Fiendish Friday: When do the rules apply to you?

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 3 Comments

The other day I was driving in what I must say was particularly bad traffic. I was held up in one lane going up the mountain by a school bus letting children off. It happens. I, and a dozen other cars were waiting. What the school bus meant was I had plenty of time to watch what happened next.

Coming the other direction, a car was lagging, like 15 mph in a 45 zone. Probably on their phone. Several cars behind this driver decided to pass him. On a one lane each direction road. Across a double yellow. So they pulled into the opposite direction lane to go around this guy doing 15. Except the guy caught on and started speeding up. The third car trying to pass him is still in the opposite direction lane.

Both cars are accelerating towards the stopped line of cars behind the bus as the guy trying to pass illegally is still in the wrong lane. Neither driver is budging and they’re still coming towards the bus.

I seriously have to wonder. What are people thinking in that moment? I’m going to pass this guy even if it kills me and a school bus of children? I’m not letting this guy pass me even if it kills him and a school bus of children?

Why is it so hard for people to just drive in a reasonable manner?

 

Wednesday Words 3.14

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

I realized this morning my birthday is in 3 months. In fact, my birthday falls on a Wednesday this year. That is the perfect date for my surprise to kick off. What better thing for my readers than a gift to you for my birthday, after all you do put up with me. LOL

Ergo, I announce, June 13th I will begin posting the full manuscript to my first novel in the “Dismember Killer” trilogy, one chapter per week, right here.

Let’s do that again in big flashy color.

announcement

You might have noticed… there’s no title for the first book.

Yeah, that’s a problem I’m working on. LOL

What are you working on?

Book Review: Anyone You Want Me To Be

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Pure research, although I had to wait for a while to get this one, popular book. John Douglas used to be a Fed, a profiler in fact, and turned his skills to educated the public about how dangerous some people can be.

Basic Summary (Courtesy of Amazon):

Legendary FBI profiler and #1 New York Times bestselling author John Douglas explores the shocking case of John Robinson, a harmless, unassuming family man whose criminal history began with embezzlement and fraud — and ended with his arrest for the savage murders of six women and his suspected involvement in at least five disappearances. Most disturbing was the hunting ground in which Robinson seduced his prey: the world of cyberspace. Haunting chat rooms, targeting vulnerable women, and exploiting the anonymity of the Internet, his bloody spree was finally halted by a relentless parole officer who spent ten years trying to nail Robinson as a cold-blooded killer.

A cautionary tale set in a virtual world where relationships are established without the benefit of physical contact, and where mainstream Americans can be drawn down a dark path of temptation and death, Anyone You Want Me To Be is a contemporary real-life drama of high-tech crime and punishment.

My Thoughts:

Some of his statistics were so unbelievable I noted them so I could google as soon as had wifi again. And every time, the stats were actually worse today that what he quoted when the book was written. For example, John claimed 66% of death penalty convictions were overturned on appeal. I thought, no way. It’s now 75% since the death penalty was reinstated. He said in 1960 the clearance rate for homicide was 90%, now it was down to 64-67%. Well, as of today, it’s less than 60.

Makes me think my detectives are just too good. LOL. I need to play with my dialogue a bit.

I really enjoyed his profiler’s description of a sociopath. I plan to let it flavor my serial killer.

Over all, I found this an intriguing read. It was mildly repetitive. Unfortunately, it was very heavy on the foreshadowing, which released the tension, rather than building it.

Fiendish Friday: The Last Time

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I swear this is the last time I will complain about the coop. But….

We’re in the home stretch. I am off the board. The new members are doing their jobs (hence me having time to write EVERY DAY). But I’m still chairing the scheduling committee. We got a schedule put together. Got it through feedback from the members. Fixed it all up.

And then it started.

“You moved my class to x time and that doesn’t work for me.”

“It meets all seven guidelines you gave me in your proposal.”

“You must have misunderstood. Please change it.”

I have played so much Tetris with little boxes of information this week, my eyes are permanently crossed.

Of course we still have to release to the members for registration. And every change that was suggested in feedback that we were unable to make….yup a parent will complain (and no angel will get her wings).

I am so close to done, I can taste it. If the kiddo doesn’t go there next year, I don’t have to do anything but teach. Can you imagine? I can’t. LOL

Wednesday Words 3.7

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

Cold but sunny. Makes it nice to write at the family computer in the kitchen. Warm with great views.

I spent a little too much time look at retirement property today. Given we’re still like 20-25 years from that. Sometimes you just have to look around while you can.

I finished a short for an anthology this morning. It’s off to my critique partners before I polish and send it to Dan. He’s running another contest this spring, enter if you like, and then putting together other anthology. The Box Under the Bed was the last one and it’s still doing well on Amazon.

I’ve been writing daily again. It’s been very enjoyable. I forgot how much fun it can be to create a world and some people and then make bad things happen to them so they can grow and change and have good things. LOL.

I recently made my writing students do a little exercise. I said “I want you to describe a fight for me.” Then I asked how many thought physical altercation and how many thought verbal sparring. Then I made them write the opposite of what came to mind. LOL. It’s all about stretching away from what’s comfortable to grow as an artist and person. Sometimes just moving forward even when I can’t any traction is all I can manage in the realm of personal growth.

What about you? Where do you need to grow? What can you do to challenge yourself a little?

Book Review: Knit One, Kill Two

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I just got back from vaca. Of course I downloaded 15 books before I left to make sure I had enough to read. 15 day vaca equals 15 books. A lot of choices were research. Either more about cold case investigative techniques or cozy mysteries to check out the genre.

Knit One, Kill Two by Maggie Sefton is a cozy. The first in a rather long New York Times Best Selling series.

Basic Summary (Courtesy of Amazon):

Kelly Flynn never picked up a pair of knitting needles she liked—until she strolled into House of Lambspun. Now, in the first in a brand-new series, she learns how to knit one, purl two, and untangle the mystery behind her aunt’s murder.

My Thoughts:

Yup, that about covers it. I found myself scanning past many cliches. There were type errors, missing letters, extra punctuation. No one ever said anything. In one page alone, the characters declared, challenged, reassured, observed, and spoke up.

I stumbled hard on a major forensic gaffe. I want to explain it but it would give away the killer if I did. And you might read this, on the beach, with a cocktail. I certainly did. Let’s just say I hope the author did some research before the rest of the series, because she made a doozy of a dilly.

Over all it was a reasonable read. There were a few red herrings as to the killer, but no tension. It was very predictable. I also had a hard time accepting people’s behavior as natural human.

Fiendish Friday: I got nothing

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 8 Comments

No, seriously. Nothing came to me this week as funny and blog worthy. I’ve been keeping my head down working. If it isn’t new words, it’s blacksmithing old ones, or playing with the attachments to my dremmel to remove tile.  It’s hard for anything much to happen when you keep your head down and just work. And that was kind of the point.

Way too much drama lately.

Come on brain, come up with something rant worthy.

oooh, we’re in the middle of mock registration for the co-op and I offered three options for history class next year. I planned to teach the one that got the most votes. Wouldn’t you know it, the votes are even.

That was pitiful.

But on the other hand, I am at balance again.Three cheers for life being “boring.” Embrace the calm.

What’s the most calming thing you did this week?

Wednesday Words 2.28

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

Goodbye February. You were colder than you had any right to be and way more snowy than you have been past years.

Hello March. Normally I have little opinion about March. It comes between my god it is obscenely cold and the month of never ending birthdays, so March gets short shift. But this year, I am embracing March. I am marching forward on my murder mysteries. I am marching forward on a short story for another anthology. I am marching forward on ripping out the ugliest peach shell adorned 90s bathroom tile, I hated since I toured this house 4 and half years ago. I am Marching forward.

And yes, you can interpret that above paragraph to mean I am writing and editing actively, then ripping out tile when I get mad at my drafts.

But today I read a little blog post on Writer Unboxed about knowing your ideal reader. Not just knowing your ideal reader but picking the ideal reader than actually works rather than the one you think will make you look good.

In reality, my ideal reader is mostly 30-45 year old women with lives they want an occasional intelligent escape from. Readers who are knowledgeable and want to believe what they read without working overtime on their suspension of disbelief. Which strangely enough sounds quite like me. LOL. (I may occasionally appeal to the same male reader.)

Which in some ways works to my benefit because I read another statistic recently that said like 62% of all readers are female. So there you go.

What about you? What kind of reader are you?

Book Review: A Burglar’s Guide To The City

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been doing rather a lot of research lately. Yes, I know this doesn’t completely apply to my topic of serial murder/cold case but I’m also fascinated by how people look at things. A Burglar’s Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh is exactly that. A complicated look at how most of view a city and how those who don’t view it the same way can use those differences for their own nefarious plans.

This is a pure geek book. Total non fiction in the best way. All the stories he tells are from police, feds, retired burglars themselves. How they did it – generically, why it worked, or why it didn’t.

On the other hand the book is long on theory and Manaugh’s thoughts but short of details of how. And I do like my how. I like to know.

He quotes a lot from one of my favorite books on burglary. A book that was vastly more entertaining than this one. LOL

I’m not sure exactly what the issue is, but the book reads like a philosophy text. Not criminology or even architecture.  I read it, I took notes, I didn’t LOVE it. At no point did I excitedly share bits with those around me like some educational turrets disease, as I usually do.

Fiendish Friday: “I hate rich people”

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

I LOVE teaching teenagers. I do. They are at this amazing time in life where they have begun to develop opinions about almost every subject under the sun. But they haven’t quite refined their thought process yet. So it’s often the funniest things that pop out of their mouths.

A couple of Friday’s ago, this one kid pops off with he hates rich people.

I say why?

“Because they have soooo much money.”

“And you want that money?”

“Who doesn’t?”

I manage to say, without laughing, “It is almost impossible to become that which you hate. Maybe you should try learning from them. How did they make their money? Where did they get? How can you do that?”

Drop the microphone, baby. Stunned teenagers.

But my subconscious didn’t want to drop the microphone. It started niggling me in the back of my mind.

“Hi There. Come here often? Anyone you might be hating on you could learn from?”

Aw man.

I started thinking about James Patterson in the shower the next day. (Don’t go there, when you have kid/s the shower is often your only refuge.) I refuse to read his books anymore. They aren’t his. He doesn’t write anything anymore. He suggests, someone else writes, he looks it over. I’ve been angry about that for quite some time. I liked his early books, the ones he wrote, rather a lot back in the day. But one could say, I kinda hate him.

The other side of that, he’s a household name. He’s got so much traction in readers, he can not even write his own books and they still SELL.

What can I learn from him?

He published his first book in 1976 (I was born that year, FYI). It took him ten years to publish his first five books. He releases a couple of more and then he starts a series. Popular series that lands him a couple of movie deals. He puts out a book a year in that series, while dabbling in a few other interests. Then hits on a second series.  Shortly after that he starts getting co-authors and his books per year expand exponentially.

What can I learn from that?

— It takes time. He’s been building since I was born (clock check – 42 years). I’ve been building for 3 years.

—- A series always helps.

— Don’t bite off so much I feel the need to get co-authors to keep up with publication. LOL Wouldn’t that be a nice decision to have to make?