Upcoming Guest Bloggers

Workings Stiffs welcomes THREE guest bloggers this week!

Steve Liskow--Tuesday, July 27th.
Avery Aames--Thursday, July 29th.
Billie Williams--Friday, July 30th.

Be sure to stop by!

She Works Hard For The Money

Working Stiffs welcomes back our good friend Kelli Stanley.

She Works Hard For The Money

by Kelli Stanley

Hi, everybody! It’s wonderful to be back among my Working Stiffs buddies, stretching my legs in front of the electric fireplace in Annette’s RV. ;) Ha! I loved that post … I remember when camping meant camping, and don’t talk to me unless you’re willing to compare mosquito bites. ;)


Seriously, thank you all so much for having me over! Blog tours are not only fun visitin’ time, but one of the few occasions when authors get to pretend we’re famous and making the rounds of talk shows to talk about our next vehicle. ;) In my case, of course, it’s CITY OF DRAGONS—my second novel, first in a new series, and Bente’s god-child, because she let me borrow her (real) name for a character--Bente Gallagher, an old friend of Miranda Corbie, my PI protagonist. Cool, huh? But I owe the inspiration for the character completely to Jennie. When I heard her real name, I *knew* my Bente—she sprang fully formed.

In my case, I’m following up a blog tour at some of my favorite hang-outs with a face-to-face tour on the West Coast. And I’m trying to figure out what sections of the book to read. I confess that I like reading—I was a Drama major, after all—but CoD has a lot of dialog. What do you guys think? Do you like dialog scenes read aloud or straight prose? Any preferences? Any dislikes?

I’m kind of nervous, as this is my first chance to actually see my book in a lot of stores-- NOX was distribution-challenged. So I’ll be hoofing it like a chorus girl, up and down the coast, talking about 1940 San Francisco and noir and Chinatown and … oh, yeah. Probably the point I’ll get questioned on the most: Miranda was an escort before she earned her PI license.

“Escort” means a lot of things to a lot of people. Most people assume it means she was a prostitute. Some have labeled her a call-girl. I’ve already been asked “Did she or didn’t she?” and the book’s not out until February 2nd …

The truth is that Miranda is an extraordinarily complex woman. I honestly don’t feel like she’s a creation at all—more like a writing partner. She’s someone I know well, but even I don’t know all the answers.

By the time CITY OF DRAGONS opens in February, 1940, she’s already been through:

A rough childhood. The Jazz Age and bootleg gin and women’s emancipation. The Great Depression. Teaching English to dirt poor dirt farmers. Falling deeply, deeply, deeply in love and volunteering as a nurse in the Spanish Civil War. Losing her lover—and herself.

Then there’s the escort experience, working for Burnett, a sleazy detective and her old boss … and finally, the Miranda of CITY OF DRAGONS.

You only get bits and pieces of her backstory, and that’s as it should be. I’m hoping to write about Miranda for a long, long time, and I’ve got some prequels in mind (one is already going to be published—a short story called “Children’s Day”, set almost a year earlier than CITY OF DRAGONS. It’s proud to be included in the next ITW anthology, FIRST THRILLS: High-Octane Stories from the Hottest Thriller Authors—releasing June 22 from Forge).

So what can I tell you about Miranda? She’s private. She means a lot to me. And I don’t violate her confidences. But I know this: that as a thirty-three year old woman in 1940, she, too, is a working stiff. And whatever she did, she worked damn hard for the money.

Thanks for reading, guys—and thanks again for having me on Working Stiffs!

CITY OF DRAGONS will be released from Thomas Dunne/Minotaur on February 2nd. You can order your copy here.

YES, THIS REALLY IS WORK

by Brad Parks

I’m pleased to be a guest today on Working Stiffs, which is a great name for this blog not only because of that whole, you know, Pittsburgh thing – I’ve heard something about steel being produced in the region? – but because it tackles one of the prevalent misconceptions about crime writers:

Nobody thinks we work for a living.

I base this on conversations with friends and neighbors, who seem to believe that crime writers basically sit around the house in their underwear all day, munching on snack food while thinking of creative ways to kill people.

And it’s totally inaccurate. I, for one, almost always wear pants.

But, seriously, I’d submit that one of the most important – if underappreciated – attributes a writer can have is, quite simply, a blue-collar, working-stiff kind of stubbornness.

Not talent (though it helps). Not genius (that helps, too). But steel-city toughness.

It’s about sitting down and writing when you’d really rather be giving yourself paper cuts. It’s about having the perseverance to work and rework a scene, a paragraph, or even a single sentence dozens of times. It’s about banging your head against the computer screen repeatedly until you either pass out or get it right. It’s about ignoring rejection letters from agents and publishers and having the will to stick with it.

And that’s good news for all the folks out there harboring the dream of becoming an author. Because none of what I’ve just described is some gift from the heavens, bestowed on a select few. It’s something that just about anyone with a reasonable grasp of the English language can achieve.

Even a dumb former sportswriter like me. If you’ll forgive a self-serving anecdote, I often think of a time when my wife was in graduate school, studying to be a school psychologist.

Part of her program was learning how to administer intelligence tests and I was her test dummy (and I do mean dummy). There was one test where you were timed on how quickly you could complete a series of problems. You got full credit for doing a problem within a minute and partial credit for doing it in two minutes. You got no credit for anything beyond two minutes. But – and this was the catch – my wife wasn’t allowed to tell me that, nor could she tell me to stop working and move onto the next question.

I did the first couple questions in the allotted time, but really started struggling as the tasks got more complex. By the last question – the hardest – my poor wife had to sit there for 25 minutes until I finally worked it out, even though the final 23 minutes were a total waste of her time.

But, see, that’s what’s great about this business: No one can tell you when to stop working, and you still get full credit no matter how long it takes you. So you don’t necessarily have to be the smartest guy in the room. You just have to be tenacious.

I’m certainly thankful that’s the case. I was a career journalist – first in sports, then in news – who started writing fiction nine years ago. And for a long time all I had to show for it was a pile of manuscript pages and some polite-but-firm rejection letters.

Now – alert: more self-serving stuff on the way – I’m celebrating the release of my debut, FACES OF THE GONE. It’s a monument to determination as much as anything, and I don’t pretend I’m alone among authors in feeling that way. If there’s a common theme among the many wonderful writers I’ve met over the last year, it’s simply that they kept writing until they got published. They worked at it, and they worked hard. Because this really is hard work – or at least it is if you’re doing it right.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go munch on snack food.

To learn more about Brad Parks or FACES OF THE GONE, visit www.BradParksBooks.com. To be pelted with monthly fits of nonsense from his small army of underpaid interns, sign up for his newsletter (http://www.bradparksbooks.com/fan-club.php). To be subjected to such drivel on a more regular basis, become a fan of the Brad Parks Books on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brad-Parks-Books/137190195628#) or follow him on Twitter (www.twitter.com/Brad_Parks).

Pittsburgh Highs and Lows

Working Stiffs welcomes the super-fantabulous (yes, I know it's not a real word) CJ Lyons today! Woo-hoo!

Pittsburgh Highs and Lows

by CJ Lyons

Thanks for having me back here at Working Stiffs!!! Instead of focusing on crime fiction or my new release, URGENT CARE, I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane of the best and worst of Pittsburgh in the news lately.

Even though I've recently moved away from PA, I still read the Pittsburgh papers every morning (thank you Internet!) and here are some of the highs and lows:

High: The Steelers!!! What a Super Bowl! White-knuckled until the final seconds, I loved it!

High: The Penquins!!! While I lived in Pittsburgh the Pens won two Stanley Cups and I was at several games including a finals game. Plus, I had a bet with a friend from Detroit about the Cup and won tons of money for St. Judes, double yeah!

Low: The Pirates....say no more.....

High: the relative lack of drama around the G-20 summit--although I'm sure anyone caught in the commute and traffic snarl would call it a low.

Low: G-20 protestors smashing the window of Pamelas--I mean really! Who could have any problems with Pamelas pancakes???

Not-so-sure: the Greenpeace demonstrators hanging from the West End Bridge. Very out of the box thinking, but how much good did it do their cause? Think of all those rescue boats, trucks, and other vehicles....not exactly carbon neutral!

Low: closing the Carnegie Library branches.

High: the successful move of the Children's Hospital to its sparkling new facility in Lawrenceville

Bottomless pit low: the line of duty deaths of three police officers in Stanton Heights

And, finally, a high point for any fiction writer: the alligator who started a fire in an old school that was also filled with rabbits and other assorted critters......I gotta figure out a way to get that gator in one of my stories!

(BTW, the gator in the photo isn't the Pittsburgh gator, it's one I found ten feet from my steps!)

So you tell me, have I missed anything in my Pittsburgh top ten? Let me know!

What wild and wacky stories are you wanting to include in your books?

Oh, and for all you writers out there, I'm hosting a contest where you can win a critique of your query package from my agent, Barbara Poelle of the Irene Goodman Agency. Go to my site http://www.cjlyons.net for details.

Thanks for reading!
CJ

About CJ:

As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels. Her debut, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), became a National Bestseller and Publishers Weekly proclaimed it a "breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller." The second in the series, WARNING SIGNS, was released January, 2009 and the third, URGENT CARE, on October 27, 2009. Contact her at http://www.cjlyons.net

Upcoming Guest Bloggers

Kristen Weber, former editor at NAL, now a freelance editor--Thursday, October 22nd.

CJ Lyons, whose 3rd medical thriller will be released this month--Friday, October 30th.

The Most Important Stranger

Working Stiffs welcomes guest blogger Mark Arsenault!

by Mark Arsenault

One of the most influential people in my writing career was a homeless heroin addict who lived under a bridge. Her name was Julia. Without her, I may never have tried to write a novel.

I met Julia in 1997 while working as a reporter in Lowell, Massachusetts, an old redbrick New England mill town north of Boston.

One day, the newsroom police scanner reported a body under a railroad bridge, and I went out to do the story. But by the time I found the place, the action was over and the police, the paramedics and the body were gone.

What was left behind—on a concrete ledge hidden beneath the bridge, maybe 20 feet above some railroad tracks—was evidence of a community. I discovered dirty bedding and old clothing, crates of cutlery and candles, canned goods and cat food, damp campfire ashes, and mounds and mounds of trash.

The dead man under the bridge had overdosed on heroin. I learned that his nickname was Ebby. Through the local homeless shelter, I also found Ebby’s longtime girlfriend—Julia.

I only saw her once. Now, 12 years later, I can’t picture her face in my mind. From my notes, I know that she had rough skin and rugged hands, but dainty eyebrows.

Ebby and Julia had lived together under that railroad bridge for two years, through nasty New England winters, as part of a small, invisible community of homeless addicts.

Julia told me her story in a coffee shop. People with nothing to lose are the most honest people you’ll ever meet.

Heroin, she told me, knows exactly what a person is missing inside, and that’s what it provides, every time. Do it for one week, and you’ll have a habit. At the time, she had recently cut back to two bags of heroin a day, and was hoping to quit. She was devastated by Ebby’s death. “We weren’t hurting anyone but ourselves,” she told me. “Why couldn’t we just have our little lives?”

That was when I realized her tale was one of the oldest in the world: a love story with a tragic ending.

I raced back to the newspaper with plans for a feature on this underground community of addicts, to take the readers into a world they never knew existed, which is the job of any newspaper.

My editor had other ideas. He wasn’t interested in these people. He told me to go find some “respectable” folks to write about.

I was equal parts crushed and infuriated. I would have quit my job on the spot, except that I was two missed paychecks from joining the homeless.

So I had to suck it up, get back to my desk and try to forget about the story.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Julia called me one time. I told her I was having trouble getting her story in print. She asked me: If you can’t write it for the paper, can you at least write it for me?

I promised I would.

Having that story spiked by the editor was the kick-in-the-pants I needed to try to write my first novel. Five years later that book was published under the title Spiked. It includes a fictionalized scene inspired by Julia and Ebby’s story.

Three books later, I’ve realized that a key ingredient to finishing a novel—especially a first novel—is having a reason to write. Anybody can do this. Find a worthy person to write for, and then finish your book for that person. (Worry about trying to sell it later.)

I don’t know what happened to Julia. Part of me prefers not to know because I’m afraid the news might be bad. I like to think she’s out there somewhere. She might not know that I kept my promise to write her story. She might not know the book was dedicated to her.

So, if you had to choose somebody to be the inspiration for finishing a first novel, who would it be? If you already found that inspiration, who was it?

Mark Arsenault is a Shamus-nominated mystery writer, a journalist, a runner, hiker, political junkie and eBay fanatic who collects memorabilia from the 1939 New York World’s Fair. His new novel is LOOT THE MOON, the second book in the Billy Povich series that began with GRAVEWRITER, a noir thriller praised for a fusion of suspense, humor and human tenderness. With 20 years of experience as a print reporter, Arsenault is one of those weird cranks who still prefers to read the news on paper. His Web site is: http://markarsenault.net/

If You Want to Write

Working Stiffs welcomes guest blogger Cheryl Williams today.

Hi everyone! from a newbie to your board. I’m here via an invite from Annette Dashofy. I asked casually one day at our critique group, how does your site choose people to blog? (smile)

I hope you like these thoughts from a discussion I led at our Pennwriters group at Barnes & Noble, South Hills Village, Pittsburgh PA. Jumping right in….

What advice would a writer from 1938 have for writers of our current day? Would it still be timely to our needs? You bet! Barbara Ueland’s seventy-year-old book touches the heart and fires the imagination. Titled ‘If You Want to Write’, the 179 page ‘little book’ trumpets itself as “A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit’. Copyrighted in 1938, it was republished in 1989 by Graywolf Press. Please join with me as we examine some of the thoughts of Ms. Ueland.

I love author bios, I hope you do too. Barbara Ueland was born in Minneapolis in 1891. Her father was a judge and her mother a suffragette and first president of the Minnesota League of Women Voters. Barbara graduated from Barnard in 1913 and lived in NYC until 1930, where she was part of the Greenwich Village bohemian crowd that included Eugene O’Neill. After her return to Minnesota in 1930, she earned her living as a journalist, editor, freelance writer and teacher of writing. (She also went through three husbands along the way.) She remained physically and mentally active until her death at the age of 93 in 1985.

In her book, she reminisces about teaching at the YWCA. “There were all kinds of people – men and women, rich and poor, erudite and uneducated, highbrow professors and little servant girls so shy that it would take months to arouse in them the courage to try a sentence or two.”

The fact she mentioned ‘servant girls’ got my attention. I had a grandmother who left school in the eighth grade, as many young women did around the turn of the century, to work as a housemaid in one of those now-decaying mansions that dot the Northside of Pittsburgh. Grandma spoke about dusting knickknacks on the shelves and stitching wedding gowns. Anything to help out the family finances in a family of eight kids. Grandma told such wonderful stories that I wonder if she ever fantasized about writing them down. Would things have been different if she’d encountered a teacher like Ms. Ueland? Grandma’s son, my Daddy, always wanted to be a journalist. The dream to write was there. Maybe he inherited a writing bug in his genes? In any case, the family urged my Dad to get his head out of the clouds and study something practical. The only writing he did after that was love poems to my Mom. (The dream to write fell to me, apparently, but that’s another story.)

Back to Ms. Ueland. Barbara’s mission as a teacher was to get her students to express clearly what was true to them from their personal experiences. She led them from initial efforts of stilted, false, dead prose into courageous expressions of slices of life from the heart. Her book is a magnificent pep talk that fires up the writer within each of us. Her key to unlocking the ability to write? She demanded of her students, “Tell me more.”

For instance, she queried a budding novelist about whether the character’s muscles really ‘rippled’. Did the writer actually see that? Her student became excited and declared yes, his muscles were so big they seemed to burst the seams of his coat. Barbara responded, “Well say that! Hurrah! Put it that way. That’s alive, great!”

Barbara writes, “I am blessed with a fascinated, inexhaustible interest in all my pupils – their thoughts, adventures, failures, rages, villainies and nobilities.” She wanted them to see “how gifted they are and consequently grow in boldness and freedom.” To accomplish this, she instructed them to “forget about writing ‘writing’ and… to tell spontaneously, impulsively, what they remembered.”

If you’d like, I could come back sometime and blog on some more inspiring quotes from her book. If you’d like to read it yourself, I’d recommend checking your interlibrary loan system for a copy. In my area of Allegheny County, there’s four in the system.

To close, does anyone else have relatives in the family line who might have become writers if fate had given them the chance? If things had gone a bit differently in their lives?

Best,

Cheryl Elaine Williams

Check me out on Facebook – type in all three names, the CEW in Pittsburgh PA. My starter web page: http://www.cherylelainewilliams.com

More Medieval Forensics: Part Two

Today we have guest blogger, Jeri Westerson. Welcome back, Jeri!

More Medieval Forensics: Part Two

by Jeri Westerson 


On another blog on my blog tour, I discussed the Coroner and the First Finder of a crime and how it’s all about intent whether it’s murder or not (and you can catch the Part One and other guest blog posts at www.JeriWesterson.com)

In a medieval mystery, forensic science was few and far between. It takes clues and a detective who is wily enough to understand them. Without a police force, without the help of scientific procedure, a detective was left with what he could observe.

In murder, it still might be important to derive at a time of death. Though they didn’t have the tools we have today, there were still some obvious clues, especially to someone like Crispin Guest, my ex-knight turned detective, who had been a fighting man and had his fair share of observing bodies after a battle.

Rigor mortis—literally, “death stiffness,” happens very methodically—from the face downward about 2 hours after death. It takes another 8-12 hours for the body to become completely stiff and fixed into position. Fixed for another 18 hours is called the Rigid State. Then it reverses in the same order it appeared for another 12 hours—(Flaccid state). What is rigor? When the blood stops flowing from the heart, the natural bacteria in the body can no longer be fought off and they go to town, creating chemical reactions that prevent the muscles from contracting, which makes the body stiff. Heat quickens the process and cold slows it.

The Greeks and Egyptians had their own system: Warm and not stiff: Not dead more than a couple hours. Warm and stiff: Dead between a couple hours and a half day. Cold and stiff: Dead between a half day and two days. Cold and not stiff: Dead more than two days.

Livor mortis or lividity or post mortem hypostasis (literally “after death state”) is the state of being blue, or colored blue. What is this? Blood stops flowing and pools in the vessels in the lowest point due to gravity. Wherever the body is in contact with, say, a floor, the skin becomes pale ringed by lividity. It shows up 30 minutes to a couple of hours and stays fixed after 8 hours. The detective would know if a body had been moved if lividity had set in on the wrong part of the body.

Fingerprints? This was the science of the 19th century, 500 years after Crispin’s time.
Or was it?

In Nova Scotia, there are cave drawings of a hand with all the ridges and lines associated with palm creases and fingerprints, a drawing 1200 years old.

In ancient Babylon, thumb impressions in clay were used for business transactions.

In China, thumbprints were used on clay seals for the same purpose.

In fourteenth century Persia, some official documents show finger impressions, and a physician of the time was recorded to observe that no two fingerprints were alike.

It wasn’t until 1892 in Argentina, that a murder was solved by the use of a bloody fingerprint and matching them to the murderer. The idea was finally taking hold that fingerprints were individual.

But since there was no medieval fingerprinting, that wouldn’t help my detective at all.
How about the use of insects to solve crimes—forensic etymology? We have an example in at least one celebrated instance.

The earliest account of someone using insects to solve a murder comes from thirteenth century China in the Hsi Duan Yu or The Washing Away of Wrongs, a collection of anecdotes and observations on death and decomposition. Here’s the account in a nutshell: A local peasant in a Chinese village was found murdered, hacked to death by a hand sickle, something used to harvest grain. The local magistrate suspected that he was done in by another farmer. He called all the farmers together in the town square and had them present their sickles, laying them on the ground in the hot sun. As they waited anxiously for the magistrate to continue, blow flies started to gather. Strangely, they only seemed to land on one of the sickles. Even though the sickle was cleaned, the flies were attracted to the remaining blood and soft tissue evident only to them on the metal blade. Very clever and very effective. The man who owned the sickle then confessed and was hauled away for murder.

What about blood samples? Blood wasn't “typed” until 1901. But observing the blood—whether it runs and how it splatters—might offer my medieval detective clues.

Since he was a former knight, a fighting man, acquainted with battles and their aftermath, he might recognize the signs of clotting without really knowing the science behind it. It takes 3-15 minutes for blood to clot. If it’s still liquid, the murder is fresh by a few minutes. If the blood is shiny or gelatinous, then the murder occurred less than an hour earlier. If there is clot and serum, then many hours have passed.

Blood spatter is a whole science unto itself (ever watch Dexter?) What is the origin of the bloodstains? Is it oozing, gushing, dripping from a person or a weapon? What type of weapon could it be? The spatter shows the position of the assailant to the victim. The number of blows might be determined by this spatter as well as the truthfulness of witnesses. For instance, if a witness says that the victim was sitting, the blood spatter might very well show he was standing. Is the witness lying? Crispin might extrapolate that information from observing the spatter. 

Poisons were readily available in the medieval period and the information on them—the symptoms and possible treatments—were so detailed and accurate that they differ little from the litany of toxicology today. Poisons were used to kill (including the use of insecticides, even then) and to use as curatives. Think Botox. A little helps. A lot kills.

Petri de Abano wrote De Remedis Venenorum in the 1300's and listed the following as poisons (whether they were or not—folk tales went a long way in those days and some in these days, too): mercury, gypsum, copper, iron, rust, magnetite, lapis lazuli, arsenic sublimate, litharge or lead, realgar (a type of arsenic),  cucumber (I suppose you could choke them with it), usnea (a lichen), coriander, hellebore, mezereon (a woodland shrub), fool's parsley (water cress), bryony (a vine), nux vomica (seeds from a tree that contain strychnine), colocynth (bitter apple, a gourd), laurel berries, cicuta or hemlock, serpentary also called snake-root, cantharides or Spanish fly, and menstrual blood (I suppose getting it would be the dangerous part).

In the end, it’s really up to the cleverness of the detective to ferret out whodunit. Even given all the forensic help in the world, I don’t think there’s anything more satisfying then having one’s detective know in his gut who the guilty party is.

For further reading, may I suggest Clues! A History of Forensic Detection by Colin Wilson, The Science of Sherlock Holmes by E.J. Wagner, and Forensics for Dummies by D.P. Lyle.

To read more on medieval forensics, please follow my blog tour, the schedule of which can be found on my website www.JeriWesterson.com. SERPENT IN THE THORNS, the newest Crispin Guest Medieval Noir, will be in bookstores September 29th.

Short Stories

Working Stiffs welcome writer KB Inglee today!
by KB Inglee

I love writing short stories.

My reading choice has always been short story anthologies. I would go through the table of contents and start with the shortest story and work my way up to the longer ones.

When I began writing seriously I was of two minds. I knew novels were the way to go, but I soon found myself using shorter form to fill in the back story of my series characters. When I reread my first novel manuscript I realized that it was actually a series of short stories. So I gave in. I am a short story writer.

For some reason I had the idea that short stories would be easier to sell than novels. I can’t say I was wrong about that. No fiction is easy to sell. But it is pretty hard to get a short story placed, and paying markets are few and far between.

I learned quickly that each anthology had to have a least one noted author. I was surprised to find that the best story in the book was not by the noted author but by someone I had never read. The top notch novel writers didn’t write the top notch stories. It is clear that it takes different skills to write a good short than a good novel.

When I go to book parties, I have to carry four books with me. I have ten pages in each book. I often wish I had a whole book to call my own. From time to time I think about doing my own anthology.

It takes me three days to write a short story. Not necessarily three days in a row. The story I am working on now started with several hours of writing to set the scene, introduce the characters, and start the action. Three days later I wrote the end. I know who did it and why. I am still working on the middle, how my detective gets from the beginning to the end. I know the clue I need to plant but I am not sure where to plant it. One morning I will wake up with the answer. Until then the story will wait for me.

I do as much research for my stories as I do for my novels. Many of the stories I have written were based on a single non-fiction book. Each story is informed by the extensive research I have done on the time period, background of my characters, and the setting. The short story published in Chesapeake Crime 3 was written after nearly a year’s work on a single historical reenactment, Washington’s march to Yorktown for the final battles of the Revolution.


KB Inglee does historical interpretation at two gristmills in Delaware and Pennsylvania. She writes historical fiction, mostly short stories. Wearing the clothes, taking care of heritage animals and using water powered heavy machinery gives her a feel for the time period that makes her writing more vivid. Her stories, set between the mid 1700 and the late 19th century, appear in several anthologies, including Death Knell IV and Chesapeake Crime 3. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, and a local writing group Written Remains. She lives with her family in Northern Delaware.

Mulling

Working Stiffs welcomes guest blogger Simon Wood today. Appropriately, one of his books is titled WORKING STIFFS.

MULLING

by Simon Wood

"What are you doing?"

"Something."

"Well, it doesn't look like something."

I had a lot of conversations like this in school with teachers that usually led to one of those "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" kind of lectures. Sadly, my footwear never came with "bootstraps," so needless to say my school years weren't my best. Daydreaming was an issue that I didn't shift until I went to college. Now the daydreaming is back--in career form (of sorts). Daydreaming is even tax deductible. You just can't daydream without a bag of Ruffles in your hand.

Now that one book is in the bag and I'm embarking on the next, I'm in that daydreaming phase, where I'm piecing ideas, themes, scenes and other stuff together before I start outlining.

Normally, when Julie comes home at night, I'm banging away at the keyboard and she knows her little man has been hard at it since 9 a.m. At the moment, when she comes home, I'm stretched out in front of the TV with a cat or two on my chest.

"What have you been up to today?"

"Working."

"It doesn't look like you're working. It looks like you're vegging out."

"I'm being conceptual. I'm forming a story, wrapping my head around the idea. You know me, measure twice, cut once."

"So it's been a DVD day."

"No, it hasn't." I sit up and a kitten slithers off my chest. "I have been working. I'm mulling things through is all."

"Simon, what's that pile of Dr. Who DVDs sitting on the floor?"

"They help me mentally cleanse my palate."

"And this empty Ruffles bag?" she says, picking it up.

"Brain food." I snatch the bag from Julie and aim a sleepy kitten at her. "Julie, you have no idea about the creative process. I am mulling. Mulling is an important part of the writing process. Now move, I can't see the TV."

Julie's an angel, but she can be mean sometimes--don't you think?

The problem is that we live in a quantifiable world. We need results. Tactile ones at that. When I'm in the throes of a book and Julie asks, "How much have you done?" I can answer, "Twelve pages," or "Three thousand words" or "Two chapters." These are things the world and Julie can hang their hats on. Me included. I like quantifiable. There's traction. Forward motion. Progress. Industry. A paycheck.

Mulling doesn't inspire the same response. Mulling is intangible--like air. It's there, but you can't see it. But just try and go through a day without it, and you (and I'm looking at you, my old teachers and Julie) will be begging me for some of that intangible stuff. Yeah, too bloody right you will.

So I'm mulling and I'm going to take my time with it. There's no point in going off half-mulled. That would be ridiculous.

I think I've explained myself sufficiently. Now where did I put my Ruffles and those kittens?

Yours in front of the TV,
Simon Wood

Simon Wood is an ex-racecar driver, a licensed pilot and an occasional private investigator. He shares his world with his American wife, Julie. Their lives are dominated by a longhaired dachshund and five cats. He's had over 150 stories and articles published. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of magazines anthologies, such as Seattle Noir, Thriller 2 and Woman’s World. He's a frequent contributor to Writer's Digest. He's the Anthony Award winning author of Working Stiffs, Accidents Waiting to Happen, Paying the Piper and We All Fall Down. As Simon Janus, he's the author of The Scrubs and the forthcoming, Road Rash. His next thriller, Disgruntled, will be out next April. Curious people can learn more at www.simonwood.net.

Call Me

by Guest blogger(s) Allyson Roy

If you think being the guy half of a female pseudonym is easy you should hear the pet name my father used to call me as a little kid. I won’t even tell you. Too risky. Wouldn’t want it buzzing through cyberspace. Even though he thought it was cute and funny. Even lovable. Somehow it didn’t quite strike me in those terms. The goofy, made-up word reminded me more of a French side dish or the name of some new line of clothing for babies. Don’t ask me what miracle spared me from his ever using it on me while in the presence of one of my friends. No doubt my bosom pal from the fifth grade would have hopped on it. Word would have spread through my school. Within hours my budding male identity would have been dealt to a major blow. All the quarters I saved in my piggy bank wouldn’t have been enough to hire a Madison Avenue publicity agent to salvage my reputation.

Alice also had her moniker cross to bear. For the purpose of this post she’s willing to disclose the name she hated: “Jocko.” As in the, oh, so popular colloquial term, jock. In high school she was very athletic -- cheerleading, gymnastics, running and ballet. Her reward was to be named after that very specialized garment designed to protect a man’s private parts during rigorous exercise. Gee, thanks.

Nicknames can be a real pain. Which is why we decided to give the lead character in our Saylor Oz Mystery Series, a high school label that keeps coming back to haunt her. In her early thirties now, Saylor hasn’t yet made it to five feet tall. And while growing up, she was always the shortest one in her class. Add that to her last name -- Oz -- and you’ve got the ingredients for a
perfectly awful nickname: “Munchkin.” That’s gotta hurt.

But we like to think it helped developed Saylor’s empathetic qualities and taught her early how to use her wits to stand up for herself. She’s a character whose personal insecurities combine with her game insistence on coming through for her friends, which usually gets her into situations that make her look ridiculous, not to mention putting her life at risk.

Meanwhile Saylor’s best friend and sidekick, Benita Morales, an obsessively frugal financial analyst and female boxer, is called Binnie. This takes on more defining aspects when combined with her ring name: “Binnie The Bitch.” The contrasting nature of the two character’s nicknames can hopefully give readers a fast, clear picture in their minds of the distinctly different personalities.

Saylor, a psychologist, sex therapist, and perfume aficionado, is a warmhearted oddball whose most lethal weapons are her fast mouth and her determination to be there for people who need her. Benita is more cynical. A hard line do-it-yourselfer and a pro boxer, she’s not afraid to get physical with obnoxious pendejos. So while Saylor is a nurturer who thinks nothing of following her intuitive hunches, Benita challenges her with hefty doses of reality testing, except when her own buttons are pushed.

One reason this opposition is crucial for our two main characters is because our crime adventures contain hefty doses of over-the-top humor, with Saylor and Benita working as a comedy team. Kind of like their two creators. No, not Jocko and yx%#. We’ve made up our own name this time, thank you: Allyson Roy.

Come visit us at http://www.allysonroy.com where you can read excerpts of both Saylor Oz books or enter a drawing to win one.

Many thanks to the authors of Working Stiffs for having us as guests today.

Allyson Roy translates as Alice and Roy, husband and wife collaborating authors and winners of a 2009 Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. Their Saylor Oz mysteries take place in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood and combine gritty, urban suspense with wacky, over-the-top comedy in a style they call Madcap Noir. BABYDOLL, the second book in the series just came out this week.

Upcoming Guest Bloggers

Please visit with us this week and say hello to our exciting guest bloggers!

Tuesday--Diana Orgain
Wednesday--Alice and Roy LaPlante
Thursday--Sophie Littlefield

Other upcoming guests in August include Simon Wood (I just noticed Simon has a book titled Working Stiffs--how appropriate!), KB Inglee, and Sherry Diener.

Memories Are Made of This

by Guest Blogger Hank Phillippi Ryan


See? I remembered to write this blog. I did that by having my email system send me a reminder. Every day. I’d hit the reminder snooze, and forward it to the next day, and finally it arrived at today, and now I’m here.

Why not just make a list of things you need to do, my husband suggested? Then check them off as you do them.

A list? Are you kidding me? I already have lists, and I have lists of lists, and if I put one more thing on the lists, there’s about a fifty-fifty chance I’ll get to it. I do look at the lists, I do rely on the lists, and they do work.

But for some things? Forget about it. Some things I remember *my* way.

Jonathan and I constantly battle (in the most loving of ways of course) about my methods. He thinks they’re—unnecessarily complicated. I think they’re—effective.

For instance. We checked into our hotel one day recently and the room number was 626. (I’m notorious for forgetting hotel room numbers. I mean, it’s hilarious.) So I said—“Okay, 626. I’ll remember that because it’s on the 6th floor, and there are 2 of us on the sixth floor. Six two six.”

My husband said “Why don’t you just remember 626? Why do you make yourself remember all that extra stuff?

“Because I won’t remember 626 without context,” I said. “It has to make sense, or it’ll just evaporate with the rest of the things I’ve forgotten.”

When I first met Jonathan, I had to remember his phone number. 968-2523. Easy. As I explained to him: “We met in September (the ninth month) and you’re 68 years old, and your kids are 25 and 23.”

That was almost the end of our courtship. “But I‘m not 68,” he said. “I’m 56. And my kids aren’t 25 and 23, they’re 30 and 32.”

I knew that, of course. But I shook my head. “Reality doesn’t matter,” I replied. “It’s just how I’m going to remember the number.”

I can’t really describe the look on his face. “Wouldn’t it be easier to remember the number, instead of all that extra--and incorrect—stuff?”

Nope. I remember it *my* way.


ROY G. BIV, you know that right? The colors of the rainbow. Every good boy deserves favor: (all together now) the notes on the G clef. My very elegant mother just served us nine pizzas. The planets. (Okay, that’s including Pluto. Sue me. ) It works, right?

PRIME TIME is the first of the Charlie McNally Mysteries, then FACE TIME, then AIR TIME. Reverse alphabetical order. When DRIVE TIME comes out in February, I’ll have to think of something new. Does PFAD mean anything? Pretty fine and dandy. Okay, now I’ll remember.

There are other methods besides acronyms. If I need to remember to take the dry cleaning in, I think: When I touch the back door, I’ll remember to get the laundry. This method is definitely successful. The downside is if I go out the front door--then it doesn’t work. The other downside is that EVERY time I go out the back door, I think: dry cleaning. I used to wonder about the old “tie a string around your finger” thing. Now, I get it.

But I think we can all make our own ways to remember things. If it works, it works.
Do you have any memory tricks? Tell us! (If you remember them…)

Award-winning investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan is currently on the air at Boston's NBC affiliate, where she's broken big stories for the past 22 years. Her stories have resulted in new laws, people sent to prison, homes removed from foreclosure, and millions of dollars in refunds and restitution for consumers.

Along with her 26 EMMYs, Hank’s won also won dozens of other journalism honors. She's been a legislative aide in the United States Senate (working on the Freedom of Information Act) and at Rolling Stone Magazine (working with Hunter S. Thompson).

Her first mysteries, PRIME TIME (which won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, was a double RITA nominee for Best First Book and Best Romantic Suspense Novel, and a Reviewers' Choice Award Winner) and FACE TIME (Book Sense Notable Book), were best-sellers. They were both just re-issued from MIRA Books, and are in bookstores now. The next in the series are AIR TIME (MIRA Sept. 2009) (Sue Grafton says: "Sassy, fast-paced and appealing. This is first-class entertainment.") and DRIVE TIME (MIRA February 2010.) Her website is http://www.HankPhillippiRyan.com

The Complete Cozy Sleuth Kit

by Guest Blogger Sheila Connolly

Recently on a blog I commented that I had my fingerprints taken many years ago when I obtained a stockbroker's license (long and boring story), so somewhere in Washington my prints are on file, which would make it difficult to commit a crime and get away with it. Some smart person replied, "wear gloves." Well, duh. But it started me thinking...

Traditional/cozy mysteries usually feature an amateur sleuth who just stumbles into things–like finding bodies. Now, most sensible people, when confronted with a dead body, would probably (a) freeze, (b) throw up, (c) run screaming in the opposite direction, or some combination of these. Ideally they would run screaming toward the nearest phone (assuming it's not in their pocket) and call the proper authorities and let them take care of things. But our fictional sleuth does not have that choice, because unless she gets involved there won't be a story. Therefore she (and we) had better be ready for whatever may come her way. She needs the Cozy Sleuth Kit.

The list of contents has been growing steadily, thanks to many kind suggestions from mystery readers. Here are the basics:

--latex gloves
--plastic bags (for evidence, or course)
--camera (with spare batteries)
--flashlight (with spare batteries)
--cell phone (yeah, I know it takes pictures, but I still haven't figured out how to transfer them anywhere, and besides, what if it's not charged?)
--a magnifying glass (a classic)
--notebook

This last item inspired additional comments. Bring a pen? No, a pen can run out of ink. Bring pencils? But they wear down. Bring a pencil sharpener?

This led to:
--a knife, preferably Swiss Army style (now you can sharpen your pencils!) or
--a Leatherman multi-tool (I don't have one–should I think about it?)

I'm boggled by how many of these items I carry regularly (all except the knife), even though I don't expect to run into any bodies (but never say never).

But if you're going explore serious sleuthing, there are several more items that might come in handy:

--duct tape–always useful
--chocolate (come on, most of our amateur sleuths are women)
--a pocket flask filled with the Good Stuff (to calm your nerves, or to snap an important witness out of a dithering fit)
--a wad of cash (in case you have to bribe someone? or flee the scene unexpectedly? maybe you should carry your passport too)

and, last but not least:
--business cards from a friend on the police force AND a good lawyer

The last trick is to find a purse or bag that will hold all this stuff without becoming so heavy that it drags you down. Woman are used to doing that, right? One kind soul suggested wearing cargo pants, but they're so unflattering (sleuths should always look their best, in case there are television cameras on the scene), and besides, it's too easy to forget what you put in which pocket and you'd waste valuable time hunting for it and dropping things and...you get the drift.

As the Girl Scouts say, Be Prepared!

Sheila Connolly has taught art history, structured and marketed municipal bonds for major cities, worked as a staff member on two statewide political campaigns, and served as a fundraiser for several non-profit organizations. She also managed her own consulting company providing genealogical research services. Now a full-time writer, she thinks writing mysteries is a lot more fun than any of her previous occupations. Currently she writes two mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime. Her Through a Glass, Deadly (March 2008, under the name Sarah Atwell) was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel; Pane of Death followed in November 2008, and Snake in the Glass in September 2009. Under her own name, her Orchard Mystery Series debuted in 2008 with One Bad Apple. The sequel, Rotten to the Core, came out in July 2009.

Upcoming Guests

Upcoming guest bloggers:

Sheila Connolly, Wednesday, July 29th.

Hank Phillippi Ryan, Thursday, July 30th.

Diana Orgain (Berkley debut author), Tuesday, August 4th.

Alice & Roy LaPlante, who write as Allyson Roy, Wednesday, August 5th.

Jeri Westerson, Tuesday, September 29th.

LJ Sellers, Wednesday, September 30th.

CJ Lyons, Friday, October 30th.

Brad Parks (ITW debut author), Tuesday, December 1st.

Upcoming Guests

Stay tuned for our upcoming guest bloggers!

Sheila Connolly on Wednesday, July 29th.
Hank Phillippi Ryan on Thursday, July 30th.
LJ Sellers on Wednesday, September 30th.
Jeri Westerson, September or October--TBA.

We have plenty of open spots to fill. If anyone would like to be a guest blogger in the upcoming months, let any of the Working Stiffs know and we'll put you on the calendar.