Where I Write

My new one-minute commute to my upstairs office is such a treat. Sheila Boneham asked me over to describe it, complete with pictures.
http://sheilaboneham.blogspot.com/2013/11/my-one-minute-commute-with-guest-author.html

Finding Reviewers

I'm looking for readers. 

It's a little over two months until A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die releases and I have a couple dozen advance review copies of it to give away (Preston stays here, though!). What I want is reviewers with a wide reach. 

I've contacted several respected reviewers who I met through Facebook and they agreed to read the book. The Natural Farmer, the newsletter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association agreed to review it for their June edition, which goes out to 10,000 subscribers. I even asked Johnny's Selected Seeds to read one and they said they could mention it on their social media.

Another thing I did was start a Goodreads giveaway.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Tine to Live, A Tine to Die

by Edith Maxwell

Giveaway ends April 04, 2013.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I don't hang out on Goodreads much but probably should!  

My publisher is handling the big review sites, like Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and major newspapers, as well as publications like Edible Boston. I'm not sure how that works but am leaving it up to the publicist there. 

If you have a venue where you could circulate a review to a lot of readers, please contact me and we can talk about arranging an ARC for you. I want to get the word out!

Avid Newsletter Article

Cool. The following interview just appeared in my former employer's employee newsletter! Along with my picture and the book cover. Thanks, Avid! 

Avid Solutions Help Solve the Crime in Speaking of Murder From a former Avid technical writer to a successful author, Edith Maxwell has been making a name for herself in the publishing world with her recent book, Speaking of Murder. The mystery novel is about the murder of a student at a small New England college and follows the plight of the heroine as she strives to solve the murder with help from Avid solutions. Maxwell, who goes by the pen name “Tace Baker” for Speaking of Murder, worked at Avid from November 1994 to October 2008, and while she was here, she wrote the Xpress Pro documentation and the Interplay Assist book, among others. We had the opportunity to ask Maxwell a few questions aboutSpeaking of Murder, why she included Avid solutions in her book and if she plans to write more books in the future. What inspired you to write Speaking of Murder? Ever since I heard about the dTective application by Ocean Systems, which works with Avid Media Composer, I wanted to use it for crime solving in a mystery novel or short story. dTective is used by police departments to clarify surveillance video, add height markers, and much more in the pursuit of bad guys. Speaking of Murder also features Lauren Rousseau, a linguistics professor, as the amateur sleuth, and I earned a PhD in linguistics in 1981, so I am well acquainted with academia and the field of linguistics. I put those together in my book and went from there. Can you provide examples of how you included Avid’s solutions in your novel and explain why? I reference Avid several times. Lauren's boyfriend, Zac, is a video forensics expert who uses the dTective application in his work for the local police department. He explains it to Lauren and demonstrates it to her on his laptop in one important scene. Lauren's mother is a retired technical writer who wrote user documentation for Avid and we see her talking to Zac about that. I also show Avid NewsCutter being used in a news truck at the scene of a fire. It's all just part of the story, but I enjoyed working those real-life references in. Do you plan to write more books and will you reference Avid solutions in future books? Of course I am writing more books! The sequel to Speaking of Murder is about two-thirds written, but it doesn't feature Avid software. I'm sure I'll get back to it in a future book, though. To learn more about Speaking of Murder and to see what other books Maxwell is working on, go to:www.edithmaxwell.com and www.tacebaker.com.

The Next Big Thing

Thanks to author Nancy Adams for inviting me to take part in this fun event. Check out her blog from last week where she answers the same questions about her work in progress, titled CHIMERA, that I do below. 

"The Next Big Thing" was started by blogger She Writes to help female authors promote their current work by answering a set of ten questions and then "tagging" other writers, inviting them to do the same. 

Here's my contribution.

What is your working title of your book?

'Til Dirt Do Us Part

Where did the idea come from for the book?

It's the second book in my Local Foods Mystery series, and I wanted to set it in the fall, so it opens at a Farm-to-Table dinner on farmer Cam Flaherty's organic farm with the food cooked by a local chef. We get to meet a few new characters and touch base with the regulars from the first book, A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die. I modeled the dinner on the fabulous one I attended at month ago at Cider Hill Farm in Amesbury (that's a pic of the table). Phat Cats Bistro did the cooking with all local ingredients and it was, excuse the expression, to die for!

What genre does your book fall under?
This is a cozy mystery series -- think Agatha Christie's Miss Marple. The protagonist is Cam Flaherty, an amateur sleuth. The violence is all off screen and the action takes place in a circumscribed area, in this case her farm, the fictional small town it's in, and a nearby small city.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Oh, my! That's a challenge. Maybe Clare Dane for Cam - she's about the right age and can be both serious and funny, although she's not really tall enough. As for Jake, the chef and romantic interest - I don't know. I'd need a really tall Scandinavian-looking man with some weight on him. Any ideas?

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

During the fall harvest dinner at the end of Cam Flaherty's first season, she has no idea that a toxic threat to her quiet life as an organic farmer festers under society's topsoil.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I'm really fortunate to be represented by John Talbot and the series is published by Kensington Publishing.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It took me about six months to write the first draft of A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die, and that's my goal for 'Til Dirt Do Us Part, too. I have a full-time day job, so it's tricky!

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Sheila Connolly's Orchard Mystery series, Paige Shelton's Farmers Market Mystery series, and Susan Wittig Albert's China Bayles Herbal Mystery series are all cozies with a farm theme.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I was an organic farmer myself many years ago so I know the language and tensions of growing food for a living. I love diving back into that world and creating stories within it.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The Local Foods movement is getting more and more popular. Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle tracked her family's project of eating only locally produced food for a year and popularized the term locavore. So members of the Westbury Locavore Club belong to Cam's farm-share program, or CSA. Also, Cam is a geek, a former software engineer, which informs her personality and some of her interactions.

Next week be sure to check out "The Next Big Thing" from the following authors who are carrying on this event!

• Marian Lanouette writes mysteries with romantic elements.
• Ramona DeFelice Long writes fiction, non-fiction, and creative non-fiction.
• Liz Mugavero writes the Pawsitively Organic Gourmet Pet Food Mysteries.
• Barb Ross writes the cozy Maine Clambake Mysteries.

What do you think the next big thing will be? Have you heard of locavores? Leave a question or comment (along with your email address) and win a free copy of my first mystery, Speaking of Murder.

Box of Books

I came home Friday to the most fabulous sight: a box of books. MY books!


It was an amazing feeling to hold the book in my hands, to leaf through it, to read the wonderful blurbs on the back cover. I started writing this book almost four years ago. This is a dream come true.

Here's one of the blurbs: "Debut author Tace Baker combines convincing, diverse characters, a vividly described setting, and a plot that picks up speed until it reaches a surprisingly intense confrontation. Who knew linguistics professors led such interesting lives?" -Sheila Connolly, New York Times bestselling author of the Orchard Mystery series and the Museum Mystery series.

Thanks, Sheila! 

Both of my parents have passed away, my mother just last April. But I dedicated the book to them. I wrote, 

This book is for my late parents, Allan Maxwell, Jr. and Marilyn Muller. They always told me I could be anything I wanted to be. And now I'm an author, exactly what I want to be.

I have a couple of launch parties scheduled, as well as a dozen guest blog posts, so I'll probably be pretty scarce around here this fall. I hope you'll drop by some of the blogs, though. Watch my facebook pages for news. And if you wanted to pick up the book, Barking Rain Press is selling it for half off during September.

Guest Blog Schedule:
Dru's Book Musings - September 19
Mysteristas - September 20
Jungle Red Writers - September 26
Chris Redding, Author - September 27
Lisa's Book Critiques - September 28-29
Auntie Em Writes - September 30
Schooled in Mystery - October 2
Poe's Deadly Daughters - October 6
Kristi Belcamino - October 10
Novel Adventurers - October 12
Writers Who Kill - October 13
Buried Under Books - October 16
Examiner.com - October 17
Marilyn's Musings - October 18
Lisa Haselton's Reviews and Interviews - October 22
Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers - November 2
Cindy Carroll - November 7
Mystery Lovers' Kitchen - November 24

Busy, Busy, Busy

I am so busy right now I am not making posting here a priority. I apologize, dear readers.


The bright side is that you're going to have a much better book to read next spring, when A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die comes out. I have a bookstore pub date of May 28, in fact! It will be out in hardcover and eformats at the same time. I'm working hard to polish up the prose, tie up the loose ends, ramp up the tension, ante up the stakes. It's due September 1 to the publisher.


Soon I'll get the edits back for Speaking of Murder, too, and will have a few weeks to incorporate those. You'll be able to buy that book in trade paperback on September 15 (remember, it's under the name Tace Baker) and in eformats a month later. I've hired on a publicist and we're busy scheduling readings, thinking about getting the word out, brainstorming ideas to make these books a success.

On top of all that, I have a full-time demanding job, and oh, did I mention we've sold our lovely antique house in Ipswich and have to move by August 1? Whee! Which also includes finding the next place, whether it's our landing destination in Amesbury or a temporary apartment while we find the perfect downsizer with a sunny yard on a quiet street. 


Life is good, life is full. In the meantime, I do post every couple of weeks over at the Sisters in Crime New England blog, Pen, Ink, and Crimes. I also post regularly on Facebook at  www.facebook.com/EdithMaxwellAuthor and www.facebook.com/TaceBaker.

Four-Author Retreat Report

Barb Ross put up such a great report about our writing retreat that I'm just going to link to her post over at Maine Crime Writers. Stop by and leave a comment for her!


http://mainecrimewriters.com/barbs-posts/a-writing-retreat-in-old-orchard-beach

Gathering to Write

Three fellow authors and I are converging on Old Orchard Beach tomorrow to do some writing. We all share the same agent and three of us share the same publisher. We all have looming deadlines. It's safe to say that none of us is quite finished.


Jessie Crockett volunteered her family's beach house for a weekend of authorial immersion. Liz Mugavero is heading away from Connecticut at lunchtime. I'm working until three PM, a full day for me, and puttering north from Burlington.  Barb Ross drives up from Somerville.



We plan to sit heads down at our laptops or notebooks at four different stations and write independently in the company of others. But we'll also gather for meals - cooked by Jessie at her suggestion - and for mutual critiques and fun, with wine a highly possible companion.

We envisioned walks on the beach, too. The weather is forecast for cool and rainy, so maybe staying inside and tapping out scenes will be just the ticket, instead.

Thanks, Jessie! See you tomorrow.

Have you had small-group writing retreats? What worked best? A few hours, a few days, or a few weeks?

Another brief recess

Dear Readers, you will notice a pause in my regular postings. Life has intervened, as happens on occasion. I shall return.

Meanwhile, be sure to check out reports of the recent fantastic Donald Maass workshop on Writing the Breakout Novel that Sisters in Crime New England sponsored. Oh, so many inspirations on going forward and so many concrete suggestions for improving the work in progress!

Productive Bliss at Wellspring House

Wellspring House. How can I thank you?

I’m greeted by Preston Browning at the door of the Wellspring House in Ashfield, Massachusetts. He’s an old, stooped man with a twinkle in his eye and a broad accent. White hair longer than mine straggles out from under a wool captain’s cap.

He shows me the kitchen, with its recycling bins and compost bucket, and lauds his architect wife, Ann Hutt Browning, passed on a year now, for redesigning this carriage house retreat, right down to the placement of the Persian rugs and the stacks of books everywhere in the living room. All available for the visiting writer to use.

I walk into the Wheatley Room upstairs. My room. A white-and-blue bedspread neatly wraps a four-poster single bed on the right. On the left a dresser with a pressed linen dresser scarf. Beyond that, under a window, a big green upholstered rocking chair.

And straight ahead of me? The future site of my labors beckons. A wide wooden table, three paper-lengths deep, a table with extensions on each end, so it can be as long as I am tall, a table with a pine-cone lamp, a table for my laptop and my paper and my favorite pen and my water glass and my imagination.

I breathe it in. I set up the laptop, plug it in, turn it on. I pick up a journal on the desk, bound in a cheery red print, and open it. Each resident of this room since 2001 has written a note, sometimes a poem to the room, sometimes a love message to the proprietors. I take it to the bed and start reading, glancing back at the table as if I can hear it beckon. I want to do everything.

I set up crackers and chocolates on the dresser, the bottle of wine for the evenings, my bathroom kit. I return to the desk, to the bed, try out the chair, pace the rug that fills the middle of the painted wooden floor. I open the book of poems by Phyllis Wheatley that sits next to the bed and read about this amazing black slave in early Boston who taught herself to speak and read English in a few short months and then began writing amazing poetry. I knew nothing of her before now.

I gaze out the window at a snowy western Massachusetts hillside covered with tall trees and invaded by a few noisy snowmobiles. They’ll be gone tomorrow. It’s going to rain tomorrow. I give myself this time to settle in, to understand the room, to fully inhale the challenge I have set myself: four days of solitude for writing. That’s it. No clutter. No distractions except my own brain. Internet is available, but I find myself interested only in checking my email once every few hours. My addiction to Facebook doesn’t even tempt. I’m here to write and that’s what I want to do, what I will do.

I’ll head out later today for an hour of cross-country skiing (before the snow is ruined by tomorrow’s rain), fresh air and exercise only a tool to help me write better, longer. Tonight I’ll go downstairs to the spacious funky kitchen and living room full (full!) of books (books everywhere), cook myself a simple meal, read a mystery or the New Yorker as I eat, and then climb the stairs again. I’ll take a walk tomorrow, and Sunday, and Monday before I head home. Also only tools to clear the mind, refresh the body.

This is a gift. I’ll be back.

Postscript: I wrote ten thousand words in three days. Indeed a gift.

Here's a tribute to Ann by Aine Greaney, who turned me onto this retreat house (when I told Preston I was a friend of Aine's, I was IN). So much more about Preston and Ann is out there on the Internet for those of you interested.

During my stay, only one other retreatant occupied a room. It turned out artist Cathy knew my sister from Insight Meditation Center, the Buddhist retreat center in Barre, Mass. We were both amazed. Cathy and I were very good at padding around being quiet to respect each other's creative focus.

I recommend Wellspring House without hesitation. Five rooms are available, two of them doubles. Two shared baths, a peaceful inspirational dwelling and town, ample facilities, all for a very affordable price. Bring your food or walk to a meal. Sequester yourself or roam outdoors looking for your muse. It's all there. (Full disclosure: I was not paid to write this post!)

Writing from Puerto Rico

I'm spending Thanksgiving vacation with my son at a mountain inn in Puerto Rico. It is beautiful, lush, fecund, mysterious. I've been able to write a scene from Bluffing is Murder amidst hikes and contemplations. I sit on the patio of our cabin and type away.

The road up to this inn is narrow, winding, and half washed out in spots. So I also drafted a short story. What if the road washed out, and the electricity went off, too. Suppose someone went mad from the dark, the ceaseless calls of the tree frogs, the too-close personal interactions? What if murder happened?

See how the writer's mind works? Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers!

Publication!

I am very pleased to announce that Trestle Press has accepted Speaking of Murder for publication.

After three years of writing the story of Linguistics Professor Lauren Rousseau, I've succeeded in getting my book into the eager hands of the reading public. Who said persistence doesn't pay off?

The book will be out in a couple of weeks as an e-book in several formats, then will be released in print about two months later. I'm thrilled! This gorgeous cover is thanks to Elizabeth Thomsen for the photograph of Ipswich's Choate Bridge and fellow writer Polly Iyer for the design. Thank you, talented professionals.

Stay tuned for details. And many thanks, Trestle Press. Readers, stop by and see what else they have to offer.

Thoughts Turn to Farming

Late-breaking news: The remarkable Aine Greaney graciously invited me to guest post on her blog about writing with a day job. Thanks, Aine. Anybody out there who hasn't read Dance Lessons and her other work, you should. And we'd love you to stop by and leave a comment. How do you integrate your day job with your creative work?

Now, about farms. Farms, you say? Sure. Think organic. Think local foods. Think Community Supported Agriculture. Think the Five Star Organic Farm in the early nineties in my former town of West Newbury. It was the smallest organic farm in Essex County, Massachusetts. It was certified organic by the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) and I was the farmer.

Nestled up against the Merrimac River, our small piece of land enabled me to grow and sell vegetables and fruits. My (now-ex) husband hauled manure and turned compost, and we were co-owners, but I was the full-time farmer. I was home with our little children after leaving a job in hi-tech when they wouldn't offer part-time work or flexible hours. I'd always wanted to grow more food on a larger plot than a small kitchen garden. The chance arose and we seized it.

Farming is really hard work, and it's drudge work. Aerobic exercise, it's not. But you get to be outdoors with the seasons and the birds and the earth. As a day job you can do a lot worse. I sold at the Newburyport Farmer's Market. I put up an honor-system farmstand out on the road. And I started a Community Supported Agriculture program in 1993, an early bud in a now-blossoming trend.

When I started writing mystery fiction during the last year of my farming life, my first book featured a female organic farmer and the intrigues of her life. I didn't finish that book. Looking back I realize how much of a novice writer I was then.

I'm now dusting off and updating that character for a possible new series, and I'm having a blast. Cam Flaherty has a CSA that includes a Locavore Club, the leader of which has read Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal Vegetable Miracle. The farm has a Facebook page. The potential for mayhem on an organic farm seems without limit.

Stay tuned! Let me know your ideas for locavore lunacy, your experience with CSAs, what organic means or doesn't mean to you.

Retreating to Write

When life gets busy, a writer's thoughts can turn to getting away from it all. Finding a quiet room somewhere with a desk, a chair, a light, and a bed. One that won't break the bank. Maybe even one where simple meals are delivered a couple of times a day. No phone, no laundry, no Internet.

In such a setting, I dream of being super productive. Writing furiously for days on end, broken only by a daily long walk and a nap. Completing the last 100 pages of the work in progress. Doing an entire edit. Starting a new idea. Crafting a short story start to finish.

In reality, as Aine Greaney points out in Writer with a Day Job, there's often a few hours or a day at the beginning of adjusting, of settling in. Still, I think I'm gearing up for carving out some time. Aine recommends the Wellspring House in Western Massachusetts (whose room is pictured here), a retreat house for writers and artists. Or perhaps my friend Deb's beach house is empty for a weekend. Anywhere away from home where I can have more than 5 hours of uninterrupted time would be superb.

There are established artist retreats where scholarship winners can stay for weeks, even months. MacDowell in NewHampshire. The Norman Mailer Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Oregon Writers Colony. Dorland Mountain in California. They are competitive to get into with a long application lead time, though, plus then you need to be able to take the time off work to actually work there.

Possibilities for the future, sure. For now? Which weekend in the fall can I just claim?

And how about you? What kind of writing retreat works the best? Have you found a good one?

One Year in the Blogosphere

Well, dear Readers, we made it. This blog is just over one year old. While I haven't quite kept up with my once a week goal, I ended up with 59 posts. That was due to my almost daily book reviews while I was recuperating from back surgery in the spring.

Blogger makes it easy to look at stats, and they are fascinating:

I've had almost 7000 page views. That's not much compared to some group blogs, but for a start, well, it's a start. And viewers sat in nine countries beyond the United States (including India and Slovenia).

Google and Facebook were the primary referring sites, while Twitter was the largest referring URL followed by http://travelswithkaye.blogspot.com/ - thanks, Kaye! This makes sense: usually when I put up a new post, I mention it on Facebook and on Twitter.

The most common Search keywords that brought people here were:

• Edith Maxwell
• edithmaxwell.blogspot.com
• mystery story ideas

Almost as many people viewed the page on Firefox as on Internet Explorer, but more than three-quarters were on a Windows system as opposed to twelve percent on a Mac. There were even three views on an iPod.

The most-read blog topics fell into five (sort-of) categories:

• Publishing (Real Books in Walmart, E-books, E-readers)
• The craft of writing (One Page a Day, Flash fiction)
• Story ideas (Story Ideas, Inspiration)
• Factual stuff (What is Linguistics, anyway?)
• Book reviews (A Trick of the Light)

I plan to continue blogging on topics relating to Speaking of Murder (book One), Murder on the Beach (book Two), and, of course, writing and publishing. Thanks to everybody who has stopped by. I know how many blogs and feeds are out there, and I really appreciate it.

What would you like to read about in the next year? Send those requests in now!

A Time of Recuperation

My posts have become less frequent lately. I've been dealing with back-pain issues and am coming up to spinal fusion surgery next week. It's a carefully considered decision and a weighty one. But posts will likely remain infrequent for a few more weeks.

On the other hand, I'll have several days in the hospital during which I can take notes for a future story or scene. The pad of paper and pen are already packed.

During the following weeks of home rest, I have serious plans to catch up on my To Be Read stack of mysteries, and to catch up movies I have missed, too. My son explored the Ipswich library's stash of DVDs yesterday and found some good ones. The doctor recommends walking, so a little stroll to the library will be on my agenda as soon as I can. Luckily, it's just up the hill. Our new Ipswich bookstore, the Book Nook, has its grand opening on April 2. I should be able to stroll downtown for that, too.

Who knows, I might be able to work on my ice-fishing story for the Guppies anthology or write some more scenes on the second Lauren Rousseau mystery, this one a fictional account of murderous local politics set partially at our local Crane Beach and the Castle Hill mansion that overlooks the beach.

Having been blessed with a Glass-is-Almost-Always-More-Than-Half-Full personality, I believe that maintaining a positive attitude is good for health, both mental and physical. So I'm determined to make the best of my six weeks away from paid work. I'll post news here when I'm able.

Story Ideas

Short story ideas rattling around:

• Ice fishing. Suppose a couple was arguing in their ice-fishing shack. What if one stuffs the other down the fishing hole. Is it big enough? Would the body migrate away from the site?
• Polyamory. The Boston Globe had an article about followers of this practice: having intimate relationships with more than one person. Suppose a couple had married with the agreement to follow this, then one became dissatisfied with it. What if she kills him (how?) and leaves the body in a snowstorm so it isn't discovered until spring?
• The body in the server room. Oh -- that one I finished and submitted to a contest. Stand by!
• The high-powered female corporate titan and her three greedy sons. This one brainstormed by Allan on our way home from Montreal last weekend. On the model of King Lear but modernized and gender reversed.
• Snowmobile patrol finds a body. Possibly involving a border crossing. Another family brainstorm. Can you tell we were driving through snowy winter scenes? We even filled up with gas Friday after dark at a tiny gas station near the border where all other pumps were being utilized by snowmobiles. Two cats sat in the lit windows of the mini-mart. Intriguing scene almost pleading to be written about.

Other ideas out there you'd like to contribute? Bring them on!

Inspiration

How do we get inspired to write? What experiences have planted the seed of an idea for my stories and for the various scenes in Speaking of Murder? Sure, we're advised to write what we know. For fiction that has its limits, but familiar events and scenes can also prompt the imagination to take off running. When that happens, I and my fellow writers have to race to keep up, getting as many words down in the first draft as we can.

Some years ago, I was driving home from work after dark. I saw a road crew digging a big hole in the ground to work on pipe or wires or something. Floodlights illuminated the area and it looked like a movie scene. All you could see were the workers in the spotlight. A few weeks after that I saw a man walking in Beverly, Massachusetts, who just did not look American. Italian, maybe, or Portuguese. Full head of dark hair, although he wasn't young, and pants and shoes of a cut you don't see in Macy's or Walmart. So I combined those into a story of a granite cutter from Portugal who works at night and his romance with a librarian. Never got it published, but I worked hard to craft the characters and I still feel good about the story.

My story, "Obake for Lance," which was published in Riptide (see the Publications tab), was loosely based on someone I knew when I lived in Japan. A fellow English-conversation teacher, he was deported on spurious charges. The story I wrote is fiction, but many of the scenes and descriptions stem from my experiences in my two years of teaching English there.

Melanson's Boat Shop was an Ipswich fixture. I was intrigued by it when I moved here and walked along the river. It was decrepit, strange, mysterious. I had already written it, renamed Pulcifer's, and a fictitious resident into a short story and into Speaking of Murder. Then last summer when we were in Maine for a week, my son called and said the boat shop was burning down. You can hardly make this stuff up. So the fire got written into the book, too. I don't know the actual inhabitant or anything about him, except that he survived the fire, so I felt free to continue to invent his character and subsequent events.

In the sequel to Speaking of Murder, Lauren walks on Ipswich's Crane Beach. I spent a lot of time on the beach this summer, as much as I could. And I noticed the area to the west where the wooded hill comes right down to the sand and rocks at the edge of the water. I thought, "Looks like a great place to find a dead body." And as I wrote along in the Challenge on the new book, bingo! A dead body happens along as Lauren runs on the beach.

What experiences have sent you to the keyboard to write a scene or a story? What stories have you read that you suspect have a basis in fact?

Convergence of Interests

Life brings a convergence: Fave blog LanguageLog.com posts about portraying historic and regional dialects in fictional dialog. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2554

Language Log is a group of linguists who blog on a wide variety of topics, usually in a way accessible to any educated reader, not just to linguists. But they rarely blog about writing fiction, so this was a fun read.

It's hard to write characters producing realistic-sounding dialog, contemporary or historic, without annoying the reader. For example, I have a young college student speaking to Professor Rousseau. Now, I happen to know that many 20-year olds out there use the word "like" as a high proportion of their total word counts. I wanted to get that across in her dialog. But if you have to read more than a line or two, you might be tempted to put that book down and never pick it up again. It's as irritating as hearing it in person. So I used frequent "like"s in the first line or two and then let them subside.

Because my protagonist is a linguist, she often notices how people around her say things, and uses her ear for that to identify a suspect in an overheard conversation. It's an interesting challenge to slip in language-related clues wherever I can without making it obvious.

Welcome

Reporting in from Ipswich, Massashusetts, with Blog Number One. Welcome! 

I'll be writing weekly on topics pertaining to my Speaking of Murder mystery series: writing, Linguistics, video forensics, the Society of Friends, and small-town life in New England. And whatever else comes to mind. I appreciate your dropping in here, and would love to hear your comments on any posting. Feel free to pass the link along, too.

A note of thanks to all my writer friends who blog regularly and who have provided a model of how to do this. Thanks, too, to Allan and John David, my very excellent sons, who blog with insight, clarity, and humor about life weekly (or more often).