Best Served In Fiction

Today our guest is Dan Krokos, and we couldn't be more pleased. With characteristic modesty, Dan describes himself thus: "I’m a twenty-three-year-old gas station attendant/student who writes crime fiction. I can usually be found leaning against poles with various satellite equipment lingering in the background."

We met Dan at Bouchercon and can report with confidence that he is one of the good guys - friendly, charming, interested in everyone around him, and enthusiastic about the genre. Oh, and the guy is a damn good writer. We foresee an incredible publishing future for Dan, who already has one of our very favorite agents on his team.

I went to a bar one time. Had a fruity beer with my fruity friend. The drive was long, and I had work the next morning, so I cut out early. Thirty minutes, tops. Walked to the parking lot and saw my car was gone.

My car was gone.

I checked off a few possibilities: wrong parking lot, wrong space, I am dreaming, someone stole it. Then I saw the sign twenty feet down, tangled in a miniature forest of bushes. Private parking for a dentist. First I screamed at the building (I wasn’t drunk, I normally scream at inanimate objects), then I open-hand slapped the sign. Someone reported gunshots, but that’s a story for another time.

My story is this: I felt cheated. I felt scammed. I experienced rage.
I didn’t know it was a tow away zone, and now I had to pay out one hundred and fourteen dollars to some smelly tow truck drivers who prowl the streets for lots they have contracts with. I wanted to kill them. I wanted to go Travis Chase on their asses and roll a car through the storefront, then walk through the shattered mess with a gun in each hand. Maybe say something like: “I’m going to tow away your life.”

I didn’t do any of that. I paid my fine and moved on.

Revenge in fiction is not revenge in real life. My book features a pile of vengeance. My character is wronged and he does something about it, consequences be damned. It feels good. It feels brutal, too. It feels wrong at the same time.
Because aren’t we supposed to forgive? Has vengeance ever made anyone feel better? While writing my book, I constantly wanted to pull my character back. I wanted to tell him his actions weren’t going to lead to a rebalancing of the universe.

Morality aside, the logistics of vengeance seem impossible in most cases. Say tomorrow you come home and a loved one has been murdered in the kitchen. Maybe they were in the middle of making your birthday cake, and flour is mixed in with the blood. How dramatic. The police have no leads, no witnesses. You want justice, you want revenge. How would you go about it? In a book, you call up the guy who knows things and maybe he heard something and maybe you check it out and find out something else and soon you’re on the trail of the killer and you suddenly know how to fight with a pipe and ride a motorcycle.

You don’t do any of that, because you’re not Slevin Kelevra. Or the Punisher. Or Kevin Bacon in that one movie.

You sit at home and wallow and eventually heal. You do like Sophie and send red-hot mental poxes. You pay your fine and shake your fist at the tow truck driver when he’s not looking.
You read a story and revel in a character’s emotions as he or she does the things you cannot.

That’s why we read books.

With Great Shoes Comes Great Responsibility

Welcome guest blogger Daisy James!

Daisy James is a Californian writer, biotech researcher and shoe enthusiast. Her blog, Half the Fun, is largely concerned with travel, shoes, odd food products, hairstyles and, occasionally, killer robot dinosaurs. Her most recent fiction publication, “The Ghost in the Death Trap” was Episode 224 of Escape Pod.

One time, she stopped shopping for four months and the entire economy collapsed. She still feels kind of bad about that.


I’ll just come right out and say it: I have a ridiculous number of shoes. No one who has seen my closet*, or my credit card statements, could possibly dispute that. I spent an entire month posting pictures of shoes on my blog (Shoetember!), and had enough left over to do the same for every Tuesday since (Shoesday!). And I will say, if I may be immodest for a moment**, that I have amassed a fairly impressive collection.

Why? That’s a good question. The easy answer is that they are fun, but you already knew that and anyway, that isn’t really an answer at all— it’s like saying you climb mountains because they’re there. (I mean, of course they’re there. Where else would they be?) The cynical answer is that it’s all feminine competition, an attempt to claim alpha female status by a show of wealth, and like most cynical answers that’s probably at least partly true. The real answer could probably form the basis of a graduate thesis in the sort of field where it’s impossible to get a job, so I’ll leave that for others to do, and go back to trying to explain the “fun” thing.

My first brush with the power of shoes came in high school, with a pair of green Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star high tops. It was the early nineties, the height of the grunge era, and the All-Star was the shoe of choice for anyone who didn’t have the nerve or the ready cash for Doc Martens. I was (prepare to be shocked) something of a dork and an outsider, but somehow, when I wore those green Converse, in defiance of the laws of physics and nature, I was cool***.

Years passed, and I packed away my plaid shirts and beat-up jeans to the land of teenage trends, but the lesson of the All-Stars endured. Shoes were a way to fit in and, done right, they could be a way to stand out too. The shoes you wear can transform you****, from how your legs look, to how (or if) your outfit works, to what other people think of you. And if they’re thinking bitter thoughts of jealousy because you so clearly have style, class, and a pair of four inch, crocodile skin de la Renta heels, well then, all the better.

Hey, the title just says you have great responsibility. Doesn’t mean you have to use it well.

Please don’t misunderstand me; I by no means am trying to say that you have to spend a third of your disposable income on footwear to be complete as a person. I happen to have a very good friend who owns exactly one pair of dress shoes, and despite that is still able to live a full and happy life. And I hardly need to say that just being expensive does not automatically make something fabulous. (Exhibit A) But if you do happen to enjoy a fine pair of heels, or own sneakers that make your heart sing, or know that you are never hotter than when you’ve got your boots on, well, come sit over by me. And then tell the class about them in the comments, won’t you?


*We recently moved, to a place that is infinitely better in almost every way than our old apartment, but the one thing I really miss is the shoe closet. A whole closet, just for my shoes! (This may not have been its original intended purpose.)

**No? Whoops. Oh well, too late.

***At least in my own mind. Which, as I would come to learn later in life, was actually what mattered.

****For example, if you wear Crocs, they transform you into an escaped mental patient— not the exciting, dangerous kind, the kind that shuffles around and asks people if they’ve seen Jerry.

--Daisy

Graham's Army of Musii

Today's guest is our friend Graham Brown, who we met because one of us shares his marrrrvelous agent. Graham's the kind of friend you always hope you'll find among your fellow writers - easygoing, funny, enthusiastic, pretty much up for anything and always has a smile on his face. You also get the feeling that even when he gets famous (and trust us Pens on this one, because we've read BLACK RAIN, the man is going to be freakin' huge) he'll be the same laid-back character he was before. (Although we are totally convinced that the character Hawker in BLACK RAIN is Graham....)

Graham was born in Chicago and went to college in Arizona, earning a degree in Aeronautical Science and learning how to fly.
He later attended law school, where he spent many lectures pretending to listen while scribbling down notes for what he hoped would be a great novel. After working as an attorney for a couple of years, he decided to see if there were any good ideas in those notes. Apparently there were, because Random House bought the rights to his first book, BLACK RAIN, which comes out next week. Graham is currently working on the sequel, BLACK SUN. Latest news on that and anything else he’s doing can be found at: www.authorgrahambrown.com

The Muse

First off, let me say thank you to Pens Fatales for having me on as a guest blogger. There's nothing better than being surrounded by gorgeous and talented women. Seriously , can I photo-shop my picture into your group – it will look something like a bad Jay Leno or Conan O’Brien skit, but it will be worth it...

So, the Muse. Inspirations comes from so many places; can there really be just one? Maybe there’s a whole army of muses (musii?) out there.

I know that for me, each character seems to have his or her own inspiration, and when I get into trouble with the character I go back to those original inspirations, to try and figure out where I went wrong.

A perfect example: in my novel Black Rain—which comes out on January 26th, by the way—the heroine, Danielle, is a type-A leader who takes a government expedition on a dangerous trek into the Amazon. My inspiration for her came from the strong women I know, and from day one I was damn certain that she wasn’t going to trip and fall in the climactic moment and need to be rescued. I also knew she had a difficult road to travel, juggling the lies she’s been ordered to tell, with her ambition and her own sense of humanity.

I’m happy to say that most early readers have found her to be a winning, realistic character, one who acts true to her basic traits and faults. I was even proud when the father of someone close to me read an early copy and said “I love the book, but why was Danielle such a bitch ?”

I guess it’s a generational type thing. The only answer I could come up with was to paraphrase Tina Fey’s famous SNL statement: “She’s got a lot to accomplish,” I said, “and bitches get things done.”

If there are multiple muses, I’m thinking one type works on character and another concentrates on helping us connect with place. I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to many parts of the world, but not usually the places my intrepid characters have been to.

In BLACK RAIN, there is a second hero, an ex-patriot American mercenary, who goes by the name of Hawker. I had a good idea of how I wanted this character to be. Instead of the classic “rogue cop who plays by his own rules,” I wanted a guy who thought he could play by his own rules and got burned. He needed to be a guy whose sense of duty, habit of questioning authority and his own inherent arrogance combined to ruin his life. No accident made him a pariah, he’d done it to himself, bathed in the bright light of knowing exactly where it was headed. Now, he’s willing to do anything to find his way back. Honor? Forget that, he just wants out.

But where had he been in the mean time? Parts of the world I haven’t seen. So I went online and looked at photos of distant lands, places where I thought a mercenary might travel and fight. I scanned hundreds of JPEGs, not really sure what I was looking for, but thinking I’d know when I found it.

And I did. Pictures of lost places, where stories were cut short and forgotten; remote places; haunted places. Here are some of the pictures I used when thinking about where this character had been:

Lucapa Airport - Angola


Antov crash

Ruined bridge in Cazombo, Angola

These locations don’t occur in the story - they aren’t even mentioned - but I knew Hawker had been there or somewhere similar. It gave me the sense of darkness that surrounded him, one which I needed to make him real.

So there is no shortage of muses as far as I can tell: a conversation you overhear in a crowded restaurant, the sound of an airliner taking off for a distant land, friends, family, the boss who kept you down, the mentor who helped you up.
They’re everywhere - we just have to open our eyes and find them.

Welcome guest Rachelle Chase

Rachelle Chase is an award-winning romance author, speaker, business analyst, and model. Her most recent books, MEN ON FIRE, SEX LOUNGE, and SIN CLUB were published by Kensington Publishing. When she’s not writing (or procrastinating), she loves to dream up fun ways to promote her books – such as her “Finding Derek” contest, where hunky guys competed online to be the hero of SEX LOUNGE. In fact, she’s got some fun contests and promotions underway now. For the holidays, if you buy a copy of her hunky firefighter book, MEN ON FIRE, at participating bookstores, 15% of sales will be donated to the San Francisco Firefighter’s Toy Program. And, she and co-sponsor Leigh Michaels are gearing up for the 4th Annual “Chase the Dream” contest for writers – their motto is “We pick winners” because each year, some finalists have landed agents or book contracts as a result of the contest. It’s free, fun, interactive, and educational, so Rachelle encourages all romance writers to enter. Details are at her web site, www.RachelleChase.com.
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My friends and family know that, in addition to being a great procrastinator, I’m a great “starter.” I love, love, LOVE to start things. The only things that get finished – like, oh, say … books, day job deliverables, Christmas shopping, or shaving … are things with deadlines (in the case of shaving, a date or a doctor’s appointment is a surefire deadline that’ll have me taking a razor to my arm pits).

With the exception of crafts. Deadlines do not work with crafts.

Unlike Rachel, I oftentimes start making a handcrafted item for a loved one’s birthday or special occasion at the last minute (see procrastination above). Which means that the I-just-had-to-make-it gift gets stuffed into my Started Projects bag.

Case in point, the Granny Square projects. When my mom quit her day job to become a cross-country truck driver, I started a blanket for her, in hopes it’d keep her warm in her truck at night. On the day before her birthday, I FedExed it to her in Florida, half finished, and with the promise that I’d finish it later. Ten years (and a career change for my mom) later, it’s back in my bag and I’m still promising to finish it.

The second granny square project was a baby blanket I started for my niece. She’s six now and far too big for her blanket. I’m planning to finish it in time for my great-niece.



Then came my Small Project phase. Thinking that perhaps smaller projects would have a chance of getting finished, I asked an ex-boss to teach me a simple knit stitch – a large, loopy stitch that would enable me to finish a scarf quicker than knitting row upon row of small, tight stitches. Only, she didn’t show me how to finish-off or tie-off or whatever it’s called. So I don’t know how to cut the yarn without unraveling the whole thing – a perfect excuse for not finishing.



Next was the Fuzzy Yarn phase. I bought beautiful, expensive (to me) yarns, figuring that if I loved the yarns, I’d be excited to finish the projects. Not. It’s been so long, I have no idea what these projects were supposed to be when finished.



This year, I’ve entered the Teeny Tiny Project phase. And I’ve found the perfect project: Baby booties. They’re small, simple, and don’t take much time to finish. The fact that I don’t know anyone with a baby is no deterrent. I’m sure I’ll know someone by the time the first (and last?) pair’s finished.

Thank you, Penfatales, for having me as a guest. For without you and your deadline, this blog post never would have been finished.

Any other starters or procrastinators out there?

Please help Rachelle refine her procrastination skills by leaving a comment on her blog, and friending her on Facebook and Twitter.

Bloody Badassery by Mario Acevedo

In honor of my favorite holiday, Halloween, today's special guest is Mario Acevedo, author of the Felix Gomez vampire detective series from Eos Harper Collins (and a talented artist as well --check out his art website link below). I first met Mario one hot, sweaty day at the Los Angeles Festival of Books, then got a chance to know him better during a hot, sweaty Murder in the Grove conference in Boise, Idaho. Then there was a hot, sweaty Left Coast Crime conference in Denver...wait, it was cold that time! But I guess hot and sweaty sort of follow Mario around...

--Juliet Blackwell

Bloody Badassery

by Mario Acevedo

I was asked to contribute this article for two reasons.

One, I write about a vampire detective, who by definition, must be both bloody and a badass.

Two, once-upon-a-time, I was in the employ of Uncle Sam and expected to be a badass, all five foot seven of me. Back then I was a real live Jedi knight--paratrooper, air-assault, ranger, infantry officer, and then the most badass of all, an attack helicopter pilot. Here’s a picture of me as a captain during the First Gulf War (me on the left, the guy on the right was a reporter from CNN) when I was deployed as a combat-artist, a truly badass assignment, because--though I had served before in the infantry and air cavalry--this was the only time I got shot at on purpose.

Since I write about vampires, there must be blood. No vampire-lite from me. My protagonists are bloodsucking killers, the good guys in my stories. For convenience sake, their tropes include goat’s blood in coffee, and instead of marinara sauce, my vampires ladle on the rich, red human nectar.

They’ve even drawn up a list of Wine and Human pairings, which when properly done, can turn a routine fanging into delicious murder. In case you’re curious, have your vampires try Type-A positive with a nice Pinot Noir. What if your victim is a meaty Type-O negative? Switch to a full-bodied Shiraz. Vegetarian? The subtle yet braided notes of a Type AB vegan goes great with a relaxed and refreshing Chardonnay. Found yourself noshing ghetto? A Type-B negative saturated with Slim Jims, Cheetos, Twinkies, weed, and crack or meth is best tempered with paper bag wine. Night Train. Thunderbird.

For you to be considered badass, others must fear you. This could be from your physical prowess or from an invisible and intimidating power. (Sorry, gamer funk does not qualify.)

Super strength. Super quick reflexes. Being handy with deadly weapons. These can make you a badass. Vampire writers once eschewed guns, having fangs was badass enough. But sporting fangs and packing a magnum makes you a super badass.

Tapping into the dark side is another important attribute. That’s why men fear mother-in-laws. For example, overheard during Thanksgiving dinner: Tell me Carmela, what frustrates you more? Your husband’s disappointing career or his erectile dysfunction? Proof that a public verbal harpooning can wound more gruesomely than a hollow-point .44 caliber bullet.

What’s the point of having powers if you never use them? Big, strong, and gentle will always retreat before small, conniving, and mean.

Never forget the importance of attitude. Along this theme, my oldest son and I wondered about mixing movies and came up with First Wives Fight Club. He said Bette Midler would’ve kicked Brad Pitt’s ass, easy. Of course. I rest my case.

Every good story is about conflict. The more badass the villain, the more heroic (and badass) the hero. Los Angeles cops face the worst of human wreckage and therefore have to be badass. Malibu cops face...parking violations? Sun burn? Bikini malfunctions? Not so badass.

Vampires who fight rogue bloodsuckers, zombies, alien gangsters, werewolves: badass. Vampires who deal with teenage angst: meh.

If you write about blood, don’t be afraid to slather it on, guzzle it from a trough, bob in it for brains. But remain civilized. Accompany the blood with a good wine (or whiskey). After all, cocktails and Happy Hour are what separate us from the terrorists.

And be a badass. Up the violence. Or at least the threat if it’s backed up with bad-assitude.

Put blood and badass together and you’ve got BLOODY BADASSERY.

Mario Acevedo writes the Felix Gomez vampire-detective series published by Eos HarperCollins. He was recently honored as the 2009 Writer of the Year of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and currently serves as the president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. Mario channels the psychic world for his stories about the undead, shape-shifters, alien gangsters, and nymphomaniacs. He lives and writes in Five Points, the original ghetto of Denver, Colorado.

Mario’s website: http://www.marioacevedo.com
His artwork: http://www.adelantearts.com
His award-winning blog: http://www.biting-edge.blogspot.com

The PensFatales Welcome Diana Orgain

The Pens welcome Diana Orgain today...Diana holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University with a minor in acting. Diana’s plays have been produced at San Francisco State University, GreenHouses Productions, and PlayGround in San Francisco. Bundle of Trouble is her first mystery novel. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and their children.

Thank you to the Pens for hosting me today. What a great topic, so interesting to see what Grace means to people and how many different meanings there are! I was a bit overwhelmed when looking it up in the dictionary and found 13 different meanings!

When I think of Grace I inevitably think of the Grace of God (that would probably explain why I feel compelled to capitalize it). My favorite definition was “God’s fullness in the life of the believer.” Yes! Fullness. That is what Grace is to me a fullness of everything good and beautiful and kind - Love that is freely given.

Every day I feel that fullness of love and joy with my family – with my husband and my three beautiful little ones – but if I’m very lucky I feel the joy of writing. Like others have said on this blog, sometimes writing can become an item on a to-do list, an obligation for the day, a hurried dash toward a deadline or word count. But on very good days, the writing can be so much more. It’s a way to connect to readers through plot and character to really capture someone’s heart and imagination and transport them into the world of fiction. And that in and of itself can be grace, can’t it?

What do you think? What does Grace mean to you? When do you most feel Grace? Leave a comment and I will randomly select someone on October 31st 2009 to win a copy of my debut mystery, Bundle of Trouble: A Maternal Instincts Mystery.

GRACE IS THE WORD

Welcome guest blogger Diane Vallere. Diane is a retail fashion veteran who sells fine apparel by day and plots murders by night. At any given moment she is working on a project involving shoes, clues, and clothes. Currently, she is seeking agent representation for her fashion-based mystery, JUST KIDDING. You can catch her weekly blog at www.myspace.com/dianevallere.

There are two kinds of women in this world. Those with a natural grace… and those like me. I'm a lot of things, and on a good day I'll sit you down and tell you all about them, but the one thing you won't hear me brag about is that I'm a graceful person. A few weeks ago, I fell down in the middle of the Hollywood Walk of Fame! But that's only because I put pretty shoes above practical shoes that night – and given the chance to do things differently, I wouldn't change a thing.

So, as far as skill sets and natural graces go, I'm okay with the hand I've been dealt. Yes, it gets hard to explain over and over how I trip over my own feet, actually slipped on a banana peel, and nearly punch people in the face while gesturing wildly (it is the best way to properly tell a story, BTW). And yes, I said over and over, because none of these are isolated incidents.

But grace, well, I seem to have gotten out of line when they were handing it out and instead got an extra dose of silly. Even the three graces seem to elude me. Unless, okay. Here's a crazy thought – those three graces are kind of like muses, right? Well, I'm a writer, so I must have encountered the three muses. Although…my three muses aren't exactly like the ones depicted in the movies. Mine act an awful lot like the three stooges.

Don't laugh. I'm being serious.

There's Moe-Grace: the idea generator. The grace that tells me that every idea I have is a good one. The grace that tells me to get out there and do something, and is enough of a schoolyard bully to my Id to make me get things done. Then there's Larry-Grace: the creative. He gets talked into things by Moe-Grace. He's the middleman. The negotiator, although his efforts are always wasted. He's a wild card, but he's somewhat predictable: he'll stand up to Larry-Grace, he'll get slapped down by Larry-Grace, and he'll get back up again. Lastly, there's Curly-Grace: the common-sense challenged buffoon. He might not know where he's going, but he'll make you laugh along the way. He goes for the joke, even if he is the joke, no matter what. He's the grace that keeps me funny. And everybody likes funny, right?

I know these three graceless graces. Like, I KNOW know them. But until now, I've never stopped to think about the fact that I've been living with three wise guys for all these years (don't tell my mom).

On my first trip to Italy as a shoe buyer (I know!) I was particularly conscious of my innate lack of grace, and the importance of keeping it in check. It wasn't until the final night that my true colors showed. I'd spent the evening packing before dinner so I'd be ready for my 4:00am shuttle the next morning. At the designated time, I headed to the lobby to meet up with the other buyers. We stood around chatting about the success of the trip, and I relaxed, knowing I'd kept my inner goof in check for the whole trip. But when we turned to leave the lobby, one of the buyers pointed to the floor and asked, "What's that?"

Mortified, I realized what they were staring at. Before I could reign in that inner trio of goofballs, I proclaimed, "Oh My God! That's my underwear!"

During the packing process a pair of my underwear had attached themselves to a metal stud on the bottom of my handbag, been couriered to the lobby, and dropped onto the floor! I don't need to tell you that graceful women don't accidentally carry their panties attached to their handbags. I swooped down in a deep knee bend, scooped up the panties, and threw them into my bag. Twitching lips and amused eyes followed my actions until we all burst out into laughter. To this day, it remains one of the best stories I've told about those glamorous buying trips – because it was uniquely me.

So, maybe I do slip on the occasional banana peel. I've got my own graces, and wherever they chose to take me, I'm merely along for the ride. It could be worse. At least I don't have their hairstyles.

Fan Shui

I'm pleased to welcome our guest for today: Camille Minichino, aka Margaret Grace, prolific author, career scientist, and unrepentant New York lover. When I was taking my first unsteady steps as a fledgling author, Camille welcomed me with open arms, a big smile, and a confident "of course you can do it". She has helped more authors along their professional --and, I'm sure, personal-- paths than she knows. Oh, and she's also an engaging, witty, fabulous author!
--Juliet


Camille Minichino, aka Margaret Grace:

It's such a treat to visit Pensfatales, which I've had bookmarked since its opening day.

Here's what I think of as the ultimate fangirl photo:Supposedly, the breeze was made by a passing subway train. What are the odds? I've always thought that a fan put a fan under that grate just to fan prurient flames.

I'm a big fangirl myself, with an object of my devotion in each of many categories: books, movies, television, science, hobbies, politics. I won't get specific here lest we go off topic and argue about my choices. (It happens at breakfast every morning.)

Surely my most obsessive fan days were when I almost followed the Boston Braves to Milwaukee. Lou Perini (the bad guy) moved his baseball franchise when I was junior in high school. All my meaningful life to that point had been given over to the Braves, the perfect friends for a shy girl. I never missed a game on the radio and my room, in typical teen style, was plastered with photos of the players. "Like a boy's room," my mother called it.

Fandom is usually accompanied by superstitions and promises—I gave the Braves a lot power over my life: If the Braves beat the Brooklyn Dodgers tonight, I'll never swear again; if Earl Torgeson hits it out of the park, someone will ask me to the dance; if Eddie Mathews is safe at second, then I'll be safe at home and in this world. I had no plan for If the Braves leave Boston ...

One time I signed a card to a boy I had a secret crush on, Merry Christmas from Lou Perini and the Boston Braves, as if my own name had too little weight to hold ink. Other girls were pretty and confident. They had the right to say "hi" without apology. I could only say, "Did you see that third inning catch last night?" or "I'll take Spahn and Sain over Mel Parnell any day."


I was devastated when the Braves abandoned me. I applied to the University of Wisconsin so I could be with them! (Is that a fangirl, or what?) Once I realized the Boston subway didn't go that far, however, I had to reconsider.

It took a while for me to absorb the fact that baseball was a business, not a sport played for the pleasure of its fans. It was a rude but necessary awakening, one I would need for every undertaking (and they are legion) in my life.

Ouch. It's a tough lesson, but all fans have to learn it.

One exciting thing my fandom got me was my very first published piece: a letter printed in the Boston Globe. In it I begged Tom Yawkey (the other bad guy), owner of the Boston Red Sox, to share Fenway Park so the Braves could make it financially. I pleaded with the fans of Boston not to be taken in by the Sox leftfielder who treated his followers with crowd-pleasing, obscene gestures every game. It didn't work, but maybe seeing my name in print in a major newspaper was what started me down this blog path!

Fandom can go very wrong and I should be grateful that I got out of it when I did, whether I liked it or not. Remember Robert De Niro, the out-of-work knife salesman in "The Fan"? I keep this still from the movie nearby:

-- along with a line De Niro spoke: "Excited and anxious I await my dream / To escape, applaud, and embrace my team."

Creepy, huh?





Camille Minichino, aka Margaret Grace, has eleven published mysteries. The latest, "Mourning in Miniature," will be out October 6 from Berkley Prime Crime. Available now for pre-order! Visit her at http://www.minichino.com.

Not Quite a Foodie

By Jennifer Haymore

(Today we welcome PensFatales friend Jennifer Haymore, author of A Hint of Wicked as well as Highland Obsession, written as Dawn Halliday. Jennifer's giving away a copy of A Hint of Wicked - be sure to post a comment for a chance to win!)

As much as I dream about being a food connoisseur, I am not a foodie. I have friends who grind their own wheat. I have other friends who can whip up a gourmet kid-friendly meal sans cookbook for their own family and ten guests without batting an eyelash. Some of my friends can taste the subtlest difference in a flavor of wine (and I know so little about wine, I cannot even say what kind of wine they can spot the differences in…).

Yes, I’m jealous. I wish I was at one with the universe of truly good food and drink. But frankly, give me a piece of bread and a slab of cheese, and I’m good. Add some avocado, and I’m in gourmet heaven.

Perhaps I should blame my parents. Not only were they vegetarians, but when I was growing up, my mom believed popcorn with a dash of Brewer’s yeast made a good dinner. Oh, she had her moments. We baked a few cakes in my forming years, and when she was feeling really ambitious, we’d make a loaf of bread. And we made cookies often. Still do, in fact. Sugar cookies with frosting. My kids have grown to equate their grandma to that kind of cookie. Result: I can bake a damn good cookie, but an actual meal? Uh…

I’ve sort of given up on my desire to be a gourmet. For now, I’m sticking with the labels “mom” and “writer.” Frankly, the last time I tried to cook something spectacular (a Moroccan lemon chicken dish with quinoa), it took an hour or two, and the result: I loved it, my husband thought it was okay, my kids thought it was spectacularly gross. So for now, while I try to meet my writing deadlines, I am keeping my focus on simple but healthy, easy meals that won’t result in whining children. Lots of fruit. As many veggies as I can get away with. And straightforward, easy-to-cook main dishes that everyone will eat.

But I’m always looking for new options. Our limited meal list does get old after a while, you know? What are some of your simple favorites?

Jennifer Haymore grew up on the Big Island of Hawaii, where she surfed, learned how to fly airplanes, raced bicycles, and developed a love for sailing. She was an avid reader and completely destroyed her eyesight by sneaking a flashlight under her covers and reading far into the nights — making her mother wonder why on earth she couldn’t get up for school in the mornings…

You can find Jennifer in Southern California trying to talk her husband into yet another trip to England, helping her three children with homework while brainstorming a new five-minute dinner menu, or crouched in a corner of the local bookstore writing her next novel.

Barbara Bretton's Rolls-Royce

I am eating lunch at the counter in Atlantic City when Nicky DellaNova sits down next to me. I know he is Nicky DellaNova because he bellowed his name to the hostess at the entrance to the coffee shop.

“You got a cigarette?” Nicky asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t smoke.”

“You got a match?”

“Sorry.”

“So what are you doing here?” Nicky asks, as if smoking were the only possible reason a woman would be in the coffee shop.

I gesture toward my salad and iced tea. “Having lunch.”

“Have a burger why don’t you? Get some protein.”

"Plenty of protein right there," I say, pointing toward my chicken Caesar.

"You call that protein? You want protein, you eat beef. Case closed."

He wears a dark blue velour running suit with wide white stripes running up the sides, virgin running shoes, black socks, and serious bling. This is Atlantic City. He blends right in.

Nicky is a big man who is good-looking in a loud, Brooklyn kind of way. We had his type in Queens, too, when I was growing up. There’s a sweetness buried beneath the bravado. You just have to get through the bluster to find it.

“Bacon cheeseburger, fries, cuppa coffee,” Nicky tells the waitress then turns back to me. “So what’re you doing here?”

I tilt my head in the direction of the casino one hundred yards away from where we’re sitting.

“Yeah,” says Nicky DellaNova. “I’m a big gambler. That’s why I’ve been married four times.”

“Ah,” I say in my best noncommittal voice. “A romantic.”

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s a curse.”

“My grandfather’s a romantic too,” I say. “He was married five times.”

“You a romantic like your grandpa?”

“Not me. I just have one husband.”

“That’s too bad,” he says and he laughs.

“Why is it too bad?”

"That's like eating salad every day for the rest of your life."

"Lots of people eat salad every day."

"Okay, babe, then it's like driving one car for the rest of your life. Can’t do it.”

“Sure you can,” I say. “You find a car you like, you keep it tuned up, it lasts forever.”

“Nah,” says Nicky DellaNova. “Sooner or later it rusts out and you’ve got to start shopping around again.”

“Not if you have the car rust-proofed,” I say. “Lifetime guarantee.”

Nicky laughs again. “No such thing as a lifetime guarantee. Not in this world. Besides, don’t you ever want to trade up? Just because you start with a Chevy don’t mean you gotta end up with one.”

“What if you like Chevys?”

“Nothing wrong with liking Chevys, but sooner or later everyone wants to own a Caddy.”

I’ve never been much of a Caddy fan myself. Too flashy. Too easy to come by. “What if you already have a Rolls? What then?”

He peers at me so closely that I can make out the faint outline of soft lenses resting against his corneas. “You got a Rolls?”

“What if I do?” I say. “Let’s say I went out and bought a Rolls the day I got my license.” Let’s say I found that Rolls the first day I walked into my very first showroom and let’s say I still like sliding behind the wheel.

“You gotta love a Rolls,” he concedes. “Even the old ones.”

“And they look great,” I say. “Especially the old ones.”

“I hear you, babe, but even a Rolls gets boring if that’s all you drive.”

“If driving a Rolls gets boring, maybe it’s not the car,” I say. “Maybe it’s the driver.”

Nicky DellaNova considers my words while he folds a handful of fries into his mouth. “My Uncle Joey had a showroom on Utopia Parkway. He had Chevys and Fords and Buicks and Chryslers and even some of those Mercedes jobbies.” He takes a bite of his cheeseburger and continues talking. Little bits of pinkish beef dot his lower lip. “One day a guy comes in, one of those skinny guys with the fancy suits like you see in the city. So he walks up and down the lot with Uncle Joey right behind him. 'Take a test drive,' Uncle Joey says, pointing to a big white El Dorado. 'How ya gonna know what you like if you don’t get behind the wheel?'” He gulps down some coffee, folds in another fry. Nicky DellaNova knows more about pacing than most Hollywood screenwriters. “So this guy stops, he lights up a cigar, looks at Uncle Joey and says, 'Ya got any used Rolls-Royces around here?' And Uncle Joey says, 'You gotta be kidding. Once you get yourself a Rolls, you don’t go trading down to a Ford.'”

“Listen to your Uncle Joey,” I say to Nicky DellaNova as I catch sight of my husband standing in the entrance to the coffee shop. “After a Rolls-Royce, everything else is second best.”


Barbara Bretton is the USA Today bestselling, award-winning author of more than 40 books. She currently has over ten million copies in print around the world. Her works have been translated into twelve languages in over twenty countries. Barbara loves to spend as much time as possible in Maine with her husband, walking the rocky beaches and dreaming up plots for upcoming books. Her newest novel in the Sugar Maple series, Laced With Magic, is available now.

Barbara Freethy on Movies

UPDATED TO ADD: Leave a comment to enter a chance to win a free copy of Barbara's new book, Suddenly One Summer! She'll draw one winner...

USA Today Bestselling Author, Barbara Freethy, just released her 25th book, SUDDENLY ONE SUMMER, which is the beginning of her Angel's Bay Series for Pocket Books. She's written category romance, single title contemporary, romantic suspense and women's fiction, and her books have received numerous awards, including four RITA nominations and one RITA win for her novel DANIEL'S GIFT. Barbara is thrilled to be starting an ongoing series set in the fictional California coastal town of Angel's Bay, a community rich with interesting characters, historical legends, quilting, and a little bit of magic. You can read an excerpt from her new book at http://www.barbarafreethy.com/.

Hi everyone – thanks to the Pens Fatales for inviting me to guest blog. I’ve been reading through all the great movie lines and laughing out loud. I thought I’d talk about memorable movie themes.

Forbidden love is one of my favorites and I think The Thornbirds plays out this theme in a wonderful way. The love of Meggie Cleary for the handsome Ralph de Bricassart, the ambitious priest, is filled with rich conflict and tormented love. She loves him, but he loves God more. How can she compete? He tries to let her go, but he fails and in a moment of weakness makes love to her. In the end, he still goes back to the church. It’s the ultimate romantic conflict.

Another interesting theme is the “stranger in a strange land” as portrayed in the movie, Witness, with Harrison Ford. A young Amish boy witnesses a murder and the cop, John Book, goes into hiding with them in order to protect them. Their way of life is completely different from his, and through their eyes, he finds a new side in himself.

And then there are the community based movies, often about female friendships, The Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Steel Magnolias, How to Make An American Quilt. All of these movies are about family, relationships, life, death, rebirth. They make you laugh and they make you cry, and I like to do both!

I also love romantic comedies and crime capers. I enjoyed How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days which explores the ways women destroy their relationships with men. I didn’t find He’s Not That Into You quite as good, but I did like the theme that sometimes you have to accept the fact that no matter what you do, it’s not always right.

As a writer, I love to have a theme in each of my books. Sometimes I don’t know what it is until I’m done. In SUDDENLY ONE SUMMER, the first of my Angel’s Bay books, the theme of identity, and hiding from who you are, plays out in almost every thread. The heroine, Jenna, is on the run with her daughter, Lexie. The hero is a burned out reporter who doesn’t think he’ll ever be impressed or awed by anyone in life again, until he meets Jenna, who jumps into the bay to rescue a stranger. Reid knows that Jenna is hiding something. So is he. And telling the truth might be the greatest risk of all.

In my second book, ON SHADOW BEACH, which comes out next April, the theme is about memories and reunions. The heroine, Lauren, goes home to take of her father who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. She’s reluctant to make the trip because her sister was murdered there, and she’s never been back. Her father is clinging to each memory as his mind begins to fail. She’s choosing to forget the very things he wants to remember. And then there’s Shane, her first love. If she dares to go back there, she’s afraid she’ll lose her heart all over again.

In the book I’m current writing, IN SHELTER COVE, out next May, I’m playing around with the question of what’s real and what’s not, and how can you tell the difference?

So in books and in writing, I’m drawn to themes that challenge what we think about ourselves and each other. I love a good time of course – and pure entertainment is fine, too – Knocked Up for example! But I think the movies that stick with me the most resonate on some thematic level.

What are your favorite movie themes?

Welcome guest blogger, Brenda Novak!

Below is Brenda's official bio but I just wanted to add that we are so pleased to have as our guest today, Brenda Novak. She is an amazing author and so giving of her time and her expertise. She is an inspiration!



NYTimes Bestselling Author Brenda Novak has three novels coming out this summer—THE PERFECT COUPLE, THE PERFECT LIAR and THE PERFECT MURDER, the first of which came out just this week! She also runs an annual on-line auction for diabetes research every May at www.brendanovak.com. To date, she’s raised over $770,000. Brenda considers herself lucky to be a mother of five and married to the love of her life.


I just recently attended the PAN (Published Author Network) Retreat at the RWA National Conference in Washington DC , where the opening speaker asked: What do you do when you get stuck? She was talking about what writers can do to break through a creative wall. We were supposed to turn to our neighbors and give them all our good ideas and they, in turn, would give us theirs. I happened to be sitting next to fabulous author Sharon Sala, who immediately turned to me and said, “When I get stuck, I watch that movie… Oh, what’s the name? You know, the one with the waterfall—” And this is where I jumped in. “Last of the Mohicans!” I nearly shouted. “That’s my all-time favorite movie and serves as an endless source of inspiration for me, too!” We laughed, amazed that we’d both fixate on the same movie when there are so many out there (and such an old one, at that). But that’s exactly what a good movie does for me--it inspires me. One problem I’m running into lately, however, is that I’m getting tougher and tougher to please. I can hardly sit through a mediocre movie.



Recently, I rented DOUBT. I watched it with relish, thinking it was really good. But just a few days ago, I heard my husband tell my children that it was terrible. I had to wonder whether we’d seen the same movie! LOL I mean, it might not have been super “commercial” and, in my opinion, could’ve used a bigger, more intricate plot, but there were certainly some surprises in there. It was well-done and thought-provoking, at the least, not “terrible.” But maybe I enjoyed this movie so much because the theme of it holds such fascination for me, which is apparent in most of my books. It basically dealt with the old wrestle between justice and mercy, and it was a little frustrating that they didn’t make it clear whether the priest was, indeed, guilty. I suppose the makers of the movie would argue that whether or not he was guilty didn’t really matter. Even if he was taking advantage of his position, he was being “good” to the boy and the boy desperately needed someone. This made it an interesting study of facets. Anyway, if anyone else has seen this movie, I’d love to hear your opinion. Did you think the priest was guilty? Or did you think the nun too strict and inflexible? She certainly wasn’t much of a nurturer.



I know a lot of people probably want to talk about the new Harry Potter movie. I haven’t seen it yet, but my children were disappointed. They felt it lacked the character development of the earlier films. I don’t plan to see it until I read the book (I just haven’t had time to delve into it yet). Another movie I’d liked to see is the new Johnny Depp flick. I find it interesting that I’m such a big Johnny Depp fan, when most of his movies are “B” movies for me (except CHOCOLAT, which is an all-time favorite—maybe because it deals with the same themes as DOUBT--LOL). Tom Cruise is the one who usually picks roles that I love. Like LAST OF THE MOHICANS, A FEW GOOD MEN is a movie that really gets my creative juices flowing. But then, so is THE LAST SAMURAI, TOP GUN and RAIN MAN.



What’s your favorite movie? And do you find yourself gravitating to similar themes? Do you think this relates to your “core” story, as Jayne Ann Krentz would put it?

Brenda

Creativity - An Organized Approach

Welcome guest blogger Dan Wilson--playwright, actor, director, producer, improv comedian and all-around overachiever. Oh, yeah. And he also just happened to be the best man at my wedding. - Adrienne

Every writer talks about what every writer is asked: "where do you get your ideas?" Recently, I felt that the well of ideas had run dry. I have numerous half finished and barely started projects, but my mind wasn't brimming with ideas the way it usually is. I considered this a bit of a blessing, actually, as it meant I might be able to focus long enough to get some serious work done on older scripts.

The reason for the mental freeze was easy to pinpoint. I had recently bought my first house and my day job was going through an especially intense period. Add to that the trials of being in a struggling relationship, and it's no wonder that brain wasn't doing much in the way of creating new and tantalizing characters and scenarios.

So, the first thing is to get enough rest. An exhausted, emotionally stressed writer isn't a productive one. The second thing is to listen to people. I'm a huge fan of the voice notes feature on my iPhone. A sign, people on the street, an acquaintance telling me about an odd experience at work, or even odd things about what they do... all this becomes fodder. If I waited for even an hour, I'd forget the details, so I grab my phone, hit "Record" and make a note. People have quit introducing me as an actor and refer to me as "playwright", so no one is shocked, surprised, or offended that I'm blatantly mining their lives for material. Far from it, most people are pleased to know that their lives make for good fiction.

The second thing is also the third thing. Having a way to quickly grab moments of inspiration is vital. A pen and pad next to the bed is good, but I find that relying on my phone works better since it's regularly backed up and is with me everywhere I go. I use the phone as an alarm in the morning as well, so it's even available for those half-dream ideas that jerk me awake at night. Even better, I don't have to decipher my horrid handwriting later on down the road.

Finally, revisit all these notes when you have downtime. A character from a trip on the bus might suddenly bump up against a bizarre anecdote you saw in the news three years later, or meet up with the insane coworker a friend told you about. It's a party inside your head, and it's good to let everyone mingle ever now and again.

Dan Wilson has artistic A.D.D. In this venue he can be identified as a playwright. His works include "Sweetie Tanya: the Demon Barista of Valencia Street", "Get it? Got it. Good!", "Vagina Dentata", "411", and "Pinch", which have all been produced at various venues in San Francisco. He has also written and directed adaptations of the work of Neil Gaiman, Martha Soukup, and Ursula K. LeGuin (usually with their permission). His first play, "In a Distant Country" was first produced in Evanston, IL. Dan is the screenwriter of the oddest "educational films" ever created for  school superintendents: "Goode to Greate", and "The Adventures of Tom Sup: The Courage Squad versus The League of Blame". Both of these were done under a joint partnership between WestEd, ACSA and Dan's production company "Cassandra's Call Productions." He is a prolific improv comedy performer and can be heard on most of the podcasts at www.radiostarnetwork.com.

No Rest for the Creative

by Mysti Berry

My favorite villains are truly creative.

Take for example Brigid O’Shaughnessey from Dashiell Hammett’s novel The Maltese Falcon. That woman creates whole new personalities with each thrust of Spade’s inquiring mind, and later, she weaves web after web of deception as annoying facts or bothersome questions emerge. When Sam Spade says at the end of the story that the bird is “the stuff that dreams are made of,” he’s too right. The gold-fevered imaginations of oily Cairo, urbane Gutman, and the deadly Ms. O’Shaughnessey feed directly into their creative skills at lying, cheating, and killing.  Skills they’ve clearly honed over a lifetime.

Being a technical writer by trade, I try to break everything down into component parts, even something as ephemeral as creativity, so that I can understand it better. (Maybe I shouldn’t blame technical writing for that personality trait. When I was younger than six my Dad had to yell at me for taking apart an electric clock, just to see how it worked. To be fair, he actually yelled at me for not being able to put it back together.) After chewing on the concept of creativity for a while now, I’d like to propose a theory of creativity. Not how to get it, or how to protect it from cruel critique groups or partners who say things like “don’t write a novel, you’d write the kind of novel I hate,” but rather, how creativity actually works.

The first step is imagination, the ability to spontaneously generate ideas or images that don’t yet exist, that have never existed in any other mind in quite the same way. If you dream, your imagination is still intact – even if you dream about calculus or chemistry!

The next step is to express that imagination in some physical way. Children who fingerpaint or grandfathers who carve trains out of hunks of knotty pine are being creative. So are teenagers who make up sleepovers that were never arranged with friends that never existed, just so they can go see Jack White in concert. But I don’t think a single creative act is the last step.

True creative output, performed over months and years and not just when the mood strikes, depends on two things: effort executed over consistent periods of time, and the honing of natural or acquired skills.  If I am to bridge the gap between technical writer and creative writer, for example, I must learn a cadre of skills that are seldom exercised in my day job, such as writing dialog that sounds like real speech but with the boring bits cut out, or the rhythmic possibilities in the alternation of scene and summary.

The toughest part about being creative is learning how to assess our own skills and abilities – in essence, to learn from our own mistakes. As a species, we don’t have the best record of that. Perhaps each attempt at a creative act is an expression of hope that we’ll finally learn, this time.

My new favorite villain, Bernie Madoff, was a bad man. But he was creative, like Brigid O’Shaughnessey. He could riff in the moment to create the illusions required to separate people from their money. He got better at it over time, presumably learning from his mistakes much more quickly than poor old Brigid did. We can only hope that our own creative output can rival that of Bernie or Brigid, just as we hope the output treats our fellows far better than the two of them ever did.

Mysti Berry has won awards as a screenwriter, technical writer, short fiction writer and novelist. Mysti's short fiction has been published in "Switchback," the online literary journal sponsored by University of San Francisco. She was an invited reader during the 2006 LitQuake festival in San Francisco. Her work has been included in published anthologies. She teaches for University of California at Berkeley Extension. Mysti is a board member of Sisters in Crime Northern California chapter, and has presented to that group. She lives in San Francisco with her talented graphic novelist husband Dale Berry.

Sheila Connolly Talks Seasons (and Apples and Murder)

Welcome guest blogger Sheila Connolly, whose new mystery novel Rotten to the Core came out on Tuesday.

Thank you so much for inviting me to blog with you, to help me celebrate the release of the second book in my Orchard Mystery series, Rotten to the Core.

The series revolves around my ex Boston banker heroine Meg Corey trying to learn how to manage an orchard for profit with zero experience. I have to say writing the series has made me much more aware of the seasons this year.

In the first book, One Bad Apple, Meg arrived in Granford, Massachusetts in the dead of winter to renovate the 18th-century house her mother had inherited. January is not the best time to see rural New England, and Meg wasn't charmed. She didn't even know she had an orchard, and she learned of it just as a developer was threatening to pave it over as a parking lot for a new shopping center. Her first thought was to patch up and sell the house ASAP and leave town.

But of course she didn't, and she managed to save the orchard–and solve the murder of the developer, whose body was found in her yard. Not the best way to start life in a new town, but she finds she is beginning to enjoy the positive aspects of small-town living, not least of which is having neighbors who know you and look out for you.

Rotten to the Core picks up in the spring, when the apple trees are coming alive–it ends with the first bloom. Meg has had to learn a lot about orchard management: she's taking a class at the local university, and she's hired a young manager to help her out. She's also facing tough decisions about whether or not to spray the orchard with pesticides and herbicides–apples seem to attract a lot of problems. If I had known how tricky it is to produce apples that conform to the perfect standard that consumers expect, I might have run too. It doesn't help that the body of a local organic farming activist (or should I say, fanatic?) shows up in the orchard.

The third book, Red Delicious Death (due out next March), is set in the summer and finds Meg pacing like an expectant mother waiting for her apples to ripen. To distract herself she agrees to help a young couple from Boston who want to open a much-needed restaurant featuring local foods in Meg's small town, a plan that almost gets derailed by the death of their sous-chef. And of course the fourth book (not named yet) takes place during the apple harvest. There are a few complications, like the unexpected arrival of Meg's mother and yet another murder.

I'm not a farmer, and I have a brown thumb, but I've gained a lot of respect for those who manage to raise anything. It's heartening to see increased interest in gardening, from the President on down, and I hope that people will realize that local food tastes a whole lot better than stuff that's been shipped halfway around the world. This year I've put in a vegetable garden for the first time in years–not the best year to try it, since we had something like 21 days of rain in June, and the slugs have gone wild. But I figure if I'm going to write about farming, I should know something about it and get my hands dirty. I've even planted a couple of apple trees on my front lawn–and watched them get attacked by pests and plagues. I can only imagine what it must be like to watch it happen on a large scale over many acres, especially when your livelihood depends on it and there's not a lot you can do about and still produce a healthy crop.

But those small farmers who are willing to tough it out deserve our support. I'm beginning to sound rabid about the evils of corporate farming–just ask my family and friends–but bigger is not always better, and paying less for mass-produced food may be more expensive for us all in the long run. Meg's a convert too, and we both say: buy local!