Serial Summer

This is the Summer of my Submission, which is to say this is the summer when my fabulous agent is working to sell my new mystery novel and I am working very hard to manage my anxiety. I considered taking up drink, and have not ruled it out entirely, but for the time being I’m channeling my anxiety into writing short stories. Which is to say I am now in the midst of writing four short stories.   I’ve never done anything like this. Usually I’m a very focused one-at-a-time sort of person. I explore, I take notes, I cogitate, I excavate and then hopefully something emerges. But at the moment I’m more in a machine-gunning frame of mind. I’m spewing one idea after another onto the page, and it’s sort of fun. Perhaps it’s the writing version of going onto Tinder and dating four guys in one week. (I can hear my son groaning as I write that sentence.) One of the most exciting parts of this speed-writing is that I’m developing characters I normally wouldn’t write about. One particular one that intrigues me is the daughter of a serial killer. I’ve always been interested in what it would be like to be related to someone truly evil. Could you be a good person and have those genes inside you? Would you worry all the time that something evil might emerge or would you just shut the whole thing down, and not think about it at all? Would you love your father? Would you visit him in jail? Would you hesitate to get married because you’d worry that your children would be evil?  So many questions! Which is always a good thing. One thing I absolutely know is what her name will be, but I’ll write more about that tomorrow. Stay tuned.     

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Meet D.A. Bartley

 We are thrilled to have D. A. (“Alison”) Bartley join us at Miss Demeanors and wanted you to get to know a little more about her, so we interrogated her for you. She sat unflappable under the hot lights for hours while we grilled her. She’s going to fit in just fine here at www.MissDemeanors.com Miss Demeanors:   When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?  Alison: I should have always known, but I didn’t. It was only after I started writing my first mystery that I realized how much I loved being a writer.  I’m a lifelong mystery reader, so my mind gravitates towards puzzles. I started writing when my mom was in the final stages of Alzheimers. I was flying back and forth between New York and Utah all the time. On one of those trips I visited a friend in Pleasant View, where there was an enormous, brand-new house that was completely empty. I couldn’t get the house out of my head. One day I started writing about it. I had written about seven chapters when my daughter got a moderate concussion playing lacrosse. (She is completely fine now!) She had to stay in a dark room without a computer or books while she recovered. She didn’t like the audio books I got her and asked me to read what I was writing. When I finished reading everything I’d written at that point, she asked, “What happens next?” I told her I didn’t know. She asked me to go write some more. So I did. That story became Blood Atonement, which is scheduled to be published by Crooked Lane in 2018. Miss Demeanors:   What other careers, jobs have you had? Alison: I was a litigator with a large international law firm in Manhattan. Then I was a research scholar. My area of interest was state sovereignty and international law. I have a Ph.D. in political science and a law degree. In both fields your writing and ideas are constantly critiqued. You learn not to get too attached to words or thoughts because, generally, the critiquing process makes your writing and thinking better. In retrospect, it’s probably not a bad background for a writer. Miss Demeanors:   Who has influenced you as a writer?  Alison:   First and foremost, Agatha Christie. My mom and grandma were big mystery readers. Agatha Christie was at the top of their lists, so she was at the top of mine, too. There are so many other great writers who inspire me. On my nightstand and Kindle right now there’s some P.D. James, Terry Tempest Williams, Harold Evans, Elizabeth George, Linda Castillo, Craig Johnson, Dana Stabenow and Zygmunt Miłoszewski. I recently finished my first Tana French and can’t wait to read more.   Miss Demeanors:    What is your debut novel about? Alison:    Unquestioning faith. My protagonist, Abish Taylor, grew up in Utah, but moved away after high school. She has returned to work as the sole detective in a small town in the north of the state. Her father is a well-respected Mormon historian and Chair of the Church History and Doctrine Department at Brigham Young University. Abbie doesn’t go to church, so there’s tension between father and daughter. Both Abbie and her dad want a close relationship, but neither is very good with interpersonal connections.  Of course, there’s a body (maybe more than one), and it has hallmarks of a ritual dating back to the days of Brigham Young. Abbie starts investigating and uncovers a dark side of the quiet town of Pleasant View…  After that, I can’t say.  Miss Demeanors:    What is something about you that would surprise us? Alison:   I spent my junior year studying in Leningrad/St. Petersburg because I thought I wanted to be a Sovietologist. On second thought, maybe a better answer is that I completed Improv 101 at the Upright Citizens Brigade. I heard an interview with Amy Poehler where she spoke about how the world would be a better place if everyone learned the skills that make for good improv. I thought, “Wow, I don’t do any of those things very well.” I signed up. The two most important practices I learned there were how important it is to really listen to other people, and that it’s much better to say “yes, and” than to say “yes, but.” I wish I could say I’ve mastered those skills. I haven’t, but I know when I follow the improv rules, life flows a little more smoothly.  So now you’ve met our newest Miss Demeanor. Please stop by and ask a question we may have missed.      

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Why do you write suspense?

As someone new to writing, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I’m drawn to write mysteries.  So, I thought I’d ask the experts: why do you write what you write?  Cate: I write suspense because I love the feeling of surprise when I learn something unexpected about a person, that in retrospect makes sense. I am also fascinated by the justifications people have for doing badthings. I like creating flawed characters that you feel for. Some of my favorite suspense writers are Gillian Flynn, Dennis Lehane, Ruth Ware, Stephen King, Fiona Barton, Herman Koch and Patricia Highsmith. Susan: I think I like mysteries so much because the writer has to interact with the reader. You’re always thinking: Will the reader guess this clue? Will she be surprised? Is it satisfying? There’s something about that interaction I find very appealing. I’ve heard some authors say that they write for themselves and don’t care if anyone reads it, but I’ve never felt that way. I also love the whole idea of good versus bad, even if there are lots of shades of gray. Tracee: I fell into suspense through old fashioned mysteries. I confess that I am still not ready for hard core scary (I recently saw a preview for the movie It based on Stephen King’s book and that couple of minutes was almost enough to make me leave the theater…. and this was at a matinee!). My preferred suspense writers are in the vein of Patrica Highsmith and more recently Lisa Lutz’s The Passenger. I suppose that I am driven to write in the mystery/suspense genre because that’s what I return to consistently as a reader. I like reading and writing about what people do, what they conceal and why, and how choices sometimes lead people away from their ‘ordinary’ lives.  Robin: I wrote my first ghost story at 8 years old, the cleverly titled “Haunted House on the Hill.” I don’t recall what inspired that particular story but my parents saved it because I also illustrated and hand-bound it with a cardboard-and-construction paper cover complete with spine title and back jacket copy. I think it’s somewhere in my attic now. Later in life, meaning junior high, I fell in love with Stephen King’s work but what drove me to start writing suspense myself was reading Dean Koontz’s Strangers when I was 20-something. Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances seemed like a revelation. I wanted to see if I could write a novel-length page-turner. My first couple of attempts weren’t terrible but weren’t very good. They were great learning experiences, though. Something I didn’t expect was how much fun they are to write. I’ve been honing my crime-writing craft ever since.  Michele: I have always loved police procedurals, but for many of them the methodical, sometimes plodding unraveling of the mystery, is the draw. Not so for Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series, which while challenging my skills at deductive reasoning, somehow rivet me. French’s lyrical writing lures me into her stories about ordinary people who find themselves tangled in awful circumstances that slowly become riveting. Without a contrived twist, French delivers a punch to the gut at the end that stays with me long after. Her writing inspires me to want to share that same kind of adventure for my own readers. “In the Woods” was her first book. Seven years later, I still wonder about what happened to – no, wait, no spoilers here. But wouldn’t I love to think I had a reader still challenged that many years later. I call that writing that stays with you and that is what I want to write. Alexia: Had to think about this one. Why crime fiction as opposed to other genres? I think because of my sense of justice. Every day I see real world examples of injustice, towards people, animals, the environment. Horrible people get away with being horrible and there’s nothing I, nor anyone else, can do about it. We can (and should) donate to causes, march in protests, sign petitions, rescue animals, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, heal the sick, soothe the afflicted, comfort the dying. Yet, for every good work we do, we turn around and see some gazillionaire put people trying to eke a living on minimum wage out of work so the gazillionaire can increase his profit margin and bring home a $50 million bonus instead of a $30 million bonus. Or sneak them across the border to do his laundry or pick his fruit then have them thrown back to a country they haven’t lived in for 10 or 20 years once he’s done with them. Or we see someone beaten up or shot or fired or evicted or denied the right to marry the person they love because someone else doesn’t like their skin color or religion or gender or sexual orientation. Or one puppy mill or dog fighting ring is shut down and 3 more pop up or some demonoid tortures a cat and posts the video online–and gets likes. Or school girls are kidnapped by fanatical creeps who think women shouldn’t be allowed to read– and then some newspaper reports our government has been funneling arms to that particular group of fanatics because they were more sympathetic to our agenda than the opposing group. Or some honest, hardworking person is denied health care because someone decided they weren’t worthy of not having to choose between rent and medicine or, let’s face it, that they weren’t worthy of living. And instead of sticking up for that person, narcissistic jerks take to social media to trumpet about how they’ve got theirs so they don’t give a fuck about anyone else and expect to be applauded for being cold-blooded vultures. Or someone has to travel for miles to get drinkable water because the stuff from their tap is loaded with lead or live in the shadow of a pipeline that won’t benefit them but will certainly poison them if it leaks, all because they’re too poor to buy the political clout to send the mess to someone else’s neighborhood. Or they lose the home that’s been in their family for generations because people with more money suddenly decide their neighborhood is the place to be–as long as the original residents are forced out with sky-high property taxes and restrictive ordinances. We fight and fight and fight and bleed and fight some more and help the ones we can, maybe even save a few but, at the end of the day we have to accept that some things are beyond our control. Except in crime fiction. In crime fiction, I control the world I write. I can create justice. The unrepentant bad guy will go down. The underdog will have his day. Revenge will be had on the cat-torturing, woman-hating, narcissistic, bigot. In crime fiction, the devil may think he’s gotten away with something but by the last page, the angels will have the last word. (Here ends the rant.)      

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Popcorn and Mysteries

Okay, I admit it. This blog is not about writing or reading. It is, however, about something critical to the creative process: what you eat while you watch your favorite mystery. My taste in mysteries and suspense runs the gamut. I have a special place in my heart for the BBC. I’ve watched all 19 seasons of Midsomer Murders. I love Endeavor, Shetland, Loch Ness, Luther, Inspector Lewis, Foyle’s Wars, Wallander, Agatha Raisin, Inspector Lynley, Father Brown, Jonathan Creek, Zen and anything Agatha Christie old or new. I also happily watch Winter and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries for a taste of Australia. New Zealand has The Brokenwood Mysteries.  Then there’s Elementary, Psych, Longmire and Bosch for something with an American accent. I could go on, but I won’t. While the shows may change, my snack of choice does not. It’s always popcorn. If I’m watching by myself, the topping will be whatever strikes my fancy. If I’m curling up to watch a mystery with my daughter, we tend to top our popcorn with truffle butter and parmesan. If I’m watching with my son, it’s frequently butter mixed with hot sauce from Belize. (My sister-in-law is Belizean and introduced the family to Mary Sharps. Our lives have never been the same.) If I’m making popcorn for the entire family, I usually stick to the classic butter and salt. I find high-fat, cultured butter is best because it has, to my taste buds, the right ratio of fat to milk solids. Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter is one of life’s true pleasures. My salt of choice is Baleine coarse salt ground in a salt grinder, but I’ve had great results with black salt from Maui and pink Himalayan salt, as well. I use an old air popper, carefully drizzling the  melted butter on the popcorn as it drops into the bowl. When all the popcorn is popped, I add eight to ten turns of ground salt and place another bowl on top so that I can shake the popcorn until the butter and salt (or parmesan) are evenly distributed. For me, there’s nothing better. It can be a meal in itself…and has been more times than I should confess. Having said that, I’m always on the prowl for both new mysteries and new snacks. So, what do you watch, and what do you eat while watching it?   

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The Space Between Things

This past week I flew from my apartment in New York City to my dad’s house in Salt Lake. I spent most of the flight writing, but when I came up against a brick wall in the story I’m working on, I looked out the window. There was nothing but blue sky and these beautiful cotton ball clouds. The white puffs were all the more intriguing to me because they floated with expanses of sky between them.  The more I write, the more I find myself paying attention to the space between things: the pauses between sentences, the blank page between one chapter and the next. In a world where speed is frequently considered an unmitigated good, reading and writing remind me that there’s a lot to be said for the silence before and after a thought.  When I read a good mystery or thriller, it’s that space that lets me feel the weight of my fear, anxiety, dread and hope. The writers I admire most use their pauses well. Sometimes I rush to turn the page because I just can’t stand not knowing what’s going to happen next. Sometimes I need a few moments to figure things out. Sometimes I just want to savor the words.  I like the nothingness between the something. I think maybe that’s the secret pleasure to reading. We can stop and give ourselves time whenever we want, for whatever reason. We can stop and enjoy the space between things.  

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A community of writers

 Starting this week we at Miss Demeanors are a community of writers + 1. Yes, we have a new Miss Demeanor all set to unveil. (I’ll keep you in suspense and let her share the bits of her story that she wants to. No telling tales out of school here!) What’s really important is that the community grows and keeps growing. Writing fiction is solitary. But not really. The work is done alone (by most people) but community keeps us sane. Community – whether in a writer’s group, at a conference or on line – is where you learn how to fail and how to succeed. It is where you realize you aren’t alone as you face the blank page or computer screen. It is where you celebrate the victories large and small (first page written, first time on a best sellers list).  In the week we broaden our community I’d like to hear where you find your writing OR reading community? 

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Where I Write

  Michele: I’m always fascinated by photos of where people write. Even better, I love to visit actual locations of authors. The Mark Twain House is one of my favorites. I asked my fellow Miss Demeanors to share where they write. I’ve included my own writing spots. One is in St. John; the others are in my she-shed writing sanctuary on Cape Cod.   Tracee: I split my time between my office, where I have a big computer monitor and face away from the window to avoid distractions, and outside on my front porch, where the view is lovely and calm. I tend to think of indoor work as the nuts and bolts of entering changes to the manuscript or fact-checking. The boring stuff. I prefer the porch unless the rain is blowing too hard or it is literally freezing. I’m fortunate that I’m well back from the street so it feels like an oasis, a perfect place to let my mind wander. It also helps that the dogs get to be outside….  Paula: I recently converted what was once a back porch into my new creativity space, which gives me room for reading and daydreaming on the daybed (which also serves as a guest bed in a pinch), as well as for writing (I sit cross-legged on the daybed with a lap desk and my laptop). I also have enough room for yoga and meditation. All of these things — reading, daydreaming, writing, doing yoga and meditating — are critical to my writing process.   Cate: The view from my writing space, as long as it’s sunny. When I look up from the computer, I like to see something pretty.   Alexia:  I write in a variety of places: airports, airplanes, hotels, coffee shops, home, etc. I bought a membership in a co-working space so I’d have someplace near home to write when home felt too distracting. My only essential elements are paper and pen for writing, laptop, internet access, and a power cord for editing. Alison: What a good question! I really don’t need anything except for my computer. I’ll write in bed, at a park or on a plane. Having said that, I like to work at a standing desk (aka a dresser I’ve stacked two thick books on top of so my computer is at exactly the right height for me) with my “view” from the back of our apartment in Manhattan.   Susan: This is the view from my office window. (It’s no wonder I keep writing about oak trees!)    Where do you like to write or read? Post your photos. I’ll send a free copy of Permanent Sunset, the second book in my Sabrina Salter series to Miss Demeanors’ favorite photo! (Must post by midnight, Sunday, July 23rd)

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The Little Reader

 I was just sitting on a neighbor’s porch late one lazy Saturday afternoon this summer with a group of other neighbors. We were chatting, watching people saunter by when a young girl, around eight or nine years old walked down the lane carrying a book half the size of her. People who are lugging books around with them always interest me, but a child this age intrigued me. I was tempted to call out, “Hey, what are you reading?” but then I noticed she kept turning around, as if she was waiting for someone to catch up with her. Remembering how my own children didn’t like to be the focus of adult attention at that age, I reconsidered saying anything to her that might embarrass and discourage her admirable reading habits. She turned the corner and I was satisfied just to know there was at least one budding reader out there.            I went back to the adult conversation, lost in the banter about the latest political folly, when I heard the barrel deep voice of a man thundering outside. “Zoey! Zoey, you come right back here. Right now. This minute.” I crooked my neck to see a large middle-aged man with a Johnny Walker-red face strutting past the porch and around the corner.            “Don’t make me come after you,” he said. I feared for Zoey if she didn’t obey him, but more if she did.            “I just want to go to my special place and read,” she said, slowly approaching the corner where he now stood, planted like a prison guard.            “I don’t care what you want to do. You come back here.”            “I just want to read my book,” she said with quiet defiance. But he won, and she followed behind him, clutching her book to her chest, her chinned bowed down.            I learned from my friends that Zoey was part of a large clan that was having a noisy, chaotic barbecue that evening and that her “special place” was a quiet nook where three bunk beds had been built, one on top of another.            Zoey has stayed with me for a couple of weeks now. Not in my home, but definitely within my heart. I ache for the young reader who simply needed to escape from raucous social event and to retreat into a spot where she could crawl into her book. How many times when stuck in a social situation have I said to myself, I just want to crawl into bed with my book?            It’s like that for many of us. Readers who as children didn’t care if the book was too heavy or the words too long. Books were our friends.  If you were lucky, like I was, there was an adult nurturing your love of books, not a book brut, chastising it. When I was a child, I would visit my grandmother each summer at the seashore. I’d arrive as soon as school was out. “Nanna” would take me to the library and let me take out as many books as they would allow. We’d return to her screen porch filled with the smell of the ocean where she’d point to a cushioned daybed piled with pillows. “You go start one of those books while I get you a lemonade. You worked so hard this year in school, dear, you need to rest and read.”  Nanna didn’t think I needed her permission to read. To her, it was like a medical prescription, essential for health.            Before you can be a writer, you have to be a reader, and I thank Nanna for taking my hand and walking me through the door to the library. I hope for Zoey and children everywhere, a nurturing adult is serving you words next to your vegetables and yogurt. The world needs readers and writers.            Who nurtured you as a young reader?  Was it the door to becoming a writer?   

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I Hear You: You’ll Never Know Dear by Hallie Ephron

  I am a confessed audiobook addict ever since many years ago when I decided to listen to a book on tape while wrapping Christmas gifts. Much as I had wanted to love Maeve Binchy’s books after friends had raved about them, I had been unable to get into them. But when I heard Tara Road read with brogue, I fell in love with Binchy’s story telling and went on to listen to every one of her books. I can still hear the words from Pat Conroy’s Prince of Tides read by Frank Muller, “Do it again, Mama.” Muller’s narration is celebrated by Conroy in a comment on Audible where he says about Muller, “He gave me, Pat Conroy, the author, a work of art, and I’ve been grateful ever since.”I’ve been hooked on audiobooks ever since. I used to listen while I was driving home from teaching in the evening and would be so involved in the book I was listening to, my husband would come out to the car to tell me to come in. Now that I can sync audiobooks with written books, I’m in heaven and spend less time in the driveway.            This week I am listening to Hallie Ephron’s latest suspense novel, You’ll Never Know Dear, which is narrated by Amy McFadden. Here’s a description of the plot from Amazon: Seven-year-old Lissie Woodham and her four-year-old sister Janey were playing with their porcelain dolls in the front yard when an adorable puppy scampered by. Eager to pet the pretty dog, Lissie chased after the pup as it ran down the street. When she returned to the yard, Janey’s precious doll was gone . . . and so was Janey. Forty years after Janey went missing, Lis—now a mother with a college-age daughter of her own—still blames herself for what happened. Every year on the anniversary of her sister’s disappearance, their mother, Miss Sorrel, places a classified ad in the local paper with a picture of the toy Janey had with her that day—a one-of-a-kind porcelain doll—offering a generous cash reward for its return. For years, there’s been no response. But this year, the doll came home.            Already an Audiofile Earphones Winner, the book grabbed me right away. (Their review called it a “must-listen.” https://www.audiofilemagazine.com/reviews/read/128893/) Unlike in many mysteries where there is predictably a dead body on the first page, Ephron seduces you with suspense, luring you with ordinary events that you know won’t last because something terrible has happened and something even worse is on it’s way. McFadden’s narration conveys a sense of foreboding without overdramatizing. Ephron and McFadden are a powerful duo, complimenting one another, unlike some books where it sounds like the narrator is competing with the author.           I wondered what Hallie thought about listening to someone else read her novel of suspense. “It’s scary listening to someone else read your book because, of course, it’s never the same as the voice you heard in your head when you were writing it. Our narrator, Amy McFadden, did a superb job. Her voice is clear as a bell, and she captured the characters perfectly including their southern accents and edge. I was thrilled.”She should be. The book is terrific with a solid plot and intriguing characters in its own right. Add to it the power of narration and you can’t miss. For me, You’ll Never Know Dear will fill hours while I am driving, walking, doing dishes and laundry, all the while in another world. Here’s a link to an excerpt (the first 5 minutes) from the audio book… https://soundcloud.com/harperaudio_us/youll-never-know-dear-by-hallie-ephron?in=harperaudio_us/sets/williammorrowbooks, if you’d like to join me.  

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La Valise Volee (The Stolen Suitcase)

   “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta When people ask me where do I get my ideas, one of my top answers is by traveling. Perhaps it’s my overactive imagination, but I see stories everywhere I go.          For instance, during a trip to Provence recently to fulfill an agenda item on my bucket list, which was to see fields of lavender in full bloom, one of my favorite suitcases was stolen off a bus. Fortunately it had my husband’s clothing in it, not mine, or you would be reading a story about an international incident in the New York Times. But the point is, once we recovered from the outrage and insult we suffered at the hands of a thief and then a very blasé bus company, I began to see the event as a story with all sorts of possibilities. Spending our first hour and a half in Aix en Provence sitting in the police station in ninety-degree weather without air conditioning was indeed inspiring. Not being able to speak much more than high school French, I found myself conjuring reasons why people were gathered in the dirty, antiquated lobby. I had seen people greet one another before with the French kiss-kiss, one on each cheek, but the sight of French cops bidding hello and farewell in that manner fascinated me. I couldn’t tell whether the expressionless silent people gathered around us were victims or perpetrators, so I made stories up. Before you knew it, I knew exactly what happened to la valise volee, what the demise of the culprit would be in the short story I would write, and where the ending would take place.              We had arrived that morning at the airport in Marseille after a short flight from Dublin, a city that I found equally as inspiring. We had chosen to stay in Dublin for four nights on an extended overlay so we could build value into our airfare, which I had been unable to reduce to what I think of as a palatable price. The Hop On, Hop Off bus offered us a great way to see the city as many times as we wanted. We kept going by a vacant over grown lot near the Houston train station where one bus driver told us no one ever got on or off in his twenty-two years of experience. Immediately I knew there was a dead body in the lot. At least that there was a dead body in the lot in my mind.            Later, during the trip home when I encountered a young pale-faced Irish woman traveling to Boston with her two little waifs, I knew they had to be part of that story, which was why they had to leave Dublin. Was the body the abusive husband she had done in? Or had he been murdered by someone looking for something of value they thought the husband had and now figured it was with the widow? Another short story idea was born, even though I am challenged to write short fiction. I’m much better at being long-winded. I blame it on the Irish in me.                So maybe these ideas will end up in books if I can’t manage to fit them into short stories. Or maybe they’ll end up in my pillow as dreams. But wherever they go, I never would have had them if I hadn’t traveled. Does travel inspire you. dear readers? How, and please share photos.     

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