What a Difference a Year Makes

By Kay Kendall

Last December my husband and I were running an endurance test. He underwent three months of daily radiation treatment plus chemo for his neck cancer. This understandably obliterated the entire holiday season. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s. Everything. By my birthday around Valentine’s Day, he was beginning to feel a tiny bit better.

During his treatments, every day I drove him to world-famous, justly revered MD Anderson Cancer Center, and every day we passed by the same Christmas decorations. Our favorites were the most lifelike eight reindeer of Santa’s that you would ever hope to see—short of the real animals. They were so splendid that they cheered us up as we passed them each day. 

Well, Santa's reinder are back again now. And as much as I’d like to wipe out that awful time last year, this holiday season is bringing it back to me in full, pulsating detail. Instead of being depressed by the memories, however, I am determined to wallow—yes, wallow!—in thankfulness.

I am thankful that the specialty hospital is only eight miles from our home. For family and friends

New Orleans French Quarter at Christmas**

who stood by Bruce and me as we crawled through the long tunnel of those months and out into the light. For being able to participate this year in the travel plans we had made for last year’s Christmas in New Orleans. 

Still, this season is bittersweet. The good friend who took us into her family last year at Thanksgiving and Christmas has lost her own battle with cancer. Another friend was in a dreadful wreck on an interstate in New Mexico and will suffer the consequences of his many cracked bones and torn aorta for the rest of his life, even though he was quote-unquote lucky to survive. 

Lots of old sayings rush back into my head now. Like—you have to take the good with the bad. Life has its ups and downs. And so forth.

Truth to tell, I get a bit scared when I contemplate the coming year, 2016. What will it bring? Will I be ready for whatever comes my way? That’s when I just have to shut down the Nervous Nellie part of my brain—and it is a pretty huge part, I admit—and adhere firmly to the view that my cup is going to be half-full, not half-empty, come what may. Even if I cannot convince myself that “my cup runneth over.”

Excuse me if I am dwelling too much in platitudes. But I am telling you what is in my heart and in my mind these days. I also must add the joy I felt at the grocery store two hours ago when the customers smiled kindly at each other, the holiday music played, and a toddler kept bringing me items from her mom’s shopping cart. She was so sweet and charming. And best of all,
**our weeklong visit to wonderful New Orleans with family—including our two delightful grandchildren. Kids at Christmas are delightful. Their joy is contagious. 

As the tee shirts say—Life is good. It has to be. The only other alternative is unacceptable, and will come all too soon to each of us anyway. 

So, however and whatever you celebrate this season, I hope you enjoy yourself and have family and friends to do it with. I look forward to chatting with you again in 2016—which I hope will be bright and healthy for us all. Rock on!

~~~~~~~

Kay Kendall’s historical mysteries capture the spirit and turbulence of the 1960s. DESOLATION ROW (2013) and RAINY DAY WOMEN (2015) are in her Austin Starr Mystery series. Austin is a 22-year-old Texas bride who ends up on the frontlines of societal change, learns to cope, and turns amateur sleuth. Kay’s degrees in Russian history and language help ground her tales in the Cold War, and her titles show she's a Bob Dylan buff too. Kay lives in Texas with her Canadian husband, three house rabbits, and spaniel Wills. In her former life as a PR executive, Kay’s projects won international awards.

What Have you Done or Are Doing for the Holidays?

Christmas is coming at our house. Since I've gotten old, our celebrations have changed a lot.

In days gone by, I, along with my children, and later grandkids, decorated a big tree and every corner of the living room. Now, my decorations are minimal--for two reasons.

1. I'm old and the kids have grown up and have their own houses to decorate.

2. I have three small great-grandkids who often come to visit. So my major decorations are stuffed moose that they can play with.

In those days of yore, presents were put under the tree and never opened until morning. Often, very early mornings. Now we can stay in bed longer on Christmas morning because we celebrate on Christmas Eve. That's when we have our celebratory dinner--and open presents.

Who comes depends upon what their plans with what part of their extended family they plan to celebrate with.

No matter who manages to arrive we have a most wonderful time.

And no, I didn't join the scramble for buying gifts either. My solution for the last couple of years is giving money to each family to spend as they see fit.

We have done some other celebrating. We had a wonderful dinner with the members of my writing critique group and their spouses. Good food and lively conversation.

We attended our church's Christmas party which is amazingly wild and hilarious tempered with tasty finger foods. Everyone brings a wrapped ornament and the fun begins. I'm sure you've all played that game in some form or other--this version is one person unwraps an ornament, the next person can unwrap an ornament or take the first one, and so on. It get pretty wild.

I also spoke to a new Sisters in Crime group about how I've managed to write nearly 40 books. That was fun.

So, fellow gang members, tell us what holiday you celebrated or are celebrating and how you did or are doing it.

Marilyn

Falling in love with Dylan Thomas

One night, very soon, I will escape to the living room with a glass of wine. The lights on the Christmas tree will glimmer and I will turn on the CD player.

No music.

At least not music as my teenagers understand it.

I will listen to Dylan Thomas recite A Child’s Christmas in Wales. I will listen to the music of words strung together like pearls, perfect and shining brighter than the lights on my tree.

I remember the first time I heard A Child’s Christmas in Wales. I was a child, left in a running car (cut my father some slack—it was the seventies and I was nine or ten, old enough to lock the doors). The day was gray and foggy. My seat was warm. My father needed to speak with a mechanic…I think. At any rate, I was left alone.

I sat in the Oldsmobile, listened to Dylan Thomas, and fell in love with language.

Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: "It snowed last year, too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."

"But that was not the same snow," I say. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards."

Maybe one of these days, I’ll tell my father the greatest gift he ever gave me was leaving me in the car with Dylan Thomas.

Happy holidays to all!

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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. 

In addition to mysteries, Julie writes historical, romantic suspense. Her first romance, A Haunting Desire, was a finalist in the 2014 Golden Heart® contest and is available now. 

Words of Death by Debra H. Goldstein

Words of Death by Debra H. Goldstein
When I was a child and read book titles like A Death in the Family, Death of a Salesman, Death Be Not Proud, they didn’t have much impact except to foreshadow an event that would probably impact the author’s story.  It wasn’t a big deal that so much of literature includes scenes of death.  Rather, death created drama or conflict – something important in good storytelling.

Now that I am older, I realize there was more than conflict or sappy sentiment being expressed by the writers.  For the most part, each author had reached a point in life where friends and relatives die, where chronic illness and pills are standard fare for many, and where mortality is a topic thought about and just as quickly avoided. 

The problem is that whether one stares death down or pretends it doesn’t exist, death eventually has the final say.  During the past weeks, friends have lost parents, children and spouses. The funeral tributes have been lovely and varied, but all share the inevitable fact that the person now is but a memory.

We build upon the shoulders of those who came before us, but the memory of those individuals is only as good as how much we share our memories of them. A single heart and mind can retain the essence of someone for a lifetime, while a community, through named donations like a statute, park, or scholarship can help perpetuate an individual’s name for longer.  It is the author who can remember a friend, a lover, a child into perpetuity. 

The writer uses words to catch the meaning of one’s life, the individual’s characteristics, the smell of one’s cologne, and all the little details that comprise the person.  These written word descriptions long bring to life Jay Follet, Willy Loman and Johnny Gunther as new generations meet them for the first time.  Thank goodness.

Everybody Rotate

by Bethany Maines

It’s almost time to change the art in my office.  I’ve had the same art since I moved in five years ago and it’s now covered in layers of other art.   It’s time to relocate, re-shuffle and change up.  Maybe you are not one of the people who feels that deep need to redecorate periodically, but I happen to have it in my genes.  Returning home to find my mother peeling wallpaper was cause for eyerolling, but not surprise.  It works both ways though.  On more than one occasion in my teen years I decided to re-arrange my bedroom after midnight.  My mother never once questioned these decisions.  Because she fully understands that sometimes life would just be better if the furniture were NOT where it is right now. 

These are also good occasions for spring cleaning and decluttering.  Someone once said that clutter items are just decisions you didn’t make.  If you had decided where that item needed to go, it wouldn’t be lingering there on the desk or kitchen table.  Although, I suspect that the person who originated that idea never had children.  Because the garbage can is not lingering on top my desk; it’s hiding from my toddler.

The problem with decluttering art, is that I’m either removing my own work or the work of an artist I admire.  It’s unfortunate, but apparently, I cannot have ALL the art, ALL the time.  I’m not a Getty.  I don’t get to have my own museum.  This makes me infinitely sad.  My perfect house would probably look like a library mated with the Guggenheim and married the Orsay.  Unfortunately my current house looks more like the product of a library and a 1910 bungalow who married a carpenter in the 1950’s. Which means we have books in piles and art in piles and we had to remove the weird scalloped molding over the sink when we moved in.

So some art will have to go back in the closet and some new pieces will have to get matted for display.  And then, maybe, I can get back to writing.  

Bethany Maines is the author of the Carrie Mae Mysteries, Tales from the City of Destiny and An Unseen Current.  You can also view the Carrie Mae youtube video or catch up with her on Twitter and Facebook.

Ho, ho, ho. I've Stolen Your Identity

by Marjorie Brody

It can be a statement of admiration when someone emulates you. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so they say. It’s a very different situation when someone steals your identity, empties your bank account, maxes your credit cards, and pretends to be you while buying appliances at
various stores with your stolen checks.

It took me three years to resolve that chaos. One of the lingering problems is that our State refuses to issue a new driver’s license number even if someone steals--and continues to use--your old license.

I thought I had gotten over that theft. Thought I’d never have to go through something like that again. Then, last week, someone stole checks I sent in the mail to pay bills, altered them, and tried to cash them. Result? Once again, I had to change my banking account.

It’s taken me days and days of full-time work notifying direct depositors and direct payees of my new account number, making police reports, working with the fraud department of the bank to monitor activity on outstanding checks and checks that weren’t received by addressees. Paper work is piling up. My time is being gobbled away. It’s hard not to feel resentful.

But resentment gets me nowhere.

I take a break from my lengthy list of required calls and sit in the “blue room” in our home. Water flows down the rock fountain outside and splashes into our patio fish pond. The sound of cascading water seeps through the windows and soothes me. Guitars and books surround me. Across the room, I see a wooden wall plaque given to me by a colleague that says, “Your story matters.”

I think about the people who act without concern for the impact of their behavior on others, and wonder what their story is. Surely they have one. Every writer knows that even the villain sees him/herself as the hero of his/her own story. It’s not that I’m turning the other cheek—I will certainly press charges if the perpetrators are caught—but I refuse to let the perps steal who I am. They may steal my financial identity, make my fiscal life hell, but steal my heart and soul? No way!

So, whatever is going on for you this holiday season, I hope you’re holding on to who you are. Your story—and you as an individual—matters. I wish you the very best and I’ll speak with you next year.
Happy Holidays!

P.S. Crime Stoppers did catch that first thief—who looked nothing like me and even though I have “Check photo ID” written on my credit cards, store clerks never looked.

Marjorie Brody is an award-winning author and Pushcart Prize Nominee. Her short stories appear in literary magazines and the Short Stories by Texas Authors Anthology and four volumes of the Short Story America Anthology. Her debut psychological suspense novel, TWISTED, was awarded an Honorable Mention at the Great Midwest Book Festival, won the Texas Association of Authors Best Young Adult Fiction Book Award and was selected for the Middlesex County College Library list of 2015 Best Reads. TWISTED is available at http://tinyurl.com/cv15why or http://tinyurl.com/bqcgywl. Marjorie invites you to visit her at: www.marjoriespages.com. 

Saying Goodbye and Planning for the Future

Hi Gang,
I'm turning in my Stiletto heels with this post. The amount of writing and promo and releasing and of course, the day job, has caused me to cry uncle.

If you don't know, I have two series - The Tourist Trap and the new Cat Latimer Mystery series that releases to book stores in September 2016. I have the lovely cover, but I've been sworn to secrecy until my publisher does a cover reveal. So watch for that coming up.

I hate not doing things well, and I'm struggling to get everything on my list completed. So I've been contemplating what I can juggle. I'll be focusing my blogging on my website - www.lynncahoon.com
Stop by soon. There's a gooey butter cake recipe that was the hit of the Thanksgiving table this year.

Anyway, I wanted to leave you with my favorite time management techniques since it's almost time to set new goals (or resolutions) for 2016.

#5 - List out what you HAVE to do. Set these deadlines in ink on your 2016 planner. What? You don't have a planner? Get one. Digital or paper (I still love my paper), a planner is an easy way to set reachable goals each month and adjust when emergencies happen.

#4 - Set annual goals - Want to save money? Set a yearly goal, then work at it each month. You'll be surprised how fast those dollars add up if your consistent. Same with word count. You don't write a 100K novel in a week. (Or at least I don't, but I hear rumors it's been done.) You write it by getting your daily word count done every day. 500 words a day equals  176,000 words in a year. Or a novel plus two weeks of vacation time.

#3 - Divide your goals into month's targets. It takes me just about two months to write a cozy. A little less to write a contemporary series size romance.  I know what I'm writing all of 2016 and had to move some of my want-to-write projects to 2017. A successful author early in my career told me they had a spreadsheet for the next five years on what they were writing. Now that I'm contracted, I understand the necessity of her process.

#2 - Make a weekly to do list - I have a list I write in my planner each week, filling in the days with appointments or book related activities. This week, I'm attending my critique group, so my word count for that day will be slim to none, but I can adjust to other days. Planning to reach goals during the week gives you the flexibility and accountability.

#1 - Do one thing today before 11 am that moves you toward your goal. Just one thing. Rinse and repeat tomorrow.

I hope that helps you take your dreams and turn them into reality.  I've enjoyed my time here with the Stiletto Gang and I'm sure I'll see many of you out there on the web. Thank you for being part of my virtual family.

Lynn

I’ve Got an Idea!

by Linda Rodriguez

Right now, I’m in the middle of a book. Actually, I’m usually in the middle of writing a book or about to finish a book or about to begin a book. It’s the cycle of life for writers, especially novelists. The middle of the book, though, is the hardest because it’s where it all begins to break down or bog down or seems to. I know of very few writers who haven’t faced despair, or at least mild depression, somewhere in the middle of the book.

That brilliant idea that sent me excitedly to the keyboard to start this journey of words seems further away from actuality than ever. It’s very hard work to try to get it on paper and make the reality the reader will find on the page match up to the beauty of the idea in my head—and of course, none of us ever quite manage it. That’s part of the reason why we keep trying.

Right now, though, I’m struggling as I try not to drown or suffocate in all the thousands of words I’ve typed and continue to type, which seem more and more shabby and mundane—and very far from that shining thing in my head that I’m trying to make real on the page. I’m tired and overwhelmed. And I just want someone to come take this magnificent idea and make the book for me. Isn’t it enough coming up with such a grand concept?

For a moment, I revert to the childlike person who approaches writers so often to say, “I’ve got a great idea! You can take it and write it up into a book, and we’ll split the profits.” We writers shudder when such people come around, not wanting to insult them with the truth—“You want me to do all the work and share my money with you?”—or—“Buddy, getting the idea’s the easy, fun part.” But at this stage of the book, I have brief stressed moments of the same kind of magical thinking.

I turn to some of my favorite writers at times like this.

“It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.” – P.D. James

“A work in progress quickly becomes feral. It reverts to a wild state overnight... it is a lion growing in strength. You must visit it every day and reassert your mastery over it.” – Annie Dillard

“One word after another. That’s the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it’s the only way to do it.” – Neil Gaiman

I go back to the mess of a manuscript because that shining, brilliant edifice in my head will never become real to anyone else if I don’t slog through the swamp of the middle and get it down on paper. And I hope that some little sliver of its real gorgeous beauty somehow ends up sparkling on the pages of the finished book. Never enough of it, of course, because that’s the impossible dream that all we writers chase, but some small gleaming piece.

If any of you are facing the same situation, please realize that it’s pretty universal among those of us who try to write novels. We know we can’t recreate that perfection on the page, but we have to give it our best shot. Because even our imperfectly realized vision is still something only we can give the world. To quote Neil Gaiman again, “Do what only you can do best.”

REPLY TO COMMENTS (because Blogger hates me):

Thanks, Cathy! We've finished books before, so we know we can finish these. Don't we? ;-)