On Deadlines

A friend, the fabulous Robert Isleib (who now writes as Lucy Burdette), posted a casual little note today on Facebook. She said she was back at the starting line. Page 1 of Book 3, which she said is due September 1. (I should say that her Book 1, An Appetite for Murder, is a great read, and a wonderful start to a new series.)

Hmm. A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die is also due September 1. However, I already have more than a third written on the rough draft, 27,000 words at last count. Am I way ahead? Well, sure, way ahead of Lucy in this case. But this is her third book in the series and probably the tenth book (or more?) that she has written.

This is the third book I am writing and the first in this series.

Should I slow down? No way! Two other authors and I have formed an email support group, because we all have the same agent and the same deadline for the first book in our new cozy series. Jessie decided on a personal deadline of April 7 to finish her first draft. I decided on the same.

Why? So I can have lots of time to revise, edit, and get some critiques done before I turn it into the publisher. I do NOT have ten books under my belt, and I do NOT have two other books already written in this series. I'm still developing the protagonist and the other characters. I'm still honing descriptions of the setting. I'm still learning how to write.

I used to be much, much more of a procrastinator. You know, finishing papers in high school and college at the last possible minute. Wrapping Christmas presents into the night on Christmas Eve.

Now I am able to work ahead and finish projects with plenty of time to spare. Why? Because I have other demands on my time, like the day job? Because I'm more, ahem, mature? Not sure. I already have a short story written and revised to submit to this year's Level Best anthology (to be called Blood Moon!), and it isn't due until the end of April.

What I am sure of is that furthering my fiction-writing career is one of the most important things in my life these days. I want to be sure I have enough time to hone, polish, and improve my stories and books so they are the absolute best tale I can tell before I release them into the hands and inboxes of editors, agents, and most important, the reading public.

Of course you might ask why this week's post is delayed. It wasn't from procrastination, really! I was just busy and a topic hadn't come to mind.

What about you? Plan ahead and work steadily toward the goal? Save it for the last minute? Or does it depend on what the work is?

Finalist!

I got some great news last night. Speaking of Murder is a finalist in a contest.

I submitted it to the Linda Howard Award for Excellence contest last October. The book wasn't under contract at the time and hadn't been published, so it was eligible for this competition run by the Birmingham, Alabama chapter of Romance Writers of America (RWA). I selected the category of "Suspense: Romance-based novels that include an element of mystery or suspense." There is certainly romance, mystery, AND suspense in the book.

I didn't think much about it since then, not expecting that I would have a chance. I'm not even a member of the organization, and I don't write in a southern style. Imagine my surprise when I received the email that I am a finalist, one of only five! The organizers said that category was flooded with entrants.

The final judges are an editor at a press and a literary agent from an agency. I have to submit a two-to-five page synopsis of the book, which I already have, and resubmit the first twenty-five pages I sent them the first time, revised if I so choose. Okay, now I'm nervous.

The winners will be announced at the RWA Gulf Coast chapter's Silken Sands Conference, held in sunny Pensacola, Florida in mid March. Hmm. Maybe a plane ticket is in my future? Keep your fingers crossed and your good-luck mojo pointed my way.

When Is It Too Late?

When is it too late? I've been thinking about this a lot lately for a couple of reasons:

• The push for resolving to do things differently at the change of the year can also promote thoughts of, "It's too late for me to change that."
• The recent death or illness of several people close to me or close to those I love makes me want to be sure I have said and done what's important before it's too late.

It's certainly NOT too late to do more situps, to drink fewer glasses of wine, to write more letters, to worry less. Will these things happen? Maybe, maybe not, but I know it will never be too late to try as long as I walk this green earth.

It IS too late to tell my father, my cousin Mike, my favorite aunt Jo, or Bette and Roy Lockhart one more time that I love them. I feel confident that they knew of my love before they "went on ahead," as Bette used to to say, though, and I make sure my elderly mother and my sons knows it every time I talk with them.

It IS too late for a friend who had a difficult relationship with his mother to clear the air with her, since he didn't do it before she died.

It's NOT too late to learn a new language, to visit new countries, to begin a meditation practice, to take up the cello again. I'm pretty sure, with my joints, it IS too late for me to climb Mt. Washington or take up cardio-kickboxing.

But you know what? That's okay with me. I already ran the Boston

Marathon, got my black belt in karate, and did my share of hiking. As long as I can still walk a hilly mile and dance for a couple of hours at a stretch, I'm happy.

I wondered for almost two decades if it was too late to finish that mystery novel set on an organic farm that I wrote much of seventeen years ago. I'm so pleased that it isn't too late to at least bring the farmer and her world back to life in A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die, even if I discard most of the original writing.

Seize the day - carpe diem - is an excellent rule of life, along with Live your life so you have no regrets.

What in your life do you feel it's too late for, and what are you glad it's not too late for?

Drinking Locally

In A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die, farmer Cam Flaherty enjoys a sip of locally brewed ale or wine from the local winery. But is this plausible in Massachusetts?

You bet it is. The Ipswich Brewery has a new Five Mile Stock Ale (you can read about it here and here). It's good, too. Here's their description:

"With most of 5 Mile’s ingredients locally harvested from Massachusetts farms and with one ingredient grown within five miles of Ipswich, 5 Mile is truly a local brew. Dry-hopped with Cascade hops from our very own Ipswich hop yard, 5 Mile is a big, malty stock ale brewed to be enjoyed by Locavores and Omnivores alike."

The Alfalfa Farm Winery is just down the road in Topsfield. I helped out on their vendange, or harvest day a couple of months ago. In return they fed the volunteers lunch with wine and let us all pick out a bottle to take home. In the book, Cam is sipping a glass of the Marechal Foch when she discovers the body. Mill River Winery is also nearby, but I haven't had a chance to check them out yet.

Turkey Shore Distilleries is in Ipswich. They make a white rum at their micro distillery. I haven't tried it yet, but plan to. Maybe we'll pick up a bottle to celebrate my son's return from Rum Central (Puerto Rico) later this spring.

National Public Radio just did a story on the Mohawk Bend restaurant and bar in Los Angeles that stocks only wine, beer, and spirits from California and serves only locally grown foods. That's a good place for such a venture. A restaurant like that in Massachusetts would likely have a much smaller selection.

A couple of the volunteers who belong to the Locavore Club won't drink coffee because it isn't local. Coffee plants don't tolerate frost. They thrive on shady land in humid climates with temperatures ideally around 75 degrees Fahrenheit. In the US, it's only grown commercially in Hawaii. I guess you could nurture a single plant in a big pot on wheels in Massachusetts. If you had a heated indoor pool at home in a glass enclosure, you could probably overwinter the coffee there. In Iceland they grow coffee in greenhouses heated by volcanic steam.

Do you have any local drinks you're particularly fond of? Ever tried growing a coffee plant in a frosty climate?

Life as a Farmer

Did you know I was a farmer in a past life? My ex-husband and I owned the Five Star Organic Farm in West Newbury, Massachusetts. I was the farmer, and he supplied occasional muscle work like turning the compost or shoveling manure.

I'd been a gardener since college days in the early 70s, and when the chance came to not only buy a property north of Boston that had been an engineer's hobby garden but also leave my day job while our sons were young, we snapped it up. Our one-acre farm was already planted with blueberries, apple and pear trees, and grapes. The previous owner signed an affadavit stating that he had not used chemicals on the sizable vegetable plot, so I was able to get a head start on gaining organic certification from the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA).

I sold vegetables and fruits at the nascent Newburyport Farmers' Market. I started a Community Supported Agriculture program when most people hadn't even heard of the concept. I sold from an honors-system table in front of our house on busy Main Street. Here I am on the right with a small portion of one year's garlic crops.


So when it came time to list my credentials in my proposal for the Local Foods Mystery series, it was no stretch to write, "The language and tensions of a farmer like Cam are rooted in my own life." It was a great life for a while. I was home with my children most of the time. I grew healthy organic food for my family and for others, and I was good at it. I communed in old clothes with the birds and the weather, and my commute was a two-minute walk. I even won an award for my Gold Cherry tomatoes at the county fair one year (photo from Verrill Farm in Concord, MA).

So why didn't I stay a farmer? Lots of reasons. Farming is hard work and it's drudge work. You walk around bending over and hauling heavy loads; you never get your heart rate up. It's financially non-lucrative work on the level our farm was. To really make some money, I would have needed to immerse myself more heavily in marketing, when all I really wanted to do was grow vegetables. And I looked ahead in my life and realized I needed to get back into the paid work force before I lost some of my skills and the recency of my experience in the hi-tech world.

During the last winter between farming seasons, I wrote more than half a murder mystery set on - guess where? - a small organic farm. I'm using some of the fictional world I set up then, and several of the main characters, including farmer Cam Flaherty, in this new book. I'm so happy I can now reimmerse myself in that world without having to do all that heavy physical work, which, frankly, my body isn't quite up to any more.

Working Hard

Quick update, no pix:

Working hard on A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die. Extremely pleased with the professionality of my agent, John Talbot, and with editor John Scognamiglio of Kensington Publishing. Also SO excited about a dear friend fellow writer landing a similar contract with the same parties.

Wondering about wisdom of publishing Speaking of Murder with a very small, very new press, that has already missed one commitment to me. Fellow author appears to have similar feelings. That wondering, plus a second missed deadline today and other instances of unreliability from the press, led me to cancel the contract prepublication. Onward.

Delighting in friend John Urban's excellent success in self-publishing. A Single Deadly Truth has popped up to #1 on Amazon in 3 different categories, including Best Kindle Sellers in Hard-Boiled Mystery. John told Margaret Press, “It's been quite a run. I thought the last month or two were remarkable, but sales keep going up. I've sold over 6K books in the first twelve days of December. I'm convinced there's a stuck key on a computer somewhere at Amazon central, but I'm willing to go along with this.” You go, John! See my presaging review of the book here.

And wishing all my faithful readers peace and good health during the holidays and the year to come. May we each be creative, communicative, and competent, with joy and clearness in our lives.

Local Foods Mysteries Series Sold

This seems to be my fall for good news. With the help of fab literary agent John Talbot, I have just secured a three-book deal to publish the Local Foods Mystery cozy series with Kensington Publishing Company. I am thrilled almost beyond words.

The first book is titled A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die. Novice farmer Cameron Flaherty just wants to grow and sell organic vegetables, flowers, and herbs on her great-uncle’s Massachusetts farm (photo of a farm share courtesy Arrowhead Farm in Newburyport, MA). Cam doesn’t count on finding dead bodies on the property.

Cam, a software developer in the Boston area, has lost her job to outsourcing. Her crusty great-uncle Albert invites her to take over his farm when his foot amputation forces him to move to assisted living. She takes a leap of faith and her severance pay and moves to the farm in the small town of Millsbury north of Boston. Her customers are eager to buy locally grown produce. Cam, by nature an introvert, struggles to balance satisfying a colorful group of locavores who subscribe to her Community Supported Agriculture farm-share program with trying to clear her farm, Produce Plus Plus, and her own name of the taint of murder. Some of her fellow farmers at the weekly farmers’ market support Cam. Others just might be killers.

One character I'm already having fun with is 14 year-old Ellie Kryzanski, who is working on her Girl Scout Locavore badge. She comes to the farm to work with Cam after school one day, and sees a clue all the adults have missed. Another is a bigger-than-life chef at The Market restaurant who gets his produce from Cam and might be looking for a little romance, too. Cam is also going to develop partnerships with local wine and beer makers, and sponsor a pickup site for a CSF, Community Supported Fishery.

A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die will be released just in time for the Northeast's growing season in 2013. I am having so much fun creating this world. I'll be giving updates here along the way.

What about you? Do you belong to a CSA or a CSF? Shop at your local farmers' market? Grow your own veggies?