Author Archives: Kay DiBianca

About Kay DiBianca

Kay DiBianca is a former software developer and IT manager who retired to a life of mystery. She’s the award-winning author of three mystery series: The Watch Series, the Lady Pilot-in-Command Series, and the Reen & Joanie Detective Agency Middle Grade Series. She's decided three series may be enough to keep her busy for a while. Connect with Kay on her website at https://kaydibianca.com.

When Things Go Wrong

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You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity. —Golda Meir

* * *

It was 12:34 a.m. when Frank woke up. We know because he said later he looked at the digital clock on the night table and thought how interesting it was that the time was 1-2-3-4. That was just a second or two before a bone-rattling crash shook the house.

I had never heard a sound like that before. Coming out of a deep sleep, I found myself standing beside the bed before I was fully awake. At first, I thought lightning must have struck the house to cause such a deafening noise.

The burglar alarm was blaring, so we both rushed out into the front hall. I ran straight to the alarm keypad and shut it down. Then I looked toward the sunroom, and my bewilderment deepened.

Our sunroom was at the back of the house. It ran along the center portion of the house and was connected to the living and dining rooms by several glass-paned doors. Those doors had to be closed and deadlocked in order for the burglar alarm to be armed. All the doors were wide open. That’s when I got nervous. Maybe somebody had broken into the house after all.

Then my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I could see debris hanging down from the ceiling in the sunroom, and there was a strong aroma of oak. None of it made sense.

Frank decided to take a flashlight and go outside to see if he could figure out what was going on. I thought that was a really bad idea, but I couldn’t think of anything better, so he left. In a little while he returned. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. (That’s not good thing to hear at any time, but especially not in the middle of the night.)

A very old and very large oak tree (we figure it weighed approximately ten tons) that was just off the north end of the house had fallen directly along the length of the house and was lying like a beached behemoth on top of the sunroom, kept in place by the very large slot it had made in the roof on the north end of the house.

The tree had taken out part of the roof over the kitchen, the sunroom, and the second story as well as part of the second story wall. Fortunately, our bedroom was at the south end of the house.

The lights in the house were blinking, and we were afraid of wire damage that could cause a fire, so we called the fire department. When they arrived, they checked the house but couldn’t find evidence of fire. However, they suggested we turn off the master switch and go to a hotel to spend the night, which we did.

The next morning, we met our insurance agent at the house to assess the damage. When we walked around to the backyard to view the situation in the daylight, the sight was more awe-inspiring than the sound had been the night before.

The base of the tree was hanging off the north end (right side) of the house and the main part of the trunk lay on the sunroom roof. The top of the tree extended off the south end of the house and beyond the frame of this picture.

We arranged for a company to bring in a crane to remove the tree from the house. I held my breath as a very brave man climbed onto the tree and used a chain saw to cut the top piece off so the crane could lift it and set it down in the backyard. Then he moved to the next piece, and took the monster off the roof one very large piece at a time.

It would take months to deal with the aftereffects. During that time, we moved into an apartment, met with contractors, oversaw the repairs, and dealt with our insurance company (which was very supportive, thank goodness), all around our regular work schedules. Plans we had for those months were put on hold. Necessity is the mother of new scheduling.

All ended well. The contractors did a fabulous job of rebuilding the house, and our insurance company treated us with the utmost respect and care. The insurance covered almost everything, and in the end, the house was in as good or better shape than it had been before.

It took a while, and it wasn’t fun, but everything returned to normal eventually. (Well, almost everything. I used to view trees as my friends. Now I regard them as potential criminals. 😒)

* * *

We all know that life can take a wrong turn sometimes. Things happen. The best laid plans and all that.

So what does this have to do with writing? It’s obvious, right? We come to a stopping point in the WIP and realize things are a mess. We’re going to have to make major repairs to make the story structure solid. It’s time to rethink, reschedule, and do the hard work of rebuilding. But the end result will be better. All in service to the story.

* * *

So TKZers: Have you ever had to stop and regroup when you were writing? How do you handle it when a giant problem lands right in the middle of your story?

* * *

 

Fear of Failure

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* * *

Babe Ruth played professional baseball for 22 years (1914-1935) and is considered one of the greatest players who ever lived. He had almost 3,000 hits in his career, averaging more than one hit per game. For many years, he held the record for the number of home runs hit during a single season (60 in 1927). His total number of home runs over his professional career was 714, a record which stood until 1974.

But there’s another statistic you may not have known: Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times. Apparently, he never let the fear of failure keep him from playing the game.

* * *

Fear is part of being human. It goes along with the DNA, and it can be healthy because it instills the instinct for survival we all need. But fears can be unhealthy if we give in to them and become more cautious than we need to be.

Once we let our fears control us, things can get out of hand. A phobia is defined as an irrational fear of something that causes anxiety when a person is exposed to that particular thing.

We all know about fear of heights (acrophobia) and fear of spiders (arachnophobia), but when I searched around for a complete list, I found more than one hundred things on healthline.com to be afraid of! Here are a few I found interesting.

 

Fear of flowers (anthophobia) – Better not go for a walk in my neighborhood.

Fear of numbers (arithmophobia) – I have a friend who insists she “can’t do numbers”

Fear of books (bibliophobia) – Oh no!

 

Fear of failure (atychiphobia) – Ah, now here’s one we can relate to.

* * *

Failure is something we all experience, but I suspect the fear of failure is more acute in disciplines that require creativity than in other areas. The very word “create” implies something new, and that means it may not work.

I’ve read research that shows high achievers are very likely to experience fear of failure. (I imagine some of us here at TKZ fall into this category.) Having achieved success in their professional lives, these folks see anything less than a fabulous accomplishment as inadequacy.

Many high achievers will work hard to avoid that stigma, but others would rather drop out of the race than risk what they perceive as failure.

So how do authors stay in the game and handle that scary thought that they won’t be able to write another book as good as the last one?  There are ways to minimize those concerns. According to an article on betterhealth.vic.gov.au, the same things that enhance creativity can be used to fight the fear of failure.

“There are several ways you can try to fight your fears.… Simple changes, like exercising regularly, can reduce your stress levels. So can eating healthy meals, getting enough sleep, and reducing or avoiding stimulants like caffeine and alcohol.”

And don’t forget the Babe. You can’t hit a home run if you don’t step up to the plate.

 

So TKZers: Do you experience a fear of failure in your writing? How do you fight it?

* * *

The saga continues with Knights in Manhattan, the second novel in the Reen & Joanie Detective Agency middle grade mystery series.

  • Joanie is afraid of flying.
  • Reen is afraid she might not catch the thieves.
  • Mrs. Toussaint isn’t afraid of anything.

Join the fun with the R&J Detective Agency as they track down nefarious crooks in Manhattan. New York will never be the same.

$1.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books, and Google Play

The Book of Proverbs & Self-Editing for Fiction Writers

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Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience. —Miguel de Cervantes

* * *

Note: This blog post was taken from one I posted on my own blog in 2019.

* * *

Every morning I sit down with my bowl of oatmeal and cup of coffee and read a chapter in the Book of Proverbs. I’ve been doing this for a very long time — so long, I can’t remember when I started or where I got the idea.

Now, I’m all about doing things the easy way, so since there are thirty-one chapters in Proverbs, I read the chapter whose number corresponds with the date. Therefore, I go through the entire book each month. (Okay, chapter 31 doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves, but it’s still a pretty good system.)

The thing about the Book of Proverbs that interests me is the wealth of wisdom found in its pages. Practical wisdom. A soul-searching, character-changing experience in less than five minutes every morning.

 “Good sense makes one slow to anger,
    and it is his glory to overlook an offense.” – Proverbs 19:11

 “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches” – Proverbs 22:1a

 “Pride goes before destruction,
    and a haughty spirit before a fall.” – Proverbs 16:18

 “A dishonest man spreads strife,
    and a whisperer separates close friends.” – Proverbs 16:28

I could go on, but you get the idea. The Book of Proverbs is surely self-editing for the soul.

* * *

I may not remember exactly when I started reading the Proverbs every morning, but I remember precisely where I was when I first heard about Self-editing for Fiction Writers. I was attending a panel discussion for new authors at my first writers conference (Killer Nashville 2017.) The subject was how to improve your writing, and one of the speakers said the book Self-editing for Fiction Writers was an essential addition to any writer’s library. So I bought a copy and started reading.

Talk about practical wisdom!

“To write exposition at length … is to engage your readers’ intellects. What you want to do is to engage their emotions.” – Chapter One, “Show and Tell”

“When you make the point of view clear at the beginning of a scene, you get your readers involved right away and let them get used to inhabiting your viewpoint character’s head.” – Chapter Three, “Point of View”

“Don’t open a paragraph of dialogue with the speaker attribution. Instead, start a paragraph with dialogue and place the speaker attribution at the first natural break in the first sentence.” — Chapter Five, “Dialogue Mechanics”

“The greatest advantage of self-editing … is the kind of attention you have to pay to your own work while you’re doing the self-editing. It demands that you revise again and again until what you’ve written rings true. Until you can believe it.” – Chapter Twelve, “Voice”

This was the kind of advice I needed to self-edit my manuscript before I sent it off to a professional editor.

* * *

So TKZers: What proverb about writing has helped you? What books do you turn to in order to study the craft? What writing conferences have influenced you the most?

 

Reen Penterson is determined to find a treasure hidden by the mysterious Mr. Shadow so she’ll become rich and famous and won’t have to go to school anymore. Her father wisely advises her to think about Proverbs 30:8.

EBOOK ON SALE NOW: 99¢ on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and Apple Books.

 

Resonance

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Resonance (noun) – the occurrence of a vibrating object causing another object to vibrate at a higher amplitude.

* * *

I’ve noticed several comments on TKZ lately where folks mentioned a particular book or scene “resonated” with them. Intuitively, we understand what that means, but when I mentioned it to my husband, whose background is physics, I got a mini-lesson on the physical properties of resonance.

It was fascinating.

That sent me off to read some more about this phenomenon. I discovered the howstuffworks site that gave a definition perfectly describing the concept:

“At its core, resonance is the extraordinary phenomenon where an object vibrates at the same natural frequency as another.”

There are several areas that clearly illustrate resonant behavior.

 

MUSIC

This may be the most obvious. Notes produce sound in waves. When you play a note on the piano, the string vibrates and causes the sounding board to vibrate and amplify the sound. In addition, playing two notes that have related frequencies produce a harmonious sound. For example, playing two notes an octave apart or a “perfect fifth” like playing C and G at the same time produce a resonant result.

SWINGS

We’ve probably all enjoyed having someone push us on a swing. If the push is at right moment, the swing will go higher. If it’s a little early or late, the frequency is off, and the swing won’t go as high.

 

BRIDGES

Soldiers are often ordered to stop marching in a synchronized cadence when they cross a bridge to avoid accidentally activating a dangerous frequency. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse is a perfect example of resonance that resulted in a bridge disaster. The wind’s force, combined with the bridge’s natural frequency of vibration, led to resonance, where the oscillations became increasingly large and violent. 

Fortunately, no one died in the Tacoma Narrows disaster, but it’s not the kind of resonance we’re aiming for in our writing!

* * *

WRITING

Now that we know what resonance is, how do we use the concept in writing a story? Again, from the howstuffworks site:

When we say a piece of art or music resonates with us, we mean that it strikes a chord in our hearts and minds. This emotional resonance is the magic that binds us to the world around us, creating a profound connection between ourselves and our experiences.

James Scott Bell addressed this topic in his recent post on “What Writers Can Learn from the Twilight Zone.” He concluded that the essence of a work is its heart, the ability to emotionally connect with the reader. He advises us

“What is it you care most deeply about, besides selling books? Tap into it. Draw from it. Make it thrum throughout your work.”

I believe the “thrum” JSB spoke of is the resonant quality of a story that touches the reader in a way to amplify his/her emotional response.

* * *

Here are a few examples of books that created that magic bond and resonated with me. Some because I connected with the characters, others because I felt the emotion even if I didn’t identify with the characters.

  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
  • West with the Night by Beryl Markham
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

* * *

So, TKZers: How would you define resonance in writing? How do you ensure that your stories will resonate with the reader? What books have resonated with you?

* * *

 

The idea of a search for treasure hidden by the mysterious “Mr. Shadow” resonates with a lot of people in the university town of Bellevue. However, very few of them are as determined as these two young detectives.

But will Mrs. Toussaint’s advice that “Persistence is the key to success” prove true?

EBOOK ON SALE NOW: 99¢ on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and Apple Books.

 

Wordle and the Cute Villain

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We’ve talked about word games a few times here, and several of the TKZ crowd have mentioned Wordle as being a favorite.

For people unfamiliar with the game, the challenge is to guess a hidden five-letter word within six tries by creating words and seeing how the Wordle game responds. The simplest way to explain it is by example. I have a habit of using the word “HOUSE” as my first guess.

If a letter is in the solution and in the correct placement, it’s shown on a green background. If the letter is in the solution, but not in the correct place, the background turns yellow. If the letter isn’t in the word at all, the background is gray.

In a game I played a couple of weeks ago, here’s how the first four guesses looked:

After the first three guesses, I had all five letters of the answer, but I wasn’t able to come up with a word that was a valid solution. (Wordle will not let you enter arbitrary letters. Your guess has to spell an actual word, and I don’t think it’s fair play to look up possibilities online.)

The only word I came up with was “ROILS,” but I knew it was wrong because the letter “I” couldn’t be in the third position. Still, it was the only English word I thought of, so I entered it just to see if any of the other letters would be in the correct positions.

This was the strangest Wordle game I’d ever played. After the fourth guess, there are only two possible solutions: IOLRS or LORIS. I didn’t know either of those words, but LORIS seemed the most likely, so I went with that one.

It was the first time I solved a Wordle game with a word I hadn’t heard of. (My apologies to all the linguists and zoologists out there.) Of course, I looked up the meaning of the word, and found that a loris is a very interesting animal.

* * *

You can’t get much cuter than this guy. Big, sad eyes in a furry little body. So adorable. So cuddly. You want to pick one up and pet it.

Not a good idea.

According to worldwildlife.org,

With wide eyes and furry bodies, these slow-moving, pint-sized primates look like cuddly stuffed animals. But their venom-filled bites can rot flesh and cause anaphylactic shock in humans. (my emphasis)

Ouch.

It turns out the loris is the only mammal that is venomous. When I considered that surprising fact, it got me thinking about villains in general. Maybe the most dangerous ones aren’t the big, bad guys with the tattoos and spiked hair. Or those dark space villains. You know they’re the bad guys.

Maybe the scariest ones are the adorable characters whom everybody loves and trusts. The ones you can’t imagine would ever hurt you.

Here are a few examples I found on screenrant.com:

  • Hans, the handsome prince in Frozen, who appears to be in love with the Princess Anna, but really just wants to marry her to usurp the throne.
  • The “killer rabbit” in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. How dangerous could a cute little white rabbit be?

  • Dawn Bellwether in Zootopia seems to be a cute sheep helping ensure cooperation in her community, but in fact, she’s the mastermind behind a conspiracy.

In addition, I asked our TKZ expert on villainry, Debbie Burke, to give me some ideas of villains who fit this category. She mentioned nurses who kill patients. Makes me want to try doubly hard to stay out of the hospital.

 

But maybe the scariest villain of all was Anthony Freemont in the 73rd episode of The Twilight Zone. He was a really cute kid with powers of evil.

I saw that episode many years ago, but it still gives me chills when I think about it.

* * *

Over to you, TKZers: Are you a Wordler? Did you solve the recent Loris puzzle? On another subject, who is your favorite villain? Do your characters ever become victims of wolves in sheep’s clothing?

* * *

 

They may be cute, but there’s nothing villainous about these two detectives. 10-year-old tree-climbing Reen and her 9-year-old, feet-on-the-ground cousin Joanie are on a mission to find a hidden treasure, but along the way they discover something more important than what they were looking for.

EBOOK ON SALE NOW: 99¢ on Amazon, Barnes&Noble, and Apple Books.

Talent vs. Grit

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Talent (noun): a natural skill or ability to be good at something, especially without being taught.

* * *

A couple of weeks ago, James Scott Bell mentioned the enormous talent of James Cagney, and that got me wondering about just what talent is and how much it plays a part in success.

We’ve all heard sports scouts talk about athletes who are “naturals.” They’re highly recruited for what seems to be their inborn ability to play the game. Most of us don’t have that kind of obvious talent, but each of us has certain inborn abilities that we can capitalize on. But how can we identify what we’re really good at? One way is by taking a talent test.

I’m not a particular fan of personality tests or talent identification tests. I think testing for specific skills is more useful. But in preparation for writing this blog post, I took a talent quiz at ProProfs. (I have no idea if their test is a reliable judge of specific talent, but I thought it would be fun to see their assessment.)

Among other things, the results indicated that I have a creative flair for story-telling. That was encouraging, but it doesn’t mean I’ll be able to wip (misspelling intended) out a 70,000 word masterpiece while sipping my raspberry-coconut smoothie and having my nails done. It won’t solve the plot problems I’m having with my next book or teach me more about the genre-specific structure I need. It also won’t do much to ensure my text is error-free or help me format and upload the book to the major retail sites. For all those, I need something more.

* * *

Grit (noun): firmness of character; indomitable spirit; pluck.

The answer may lie in an individual’s passion and perseverance, otherwise known as “grit.” While talent may give you a head start in life, it’s grit that will get you over the finish line.

A 2013 article in Forbes magazine identified five characteristics of people who have grit.

  1. Courage – The ability to manage the fear of failure.
  2. Conscientiousness – Working tirelessly, trying to do a good job, and finishing the task at hand.
  3. Endurance – Having the stamina to achieve long-term goals.
  4. Resilience – The ability to remain optimistic and confident in the face of unforeseen problems.
  5. Excellence vs Perfection – Striving for excellence, not perfection.

The Forbes article also quotes from a 1907 speech by Theodore Roosevelt that illustrates the essence of true grit:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strived valiantly; who errs, who comes again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

* * *

Finally, in a Psychology Today article, Michael D. Matthews, PhD, argues that neither talent nor grit alone will lead to success.

The message here is clear. Grit is indeed a critical factor in achievement. But it is best applied to tasks and goals for which you have the innate talent and interest to sustain growth. Engage in honest self-appraisal and identify what you have the physical and cognitive skills to be good at, then use your grit to fan the talent flame. Love what you are good at and be good at what you love. Your talent will only take you so far; you need grit to be great. And accomplishing difficult tasks provides a foundation for a life of meaning and purpose.

 

So there you have it. Talent and Grit. You need both to make the cut.

* * *

So TKZers: Have you ever taken a quiz to identify your talents? How would you compare talent and grit in writing? Which of the five characteristics of grit in this article do you most identify with?

* * *

 

Another Side of Sunshine: A Reen & Joanie Detective Agency Novel 

10-year-old Reen and her 9-year-old cousin Joanie have plenty of talent and grit, but is that enough to find the treasure hidden by the mysterious Mr. Shadow?

Click the image to go to the Amazon book page.

Moving and Writing

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Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving. —Albert Einstein

* * *

I’ve mentioned over the past few weeks that my husband and I have moved to a new home. It’s been a long, hard effort, but now we’re in the new place and trying to regain some sense of normalcy.

One thing getting back to normal means is writing a post for TKZ. So now, I sit at my desk, surrounded by towers of boxes and ponder what I should write about while the aroma of fresh cardboard and packing tape wafts through the house. Since I do so love analogies about writing, there’s my subject: How are moving and writing related.

The Big Adventure

Moving starts as an adventure. Maybe it’s a new job or a better living situation or some other reason to change addresses. There’s a lot of anticipation mixed with a little anxiety. Lists are made, forms are ordered, lots of organization is put in place. Whatever the reason, the excitement builds as moving day nears.

Same with a new novel. A great idea suddenly crystallizes and you realize you have a theme for a new book. The best yet. You begin to draft out character sketches and a general plot line. You set up Scrivener for the new work and put together a project plan with a schedule. You stand at the mountaintop looking over the landscape and imagine the journey ahead.

The Trek Goes On … and On

If you’re lucky, you’ll hire a moving company to pack and move everything. But what’s the adventure in that? To keep the analogy with writing, you’ll have to do your own packing. You go through the house and decide what can be given away, sold, or stored. You order packing materials and spend weeks knee deep in boxes, bubble wrap, and permanent markers. But it’s taking longer than you thought, and the whole task of packing boxes has become hard work. You have to decide what to keep and what to let go. At some point, you ask yourself “Whose idea was this, anyway?”

Writing is a little less physically demanding. Day after day, you pack Scrivener with new scenes, and your creativity is firing on all cylinders. Finally, you’re deep into the story. Then you hit a wall, and you back up to look at what you’ve accomplished so far. It’s just a mess, and you have to decide what to throw away. You can keep everything, but then your new story will be a jumble of scenes rather than a carefully crafted book, so a serious pruning job is in order.

Persistence Pays Off

That’s when it hits you. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. But you’ve already invested heavily in the story or the move, so you keep going forward. Not quite as excited, but shoulder to the wheel. The message in your head is no longer “Woo-hoo,” but more like “Put one foot in front of the other.”

It seems like ages before those boxes are all packed or the chapters are written. The movers come and transfer all the furniture to the new place. You have a fully finished first draft. It still doesn’t look so pretty, but at least you’re beginning to see the story behind the jumble.

Revision

So now you move into unpacking mode, putting things where they belong, discarding boxes, and cleaning up. In a novel, this would be the final draft. Rearranging the chapters and rewriting.

The work is long and sometimes boring. But occasionally you’ll stumble onto some little artifact that makes you realize how nice the finished product will be. It takes forever to unpack, fit things into their new environment, and get the household in order.

Slowly, day by day, the pieces begin to fit together to form a cohesive whole. The house is set, the novel is written, and the job is done.

The End … for now

It’s time to sip champagne, take a short rest, and then get to work on marketing.

* * *

So TKZers: How do you deal with the confusion that surrounds moving or writing? Do you keep plugging away knowing everything will come out well? How do you celebrate when the big move or book release is over?

* * *

 

Spunky 10-year-old Reen and her shy, 9-year-old cousin Joanie never stop moving while they hunt for a treasure left by the mysterious Mr. Shadow. Along the way, they learn the value of persistence, teamwork, and fair play.

Click the image to go to the Amazon book page.

 

Characterization

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Characterization – noun – a description of the distinctive nature or features of someone or something.

* * *

I’m reading The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. I don’t read a lot of biographies, and although I’ve only finished a few chapters so far in this one, I so enjoyed the setup to Roosevelt’s character in the prologue that I thought it would be a good topic for TKZ.

The prologue is set on January 1, 1907 when thousands of people are waiting patiently in line to enter the White House to shake the president’s hand and wish him a Happy New Year.

Through the description of that New Year’s Day, Morris alternates between the story of the crowd inching its way toward the White House doors, and descriptions of Roosevelt’s behavior, personality, and impact on others.

Take this example:

“Roosevelt may be the fastest handshaker in history (he averages fifty grips a minute), but he is also the most conscientious, insisting that all citizens who are sober, washed, and free of bodily advertising be permitted to wish the President of the United States a Happy New Year.”

The author gives us a good look at the crowd, the weather, and the overall state of the nation’s wealth. He enjoys using quotes from Roosevelt’s friends and others to help us define the man, as in this quote from Joseph G. Cannon, the Speaker of the House.

“Roosevelt’s all right,” says Cannon, “but he’s got no more use for the Constitution than a tomcat has for a marriage license.”

Others were quoted as calling him a “faker and a humbug.” No less a personage than Woodrow Wilson said, “He is the most dangerous man of the age,” and Mark Twain declared Roosevelt to be “insane.”

On the other hand, one veteran politician noted that Roosevelt had “unquestionably the greatest gift of personal magnetism ever possessed by an American.”

Such diverse statements interwoven with evidence of Roosevelt’s popularity and his delight in the job of the presidency give us a three-dimensional person who is so much more than the textbook president who created national parks, succeeded in getting the Panama Canal built, and had the Teddy Bear named after him.

As the crowd snakes its way into the room where Roosevelt is greeting them, Morris describes the president’s physical impact on the visitors. He quotes English statesman John Morley as saying, “Do you know the two most wonderful things I have seen in your country? Niagara Falls and the President of the United States.”

Although Roosevelt is often remembered for his pugnacity, it was his diplomacy in brokering a peace between Russia and Japan that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. He was the first American to win a Nobel Prize.

And Theodore Roosevelt endeared himself to me by this statement: “Reading with me is a disease.” He managed to read at least one book a day. His interests varied widely, and he was himself an author.

After pages of defining the man by his behavior and the opinions of others, Morris finally gets down to specifics about Roosevelt’s appearance.

“Were it not for his high brow, and the distracting brilliance of his smile, Roosevelt would unquestionably be an ugly man.”

Morris then dedicates several long paragraphs to that dazzling grin that was so famous “that envelopes ornamented only with teeth and spectacles are routinely delivered to the White House.”

And he doesn’t stop there. Speaking of Roosevelt’s “white and even” teeth

“… they chop every word into neat syllables, sending them forth perfectly formed but separate, in a jerky staccatissimo that has no relation to the normal rhythms of speech… His very voice seems to rasp out of the tips of his teeth.”

A colleague of Roosevelt’s described its effect. “I always think of a man biting tenpenny nails when I think of Roosevelt making a speech.”

The nuance continues through the long prologue giving us a 360-degree view of the optimism, energy, love of power, and determination of our twenty-sixth president as he drives through life full speed ahead.

Only at the start of Chapter One does Morris back up and begin to tell the history of the man.

* * *

Theodore Roosevelt was a larger-than-life historical figure, so describing the many dimensions of his personality may not be surprising. But reading Morris’s work has made me put some thought into descriptions of characters in my own writing. Direct and indirect characterization can be powerful tools to round out characters and give the reader an entertaining story.

* * *

So TKZers: How do you describe your main characters? Physical description, speech, behavior, opinions of others? How much time and nuance to you put into your characters?

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Note: Once again, I’ll be traveling between old and new homes as we try to finalize this (very long) move. I’ll respond to comments as soon as I can.

 

Another Side of Sunshine

“The story excels at honoring the emotional realities of childhood without veering into sentimentality. It’s a smart, well-constructed mystery that values relationships over rivalry, process over prizes, and growth over glory. Fans of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The Westing Game will find familiar pleasures here, wrapped in fresh clues and grounded by a heroine who learns to trust her instincts—and the people around her.” —Prairie Book Reviews

Click the image to go to the Amazon book page.

Multi-tasking

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The secret to multitasking is that it isn’t actually multitasking. It’s just extreme focus and organization. —Joss Whedon

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The term “multi-tasking,” sometimes called “multi-processing,” has become part of the lexicon of modern writers. Multi-tasking implies doing two or more things at one time.  Although it’s not possible to have the brain consciously working on two different problems at the same time, many of us say we’re multi-tasking when we think about the plot of our next book while doing brain-free activities like household chores, etc.

In the world of computers, the term “multi-processing” means there are two or more processors, now called ‘cores,’ working inside the computer. Neither of them is doing more than one job at a time. However, since there are multiple cores, they can accomplish multiple tasks in parallel.

The term “multi-programming,” however, describes a single processor that works on one thing at a time, but may swap tasks to be more efficient. For example, if one process has issued a print command, the processor may initiate the print, then return to the original process to continue or even start another process. It may appear that it’s doing multiple jobs at the same time, but it really isn’t.

So multi-tasking for writers where concentration is involved is more like multi-programming. We each have one brain and can only process one thing at a time, but we can swap tasks in and out to maximize our efficiency.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I’m in the midst of a multi-tasking hurricane. My husband and I are moving to another home, and even though we thought we had pared down all the stuff we own, we seem to have acquired more! I’m sitting in the middle of dozens of boxes, mostly books, with more to be packed. And then there are all the other things that need to be taken care of when moving from one place to another.

In addition to all that, my first middle grade novel, Another Side of Sunshine, launched a couple of weeks ago and requires some attention in the marketplace. The next book in the series is in the final stages of editing, and I’ll need to spend some time reviewing the entire manuscript and running text-to-speech on it. Then there’s the second book in the Lady Pilot-in-Command series which is partially written but needs significant hours of work. Email requires attention, and there’s always a need to post on social media, run a promotion, communicate with other authors, and of course, write a bi-weekly TKZ post.

In order to accomplish all these tasks and retain a modicum of sanity, I need to multi-program – swap from one task to another in the most efficient way possible. I’m finding that spending 30 minutes to an hour on one thing, then switching to another works pretty well. Refocusing turns my attention to the matter at hand and gives the boys in the basement a chance to continue working on all the other tasks.

I’ll be at the new home today and not sure how much connectivity I’ll have there, but I’ll check in when I can.

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So TKZers: Even without moving from one home to another, there are dozens of writing-related tasks that we have to keep up with. How do you manage them all? Do you divide your day up into time slices? Any secrets you want to share with the rest of us?  

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Cryptic clues, the elusive Mr. Shadow, and the promise of a hidden treasure combine to give the Reen & Joanie Detective Agency their first challenge. But they can’t multi-task. They have to solve the clues in a sequence, and they only have three days to find the treasure before time runs out. Can they do it?

Click the image to go to the Amazon detail page.

Name That Book

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Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; Each to his passion; what’s in a name? —Helen Hunt Jackson

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I’ve been thinking a lot about book titles lately since my latest book was renamed by the publisher just prior to its release. More on that later.

Coming up with a title for your book may be one of the most important decisions you make. But how do you decide what’s the perfect name?

Blurb.com had a list of criteria that I grabbed from their website and added some of my own comments. A good title would be:

  • Concise (3-5 words) – Short titles stand out to readers. Long ones are harder to remember. On the other hand, consider The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society or The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. They didn’t do too badly.
  • Intriguing – a title that will stand out and make readers want to buy your book. A few that I like are The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Remains of the Day, and The Art of Racing in the Rain.

The site also mentioned a good title would be:

  • Original
  • Informative
  • Easy to say
  • Attention-grabbing
  • Memorable

I considered some of the books I have loved and what their titles were:

  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  • West With the Night by Beryl Markham
  • The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

All of these meet the requirement of being concise. With the exception of Huckleberry Finn, they are intriguing and original. They are also informative and easy to say. I’m not so sure about attention-grabbing. I guess that depends on the reader. Finally, I suppose a title is memorable only if the book is one you remember.

A couple of other attributes I’ve noticed in the book naming field:

  • Trendy – Remember how many books were published with the word “Girl” in the title?
  • Play on words – Popular with cozy mysteries.

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Reading about the art and science of naming a book got me thinking about how I had come up with the titles of my five published novels. In the order published, they are:

The Watch on the Fencepost – That was the working title, but I wanted a catchy, clever name for the book. One day when I was about halfway through the writing process, my husband and I took a walk to talk about the title. I tried out a few possibilities (A Watch in Time, Death Watch, etc.), but nothing clicked with us. Finally, Frank said, “Why don’t you just leave it the way it is. It’s unique and intriguing.” So that’s what I did. And there’s a catch at the end of the book that emphasizes the title.

Dead Man’s Watch – The title refers to a watch that was taken off a dead man’s wrist. Finding the watch turned out to be an interesting problem that led to a surprising conclusion. I also liked the trendy “Dead Man” part of the title.

Time After Tyme – After the university librarian Mr. Tyme was found dead, a couple of teams of amateur sleuths spend their time looking for a culprit. This title was inspired by the use of word play in cozy mystery titles.

Lacey’s Star – I thought this title might be too prosaic. I considered All but the Brightest Stars, but opted for the simpler title because it refers to the final clue that leads to a murderer. I like to think that readers will finish one of my books and realize the relevance of the title to the story

That brings me to the fifth book, Another Side of Sunshine.

The working title was The Other Side of Sunshine, which is also the first line of the first clue in the story. Much of the book is a reflection on shadows (pun intended), so the title seemed perfect to me. However, the publisher didn’t want the title to begin with the word “The,” so she suggested Another Side of Sunshine. In the long run, I think it’s just as good, maybe better.

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Speaking of changing titles, The Huffington Post had an article on classic books where the original title was changed. Here are a few:

  • Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises was originally titled Fiesta.
  • Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage was originally titled Beauty from Ashes.
  • Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind was going to be Tomorrow Is Another Day, Not In Our Stars, Tote the Weary Load, or Bugles Sang True.
  • Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird was originally titled simply Atticus.
  • Carson McCullers’s The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter was originally titled The Mute.
  • John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men was originally titled Something That Happened.
  • Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was originally titled First Impressions.
  • William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was originally titled Strangers From Within.

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So TKZers: How did you determine names for your books? Do you have a favorite title of your books? Would you rename any of them if you could? What are some of your favorite titles from other authors? What do you think about the name changes in the list of classics? 

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ANOTHER SIDE OF SUNSHINE
A Middle Grade Mystery Novel

The Reen & Joanie Detective Agency is open for business, and the first assignment is to find a treasure hidden by the mysterious “Mr. Shadow.” 

“Fans of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and The Westing Game will find familiar pleasures here, wrapped in fresh clues and grounded by a heroine who learns to trust her instincts—and the people around her.” —Prairie Book Reviews

Click the image to go to the Amazon book page.