HOOSIER BACKPACKING 

I’ve been to Bad Hollow ten times, but I still don’t know how to get there. The trailhead is at a secret location at the end of a series of roller-coaster roads snaking through the spectacular Fall colors of Brown County, Indiana. A rutted lane ends at the bottom of a steep hill where we parked our cars this past weekend. Our group crossed private property to find the overgrown trail on the edge of the vast Hoosier National Forest.

Our intrepid leader, Fred, got permission in 1994 to use the hidden trailhead and has explored and memorized the trails, ridges, and creeks each Spring and Fall ever since. The trails crisscrossing our section of Hoosier are not marked with blazes and have precious few signs. Instead, Fred points out “Mary’s rose bush” or “the Big Tree” to indicate the correct turns.

Fred celebrated his 70th birthday years ago and now encourages group members to memorize the route to Bad Hollow so the tradition can continue. Several hikers whipped out their GPS units. Though I’m a minimalist and generally frown upon intrusive electronics in the wilderness, having a reliable GPS mapping the way is a comfort.

For seven miles I huffed and puffed up and down hills and gullies following the sturdier legs of eleven other hikers, all laden with 22-45 pounds of gear in their backpacks. Bright blue skies and fifty degree weather made for perfect hiking. The views through the thinning tree tops was thrilling, but the carpet of leaves hid roots, acorns and rocks, and created uncertain footing. We took turns falling.Bad Hollow is a lovely narrow valley thick with pine, maple, and paw paw. A stoney creek meandering through our camp provided water for our two-night stay. The water was scant this season and went under ground for hundreds of yards, so we positioned our fire ring in the dry creek bed. Clustered around the heat of a good blaze is how you get to know your fellow campers: the retired doctor who is building a cabin on the Alaskan permafrost; the brilliant lesbian teacher; the engineer who also dives to collect fish for Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium; the ex-state’s attorney with crime stories enough to fill the cold evening hours.

We had left homes, careers and loved ones back in civilization to subject ourselves to strenuous exercise and temperatures below freezing. Each of the twelve hikers gathered at that fire agreed that the scent of wood smoke clinging to our jackets and permeating our closets back home is a pleasure. Each understood the others’ innate need to be out in nature, our uniqueness, perhaps oddity. 

The beauty and solitude of Bad Hollow drew us into the wilderness. That campfire made it our home.

END

PS:  While mesmerized by the flames, I concocted mystery scenarios in my head and envisioned characters based on the friends sitting around the campfire, or maybe the local eighty-year old hiker we had met earlier that day who left us in his dust, or the turkey hunters in blaze orange. Should I tell them they may be in a novel? Do you base your characters on real people? Do you ask their permission?

Book Signing at Centuries and Sleuths

Centuries and Sleuths is a gem of a book store: cozy, unique, with warm and friendly owners behind the counter.

Today the Forest Park, IL store hosted the book launch for my writer's group buddy, Helen Osterman.


I attended the event to support Helen, but also to learn. Someday I'll have my book, "Rim to Rim," published and want to know the finer points of how to throw a book launch party. (You are all invited!)

Helen chatted about her new release and third in a series, "The Elusive Relation" and gave interesting background information--with pictures--of the centuries old English country house that became the setting for her mystery. She admitted to using book research as an excuse to take vacations.

Helen even provided delicious muffins made from the recipe her character, Emma Winberry, uses to bake muffins whenever she needs comfort food.

After reading the first two books in Helen's series, Emma, is like an old friend. Diana Vickery, from the Cozy Library, says, "Emma Winberry is Miss Marple reincarnated."

Tonight I look forward to curling up (after the Bears game) with "The Elusive Relation" and getting to know Emma even better.

Dutch Oven Recipe

Fall is my favorite time of year––summer hangs on, but winter whispers in my ear. Maple trees turn neon yellow and orange, oaks a deep red. Last Saturday was one such gorgeous autumn day in central Illinois. We piled into the SUV with my grandson and headed for Champaign, IL. Our first stop was the Paxton train museum where the old volunteer enthralled four-year-old, Sean, and we adults with train stories and a tour of a caboose.



After an hour of trains, we continued south to Curtis Apple Orchard, a autumn tradition popular with U of I students and their parents. Admission is free, but the Curtis family covers the cost of the displays and entertainment by charging more than grocery store prices for apples and pumpkins. It's worth it. Sean loved the many children's activities and I loved watching him play. While he munched on apple donuts and apple juice, we listened to blue grass ballads, complete with banjo and bass fiddle. Sean picked his perfect pumpkins and we headed home.

My son had a blazing fire waiting for us in the fire pit. The coals glowed ember red. Our families had planned our dinner to be cooked completely over an open fire in the backyard. On the menu:
                                     Hobo Casserole with corn bread in a Dutch oven
                                     Cheese fondue in a bread bowl wrapped in foil
                                     Apple pie in pie irons

Here's the recipe for Hobo Casserole:
     1 tablespoon oil                                           1 1/5 pounds ground beef
     1 onion, diced                                             1 green pepper, diced
     1 can of pinto or black beans                       1 1/5 cup frozen corn  
     2 cans tomato soup                                      1 TBL Worcestershire sauce
     1 packet taco seasoning                               2 cans water
     ------
     8 oz. of rotini pasta (or other)                     1 small box of corn bread mix
                                                                           (egg and milk)

Push burning wood to the sides. Put the oil and crumbled beef in the Dutch oven
and set on coals, 2-3" deep. Cover. Monitor pot. Cooking times will vary depending
upon intensity of heat.
- When beef is browned, saute onion and green pepper until soft.
- Add remaining ingredients except pasta and corn bread, and heat until boiling
- Stir to prevent sticking, rotate pot to prevent hot spots. Use new coals, if needed.
- When mixture boils add pasta, and return to coals for 8-10 minutes, rotating pot.
- Stir to prevent sticking.
- Mix corn bread batter according to package directions. Spread batter on top of pasta
  mixture. Do not stir in. Cover pot.
- Return to coals and place addtional coals on top of pot lid to create even heat.
- Bake for about 15 minutes; or more depending upon heat of coals and surrounding fire.

Serves 6 hungry people.

The secret ingredients are the smokey flavor. . . and a gorgeous autumn day.  Enjoy.
                  

Save Your Work!

     Last week I knocked a glass of water into my MacBook keyboard. The screen went blank immediately. I mopped and dried and waited to no avail. My laptop was dead and I envisioned two years of work going up in smoke.
     I thought I was safe because I saved my work every so often to a thumb drive and kept it at a remote location. Not so. The version of Rim to Rim, my completed manuscript, on the memory stick was a month old. Editing is an on-going process for me.  The loss of my notes and outline for my current novel, Wolf Pack, worried me most. I didn't know how to replace the work I'd done.
     I knew that the longer moisture sat on the circuits, the worse the damage would be. The next morning I hurried to the Apple store and waited five hours for an appointment with a computer genius. I confessed my clumsiness and he expressed his sympathies. He examined the laptop and quickly determined that circuits were corroded and the unit had sustained Stage 4 damage––the logic board, the casing, the trackpad and MagSafe. $750. My only question was . . . Can you save my memory? He wasn't sure.
     The young man with the black gauges perforating his ear lobes was wonderful. He said that since I hadn't lied to him about how the damage occurred, he'd waive the charges . . . the entire $750! Wow. So I bought a external hard drive for $89 and asked him to transfer whatever memory he could onto it before sending the damaged laptop out for repair.
     The memory transferred successfully and saved me from worry and dread during the week without my laptop.  Let this be a lesson:
     1)  Back up your work frequently
     2)  Save current versions of your work on memory sticks and store them at
          different locations.
     3)  Send an e-mail to yourself with your files attached and leave it unopened in
          your mailbox. You can retrieve it by logging in from a different computer
     4)  Buy an external hard drive which saves your work and automatically up-dates
          itself -- cheap insurance.
     5)  Never lie to an Apple computer genius.

Have you experienced a computer damage horror stories ? What do you do to safe-guard your precious work?

Are Webinars for You?

One of the perks of membership in Mystery Writers of America - Midwest are the occasional free webinars they offer to help improve your writing skills.  Claire Applewhite, author of The Wrong Side of Memphis, St Louis Hustle, and Candy Cadillac as well as several romance novels, hosted a three-part instructional series entitled Fifty Ways to Kill Your Lover.  
     After the initial conference call, each of the ten writers who had signed up for the series wrote a five-page set-up for a short story making sure to include characterization, dialogue, setting, plot, conficts and pacing. The hard part for me was envisioning the arc of the story.... where is this thing going? How will it ever come to a climax? What the heck is plot?
     So I just started writing.... "Alecia Hunter had legs that could stop traffic and often did."  I envisioned the martini bar she stopped in after work; its smells, sounds, and feel.  I envisioned the co-workers she might confide in and what they might say.  I envisioned how she'd react if her lover walked in hand in hand with a buxom blond.  Before I knew it I filled five pages.
     Claire briefly critiqued our five-page story set-ups during the webinar and discussed conflicts, tension, and climax. After the half-hour webinar, Claire assigned us each a writing partner. Mary from Tennessee and I will exchange our beginning five pages and then write the endings to each other's stories. I hope I can do justice to Mary's story set-up.
     Next week we'll e-mail the ten pages to Claire and receive a critique during the next webinar.
     The Webinar technology impresses me. The log-in process was easy. The voice quality was excellent, the slide presentation was clear, and the response time to our questions was quick.  It's a great way to connect to writers in other states and to get an experienced author to comment on your writing skills.
     If you paid your dues for any organization, take advantage of any benefits they may offer. There appears to be many established authors in the industry who are willing to give their time to help the pre-published authors among us. Have any of you found useful free perks to suggest?

Golf Tips for Writers

What does a hole-in-one have to do with signing a book contract? Nothing, except they would both generate a huge celebration and feeling of accomplishment. Someday I will do both.

What does another rejection of my query have to do with taking six shots to get out of a deep sand-trap? Nothing, except they both put me in a real bad mood. Today after the sand-trap debacle, I finished the golf game with a decent score because I didn't let that bad mood last long and I focused on improving my game. Later, I got out my list of perspective publishers and sent out three queries. Persevere.

Here are quotes from well-known golfers that could apply to the writing life:
Note:  Skip the golf references and substitute the (writing) references.

     Golf (Writing) is a love affair. If you don't take it seriously, it's no fun. If you
     do take it seriously, it breaks your heart.                 -- Arthur Daley

     Golf (Writing) is like playing guitar with a tennis racket; if it were that easy,
     we could all be Jerry Garcia.                                 -- Michael Bamberger

     Golf (Writing) is not a profession, it's bondage.     -- Jim Murray

     The least thing upset him on the links (while he tried to write). He'd miss 
     short putts (get writer's block) because of the uproar of butterflies in the
     adjoining meadow.                                                -- PJ Wodehouse

     Golf (Writing) is the cruelest of professions. Like life, it's unfair. It's a harlot, a
     trollop. It leads you on. It never lives up to its promises.  It's a boulevard of
     broken dreams.                                                      -- Jim Murray

     Golf (Writing) and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at
     them.                                                                     -- Jerry DeMaret

And because I enjoy writing so much more than golf, I spend many beautiful
summer days tapping away at my computer.

Do what you love.

How to Choose a Writing Critique Group

Are you writing in a vacuum? Don't. Get connected with a face-to-face critique group. 

When I shop for a new pair of hiking boots, I search for comfort, size, and style, and then 

buy the pair that fits. The same search criteria applies to writing groups. Shop around. 

Unpublished and under-published authors who invest time in an appropriate critique 

group will shrink the learning curve, receive valuable feedback, and have a better chance 

of getting published.   

As you search for the group with the perfect fit for you...

** Beware the group that was formed for the benefit of one author’s ego.

** Avoid groups that merely read each other’s work and respond only, 

     “That’s nice.”   You need to know when your plot slows or a character is flat.

** Avoid unfocused groups that don’t stay on topic. 

Successful critique groups include certain elements:

1) Between five and eight members. 

       A large group is unwieldy and produces more work than each member could 

       effectively critique. A small group runs the risk of having no work to critique.

2) Regular meeting dates, times, and places. 

  Pick a schedule that works for you and make the meetings a calendar priority.

3) Motivated authors producing quality work. 

      Members should be at or about your level of ability. If you get impatient with 

      the other author’s needs, or they can’t sit through your work, find another group. 

  If your goal is to get published, align yourself with a like-minded group.

4)  Members who share expertise.

  Authors working in your chosen genre will be the most helpful, but good story 

       elements are universal. Every member should study the markets, new technology, 

       and means of marketing and bring their findings to the group. 

5) Constructive criticism from other authors. 

      Each member must make the commitment to read and critique the other’s work and 

      come to the meetings prepared to offer useful comments in a tactful manner, balancing 

      tough criticisms with compliments. Criticism should be directed toward the work, 

      not the author and not the ideas. If the group allows such attacks, leave. 

6) Members who accept constructive criticism.

      Authors who bristle at the hint of criticism or who continue to make the same obvious 

      mistakes should not be in a critique group. Publishers and the public will be much 

      more unkind. Polish your work in the group, before you submit it. Sit quietly and 

      don’t argue when your work is under scrutiny. Say ‘Thank you’ for all comments.

7) Members who offer motivation and encouragement.

  Successful writing can be infection. Celebrate each author’s accomplishments, and 

      attend their book launches, signings, panel discussions. When your book gets 

      published, your group will support you. 

I didn’t look for a critique group until far too late, after completing my rough draft. I didn’t 

know where to begin to find a group. The only author I knew at the time was Norm Cowie, 

(www.normcowie.com) with whom I played volleyball. He wrote a YA vampire series, 
Fang Face, which my granddaughter enjoys, and exhibits his comedic wit in a series of 
Guy books. 

Norm astutely determined my writing needs and introduced me to Southland Scribes. 

The group hadn’t been a good fit for him, but Southland Scribes is just my size.

Tell me about your experiences with in-person critique groups. Any horror stories?

Why do you write?

Why do I write? Certainly not for the money. My writing expenses (ink, postage, workshops, how-to-books) have no income to balance against––yet.

I write because I love to polish words and phrases. I roll words around in my mind and feel them on my tongue. I dissect words and put them together again in exciting new ways, twisting and turning phrases. My sentences have a life of their own. If I put my work aside and pick it up weeks later, I am surprised and frequently delighted by my words -- as if seeing them for the first time.

Many authors insist that editing their own work is the worst part of the writing process, but I love searching for weak verbs, vague pronouns, and useless words. The "Find" feature of my word-processing software is a terrific tool in my hunt for "it", "was", "...ing", and "...ly".  The time I spend hunting down these limp words may not be cost-efficient, but gives me hours of entertainment.

A red pencil gives me satisfaction too. When I owned a business and received letters with grammar and spelling issues, I felt compelled to circle them, though I stopped short of returning the errors to the sender. Perhaps I should have been a teacher.  Now I use my red pencil for good.  Within our local writers group we exchange chapters for comments and corrections.  I enjoy editing the work of others––as long as the authors welcome my suggestions.  In the process my own writing improves.

When an author I respect takes the time to read and comment on my work, I truly appreciate their assessments. I always mull over their suggestions and frequently agree with them.  Their honest feedback  improves my writing.

I write because it makes me happy, but I hope that someday my effort will be validated by a reader or publisher willing to pay hard-earned cash for my novel.

Today is not that day. The agent who had expressed a mild interest in my novel, Rim to Rim––Death in the Grand Canyon, sent a nice rejection letter today.  I'll keep pounding away at this writing craft, but right now that day of validation seems light-years away.

What are you reading?

I just finished reading "Magic Hour" by Kristin Hannah. The natural setting in Washington state attracted me to the book as did the idea of a wild child showing up in town after apparently being cared for by wolves. The book is a great read because Hannah shows the bond that arises between the abused child and her psychologist, Julia, who saves the child from a media circus. The wolf child learns to talk, pee in the toilet, and eat with a fork, but Julia is the one saved when she learns the most important lesson––how to love.