Rosa Parks represents what an awesome force for change even one person can be, if they have the courage. If one woman can inspire so much, imagine what we can do together. Her life might’ve been easier if she’d given up her seat, given in to the status quo, but she wouldn’t have been truly free. The easy way, the habitual way, “the way it’s always been done” sometimes must be broken through.

While thousands honor Rosa Parks today, in Detroit and elsewhere, BBC has posted reader tributes.

Hopefully not these two. I never thought the day would come when I’d prefer to see Britney Spears in the news. Newsweek has taken a little time out from reporting on the White House’s woes to remind us that racism is still around and in fact appears to be taking on yet another new generation, in Race: The White Album. Here’s the view from news.telegraph: Twin pop stars with angelic looks are new face of racism. Is this a sign of what’s to come? My question is, does neoconservatism fertlize the ground for this sort of blatant intolerance?

Mark Terry wrote An Open Letter to Aspiring Writers on his blog, This Writing Life. I can’t say I agree with every point he made, and there are some I don’t qualify to offer any opinion on. His post got me thinking about why we write, which I’ve explored here before, and more specifically why I continue. Especially his first point. (Read Mark’s post for his words.)

It’s probably healthiest for the aspiring writer to look at fiction writing one of two ways. 1) As an after-work side job or business that one is willing to give up on if it doesn’t pay off, or 2) as a beloved hobby to pursue in one’s spare time—after time with family, after taking care of responsibilities, and perhaps even after just goofing off. (more…)

Writers discuss breaking the rules of writing all the time, whether it’s the rules of grammar, of writing in general, or the rules of a particular genre. One rule of thumb is to learn the rules and understand the reasons for them, to understand whether they’re widely accepted and respected rules, or merely arbitrary. Once you know them, when you choose to break a rule you at least understand the possible consequences. Some say breaking the rules of genre is necessary to reach the bestseller list. Others warn it can prevent a writer from being published at all. I suppose that depends on which rules, and how one goes about breaking them.

But rules of writing aren’t the rules I’m concerned with breaking, at the moment.

What I’m puzzling over is how many rules a sleuth can get away with breaking within the confines of a mystery. (more…)

Late yesterday afternoon, I read a severe weather alert about possible thunderstorms. I looked out the window, and wondered what the weather people were seeing that I wasn’t. The sky was nearly clear. Maybe half an hour to an hour later, a bright flash outside the window over my writing desk signaled the beginning of the day’s first thunderstorm. I reached up to open the blinds, and the crash came—close and deafening. That storm lasted several minutes. Then it was over. That was exciting, I thought. I relaxed back into writing.

Later in the evening the lightning and thunder started up again, rumbling in the distance for a few hours, and every now and then moving closer. First it was west of us, then east of us. Now it was on the other side again. There was very little rain, and I knew that wasn’t good. It was the same weather pattern that had ignited palm trees down the hill from us about five years ago.

After midnight, we were still awake, not because of the storm but because those are the hours we keep. We’d just turned off the television and were starting to wind down when the lightning moved in close again. Then came a blinding, deafening flash and crash, so close I let out an involuntary yelp and the dog jumped to his feet.
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I had jury duty last week. I have to go back this week to sit on a panel. They’re selecting for a long trial—about two months. Part of me thinks, wow, that might be interesting. Another part wonders what will happen to my writing flow, my other interests—the rest of my life—if I’m selected. All in all, I’m not thrilled. Please don’t think I’m trying to get out of doing my duty. I believe in the jury system and all that. I’m even fascinated by the chance to watch any real life court proceeding—as long as it doesn’t involve me paying a settlement or serving time. The educational experience can only help me as a mystery writer. It’s just that I’ve done this duty so many times, it lost its novelty a long time ago. (more…)

My current novel started out as a story told from a single point of view, that of a young woman named Iris Somerset, who’s a tarot reader. She gets caught up in a murder investigation, mainly because the police don’t believe she had a psychic vision of the murder. She doesn’t really blame them. She can hardly believe it herself.

The first draft seemed to go great, and I finished it quickly.

It felt a little flat to me. There was a lot more story seeping into my mind, as the original idea developed and morphed over time, than was apparent in that draft. The main problem was the limited viewpoint. After debating with myself for a while, I decided the story needed a second viewpoint character. Actually I have to admit the character himself told me this. Yeah, sounds a little crazy, huh. But this is fiction. He was coming to life, and he wanted a voice.

The character was already there. I just had to make him a viewpoint character, change some scenes that involved him so he could tell a portion of the story from his perspective, reveal some of what he knew.

It sounds so simple. (more…)

I doubt I’m alone in having run the gamut of emotions this past week while the world watched as tragedy unfolded along the Gulf Coast. Sadness, horror, anger, rage, helplessness. I doubt anyone in the world who bothered to pay attention escaped most of these feelings. What I used to see as melodrama in disaster films became stark reality.

A couple of times I started posts here, and I found that just writing about it didn’t feel right. It was too much like what I saw leaders doing, or appearing to do, merely talking about the problem when action needed to be taken. And how can I really complain about them? What am I doing? I saw what was happening as horribly familiar—it reminded me of the lifeboats on the Titanic, only on a much larger scale. Suddenly class, racial, and economic distinctions stood out in relief. I found myself wondering what it meant about America when the Gulf Coast called 9-1-1 and got put on hold. (more…)

Comprehensive information about the hurricane and resulting devastation are available at the Wikipedia Hurricane Katrina page. I don’t know who put this page together, but it’s an impressive source of up-to-date information.

Violetismycolor asked in her comment to my previous post: “How did your dog learn all that?” I think she was referring specifically to the number of words he understands, and maybe to his insistent communication with me about my cat’s behavior on one occasion. But there’s a lot involved in both, and it has to do with our overall approach in how we live with and train our pets. My answer went long, so I decided to make it a new post. (more…)