Welcome to #WriterWednesday... with Joyce Tremel

Just about a month or so ago, the Working Stiffs blog closed its door. I'd been a part of it since 2007, at the invitation of Joyce Tremel, proud blog-mom and Pittsburgh mystery writer. Joyce had been contributing to the Working Stiffs even longer. It seems particularly appropriate that Joyce should be the first visitor to my new #WriterWednesday feature on my very own blog... just as I am on hers!

Joyce Tremel was a police secretary for ten years. More than once, she envisioned the demise of certain co-workers but took to writing as a better way to stay out of jail. Her fiction has appeared in Mysterical-e, and her non-fiction has been published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police magazine, as well as online. She is a member of Pennwriters as well as Sisters in Crime.


Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together and welcome the fab Joyce Tremel!

When Jenna Bennett/Jennie Bentley tweeted that she wanted to feature a #WriterWednesday (or #WW) on her blog I half-jokingly volunteered. She took me up on it. Her instructions to me were “Write something short about what you’re working on and send it to me along with links and an excerpt.” Easy enough.

I’m kind of in a weird state of limbo right now. After three rounds of rather intense revisions on In Spite of Murder for my agent, Meredith Barnes, she made a tough decision to leave agenting when she was offered her dream job at Soho Press. She referred me to several agents who have the manuscript in their hot little hands. I’ve never had so many agents reading at the same time, so I’m hopeful at least one of them will love it as much as Meredith did.

I’m working on two things at the moment. One is a sequel to In Spite of Murder—tentatively called In Spite of Politics—in which my protagonist’s mother runs for mayor of the small town of Spite, West Virginia. Murder and hilarity ensue, not necessarily in that order. If you want to read a short synopses of both books, you can find them on my blog. Click on the tab that says “In Spite of…”

The second thing I’m working on is a short story featuring a female police detective and a case of identity theft that leads to murder. It’s different than the Spite books—more of a straight police procedural.

If you’d like a taste of IN SPITE OF MURDER, the following is one of my favorite scenes. Yes, it contains kissing.

Here’s the set-up:  After Irma Jean is fired from her job as police secretary, she ends up at the bar in the Waverly Hotel which is owned by a hunky Irishman named Luke Jameson. Irma Jean is attracted to him, but still not over her ex-husband’s betrayal. She gets plastered and is rescued by Luke, who takes her up to his suite to recover. This is the scene where Irma Jean starts to admit to herself that there could be something between them.

“May I ask you something?” Luke said.

“Sure.”

He leaned toward me. His green eyes were tinged with blue. I hadn’t noticed that before. “Do you still love him?” he asked.

“No, I don’t love him.” I didn’t even have to think about my answer. “Far from it, especially right now.”

Luke reached over and tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear. His touch sent a thrill through me. “I do miss him, though.” That didn’t sound right. “What I mean is I miss the man I married. Not the person he turned out to be. I miss—” I almost said I miss him in my bed at night. But that wasn’t true. Luke had been the one in my dreams lately. I felt a flush from head to toe.

“What were you going to say?” he asked.

It was hard to answer with my heart going thumpety-thump. “Nothing.”

He leaned in closer, his face only inches from mine. “You can tell me.”

No way. We hadn’t even had a date yet. It was one thing thinking about sleeping with him—it was another one entirely telling him about it. I didn’t know all that much about him, and he hardly knew anything about me. I thought I knew Curley and look where that got me. Luke was kind and considerate. Not to mention sexy as hell. I’d already made a fool of myself with him once today and I wasn’t going to do it again. “Really, it’s nothing.”

He grinned. “You’re blushing.”

“Thanks for telling me.”

“It’s cute.” He took my hand in his. “You don’t have to be afraid to talk to me.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I just don’t want to talk about Curley. He’s in the past and I’m moving on.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Anyone in particular in your moving on plan?”

“Maybe. I’m keeping my options open.”

Luke leaned forward and kissed me. The kiss was soft and tender and short, but the flush I’d felt a few minutes ago was nothing like the one I felt now.

“I hope I’m one of those options,” Luke said, then kissed me again.

A minute later, there was a knock on the door. One of the ovens in the kitchen caught fire and Luke had to go take care of things. At that point, I could have used a fire extinguisher myself.

It had been a hell of a day. I’d lost my job, been betrayed yet again by my ex, had too much to drink and made an ass of myself,  passed out, sobered up, and kissed the hottest guy in town. And it was only eight o’clock.

***

So, that’s my contribution to Jennie/Jenna’s new feature, #Writer Wednesday. And just so you know, she’s doing the same on my blog. Stop by and visit, won’t you?

Eye halve a spelling chequer

This arrived in my email box today, and I couldn't resist:

Eye halve a spelling chequer

It came with my pea sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when I rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker's Hour
spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flair,
Their are no fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a ware.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays,
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting too pleas.

-- Sauce Unknown

Ode to the English Plural

I didn't write this, and I don't know who did, but as a non-native English speaker, let me tell you, the English language is tricky:

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You  may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and there would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. 

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England. 

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can
work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. (Me too.)

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

We ship by truck but send cargo by ship...

We have noses that run and feet that smell.

We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.

And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?