Category Archives: #amwriting

ARGGH! Words We Love to Hate

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By Elaine Viets

You know, some words and phrases are getting on my nerves. Most people would say it is what it is and at the end of the day, let it go. I know, right? But I’ve been doing some online research. There are certain sayings that tick people off. And readers are people, too. You don’t want to turn off your readers with annoying phrases. Just sayin’.
These outstandingly irritating phrases are garnered from various corners of the web.
Think carefully before you use them in your writing. You may want to save them for your most hateful characters.

Just sayin’. The winner! Nearly everyone hates this redundant phrase. I mean, you’ve already said what you were going to say, right?

Literally. I confess I’ve used this one and thought it was pretty clever – the first time. Then I noticed that word in every novel I picked up – literally.

It is what it is. This meaningless phrase is enough to send me screaming into the night. Please don’t use it.

At this moment in time. What’s wrong with “now”? Can this pretentious phrase.

Everything happens for a reason. Usually said after some meaningless tragedy, and meant as consolation. If you don’t have that comforting belief system, this phrase triggers an urge to slap that person silly. Also avoid this phrase: Whenever God closes a door, he opens a window. I had a roommate like that. Very annoying.

Honestly. Often a trigger word indicating the person using it is lying. Use it carefully.

My bad. A cutesy way of glossing over a mistake. This phrase says, “I know I did something offensive and I don’t care.”

I want 110 percent. Right, boss. Except your math doesn’t add up.

No worries. Some people find this phrase a little passive-aggressive. In other words, when someone says, “No worries,” they’re really telling you that you should be worried.

At the end of day. As in, “At the end of the day, getting a new CEO won’t make any difference. This company is doomed.” This crutch will cripple any sentence.

With all due respect. The warm-up to an insult. “With all due respect, even in your prime you weren’t that good.”

That’s my list, and it’s pretty good, in IMHO (oops, there’s another one.) Now’s your chance. What tired words and phrases would you like to see retired?

Now hear this! SEX AND DEATH ON THE BEACH, my new Florida Beach mystery, is now an audio book. https://tinyurl.com/9amkzaf4

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?

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Uncovering the Villain in the Cozy Mystery – Guest Post by Leslie Budewitz

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Today’s guest post is by my good pal, three-time Agatha award winner Leslie Budewitz. Recently I attended a talk by Leslie and a local lavender farmer that tied into the release of her new book, Lavender Lies Bleeding. From beta-reading the book, I’d already learned fascinating facts about that business. But being in a meeting room filled with lavender samples was truly intoxicating. Check out Leslie’s book for a fragrant reading delight.

Take it away, Leslie!

~~~

The heart of the cozy mystery is the community. When a murder occurs, an amateur sleuth investigates because crime disrupts the social order. She embodies the world view that people are basically good, and one person can make a difference.

(Some cozy sleuths are male, but most are female, including my own, so I’ll use she and her.)

(And remember, these kinds of stories are called cozies because they involve closely connected people. There may be humor, ghosts, or recipes, but the crime and its impact are serious—and so is our sleuth.)

So how do cozy writers deal with villains? (Spoilers ahead. Oh, well.)

What’s the crime? In the cozy, the murder is personal. (A few cozies involve other major crimes or the threat of murder without an actual body.) There’s no random violence, no serial killers, no ticking bombs that could change the face of the planet. In other words, the crime is personal to the community—whether it’s the small town of Jewel Bay, Montana in my Food Lovers’ Village mysteries or a community-within-the-community, such as Pike Place Market and the Seattle food and restaurant community in my Spice Shop mysteries—so the connections between the story people are critical.

Who is our sleuth and what tools does she have? The cozy sleuth is an amateur, in the very best sense of the word—driven by determination to right a wrong. She may be new to town (Kathleen, the new librarian, in Sofie Kelly’s Magical Cats mysteries, or Blanche White, on a working vacation taking care of a wealthy family’s children in Blanche Among the Talented Tenth by Barbara Neely, a local girl come home (Erin Murphy in my Village series), or a long-time resident in a new situation (Pepper in my Spice Shop mysteries), but she is deeply committed to the community.

It’s that commitment, her personal stakes, that lead her to investigate. Mere curiosity is not enough.

Without access to search warrants, forensics, and other investigative tools, our sleuth does her work the old-fashioned way, using her personal skills and her knowledge of the community. She can ask questions the police can’t, make connections they don’t see. She may be able to see things others don’t because she herself is not seen, like Blanche. Often, she has specialized knowledge, such as the properties of particular spices, the origin of coffee beans, or the emotional value of a particular first edition, that aids her. Above all, she relies on her knowledge of human nature, of what drives people to extremes.

Who’s our victim? Look to the victim, Poirot said, and as usual, he was right. Identifying the victim’s secrets and relationships may point to one suspect or absolve another.

Who are our suspects? Again, look to the victim. The circumstances of the crime may narrow the search quickly, but it’s also important to look at the victim’s wider circle—her family, friends, neighbors, co-workers. The cozy typically involves 3-5 suspects—and our sleuth may be one of them, especially in the series opener. Each has to have had motive, means, and opportunity.

Who, our sleuth asks, would have wanted this person dead? Why? Could they have done it, given the likely weapon, the time and location, and other circumstances? What else is going on that reveals clues or motives? What are the suspects doing? How does our killer tip his hand, or put our sleuth in danger?

Consider Murder on the Orient Express: No, it’s not truly a cozy, but it’s a great example. Clearly, the killer was on the train, either in the snow-stranded car or with access to it. As Poirot asks questions, he is investigating the victim as much as his fellow passengers. He begins to get a sense of the man and what he did that made him a target. Poirot asks who had opportunity—who was in the adjacent cars, who was in the hallway when the victim was killed, who had access to his room, who had an alibi. All the while, he is learning more about the other passengers. As their interconnections emerge, he develops his theory of what happened.

What drives our killer? Given what I’ve said about the community and personal connections, you won’t be surprised that the motives are also personal. The killer may feel forced to act to prevent the victim from uncovering evidence of the killer’s past crimes, as in Murder at the PTA by Laura Alden, where the uncovering is literal. The killer may strike out to remove an obstacle to his goals, such as when an employee discovers her boss’s nefarious plan and threatens to speak out, in Crime Rib, my 2nd Food Lovers’ Village mystery. Or the killer might believe the victim is about to harm someone else, as in Sofie Kelly’s Curiosity Thrilled the Cat.

Other motives may be revenge, anger, jealousy, greed, a sense of betrayal, or an equally strong emotion. Self-defense and self-preservation can play a part. The killing may be planned or spur-of-the-moment—which may point to one suspect over another.

How does our sleuth identify the killer? Identifying the killer in any mystery is a mix of teasing out the motive, means, and opportunity. For the cozy sleuth, this means asking questions. Poking her nose where it may not belong, because she’s on a mission. Putting her safety—and sometimes that of people she loves—in danger. Irritating the police, now and then. By using the tools of her own experience. Erin Murphy, in my Food Lovers’ Village mysteries, left a job as a grocery buyer for a major discount chain to take over her family’s local foods market. Spreadsheets are second nature to her, and her Spreadsheet of Suspicion helps her keep track of what she knows and doesn’t know.

If the victim and any suspects are not local, what ties and conflicts could have led to their death? That’s key in Kelly’s Curiosity Thrilled the Cat, where the victim is in town for a festival—but it’s clear he’s been here before. In Barbara Ross’s Torn Asunder, the victim and some of the suspects are in town for a wedding at our sleuth’s business; other suspects are locals or newcomers. Our sleuth discovers that no one liked the victim—essentially a man who needed killing—before uncovering the real reason a new employee is in town, leading her to the killer.

The sleuth’s and killer’s circles may intersect or not, depending on the crime, but will be close. In Blanche Cleans Up by Barbara Neely, our sleuth is the cook in a powerful family’s home; she knows the family and who comes in and out of the house. In Ross’s Shucked Apart, Julia first meets her boyfriend’s poker buddy after a theft at her oyster farm; when the friend dies and Julia investigates, she meets people she hadn’t known—and also discovers unexpected ties to people she already knew that help her identify the killer.

It’s not uncommon to have a second, or occasionally a third, murder. That, of course, may shake up the suspect list, eliminating one suspect by making her a victim and another who was in jail or the hospital, and adding one who—well, you decide what he was up to. Those murders may happen on the page, or in the past. In The Shadow of Memory by Connie Berry, our sleuth discovers that old friends of our victim have died under mysterious circumstances. What was the killer after, and how did killing them help him get what he wanted?

It’s also possible to have multiple killers, whose goals may be separate or intersect. In Crime Rib, a visitor kills another visitor while a local kills another local. Both share a motivation: to eliminate someone who stands in his way. To solve the first killing, Erin has to figure out what the victim knew; to solve the second, she has to ask not just who killed this most likeable man, but who thought they would benefit from his death.

In The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood, three killers hope to avoid detection through the usual means—exploring who might have wanted the victim dead—by trading victims and killing on another’s behalf. Only when our trio of sleuths questions alibi evidence do they tumble to the truth.

Cozies may be “clean” in their avoidance of rough language and graphic violence, but there’s plenty of dirt going on. Suspects may be guilty of other crimes and misdeeds, even if only one is the killer. In To Err is Cumin, my 8th Spice Shop mystery, Pepper discovers that our victim, a disgraced chef she’d once tangled with, had uncovered a criminal scheme implicating several men involved in leasing space and equipment to restaurants. Any of them might have made a good killer. It takes Pepper some doing—and puts her at some risk—to discover who wanted the lid kept on badly enough to push our chef into the Ship Canal and leave him there.

And in Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th in the series, a woman and her brother-in-law have different reasons for targeting our victim and her business, a lavender farm. When the man screws up, the stakes rise and his sister-in-law steps in, the resulting murder fueled by anger, greed, and bitterness. Different motives, different crimes, making for a twisty plot that’s fun to unravel.

Some modern cozies follow a less typical structure, making for more variety in the villain’s motives and the sleuth’s approach. In Misha Popp’s Pies Before Guys series, our sleuth is a baker who goes after men who harm women. But before taking action, she has to investigate their crimes. Is our sleuth an angel of justice—or a potential serial killer?

In The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell, set at a cooking competition at a Vermont country estate, each competitor has a secret or a reason to strike back. When a judge dies, those secrets and motives begin to surface, even without an amateur sleuth on the case. Ultimately, readers know who killed the judge and why, a killing utterly justified. The police blame the wrong woman, but we know what she did, and the punishment does fit the crime.

Ultimately, the cozy sleuth and killer will tangle—with words, actions, or both. The truth will out, and justice will prevail. Dinner might be late, even in a foodie cozy, but the taste will be oh, so satisfying.

~~~

Leslie Budewitz

Leslie Budewitz tells stories about women’s lives, seasoned with friendship, food, a dash of history, and a heaping spoonful of mystery. She writes the Spice Shop mysteries set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, as well as the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries and historical short fiction set in her native Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody suspense. A three-time Agatha Award winner and past president of Sisters in Crime, Leslie lives in NW Montana with her husband, Don Beans, a musician and doctor of natural medicine.

 

 

Check out Leslie’s brand new release Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop mystery.

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.

The Backwards Law for Writers

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I stumbled across the subject of The Backwards Law by accident—a happy accident that led me to The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Excellent book that I devoured in two sittings.

The Backwards Law proposes the more we pursue something, the less satisfied we become. For writers, the constant pursuit of “more” causes us to feel horrible about where we are and what we’ve achieved. The harder we try, the less likely we are to succeed.

On the surface, it seems like the opposite of perseverance, doesn’t it? But it’s not. The Backwards Law goes much deeper than that.

Think of it this way:

  • Trying too hard to be creative or write something brilliant often leads to writer’s block, self-doubt, and a feeling of being disconnected from the work.
  • Only focusing on the end result—recognition, success, publication—causes unnecessary anxiety and pressure.
  • The fear of making mistakes or writing poorly will paralyze a writer and often will lead to abandoning the WIP.

“Wanting a positive experience is a negative experience; accepting a negative experience is a positive experience.” Mark Manson – The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.

Alan Watts, the philosopher who coined the phrase, describes The Backwards Law as being in a lake. If you relax and put your head back, you’ll float. But the more you struggle and flail to try to stay afloat, the more you will sink.

Often our search for “more” has the opposite effect. It shines a spotlight on what we lack.

Life Examples

  • The more we cling to a loved one, the more they will feel suffocated and in need of space.
  • The more we obsess about accumulating money, the more poor and unworthy we will feel.
  • The more we pursue trying to feel happier all the time, the more we will reinforce this idea that we are fundamentally lacking and irreparable.

Do you even know what you want?

Sure, selling millions of copies of your book sounds great, but is that why you wrote it? Or maybe, you can’t define what you’re chasing. You just want more.

“Two reasons that you don’t really know what you want. Number one: you have it. Number two: you don’t know yourself, because you never can. The Godhead is never an object of its own knowledge, just as a knife doesn’t cut itself, fire doesn’t burn itself, light doesn’t illuminate itself.” ~ Alan Watts

In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson tells the story of a talented young guitarist who was kicked out of his band in 1983, after they had just been signed by a record label. No warning. No reason given. No discussion. They woke him up and handed him a bus ticket.

After much self-pity on the ride home to LA, the guitarist vowed to start a new group that would be so successful, his old band would seethe with jealously. And so, with only that thought in mind, he worked tirelessly to find the best musicians. He wrote dozens of songs. Practiced day and night. Revenge became his muse.

Within two years, a record label signed his new band. One year later, their first record went gold. The guitarist’s name? Dave Mustaine, lead guitarist in the heavy metal band Megadeath, which went on to sell over 25 million albums and tour the world many times. Mustaine is considered one of the most influential musicians in the history of heavy metal music.

Sounds like the story has a happy ending, right?

Not quite.

The band who kicked him out was Metallica, which has sold over 180 million albums worldwide and is considered by many to be one of the greatest rock bands of all time.

Because of Metallica’s fame, Mustaine considered himself a failure. Despite all he’d accomplished, in his mind, he would always be the guy who got kicked out of Metallica and nothing more. Whether he realized it or not, Mustaine used Metallica’s success and popularity as his life-defining measuring stick. Even after all of Megadeath’s success, he could never be happy, because he based his self-worth and music career on something he had no control over.

This story perfectly illustrates The Backwards Law in action.

Accept imperfection and you’ll feel perfect. Accept loneliness and you’ll feel content alone. Accepting a negative experience is a positive experience. But fighting a negative experience means you’ll suffer twice.

  • When we stop trying to be happy, we’ll be happy because there’s nothing we need beyond what is.
  • When we stop trying to be rich or massively successful, we’ll live in abundance because we’re content with what we have and anything on top of that is a bonus.

Thus, the only way to have what we want is not to want it. And that’s what The Backwards Law teaches us.

Being aware of the workings of The Backwards Law doesn’t mean that we should never set goals, never have ambitions, or never chase our dreams. Rather, The Backwards Law teaches us not to be fooled by the idea that the pursuit of happiness (whatever that looks like to you) leads to happiness. When in fact, the opposite is true. And with that knowledge, we’re able to enter the blissful state of enjoying the journey.

“The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” ~ Alan Watts

How do we get what we want without trying?

Depends on what we want. If we strive to write the best damn book we can, the following tips should help.

Mindful Writing: Practice mindfulness while writing. It’ll help you become more aware of your thoughts and feelings without judgment, allowing you to be more present in the moment.

Step Away: It’s okay to step away from the WIP to clear your head. Go for a walk. Take a shower. Read a book. Exercise. I do this all the time when I’m working out a plot issue. Nine times out of ten, the answer reveals itself as soon as I stop thinking about it.

Accept Imperfection: Give yourself permission to make mistakes in early drafts. It’ll allow you to experiment and explore different ideas without fear.

Stay Present: Enjoy the journey of bringing your idea to life. Have fun with your characters. Revel in that perfect sentence or paragraph you wrote yesterday, then continue on.

The Backwards Law for writers is about shifting from a place of striving and pressure to a place of flow and acceptance. 

By letting go of the need to control the outcome and embrace the process, we’ll unlock creativity and produce more authentic and fulfilling work.

Have you heard of The Backwards Law? It’s as true for writing as it is for life.

How to Avoid Apostrophe Abuse

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by Debbie Burke

Apostrophes. That tiny punctuation mark seems to trip up more people than any other.

Here are a few examples of apostrophes that are misused:

 

So what are the correct uses of the apostrophe?

  1. In contractions: an apostrophe indicates a missing letter or letters.

Jean’s going to the store. = Jean is going to the store.

  1. To indicate possession: At the store, a shopping cart door-dinged Jean’s car.

When not to use an apostrophe:

  1. To indicate plurals. Shopping carts, not shopping cart’s.
  2. To indicate decades. The 1990s, not the 1990′s.

Decades can be written in various ways.

Example: Rock and roll gained popularity in the 1950s.

However, if the decade is possessive, it needs an apostrophe.

Example: The 1950’s song “That’ll Be the Day” hit number 1 on Billboard Magazine.

If you use a contraction to abbreviate a decade, that requires an apostrophe for the missing part of the year.

Example: In the ’20s, bobbed hair was the cat’s meow.

The dreaded question of ITS vs IT’S raises the most confusion.

That’s because ‘s usually indicates possession.

Examples: Gary’s book; the USA’s foreign policy.   

Its is the annoying exception.

It’s is a contraction for “it is” or “it was.”

In the immortal words of Mr. Rogers: “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” 

Its is the possessive form.

Example: AI doesn’t understand its own capability.

Plurals add another layer of confusion.

How often have you received a holiday card from “The Smith’s”?

“The Smith’s” is possessive.

It should be “The Smiths” plural to indicate the card came from multiple members of the Smith family.

Want to get even more confused? Names and nouns that end with an “S” are treated differently.

The plural of Jones is “Joneses.”

The plural of cross is “crosses.” Example: Many Civil War graves were marked with crosses.

The possessive of Jones can either be “the Jones’ house” or the Jones’s house” depending on the style guide used.

The possessive of crosses is generally crosses’. Example: The crosses’ wood had weathered and split.

Then there are plural initialisms. (I had to look that one up.)

They are initials that are used as nouns.

Examples: DMV, BMW, FAQ

The plurals are DMVs, BMWs, FAQs.

The possessive form needs an apostrophe.

Example: The DMV’s reputation for long wait times is well known.

However, if the initial is a single one, the plural needs an apostrophe.

Example: Sarah’s report card was all B’s.

The plural of the noun “I” can be shown with an apostrophe to keep it from being misread as “Is”.

Example: Too many I’s used in that paragraph is repetitive.

Yourdictionary.com offers a clear, concise explanation of how to avoid apostrophe abuse.

Pop Quiz

  1. When the tree starts to drop (its) (it’s) leaves, (it’s) (its) a sure sign of early fall.
  2. The (Gateses) (Gates’) (Gate’s) need to increase their income to keep up with the (Bezos’s) (Bezos’) (Bezoses).
  3. On (Saturday’s) (Saturdays) we always visit the (farmer’s) (farmers) market to check out the many different (vendor’s) (vendors’) fresh (veggie’s) (veggies).
  4. What’s your (Achille’s) (Achilles’) (Achilles’s) heel when it comes to grammar?
  5. (Phyllis’s) (Phyllis’) intention was to attend the (writer’s) (writers’) (writers) conference.

Answers:

  1. When the tree starts to drop its leaves, it’s a sure sign of fall.
  2. The Gateses need to increase their income to keep up with the Bezoses. Yeah, it sounds wonky to the ear but it’s correct.
  3. Saturdays is correct. Farmer’s is correct but could also be farmers’ market. Vendors’ is correct. Veggies is correct.
  4. Achilles’ and Achilles’s are both right. However, Achilles’ is less of a tongue twister and sounds better to the ear.
  5. Okay, this is a multiple-part trick question.

Phyllis’s or Phyllis’ are both right depending on the style sheet you’re using. Just be consistent—choose one form or the other and stick with it throughout the story, article, etc.

Writers’ conference is preferred because it’s possessive meaning multiple writers attend it. However, writer’s conference is also an adjective describing the type of conference. The Word grammar checker puts a squiggly blue line under writers conference, indicating questionable use. However, writers conference is common, making it accepted although not strictly correct.

 

I feel for non-native speakers trying to learn the inconsistent, convoluted, mystifying English language.

If we writers ever master all the nuances of grammar,“That’ll Be the Day” to celebrate!

~~~

TKZers: What’s your Achilles’ heel in grammar? Do you have any reminder tricks to suggest?

~~~

Counting down to launch day for The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate.

James Scott Bell says: “Debbie Burke has filled a critical gap in writing craft instruction.”

Christopher Vogler says: “You will certainly find insight and inspiration to make your villains leap off the page and haunt your readers’ dreams.”

Preorder now and the ebook will be delivered to your device on July 13.

Amazon link

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.

 

Silence the Inner Critic

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“You can be a successful writer, but first you must learn to silence your inner critic.”  ~Rob Bignell

The things we tell ourselves we become. It’s not easy to silence the inner critic, but it’s a crucial step in every writer’s life.

Fear and excitement are two sides of the same neurological coin.

Both emotions activate the sympathetic nervous system, triggering a biological response that includes:

  • Increased heart rate
  • Elevated blood pressure
  • Heightened sensory awareness
  • Release of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline

The brain’s limbic system, particularly the amygdala, plays a vital role in processing both fear and excitement. Here’s the intriguing part: the amygdala doesn’t distinguish between positive and negative arousal; it merely detects intensity.

We’ve discussed biological and physiological responses to fear before.

  • Increased breathing.
  • Increased heart rate.
  • Peripheral blood vessels in the skin constrict while central blood vessels around vital organs dilate and flood with oxygen and nutrients.
  • Blood pumps the muscles so they’re ready to react.
  • Muscles at the base of each hair tighten, causing piloerection aka goosebumps.
  • Eyebrows raise and pinch together.
  • Upper eyelid raises while the lower tenses.
  • Jaw may slack and part stretched lips.
  • Voice pitch rises, tone strains.
  • Posture either mobilizes or immobilizes or fluctuates between both.
  • Breath shallows.
  • Muscles tighten, especially in the limbs.
  • Increased sweating.

Excitement: Physiological Changes

  • Adrenaline Release: The adrenal glands release adrenaline, causing an increase in heart rate and blood pressure.
  • Increased Respiratory Rate: Breathing becomes faster and shallower to deliver more oxygen to the muscles and brain.
  • Heightened Senses: Pupils dilate, improving vision, and senses become more acute.
  • Muscle Tension: Muscles tense up in preparation for potential action.
  • Blood Flow Redistribution: Blood is directed away from non-essential functions like digestion and towards muscles, preparing for physical activity.
  • Hormonal Changes: Dopamine, associated with pleasure and reward, and cortisol, a stress hormone, may also be involved in the experience of excitement.

While the initial neurological response to fear and excitement may be similar, how we interpret the situation determines the way we experience the emotion. Meaning, we possess the ability to turn fear—the root of self-sabotage—into excitement by changing negative thought patterns.

Flip the script in your head by developing a growth mindset, rather than fixed.

A growth mindset—or in our case, a writing mindset—is rooted in positivity. A fixed mindset is nothing but trouble, steeped in negativity.

  • Where the negative writer sees a problem, the positive writer seizes the opportunity to grow and learn.
  • When the negative writer doesn’t understand something and quits, the positive writer will research, learn, and persevere.
  • Where the negative writer equates criticism to a personal attack, the positive writer accepts the feedback, then takes the time to evaluate and reassess.

*Neither should listen to trolls, scammers, or vitriol*

  • Where the negative writer gets jealous at another’s success, the positive writer swells with hopefulness—if they achieved it, so can you—and admiration.
  • Where the negative writer finds certain tasks like editing tedious and bothersome, the positive writer knows hard work is a worthwhile endeavor.

Writing is a vulnerable act. Alas, we may never escape the inner voice that haunts every writer who ever lived. In fact, it can be helpful at times.

Benefits of the Inner Critic

  • Motivates us to act
  • Keeps us honest and humble
  • Pushes us to succeed. If, and only if, we don’t let it cripple our creativity.

What we do is important.

What we write can touch lives, improve someone’s mood, cure loneliness for a while, or have a positive impact on how they view the world around them.

What we write matters.

Don’t allow the inner critic to rob readers of your voice.

I don’t claim silencing the inner critic is an easy task. Self-sabotage can be merciless.

The next time that tiny voice spits vitriol your way, take a breath and consider why it’s happening.

Are you stressed over a deadline?

Is the story not gelling like you hoped?

Do you need a break from the keyboard?

Even if you can’t uncover why the inner critic came out to play, you can outsmart him by turning fear into excitement. Your brain is already primed and ready!

What are some ways you silence the inner critic?

Character Building

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By Elaine Viets

When I started writing Sex and Death on the Beach, the first mystery in my new Florida Beach series, I wrestled with a problem I hadn’t had for some time: Creating characters.

All my mysteries have new characters, but when I’m introducing a new series, I have to create characters I can use throughout the series. This took at least five rewrites.

My main character is Norah McCarthy, who inherited a 1920s apartment house in mythical Peerless Point, Florida. Norah was orphaned at age four and brought up by her grandmother, a retired Florodora Girl.

The residents of Norah’s building belong to an exclusive group. They must be Florida Men and Women, but the benign variety. The exploits of Florida Man often include alligators and alcohol. You’ve seen the headlines: “Florida Man Busted with Meth, Guns and Baby Gator in Truck.” The residents are her adopted family, and they will appear in future mysteries.

Bare bones characters

Some characters will probably only appear once in Sex and Death on the Beach. Like Elwin Sanford.

Elwin is “a rotund man in a hardhat, neon safety vest and gray cover­alls. He had a wispy mouse-colored mustache and weedy patches of hair clinging to his sweaty scalp. In fact, with his round body, gray coveralls and twitchy nose, he looked like a cartoon mouse.”

Elwin’s appearance is a clue to his character. A city inspector, he is a crook and looks like one.

Important supporting characters

Norah McCarthy has two live-in staff members at the Florodora apartments. One is the handyman-gardener Rafael, a native of Colombia. In the first rewrite, Rafael is “a dark, stocky man who knows inventive ways to repair ancient machinery, handles maintenance and takes care of the grounds. He keeps the building one step ahead of the city inspectors, who are determined to shut us down. Rafael has a bachelor apartment above the garage.”

Rafael ducks difficult questions by looking confused and saying, “No spik Engleesh.”

At that point, was Rafael a real character?

Not  yet. All I have are the bare bones. Rafael is simply someone who has a few quirky mannerisms.

For the third rewrite, I sat down and wrote a bio of every major supporting character. In that version, my main character Norah chided Rafael when he used his “No spik Engleesh” routine with a cop. Norah tells him:

“Eventually you’re going to get caught, Rafael. You speak excellent English. You were a judge in Colombia.”

Norah instantly regrets her thoughtless remark: “As soon as the words passed my lips I wished I could take them back.

“The sudden sadness in Rafael’s eyes was a terrible rebuke. Rafael fled Medellin in 1986, after Pablo Escobar killed Rafael’s wife and baby son. Grandma hired him, and he’d worked at the Florodora ever since. His ambition died with his family.

“Late at night, I’d often see Rafael sitting on the flat roof of his garage apartment staring at the ocean, as if he could see all the way to his troubled country.

“Rafael never discussed his family’s murders. He hid his heart­break with superficial jokes and his ‘no-spik-Engleesh’ routine.”

I also wrote this bio of Rafael’s red truck: “The old truck rattled and lurched. A loose spring in the seatback poked passengers every time Rafael hit the brakes.

“The air conditioning worked when it felt like it. Whenever the air-con quit, Rafael would give the dashboard a hearty whap and cool air would pour out again.”

The Florodora has five permanent residents.

I’m partial to Billie the banana bandit. Billie held up a convenience store with a banana and stole three overdone dogs from its hot dog roller grill. Billie worries his crime will somehow come to light, even though there was no police report and he ate the evidence.

At first, that’s about all I said about Billie, except he was a movie buff who perpetually held his own personal filmfest.

Billie needed more depth, so I had him write retrospectives about movies. His first book was a New York Times bestseller.

Billie had “turned his obsession into a successful writing career.”

He was currently researching his new film book, Seeing in the Dark. This week it was the Rocky movies, and Billie was looking for the thirty-five goofs and plot holes that were supposedly in the Sly Stallone boxing movies. That’s how he prepared for his work, by looking for the mistakes in the movies.

Billie comes downstairs “wearing baggy jeans and a red Bruce Willis T-shirt that read, “I survived the Nakatomi Plaza Christmas party 1988.”

Nakatomi Plaza. The setting for Die Hard.

Norah tell him, “Let me guess. You’re also doing a Die Hard retrospective for your new book.”

“Yep,” Billie said. “Did you see the first Die Hard movie?’

“It’s been a while, but I liked it.”

“Me, too,” Billie said. “But there are supposed to be more than a hundred mistakes in the first movie alone, and I’m trying to find them all.”

Billie will tell Norah about as many as possible.

Another favorite character in Sex and Death on the Beach is Mickey, the artist. At first, I described Mickey as single, “kind and gentle,” and wearing offbeat clothes, including “a funky orange-striped caftan.”

Boring. Mickey had to be more than a heap of clothes. Readers had to care about her.

So I added, she “works as a freelance artist, but she’s been known to vandalize for a good cause.

“When posters appeared on the local telephone poles insulting black people, Mickey was horrified. She went around Peerless Point, covering the offensive posters with her homemade one, which said, ‘I covered the ugly racist poster here with a cat photo.’

“My favorite prank was what Mickey did in the local gas station bathroom. In the restroom was a wall-mounted infant diaper changing station that pulled down into a changing bed. Mickey put a sign on the plastic baby bed that said, ‘Place sacrifice here.’”

Mickey drives a “powder blue VW Bug with a sign in the back window: ‘Adults on Board. We want to live, too.’”

For this series, I recorded how all my characters got around. Some took the bus or bummed rides, others drove.

The Florida Beach bios total 22 pages single spaced, and describe buildings, apartments, cars and characters minor and major, first and last names. I hope you’ll enjoy them.

Writers, do you use character bios for your books?

Buy Sex and Death at the Beach online. NOTE: Prices may vary. Please check before you buy:

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/326up5ny

Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/3tx8x4fb

Thriftbooks https://tinyurl.com/3vk9yhb5.

Or order it from your local bookstores, including Harvard Book Store https://www.harvard.com/book/9781448314799.