t write. Terrorism was all around me. I didn’t want to create more of it on paper. I stopped reading suspense and thrillers and no longer watched murder and mayhem on television or in the movies.

A week and a half after 9/11 I was back in Manhattan. My girlfriend and I had tickets to see The Vagina Monologues. The theaters had reopened, and the mayor was imploring people to go on with our lives. We couldn’t let the city’s economy go bankrupt. We couldn’t let the terrorists see us cowering. My girlfriend was too spooked to go into the city. I refused to let the terrorists win. My husband didn’t want me going alone, so he came with me, one of two men in the audience. Had he realized what he was getting himself into, he probably would have opted to let me go by myself!

I laughed that day for the first time in 12 days. It helped. When I began to feel that I could write again, I thought about that day in the theater. I had desperately needed to laugh. The healing process was long, and the wounds of that day will never entirely heal, but that first time I laughed 12 days after 9/11 was the first step toward healing for me. And that’s when I realized, I needed to write humor.

I discovered that writing funny is a lot harder than writing scary, but for me switching genres made a huge difference in my life. I may go back to writing suspense at some point. I have a few stories parked in the corner of my brain, and someday I’d like to put them down on paper. However, I doubt I’ll ever stop writing humor. I’ve received too many fan letters from readers who have told me my funny books have helped them get through trying times in their own lives. That’s all the validation I need to keep writing funny. Laughter really is the best medicine.

Lois Winston writes humorous amateur sleuth mysteries. She recently finished up the third book in her Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series. The first book, Assault With A Deadly Glue Gun, was a January 2011 release and received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Death by Killer Mop Doll will be a January 2012 release. Visit Lois at her website and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog.