Tag Archives: writers

The saddest day of the year

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I love the fall. In my opinion, it is the most beautiful of all the seasons.

But I hate taking down the garden. still, it has to be done. We are beginning to see frost at night. The cucumber plants all died and the tomatoes are starting to exhibit dead leaves, curled in the characteristic ‘I am too cold” manner.

So I picked all the green tomatoes and brought them into the house to ripen. All the pepper plants and beans are gone. I left one tomato plant that is gamely trying to survive and flower, the broccoli – I think we might have a late harvest -, the turnips and the swiss chard. Even they will have to be cut down in a few weeks. The compost will be spread on the ground and the whole thing covered with black plastic for the winter.

empty garden

everything but broccoli and swiss chard are gone.

A word about the beans. I love green beans and always plant a lot of them. Beans are the plant that keep on giving. This year, somehow, I ended up with pole beans and they really keep giving. I cannot even guess how many pounds I froze. Anyway, I have always planted the bush variety. And after seeing the stalks on the pole beans I have a whole new feeling about Jack and the Beanstalk. The little tendrils that clung to the fence, the strings, the poles, thickened into strong green vines. I had to cut them off the supports. I now believe that if a bean plant grew that tall, the stalks would indeed support a giant.

beanstalk

Salem, past and present

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One of the things I like to do when researching a book is visit the location where it is set. I did that with Salem when I was writing Death in Salem.

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I like getting the feel of the place and a sense of the geography.

Salem is a good place to research since they have kept a lot of their past. Not all of it but enough. And a number of reminders of Salem’s past. and the past of the United States, are still present. The Burying Point, the cemetery, is there. I like that you can still visit this place and see the headstones from the distant past.

Not the accused witches, however. Witches were not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground so  were dumped. Families, although forbidden to do so, frequently found the bodies and buried them properly. This meant a great deal in this religious past. But the burying point does have memorials to these men and women. (even two dogs were accused and executed!)

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The witch trials are well remembered and some of the houses were built in that time, 400 years ago.

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Salem still has many houses from the period of the merchantmen also. Below is the Derby house, built within sight of Derby wharf. Although there are many fine houses on the waterfront, a short walk to Chestnut Street reveals a block of beautiful houses, many from the late 1700’s.

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As the merchantmen grew wealthy, they built houses on Chestnut Street. And many of these houses are still occupied.

Although the 1790’s are not ancient compared to Europe and their long history, for these United States it represents the early part of our history and so I find it exciting.

 

Sisters in Crime blog hop

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As part of Sisters in Crime SINC-UP blog round robin (www.sistersincrime.org/BlogHop) I thought I would address the question: what authors have inspired you?

 

First and foremost, Agatha Christie. I have read all of her books, some of them multiple times. The success of the many dramatizations and most recently the PBS series, several with different actresses for Miss Marple and of course the wonderful David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, speaks to the enduring popularity of Christie’s works. There is even a new Hercule Poirot mystery coming out by a different author who, in an article in Library Journal, said she was trying to remain faithful to the original character.

 

Why is Christie so popular?

 

Certainly not her characters. Although I find her detectives interesting, Christie employs a variety of stock characters: the silly maid, the ne’er-do-well heir, the wealthy older widow, the vicar and so on. The most interesting thing that can be said of these characters is that they hearken back to an era where middle class families had maids. This is a time not too distant from our own – I know people who remember the thirties – but in many ways it is as much a foreign country to us as ancient Rome.

 

But the plots, the plots are incomparable. She plays fair and always puts in enough clues so a really sharp reader can figure out the ending. But she is skilled at putting in a lot of red herrings so unraveling the puzzle is not so easy.

 

She is the Queen of amateur detectives. Miss Marple and Poirot and Tommy and Tuppence and the others do not operate in a world of writs, and Miranda warnings and all the rest. That’s why her detectives have to explain the resolution to identify the killer. Then the killer has to confess so either a tame policeman like DCI Japp can haul him away or he (or she) can commit suicide, thereby saving the police from having to develop a case with pesky things like evidence. I appreciate that model since I write historical mysteries set in a time without a framework of laws and law enforcement professionals. And that doesn’t even mention aids like fingerprints or DNA.

 

Other inspirations are Barbara Hambly (writer of the Benjamin January mysteries set in the New Orleans of the 1830’s). Now, her characters I find unforgettable, and not just January himself. His sisters, his friends, even the murderers he hunts are all fully-fleshed out characters. Ask me to tell you the story of even the first January novel, which I read years ago, and I can. They are that memorable.

 

The other piece she does really really well is setting. What a strange culture this was, exotic and captivating all at once. In my opinion, an author not to be missed.

 

Another author who is rightly famous is the incomparable Anne Perry. She is very good at evoking the setting: Victorian England with all its pretensions and hypocrisy, especially sexual hypocrisy. But I read her primarily for her characters, especially the Charlotte and Pitt series. I feel as if I know them personally. Any author can aspire to writing such believable characters.

 

Finally, there are the wonderful Ellis Peters’s Cadfael mysteries. The medieval setting and the world of the cloister is so real it serves almost as another character.

 

Surely there are male authors who have inspired me? Indeed. One of my absolute favorites is Peter Tremayne, a pseudonym for a Celtic scholar. He writes about seventh century Ireland and Sister Fidelma. A woman who is both a religious and a brehon (judge). During the course of the series she marries, this early form of Christianity was quite different than the form that became known as Roman Catholicism.

 

Surely there are other writers I read? Of course. I loved the 87th precinct by Ed McBain but more as something different from my own experience. I enjoyed the Tony Hillerman mysteries. He did such a good job of putting you into the Navaho experience and both Chee and Leaphorn are wonderful characters. I’m glad Anne Hillerman has taken on her father’s mantle and is continuing the series. C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett mysteries and the superb Longmire mysteries from Craig Johnson are character driven and action filled mysteries.

 

But it is the historical mysteries that I read of tips on ‘how to do it’. The setting is not just a background for the characters and the unraveling of the mystery, but an integral part of the mystery itself.  So you might find that a Crusader, infected with leprosy, is both judge and murderer. Or syphilis is the cause of a graveyard of dead babies. Or a passionate religious disagreement leads to murder.

 

I try hard to match such seamless interweaving of mystery, character and setting but although easy to admire, it is very hard to do.

Check out other blogs by some of the Sisters in crime blog hop and also my special friend Dora Machado at htttp://www.doramachado.com/

Salem and New book Cover

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I can’t praise the graphics department of Minotaur (st. Martin’s) enough. Every cover has been outstanding. I love the new one, for Death in Salem, partly because it is so accurate to the look of Salem’s waterfront.  Take a look. Here is my picture, taken in May of this year.

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and here is the book cover for Death in Salem.

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See what I mean?

More about Salem

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My new Will Rees mystery will be coming out next spring. This time, he travels to Salem, Mass and, of course, is embroiled in a mystery.

I went to Salem to research the area.

I mixed real people and characters of my own invention but tried to keep the facts of the sailing industry accurate.

This is a photo of the custom house, but a few years later. During the 17902, the location switched among several buildings.

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This is the India store. I based the store run by my widow on this store.

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and this is a museum representation of a counting house. Again, I based my description on this.

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I’m sure I will get questions on the tunnels underneath Salem. Although I read about them, I did not see any. I guess it’s time for another road trip!

Writing Process Blog tour

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My dear sweet very good friend Dora Machado, a writer who has been generous with both time and expertise, (honestly, I would have had a much harder time understanding the writing world without her)  has passed the baton to me for the blog tours. I must answer four questions:

These are my answers.

What are you working on?

I am finishing up a Will Rees mystery that takes place in Salem in 1796. At the same time I am researching my next Will Rees, tentatively titled “A Cold  Dish of Murder”. I am simultaneously writing the first draft and doing research. I am also already thinking about the next in the series as well as a stand alone.

Why do you write what you do?

I write historical mysteries because I wanted to write about a period in our country’s history that has been overlooked. I have really learned a lot. I don’t think human nature changes very much and although every culture prohibits murder we seem to do it all the time.

How Does your work differ from others in your genre?

There are a lot of historical mysteries. So far I have found very few that take place after the Revolutionary War and before the 1830’s. And yet this is such a fascinating period. Shadows of the coming Civil War and echoes of the previous war are omnipresent in this period, ships were traveling east to open up trade with China and India and people were moving into the western frontier – there was so much going on.

What is your writing process?

I get up every morning at 5 am and spend the next few hours working on my writing. Sometimes it is blog posts. Some times working on a manuscript. Sometimes sweating over edits. But I try to write every day. I think one of the biggest issue for any writer is making the necessary time.

And now I pass the baton to:

Mary Miley is a historian who, after thirty years of writing nonfiction books and articles, made the leap to fiction. Historical fiction, of course, and mysteries, because that is what she most enjoys reading. Her first Roaring Twenties mystery, THE IMPERSONATOR, won the 2012 Mystery Writers of America BEST FIRST CRIME NOVEL award and was published by St. Martin’s Minotaur in 2013. The second in the series, SILENT MURDERS, will be released in September 2014.
And Will Delman, Will has been writing since childhood and is now beginning to cause a stir in the Science Fiction world.He lives in Salem, Mass with his wife.
http://eleanorkuhns.wordpress.com

 

 

The saga of the kitchen floor

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Well, we couldn’t keep the flooring that was already on the kitchen floor because of the holes under the cabinets. We were given three choices: hardwood, vinyl tiles or the engineered flooring like Pergo. (We could also have ceramic tile but I hate it – too cold and hard to walk on). We threw out the hardwood – we are already having hickory cabinets and I didn’t want a a kitchen that was like a wooden box.)  So we looked at the last two. We chose two tiles, a first choice and a second. The first is no longer available and the second won’t be available until March 9. (So, Loews,  why do you still have it in the store if it isn’t available?)

Then we looked at the flooring and chose a whitewashed look but the contractor told us it wouldn’t look good with the paint color we’d chosen. So we tried again for different forms of vinyl tile.We spent hours in both Loews and Home Depot putting samples on the floor and trying to imagine them in our kitchen.

After a week, we opted to go with the whitewashed flooring and change the paint. Who would guess that flooring would be such an issue?

The Question of Titles

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I am not good at creating titles; I’ll admit that first thing. Some authors seem to choose the perfect title. snappy and appropriate. I struggle.

I think of this now since I am struggling to title the fourth book. Right now it is titled “Death in Salem”. Bland, right? I started with “Salem Slay Ride” which I think is snappier but one of my readers said it sounded like winter. Since the story takes place in June, not a good thing.

Maybe I should have a vote.

The original title for my first book was “Hands to Murder”. I took it from the Shaker saying “Hearts to God, Hands to work”. The publisher felt that too many people wouldn’t get the allusion so it became “A Simple Murder.”

I was lucky with the second book. Since the mystery concerns a dyer – as in one who dyes – the title seemed perfect. But the third book, now titled “Cradle to Grave”, I called  The Book until my daughter suggested the title.

So now I’m struggling with the title for the fourth Will Rees.  “Death at Sea”? “”Blow the Man down”? I’m still partial to “Salem Slay Ride” because I like puns. Like I said, still struggling.

Writing and the Writing Life

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I’ve always wanted to write and wrote my first story at ten. (It was fantasy and every paragraph started with suddenly.)  Since then, I have set aside part of every day to write, and it has not been easy. Up to this point, I’ve had some limited success.

Now I discover that when you do publish, suddenly you have many other tasks beside the fun one of actually writing the story. I refer, of course, to editing and copy editing. The first edits suggested by my editor were kind of fun and I looked upon them as a free creative writing course. And boy were they helpful. I’d gone through the book about six times and there were still places where I didn’t explain something.

Copy edits are different. You look at every word, every comma, every character. Not fun or glamorous at all.

The other task writers do is talk. I’ve already had my first speaking ‘engagement’. I never mind doing this, though. I can always talk and my first time talking about my book was to a group of librarians. Since I started working in libraries at 16, talking to librarians was not a problem. I joke that I can talk to librarians with my mouth taped shut.

Anyway, learning to be a writer, as opposed to ‘writing’ is definitely a job.