How Hard Could it Be? by S. W. Hubbard

LUCY BURDETTE: I've loved my friend Susan (S.W.) Hubbard's books since her first Adirondack mystery. When I heard that she was making the big leap to try women's fiction (as I am), I knew we should hear all about it. Welcome back to JRW!

SW HUBBARD: Have you ever looked at a photo and said to yourself, “I bet I can do that. How hard could it be?”

I had that experience twice recently.  First, my college friend Elliot posted pictures on Facebook of him and his family hiking around Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps. Every photo showed glorious scenery in the background with a happy Elliot and his family beaming in the foreground.

My husband Kevin and I both love to hike, so I showed him the pictures. “We should do this!”

Kevin did the research and reported that the trip would require us to hike nearly one hundred miles in nine days, starting in France and hiking through Switzerland to Italy and back to France. “I’m not sure we’re up to this,” Kevin said. I knew he meant, “I’m not sure YOU’RE up to this, Susan.”

Oh, pish! How hard could it be? After all, Elliot had done it. He and I are the same age, and he’s never been a hard-core athlete. Indeed, Elliot is more of a bon vivant. He and I once took a hike in college in which all we packed was a bottle of red wine, a baguette, and some brie.

No water.

I assured my husband I was up to the challenge, and we booked the trip. I steadfastly ignored his exhortations to do some 10-mile practice hikes in New Jersey. Who wants to hike ten miles through nondescript woods when it’s buggy and hot? 

In July, we departed for the French Alps.

Okay, I would never, ever admit my husband was right on a blog with a wide international readership such as JRW. However… hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc is harder than it looks. I’m very glad I went (and I DID cross the finish line), but it was challenging. As in, I thought my heart would explode out of my chest climbing up those trails.

Which brings me to my second, “how hard can it be?” moment. Earlier this year, I decided I wanted to break out of the mystery genre and try my hand at women’s fiction. Readers are always telling me how much they love my characters, so maybe I could  write a book that’s all about the character development and leave out the mystery altogether. Why, I bet I could whip out a novel like that in no time, freed from the pesky clues, red-herrings, and plot twists of mystery-writing. How hard could it be?

Hmmm. About as hard as hiking a hundred miles in the Alps, as it turns out. 



You see, mysteries come ready made with conflict because of that dead body in the first fifty pages. In women’s fiction, an author has to work to keep the conflict strong enough to move the story along. 

I had a great hook: a young woman marries a much older man and when she finds herself a widow at age 45, she sets out to recapture the endless possibilities that life offers at age 25. And I had a familiar setting: Palmyrton, NJ, the fictional town where my estate sale mysteries take place. Some of the characters from the Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery series make cameo appearances in this new novel, Life, Part 2. But the story belongs to Lydia Eastlee. She trades her big McMansion for a funky starter bungalow, adopts a rescue dog, and launches into a new career she’s unprepared for. And did I mention the sexy young carpenter remodeling her kitchen? No one gets murdered, but there’s plenty of laughter and tears along the way as Lydia rebuilds her life.

As with the hike, I had fun, learned a lot, and tested my stamina as I wrote Life, Part 2. But I sure didn’t save time. Maybe on the sequel. 

When’s the last time you launched into something that was harder than it looked?

S.W. Hubbard’s newest novel is Life, Part 2, the first installment of her new Life In Palmyrton women’s fiction series. She is also the author of the Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series and the Frank Bennett Adirondack Mountain Mystery Series. Visit her at http://swhubbard.net


And here's how to order the books:

Life, Part 2

Palmyrton Estate Sale Series

Frank Bennett Series

Ray Anderson turns a passion for hiking into thrillers

HALLIE EPHRON:  Retired Coca-Cola salesman Ray Anderson  and was living a quiet life in Hingham, Massachusetts in 2003 when he hiked the Appalachian Trail. That walk in the woods turned into a hunt for a serial killer and... I'll let him tell it. 

RAY ANDERSON: As I walked alone one day I began to wonder “what if…?” and conjured up a serial killer loose on the trail, stalking other hikers. This fugitive grows a beard, loses weight, and becomes unrecognizable. Worse, no one knows where he’s escaped to. But he runs into another hiker, a Gulf War vet with PTSD, who becomes suspicious of him when hikers disappear.

That scenario became The Trail, my debut novel published last year by Turner Publishing. It’s doing well and has made Boston’s South Shore top-ten fiction listings several times.

Sierra,the second novel in the series is out now. The book pits “Awol” against a drug cartel on the Pacific Crest Trail, which I’ve also hiked. I’m now working on the third novel in the series, set on the Continental Divide Trail.

And I’m still hiking.

HALLIE: Fascinating. Wondering what advice you have for aspiring writers.RAY: Follow your passion. The point is, we all have individual interests and passions. I submit to each of you that your particular passion makes a good story. I developed an abiding interest in hiking over 30 years ago when I began climbing the 4000+ foot mountains of New Hampshire; after those, I climbed the rest of the 4000 footers in New England. This year, I tackle the Adirondacks in upstate NY.

HALLIE: How did you decide to write a thriller... as opposed to a memoir or travel book about hiking?

RAY: I’ve written, on and off, most of my life, but I’d only gotten a couple of short stories and a few articles published. It took me several years to break through with my novels. At first, I thought I would write a trail memoir about my retirement odyssey thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. But there are many absorbing accounts out there already, and I had nothing to add.

                            

So I turned to fiction and wrote a thriller. I was concerned that some hiker-readers might be offended with the subject matter.  A few were surprised, but all except one reader have supported me. That one reader was abused when she was young, and I felt bad about that. I have a saying that I keep on my writing desk: I can’t give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure--try to please everybody.

HALLIE: Where have you hiked since then?

RAY: Although the Appalachian Trail was my first extended hike (six months, eight days) and will always hold a special place in my memory, the Pacific Crest Trail was/is the hike of a lifetime. It’s longer than the A.T. (2600 miles) and there are less people, but the beauty is incredible. The PCT runs right through Yosemite and is contiguous with parts of the John Muir Trail.

In my second thriller, Sierra, there is the violence of drug cartels. I hope not to diminish the beauty and majesty of the Pacific Crest Trail for my readers. With this concern in mind, a professional writer advised me: “When you have a plot like this, you can’t go half way. Don’t try to mute it. Go all the way.” So I have.    

If you want to recharge your batteries and see what a great country America is, put these hikes on your bucket list. Remember, you don’t have to hike an entire trail at once. You can do it in sections. When you get the itch and have some time—just go!
 
HALLIE: Ray, I'm afraid the closest I'll get to taking one of those long  hikes is reading SIERRA and THE TRAIL.

Do we have hikers out there? What are your favorite trails and have you encountered any serial killers along the way?

The Best Day of my LIfe

RHYS BOWEN: There is currently a commercial for a casino running all the time on TV here and the song is "Today is the best day of my life."
This got me thinking: what was the best day of my life so far?
Certainly not sitting at a casino and winning money!
Also not my wedding day. I think I was so concerned that everything went right that I never had time to enjoy it properly. Also I was married in Australia and really wished my family could be there.

I remember the feeling of awe when my first child was born. I produced this perfect little thing? With the others I was just glad the birth was over.
I've had some satisfying career moments: winning my first Agatha and making my way to the stage through a ballroom full of people all applauding for me. That was pretty heady. Being escorted onto the stage in Reno by a hunky cover model to receive a career achievement award... that was not bad either! The first time I made the New York Times bestseller list. The time I was nominated for the Edgar best novel. I did a lot of happy dancing for those. But would I trade one of them for time with family? I think with pride about watching my children get married, grandchildren win swimming races, appear in plays, become National Merit finalists.

I think fondly of some of those family meals: fourteen of us all around the table, all laughing and talking and teasing. Pretty perfect. And I can think of a couple of meals that were absolutely perfect. I flew down to Australia for my mother's 75th birthday. She requested a picnic. My brother and sister-in-law did the planning. We sat in the shade on a clifftop with a glittering ocean below us. On the table was every kind of seafood: lobster, crab, oysters, jumbo shrimp. Every kind of cheese. Four or five different salads. Crispy bread and champagne. We ate, we relaxed, we swam, then ate some more. We only went home when it became dark. Yes, that was a perfect day.

Another similar day comes to mind. I was hiking with my friends out at Point Reyes in Marin. Sparkling sunny weather. We followed a bubbling stream up a shady valley, lined with wild flowers. We came to a high meadow with deer standing watching us. Then descended to the ocean, . and came out to arch rock--a might arch jutting over the breaking waves. We sat on warm turf and ate our picnics, talking and laughing together while pelicans wheeled overhead. And I remember thinking clearly, "This is about as perfect as it gets."  One of those friends has died now and arch rock collapsed last year, killing a hiker standing on it. So I'm treasuring the moment, as if preserving it in amber.

How about you? What is the best day of your life so far?


LUCY BURDETTE: I tend to agree with you about wedding days, Rhys. It's very hard to enjoy one in the moment if you've been knocking yourself out on the many details and worrying if everyone will behave! On the other hand, that day has led to a wonderful life with John and his kids, whom I consider mine now too. And there were a couple very special times when my first book came out (SIX STROKES UNDER.) My launch was in the local library because all the people wouldn't fit into the bookstore--people from all walks of my life, including my writer sister and my old dad, who was so proud. And a little later, I was invited to be the keynote speaker at a women's golf event--there's nothing like 400 golf-crazy people laughing at your jokes!

But times with family take the prize. Here's one recent day, the day before my darling nephew and his fiancee were married in Malibu. The scene was overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and my funny brother and I had prepared a skit to welcome Hannah into the Isleib tribe. I don't know how this tradition started, but he and I love love love performing silly skits in front of people. (And quite a few of them were Hollywood types--surprising that no one has contacted us about a new career yet!)

And meeting our first grandchild, and helping her parents get settled, that was sure special too!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Lucy! I want to see that skit! Or at least hear more.

The best day of my life. Oh gosh. I'm thinking it hasn't happened yet.

The day I met Jonathan? That was pretty darn fabulous. Including the Perseid meteor shower. Winning my first Agatha--for PRIME TIME? I was stunned.  WInning the Mary Higgins Clark? I could barely speak. When The Other Woman sold?

 I'm really cranky right now, and it's funny, it's hard to think, even though it might be therapeutic. I'll keep thinking.

Oh, okay. Here's one. A photo of our honeymoon in Paris.

LUCY: Ok Hank, you asked even if you were just being polite. So I'll give you a little taste. My John is always a little worried that we'll either a, insult someone, or b, call undue attention to ourselves, or c, make general a**es of ourselves and divert the focus from the main event. And in fact right before this presentation, I'd read an advice column in which wedding toasters were advised not to make the toast about themselves. Irresistible material to my funny brother...so here was our first verse (after opening shenanigans, which I will spare you!):

Doug: John says a toast that is just about us
Is uncouth, and really poor form.
Unfortunately we find ourselves so intriguing,
That us talking about us is the norm

And so on...

HANK: Perfect! I'm sure you were a complete hit!

HALLIE EPHRON: One perfect moment was when I went to NY in maybe 1999 to meet my editor for the first time. I'd just sold my first book and I came up out of the subway and there was the Flatiron Building looming in front of me (St. Martin's Press had their offices there) and I remember wishing I'd been wearing a hat on so I could toss it up in the air like Mary Tyler Moore did at the opening of her TV series.

Now it's all about being with my children and my grandchildren. I've got two spectacular grown daughters, Naomi and Molly, and I just love being with them, looking at them, talking to them, feeding them, getting the house ready for their visits. Naomi has 2 of the cutest damned children you ever saw, Franny is 3 and Jody is 5 months old. There's a yiddish word, KVELL, and it's that surge of happy emotion that wells up in you when you look at someone you love unreservedly. I do a lot of kvelling.

HANK: Oh, Hallie you remind me...and I had a New York moment, too. IN 19...91? I was called to NYC to audition for a job as a network correspondent for ABC News. Nightline, and the evening news. I had a solid  full nonstop day of interviews with moguls.  Tough questions, on camera stuff, ethical and journalistic decision-making. Rigorous!  And the end of the day I was old--they love you. Will you come join us?  I remember flying home, at night, all the lights of the city beneath me. And I was singing that Carly Simon song from Working Girl: Le the river run, let all the dreamers face the nation-- I was honestly crying with joy.  (I decided not to take the job! Another great thing. And another blog.)

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Oh, New York City figures in some of my best days ever. The time Ross and the kids and I went just for fun - no book business at all! - and stayed in a fabulous suite (which I got cheap from Priceline!) in Murray Hill. It was a couple weeks before Christmas, so we shopped at Macys on 7th Avenue and walked around midtown admiring all the window displays. We ate at our favorite German restaurant and saw the Rockette's Christmas show (with orchestra seats!) It was a happy, relaxing, delightful long weekend, with everyone getting along (two full bathrooms helped...) and something we all remember fondly.

Like the rest of you, finding out my first book was going to be published - that was a day that changed my life. One day in North Carolina with a special friend - we drove his ancient ragtop Mercedes up a dirt road and then hiked to his favorite spot and went swimming in an icy cold stream before picnicking beneath the trees. It doesn't sound like much, but it was a perfect day. Almost every day we spent on our once-in-a-lifetime African safari, driving out to view elephants and zebra and giraffes and wildebeests and lions, drinking G&Ts as the sun set across the savannah, and then on to a gourmet dinner beneath a tented canopy.

Sometimes I wonder if the very best day might not have taken place when I was a kid in Argyle, NY, which was a lot like being a kid back in the forties or fifties: Riding my bike around town, buying candy at the General Store and sitting on the porch eating it; hiking up Barkley Mountain by myself and not coming home til the fire whistle blew at six; long summer afternoons spent with my best friend, both of us reading library books. It was so easy having perfect days when I was twelve, I never even noticed I was having them at the time.

HANK: Julia, you have to use that last line in an essay or short story! It's the perfect line.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, gosh, what an interesting question, Rhys. Not weddings--although both mine have been small, you just want to get through the day. Maybe my second wedding DAY, though. Rick and I made a reservation to stay at a B&B in the Texas Hill Country. It's a beautiful drive, and when we arrived it was the most wonderful old farmhouse on acres of land with a creek, and stone patio filled with hummingbirds, and wonderful porches. (This was the middle of May!) We made instant friends with the owners, and we're still friends twenty-two years later, although they no longer run their place as a B&B.

So many others. Wonderful childhood days with my best friend (who I get to see next weekend!). Trips with my parents. My first glimpse of England from the plane. So many days in London, including many Saturdays at Portobello Market. Finding out my first book had sold--but that was more shock. First book signing with my parents and my daughter there.

And, of course, this year, seeing my granddaughter born was the most amazing day. But most of my favorite days are unspectacular, eating and drinking and visiting with friends and family.

RHYS: Now it's your turn: what was the best day of your life so far?

Mind Games

JAN BROGAN: I've always thought that novel-writing was a little like delivering a baby. Your brain has to deliberately forget all the pain and agony of the event so that you'd consider doing it again.

A new study on motivation (Haung et al, 2010), posted by my favorite blog, PSYBLOG seems to confirm this.  It's all now official: the motivated mind often steps in  with some helpful trickery.

If the new goal is to be achieved, it must be made to seem less daunting. In other words, if viewed realistically, babies wouldn't be born and novels wouldn't be written.

In the study, participants were told they were going to be involved in an ongoing effort to collect one thousand t-shirts to send to refugees in Haiti. To make sure they were motivated, they were given a lot of background on how important their task was, how desperate the state of refugees, and in particular,  how severe a lack of basic clothing.

One group of participants were shown only two full boxes of t-shirts already collected, simulating the feeling we get at the start of a big project, i.e. that there is still a lot of work to do.

These participants coped with this by over-estimating the number of t-shirts already in the bag. In fact, in comparison to an unmotivated control group who thought there were, on average, 92 in the box, those motivated souls committed to the task estimated there were 220 t-shirts.

The overestimating made them feel that the goal was more attainable. A self-delusional jump start.

Towards the end of the project, study participants also had a habit of keeping themselves motivated to completion by  under-estimating the progress they had already made. This helped them  push themselves on harder as they approached the goal, when the temptation is to slack off.

In other words, we lie to ourselves both to start and to finish.

This all makes perfect sense to me,  especially since I am reading the Steve Jobs biography and learning about his reality distortion field. But how about you? Have you ever tricked yourself into starting or completing a goal?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Happens every time I start a hike! "This isn't that long...I've gone farther at a higher altitude. Look, I've already gone 20% of the way!" It doesn't work quite as well for me with writing - as in "Whaddaymean it's ONLY 300 pages?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, yeah. Every time. "Oh, sure, I can write five hundred words a day starting NOW and the book will be finished ahead of schedule." Ha, ha. Only problem is I never have any idea what I'm doing at the beginning of the book... but if we didn't underestimate how hard it was going to be, I don't know how we'd ever get up the nerve to start.

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh of course, it's fun in the beginning! Anything is possible. We're getting ideas like crazy and thinking of crimes and suspects. Only later does it become clear that we really had NOTHING. Little snatches of ideas with nothing figured out... I'm in that stage now where I need another 50 pages at least--but I've long since outrun my synopsis.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Are you kidding me? Tricking myself is an integral part of my entire life. My clocks are set fast so I'm not late. I SET THE CLOCKS. And then I "forget."  I don't enter my whole paycheck to my checking register--so I think I have less money than I really have. I'M THE ONE WHO ENTERS THE DEPOSITS. I believe my own stratagems. Oh, and I hide money from myself.  I stash $20.00 in a little pocket of my wallet, just in case. I put it there! But I always forget, and then when I  need, it, I'm SO happy!  About writing? I don't need to trick myself. The fear works just fine.

HALLIE EPHRON: Until I started writing fiction, I was one of those annoying people who got everything finished early. Projects. Thank you cards. College essays. It wasn't hard; I just did it. I found it calming to know I was ahead of my deadlines.

The problem with a book is that the deadline when you start is SO FAR OFF.  Now I'm a ditherer, and no 'trick' other than a deadline bearing down on me can get me to buckle down and write. And sometimes even that doesn't work unless I already have figured out what happens next.

RHYS BOWEN: I can't trick myself when it comes to writing. I'm in full blown panic mode at the start of every single book. The voice in my head whispers "You'll never get this story going. It won't be long enough. You'll say all you want to in 50 pages. It will be a horrible failure and they'll want their advance back." So the first 50 pages are like pulling teeth. Then there is a glimmer of hope. I see my way ahead. I start to write faster and with more confidence. By page 150 we are romping along merrily. I'm on my 29th mystery now and you'd think I'd realize that I know how to do it. But I've found that I need the panic mode to make me work. Several friends say the same.Nut cases, all of us.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I suspect in my case it's less "tricking myself" than blindly and optimistically planning that I'll be able to write to my max word count every day and that nothing in the rest of my life will interfere with my work. HA. I have to confess, I do the same when I plan to drive somewhere. If Google maps says it takes one hour fifteen minutes, I'll assume traffic is non-existent AND that I'll pick up time by speeding on the highways. Result: always arriving late and harried. Why do I keep doing this I don't know.

JAN: Yes, Julia, I do the same exact thing whenever I go somewhere and I never understood why I did it. Predictably. Almost compulsively. Then, in my last book, Teaser, my addictive protagonist, Hallie Ahern, became dependent on the adrenaline rush of danger (think the Kennedy clan) and I thought - okay,  now I've written something I really can't relate to, because I don't even like the thrill of boardwalk rides.  But then one day as I was racing around, leaving myself no time and getting harried in traffic, the thought occurred to me:  Maybe I'm doing this for the adreneline rush.  I mean, why else would I put myself through this all the time?

But that's some other study I'm sure!  How about everyone else out there? What mind games do you play to get your goals accomplished?


REMINDER: Melissa Robbins, your name was chosen to win a copy of No Way to Kill a Lady by Nancy Martin.  Please email me at Janbrog@comcast.net  with your snail mail address so Nancy can send you a copy.  Thanks! 

Rest in Peace..maybe

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I'm in mourning. For a pair of hiking boots. It's 4AM and I'm trying to remember if the garbage man came yesterday because I'm seriously considering retrieving them from the trash.

They're Tecnica trekking boots and I bought them at Eastern Mountain Sports near Lincoln Center in 1990. I was going hiking in Utah for the first time and I needed the real deal - no sneakers, no workout shoes. I wore them on Columbus Avenue to break them in, but they didn't really need it. From the moment I put them on it was love. From the moment I saw them. They were gray, with a little turquoise and some red - sounds hideous, but they were beautiful. And they made me feel strong. Capable. And tall.

I wore them in dozens of national parks from Acadia to Yosemite and though I considered getting new ones eight years ago when I prepared to climb Mount Kilimanjiro, I trusted my old Tecnicas and - don't laugh - I wanted them to climb Kili with me! They deserved it.

It was inevitable that I'd need new boots and I searched all over the internet for the same boots - or anything close. I was convinced that a new pair existed in a warehouse somewhere (along with the Big John jeans which were my faves and you can't get anymore. One day I'll blog about what you get when you search "Big John.") Anyway,about five years ago I bought Lowas. Very nice. German. (They know hiking.) All gray, very tasteful. What's not to like?

My old boots stayed in the closet. I loved looking at them. They reminded me of all the great places I'd been in them (don't worry...they didn't actually speak to me..)
So I started wearing them to walk the dog in the arboretum near my house. Ninety acres of woods, some wetlands, a narrow boardwalk through a swampy bit. It was perfect for my old boots - hiking light!

But this week there was a problem. Had I developed a limp? No, the bottom fell off the right boot. I looked at it in disbelief. I looked at it for two days actually before I made the decision that they had to go.

And now it's 4AM and I'm wondering if the garbage man came yesterday BECAUSE I WANT THEM BACK.

What's the thing you wish you'd never thrown out??