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I came to the sort of end of a chapter in my book today and realized I hadn’t a clue how to really end it. As a matter of fact, endings of chapters have always been a problem for me. How to write a pithy sentence or two that would lead to the next chapter. Then I thought about feedback I’d gotten from my Early Birds critique group and realized that sometimes the beginnings of chapters were also difficult. So I’ve been looking critically at a couple of mystery writers I love – Craig Johnson and David Baldacci – to see what they do. The beginnings are generally a simple declarative sentence or a bit of dialogue, written to grab the attention of the reader.  The endings are generally something  brief, a thought or a bit of dialogue presaging things to come or commenting on a previous event. I need to work on this, clearly, with the emphasis on the endings.  More rewriting. BTW, Craig Johnson has a new book out:  A Serpent’s Tooth.  For those of you who have never read his books, try one. He is the author of the Longmire series, which has recently been filmed for A&E.  His books are so much better, but the person playing  Longmire, the sheriff  of the large Wyoming county of Absaroka, is an Australian Actor named Robert Taylor who is a perfect fit.  What is so great about Johnson’s books is his descriptive narrative of the beauty of Wyoming and its powerful weather, as well as the complicated relationships Longmire has with Henry Standing Bear, his best friend and member of the Cheyenne Nation, his daughter Cady, and the members of his small police department. The dialogue is crisp, interesting and more than occasionally smartly amusing and intelligent.  If you want to start with some oddly wonderful short Longmire stories, read Christmas in Absaroka County. So what do you all do to create a good chapter beginning and a better ending? 0 0

I recently attended the funeral of the mother of a good friend of mine. It was joyous for a good and long life lived and sad for the loss of her spirit. Today is also D-Day (which many Americans probably don’t even realize), with the tremendous loss of life on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. A day that turned the tide in the Second World War.  The pictures of the rows and rows of white crosses marking the burials of American soldiers moved me, as it always does, to tears. When I am sad, I often write. It pulls some of the sadness out of me and puts it on the table where I can deal with  it.  I wrote a poem today as a result.  If it’s not a good poem, it’s because I’m not a poet, but it says what I’m thinking.  It’s called Mortality. Mortality follows us on soft kitten paws Unnoticed when we are young First heard when we have children and think of their futures But behind and around the corner The children leave the nest and the soft padding comes closer We plan for when it arrives There comes a day when we can’t stay ahead of it We look down and there it is, sitting on its soft kitten paws Reminding us that we are just part of a continuing cycle Our time is drawing to an end It’s following our children on soft kitten paws   0 0

It’s Memorial Day, the beginning of summer, time for barbecues, picnics, swimming and boating. Or at least that’s how most of America celebrates.  And how we used to. We didn’t give much thought to our military; they were just there to protect us, but we weren’t involved. Then we became military parents. Our son Patrick joined the Army (82nd Airborne) seven years ago and served three year-long enlistments, one in Afghanistan and two in Iraq.  We learned what it’s like to really worry about a child; our hearts raced every time we heard about another IED, mortar attack, ambush.  Was Patrick involved? His phone calls and skypes were our lifelines. He’s still in the Army, now a Staff Sergeant, Senior Jump Master and Advanced Infantry trainer.  We’re very proud of all he has accomplished, for his dedication protecting and serving our country. We support our troops and the groups who provide help to all those service men and women who came home with horrible injuries, seen and unseen, and for the families whose sons and daughters didn’t come home.  We are indeed blessed. So on this Memorial Day, I ask anyone who reads this blog to think about what this day really celebrates. And maybe give a little money to the groups that support our troops. www.woundedwarriorproject.org  is one of our favorites. Here are a few others:‎ The Gary Sinise Foundation http://www.garysinisefoundation.org Healing Wounded Heroes www.healingourwoundedheroes.org Homes For Heroes http://www.homesforheroes.com Homes For Our Troops http://www.homesforourtroops.org Operation Homefront http://www.operationhomefront.net Operation Second Chance http://www.operationsecondchance.org Paws & Stripes www.pawsandstripes.org  The USO http://www.uso.org  0 0

My daughter recently called for advice. I’ve noticed that as she’s matured, she does this more often.  This time it was a sensitive situation with a co-worker who was struggling to deal with cancer in the family while working to support everyone.  Clearly what she needed to do was take on the role of mentor; it was her time to make the transition from being a mentee. When she called back to say that both my husband’s and my advice had worked, she bemoaned the fact she had no experience being a mentor. I don’t think anyone has that experience when they make the transition. You just hope that what you’ve learned from the people who mentored you and your own life experience will serve you well.  I’ve had three wonderful mentors in my scientific life, all men, and rued the day when I became so senior, there was no one left to mentor me anymore. Entering the writing world, I immediately looked for mentors, because that’s the way you move ahead and succeed.  But this is a different world.  You are not part of an organization; writing is solitary. However, I discovered my critique groups were a valuable source of support and information and that speakers at our North Carolina Writer’s Network Conferences provided invaluable advice. Who has mentored you in your writing career? Where do writers look for mentors? 0 0

I don’t know about anyone else who did the A-Z blog challenge, but it felt rather strange this week not to be writing something for my blog. Which is probably why here I am, writing something for my blog. Actually, I’ve found myself back writing my second book more or less full time, rather than picking at it.  With all the words of wisdom I have gathered from my fellow bloggers, I actually took time off yesterday just to think…about where it should go next, where all the pieces floating around in my head will fit in…and for the first time made a sort of flow chart. I am not a big book planner. I just sit down and write.  I have an idea of the plot elements before I begin, as well as the characters, but basically I just create out of thin air. Working everything out ahead of time, as most of my colleagues do (successful ones, I should add), takes the fun out of it for me.  I think it’s because writing academic papers for some 40 years, where everything is totally planned out ahead of time and you are following a format (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Plans for future work) didn’t allow for much creativity. That came in the work itself. I’d love input on how other writers use their creativity to write: character summaries, flow charts, white boards? 0 0

Zinnias were a part of my mother’s rock garden, one she carefully designed on the side of a slope that ended at our driveway.  Their color is riotous – yellow, red, white, chartreuse, purple, lilac – although I only seem to remember orange.  On a warm day, they had a very characteristic fragrance. Zinnias are bug-resistant, but unfortunately, deer love to eat them, so I haven’t been able to plant any here in NC.  Our deer eat practically any flower that isn’t walled off.  Butterflies love zinnias, and more’s the pity I can’t plant them, because we have swarms of butterflies on our azaleas in the spring and watching them is a real pleasure. Zinnias are native to scrub and dry grassland in an area stretching from the Southwestern United States to South America, and are particularly diverse in Mexico. I read they were named for a German botanist, Johann Zinn and are a member of the aster family. I understand that zinnias are also edible, although the taste is bitter, and they make great cake decorations. Does anyone have a riot of zinnias in their garden? 0 0

The North American Yew is, to my sense of smell, like many other evergreen shrubs or trees – it has a wonderful odor when the sun warms its needles. There is nothing better than taking a walk through groups or a forest of evergreens on a hot day and inhaling the crisp smell of the needles! It is commonly used as a border shrub but if the species grows tall and straight, the trees can form a long and elegant row along a driveway or road. Over the ages, the Yew has had mystical symbolism.  In ancient Rome and Greece branches of Yew were used to denote a house in mourning. It was also planted around cemeteries because it was believed the Yew had powers to ward off evil spirits. Robin Hood’s bow is believed to have been made from Yew!  Its wood was traditionally used in making English longbows and is still preferred today. However, the planter of Yew needs to beware. Care should be taken to ensure livestock cannot browse on it, and people have died from eating the seeds and consuming teas made from the leaves. 0 0

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by my blog! I hope you enjoyed my A-Z choices so far, although some did have a yuck factor.  I’m glad there are not more letters in our alphabet since the end of the alphabet has been a bit of a headache.  The only choices for a U with an odor were urine and ugli fruit, and I’d never seen an ugli fruit.  And if I hadn’t had histology labs, what would I have done for X?  Y and Z were easier by comparison! I’ve been amazed at the writing by the authors whose blogs I have visited in return – a tip of the hat to your talents, insight, and thoughtfulness.  I look forward to reading more….   0 0

It’s hard to find an odor beginning with X, but this particular substance figured large in my graduate career.  Xylene, from the Greek word xylos, meaning wood, is an aromatic hydrocarbon. I won’t bore you with the chemical formula, and just because xylene is an aromatic hydrocarbon doesn’t mean it smells good.  It just means it contains one or more benzene rings. Xylene is highly flammable, can irritate the eyes and should not be inhaled, although if you are working in a histology lab, this sometimes can’t be avoided. Hence, I know its smell.  This chemical is used in the leather, rubber and printing industries because it is a solvent, i.e., other chemicals dissolve easily in it.  It’s also an ingredient in paints, lacquers, varnishes, inks, dyes, adhesives and cleaning fluids, and is used as an industrial de-greaser and in motor and aviation gasoline blending agents. My exposure to xylene came in my undergraduate and graduate histology courses. Here is a very simplistic explanation of where xylene comes into the processing of tissue for histological examination. After a piece of tissue is fixed (a chemical process that kills the tissue so postmortem decay is prevented and the tissue is preserved), it is dehydrated in alcohol, and then the alcohol has to be removed from  the tissue. This is where xylene comes in, as a transitioning agent: it removes alcohol from the tissue, along with any lipids, rendering the tissue clear.  The tissue is then infiltrated with an embedding medium so that it can be sectioned for examination. In truth, this process is very complex and there are many different organic compounds that can be used along the way, depending on the type of tissue being processed and what the histologist wants to preserve in that tissue. I rarely ran histological preps after those courses, but I remember the long hours spent in the histology lab and the various smells associated with the different steps in the preparation process.  And guess what? Now they have machines to do it!     0 0