Writing & Gardening Go Hand in Vine for Nancy Hughes

HALLIE EPHRON: There are so many apt analogies to what it's like to write a novel. Banging your head against a wall. Opening a vein. My favorite, from John Banville: "The novelist daily at his desk eats ashes, and if occasionally he encounters a diamond he is likely to break a tooth on it. Money is necessary to pay the dentist's bills."

Nancy Hughes, whose new mystery novel Vanished (the final book in her Trust trilogy) is just out, hits her stride and finds inspiration in her garden. 

NANCY HUGHES: Good morning, Jungle Reds! And thank you for inviting me to write a guest post. My delight is three-fold—To start many days with your delightful imagery. To reconnect with Hallie via Penn Writers, and to follow Hank, who was inordinately kind to me, a stranger, at my first Edgar Symposium ten years ago. I only share spare copies of your books, not those you signed with personal notes.

With the publication of my fourth novel, Vanished—the third in my Trust trilogy—I’m often asked questions about inspiration, which beg a truly original answers. Huh! Where indeed? Mine comes from snippets of people and places rolled into one single thought. I ask myself, what if? Suppose? And a single sentence emerges to drive a new story. 

From that summary sentence, the plot takes shape as a list. I woke one Saturday morning with the entire story for Vanished revealed to me in ten points. Ever the outliner, I went straight to my Mac. The book itself had to get in line and wait its turn behind three other novels, until I couldn’t leave it alone. Ultimately, the characters arrived, screaming to drive it, some by design and some uninvited.

I’m grateful for feedback. How else could I gauge my own work? Half my readers say I’m all about the plot; the others say it’s the characters. I believe that’s true of The Dying Hour.

The seeds for my mysteries germinate and grow as I garden. Literally! While I dig, mulch, plant and weed, my mind will not shut up, and the stories takes shape. Scenes as crisp as new dogwood blooms take over my imagination, as if the characters’ stage is my lawn and I’m hovering nearby. The task at hand fades as my mind watches.

Writing in rural Pennsylvania, beneath a canopy of hundred-foot trees that backdrop my shade gardens, sounds ideal for inspired writing. But it’s just as distracting to see deer munch my azaleas as hearing sirens and honking. And nature is itching to reclaim the land with poisonous tentacles, brambles, and hungry beasties.  

From April until October, I escape to my summer office, built from hundred-year-old barn boards by my husband who, silly man, thought potting shed. I wish you could see the view from my chair and footstool, Mac on my lap, gazing across an emerald expanse to a swath of azaleas fronted with impatience. Oh, the aaah power of flowers! The tranquility stills my overactive mind, inspiring quiet scenes and introspective characters.        

Fleshing out villains and their nefarious deeds fits perfectly with yanking entrenched poison ivy, trumpet vine and their ilk. And fixing problems of my own creation. “Here,” a successful shade gardener said as I ranted about my failure with roses. “This will grow anywhere.”  And it did—everywhere—taking three years to eradicate. I attacked with sharp weapons while plotting murder and mayhem. Perhaps its flowers are poisonous?

In my garden, I can expunge negativity, be it what’s in the news or thoughts of bad people doing bad things to the innocent. It’s also where my left brain kicks in. While planting a tidy row of annuals, my peripheral mind nudges me about scheduling conflicts, too many characters whose names start with B, and did her eye color change between chapters ten and twenty?

Better ask my pathologist friend to skim the morgue scene for accuracy. Yes, I will fight for my beloved adverbs! And my dear editors—have I thanked them lately for tolerating my idiosyncrasies?

Ultimately, like typing ### on page 300, the killing frost comes, enabling me to put books and gardens to bed for the winter. In February the snowdrops will peek through the snow, and creativity will emerge, refreshed, in the garden.

HALLIE: I use my garden, too, but to get AWAY from writing. (Like laundry...) And while the same problem bangs around in my head unsolved in the office, miraculously as I'm outside sweating and pulling weeds, solutions emerge.

(Nancy, I hope in comments you'll tell me how to vanquish trumpet vine. Please.)

Writing is like... how would you complete the analogy.

ABOUT VANISHED

It was supposed to be the kidnappers’ last job, snatching the infant of a poor single mother for an unsuspecting wealthy client. But the kidnappers grab the wrong baby—Billy, the son of high-profile bankers, Kingsley and Todd Henning—from their employer’s secure daycare. Realizing their mistake, the kidnappers plant evidence to implicate the parents and dismantle their operation. No ransom call comes. Detectives, convinced the parents are guilty, interrogate relentlessly as they uncover planted evidence.

The parents can’t face the mosaic of guilt, blame, and despair or help each other. On day ten, they are called to the morgue. The deceased is not Billy—this time. Shaken, they recommit to each other and vow to find him themselves. They scrutinize the bank’s security footage for incongruities only insiders might spot and follow the flimsiest clues into the murderous underworld of illegal adoptions. As novice detectives, they are exposed to extreme danger, skirting the law while keeping one step ahead of the villains and the police.

But is it too late? Will the kidnappers eliminate all trace of the baby? Or are they no match for two angry, determined parents?

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Terrified of Tech?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I admit I have an Alexa. The other day, I said: Alexa, Play my music. And “she” played music that I loved. But I have no idea where she got it or why she thought so. Yikes.

What’s your relationship with “things” like that?  The very talented (and very savvy) Karen Olson says well, it’s the good news and the bad news. Here’s some of the bad. (And a terrific new book!)

Terrified of Tech?

   By Karen E. Olson  

I admit that I can be easily frightened. I have a very active imagination and my mind goes places that it probably shouldn’t. I see a plastic bag in the middle of the road and I immediately begin to wonder what grisly thing is inside it. I see shadows on the walls and hear noises in the night. Feeling the cat jump on the bed at night makes me jump when I’m in that place between awake and asleep.

In a more practical way, I am also afraid of heights, and I’m not fond of flying. I can never be on The Amazing Race.

But I was never afraid of technology—until now.

It’s not just our home computers anymore, either. How many of you out there have an Alexa or something like it? One of those little robot vacuum cleaners that roams your house? A home security system that you can turn on and off with your phone? A baby monitor? A car with Bluetooth?

Those are the Internet of Things. And all of them can be hacked.

Technology has made us vulnerable in ways we would never have imagined even just twenty years ago. It’s that vulnerability that’s at the center of my Black Hat thriller series featuring Tina Adler, a 40-ish computer hacker on the run.

Tina is the Jack Reacher of the Information Age: she’s not physically fighting crime, but she’s using her keyboard to do it. To catch people like her who prowl around in the back alleys of cyberspace.

I don’t pretend to be computer literate like Tina. I have to do a lot of research for the series, and I can’t get into anything too technical because if I don’t understand something, my readers won’t, either. I’ve watched documentaries about Anonymous and bitcoin. There are actually how-to-hack tutorials online. I’ve never downloaded the Tor software, which would allow me into the Dark Net, but I’ve been tempted, even though I’m probably already on a government list somewhere because of my Google searches.

A video online by a guy who pulled a skimmer off an ATM, showing how hackers can get all our debit card information, triggered the plot of VANISHED, the fourth book in my series.

After seeing that video, I delved further into how debit card information is actually stolen and uploaded into carding forums, where you can buy what’s called a “dump”: all of the information stored on the magnetic strip on a debit or credit card, including names, addresses, account numbers, and more. And you can get that information on hundreds of cards. All for maybe $50. Sometimes—most times—less.

That’s what our information is worth.

I no longer use an ATM machine that isn’t in the vestibule of a bank. I pay for my gas inside the station rather than use the one on the pump. It’s a little more inconvenient, but that’s what the hackers are counting on. I try not to let my knowledge make me paranoid, but it’s not easy. Don’t click on that link, don’t visit that website, safeguard my passwords.

My daughter, who is in college, has grown up in this new technology age. She has absolutely no expectation of privacy and being hacked is just the new normal. My husband, however, wants to trade in his smart phone for an old-fashioned flip phone.

HANK:  What about you, Reds and readers? Do you embrace technology and its inevitable pitfalls, or would you rather go back to a typewriter and White-out?

 Karen E. Olson is the award-winning and Shamus-nominated author of the Annie Seymour and Tattoo Shop mystery series and the Black Hat Thrillers. She is empty nesting in Connecticut with her husband Chris and cat Eloise.

VANISHED

With a price on her head, computer hacker Tina Adler is determined to stay offline. Only one person knows how to reach her — and he’s in as much danger as she is. A chance discovery leads Tina to abandon her South Carolina hideaway in search of her old flame, undercover FBI agent Zeke Chapman. What is Zeke doing in Paris? And what is his connection to the disappearance of American college student Ryan Whittier. En route to Paris in search of answers, Tina realizes that someone is on her trail: someone who’s getting dangerously close. Has she been set up?

www.kareneolson.com

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A Whole New Level of Crazy

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: What’s new? Ask most people, and they’ll say, “Not much, what’s new with you?” Sometimes of course, we’ll be able to say—new job, new baby, new love, new book, new recipe, new weather, new—whatever. But um, do you know Elizabeth Heiter? I can’t remember where I met her—do you Elizabeth? Oh, right, I devoured her thriller called HUNTED and it was so great! And then she--and her darling mom—came to my book signing in Ann Arbor. (How lovely is that?)

And when you meet Elizabeth, she looks very, well, like a reasonable, intelligent, charming, attractive woman. When you read her books--like her brand new VANISHED (from MIRA), you realized she’s talented.  But in truth? As she admits, she’s:

A Whole New Level of Crazy

                          By Elizabeth Heiter

1 year.  2 genres.  5 books.  And a whole lot of crazy.

Writers already have a reputation as being a little … shall we say, eccentric.  As adults, we spend our time playing make believe, creating characters, dreaming up ways to get them in and out of trouble, and then sometimes talking about the whole thing as if these are real people, and these dramatic events are actually happening.  

But if you want to make people really think writers are crazy, tell them you’re going to have five books on the shelf in one year, in two separate genres.  And, oh yeah, that you’re also going to be writing the next one while you’re at it.

In the past three weeks, my second suspense novel and my first romantic suspense book hit the shelves.  In between, I turned in the third book in my suspense series. 

While marketing those second and third books just released, I’m beginning the proposal for the seventh book (yes, that’s right, seventh…because there will be a second and third romantic suspense coming out in the next couple of months, too).  Oh, and did I mention I have a day job?  And some semblance of a personal life?

When someone new asks me about my writing, and they hear about the schedule, they look at me like I’m crazy.  Completely, utterly, lost-my-mind, fell-off-my-rocker-and-can’t-get-back-on, nuts.

They’re probably right.

This year alone, I’ll have five books in two separate genres hitting the shelves.  I’ve been dreaming of this – and working toward it – most of my life.  I wouldn’t trade it, no matter how crazy it gets.

Still, there have been (many) nights where I got by on three hours of sleep, and a whole lot of mocha lattes.  There have been (many) days where I finished my day job, ate my dinner in front of my computer doing promo for the books, immediately turned to writing the next book, went to bed for a few hours, then did it all again.

In those three hours of sleep, I still wake up, wondering if I remembered to put a book event on my calendar.  And then I wake up again, with a better idea about how to get my FBI profiler in my suspense series out of the latest mess I’ve tossed her into – quite often with a lot of glee, I might add.

And yet, what happens when I have a tiny little break?  Well, first I flop dramatically on the couch and binge watch some TV.  But after that?  When I get my energy back, instead of trying to figure out a way to calm things down just a tad, I start thinking of all the plots bouncing around in my mind.  I start thinking about the next book, and the one after that…

And then I’m off writing again.  In fact, I’m going to have to go

now, because there’s this story brewing in the back of my mind…

How about you?  Do you have a “crazy” passion?  (If it’s reading, I have some book recommendations for you! )

HANK: Ah, uh huh. Kind of feeling like a slacker....But Elizabeth, how do you organize your brain? How do you keep the stories separate? Slacker minds want to know...   What would you like to ask Elizabeth, Reds?

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ELIZABETH HEITER likes her suspense to feature strong heroines, chilling villains, psychological twists, and a little bit (or a lot!) of romance. Her research has taken her into the minds of serial killers, through murder investigations, and onto the FBI Academy’s shooting range.

Elizabeth graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English Literature. Her manuscripts have been finalists in the Golden Heart®, Marlene, Daphne Du Maurier, and Golden Gateway contests and she won Suzanne Brockmann’s 2010 Haiku Contest. She’s a member of International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America and has volunteered for several chapters, including serving as the Greater Detroit area president.

In 2012, Elizabeth fulfilled a lifelong goal when she sold her first five novels.

www.elizabethheiter.com

www.facebook.com/elizabeth.heiter.author

 www.twitter.com/ElizabethHeiter

 VANISHED (Book 2 in The Profiler series from MIRA Books):

Sometimes, the past can haunt you...

Eighteen years ago, FBI profiler Evelyn Baine's best friend, Cassie Byers, disappeared, the third in a series of unsolved abductions. Only a macabre nursery rhyme was left at the scene, a nursery rhyme that claimed Evelyn was also an intended victim. Now, after all these years of silence, another girl has gone missing in South Carolina, and the Nursery Rhyme Killer is taking credit. But is Cassie's abductor really back, or is there a copycat at work?

Sometimes, the past is best forgotten...

Evelyn has waited eighteen years for a chance to investigate, but when she returns to Rose Bay, she finds a dark side to the seemingly idyllic town. As the place erupts in violence and the kidnapper strikes again, Evelyn knows this is her last chance. If she doesn't figure out what happened to Cassie eighteen years ago, it may be Evelyn's turn to vanish without a trace.

 DISARMING DETECTIVE (Book 1 in The Lawmen series from Harlequin Intrigue):

The case that's haunted one FBI profiler for years may have finally met its match in a sexy—and dedicated—detective… 

When FBI profiler Isabella Cortez finds a stranger outside her office, she's in trouble. Because even though Detective Logan Greer is one of the good guys, their instant attraction is a serious distraction. Ella's got one mission: to find the criminal who hurt her friend and drove her to become a profiler. But Logan's appeal isn't just chemistry. He has a case that bears an eerie resemblance to the crime Ella's been trying to solve for years. Together, they're racing to stop a killer, but the closer they get, the more dangerous the search becomes. Falling in love could be deadly…or it could be the only way to survive.