The Battle for the Harvest Begins... #Texas #garden

Texas is a wonderful place to set a crime novel. Not just because we locals are such characters, but because the epic struggle for life takes place at all levels, and the weather often plays a role. The Cass Elliot crime novels begin in 2011, the year of Texas' worst drought in nearly a century, and the weather plays a role in the series; in one case, helping uncover a crime that occurred decades before.




For now, my struggle is all about crime in the garden. These aren't words you'll often read, but it's been a fabulous spring in Texas and our summer is off to a gentle start. Our garden is bursting with tomatoes and onions, the potatoes are huge, and the strawberries are coming along. The masked thieving critters are out in full force, and I don't mind sharing as long as they share back. Unfortunately, they love the garden almost as much as we do, and I'm desperate for fruit protection solutions. This is serious business, folks, because who knows when we'll have weather like this again?


I planted five peach trees in January 2011, the winter before this terrible drought began. Not very clever on my part, but who was to know? Some friends gave us a fig tree that spring, and it's struggled ever since. We also have a pear tree that's as old as Methuselah and adored by the cows - it's their favorite scratching post.
 

We've struggled so much with the weather over the past four years that I haven't expected much from the fruit trees, and they've reliably not delivered, with the exception of the pear tree. That thing puts on pears every year, and every year my husband walks out and squeezes the pears, saying, "A couple more weeks." And "Maybe another week." And "Tomorrow's the day!"


Trouble is, every year the thieving raccoons have their own very reliable ripeness testing routine. Without fail, we've woken on "the day" to major disappointment: the raccoons have called in their buddies and worked overnight to steal every pear from that old tree. Those pears they didn't outright eat, they took a nice nibble from and tossed around the pasture so the fire ants can have a go. Needless to say, hubby's bummed every year, because it'll be another year before we get a shot at the pears!

This year, we have peaches to protect in addition to the pears. Yes, we could kill the raccoons, which would be in keeping with the whole crime novel thing, but my husband's determined to beat them at their own game. This year, he's gone on the offensive and wrapped the trees with six strands of electric fence wire. He's linked the cages to our electric fence, which holds enough charge to pop a cow hard enough that she won't go near the fence again. So far, so good. He's testing the fruit every day, but neither the peaches nor the pears are quite ready for picking. We won't know if the electric fence works until we win and the raccoons and fire ants go away disappointed.



I'm draping bird netting over PVC hoops to protect the strawberry plants, but I hate the stuff. Birds get caught in it, one rat snake got tangled up in it (I was most unhappy to have to cut him out, even though he had strangled himself), and this morning a red-headed woodpecker was fluttering around inside the hoops. He was easy to release, but this stuff is a pain. It's saved the strawberries, but I'll need a better solution for next year.

As irritated as I am with the crime prevention that goes along with gardening, the experiences will come in handy. Goober, a gentle soul who manages to stumble into the most gruesome crime scenes in the Cass Elliot novels, is a wonderful gardener. I think he'll have the benefit of my frustration when it comes time for him to plant his next garden, and who knows? Maybe somebody will have a nasty run in with a thieving raccoon or get tangled up in some electric fence...

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Cover Reveal - ARMY OF WORN SOLES by Scott Bury @ScottTheWriter

ARMY OF WORN SOLES by the amazing Scott Bury is coming to Amazon June 22, 2014!

1941: Their retreat across Ukraine wore their boots out—and they kept going.

Three months after drafting him, the Soviet Red Army throws Maurice Bury, along with millions of other under-trained men, against the juggernaut of the biggest invasion in the history of warfare: Nazi Germany’s Operation Barbarossa, the assault on the USSR.

Maurice sees that his job as Lieutenant is to keep his “boys”—the men of his anti-tank unit—alive as they retreat from the unstoppable Panzers and German infantry. When they’re captured, survival becomes impossible. Their captors starve them.

Then a miracle: Maurice gets a chance to escape. He cannot leave his boys to starve. But how can twelve Red Army soldiers cross German-occupied Ukraine without being shot?

For more on ARMY OF WORN SOLES, visit Scott’s blog, Written Words - and follow him on Twitter at @ScottTheWriter or on Facebook.

How Many Characters Is Too Many? #amreading

I'm about halfway through Believing the Lie, one of Elizabeth George's Inspector Lynley novels, and just realized how many characters she's woven into this story. There are the same half dozen primary characters that run through the series, but this book has a host of others that are key to the plot - at least a dozen who had motive, means, and / or opportunity to commit the murder Lynley and team are investigating, plus a few other supporting characters with important roles.

What surprised me is that I am halfway through the novel and only now realizing how many characters she's created. That tells me George has done a seamless job of building these characters in my mind, to the point that I have no problem remembering who is who and how they fit into the mystery and each other's lives.

I realize that some books have many more characters than this - particularly if they span generations or move into other worlds. But mysteries are usually pretty compact when it comes to characters that are central to the story. There are always those characters necessary to move the plot along - detectives, lab technicians, folks who knew the victim but aren't actual suspects - but the core characters essential to the mystery remain limited.

I wondered how George had done it. How she managed to pull me into this world that's so busy with people, yet help me keep them all straight. And here's what I think:

1.  She introduces the characters at a reasonable pace over the first third of the book, giving me some history about them and their place in the story. Just like in a crowd at a party, I have a better chance of remembering people when we get to know each other a little when we're introduced.


 
2.  George gives me touchstones for each character, a way to remember them. Sometimes it's a physical characteristic, like the journalist who's nearly seven feet tall and has blazing red hair. Other times, it's a personality tick, like the kid who tears at the back of his hands when anger overwhelms him. With another character, George uses the woman's constant scheming to bring her role in the story back to me.

3.  She uses those touchstones in each scene where that character appears. Sometimes by mentioning the hair or the journalist's size. For the scheming character, George references the woman's Zimmer frame (walker). Those two words remind me that she's the character who's lying to her parents about her health, and blackmailing her father over an infidelity.

4.  George gives her characters distinct names and there's very little room for confusion. Bernard is the dead man's (Ian's) uncle and isn't sure Ian's death was accidental; Kevah is Ian's gay lover (or maybe he isn't gay, and only wanted Ian's property); Mignon is Ian's scheming cousin; Manette is her twin and opposite in personality; Zed is the bumbling journalist; Vivienne was (and might still be?) Bernard's secret mistress.

5.  The last thing George does is build a compelling story. One that absorbs me. That fact alone keeps me interested in the characters, regardless of how many there are. This is a mystery and so far, there's only one murder. I usually prefer a few more, but in this case, I need to know who killed Ian, or if his death was just an accident as the coroner ruled.

Is it possible to have too many characters in one book? Oh yes. But a talented author finds ways to anchor her characters in her reader's minds, helping them come to know these characters as if they were real.

How do your favorite authors help you remember their characters? If you write, how do you help readers keep track of your characters?

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Death by Description (#amwriting)

Goodness. We all know that every scene has to move your story forward by either developing plot or character. But I didn't realize how important that concept is until I read two very different books - it's literally a crucial part of keeping the reader reading.

Have you ever opened a book you really wanted to love only to find yourself drowning in description? You plug in those earphones good and tight, set out for the garden with your favorite shovel in hand, and wouldn't you know it: the crime thriller you hoped to enjoy while hilling the potatoes turns into a boring recitation of what kind of watch the main character's niece is wearing, the brand of espresso machine in the office, where to find the various types of coffee in the cupboard, and musings by the main character about how grateful she is to find a male assistant with fashion sense who selects appropriate clothes for her day. All sprinkled with back-story details that knock the reader (me) right out of the current story.


A crime novel by a big bestselling author with no murder, kidnapping, or any kind of violence in the first CD-and-a-half of the audio book. *yawn* All I know at this point is that someone is missing. Maybe on purpose, maybe not. Maybe it has something to do with dinosaur bones. I don't care. I'm just grateful I borrowed the book from the library rather than buying it.

 
Thankfully, relief was at hand. After turning off the CDs and finishing with the potatoes, I opened The Last Detective by Robert Crais. Yeowza. We start off with Joe Pike facing a brown bear up in the Alaskan wilderness. Pike is struggling to recover from gunshot wounds and is uncertain about how to reclaim his emotional serenity. Then BAM! we're at Elvis Cole's house and within the first five pages, his girlfriend's son (who Cole is babysitting) goes missing. From that point on, the book is bare bones on description and it absolutely blazes. I cared so much about the spunky kidnapped kid, who snatched him, and why they might've done it that I had to put the book in another room so I wouldn't burn dinner.


A crime novel by a big bestselling author with kidnapping, relationship stress, a manipulative ex-husband, and a nasty revenge scheme going back decades all in the first few chapters. Roughly equivalent to one audio CD. I was breathless from trying to help find the kid! This is the reason I read - I want to care, I want my heart to pound as the plot thickens, I want to have to turn that next page at the peril of a stovetop fire.

What was the difference between the two books? Pace. Detail. And character development. Crais laid down a plot that moves and trusted his readers to get the Cole / Pike back-story with only a few details. His characters (other than Cole and Pike) are sketches. I can barely describe them, but I know the role they played in the whole nasty affair. Maybe the first author was easing into her story and all the details would eventually matter. I think it's more likely that she was finding the story as she wrote and didn't take the time to go back and edit out the unimportant descriptions. I don't know. I stopped caring. And then I stopped reading.

It's a risk every writer faces - falling in love with our words to the point that we lose the reader, or not being diligent enough to ensure we rip out what doesn't matter.


What about you? How much detail is too much, how little is too little? Does your preference vary based on genre, or are you a patient reader no matter the level of description?


 


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The Five Best Things About a Backed Up Septic Tank (If You're A #Writer)

Yes, this post is written from personal experience. I won't disturb you with the details, but suffice it to say that I had the opportunity to call the guy who pumps out septic tanks last weekend. I didn't call him to chat, but to plead for his presence, immediately, at our humble abode, at almost any cost.

How could there be five 'best' things about a backed up septic tank? Fundamentally, it's impossible. But hey, these things happen and I take my lessons where I find them, so here are the five best things I learned from my epic septic fail:

1) Writers aren't known for their athletic prowess (unless they happen to be a sports star having their memoirs ghost-written), but a backed up septic tank gets you up out of your chair and your heart pumping at aerobic (no pun intended) speeds. In a hurry. My sprint to the bathroom when I heard the toilet burping, then to the phone book to look up the septic guy's number when I saw water seeping where water has no business seeping, then to the cell phone to punch in that number, should've won a few awards for speed and agility.

2) Writers tend to shy away from interactions with real people. Imaginary people are no problem. It's just those who live in the real world with whom we struggle. A backed up septic tank turns that problem on its head. You get to wheedle and whinge your way into a visit from the septic guy at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. Your bargaining skills shine, involving the trade of vast sums of hard cash in exchange for the arrival of that magnificent tanker truck that makes the seeping water stop.

3) Finding the backed up septic tank improves your physical stamina, because you have to bang a piece of rebar into the ground to find the tank, then dig the dang tank out to find the lid. (Actually, you dig both tanks out - since the septic guy is here, he might as well pump out both, right?) In our neck of the woods, digging out the septic tank involved a shovel, a post-hole digger, and a little soaking from a water hose due to the cement-like quality of the clay that covers it.


4) You realize that you really can hide a body in a septic tank. (I've often wondered whether one of my characters could use a septic tank for a body dump. What? Doesn't everybody?) Granted, it might take a little dismemberment and ensuring your character's septic tank is big enough to hold a full sized human body (at 500 gallons, ours could comfortably hold two each), but you really could dispose of a body in a septic tank and it would be some time before anybody was the wiser. 

If ever.

5) You get great story ideas when the septic tank backs up because the septic guy turns out to have a heart for the disposal of bodies and, once he realizes you're the chick who writes those horrific crime novels, regales you with tales of local people who (rumor has it) got away with murder and how they (rumor has it) disposed of the bodies. Extremely insightful, and a little scary when you think about your neighbors and what they might get up to.


There you have it. A Friday night septic disaster turned into physical, mental, and plot benefit. Will one of my characters dump a body or find a body in a septic tank? It's a distinct possibility. Keep reading to discover how it all unfolds.

(An added benefit of a backed up septic tank? You score big points with your husband, who has to go off to a gig and leaves you to deal with the septic tragedy on your own. He comes home to perfectly functioning drainage and remembers just how lucky he was to have snagged you in the first place. I'm thinking about a trip to a nice sugary beach, where the drinks come with little umbrellas. Work it, ladies. Those septic tanks only back up every so often.)


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