What I'm reading: Faceless, by Debra WebbThanks, Karen for sharing your thoughts. It boils down to "writers write" doesn't it? Today, I'm pleased to be turning the place over to someone near and dear to me--my brother. As a young kid, he'd get up early Sunday mornings and cook breakfast. Pancakes, waffles, coffee cake, you name it. (He confessed later that he did it because he didn't like fried eggs, which is what our mother always made on Sundays.) His love of cooking, and of food, continued, and he became a chef. He's left that life ... or has he? And I'm proud to see the volunteer gene is evident in him, too. Welcome, Mark Carter.What you notice first are the doors. Everywhere, in all parts of the city. Bleached and flaking paint. Open and exposed grain. Rotting and delaminating wood. Holes and gaps.
I thought that people had simply sealed the entrances to abandoned stores for security; temporary with no thought of posterity. When I saw them in most every neighborhood I thought that they remained from the early warnings of the approaching hurricane; storm windows of a sort waiting for the all-clear. But why had they been painted and continue to remain in place, weathering?I’ve recently returned from a week in New Orleans and Ocean Springs, Mississippi with an organization called CulinaryCorps. Twelve of us, cooks and chefs at various stages, and from numerous cities and countries, volunteering to cook and more.
Thoughts that we might be ‘late to the party’ were quickly dispelled. One can limit oneself to indulging in the Quarter and have the familiar boisterous, tasty and tawdry New Orleans experience. That has been and will no doubt be the city’s saving grace. The cash cow of tourism was mostly spared and continues to provide visitors most of what they have come to experience and expect. It remains crazy, loud and over-amped; a city like no others. But its dirty little not-so-secret remains just a short drive, or even a walk, away. You can easily select your New Orleans experience. All fun? Stay around the Quarter. Despair? The Lower 9th Ward is just for you.
Today my guest is author Karen McCullough. One of my previous guests talked about overcoming an addiction. Karen's here to report on why she has no desire to kick hers. Welcome, Karen. Hello, I’m Karen McCullough, and I’m a writer. I’m not always a happy writer, I’m afraid. In fact, I’d probably have to describe myself as more of a bipolar writer.There are an awful lot of downs in this business of being a writer.
I often struggle to get a scene right or to get a character to come alive on the page. Sometimes the words themselves resist. It can feel like I’m having to pull each one out of my brain individually while they kick and scream the whole way.A lot of times the biggest struggle is just to find the time to write. Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard about how you don’t find time, you make time, but whoever said that didn’t have a business to run and a family to feed. Or if they did, they had different priorities from me. I simply can’t ignore the fact that I have a mortgage payment to make each month and that my family likes eating. Writing tops watching television, but it can’t leap ahead of keeping a roof overhead and food on the table.Keep Reading...
So, I mostly write late at night and on weekends, between loads of laundry. I tried that ‘get up early in the morning’ deal to steal an extra hour of writing time. I’m not a morning person. I ended up sitting in front of the computer without a single functioning brain cell to help me find coherent words. Back to those late nights.
A rejection or a bad review can send me into a tailspin if I’m not careful. Mostly, though, I’ve learned to live with those. It’s part of the business.
And then there are the times that make up for all the downsides. The times when the writing flows so wonderfully my fingers can barely keep up with the sentences rushing from my mind.
A good review, where the person shows they really ‘get’ what I was trying to say, is a rush like no other. Even a note from a reader telling my how much she liked my story can make my day.
But that’s not why I continue to write. The fact is there are more lows than highs in the business side of writing. Yes, it only takes one acceptance to offset a lot of rejections, but you have to live through all those rejections and sometimes you don’t get an acceptance to compensate.
Or you can sell the book only to have the publisher fold or the line fold before it gets to print. Both have happened to me. Or you can sell several books to a publisher and then have your editor leave and find the new editor isn’t as enthusiastic about your work. Yup, been there, done that, too. Or you can finally sell the book only to see it tank because of a horrible cover or poor distribution or a decision by booksellers not to stock it. I’ve been lucky and mostly avoided those, although one of my older Avalon books has a cover I still hate passionately.
The truth is, on the business side there really are more bad things that can happen than good ones. The second truth—and I’m not whining here, just trying to be honest about the facts—I’ve had a lot of the bad ones happen to me. But I’m certainly not alone in that. Most writers who’ve been writing and submitting for more than a year or two can tell similar stories.
And, in the interests on honesty, I have had my share of good things along the way. I’ve sold a number of books and seen them released and held copies in my hand. I’ve been a finalist in a number of contests and won possibly more than my share of awards.
And yet, there have still been more lows than highs.
So why do I keep writing?
Well…I’ve tried to stop. I really have. After a particularly crushing rejection or review, I want to give up and go do something more rewarding. I ask myself constantly why I do this to myself. What kind of masochist am I that I continue pursuing a dream with an undefined goal I’ll probably never reach anyway? I’m sure I’d be happier if I quit.
I just can’t do it.
If I go too long without writing, my head starts to feel like it’s going to explode. There are characters and incidents and plot twists and bits of dialogue growing in there and they all want to get out, to have their story told. I’ve got to get to the word processor and give them life.
Karen McCullough’s most recent release is the novella “Vampire’s Christmas Carol” in the BENEATH A CHRISTMAS MOON anthology from Cerridwen Press. Visit Karen on the web at http:www.kmccullough.com
What I'm reading: The Drowning Pool, by Jacqueline SeewaldA little over a week ago, I mentioned trying the storyboard approach to writing,and I promised to update.Things have been moving along. My 'idea' board grows – and since I take off the little sticky notes once the idea has been incorporated, it grows and shrinks as I write. The other board summarized the plot points of each POV character. When a scene or a What if? occurs to me, I'll put it on a bigger yellow sticky, first on my idea board, and then to the summary board. Clues, once mentioned, move from the idea board (assuming they didn't just appear as I was writing), and once they're dealt with, they get tossed.
You can see I've made some progress since last time. Since this book is turning out to have not only 3 POV characters, but at least 3, if not more, intertwining mystery plot threads, it's helping me make sure I'm introducing them, addressing them, and weaving them through the chapters.Keep Reading...
When I tried this system the first time, I was trying to plot the whole book—or at least have a broad overview of what should be happening in each chapter. That didn't work for me, and this modification seems to be much more productive. By looking at the chapter squares, I can see which characters have POV scenes, but I normally write the scene, THEN put the summary on the board. As one scene triggers ideas for the next, I have a parking place for them on my idea board, and I can move things around much more easily than trying to work in a document file. With this system, I can see everything at once.
And I don't worry about losing things during our frequent thunderstorms! Last week, we were getting 2000 strikes an hour in some areas.
I've also had some unexpected 'treats'. I had a 'spear carrier' character who was mentioned only in passing in Chapters 1 and 3, as a way to give a little insight into one of my primary characters. Imagine my surprise when she ended up being murdered in Chapter 11. Even though she never appeared in person prior to her unexpected death, she became an important character. Her demise brought several of my preliminary story threads together, and I now have a woven piece of fabric. Of course, new questions have been raised, and I'll be moving Post-its as I work the answers into the plot.
Then there's the still unanswered question about who died in the traffic accident in Chapter Three, and what the mysterious pieces of paper they found in his wallet could mean. I think I'll go buy more Post-its. Different colors.
Tomorrow, my guest is Karen McCullough, and she's talking about why writers write, even when the lows outnumber the highs. Wednesday, we're starting a two-day journey to New Orleans with a group of chefs. You won't want to miss it. And, of course, Homicide Hussey will be back on Friday. It's going to be a busy week! Be sure to stop by.
Detective Mark Hussey continues to entertain with stories from his early days in law enforcement. In "Afternoon Delight" prankster Billy Hyatt returns. If you haven't met Billy yet, check out the posts on March 6, 13, and 20th. One Friday afternoon in late September, the first signs of autumn were creeping into Lakeland. The days were getting shorter and residents were enjoying their first break from the hellish heat of summer. Detectives Billy Hyatt and Kenny Wnuk were working an under cover assignment at the Holiday Inn on Memorial Boulevard. They'd been on a stakeout looking for drug dealers for nearly eighteen hours. "The Great Pooh Bear" (aka Ken Wnuk) was seriously getting on the nerves of his partner, Billy Hyatt.
The two were discussing whether or not cops should have the power to administer roadside executions for traffic violations, when they noticed a very new red Mercedes convertible, driving slowly through the parking lot. "I think if there's two cops, and both agree, we should be able to shoot the asshole right there," Billy said, picking a piece of "Jimbo's Barbecue" from his teeth with a toothpick.
"I think you'd have to at least have a Sergeant or above as the executioner," Pooh said thoughtfully. Both men stopped talking and watched as the Mercedes went by them slowly, with the middle-aged, balding driver looking up at the room numbers."Think he's our boy?" Billy asked as he slid down in the seat of the dilapidated old Camero.Keep Reading...
"Nah, guy we're lookin' for is a kid, 18, 19 years old."
The pair watched as the convertible parked, and a well dressed "businessman" got out of the car and went to a room on the second floor. He unlocked the door to 214 and went inside. Though the car and the guy were kind of out of place, the detectives soon lost interest.
The two cops continued their conversation, but were soon interrupted by a second strange visitor. A white BMW drove slowly past. The driver was a knockout blonde, and was also looking for room numbers. The Beemer parked next to the Mercedes and the woman, whom Pooh noted had "legs all the way up to her ass," knocked on the door of room 214, and after looking around suspiciously, quickly entered.
Billy was the younger of the two detectives, by two years, but he actually looked a little older. He was 5'9" with a thin, wiry build. He was mostly bald, but had let the wisps of hair grow long at the sides of his head, and looked for all the world like Bozo the Clown. The Pooh Bear, aptly nicknamed by his throngs of lady friends, was Billy's exact opposite. He was "Mutt" to Billy's "Jeff." The bear was short, about 5'4" and weighed about 185 pounds. He was an avid power lifter and his muscular tanned build rippled around his tank top shirt. With his bushy beard and his long, coal-black hair combed straight back over his head, he resembled Lon Cheney in the Wolfman movies.
As the woman disappeared inside the hotel room, the two detectives looked at each other and it was Hyatt who grinned first.
"Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Ken asked as he slapped his knee.
"Probably," Hyatt said. He fished for the handheld police radio. "Lakeland, I need twenty-eight on a Florida tag, 7-5-4-3-1-7."
A few minutes later, the information crackled across the radio. "That tag appears on a 1983 BMW, registered to Paul and Eileen Collins, 314 Palmola Drive in Lakeland. "Wonder if Paul knows that Eilene is bumpin' uglies with the boss?" Billy said.
"Just a little afternoon delight," Pooh said.
Billy ripped the page with the registration information from his notebook and bounded out of the car, heading toward the motel office. "Listen for me on your radio and let me know what happens," he said as he jogged away.
The Pooh Bear nodded and turned on his handset.
In the hotel lobby, Billy quickly found the house phone and dialed room 214. When a male voice answered the phone, Billy screamed into the receiver, "You no good son of a bitch, this is Paul and that's my wife you're fuckin' in there. When you come outa' there, I'll kill ya." Billy then hung the phone up and called the Pooh on the radio. "Anything happenin'?"
"No, not...wait a minute, holy shit, the girl's comin' out carryin' her clothes." Eileen, clad only in turquoise panties and matching brassiere, and carrying the rest of her clothing, was running down the stairs for the parking lot. After some difficulty and dropping several things, she managed to get the car door open and throw the rest of her things inside. The BMW's engine roared to life, and as she squealed past the startled detective, she lost control and glanced off a VW bug which was parked next to the surveillance vehicle.
A grinning Billy Hyatt came back to the car and slid in behind the wheel.
"What the hell did you do?" Pooh asked.
"I just told the old geezer I was Eileen's husband and I was on my way to kick his ass."
The two detectives roared with laughter at the thought of the lady rushing home half-naked and confronting the unsuspecting husband. What a hoot.
Now they waited for the second half to come out. They waited and they waited. After about two hours of silence, Hyatt nervously said, "I sure hope the old bastard didn't have the big one in there."
"Yeah, could be bad," Pooh said as he watched a uniform cop investigating the hit and run to the Volkswagen.
Just then, the door to room 214 opened and a still frightened, balding head peered out. After looking in both directions, the man with his suit coat draped over one arm, rushed from the room and scurried to his red Mercedes.
"He's a little nervous," a relieved Wnuk said.
"Yeah guess he'll be lookin' over his shoulder for a while."
The dope dealer never did show up, but the stakeout certainly wasn't a total loss. Detectives Hyatt and Wnuk learned that sometimes, the phone can be a valuable tool in the fight against boredom.
What I'm reading: Gone Tomorrow, by Lee ChildFirst – welcome to some new blog followers! Sassy, Cheeky, Mirjana & Heather: glad you're aboard.
Being caught up in all the changes we're facing lately, I'd forgotten my New Year's goal to look more to the positive. I realized I'd been dwelling too much on all the things that weren't happening.
No action on our house yet. But the Realtor sent his stats and said the web hits through the MLS service and realtor.com were above average. Think positive. Eventually, one will pan out.Only one more month of paychecks. But we met with our financial advisor, and he said our retirement investment planning would cover the money we need to live, and it wouldn't depend on me getting a six-figure advance for a book.Keep Reading...
Which leads to: No book deals, and since I no longer have an agent, I don't have the same access to getting another book sold. Moments of doubt creep in. Am I still allowed to call myself a writer? But then I got my first-round edits from my new editor, who'd said she had very few changed. I had a momentary panic attack when I saw all those comments and insertion/deletion notes in the right margin of the manuscript. What would the manuscript have looked like if she had more than a few? And this was for an 8K word short story.
However, after taking that deep breath and looking at her notes, most were changes because of publisher style preferences. Right or wrong—well, there is no 'wrong.' That's their style, and they call those shots. My dictionary insists Internet is a proper noun, and should be capitalized, but if they're going to change it to lower case, it's not worth arguing. This publisher says no spaces before or after ellipses. My other publisher wants them.
Side note: when you see "mistakes" in books, often times the author has no control over them.
And who knew thermos was trademarked? I know about Dumptsers and Kleenex and Jell-O, but thermos? It doesn't need to be capitalized, but house rules say it has to be acknowledged.
Almost all of the rest of those red boxes in the margin said things like, "LOL" or ROFLMAO" or "good line." I felt like a writer again.
I'm not going to make a penny, at least not directly, on this short story, as it will be a Free Read. What I can hope is that readers enjoy seeing a totally different side of me, and that because the story involves the characters from Finding Sarah and Hidden Fire, they might be enticed enough to buy those books.
Another validation that maybe I'm still a writer. I got an unsolicited e-mail last night requesting my participation in a "Meet the Author" event at a local library.
And, perhaps the best of all. This morning, one of the Y regulars waved to me from her elliptical machine and hollered, "I loved it!" She'd been reading Hidden Fire.
Oh, and hubby seems to be moving into this retirement thing. He's still on half days, but instead of doing work-related things and hanging around his computer all morning, this morning he said he was going fishing!
Come back tomorrow. Homicide-Hussey's next chapter is entitled "Afternoon Delight." I'm not saying anything more.
Thanks, Helen, for those gorgeous pictures (and for making me hungry—except for the Vegemite. I can pass on that one!) 
I've got another autographed copy of What's in a Name? to give away. There's a contest on my website. Check it out. US/Canada/Mexico residents only – although I'll give a download if the winner is from outside North America. Contest runs through the end of June. Robyn won an autographed copy of What's in a Name? in my May contest, and Kim won my grab bag of goodies. Congrats, ladies. And thanks for entering.I've been watching (too much) French Open tennis. I'm not a tennis player, and I don't hang on every racquet stroke, but I do enjoy the overall competition. I have a tendency to root for the underdog. 
Given the time difference, the broadcasts are part live, part tape. There's an entirely different mindset for me if I know the outcome. In a sporting event, it is a genuine spoiler. Yet I know people who skip to the end of a book because they want to know how it turns out before they get past chapter three.Keep Reading...
Me—I don't even like suspense that much, because the reader's got more information than the protagonist. Give me a standard whodunit any day. So, what about reading genre fiction, where the outcome is determined by 'convention.' Romances will end up with the hero and heroine getting together. Otherwise, they're not romances. Mysteries will end up with someone solving the crime.
How is reading one of these genres different from watching a tennis match, or any sporting event where you know who wins?
In a mystery, it's watching the detective arrive at the solution. The outcome that he will solve the case isn't as important as figuring it out. So it's a surprise when I read it. (I admit it; I'm easily led astray!)
In a romance, it's watching how the hero and heroine's relationship develops alongside the plot. Since I tend to gravitate toward romantic suspense in my romance reading, I'm still caught up in solving the external problem. But even a straight romance has questions beyond, "Will he get the girl?" In romance, I have to care about the characters. I have to watch the relationship grow. I have to feel what they're feeling when things go wrong, even though I know they're going to have to go wrong before they can go right.
If the structure shows, then it's not an enjoyable read. If I'm going down a mental checklist – first meet, first kiss (likely interrupted), first love scene (definitely interrupted), real first love scene, black moment and the final HEA, then it's a boring book. When the author can slide all these expectations seamlessly into the story, then I'm right there with the characters.
I'm not a tennis player (or basketball, or football, or any other kind of ball). I'm not sophisticated enough to appreciate some of the subtleties of the journey, so perhaps that's why knowing the outcome spoils it for me. Or maybe, it's because the goal of a sporting event is so narrow. Win. Period. It's not who makes the cleanest passing shot, or serves the most aces. It's about winning the match. In fiction, the goal has more depth.
What about you? Do you like knowing the end before you get there?
When I got my first contract with Cerridwen Press, I was assigned an editor who, to my surprise, lived in Australia. Then again, everything is done electronically these days, so why should it matter where she lived. I had the pleasure of visiting Australia in 1993 (yikes, that's a long time ago) and it's a fantastic country. I'm delighted to have editor Helen Woodall as my guest today. Sit back and enjoy your tour.Desert - Australia has a lot of desert in the center of the land. 
Keep Reading...
Beaches – Australia is the largest island in the world so there are lots of beaches with gleaming clean white sand.
And tropical rainforests in the far north.
And food. Here are five foods that are native to this sunburned country.
Vegemite. A thick yeast spread that has helped make little Australians healthy since 1922. Made from brewer’s yeast it is black, salty, malty and full of B group vitamins. Delicious on toast for breakfast.
Meat Pie. No Australian Rules Football game can be watched without a meat pie and tomato sauce (ketchup) in hand. Invented in Bendigo, country Victoria, in 1947. The average Aussie eats 12 meat pies per year.
Pavlova. Named in honor of Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova this is a fluffy meringue dessert that is eaten at celebratory meals – such as after your team wins the AFL Grand Final (as mine did last year! Go Hawthorn!)
Lamington. This spongy Australian treat can be found in cafes, bakeries and supermarkets. They are small cakes coated in chocolate icing and coconut, possibly named after Lady Lamington wife of the Governor of Queensland at the time of Federation (1901).
Dim Sim. This dumpling-type snack was invented by Chinese Aussie chef William Wang Young in Melbourne in 1945. They are larger, a different shape and have a thicker skin than traditional dim sum.
Helen Woodall, editor for Ellora’s Cave Publishing Inc (which includes the Cerridwen Press line as well as the Ellora’s Cave line and Cotillion Traditional Regency novels) lives in Australia. Since she works for an American firm and many of her authors are American she considers it her duty to educate people from all around the world about the wonders of Australia.
Note: Helen will respond to comments, but remember, she's not in the same time zone. At the moment, she's 14 hours ahead of me here in Florida. I'm sure she'll accept questions about being an editor for those writing in American English as well as anything about her homeland.
What I'm reading: Phantom Prey, by John Sandford
June brings the onset of hurricane season. Having grown up in earthquake country, it took some getting used to watching and tracking the possibility of a calamity.
Earthquakes just show up. In all my years in southern California, I experienced only one earthquake that created any impact on my life, and even that one, due to the orientation of our apartment, didn't do much more than slosh some water out of our aquarium. Then again, we made sure we weren't living directly on a fault line. Keep Reading...
When we moved to Miami, we were careful to avoid low-lying neighborhoods when we finally were able to afford our first house. Many of our friends opted for cheaper housing in newly built communities, but my husband refused to risk living on what was essentially landfill. He looked for areas with pine and palmetto, because those wouldn't survive in salt water, meaning they hadn't been exposed to tidal surges. And once we did buy, we installed Bahama shutters on our windows, and bought aluminum panels to cover sliding glass doors.
I remember our first real hurricane threat – David. Hubby was out of town, so it was up to me (and the 3 kidlets) to get the house ready. As neighbors scrambled to buy plywood, cut it to size, drill holes into their houses, and cover their windows, I merely twisted a few thumbscrews and lowered our shutters. The aluminum panels weren't much more trouble, and by then, hubby was home.
We'd watched and tracked the storm for days, and finally went to bed figuring we'd hear the storm when it made landfall. We didn't live on the coast, so we weren't too worried about flooding, but the lawn chair that the neighbor forgot to secure, or the flying tree branches, or the wind itself were all potential sources of damage.
We awoke the next morning—later than usual because the shutters blocked so much light, but the storm had approached land, then made a hard right and came ashore well north of us. A lot of prep work that technically wasn't necessary.
When we moved to central Florida, hubby decided we were far enough inland and on "high" enough ground not to need the Bahama shutters on the windows. Still, when hurricane season arrives, we make sure we have all the necessary supplies before the storm shows up. How hard is it to have canned food, bottled water, batteries and the other essentials on the lists provided by NOAA, as well as every television news station and newspaper? Why would anyone want to deal with crowded stores and empty shelves at the last minute.
We made it through 2004 when Mother Nature proved she could set a hurricane anywhere she wanted to. Our neighborhood was lucky—again, we were saved by orientation. This time, it was the direction our street faced. Some trees blew down, but around the corner, almost all of them did.
Friends weren't as lucky—they were trapped by fallen trees, unable to get out of their neighborhoods. They lost power, some for almost 2 weeks. We lost some shingles on our roof, and over the course of 4 hurricanes, were only without electricity one day.
All in all—I'll take an earthquake. If something's going to happen, I'd rather it come out of nowhere, do its thing, and then be gone. The anticipation of hurricanes, and all the uncertainty of their paths—not for me. However, like everything else, to a writer, it's fodder, and my Wild Rose Press short story, HURRICANE BREEZE drew upon my experiences.
Do you have a preference? Would you rather deal with an out of the blue disaster, or spend days getting ready, more often than not, for nothing?
Tomorrow, my guest is Helen Woodall, and editor with Ellora's Cave and Cerridwen Press. She's going to take us on a pictorial and culinary tour of Australia. Be sure to stop by.
Detective Hussey is back to his lighthearted look at a cop's life. Some days you win, some you lose. Sometimes you're just glad when it's over.
When you're twenty-three years old, wearing a badge and gun is the most exciting thing in the world. All young cops are a little badge heavy, most are a lot badge heavy. Hopefully you make it through those years without getting hurt or fired and get to the point where you have some common sense. In those formidable years however, it is common to have what cops call Wyatt Earp Syndrome. This occurs when you watch too many Hollywood cop shows and labor under the misapprehension that you are invincible. When some guy who stands six-five and weighs 300 pounds tells you, "You ain't takin' me to jail."Then you, being the stupid rookie that you are, smile and say, "We'll see." If you're lucky, it works out. You also count on the fact that most people (in the old days) respect the badge and uniform enough not to challenge it. Sometimes you're wrong, and sometimes, the person or persons you least expect to be a problem, turn out to be the ones who are the worst.In February 1980, it was unseasonably warm in Lakeland. I was working the day shift with Sergeant "Pistol" Pete Petersen. Lunch was over and we were waiting for four o'clock so we could go home. I was talking to some chick at Grove Park shopping center when I got the call, something about car keys being stolen. It didn't sound like much. It was 3:00. I went to the Gulf station and saw the complainant walking toward my car as I pulled in. She seemed agitated. "Yes, ma'am, what can I do for you?" I asked. Keep Reading...
"Well," she said, "I brought my car in this morning, and dropped it off here at Jim's Gulf station, to have the oil changed and the car washed." I nodded and scribbled on my pad. "I left the keys in the ignition and the door unlocked like I always do. When I came back, this afternoon, I found this note."
The lady thrust a small piece of white paper in my direction. I unfolded it and read the blue ink message scrawled there: I have your keys, if you want them back, come to 814 E. Orange St.
"Do you know anyone at 814 E. Orange Street?" I inquired.
"Of course not. But I did go to that address, and found a man there."
"What did he say?"
"Well, what I could understand, cause' he couldn't talk too plain, he said I'll give you your keys back for twenty dollars."
"You're kidding."
"No, and then when I threatened to call the police, he said, 'Go ahead, I am the police', and he flashed a gold badge."
Now there's nothing that makes a cop's blood boil like someone impersonating the po-lice. We work so hard for the privilege of wearing the badge, and people who pretend really hack us off.
I told the lady to wait at the gas station, and I drove the block to the address. I had a general description, including clothing, of the suspect. As I pulled up out front, the house seemed vaguely familiar. I thought I'd been here before, but couldn't remember what for. After several knocks on the door, with no answer, I got back into my cruiser and drove back to the gas station.
As I got out of my car to take the additional information from the victim, she pointed down Ingraham Avenue and yelled, "There he is."
A small man, fitting the description given to me earlier was walking away from us. The man had a small boy with him. Oh shit. I knew him all right. It was Jerry Gettings, a local derelict and part time whino, full time schemer and pain in the ass. "Hey Jerry," I yelled. "Comeer."
Now Jerry was an entrepreneur. He was always devising a plan to separate the public from their hard earned dollars. No big money, just enough to be illegal. Once, when the Lakeland Commission had made a decision to close the city jail and make housing prisoners the responsibility of the Polk County Sheriff, I found Jerry parading up and down in front of the post office, drumming on a coffee can, yelling "Save our jail, Save our jail" in his raspy voice. He wore a sandwich sign, with large crudely painted words, "Support the Save Our Jail Fund." In the coffee can was about twelve dollars. I ran Jerry off, confiscated his sign and gave the money to the Salvation Army. It was a typical Jerry Gettings operation.
Jerry and the boy turned around to look at me, but kept on walking. "Don't make me run you down," I said. Again, a quick look with no effort to stop. I looked at the victim and she gave me that, Well are you going to do something look. I broke into a half-hearted run and caught up with Jerry and the youngster of about ten, near Ingraham and U.S. Hwy 98.
"What..the..hell..are..you..doin'?" I panted as I caught my breath.
Jerry had some type of medical problem. I suspected throat cancer. He talked in a very staccato, raspy voice, and if you hadn't talked to him before, he was difficult to understand. "Leave-me-a-lone," he barked as he continued to walk.
"Get your ID out, Jerry and tell me about the lady's car keys."
"I-don't-have-her damn-keys," Jerry said.
"Look, if you don't give those keys back right now, I'm takin' your ass to jail."
"No-you-ain't. I'm-with-my-son-leave-us-alone." He took a drink from a carton of chocolate milk.
I made up my mind then that Jerry was going to take the ride. The lady at the car wash would surely give me a sworn statement, and I would be able to lock him up on extortion charges, and if I could find the badge, I'd make the impersonating an officer charge. I reached up and took Jerry by the shoulder and felt him stiffen. We were standing on the sidewalk, but right next to the walk, the ground rose about two feet and was uneven. Jerry braced himself and tucked his arms into his side.
"Give me your hands, Jerry." I yelled.
"You leave my daddy alone!" the little boy cried.
"If he'll just cooperate, he won't have any trouble," I said. I finally got one of his hands free, but it was the wrong hand; the chocolate milk went flying and covered my uniform pants, running down into my shoes. Now I was pissed.
I got a cuff on and when I did, Jerry pulled forward, pulling us both off balance. I tried to catch myself, but it was too late. We both toppled forward, me on top of Jerry, who was screaming at the top of his hoarse lungs. I was still attempting to get the other hand out from under him, when I felt something hard hit my left side.
"Leave my daddy alone!" the crying little boy shouted, as he kicked me as hard as he could in my side. I couldn't grab the kid; I'd have to let go of Jerry.
Now I was yelling. "Get outa' here kid." I tried to turn away from the kicking juvenile.
"Stop," he shrieked as he kicked me again and again. It was then that I saw my third nemeses. In the backyard of the corner house, just 50 feet away, was a small brown terrier, racing toward the melee, teeth barred. As he slid into the pile of bodies, I felt his small, sharp teeth, scrape my leg as he latched on to my pant leg, just above my sock. He was pulling my pants, the kid was kicking me and Jerry and I were screaming.
It was about this time the phones at the Lakeland Police Department began to light up. Officer Bobby Smith was working the PBX and got the first call. "You better get somebody down to Orange and Ingraham," the caller said. "You've got a cop gettin' the shit beat outa him." Other calls came in. The description of the fight varied from caller to caller. One lady said, "Some pig is hassling an old man and his kid and dog. I don't think that's right."
One thing was for sure, assistance was needed. The greatest sound in the world when you're in trouble is the sound of sirens in the distance. The first guy to arrive was my Sergeant, Pete Peterson. Ole' Pete was laughing so hard he could hardly get Jerry and me separated and Jerry cuffed. Jerry's son ran home to call his mother, and the lady who owned the house called "Twizzle" back to his yard and apologized.
"You look like hell. Pete giggled as he helped me search the prisoner. I really did. I was covered with dirt and chocolate milk, and my uniform pants were ripped. My hat had fallen in the bushes and was stepped on.
I found the keys to the lady's car in Jerry's pocket. Surprise. Pete found the badge, which had the words Special Officer emblazoned across the front. He was special, all right.
The lady who owned the car turned out to be a bitch, as I would soon learn, and refused to prosecute Jerry or provide a sworn statement.
I arrested Jerry on resisting arrest charges and he beat me out of the station while I was still writing the report.
The guys would always refer to the incident as the "Menage-a-massacre", or the day Hussey got his ass kicked.
What I'm reading: The Scarecrow, by Michael ConnellyReminder: There's still time left to win a grab-bag full of goodies in my May contest. Details hereMy submission for a free read at Cerridwen Press was officially accepted last night. It's nice to have something in the hopper again. Only hassle is all the paperwork. They haven't revised their boilerplate from the one they use for their full-length paid books, so half the nice check boxes aren't appropriate, and they don't have the ones you need. Lots of improvising.
In addition, I decided to drag out the white foam core board I'd stashed behind the futon and see if I could stimulate a little brain activity on my newest WIP while my crit group continues to work on my revisions of STARTING OVER. I'm trying the PJ Parrish suggestion of just writing scenes you think you can use in the book and sticking them onto the board. I have two boards; one for the little Post-its with things like scenes and plot points, and then another one I made a couple of years ago, marked off into blocks for chapters. But I only used it after I'd already written the chapters.We'll see what happens this time. It's as close to plotting as I've come yet. The post-it system might be a good way for me to figure out my family trees – I've got at least 3 generations to deal with.I also got a quick kick of motivation when a distant relative posted an article about the Leica Freedom Train to our family group. I'm not a history buff, so this was totally new to me.Keep Reading...
The Leica is the pioneer 35mm camera. It is a German product - precise, minimalist, and utterly efficient. Behind its worldwide acceptance as a creative tool was a family-owned, socially oriented firm that, during the Nazi era, acted with uncommon grace, generosity and modesty. E. Leitz Inc., designer and manufacturer of Germany's most famous photographic product, saved its Jews.
And Ernst Leitz II, the steely-eyed Protestant patriarch who headed the closely held firm as the Holocaust loomed across Europe, acted in such a way as to earn the title, "The photography industry's Schindler."
As soon as Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in 1933, Ernst Leitz II began receiving frantic calls from Jewish associates, asking for his help in getting them and their families out of the country. As Christians, Leitz and his family were immune to Nazi Germany's Nuremberg laws, which restricted the movement of Jews and limited their professional activities.
To help his Jewish workers and colleagues, Leitz quietly established what has become known among historians of the Holocaust as "the Leica Freedom Train," a covert means of allowing Jews to leave Germany in the guise of Leitz employees being assigned overseas.
You can read more here:
I know that the back story of several of the characters playing around in my head includes World War II, and this gave me some good ideas to work with.
Be sure to check in tomorrow for my regular Friday feature, a chapter from Detective Mark Hussey's manuscript. For the record – I do NOT write these. Detective Hussey is a real, live law enforcement officer who has a knack for storytelling. I'm merely the messenger.
