One Week In -- New Year's Goals Revisited

Here we are again - six days into another new year. I have a cheerful new date book in my computer bag (even though I mostly keep track electronically these days) and a brand new calendar on the fridge. I just finished Catwalk, the third book in my Animals in Focus Mystery series, so I'm poised to start a brand new piece of writing. It's not unlike the brand new spiral-bound notebook on the first day of class - a clean start full of possibilities, and I don't want to mess it up. But here's the thing: to live creatively, whether through writing or painting or travel or volunteerism or, well, any pursuit, we have to make a mess. We have to make false starts. We have to fall on our butts.

We have to recognize that the path to our goals is paved with failures, set-backs, disappointments. I won't throw a bunch of platitutes at you -- you've heard them all. And I agree: failures suck. Rejections suck. If you can get your breath back  and stick it out, though, you can use all that crappy feedback to make your work, your play, and yourself stronger. Granted, you'll have a few scars, and some of the buises won't completely disappear. Hey, I'm still smarting from a comment my seventh-grade English teacher made about an image in a poem I wrote. (He was right, but did he have to laugh so hard?)

Enough of that. The real question when we open this lovely new notebook is this: what now? Where do I want to go, and how will I know when I'm getting close? Goal setting and tracking work for me (and, according to many studies, for a lot of people). I'm actually a bit of a "goal addict." I have  lists of goals for all sorts of things, but I will stick to writing goals for now.

Every year for the past mumble mumble years, I have written down my goals for the year, for the next few years. When I start a new project, I create daily and weekly goals that will get me to the end. Trust me, I'm obsessive about this. Having my goals where I can open a file and look at them gives structure to what can become open-ended work. (Okay, sure, it also serves as one of those rituals of procrastination that we creative types find so comforting.)

Do I reach all my goals? Bahahaha. No. Do I revise my goals along the way? You betcha. Do I re-evaluate the importance of some of my goals as I go? Of course. Occasionally I ditch a goal. But the bones, as they say, are still there, and they support the body of my work, both the act of working and the result. Does goal-setting work? Since 1998, I have written 22 books of non-fiction; 19 of them are published (three were in series that were cancelled by the publisher). I've also written three and a half novels (one published, one in production, one coming along), several short-stories, several essays, a few poems. Goals work for me.

Why have I waited until the second week of the new year to write about goals? I mean, that's all so last week, no? Two reasons...First, I was finishing Catwalk, the third Animals in Focus mystery. (First goal of 2014!) But the other reason may be even more important and here it is: during the first few days of the new year, I like to reflect on what I accomplished in the previous year. A lot of people do this at the end of the year, but that feels too much like an ending to me. A review of accomplishments strikes me as more of a launching pad. Besides, December is already too jam packed to accommodate yet another thing to do.

Did I accomplish my goals in 2013? Yes and no. Some I reached, some I ditched, a few I've carried over and reset. What about you? What did you accomplish last year, and what are your top two goals for the coming year?

~~~~~~~~

Speaking of Goals....Get a Jump Start on Yours!

Sea View Inn, Pawleys Island, SC

Retreat for Women Writers

Pawleys Island, South Carolina

March 9 - 13, 2014 

Have you started your memoir, or a novel, or some other book-length work, or thought about starting one? Or perhaps you are working on short stories or essays or other prose? Do you long for supportive feedback and time to focus on your writing?

Whether you think you want to write but don't know how to begin, or you have a manuscript well underway, Sheila's Retreat for Women Writers will get you (re)started and inspire you to keep writing when you get home. Click Here to learn more. 

My One-Minute Commute with Guest Author Edith Maxwell

November is "Place & Time" month here on my blog, so the posts focus on those topics in terms of where and when writers write or "where and when" as elements in their work. Or both! Come see where my guest Edith Maxwell writes - welcome back, Edith!  ~ Sheila

My One-Minute Commute

by Edith Maxwell

For the past four years I was a full-time technical writer and a full-time fiction writer. I wrote three and a half books: Speaking of Murder (as Tace Baker), A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die, and ‘Til Dirt Do Us Part, plus several short stories. I wrote fiction around the edges of commuting an hour each way to my job in the software industry in the greater Boston area. I carved out Saturday mornings and three-day solo writing retreats. It was very stressful, but writing fiction makes me happy, so I did it.

Edith's World

Last May, though, I took the plunge and left my day job. Now my commute is one minute long: upstairs to my lovely home office in our antique New England house. An oil painting titled “Edith’s World” hangs on the wall and features me writing at a desk with my imagination in the background. Next to it is a map of my town from over a hundred years ago. My writing buddy Birdie sometimes keeps me company.

It was a little financially imprudent to quit my job when I did. After a good friend was diagnosed with brain cancer a year ago at age fifty five, though, I did some deep thinking. If I found out I had only one more year to live (we are grateful Susan is still alive and pretty well, by the way), would I want to spend it writing technical documentation or murder mysteries? The answer was clear.

Now every morning I get my coffee and sit down at my desk. I first check email, Facebook, and favorite blogs for about an hour. I push out news of the day’s topic at my group blog, wickedcozyauthors.com. And then I open Scrivener and start writing. I began the third book in my Local Foods Mysteries series, Farmed and Dangerous, on September first. I set myself a goal of writing at least one thousand words every weekday. That gets me a first draft finished by December thirty-first, which leaves me four additional months to polish it before my deadline of May first. So far I’m on schedule. When I get stuck I glance up at the drawing of “The Muse Most of Us REALLY Need.”

I usually accomplish that goal by around eleven. Then I go to the gym or for an hour’s brisk walk. I use the afternoons for writing guest posts like this one, arranging new speaking or signing gigs, or doing any of the other many pieces of work that being an author entails. Sometimes I sit in my grandfather’s rocker and read. Occasionally I squeeze in a nap on the futon couch (which opens up to be a guest bed when we need it).

So I’m still working full time. I have had a couple of short-term tech writing contracts, but I now fit those in around the edges of my fiction. I was able to finish Bluffing is Murder, the second book in the Speaking of Mystery series, and send it to Barking Rain Press. I’m plotting a third series, this time historical mysteries with a Quaker midwife as sleuth protagonist and her friend and mentor, the very real John Greenleaf Whittier, in the 1880s. And I couldn’t be happier.

A former organic farmer, Edith Maxwell writes the Local Foods Mysteries with organic farmer Cam Flaherty, the Locavore Club, and locally sourced murder (Kensington Publishing). She writes (as Tace Baker) the Speaking of Mystery series from Barking Rain Press featuring Quaker linguistics professor Lauren Rousseau. Edith holds a PhD in linguistics and is a member of Amesbury  Meeting of Friends. Edith also writes award-winning short crime fiction, belongs to MWA, and is the secretary of Sisters in Crime New England. A mother and fourth-generation Californian, she lives north of Boston in an antique house with her beau and three cats.

http://www.edithmaxwell.com

http://www.facebook.com/EdithMaxwellAuthor

http://www.amazon.com/Edith-Maxwell/e/B001HQ0XU8/

In Memory of Our Companions in War

To commemorate Memorial Day, I am rerunning my post from last year. Here are some thoughts about the animals who do not make wars but live, and die, in them just the same. - Sheila

In Memorium: Our Companions in War

My grandmother was a poet. Squarely in the sentimental Victorian tradition, her poems were published in Scottish and Canadian newspapers and small-press collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I have several fat notebooks filled with her poems, handwritten and pasted in from print sources. Years ago I read my way through them as a way to know the woman who had faded a bit in my mind (I was five when she died). I read most of the poems, but honestly, only one stands out in my mind. It began, "Farewell, my noble friend, farewell," and even now I can’t think of it without feeling the tears well up. The copy in the notebook was yellowed and frayed at the edges. On the facing page was a clipping, a picture that had run in the Drumheller, Alberta, paper and, I’ve learned, many others. It immortalizes the death of a war horse and the grief of his soldier at his death.

Goodby, Old Man by Fortunino Matania

This image, long ago burned into my psyche, is a big reason that I have no desire to see the movie War Horse. I didn't know it at the time, but Italian illustrator Fortunino Matania not infrequently focused on the sad deaths of animals, especially horses, in the war.

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. This holiday, celebrated on the final Monday of May each year, is meant to honor those who have served in the American military. Originally May 30 was known as Decoration Day because one tradition of the day is the decoration of the graves of veterans, a practice that began during or just after the American Civil War (1861-65). The first official observation of remembrance was May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. By 1890, all Northern states had adopted the holiday, but most Southern states refused to do so until World War I, when the holiday was extended to honor the dead of all American wars.

We usually focus our national pageants on the human price of war. Here today, for a few moments, I ask you to again expand the meaning of Memorial Day and give a thought to the millions of animals who have served, suffered, and died in human wars over the centuries. Think not only of the heroes given our attention and honors, but also of the vast majority of animals recruited into military service who did as they were asked and died unsung. Spare a thought, too, for the millions of animals, domestic and wild, who died as "collateral damage" or by intentional slaughter for political or other purposes. (Hitler, for instance, had non-German breeds of dogs systematically exterminated in Europe.)

Books have been written on animals in war, so I won’t attempt any kind of thorough commentary. Instead, I give you a few photos and a few links to more information, and ask that, as we remember our service people, we also remember the animals.

Horses, Donkeys, and Mules

I can't think of an animal more suited by nature to peace than the equines, and yet horses, donkeys, and mules have been used in human warfare since, probably, the first person threw a leg over an equine's back. Without horses for speed and donkeys and mules for stamina, we as a species would certainly not be where we are today, and our history, especially the history of conquest and war, would have unfolded very differently.

"L" Battery, R.H.A. Retreat from Mons
This British Horse artillery unit made a heroic stand against advancing German troops during the retreat from Mons, Belgium on 1 September 1914. Mons stayed in German hands until liberated by Canadian troops on the last day of the war, 11 November 1918. L Battery R.H.A. How our Gunners Won the V.C. and Silenced the Fire of the German Guns in the Face of Overwhelming Odds. Retreat from Mons 1st September 1914. Print by Fortunino Matania. Canadian War Museum

There are many websites and books about horses in war, but a few I've found especially interesting include the following:

• Unveiling of South African “Horse Memorial”
• Horses in Time of War

Horses, mules, and donkeys naturally became less important to most militaries after World War I, but they aren't out of the service entirely. In fact, they are being used by American forces today in Afghanistan, as shown on Olive Drab's page.

Carrier pigeons

Carrier pigeons have nearly as long a history in military service as do the equines. During World War I, the U.S. Signal Corps deployed at least 600 pigeons in France alone, and Britain used some 250,000 carrier pigeons during World War II. Paddy, an Irish carrier pigeon, was the first pigeon to cross the English Channel with news of success on D-Day. One of hundreds of birds dispatched from the front, Paddy flew 230 miles in 4 hours and 50 minutes. He is one of 32 carrier pigeons to be awarded the Dickin Medal, the highest British decoration for valor given to animals. Another recipient was an American pigeon, GI Joe (below).

To learn more about carrier pigeons who have served, start with these site:

• Pigeons of War
• Pigeons Who Have Been Awarded the Dickin Medal

The Dickin Medal

The PDSA Dickin Medal, recognised in Britain as the animals’ Victoria Cross, is awarded to animals displaying conspicuous gallantry or devotion to duty while serving or associated with any branch of the Armed Forces or Civil Defence Units. The Medal has been awarded to dogs, horses, pigeons, and one cat. The citations on the Rolls of Honour are moving tributes to the role animals play in our service during war, and to the courage of the individual animals who have received the medal.

• Dogs - Dickin Medal
• Horses - Dickin Medal
• Cat - Dickin Medal

No such medal exists in the United States as far as I know (please let me know if I've missed it in my search). In fact, in 2010 the Pentagon refused the request of military dog handlers to establish an official medal for valorous animals.

You're in the Navy Now

Although we tend to think of dogs and, sometimes, horses when we think of animals in the military, cats have also served in the military, often in the navy, like Pooli (below). For more great photos of cats in the Navy, visit Cats in the Sea Service .

"War Veteran - 'Pooli', who rates three service ribbons and four battle stars, shows she can still get into her old uniform as she prepares to celebrate her 15th birthday. The cat served aboard an attack transport during World War II." Los Angeles, 1959

Dogs, too, have served aboard ship, often as ship's mascots and de facto therapy dogs. Imagine how much fun the sailors on the USS Texas had with this gang in 1915. The Texas is now a museum near Houston and has been designated a National Historic Landmark. It is one of six surviving ships to have seen action in both World Wars. Check out the U.S. Naval Institute's Sea Dogs page for more canine sailors.

Love and War

Not all who serve fight, of course, and just having an animal to touch, to care for, and to love can be vital to a service man's or woman's emotional health.

Marine Pvt. John W. Emmons, and the Sixth Division's mascot dog sleep beside a 105mm howitzer on Okinawa, 1945. The Sixth Division suffered almost 2700 casualties during the battle, with another 1,300 being evacuated because of either exhaustion or fatigue. ( U.S. Naval Institute's Sea Dogs)

"Accepting her fate as an orphan of war, 'Miss Hap' a two-week old Korean kitten chows down on canned milk, piped to her by medicine dropper with the help of Marine Sergeant Frank Praytor ... The Marine adopted the kitten after its mother was killed by a mortar barrage near Bunker Hill. The name, Miss Hap, Sergeant Praytor explained, was given to the kitten 'because she was born at the wrong place at the wrong time'."
Korea, ca 1953 (From "Cats in the Sea Service")

As you prepare for your cookout or whatever else you have planned for the holiday, please take a moment to pause and remember what it's really about, and raise a glass to the all the souls - human, canine, equine, feline, avian, and more - the day is meant to honor.

Then hug your animals.














　

Life, Writing

Spring 2013 has been a tough one. Between catastrophic human-made and natural events and the venom so many people seem determined to spew at their fellow human beings, it makes me sometimes want to turn it all off, unplug, and wrap myself in earth, sky, sea, and the company of animals. And, of course, the good people who really are out there.

For today, though, I'm making this brief. I'm going off-line. This afternoon I will teach my class on memoir writing, and enjoy the company of a terrific group of people who come together each week to write and discuss. I walk out every week feeling inspired. This morning, I plan to read the copy-edited version of my forthcoming mystery, The Money Bird (more on that at my website). After my class, a walk in the woods or on the beach, whichever my fancy at the moment says is right.

But this is a blog about writing, so I'm going to invite you to read (or reread) my post "Writing What's Difficult: Finding the Balance." It fits into this week's news of devastating storms, and so much other news of the past few weeks. Then do something kind for someone else, and something kind for yourself.

My old Aussie boy Dustin
(Champion Brookridge Dustin U, CD, CGC, TDI)
and his 4-week-old son Taz.
Kindness incarnate.


 

A Picture May Prompt a Thousand Words

We've all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. Here's another angle on that old saw: a photo (or other visual image) may also help inspire and expand ideas. I'm teaching a memoir-writing class right now, and each week I have offered my students some new tools to help them access memories and to enter deeper into the events they want (or need) to write about. Last week, I had everyone bring a photo to "explore" through some questions.

 

This exercise will work, too, for writers in other genres. For the poet, digging into an image, whether a personal photo or a found image, can pull up fascinating connections and inspirations. For the fiction writer, images of settings, people, animals, or objects can serve to inspire short stories or scenes in longer works, especially when the narrator or a character answers the questions. An image might even provide the kernel for a longer piece of writing. For nonfiction writers who work outside of memoir, images can inspire deeper explorations.

 

So if you're looking for a way to go deeper, or wider, or to find new ideas, try "interrogating" a photo or painting. Start with these questions:

 

• Where is this?
• When?
• Why were you there?
• Who else was there?
• Did you go there more than once?
• Did something special happen there?
• Is some object in the photo significant to you?
• Is a person or animal in the picture significant to you?

 

Now dig deeper:

• What do you hear?
• What do you smell?
• What did you eat or drink?
• What does it taste like?
• What’s the weather like?
• What time of day is it?
• What are you wearing?
• Who else is there?
• What do you feel with your hands, your feet, your skin….
• What emotions do you feel?

And so on....

Give it a try. Let me know how it goes. Send a picture of youself writing!

The Roots of Writing

This is the story of how we begin to remember
This is the powerful pulsing of love in the vein
After the dream of falling and calling your name out
These are the roots of rhythm
And the roots of rhythm remain

                                                Paul Simon, "Under African Skies"

I was listening to Paul Simon's Graceland album the other day. I'm also teaching a class called "Write Your Memoir," and I recently wrote a reflective "artist's statement" about my own writing career. Perhaps its the timely confluence of the three streams that has kept the refrain from "Under African Skies" (above) flowing through my head as I ponder its meaning.

This is the story of how we begin to remember. It's a story essential to all creativity if not meaningful life itself. Certain forms of writing - memoir, history, biography, for instance - are overtly centered on the past as conjured through memory and research. But that fact is that all writing, even sci fi set in the future and "pure" nonfiction, draw on memory. Unless we have profound amnesia or some other problem, we can't not use memory.

Still, some memories are slippery. Some are only partially formed, while others hide from us. And if you've ever compared your memories of events with those of your family or friends, you probably agree that some memories are shapeshifters, taking different forms for different people. That's because we are by nature story tellers, and "story" is more than a recounting of events. Story gives shape to those events, and the teller of the story selects details to include, omit, expand, pare down, change. But I digress.

So how do we begin to remember? Here are a few ideas that work for me:

• Freewrite. This is nothing new, but if you haven't let yourself go in a stream-of-consciousness freewrite for a while (or ever?), give it a try. I tell my students that any length of time is better than none, but I find that the magic begins to happen after twenty or thirty minutes for me. This is true whether I'm truly freewriting or I'm composing a piece of writing that I think has a specific focus or form.
• Walk. Or do something else that involves repetitive physical activity but leaves your mind mostly free. Leave the earbuds, the dog, and the friend/SO at home, turn off the tv is you're on a treadmill. Just move and let your mind go where it will. I've solved many a writing problem while walking. Try it.
• Look. At pictures. Pull out your old albums (or, if you're like me, the boxes of photos you will someday put into albums!) and see where the pictures take you. Make notes about memories that come to you. If you're trying to conjure a specific time period, go to the library or online and find photos from that period. Both the public images of various media and more private images that you can dig up may stir a lot of memories.
• Listen. Music is a terrific door into memory. Most of us associate certain songs with specific times, places, people, events. Find "top twenty" lists from the time you want to enter and make yourself a play list. YouTube, by the way, is superb for this - I've spent hours surfing videos of young Elvis and Grace Slick and Boy George and - oh, I could go on and on!

 

There are lots more techniques, of course - brainstorming, mind mapping, and so on - but that should get us started. Have a creative day! I'm off now to dig into the roots of my own rhythms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Come back Wednesday, when my guest Monica Agnew-Kinneman will be telling us about her book So This is Heaven and a subject dear to my own heart, the joys of adopting older animals.

Writers Write! with Guest author p.m. terrell

I'm delighted to welcome author p.m. terrell today. She is the internationally acclaimed, award-winning author of more than 17 books in four genres. She is also the co-founder of The Book ‘Em Foundation and founder of Book ‘Em North Carolina Writers Conference and Book Fair, which raises money to increase literacy rates. I had the pleasure of attending Book 'Em NC last February  and had a great time - hard to beat a gathering of authors and readers, all together for a great cause! And not, here's how to write a page turner. Please leave comments, and check out the links at the end to learn more about p.m. terrell's latest work.  ~ Sheila

WRITING A PAGE-TURNER

by p.m. terrell

 

My first fiction was based on a real-life trucking industry kickback scheme in which I turned evidence over to the FBI. Writing a fictionalized version meant my genre had been chosen for me; because there was no mystery as to who the bad guys were, it fell into the suspense category. It was a natural fit because my career prior to writing had been in the computer industry with a specialty in computer crime and computer intelligence. 

But what I have found over the last twelve years of writing full-time is the same principles used to keep readers turning the pages in a suspense/thriller can be applied to any genre. For example, when I wrote my two historical books, Songbirds are Free and River Passage, I wrote them in the same style as my suspense—and they are still my most popular books. 

Here are a few ways to keep readers turning the pages, regardless of the genre you write: 

Begin your book in the middle of the scene. 

In a time in which attention spans are becoming increasingly smaller, it is particularly important to grab the reader’s attention with your very first paragraph. You can’t do that if you begin by building scenes that won’t grip them until much later in the book. You have to demand their attention immediately—and hold it. 

End each chapter with a cliff-hanger. 

A cliff-hanger is anything that causes the reader to want to move to the next chapter to see what happens next. I learned this by analyzing What Dreams May Come by Richard Matheson, which is not a suspense/thriller—but a book I could not put down until I had finished it. Every chapter ended with the build-up to the next chapter. 

The first half of the book should aim at a pivotal mid-point. 

I often see writers building their scenes to a climax that might occur 70,000 words into the story. But to avoid the middle sag that can develop in a full-length book, I always have two climactic scenes. One is in the middle and serves as an eye-opening pivotal point that causes the reader to sit up straight and realize that everything they’d read to that point was perhaps not what it seemed. From that point onward, it’s a roller coaster ride that never lets up. The end result, in creating that mid-point scene, is a first half that must happen fast in order to get all of the necessary components lined up—and a second half that is breathless. 

The climax should be earth-shattering. 

Because there is a jarring scene in the middle, the stakes are higher for a larger climactic scene at the end of the book in order for the reader to feel completely satisfied. That scene has to change the main character’s life in an earth-shattering way, and must also be strong enough for the reader to continue thinking about it long after they have set down the book.

 

p.m.terrell's latest book, Dylan’s Song, was released earlier this year. For more information about the author and her books, visit www.pmterrell.com and for more information on Book ‘Em, visit www.bookemnc.org.

What Do You Skip, What Do You Read?

"I try to leave out the parts that people skip."  So wrote Elmore Leonard, and I have seen that line quoted many times. On the surface, it makes a lot of sense. Like most soundbites, though, it means less the more we reconsider. I mean no disrespect to Leonard. He's a prolific writer, his novels are great fun, and his advice for writers is generally useful. Even this phrase is useful if it helps writers weed out the overwritten and the padded and the just plain dull.

But there are problems with it, too.

The first problem I see is that different people skip different things. I know many people -- including writers -- who swear they never read a preface or introduction or acknowledgements. I'm one of those people who does read all of the above. I like knowing what's behind a book. Knowing who the author thanks and how they do the thanking gives some insight into the author's personality and life, and I'm enough of a voyeur to enjoy that. I also like to learn more about why the book came to be, and that information is often framed in an introduction. One argument against those "peripheral" materials is that the book should speak for itself. I agree. I just think that "the book" is everything between the covers. Come to think of it, the front and back covers count, too.

Even if we stick to the main part of the book, though, the "skippable" parts vary with the reader. My husband skipped the long passages on church history and semiotics in Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. As a student of folklore/linguistics/anthropology, I read and reread Eco's novelistic treatment of signs and symbols, and found the convoluted politics of the medieval church fascinating. But then I read "the whale chapter" in  Moby Dick. Several times.

Really, if we think about it, we can't avoid writing the parts that people skip because (and I know this is hard for the writers among you to read) some people will skip everything we write. I have personally skipped every word of quite a few books that simply didn't interest me. I've skipped everything past the first whatever number of pages or chapters in books I found boring or offensive or poorly written or.... I've skipped chapters that didn't interest me. Haven't you?

But back to Leonard. I think the real wisdom in the pearl I've quoted is the directive to consider what we include, to be sure it matters in the context of the story, the essay, the poem, the play. As writers, we have to exercise our critical muscles on our own work, and we have to be willing sometimes to delete. We also have to be willing to stand up for the parts we believe should be there, even if some readers skip them.

~~~

What parts do you skip when you read? What do you read that other people say they skip?

~~~~~

Please come back Friday to see what my guest p.m. terrell has to say about suspense. You won't want to skip any of her post!

 

Guest Author C. Hope Clark on Setting Fiction "Out in the Sticks"

I'm delighted to welcome C. Hope Clark as my guest today. If you have seriously explored resources for writers, you already know about her website FundsforWriters.com, selected by Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers for the last 12 years. Her newsletters reach 35,000 readers. She is also author of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series, as well as The Shy Writer and The Shy Writer Reborn, how-to guides for the introverted writer in a noisy publishing world. To learn more, visit www.fundsforwriters.com  and  www.chopeclark.com  And if you'd like to know more about the Carolina Low Country setting of Clark's mysteries, check out the links at the end of this post. Frogmore Stew? Really?  ~ Sheila

 

When a Mystery Leaves the City Lights

 

by C. Hope Clark

In the Carolina Slade Mystery Series, Slade investigates agricultural crime. Death, murder, fraud, you name the crime, happens in the country as easily as in the city, only in more unique manners. And yes, there is a federal agency that specializes in agricultural crime.

A bribe in Lowcountry Bribe turns deadly as landowners die shortly after deeding away their farms. Children are kidnapped. Two attempted rapes. Murder by shotgun in a barn. The hog farmer isn’t quite the hayseed he likes people to believe he is. Then in Tidewater Murder, fraud and embezzlement become wound around voodoo, drugs, and modern day slavery leading to bodies in deep, dark, coastal water.

Out in the sticks, as some people call it, people think they can get away with, well, murder. Wide open spaces give ample chance for body disposal, and rural residents often possess talents and wiles a city dweller can’t imagine. Often that naiveté by urban types gives those rural folks greater odds of getting away with that murder.

Who knows what happens in vacant barns, forty miles from town? Or in distant marshes along the edge of property nobody ever sees from an Interstate? Ever wondered what would happen if you broke down on a two-lane road and had to knock on an old farm house? Most people assume a sweet couple comes to the door, offering lemonade to offset the summer heat, when they could be serial killers with a dozen bodies at the bottom of an irrigation pond, or buried two-feet down in mud and feces, half-eaten by hogs.

The American countryside has an ample supply of heroes and villains. A wide porch on a white-washed home doesn’t necessarily interpret into homespun. That genteel man with the farmer’s tan, John Deere hat and boots could make a girl’s heart beat faster as the perfect gent with strong arms and hands, but he might perform all sorts of sick, maniacal deeds deep in the woods.

On the other hand, the rural countryside, in its wide-open, fresh air image, can steal one’s breath. The smell of autumn in a harvested field or fresh-turned soil in the spring. The undulating waves across a soybean field. Cardinals, wrens and larks singing morning songs. The freedom of letting a dog run for miles, and the beauty of a sun-set from that wooden porch swing. Standing on the edge of a lake watching a heron swoop in like some prehistoric bird.

Then there’s the history factor. In Tidewater Murder, we learn about the Gullah culture, and how Gullah predecessors on St. Helena Island were the first slaves freed in the Civil War, allowing them in 1861 to assume control of farmlands, successfully raising rice and indigo. In Charleston, in trying to solve the land control mystery, we learn how General Sherman’s march through the state burned many records, a perpetual reminder of the northern domination of the time.

And who can overlook the food? Every locale has cuisine specialities. Frogmore stew, fried green tomatoes, shrimp, even barbecue assume a role in Slade’s stories. Fresh vegetables and home cooking.

A writer can take any profession, say farming, plop it into almost any setting, say the rural South, define the culture and history, and have a wonderful, colorful, mind-boggling tale. It’s all in the telling. No longer do we need our mysteries only in Los Angeles, Chicago or New York. Hollywood, South Carolina may not be the glitter and gold of its sister city in California, but you might find a whole new world well worth the visit, with crimes you never thought possible, performed by mannerly people you swore were pure Americana. Which is why you never see the evil coming.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Opening to Tidewater Murder

One of the sharpest rural loan managers we had, Savannah Conroy slung attitude like paint on a canvas, wore sweaters like a Hollywood starlet, and managed an office like Steve Jobs. They’d built the Beaufort office around her to harness that charisma, and then added two more counties to keep her busy.

I glared at the new permanent marker stain on my carpet, as this Beaufort wonder shrieked in my ear. My breakfast, a bowl of instant grits with no butter, sat like a rock in my gut. My empty twenty-two-foot rental truck sat outside my apartment, awaiting boxes I’d packed for a week. Thunder rumbled. It started to rain.

Days didn’t come any more thrilling than this.

I pulled the phone further from my ear. “Savvy,” I said. “Chill. What’s wrong with you?”

“Monroe’s ransacking my files, Slade. He won’t answer my questions when I ask what he’s snooping for.” She exhaled hard. “He’s not listening to me.!”

“Dammit,” I grumbled, sitting on the floor and dabbing at the marker stain with a paper towel. “Maybe you need to ask nice.” 

 

“Bite me,” she replied.

 

The sky roiled with angry, gunmetal gray clouds. Trees arched. Wind whistled as it whipped around the building, warning me Mother Nature ruled my moving day.

 

Want to learn more about the culture of The Carolina Slade Mysteries?

·         The Gullah/Geechee Corridor - http://gullahgeecheecorridor.org/

·         Recipe for Frogmore Stew - http://charlestongateway.com/recipes/frogmore-stew/

·         Recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes - http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/fried-green-tomatoes-recipe/index.html

·         Certified SC Grown - http://www.certifiedscgrown.com/

·         Edisto Island Preservation Alliance - http://preserveedisto.org/index.html

·         US Department of Agriculture Inspector General’s Office - http://www.usda.gov/oig/index.htm

 

 

C. Hope Clark is editor of FundsforWriters.com, selected by Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers for the last 12 years. Her newsletters reach 35,000 readers. She is also author of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series, as well as The Shy Writer and The Shy Writer Reborn, how-to guides for the introverted writer in a noisy publishing world. www.fundsforwriters.com / www.chopeclark.com She’s published by Bell Bridge Books out of Memphis, TN.