Writers Plot

A Very German Christmas

posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

Many of our beloved Christmas customs originated in Germany--the carols, the decorated tree, and everybody who went to my school in the 1950s knows the story of Hans Gruber and the mice in the organ and how "Silent Night" got written.

Although I love traditional family Christmas "stuff", I have always been drawn to Germany. When I had to research and write about a country in 6th grade, I chose Germany. That was before the two sectors were walled apart. I would never have remembered this, but my mother kept that report and gave it back to me when I was packing to go to Germany for my junior year from the University of New Hampshire. (Yeah, Mom kept stuff, but it's not like she was a candidate for "Hoarders" or anything.)

I spent that junior year in the old city of Marburg an der Lahn, about 90 kilometers north of Frankfurt. It was before the days of email and cell phones and instant communications, and since I was a scholarship student, I couldn't fly home for the holidays. Some of my fellow UNH group also stayed in town for Christmas and we decided to make the best of it.

We planned a special meal for Christmas eve, forgetting that everything would have to be prepared on a hotplate. I was astounded that one of my friends, albeit not known for her culinary skills, managed to screw up the add-water-and-make-cream-sauce frozen peas and onions.

I bought a little live Christmas tree and had to get it across the city to a friend's room. It rains a lot in Germany, and Christmas Eve afternoon was no exception. It absolutely poured. (I used to quip that the cities were built on hills to facilitate runoff from the torrents.) I also didn't realize that the buses would stop running, so I was lucky to get on one of the last ones with my tree. The Germans never could figure out what to make of us Americans, and that evening was no exception.

We all managed to gather, set up the little tree and decorate it with a few ornaments and, in the German tradition, with little candles that clipped to the branches. We put a few gifts under the tree and finally found enough courage to light the candles. Painfully aware of the fire danger, we admired the lovely sight for maybe twelve seconds, took some pictures, and (I swear I could hear a little crackling noise) blew out the candles before we caused a conflagration.

After dinner and our tree ritual, we went to a midnight service in a medieval church in the old city, up on the hill. The rain had stopped and as we passed a wing of the castle, we watched a man decorating a huge tree in his living room, and a light snow began to frost everything.

It was magic.

Is Anyone Else Afraid of Christmas Trees?

Happy Holidays from Kate...whose confession about trees begins here....

How can something as beautiful as a tree in winter possibly inspire fear? That is the question we address today, dear reader. And perhaps, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I'm not really afraid of Christmas trees, so much as I am afraid of the process of procuring and setting up Christmas trees.

I think I mentioned here in a long ago column the year that my family had two Christmas trees. That was the year that my father just couldn't get around to going out onto the family's 140 acres and chopping down a tree. It got closer and closer to December 25th. My brother, and sister and I were coming home for the holidays, and my mother, who actually hated Christmas and all the hooha it entailed, thought it would be unwelcoming for her children to return to a house that didn't have a tree. She was a teacher, and after the school festivities were done and the children had departed for vacation, my tiny 5' 1" mother wrestled the school tree into her little Pinto and brought it home, only to find that my father had finally broken down and cut a tree. Faced with the family equivalent of a public relations nightmare, the three peace-making Clark children refused to choose his tree or hers, but set up two trees at opposite ends of the living room.

Perhaps that was the beginning of my tree trauma. Perhaps it began longer ago than that. All I know is that I find the process of choosing a tree, loading it on the car, unloading it, dragging it inside, and making it stay upright in the stand more trouble than pleasure. One year, I couldn't make the darned thing stay upright. After struggling with it for the better part of an hour, I told my husband that I was quitting. That MEN put up Christmas trees. "Not Jewish men," he said, and went back to his desk. I opened the living room door and threw the tree out into the yard.

When the boys were teenagers and the older one had a license, I assigned them the task of going and getting a tree. That was another form of disaster. They treated it like homework, procrastinating until it was December 24th. Finally, I ordered them into the car and away we went, only to find that almost every place had sold all their trees, or closed up shop and gone home. We did finally find a tree...sort of ugly and too expensive, but at least we had a tree. The next year, we went out as a family to get the tree, and as we were returning, some dim-bulb bimbo who wasn't paying attention slammed into the back of my car. The Mass. state trooper who showed up was unbearably arrogant, and my car spent the next three weeks in the shop.

But finally, I got smart. I got green and thrifty, and I went out and bought a small, live tree. It fit in my car--no lashing giant, unstable green objects to the roof. It took ten minutes to decorate. There were no problems about disposing of it, I simply moved it out to the yard. But now, alas, after four blissful seasons without my annual tree trauma (although another dim bulb woman driver, probably someone on a cell phone, did manage to run into my car again two Christmases ago) the poor tree has died.

Today I drove around and looked at live trees. They're prickly. They're too heavy to wrestle into my car by myself. Finally, after wandering around several places, searching for the perfect little tree, I began to wonder: Will the little family actually care if we don't have a tree this year?  

I'm afraid they will. So tomorrow, if the weather is fine, I'm going to load my semi-retired husband into the car, and we're going to go and find a nice, small, live tree. That way, he can help heft it into the car, and I'll have company when that periodic holiday event, the running into of Kate by an inattentive woman driver, occurs. It's about time for that to happen again.

So, to all of you who love the trees--enjoy! And those of you who have interesting tree stories to tell--come sit by me and share.
_______________________________

On Saturday, we'll be celebrating another lovely ritual of the season--the solstice. At our neighbor's party, we will gather by the river around a lovely bonfire. As the flames rise high into the night sky, we'll throw our own bundles onto the fire, letting go of things that trouble us, or pieces of ourselves that we don't like. And like my tree, when I finally get it set up and decorated, it will be a magic moment of color and light, neighborliness and sharing.

Vintage Christmas Cards

Posted by Lorraine Bartlett

Once again, it's time to haul out the Christmas cards and get them in the mail to friends and family.  For me, receiving Christmas/holiday cards is one of the highlights of the season.  So why is actually writing and sending them such a chore?  (And I say that with love in my heart.) I guess it's because I have a hard time deciding who should get what card.  (I always have at least six or seven boxes of them going at any one time.)

I'm always amazed at the variety of cards out there.  Polar bears must be big this year, because we already have a couple of them (and, gosh, they're cute!).  And I love cards that are all sparkly, too.  (So how come I never buy them to send out?  Hmmm.)  I save my cards, too.  In fact, I have the last card my grandfather sent me about 25 years ago, and every year I post it on the cork wall in my entryway.

It's no secret that I collect a LOT of different Christmas stuff, including ephemera.  I've got old boxes of (never used) wrapping paper, gummed labels, gift tags and, of course, Christmas Cards.  Just the other day I went through a small plastic tote of just the old Christmas cards from the 40s, 50s and 60s, and wish I could send them out to friends and family.  There are two reasons I don't.  First, I don't think an old, yellowing card would be well received, and second--then I wouldn't have them any more.

It's the charming images that appeal to me.  They're from a simpler time, when Christmas wasn't quite so commercial, when people didn't get trampled and die in that quest for a larger TV on sale at 4 a.m.  I like the pictures with houses and snow.  Welcoming front doors with wreaths.  Santa and the reindeer.  Candles in a window.

I often wonder about the people who put these cards together--the artists, designers, and those who wrote the copy.  Things like:

It's fun to say
"HELLO" to you
and send this
MERRY CHRISTMAS too!

Or how about:

Christmas
is a happy time,
A time of warmth and cheer,
A time to say "Hello"
and wish
You joy all through the year!
(This one was signed:  Love Sherman & Diane)

I wish I could hang them all. 

Do you display the Christmas cards you receive?

DO YOU THINK THAT'S FUNNY?

Posted by Sheila Connolly

A friend who's fond of internet humor and likes to share it recently sent me a list that was making the rounds, a compilation of random thoughts.  One line struck me immediately:  "I wish there was a font for sarcasm."

As it happens, the members of Writers Plot have been discussing humor, and what role it should play in our blog.  The discussion went something like this. 

"We should write funny stuff," one said. "Readers like funny."
"I thought I was," I said. 

Apparently not.

I never claimed to write funny-ha-ha.  I thought I was writing with dry humor.  Hey, I once had an agent praise my submission for its "sly wit"–I have it in writing!.  And if that isn't working, then I'm up a creek, because I can't write any funnier.

Writing funny is hard.  I don't think it can be forced–you either have a comic voice or you don't.  But what I lean toward is sarcasm, which is kind of a double-edged sword.  To those who "get" it, it can be funny.  To those who don't, often they're either confused or annoyed, like they're missing the joke.

I've used sarcasm most of my life.  For most people, myself included, it's probably a defensive mechanism–you say something cutting mainly to conceal your real feelings.  Talk about a movie you've seen, and you say, "well, that was a waste of twelve bucks" rather than "I didn't like it."  Stating a simple, personal opinion leaves you open to criticism, and a lot of us (particularly insecure writers) will go a long way to avoid that.

But at the same time, a sarcastic snappy comment can often be hurtful, even if unintentionally.  People think you're mocking them or putting them down.

It's interesting that so much humor relies on a streak of cruelty.  Take slapstick–why do people enjoy watching someone slip on a banana peel?  There is pain involved, right?  Someone can get hurt, and the joke relies on the fall, not on whether the person gets up and walks away unscathed.  Someone is made to look stupid and clumsy–and that someone is not us.

Is that the key?  Deflection?  We (or at least some of us) like to see someone else make a fool of him or herself, while we sit smugly on the sidelines.  Sort of a "there but for fortune" moment–better him than me.

I write cozies, and I read a lot of them.  I'll admit I enjoy the "snarky" ones–but in most of them, the humor is self-directed toward the protagonist.  It's often the heroine's internal voice saying something like, "smart move, idiot–now you have to explain why your fingerprints are all over the victim's jewelry."  She doesn't necessarily inflict it on anyone else.

So far I've written three heroines.  The first, Em Dowell of the Glassblowing Series, has a sharp tongue, at least when it's in her own head–and she's hiding a soft heart.  The second, Meg Corey of the Orchard Series, is relatively humorless.  Guess what?  Meg's more popular among readers, if sales are any indication.  Why?  My hunch is that she's more vulnerable, which makes her someone that readers can identify with.

Now I'm writing a new heroine:  Nell Pratt, Philadelphia fundraiser.  And I'm hoping she falls somewhere between Em and Meg.  She definitely has a sense of humor, but she's more open with other people; she likes them, and they like her. she doesn't get off a lot of zingy one-liners, but neither does she insult people.

But sometimes it would be nice to have that sarcasm font, or maybe a little code that signals a tone of voice.  Lines can be read more than one way, with different inflections and emphasis.  How can you tell if the words are meant to be sarcastic if you can't "hear" them?

How about you?  What do you think is funny? And does that include sarcasm?

Holiday Expectations

posted by Leann Sweeney

It's that time of year again, and in the past I have felt an overwhelming amount of pressure at the holidays. Make things, decorate things, shop for things, clean-up things, bake things, plan things, send things. It's just too many things, isn't it? No wonder I bordered on being declared mentally incompetent by January 2nd. Then you have to recover from all those things and I've decided that recovery period lasts until the following Thanksgiving.

The burning question? Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? It's all about expectations. Your grandma did it, or your mother did it, so you must do it, too. And notice I'm speaking about women, because let's be honest, for my generation, putting up outside lights and cutting a turkey were about all we could expect from those who do not deal in holiday "things" until about December 24th.

Good example. I've made a huge Thanksgiving dinner every year for about thirty years. All by myself. And I was always proud when everything got on the table at once and it was hot if it needed to be hot and cold if it was Jell-o or cranberry sauce. Everyone smiled and thanked me. I did appreciate that very much, but why the hell was I working alone all those years? We went to my son's home this year for Thanksgiving and since my son was off and since his mother (um, that would be me) TAUGHT HIM HOW TO COOK, and he was off work for the week, he did the dinner. And guess who helped him for two straight days with these preparations? My husband. But that's not the best part.

My husband wanted his grandmother's style of cranberry sauce made with sugar, oranges and cranberries all ground together. I found him a recipe I thought would be close. He made the cranberry sauce all by himself. And then he came to the unhappy realization that our son is ALLERGIC TO ORANGES and he could not eat this concoction. And when my husband told me he simply forgot until it was dinner time and our son passed on the cranberry sauce because of this, he felt awful. I would have sympathized except that I, too, am allergic to oranges and have been since I was about five-years-old. We have been married 38 years and he's just realizing this?

This is why many men are not in charge of all these THINGS. That might require some long-term planning and lots of lists--and of course THOSE things are only done for the paying job. Who'd be dumb enough to do all that work and not get paid? (Um, that would be me, honey.)

For some reason, I just don't feel the pressure this year. Presents are being sent from websites with the cursory $6 "gift wrap" option. Gift cards are so handy, aren't they? And an e-mail Christmas card works quite nicely, thank you very much. But the best part of this is that not only do I not feel the pressure, I don't feel guilty either. If the people in my family don't know I love them unless I slave for 5 days in a kitchen, wear myself completely out and make sure they have awesome, beautifully wrapped packages, then too bad, so sad. I won't be tired this Christmas.

Thank God I finally came to my senses.

Breaking the rules (Blush)

posted by Jeanne Munn Bracken

I am stepping a little out of line today and I’m going to violate one of the Writers’ Plot cardinal rules: limit BSP. I have probably mentioned here before that one of my “claims to fame” is the term BSP, or Blatant Self Promotion, coined on the DorothyL mystery lovers list quite a few years ago. I was noting in a post there that I am not a mystery author but I didn’t mind reading about others’ new books, because unless we support them, we were all in the soup and wouldn’t have anything good to read.

Didn’t know that about me, did you?

It’s also possible that you don’t know I have also written books. The Cancer Book From Hell that I’ve been complaining about for the entire life of this blog will be published next year. I promise. Finally! It is a title that will help families in distress, but I really, really hope none of you will ever have to consult Children with Cancer: A Reference Guide for Parents (Oxford University Press , 1986; rev ed 2010)

Still. About that BSP.  I was also an award-winning columnist for the Littleton Independent for over 20 years, which was a lot like having a weekly blog, although the geographic  reach was a bit smaller (Littleton, Massachusetts and environs vs. The World. Yep, smaller.)

But what I wrote was universal, because I was (and am) Every Suburban Woman. House, husband, kids, pets, balky cars—as Zorba would say, “The Full Catastrophe!”

I could have cried about a lot of things: my daughter’s cancer diagnosis, career challenges, dysfunctional childhood… Instead, I became a humorist, most of the time. Laughter is really good for your body and your soul. My readers laughed for over a thousand columns, and folks from my church helped me figure out which ones to include and which to deep six and hope nobody ever saw again.

For example.

At one family reunion a cousin’s spouse missed dinner because he was in the emergency room with (ahem) hemorrhoids “the size of Rhode Island,” to quote his loving wife—thereby insuring he would be the “butt” of our jokes for reunions to come.

Other people’s kids come home from McDonald’s with leftover fries. My kids brought a cat. A female cat. A pregnant female cat.

When offered a gift hamster, at least stop to think why the donor is so eager to get rid of it. Hamsters have more accessories than Barbie, and they don’t mingle well with resident cats. ‘Nuff said.

So. Let me help you laugh. (See BSP comment above.) A few years ago I collected some of my columns in a book. You will probably not be shocked to learn that I still have several boxes of this self-published book in my garage. I’m not a shy and retiring type, but I really, really suck at BSP. Totally.

Certainly some of you have bought my book and I appreciate it. Your support means a lot to me, and I happen to think you got your money’s worth of good reading. Thank you.

Anyway, for everyone else, here goes the BSP: I collected some of my award-winning columns in Someday We’ll Laugh About This, some 60 essays on imperfect families, vacationing with vehicles of questionable trustworthiness, raising daughters and coping with dozens of pets from huge goldfish to hamsters to newborn kittens.  The book was put together with the help of friends from church, but don’t let that scare you off. Not to worry—it’s not a “religious” book. In the case of the few columns that mention the church, feel free to substitute “aerobics class” or “PTA meeting” for the nursery care disaster.

It’s a funny book. One fellow said he laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. So yeah, it might be hazardous to your health in that respect, but you can probably read each essay in five minutes, so if you can hold your breath that long, you should be ok.

So. Buy my book. Email me at jmbracken@verizon.net, mention this blog, and I’ll give you a deal. Rather than $15.95 plus shipping and handling, I will sell you the book for $13 flat and eat the tax, bubble envelope and mailing costs. I’ll extend that to 2 for $25.

It’s the holiday season. This book makes a great gift for family and friends, teachers, other relatives, neighbors, day  care center staff, bus drivers, Yankee swap….use your imagination. But please: give it only to people with imperfect families; others will not be able to identify.

Read my book.  Whew! That didn’t hurt too much.

While I'm on a roll: Also check out my new website: www.jeannemunnbracken.com

Martha Stewart Made Me Do It

Happy Holidays from Kate....

This is not a column about insider trading. Aren't you relieved? This is a column for those of us who are trying to get through the holidays with some semblance of style (the occasional shower, clean jeans, or bit of glitter) without having to guild the turkey carcass or serve seventeen kinds of cookies on our collection of antique silver platters covered with homemade doilies.

This year, I am so far behind that I can't say for sure that we will be having Christmas, but I'm trying. When I can remember. Which is why I'm thinking that it's a grand idea, this business of making a list and checking it twice. I'm not sure it applies so well to a woman of a certain age. That's me. The woman who can no longer remember anything. Whose store of proper nouns has been stolen, with the rest of my vocabulary not far behind.

I thought this season was supposed to be fun?  Normally, I'm so organized. My holiday shopping is done by mid-November, so I can deliver presents to my brother's family at Thanksgiving. This year, aside from buying that dump truck load of books I mentioned last week, I've done nothing. No baking. No holiday cards. No stocking presents. No tree. One spindly little amaryllis that might eventually produce a bloom. The charmingly ugly construction paper turkey my niece's students made is still taped to the dining room window. I have no idea what I'm doing, despite daily trips to the post office.

I may have to break down and make some lists. For example, this Saturday, I expect that shortly after 7 p.m., the doorbell with start ringing and 50 or more of my closest neighbors and friends will arrive for a holiday party. This is a party that I can blame, entirely, on Martha Stewart . Nearly thirty years ago, she published a cookbook called Entertaining. A neighbor bought it for his wife, who made fantastic hors d'oeuvres that she served at a party. My husband was impressed, bought me the cookbook, and we decided we had to have a party. The party has gone on ever since. I'm still using Martha's recipes, and the part has become a neighborhood tradition.

Years ago, I used to cook for three weeks. I'd make dozens of phyllo dough triangles stuffed with curried walnut chicken, and dozens more with spinach. I'd make artichoke toasts and tiny orange muffins with smoked turkey. I'd make a hundred miniature smoked salmon and leek quiches. I'd chop, roll, bake, marinate, and freeze. I'd peel eggs for hardboiled eggs by the hour. That was when I was young and supple and not desperately trying to cut another 10,000 words out of a manuscript. That was when I could stand in the kitchen for six hours at a stretch without moaning, "Oh, my aching back!"

One year, just as guests started arriving, the power went off. I couldn't finish cooking my trays of goodies. No problem. I put sterno in the oven to keep things warm, put out every candle in the house, and borrowed a camping lantern so I could work in the kitchen. Lulled into happiness by candlelight and bowls of margaritas, every had a fine time. No one even knew we didn't have power until three hours later, when the lights suddenly came on. It was a magical evening.

Now, party time is almost here, and, with no memory and no list, I can't quite remember what it is that I'm planning to serve. Eggs again, probably, since two of my neighbors have already declared that they are stealing the platter and eating them all. That brought a prompt, "We SHARE in this family."

Golden brown Asian chicken wings, a recipe I got from a colleague in the Maine Attorney General's office. Smoked bluefish pate, from one of my old Thea Kozak's quick and dirty recipes. Crab cakes with caper sauce because my husband grew up in Maryland. Pedro's Secret, aka The Giant Taco, because we always have it, and it's so much fun to put all the layers together. Meatballs and tiny sausages, because they don't take any work and everyone loves them. Shrimp, likewise, with the Martha Stewart touch of a red or green pepper full of cocktail sauce in the center of the platter. The almond-stuffed dates with bacon are still a question mark. 

The wise hostess stays with her own demographic. It probably won't matter whether I remember to serve food at this party or not, because all my friends also have memory issues. Together, we'll make it work. We'll light the candles, put out something on some kind of platter, put out the annual bowl of margaritas, and celebrate the season. Once again, we'll blame Martha, and love, and friendship and have some of that fun this season is supposed to be about.  (At right, Sheila's apple cake, from One Bad Apple. Delicious!)

P.S. Martha could use some competition, or an updating. Anyone got a great hors d'oeuvre recipe to share?

The smoked bluefish can be found in the recipes section of my website. Let me know if you want that Mahogany Chicken Wings recipe.

Maid In America

Posted by Lorraine Bartlett

For years, I've been teasing my husband with a line from an old "Bickersons" comedy routine.  (No, I'm not old enough to remember them first-run; I got an old cassette out of the library and learned the routines playing them over and over again.)  In it, Blanche wails, "Why can't I have a maid?"

When I lived in a small bedroom in my parents first house, it was easy to keep tidy.  Same in my first two (small) houses. But then I got married and moved into a sprawling contemporary ranch house.  (The original owners had expanded with four additions, and finished off three-quarters of the basement, too.)  We, therefore, essentially have four living rooms (it only took 11 years to furnish this place), and we rotate their use on a regular basis.

I don't know how I kept the place clean when I worked a full-time job and had a booth in an antiques co-op (for 12 years), and wrote (but not published) books, as well, but somehow I managed.  Now that I don't have to squeeze cleaning and laundry into my life, it's gotten out of hand.

It's been a stressful year, and cleaning the house was not on the top of my to-do list.  So, after talking about it for months (okay, really, a couple of years), we bit the bullet and called a cleaning service, and then stressed about it or a whole week.

I'd always heard of women who clean before the cleaners come.  "That won't be me," I said. 

I lied.

Two hours before they were to arrive, I found myself on my hands and knees cleaning the bathroom floor.  Decluttering took the better part of an hour.  Everything got stashed in my already messy office, which we hadn't contracted for them to clean.  I had to leave to run an errand, so I wasn't there when the two ladies showed up, and wondered if I could find a way to STAY away while they were there.

No such luck.  They were here for over three hours.

It turns out, I'm not the only writer around who has someone in to clean.  One of my (very successful) author pals said hiring someone to come in and clean her house on a regular basis was the best thing she ever did for her writing career.  It freed up hours and hours every week, giving her more time to devote to her career.  (And she has a REAL career.)  Still, I can't help feeling guilty.

Why do women feel they should do it all?  My husband quit cutting the grass three or four years ago.  Same with snowblowing the driveway.  Gutters?  There's a guy for that, too.  Wanna dig up the garden in a big way?  Just pick up the phone.  We both work from home--and usually seven days a week--and he doesn't feel a lick of guilt over no longer doing his "home chores."  So why should I feel like I'm not holding up my end?

Will somebody tell me it's okay to have the house cleaned on a regular basis -- and not by me?  (And by the way, it really is nice to have a clean house!!!)

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW

Posted by Sheila Connolly, with a little help from Sarah Atwell

That's one of the first rules you learn in writing. Write about something you're familiar with, so you can give your story authentic flavor, color, texture.  There's one major exception:  most mystery writers haven't killed anyone.  I've met a lot of mystery writers, and they're all really very nice.  But I do know that many of us have done such odd things as visit morgues and prisons, and even taken shooting courses, in order to get our details right.  We also post all sorts of gruesome questions on various loops as we look for accurate information:  "What would a body look like after being submerged in a swamp for a week?"  "How far does blood spatter?"

I'll admit that Sarah and I had never seen the Southwest when we started writing the Glassblowing Series.  When I did travel there, I was blown away by Tucson and the surrounding area.  It was so unfamiliar, so unlike anything I had ever encountered growing up on the East Coast or in California (where I lived for ten years).  In a way the setting became a character in its own right–the dryness of the air, the ubiquitous cacti, the mountains always on the edge of your vision.  My protagonist Em Dowell was herself a transplant from Back East, so she was always aware of her surroundings.

 
The Orchard Series, on the other hand, was born from my chance encounter with a house built by an ancestor of mine.  I've always joked that it was all those dead relatives in the town that kept calling me back, but I fell in love with the place and ended up using it in a book, and then a series of books, because I wanted to have a reason to keep going back.  Once again my protagonist Meg Corey is an outsider, a city girl, so she starts out by feeling completely out of place in the small rural town–and finding a body in her back yard doesn't help!  But over the course of the series she comes to appreciate small-town values, and she's making friends and finding her own niche  there.

Like Meg, I'm learning as I go–and now I've picked a lot of apples, and planted organic lettuce, and walked through boggy fields, and toured farmers markets and cider mills.  And talked to farmers and orchardists about the economic and practical realities of small farms in this day and age.

Next fall I'll be launching a new series, which is about as diametrically opposed to the Orchard Series as you can get (except for the intelligent and determined protagonist in each who will keep on solving murders).  It "stars" the City of Philadelphia, and my heroine is an insider, someone who has lived and worked in the area for many years.  She's involved in the cultural community, so you lucky readers are going to get all sorts of glimpses into what really goes on behind the scenes in museums and historic institutions.

This time I can say that I have lived in the Philadelphia area and I worked there for over a decade, and yes, that included stints in two museums.  I also worked for the City itself, so I know something about how the city works.  As a result, I know the sights and the sounds and the smells of the place–the bustle of the underground corridors between train stations, the wonderful vistas where you catch glimpses of the opulent City Hall, the quiet corners of history like Ben Franklin's burial site.  I hope to use all of these to make the books in the new series come alive.

But I have a favor to ask of you.  So far my editor and I have been calling this "Book 1" of the "Museum Mystery Series."  Marketing hasn't chimed in yet with names.  So tell me: what's the first thing you think about when you think Philadelphia?  What terms will immediately clue you in that a book is about not only the city, but also about its history and its cultural community?  All suggestions welcome, including title ideas.  (So far the only strong contender we've come up with is "For Whom the Bell Cracks.)

Standing Next to Genius--The Original Christmas Carol

posted by Leann Sweeney

While I was in New York City last year, I had a wonderful museum experience. We went to the Pierpont Morgan Library. Pierpont Morgan collected first edtions and there was so much to explore in what was once the Morgan family home. Like a handwritten original copy, one of only four in the world, of Milton's Paradise Lost. One bedroom size room was taken up with this display.

But I kept returning to one small spot in the original library with its floor-to-ceiling book shelves: a small glass display case holding the original draft of Dickens A Christmas Carol. I saw his very readable handwriting and the leather journal where he wrote one of the most socially significant books ever written. I saw his line edits, line edits not different at all from what I have done on my drafts. Oh how I wished I could take that book and hold it in my hand for just one second.

He wrote the book after a falling out with his publisher, whom he believed had cheated him out of profits from his previous book. He chose to publish A Christmas Carol on his own, staying in control of every aspect of its production. Not so different than the route some writers are taking today, and have taken for as long as books have been written. Contrary to what many believe, the book was an instant bestseller. He sold 6,000 copies the first week. But it was not enough to offset the costs he incurred in publishing the book himself. I'll bet that sounds familiar, too.

Every year, part of the minimal decorating I do for the holidays is to take out my copy of A Christmas Carol and place it where I can see it. What better way to decorate a house than with a book? And what a book it is. A ghost story, a mystery and a tale that some say created our modern Christmas. One wonderful day of celebration with good food and loving family. By the time Dickens wrote the story, he was celebrating Christmas with a happy family. But, as I shared a few weeks ago about my own unhappy early years, Dickens had a miserable childhood. When he wrote about how the Industrial Revolution harmed children, he was speaking from experience. He had been placed in a home while his father served out a term in debtor's prison.

Miserable childhoods are nothing new, either. But Dickens made a difference for me as a  little girl. I related to that book the first time I read it ... no devoured it. What Dickens taught me is that a book with a real plot, with a beginning, a middle and an end, can shine a bright light on how our society works or doesn't work, as was the case in England in 1843. He wrote that masterpiece in six weeks. Six weeks. And I got a chance to stand next to it and examine his writing word by precious word.

I felt the ghost of a genius standing over my shoulder--and he was smiling.