Sharing an Office and a Bathtub by Denise Dietz/Mary Ellen Dennis

Denise Dietz, who also does Community Theatre, is the author of the Ellie Bernstein/Lt. Peter Miller “diet club” series, Footprints in the Butter - an Ingrid Beaumont Mystery costarring Hitchcock the Dog, and Eye of Newt. Her alter ego, Mary Ellen Dennis, is the author of The Landlord’s Black-Eyed Daughter (inspired by the Alfred Noyes poem “The Highwayman”), Stars of Fire, and Heaven’s Thunder – A Colorado Saga (May, 2011). Although Deni’s mysteries take place in Colorado, she and Mary Ellen live in a heritage cottage on Vancouver Island. They are both owned by a chocolate Labrador retriever named Magic, who likes to play Wimbledon ball-dog on the nearby tennis courts.  Visit www.denisedietz.com or www.maryellen.com for book covers, more Chien panels, and (candid) photos.

SHARING AN OFFICE AND A BATHTUB

by Deni Dietz

I think writing should be fun, so the items in my office tend to make me smile. First and foremost, one’s gaze is drawn to a rubber statue of Edgar Allen Poe, looming over a red Staples “That was easy” button.

I have two personas. Denise Dietz writes mysteries that have no socially redeeming values whatsoever, and Mary Ellen Dennis writes historical fiction that is ageless. Deni’s mysteries and Mary Ellen’s “history-mystery-romances” usually include romantic elements, inspired by their mutual best friend, novelist Gordon Aalborg. Gordon’s office is upstairs, in the loft, and he often sends Deni and/or Mary Ellen emails suggesting they meet for coffee in the kitchen. Meanwhile, his photo graces Deni’s desk, along with Cat Tracks, Deni’s favorite “Gordon book.”

Deni has a wonderful photo of her actress sister, Eileen Dietz – www.eileendietz.com – who played the possession scenes (and The Demon) in “The Exorcist” and inspired Deni to write Fifty Cents For Your Soul, which Publishers Weekly called “Hollywood noir.”

Deni likes to listen to show music. On her desk she has a stack of CDs that include Les Mis, Candide, Once Upon a Mattress, Phantom of the Opera, and a dozen other Broadway shows. She also has the Dixie Chicks, Harry Chapin, and Barbra Streisand. Mary Ellen prefers Celtic music and drove Deni crazy by listening non-stop to Loreena McKenna’s “The Highwayman” while writing The Landlord’s Black-Eyed Daughter.

Mary Ellen has a huge framed poster of Daniel Day Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans. Deni, who once sang professionally and had a reviewer compare her to Judy Garland, has…Judy Garland memorabilia. Deni also draws cartoons, starring a dog named “Chien.” Like Snoopy, Chien is trying to write a novel (and find a publisher). 

                                               

Deni and Mary Ellen share the same bathtub, where they think up their plots. They also share the same desk. Aside from their individual piles of research books, photos, notebooks and scrap paper, aside from their computer screen, keyboard, modem, phone and printer, they share a stuffed “deadline vulture” that perches on top of the modem. Deni named it Michael Seidman after her first editor. Deni and Mary Ellen share a heavy rock, ostensibly a paperweight, that has CREATE chiseled on its surface. They also share a small ceramic tortoise; it reminds them that if you only write one page a day, by the end of the year you’ll have written a book. Both write more than one page a day. Deni likes the stress of deadlines, Mary Ellen prefers to finish her manuscripts before she sends them to her publisher. Deni owns a small ceramic frog in a witch hat, seated behind a crystal ball. The frog inspires her to write Toe of Frog (AKA “The Da Vinci Toad”), her sequel to Eye of Newt. In that book readers will meet a reincarnated Rottweiler who is afraid of doorbells and songs from the 1970s. Leaning against the wall is Deni’s Lamb Chop hand puppet, given to her by a fan who read Chain a Lamb Chop to the Bed, the third Ellie Bernstein “diet club” mystery.

Mary Ellen collects angels. Her favorite angel holds a piece of paper with a Luciano de Crescenzo quote: “We are each of us angels with only one wing and we can only fly by embracing each other.”

Musing and Meandering on a Saturday Morning

I haven't done one of these Saturday morning rambles in awhile, and I've kinda missed doing them.  But you know, life just gets busy, doesn't it?!  Time for me to just sit back, take a few deep breaths and say a little "thank you" for the good stuff.  It's so easy to dwell on the bad stuff and sometimes overlook the things we're thankful for. 

This has been one of those weeks of weather we tend to have here in these North Carolina mountains.  Those who aren't familiar with the region hear "North Carolina," and think "Southern."  Which is true, of course,, but the area we live in is a whole different ball game than just 4 hours away in the Piedmont area of the state.  This week Appalachian State University was closed Monday due to blizzard conditions, and closed half a day Tuesday.  We made it in to work on Wednesday, but then we were stuck home on Thursday due to ice.  Made it to work on Friday.  We've still got a lot of ice in our driveway, but the roads are much better and the temperatures have actually creeped up above freezing - at least during the day.

It's different in other ways, also.  I've learned since being here that "Mountain Culture" and "Southern Culture" are two entirely different things.  A blog for another day, methinks.

Snow days can be fun, but they can be a bit stressful too - especially when you know you've got work to do on your desk in town 12 miles away.

But.  That's when it's time to put things in perspective.  It's a job, and a job we're damn glad we have during this time of economic crisis.  But, on the other hand - how much good are we to our employers, our families and ourselves if something happens to us while we're trying to fight Mother Nature to get to work?   This is when good ol' common sense is a lovely thing to have.  (it's surprising to me how many people out there seem not to be in possession of common sense.  It has served me well during my life; how 'bout you?).

One of the things I've done a lot of this week is read (surprise!).  And some of that reading has included some of my favorite blogs.  A few that I've especially enjoyed this week are Alex Sokoloff's piece at today's Murderati about traveling.  I love Alex, and I admire her.  The woman is smart, funny, talented, gorgeous and brave.  What's not to admire?!

I always love reading The Lipstick Chronicles.  Always.  I enjoy every one of the women who make it one of the best spots to hang out on the web.  And the community of regulars they've built up is pretty amazing.  Being one of those who is a child of the 60s, I was especially taken with a guest post written by Libby Fischer Hellmann entitled "Forty Years Later."  If you enjoy this piece, you'll probably love her newest book, SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE.

And oooooh, Liz Zelvin - what can I say.  She perfectly summed up exactly how I feel about cell phones in a piece at Poe's Deadly Daughters.  Cellphonismo.  Perfect!  I'm a true techie - love my iPad entirely too much, but I'm one of those who thinks cell phones are Satan in a Shell.  And if one more person bumps their cart into me while doing their grocery shopping and attempting to carry on a conversation over their cell phone, I'm just not going to even try to restrain myself.  I have many, many cell phone rudeness stories - a whole blog's worth.  (Another day).  In the meantime, my friend Liz has summed it up nicely.  Poe's Deadly Daughters is another place I hang out practically every day.  It's comprised of a group of women who are all excellent writers, many of whom I'm proud to call friends.

Speaking of friends.  Jen Forbus is a very special woman.  She's very special to me, and she is very special to a lot of people in the mystery community.  She keeps coming up with the most brilliant projects for her Jen's Book Thoughts, it's just mind boggling.  I have no idea how she does it, but I hope she'll continue doing all she does for a long, long time to come.  The latest is her "2010 Crime Writers Caught Recommending Crime for the Holidays" series.

And, if you're intent on really adding to your TBR stack, or if you're looking for a book gift for the holidays, I recommend checking out Lesa Holstine's Lesa's Book Critiques.  I was tickled pink to see her top pick for her column, "A Few of My Favorite Things," is  Beth Hoffman's "Saving CeeCee Honeycutt," which happens to be one of my favorites also.  (Thanks to Lesa's recommendation as soon as she discovered it).

And there's the always excellent and informative and fun Bill Crider's Pop Culture Magazine.  I don't just check his column every day - I check it several times a day.

Need a perfect recipe?  Of course you do!  And you'll find great ones at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen.  Another group of pretty terrific mystery writers, who also happen to enjoy some time in the kitchen. (it must be the "southern" thing, but I seem to share a lot of the same favorites with  Elizabeth Spann Craig !).


Want more recipes?  Especially chocolate?!  mmmm - yum.  Don't miss Janet Rudolph's Dying for Chocolate.

Thanks to Mason Canyon's Thoughts in Progress, I've discovered a new to me writer.  Carolyn Brown.  I've been reading her Honky Tonk series.  I won all four books in the series at Mason's blog and I am loving them!  I've always been partial to cowboys . . .

A couple of my favorite blogs not only include columns I always enjoy, but some pretty wonderful photography.  If you're not already familiar with Vicki Lane's Mysteries blog (or her wonderful Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian mystery series!), I encourage you to check her out.  Along with my friend Jill, who lives up the road.  Jill does wonderful photo essays at her not to be missed Jill's Life blog  featuring life at her place with 3 dogs, a cat, 3 horses and 3 mini-mules.  AND some views that will make your heart sing.   And every once in awhile she shares a peek at one of her paintings - which are just plain and simply breathtaking.

Enjoy, peeps!

Take a breather from the hectic pace of the holidays and treat yourself to some treats around the interwebs.

Grab a cup of coffee, a nice warm pastry, your quiltie, and settle in. Life is good.

Holiday Hugs from our house to yours!

Why Molly Bloom Doesn't Get Anything Done by Shelley Costa

Shelley's stories have been anthologized in The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories (Forge, 2004), nominated in 2004 for an Edgar® Award by Mystery Writers of America, and received an Honorable Mention in the 2006 Pushcart Prize Anthology.  She's had short crime fiction published in Crimewave (UK) and non-mystery stories published in The Georgia Review and The North American Review.  Her latest story was on the cover of the April 2010 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and her book, The Everything Guide to Edgar Allan Poe, was published in 2007. She has a Ph.D. in English, teaches creative writing at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and is currently at work on a YA thriller, The Golden Heliocrypt: A Pete D-Sat Adventure, which should be finished by the end of the year, as long as she continues to say "no."

Why Molly Bloom Doesn’t Get Anything Done

by Shelley Costa

I admit it: I have never read Ulysses.  I will probably never read Ulysses and I feel just fine about it, maybe because I’m now twenty-seven years past grad school.  That’s like, like, a whole lifetime for people named Kylie.   I can hardly remember those halcyon days of no money, posturing seminars, and scrupulously dancing around the U. question.   I’ve had years to get beyond the sympathetic intellectual nod designed to imply deep connection to a novel I’ve never opened whenever someone at a snoozer cocktail party launches into the topic of Ulysses.

Considering Literary Modernism was one of my special areas, this non-Ulysses stance, this lack of Ulysses,  is especially interesting.  I learned artfulness, and like all seasoned students everywhere, how you can get the most bang for the buck.  I found that bang in the novel’s final line, where Molly Bloom is lying awake in bed.  After all the chapters, I hear tell, in which the characters wander in and out of Dublin pubs and brothels talking about a cheese sandwich and a scrotumtightening sea, what she says is

 yes i said yes i will yes

While you scowl over your martini and swirl the olive around, and while your companion, who acts like he thinks he has a shot with you, adjusts his glasses with the earpiece held together by adhesive tape, here’s where you can mutter something about some final affirmation of life.  Then slap a faraway look on your puss.  That should do it.

But the problem with final affirmations of life like Molly’s is that it leads to trouble.  Whenever Molly gets up in the morning, you can just bet she’s going to agree to throw all the Holy Name Society breakfasts for the next five years down in Donaghmede-Clongriffin-Balgriffin Parish. 

One can only hope that Molly Bloom is not a writer.  Because what we call an affirmation of life is

really a commitment to all the wrong things.  The cheese and sausage sale for the PTA.  Stuffing envelopes for some hopeless candidate running for political office.  Making a rag rug out of the pajamas of dead relatives.

So maybe I’ve learned something, after all, from a book I’ve never read.

My tap shoes are gathering dust, since every week the  choice seems to come down to getting another hour and a half written on my novel or confounding my feet with the riff, wing, pull back, cramp roll, and shuffle ball change.  Ulysses should be so complicated.

And I recently resigned my very important responsibility at our local library: namely, the official driving of the quarterly newsletters to the post office where they are mailed bulk rate to 200 people.  I count them.  And fill out paperwork.  And wonder how many hours it would take how many chimps to write Hamlet.

No, I say no, are you kidding me? NO.

Make no mistake: the real affirmation of life.  The writing life.

The Official Work Space

The Actual Work Space

Sissyfriss Sockmonkey and Lou Lou Skiptoo Watch the Snow Fall in Boone

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow . . .

So pretty.

"Well, Hey There, Lou Lou - where have you been?"

"Hey, Sissy.  I've been out walking with Harley, but I think that's my last trip out today. It is blowing like crazy!!"

"I know.  Just a little while ago I could see down the driveway, but now I can't see anything.  It's a blizzard, for real."

"Sissyfriss, remember last year we walked up here from Auntie Coo Coo's house.  In our snowshoes!  Remember?!"

"Lordy, yes, I remember!  I also remember drinking too much and having one heck of a hang-over the next day!  Tee-Hee."

"Now that Auntie Coo Coo has moved to Florida to be with Waldo, and we're living here, we can just stay tucked in all nice and warm.  The only time we have to go out is when Harley says it's time."

"That devil dog.  He LOVES the snow.  He pretends it's time even when it's not just so he can go out and run like a crazy dog in all this mess."

"It's pretty though."

"Yes.  It is."

"And quiet.  Peaceful."


"And magical."

Run, Harley!  Run, Run, Run!!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow . . .

Escapist Fare by Gillian Roberts

Judy Greber is a peace-loving woman who loves playing with words, paints, the cat and the (perfect) grandchildren. She also has written four novels which sometimes involve death, but never sleuthing. Her alter-ego, Gillian Roberts is a figment who in theory writes mysteries.

            After fourteen books in the Amanda Pepper series, both Judy (Gillian?) and Amanda retired from the schoolroom. Amanda and her husband moved to New Orleans.  Judy and her husband stayed put in Northern California. 

            Once no longer writing the series, Judy way too loudly declared she wanted a “new challenge,” thereby setting herself up to be the living definition of ‘be careful what you ask for.‘   She’s been grappling ever since with a novel (with murder) set in seventeenth century Mexico. Those fat notebooks on the desk are filled with research, the books on the shelves (and under C3PO) are a portion of what she’s read and now--the game is to write a book in which none of that research “shows.” No info dumps, as tempting as it might be.

            Gillian sent a postcard from a beach in Figmentland that said, “Tell me when it’s time to put my name on the cover...”

Escapist Fare

by Gillian Roberts

          It should be relatively easy to write about murder,  especially when a perfect premise is given to you. Without such a ‘gift’, I’ve done it in sixteen novels and a few dozen short stories. I’ve even written a how-to-write-about-murder.

          Here’s what I know now: It is (relatively) easy--as long as it’s a mystery.

          And it’s fictional.

          The resulting puzzles or pulse-racers are called escapist fiction.  It’s suggested we read such works on a plane where anything that makes travel less onerous is a plus, or at the beach (what on earth are we escaping there?)

          “Escapist” is generally not a compliment. There’s a small sneer in the term, as if the crime isn’t on the page but within us.  Our brows are low.  Nobody gave us permission to escape.  It’s a critical form of Mean Buddhism: Be Here Now--Or Else.

          But we do escape, even when we aren’t flying or sunbathing and return to the pleasures of crime as readers and writers.

          I did or thought I did. And then real-life murder hit home, almost literally.  A gentle woman--who was active in the library, who wanted to write, who had been a career counselor, who had dreadful back problems about which she didn’t complain, whose husband, a lawyer and wildlife photographer died of Alzheimer’s a few months earlier, who had fine sons and grandchildren--was killed.

          Early one early summer morning in this quiet town she was murdered a few feet from her front door, with a point blank shot to her skull. 

          Nothing was taken from the house.  

          Nobody heard the shot.

          The local weekly just won a national prize for their coverage of the crime, but a year later, it remains unsolved. And a year later, I find myself still thinking of her on a daily basis, and looking at life differently. I was a casual friend. What is her best friend feeling? Her children and grandchildren? Her next door neighbors?  Everyone in this small town is changed in many ways. One gunshot echoes forever.  

          “You ought to write about it,” more than one person said. “You’re a mystery writer and here it is--a real life mystery in our own town.”

          True. It has every element the crime novels I most enjoy reading and writing have. It’s a classic mystery. 

          And yes, I spent a lot of time puzzling who could have, why anybody would have, done such a thing, and I have a working, if unprovable idea.  I also know that to a writer, ‘everything is material.’  I have borrowed shamelessly from news stories that gnawed at me. The books that resulted weren’t of the ‘ripped from the headlines’ type because big headlines interest me less than small, human stories. Like this one.

          But when I think about borrowing this woman’s death--even though it haunts and mystifies me and feels important in ways I can’t yet articulate--I feel as if I’d be dishonoring her because of what a writer must do in order to turn her story into mine. 

          Everything I know about her is benign, loving, wry, kindly.  She was ordinary, in the nicest of ways. That’s what gives her story such power--it makes no sense.

          But what we demand in a mystery is to go beneath smooth surfaces and find fissures, secrets, and dark places, a handful of enemies--suspects--who have cause to have wanted her gone. I couldn’t do that to that good woman, but then I’d have no plot, no story, no motives--no book.      I’ve been trying to think through this, about why I never felt this queasiness and revulsion when I’ve borrowed bits from real events and real people’s behavior and turned them into something new. We say we want believable stories, and believable characters, but we don’t, not really.  We want art. Escapist art, if you will. 

          Only since my friend was killed did I consider what, precisely, we’re escaping. I know our books can help us assuage grief and anxiety.  I’ve heard from readers who said my books got them through long sieges by or in a hospital bed, or sleepless nights, or just plain bad times, and I am so grateful that is so.

          But after a year of thinking about the unfathomable insanity that took a good life, about real crime and its aftershocks, I think that we turn to fictional mysteries to escape the terrible lack of a plot in “real” life. We’re escaping the randomness and meaningless of the evil we cannot escape in the ‘real’ world by diving into a book where loose ends are woven together, motives are clear and maybe most of all, we’re given an ending, a conclusion, a meaning--whatever that might be.

          It’s a good thing. Thanks be for the magic and the solace escapist fiction provides. Without it, life in its amoeba-like shapelessness might smother us. So while I won’t ever ‘use’ the one murder story I know, I will keep writing escapist fiction and consider “escapism” a necessary blessing and a term of praise.

A nut is a nut is a nut

And then there are

NUTZ !

As in The Mixed Nutz

The Mixed Nutz is the name of a book group.

Or it used to be a book group.

Now it's sort of a "non-reading" book group.

We, the Nutz, still read (some more than others), but we don't all like the same books, so we don't read as a group.

But, we do like to eat.  And we're less picky about what we eat than we are about what we read.

Once Upon a Time - - -

Many years ago, The Mixed Nutz started as a book group meeting once a month.  We would bring food (but of course), and discuss the latest book.

However.

We've evolved.

Now we eat out. 

We discuss everything under the sun, laugh like crazy people, and shed a tear or two from time to time over the bad stuff.  And we might even mention what we've been reading!

Here we are over the years -

Meet The Nutz !

We have to start with last night's dinner.  The cutie wearing the rain poncho is Susan.  It did look as though it might rain any minute inside the restaurant (we also coddle one another when the need arises).

Susan standing, Terri, Michelle and Amy

Me, Terri, Susan, Amy, Ellie, Michelle

Girlfriends


One of the things the holiday season is all about






right?!


right!

Merry Christmas Amy, Susan, Terri, Michelle and Ellie -
I love ya!

and here's to many more years of life as a Nut

The Year in Review: Diary of a Wounded Writer by Nancy Means Wright

Nancy Means Wright is the author of fifteen books, including seven mystery novels (St. Martin's Press; Perseverance Press), and two kids' mysteries (Hilliard&Harris) for which she won an Agatha and Agatha nomination. Short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Level Best Books' anthologies, American Literary Review, & elsewhere. She lives in Vermont with her spouse and two Maine Coon cats, who love to pull her hair as she writes. 

THE YEAR IN REVIEW: DIARY OF A WOUNDED WRITER

by Nancy Means Wright

    So the spring-summer-fall Campaign is over, and despite a little blood loss, I’m alive. No, I wasn’t running for office: I was just trying to launch a novel. 

    January 13, 2010: I’m driving into the Vermont Book Shop to leave a pile of folders depicting the cover of Midnight Fires, the first in a new mystery series with fiery 18^th-century rebel Mary Wollstonecraft, en route to an Irish castle to be a lowly governess. The bookseller knows me (it’s my 15^th book); he promises they’ll order lots of copies. Everything off to a great start—till I drive off in my old Subaru—and *#+**!! Something hit me! Not a book, no, it’s a Jeep Cherokee with a grinning guy behind the wheel. Unlucky start, but I’m an optimist. I hand the cop a flyer of my book, and hitch a ride in his cop car to the hospital Emergency—to quell my drumming heart. 

    February 15: Publishers Weekly calls the book captivating; enthusiastic reviews follow. My car is in the repair shop and I owe the hospital $1300. I’d switched insurance via phone, never got the medical part, but never mind, I’m on a high! 

    March 1: I’m running late into Town Meeting at the local school; and ahhh! my boots glue to the thin carpet; a cement floor rises up to hit me in the face—I’m back in Emergency with bruises, cuts, and a broken right arm. “I’ve a March blog tour,” I plead, “a book out in April. Fix it, please?” The bone doctor schedules surgery. Oh, the slings and arrows of misfortune! 

    March 5: Home from hospital with pins in my right arm; a killer dose of Vicodin. My skin swells; my right hand is a big rubber ball; my left fumbles at the keyboard. In the mail: ARCs from my editor to autograph for the Malice auction. (Who signed those? My Maine Coon cat?)   

     

    March 14: The left handed blogs go forward. My therapist scolds: “Use that arm!” Google cries, “Wrong password!” when I try to respond to a blog comment.

    March 30: My doctor proscribes Metoprolol for my rising blood pressure; Temazepam for a healing sleep. (Palpitations, they warn. Staggering. Memory loss. Can be fatal.)  

 

    April 5:  The book is out! I breathe in the warm papery smell. On the cover: Wollstonecraft, her feckless lovers forgotten—happy and pregnant at 38, just months from giving birth to Mary Shelley. 18 years from the birth of Frankenstein, but the mother will never read it. She’s soon dead of blood poisoning—the doctor pulled out the placenta in a dozen pieces but neglected to wash his hands. 

    April 13: My car’s fixed, but I can’t drive it. My spouse drives me and 25 copies of Midnight Fires to Belmont, Ma for a SinC-NE panel, a first for the new book. We check into a motel; to relax, I swallow an extra tab of Metoprolol. I feel great! I greet fellow panelists, a roomful of listeners. Start up to the table and—my legs give out. I can talk but I can’t stand! The librarian calls 911 and the whole room watches as I’m hauled onto a stretcher. All night long the hospital runs tests, sucks up my blood like a vampire. At dawn a nun wants to pray over me. I surrender—it can’t hurt. The prognosis: nothing more than a Metoprolol overdose (and a pending $2000 bill). 

    April – May: Pub date comes and goes. I’m a madwoman: Facebook, Goodreads, MMA, MWA, Dorothy L, CrimethruTime. Bookstores, libraries….  But I’m sweating,  palpitating—trying to get off the Metoprolol.  I’ve insomnia: I double the sleeping pills. Can’t quit—I’m addicted! My legs are logs; I stagger, my head’s a drumroll. Malice Domestic coming up but I cancel the flight: lose airfare, registration, courage, confidence. Who’s ever going to buy my book? 

    May 12:  My insurance says the school where I fell is liable, but the school denies the claim. Will I have to sell my computer? Remortgage my house?

    May 14: A thousand color postcards arrive from my publisher! There’s Mary inside a frame of fire, still penning a novel, months away from her death-by-childbirth. I hire a grandchild to address them to bookstores, libraries, book clubs, fans. Her crabbed handwriting slants up, down, and off the card, but I give her a hug. I’m off the meds!

    June, and my right hand improves (though the skin has darkened from surgery); I can reach high with my practice pulleys; my therapist waves goodbye. But I can drive! 

    July 24: Three hours through teeming rain to teach a workshop at a writers’ con. I made it, hurrah! The book is still selling. I’m revising The Nightmare, a Wollstonecraft sequel, due out fall of ’11. 

    October 13: Vermont trees are on fire in leafy red and orange, but I’m off to San Francisco for Bouchercon. I meet my editor and publishers, joy! Like the Golden Gate Bridge, I’m in a happy fog. Then Crime Bake in Boston, yay! And suddenly it’s    

    

    November, and to resolve the liability snafu, my lawyer hands over the problem to Senator Patrick Leahy; his caseworker scares my insurance company into submission. Sure, I’ve spent ten times my book advance and I still owe the hospital, but I have my computer. My fingers are songbirds on the keyboard. The house is mine.  My darling man is sticking with me.

    December: The new cover arrives, with Henry Fuseli’s gorgeous erotic painting “The Nightmare”: a sleeping woman in a diaphanous nightie, a grinning demon on her breast; a mare’s head, leering… I know that nightmare well, I’ve just lived it. I think of author Pat Wynn who wrote that good historical fiction makes you wonder “where truth ends and fiction begins.” Or vice versa? 

    Who really knows? Not even impassioned Wollstonecraft (who tried to move in with Fuseli and wife in a ménage à trois and was shown the door)—could tell you that.

    So here’s to the New Year…2011. Onward and (por favor) UPWARD!

                                                                        Nancy Means Wright

                                                                   www.nancymeanswright.com

                                                       “Becoming Mary Wollstonecraft” Facebook page

Keeping up with Twist Phelan

A Stanford graduate and former plaintiff’s trial lawyer, Twist Phelan writes the critically-acclaimed legal-themed Pinnacle Peak mystery series (Poisoned Pen Press). Her short stories appear in anthologies and mystery magazines and have won or been nominated for the Thriller, Ellis, and Derringer awards. A collection of her best--A Stab in the Heart: Collected Crime & Mystery Stories--has just been released as an ebook. Currently, Twist is finishing up a suspense novel set in the business world. Find out more at www.twistphelan.com.

Keeping up with Twist Phelan

I just bought a new Blackberry; my old one didn’t support the Kindle app. Yesterday, I took my skis to the shop to have the new Salomon ProPulse bindings installed. I’m debating between the Campy Super Record 11 and the SRAM Red gruppos for my new road bike.

I’ve always enjoyed owning the latest in technology and athletic equipment. I’m a compulsive adopter. Whatever the new generation gadget, I have to try it.

Remember the Apple Newton? I pre-ordered it as soon as it was announced. When TiVo debuted, I received a letter from the company founder, thanking me for being one of his first 100 customers. (He also sent me a hat with the little TiVo guy on it.) If the guys at Atomic tweaked their skate skis so they were a tad faster, I was at the head of the line to order a pair.

It’s not just tech and sports stuff. I’ve always tried to make sure that everything in my life is the latest and the greatest.
 

Last week I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond with a friend. While she shopped for towels, I checked out the gadgets in the kitchen department. There were things I had never heard of: mushroom brush, bacon press, olive stoner, S’mores maker. I’d put all of them in my basket before my friend grabbed me by the arm and led me into the china section.

“Listen,” she said. “I’d like to introduce you to Twist. You hate to cook. You don’t read cookbooks. You don’t watch cooking shows. You don’t eat pork. The instructions are still taped to the top rack of your oven. You don’t need any of this stuff in your kitchen!”

Of course, she was right. Everything in my life doesn’t have to be the newest gimmick or the latest advancement. I put it all back, except the S’mores maker, which rests on the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet—never used.

Keeping up is often about following someone else's agenda. The bloggers and tweeters who send out news of the latest beta. The marketers, publicists, and journalists who blanket us with coverage about the newest gear. The geniuses who invent the stuff. The producers who make it in vast quantities.

Too many of my priorities were getting sidelined or trampled when I got caught up in keeping up. The endless onslaught of new things met invented needs I readily embraced. They weren’t necessarily the things I really required for happiness and fulfillment. I think if I can stop trying to keep up with all the should-haves and must-haves, I’ll do better at staying current with the things that really matter to me.

Bike and ski stuff? You bet. New dictation software or an improved e-reader? Absolutely. Sunglasses with a built-in MP3 player or an interactive refrigerator? Not.

Is there a Girl Scout leader out there who needs a S’mores maker?       

Twist's Workspace

Snow! Doggies! Monkeys! Oh My!

So.

We've had a bit of snow here in Boone.

Harley loves it.

And it is pretty.

But I prefer watching it from a window while sitting in this little corner with this book and this cup of coffee.

Wearing these monkeys on my feet.