by jphilo | Jun 4, 2015 | Mystery Update, Three Thoughts for Thursday
- When writing a mystery novel set in northwest South Dakota, determine the color, make, and model of every character’s dusty pick up truck before writing the story so the information doesn’t have to be painstakingly added later.
- Keep in mind that readers can’t picture what’s in an author’s head until the author describes it.
- Writing and editing are hard work. But they’re also incredibly fun. So authors should get over the guilt of having the best job in the world and simply enjoy it.
What are your thoughts about writing and editing? Leave them in the comment box below.
by jphilo | Mar 23, 2015 | Book Updates
Can it possibly be that Jane last made an appearance along this gravel road in July of last year? Yes, sorry to say, it’s been that long. And since that post’s report of on the sad lack of progress of the mystery novel bearing her name, Jane and her cast of characters has been almost completely neglected.
Poor Jane. Poor, poor Jane.
Mind, you the reasons for this shameful neglect are all good ones. First, I had to research and write a book about PTSD in children to meet the publishers November 30, 2014 deadline. A week later a month long Camp Dorothy commenced, and I was too busy keeping track of Vanna White and Judge Judy to write much. No sooner did that end, than our second grandchild was born and Mom moved into assisted living. Oh, and did I mention that The Caregiver’s Notebook released on November 1, 2014?
Poor Jane. Poor, neglected Jane.
To add insult to injury, all my time since 2015 began has been spent going to see the grandkids and completing edits on Every Child Welcome, along with a B-I-G rewrite of the PTSD book. That book, by the way, has finally been named Does My Child Have PTSD? What to Do When Your Child Is Hurting from the Inside Outs.
Poor Jane. Poor, traumatized Jane.
Because, as Does My Child Have PTSD? makes very clear, neglect over a long period of time can cause PTSD in children, especially babies. And Jane is most certainly my baby, even though she’s a young, independent woman living in the wilds of South Dakota. And my baby will most likely remain sadly neglected for at least 2 more months, maybe 3…until the final edits of the PTSD book are done, my daughter’s baby is born, and my spring speaking schedule clears up.
Poor Jolene Jane. Poor, poor Jolene Jane.
She misses her imaginary romps in northwest South Dakota and writing school teacher detective scenes where glitter becomes the ultimate weapon. She misses writing about nasty weather on the big prairie without having to experience it first hand. So to give Jolene Jane and anyone else who misses the short grass prairie a taste of what they’re missing, here’s a clip from KOTA news in Rapid City offers a taste of life out west. Complete with heat, indoor plumbing, and two of the strongest Harding County women I’ve had the pleasure to meet.
Just wait, Jane. Wait, Jane, wait!
by jphilo | Mar 6, 2015 | Out and About
This week’s Fantastic Friday post was requested by a rellie. As you will see, the post explains very well why the Man of Steel felt like we lived on the edge of the world during our seven years in northwest South Dakota. BTW Gary, this is one of my favorite posts ever!
A recent entry at Justin Taylor’s blog Between Two Worlds almost blew my socks off. He quoted from a blog entry by Stephen Von Worley. Von Worley was contemplating the McDonaldization of America and decided to locate the farthest point from an Mc Donalds in the contiguous United States. Here’s what he found:
As expected, McDonald’s cluster at the population centers and hug the highway grid. East of the Mississippi, there’s wall-to-wall coverage, except for a handful of meager gaps centered on the Adirondacks, inland Maine, the Everglades, and outlying West Virginia.
For maximum McSparseness, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota. There, in a patch of rolling grassland, loosely hemmed in by Bismarck, Dickinson, Pierre, and the greater Rapid City-Spearfish-Sturgis metropolitan area, we find our answer.Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car! Suffer a Big Mac Attack out there, and you’re hurtin’ for certain! For a coupla hours, at least, unless graced by the tender blessings of “manna from heaven” – that is, a fast food air drop from the Medi-Copter.
So what’s the big deal? Those “tiny hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley” were part of our old South Dakota stomping grounds. Our personal hamlet, Camp Crook, was about 75 miles straight west of Meadow, much tinier than the McFarthest spot, and didn’t have nearly as many paved roads.
What were we doing for the first three precarious years of Allen’s life, living so far from civilization? Answer: We didn’t know how bad we had it. Like Stephen Von Worley, we thought the most isolated part of the United States was far, far away in the rugged west, not in our back yard.
If we had known the truth, would we have skedaddled sooner than we did? Maybe, but as Hiram said when he read the report, “There we were on the edge of nowhere and look at the support we received from the people.” Maybe they supported us because they weren’t distracted by civilization – McDonalds and movies and shopping malls and inconsequentials – and had time to prop up two bewildered young parents day after difficult day.
Whatever the reasons, when I think of our seven years near the McFarthest Spot and the way the far flung community rallied round us, the truth is evident. During those years we didn’t leave civilization. We found it.
If you have a favorite post you’d like to see featured on Fantastic Friday, leave a comment in the box below.
by jphilo | Mar 14, 2014 | Mystery Update
What an excellent question! For those who are interested in the progress of my Fun with Dick and Jane mystery series, the answer to that question is long overdue. In fact, the last report was in January, almost 2 months ago–but who’s counting–in which I reported being back in the riding saddle again. I have not fallen out of the saddle. For the past nine Friday afternoons–now look who’s counting–my to do list has been limited to one item: work on mystery novel.
And I have.
The first draft of the novel now sits at 38,500 words and is about 2/3 complete. At the end of this afternoon’s Friday session, the word count could top 40,000. Of course, more words written = more ideas for revising what’s been written.
And I have plenty of those ideas.
The protagonist needs to become less whiny and more sensitive. The crank phones and the switchboard operator, both replaced a year before we moved to the real Harding County upon which the fictional Tipperary County is based, need to become part of the story. More people suspects need to enter the mix. Some chapters have to be moved. Several must be rewritten.
And I have to give a few scenes the axe.
Hard to do to my precious babies. Almost as hard as waiting until the entire first draft is completed before going back to fix what’s already written. But not nearly as hard as writing new scenes and chapters and dialogues.
And I have plenty left to write.
So far Jane, the protagonist, has driven her VW bug down countless miles of gravel roads, and she’s ridden with cowboys in pick up trucks. She’s made it through her first month as a country school teacher and gotten her first grown-up-job pay check. She’s kissed a rancher named Rick, charmed another one named Rich, cleaned up vomit, and found bulls in the playground. She keeps a spade handy in case a rattlesnake makes an appearance.
And I have barely scratched the surface of life where Jane lives.
Which means that once the first draft is done and the revisions are completed and a book proposal gets written and my agent starts schlepping it to publishers, plenty of good stuff will remain for a second book of fun with Dick and Jane.
And I have no doubt I’ll be back in the saddle again.
Photo Source: www.nobigdill.com
by jphilo | Jan 27, 2014 | Reflections on the Past
Thanks to the cold, snowy weather this month, residents of the northern two thirds of the US are fighting the winter blues. From the sounds of things, the light at the end of the winter blues tunnel won’t be shining any too soon. So on to Plan B, which is a couple stories from the Harding County History Book erased my winter blues and inscribed a couple mental notes upon my brain for easy access when that blue feeling creeps up again.
Here’s an excerpt about the winter of 1897, the first year the Finnish immigrants Andrew and Alina Peterson lived in northwest Harding County.
Andrew dug into the hillside and made a one-room accommodation for Alina and the two small children, Blanche and Sulo. The first winter Alina lived there without Andrew as he went back to the Lead gold mine to work. Alina baked bread and traded it for meat with the passing cowboys who had a camp three or four miles away. One remembered story told of a time when a cow wandered away from the herd and suddenily fell through the sod roof and into the middle of the one room home. No one was hurt, though there was quite a mess to clean up as well as roof repairs.*
The second excerpt comes from the Elliot family, about a March snowstorm. The exact year isn’t given, but must have been before 1910 based on other dates mentioned elsewhere in the account.
The snow drifted clear over the door that night. Dad had to dig his way out with the coal shovel to get to the pump. The storm lasted three days and then a thaw came. The creeks were full of slush and another blizzard came, which lasted three more days. We ran out of coal, all but the slack (the tiny particles and dust left after the larger pieces are gone). Dad went to the shed and found some old beef bones, he put them in the big heating stove on top of the slack while it was burning. It didn’t smell too good, but kept us warm. He finally pulled a bobsled into the big kitchen and sawed it up for kindling.**
*Note to self: Stop feeling blue about how the lack of a mud room entrance in our NINE room house (not counting the basement) means mopping the tracked in melted snow and gravel off the kitchen floor. Store the complaining in a safe place and let it rip when a cow falls through the roof.
**Note to self: Instead of feeling blue about how high your heating bill is this winter, inhale deeply and enjoy the lack of burning bone odor in your house. Stand in the kitchen and enjoy the quiet created by the lack of a bobsled being chopped into kindling.
What helps you beat the winter blues? Leave a comment!
