I’m currently editing a long story on a short deadline and preparing to speak to a high school creative writing class about revising and editing their own work. Consequently, I find myself following some of the advice I’m about to give the students.
With editing and revisions in mind, I have confessions to make.
I usually write stories in chronological order, then decide to rearrange pieces after I’ve finished the first draft.
This means I rarely start a story in the “right” place. So my opening frequently changes between the first and final draft.
While I usually remember to avoid vague words like “big, little, large, small, short, tall” and words that unnecessarily weaken statements like “perhaps and maybe,” I still have to check the draft and remove vague or useless words.
I use too many “-ly” adverbs to modify verbs which should be replaced by stronger verbs, requiring me to edit them out and replace the verbs.
I sometimes use too many dialog tags which should be replaced by actions that paint a better picture of my characters.
My first drafts rarely include descriptions for setting or for characters. I almost always insert descriptive details in a later draft, layering in information after the plot is set.
I still have to excise the words “really” and “just,” even after years of training myself to avoid them.
I have to remove variations of “I think I…” or “I guess I…” in statements made by characters.
Character names sometimes change after the story is written. I’ve misnamed many characters on the first attempt. (I’m lucky I didn’t do that with my children.)
Once I complete all that, I have to make MS Word read the story to me to find dropped words, typos, and misplaced commas. On the plus side, I have learned to write faster, especially when I have a deadline. It doesn’t matter if the first draft is ugly. That’s why editing and revision exist.
Because as multiple authors have said before me, you can’t edit a blank page.
On a side note: Congratulations to all the winners at Bouchercon Calgary! Going to Calgary wasn’t in the cards for me this year. I hope to make it to a convention next year.
N.M. Cedeño writes short fiction. Her story entitled “A Reasonable Expectation of Privacy” placed third for Best Short Story in the 2013 Analog Readers Poll. Her story “Predators and Prey” was selected for the “Other Distinguished Mystery and Suspense of 2024” list in Best American Mysteries and Suspense 2025. For information on her stories, please visit nmcedeno.com!
Those of you out here in the Hill Country know that when drought turns the landscape to a flammable crisp, we’re often warned to prepare to leave home fast—meaning, decide what precious items we can’t live without, and pack those items in a box or laundry tub, ready to grab at a moment’s notice.
The Bastrop fire erupted east of Austin on September, 4, 2011, wasn’t distinguished for 55 days, and destroyed 1600 homes while burning over 32,000 acres.
From Dripping Springs we could see smoke plumes from Bastrop. I began filling a laundry basket. Which pictures? Old ones—ancestors. Old handsewn quilts. And also—a very few books.
The original family copy of Winnie the Pooh (1949); a tattered paperback (1972!) of Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring; some slim volumes of poetry. Then I realized we needed documents: passports! Birth certificates! Wills! Deeds!
With smoke rising in the east, I worried about overfilling the laundry basket, or omitting something key. I stared around the kitchen. Most kitchen utensils could be replaced, but not the following—so they went in the basket:
*An ancient cast iron frying pan, well-seasoned, the perfect size. Maybe the same variety that settlers carried west. Indestructible, and a good weapon in time of need.
*My grandmother’s ancient aluminum cake pan, nearly a century old. The top fits perfectly on the bottom and the bottom turns up around the edges of the top, so a cake can ride comfortably on a car floorboard.
When disaster threatens, we make choices. Our decisions––what we treasure enough to carry along––are so personal, so unique. Would you grab your fanciest clothes? Or your favorite jeans, perfectly broken in? Maybe an “old blue shirt that suits me just fine,” as Guy Clark sang in his “Stuff That Works”? https://genius.com/Guy-clark-stuff-that-works-lyrics
His distinctive voice, relaxed, restful, singing this great song, calls to mind the memory of that “old blue shirt” (long-sleeved, pale blue, washed a million times) he wore at concerts.
But in an emergency, what about your writing?
Writers can avoid the tragedy that befell Ernest Hemingway in 1922 when his first wife, Hadley Richardson, carefully packed his early writings in a small trunk to deliver to him in Switzerland. That trunk was stolen from the train at the Gare de Lyon and never seen again. Hadley had also included the carbons, perhaps anticipating her husband would be able to present an original to a publisher and still keep a copy. She reportedly wept for years. https://lostmanuscripts.com/2010/07/31/hemingways-lost-suitcase/
Today, in contrast, confronted by fire or other threat of loss, writers have options to protect that great human accomplishment—writing.
According to linguist Dr. Ingrid Piller, writing was invented independently at least three times: Sumerian cuneiform in Mesopotamia (ca. 3400 BCE), Chinese characters in China (ca. 1200 BCE) and Mayan glyphs in Mesoamerica (ca. 300 BCE). Of these, only the Chinese script is an unbroken living tradition.
Sappho? (630-570 BC) Her lyric poetry, made to be sung with music, was so accomplished she was called in her time “The Tenth Muse.” But beyond fragments, we have only her Ode to Aphrodite.
Ctesibus? I’d never heard of (much less tried to pronounce the name of) this Greek inventor, a barber’s son born in Alexandria in 300 BC. He wrote on pneumatics, and invented the water organ and an improved water clock (which became our most accurate clock until Huygens invented the pendulum clock in 1656). But Ctesibus’s Memorabilia? Gone.
Aeschylus (525-455 BC) wrote 90 or so plays—only six survive. Promethus the Fire-Bringer? Lost. Sophocles (497-406 BC) wrote close to 120 plays of which only seven (Oedipus, Antigone) survive in complete form—even though Sophocles competed over 50 years in the Athens dramatic competitions (and won 24 of 30!).
Euripides (480-406 BC) wrote over 90 plays; only 18 survive complete.
Sometimes the powerful have ordered destruction. Only four Mayan codices survive: most were burned by Spanish priests in the 16th century. Many Inca Quipus were burned by Spanish priests in 1583, on orders from the Third Council of Lima. In China, a work by Confucius, The Classic of Music, was lost during the Han Dynasty with all copies reportedly destroyed on orders of the emperor during “the burning of books and burying of scholars” in 213 and 212 BC.
Europe was also unhealthy for literature. Three works by Chaucer are missing. Only two plays remain of the Coventry Mystery Play cycle—an event Shakespeare likely attended before the plays were repressed in 1579. No copies remain of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Won, written in 1598 and published in 1603. Of Monteverdi’s 18 operas, only three survive. Seven of Moliere’s plays are lost.
An author’s family might destroy the work. That happened to the brilliant Lady Mary Worley Montagu—her family destroyed her journals because they thought she’d included too much satire. Lord Byron’s executors destroyed two volumes of his Memoirs. Family destroyed four of Lewis Carroll’s journals.
Gerard Manley Hopkins burned all his early poetry when he entered the priesthood. Margaret Fuller’s manuscript on the history of 1849 Rome was lost in a shipwreck in 1850—as was she. Mary Shelley’s Lodore disappeared when she sent it by mail to the publisher: it had to be completely rewritten. Thomas Carlyle sent his first draft of The French Revolution to John Stuart Mill, whose maid mistakenly burned it. Carlyle had to start over.
In the twentieth century we lost a number of Scott Joplin’s compositions. Anne Frank’s diary from December 1942 to December 1943 was never found. An unpublished novel by Sylvia Plath disappeared before 1970.
But all is not lost. Hope remains. We continue to find new fragments of ancient works.
The book club I belong to liked very much Janet Soskice’s The Sisters of Sinai. (bit.ly/4i2tquC) Soskice recounts the adventures of Victorian-era British twins, Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Gibson, who braved the deserts of Sinai in the 1890’s to find, in St. Catherine’s Monastery, a palimpsest. (A palimpsest is a manuscript, parchment, or writing surface from which a later writer has scraped or washed the original text in order to use the surface for a new document—often leaving faint visible traces of the original.) Below the surface covered by a later-added manuscript on female saints, Agnes spotted a hidden 2d-3d century Aramaic copy of the four gospels. You can find her 1894 publication, A Translation of the Four Gospels, online at Amazon. bit.ly/4igo5AT
These days, writers—hoping no internet disaster occurs––can save drafts on computers, or on iCloud Drive (that mysterious place!).
A creature from the last century, I keep an ongoing paper copy while writing. There’s some physical satisfaction in scribbling notes to self on the paper pages of a manuscript. But there’s also a sense of power in the rapid editing the computer permits. Delete! Insert!
Currently I’m still on our human adventure of writing––in the throes of finishing Ghost Music, Book 11 in my mystery series set in the Texas Hill Country.
Keep writing!
Helen Currie Foster lives and writes north of Dripping Springs, Texas, loosely supervised by three burros. She remains deeply curious about human history and how, uninvited, the ghost of the past keeps crashing the party. Find her on Facebook or at www.helen.currie.foster.com. The Alice MacDonald Mystery Series is available online or in Austin at BookPeople.
Meet my newest character, Cleo Jimenez, a former Marine, former police officer, and now Dallas-based private investigator. “Mirror Life Meltdown,” in Black Cat Weekly #255, is Cleo’s first published appearance, but not the first story I wrote for her. That story is still awaiting publication later this year. Her third case is currently on submission.
Cleo is non-descript, with average height, average build, average looks. She’s a thirty-something, brown-hair-in-a-pony-tail, jeans-and-t-shirt kind of woman. She’s not into fancy clothes, fussy hair-dos, or make-up. Being average makes it easier for her to blend into the background when she is following a subject suspected of infidelity. The majority of Cleo’s cases involve family drama, from cheating spouses to crimes caused by addiction, mental illness, greed, vanity, and lust. In Cleo’s world, a bird that walks like a duck is usually a duck, not a whooping crane. Her cases stem from people doing stupid things and making bad choices, resulting in blow-ups in their personal lives.
Cleo enjoys romance novels, historical or modern. She studied communication at the local community college. She can handle a gun, but doesn’t usually need to carry one, since taking photos of cheating spouses, unseen, rarely leads to conflict. She drinks Shiner Bock beer and drives an older model Nissan.
When Cleo accepts a case surveilling a professor whose wife is concerned by his sudden inattentiveness and lack of communication, she isn’t expecting a deep dive into the world of university-level bioengineering and biochemistry research. She fully expects to photograph the professor in a sleazy motel, maybe with a grad student. Then her duck turns into a whooping crane, and the case takes on potentially earth-shattering consequences. Thank goodness Cleo is resourceful, even when out of her depth!
Where did the idea for this story come from?
I saw a call for a short story of any genre that included a mention of something potentially apocalyptic. As I was pondering the guidelines, I asked my neurodiverse college student son, who is currently working as an undergraduate research assistant at the University of Texas at Austin, if he could think of any possible causes of a man-made apocalypse, excluding obvious things like thermonuclear war or robots and AI. He spouted a list. (This is a fairly normal conversation in my house.) The creation of mirror life bacteria was on his list. I asked what that was. He defined it. Fortunately, I retained enough of the chemistry and organic chemistry classes that I took in college to understand his explanation.
Then I went to the internet and read several articles on mirror molecules and mirror life. In one of those odd quirks of coincidence, I even received a newsletter from UT Austin with an article about the work on mirror molecules being done at UT Dallas around that time.
Now I had an interesting topic and a setting: UT Dallas, where my oldest son attended college. Next, I needed some characters for the story.
I have another PI character who lives and works in the Dallas area. Her name is Maya Laster, and she’s a private investigator specializing in forensic and genetic genealogy. I considered how I could place Maya in a mirror-life case, but she felt wrong for the story. Then I remembered Cleo. Cleo was perfect for the case I was imagining.
In her next adventure, Cleo is hired to stand guard over a painting at the State Fair of Texas. That case, entitled “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Likes,” will appear in the anthology Big Tex and Suspects: Crime at the State Fair of Texas which is scheduled for release next year.
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For more information on short fiction by N.M. Cedeño, visit nmcedeno.com
I have a short story in the new anthology Detectives, Sleuths, and Nosy Neighbors III from Inkd Publishing entitled “The Assassination Game.” This is one of the few stories I’ve written that has been partially inspired by real events that happened in my community, many of the events taking place during my children’s high school years. I selected three unconnected events and assembled details from them like a jigsaw puzzle to create my story.
What were the incidents?
Senior Assassin!
Several years ago, I heard about the game of “Senior Assassin” being played at the high school while volunteering in the library. The game is generally played in the spring, not the winter, so I took some liberties by placing it over the Winter Holidays in my story. In “Senior Assassin,” members of the senior class sign up to play an elimination game, in which they tag each other, usually with water guns, vying for the honor of being the last one standing. The school building is off-limits for the game, which must be played outside of school hours. However, the parking lot is fair game. To move from the building to the parking lot, silly rules are employed to create safe passage. For example, to be protected from elimination, you might have to wear swimming pool floaties on your arms or a maybe a hat with animal ears. The game is generally in good fun, but it makes the news almost every spring because of someone mistaking a water gun for the real thing.
The second incident that I drew from happened over a summer, a time when bored high school students have been known to get into mischief. In this case, my daughter’s friend came over and told us about how her younger brother was riding his bike in their neighborhood when some stupid teens in a pick-up truck decided to take pot shots at him with a BB gun. He was struck in the back and bloodied. He wasn’t the only one targeted that day. A couple other children were also hit with BBs.
The third piece of the story came two years ago when I drove one of my kids two days in a row to visit a friend in the hospital, who was recovering from surgery for severe scoliosis. I learned months earlier, in the lead up to the surgery, that in some instances emergency surgery may be needed if the curvature of the spine worsens past a particular point. Unlike my protagonist, my child’s friend, to his parent’s relief, didn’t have to have emergency surgery. His surgery was done in the summer, when, I’m told, most scoliosis surgeries occur.
To be clear, the teenagers in my story bear no resemblance to the actual children at my kids’ high school, or to any of their friends or to their friends’ siblings. The story and its characters are fictional. I simply borrowed details from real life to build the story.
In “The Assassination Game,” my protagonist, JB, who is recovering from emergency scoliosis surgery, learns from friends that the seniors at his high school are playing an assassination game over Winter break. However, the game has gotten out of hand to the point that someone used a BB gun to shoot another player in the back to tag them out. JB hears that police are investigating the matter.
The story is also heavily inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. From Rear Window, I borrowed the names Lisa and Jeff, who became my protagonists. In the movie, Jimmy Stewart plays L.B. Jeffries, called Jeff by friends. My character’s name is Jeff, but his friends call him JB, and only his mother calls him Jeff. In the movie, Jimmy Stewart’s Jeff witnesses what he suspects to be a murder while recovering from an injury that has him stuck in his room in a cast up to his waist. My character JB sees something out his window that might or might not relate to the assassination game BB gun incident while stuck in his room recovering from emergency scoliosis surgery. As Grace Kelly’s Lisa did in the movie, my character Lisa visits her friend JB and becomes the active investigator, going to look for evidence of what might have happened.
Of course, things don’t go as the teens plan in their investigation.
The finalists for the Derringer Award for Best Anthology have been announced by the Short Mystery Fiction Society. They are…
Crimeucopia: The Not So Frail Detective Agency, Edited by John Connor, Murderous Ink Press
Gone Fishin’: Crime Takes a Holiday, The Eighth Guppy Anthology, edited by James M. Jackson released by Wolf’s Echo Press
Hollywood Kills: An Anthology, edited by Adam Meyer & Alan Orloff, Level Best Books – Level Short
Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers: 22 Stories of Mystery & Suspense: A Superior Shores Anthology, edited by Judy Penz Sheluk, Superior Shores Press
On Fire and Under Water: A Climate Change Crime Fiction Anthology, Edited by Curtis Ippolito, Rock and a Hard Place Press
SoWest: Danger Awaits! A Desert Sleuths Anthology, Edited by Claire A. Murray, Eva Eldridge, Suzanne E. Flaig, Denise Ganley, and Sarah Smith, DS Publishing
At this time, the members of the Short Mystery Fiction Society should be reading these books in preparation for voting for the winner in a few months.
Judges from the SMFS are also reading hundreds of anonymized story submissions in four other categories to come up with the lists of finalists in those categories. The categories are flash fiction (1000 words or less), short story (1001 to 4000 words), long story (4001 to 8000 words), and novelette (8001 to 20,000 words). Finalists in those categories will be announced April 1. Then society members will read all the finalists in order to vote for the winners during the month of April. Winners for all four individual story categories and the anthology category will be announced on May 1.
I have a stake in this vote because I have a story inCrimeucopia: The Not So Frail Detective Agency. My story, “Disappearance of an Easy Lover,” features Maya Laster, a genetic genealogy private investigator. She takes a case that appears to be simple: find out why a girl ghosted a guy. But the answer to the question is far from simple, and Maya ends up traveling all over Texas to solve it. Maya has been featured in three published stories so far. The other two stories, “Disappearance of a Serial Spouse” and “A Matter of Trust,” appeared in Black Cat Weekly issues #79 and #110. Maya is scheduled to make two more appearances soon, one currently without a publication date, and the other scheduled to be published in April if all goes well.
If you missed reading any of my stories that were published in Black Cat Weekly or in the various Crimeucopia anthologies, I have good news. Black Cat Weekly and the Crimeucopia anthologies are available via Hoopla and other library services. I discovered many of my stories were available online at my local library via Hoopla. So, if, like one of my relatives who shall remain nameless, you “don’t want to buy a whole magazine or book just to read my one story,” you can log in to your library and check them out to your personal reading device for free. Then, maybe you’ll discover the value of reading the whole book or magazine!
When people talk about Bouchercon, especially in New Orleans, they usually share stories of late nights, legendary meals, bustling crowds, powdery beignets, and lots of alcohol.
That wasn’t my week.
But the funny thing is—I still accomplished exactly what I went to do.
My panel, Wide Open Spaces, with Craig Johnson, Bruce Borgos, Jeff Ayers, George Wilhite, and moderated by the lovely Sylissa Franklin was a highlight. The conversation flowed, and the audience was engaged. I made them laugh a few times and even got a gasp. So, mission accomplished. I walked away feeling like I’d contributed something worthwhile.
I also got to meet Clay Stafford in person and thank him for publishing my short story, Under The Blackjack Tree, in Killer Nashville Magazine. (The story that was chosen by John Grisham and Otto Penzler for The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2025, which is still surreal to me. (Coming out next week!) Stafford’s keynote, The Story That Saved Me, was “cry for crime writers and readers to remember why stories of darkness and redemption still matter—and why telling the truth on the page can save us, too.” Honestly, it was one of the most inspiring talks I’ve heard in a long while. Glad I went.
Another highlight was finally meeting Otto Penzler in person. I thanked him for the opportunity, and he graciously signed my copy of the anthology. A small moment, but one I’ll carry with me.
At the end of most days, I met up with Laura Oles in the hotel/lounge bar. (It was so noisy all of the time!) We compared notes at the end of the day—who we’d seen, what panels had sparked ideas. She was on a terrific panel herself, Dialogue Matters: Slang, Concise, or Verbose? The group dug into how dialogue can reveal character and control pacing, which is something that I’m always working on.
I also loved being in the audience for Sweet Tea with a Splash of Crime: The Southern Influence, with Ace Atkins, S.A. Cosby, and other writers who captured both the grit and taste of Southern literature, and where it’s headed. Another standout was Killing Your Darlings, with Penzler and Donald Maass, which was a sharp reminder that ego doesn’t belong in the editing room if the goal is to make the story better.
And one of my favorite unexpected moments? Donald Maass allowed me to join him for lunch one afternoon. We had a thoughtful conversation about Writer Unboxed, an organization we’re both part of, about writing in general, and drawing inspiration from real life,. It was simple but memorable, the kind of connection that lingers long after the conference ends.
So no, this wasn’t a Bouchercon of big parties or long nights on Bourbon Street. But it was a Bouchercon where I hit my goals, connected with people who matter to me, and left with a few new insights and ideas. Sometimes the quieter wins are the ones that last.
When I first sat down to write the stories that would eventually become part of For Every Evil Under the Sun, I didn’t know exactly where they would lead me—I only knew I wanted to stretch my writing skills, try new things, and be a part of a hot, cool collaboration. (Yes, I like puns.)
Now, I’m proud to announce that this collection is out in the world, published by the brand-new Fredonia Ink Publishing. I’m honored to be sharing the pages with two powerhouse writers, Alexandra Burt and Laura Oles—both of whom are not only incredibly talented but also deeply committed to telling stories that explore the dark, complex corners of the human experience.
This collection is a bit of a literary experiment. We each approached the idea of “evil” through our own unique lens—psychological thriller, family drama, crime, horror, western—and let the stories guide us. What came out of it is a collection that isn’t just eclectic, it’s electric. It shines! (Yes, another pun.)
As for me, I leaned into the grit—into crime, revenge, justice. I wanted my stories to carry that weight—to explore the consequences of violence and vengeance. And also add a little bit of fun to the mix. And the stories by Alexandra Burt and Laura Oles are equally as dark and entertaining.
And hey, if you’re in Austin this summer, I’d love to invite you to join us for a special event at Vintage Bookstore and Wine Bar (1101 E. 11th St.) on July 18 at 7pm. Alexandra, Laura, and I will be discussing short story craft, the experiences of women writing crime fiction, and what went into shaping this haunting little book. It’ll be an evening of books, wine, and maybe a few goosebumps.
So if you’re in the mood for stories that simmer under the heat of summer and explore just how far people will go—to protect, to avenge, to survive—then For Every Evil Under the Sun might just be what you’re looking for.
🗓️ Event Info: July 18, 7pm @ Vintage Bookstore and Wine Bar, Austin, TX 🔗 Learn more, here is the Amazon listing. Ebook now available and paperback will be soon on Amazon and bookstores everywhere: https://tinyurl.com/2tph4xcz
Today’s post comprises two parts–a bit of fiction followed by a bit of fact–linked by a “fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus” and a mystery writer who used it as a murder weapon–and later confessed to something even worse.
I.
The following flash fiction was inspired by a photo prompt on Friday Fictioneers, a weekly writing challenge sponsored by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.
John frowned. “Toadstools. Fungi. Dorothy Sayers killed someone with Amanita.“
“These are morels.” She added salt. “Everybody eats mushrooms.”
“I don’t.”
“Suit yourself.”
He sat down. “Where’d you buy them?”
“I picked them.”
“You?“
“Aunt Helen helped. She knows ‘shrooms.” Mary held out a spoonful. “Taste.”
“Well . . . ” John tasted. “Mmmm. Seconds?”
“Yoo-hoo.” Aunt Helen bustled in. “See my brand new glasses? Those old ones–yesterday I couldn’t see doodly squat.”
Mary looked at the gravy, then at John. “Maybe you should spit that out.”
II.
The following is a guest post I wrote for Manning Wolfe’s Bullet Books Speed Reads blog. In it, I explain what an author does when she doesn’t have a clue about the subject she’s writing about.
There are many rules for writers. Two of the major ones: Write what you know and Write what you love.
I was pleased that Stabbed, which I co-wrote withManning Wolfe, was set in Vermont. I love vacationing there: mountains and trees, summer wildflowers and narrow, winding roads, rainstorms and starry nights, white frame churches and village greens.
In Chapter 1, Dr. Blair Cassidy, professor of English, arrives home one dark and stormy night, walks onto her front porch, and trips over the body of her boss, Dr. Justin Capaldi. She locks herself in her car and calls the sheriff. The sheriff arrives and . . .
What happens next? Vermont is a small state. Who takes charge of murder investigations? The sheriff? Or the state police? What do their uniforms look like? Where do major rail lines run? What’s the size of a typical university town? And a typical university? What else had I not noticed while driving through the mountains?
Not knowing the answers, I defaulted to a third rule: Write what you learn. Research. Research. Research. The best mystery authors have been avid researchers.
Agatha Christie, for example, is known for her extensive knowledge of poisons. As a pharmacy technician during World War I, she did most of her research on the job before she became a novelist. Later she dispatched victims with arsenic, strychnine, cyanide, digitalis, belladonna, morphine, phosphorus, veronal (sleeping pills), hemlock, and ricin (never before used in a murder mystery). In The Pale Horse, she used the less commonly known thallium. Christie’s accurate treatment of strychnine was mentioned in a review in the Pharmaceutical Journal.
Francis Iles’ use of a bacterium was integral to the plot in Malice Aforethought.His character, Dr. Bickleigh, serves guests sandwiches of meat paste laced with Clostridium botulinumand waits for them to develop botulism. If Dr. Bickleigh had known as much about poisons as his creator did, he wouldn’t have been so surprised when his best-laid plans went, as Robert Burns might have said, agley.
Among modern authors, P.D. James is known for accuracy. Colleague Ruth Rendell said that James “always took enormous pains to be accurate and research her work with the greatest attention.” Before setting Devices and Desiresnear a nuclear power station, she visited power plants in England; she even wore a protective suit to stand over a nuclear reactor. Like Christie, James used information acquired on the job—she wrote her early works during her nineteen years with the National Health Service—for mysteries set in hospitals.
Most authors don’t go as far as to stand over nuclear reactors to be sure they get it right, but even the simplest research can be time-consuming.
And no matter how hard they strive for accuracy, even the most meticulous researchers sometimes make errors.
Dorothy L. Sayers was as careful in her fiction as she was in her scholarly writing. But she confessed in a magazine article that The Documents in the Case contained a “first-class howler”: A character dies from eating the mushroom Amanita muscaria, which contains the toxin muscarine. Describing the chemical properties of muscarine, Sayers said it can twist a ray of polarized light. But only the synthetic form can do that—the poison contained in the mushroom can’t.
Considering Sayers’ body of work, this one “howler” seems a very small sin, and quite forgivable.
Most readers, however, don’t forgive big mistakes, and reputable writers don’t expect them to. Thorough research is a mark of respect for readers.
Sometimes, getting the facts straight in fiction has real-life consequences the author can’t predict. Christie’s The Pale Horse is credited with saving two lives: In one case, a reader recognized the symptoms of thallium poisoning Christie had described and saved a woman whose husband was slowly poisoning her; in a second, a nurse who’d read the book diagnosed thallium poisoning in an infant. The novel is also credited with the apprehension of one would-be poisoner.
Back to Stabbed—Well, we don’t expect it to save lives or help catch criminals. But doing my due diligence and reading up on Vermont’s railways, demographics, and criminal procedure set the novella on a sound factual footing.
Unlike Christie, Iles, and Sayers, however, I didn’t have to expend too much effort learning about how the murder weapon worked. One look at the book’s title and–well, d’oh–no research needed.
M. K. Waller (Kathy) is a former teacher, former librarian, former paralegal, and former pianist at various small churches desperate for someone who could find middle C.
She writes crime fiction, literary fiction, humor, memoir, and whatever else comes to mind.
She grew up in Fentress, population ~ 150 in 1960, on the San Marcos River in Central Texas, the Blackland Prairie, and memories of the time and the place inform much of her fiction.
Except for the part about murders. Fentress didn’t have any murders. At least any that people talked about.
The following post appeared on my personal blog, Telling the Truth, Mainly, in April 2022. But the story of my writing process is always worth a retelling. Please read on.
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Sometime back in the 1930s, my grandmother picked up the telephone receiver just in time to hear the Methodist minister’s wife, on the party line, drawl, “I am just wo-ahn out. I’ve been waterin’ the yahd.”
To those not in the know, the statement might not seem funny, but my family has its own criteria for funny. And so those two sentences entered our vernacular.
They were used under a variety of circumstances: after stretching barbed wire, frying chicken, mowing the lawn, doing nothing in particular.
My father would fold the newspaper, set it on the table, and announce, “I am just wo-ahn out. I’ve been waterin’ the yahd.”
I am wo-ahn out now but not from waterin’ the yahd.
Putative novel 2022
Last night David, the family’s official printer, printed the manuscript of what I’ve been calling my putative novel. It runs to over two hundred pages, 51,000 words. It isn’t finished—far from it. There’s more to write, scenes to put in order, clues and red herrings to insert, darlings to kill. All that stuff. And more.
However, for the first time it feels like I can stop calling it putative. No longer supposed, alleged, or hypothetical. It’s looking more like a potential novel. Possible, Even probable.
Now, about being wo-ahn out.
Last night I started putting the manuscript, scene by scene, into a three-ring binder. That required using a three-hole punch.
I hate using three-hole punches. I hate fitting the holes in the paper onto the binder rings. They never fit properly. Getting them on the rings requires effort. It’s tiring.
When I went to bed, I was all the way up to page 37.
Then I woke at 5:30 this morning. Instead of turning over and going back to sleep, I got up. I just couldn’t wait to get back to organizing my manuscript.
But I didn’t organize. I managed to drop the whole thing onto the floor and then couldn’t pick it up. (I’d had knee surgery and wasn’t quite up to bending over that far.) I had to wait for David.
Putative novel 2022-2024
By the time the notebook and manuscript were back in my possession, I was sick and tired of the whole thing. I played Candy Crush.
If I’d had any sense at all, I’d have gone back to bed. I was sleepy. I felt awful. I needed to sleep.
But did I go back to bed? Noooooooooooooooooooooo. That would have been the act of a rational person.
I stayed up added to my sleep deprivation.
I could go to bed right now. I could conk out and tomorrow feel ever so much better.
But will I? No. Because I’m too tired to stand up, too tired to put on my pajamas, too tired to pull down the sheets.
I am just wo-ahn out. I’ve been waterin’ the yahd.
***
Things have changed since 2022. Some days, the novel has reverted to putative, but on most days, it’s still possible. Thanks to extensive revision, the current draft bears little resemblance to the one in the notebook. I have given up three-ring binders and three-hold punches.
***
M. K. Waller’s latest story, “Mine Eyes Dazzle,” appears in the eclipse-themed anthology Dark of the Day, edited by Kaye George (Down and Out Books, 2024). Other stories appear inDay of the Dark (Wildside, 2017), Lone Star Lawless (Wildside, 2017), Murder on Wheels (Wildside, 2015), and online on Mysterical-E. She is co-author of the novella Stabbed (Starpath, 2019), written with Manning Wolfe. She also writes as Kathy Waller. She lives in Austin and blogs at Telling the Truth, Mainly.
The three burros who live with Alice MacDonald Greer, lawyer/amateur sleuth protagonist of my Texas Hill Country legal thrillers, bear a strong resemblance to the three burros who rule our patch of the Hill Country.
We manage our small piece of the planet for native grasses and birds under the county Wildlife Management Program. Today I received our spring box of blue grama and buffalo grass seed, for re-seeding bare patches with native grass. (More below on bare patches.)
The burro idea sprang full-blown into life at a wedding on the banks of the Blanco River years ago, when we were enchanted to see docile and well-behaved burros with panniers on their backs full of cold bottles of water and beer, being led to the guests by docile and well-behaved teenagers. Immediately I envisioned myself trekking up and down our fields leading a burro bearing panniers of grass seed which can be (believe it or not) heavy. As a bonus we knew the burros could help keep down tall dry grass–a concern during fire season.
So just before Christmas we bought two smallish burros from the wedding venue, with certificates attesting to their conformation, heritage, and names (Amanda and Caroline, mother and daughter). Both were elegant, with classically lovely faces, straight legs, and dainty hooves.
This is the youngest, Caroline.
Per Random House Unabridged, “burro” is “a small donkey, especially one used as a pack animal in the Southwestern U.S.” (We use donkey interchangeably.) Let me say for the record that the “pack animal” concept went nowhere with Amanda and Caroline–they were deeply insulted at the idea of any burden on their backs. They made it crystal clear that they had not signed on to work. Still–they were decorative, and they ate down the grass.
Sebastian (left) and Amanda
But on Christmas morning when we looked across the pasture, my spouse asked, his voice disturbed: “How many donkeys do you see?” …Three.
The newcomer was shorter, pudgier, and male–well, an “altered” boy. Knock-kneed, chipmunk-cheeked, he seemed to keep a chewable cud in each cheek. He’d climbed through a fence to visit. We found his owner and bought him. Given his appearance (and the snootiness of Amanda and Caroline) we gave him a new and more dignified name: Sebastian.
While Amanda and Caroline are ladies of leisure, Sebastian has taken on two jobs. First, he’s our designated greeter. He brays a loud greeting as you drive through the gate. He brays again to salute the dawn (or pre-dawn).
Second, Sebastian has declared himself the official guard-donkey. In particular, he’s hell on canines. Pre-donkeys there were cows on the property–and coyotes. But no coyote dares invade Sebastian’s turf. He’d be happy to kick a coyote into the next county. Donkeys are shockingly fast on their feet and could easily catch a coyote. Earlier this year I found Sebastian standing triumphant and motionless in the middle of the dirt road, ears back, head up, posture stubborn, hooves planted–a picture of victory. Visible in the dirt? Tracks of a mama coyote with one pup, who’d erroneously strayed into forbidden territory. The tracks indicated a frantic exit. As he stood in the road, surveying his domaine, Sebastian was announcing, “I’m walkin’ here.”
Random House Unabridged includes a definition of “donkey” as “a stupid, silly or obstinate person.” Donkeys are not stupid. They are curious, persistent, intelligent, and acute of hearing. Are they silly? Well…Amanda and Caroline are aloof and standoffish, but Sebastian wants to play. With a bucket between his teeth, he’ll run over and whop Amanda on the hindquarters with it, then stand there. He so wants her to join in his favorite game, which is apparently called “I’ve got the bucket, now you come bite the bucket and yank it away, then you can hit me with it, then I will chase you, and then…?!?!?” So far, the girls steadfastly refuse to cooperate. When whopped with the bucket, Amanda chooses to bite Sebastian instead of biting the bucket. Maybe that’s a different game?
Obstinate? Oh, yes. They are persistent in searching for ways to get past the gate into the yard and eat the roses. They’re also very hard to stop when they want to go somewhere, and very hard to move when they intend to stay put.
Re-seeding bare patches? These three donkeys pick a spot, then take turns rolling on their backs until the grass gives up and a circular bare spot remains. Then, after rain, they race to the soggy bare spot and roll on their backs until they’re thoroughly muddy. Hence my constant race to re-seed bare patches.
Donkeys model companionship. Indeed, they need it. Despite their occasional spats, Sebastian, Amanda and Caroline spend their days and nights together, never more than about 100 feet apart.
Writers have to take breaks, or go nuts. I’m in that boat right now, because I’m almost but not quite finished with Book 9 in the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series. As is well known, writers in such circumstances can be subject to breakdowns–small rages, or tears, or snappishness, or overdosing on Cheezits.
I can recommend burro therapy. As I stand next to Sebastian, stroking his neck, and he leans back against me, I feel my heartrate slow and my breathing relax. Maybe that’s how burros feel too? Maybe this is their secret advantage, a resource that helps explain their long presence on the planet? Here’s how Alice puts it in Ghost Cat:
“Donkey hugs meant leaning into their sides, stroking their necks. The donkeys instantly settled, leaning back against her. The weird thing, Alice thought, was how the donkeys settled her. They weren’t dogs, loyal and needy, or cats, neutral and non-needy. Donkeys were ancient residents of the planet, tough, independent, curious herd animals with their own inner life.”
And in Ghosted: “Finding herself needing a little burro therapy, …Alice stood in her driveway surrounded by the three. At the moment she was brushing Big Boy. He leaned against her; the warmth felt good in the late morning chill. Those eyelashes, those soft ears, Alice thought. No wonder Titania fell in love with Bottom.”
Indeed, Queen Titania, seeing Bottom with his head magically changed to an ass’s head, says,
“I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.
Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note;
So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
And thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me
On the first view to say, to sweat, I love thee.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene II.
So if you’re in need of burro therapy, fellow writers, come on out. Bring some carrots!
***
Copyright 2024, Helen Currie Foster, All rights reserved.
***
Author: Helen Currie Foster
I live north of Dripping Springs, Texas, loosely supervised by three burros. I’m deeply curious, more every day, about human history and prehistory and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing the party. I’ve loved the Texas Hill Country since my first sight of it as a teenager. Artesian springs, Cretaceous fossils, rocky landscapes hiding bluegreen water in the valleys. After law school (where I grew fascinated with water and dirt) I practiced environmental law and regulatory litigation for thirty years––then the character Alice suddenly appeared in my life. I’m active with Austin Shakespeare and Heart of Texas Sisters in Crime. And I’m grateful to the readers who enjoy the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series!
In Chapter 1, Dr. Blair Cassidy, professor of English, arrives home one dark and stormy night, walks onto her front porch, and trips over the body of her boss, Dr. Justin Capaldi. She locks herself in her car and calls the sheriff. The sheriff arrives and . . .
poisons. As a pharmacy technician during World War I, she did most of her research on the job before she became a novelist. Later she dispatched victims with arsenic, strychnine, cyanide, digitalis, belladonna, morphine, phosphorus, veronal (sleeping pills), hemlock, and ricin (never before used in a murder mystery). In The Pale Horse, she used the less commonly known 
Aforethought.
for accuracy. Colleague 
writing. But she confessed in a magazine article that 
