Cold, Challenges and Changes

by Janis Patterson

I’ll admit it - my writing schedule has gone to pot the last two months. And if you want to know the truth, I don’t care a bit. The Husband retired at the beginning of the year and even after 20 years of marriage (20! How did that happen?) it is a big adjustment to have him home 24/7. 

Before he retired we discussed with due seriousness that we both knew men who had retired after long and illustrious careers (like he did) and who died within six months (as I am determined he will not!) simply because they had no responsibilities and no direction. I am a quiet and reasonable person who rarely gives orders, but for this I made an exception. He can have 3 months of total relaxation. He can do - or not do - anything he wants. For 3 months.

We have 1 month to go.

In the meantime, we have been having fun - even during the recent Snowpocalypse, when we were without any light or heat for 30+ hours and the temperature outside went down to -1F. (Very unusual for our area, in fact almost unheard of!) We put on several layers of clothes and, wrapped in quilts, huddled in front of the gas fireplace. By the way, gas fireplaces put out LOTS less heat than a real wood one, but when it’s -1F who cares? It’s a fire... We gathered our dog inside the quilts with us and talked and laughed. When our teeth weren’t chattering, that is! 

So - what next? Actually, it has already started. After a career in science, The Husband is becoming involved in my career. It’s a big deal - he’s learning the business from a standing start, and has already aced putting up several ads for me! I am so proud of him.

That means he’s been taking classes, doing test ads and actually studying the business. It also means I have been trying to answer his questions and explain/justify things I really can’t, because I’ve always known them. It gets complicated. However - it’s wonderful to have a partner. I don’t know if we’ll make lots of money from this new partnership, but let’s face it - wealth really means more things than just money, and his interest in and support of my career make me a very wealthy woman!

Beware the Wages of Work

by Janis Patterson

This is going to be a short post, because both The Husband and I are feeling real puny. He threw his back out (out? practically into the next county!) shoveling dirt while playing with the dinosaurs at the Arlington Archosaur Site (run under the aegis of the Perot Museum) and is hurting terribly. I caught some… something that makes my head feel stuffed with wet rags, my throat scoured with sandpaper and a persistent low grade fever that will not go away.

So what does this have to do with writing? Him – nothing. Me – potentially a lot. I’ve been ferociously struggling against deadlines for over a year while juggling the daily trials of existence – cooking, laundry, birthdays, getting the car worked on, all the things that we all do all day every day. It’s called life.

On the other hand, I’m a bear when it comes to deadlines. I’ve only missed one in my entire life, and that was because of a catastrophic car accident a couple of decades ago. Having been raised in advertising, I was taught early that deadlines are sacrosanct.

No one ever bothered to impress on me that I should not take on so many of these immutable deadlines so close together.

Okay, so I’ll spare the suspense. I made my latest deadline – and promptly keeled over into a coughing, sneezing, fever-ridden mess. It’s not like I didn’t have adequate warnings – The Husband (who has his own weirdnesses) kept telling me, “Slow down, honey – you always get sick when you get overtired…”

I didn’t listen. But I made my deadline!

If there is a cautionary note to my sad little tale, it’s that we have to take care of ourselves. No deadline is worth your health. So – first of all, don’t take on so many projects that you can’t complete them in a reasonable time with reasonable effort. Secondly, live your life! Enjoy your family. If I may be trite, smell the roses. There are other things than the computer – I know it’s hard to step away when all those voices are clamoring in your head, but if your head is stuff with drippy wet rags they’re going to drown anyway.

Winter Is Coming

by Janis Patterson

Right now, when the temperature is so close to the triple digits they almost touch, the above statement is pretty much an act of faith. Yes, we know winter will come again – at least, it always has in the past – but it’s hard to take much comfort from that knowledge when sweat drips off our nose and the entire garden is brown and crispy.

But winter is coming – and even though we know it will bring bitter weather that makes us long for summer again, it is a promise of change. Of lovely grey days instead of piercingly brilliant ones, when the blistering sunlight is literally a weight on your shoulders. Of late mornings and early evenings. Of snuggly warm sweaters and hot chocolate instead of shorts and iced tea. (Though if you are a Southerner, the season makes no difference – you drink iced tea summer, winter and every season in between!)

But, I can hear you saying, it’s hot outside. It’s still summer, and will be for at least another month or so. That’s true, but it’s also true the weather has changed. Just weeks ago the sunlight used to be blinding when I awoke, but now mornings are a subdued pearly grey. When I step onto the patio, coffee in hand, the temperature does not scald my skin. It’s still warm, but it’s a cooler warm, if you know what I mean. Whatever the time of day or the temperature, all of a sudden the air just feels different. And I like it.

I know that around late January I will probably have had it with cold toes and bulky winter clothing and not being able to run out to the hot tub in the early mornings and having to put on coats and scarves and hats just to go to the store, and will be longing for the bright warmth and freedom of summer. (Perhaps that’s a world record for the number of ‘ands’ in a single sentence!) However, that is symptomatic of the human race. We always want what we don’t have at the moment.

So what does this have to do with mystery writing? Not much, if anything. Maybe it’s a metaphor for the fact that the next book we’re going to write is always going to be so superior to the one we’re currently writing.  Or maybe it’s just that I’m lazy, and didn’t want to work at doing a post on craft or imagery or whatever it is I’m always writing about. And that’s fine with me. Enjoy the rest of your summer, and be glad that winter is coming, because there will always be a summer following that. It’s a certainty, and certainties ground us.

COLD!

by Kaye George

Whether you believe in the science of climate change or not, you’ve gotta admit, it’s cold! Just how cold is it? OK, you can finish that one.

Here are some records, to make you feel warmer--maybe.

In connection with the people marooned at the bottom of the earth recently, you probably read that the coldest temperatures on the planet have been recorded in Antarctica. No surprise there! The official coldest one is -128.6 F in 1983. However, a satellite got a reading of -135.8 F in 2010.

In the range of what is humanly imaginable, there’s the -80 in Prospect Creek, Alaska, in 1971. Maybe you can’t imagine this, but I can, having lived in Montana. Granted, I have only experienced -80 as the temperature WITH wind chill. But without, it was -40. Brrrr.

Here are some wimpy record lows. 46 (that’s +46) in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. Then there’s 40 in three different spots in Puerto Rico. Those are looking good right about now.

Wanna go for highs? Maybe that would help? Our country holds the world record. I didn’t know that! It’s 134 in Death Valley, California, in 1913. The record high at the South Pole, by the way, is 9.9. Another reason to stay away from that place.

Jeopardy! is offering a chance to win free National Geographic trips to exotic places. One of them was to Antarctica. I wonder how many people logged in to compete that day. One? Two?

How does any of this relate to writing or reading mysteries? This is GREAT weather to do both, provided you don’t have to go to the library, book store, or office supply shop to get material.

Info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_weather_records

Photo from my back yard

Someone Is Always to Blame

I caught a cold over the weekend. I don't know how I got it. That aspect bugs me in a way. I'm usually careful and keep away from germy people, but this time I don't know who passed on the germ to me. Already the DH is saying things like, "I  hope I don't catch your cold." If he does, at least he'll know where to assign blame.

Why do we read mysteries? I think one reason is to solve the same type of mind puzzle. A fictional character gets killed or threatened bodily harm. The reader is sent on a search with the object being where to assign blame. It's a great guessing game to see if speculations are correct.

In the case of thrillers, readers sometimes even know the bad guy, but still are on pins and needles wondering if the hero or heroine will figure it out in time before more dire happenings occur.

Someone is Always to Blame.

In most mysteries, we learn the answer. In others, such as my cold case, we'll never know.

Morgan Mandel
http://www.morganmandel.com
Find Excepts & Buy Links to my
mysteries, thrillers & romances at
http://morgansbooklinks.blogspot.com
Twitter: @MorganMandel