Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

One of the side benefits to the writing life is getting to meet and hang out with other writers. In my case, mystery writers—who seem to be some of the nicest and funniest people around. So let me name drop. Coming over for shrimp and grits today are the Unarmed But Dangerous tour group: Elaine Viets, Rosemary Harris, Melanie Cole, and Donna Andrews, escorted by local mystery maven Molly Weston.

Also my local pals, Bren Bonner (Witchger), Sarah Shaber, Diane Chamberlain, Alexandra Sokoloff, and Katy Munger (aka Gallagher Gray and Chaz McGee.) Go read their websites and you’ll see why I’m looking forward to this evening. Wish y’all could pull up a chair to the table, too!

(And don't forget to come talk to me on Facebook.)

Weymouth Again

Once again, six of us headed out to the Weymouth Center for the Arts in Southern Pines (www.WeymouthCenter.com) last week for our fall writing retreat.  There are actually seven of us who cycle in and out, depending on schedules, but very seldom can we get seven schedules to mesh and this year was no exception.

 [Pictured left to right: Katy, Alex, Diane, me, Sarah, Mary Kay.]

Mary Kay Andrews (aka Kathy Trocheck), Sarah Shaber, and Alexandra Sokoloff were the first to arrive.  Diane Chamberlain, Katy Munger (aka Chaz McGee), and I trickled in over the next three days and we all wished Brynn Bonner could have been with us. 

Alex had used a fictionalized version of Weymouth as one of her settings in The Unseen and was a bit spooked to discover that some of the things she had made up were actually real.

I hoped to get a running start on the 2011 book (and did!), but first on my “must-do” list was to go over the copy edit of Christmas Mourning, which will be out next November.

Mary Kay was a hundred pages into her next book, while the others were still at the plotting and planning stages and needed to brainstorm ideas at the morning meeting.

After setting our goals for the day, we scattered to various corners of that gracious old house to work.  It’s hard to describe the synergistic effect of knowing that your colleagues are nearby, immersed in the creative process.  Pride was a sharp spur that kept us at our keyboards when the muse wanted to go wandering down to the kitchen or curl up for a quick nap.  No one wanted to have to face the others and admit that she hadn’t accomplished what she said she would. 

It wasn’t all work, of course.  We took turns cooking supper and afterwards we would check our email, Facebook pages, whatever.  More brainstorming and plotting, then a few word games, a glass of wine or handful of M&Ms, and so to bed.

Did we accomplish everything we hoped?  For the most part, yes, we did.  By the time we meet down in Georgia next spring, Mary Kay may be finished with her book and the rest of us will have a very good idea of where our own books are going.

SAND SHARKS LAUNCH PARTY

Friday night's launch of Sand Sharks at Quail Ridge Books and Music felt almost like a family reunion.

      Instead of Aunt Sally’s molded Jell-O salad or Uncle Henry’s chili, we had brie topped with fig preserves and some very nice wine, courtesy of Jim Olson.  Instead of cousins (although several came), there were long-time friends, neighbors, and new readers who drove in from as far as South Carolina, Virginia, and the mountains of North Carolina.  The signing line was long, but no one seemed to mind.  And just as at a family reunion, I heard several people say to each other, “Well, see you this time next year.”

Below:  Sarah Shaber introduces me; Kaye Barley drove in from Boone; the store was standing room only by 7:30

ANTIQUES ROADSHOW

PBS’s Antiques Roadshow came to Raleigh yesterday and broke a couple of their own records.  First, 34,000 tickets were requested.  (Previous high:  29,000 in San Jose.)  Second, offered for appraisal was a set of jade pieces from the mid-1700’s valued “conservatively” at $1.07 million. 

Fellow mystery writer Sarah Shaber (Simon Says) and I were lucky enough to score two of the 6,000 tickets.   Although we both had items for the Asian table, neither of ours broke the thousand-dollar mark.

The line moved quickly, yet we made friends with the people on either side and enjoyed seeing their treasures.  I’m sure that some hoped to match the jade owners, but most were like Sarah and me:  curious to know exactly what it was that we had.  She learned who had made her bird prints and I learned that my husband’s Japanese mask was a couple of hundred years older and a couple of hundred dollars more valuable than we had thought.  No windfalls.  No trips around the world.  Just one more detail to add to my “What Things Are” list that I’ve begun to compile for our son.

I’ve gone room by room in our house itemizing each object of monetary or sentimental value, where it came from, how we acquired it, and why we’ve kept it.  Nothing is of much value individually.  No antiques here—too many house fires in our family!—but some of the things may mean more to him as he grows older.

When I mentioned this to the woman in line ahead of us, she immediately decided this was something she was going to do for her children.  “I’ve told them what these things are, but they’re totally uninterested right now,” she said, and vowed to start her own list.

It’s easy with one child but Sarah has two siblings.  Her mother’s had them go through her house and say what they want, but warned them that just because they want something doesn’t mean that’s whose name will wind up on it.

What about you?  Do your heirs know the provenance of what they’ll eventually find in your dwelling? Wouldn’t you hate it if they used as a dust rag the apron you’ve kept from your favorite cookie-baking grandmother?

And Then There Were Five

Six of us came to the Weymouth Center (www.weymouthcenter.org) last Sunday for an intensive writers’ retreat.  My goals were to finish correcting the copy edit of Sand Sharks so that it can go to the printers next week, to plot enough of the next book that I could begin writing it, to plot a short story I owe Charlaine Harris, and to learn Word now that WordPerfect is no longer available for Macs or PCs. (More about that in a later post!)

(Mary Kay and I signed stock at the Country Bookstore in Southern Pines)

The others had their own goals:  mainly to write a certain number of pages each day.  We have met every morning with coffee, cereal or toast to set our goals for the day, then we go off with our laptops to various quiet nooks and crannies of this great old house.  The early part of the week was warm enough that some of us found spots outside conducive to writing.  Lunch has been an informal eat-when-you’re hungy affair with very little midday socializing.  Because the library is the only place we can get online, the Internet has not been the huge distraction it can be at home.

Each of us was responsible for one communal supper and we knew that we’d eat out one night with J.D. Rhoades, a fellow writer who lives nearby.  

(L>R around the table: Bren Bonner, Diane Chamberlain, MM, J.D. Rhoades, Katy Munger, with Sarah Shaber in front.)

After supper, we get in our night clothes and meet in the library to brainstorm and offer comments while a colleague describes where she thinks her story is going.  Only then do we allow ourselves to go online or play the kind of word games so dear to a writer’s heart:  Taboo, Balderdash, and Apples to Apples.  It’s a good thing we’re here alone because our games can get a little raucous . . . especially when one of us who shall remain nameless has had a second glass of wine, forgets which team she’s on, and starts blurting out the answers for her opponents.

Mary Kay Andrews had to leave on Friday, the rest of us will leave today.  So have we accomplished our goals?

I haven’t completely mastered Word, but I’m a little more comfortable with it now and I did meet the rest of the tasks I set myself.  As have my writing buddies for the most part.  Even without Mary Kay to crack the whip on us these last two days, it’s been a  very productive week, for which we are truly grateful to the Weymouth Foundation.