by jphilo | Mar 15, 2016 | Mystery Update, Top Ten Tuesday
The wait for news from publishers about the fate of the mystery novel See Jane Run! continues. Pretty typical in the book world, so instead of checking email 10 times a day, I’m plowing ahead with the second book in the series, See Jane Sing! Since the last update on that book’s progress, I’ve written her out of the snowdrift, where her cherry red VW bug was stuck fast during her return trip from Thanksgiving with her family in Iowa. I am quickly discovering the challenges of writing mystery novel sequel snowstorm scenes. Here are ten of them.
10. Creating a recap of the previous book that gives new readers enough information to read the second book in the series and is so captivating, they are compelled to purchase the first book in the series.
9. Perfecting the timing so the driver has gone too far down a desolate, gravel road to turn back when the snowstorm hits while leaving enough miles and time for the formation of a large snowdrift, so the beaching of a VW Beetle to seem plausible.
8. Describing how to substitute an empty orange juice can for bathroom facilities when snowbound without providing TMI.
7. Unearthing a variety of verbs for walking through deep snow. As in wading, plowing, plodding, etc. (Your suggestions welcome in the comment box.)
6. Finding verbs for putting on winter gear. As more ways to describe donning gloves, hats, boots, coats. (Once again, your suggestions are welcome!)
5. Cooking a variety of turkey leftover dishes popular 30 years ago. (Yup, your suggestions are coveted.)
4. Deciding what mistakes to fix and what changes to make immediately and which ones to leave until the second draft.
3. Writing dialogue when the character who rescues Jane and her snowbound car hardly says a word.
2. Conveying the joy an elementary teacher feels when she returns to school after vacation and can once again enter the world of childhood with her students.
1. Keeping from getting in the car and heading west when writing about a tiny, fictional, South Dakota town makes a writer homesick for the place where she once lived.
by jphilo | Feb 8, 2016 | Mystery Update
Yes. it’s true. I am posting a mystery novel update only 2 weeks after the previous one. Not because a publishers who received the proposal has issues a contract, though one requested the entire manuscript last week.
Which as my agent, the Man of Steel and I agree is a good sign.
I’m posting this update because I have finished the backstories of the new characters set to debut in the second book in the Tipperary County Mystery Series, chosen its title (See Jane Sing!) outlined the plot, and have completed the first chapter.
Which ends with dear Jane stuck in a snowbank.
In her bright red Super Beetle. Imagine the car on the right painted the color of the car on the right with the front bumper and half the hood buried in a snowbank during a blizzard on an isolated stretch of gravel road in far western South Dakota.
Which never happened to me or the Man of Steel during our years in South Dakota.
But it could have happened. And we did have a bright red 1973 Super Beetle. It was cool. And kind of impractical for stocking up on groceries at the nearest supermarket 70 miles from home. So we soon traded it in for a VW Rabbit.
Which was slightly more practical, but most of the ranchers thought we were nuts.
But I digress. Back to Jane who is stuck in a snowbank without a cell phone. Because cell phones hadn’t been invented yet. Even so she knows the whole town, and possibly the National Guard, will soon be looking for her.
Which is why she’s calmly eating Thanksgiving leftovers instead of panicking.
I have to admit that this week’s snowstorm put me in the mood to write the scene. And I should warn you that no more tidbits about the opening of See Jane Sing! are forthcoming, Thought you should know that the person who rescues her is a new character who may or may not bear a slight resemblance to the Man of Steel.
Which is a good place for me to stop.
Don’t worry about Jane. She has a peanut butter jar full of water for drinking and an orange juice can to pee in if worst comes to worst. She’s gonna be just fine.
by jphilo | May 6, 2013 | Daily Life
The man of steel and I are no strangers to May snowstorms. They were more common than we liked during our years out west. One particularly vicious storm dumped 18 inches of snow on Harding County, South Dakota after Mother’s Day. But when we moved to central Iowa in 1985, we thought we’d left nasty May weather far, far behind.
And we had. At least until last week when the winter that will not end graced us with several inches of wet, heavy snow. During the storm that left the landscape looking more like early March than May, the man of steel and I said some things that made us look at one another and ask, “Did I just say that?”
Here are a few of the head-scratching comments heard around here:
- Hiram, it’s snowing really hard. You might want to leave for work a little early.
- Where’s the snow shovel?
- I wonder if school was called off.
- Have you ever seen a tulip shiver before?
- Maybe we should cover the plants on the porch.
-
Now, it’s your turn. What did you say during last week’s snowstorm that made you scratch your head and ask, “Did I just say that?”
by jphilo | Feb 13, 2009 | Current Events
Today is Friday the thirteenth. Listening to the radio this morning would have sent me into a tailspin if I was superstitious: the stock market was down again, too many people were killed in a commercial airline crash in Buffalo, the bloom is off the stimulus package rose, and a snowstorm is bearing down on the “Highway 30 corridor.” Since I live 100 feet north of Highway 30, my town is in for it.
But I am not in a tailspin because today is Valentine’s Party day at every elementary school in America, and I am not in a classroom riding herd on a passel of kids aiming for the mother of all sugar highs. Many of my friends in this town are are, and I’ve been feeling sorry for them all week. With the snowstorm moving in (one snowflake floating gently to earth outside a classroom window has the power to whip the most placid child into a frenzy), I’m feeling even sorrier for them. Thankfully, tonight’s not a full moon (kids get weirded out when the moon’s full), or I’d feel obligated to enter the lion’s den and give one of them a hand.
Instead, all I have to do is feel sorry for them, pray for their perseverance and sanity when I think of it, and keep writing. In my book (no pun intended), this Friday the thirteenth is a marvelous, wonder-filled gift I don’t deserve. I’ll try to use it well.
