Pen, Spoon & Dagger

Is there an organization for gadget-holics?  I'm in serious need.  I love kitchen gadgets, to the point that I should be granted a special favoured-shopper badge at Williams Sonoma, Chef's Catalog and similar merchants.   When in doubt, my friends and family gift me with cookbooks, utensils and gadgets for every occasion. And I get excited about every single one of them.  At least until the first time I try to use one. A couple of weeks ago I received a new gadget -- a strawberry huller from my mother -- for Easter.  And,   even though hullers have been around for years, I've never owned one, relying instead on a small paring knife to do the deed.  Like other "holics", I hoard my gadgets.  At a meeting, I'd have to stand up and admit to having boxes, several boxes, and drawers of gadgets.  Some I love (in the drawers) and some I never use (hence the boxes). But for some reason, I never seem to be able to part with any of them.  What ...

Last weekend was Murder 203, Connecticut's own Mystery festival.  Held on Saturday at the Easton Library and on Sunday at the Westport library, it's a wonderful way to re-energize your spirit and your writing.  The two-day event is packed with panel discussions, book signings, raffles and a silent auction at Saturday night's cocktail party. This year's guest of honour was Mary Jane Clark, author of the Eliza Blake and Sunrise Suspense Society series.  Hank Phillippi Ryan, put on her reporter "hat" and interviewed Mary Jane.  The hour flew by, filled with amusing anecdotes and useful insights. Mystery 203 draws not only published authors, and the hopeful (like yours truly), but also avid fans who come to meet and mingle with their favourite mystery writers.  I was surprised by the number of non-writers, many of whom had driven long distances to be there.   There were lots of great sessions to choose.  Topics included: Research: balancing facts and fi...

Taxes are done and in the mail, so I'm back at my keyboard writing again and it feels good to be here.  I'm still struggling with the plot.  There are some gaping holes and inconsistencies that I need to work out, but I'm up to 20,000 words. When I wrote my first MS, I couldn't decide between first or third person point of view (POV).  There are pros and cons for each.  It's most common (but not a rule) for a mystery to be in one POV only.  And, as Donald Murray, my esteemed university journalism professor pointed out, third person POV close can feel as intimate as first person when done well. That said, I tried both and discovered something interesting: I cannot write third person.  It just doesn't work for me.  That's probably a cop out, and if I tried harder I could do it, but it just feels unnatural -- like wearing someone else's clothes. (I almost said underwear, but that's just too weird.) I struggled through a couple of chapters before d...

Today's blog is short, and has nothing to do with writing, unless I can work the insanity into my story somehow. Every so often, an article on the 'Net or in the paper (yes I still read a hard copy newspaper) just pushes my button and I have to vent. It's usually about the lack of a dog park, or some other anti-pet ordinance, in our otherwise civilized town, but this time it's something a little more delicate: bathroom facilities on airplanes.RYANAIR, a no-frills Irish line, is planning to charge passengers to use on-board toilets. If you're old enough, you probably remember when places like Grand Central had both "free" and "pay" toilets.  If you were smart, you coughed up the 25 cents for the ones they cleaned, nominally, a couple of times a day. RYANAIR is planning to make its toilets coin-operated, forcing passengers to fork out a pound ($1.65) or a Euro ($1.44) every time they want to "spend a penny" in the sky.  Their logic: t...

Total word count: 8,477 (including deletions) I had a kind of epiphany this weekend – bad pun since it was Easter weekend – but it was the other kind of epiphany, the “EUREKA” kind. I’m reading Chris Roerden’s book, Don’t Murder your Mystery .  I’ve picked it up several times before, reading bits and pieces, but never cover to cover.  This time I’m really reading it, word by word, digesting the advice, seeing how I can apply the Find &Fix Clues at the end of each chapter to my own writing. My “eureka” (the first of many, I"m sure) came when I read what she had to say about descriptive passages, using an economy of words to describe people and places, and, most of all, avoiding information dumps.  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.  I looked at my first MS and (I’m blushing, here) I am guilty of dump after dump. I was particularly taken with Roerden’s idea of “timed release,” of selecting one key feature or attribute for the character’s first action, and saving...