Lifescapes

Winter Break

We're spending a couple of weeks at our cabin in New Mexico, near the village of Rociada, between Taos and Las Vegas (NM). It's a long drive from Texas--11+ hours, including breaks for Molly (our heeler) and other necessary stops. But a good book (listening to Charles Mann's 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created) and good conversation fill the road hours pleasurably.

We had a little snow yesterday, with more coming down today. I love it here when the snow clouds spill down from the mountain and into the valley below us--love settling in with a book in front of our little electric faux fire. Its great advantage: no logs to lug upstairs or ashes to carry down.

Or settling down with my computer in a corner of the loft, to work on the current project:

Book report. I'm back at work on the Ruby novella trilogy, which has been a fill-in project between longer works (The Darling Dahlias and the Poinsettia Puzzle, A Plain Vanilla Murder). Because it's fill-in, it's taking more time. I forget what I've done, change my mind, recast some of the characters, and so forth. These novellas are about 35k words, and they're linked, so there's an overall arc that connects all three. They're intended for ebook publication, sometime next year, under my Persevero Press imprint. I'm almost finished with the third--one more edit of the whole thing and I'm done. Whew.

Next on the writing to-do list: a China Bayles mystery I'm tentatively calling Hemlock. It involves the theft of a very famous (real) herbal: Elizabeth Blackwell's A Curious Herbal, published in 1737. It will be a dual mystery, like Widow's Tears, with part of the book set in the 1730s, as Elizabeth is creating the book.

Here's a question for you readers of the China Bayles series. Does Hemlock work as a title, all by itself, without the word "poison"? If you have an opinion, please let me know in the comments. I'll randomly choose one and send that person a copy of Vanilla (June 2019). 

It's been a busy year for my little single-author imprint, Persevero Press. Persevero published two of the Darling Dahlias (Unlucky Clover in March and Poinsettia Puzzle in April). Also in the works at Persevero: A Plain Vanilla Murder (China's 27th adventure). The manuscript has been copyedited and typeset and is now in production. The cover is also finished--you'll get first peek in early January. I've enjoyed working with the team at Greenleaf Book Group, which will handle the printing and distribution of Vanilla, as they did with the two Dahlias titles.The pub date: June 4, 2019.

After the holidays, too, I may have some interesting news for you about the film/TV version of A Wilder Rose. So stay tuned!

If our paths don't cross again before Christmas, I hope you'll have a wonderful holiday, with family and friends and time for doing the things that bring you the greatest contentment, pleasure, and peace.

Reading note. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. ― Lao Tzu

 

 

Telegraph Cottage: Ike's Hideaway

For me, the setting of a book is always one of its most important elements. Setting--particularly real, historic setting--embodies characters. It shows us how characters like to live, the furnishings and things they surround themselves with, the odd bits and pieces of life.

When I was writing The General's Women, I was especially fascinated by Telegraph Cottage, Eisenhower's countryside retreat during the wartime months he spent in England. Here are some of the things I learned about this lovely place.

In September, 1942, when Ike was planning the North African campaign, he got tired of living in the Dorchester Hotel in London and asked Kay Summersby (his driver) and Harry Butcher (his aide) to find a cottage where he and his staff could get some R&R. Kay (an Irishwoman) had lived in England for 15+ years and knew the lay of the land. With the help of the British billeting office, she found a cottage she thought Ike would like.

A century before, Telegraph Cottage had been a station on the telegraph line that linked London and Portsmouth. (The telegraph succeeded the semaphore chain that allowed Whitehall to communicate with the naval base on the south coast.) Not far from Ike's war offices in London and later, in Bushy Park, the cottage was a small Tudor-style slate-roofed house at the end of a winding drive, with plenty of privacy. A path at the back led to the thirteenth green of the Little Coombe golf course—ideal for Ike, who liked to hit a few golf balls. He liked to ride, too, and he and Kay would often go riding at nearby Richmond Park. Ike thought the cottage was ideal, although he said the rent ($32 a week) was “pretty damned steep.” The British generals, accustomed to their own grand estates, were appalled that the Allied Commander in Chief was going to ground in a “rabbit hole,” as General Sir Alan Brooke put it. Winston Churchill liked the place, but insisted on having a bomb shelter dug in the garden.

The house itself was comfortable, cozy, and about as warm as an English cottage heated only by one fireplace is likely to be. Ike's Irish orderly, Mickey McKeogh and a couple of black privates, managed the place. Ike, no gourmet, occasionally did the cooking: beef stew was his specialty. In the dining room, a round oak table seated six for a comfortable meal (ten if they were chummy), and a sideboard doubled as a regularly-frequented bar. French doors opened out onto a flagstone terrace and the rose garden, and a steep, narrow stair led up to five tiny bedrooms. The only telephone, a direct line to headquarters, was installed in Ike's bedroom by the Signal Corps. The place was definitely off-limits and out of reach.

The cottage quickly became home to Ike's full staff, and they spent nights and weekends there whenever they could, both during the 1942 run-up to Operation Torch and Overlord (1943-44, the Normandy invasion). Evenings were spent playing bridge or listening to records: "Beer Barrel Polka" was a favorite of Ike, who also liked to read Westerns. According to Harry Butcher,  the staff code-named the place Dah-di-dah, Morse code for the letter K, in recognition of Kay's "special relationship" to Ike. Also at home in the cottage was Telek, a birthday present from his staff in October, 1942. He is said to have named his much-loved Scotty for two things close to his heart: Telegraph Cottage and Kay. Later, Telek was joined by Shaef the cat (named for Ike's European command, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force). Shaef did something Telek couldn't. She cleared the cottage of mice.

When Ike took up painting at the encouragement of Winston Churchill, he painted the cottage, perhaps as a reminder of the happy months he had spent there. (No offense, but he was a better general than an artist.)



Eisenhower's occupation of Telegraph Cottage ended in the summer of 1945, a few months after V-E Day. Sadly, it burned in 1987. Ike's painting, along with his leather jacket and other memorabilia, was recently sold at auction. It was expected to bring around $160,000--50 times more than the $3200 the Army spent to billet him there during the war.

 

Thank you, Murder by the Book

I've lost track of the times I've visited Houston's Murder by the Book, but it's always a pleasure. We had a nearly full house, and I got wound up and spoke for longer than I planned. But it was just as much fun as always--and as always, I loved seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Thanks to MBB for providing a warm welcome, and a special thanks to all who braved the Houston traffic (290 is down to one lane in-and-out of town) and took time out on a beautiful Sunday afternoon to come to the bookstore. You are much appreciated!

Bill drove us to Houston yesterday. He was listening to a book on his MP3 player, which gave me time to read. I was engrossed by by The People's House, by David Pepper. I learned about it from last Friday's PBS Newshour, when Judy Woodruff interviewed Pepper. Here are my thoughts on the book:

This chillingly prescient political thriller is one of the best books I've read lately. Written in 2015 before any of the current election-tampering controversy was on our radar, the book centers around an attempt by a Russian oil-and-gas oligarch to elect Republican candidates who will favor a pipeline project--successful, because of gerrymandering. The engaging main character, Jack Sharpe, is a political reporter at the Youngstown Vindicator who just can't let go of a story. There's a large cast of characters and a shifting timeline, so you'll have to pay attention to places and dates, but stay with it--the effort will pay off.

The author, the chair of the Democratic Committee of Ohio, is a political insider who knows where the bodies are buried and how to dig them up. He also has an ax to grind: gerrymandering. (He's right, of course, and we all know it.) Hard to believe that this is a debut novel. I'm already 20 pages into the second in the series and hoping that Pepper has a third in the works.

I don't know for sure, but it looks like this is an author-published book. I'm willing to bet that Pepper will have an agent, a major publisher contract, and maybe a movie deal before the end of this month.

Reading Note: Through a process called “gerrymandering,” guided by precise modeling and mapping, today’s politicians design House district boundaries in a way that predetermines the outcome of almost every election. The net effect? Modern-day elections to the People’s House have almost nothing to do with the people.--David Pepper, The People's House

 

 

Beginner's Mind

Coffee on the porch, bright October sunshine, and a doe having her morning breakfast of corn beside the creek, with her spring fawn hiding in the woods. Mornings always make me think of beginnings, of newness, of openings. I wonder who I will meet, what I will discover, what I will finish, and begin. The very, very best time of the day.

The ornamental grass in the photo is Lindheimer's muhly, which is native to the Edwards Plateau region of Central Texas (the Hill Country). But because it's so beautiful (and hardy, too) you can find it in many nurseries these days. The narrow bluish-gray foliage and graceful seed heads are striking--and especially at home in a xeriscape. These are native volunteers, along with the button bushes and the cattails that border the creek. 

Garden report. We put in a 30' row of potatoes a couple of weeks ago--a mix of reds and whites left from the spring planting and fully sprouted. I saw them peeping up this morning. The perennial onions have put on their autumn growth, and there's one determined, hardy bell pepper plant left from the summer garden. Hoping that the soil will cool off so I can put in some spinach. But with days still in the 90s, hoping is all I can do.

Book report. The upcoming (Mar 6, 2018) Dahlias mystery--#7, The Darling Dahlias and the Unlucky Clover--is available for pre-order now. If you'd like a signed, personalized copy for your Dahlias collection, go here. The ebook edition will be available for pre-order in December. I think there will be an audio edition, but I'm not sure yet. Please let your librarian and local indie bookstore know about the hardcover so they can keep an eye out for it. I'm working now on #8, which will also be available next year. I've enjoyed getting back to the 1930s and the Dahlias. Thanks to those of you who encouraged me to resume that series. Other projects are in the works--stay tuned!

Catching up: We spent 3 weeks in New Mexico in August, and I'll go back there after Thanksgiving for a few weeks. Hurricane Harvey missed us: 3" of rain and that was it. The squirrels have made off with most of Bill's pecan crop. I've been lazy about the blog, but when I'm working on a book, that's at the top of my mind and I procrastinate about almost everything else. Apologies--I'll try to do better. 

Reading note. Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.--Meister Eckhart

Bald Cypress on Pecan Creek

Pecan Creek is running full this winter, so we're hoping for a full recovery for the six bald cypress trees we planted in 1988. You can see one of them on the right in the photo. Her roots stretch out under the creek and when there's water, she thrives. We call this one Freya, for the Norwegian goddess of fertility. And yes, she has knees. They look like this:

Five years of drought and record-hot summers have been very hard on all our cypress and we feared we might lose some of them.  Bald cypress live a very long time: there's one in South Carolina that's well over 1620 years old--perhaps as old as 3000 years. I often look at ours and wonder what our world will be like when they have lived out their lifespan. These days, it's not an altogether pleasant thought. 

Book report. I finished Queen Anne's Lace, China's 26th adventure. This book is the last in a three-book contract with Berkley Prime Crime, so I've written a proposal for three more books. Here's a sneak peek at their titles: Devil's Trumpet, Passion Flower, and Dragon's Blood. A friend asked if I could look ahead and see the end of the series: the answer is no, not as long as there are interesting ideas to explore and interested readers. I'm glad I didn't choose a series with a definite end, like the alphabet. The mystery done, I'm back to work on the Gertrude project.

Garden report. One planting of potatoes is in, another ready to go.The spinach and onions are thriving, but the kale--for some unknown reason--didn't come up well and had to be replanted. I'll be planting snap peas next week, likely. It's another record-breaking high-temperature winter, pushing up the gardening calendar.

February events. I'll be in Granbury TX and in Dripping Springs TX in late February. If you're in the area, join me! 

Reading note. Global warming, along with the cutting and burning of forests and other critical habitats, is causing the loss of living species at a level comparable to the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That event was believed to have been caused by a giant asteroid. This time it is not an asteroid colliding with the Earth and wreaking havoc: it is us.--Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth

 

Goodreads Giveaway!

We're having the first Goodread giveaway for this upcoming release now through 1/25 (but don’t put it off or you’ll forget). I enjoyed digging into the research for this biographical novel, which explores the hidden relationship between Eisenhower and his Irish driver, Kay Summersby, during WW2. I learned that when the war ended, Ike was fully prepared to divorce Mamie and marry Kay but was persuaded by both duty and ambition to take the path that led him to the White House. I also dug into Kay’s postwar life as an American citizen, following her trail in the letters she exchanged with Ike (held at the Eisenhower Library) and in the newspapers. The print edition of the novel contains the notes that document my findings; if you read the ebook, you’ll find the documentation on the book's website.

If you missed my interview with the novel’s cover artist, you can find it here and here.

Book report. I finished Queen Anne’s Lace (China’s 26^th adventure!) last week. This book is structured like Wormwood and Widow’s Tears, with a backstory set in the 1880s in Pecan Springs. The signature herb is Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota), aka wild carrot, which (until the mid-19^th century) was chiefly used as a contraceptive. When I started researching the subject, I found many herbs that were used in this way and found myself very grateful to a couple of academic researchers. Here are two of the most important, if this subject interests you: Eve’s Herbs and Sex and Herbs and Birth Control. You’ll have to wait for Queen Anne’s Lace, though. It’s in the production queue at Berkley Prime Crime, scheduled for April, 2018. In the meantime, contain your soul in patience (as a librarian said to me once). The Last Chance Olive Ranch will be released in just a few months.

I’m back at work on the Gertrude Bell project, which is beginning to feel like a trilogy, rather than a single novel. There’s a lot to this story, and to tell it well, I think I have to tell it longer. I’ve always been interested in WW1, but like everyone else, I mostly focused on the war in Europe. I have a lot to learn about the war in the Middle East, with its complicated webs of political intrigue.

On another topic . . . 

Garden report:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If the soil dries out enough to dig the trenches, I’ll be planting seed potatoes this weekend. These are Red La Sodas, I think, They’ve gone through a couple of planting cycles and I’ve lost track. I try to save enough from the spring planting to seed the fall, and so on, on the theory that homegrown seed is better acclimated to the garden’s normal seasons—although like most of us, I’m no longer sure what “normal” is. Except hot and hotter.

Reading note. It may be normal, darling; but I'd rather be natural.--Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

The Book's Look: Notes from the Cover Artist (1)

Let's be upfront about this. Book covers are billboards. Whether you're looking at them on a bookstore shelf or online, they're designed to show you what's in the book, invite you to open it, and seduce you into paying for it.

Now that we've got that straight, let's spend some time talking about the cover of my latest biographical novel, The General's Women, with the extraordinarily talented cover artist, Ann McMan.

But Ann isn't just a cover artist. She is also the award-winning author of six novels, Jericho, Dust, Aftermath, Hoosier Daddy, Festival Nurse and Backcast, and the short story collections Sidecar and Three. She was inducted into the Royal Academy of Bards Hall of Fame in 2011, and awarded the Alice B. Lavender Certificate for Outstanding Debut Novel. She has won four Golden Crown Literary Society awards, as well as numerous Rainbow Awards—most recently for Best Lesbian Book of 2016 (Backcast). Backcast was also the recipient of a Silver Medal in the IPPY (Independent Publisher) Awards for Best Northeast Region General Fiction. Her novel Hoosier Daddy was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She lives in Winston-Salem, NC and is married to Bywater Books publisher Salem West.

So Ann knows about making a good book, as well as making an outstanding cover. Recently, I asked her several questions about her work. I'm delighted to share her answers with you.

Susan: How did you get involved in designing/creating covers?

Ann: I’ve always been a voracious reader—even before I became an author. Because I work professionally as a graphic designer, I’ve always had a keen interest in book cover design. Ever since childhood, I’ve paid close attention to what I think of as the "front door" of a book. What about this cover made me stop and look at that book? Why did this book catch my eye—while others blended into obscurity on the shelf? As Ella Fitzgerald sang, "It’s gotta be this or that."

I carried this curiosity with me into adulthood—and now it informs my work as a cover designer. The questions for me as a consumer of books remain the same. How well does the design approach reflect the theme or content of the work? How successfully does the cover catch the eye of a potential reader? How well does the artist use color, imagery and typography to evoke a sense of the story? And more importantly, how much do trends in book cover design dovetail with other trends in graphic forms of communication (i.e. film, social media, magazines and newspapers, etc.)?

Book cover design is appealing to me for many reasons. It’s very direct. It’s kind of an in-and-out medium. That means you must make your best argument for why someone should pick that volume up (or click on its icon to learn more) in just a few seconds. I like that. It’s a constant challenge for me to work to pare a complex story down to its one or two essential elements—then find the best and most striking way to communicate that message.

Susan: What goes into your cover designs? Tell us about your process.

Ann: My role as a designer is to stay out of the way—to tell potential readers what they need to know about a book as simply and directly as possible. That means avoiding clutter. Not having too many things going on. Using clean and simple typography. And making certain that the design in its entirety stands up, has integrity, and is accessible and makes sense at any resolution or size.

My design mantra? If you notice the design more than the message it’s intended to convey—it’s likely overdone, and I’ve failed.

I think readers today have much more visual sophistication than most authors realize. They don’t need to be spoon fed. They don’t need to understand every nuance of a title. They are used to seeing and processing billions of bytes of information at light speed. It’s safe to say that the average consumer today views more graphic images in one hour than a person living in the Victorian age saw in an entire lifetime. That makes my work simpler, and harder, at the same time.

I find that I do my best work when my clients trust me to make the right choices for their books. It’s also helpful when an author has done the heavy lifting about essential themes before they approach me. That's what happened with The General’s Women. In fact, I almost think I should pay you for making that part of my work so easy. Of course, at the same time, that complicated matters.

Come back tomorrow to find out how my notions about "essential themes" complicated Ann's work. (Hint: it had to do with those people photos on the cover.)

Reading note Judging books by their covers is seriously underrated, and any book nerd who claims never to have done it is probably lying.--Amy Smith, All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane.

Snow in the Mountains

I was delighted to wake up yesterday to this lovely snowfall here in the Sangres, in north-central New Mexico. My writing/reading retreat is nearly over, and the snow was a farewell gift. I'll be driving back to Texas tomorrow, where we see snow once in a decade, if that.

It's been a productive three weeks. I dug into the Gertrude Bell books (hers and others'), not quite sure which way the material would take me. I knew I'd be working with biographical fiction, but should it center around her romances, her archaeological work, or something else? Her letters and diaries from her expedition to Ha'il in 1913-1914 have pulled me into that part of her life--her work for the British government as an espionage agent. There's so much material; I'm thinking it may become a trilogy. I've started to write and have been sharing the material with Bill, who knows the period much better than I do and can offer suggestions. It's always exciting to be perched on the brink of a new project, and I have to confess to being pretty much obsessed by it. 

Meanwhile, The General's Women (the third of my historical novels published through my Persevero Press) is moving toward its March 7 publication date. There were the usual small glitches in the formatting process, but they were resolved easily and the upload went without a hitch. I love Ann McMann's cover (I'll have a post or two on the cover design/development process). The novel (the story of Kay Summersby's love affair with General Eisenhower during World War 2) is available now for Kindle pre-sale. It will also be available in paperback and hardcover on Amazon; in print and ebook at Barnes & Noble online, and on iBook. Librarians and booksellers can get the book through Ingram. Librarians, I'll also offer it via Self-e (there's a selection process involved, I think). Reviewers, you can get a review copy from NetGalley next week. 

And Loving Eleanor (the story of the enduring friendship of Lorena Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt) continues to win literary prizes! In addition to an Ippy, it has won the Library Journal's Best Indie eBook Romance award and the USA Best Book LGBT award. Another award (a BIG one!) will be announced next week, so stay tuned.

It's been good to get away from television's political charade (no TV here), but I've stayed posted on the disconcerting developments via the Internet--it's like watching a slow-motion movie of a huge bridge collapsing or the Lincoln Monument falling to rubble. The latest lunacy is absolutely incredible:    

The Chinese government said Saturday it will return a U.S. naval drone seized last week in the South China Sea, a step toward defusing maritime tensions between the two Pacific powers. President-elect Donald Trump reacted to the news by telling them he doesn’t want it back. “We should tell China that we don’t want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!” he tweeted Saturday evening.

Reading note. As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.--H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Sun (26 July 1920)

 

 

 

Time Out

Into my second week on retreat at Coyote Ridge, on the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains--and loving it. Lots of reading on a new writing project, time in the evenings to watch a good film, and quiet writing and thinking time all day. I didn't bring Molly this time: walking her in snow and sub-freezing temps is definitely not fun. But it feels strange, being without a dog. A good reminder of the importance of our animal friends' companionship. 

My new project. A novel (or more than one) about Gertrude Bell, with a likely focus on her espionage work in the Middle East in the years before World War 1. I know the shape of the story I want to tell. What I don't know yet is how far to fictionalize the narrative. In my other biographical fiction (A Wilder Rose, Loving Eleanor, The General's Women) I've kept fictional "inserts" to a minimum. That is, the central plot stays as close as possible to the real story, and there are few fictional sub-plots. But Gertrude's life in Arabia is so dramatic that it seems to me to invite fictional subplots, in the same way that the Lawrence of Arabia story has been fictionalized. If you have thoughts on this topic, please share. I'd love to know your opinion.

Another award for Loving Eleanor! The Library Journal recently named Loving Eleanor as its Indie eBook Romance Award winner for 2016! I'm thrilled, both as an author and as an independent publisher. The book is available in nearly 500 libraries and is being adopted by an increasing number of library book clubs. (If it's not available in your library yet, ask your librarian to order it for you.) Foreword Reviews recently interviewed me about the writing and publishing of the book.Thanks to them for their recognition!

As you know, I'm a strong supporter of independent publishing. One of my favorite projects is the Sarton Women's Book Award program, now entering its seventh year. I love women's books and I'm very proud of this program (bragging here: I created it and help to coordinate it). Some of the very best work in publishing is being done in independent presses. 

Doing something. As I've written here and here, there's no likelihood of my accepting the new administration. I am putting my money where my mouth is by joining and actively supporting projects that stand for the values I believe in. If you're looking for work you can do, check out Wall-of-Us, which offers four weekly ideas for "acts of resistance." We can't do everything, but we can do something.

Reading note. The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.--Elie Wiesel.

 

Quiet Time

I'm spending some solitary time at Coyote Ridge, our New Mexico cabin. We're on the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, looking out over a quiet valley rimmed on the north by a snow-covered ridge that rises to about 8500 feet. It's still summer in Texas: in the 70s yesterday. Here: 12 degrees this morning, with bright blue skies.

My writing studio here is in the loft, with a view up the mountain. No dogs on this trip: Molly stayed home to take care of Bill and the chickens and warn the deer out of her yard. No television, so I'm spared the D.C. train wreck.

My project for this time alone: research/reading on Gertrude Bell. Wikipedia describes her as "an English writer, traveler, political officer, administrator, spy and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her knowledge and contacts, built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Along with T. E. Lawrence, Bell helped support the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in Iraq." I have a stack of books, including her unpublished diaries of her 1913-1914 journey through unexplored, unmapped central Arabia, rich in political intrigue. I also have her letters to her lover, Charles Doughty-Wylie. It's a fascinating project that is taking me into new (for me) territory--a place I love to go!

Reading note: All the earth is seamed with roads, and all the sea is furrowed with the tracks of ships, and over all the roads and all the waters a continuous stream of people passes up and down - traveling, as they say, for their pleasure. What is it, I wonder, that they go out to see?--Gertrude Bell