KICK BUTT HEROINES

In my Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries, my reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack pays homage to Stephanie Plum. They’re both Jersey girls, and as Anastasia finds herself mired deeper and deeper in caca, on several occasions she wonders, what would Stephanie do?

Personally, I thinks she’d be better off wondering, what would Fiona do? Not Shrek’s wife, although in the last movie Shrek's Fiona did let loose her inner kick-butt heroine. I'm talking about the other Fiona. Fiona Glenanne, the kick-butt love interest of Michael Westen in Burn Notice. Fiona is a former member of the IRA, a woman who cooks up explosives at her kitchen sink as easily as Anastasia scrambles an egg. Fiona is also a precision marksman (or markswoman) who is equally adept at picking locks, tracking down bad guys, and driving like the proverbial bat out of hell. You don’t want to mess with Fiona.

If Anastasia were more like Fiona, she’d have a lot less problems. Fiona wouldn’t put up with Ricardo the loan shark for more than five seconds. She also wouldn’t put up with all the family melodrama Anastasia deals with from her communist mother-in-law and her (supposedly) Russian princess Mama. Fiona believes in family, but she doesn’t believe in taking crap from anyone.

Most of all, Fiona doesn’t like being told what to do. Everyone is always telling Anastasia what to do.

Anastasia doesn’t get to watch much television, given her family and work schedule. However, I’m seriously thinking about sitting her down to watch a few episodes of Burn Notice. She might learn a thing or two that could help her deal with all that caca flying at her from every direction.


What about you? Do you have a favorite kick-butt heroine? Is it Katniss Everdeen or Lisbeth Salander? Or maybe it's the newly kick-butt version of Snow White from Snow White and the Huntsman? Then there's Merida, the heroine of the upcoming Brave. (Thank you, Pixar, for finally remembering the girls!)

Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed 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 and has been nominated for a Book of the Year Award by ForeWords Reviews and is a finalist for a Daphne du Maurier Award. Death by Killer Mop Doll, the second book in the series, was released in January. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com and Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers blog, http://anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.

Remembering Those Who Gave Their Lives Serving Our Nation

By Beth Groundwater

I'm going to deviate from writing about writing today to observe today's important national holiday--Memorial Day. Formerly known as Decoration Day, Memorial Day was first observed in 1868 in the United States when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. To learn more about the history of Memorial Day, go HERE.

Since then, US soldiers have perished in numerous wars, including World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War, and the Afghanistan War. Regardless of whether you support US involvement in these conflicts or not, I hope you'll join me in supporting those who gave up their lives in these wars and in supporting their families. We Midnight Ink authors write about fictional murder as entertainment--to give readers a puzzle to solve. But the killing of young men and women in global conflicts is not something to make light of.

Memorial Day and Veteran's Day have a special meaning for me since my father served in the Vietnam War during the dangerous year of the Tet Offensive. My family is very grateful that he made it home alive. But some of his friends and fellow navigators and pilots in the US Air Force did not. As a child, I knew the wives and children of some of those brave men and saw the heartbreaking sorrow they went through when their husbands and fathers didn't return.

I hope at 3:00 PM your local time today all of Inkspot's readers will join me in the "National Moment of Remembrance." Take a moment from your barbecues, picnics and holiday celebrations to pause in silence and remember and thank those who gave their lives for us. For more ideas on how to observe this important holiday of remembrance and thanks, go HERE.
 

INKSPOT NEWS - May 26, 2012

Today from 2 - 4 PM, Beth Groundwater will sign copies of her May release, Wicked Eddies, the second book in her RM Outdoor Adventures mystery series, at Black Cat Books, 720 Manitou Avenue, Manitou Springs, CO 80829. This will be a wine & cheese signing, so come ready to party!


Tomorrow from 2 - 4 PM, Beth Groundwater will sign copies of her May release, Wicked Eddies, at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers store near Chapel Hills Mall, 1565 Briargate Boulevard, Colorado Springs, CO 80920. If you live in the Colorado Springs area, Beth's former home town, please try to make it to one of these two signings!

Inception of a Blog

by Jennifer Harlow

I have my own weekly blog Tales From the Darkside that I write. That’s four blogs a month. That’s a lot considering I spend the majority of my time alone in a room not interacting with the world at large. Not much material staring at my walls. So, where do I come up with my ideas? Here is an example.  Note: mild The Avengers spoilers and adult(ish) content. This blog has been rated PG-13. You have been warned.

Setting: A rare dinner where every Harlow member DAD, MOM, RYAN, LIAM, TREVOR, and MOI are seated around the table enjoying ribs. This conversation picks up about half-way through dinner. Let's enjoy this program, already in progress...

MOI: So, I do any of you have any suggestions for blog posts? I'm coming up empty.

TREV: You should write one about how awesome John and I are at League [of Legends]. We've been playing for like twelve hours and we've almost destroyed the turret.

MOI: Yeah, no. 

LIAM: You should write about The Avengers.

MOI: Yeah, because every other blogger and their mother hasn't already done it and probably better than I could.

LIAM: If you want more people to read it, you need to write about popular topics, not just stories about your stupid cat.

MOI: Have you ever read my blog? I barely write about the cat.

LIAM: I...

RYAN: No one reads your stupid blog. 

MOI: Gee, thanks Ry. Love you too.

MOM: I know what you should write about. You should write about the actor who played Loki. He was my favorite. He had so much...depth.

MOI: [raising an eyebrow] You do realize that that was like the fourth time you've brought up that Loki dude in the past two days. Like every time we even mention The Avengers immediately you pipe up with how cute and awesome whats-his-face is.

MOM: I do not!

DAD: Pass the rice please.

TREV: You totally do.

LIAM: Yeah, I think Mom's on a one-way train to Cougartown with Loki.

MOI: It is very "in" right now. 

MOM: I just thought he was perfect in the role is all.

RYAN: You know what you should write about, Jen. How hot Scarlett Johannson's butt was in that movie.

LIAM: Yeah!

TREV: Totally.

RYAN: I'd read it then.

DAD: Can I have the butter?

MOI: Here, Dad. [to boys] Two reasons that's not happening. 1) I'm a straight female, I barely noticed her butt. 2) I don't talk about butts. Period. I'm a lady.

LIAM: Oh, like you haven't talked about Jeremy Renner's butt on multiple occasions.

MOI: [silence; then] I haven't...recently. Shut up. No, no talk of movie star butts. 

RYAN: Scarett's butt deserves its own post at the very least.

MOI: Whatever. And I'm sorry? All you took away from her character was that she has a great butt? How about how she used her brain to get information out of men. Or how she held her own against every man and alien thrown against her.

LIAM: That stuff was kind of overshadowed by her awesome butt, sorry.

TREV: Yeah, and like you were drooling over Jeremey Renner for his mind.

MOI: I was!

LIAM: And his butt.

MOI: Shut up.

DAD: Pass the rolls, please.

MOM: I know what you should write about, Jen.

TREV: Loki's butt?

MOM: [shooting her youngest a look] You should write about Joss Whedon. How important he's been to pop culture.

MOI: I really don't know what to say that hasn't been said. The man is a pop culture God, end of story. I probably wouldn't have a career without Buffy or Firefly.

TREV: And didn't he show Nathan Fillion's butt in that one episode? Know how important that episode was to you.

MOI: Oh my God! Can we please, for the love of God, stop talking about butts!

RYAN: [standing up] Great dinner, Mom. I gotta take a massive poop now though.

LIAM: [standing too] I know, dude. I'm prairie dogging it right now.   

MOI: Jesus Christ! Can we go one dinner without poo being mentioned?

TREV: [standing] If we did, no one would recognize us. Gotta go destroy that turret.

MOM: [standing as well] You'll think of something for your blog, Jen.

MOI: [to self] Yeah, so far the topic could be The Avengers, Joss Whedon's awesomeness, Mom's trip to Cougartown, Scarlett Johannson's butt, Jeremy Renner's butt, Nathan Fillion's butt, or how at every dinner fecal matter is addressed. Great. They're gonna get cat videos tomorrow.

DAD: [standing] Or...you can write about them all.

MOI: Who'd believe this conversation ever took place?

DAD: Anyone's whose ever had dinner with us.

Which is why so few people come to supper with The Harlows. At least I got a blog out of it. Tune in next time for cat videos!

Red Pencil Your Prose

By Deborah Sharp


Wearing my hat as a board member for the Florida chapter of Mystery Writers of America, I choose the speakers for our monthly luncheon meetings.

Recently, we had a professional editor come to talk. She filled us in on some of the most common mistakes made by newbie writers. Some not-so-newbies, too, since I recognized some of my own manuscript missteps in her talk that day.

I was a newspaper reporter for many years, and I learned to be a pretty ''clean'' writer -- not a lot of typos, misspellings, or bad punctuation. Still, I have some blind spots. I sometimes rely too heavily on adverbs (she said apologetically). I'm also guilty of using ''-ing'' phrases at the beginning of sentences: Pausing while writing, she realized it was now past her bedtime and she should have begun this post two hours ago.

Susan Bryant, the founder of EditorGuru in southern Florida, says both those are common mistakes she sees in manuscripts. Susan provides her editing and writing services to clients who need help with everything from crafting a resume to polishing a full-length novel. As part of her talk, she also gave our group information on the range of services provided by an editor -- all the way from basic proof-reading to a comprehensive reconstruction, which would add depth and details and crystallize focus. Anyone hiring an editor, she said, should request references. The writer and editor should also be in clear agreement about cost, and whether the fee will be based on word count, number of pages, or hours the editor works.

Get those red pencils ready. Susan pointed to the following errors as among the most common she sees. How many have you committed?

* Redundancy (Watch for wordiness, or characters repeating things they've already mentioned)

* Factual errors (Be sure to check the spelling/location for proper names and places)

* Passive instead of active verbs

* Cliches (Whether hackneyed sayings, or one-dimensional characters lacking depth)

* Clunky substitutes for the word ''said.'' (John sneered. Amy chortled. Roger roared. )

* Adverbs instead of strong verbs (Sue angrily set her glass on the table. Sue slammed her glass . . .)

* Stilted, unnatural-sounding dialogue (Read it out loud)

* Telling, instead of showing (Donna was nervous. -vs- Donna chewed her nails. Her leg jiggled.)

* Long tangents that spotlight an author's passion or hobby, but don't advance the story

* Jarring shifts in point-of-view. (You can't be in the head of more than one character at a time)

* Introducing a character with a long description of personality and emotions. Instead, let actions reveal character, or have other characters tell the story of who this person is.

How'd you do? Not a flood of red on your pages, I hope. Have you ever hired an editing pro? Good experience or bad?

Mysterious Settings

by Sheila Webster Boneham

Setting is an essential part of many mysteries, as well as other types of fiction. Some settings are important enough to be regarded as "characters" of a sort – Tony Hillerman’s Southwest, John Connolly’s Maine, J.A. Jance’s Arizona and Seattle, Susan Conant’s Cambridge, Massachusetts - well, I could go on for pages!

My own forthcoming Animals in Focus series is set in Fort Wayne and other parts of northern Indiana. I chose the area partly because I grew up there and know it well, and partly because it is a beautiful part of the country that often gets short shrift from outsiders who think all of Indiana is the fairly flat stretch of farmland from just west of Toledo to just east of Chicago. To dispel the "nothing but corn, beans and steelmills" stereotype, I send my protagonist, photographer Janet MacPhail, to the lakes, rivers, forests, and ravines of the state as well as the cities, small towns, and occasional quirky attractions. (Seriously, have you ever been to a pickle festival?)

The Money Bird, the second book in the Animals in Focus series,
will be set partly in the beautiful lake country of northern Indiana.

I’m also working on a thriller, Rattlesnake Mountain, set in the high desert in and around Reno, Nevada. Most of the Nevada novels I’ve found focus on Las Vegas, a good day’s drive south of Reno, or Lake Tahoe, which sits in the Sierras west of Reno. Great locations, but not the Nevada I hiked and explored for fifteen months. When I think about future books, setting is often one of the first things that comes to mind – where would I like to "live" in my creative mind for the year or more it takes to write the book? And even better, where would I like an excuse to visit for research? Somewhere familiar but overlooked? Somewhere exotic?

Wild horses are my favorite part of the Reno area landscape! Bachelor stallions
in Hidden Valley east of Reno, May 2010.

Which makes me think of mysteries and thrillers with exotic settings. What are your favorites, and why? What makes the unfamiliar work? Here are four of my own favorites:

• Eliot Pattison’s Inspector Shan series set in Tibet. Chinese Inspector Shan runs afoul of the authorities in Beijing and is sent to a gulag in Tibet, where his eyes (and the readers) were opened politically and spiritually. The books are rich with cultural, geographical, and political information, as well as fascinating characters. http://www.eliotpattison.com/inspector.html

• Alexander McCall Smith’s three series, but especially the Botswana series featuring #1 lady Detective Precious Ramotswe and her friends. I’ve always been fascinated with Botswana as a country, and the characters take me back to my many African friends in graduate school. One of these days, I’m going on safari! http://www.randomhouse.com/features/mccallsmith/main.php

• Zoë Ferraris’s series set in Saudi Arabia, featuring Katya Hijazi, a lab worker at the coroner's office who is bold enough to step out of her expected role, and Nayir Sharqi, a pious desert guide whose beliefs are shaken as he works the first case with Katya in Finding Nouf. Ferraris opens a door most Westerners never approach except through misunderstanding and presents the complexities of female-male roles and relations in a very conservative society with knowledge and sensitivity. http://www.zoeferraris.com/about.php

• Elizabeth Hand’s literary thrillers featuring washed-up, burned-out photographer Cass Neary, an oddly appealing unappealing anti-hero. The books are brilliant, literary, suspenseful, and unputdownable. And the settings! Generation Loss takes places on a creepy little island off the coast of Maine, and the sequel, Available Dark, is set mostly in Iceland. Great reads, fascinating landscapes! http://www.elizabethhand.com/

　
Please add to my to-read list! What are your favorite mysteries and thrillers in which an unusual setting, or an unusual aspect of a more familiar setting, is essential?

Sheila's dog Jay at an obedience trial, which he finds
exotic enough.

Sheila's mystery Drop Dead on Recall (now available for pre-order), takes place in the exotic world of canine obedience trials and will be out in October! Sheila is also the author of award-winning books about pets, including Rescue Matters! How to Find, Foster, and Rehome Companion Animals (Alpine, 2009), The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting and Owning a Cat (Alpha, 2005), and fifteen others. Sheila's books are available from your local bookseller and on line. Learn more at http://www.sheilaboneham.com or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sheilawrites

Let's Save Our Fictions For Our Novels--a reprint

In the last seven days my son graduated from high school, I entertained numerous out of town family and friends (including the inimitable Terri Bischoff,) my sons competed in state diving and I had deadlines to make for both Midnight Ink and Tyrus Books. Suffice it to say, composing a blog on top of everything else would have been akin to eating a thin mint, Monty Python style. Luckily, my esteemed editor, Ben LeRoy, over at the above mentioned Tyrus Books, did manage to write what I considered to be a fascinating post this past week for Hey There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room and has graciously given his permission for me to share it here.

Let's Save Our Fictions For Our Novels

BENJAMIN LEROY

This week the online writing/publishing community has been abuzz with the plight of Mandy DeGeit, the writer whose confounding story about her experiences working with Anthony Giangregorio and Undead Press went public.

Briefly outlined, Ms. Degeit submitted a short story, “She Makes Me Smile,” to Undead Press hoping to be included in the company’s anthology, Cavalcade of Terror. As it turned out, according to Ms. Degeit, the story was accepted by Mr. Giangregorio and all appeared to be going well.

When a finished copy of the book showed up at her house, she noted that the title had been changed to “She Make’s Me Smile.” Disappointed with the added apostrophe, but still excited to be included in the anthology, she found more changes had taken place during editing though nobody from Undead Press ever discussed them with her. Those changes included the following:

(From Ms. DeGeit’s blog) “Let’s see: They turned a non-gendered character into a boy, they named the best friend, they created a memory for the main character about animal abuse. They added a suggestion of rape at the end…”

Significant changes by Ms. DeGeit’s account—one would be hard pressed to disagree—and changes that were never run by Ms. DeGeit during the editorial process. She submitted one story and received approval, but the final product didn’t really match.

Confused and disheartened she reached out to Mr. Giangregorio and asked what had happened. The surprisingly vitriolic exchange, included this from the publisher “as for the story. the editor had a hard time with it, it was very rough and he did alot to make it readable. despite what you think, your writing has a long way to go before its worthy of being printed professionally. we did what we had to do to make the story printable. you should be thankful, not complaining. ah, the ungrateful writer, gotta love it.”

And…we’ve got enough red flags at this point to start a parade.

(1)    If a story isn’t very good, I fail to see why a publisher would acquire it.

(2)    Publishers/editors don’t rewrite major parts of a work. They especially don’t do this without consulting the author.

(3)    A little respect goes a long way in our interpersonal dealings. I’ve never had a discussion with any author I’ve worked with that sounded anything like the above exchange.

I don’t know Mandy. Neither do I know Anthony Giangregorio, but I’ve found the resulting online discussion fascinating. Like these kinds of dustups do, this brought out a bunch of Internet Lawyers suggesting that Ms. DeGeit sue the publisher. And, even more curiously to me, more than one person stepped up to share a similar story and said the only reason he/she didn’t come forward before was for fear of being blackballed in the publishing industry. Blackballed by the guy running Undead Press?

For serious, Internet?

Let’s be clear about something—Some guy publishing books from his garage doesn’t have the power to blackball anybody in the publishing industry. I know a lot of people in publishing, even the people who are whispered about as the biggest people in the industry, and there isn’t one of them who I believe could or would, in this day and age, blackball an author. If a guy like James Frey can still make cash in this factory even after his troubles with Oprah, what are the odds that somebody who stood up to a guy who runs a publishing company that probably hasn’t ever been mentioned in any of the traditional publishing magazines is going to be permanently barred from the picnic?

Zero.

We don’t gather as a group to compare notes. There is no shared database to cross reference when considering a project. Also, there are no secret handshakes or passwords. I’ll be honest when I tell you that I’m not anybody special at the country club—in fact, most members probably wouldn’t recognize me, what with my junior status and all—but if there was a secret blackball list, I’d know about it before this guy would.

I’m not sure where this controversy~! will all end up. I’m guessing it disappears in a few days. But in case it needs to be heard somewhere tonight—dear author, we love you. Please continue mastering your craft. Please do not chase after fishhooks that look appetizing but will only cause you pain. Research before submitting (there was plenty of discussion about this guy before this most recent incident). And, for the love of all that is good in the world, quit worrying about secret publishing cabals potentially exerting negative influence on you for calling out trouble when you see it.

It won’t happen.

I promise.

Sincerely,

Publuminati Member #66613
AKA (Ben LeRoy)

Fart in a Skillet

 Fart in a Skillet

By Shannon Baker

This is the phrase my LG (Lucky Guy) uses to describe someone who has so many things going at once he/she can’t concentrate on anything for long. He might or might not ever use it to describe me.

I wouldn’t admit it to him, of course, but recently, I’ve felt a little like this. After five years living in Flagstaff, AZ and working for The Grand Canyon Trust, a non-profit environmental trust, I got a terrific opportunity to head back up to Colorado’s Front Range and get in on the ground floor of an exciting medical device start-up.

 I love the great outdoors and being part of an organization whose goal it is to protect and restore landscapes, but I’m a capitalist at heart. I also love Colorado and have been jonesing to get back up there.

You’d think doing the real estate dance of buying, selling and moving would be plenty for one couple. The excitement of starting a new business and launching a new mystery series might be enough thrill for one year, right?

Life being what life is and crazy being what we are, we accidently fell in love with Tucson. As a retirement place. Really. In a few years. But why not look at houses now, we asked ourselves. The housing market is as nuts as us and one inexpensive foreclosure on the edge of the desert later, here I am, sitting by my very own pool.

It’s true, there’s no kitchen (I mean none; no appliances, no counters, no cupboards, no sink) and no A/C (while I write this it’s 102 degrees) and the only furniture is a blow-up mattress and some patio chairs.  

Which brings me to the fart in a skillet issue. For the last month I’ve been a whirling dervish of real estate and logistical activity. I’ve been trying to wrap up my day job and tie all those lose ends. So much so, that the draft I need to write for my next book has been neglected.

But no more. I have one month from the end of my job at the Trust to the beginning of my new one. Between packing and moving and life, that affords me two weeks plus of nothing but writing. The only distractions here are the pool every so often, necessary to balance out the no A/C issue, and food scavenged from the cooler. Every two days I need to run into town for more ice.

Welcome to my personal ShaNoWriMo. (Shannon Novel Writing Month) I am cranking, piling up the word count and reveling in near total isolation. LG blows in every few days to make sure I haven’t lost my slippery grasp on sanity.

And I had this pesky blog to write to keep me sort of grounded in the calendar and connected to something real.

Signing off again. See you in a week. Until then, happy writing, dunking, sunning.