Outside, the dry flies are droning, the leaves are drooping, and the humidity has reached acute misery levels. Such is late summer in the South. But dropped into the mix is the occasional cooler, breezier day that reminds us that fall is just around the corner, and not a moment too soon.

With our beach vacation behind us and the mosquitoes and humidity making outdoor activity entirely undesirable, I’ve spent a lot of time this month reading in the air conditioning, and I’ve come across some really enjoyable reads.

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The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware

I kept hearing this book referred to as a mystery in classic Agatha Christie style, so I knew had to check it out. It did not disappoint. With lots of Christie-esque elements—a country house setting, a reading of the will that blindsides the family, a menacing housekeeper—it kept me reading late into the night. This was the first of Ruth Ware’s books that I’ve read, and I plan to read more.

The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz

I read Anthony Horowitz’s The Magpie Murders a few months ago and really enjoyed it, so I was excited to see he had a new book out. It’s a mystery with an intriguing premise—a woman goes into a funeral parlor to plan her own funeral and a few hours later, she’s found murdered—but what really intrigued me was the fact that Horowitz put himself into the story.

Drawn into the investigation when a private detective working on the case convinces Horowitz to write a book about him, he acts as a kind of Watson to the detective’s Holmes. It’s definitely a unique idea and I was interested to see how well he pulled it off, especially since this is the first of a new series for this writer (who also writes the Alex Rider middle grade series—my son is a big fan of these stories about a reluctant teenage spy).

I really enjoyed the book, but I’m on the fence about the writer’s character. Sometimes I felt that it came across as a little pretentious—like when he discusses various celebrities he knows. Maybe pretentious isn’t the right word. There were times when that aspect of the story jarred me out of the fictional world. But that may just be me. On the whole, I enjoyed it and do recommend it. I’m interested to see where the series goes.

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The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth

This one isn’t technically a mystery, cozy or otherwise. It falls into the ever-growing domestic thriller genre made popular by books like The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl. The story follows a group of women who live in the same subdivision and reveals that while their family life might look perfect on the outside, on the inside it’s nowhere near ideal.

I was especially interested in this book because the main character suffers from postpartum depression and having dealt with PPD in my own life, I wanted to see how the issue was handled.

It’s a pretty fast-paced read with lots of questions that kept me turning the pages. One reason I recommend it is that I really liked the ending. Many domestic thrillers (Gone Girl is a good example) have fairly bleak endings, which I don’t enjoy. There’s enough bleakness in the world, and I’d much rather read books with hopeful endings.

The Netherfield Affair

I’ve been a fan of H.Y. Hanna’s Oxford Tearoom mystery series for a while and recently got an email that she’s created a “starter library” that makes the first book in each of her series available for free to her newsletter subscribers. I knew about some of her other series, but didn’t realize that she writes an alternative-Austen mystery series under the name Penelope Swan.

The Netherfield Affair is the first in a four-book series that reimagines Pride and Prejudice as a series of mystery stories. I’d never read any alternative-Austen stories before—and I still have no intention of going anywhere near Pride and Prejudice and Zombies—but I really enjoyed this one and plan to purchase the rest of the books in the series. So if you’re a cozy fan and an Austen geek like me, check this one out!

Shakespeare in the Park

I also spent part of August immersed in Shakespeare. On a birthday outing with my 11-year-old daughter, I came across a poster for the Nashville Shakes Shakespeare in the Park production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That was enough to spur me into digging out my complete works of Shakespeare and rereading the play. 

Before seeing the live production, my daughter and I watched the 1990s movie version to give her a general idea of the plot. The only Shakespeare she’d seen before was parts of Henry IV Part I (the Hollow Crown version), and she never fails to crack up at Falstaff’s antics. She was offended when her older brother turned down seeing the live production with us and said “Shakespeare is boring.” She informed him that he was wrong and Shakespeare is hilarious. 

The Nashville Shakes production was fantastic, and we enjoyed it so much that we went back to see it a second time. After the second show, she requested her own copy of the play and now likes to quote random lines from it.

Teatime

Even I admit it’s almost too hot for a cup of tea right now, but I can’t quite give up my daily Barry’s fix. I did, however, find a new tea that’s perfect for summer while I was on vacation. Heath and Heather’s Organic Green Tea and Coconut is probably meant to be drunk hot, but as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to try it iced. A couple of years ago, a new coffee shop opened in a nearby town and they had an iced green and coconut oolong tea that was fantastic. This version is only green tea, not oolong, but I’ve been making it by the half gallon all summer and can’t get enough. Sometimes I switch out one of the coconut bags for one of green tea with citrus blend (mine is just Kroger brand), and it makes a very refreshing summer tea.

How about you—are you still enjoying summer, or
are you counting down the days til fall like me?

In one of my works in progress, the protagonist is a photographer who uses a vintage twin-lens reflex (TLR) camera.

Back before I switched to digital photography, I dabbled in TLR film photography with a vintage Ricoh Diacord. When I started writing about operating a TLR, I realized I needed to brush up on the details.

How do you set the exposure again? And is the image on the ground glass reversed, or reversed and upside down?  

So I dusted off my Diacord, loaded a roll of Portra 400, made 12 exposures, and shipped the film off to the lab, all in the name of research. Then the scans came back. This photo of the dog of mischief was near the end and was my very favorite shot from the roll.

Loki, the dog of mischief, relaxing in the back yard on a hot day and much more interested in squirrels and his stick than in posing for a photograph.

I had forgotten how much I love the look of TLR photographs—the square format, the detail, the depth of field—nothing else is quite like them.

This was my first time shooting color film in the Diacord. My previous experiments were all done in black and white, which I still love, but I was surprised by how much I liked color TLR photographs. There’s a new roll in the camera and it’s over half full, so expect to see more film photos in the very near future.

Oh, and if you were wondering, the image is reversed left to right in
the Diacord, making composing an image a bit of a challenge.

I’ve been a little bit obsessed with all things Irish for . . . well, pretty much always. But since I visited in 2016, it’s reached a whole new level of madness. I absolutely cannot wait until I’m able to go back to see more of the country, but until then I relive my visit through the many, many pictures I took while I was there. (And through all the Irish products I can find locally—Guinness, Jameson, Barry’s Tea, Bewley’s Coffee . Not to mention the Butler’s White Chocolate I order direct from Dublin. If you haven’t tried it, you must. It doesn’t really taste like white chocolate to me. It’s like Eagle Brand Condensed Milk in candy form.)

It’s no secret that I love all things Irish. So to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, I’m giving away an Irish Blessing wallpaper & a free printable.

The beauty of the Irish countryside is simply breathtaking.

This photo was taken from the Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir—The Great Blasket Centre, in Dingle, Co. Kerry, which is a fascinating history museum. I mean, seriously. Can you imagine having that view all the time? I think I spent about 75% of my trip with my camera glued to my face because everywhere I looked was just beautiful. For instance . . . 

This was our view when we stopped at a petrol station. Yep. A gas station. You know what my local gas station has a view of? A Rite Aid & another gas station.

The Irish have quite a way with words.

Kissing the Blarney Stone (which I did—my fear of heights & the ick factor did not stop me) is supposed to grant you the gift of gab. While I can’t say I’ve become much more loquacious, the Irish are certainly known for their way with words. They gave us Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Jonathon Swift, Bram Stoker, C.S. Lewis. The list goes on and on. Oh, and one of my favorite poets, W. B. Yeats. His The Second Coming is just chilling.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity . . .

— W. B. Yeats

If those words aren’t prescient, I don’t know what is.

And then there is the Irish blessing, which can admittedly be a bit of a mixed blessing.

Sure, there are the blessings like the one I chose for this post, but there’s also this . . .

May those who love us, love us;
And for those who don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts;
And if He doesn’t turn their hearts,
May He turn their ankles,
So we will know them by their limping!

— Irish Proverb

I like to think my slightly twisted sense of humor comes from my Irish ancestors.

Oh, & if printables are more your thing, visit
this post to download my Irish blessing printable.

We’ve certainly had our share of rainy days this month, perfect weather to curl up with tea and a book. Lately that tea has been Barry’s Gold Blend—which I think must be the official tea of Ireland. They had it everywhere we went on our visit, and I came home hooked. Even my kids love it. Luckily, it’s available on Amazon and at World Market, so I’ve been able to keep it on hand. And with it being March and all, Irish tea seems appropriate for chasing away the chill and damp.

This month, I’ve been mostly reading writing craft books. Specifically, the How to Outline a Cozy Mystery: Workbook by Sara Rosett and Super Structure by James Scott Bell.

The cozy mystery workbook is designed to go along with Sara’s cozy mystery course, which I’m not taking (at least not yet), but it’s useful on its own as well. It’s a small workbook, so there’s plenty of white space, but I’ve found the questions helpful in straightening out some kinks in my story. Writing down answers to the questions she asks helped me solidify some points that I hadn’t thought to put in writing before. For example, what the suspects’ reactions to the sleuth’s questions will reveal about their character.

If you’re interested in writing a cozy mystery, this workbook is a handy tool to have. Since I want to use the questions for future books, I didn’t fill out the workbook. Instead, I made a template page of the questions in my Scrivener project. Now the questions will be there when I’m plotting the next book and my answers will be handy for me to consult while I’m writing.

I came across Super Structure thanks to this article on the DIY MFA blog. It’s only $3.99, and since plot is something I’m struggling with at the moment, I bought it and read it in one sitting. I love Bell’s Plot & Structure, and Super Structure is a really nice companion to that book. It’s short and goes over what he calls the 14 “signposts” of plot structure. I’ve read lots of books on plot structure, but he added some elements that I haven’t come across anywhere else and that really got me thinking. If you’re fighting with your plot, I definitely recommend it.

Deadly Doses

I also found a fun book at the library—Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart. I’m a sucker for a good book of poisons, and I’m particularly interested in poison plants that can be found growing in my area. (If anyone around me dies under suspicious circumstances, my internet search history may cause me some trouble. It’s for my next book, I swear.)

Stewart’s book has details and anecdotes about poison plants ranging from Deadly Nightshade (atropa belladonna) to chrysanthemums, and includes deadly plants as well as some that only cause minor allergic reactions. It’s interesting and useful enough that I may have to buy a copy to go on my shelf with A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie.

And just for fun, here’s a picture from the Blarney Castle Poison garden. This is Bittersweet Nightshade. Not quite as potent as Deadly Nightshade, but I wouldn’t recommend putting it in your tea.

Now it’s back to rewrites for me as I work through the next draft of the first Fox Sinclair mystery.

How about you? Have you read any good books lately? 

Growing up in the South, I assumed everybody in the US spoke the same language we did.

Well, with slightly different accents. Our neighbors did have some Yankee grandkids, after all. Imagine my surprise when people I met in college looked at me like I’d lost my mind when I said I was fixin’ to go to the library.

A few years later, my brother married a California girl, and we’ve had lots of fun translating for her as she adjusts to life in the South.

It turns out, the South has not only its own accents (yes, there’s more than one and that tortured Southern twang Hollywood is so fond of gets old real quick), but also its own language. And just as accents can vary from state to state, or even county to county (I’m looking at you, Marshall County, Kentucky), colorful expressions common in one area of the South might be unheard of in another. I grew up in western and southern Kentucky, with a little dash of Tennessee thrown in via my grandparents, so those are the regional colloquialisms I’m most familiar with.

In my Fox Sinclair mystery series, set in a small town in Tennessee, most of the characters are fluent in Southernisms, but none more so than Maudie. The grandmother of Fox’s best friend, Maudie gets her love of quirky sayings from my own grandmother, Momae, who definitely had her own way with words.

Since Maudie uses so many colorful expressions, I thought I’d share the meanings of some of the ones I’ve grown up hearing. Now if you come across them in the books, you’ll know where to come for a translation.

How to Speak Southern: Part 1

If the good Lord’s willin’ and the creek don’t rise

Southerners know better than to get cocky about their control over the future. Inviting someone to your wedding? They might tell you this to indicate that they intend to be there, barring an act of God or nature.

I have family in the hills of eastern Kentucky, and at least as late as the 1970s, one of the ‘roads’ in that community was actually a dry creek bed. Until it wasn’t. So while it might sound strange to city folk, a rising creek could literally keep people stuck at home until the water went down. And we all know that sometimes the good Lord just has other plans for us, so this is a Southerner’s way of letting you know that if they don’t show up, it wasn’t by choice.

Cold as a wedge

This one usually refers to food, at least in my experience. If your hands are cold, they’re probably cold as a frog. But, feel free to use it for whatever you like. What’s a wedge and why is it so cold? No idea. But let me heat that biscuit up for you. It’s cold as a wedge. Actually, never mind. Cold biscuits left on top of the stove all day are manna from heaven.

Fixin’ to

This is the one that confounded my college friends. And utterly confused me. I sincerely thought everyone said fixin’ to. And understood what it meant. I’ve seen it defined as “about to” or “getting ready to,” but I think it has a little more subtlety than that. Someone who’s fixin’ to do something probably shows no sign at all of getting started. The preparation is all mental, but make no mistake, it’s there.

Which may explain why “I’m fixin’ to” is often said with at least trace of annoyance.

In mixed company

To be fair, I don’t think people say this as much as they used to. As a teenager, I once horrified my mom by recounting some conversation that had taken place at school. I’ll never forget her saying that whatever the topic was, it shouldn’t be discussed in mixed company. That is, with both boys and girls at the same time.

While it may seem quaint and old fashioned (I certainly thought so at the time), these days I can see that there’s something to be said for leaving certain things to the imagination. Maybe it’s just my age showing. Then again, have you ever watched an episode of Game of Thrones in the same room with your dad? Yeah. That whole mixed company thing is starting to make a lot more sense now, isn’t it?

Is Ned Dead?

If I’m perfectly honest, I’ve only ever heard this one from my own family, but since I foresee Maudie using it, I thought it should make the list. It was one of Momae’s favorite expressions, and most of us picked it up from her. The correct response, by the way, is “I didn’t even know he was sick.”

Want to drop this one into conversation? I know you do, so let me offer a little usage instruction. Is Ned dead? is kind of another way to say Duh. But less rudely. When someone asks, “Do you want a piece of pie?”, for example, “Is Ned dead?” is a perfectly reasonable response. To which they can reply, as they go to get your pie, “I didn’t even know he was sick.”

It makes no sense, so don’t worry if you don’t understand it.

Not too long ago, I decided to scour the internet to see if my grandmother had invented this phrase out of whole cloth (it’s been known to happen), or if other people actually said it. It turns out, Is Ned dead? comes from an old, and fairly obscure, Johnny Cash song called Foolish Questions. So I’m guessing that there are probably other people out there who use this one, too.

Y’all come back now.

That’s all she wrote for this installment of How to Speak Southern. I’ve only scratched the surface, though, so expect more lessons in the future. You’ll be fluent before you know it.

Want to know even more about the South? Check out S is for Southern: A Guide to the South, from Absinthe to Zydeco. I’ve got it from the library and haven’t worked my way through the whole thing yet, but with entries like Allman Brothers and kudzu, how can you go wrong?

Do you, or someone you know, say “Is Ned dead?”
Let me know in the comments.
I’d love to find another family as crazy as mine.

Have you ever noticed that creative people are often creative in more than one area? While I’ve heard this trait described as multi-passionate, I usually think of my own tendencies as something more like creative hoarding. I’m the queen of unfinished projects. Scrapbooking, jewelry making, and hand-lettering are just a few of the passing interests that spring to mind. My passions for writing and photography have both waxed and waned over the years. Some days I’d be excited about a new photography idea, sometimes it was a story idea that I couldn’t wait to get down on paper.

For a long time, I thought that I was supposed to choose one area of creativity and stick with it, letting the others go, if I wanted to be able to truly call myself a photographer or a writer. And while it’s true that I can’t master all the forms of art that catch my interest, at least not right now, I’ve come to realize that there are benefits to being “multi-passionate.”

Photography and writing might seem like two very distinct skill sets, but in fact I’ve noticed that some photography skills have spilled over into my writing. After all, good photography is simply a visual form of storytelling.

Do you feel like you suffer from creative ADD, and that you’d make more progress on your writing if you dropped your other creative pursuits? Here are five reasons you might want to hold off on that.

#1 Close Attention To Detail

In photography, the devil is definitely in the details. Yes, it’s possible, especially now, to snap photos without thinking. However, if you want to produce a photograph that is true to what you visualize when you press the shutter button, you have to slow down and pay attention to detail. You have to learn to see light and to use it intentionally. You also have to consider your exposure settings—ISO, shutter speed, and aperture—as different combinations lead to very different looks in photographs.

The same is true in writing. It’s certainly possible to sit down and write without planning or having a specific end result in mind, and sometimes that kind of writing can be useful, even therapeutic, but if you have specific results in mind for your writing, you have to pay attention to the details. One thing I find myself guilty of is moving through scenes too quickly, without adding the details that draw a reader in. Without those details, the end result is the written equivalent of a snapshot, unplanned and not really what I intended.

#2 Framing the Image

One of the biggest mistakes new photographers make is not considering what they want to include in the image and what they want to leave out. A novice photographer might intend to make a portrait of their child playing in the fall leaves, but end up with a snapshot of their entire back yard—the trash bins against the fence, toys scattered across the frame, the front end of the car peeking into the edge of the photo, and the child very small in the middle of all these distractions. The viewer’s eye doesn’t know where to go, because the photographer hasn’t been intentional about what to include in the frame.

Mentors sometimes tell new photographers to compose the photo, then take one step forward before pressing the shutter button. That is good advice in writing as well. The writer needs to be intentional in framing the story. Step in close and scan the frame. What details will draw the reader in? What details are just clutter and might break the reader’s immersion in the story? Consider what angle to approach the scene from. Is it a wide-angle shot, an overview of the scene? Or is it telephoto—an intimate, up-close scene—bringing the reader into the character’s private thoughts?

#3 Editing Isn’t Optional

While a casual snapshot might not need any further attention, a photograph intended as a piece of art is rarely finished when the photographer presses the shutter button.  It will require at least some editing before it fulfills the photographer’s vision. RAW image files always need tweaking because they are’t meant to be the final product. Even in the film days, true master photographers didn’t snap away and send their photos off to a commercial lab. Ansel Adams spent hours in the darkroom, carefully manipulating light, chemicals, and paper to create the print that he envisioned from the negative he had already produced.

//In the same way, typing The End doesn’t mean the story is finished. It needs to be put aside, then reread after some time away. Even just a day can give a writer enough distance to see errors and places where the story has gone astray. Beta readers and editors offer even more opportunity for catching the mistakes that the author can’t see.

#4 Focusing the Viewer’s Attention

One of the first things I learned about photography was how to focus the viewer’s attention where I wanted it. Incorporating leading lines to draw the viewer’s eye across the image; framing the subject with other elements in the photo, such as a doorway; choosing depth of field to create a plane of focus where it is needed; using light intentionally to highlight the subject . . . these are all techniques photographers can use to say to the viewer, “Hey! Look at this!”

Writers need to master this skill as well. Mystery writers in particular need to focus the reader’s attention on certain elements of a scene, while drawing their attention away from others. Agatha Christie was a master of this technique. She planted red herrings and legitimate clues in the same scene, while highlighting the red herring and causing the real clue to fade into the background. In any kind of writing, however, the author needs to be deliberate about focusing the reader’s attention. Drawing too much attention to details that later turns out to be inconsequential are frustrating and pull the reader out of the narrative.

#5 Don’t Rush the Process

This is a tough one for me. Patience is not a virtue I have in abundance. Possibly not even in trace amounts. I get frustrated when I can’t do justice to the story in my head, which is most of the time. But I try to remind myself that there was a time when I felt the same way about my photography. For a long time, I was frustrated because I couldn’t recreate the images in my head.

Over the years, though, I gradually got better at getting those images out of my head and onto paper. It didn’t happen as quickly I wanted it to (that patience problem again), but it did happen because I kept working at it and seeing small improvements along the way. So I keep plugging away at my writing in the same way. The results will be gradual, but they will be there.

How about you? Do you find that your other creative pursuitswork
their way into your writing? Is that an advantage or a disadvantage?