The Lady Killers

It's all in the genes.

Rhys here on Wednesday.

I'm just back from a family gathering at a mountain lodge near Sedona, AZ. What a fabulous setting with those red rocks towering into a blue sky, and the yellow leaves and crisp air. Perfect. We always take long hikes, play fiercely competitive games of bocce ball, poker and Boggle and sit by a huge fire, talking for hours. And the kids are off amusing themselves, getting wet feet in the creek, building fairy houses or playing the piano.

Watching my family en masse made me start thinking about genes and how various traits are carried forward. All my grandchildren are musical. The six year old twins sit at the piano and seem to think it's normal that they put the right chords with a tune that they've only heard and never seen written. Their mother studied voice and now teaches and writes music. My son is a singer by profession. My other grandchildren have lovely singing voices.

So it has to be the Welsh ancestry, doesn't it? My Welsh grandfather Rhys was an orchestra conductor and played any number of instruments. My grandmother played the organ in church when she was about ten. My mother sudied piano at the Royal Academy. I sing (but I'm a rotten piano player). So it's really reassuring and yet baffling to know that this is passed on to the next generation. What does a gene for musical ability look like?

There are other traits coming out too--vivid imaginations, the desire to write stories, and swimming. All four of my kids were competitive swimmers. They never made it to Olympic level but they did win regional meets. Two went on to play water polo in college, my daughter winning two national championships and representing the USA.

She now coaches a swim team and her daughters (9 and 7) are on it. They have beautiful strokes and look so easy in the water. Is this because of her good coaching or the genes again? it has to be the latter because other swimmers on her team don't look so graceful and easy when they swim. So there's a swimming gene in the family too (although where it came from is a mystery. IN England we were never encouraged to swim. Once you could swim a length of breaststroke you got a certificate and that was that)

I suppose that among early humans good gene traits were vital to survival. Those who ran fastest got away from the Wooly Mammoth. Those who were smartest figured out ways to trap small animals. Those with the best eyesight spotted the prey and the berries. But it's fascinating to me that good and bad traits are still passed along and to watch them coming out in the next generation.

I sometimes wish I were a scientist. Wouldn't it be great to identify a certain gene--the music gene or the swimming gene and then to be able to splice it into another child's DNA so that they became good singers and swimmers? What's the betting this will happen some day.

Proud Mum

I went to Calif. to see the grandkids for the week before Thanksgiving--stayed for Thanksgiving dinner then off to the airport. My daughter-in-law had saved for me a fantastic article about my son in the Carlbad school district newspaper. He teaches in an alternative high school--US history and environmental science as well as photography:

Focused On Success

By Marilyn Campbell,
CUSD Communications Consultant

Picture this: a class in which every student works hard, increases knowledge, learns valuable skills, gains self-esteem and achieves  a model for success that can propel them to a successful career.This picture-perfect environment takes place daily at Mr. Dunn’s Carlsbad Village Academy photography class. Just a few weeks into the school year, the assorted 10th-12th graders, including some who had never before used a camera, already speak the lingo fluently. They excel at various genres, including evocative macro photos of flowers and dramatic human faces.

“At first, I wanted to take the class, well, just because, but now that I’m really learning, I might want to become a professional photographer,” confides Krystal Abarca. While explaining how to ascertain the proper exposure, Robert Recendez says he plans to combine his surfing and photography skills. “My grandfather was a famous painter. I want to follow in his artistic footsteps.” Thomas Hanna pauses while taking a close-up of classmate Marina Evanoff to explain how to zoom in on a subject. He relates, “I kind of fell into this class when a leg problem caused me to drop out of P.E. I want to be a firefighter, but now I’m also interested in taking art classes in college.” Nature lover Brittany Smith spends a lot of time outside with her camera ready to capture the perfect shot of clouds. Heba Mostafa is adding photography to her skill set on her way toward becoming a graphic artist. She intends to attend a technical institute in Japan; in fact, she’s already learning the language.

These students are learning a lot, confirms Mr. Dunn; more than merely how to take photos. He initiated the class when he joined the CVA seven years ago, with the support of Principal Keith Holley. He reports, “My students are learning
how to work hard and they enjoy being able to achieve success.”

Mr. Dunn’s photography advice to his students could serve as great advice for anyone in life: “Take as many shots as you can to give yourself a chance for the very best shot.”

A previous article, in the glossy CARLSBAD, was about the surf team Joe founded at his school as volunteer coach--the school had no sports at all. They take all-comers, novice or expert. One of the students won a local competition. Now, alas, they need $2,000 for membership of the surf-team conference, or whatever it's called, and of course the school district claims to have no money. Such is life!

Carola

Note new website

PS Miss Jacobson's Journey, my adventure Regency about smuggling gold across enemy France to Lord Wellington in Spain, is just out in a large print edition. Ask your library to buy it.

Colds and "cures," now and then

Ann Parker here, Monday's child, sniffly, snuffly, shivery and achy with what I hope is merely the beginning of a nasty cold and nothing worse. I am moving about (albeit slowly) with the help of Advil and hot lemonade, wishing that there was a cure for this, but alas.

However, if this was 1877 instead of 2009, perhaps I'd be turning to Dr. Chase's Family Physician, Farrier, Bee-keeper and Second Receipt Book to discover that, yes, according to the eminent Dr. Chase, there is an "Ancient Method of Cure" which has been in use since 1340 (at least, according to the doctor):

Putte your feet in hot water,
As high as your thighes;
Wrappe your head up in flanelle,
As low as your eyes;
Take a quarte of rum'd gruelle,
When in bedde, as a dose;
With a number four dippe,
Well tallow your nose.

Concerning this cure, Dr. Chase says, "This will be found as valuable and practical, at the present time, except perhaps, as to the depth of the foot-bath, and the amount of "rum'd gruelle," perhaps a pint of that would be sufficient now-a-days, if made tolerably strong, repeating the treatment one, or two nights, until the cold is broken, i.e., loosened."
 Rum with gruel? Would that be like... rum mixed with oatmeal? Sounds ghastly, but maybe enough of it and I wouldn't notice. But tallow on the nose?? Perhaps one of our medieval-ish authors can shed some light on what this is all about...

Slaving over a hot computer

Jane here, thinking about editing on-screen, which first raised its problematic head a couple of days ago.

I favour editing on a computer, and I’m sure it’s the way things will be done universally in years to come. I use an old but trusted version of MS Word – 2000 – which, happily, lacks some of the complicated bells and whistles that make me run a mile when I encounter them in other people’s offices. But whatever word processor you use, I’d suggest a few common-sense rules, without which you may get landed in the you-know-what.

First, before you do anything, make at least one “safety copy” of the original MS; save the file using a different name, or burn a copy onto a CD, put it on a pen-drive, or make a “read-only” copy on your hard disk so changes can’t be saved by accident. That way you’ve always got the original text to refer back to. I find it’s all too easy to get mixed up when you start editing, and comparing two quite similar versions of the same MS; you can find yourself inserting edits into the wrong one. A safety copy stops this being more than a mild irritation.

Second: Word has a very irritating grammar checker, which I usually keep switched off. Who needs some pesky bit of software querying the purple prose? BUT I do switch it on for one session, towards the end of the editing. It flags up all sorts of things with green lines, and I ignore most of them, but it’s a useful way of catching some typos. If my fingers have mixed up “then” and “them”, or even, shock horror, “there” and “their”, the grammar checker throws a fit, and I can hastily correct.

Third: check the text in print at some point. Even with quite brief items, short stories, articles and such, I like to look at a printout sometime, often at the finish for a last read-through. With novels it’s essential. I find it easier to spot small errors – like extra spaces or wrong-way-round quotation marks – on paper than on my monitor. Don’t ask why. It isn’t that the screen version is any less visible. I’m probably just old-fashioned and prefer what I’ve always been used to.

That’s the system I have with Poisoned Pen Press for proof-reading my novels. Not that I have to print the books off; I email them my draft as a Word file, and in due course they post me proof copies in book form, but I don’t enter my amendments there. I note down any changes on the computer, and email them all to the publisher at the end. For each alteration I give a page and line number and a simple instruction about what needs replacing or deleting.

Perhaps this sounds long-winded compared with longhand notes or deletions, but I find it quick and easy and it has several advantages. For one thing I have terrible handwriting; (I should have been a doctor, I could have produced illegible prescriptions for every known disease,) and at least using the computer I can make what I want crystal clear. Then there’s the convenience of emailing corrections thousands of miles from Yorkshire to Arizona; no expensive postage or annoying delays in the mail. And I and my editor each have a copy of exactly what changes I’m asking for, which cuts down on confusion.

Computers aren’t perfect, they can drive you up the wall, or to drink; all the same, I’d hate to have to function as a writer without one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving

Sorry to miss posting for a while and I know I'm a day late here.  I was hoping to get a nice picture of a turkey set out on the table, but it was all sliced way ahead of time.  This year our family was scattered all over, as is more and more the case.  I'm glad that this year all my cousins are home from Iraq and Afghanistan but I know that there are many families who aren't so lucky so right there is something to be grateful for.

I'm spending the rest of the holiday weekend learning how to correct a copy edited manuscript with Word --lots of little pick balloons that are not at all as festive as that sounds.  I understand the logic behind this but I am old fashioned and like to write 'stet' in big letters over things I don't want changed.  Anyone out there familiar with on screen editing?  This Luddite could use some pointers.

Since there wasn't a turkey photo, I'm posting the family greeting I took of my sister and her family sending love to my niece in Newcastle.   I'm sure they would join me in wishing friends and family a great holiday season!

Giving Thanks

With Thanksgiving Day approaching at the end of an up and down year, I'm thinking of what I have to be thankful for. Sometimes I complain about the stress of writing two books a year and all the promotion that goes with it. But today I am really thankful that I've had a chance to see my work published, that I get letters from fans and what I have created is appreciated by other people. I do realize that it is not always the best that succeed, that there is always an element of luck involved. I'm sure that there are brilliant actors working in regional theater who would outshine any movie star, but they never got that lucky break.

So I'm saying thank you for the chance to pursue what I love to do all my life. I am also thankful that I have a chance to live in the perfect place for me. I love the hills and coast of Northern California, I love being outdoors, I love the sunshine. I also love the closeness to San Francisco and all the culture and restaurants and ethnic celebrations. And I look forward to the winter months in my condo in Arizona and the desert and wonderful sunsets.

But none of this would mean a thing without friends and family. Most of all I am thankful that I am surrounded by people I love and who love me. When a grandchild climbs onto my knee and says, "Nana, I do love you," that is the most wonderful feeling in the world. When I sit with the family at a holiday table and the room resounds to laughter and banter, I feel competely content. And when I'm sitting with my friends, sharing laughing--well there's nothing better than that either.

And having lost a dear friend to cancer this year, I am thankful for my health. I'm thankful that we live near good hospitals, that my husband's recurrance of cancer was caught quickly and is being treated agressively. Having had a patch of bad health at the beginning of the year I realize more than ever that if you don't feel well,then nothing else matters.

Lastly I am thankful that I live in a country where women don't have to cover themselves head to toe before they can leave the house, and are at the mercy of their menfolk. I'm thankful that we can choose our own leaders fairly, that there is no secret police watching or soldiers standing with AK 47s at the end of my street.

So I wish all of you a blessed, happy thanksgiving. Be grateful for what you have. Hug those you love. Oh--and keep on reading good books!

Welcome Guest Blogger, LJ Sellers

Do Protags Have to Be Likable?

Before I launch into this blog, I’ll introduce myself: L.J. Sellers, mystery/suspense novelist, as well as friend and neighbor of Carola Dunn. I say “neighbor” because we both live in Eugene, OR, where my stories are set … and tie-dye is considered “dressy.” The series features homicide detective Wade Jackson, who struggles like the rest of us to balance work and family. The first two books, THE SEX CLUB and SECRETS TO DIE FOR are available now, and two more are in the works.

When I wrote the first story, I didn’t know I was starting a series. Still, I made the detective character likable and moral, so I could bring him back if I wanted to. Jackson had to be someone I could live with for months at time.

But not everyone needs the protagonist to be upstanding.

I started a crime story recently with a fast-moving plot and terrific writing. But I’m probably not going to finish it. The character, although resourceful and good-hearted in her own way, is not someone I relate to or respect. I wanted to like her anyway, but the world she inhabits is sleazy, and everyone she encountered, including friends, gave me the creeps. Despite curiosity about how the story turned out, I had to put it down because spending too much time in her world was a little revolting.

There’s seems to be a trend now in crime fiction to create main characters who are seriously flawed or blatantly criminal. In another story I read recently for a discussion group, the protagonist — supposedly a reformed criminal, living a good life — participated in a heinous crime to keep himself from going to jail. If I had not been reading the book for discussion, I would have put it down immediately. I skimmed through the rest, uncaring. What’s the point in reading about a protagonist who you want to see caught and punished? Especially when you know that won’t happen.

This experience happens for me with movies too. If there is not a single character I find decent enough to root for, then I lose interest and shut the movie off. I’m typically not someone who sees the world in black and white, but with crime stories, I want good guys and bad guys who are clearly discernable. Characters flaws are fine, but if the protagonist belongs in jail, then the story loses credibility for me. I make an exception for Elmore Leonard’s novels, and everyone can cheer for a likable thief, especially if he’s played by Brad Pitt or George Clooney.

I was surprised when other readers in the discussion said they didn’t have to like the protagonist to find a story compelling. For me, good characterization with a protagonist means creating someone readers will care about, like, and/or respect, at least in some way. That definition is obviously narrower than the rest of the reading/writing world sees it.

How do you feel about protagonists who are unlikable or deeply flawed? Does it spoil the story for you? Can you name a novel that you thoroughly enjoyed even though you didn’t like the protagonist?

A song that made me laugh

Jane here, and having just posted off a short story into the wide blue yonder, I feel like being frivolous for the rest of today.

So I'll share something I heard this week which made me laugh. It was in a 1960s radio comedy show called "Stop Messing About" which is being repeated on the BBC just now; it was the successor to "Round the Horne" after Kenneth Horne sadly died. The series had many of the same stars in it, and though I think it's a bit like Hamlet without the Prince, it has some excellent bits - including this spoof folksong. I can't send you the music, but just add any suitable folksy tune; and like many folksongs, it makes a pretty good verse without any accompaniment.

I took my love to Primrose Hill,
Upon St. Swithin's Day;
I pointed out the woody woods
We passed along the way...
But he wouldn't.

I took my love to Turnpike Lane,
When Michaelmas was nigh;
I thought I'd caught a twinkle
In my roguish lover's eye...
But I hadn't.

I took my love to Potters Bar
When Halloween was near;
And though he seemed quite willing
I'd gone off the whole idea...
So we didn't.

I love witty song lyrics...from Gilbert to Flanders, from Coward to Lehrer, and many, may more. I've written comic songs myself, including some with fellow Lady Killer Rhys in our student days. They were brilliant...that is, quite a few of them made people laugh.

Later, when we lived in the Yorkshire Dales I used to sing and play with a concert-party raising money for charity, and I really enjoyed it; and as we kept being asked back to places, the audiences must have done too.

I don't get to perform in public much now, but when I do, there's nothing like the feeling of singing to an audience and hearing their amusement; sometimes they try to keep the laughter down so they don't miss the next line, and sometimes there's a wild burst of a laugh, and you have to wait, to "vamp till ready," as the old pianists used to say, to let everyone quieten down. Magic.

When I heard that old radio show this week and that little gem of a spoof, I laughed aloud. I've been singing the song around the house, and thinking: I wish I'd written that.

The telephone or le telephone?

Cara here on Friday,
Telephones in Paris are on my mind. I land in Paris on Tuesday and
meet my friend Sarah who'll give me my French cell phone. She's my cell phone guardian and keeps the Sim card updated, the phone charged and ready. These days
it's impossible to arrange a meeting, an interview, or call a resto without one.
But I remember the days when few people had land lines and made their calls from
a cafe like the one above. You'd get a jeton=token from the bar man, slot it megalithic phone on the counter or the one on the wall downstairs near the WC and
talk. Of course, everyone heard your conversation! But this was your cafe, your community, they took messages for you and everyone knew each other's business. Maybe I'm the only one nostalgic for this time but it made the cafe more intimate, time mattered and people kept their appointments.
I took my son to France when he was five years old. Despite loving the frites, he missed his Dad, of course, and wanted to call him all the time. Like he did back home. I remember taking my son to the public phone cabin - hard to find those any more - lifting him up and showing him all the number's we'd have to dial, how we'd have to remember the time was backwards, going into a big explanation etc. He just looked at me and said 'but how do I dial 911 if you're hurt?' It tugged my heart. In preschool he'd learned to dial 911 and insisted he needed to know how he could do it here. So we tried to figure it out in this phone cabin and realized he couldn't even reach the numbers. His big eyes widened and he said 'what do I do then?'
I took his hand and outside pointed to a policeman 'nothing's going to happen to me but that's the person you go to.' Nothing happened to me and our trip improved after we went to the parks every day and he built sand castles with all the other five year old Parisians... but I still can't forget that.
I'll try to post next day Friday from Paris!
Cara

Birth of a Book

Rhys here on Wednesday, feeling under the weather with a cold/cough. It's lucky email can't carry that sort of virus, isn't it?

Anyway, I know I had something brilliant to write about today, but my brain is like cotton, so instead I'll write about what I've been doing for the past couple of weeks, and that is planning for my next Molly book. For me these books always start with place--a particular segment of society in old New York. I've set books in the garment industry, the stage, among the Four Hundred, on Coney Island. Often I don't know what wlil happen to Molly when she goes to one of these places--she is hired to do some kind of detective work and the crime evolves from that.

But this time I have a basis of structure for the book. She's getting married. She's promised Daniel she'll give up her dangerous career, but she's not really sure she wants to be just a wife. So I thought it would be interesting to contrast her expectations as a bride with a bride in a different society. So I'm taking her to Chinatown, where rich men could buy brides and have them shipped from China.

That was my starting point so I have been reading every book I can lay my hands on about early Chinatowns and the history of the Chinese in America. I am familiar with Chinatowns, of course, living a few miles from San Francisco where I have enjoyed wandering on many occasions through the backstreets of Chinatown, observing ducks hanging in a row in butcher's window, live fish in a tank, Chinese medicine shops with little square drawers full of herbs and powders (ground stag horn anyone?

I had always known that the Chinese had a tough time and were driven out of many towns. About five miles from me there is a place called China Camp on the San Francisco Bay, where the Chinese went after they were driven out by San Francisco Fishermen. The little houses still stand and it has been made into a nice museum. There is also Angel Island where new arrivals were detained and processed. So Chinese American history is all around me. But I had no idea how badly they were treated and how discriminatory the exclusion act was. In 1882 an act was passed saying that all Chinese laborers should be deported back to China, no Chinese allowed to enter from now on and no Chinese living in the States could become a citizen. This was at a time when immigrants were pouring in from Europe and being welcomed with open arms.

So why this Sino-phobia? One would have thought that any society would have welcomed Chinese. They were hard working, didn't drink, were quiet, kept to themselves and prospered. Ah, so maybe that was a big factor. They were thrifty, ingenious and they made money. They took over the laundry trade. They became expert market gardeners. Maybe they were resented. Maybe they just looked different--foreign and scary with their almond eyes and their long pigtails hanging down their backs. But all sorts of rumors circulated--they stole white girls for prostitution, they ate puppies, they all smoked opium.

In New York there were hardly any Chinese women because of the exclusion act. It was a town of bachelors, trying not to get into trouble with their Italian neighbors. Some of them--the early arrivals, had married Irish girls who perfered a polite and thrifty Chinese husband who could provide for them well to a drunken Irish lout. Of course they were forever outcast from white society after this. It's not actually known how many Chinese women there actually were--they would have had bound feet and not be allowed out, so they would have been invisible, hearing about life only from their children whow went to American school.

So I've plenty of juicy stuff to start my story--Tong wars, opium joints, gambling parlors, women hidden in upstairs rooms, half Irish children.... and Molly, as usual getting in over her head! I can't wait.