Chicks and Hicks

That's what Mr. B. recommended I call my Great Wisconsin RV Book Tour. Since when is driving around Wisconsin in a 1973 RV with your parents uncool? Chicks and Hicks my ass. I am very excited to bring May Day to the people of The Cheese State. And for those of you who say Wisconsin is just Minnesota Lite, I say pah (in my naked-but-for-my-yellowed-underwear-old-man, fist-shaking voice).

The other day I got an email from William Kent Krueger in which he apologized for not making it to my last Saturday signing at Once Upon a Crime and said that he thought I was the best writer he'd ever read and that I was really fun to be around, too. Or maybe he just said to stop calling his house and asking for Cork O'Connor. I dunno. It all gets so jumbly in my head sometimes.

Yesterday, as I was beginning revisions on the first full draft of Knee High by July with all the enthusiasm I usually save for pap smears, church, and dentist appointments, I had a thought: "How do authors know how long a book should be?" My mainstream fiction (which isn't published, thank you for asking) novel is about 300 pages, but darn it if I can get a mystery past 220 pages. I get to to 200 pages and I think, "done." I race to that 200 pages, and that's where all three have ended. I push myself, push push push myself to get it to 210, and then take feedback from others to get it to 220. Is that me, or is that just the natural arc of the story and I am just a whittler on the wood of the plot, uncovering what was there all along?

Once Upon a Crime

Saturday, I was signing books at Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis. Pat and Gary own the place and are wonderful--funny, giving (they supplied lemonade, cookies, and more!), and crazy smart about mysteries. Their store is exactly what you imagine a bookstore (or the library in your house) should look like--neat but tight with books, natural lighting but dark corners, and comfortable furniture. If you've never been, go. There's a mystery for everyone.

Plus, it's right up the street from the CC Club in Uptown, where I used to go and play pool (poorly, but cockily, the way I do many things) and drink shots of Jagermeister. Yuck. And then, my friends and I would stumble over to Liquor Lyle's to dine on the block of government cheese that they put out for "happy" hour. Yum.

Yesterday, I booked a plane ticket for Las Vegas, where I will be flying in June with Christine, Linda, and Kellie. One of us will be leaving with a new piercing, and one of us will be leaving with a tattoo, but we're not sure which or what. I guess they help you sort all that out in Vegas, but I'll take bets here. Assuming you can judge a book by its cover, here's some help when placing bets: that's me on the left, Linda next to me, Kellie popping up in behind, and Christine on the right. That Ruth Buzzy happens to be in the picture is just gravy.

Jesus and L Ron Hubbard Share a Giggle

Those guys. Having Katie Holmes and Brooke Shields give birth at the same hospital on the same day. I tell you.

The big news is not the ultimate celebrity punking carried out by those two holy rascals, though. It's not even the United States visit by the President of China for a lighthearted game of Risk. No, the big news is that Knee High by July is done. Well, the first complete draft is done--198 pages. The next step is to gather up my "buttons"--little scraps of paper with character quirks, funny turns of phrase, plot twists--that I gather throughout the year, and sew them into the story. That fleshes it out and adds depth.

After that, I send it off to Holly Hassel, who gives me detailed feedback and encouragement. Then, I send it to Jessica Morrell, who tosses her beret in the air and says, "to work!" She gives me little encouragement and a lot of criticism. It's good for me, like a personal trainer ridding my writing of fat, sloth, and joy. After I make those changes, I send it to Barbara at Midnight Ink to stick it in the chute, where it gets a cover, some more editing, and all that other fun stuff.

While Knee High is with Jessica, I'm going to edit June Bug, which I just got back from Jessica yesterday. Man, she's hard on me. Getting edited reminds me of parent teacher/conferences, where the teacher tells you that your child has a lot of potential but no one likes her so maybe work on that. The plan is to have June Bug bionic and fantastic and in Barbara's hands by May 15th, and Knee High bionic and fantastic and in Barbara's hands by June 15th. Whaddya say, Barbara?

Pyromania

I like to start fires, as do most of the women in my family. That would be a great opening line for a novel, but it also happens to be the truth, especially this time of year when I've got piles of leaves sitting around, taunting me with their incendiary nature. I already burned one pile, even though I'm pretty sure there was a burning ban on, and it was great. That got me to thinking. How many arsonists are female? In the U.S., roughly 16%, in 2003. Hmm. I would have thought more would be female. Or maybe the women just get caught less?

Anyhow, my need to burn things is wholly satisfied by a lot of camping and maybe a leaf pile or two, so whew. But I wonder if it is just the women in my family who like to burn things, or if that is a gender-favoring trait? Happy Monday thoughts. Oh, and good news! The Sunday St. Paul Pioneer Press covered May Day. Thank you, Mary Ann Grossman! (and Brian)

I've Been Blog-Tagged

I've been blog-tagged by Sara Rosett, author of the Mom Zone series from Kensington Books. That means I need to answer her favorites in fours questions, and then tag four more people. Why does this feel like the new chain letter? I can do it, though, because it beats writing a novel right about now.

4 movies you would watch over and over:

• Gone with the Wind
• O Brother Where Art Thou
• Murder by Death
• The Star Wars Trilogy

4 places you have lived:

• Tacoma, Washington (born here)
• Paynesville, Minnesota (raised here)
• Minneapolis, Minnesota (rebelled here)
• Battle Lake, Minnesota (inspired to write murder mysteries here)

4 TV shows you love to watch:

• The Office
• Sex and the City
• Little House on the Prairie
• The X Files

4 places you have been on vacation:

• Cozumel (scuba diving and snorkeling)
• Florida Keys (scuba diving)
• Aruba (snorkeling and a wedding--not mine)
• Canada (um, the Canadians?)

4 of your favorite foods:

• Popcorn
• Ice Cream
• Bagels
• Dark chocolate with nuts

4 Websites you visit daily:

• Pop Goes the Library
• Me (to make updates)
• Alex Tech
• Google

4 places you would rather be right now:

I believe in always making the best of whatever place, person, or moment in time I am so I'd like to just say I'm happy right now where I...screw it:

• At a bank, cashing a check for $1,000,000 for a three-book deal with Midnight Ink
• In the arms of that rare intelligent, funny, and emotionally mature straight hot guy who is telling me he loves me
• On a beach with my kids, teaching them to snorkel
• At my French villa with friends and family, drinking red wine, eating cheese with crusty bread, and playing Trivial Pursuit

Tag 4 People you think will respond:

• Janet Evanovich (why not?)
• Brian Farrey
• Liz Burns
• Sammi Carter

Rejection

I have stuck to my writing schedule for five days in a row. This is good. I have also recently received three smackdown rejections (to be fair, it was three reviewers for the same journal, and it's the American Journal of Sociological Review, which is the big dog and where I cockily began submitting) for my 50-page research article, "Sexual Knowledge and Politics." A sampling:

"There is much to like about this article. It examines a major public issue of concern to social scientists and the public. It is on the whole well written and empirically grounded. On the surface, it is entirely reasonable and its findings and charts straightforward...[h]owever, there were too many parts of it that didn’t make sense to me as a social scientist..."

"This study is an analysis of the association between sexual knowledge and political affiliation/voting preferences. As such, its greatest strength is its selection of an interesting research question...[u]nfortunately...it requires major reworking to remedy the problems outlined below: Overreaching in its scope. Conflating separate issues. Overly polemical tone..."

"This manuscript poses the provocative question: Has the Republican right limited sexual knowledge via abstinence-only education in America? The author suggests that this is the case...The paper does a good job tracing the political history of sex education, but misses the opportunity to engage broader sociological theories that can serve as frameworks for how attitudes are shaped and populations are mobilized around issues...overly selective sample..."

Isn't that nice? I post this as evidence of the thick skin (read: disassociation from reality) required to be a published writer, whether of nonfiction or fiction. I'm now going to scrabble together my strips of dignity, change the title of my research article, and submit it to The Boise Journal of Theses You Can't Get Published Anywhere Else.

I'm Hot-Blooded--Check It and See

Last night I was doing research for Knee High by July (it was the second night IN A ROW I stuck to my writing schedule!!!) and came across this really fantastic picture of Chief Wenonga. If loving him is wrong, I don't want to be right.

And, in a moving victory for feminism, Girls Gone Wild Have Been Released Back into Civilization. Thank you, Dr. Holly Hassel, for sharing the good news with me. :)

The Winning Library

Congratulations to Melisa Duncan, Community Relations person at Fargo Public Library!! She won a free copy of May Day for the library by entering the drawing on my webpage. If you're a librarian, you should enter.

And check out the Smoking Gun for the latest on a presidential mishap. Of intelligence. I'm going to float an idea out there. This two party corporate-sponsored system is not really working for me. What about a political system where multiple ideas and demographics are represented? Probably, we'd have to reform the campaign funding and electoral processes to make that viable. What? Someone's already thought of that?

And hey, I got my three pages written last night! Half of one page was part of my outline that I cut and pasted, but I still wrote it so it counts. Mystery writing is unique in that you have to write the ending first. So, I come up with a central mystery idea (murdered love, missing diamond, disappearing fiberglass statue with human scalp left at the base, creationism science camp and a murdered cheerleader, etc.), decide whodunit, and then create a seven-day or so outline starting at the scene of the crime and working toward its resolution (most of my mysteries span a very short period of time). I get the bare bones of what happens each day written down in a table outline, and then I use that to keep myself on track as I write the actual novel. I should do more of that writing the actual novel.

Better Day

OK, my day's gotten better. Thank god for cute kids who like making cupcakes and playing Star Wars faerie ring forest tag on beautiful spring days.

As of today, my writing goal is to turn out three pages a day, five days a week, which means I will be done with Knee High by July in...six weeks. That's not so bad, right? I'll keep ya' updated.

Oh, and I finished William Kent Krueger's Mercy Falls. If you are a mystery reader, you'll be familiar with the uproar over the ending. I didn't hate it. And the novel itself has the fantastic character development and plot twists that Kent is known for, though less on the fidelity issue, fewer peripheral characters, and more setting and Native American description wouldn't have killed it.

Shoot. My Roomba just got caught on something...

Lickerish

That's my new word for today--"lickerish." It means lecherous and greedy, and it sounds like that is exactly what it means, which is why it's a great word.

"The lickerish stranger shoved his hands into his pocket and limped away, smiling to himself."

That's about all I have for today because I'm crabby. I was dumped by an emotionally stunted man (must be something in the water in rural Minnesota), my students are being needy ("I wasn't in class yesterday because I was sick, which wasn't my fault, so can I still get points for class participation?"), administration wants to pump my class sizes up to three times their current size (I wonder why students aren't learning as much as they should? Probably diverting money from education will fix the problem.), and Molly Ivins is totally right that the Democrats suck ass.

Clearly, I need to get drunk or skinny and everything will get better (not drunk AND skinny, though, because then I'd be Tara Reid).

The Apothecary Has Taken the Plunge

Battle Lake news:

• I just received a letter from Jay, the pharmacist at the Village Apothecary (featured in May Day), and he has requested 24 copies of the book. This is my favorite part of his letter: "I did, however, practice in Paynesville for 6 years before moving here to Battle Lake, and I must say that Paynesville had just as many oddities as our small town. I see that you hail from Paynesville. Does this mean you are odd as well?" Ha! I like this guy. And yes, it means I'm odd as well.
• I got a phone call from the owner of the Nifty Nook Resort requesting a review copy. Fun! I am not hated in Battle Lake. Yet. Of course, they haven't read the book yet.
• Actually, one of them has. His name is Lyman, I'm guessing he is on the young side of 80, and he called me Saturday afternoon to tell me he thoroughly enjoyed May Day. He went on to regale me with a story of a horrible and mysteriously bloody human corpse that he stumbled upon a few years back. I don't think I can use it, but thanks for calling, Lyman. There's nothing a single gal likes quite so much as the afternoon call from a stranger who wants to talk about grisly death. Seriously, it was a very sweet phone call, and I appreciated the thought.

That's about it for today, except that I had to get a CT scan this morning, and it was scary. Well, not too scary because it was just to make sure that my enlarged salivary gland is just that (I drool when I type), but you have to sit on your back and get this dye injected into your arm that makes your body feel like it's on fire for a second, then you taste metal, and then you feel like you peed your pants (I'm not making this up, and it wasn't just me). Blah. And the needle is really, really big. But all is well. And I don't really drool when I type. Just when I talk.

Oh wait! I forgot the big May Day news. My mom called me yesterday to tell me that according to the Sunday St. Cloud Times, May Day is the best selling trade paperback in St. Cloud!!! May Day was also generously reviewed by In the Library.