In Praise of a Perceptive Editor

Posted on August 3, 2012 by mainecrimewriters

James Hayman:  At the moment, I’m in the middle of making final revisions to my third McCabe/Savage thriller. Titled Darkness First the book is due out in the UK in June 2013 and, hopefully, around the same time in the US.

Darkness First is the first of my books to require any kind of extensive editorial rewriting.  Number two, The Chill of Night, sailed through with only minor tinkering and the first, The Cutting, required only one fairly simple, though important change to attain its final form.

Darkness First was the most difficult of the three books to write, in many ways the most ambitious and, in my view, also the most interesting.  It’s also the first of the three that helped me truly appreciate how valuable a perceptive and talented editor can be, in this case Stefanie Bierwerth who works with Penguin UK in London, can be.

The plot itself is fairly simple.  A large haul of oxycontin is smuggled by boat from Saint John, New Brunswick into Eastport, Maine. A distribution network is set up. The drugs are sold. Money is made.  Eventually, there is a falling out between the two people responsible for the crime. One is a vicious killer named Conor Riordan and the other a beautiful young woman from Eastport named Tiffany Stoddard. On a dark and steamy (no, not stormy) night in Machias State Park, Conor Riordan brutally stabs Tiff Stoddard to death.  The police quickly discover Riordan is the culprit. The only problem is Conor Riordan doesn’t exist.

At the suggestion of her father, Washington County Sheriff John Savage, Detective Maggie Savage of the Portland Police Department comes home to Washington County and volunteers to join the state police investigation into the crime. Eventually, with the help of her Portland partner, Mike McCabe, Maggie discovers the true killer and solves the crime.

However, in my view, what makes the book work is not just the story line (which I think is pretty good), but also the exploration of Maggie’s feelings for the other major characters and the conflicted feelings/relationships she has with them.  She  finds herself trying to mediate a nasty feud between two men she has loved all her life, her seventy four year old father, who she learns may be dying of cancer, and her  wild and irresponsible younger brother Harlan, who has recently returned from service in Iraq and is recovering from a serious wound and suffering from PTSD.

Maggie’s also trying to sort out her screwed-up love life and needs to resolve the strong attraction she feels to both her Portland partner Mike McCabe and a charming and handsome state police detective named Sean Carroll.

In the end unraveling and resolving these feelings and relationships added a lot to the story.  It also made the book more challenging to write and, in my view, ultimately much more interesting. Stef Bierwerth at Penguin understood this and her perceptive insights and suggestions were a huge help in getting it right. Thanks in part to her, I think it may be the strongest of  the three McCabe/Savage books so far.  I hope my readers agree.

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Poland Spring: The Inn, Not the Water

Posted on August 2, 2012 by mainecrimewriters

Near Entrance to Poland Spring Resort

Lea Wait, here. Last Saturday I spent the day at the Poland Spring Resort. My husband, Bob Thomas, and I drove through the columns that read, “Stress Free Zone,” around the 18-hole golf course, and set up our antique booth with other antique and craft dealers in front of the Main Inn, one of the three inns and ten cottages you can stay in there.

Bob's Painting that won 1st Prize!

We were part of  Maine’s first Dooryard Festival. I sold my books and antique prints; one of Bob’s paintings was on display in the Maine State Building, where, we were both thrilled to find out, it won the award for “best painting.” A good day.  

Lea's husband Bob talking to customer in our booth

But wearing my historian’s hat, all day I felt the presence of the past. Of the Poland Spring Resort as it had been during America’s Gilded Age, when it competed with resorts in Newport and Long Branch (NJ) as a vacation destination for the upper middle class and wealthy. Opened in 1879, at its height the Poland Spring Resort had 350 guest rooms or suites, many with private bathrooms (a real luxury at the time) and all offering “cooling breezes”. It even had, by the end of the century, elevators. Guests could not only sit on the piazza and read or chat — they could play tennis, golf, or baseball, take walks, or cycle. They could exercise in the health club, or indulge in the beauty parlor or barber shop; listen to an edifying lecture; be immortalized in the photo studio. Even then men would not want to be far from their offices, so Western Union had an office in the hotel, near the newspaper and gift shop, and the Inn itself published a weekly newspaper listing events at the hotel. The nearby Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake had a gift shop at the hotel. The large dining hall served over 300 guests at a time; private dining halls served additional guests the requisite large and lengthy Victorian meals. (No liquor: the Poland Spring Resort was a temperance hotel. At least officially.) 

Poland Spring Resort: Circa 1890

The dramatic lobby featured a wide oak staircase, stained glass windows, fireplaces, and entrances to both the men’s and women’s parlors as well as the casino, the game room, and the ballroom, where musical groups, often musicians from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, played. Of course, balls were also held there. Throughout, there was a “refined presence,” as well as the “healthy atmosphere,” and, of course the “healthy mineral waters” to be found at Poland Spring.

The Maine Inn, Poland Spring Resort today

The Inn fell on hard times during the Depression, when maintenance of such a huge property proved impossible. Later, the US government leased parts of the property and the Job Corps used it as the largest women’s training center in the country. In 1969 the Poland Spring House, as it had been re-named, was closed. In 1975 the beautiful old building, by then in sad repair, burned to the ground. 

But in 1982 new owners purchased the property and  brought the site back to life. Today the Poland Spring Resort (http://www.polandspringresort.com)

Maine State Building at Poland Spring Resort

still has an 18 hole golf course, tennis courts, an outdoor swimming pool, and some of the most reasonable prices for accommodations in Maine today. It’s not glamorous, but it is charming in an old-style way. I’ve stayed there, for a writers’ retreat, and I can vouch for it. You smile a lot when you stay there.

You can walk to see the original (mid-19th century) Poland Spring bottling facility. The Maine State Building where Bob’s art hung was Maine’s contribution to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, brought back to Maine after the Fair, and now home to  the Maine Golf Hall of Fame, and a museum about the history of Poland Springs.

There’s a beautiful chapel, where there are concerts, and almost every summer weekend, weddings. 

All Souls Chapel at Poland Spring Resort

 

The Poland Spring Resort, in Poland, Maine. It’s worth a visit. A smile. It will give you a glimpse of Maine’s history. And, perhaps best of all — it’s a stress-free zone.

 

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So Nice I Wrote it Twice

Posted on August 1, 2012 by mcwarchives

Hi, I’m Sarah Graves and I’m still a Maine mystery writer, just as I was a year ago when this post first appeared. I’m reprising it now because, well, it’s August in Maine, and that’s when the relatives descend — especially this year, when everywhere else is so hot that folks will do anything for a cool, salt breeze.

They descend on me because I live in Eastport, a tiny island town about as far downeast as you can get without invading Canada. This is where I write the Home Repair is Homicide series of mysteries starring Jacobia Tiptree, an amateur old-house repair enthusiast and reluctant sleuth. Jake’s an ex-Wall-Street money manager whose wealthy clients were so crooked, their limousines should’ve been flying the Jolly Roger, and in her newest book, DEAD LEVEL, she thinks she’s buried her unsavory past. But we know what happens when people think that, don’t we?

Anyway, back to this blog: it occurs to me that some readers here might be mystery-writers, too. But are you a Maine mystery writer? After all, writing in Maine is for the most part like writing anywhere else: you just stare at a blank screen until drops of blood pop out of your forehead and fall to the keyboard. And location alone isn’t enough, is it? There are “Maine writers” who are really NYC-ers, for instance, and vice versa. So in case you’re unsure about whether you’re really one of us, here are some signs. You might be a Maine mystery writer – or as we say around here, crime writer —  if:

1. You routinely drive 300 miles or more for book-signing events; extra credit if your vehicle is repaired with Bondo and/or silver duct tape.

2. The drinks at your publication parties are Moxie and Allen’s Coffee Brandy (bonus points if you mix them).

3. You write best on a diet of lobster rolls, “chowdah,” and blueberry pie (add points for moose stew, salt fish dinner, or smoked salmon on a stick; double points if you salted the fish).

4. When people ask if you’re “right out straight” working on the new book, you reply “Ayuh.” (But you’re not past deadline, so you don’t feel too “spleeny” about it.)

5. Nine months out of twelve, your writing-buddy is a propane gadget named Mr. Heater. For a woodstove or pellet stove, award yourself high honors.

6. Your books are reviewed in the island newspapers, Working Waterfront and Quoddy Tides. (Special credit for mention in Uncle Henry’s.)

7. You deduct a wool hat, a red-and-black plaid wool jacket, and fingerless gloves as “office equipment.”

8. Your overnight “express” mail takes three days.

9. The theme music for Murder, She Wrote makes you break out in hives. (Extra credit for anaphylactic shock.)

10. You’d rather lose a body part than your internet connection. To keep your email access, it can be an important body part; you are, after all, way out here in the puckerbrush.

And there you have it! These are just a few of the ways you can be pretty certain that you’re a real Maine mystery writer (or crime writer!); I’m sure my colleagues on this blog have even more and better ones to suggest. But if you can say ‘that’s me!’ to most of the points above, you could be a member of the club – so wipe the blood droplets off your keyboard, please, and write us up another one of those wicked good Maine mysteries.

 

Posted in Sarah's Posts | 3 Comments

Squid Fishing?

Posted on July 31, 2012 by mcwarchives

Vicki Doudera here, marveling at the new things you can learn when you least expect it.

Take the recent Olympics Opening Ceremony. Had you ever heard of the country Comoros?  Not me. Turns out that this archipelago island nation is in the Indian Ocean, off the east coast of Africa. It’s neighbors  – Tanzania, Madagascar, and the Seychelles – are well known, but Comoros has stayed under the radar.  For me, anyway.

comorosOf course, my seventeen-year-old daughter knew all about Comoros. Knew the capital (Moroni) and its location. Knew the three official languages: Comorian, Arabic, and French. Was I upset that I had somehow missed some important geography lesson? Only a little. Mostly I’m in awe of all the things I don’t even know that I don’t know.

Take a sport called night squidding. While it is not yet part of the Olympics, it is apparently something my fellow Mainers are doing on these sultry summer evenings. One of those Mainers is my aforementioned seventeen-year-old, who was out last night with three girlfriends searching for this elusive many-legged creature. That’s right – they were fishing for Loligo pealei —  Longfin squid – or, to give a more continental flavor to it all — calamari.

IMG00093-20120730-2256

I suppose I should have guessed that we had squid in our midst (there’s my daughter holding one that she caught) but truthfully, it’s never crossed squidmy mind.  Anytime I’m in our chilly waters, all I’m thinking about is how quickly I can get out.  Swimming in Penobscot Bay, even on the hottest of days, is a supremely  numbing sensation. We’re not basking in some bathtub-warm temperatures here. Instead of Nirvana, think Novocain.

Along with new countries and new creatures (remember that I just became a chicken owner too!) I’m having to stretch as a writer. The first draft of a short story is spread before me, and it has been a novel experience to work on what for me is a new form. I feel like I’m still figuring it out, and far from being frustrating, it’s invigorating. I do believe I’ll get it – although I can’t even define what the “it” is yet.

Have you pushed a boundary this summer? If so, what have you done?

Join me and Kate Flora tonight (as well as fellow NE Sisters in Crime author Janis Bolster)  and tell us all about it. We’ll be at the Camden Public Library at 6:30 to talk mysteries, and we’d love to have you there!

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How We Keep Our Series Characters Interesting

Posted on July 29, 2012 by mainecrimewriters

Note: Kate and Vicki will be at the Camden Public library this Tuesday, July 31st at 6:30 p.m., joined by Janis Bolster for a Sisters in Crime Beach Read event. We’d love to see you there.

Kate Flora here, starting a conversation about the challenges of writing series characters. In a recent post, we asked our readers what question they might ask if they met us at a library or bookstore. One reader, who is just embarking on a series, asked if we would talk about how we keep a series character fresh and interesting to ourselves and to our readers. It’s a great question, and one I know we’ve all faced. So, Maine Crime Writers, what are the challenges and how do you handle them? Here are some specific questions for you.

Gerry, in a recent conversation, you said you started writing your Brandon Blake series because you were tired of Jack McMorrow after so many books. Why Brandon, and did imagining and writing a new character help you feel “fresher” when you went back to Jack?

Gerry Boyle here. Thanks, Kate. Good question. And yes, I was a bit tired of my reporter friend Jack McMorrow after eight novels and two movie projects (neither of which resulted in an actual movie, but that’s another story). I’d spent a lot of time with McMorrow and friends and wanted to try a new series hero, one whose life was less similar to mine (McMorrow and I shared a profession, and covered the same rural Maine territory much of the time). I also wanted to write a book that wasn’t in the first person. 

This may not seem like a big deal but a first-person narrator and a third-person narrator are very different things. FIrst-person is great for intimacy and truly getting inside the head of your hero. It’s limiting in that the writer can only reveal what he knows, sees, hears. Third-person, in my Brandon Blake books, allowed me to write from the point of view of multiple characters and to view my hero from outside. It’s been fun and PORT CITY SHAKEDOWN and PORT CITY BLACK AND WHITE have a very different feel, I think (readers chime in here) from the McMorrow novels.

That said, going back to McMorrow for DAMAGED GOODS was like reuniting with an old friend. We took up right where we left off and that book practically wrote itself. It’s a real pleasure to write a book filled with characters who feel like old friends. Now I have projects underway with both characters and may even have them meet. Jack, meet Brandon. Brandon, meet Jack. Then I’ll step aside and see how and if they hit it off.

Kaitlyn: You’ve written whole shelves of books, and many different series. So what are your strategies for keeping your characters straight and not mixing them up or being repetitive? Do you work on more than one book at a time?

Kaitlyn Dunnett: I’ll give the short answer first. For the last few years I’ve alternated between writing one of the Liss MacCrimmon mysteries (contemporary humorous) and writing a non-mystery historical set in the sixteenth century. When one needs to “rest” or I hit a snag I switch to the other one. As for keeping characters straight,  I make character sheets for each character, even the walk ons, with details of physical appearance, odd little habits, relationship to other characters, and so forth. The tricky part is remembering to add information from book to book, but at least the character sheets keep me from giving someone blue eyes in one book and brown in the next. Each WIP is in a big looseleaf. I use dividers to section off each chapter. And yes, I do print a hard copy. I print up every day’s work in addition to making umpteen electronic backups. Also in the looseleaf for any given book is a set of a-z dividers so I can arrange the characters by surname and find them easily. Other sections are labeled “outline,” “dates,” “setting,” and “notes.” The outline isn’t the synopsis used to sell the book. It’s the outline I make as I go along, so I know what’s really in each chapter, including significant character development. “Dates” includes calendars, a chronology of everything that’s happened in the series so far and, in the case of my historical series, significant historical events even if they aren’t mentioned in my story. Continuing characters usually have birthdays assigned, so those are in there too. “Setting” has maps. Lots and lots of maps. Also floor plans. Photos, too. Notes on distances between places. For my 1888 series written as Kathy Lynn Emerson, I also had a lot of information on train and steamboat schedules. “Notes” is for everything else. For Bagpipes, Brides, and Homicides, I had information on wedding planning (what to do six months ahead of time, three months ahead of time, etc.), Scottish festivals, Medieval crafts, hand fasting ceremonies, and hand and a half broadswords. If I have very thick files, they go in a file box for each book and some of them stay there from book to book. The file box for BB&H had folders on how murder cases are handled in Maine and on Scottish dancing, luxury hotels, Scottish games, and the discovery of America by a Scot sailing for Norway in 1387 (see my blog tomorrow for more on that and a chance to win a copy of the book).

As to the original question of how to keep characters fresh, one simple way is to let some time elapse between the action in one book and the action in the next.

Lady Appleton from the first short story in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

With the Face Down series, about two years passed between each story, which gave Lady Appleton and her friends time to live their lives and do something besides deal with dead bodies. I don’t let that much time pass between Liss MacCrimmon’s adventures, but even a month or two is enough to let me imagine all sorts of things unconnected to murder that might be going on in her life. These events may never be mentioned in the books, but as long as I know about them, they make Liss more real to me. That, in turn (I hope) makes her more real and more interesting to my readers.

Paul: You are on a tight yearly publishing schedule, while at the same time working a very demanding day job. What is your process like for coming up with new plot ideas? Do you have your warden mapped out for several books in advance?

Paul Doiron: Tighter than it looks even! I hope to have some more news on that front soon. Definitely having two full-time jobs (three if you count the publicity work that comes from being a professional author these days) means I have to be more organized than I tend to be by nature.

I use my favorite program, Evernote, to keep track of ideas from day to day. I get news updates from both the Warden Service and the Department of Public Safety, and these go automatically into my Evernote folders. I also have a Google alert programmed for the Maine Warden Service. Every night at approximately 10:30 I hear a ding in my office as my computer gets a digest summary of the day’s news involving game wardens. And I tend to do a lot of clipping of Web pages and factoids as I’m browsing throughout the Internet. My Evernote database is a repository of all kinds of weird and wicked information —from hunting homicides to sightings of mountain lions in Maine to historic anecdotes about old lumber camps. (And yes, I back it all up in twenty different places.) To me there’s not a more useful program for writing research in existence.

In answer to your question about planning the series, I have Mike’s life mapped out to some degree in my mind (and my notes). The stories aren’t centered around specific lurid plots per se. They’re more about the cast of characters I have already introduced into his life and some future characters—good and bad—that I know are looming. I tend to work closely with my agent and editor to rough out plots from book to book and am open to making major changes. In Bad Little Falls I introduce a femme fatale into Mike’s life name Jamie Sewall. She started as one kind of character but gradually became more complex and, I hope, interesting through the revisions. As Jamie changed the story changed, too. So it’s a matter of having a general direction in mind concerning luckless Mike Bowditch, but making frequent detours in search of better routes. As I’ve noted before, my game warden is maturing from book to book—but readers should expect plenty of twists and turns on his journey.

Lea: We know that you write both Y/A historicals and adult mysteries. At any given time, you have many irons in the fire. How do you keep the different genres separate? What’s it like when you return to writing your Shadows series after working on a book for younger readers?

Lea Wait: The two genres I’m published in are like two separate worlds that I move between. The periods are two hundred years apart, and the research required ranges from whether people wore underwear in 1789 to what forensic techniques are used today. My 19th century voice has a different vocabulary and  different experiences in a very different political and social world — even if that world is geographically very close to my 21th century world. Although the 19th century books are officially written for younger readers, they’re not “written down” to younger readers. Their differences from my Shadows mysteries are that their protagonists are aged 12 – 14. They live in the first half of the 19th century in Maine and the only mystery they’re solving is how to survive and suceed under harsh circumstances. In comparison, characters in my contemporary mysteries have it pretty easy!

The historicals take longer to research, and the writing is more compact. In Shadows of a Down East Summer I combined the two genres by including entires from the nineteenth diary of a young woman as a key element of the plot. That was fun — but not something I could repeat!

Writing in two genres gives me a wider basis to explore characters and plot possibilities. At the moment I’m exploring possibilities of writing other books, too … Whether or not any of them are ever published, I want to stretch the range of my writing further. And the only way I can do that is to head off in different directions and see where they take me.  I’ve been lucky so far to find homes for two very different types of books.  I’m hoping that same luck will carry me into other possible areas in the future.

Barb: After working for a while with your police chief character, you’ve embarked on a new Maine-based series. I believe you’ve got a contract for three books, right? So how do you approach that? Are you mapping out your character’s arc for the three books, or will you take it one book at a time?

Barbara Ross: So that is the question, indeed–a question every single author on this blog could answer better than I can, since you all have the benefit of experience. I have a three book contract, and it is built on a larger arc for the protagonist that’s comprised of three smaller arcs–i.e one for each book. When we meet Julia Snowden her life has just changed radically. She’s given up her job in venture capital in Manhattan and returned to New England to rescue her family’s failing clambake business. It’s going to be a tough adjustment, and she’ll have to decide if she can commit to a new business, a different kind of town and a very different way of life. Each of these decisions will be in a different book. At least, that’s what I think now. There’s always the possibility that in book two she’ll decide to chuck it all and go to clown college where she’ll fall in love in and have lots of clown babies.

Vicki: Darby started out with some personal issues when she first arrived in Maine. Do you have a long-term plan for developing her character over the course of your series, or do you take it one book at a time? After a few books with her, does she feel like a friend? Do you find you know a great deal more about her, and what makes her tick, than needs to appear in the stories?

Vicki Doudera:  I have a long term plan for Darby in some respects, but in other ways she’s developing on her own as the series goes along. Her relationship with the investigative journalist Miles Porter, for example — I really didn’t intend for there to be a romantic angle in the series, but apparently that’s something Darby wants!  Book 5 opens with Miles and will feature him more than in the past. I’m certainly hoping I’ll have the happy problem of figuring out his role in books, 6, 7, and 8….!

As far as Darby being a friend, she’s becoming more like someone I’d have as a buddy as the series goes on. In A House to Die For, she was so raw from the personal issues you mentioned that I would have had a hard time hanging out with her!  But she’s maturing as the series develops and becoming more than just a driven busineswoman. Her edges are softening, I guess. And yes, I do know an awful lot about her, and yet each new book has a freshness for me that I really enjoy. I think the fact that I don’t have it all planned out means I can experience the joy of discovery along with my readers.

Kate Flora: My solution to keeping the series characters fresh is to alternate books in two different series (or write a true crime or some short stories), so that when I return to Thea Kozak or Joe Burgess after writing something else, it’s like coming back together with old friends. Rejoining them, I’m curious about what has been going on in their lives, how they’re doing, how characters have changed while I was away. It always fascinates me to start a new book. Even though I think I’m in control, the characters often seem to have minds of their own, and they are going off in unanticipated directions or having thoughts or feeling that I didn’t plan for them to have.

When I was just beginning to write, the idea that a character might do something unplanned or unexpected used to terrify me. I felt like the book was spinning out of control. But now that I’ve written something like 22 books (yes, Virginia, I do have a closetful of unpublished manuscripts), I trust that there is a purpose behind these things, and I go with them. It’s a real adventure to follow a willful character or dig into an unexpected scene, and see where the story wants to go. Yes, sometimes I know that that sounds a little bit too “woo woo” for some writers. But for me, it invariably takes me somewhere better, or richer, or more surprising, than what I had originally planned.

And the other way I keep the characters fresh and unexpected, to me as well as the reader? I do what is generally called, “writing toward my fear.” If there is something I imagine doing that I immediately dismiss because it’s too hard or I simply don’t know how to do it–that’s where I know I should go with my writing. That’s where I got Joe Burgess–from knowing I didn’t know how to write from the point of view of a middle-aged male cop. And Joe has been a fascinating person to spend time with. So now I stare down that fear, and start down that road, even though it’s scary, and I know that there will be moments when I’ll be tempted to throw the manuscript, or indeed, my laptop, into the sea. Or go back to writing something easier.

I don’t know how many times, at libraries and bookstores, someone has come up to me and said, “I always wanted to write a book, but I tried it once, and it was hard.” Yes. It is hard. But yes, it is also amazing. And most of the things that are worth doing are hard.

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We Don’t Write For The Money

Posted on July 28, 2012 by mainecrimewriters

Gerry Boyle here, and maybe some of us do. Write for the money, I mean. But even writers who have more money than God keep typing away. Why? Because like the rest orf us, they feel like they have something important to say.

I bring this up because last night I was in a pub. I was waiting for my dinner date and she was a few minutes late. I was a few minutes early. So I was sipping a pint and watching the people and then I turned to my left. Behind me was a bookshelf filled with random books, one of those little touches that’s supposed to make a pub feel like a living room. Being a book person I perused the titles and reached one down. It was a worn hardcover of All Sail Set: A Romance of the Flying Cloud, by Armstrong Sperry. The book was published in 1935. A faded stamp on the frontispiece said it was from the Richmond, Maine Public Library. It looked very well read.

The book is a young adult novel about the famous clipper ship Flying Cloud. It’s about the adventures of a boy named Enoch Thacher, who goes to sea on the ship. I skimmed it at the table and it looked pretty good, if you like books about the heyday of sailing ships (I do). It also has these great pen-and-ink illustrations. This was a time when publishers cared about every detail in their books.

So anyway, I get home and I look up the book online. It won the Newbery Medal in 1936. David Godine did a reprint in 1984. For a time you could order the illustrations as postcards. Armstrong Sperry had a very successful career, in advertising and as an illustrator for pulp and other novels (he did a Tarzan cover). He also wrote quite a few books for kids. His books about natives of South Sea islands were popular  in the 1930s, winning national awards, but today would be seen as patronizing, one article said. Sperry, who lived in Hanover, New Hampshire, died in the 1970s.

Sperry was of his time, as they say. His books have faded into obscurity and barroom bookshelves.

This is the kind of thing that can make a writer feel a little queasy. After all, people buy our books. They read them and sometimes say good things about them. They even come to see us talk about ourselves.

So the notion that we can go from working author to oblivion in a few short years (unless we’re one of that select group of luminaries whose work survives for centuries) is sobering.

But it shouldn’t be. We write, not for fame and fortune, but because it makes us very unhappy not to. We write because we feel a need to create stories, and maybe because those stories have something to say about our time and place. We write because we’re called to this just like a musician has to play music, an artist has to paint.

So we hope our works  outlive us but there’s no guarantee. If decades from now, somebody in a pub finds one of my books on a shelf and finds it intriguing, that’s a bonus.  All I ask is that after they read it, they bring it back to pub and put it back on the shelf for the next guy whose date is late.

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Refilling the Well of Creativity

Posted on July 27, 2012 by mainecrimewriters

Alone on a beach in Surry with an overturned boat.

Kate Flora here, remarkably tardy with today’s posting, because my brain is full, and currently disfunctioning, and so I took on a road trip to restore my creativity and make me feel like a writer again.

I don’t know if this is a problem for the rest of you. I often think it shouldn’t be a problem for me. As I told the audience at the Ellsworth library last night, right after imagination, my favorite word is discipline. But despite my love of the word, and of the practice of keeping myself in the writing chair until the work is done–here’s a simple truth: the writing is never done. And eventually, have gone from project to project for months on end, I will hit the wall. I will run out of steam. My eyes will hurt from so many hours and days of staring at the screen, and everything I think or write will begin to sound like gravel.

Enter the road trip. Of course, those who follow the MCW summer schedule know that we’re all over the place all the time. Last week it was in Stockton Springs, at an amazingly creative library that collects returnable cans and bottles to furnish it with a book budget. Later in the week, it was South Portland. I carried home e-mails of new resources, and some very thoughtful questions, as well as fewer books. And this week, when I was due to be in Ellsworth with Lea Wait and Katherine Hall Page, I took advantage of needing to drive that far, and kept right on going.

John Clark has already written about the pleasures of Hancock and Washington Counties, so you know where I’ve just been. I haven’t just been out smelling the roses, thought the scent of beach roses rises in the heat and drifts on the wind, I’ve smelling fresh-cut grass, and the muddy brine of salt marshes, and the Christmasy tang of balsam. I’ve been staring at the rocks on Schoodic Point. At heaps of sun-bleached driftwood.

Quiet enough almost to hear the moss grow on a gray July afternoon.

I’ve walked in the slanted light of late afternoon along the Downeast Trailway, passing cyclists and joggers, walkers and photographers, and been passed by the occasional ATV. Watched vultures hover and seagulls gather and squabble and a stately troop of Canada Geese float ashore like a miniature flotilla, pausing to stretch and flap before moving on. I’ve followed a line of short, ancient telephone or light poles along a dike, while motorcycles whined in the distance and trucks shifted loudly as they headed uphill.

I bought no scented candles, balsam pillows, sea glass or items decorated with blueberries, but I did drive through miles of blueberry barrens and imagine how gorgeous they will look in the fall when they all turn red.

One the way home, I stopped in Belfast and admire Neal Parent’s photographs–one of which I’m pleased to own, and watched a jeweler craft some copper earrings, a pair of which now dangle from my ears.

I’ve taken silly photos of moss and rocks, and of Bad Little Falls, in Machias, which gave their name to Paul’s new book. I’ve hiked up The Anvil, eaten fantastic lobster and corn cakes at The Surry Inn, and had my one permitted chocolate milkshake of the summer.

Lots of driving. Lots of Maine, way down east, though sadly, not all the way to Eastport.

Sometimes the flagman says stop. Look. Listen. And then it's time to go on, back down the highway to my desk.

And now I’m back in the chair. A blogging delinquent. But full of sights and smells, and with ideas percolating again.

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Where Librarians Lurk in Summertime

Posted on July 26, 2012 by mainecrimewriters

Maine Remains Amazing

I’m one who believes place defines one as much as experience. Growing up on Sennebec Hill Farm and roaming the 189 acres as well as countless hours in my tiny boat anchored off Turtle Rock left me with indelible images. Many of those have found their way into my Wizard of Simonton Pond books.

Back when Wolf Moon Journal was published, I wrote an essay about place that began as follows: “When you marry, you gain more than a partner. You acquire new relatives, different ways of thinking, new customs and family celebrations. All of these are more or less expected parts of a new blended life. If you are lucky, you gain some unexpected things as well. I gained new realms to explore, and so I did; hunting and fishing through parts of Maine that had previously been names on a topographic map.”

Certain songs from the 1960s and ’70s transport me to secret fishing holes or remote ponds, jet contrails take me back to a day when I had Sebec Lake all to myself, the brrrt of a logging truck coming into Hartland conjures up visions of distant dust trails in a sea of evergreens seen from a hill near the Golden Road..

Beth and I love Washington County. It remains beyond the range of most who visit Maine, leaving the roads and the beaches uncluttered. The people who live there are friendly, resourceful and make terrific hosts. I also have a great relationship with most of the librarians there, making visits to their institutions (and book sales) extra special. One of the best parts of a visit Down East is the serendipitous nature of conversations. These have led to discovery of shops, hidden beauties of nature and events on every trip.
We start by taking the Airline, more commonly known as Route 9. The highway acquired its nickname back when pilots used this ribbon of tar slicing through the wilderness as their guide between Bangor and Calais (distances were also measured in six-packs). These days it rivals I-95 for smoothness and comfort. If you’re heading to Machias or Cherryfield, the side roads through Deblois and Wesley save time and are very pretty drives. If you take the Deblois route between late July and early September, you can find wild blueberries aplenty growing in the ditch.
What’s worth seeing? We like hiking in the Moosehorn National Wildlife refuge. The main portion is in Baring, but there is another section down by Cobscook Bay State Park that has more great trails. Calais has a nice walk along the river where you can see an occasional seal and the historic site south of town overlooking St. Croix Island is a great stop.


Sarah has written about Eastport on numerous occasions, but I can’t not rave about the town. We were there on the 4th of July and it rocked big time. Dana Chevalier, the Eastport librarian is one of the people who inspired me to think of librarianship as an entrepreneurial venture. She inherited a struggling entity and turned it around. We try to hit her July 4th book sale whenever we can. The citizens have worked very hard to revitalize the downtown and it shows with an amazing number of co-ops, crafts stores and galleries. Ray’s Mustard is a must visit and there is Shackford Head State Park, Reversing Falls and simply taking the unexplored side road to see where it takes you.
Lubec is probably my favorite town. Watch the river for any length of time and you’re guaranteed a seal sighting. West Quoddy State Park has awesome hiking trails. Beth and I are avid photographers and the boardwalk trail gives us ample opportunity to catch insects, mushrooms, Baked Apple Berries and Sundews. The lighthouse has a nice historical exhibit and art gallery. There are miles of beaches and they are usually uncrowded.


Most towns in the area offer something on the Fourth. Daughter Sara runs 5K races, so she found one in Cutler. Beth and I went along to cheer her on and enjoy another very pretty Maine village. When we pulled into the driveway at the school so she could register, we watched a deer loping across the field beside the school. You can also see the array of towers that was the Bucks Harbor Air Force station from the 1950s through the 1980s. This was the 28th annual Cutler 5K on the fourth and featured runners from numerous states. Sara finished 25th out of some 60 runners.


If you have a passport, bring it. Campobello Island is an odd critter, Canadian territory attached to Maine by a bridge. We never tire of visiting it. The jewel is the Roosevelt Campobello International Park which features two cottages that were owned by our late president’s family in the early part of the 20th century. Imagine a 37 room summer cottage preserved exactly as it was in the 1920s. The gardens are beautiful as is the view of Eastport across the bay. The staff are friendly, well-versed in the history of the area and eager to answer any question you might have. This year we were able to partake of a new feature; Tea with Eleanor. Limited to 20, but offered twice daily, this sit down tea, complete with home made cookies was developed by two female staffers who thought Eleanor should get her due. While you enjoy refreshments and the ambiance of sitting where one of our most famous first ladies once did, two staff members tell you Eleanor’s story. They create a wonderful bit of living history in the process.
Across the road form the park is a gravel drive that leads to the south end of Herring Cove Beach, a mile long stretch that is also virtually people free. Just before you reach it, there’s another drive that leads out to a great viewing spot looking at Grand Manan to the east and West Quoddy Light to the west. It’s a great spot for photographers and is another seal and occasional whale spotting site.
Campobello has one of the best sea glass beaches we’ve ever found, but I’m keeping that location a secret. If you find it, you’ll see what I mean. East Quoddy Light is another photographer’s haven, but can be really dangerous if you choose to climb out to the light itself and neglect the speed of the tides. They rise and fall at the rate of 15 feet per hour and I almost got swept out to sea the last time I tried the hike.


Eastport, Lubec and Campobello all offer whale watch trips. They’re well worth the money. If you want to maximize your chances of seeing one, plan on going in August. We went on the 6th of July and did see a 30 foot Minke along with 50 or so seals, an equal number of dolphins. Ten eagles, puffins and razor-billed auks. The two Canadian gentlemen who ran the tour out of a small harbor by East Quoddy Light worked very hard to find that whale and were very friendly.
This post can’t do full justice to all the wonderful places and experiences waiting for you in Washington County, but I hope it whets your appetite enough to see for yourself. Every road can take you to your own personal discovery.

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Anxious Authors in the Age of Amazon Reviews

Posted on July 25, 2012 by mcwarchives

Paul Doiron here—

Regular readers of this blog are probably aware that I have a new novel coming out soon—in two weeks, in fact. And like any author with a book glimmering on the horizon I have been thinking about reviews. Specifically, I’ve been dwelling on the brave new world of online customer reviews.

The Internet has transformed our lives in so many ways; it has provided a forum for anyone to share information and opinions on any subject imaginable. The value of this interchange is often self-evident. Angie’s List can tell you whether a local roofer has a record of providing good work or has a history of ripping off his clients. On Facebook you can ask your friends for recommendations on a new veterinarian for the puppy you just adopted. After living in the dark for eons, customers seem newly informed and empowered.

With books I find the matter murkier. As an online shopper—and I don’t browse online for new books as a rule, but I have done so occasionally—I read the descriptions and the excerpts. I pay attention to quoted raves from well-known journals like Publishers Weekly and Kirkus. But what am I to make of customer reviews from total strangers, especially the anonymous and pseudonymous ones? I like to think I can separate the wheat from the chaff. I’ve been persuaded by thoughtful assessments by “nonprofessional” reviewers—although you always figure that a number of gushing reviews are the work of the author’s family and friends, many of whom are themselves talented and persuasive writers. (Thanks, Mom.) And a well-crafted pan has definitely made me think twice about a purchase. Some complaints are so silly (“I’d give [The Great Gatsby] negative infinity stars if i could.”) I can’t believe anyone would pay them any mind. If they’re not trollish jokes, they are sad things indeed.

My confidence ebbs, however, when I go on a site such as Amazon or iBooks or Goodreads or Librarything or Shelfari and read (often anonymous) takedowns of my own books. Because I am hoping for good sales myself, it’s difficult to dismiss as absurd that two-star review complaining about the grating voice of the audiobook narrator (which, if anyone is wondering, is not me and I had no part in hiring the fellow), the one-star review because the reader wanted to punish my multinational publisher for pricing the eBook at more than the going rate for a Big Mac (also not my decision, sir), or, my personal favorite, the scathing review because the reader was given the book as a gift but “doesn’t like mysteries!” (What’s wrong with you, my dear?) Even when the rational side of my brain is telling me these are obviously useless complaints that have nothing to do with the quality of my book—and that intelligent shoppers will look past these empty criticisms—a part of me still worries about falling star ratings and vengeful ex-girlfriends with long memories.

In the end, as an author in the age of Amazon, you hope that things even out. One wants to believe in the wisdom of the masses. And isn’t that supposed to be the promise of the Web, to locate quality creative work in obscure places and bring it to the attention of wide new audiences? (Steve Jobs made a lot of money promising musicians that very thing.) Talent ultimately prevails, right?

Maybe and maybe not. Despite his overwhelming genius, it’s pretty clear that Jonathan Franzen’s books suffer in online bazaars—his Amazon rating for The Corrections is an anemic 3.2—because he seems to be something of a jerk personally. And I couldn’t help but observe today on Goodreads than Fifty Shades Freed has a higher rating (4.02 average) than that masterful work of human empathy House of Sand and Fog (3.64). If the great Andre Dubus is getting trounced by an S&M romp, I ask myself, what hope is there for a mope like me?

So what say you, reader? How persuasive do you find Amazon, and other online, reviews? Do they ever influence your book-buying decisions? Anxious authors want to know. Or maybe we don’t.

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The Seafarer Inn

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Barbara Ross

Hi. Barb here. I’m battling a deadline (sadly those scenes just don’t seem to write themselves) and found this post in my archives. I couldn’t resist sharing.

I’ve just returned from 10 days at the Seafarer Inn in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Sitting in one of the rocking chairs on the Inn’s wide front porch watching the sailboats glide across the harbor is one of my favorite things in the world.

The Seafarer Inn

Your hostess at the Inn is my mother-in-law, Olga. Ignore the first name, which came from a novel her mother favored in the 1920s. Her maiden name, DiIanni, is much more meaningful. Like the Marchmains of Brideshead, the DiIannis of Olga’s generation are cursed with a dangerous charm, albeit in a version I like to think of as “Marchmain lite”—not quite the same taste levels, but also far less alcohol.

For almost 20 years, Olga has put the DiIanni charm to good use running The Seafarer as a Bed & Breakfast Inn. Often have a reserved mid-western couple hoping for a quiet night in Boothbay been surprised, after the communal breakfast and ritual picture taking, to find themselves enthusiastically hugging and kissing Olga good-bye on the big front porch, promising to come again.

Some guests go even further. Olga has a small but fanatical following who seem to like nothing better than to come, stay for several days, and do her chores for her. These guests arrive every year to wash the lawn furniture, pull the weeds, hang pictures and do other rounds of endless activity and then pay her for the privilege.

My mother-in-law Olga and my kids on the front porch of the Seafarer. 1990

We, her children, have wondered about this for some time. Appropriate to its architecture, The Seafarer is decorated in the Victorian manner, which is to say that every available surface, either horizontal or vertical, is covered with—something. We gave up moving any of this stuff around long ago (except occasionally to clear off a chair so we can sit down), because we found that liberating any space at all only created an invitation to fill it up again. Therefore, we have often been mystified by the sudden appearance something like a heavy bureau in a third floor bedroom.

“Picked it up at the dump,” my mother-in-law will proudly explain. “Solid mahogany. Can you imagine someone getting rid something like this?”

“Perhaps it was someone who already had three or four bureaus per bedroom,” my husband will suggest, gazing around meaningfully.

“How does she even get this stuff in here?” he would hiss soon as she was out of earshot, imagining house elves or magic mice.

“I think,” I answered, “It’s the damn guests.”

My suspicions were initially aroused when I answered the phone at the Inn one day. “Hi,” proclaimed the chipper voice at the other end. “It’s Steve. I was just calling to make my reservation.”

“When did you want to come, Steve?” I asked.

“Second week in October, the same as always.” Steve seemed a little offended that I wasn’t aware of this. “I come every year to see the foliage and put up the storm windows.”

The Harbor

This year, I finally got the chance to catch the action first hand. While I was staying at the Inn, Al, Marsha and Miles O’Brien arrived from Peabody, Mass., for a two night stay. Olga actually closed the Inn two summers ago, but that has not stopped the most fanatical of the chore-doers from coming, even though now the place is now 100% amenity-less. For these people, making your own bed and breakfast at the Bed & Breakfast only adds to the appeal. I have to say that on the surface the O’Briens seemed like perfectly normal—even nice–people, though Miles was perhaps a bit more polite than the average adolescent dragged off to a Bed & Breakfast with no TV or internet by his well-meaning but clueless parents.

The minute they arrived, Al huddled with Olga about the to-do list. They inspected the property. He had ideas. Of course, so did she.

“Time for bed,” Al announced to his family immediately following dinner on the first night with all the anticipation normally reserved for a fishing trip or a cruise to Monhegan. “The hardware store opens at 6:00 a.m.!”

I came down the next morning to find Olga in the kitchen. “Where are Al and Marsha?” I asked.

“Marsha ran to the supermarket and Al is trimming the bushes,” she answered showing absolutely no awareness that these are not vacation activities–are, in fact, the very activities that most people go to a Bed & Breakfast to get away from.

The view from my rocker (look familiar?)

As I sat on the porch, sipping coffee and gazing at the boats in the harbor and occasionally at Al doing his Edward Scissorhands impression in the hedge, I thought I had the answer. “Ah,” I thought, “Al is one of those men who don’t know how to relax, who think puttering equals recreation.”

But Marsha put that notion to rest as soon as she returned. “I can’t get him to do a thing at home,” she said, gazing fondly at her husband who was sweating profusely while tangoing with a winsome rhododendron. “I have a to-do list and I have begged him and begged him to do just one thing on it.”

“Don’t you have to make your own bed in rehab?” my daughter Kate asked a little later. She was sitting in the rocker next to mine, painting her toenails and staring at Al, who appeared to be covered in small cuts, and, along with his hedge-clippers, was now so entangled in a lilac bush he looked like he was battling a giant squid. Kate’s furrowed brow told me she, too, was trying to understand the O’Briens.

“Yeah,” I answered, “but I think that only does something for people who are so addled they can’t make their beds at home.”

That night, Marsha reminisced at dinner. “The first time we came here was the week you opened. We were on our honeymoon. I helped you hang the curtains in the living room.”

“Is that so?” Olga replied politely.

Frankly, Marsha seemed a little hurt that Olga couldn’t remember this, but really, so many guests, so many chores…

Later, we looked at through the photo albums (assembled by guest Jeanine Weinstein, 1994-2002) trying to find pictures of the O’Briens on that fateful visit. We came up empty, though we did find snaps of the year they stained the deck.

I never did unlock the mystery of why people come to work and pay money to Olga for the privilege. Maybe it’s that deadly DiIanni charm. Or maybe their parents live far away, or are gone, and these guests want to remember what it’s like to spend a weekend doing annoying tasks with poor tools and an irritating level of supervision. Or maybe they want not so much rehab as “hab,” that feeling of satisfaction that comes from helping someone who needs the skills you have and the time you can give, and who provides friendship and connection in return.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t speak to me. I sat on the porch and finished reading my book.

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