Gone Politicking

by A.B. Plum

For the past several months, my neighbor has displayed a variety of yard signs. Two have moved me to action:

In Fauci We Trust

VOTE … as if your life depends on it.

I’d decided some time ago to get more involved in the November election. I hadn’t decided how to carve out the time to do so. Now I have.

No more posts on goat yoga. Or my Luddite leanings. Or phantom bicycles. Or mental meanderings. Instead, I am going to spend more time working for three candidates specifically:

Katie Porter for reelection to Congress from California.

Election of Jamie Harrison running for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Lindsey Graham.

Election of Joe Biden, [presumptive nominee as of this date] Democratic candidate for President.

I believe these candidates will make a difference in the tenor and depth of the discourse to move our country to a better place. I look forward to being part of the movement toward a less toxic (physically and politically) environment.

All good wishes to everyone at the Stiletto Gang. To coin a couple of phrases, “That’s all folks. Thanks for the memories.”

*****   

When AB Plum and her alter ego, Barbara aren’t “politicking,” they live off the fast lane in Silicon Valley. AB’s latest mystery, No Little Lies is now available on Amazon. Disrupted, fifth book in the Ryn Davis Mystery Series, will release in December. COVID plays a pivotal role in the plot.

Kicking the Competitive Craziness

By AB Plum

If you’re a writer, have you ever secretly—or maybe openly—dreamed of joining the ranks of best-selling authors?

As much as I’d like to deny ever having caught that virus—not deadly like COVID-19—I can’t say I write without thinking about bestsellerdom.

Competition simmers in my veins. By grade school, I burned to excel scholastically and in sports.  To this day, I wear a pedometer intending to walk at least five miles every day (and tack on a time limit in which to attain the goal). I love comparing notes with my son, twenty years younger.

Employed by a multi-national corporation that hired 2% of applicants, I hopped on the fast track. Aimed high. Won lots of awards. Burned out and cashed out despite offers to remain.

On to writing full time. Knowing in the back of my mind that getting published would take time. Saying I understood the unlikelihood of attaining bestsellerdom. Loving the fun of writing x-number of words daily. Or editing. Or choosing different paths to publishing. Still … I daydreamed.

Now, I still set 1,000 words as my daily writing goal. I get a real high from writing that first 150 words in less than fifteen minutes. (I figured out that I can write an email averaging 150 words in about 8.5 minutes. So, I doubled that time to write on my WIP). Getting those first words down propels me to keep writing for an hour). Believe me, daydreams of bestsellerdom do not distract me for the next two hours.

But when I start laying out my launch plan(s), the idea of seeing my book on any of Amazon’s Best Selling Lists will provide a certain je ne sais quoi (satisfaction isn’t quite right. Fulfillment comes close. Gratification figures in, along with a sense of awe).

So, I’ve ranked in the top 50 on several Amazon charts in the past. Last week? Here’s the results of sales for Book 1 in the Ryn Davis Mystery Series during the launch of Book 3, No Little Lies.

Okay, it’s a niche category on Amazon vs the NYT. (Niche category is definitely a positive spin, I realize). But … I’m not so competitive that I’m going to ridicule the ranking. When I caught the notice (by chance, since I don’t obsess over the level by checking it feverishly every hour on the hour), I laughed out loud and did the Snoopy dance.

***   When AB Plum isn’t Snoopy dancing or walking, she plays and writes just off the fast lane in Silicon Valley. Visit her website for updates and special offers:  

www.abplum.com. 

Grab a copy of No Little Lies here

A psychopath’s terrifying game of cat and mouse pits him against Ryn Davis where she is most vulnerable—a past she has denied for years. His ties to organized crime make him even more dangerous and places her in ever darker jeopardy .

Who is in control? What really happened to her mother? Why can't Ryn remember? 

Is facing her past the path to survival or death?

Pandemic, Protests, and Privilege

By AB Plum

Paraphrasing E.L. Doctorow, “Writing is a socially acceptable form of committing murder.”

I’ve been killing a lot of characters this past month.

Not because the pandemic has demanded much of a change in my life. I, basically, lead a life of privilege. I think killing “the bad guys” is my way of venting frustration about the handling of the pandemic fueled by institutional racism.

Food, good, fresh food, appears on my table nightly. The house where I live provides more than adequate shelter. Walking daily remains part of my routine. I am white, well educated, and healthy (except for a heart condition that puts me in the “Higher Risk” COVID-19 category). One risk I don’t have to deal with:  living in constant fear of the police.

I like to think I’m smart enough to be grateful for my lot in life and to be sensitive to so many others less fortunate. (It sounds self-serving, but I grew up poor as dirt and have never forgotten my deep roots in poverty).

Unconsciously, I write about flawed characters who often are well-to-do. Many of them, though, have memories of being poor, disenfranchised, ill, mentally incapacitated, and marginalized because of race and/or gender.

In my Ryn Davis Mystery Series, she runs a safe house for former prostitutes. With Hispanic surnames, little education, less money, and children with absentee fathers, these women are struggling to learn computer skills that will give them better chances to map out independent lives and to protect their children. None of them has ever met un policia they trusted.

Beau “Peep” Scott earned millions as a drummer in The Stoned Gang. The rock group’s name is apt since Beau burned too many gray cells to take care of his fortune. His parents were drug addicts who neglected him, and he deals daily with people’s sneers about his intellect. He adores Ryn and may be the only man she trusts completely.

Elijah White, former Stanford law school and business grad, successful corporate attorney, and the oldest of five siblings, now runs his own PI business in Southern California. He remembers going to bed hungry. His father was shot and killed by a cop.

Angie, a former Ph.D. candidate in biology and the abused, runaway wife of a Silicon Valley tycoon, is about to hang out her shingle as a vet for the homeless. She lived on the streets when she met Ryn. She shares an affinity with Elijah and Beau for 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzles. She also understands classism from the perspective of a trophy wife to a toothless bag lady.

These are a few of my regular characters in the series. I’ve not killed any of them and don’t see that happening in the next book at least. Instead, I look forward to exploring greed, lust, and power as the primary reason for murder—and maybe for most of society’s woes.

***  AB Plum lives, walks, and writes in the heart of Silicon Valley. No Little Lies, her third book in the Ryn Davis Mystery Series hits Amazon on July 6. Preorder here.  

Pictorial Flashes on Life during COVID-19

by AB Plum

A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words.

As a visually challenged writer, I'm going to test this truism. (With more than one picture and fewer than a thousand words).

Life is a puzzle right now.

Taking a different perspective helps.

So does a bowl of popcorn.  

Beauty still exists in the world.

Hope abides in the next generation.  

The sun will come up tomorrow.

Rainbows are out there with the promise that we will get through this.

___________

AB Plum lives and writes in Silicon Valley, where one of the earliest community-acquired cases of COVID-19 was identified. Her latest mystery/thriller, No Little Lies, ends just as the California lockdown is about to begin.

Tempus fugit and tempus repit

by AB Plum

What day is today?

A friend recently wrote me she's thinking the above question is a good book title considering our current shelter-in-place practices.

I'll admit, it's the first question I ask myself every morning while still in bed.

Actually, as soon as I wake up, I turn the question into a statement: 

Today is Tuesday, April 14, 2020.

Years ago, many doctors took the ability to accurately state current daily information as a good sign of brain health. So … I like to hit all the germane calendar considerations:

·        DOW

·        month

·        date

year

TOD doesn't bother me so much. I'm sheltering in place and don't need to go anywhere or do anything on an arbitrary timeline. A daily shaft of sunshine through the blinds helps orient me to the hour within thirty or forty minutes.

Back in my school days, child-rearing days, corporate-work days, thirty or forty minutes made a huge difference in managing my day.

Or so I thought. 

Never arriving late carried a certain … virtuousness. Arriving early put me on the path for sainthood.

Like most humans driven by the minutes flying by, I expected the same obsession about time from friends, family, and co-workers because I definitely believed in cramming 48 hours of activities into a day. (I was adept at multi-tasking. Sleep was overrated.)

Or so I thought.

Writing full time changed my thoughts about time. Freed me up. Allowed me to get lost in the timeless joy of creating stories.

Productivity wasn't the goal. I felt just as satisfied producing one page a day as turning out fifteen. Writing at all hours of the day and night opened up new A-HAs and fun challenges.

Balance soon became a problem. I didn't live in a yurt in Outer Mongolia. My network of friends and family mattered. They wanted to know about this new adventure/career/paradigm shift. And though I never worried about burnout, I did worry about sitting in the attic, hunched over my vellum in the wee hours, with bats flying in the belfry while I tried to recall:

·         DOW

·        month

·        date

·        year 

  

My calendar lies in my closed desk drawer. No need to review the week every Sunday evening and then in the morning on each day of the week. I still paste Post-Its on my computer as reminders, but I've cut way back on the number of those visual memory-aids.

 

What day is today?

It's a new day. A day when the number of coronavirus cases are still rising. But a day when I can go outside for a walk. A day when I realize how little I need and how much I have.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring  

**** AB Plum lives and writes in Silicon Valley, setting for her latest mystery series, featuring Ryn Davis, a character who never sleeps.

https://amzn.to/3cf2pR7

WILL THE HANDSHAKE GO THE WAY OF THE ALABROSS

By AB Plum

When was the last time you shook hands?

BCVD? (Before the COVID-19)?

Even before this latest virus became pandemic, most of us shook hands almost reflexively. We meet new people, old friends, business acquaintances, our doctors and multitudes of others. Out come our right hands.

Before I broke the scaphoid bone in my right hand six months ago, I took pride in my firm, steady grip. My high-school debate coach drummed into us—especially the girls—how this non-verbal gesture gave us power before we ever spoke a word to make our case. Limp, half-hearted handshakes gave our opponents one up on us, he insisted.

And if we lost?

Since we'd probably meet our opponents in another debate, shake hands like a winner.

Other mammals don't shake hands. Since they generally have an olfactory sense superior to us, they sniff. Some anthropologists think sniffing led to handshaking. At least one study has shown that many of us after extending our hands in greeting, put a hand near our face.

C'mon, you say. Why not scratching our nose? Wiping our eyes? Clearing hair off our face?

Chemosensory signaling it's called and takes into account the above points but still theorizes "People constantly have a hand to their face ... and they modify their behavior after shaking hands." If you're interested in more science on the subject, check here.

Etiquette about duration, placement, who offers a hand first, too strong, too weak, men with men, men with women, different cultures, passing on viruses—all these factors and more lead to anxieties about shaking hands.

A few fun factoids about the history of this powerful body language:

When did handshaking begin?

No one knows for sure; the origins are murky.

Some claim handshakes came about to dislodge hidden weapons in the earliest times.

We have a visual depiction from the ninth century B.C. between an Assyrian and Babylonian ruler.

Homer refers to handshakes in both the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Ancient Greek funerary vases and gravestone showed handshakes.

Likewise, ancient Romans offered handshakes as signs of friendship and loyalty.

The Quakers may have influenced giving handshakes over bowing.

Victorians made the handshake popular with manuals on the etiquette of how, when and where.

What did one British Olympic Association's head doctor advise athletes about handshaking in 2012?

Don't … shake rivals' hands for fear of picking up a bug in the highly stressful environment of the games and having performance adversely affected.

How long was the handshake between Donald J. Trump and Kim Jong-Un last?

13 seconds.

What is the longest handshake recorded (according to Guinness World Record)?

10 hours. 

Why didn't George Washington shake hands?

He wasn't king, but he seemed to think nodding in public was a more appropriate behavior than the handshaking of "common" people.

What U.S. Presidential candidate studied how to shake hands?

John F. Kennedy—ever aware of those TV cameras.

What Presidential candidate gave his wife a fist bump at an election rally?

Barack Obama—a gesture greeted with plenty of negative comments from TV pundits.

Conundrums about shaking hands:

In mixed company, shake the women's hands first or not?

What about with "seniors"? Who initiates?

With children, shake their hands? At what age to begin?

What about holding hands or elbows afterward? For how long?

What is acceptable in lieu of a handshake? Fist bump? High-five? Wrist claps? Elbow bump?

Given handshakes are laboratories for germs, will they go the way of the albatross?

***********   

AB's next release, maybe in July, has several characters shaking hands. She's rethinking that body language since COVID-19 will be a part of the setting. The good news for her is that daily solitary walks require no social interaction. Not even with her alter ego, Barbara Plum.

Read the latest Ryn Davis mystery now available.

Check out her website to sign up for her newsletter or to contact her. She does reply.

A date with TED

by AB Plum aka Barbara Plum

Between the ages of 4 and 6, I spent every Saturday night with either my grandmother or my cousins. I loved stayovers at both places because reading the Sunday newspapers occupied us from seven to bedtime at nine on Saturday!

First, though, we went "uptown" to the local drugstores and bought 3 different sets of big-city newspapers--depending on whether it was cousins or grandmother.

Times change.

A lifelong newspaper reader, I find myself turning more and more to other sources for news or ideas to satisfy my "fix". In addition to news magazines, books, NPR, and PBS, I read select articles and op-ed pieces online.

Come every Sunday, though, I open my weekly TED app and settle back.

The tactile experience of reading a newspaper and inhaling the smell of ink and paper is offset by the great graphics nearly every outstanding speaker brings to her seven to twenty-minute talk. The visuals bring back happy memories of lying on my stomach as a four-five-six-year-old on Saturday evenings and devouring the comics. There were enough "funnies" to carry over to Sunday after church.

Almost all of those classic strips have disappeared. Dr. Morgan still runs in my local paper, but Mary Worth got axed some years ago.

And what happened to Brenda Starr, model for millions of young girls on the cusp of grasping the idea women could have careers? Brenda and Little Orphan Annie ended in 2011—Annie despite the phenomenal Broadway hit.

My current favorite comic, Red and Rover, may appeal because it feels like the strips I recall from my childhood. Red runs daily in some newspapers, but since it appears only on Sundays for me, it is not addictive.

TED, for me, is addictive, but I limit my dates to 1 hour weekly. Otherwise, I could spend a full day—as I did long ago every Sunday reading my newspaper—listening to TED talks on every topic imaginable and many subjects beyond my imagination.

Hard science, social science, art, history, interpersonal relations, math, brain research, business, education, economics, technology, creativity insights delivered by often humorous but always informed speakers open up a world rarely explored by newspapers.

The only drawback with TED is I don't get the day's headlines. And probably not yesterday's current events either. So, I'm not ready to cancel my newspaper subscription. 

Yet.

****

When AB Plum and her alter-ego, Barbara, aren't writing about murder, mayhem, and romance, they live, work, and read in Silicon Valley--just off the fast lane. AB's latest mystery novel, Through Rose-Colored Glasses, appears on March 6 but is now available for preorder at a discounted price.

In with the new, out with the old

by AB Plum

1975.

Not a birthday.

Or anniversary.

Or personal celebration.

But … a memorable personal event. (Personal, versus of world import, namely the end of the Vietnam War). Following up on my non-NY's resolution to clean out 3 boxes of old manuscripts, I found the prologue to the first novel I ever composed directly on a typewriter.

An artifact, I know. An IBM Selectric, to be specific. (Affordable only because my husband worked for IBM and got a discount).

Before that momentous undertaking, I'd written thousands of words in cursive and then transcribed the manuscript to a typewriter.

That prologue, six typed pages, lay on top of eight legal pads with the story handwritten on the front and back pages. With no margins.

What amazed me—more than how bad the historical romance sucked—was how legible my handwriting was. I'd once taught adolescent boys and often wrote on another artifact—the blackboard (green, in my school). I also wrote in a diary and kept legible notes on my daily planner.

Today, my longhand is worse than when I copied that first Palmer cursive letter in early third grade. My keyboard skills, on the other hand, have increased my manuscript output to a level of proficiency and efficiency I'd never have achieved writing by hand.

Still, I miss placing pen to paper and producing elegant handwriting. (I possess zero visual artistic talent, but I am in awe of beautiful penmanship). Sometimes, when I am at an impasse at my keyboard, I take out an array of pens and free write until the Muse comes back from her break.

Or until my fingers cramp.  

Embracing my Luddite heart, I did a little research. Is cursive still taught in elementary schools? If so, what has replaced the Palmer method? Is printing easier to learn than script?

As with so many forays into cyberspace, I had to stop "researching" and resume pounding the keyboard. But the handwriting is on the wall …

"As we have done with the abacus and the slide rule, it is time to retire the teaching of cursive." (Morgan Polikoff, Asst Prof of the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education, May 2013, New York Times).

In other words, in with the new, out with the old.

What about you? Do you write or print notes on paper? Or do you prefer to text?

*** AB Plum, aka Barbara Plum, lives, works, and plays without an abacus or slide rule in Silicon Valley. Her next book, Through Rose-Colored Glasses, scheduled for release on February 17, is the second book in the Ryn Davis Mystery Series. 

New Year, New Decade, New Direction

by AB Plum

Welcome to the New Year, a New Decade, and a New Direction

No writer's block here. 

Gazillions of potential blog topics cry for the Stiletto Gang's "insights" over the next 365 days. This year, the Gang has decided to add a new subject: the craft of writing fiction. We expect to learn a lot from each other. We hope you'll learn a lot about what goes into writing word after word after word to evoke an emotional connection between writer and reader.

First Wednesday of each month

Look for a new craft post the first Wednesday of the month.

I'm up first—sort of like the first baby born each New Year.

Not characters but names …

For me, the quintessential element of all stories is characters (not necessarily human). We could do twelve months on developing fictional characters, but I'm going with names—a subset, really, of that fictional element.

Also, I'm sort of a names nut. I collect unusual names—from fiction, celebrities, and movies—pop culture at large. Magnus, The REal McCoy, Risa, Ryn, Pierce, Detective Nick Ketchum, Bo "Peep", The Stoned Wall, and Lavender comprise some of the characters I've introduced in various of my books. Here are a few basic ideas that drive me in finding the "right" name: 

Names bring characters alive.

I have never written a novel or a short story for which I didn't have the main character's name before I started writing. Knowing that vital information adds dimension to other aspects of that character I'll introduce to readers almost from page one of the novel. Examples of what a character's name reveals to me: inner drive, personality, goals, past secrets, childhood, disappointments, celebrations, etc.

Two of the best examples of characters whose names fit, IMO, appear in Gone with the Wind.

Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler leap off the page when we meet them. The meaning of her name is obvious (to native English speakers). His Old English name means "small stream."

"Small stream" for a force of nature? Scarlett for a woman whose reputation as a flirt grows worse throughout the novel.

Hmmm. You decide if the names fit the characters.

Names connote animals, places, position, status, ethnicity, and more.

Wolf, Paris, Judge, Yuri.

I'm still waiting for a character to step forward for whom I can use Wolf. I know the character type, but I've yet to meet the specific fictional bearer of the name.

Names reflect culture, time, power, ambiguity, certainty, subtlety and quirkiness.

Octavia, Charity, Reina, Madison, Moxie Crimefighter, Eulalia, Audio Science

I'd love to tell a story featuring a character named Audio Science (the first-born son of actress Shannyn Sossaman). Maybe he and Moxie in a romance?

Names reinforce gender, family, history, religion, values, trends, imagination.

Caesar, Murphy, Napoleon, Lourdes, Peace, Hannah, Pilot Inspectkor

Pilot Insectkor apparently comes from an indie song and definitely sparks my imagination. I am still waiting for the right character to claim the moniker.

Deciding on a name for a character—especially for the Main Character(s)—is like naming a child. Making the name meaningful is my first criterion in choosing a handle.

Risa, the heroine in my romantic comedy Prince of Frogs, means smile in Spanish. A pediatrician, she's never met a kid she didn't like. Her smile is so big and genuine that her patients never cry when she gives them their shots.

Nicknames and pet names can add depth, complexity and insight to a character.

Risa enters the world with a mop of orange-red curls. The nurses tie a big pink bow on top of her head and present her to her mother with a flourish, proclaiming: La Ti Da! From then on she's called La Ti Da because she's so full of life, energy, and joy.

A few of my favorite names for fictional characters include:

Elvis Cole (Robert Crais)

Stephanie Plum (Janet Evanovich)

Spenser (Robert Parker)

Temptation, OH (J. Crusie)

Chili Pepper (E. Leonard)

Scarlett O'Hara (M. Mitchell)

Sookie Stackhouse (C. Harris)

Hannibal Lector (Thomas Harris)

What about you—what are some of your favorite characters' names? Any you hate?

Check back on Wednesday, February 5^th for the next blog on Writing Craft.

****** 

AB Plum, aka Barbara Plum grew up in Southern Missouri. She knew she was in trouble whenever her mother used her first and middle names in one breath. All three names (usually yelled) meant a potential time-out until age 21. Her love of names may have begun with her first puppy, Pickle Puss. Later, ThatCat and YourCat became favorite felines.

Check out her dark psychological thrillers and riveting mysteries :  https://abplum.com/

In the mood for mood for paranormal or contemporary romance:    https://barbaraplumauthor.com/