Jacket Photo Madness

My bedroom looked like clearance day at the What Was I Thinking House of Fashion.
“What’s taking so long?’’ asked my husband, accustomed to a no-frills spouse.
My glare sent him fleeing for the TV room.
I hadn’t put this much effort into my appearance since I was fifteen, sneaking out of the house to see Grand Funk Railroad.
Honestly, I’m not normally obsessed with the external. I think I’m stylin’ when I get out of my writer-at-home sweatpants and into slacks with a zipper.
Even so, preparing to take my jacket photo for my first book put me in a tizzy. Imagine having just one authorly image to present to the literary world. Or, at least to the portion of the world that purchases paperback mysteries.

As any woman of a certain age will tell you, the camera is no friend. And my publisher’s posing guidelines ban the favorite tricks of the fifty-something set. No arms or hands in the head-shot, they said -- meaning no propping my chin on my fists to tighten the ol' neck wattle. No animals, either. Probably to cut down on the number of mystery novelists cuddling pet cats under middle-aged chins.
I wasn't going to use a kitty. My mysteries are set in Florida’s cattle belt, so I wanted to peek over the back of a Brahman cow. Too bad I can't, since a heifer that size was bound to make me look slim.
My husband, Kerry, poked in his head again. “Why don’t you try a scarf,’’ he suggested helpfully.
“I can’t wear a scarf,’’ I said, my voice rising like Naomi Campbell in supermodel melt-down. “Every one will think I’m just using it to hide my neck!’’
Confiscating the sharp objects off my dresser, he backed out the door.
I used the privacy to work on my …. uhm, profile . . . by hefting up my bra straps. But there’s only so much give before the garment becomes a garrote. Since the publisher also bans mystery writer cliches like fedoras and collar-up trench coats, posing in a strangulation device would surely be frowned upon.
After all my crazed preparation, my news photographer friend had to reschedule our shoot. I have another week to decide who I want to be for this photo. Which isn't nearly enough time to lose 10 pounds, discover the real me, AND find the perfect scarf.

Warp Speed

Time doesn't just fly after you hit 50 . . . it zips, it zooms, it ROCKETS out of control.
I'm looking at the last day I posted anything here ... November 28. My blog-free month (plus 14 days) corresponds to the holidays, America's annual way-too-much-stress, way-too-little-time period of national distraction.
When I was a reporter at USA Today, I always knew getting calls returned, statistics gathered, stories written was next to impossible from Thanksgiving thru the first week of January.
Now I'm a mystery novelist, and not much has changed.
I did manage, however, to finish the rewrite on MAMA RIDES SHOTGUN by Jan. 4.
Yay for me!
On the other hand, my Christmas tree is still up, dead pine needles shroud the unwrapped presents underneath, and the punch bowl from my writers' group holiday gathering (Dec. 22) still sits on the courtyard table. It's clean, though, so I guess that's something.
Does anybody have a magic watch that can slow down time? Better yet, make it go backwards, so I can have a few do-overs?

A Writer's Favorite Words

The End.
Man, does it feel sweet to write those two simple words.
I just finished my second book in the Mace Bauer Mysteries series, Mama Rides Shotgun.
Of course "finishing" and "being finished'' are two different things.
It's about 15 pages too long. I think I forgot to put in a few clues. And I need to retrace the route of the Florida Cracker Trail horse ride so I don't have Mace and her mama trekking past Lorida before they get to Myakka.
But I give myself a pat on the back and permission to raise a glass (though not at the same time, or the wine will spill).
Here's to me, and my two favorite words:

__The End__

Butt in the Seat or Ear to (Someone Else's) Phone?

I'm a disciple of the butt-in-the-seat writing school, though kind of a lapsed disciple at the moment. A long weekend in New York for a family wedding, and I didn't even crack open my outline for MAMA RIDES SHOTGUN.

It's so much easier to pick up the thread of your story when it looks and feels familiar. Too many days out of the seat, and you're like, "Is this my thread? I thought my thread was blue. All I see here are a bunch of red and yellow threads. ''

Granted, the eyesight's not what it was. But I should at least be able to FIND the thread, no?

So, I'm in the seat, yet I'm wasting time here at the public library . . . blogging, checking emails, listening in on people's cell phone conversations. (Note to self: Start a campaign to ban cell phones from public libraries.)

The outline's sitting there at my right elbow. And I'm SO close to the end of the book: Chapter 39 out of 45.

But this woman next to me is fighting with her boyfriend on her cell. I have to keep eavesdropping to find out how it turns out. Who knows? Maybe she'll end up murdering him, and I'll have the first thread of my next mystery!

Cracker Gal Musings

I'm deep into writing my second mystery novel, Mama Rides Shotgun, set on the Florida Cracker Trail.

The best part of being a writer is getting the chance to live through your characters. I'm a city girl (with country overtones), but my tomboyish main character, Mace Bauer, is all country.

In recent months, I've embraced Mace's (and my) redneck side: taking shooting lessons, riding the cross-state Cracker Trail on horseback, going to the rodeo in Okeechobee, Fla.

Here's a photo of a painting by an artist who specializes in Florida Cracker scenes. His pictures were on exhibit at the rodeo on National Cowboy Day. (In Florida, they were always called "cow hunters'' or "cowmen,'' but that's a story for another day).