Tag: The Five

Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy

Tomorrow morning at this time I will be running around, hoping that I am not forgetting to do something before we leave for Toronto. I haven’t had much of a chance to get excited about the trip, but this morning it’s starting to be kind of real to me. The kitchen is a mess–I made Swedish meatballs last night–and so I need to get the dishwasher loaded, start gathering things to pack for the trip, etc.

I also queried another agent yesterday, and submitted another short story. I have three more agents to query on my list today, and I might submit yet another short story to another market. We’ll see how that goes.

I also printed out Jackson Square Jazz last night; I am going to do the ever popular copy edit with it. It also occurred to me that this is a golden opportunity, as the ebooks for the first two Scottys are about to go live, to re-edit them and therefore make the ‘new’ versions of them worthwhile to have for people. I haven’t completely decided whether I am going to re-edit the books or not, but we shall see how it goes. It’s really dependent on the time factor, and since I am trying to finish writing another Scotty at the same time…it’s also not a bad idea, as rereading the originals will put me in a Scotty mindset, which can’t hurt, you know?

I started reading Robert Marasco’s Burnt Offerings last night, and was very quickly absorbed into the story. The beginning is reminiscent of several other horror classics–Rosemary’s Baby, Harvest Home, The Haunting of Hill House–and thoroughly enjoyable. It’s clearly a ‘haunted house/bad place’ story; I’ve never seen the movie nor had I read the book before, so I am kind of excited about it. I also need to pick out the books I’m going to be taking with me on the trip.

We also finished watching Harlan Coben’s The Five mini-series last night on Netflix. There are ten episodes, and it’s a interesting show with several different mysteries, several different crimes, and they are all connected in some strange way to the disappearance of a small boy some twenty years earlier. The main characters–Slade, Danny, Mark, Pru–were all friends, and one afternoon they were off in the woods playing, with Mark’s younger brother Jesse in tow. Being older kids, they wanted to go off and do their own thing, so they sent Jesse off on his own and he disappeared. A child molesting serial killer later confessed to killing him…but the body was never found. Flash forward twenty years, and Jesse’s DNA has turned up at a brutal crime scene, which begs the question, is Jesse still alive? How did his DNA wind up at a crime scene twenty years after he disappeared? And then his DNA turns up at another brutal crime scene. What is the connection between the cases? Lots of twists and turns, and several big surprise twists made it quite enjoyable to watch. The cast was also really good, and the mini-series format gave the writers the opportunity to delve into the characters and their lives a lot more. It also was very haunting in that it’s theme–the damage the disappearance of a child can do to those left behind–is something I am fascinated by.

Harlencobenthefive

Highly recommended.

And now, back to the spice mines.

Come Dancing

Tuesday!

Being off yesterday was kind of nice. I started a project I’ve been meaning to start all year (it was one of my goals set on the first of the year) and went to my storage unit. The goal is to clean a lot out of it, as well as get some more copies of my books out to replenish the supply in the Lost Apartment. I was actually worried that the boxes of my books were in the absolute back, but they weren’t. I was able to assemble three boxes of books to donate, found the copies of my own books I needed (hello, Bourbon Street Blues and Jackson Square Jazz!) and now that I’ve actually done it–it’s not as intimidating as I thought it would be. I’ve also always kept my papers–manuscript drafts, notes, etc–in manuscript boxes or small boxes that approximate a manuscript box; those don’t end up stacking well and you can only imagine how many of those there are. I’ve decided that the smart thing to do is get rid of those small, collapsing, not-so-sturdy boxes and assemble file boxes, and move the papers in there, labelling the new boxes appropriately. That way they’ll stack better, and will most likely create more room. And when I am moving all that stuff around, I can drag out other boxes of stored books to donate. So, yes, I am feeling inordinately proud of myself.

I started reading Eric Ambler’s Background to Danger, which I believe may be his first novel. It’s really quite good; Mr. Ambler certainly knew how to turn a phrase: One sunny morning in July, Mr. Joseph Bhaltergren’s blue Rolls-Royce oozed silently away from the pavement in Berkeley Square, slid across Piccadilly into St. James’, and sped softly eastward towards the City of London.

I so wish I’d written that sentence. While it’s ostensibly about the car and the drive into London, it also tells you everything you need to know about the passenger. That’s pretty masterful.

After taking the weekend off (from writing) I managed to get back to work. I intend to get the reread of the WIP finished over this week, and then the adjustments to the manuscript that need to be made done this weekend, as well as writing the query letter. I also hope to get some of the new Scotty written this week; Chapter Six is sucking big time.

Ah, well. I don’t have to go into the office until later today, so I should be able to get some work on it finished. We are greatly enjoying Harlan Coben’s The Five on Netflix; we’re about four or five episodes in, so about halfway finished. I have an excessively long day tomorrow, but that’s cool.

All right, I’ve got things to do this morning.

Here’s a Tuesday morning hunk for you:

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How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?

I got up at five yesterday morning for the NO/AIDS Walk; which I worked for five hours. I also worked Saturday, so I gloriously have today off, and don’t have to go in until later tomorrow. I intend to go to the storage unit and retrieve some copies of the first two Scotty books, Bourbon Street Blues and Jackson Square Jazz, because I don’t have any copies in the Lost Apartment, and every once in a while people ask for copies, or I might be able to sell some, or something. In either case, it sucks not having copies on hand. I am a little worried they may be buried in the back of the unit, but I also need to start getting rid of the stuff stored in there anyway. I’m not going to get rid of it all, but obviously, there are things in there I don’t need to keep.

After I came home yesterday I was delighted to watch the Saints win, and we also finished watching Atypical, which is really a charming and funny show you can binge-watch on Netflix, and we also started watching Harlan Coben’s The Five, which is also very well done and interesting.

I also finished reading Linda Joffe Hull’s Eternally 21.

eternally 21

I didn’t think things could get much more for worse than the night my husband came home looking like his usual tall, dark, and handsome self but wearing a very unusual shade of  I’m-really-sorry-but-I-lost-everything-in-a-Ponzi-scheme. Suffice it to say, the news was shocking, distressing, mortifying, terrifying, and any number of other disaster-relating –ings. Given my husband happens to be Channel Three’s wealth-management guru, it was also potentially career ending.

After all, who would watch his show, Frank Finance, if Frank “Finance” Michaels was broke?

I needed to help make ends meet, but there was no out-of-the-way bar where I could cocktail waitress in guaranteed anonymity. Not one where I was sure my husband’s face wouldn’t appear on the corner TV. Beside, Frank had to let his personal assistant go, so I stepped in at a salary of hopefully we’ll be able to keep the house.

Under strict gag orders about our financial bind and obligated to keep up the appearance of what was suddenly our former lifestyle, I did was any resourceful, close to middle-age, stay-at-home mom with a computer would do–after I finished crying and had consumed all the Rocky Road, Doritos, and Girl Scout cookies in the house: Welcome to http://www.mrsfrugalicious.com, the website devoted to all things savings!

Four months had passed since I posted those words and I, Mrs. Frugalicious, AKA Mrs. Frank Finance, AKA Maddie Michaels–still felt a little thrill.

Okay, a big thrill.

In that remarkably skillful opening, Linda Joffe Hull sets up her series: Maddie Michaels is our erstwhile heroine; she runs a website devoted to tips saving money; and she explains not only who she is, but why she runs that website. This is also an incredibly, incredibly clever opening, and a mini-master class is defining character: because you see exactly how Maddie sees herself–she is a wife and mother and partner first and foremost, a person second. She even lists, towards the end there, how she sees herself, in order–Mrs. Frugalicious, Mrs. Frank Finance, Maddie Michaels. She herself doesn’t even realize how important being Mrs. Frugalicious is to her; it’s a career and persona she has created herself, by herself, for herself; her second most important identity is as the wife of a television personality, and lastly, herself. And as you turn each addictive page, the real story of Eternally 21 isn’t necessarily the murder mystery itself, but the story of a woman who has long subsumed herself in the identity of being supportive wife and loving mother, slowly coming to terms with, and accepting, her own power.

This isn’t to say that the murder mystery–a horrible store manager at the local mall Maddie frequents dies right in front of her–isn’t interesting and compelling, full of twists and turns, with some big surprises at the end I frankly didn’t see coming. It’s very deftly plotted, and of course, the most important part of any amateur sleuth novel is coming up with a believable way for the amateur to get involved in the case, and want to try to solve it.  And as she solves the mystery, struggles to keep her secret identity secret, continues to be the glue holding her family and household together, and pull off keeping her website going, it quickly becomes clear that Maddie Michaels is a force to be reckoned with. Maddie is someone the reader can identify with and root for, and her twin sons are also incredibly likable…and you begin to wonder why, precisely, she puts up with her narcissistic husband.

It’s a lot of fun. Published by Midnight Ink, an excellent press primarily focused on crime fiction–they also publish Jess Lourey and Catriona MacPherson’s terrific stand-alones and R. Jean Reid’s (J. M. Redmann’s pseudonym) new series–the book is compelling and a lot of fun; there are times when I smiled, others when I laughed out loud.

I do look forward to reading more in this series.