A Proper Thank You

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Don’t get me started on thank you notes. Whatever happened to thank you notes? If you send someone a gift, then you MUST send a note. And I’m pretty sure, though I may be a dinosaur, that email notes don’t usually count. Not for a real THING. Not for a big thing.

But how about, as the talented Claire Booth wonders, the little things? And do we all take enough time to realize how kind people can really be?

I’m trying to figure out how to cleverly segue the title of Claire’s newest book A DEADLY TURN into a discussion about GOOD turns. And I can't. So let’s just say—Claire’s thinking about the fun parts of being an author.

How do you measure up?   Has this happened to you? How do you handle it? And see below for a giveaway!

  

CLAIRE BOOTH:  One of the joys of writing is all the people I cross paths with along the way. Not while I’m chained to my desk agonizing over story structure and word count, of course, but afterward—when my books become reality, and I get to go out into the world and talk about them.

I meet a lot of new people this way. They come to my book signings or to events like crime fiction conventions because they love mysteries, so we find one another by way of our mutual love of books. Many of them have become dear friends.

The other ones there when my books come out are my tried-and-true, the family and friends whose support is rock solid and guaranteed no matter what I’m doing.

But today I want to talk about the people who fall in between.

These are ones I knew—either in passing or at a very different stage in life—who have gotten in touch because they heard through the grapevine that I wrote a book. People who I’d never have renewed contact with if not for their generosity in reaching out.

My elementary school librarian (hi, Mrs. Walter!). A former boss. A neighbor who played with my younger siblings when we were all growing up. Another one whose daughter I walked to the bus stop with every morning.

And none of them had to do this. That’s what blows me away. They don’t live in the same town or share a friendship on social media or have a similar kind of attachment that would make outreach easy. No. Instead, they took time out of their busy lives to track down and communicate with someone they hadn’t seen or thought about in years. To me, that goes beyond nice and enters the realm of spectacularly thoughtful.

They certainly made me feel all warm and happy inside, but guess what else? They made me take a hard look at myself and realize that I wasn’t a very good “in between.” I’ve heard a distant someone’s good news, sure, but then did I reach out with a compliment? Not often enough. So now I try harder. Because I know from being on the receiving end just how much a short note can mean.

Have you ever had an “in between” pop into your life? Have you ever been an “in between” yourself? Tell me about it in the comments!

HANK: SO interesting ! (My home ec teacher came to one of my readings--I almost burst into tears. She's about 90. And she asked me if it's learned to sew yet. )Also. Let’s say someone send you a thank you gift.  Then you kind of have to send them a thank you for the thank you, which then they have to rely to. And then you have to acknowledge that you got the reply, then they have to acknowledge that.

And the whole exchange devolves into:

See you soon!

Then finally dwindles to:

Xx

What a can of worms!

What do you think, Reds and readers? How do you feel about thank yous--paper or email? Necessary or not? And a copy of A DEADLY TURN to one lucky commenter!

AND THE WINNER OF AS DIRECTED by Kathy Valenti from yesterday's giveaway is MARY SMITH! Email me at hryan  at whdh dot com with your address!

A DEADLY TURN

Sheriff Hank Worth thinks he’s scared a car full of teens straight when he pulls them over for speeding on a Saturday night and lets them off with a stern warning and instructions to go directly home. When he responds to an urgent call minutes later, he realizes he made a fatal error of judgement—every teen is dead. Struggling to come to terms with his role in the crash, Hank begins to suspect foul play. While notifying the parents of the children involved, his suspicions grow when an unidentified body is discovered in one of their homes and a teenage girl is found after apparently attempting to commit suicide. Hank believes the incidents are connected, but those around him disagree. Is Hank right, or is his guilt making him search for answers where there are none?

Claire Booth spent more than a decade as a daily www.clairebooth.com, or follow her on Twitter @clairebooth10 or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/claireboothauthor.

newspaper reporter, spending much of her time covering crimes so strange and convoluted they seemed more like fiction than reality. Eventually, she had enough of the real world and decided to write novels instead. Her Sheriff Hank Worth mysteries take place in Branson, Missouri, where small-town Ozark politics and big-city country music tourism clash in—yes—strange and convoluted ways. The latest in the series, A DEADLY TURN, comes out March 1. The first two, THE BRANSON BEAUTY and ANOTHER MAN’S GROUND, are available now. Find out more at

A DEADLY TURN LINK:

https://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Turn-Hank-Worth-Mystery/dp/0727888455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550791583&sr=8-1&keywords=A+DEADLY+TURN

Which are you: By-the-book? Or Goodbye-to-the-book?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: We were JUST talking about this! Quickly—I had plugged in my Kindle to an outlet on our second floor. I bought a few books. I wanted to sync the Kindle. The Kindle said: To sync, please connect to wireless. I connected to wireless.  Instantly, every fire alarm in our house went off.

What what what?  Is there a fire? I raced upstairs, then downstairs, then down to the basement. NO fire. The fire alarm is shrieking: fire fire FIRE. (It talks.)  No fire.

How do I turn off the fire alarm, I wondered. Where are the instructions?

 

What instructions?  There are no instructions. We never had instructions. Ah. Why aren’t there instructions?

Anyway, the wonderfully talented Claire Booth has the good news about that.  (Have you read her first book, THE BRANSON BEAUTY? It's terrific.)

 And, happily, she has a brand new book in her series--and she's giving a copy away to a lucky commenter! See below for how, um, instructions on how to  win  ANOTHER MAN'S GROUND.

CLAIRE BOOTH:  Life is more fun when you don’t read the instructions.

Sure, it’s resulted in some lopsided IKEA furniture and perhaps some sketchy-tasting cookies.

But it’s also results in hilarious card games that follow no rules at all and detours through fantastic neighborhoods I otherwise wouldn’t have seen. It means the quicker hookup of all manner of electronics (try a few outputs until one works and voilà! You’re all set without having to wade through pages of tiny-print manual).

Where my anti-instruction attitude serves me best, however, is with my writing. I don’t have a mapped-out plot, or a manual of character backgrounds. Now, I’m not knocking these at all. They make a lot of sense. Just not for me. I’m in awe of writers who plot out an entire book before they start it. It’s like watching an astronaut train for a year on the International Space Station. Dazzlingly impressive, but not something I’m interested in doing.

When I write, I prefer to just get started. I sit down at my computer with a beautiful blank document, and I just go for it. This definitely means that I’m not a fast writer – there’s a fair amount of staring into space and wondering what the heck happens next? This can lead to panic, but I’ve learned to live with that. Because the trade off is the surprise. Getting surprised by my characters or the sharp turns my plot takes is the best thing in the world.

And I admit, I take a great deal of satisfaction in the fact that this works for me. Take that, rigid high school English classes! Did anyone else have to “brainstorm” assignments before they were allowed to start? Remember clustering? Outlining? I remember always thinking, “What if your brain doesn’t work that way?” Now I don’t have to follow those rules. Or a lot of other instructions, either.

Now, I’m certainly not advocating for ignoring traffic signs, or the dosage directions on prescription medications, or a diagram illustrating how to hold a power saw. I’m just encouraging the selective disregard of a map during a road trip or the ten-page rule booklet that came with the new board game.

What about you? Do you read the instructions before starting something? In what kind of situation could you see yourself choosing to not read the directions?

HANK: Well, I will confess I never—EVER—read the instructions. If there are indeed instructions. I just try to figure whatever it is out. Besides, the instructions never answer the questions you really have, am I right?

(And easy answer on the power saw. Don’t use a power saw.)

What do you think, Reds and Readers?  Are you a go—by-the book? Or goodbye-the-book?

And a copy of Claire's brand new ANOTHER MAN'S GROUND to one lucky commenter!

Claire Booth spent more than a decade as a journalist, much of it covering crimes so strange and convoluted they seemed more like fiction than reality. Eventually, she had enough of the real world and decided to write novels instead. Her Sheriff Hank Worth mysteries take place in Branson, Missouri, where small-town politics and big-city country music tourism clash in – yes – strange and convoluted ways. www.clairebooth.com.

ANOTHER MAN'S GROUND

It starts out as an interesting little theft case. Branson, Missouri’s new Sheriff Hank Worth is called out to look at stands of trees that have been stripped of their bark, which the property owner had planned to harvest for the booming herbal supplement market. At first, Hank easily balances the demands of the investigation with his fledging political career. He was appointed several months earlier to the vacant sheriff position, but he needs to win the fast-approaching election in order to keep his job. He thinks the campaign will go well, as long as he’s able to keep secret the fact that a group of undocumented immigrants – hired to cut down the stripped trees – have fled into the forest and he’s deliberately not looking for them.

But then the discovery of a murder victim deep in the Ozark backwoods sets him in the middle of a generations-old feud that explodes into danger not only for him, but also for the immigrants, his deputies, and his family. He must rush to find a murderer before election day and protect the vulnerable in Branson County, where politicking is hell and trespassing can get you killed.

Do You Go For The Gold? Or for the Clicker?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I will admit it.  When my sister and I were kids, say, 8 and 5? We would do Olympic events in the living room. The couch was both pommel horse and balance beam. Much to the chagrin of my mom.  It never worked very successfully. (In the winter, we would ice skate in socks on the slick wood of the hallway. That was incredibly successful, and gave me much confidence.  Unfulfilled on real ice.)

We just saw a very wonderful documentary about the Boys on the Boat, the 1936 Olympics. So great.

Do you watch the Olympics?  (I do.) (Pretty much.) (My station is an NBC affiliate.) 

Why?

Claire Booth--whose new book THE BRANSON BEAUTY is getting amazing reviews, and so well-deserved, has some thoughts.

Go for the Gold

   By Claire Booth

The Olympics start tomorrow. I can’t wait! I am a hopeless Olympic romantic. I’m in love with them. I love sports as it is, but the Olympics take my enjoyment to a whole new level. The competitions, the flags, the tears. The sappy athlete profiles from NBC.

Yes, I’m not ashamed (too much) to admit that I love the vignettes that the Peacock Network subjects us to during their Olympics coverage.

Sure they’re slick and overproduced, and sometimes overwrought, but they’re stories. Little books in miniature, where the only thing missing is the ending – how will the determined athlete do? And so of course, you watch the event and you cheer even more than you would have, because now you’re invested.

You’re kidding, she never even got in a pool until she was fifteen?! Oh my gosh, he’s come back from two broken feet to run in this race!

Say what you want about NBC, they make you care whether you intend to or not. Which is not unlike, say, a novelist.

Writers have to get you to care about the characters. They have to manipulate your emotions. If they’re really good, they make you laugh, or cry, or gasp in surprise. And they convince you to stick around for the finish.

 (Billy Miles wins the 10,000 meter race at the 1964 Olympics. Credit: U.S. Marine Corps)

Sometimes, though, no matter what novelists come up with, reality beats us at our own game.

At the 1936 Olympics, an African American athlete named Jesse Owens won four track and field gold medals. In Berlin. In front of Adolf Hitler.

In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. In response, President Carter decreed that the United States would boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. American athletes became pawns in the Cold War.

There are many more instances, of course, where real world politics mixed with the sports of the Olympics. As a former journalist, I have to admit that I follow these stories particularly closely. This year, I’m really looking forward watching the refugee team, made up of athletes from South Sudan and other war-torn nations that don’t have Olympic squads, compete.

There is always so much to learn about storytelling from real life, and there’s no better microcosm of the world today than the Olympics and its athletes.

Reds, do you watch the Olympics? Which events are your favorites? And do you sit through the athlete profiles or prefer to go straight to the action?

HANK:  Summer Olympics? Gymnastics. (Nadia!) Track and field. Not so much beach volleyball.

Winter? Figure skating.   I am SO predictable. (Torvill and Dean!)

And I have a t-shirt, because I work for NBC, that’s the official NBC 1980 Olympic t-shirt. Except it turned out to be an event that they did not cover.

How about you? Olympics? I give them a…9.5.  (Except for that doping and cheating thing.)

And have you read Claire's THE BRANSON BEAUTY? It's a marvelous locked room--er, boat--mystery. I loved it! So much--that I'll give a copy to one lucky commenter!

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Claire Booth spent more than a decade as a daily newspaper reporter, much of it covering crimes so convoluted and strange they seemed more like fiction than reality. Eventually, she had enough of the real world and decided to write novels instead. Her Sheriff Hank Worth mystery series takes place in Branson, Missouri, where small-town Ozark politics and big-city country music tourism clash in, yes, strange and convoluted ways. Find her at www.clairebooth.com.

THE BRANSON BEAUTY 

The Branson Beauty, an old showboat, has inexplicably crashed on the waters of the Ozark mountain lake it’s been plying for decades. Hank Worth is still settling into his new job as county sheriff, and when he responds to the emergency call, he knows he’s in for a long winter’s day of ferrying more than one hundred passengers to shore. But he doesn’t expect to find the body of a high school track star locked inside the Captain’s private dining room. Now he must navigate small town politics as he tries to figure out who killed the talented local girl.