Obamacare, Trumpcare, Personal Care

By AB Plum

Ignorance is bliss.

Too many facts confuse us.

Time changes everything.

Sometimes, we know more than is good for us.

Life is a mystery; we can’t know everything.

Waiting and patience are virtues.

Lately, these platitudes and clichés have claimed too much prime real estate in my brain. And, I know why. (The Obamacare/Trumpcare debate plus some reflections about personal health care have made an impact).

My husband and I spent a lot of time over the past six months poring over different medical opinions before we and his docs detected a pattern:  Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus. (NPH). 

We then had to weigh treatment options (Do nothing.  Start with a spinal tap. Go for brain surgery. Wait and see; come back in three months). Next, what were the risks of the brain surgery? What was the best-case outcome? When would we see improvement? How painful was the procedure? What kind of recovery might we expect?

So we made the go-with-surgery decision—with a high degree of optimism—in December. The procedure, scheduled for February 6, was postponed. Time—and a very nasty and persistent sinus infection changed those best-laid plans. Patience became stretched. Waiting involved weekly lab tests and several x-rays to satisfy two doctors that the infection had responded to treatment. March 7, my husband went into OR asking “enough questions so I can do this myself the next time.”

Recovery brought its own challenges, and sometimes we longed for ignorance. But now, we are grateful for his ability to walk normally again. The hard part, as the cliché goes, is behind us. 

Now, we are trying to share the best of our experience with a long-time friend. Her husband has just been diagnosed with Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP). Wow! Is that a mouthful.

Like us with NPH, she’d never heard of ITP. The mountain of info is overwhelming. The possibility that the cause may not be found for his extremely low red platelet count is scary. The need to wait and see, to sit by a hospital bed patiently waiting for one more test result is exhausting. Googling every vaguely related keyword is tempting, but too often results in being confused by too many contradictions and not enough hard evidence. Going home without a definitive cause for the drop in red blood cells carries both relief and anxiety.

My husband and I had to wait almost a week to say with certainty that his surgery achieved our goal of normal walking. Our friends may have to wait much longer to see if this 5-day stay in the hospital is a one-time occurrence or the first of many stays.

In their case, the cliché, time will tell, keeps popping up. Right now, I’m offering a different heartfelt cliché: Be grateful for every moment and get back to your normal life as quickly—and safely—as possible.

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AB Plum lives and writes in Silicon Valley, where amazing innovations in medical practice and technology meet.

How Long is a Chapter?

A writer on one of the loops I follow recently asked how long a chapter in a mystery should be.

It was a topic that generated a surprising amount of discussion.

Someone cited James Patterson and his two page chapters. Another writer cited PD James, who has long chapters. Still another writer said she wrote until the chapter was done.

For me, it’s a math equation. If I want to write a book that’s 75,000 words long, I need 25 chapters that are 3,000 words long or 30 chapters with 2,500 words. My math teachers, if they’re reading this, are smirking (math—not my strong suit) – after claiming I’d never use math (loudly, repeatedly), her I am.

As important as those simple equations for length is content. A chapter should advance the plot, reveal character, and, in a mystery, offer a clue. A chapter should have an arc just like a novel.

The first chapter of my upcoming release begins with the lines:

There were Mondays—burnt toast, no cream for the coffee, a body in the swimming pool—and there were Mondays.

            This was one of those Mondays.

            The morning began auspiciously enough—golden toast, plenty of cream, no bodies—but it went sideways quickly.

With a few lines, the reader knows poor Ellison is going to find another body. Soon.

At the halfway mark:

            Khaki lay on the Henry’s heinous carpet and stared at the ceiling.

            Well, not stared. She wasn’t actually looking at anything. Not with a bullet hole between her eyes.

Ellison’s problem has arrived. And how. She’ll spend the rest of the chapter dealing with the fall-out. Right up until then end.

            “Mrs. Russell is fine, but there’s been a murder.”

            “What?” Hunter’s bark positively boomed from the phone. “Who?”

            “Mrs. White in the study with a revolver.”

I am of the opinion that chapters should end with hooks. Hooks so strong the reader must turn the page. This is not the strongest of hooks but I simply couldn’t pass up the chance for the Clue reference.

I rinse and repeat (or multiply) until the book’s as long as it should be.

Julie Mulhern is the USA Today bestselling author of The Country Club Murders. 

She is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean--and she's got an active imagination. Truth is--she's an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dog and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions.

Her latest book, Watching the Detectives, releases on May 23rd from Henery Press.

Getting a Life

by Linda Rodriguez

Yesterday I just crashed. I slept late. I couldn’t get myself moving on anything I had to do, not this blog post or another guest blog that’s due, not my usual stint on the WIP, not any of the several business emails I needed to take care of, not trying to clear some of the clutter and mess that have collected in my house as I’ve launched and promoted two books while writing yet another, taking care of a slew of freelance commitments, and preparing and teaching several workshops. Usually I rise early, take a deep breath, gird my loins for the day’s battle with the endless to-do list, and kick into overdrive, but yesterday I couldn’t muster the energy or the will to do much of anything productive. This is not like me.

While driving with my husband past Kansas City’s Plaza, which is a premier pedestrian shopping mall/outdoor art gallery full of fountains, intricate and colorful Spanish tiles, ornate buildings, and beautiful sculptures, I reminisced sadly about the good times we used to have walking the Plaza and sitting on one of the many benches to watch the parade of people. I reminded my husband of the fun we had taking picnic lunches to some of Kansas City’s many great parks to enjoy after a refreshing walk. I waxed nostalgic over the weekend day trips we used to make to explore lovely small towns all around the Kansas City area—I’ve given many of their best features to my fictional town in my Skeet Bannion series of novels. The strange thing is that, though we don’t do any of those things any longer due to lack of time, we used to do them when I had an ultra-demanding, 60-70-hour per week university job. Now that I’m a full-time writer, however, I have no time to enjoy leisure activities with my husband or any of the other things I used to do to make a real life—cooking, fiberart, gardening, going to Shakespeare or concerts in the park, lunches with friends, etc.

How did this terrible imbalance in my life occur? Isn’t one of the joys of being a full-time writer supposed to be the flexibility of time that allows you to lead a fuller, richer life? How did I manage with that old job and all its hours and responsibilities to weave in time for recreation and fun, time with family and friends, time to feed the creative well inside me, yet now I can hardly find time to even wash dishes or do laundry, the minimal tasks required to keep us from sinking into total chaos?

If I were just writing my books, I would have time to enjoy some of these activities still, but I have to promote those books in an effort to constantly increase sales. Publishers are dumping, left and right, amazing writers who have received impressive reviews and award nominations because their sales are just not spectacular enough. So I have to work harder to try to get the word out about my books and persuade new people to try them. The writing and publishing (with its line edits, copy edits, and page proofs) when combined with the promotion and marketing (with its touring, social media, conferences, and events) are two full-time jobs. Since my writing career is still not earning enough to support me, I must take on freelance writing/editing/evaluating/judging/teaching contracts, yet another full-time job. It’s no wonder I’m so tired!

I’m hardly the only writer in this predicament. Writers who are far more successful and have been doing this for far longer than I have are facing the same dilemma. The Sisters in Crime listserv periodically rings with the cries of authors who have run out of steam trying to do all of this. Some are even seriously thinking of giving up writing, which they love, because they just don’t think they can do all of it any longer.

As a country, we are moving more and more to a freelance or independent contractor environment, where we don’t have paid vacation and sick days and where we can find ourselves working all the time—or feeling as if we ought to be. How do we make a go of this kind of career and still have any kind of life outside of work?

I’m the first to admit I don’t have the answers to that question. I will be spending my next few days trying to find some, however. How we spend our time is our actual life, even if we think we’re just doing it until we bring in enough money or reach a certain level of success. I intend to find a way to bring those elements of a real, lived life back into mine. Can I do it without shortchanging the efforts I need to put into my writing and promotion of my work to create a successful career? I’ll have to find a way.

How do you manage that career-personal life balance that can be so difficult to get right?

Linda Rodriguez's Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited, are her newest books. Every Family Doubt, her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief, Skeet Bannion, will appear in autumn, 2017. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last Secret—and her books of poetry—Skin Hunger and Heart's Migration—have received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has been optioned for

film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

Mesmerized by British TV

by Sparkle Abbey

Since we read and write cozy mysteries, there was a high probability that we’d also like 
British mystery shows. We do. And not just the mysteries, but also the cooking, drama, and comedy shows. In fact, British TV has been popular for a while—well before the smash hit Downton Abbey. Did you know American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Wife Swap, and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? were based on hit British shows?  Obviously, we’re not the only ones who like British TV. 



Since the arrival of Netflix, Acorn TV, Amazon Prime, and Hulu, there are more and more opportunities to stumble over shows that are just the bee’s knees! 

Why are we so drawn to them? It’s pretty simple: British TV is heavily character driven. The characters quirky, eccentric and still vulnerable, have a dry wit, are sarcastic, and some aren’t even likable. These are flawed, non-cookie-cutter characters who find themselves in extreme situations, whether drama or comedy, yet feel so realistic you find yourself rooting for them to get their act together and succeed. Plus there’s the fun English accent. 

Of courses there’s the food. Most of the time we have no idea what the Brits are eating unless it’s a delicious pastryIn . Crumpets, scones, buns, tea cake sandwiches, biscuits. Our stomachs are growling just writing this blog!

We’ve definitely binged on our share of British TV. What happens when you watch too much? Well, you start using words like lovely, bollocks, bugger, nutter, daft, gobsmacked, tosser, dodgy, and cheers. You crave scones, fish and chips, Victoria sponge, shepherd’s pie, and pasties. You take drinking tea seriously, even going so far as to buy a lovely porcelain pot and loose leaf tea, and begin to hone the perfect cuppa tea (that would be pouring boiling water over the tea in the pot, let it steep for 2-5 minutes, remove the tea, adding a splash of milk and then sugar.) And sometimes, you accidentally-on-purpose slip into a really great American version of an English accent.

Here are a “few” of the shows we’ve enjoyed over the years:

The British TV Place

Midsomer Murders
Death in Paradise
Father Brown
Poirot
Murdoch Mysteries Movies
Sherlock
Downton Abbey
The Crown
Very British Problems
Call the Midwife
Broadchurch
Happy Valley
Doc Martin
Vera
Doctor Who
The Great British Baking Show (all versions)

What about you, luv? Did we miss your favorite? If so, let us know. We’re always open to recommendations.

Sparkle Abbey is the pseudonym of two mystery authors (Mary Lee Woods and Anita Carter). They are friends and neighbors as well as co-writers of the Pampered Pets Mystery Series. The pen name was created by combining the names of their rescue pets--Sparkle (Mary Lee's cat) and Abbey (Anita's dog). If you want to make sure you're up on all the Sparkle Abbey news, stop by their website and sign up for updates at sparkleabbey.com.

photo credit: adactio Tea and scones via photopin (license)

Strong Women Characters

Conundrum Press

Write what you know. If you don’t know about something read a book, research, ask experts about their field. If you don’t know how to write a murder mystery, and you want to write one, read a few hundred in the genre you like. I’ve read mysteries written by men, women, and to be more specific written by men and women of color since I am a Chicana.

The Latin Locomotions, Juliana, Manuel, and Sherry DOD Tour 1995 Entertaining the Troops in the Persian Gulf

A Published Writer at Fifty

I read books about the Ute Nation. I created fictional characters that were Ute. I read about Utah, specifically Salt Lake City. I visited the city and took photos, wrote notes, and interviewed residents.

I created a transgender character based on a couple of friends who are living in new bodies. I asked a friend to read the character outline I had written and she gave me great feedback. She said I was stereotyping the character. I thought the character was funny. She did not. She was insulted. The problem with the character was that I was not creating a backstory for her. She needed a past in order for me to understand her in the present. I gave her a better job. She became a transgender civil rights attorney. I stopped trying to make her funny and instead made her interesting.

The same thing occurred with one of my characters that was a possible murder suspect. I realized I hadn’t given her a storyline. I went back to the writing table, sat my ass down, and created one. I made her a soldier during the war in Viet Nam. But then I realized there weren’t many women soldiers in Nam. So, I made her a cook. I made her promiscuous and gave her soldiers to have affairs with. When she returned home she brought with her PTSD from the trauma of war. She used heroin. She changed. She aged. She became hard. I had to think like a murderer to create a great one. Why did she become a killer? Who loved her? Who hated her? What was her childhood like? What kind of evil had she survived to end up a killer?

I’m learning as I create these characters that they need a storyline to make them real, well-rounded, relevant. I write their backstory and study it until I start writing about their present based on what I know about them.

My murder victim, based on a xenophobic, misogynist, billionaire, had a very short part in the beginning of the story because he was murdered. However, he was the main subject of the investigation. He needed a past, too. I created a lifestyle for him that was unrealistic. I had to make him believable. I had to give him characteristics that would make someone want to murder him. I began talking about him to friends and hashing out why he lived alone in a big mansion.

My First Chapbook Published by Casa De Cinco De Hermanas

The protagonist is a character from my imagination, but she is part of me and parts of other women I know who are survivors, strong, successful. But she had to have a fault, a shame. So, I gave her scars and secrets.

Writing a murder mystery can be extremely satisfying. My goal is to tell a great story. My characters are crusaders for justice. They fight for the underserved and marginalized. I have faith that when I’m finished it will not be a good story, it will be a great murder mystery. I’m going to research, read, interview, and write until I’m convinced that the story deserves to be told.

Young women may read my book and decide to become a female investigator, or a civil rights attorney, or an internet technology expert, or a homicide detective. Or they may decide to open a shelter for homeless women and children and to teach them skills and send them out into the world as productive citizens, or a journalist that writes about atrocities that occurred to the Indigenous in this country.

My Mentor and Friend, Sandra Cisneros, Pueblo, CO

I want my characters to be realistic, gay, straight, transgender, Chicana, African-American, Native-American, Asian-American, disabled, mentally ill, cruel, kind, addicted, saviors, healers. Because in my world, those characters exist. I gave a couple of characters’ professional careers, but they grew up in Southern Colorado, so they speak Spanglish even though they are white. Some are sinners, some are saints, some are killers, some are funny, some are straight, but never narrow, no never narrow.

Juliana Aragón Fatula’s, three books of poetry are Crazy Chicana in Catholic City (2nd edition), Red Canyon Falling on Churches, winner of the High Plains Book Award for Poetry 2016,  (Conundrum Press), and a chapbook, The Road I Ride Bleeds (Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press). She has been anthologized as a poet in Open Windows III, El Tecolote, Trance, and broadcast on Colorado Public Radio’s Colorado Matters. She is a southern Colorado native, a member of Sandra Cisneros’ Macondo Foundation, teaches poetry writing workshops to Bridging Borders, a writer-in-residence for Colorado Humanities’ Writers-in-the-Schools Program. She teaches cultural diversity and believes in the power of education to change lives. She is currently writing a mystery, The Colorado Sisters.  She is a performance artist who likes to stir the political melting pot and shake things up.

Conundrum Press

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Writing Contests

by J.M. Phillippe

I have to admit that I am a little distracted trying to write a blog this week, as I am anxiously awaiting the results of the second round of the NYC Midnight Short Story Writing Challenge tonight (Tuesday, May 2nd) at Midnight. This is my second year in a row participating in the competition, which assigns writers a randomly generated genre, character, and subject and then gives you a limited amount of time to submit a short story that includes all three. If you are in the top five of your heat in the first round, you move on to the second, where you get a newly assigned genre, character and subject, and if you make the top four of your heat in that round, you move on to the third and final, where you get yet another genre, character, and subject, and even less time to write your story. The story length also goes down each round. Personally, this is the hardest part for me, as a novelist, to try get an entire story completed in only 1500 words.

Last year, I won my heat in the first round, but didn't even make an honorable mention in the second as I did not really nail my genre (romance, which isn't usually my forte). This year, I was assigned romance in round one and was very concerned about my entry -- but managed to win my heat in the first round anyway, which I was super excited about. I am hoping to make it to round three.

Regardless of the outcome, the competition has been great for me, both years running. Last year, my short story The Sight was written because of this contest, and I am now turning that into a full-length novel. Plus, there is something about having to write under deadline that really appeals to me. The random genre assignments means me -- and most participants -- are forced out of our comfort zones, while the limited time helps me stay focused on the task at hand. Plus, every story submitted gets read by readers and sent back with comments, which has been great for helping me develop as a writer overall.

Still, I am amazed by how much of my ego has been wrapped up in this competition, and how much seeing my name in the top five of my heat (two years running!) made me swell up with pride. I know it's just a contest, but it still feels pretty validating to even make it past round one. So I'll be crossing my fingers that I made it past round two.

And if not this year, there will always be next year.

***

J.M. Phillippe is the author of Perfect Likeness and the short story The Sight. She has lived in the deserts of California, the suburbs of Seattle, and the mad rush of New York City. She works as a family therapist in Brooklyn, New York and spends her free-time decorating her tiny apartment to her cat Oscar Wilde’s liking, drinking cider at her favorite British-style pub, and training to be the next Karate Kid, one wax-on at a time.

When Novelists Aren't Being Novelists

By Kimberly Jayne

As a novelist, I know how important it is to write regularly—daily, in fact. One reason is that you have to keep the creative chops from getting rusty; the more you write, the easier it is. But the bigger arguments are that the more you write, the richer your writing becomes and the faster your next novel meets its big-finish line. But what happens when life gets in the way of creative pursuits, and writing every day just isn't possible?

Well, for one thing, guilt sets in. When you know writing is your calling, being unable to meet expectations for daily output can induce nagging bouts of guilt at any point during your waking hours. Priorities are not much fun for an author when they don't include writing. Over time, the absence of writing leads to frustration, which only mounts with each passing week. Not to mention that if you have a good network of other authors in your corner, they'll know you're doing diddly squat too. So let's add shame and self-flagellation to the mix.

Thence comes the whining. This is why the life of an author is not for sissies. It's hard enough to get respect from the masses for the difficulties involved in bleeding out an entire novel in the middle of life's little chaoses; but when you, as a writer, can't keep your top priority in its place as the top priority, you know something drastic has to happen. Things must change, if only for the sake of sanity.

I've been experiencing this very thing for the past several months due to business and pleasure travels, housing searches for the day-job transfer from Austin to Plano, day-job overtime, and family obligations, not to mention a few other unpleasant things life has thrown at me. So, I'm heavy into the guilt-and-frustration-and shame phase of the author who's not writing—hence, this admittedly whiny post.

Thankfully, I've stricken several of the obstacles from my list, as of this weekend (long-distance apartment hunting is not for the faint-hearted either), and I'm happy to say I'm feeling much more optimistic about how much writing I'm going to get done—er, soon. Right after I finish packing and moving in two weeks, and unpacking, and adjusting to the new day-job conditions. Yeah, I'm going to kick this guilt-and-frustration-and-shame thing real soon.
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Kimberly Jayne writes humor, romantic comedy, suspense, erotica, and dark fantasy. You can check her out on Amazon. Find out more about her at ReadKimberly.com.