Anti-Social

 

     

    Well, that was interesting. On Monday I dashed off a quick entry about the Crime Bake writers’ conference and in return reeled in a comment from its headline speaker. 

        I often forget that on my blog I send these thoughts out into the ether, forgetting that there are – incredibly – people who read them. It was a bit unsettling that this very well known author had somehow connected to my little two-bit blog. I imagine it was AI at work, or some program that alerts her whenever her name or one of her books is mentioned.

          This experience reinforced my realization this weekend that I’m not willing to do the amount of work that the other writers at the conference do to support and promote their books. It’s enough for me to just tell people to find my books at Amazon. For me, putting together a mystery is barely more than a hobby and is really just an elaborate version of the crossword puzzles in my newspaper.

 This past Saturday, I sat in more than one workshop where panelists discussed using social media to maintain contact with readers. I don’t want to be a slave to Snapchat or Instagram. I can’t imagine having to put out a blurb every day to gain followers so they’ll then storm off and buy the next book.

         

Okay, yes, I just heard myself. I guess that’s not so different from blogging.

         

But at least here I can do it on my own terms.

          So maybe tomorrow’s riveting post will be about today’s victory over the microwave and how I finally managed to get into my LL Bean account at Citibank.

 

Weekend Crime Spree

 

I began Crime Bake, the conference for mystery writers, with a master class chaired by Barbara Ross. With twelve mystery novels, a number of novellas, and umpteen Agatha nominations, she was definitely the right person for this class called ‘What I’ve learned along the way.’

Mystery Trek

          “I’ll sign up for pep squad if you do.” Or maybe it all starts with those posse trips to the ladies room when we travel in packs, as though the path ran through an active minefield rather than a series of booths full of people enjoying pizza.

Taking Steps

          When my parents separated, and ultimately divorced, I suddenly found myself no longer in Arlington, VA with my friends, dog Tammy, and cat Mosby, but living in Tulsa, Oklahoma with my grandparents.

          We’d stayed there in past summers, so I was well acquainted with my Uncle Sam’s old cache of Pogo books, tucked away in a cupboard under the eaves. But this was for the long haul, with no apparent end date.

          Fortunately, my family were readers and so was I. My mother’s attitude was that all reading, even if it was the back of a Kleenex box, was fine, so I had free rein of the books in his old room, most published in the ‘30s and ‘40s. My Uncle had at one point been bed-bound with polio, so there was plenty to pick from.

          I worked my way through, among others, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Thurber Carnival, Bill Maudlin’s book of WWII cartoons, The Egg and I, Gone with the Wind, and even Andersonville. I enjoyed them all even if at 11 years old it’s certain that I missed many of the references and most of the nuances, but they got me through a long summer.

  

        One of my favorites was Cheaper by the Dozen, an autobiography written by two children of efficiency experts Frank and Lillian Galbraith, pioneers in industrial engineering who tried to apply the same principles to their family of twelve kids.  

          It was when my knee (which is still deciding day-to-day whether it will cooperate) was at its worst that I was reminded of the Galbraiths.

          I became my own efficiency expert.

How much could I carry in one trip? Phone can go in pocket, book under arm, reading glasses on head, plate in left hand, tea mug in right. And the odds were better if this occurred after the mug was empty.

          Did I reeealy need that loaf of bread all the way downstairs in the freezer?

          And why walk the four steps around the couch that it would take to turn up the thermostat when I could use the Nest app on my phone?

 

Ups, downs, and out

          Up :

          Good thing it didn’t happen while the grandtwins were here.

          Down:

          Monday morning, after having gotten up, eaten breakfast, and tidied a bit around the house, I stepped into the garage – literally one step – to toss a newspaper in the recycle bin and my knee went kaflooey.

The Party's Over

     

     The weekend whizzed right by. We had the grandgirls for an overnight, something that doesn’t happen too often since they live an hour and a half away.

Shelves and stuff

Happenings this week: