Chilly and Short

Had to do errands and get groceries today, so even though it was cold, I decided to walk. My body really wanted something more physical too.

Did the loop and spurs at Cartier Park which had been plowed, so it was better walking. But it was 11°!

This is Lincoln Lake.

Stumps had biscuits perched on top!

I spent the morning doing stuff for Confidence Camp, then all the on-the-go-stuff. Then a volunteer zoom meeting, and another meeting in 5 min. There you have my day.

Cartier Park, Ludington, MI, Loop and both spurs. 1.8 miles

See cARTier Trail

Adirondack NCT Hike - 1996

I spent all morning writing one of my newspaper columns. I spent most of the afternoon editing. Bell choir practice was cancelled, and it's still quite nasty outside. I didn't finish the current jigsaw puzzle. I didn't finish the prayer shawl. I need some different supplies to try more aspen trees.

So, you get another of my early hikes on the NCT.

In 1996, Marie, Mathilda and I decided to see the eastern terminus since we'd been to the west the year before. Sadly, David had to work for the summer although he really wanted to join us.

At that time, there wasn't even a hint of where the NCT route would be across the Adirondacks, except to say that it wouldn't go through the High Peaks. But the unofficial rule was that you could connect Crown Point with Forestport any way you wanted and it would count. So we decided that we wanted to see the High Peaks.

I was enchanted by the guidebook. Lower Wolf Jaw was described as "exceedingly steep." I couldn't wait!

The eastern terminus of the trail at that time was Crown Point on Lake Champlain. And the old bridge was still there. This was built in 1929, but was replaced in 2011 with the beautiful bridge with a pedestrian walkway that is now in this location.

We had to take some road walks to connect to the trail we were going to follow. This took us past Bulwagga Bay of Lake Champlain where we learned that they have their own "sea monster" whose name is Champ. These people claim to have seen him or her. We did not.

Hurrican Bertha was just winding down and managed to keep us wet quite a lot.

Lower Wolf Jaw did not disappoint. However, I have no pictures. We just felt lucky that we got up it. "Exceedingly steep" turned out to be a climb up a nearly vertical pile of rocks and mud. In the rain and wind that was the tail end of Hurricane Bertha. And, as some of you know, Mathilda is legally blind. I turned Chips loose to find his own way up. Of course, he beat all the rest of us. That day ended with the wet campsite we nicknamed our Frank Lloyd Wright "Falling Waters" site. That's the picture I used to advertise Confidence Camp.

Do you want to know more? The chapter about this hike in North Country Cache is one of the longer ones, and it will give you all the details. We sure had adventures! Most of them were good ones.

We found places where the ice never melts because no sun every reaches that deep into the rocks. We learned about peaty Adirondack mud. We learned that we needed to hang our cache bag higher! We learned a lot about being flexible in planning even when you've already started the hike.

The high point, literally and figuratively, was summitting Mount Marcy, the highest point in New York state at 5344 feet.

Our last big climb was over Indian Pass. Yes, we are on the trail. Yes, this was a piece of cake compared to Lower Wolf Jaw.

We ended at Henderson Lake, another place that was never destined to be on the North Country Trail. So years later, to finish my first hike of the NCT we had to start there and connect up because by that time there was at least an identified corridor where the NCT would go.

Tomorrow, I need to go to the store. Doug plowed our drive today, so I should be able to get out.

See North Dakota 1995

Trying Trees

OK, the trees are not testing my patience. I'm actually trying to paint trees. One of the reasons I didn't pursue art after high school was that to be good at it you have to practice, practice, practice and paint/draw, whatever, the same things over and over until you get them the way you want. I never could talk myself into that.

But here I am. This is four attempts at spring trees. Specifically, spring aspen trees. I need to keep trying until I get a style I'm happy with. This one is paper towel blobs with the black lines added after the paint. I like how the leaves look, but the trunk and branches are wrong for aspen.

This one is paintbrush with the black lines added after the paint. It's an OK tree, but it's not looking like early enough spring, and it's definitely not an aspen. It has good depth, but that also means it has too many leaves for the season I'm trying to capture.

Try number three is doing the black lines before the paint, and the paint is sponged on with the "wrong" kind of sponge. I watched some videos with this technique, and i like the result in theory, but this tree isn't right. The trunk and branches are too solid. The shape and branches are more aspen.

This one looks the most spring-like and it is beginning to look like an aspen, although I can't find my black paint, and the trunk needs to be gray. This was done with scrunched up tinfoil with the black added afterwards. Needs more layers of paint for depth, but the cheap paint is too translucent, and the tinfoil too "sparse," but I think I'm getting there. I've ordered the "right" kind of sponge and some pens that won't run in varying tip widths.

You need to know that these are done with el cheapo watercolors and paper from the box store. I'm not going to buy better paint and paper until I get better with technique.

There is a point to all this. If you've been around long enough, I last was working seriously on this project over ten years ago, but it made it on the blog if you remember that far back. Not quite ready to commit myself enough to post the goal yet. It's one of my many (embarrassing number of) unfinished projects.

In other news: I had a zoom meeting this morning and there were tech problems getting ready for it, so that took all morning. I put away the last of the Christmas decorations. I worked on most of the other projects a little bit each. May try to write a few more words more tonight.

See Art Center Bingo

A Troop of Tropes

More about writing today. It seems like I'm on a bit of a roll.

What's a trope, you ask? A trope is a recurring theme. If this were an afghan or a work of art, you'd call it a repeating motif like a granny square, or triangles. Or in a piece of music, the recognizable bit of melody that you hear over and over.

In writing, it's a brief and familiar summary of the plot. For example, you might think all the Perry Mason books have the same trope- they all have Mason taking on some case that looks impossible, and then he pulls a rabbit out of the hat in the courtroom and wins the case. But that is more of the genre. Like "courtroom drama," or "police procedural," or "amateur sleuth."

Books with the same trope might be everything from Oliver Twist, Lord of the Flies, or the Harrison Ford movie Firewall, to The Boxcar Chldren, which are all the trope of the endangered child. However the first two are in the literary fiction genre, the movie would be a thriller, and the last is a children's mystery. A trope cuts across genres.

My general mysteries are all in the "amateur sleuth" category, technically the cozy mystery genre. (Side note... cozies have sort of slid off into talking cats, quilt shops and bakeries with female sleuths and a touch of romance. But what cozy classically means is that the violence and sex happen "off stage." They are not gory, steamy, or thrillers. So I don't like to call them cozies. I say they are "light traditional" or "classic who-dun-its.")

But what are the tropes of my books? I pose this question because I've been asking myself this for quite a while. People ask me what the books are about and I want to be able to give a swift and short answer for each. Today, I decided to get serious about nailing down the couple I hadn't yet identified.

News from Dead Mule Swamp is a "Cover-up." The cover-up trope involves hiding past illegal actions through deception, destruction of evidence, or conspiracy, often driven by fear of exposure, scandal, or protecting someone. News is a novella.

The Hollow Tree at Dead Mule Swamp is "the Endangered Chld." The endangered child trope involves placing a defenseless minor in immediate physical or emotional peril to raise stakes, evoke sympathy, or prompt heroic action. Hollow Tree is a short story.

Just FYI, the two are separate as ebooks, but are combined in one volume in paperback because they serve as a great intro to the whole series, introducing the characters and the location, even though they are not long, and thus not very complex.

Paddy Plays in Dead Mule Swamp. This is a "Cold Case." A cold case is a criminal investigation that has been rendered inactive and unsolved due to a lack of evidence, witnesses, or suspects to form a solid lead. Paddy is a little bit longer. It doesn't quite have a sub-plot, but it's not quite as linear as the first two.

Bury the Hatchet in Dead Mule Swamp. This one is "Revenge." Revenge is a driven, emotional response to injustice or harm, compelling characters down a path that often blurs the lines between right and wrong. It's one of the most common tropes in fiction. Hatchet and all the rest are full length novels- I finally got the knack of weaving in a subplot.

Dead Mule Swamp Druggist. This one has totally defied categorization. I struggle constantly to explain it to people in a couple of sentences. I just tried to look up some ideas. Maybe "Ambiguous Deaths?" - not exactly. Maybe "Connect the Deaths?" - I like this one better. Connect the deaths is where a series of seemingly unrelated murders or deaths are revealed to be connected by a pattern, such as forming a specific shape, timeline, or message. Although in my book, there are a series of seemingly related deaths and the question is "are they murders?" or "are they even related?" Hmmm. Did I actually come up with an original idea? I think I'll start calling it "Connect the Deaths."

Dead Mule Swamp Mistletoe. This one is clearly the "Closed Suspect Pool." This is the cornerstone of classic mysteries. It is defined by a scenario where a crime occurs within a restricted, isolated, or clearly defined group of people, ensuring the culprit is among them.

Dead Mule Swamp Singer. This may fit into two tropes with the main and sub-plots weaving in and out. But The murder is "A Stranger Comes to Town." This is another classic narrative where a mysterious outsider enters a community and forces change, exposes hidden truths, or resolves conflict. This visitor disrupts the status quo.

And- how about the one I'm working on- Vacation from Dead Mule Swamp? Well, the setting is unusual, but it's probably a straight up "Payback" which is simply a form of the revenge trope. Dang. I thought I was trying to make every story different. The setting- within a Live Action Role Playing game- makes it very different in some ways, but I guess the underlying theme is revenge.

And here's a reminder of the cover for the one I'm trying to finish.

Maybe I'll talk about covers another day. Had you noticed that I changed them all from the originals?

I was partly good and partly naughty today. I edited, I worked on the prayer shawl, I figured this stuff out, which counts as working on marketing. I gave in and ate chocolate and crackers while reading more than my usual rationed time. I may try to write a few actual words yet this evening.

I also started working on something else that is part of one of the goals I've had for the past several (many?) years, but MAYBE it will get moving again. Stay tuned.

See The Skeleton of a Plot

The Skeleton of a Plot

Subtitle: Unlikely Plot, or Not?

This could also be titled, is truth stranger than fiction? Tonight you get some more of my thoughts about writing mysteries.

We've often heard someone disparage a fictional plot as so unbelievable it ruined the story for them. But, I'm here to tell you that there are plenty of strange stories out there that are absolutely true.

The mug shot is Herbert Mullin. He was aprehended in 1973 after killing thirteen people. He claimed to be following the voice of God who told him that human sacrifices would save California from the big earthquake. He claimed the victims volunteered to die for the cause. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic and insane.

I tend to think that insanity is a cop-out for a writer to use as a motive, however, I did use it in one short story.

Here is a true tale from Texas in 2018. Someone was placing flyers laced with fentanyl on windshields of law enforcement vehicles. They warned of "satellite microwave weapons." There were no deaths- one officer became ill, but fentanyl can be absorbed through the skin, and can be fatal. That would be a great basis for a plot.

Another true story is the possibly unbelievably simple means by which a woman realized there was an intruder in her house. The toilet seat was up, and there was no male who lived with her. If that were put in a book, readers would say, "No burgler would be that stupid." Guess again.

Recently, there have been two Michigan scenes that seem to stretch the limits of belief. The first one, very local to me, wouldn't serve as a basis for an entire plot, but as a scene it would be great. But again, people would think it too outlandish. A driver took off as police attempted a traffic stop and led law enforcement on a 4-county chase.

The most gruesome is this story, and it has been in the news a lot in Michigan. The mother and step-father of a girl who was nine-months pregnant apparrently killed the girl and cut the baby out of her body. The baby has not yet been found. I have to use the word "apparently," because this one has not been through the courts yet, it's so recent. Even in a thriller, can you imagine trying to put that one in a book?

Anyway, I guess my point is that various implausible plots can work if the writing is good.

Here's a fictional example. I have mentioned that I'm re-reading the Joe Pickett books. My least favorite in the series is Trophy Hunt because it wanders heavily into a paranormal cause for part of what happens. I'm not a big fan of paranormal stories. However, in the notes at the end, I learned that the weird part of the book is based on real circumstances that happened in Montana in 2000 and have never been explained. Huh.

Hey! All this to say that I've outlined the rest of Vacation from Dead Mule Swamp (mostly... I'm still searching my brain for the details of one scene, but I have all the connecting parts of the plot). Although the setting for the story is unusual, I'll confess that the motive is one of the usual four: Lust, Love, Lucre, Loathing. So when I get it finished you won't have to wonder if the reason for the crime is going to be too outlandish.

I also worked some more on the prayer shawl and did some editing.

See The Thickening of the Plot