Monthly Archives: March 2011

Birds and Bees

It’s tempting, when a stranger asks me what I do, to say, “I make things up.”  It’d be the honest answer, for the most part.

Now and then my work leads me, usually kicking and screaming, to do some research.  I’m currently reading a book that should solve all my financial concerns: “Treasure Ships of the Great Lakes: Your Guide to Over a Billion Dollars in Gold, Silver, Jewelry, Rare Coins and Valuable Cargoes Aboard Treasure Ships in the Great Lakes.”  Wow.  All  I need to learn now is how to scuba dive!

I’m also reading a lot about birds, and could there be a better time of year for that?  It turns out that male birds, besides getting the brightest feathers, also get the most melodious songs–all in service of attracting those girls.  I found out that birds sing at dawn not only because it’s quietest then, but also because after a long night of no eating, they are at their most vulnerable, and singing loud proves their virility!  I’ve also gathered the odd, unusable, astonishing fact, such as that there’s an African bird who flies up above the tree canopy, hundreds of feet in the air, then spirals down like a roller coaster, all the while beating its tail so its feathers make a sound like a drum that can be heard all over the forest.  Now that I could almost have made up…

Oh and the bees?  Almost as thrilling as my crocuses opening at last was the appearance of two busy bees dipping in and out of the parachute-silk petals.

Of Mysteries and Missing Things…

The other day my mailman (who has a face like a cherub) delivered a wonderful box.  Inside I found the CD and MP3 versions of FOX STREET. As if that wasn’t enough, I also found…

…the German edition of the book!  Which in real life has a cover even more vivid than my pitiable amateur photgraphy shows, not to mention does not need to be read while lying on your side (Argh).  It also shows Mercedes as well as Mo, which pleases me.  My friend who speaks German says the title translates roughly as THE MYSTERY OF MISSING THINGS.

Which also tickles me because…the book I am writing now turns out to be a mystery.  For years I have told people that, much as I love reading mysteries, I could never write one myself.  Plot is way too hard for me, let alone complicated, twisty-turny plot. And yet, mysteriously, here I am.   

What I’m hoping is the new book will have all the elements I love–strong characters, cool setting, beautiful sentences–as well as a puzzle at its heart.  For research (oh, a writer’s life can be so good) I’m reading two fantastic mysteries.  SILENT TO THE BONE is by that master, E.L. Konigsburg.  CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER, an adult work, is by a writer new to me, Tom Franklin.   Both books are superbly written, witty, heart-grabbing page turners.  In SILENT you’re told  early on that the main character is not guilty, and even as the narrator begins to doubt that, you don’t, and yet you can’t stop reading.  In CROOKED, the mystery has been solved, but with at least sixtypages to go, I still can’t put it down.  Both books, in other words, hook you in not only with the plot but with how you live and breathe with the characters. 

The plot thickens…