The LadyKillers

I'll Pass

 
 Camille checking in.

Challenge: A call to engage in a contest, fight, or competition.

No thanks.

I have friends who actually challenge themselves. What? It's not enough to stay alive and be reasonably productive, you have to run faster than a greyhound? Be the first person to walk across a continent or climb a rock formation?

      =  

When faced with a challenge, I'd rather switch than fight. If you want to beat me, be my guest.

The only exceptions are for very low-stakes challenges, like doing the toughest puzzle in the book, where the answer is readily available and no one has to know how poorly I did.

Along those lines, I'm working on a puzzle/brainteaser page in honor of my latest protagonist, Professor Sophie Knowles, who will make her appearance on July 5 in The Square Root of Murder by Ada Madison. (It's a huge challenge to keep my names straight; it's a good thing I dropped Sister Anthony).

Sophie is a college math teacher, puzzler, and, of course, sleuth.

Here's a riddle she likes. See if you're up to the challenge!

A murderer is condemned to death. He has to choose among three rooms.

The first room is full of goons with loaded guns.  The second is full of wild animals that haven't eaten in 6 months. The third is about to explode from raging fires.

Which room is safest for him?

Post your answers!

If you like puzzles, check out my other blog, The Real Me, tomorrow, Thursday 4/21. http://www.minichino.com/wordpress.

 

Challenges

I like challenges in writing (although, being antiquated, I prefer the expression problem to solve). If I didn’t, I wouldn’t like mysteries, which are all about the main character being presented with a puzzle which they are expected to solve brilliantly. The other challenge for an author, especially with a series, is not to become terminally boring.

How many of us have given up on a series because the books have become predictable? I could (but won’t) name a few. The ones I’ve stuck with are inevitably those where the author always has a surprise for me, whether in style, resolution, character twist, or some amazing fact I didn’t know.

With mysteries, I don’t even care if I can figure out “whodunit” as long as something keeps me going in the book. I almost always figured out who the villain was in Ellis Peters’ books, but I was eager to see how Cadfael figured it out and what he would do with the knowledge. He was the element of surprise for me. In Alan Furst’s book, Night Soldiers, I was absolute positive that he had gotten it wrong when he mentioned the football teams called the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Giants who played at the Polo Grounds in 1941. In fact, I was unbearably smug about his error until I checked and realized he was not only right but that he must have been chuckling as he wrote it, just knowing how many of us would fall into his trap. He won me over instantly, and now I wait for moment in the book when he’ll “get me” again.

Each of us has a way of revving up the interest, and we gather readers who like the way we do it. Not that I am any guru of challenge solving, but I do believe in the writer going with their strengths. If you are best at character portrayal, make sure you have fascinating minor characters. If you enjoy researching for odd facts, make sure you put something surprising in each book. Change of emphasis from primary to secondary characters works to refresh a series. Ian Rankin did this beautifully as the Rebus series wound down. Siobhan, his sergeant, grew in plot importance. As a result, we did not have to concentrate as much on Rebus’ foibles which could easily have gotten very annoying toward the end.

Of course, none of this means we should not take on the challenge of improving in areas where we are weakest as writers. I vow annually to become more devious in hiding my murderers. In one book, however, where I had the greatest number of suspects (the magical five according to P.D. James), one reviewer damned me as “predictable”. So it looks like I’ve still got challenges in my writing. But if I didn’t, I might get bored—and little bores readers as much as an author who doesn’t stay fresh.

From Mary Anna--Challenges come in all sizes...

When I saw that today's topic was "Challenges," my first impulse was to whine about my upcoming deadline, then I remembered that I did that in my last post.  And possibly the one before that.

I recently read a forum post by a friend who has weathered serious health challenges, including two kidney transplants.  He said that he thought that tough times come to all of us in equal doses over the period of a lifetime, and that the important thing was how you reacted to them.  I'm not altogether sure that this is true. 

When I look around me, I see people who seem to be leading charmed lives and other people who have suffered crushing blows that would level most people, but I'm not seeing the whole picture.  Maybe over a lifetime, these things do even out.  It seems that entropy would distribute troubles to all of us, and it would do it evenly, but even the laws of thermodynamics allow for outliers.  I do know that I have friends who are going through times so tough that they throw my challenges under the bright searchlight of perspective.  Here's what it looks like in my head when that happens.  In case you can't tell, the italics are me.

 I have a deadline on my novel in less than a month!!!

But my friend's husband is having radiation treatments.  Please God let them work.

 My mother's house has to be emptied of a lifetime worth of stuff, and I have to finish it before the sale goes through...three days before that deadline.

But another friend just got out of the hospital, and she doesn't know how long it's going to take her to get better.

And my math book is going to come back for revisions as soon as the novel goes in.

And another friend's daughter has been really, really sick...

And then both books will come back for revisions at the same time...

As you can see, you don't have to look far to find something that will make your own challenges dwindle into perspective.  And now I'm off to deal with today's challenge--the computer virus that does not want me to finish this book on time.  May all your challenges be so minor.  :)

 

News and Next Week: Challenges

News

The Gainesville, Florida, chapter of the National Leauge of Pen Women will give Mary Anna Evans their annual award for achievement in the arts at a banquet to be held in May.

Mary Anna, congratulations!

Next Week

Next week the LadyKillers explore challenges: ones we've bested, the ones that made us want to cry 'Uncle,' and the ones we've still to face. Join us next week, it should be...challenging!

 

Medieval Taste

Due to Easter schedule excitement, Sharan Newman's post appears today instead of Friday. Please enjoy!

I've spent the past few days reding the comments on chocolate and
thinking about it.  The result is that I've been having cocoa instead of
coffee for breakfast.  Chocolate doesn't inspire me the way it does some
of my colleagues here.  Two realizations grew from this.  One -- it may
be that medieval Europe had no chocolate, so it just isn't in my orbit. 
Two -- just as everyone has a different sense of taste, we all write in
different ways.  There is no one good method.  Nor, no matter how hard we
try, is it possible to please every reader even with rich textured
prose.  Some like their chocolate, that is, mysteries, noir and bitter. 
Others prefer lots of sugar and milk.  And there is always someone who
goes for the jalapeno or lemon flavored.  So, I can tell people what
works for me and what I like best.  But I can't get discouraged because
you don't care for my tastes.

Therefore, I'll throw out advice and occasional recipes and hope you find
somethng useful.  Now I think I'll see if I can find some chicken mole
and a hot fudge sundae.

 

Chocolate

by Diana Orgain

The topic is Chocolate, I'm a mom and Easter is just around the corner...so it makes perfuect sense that I only have one thing on my mind....

 
 
 
 
Have a great Happy and Blessed Easter and don't eat too much chocolate!

Writing for Chocolate

Like most women on the planet—I’m a Choc-addict. That’s like being a crack addict but more fattening. Currently I’m in trouble with my daughter. I just introduced the drug to my two-year-old grandson—I gave him a Hersey’s Kiss—and now all he talks about is getting more “shock-lit.” He’s already a Choc-addict like his grandmother.

Naturally both protagonists in my two mystery series have my disorder. Connor Westphal (DEAD BODY LANGUAGE) keeps chocolates hidden in her desk, while Presley Parker (HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY) deals them to unsuspecting crowds at her parties. But when she’s not sharing them, she uses chocolates for medicinal purposes. She has ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and the caffeine in chocolate and coffee are similar to drugs like Ritalin and Adderall, which calm her down instead of revving her up.

So she self-medicates. Often.

Unfortunately for Presley, her chocolates are sometimes lethal. As a party planner, she always includes some form of chocolate on the party menu. But after hiring local TV chef Rocco Ghirenghelli to create chocolate Maltese Falcons for Mayor Davin Green’s Alcatraz Wedding Party, she soon realizes a couple of the brown birds have been injected with cyanide. She discover this when the bride-to-be is found floating in the San Francisco Bay, a victim of poisoning. And dead guests of honor aren’t really good for the party business.

So how did Presley get herself into this chocolate mess? That’s the way I wrote her. After all, it’s a murder mystery. And while I haven’t had much experience injecting chocolates with cyanide (see the Internet for instructions), I have had a lot of experience with chocolate, as well as party planning, writing party books for kids and adults, and creating mysteries. Since “they” often say, “Write what you know,” I decided to make my new sleuth a party planner (she prefers “event planner”), put her on Treasure Island where she lives and works, and have her solve mysteries all around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Presley, recently downsized from her teaching job at San Francisco State University, agrees to the career change after being encouraged by her mother, once a popular party girl and member of the City’s café society. But after developing early stage Alzheimer’s, Mother has retired to a care facility, leaving Presley to fill her party slippers.

After that it’s just one party foul after another…

Luckily, chocolate can save almost any party. I'll leave you with one last Presley Parker tip that’s guaranteed to make your party a success: “When your dessert soufflé falls flat, dump the disaster into the disposal and bring out your backup stash of gourmet chocolates. One bite of a Christopher Norman, Marie Belle or Lake Champlain chocolate and your guests will be eating out of your hands.”

A Reader Speaks

- from Susan

I’m happy to introduce a guest blogger today, Janet Costello. I met Janet at the 2011 Left Coast Crime convention in Santa Fe and was impressed by her dedication to the genre. Janet lives just outside of Toronto.  For the past four years, she has been editor of the newsletter for the Toronto Chapter of Sisters in Crime.  She has attended 7 Bouchercons, 6 Bloody Words and, most recently, her first Left Coast Crime.  Her rush reading pile holds more than 300 books. Welcome, Janet, and thanks for giving us a glimpse of our profession from your perspective.

I’m a reader.  I write this with pride and purpose.  It has been a journey to this point in my life.  I’ve always devoured books.  But when asked at a con, “Are you a writer”, I used to simper, “No, I’m just a fan.”  The “fan” changed to “reader” first; fan is a lightweight term, though we can’t forget it comes from fanatic.  But so many authors have underlined the value of readers…the “just” fell by the wayside not long after.

 Books are a lifelong love.  Especially mysteries, which I burned through from age seven, starting with The Case of the Fenced-In Woman by Erle Stanley Gardner.  I found the mystery community as an adult, first through book clubs, and then with Bouchercon Toronto (2004).  I had the privilege of being among the organizing committee, and I handled the silent and live auction.  Talk about initiation by fire!  With the border, we asked donators to bring their gifts to us at the con, and so I got to meet many authors, including Maureen Jennings, David Hewson, Mark Billingham, Michael Black , Julie Hyzy, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, and I even exchanged an email with Ian Rankin!

In my day job, that must be endured to support my book-buying habit, they have asked why I go to these conventions.  I tell them it’s like a high school reunion.  Once a year everybody gets together, mostly from North America, but from other parts of the English speaking world, too.  The difference is, you like everyone! Of course, then I have to fend off the inevitable question, is it like those mystery dinners?  No, no, it’s for writers and readers.  There are discussion panels.  It’s like the commentary on a DVD…the behind the scenes insights, which include the writing, the forensics, how to handle setting, or continuing characters. 

After 6 years, my co-workers now just ask, so where are you going this time?  Being able to answer, Chicago, Alaska, San Francisco, Victoria, or Santa Fe, is no hardship.   

Panels are rarely on topics I haven’t already heard.  It would really take some guest speaker to get me to attend another Where Do You Get Your Ideas panel.  But newly published author panels, and anything with Parnell Hall are not to be missed.

What keeps me coming back for more?  The other attendees.  You can walk up to anyone, and have a great conversation.  Mystery readers (and all writers are readers, too) generally travel, enjoy great food, and, of course, good books.  I met Susan Shea at a community table at Pasqual’s in Santa Fe.  Between bites of amazingly tasty food, we chatted about Left Coast Crime, her book, authors we love to read, and we described to others at the table what the mystery community is like.

Yes, I’m a reader.  That defines me and realizing it has given me some wonderful friends.

 

Chocolate

By Michael A. Black

Chocolate--- It’s everybody’s secret vice, ain’t it?

I mean, who among us can truthfully say that they’ve never succumbed to the craving and indulged in a quick snack of nature’s dark pleasure?

The etymology of the word, chocolate probably comes to English by way of Spanish, which most likely got it from the Nahuatl word, xocolat, but nobody knows for sure. You see, Nahuatl was purportedly the language of the Aztecs, whose civilization inexplicably vanished way back when. So like I said, all this happened a really long time ago and who knows for sure what the real story is? But one thing’s for sure: through the ages chocolate has not only endured, it has thrived.

My Spanish teacher used to teach the entire class in Spanish, speaking slowly and keeping us confused at first, and then by the end of the semester we somehow could all understand him. I mention this because he used to keep the topics interesting and relevant. One of things he used to talk about was the Spaniards conquest of Mexico and how los indios los introdujeron a la chocolate. (I hope I got that right. Professor Arocha would be ticked if I didn’t, but it has been a long time.) Back in the day, the Aztecs apparently used to take the beans of the Theobroma cacao plant, dry them, and grind them into powder. They’d then mix the powder with chile peppers and presto, they had a drink fit for Aztec royalty. Columbus purportedly brought some of this chocolate back to Queen Isabella (kind of a lame trade for her giving him all those jewels, wasn’t it?), and it became the rage of the European royalty. Of course, the Europeans then removed the chile peppers and added milk and sugar. (Leave it to those Europeans to look for ways to sweeten up a hot thing,)

Anyway, back to chocolate. Think back . . . Remember your first taste of it?

I honestly don’t, but I do remember being in grammar school and having to drink white milk because my parents couldn’t afford to give me the extra money to buy the chocolate version. How I used to envy those kids who’d hold their brown and white cartons and suck their straws while I was stuck with one that was blue and white. The difference was only a few cents, but in those days that was a lot. Now I must admit that some days I’d forego my daily ration of milk and save my money. Once I had enough of it saved up, I too, could afford to buy a carton of that chocolate milk.

To make up for it, my mother used to get a powdered chocolate mix that I could put into regular milk at home. After a few quick stirs I’d have that precious chocolate milk that watched those other kids drinking at school. It never seemed to taste quite as good though. Perhaps it was psychological--- I knew in my heart that this version was ersatz chocolate milk. The version I’d tasted at school was so much better.

When I got into high school I worked in the school cafeteria. Part of the reward I allowed myself for this undesirable task was buying what they called “a frozen milk shake” each day. This was a misleading name for a regular chocolate and caramel type candy bar that was stored in the snack bar freezer. I shudder to think how many cavities, damaged teeth, and lost fillings these things must have caused during my high school years. You could bite into them to no avail and leave teeth prints. Clenching the candy bar between your back teeth, clamping down, and twisting the rest of the bar until it broke was the preferred method for consuming them. Many times I raced up to my after lunch class trying to get my lower jaw unstuck from my upper molars.

All in the name of chocolate. I wonder if anyone has ever considered renaming chocolate as the Aztec’s revenge? One thing’s for sure, messing with chocolate can lead to the Devil’s playground . . . or perhaps that’s too severe. Let’s just say it can lead you to your dentist’s office sooner rather than later.

Anyway, I’m sure you’re had enough of my reminiscences. I’m happy to say that times have changed and now I can afford to buy whatever type of chocolate milk or candy bar I want . . .

The only  problem is, over the years I’ve kind of lost my sweet tooth.

 

 

News and Next Week: Chocolate

News

Camille Minichino will give a talk on the craft of writing, to the California Writers Club, Belmont CA Library, Saturday, April 16, at 11 AM.

Next Week

What topic is dearer to a writer's or a reader's heart than chocolate? Join us next week for some sweet talk!