Can you remember that first book that turned you on to reading? The one that made you defy your parent’s call “lights out” with a flashlight under the covers?

For me, it was a box set of six mystery books by Wylly Folk St. John including The Secrets of Hidden Creek. I can still remember some of the plot line (and I still have the box set).

From there, it was off to the Nancy Drew mysteries and countless more. Years later, I discovered Mary Stewart and all other gothic romance mysteries. But it was my discovery of Elizabeth Peters a.k.a. Barbara Michaels and her books that first made me think about writing my own novel.

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Tags: Barbara Michaels, Elizabeth Peters, gothic, mystery, Nancy Drew, Wylly Folk St. John

In Wait for Their Return, my historical character needs appropriate dishes. Some of these dishes are made from redware, a kind of pottery that went into production in America in 1625. Redware was given its name because that was the color the clay turned after firing. The production of redware continued at high levels until the mid-19th century when the industrial revolution began to offer alternatives and many potters moved west or began to work in mills.
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In the photos below (taken at Old Sturbridge Village, MA), you can see a potter with wet hands turning what appears to be the beginning of a mug. The next step is to let the clay dry for several days before dipping it in a reddish brown glaze. When enough pottery is accumulated, it will be stacked inside the large kiln. The opening is bricked up and the pottery is fired by building a fire at the base of the kiln until a temperature of 1850 degrees F is reached. In the last photos, you see some of the finished products.

For more information about redware visit Old Sturbridge Village.

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Tags: kiln, potters, pottery, redware, sturbridge

I thought I was interviewing another writing, blogging Wiffer, but it turns out Robin is not yet an active member on the boards. How’d we ‘meet’? We’re not exactly sure, but it was either through Pam or Caryn. Come on over to the Will Write for Wine boards, Robin.

1) Where were you born? Where did you grow up? Where do you currently live?

I’m a California girl. I was born in LA and grew up in a small suburb about forty-five minutes from the city. At the time, all of my parents’ friends thought they were crazy for living out in “the boonies.” It was a brand new housing development far from my dad’s place of work, but back then there was no traffic. (Don’t even ask me about traffic now. It’s practically at my front door.) I currently live about ten minutes from my childhood home (my parents are still there), so I haven’t strayed too far. I’m lucky. It’s a great place to live and raise my kids.
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2) What has been your biggest challenge (so far) raising two boys?

Hmm…I have to say I’m thankful I’ve got boys in this day and age and not girls. The biggest challenge is probably all the testosterone in my house! I get to be part of all those wonderful male qualities we know and love, while at the same time making sure my boys are well mannered and know how to be respectful to others.
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3) Do the reptiles in your house keep anyone away (my mother-in-law would never visit again)?

LOL! I wish. (Just kidding.) They’re very nice reptiles and honestly, rarely make an appearance outside of their enclosures.
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4) Do you remember the moment when you decided to write a novel? And is this your first one? What kind of romance novel is it?

I remember the exact moment! In a nutshell, I was working freelance for a website, writing letters from a bride’s perspective about her wedding. The letters pushed the envelope on the heat level (per my instructions) and when I’d finished them (about 25), one of the writers on staff emailed me and asked if I’d ever written a romance novel, and if I hadn’t, I should. A bell went off in my head at that moment, and I decided that’s exactly what I should do. (I had actually thought about writing a novel before that, but didn’t know when or if I really would.) I started reading some romance novels (I never had before, she says, hiding under the chair) and shortly after that sat down to start writing. That was a year and a half ago and I’m having the best time! I just finished my first single title and have written three category and one novella. I write contemporary, but am trying my hand at a paranormal right now.
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5) Your posted excerpt is from the male point of view. Did you have any problems getting into the head of a guy?

Good question! And one I’d love to hear other’s perspective on. I don’t have any problems other than the fact that I do find it harder than writing from my heroine’s POV. (Ha! No problem there, huh?)
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6) Did you spend any time with a veterinarian as ‘research’? If not, how did you research this character?

I didn’t spend any time with a veterinarian. Nate’s occupation is important in that he loves animals and my heroine, Grace, hates them. When they meet, he’s in New York visiting friends so is away from work. Grace is strapped with pet sitting for her best friend and the only thing that makes it bearable is running into Nate and receiving his help with her pet obligations. By the way, I tried to get a little creative with the pet. It’s not a dog or a cat. And it’s not a reptile.
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7) If we wouldn’t let you have romance books on your desert island, what kind of books would you take? (Remember, we must torture the MC.)

That’s easy! I’d take mystery/suspense novels. Until recently, that’s all I read. And embarrassingly, not that often (hiding under the chair again). Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels are a favorite, as well as Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman and Sujata Massey. And I’d bring all of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files books.
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8. Pantser of plotter? And have you tried it the other way?

I’d say 75% pantser, 25% plotter. I love it when I’m writing and the story takes me in a direction I didn’t see coming.
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9) Given unlimited funds and two weeks, where would you go on vacation?

I’d go to Europe. Since I’ve never been, I can’t pick just one spot, so I’d forget sleeping and see as much as I could!
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10) How did you find ‘Will Write for Wine’?

The wonderful Book Lady, Caryn, introduced it to me.

Mama Moose made the challenge, so here is my list:

1. I have curly hair.
2. And I look bad in hats (Hi Kim!)
3. I wear glasses, occasionally contacts (they don’t agree with me).
4. I have a black Labrador retriever.
5. The dog will eat anything.
6. She once ate an entire gingerbread house (she’s okay).
7. I wasn’t sure what I was going tell the vet.
8. I have a cat named Darwin.
9. He sits with me while I write and we watch the chipmunks together.
10. I think chipmunks are really, really cute.
11. I can play the piano.
12. And the flute.
13. My second son was delivered without medication.
14. I didn’t ask for the epidural until it was too late.
15. I’m glad it was too late.
16. I love Indian food.
17. I’ve been married for 11 years.
18. I have two boys.
19. When my husband mentions a minivan, I agree.
20. Provided he drives it.
21. So far, no minivan – lately, he’s used the word: convertible.
22. I like Pierce Brosnan.
23. At our wedding, we were introduced to the James Bond Theme.
24. Macs, not PCs.
25. I hate soda.
26. I’m not overly fond of beer because it’s carbonated.
27. I do like wine – red.
28. I want an iPhone.
29. And the Mac ‘air’.
30. I love to travel.
31. I’ve been to Egypt.
32. And Greece.
33. I sunburn easily.
34. But hate the sun anyway.
35. I used to want to be a marine biologist.
36. But ended up as a cell biologist.
37. Then started teaching anatomy and physiology.
38. I’m moving to CT soon and leaving my job as a college professor.
39. I won’t miss it.
40. I have a sister.
41. She’s due with her first child soon.
42. My favorite cookie is the Oreo.
43. I love Dove milk chocolates.
44. I love ancient history.
45. And am starting to appreciate American History much more.
46. Writing my first novel made me notice a lot of things about my hometown that I’d missed.
47. My youngest son loves trains.
48. And horses.
49. His favorite color is yellow.
50. My oldest son’s favorite color is purple.
51. My husband is going bald.
52. I don’t care.
53. He does, kinda.
54. My grandmother’s first language was Ukrainian.
55. She went to school not knowing what a toothbrush was.
56. She plucked geese to sell their feathers for extra money.
57. At my great grandmother’s house, cats lived under the house and in the barn.
58. Barn cats are really mean, even as kittens.
59. My great uncle was schizophrenic.
60. We were scared of him as kids.
61. My grandfather is 90 and stronger than I am.
62. I grew up without air conditioning.
63. I’m always opening windows if I can.
64. I’m excited that our new house has an attic fan.
65. It’s the kind that sucks the air from the whole house up into the attic.
66. We won’t have to use the air conditioning as much.
67. But I’m glad the house has it for the hot weeks.
68. I was a lifeguard in high school.
69. And played on the volleyball team.
70. I’m 5’9’’.
71. But I still wasn’t very good at volleyball.
72. I was worse at basketball.
73. I performed in a dance group in college.
74. I love Sturbridge Village.
75. I’d rather read than watch TV.
76. My husband would rather watch TV than read.
77. I lived in Savannah, GA for three years.
78. Because my husband was in the U.S. Army.
79. I miss the Spanish moss hanging from the live oak trees.
80. But I don’t want to move back.
81. My great grandmother went to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
82. They lived in Indiana.
83. When we visited, we chased chickens in the chicken run.
84. I got to ride on really large farm machinery.
85. It was a bit scary.
86. I lived in NYC for three years.
87. I went to college in Philadelphia.
88. I went to graduate school in Baltimore.
89. I own ice skates.
90. But haven’t worn them in 10 years.
91. I grew up in rural northern Pennsylvania.
92. I taught myself to crochet.
93. I like to cook.
94. And eat.
95. I like my in-laws.
96. I hate wearing makeup.
97. And bracelets.
98. I’m addicted to all things ‘Will Write for Wine’.
99. I’ve met Lani and Sam.
100. They’re just as much fun in person.

Diana Gabaldon. Wonderfully written historical romance and I love all the adventure.

Elizabeth George. British mysteries. Interesting stories and relationships.

Samantha Graves/C.J. Barry. I like the adventure. While I must admit, I’m not much into futuristic type stories (C.J Barry), she incorporates a lot archeological/anthropological details that I enjoy. Her newer book (soon to be books) as Samantha Graves incorporates these same details and has an interesting paranormal element.

Tony Hillerman. Mysteries set in the desert southwest that incorporate a lot about the Navaho culture.

Faye Kellerman. More mystery with a strong Jewish element.

Marian Keyes. Chick lit set in Britain.

Stephan King. Duh.

Laura Lippman. Mysteries set in Baltimore. I lived there for a few years, so I love the settings.*

Sharyn McCrumb. Her haunting stories set in Appalachia stick in my mind.

Robin McKinley. She’s mostly YA and Fantasy, which I almost never read, but there’s something about the way she spins a tale.

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Tags: Authors, Books, favorite

I ‘met’ Pam (aka Pimp My Mixer Pam) on the Will Write for Wine forums. Its a fun community of writers and readers led by Samantha Graves and Lani Diane Rich. While many of the writers there are (as yet) unpublished (myself included), we’re working hard on changing that. With a little nudging from Sam’s ‘Help! I’m Published and I Can’t Get Up‘ podcast workshop and the example of a few other blogging Wiffers like Caryn, The Book Lady (see the links to the right), we’ve both gotten our blogs up and running.

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Pam of the new Pam Writes Romance blog has taken a few moments to answer my ten questions. Before we got down to the questions about writing, I had to start by clarifying a few quirky tidbits she’s let drop. See her bio for more.

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1) Where were you born? Where did you grow up? Where do you currently live?
I was born in the middle of a 3-day blizzard. Some might say this was a portent of things to come. They might be right… I grew up in lovely small towns that really were ideal. I have fond memories of my childhood because of those towns, but sadly, they’ve grown to a point they’re no longer what they were. Currently I live in Arizona–it just shows what happens when you say never. (The gods laugh.)
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2) What made you decide to ‘decorate’ your mixer?
I hate to say this, but that’s actually not my mixer. The gentleman who pimps mixers lives in Arizona and I’m waiting for a road trip to visit him and see if I can get something custom. I do have a white KitchenAid and I would like the blue flames, so I guess it’s a picture representing my mixer in my mind.
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3) How exactly did a motor manage to fall on the back of your head?
Dad was cleaning out the rafters in the garage and I was standing at the base of the ladder. (I was 8 and we were going to be moving soon.) I don’t remember it happening, it didn’t hurt–all of a sudden Dad was rushing down the ladder saying he was sorry and asking if I was okay. I’ve got a scar on the back of my head that looks like an itty-bitty bald spot.
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4) Do you remember the moment when you decided to write novels?
Yup–I tried to write poetry (it really, really, really sucked, and my husband, an English major and poet himself, gently suggested I start by writing something I know. (I did not know poetry!) I knew romance. Started in August 1996 and never looked back.

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5) What kind of paranormal do you like to write about?
Light and funny. Different.
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6) What time period(s) have you set your historical novels in?
Book #1 is 1883, Book #2 is 1217, Book #3 is 1780, and Book #5 is 1883. I don’t know why I’m gravitating towards Victorian. I love the other periods just as much.
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7) If you couldn’t write romance, would you pick another genre? Which? Why?
Yes, though I’d still write romance. (I don’t think anybody could tell me I couldn’t in a way that I’d believe them.) Plus, the genres now are mixing so much where does one start and another begin? I wouldn’t/couldn’t write mysteries–too much to plan out and have it be believable. SF/Fantasy maybe, same with Westerns. I could do women’s fiction and a kids book. Are all authors this ambitious?
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8. Pantser or plotter? And have you tried it the other way? How did it work?
65% panster, 35% plotter. I tried plotting and the book had other ideas–it ignored my plans and created new characters. Now, I have ideas and turning points and make the in-between parts up as I go.
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9) Given unlimited funds and two weeks, where would you go on vacation?
British Isles. Amen, end of sentence, no question about it.
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10) How did you find ‘Will Write for Wine’?
I’m a cherry and Lani advertised it on the Cherry loops. If you go back and look at one of the very first posts, I suggested a tagline of “Like your writing and your wine–bottoms up!” They went with “If you can’t write for money, write for wine.” Don’t know who came out ahead on that one.
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Historic Deerfield in Massachusetts has some famous doors. In 1760, a famous wood joiner named Samuel Partridge built a door for the house of Reverend John Williams. Many neighbors then sought to replicate its style. This original door is on display in the Flynt Center of Early New England Life, a museum maintained by Historic Deerfield.
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Below is a montage of the doors I passed on my visit to Historic Deerfield last weekend. I’d love to show you the amazing interiors, but photographs are not allowed.

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Tags: Deerfield, doors, Historical, Samuel Partridge

I was at Sturbridge Village last weekend (detecting a theme?) and there happened to be two costumed interpreters making soap, the old way. In an earlier post, I mentioned that the ashes from all those wood fires were saved for making soap. I had a vague idea of the process, but took the opportunity to quiz them. Here is my understanding of the basic process in ten steps (if anyone knows better, please share). As I write this, I wish I’d had a recorder…
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Lye, the corrosive alkaline substance in soap (NaOH), is what lets soap do its job. In 1840, you obtained lye from all those ashes.
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1) Fill your wooden barrel with ashes. This barrel should have holes in the bottom.
2) Set it on your collecting stone (note the grooves in the stone beneath the barrel) and fill it with soft water (rain/stream water) but not so much that the water starts to flow. Leave it there for at least a day.
3) Start adding more water. Slowly. This will leach the lye from the ashes. Collect it by placing a bucket beneath the stone’s spout. Do not touch. Remember, its corrosive. My son reached out and the interpreter jumped to stop him.
4) An egg should float – straight up and down. If it floats like a boat, you need to add more water. If it doesn’t float at all, its too dilute and you need to boil the lye water to concentrate it.
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Meanwhile, you should be preparing your lard (animal fat).
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5) Melt your lard.
6) Heat up your lye water.
7) Mix the two together. I looked online and it looks like a ratio of 2 gallons of lye water mixed with 3 cups of melted lard is the goal.
8. Then you ‘prove’ the soap. This involves fine-tuning the ratio by looking to see how the soap falls when lifted with a knife. It shouldn’t be too long and ropy (needs more lye), nor should it fall in short, white pieces (needs more lard).
9) When the ratio is right, you have soft or liquid soap. If you want a bar of soap, there’s more to do (see step #10).
10) Add salt. This causes the soap to float to the top and a brown liquid to stay on the bottom. You skim off the soap. Once you’ve collected enough (you may have to re-melt it), you pour it into wooden molds and let it cool. Later, you can cut it into bars.
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If you want more details there’s a website called Traditional Soap Making that I consulted. I’d love to try this someday. Just once. I’m sure after one run through I’d be completely content to continue to buy my soap at the store.

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Tags: lard, lye, soap, sturbridge, village

Last night I was contemplating the enormous amount of books I own (and the ones I wish to acquire) and their imminent move (the movers always sigh when they see the paperbacks, then groan when they see all our biology and medical texts). I was asked recently to list my favorite authors and why… I quickly came up with a list of thirty authors of which I own at least one book. There’s more, but I’ll start with these. I’ve alphabetized to be fair. Here’s the first ten.

Mary Kay Andrews. Southern women’s fiction – women in a crisis and how they cope. Her first novel was set in Savannah, GA and I read it while living there. Great writing style. While writing this list, I discovered there’s a new one I haven’t read!
Jane Auston. Sense and Sensability and all the others.

Marion Zimmer Bradley. Her Mists of Avalon and others in the series are pure joy to read.

Dan Brown. The Davinci Code is great, but so are his other books.

Bill Bryson. He’s a travel writer. He’s best known for A Walk in the Woods and it is funny. So are his other books.

Lee Child. I love his character Jack Reacher and his fast writing style.

Jennifer Crusie. Fun – and different from what I’ve read in the past. I’ve just started reading her work and have several more books to go.

Clive Cussler. I love the history combined with adventure. I prefer his earlier, solo work.

Diane Mott Davidson. Mysteries solved by a caterer. And you get recipes.

Aaron Elkins. He writes about a forensics anthropologist who keeps stumbling over skeletons on vacations and solving the mystery that surrounds them.
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To be continued…

Tags: Authors, Books

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…And Their Consequences

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We have a sweet black lab that we trained to a wireless fence.
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The basic principle behind the thing is that there is an underground wire around your property that is linked to an electrode on a collar they wear. When the dog gets too close, the collar beeps a warning. If the dog tries to cross the wire, it zaps her.
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Nira trained very quickly and the wireless fence was all we’d hoped it would be (except for an occasional broken wire). But then we moved.
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In our current house in Massachusetts, we have a fenced backyard (as in wood, no wire). Nira, however, trained really well.
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Shortly after we moved here, our cell phone service (Verizon) started sending us text messages in the middle of the night (3:30am). Our cell phones would then make a small electronic beep indicating a message awaited us. Poor Nira thought she was going to be zapped. At 3:46, precisely one minute after the first warning beep, she arrived at our bedroom door, quivering, tail between her legs. At 4:00am, the next beep occurred and Nira peed on the floor.
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I went downstairs to figure out what the problem was and made them mistake of letting her outside to calm down. Its 4:15am, cold outside, and the dog won’t come back inside she’s so scared…. Much coffee was consumed the next morning.
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The same events (thankfully without peeing on the rug) occurred over and over. As such, we have no text messaging service.
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Unfortunately, Nira also thinks that the cell phone is out to get her when it signals its battery is low. We’ve told these stories to family members, none of whom believed us, until last night.
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The kids were in bed and my husband and I were sitting in the living room chatting with my visiting in-laws. My cell phone beeps. Low battery. The dog appears from the other room where she was napping. I started to laugh. Watch this, I tell them. Minutes later, my phone sounds its ominous warning again. Nira leaps onto the sofa (she’s well trained and would otherwise not dare) and shoves her way behind me, burying her head and quivering.
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Nira’s a big, black dog (intimidating to those who don’t know them) and it was quite a sight. It was when we were done laughing that my in-laws admitted they hadn’t realized how terrified she really was until they’d seen it for themselves.
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It’s been two years since we left that wireless fence in Savannah, Georgia. Tomorrow, we’re putting a bid on another house in Connecticut. It has a wireless fence for dogs….