The joke's on us with Molly D. Campbell

HALLIE EPHRON: A lot of us here at Jungle Red are late blooming writers. I didn't start writing until I was in my 50s. Hank and Roberta and Ro got late starts, too. 

Today we welcome Molly D. Campbell, who didn't get started until she was 55. And she's been on overdrive ever since, writing humor and scoring two Erma Bombeck awards (so far). Her blog is Life with the Campbells:  View from the Empty Nest.

Molly, How did you get started?

MOLLY D. CAMPBELL:  Whenever I get asked this, my mind goes to Grandma Moses. But of course, she was much older and more talented than I, but there is a parallel. I always was pretty good at stringing words together. I got “A’s” on all my term papers, and during the course of my adulthood, I prided myself on writing darn good letters to the editor on occasion. 

But I had a “regular” life to lead as a mother, a teacher, then a corporate training entrepreneur. It was during that stint that I learned how to write proposals—and a good proposal is sort of like a good query letter: you have to grab ‘em in the first sentence, and then cut to the chase. (Apparently, using metaphors is not one of my skills.) 

I guess all of that was preparation for becoming a writer, although I didn’t know it.

HALLIE: But what was the catalyst for your writing career?

MOLLY: It came about, believe it or not, because of a nasty skin cancer on my nose, which looked innocent for ten years. By the time the dermatologist began to suspect something more sinister going on. I had four surgeries and nasal reconstruction. I looked like Frankenstein, and spent the better part of three months inside, fearing that the sight of my face might cause fainting in the grocery store. 

I journaled the whole experience and sent it out on a regular basis to a group of friends: “The Frankenstein Outreach Group.” One of the recipients said I should start a blog. The rest is history.

HALLIE: Did your book Characters in Search of Novel come from your blog?

MOLLY: That came about because I have always loved names. All my life I have been fascinated with funny ones. My husband and I used to spend evenings looking through the phone book for unusual names. Then we would speculate on what that person must be like. 

I know. We live life on the edge. But my fascination with names stuck with me, and I started a twitter account to indulge my name fetish. I called it “In Search of a Novel,” and I posted a funny name with a brief description once a day for over a year. Here is one: “Today’s character in search of a novel: He wears his jock strap to the office: Brad Bullfarver." 

Most of them I forgot all about. But one day I got a tweet from Robin Black, the wonderful author of “If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This,” who told me to stop throwing these characters away every day. She encouraged me to copyright them, get an illustrator, and write their stories. I take advice from famous people. So I did.

HALLIE: That's such a great story! So just like that, you wrote a book?

MOLLY: It all began as a web site, where I posted two stories a month. This site currently has an infection, so I don’t urge anybody to visit. After I had built a few hundred followers for my stories, I took them off the site and wrote about twenty more stories, finally putting them all in a book. 

I decided to publish it myself, in order to begin what I hope is the first step in my career as an author.

HALLIE: The book is a hoot! Next steps??

MOLLY: I'm in a quandary: I could easily put out a book of my humor columns. But I am working on a collection of short stories—so I am not sure what to do next. I continue my blog and my humor column for www.momswhoneedwine.com which is a wonderful website for harried mothers.

HALLIE: So what fuels your work?

 

MOLLY: I get a lot of ammunition from my family life: an accordion playing husband, two daughters who threaten to disown me if I wear “Mom Pants,” and a menagerie of pets.  

I have met so many wonderful writers, like you, Hallie, by tweeting them, or reviewing their books on Amazon. I have never been afraid to tell a writer I admire that I am a fan. The results have been that I have a terrific group of writers that I can talk to, study, and commiserate with. I have learned a great deal from that. I also read hundreds of books a year, and I pick them apart. Every book I read, good or bad, has something of benefit for me as a writer.

HALLIE: They say: Leave 'em laughing. So, come on, tell a joke!

MOLLY: So I have one joke. It is the worst joke in the world. A short guy walks into a diner and asks the waiter, “Do you serve shrimp?” The waiter replies, “Sure, sit down.”

HALLIE: Groan...

I know exactly one joke, too: Where does the king keep his army? Answer: Up his sleevey. 

Who can resist the open invitation to our readers to go check out your book, Characters in Search of an Author, and, come on, I dare you all: Share a bad joke.

Puzzling Out the Paranormal: Scrapped

HALLIE EPHRON: Today we're happy to welcome Mollie Cox Bryan to Jungle Red. Her second Cumberland Creek mystery Scrapped is just out. It's got plenty of down home fun, secrets, murder, and a splash of the supernatural.

A new character, Cookie Crandall, makes friends with fellow scrap bookers. A self-proclaimed witch, Cookie  rhapsodizes about runes and moon phases. She becomes the prime suspect in a series of bizarre murder, and even her new friends begin to doubt her innocence when they find an ornate, spiritual scrapbook that an alleged beginner like Cookie could never have crafted.

I love stories that mix a little supernatural with the natural, and then let the reader puzzle it out. Sounds like you do, too, Mollie.
 

MOLLIE COX BRYAN: I have a confession. A lifelong obsession—with the paranormal.

But it's not the kind of obsession in which I read every paranormal book I can get my hands on and write about werewolves and vampires. (Though I might do that some day. I never say never.) But for now, my obsession lingers on the moment of wonder.

HALLIE: Like when someone says, "Did you see that?"

MOLLIE: Right! And you did not see it, but you get the goose pimples because you know the person next to you did.

So much about this life that’s enjoyable is unexplainable. The pull you feel to study engineering, your longing to live in a certain part of the world, or the time you’re walking down the street of a huge city and your eyes suddenly find another person’s and you just suddenly know, in the midst of the crowd, that this person will have some meaning in your life. Maybe you can explain some things, but this? Nah.

HALLIE: And how can you tell if it's supernatural or natural?

MOLLIE: I find it curious that the paranormal really cannot be proven. I know about the paranormal investigators and so on and even watch some of those shows. But I never see or hear what they are talking about. (Did you hear that?” says the investigator. “No,” I usually reply.)  And when I do hear the noise, there’s an explanation—mice, a weird air current in the room, and so on.

But. When things like this happen to you, you don’t need proof, do you?
HALLIE: That's the fun of it.

MOLLIE: I dig the unexplainable. This is why I use the paranormal in my books. I’ve been asked about the paranormal element in my first book SCRAPBOOK OF SECRETS. Is Bea’s husband really haunting her? Or does she just miss him so much that she imagines him? And if that’s the case—how powerful is this thing we call imagination? Can it make something seem so real that we actually wield it into existence? I wonder.

HALLIE: Love that question: Is it real? Because, you know, it's fiction!

MOLLIE: I think it's great fodder for fiction. Conversations with our loved ones that have died? How many of us do that? I know when I run across something my Gram might have thought funny, or am working on a recipe that she gave, me, I have a little conversation with her. Am I they only person who does this?

In SCRAPPED, my new character, Cookie Crandall, is a practicing witch, yet she doesn't talk to ghosts and/or welcome vampires in her life. She’s more about the everyday kind of witch that might be living in your neighborhood.

HALLIE: REALLY?

MOLLIE: You read it right. In fact she says when explaining her beliefs. “You can call it prayer. I call it magic. It’s about connecting with the universe, asking for it to listen, and watching as things unfold. We use different props, that’s all, my friend.”

So while there's a miniscule amount of paranormal elements in my books, it's in each one so far,  the focus is on the everyday paranormal. The kind that leaves you wondering: did I just see a ghost? Have I been here before?

HALLIE: So, Reds, here's Mollie's question: As readers, how do you feel about that when you're reading? Do you want hard cold answers? Or is okay to leave some unanswered questions?

Predicting 2013

HALLIE EPHRON: Happy 2013 everyone! Today I am inspired to go out on a limb and make a few predictions for the new year.

• Tom Cruise and Sylvester Stallone will star as Ranger and Morelli.
• Lee Child will write a standalone.
• Anthony Hopkins will play the Wizard of Oz.
• Twinkies will be back in the supermarkets with flavored fillings and chocolate coating.
• Dennis Lehane will wear chinos and a Polo shirt in public but refuse to be photographed wearing them.
• Petitions will be filed and hazelnuts will reappear in mixed nuts.
• No one will remember Honey Boo Boo.
• Kalinda will be charged with murder on The Good Wife; she did it, but she'll get off.
• The world will not end.
• At least a half dozen thrillers will have as their premise a massive failure in "the cloud."
• There will still be books.
• I will finally get an e-reader just in time to discover that they are obsolete.
• Julia will run for school board and take up synchronized swimming.
• Jan will run away to sea.
• Ro will climb tall mountains and have exciting news.
• Roberta will discover she likes skate but she will not admit it.
• Kaye will get HER BOOK out there and continue to delight us.
• There will be reports of Hank complaining, but they will be unsubstantiated.
• Debs will get arrested during a guided tour of Scotland Yard.
• Rhys will have tea with Kate Middleton.
• My lemon tree will grow back its leaves.
• At Jungle Red Writers, the beat will go on!

 What about your predictions for 2013? Share!