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Today I’m welcoming fellow Midnight Ink author, Lois Winston, to my blog. Lois’ book, Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, has recently released to strong reviews. She talks a little here about multitasking…something many writers are acquainted with! :) As a side note, I’m guesting later today at Burrowers, Books, and Balderdash.

Welcome, Lois!

I recently learned of a study regarding multi-tasking, especially as it concerns today’s youth. The radio report made it sound like this was a new phenomenon, something invented by Gen Y kids who are simultaneously plugged into their iPods and surfing the ‘Net while they’re Twittering, texting, updating their Facebook pages, and doing homework.

I laughed out loud. The scientists running that study had to be all guys. Multi-tasking is nothing new. Women have been multi-tasking since the beginning of time. That’s why we have two X chromosomes. We’re born as clones of ourselves, able to multi-task from the moment of conception.

Sigmund Freud hypothesized that the reason men became the hunters and women stayed back at the cave, tending the fire, was because males had an uncontrollable urge to pee on the flames. Women may have wanted to pee on the flames, too, but their physiology kept them from doing so. This was back before our ancestors learned how to make fire. All they could do was keep the home fires burning. So it was really important to make sure the cave guys stayed beyond peeing distance of the flames. Hence, the division of labor.

Freud got it all wrong, though. The reason men went off in search of saber-toothed tigers and other gastronomic delicacies while the womenfolk stayed back in the cave was because the women could tend the fires, tan the hides, sew the clothing, look after the little ones, and tidy up the cave all at the same time. Men are incapable of doing more than one thing at a time because they have no double “anything” chromosome.

Most writers don’t have the luxury of being able to support themselves on their writing alone. I know New York Times best-selling authors who can’t afford to quit their day jobs. So like most other writers, my life is all about multi-tasking. I’m both an award-winning author and a literary agent who has never given up her “day job” as a needlework designer. In addition, I teach online workshops on writing. People (usually of the male persuasion) often ask me how I manage to juggle so many careers. It’s easy.

I am WOMAN — W-O-M-A-N.

So when I set out to write a new mystery series, having my protagonist juggle all sorts of complications in her daily life seemed far from a stretch. After all, she’s a W-O-M-A-N.

Anastasia Pollack, the amateur sleuth protagonist of ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN, is a recently widowed magazine crafts editor who makes me, with my three jobs, look like a slacker. When her recently departed husband permanently cashed in his chips at a roulette table in Las Vegas, her life crapped out. You know that old saying about the wife always being the last to know? Well, Anastasia had no clue her husband was a closet gambler until she discovers he’s left her with debt up the wazoo and his loan shark breathing down her neck. Karl owed Ricardo fifty thousand dollars, and as far as Ricardo is concerned, Anastasia has inherited that debt.

She’s also inherited her crotchety communist mother-in-law and Mephisto the Demon Dog, her Russian princess mother has popped in for an open-ended stay, and her two teenage sons aren’t very happy about the belt-tightening that means giving up cable TV and the Internet. Then there’s Ralph the Shakespeare quoting parrot. As if all that weren’t enough, Anastasia’s life gets even more complicated when she discovers the body of her magazine’s fashion editor glued to her desk chair, and she’s fingered as the prime suspect in the murder.
And I thought I juggled a lot in a day!

ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN is the first book in my new Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries series from Midnight Ink. Kirkus Reviews called it “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” I recently turned in the second book in the series, and I’m now back juggling the writing of Book Three as well as design deadlines and agency responsibilities. But I have to say, my multi-tasking is a breeze compared to Anastasia’s. At least I don’t have to find a killer to prove I’m not a killer.

* * *

In celebration of the release of Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, Lois is doing a blog tour throughout January. You can find the schedule on her website, http://www.loiswinston.com, and at Anastasia’s blog, http://www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com. Everyone who posts a comment to any of the blogs over the course of the month will be entered into a drawing to receive one of 5 copies of Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun. (If your email isn’t included in your comment, email Lois privately at lois@loiswinston.com to let her know you’ve entered.) In addition, Lois will be giving away a collection of crafts books on selected blogs during her tour, so look for those as well.

So it’s the day after the big snow and my son wants to join all his friends at a house in another neighborhood.

They’re playing video games and watching movies and having a blast—and the only thing separating him from the party is his parents and their determination not to drive in the snow.

“But Erik’s mom drove him!”
“And she’s from New Jersey.”
“But Wesley’s dad drove him!”
“And he’s from Canada.”
“But Jacob’s dad drove him!”
“He’s from upstate New York. And your dad is from Alabama and your mom’s from South Carolina. When it snows, we stay inside and don’t operate motor vehicles.”

I can remember what it was like to be a teenager and have cautious parents who seemed bound and determined to foil my every fun idea. Although my idea of a good time in bad weather isn’t driving over to another neighborhood and hanging out with a bunch of teenage boys, he made me feel how badly he wanted it.

It was the winter of his discontent. And he was definitely letting me know it.

As Kurt Vonnegut said in Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, “Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.”

The reader may not want the same thing. But they need to feel like it’s of vital importance that the character gets the thing they want. And understand some of the character’s motivation and desire for it.

It’s the perfect set up for conflict—establish what the character wants and then put obstacles in the way of his getting it.

Like a snow-covered road and reluctant parents.

What does your character want most? Have you made the reader feel the urgency, too?

Hope you’ll visit again tomorrow when I’ve got author Lois Winston guest posting! And I’ll be visiting Burrowers, Books, and Balderdash. :)

Hope everybody had a great holiday and New Year celebration. I missed the blogosphere while I was gone!

I also hope y’all got home safely, if you were traveling. There has been bizarre weather over much of the break here in the States. Tornadoes, blizzards, earthquakes, massive amounts of rain…it’s been a real mess.

It actually snowed on Christmas Day—the first time this had happened in North Carolina in any measurable amount since 1947.

We do usually get snow in Matthews, but it’s in February, which is our coldest month of the year.

Snow in the South is unusual enough that we don’t have a lot of snow plowing equipment here. And the snow melts during the day—and freezes at night as ice. It’s beautiful here when it snows…but treacherous.

It made me think of all the unusual weather in books that I’ve read. The weather in the books stands out because it was so striking to the characters in the book or because it made a difference in the plot. As a reader, it stood out to me, too.

The heat in New York while the group is at the Plaza Hotel in The Great Gatsby. The Tempest and the storm that Lear suffers through in King Lear. The Grapes of Wrath. Just about anything in Dickens. The Wizard of Oz. Tennessee Williams’ play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Depending on how it’s treated, weather can be an important element in the book. It can create stress or discomfort for the characters, or causes them to act out of character. Murder mysteries frequently use weather to cut the characters off from the rest of the world (and law enforcement) and isolate potential victims with a killer.

Weather can be overdone, of course, too. If there’s a big storm during a character’s moment of personal crisis, I’m probably going to roll my eyes a little bit.

What seems to work best in books is either for weather to either add a little background ambience for a scene or else for the weather to take more of a center stage role—times when the weather is something really unusual. Something that the characters will remember as striking weather, even years later. Something the reader will remember as striking weather.

As a reader, can you remember times the weather really set the mood in a book? Do you use weather in your own writing, and how?

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate and a Happy 2011 to all!

Taking the lead from many of the blogs I follow in my Google Reader, I’m taking a week off from blogging and will be back in 2011. Traffic slows to a crawl online this time of year during the holidays. :)

Hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!

Here are writing links that I’ve posted to Twitter for the past week.  The list will be a little shorter this week because I’m going on tweetcation (most bloggers seem to be taking a break until New Year and the content is pretty scarce.)

If you’re looking for a particular topic, just plug in your keyword into the search box at the top left-hand corner of the blog (on the black header right above my blog name…next to the Blogger symbol…the small search window is next to the magnifying glass) and the roundup with your subject will come up. To narrow your search down on the page, do a CTRL+F, type your subject, and hit enter.

I’m also archiving these posts in what I hope is an easily searchable format—if you look at the Twitterific tabs under the blog’s heading, I’m posting the links there, too.

Resist the Urge to Explain: http://dld.bz/Cn8j

Darkly Developing Dexter-A Lesson In The Literary Anti-Hero: http://dld.bz/Cn7F

Amazon.com Kindle Sales Are Said to Exceed Estimates: http://dld.bz/Cn6U

Writers Rally To Support Novelist Charles Bock & His Family: http://dld.bz/Cn8u

Tips for Writing Verse Novels: http://dld.bz/Cn5h

“Traditional” publishing – let’s just change the definition, shall we? http://dld.bz/Cn46

Keep it real, only more interesting: http://dld.bz/Cn4s

Get Over Overstating: Trimming Unnecessary Words: http://dld.bz/Cn4q

Key elements of strong fiction: http://dld.bz/Cn4f

10 ways to finish that danged first draft: http://dld.bz/Cucg @elspethwrites

Setting writing goals, step 3–finding time to write and writing: http://dld.bz/Ct6x

A case for villains: http://dld.bz/Cn3W

Using defense mechanisms for characters: http://dld.bz/Cn3K

J.K. Rowling and Plot Planning: http://dld.bz/Cn3C

A writer’s impressions of Twitter: http://dld.bz/CtWj and http://dld.bz/CtWk @authorterryo

A little word play fun: http://dld.bz/CtU5 @MermaidHel

Six Pet Hates of An Editor: http://dld.bz/Cn3a

The Simple Software That Could — but Probably Won’t — Change the Face of Writing (The Atlantic): http://dld.bz/Cn2N

29 literary films to fill your holidays (LA Times): http://dld.bz/Cn2s

Your To-Do List: Knowing Where to Start: http://dld.bz/Cbbx

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: http://bit.ly/h8zhNg @CleoCoyle

E-readers breed fondness for other e-readers (LA Times): http://dld.bz/Cn5t

The Twelve Days of a Writer’s Christmas: http://dld.bz/CbcG

WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange will write memoir: http://dld.bz/Cn6A

When (or Why) Social Media Fails to Sell Books: http://dld.bz/Cbc6

Writing Ebooks: Top 3 Ways to Make Sales: http://dld.bz/Cba7

Balancing the Scenes that Make Up Your Novel: http://dld.bz/Cbcn

4 Reasons Every Novelist Can Benefit From Writing a Screenplay: http://dld.bz/CbbP

Setting writing goals, step 2–links to conferences, blogs, and resources to help you improve: http://dld.bz/Cjmb

Modeling Protagonists After Real Life Heroes: http://dld.bz/Cbb3

Your To-Do List: Knowing Where to Start: http://dld.bz/Cbbx

Top 75 Apps for Enhancing Your Facebook Page: http://dld.bz/CbaU

Prologues – this side of hell: http://dld.bz/CbaC

Author Turns Going-Out-of-Print into Act of Charity: http://dld.bz/Cba8

Nice list of writers’ conferences in North America for 2011: http://dld.bz/CjnY @Jodie_R_Editing

Getting to the Point with Tom Cruise: http://dld.bz/Cbcx

Tailoring Submissions (part 2): http://dld.bz/Cbax

Tips for Reposting an Older Post: http://dld.bz/Cbak

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Shrimp and Rice Casserole http://bit.ly/gRn2dA @CleoCoyle

Words That Sound Like What They Mean, but Aren’t Onomatopoeia: http://dld.bz/BVv4

Great Writers Rescue Obama (Daily Beast): http://dld.bz/CaYr

Will all good writers be published? An agent’s thoughts: http://dld.bz/CaYf

Google eBooks: a Refresher: http://dld.bz/CaXQ

Writing a prologue: http://dld.bz/CaXP

A Gathering of Literary Christmas Cards: http://dld.bz/CaXJ

Setting writing goals–step one: http://dld.bz/CaXx

10 Rules of Social Engagement That Will Make or Break Your Blog Readership: http://dld.bz/BVwX

Finding Your Unique Blogging Voice: http://dld.bz/BVwJ

Writing with style sheets: http://dld.bz/BVwB

Underlying Motivation – Getting Through the Rough Spots: http://dld.bz/CaVA @joanswan

The Relevance of YA for Adults: The Harry Potter Effect: http://dld.bz/BVw7

This figure of speech isn’t dead – it’s just resting: http://dld.bz/BVwf

Top 10 Ways To Improve Your ReTweetability: http://dld.bz/BVvD

10 best tweets of 2010 (Jane Friedman): http://dld.bz/BZPa

How to be a great writer: http://dld.bz/BVuX @jammer0501

The Inanity of the Erudite: http://dld.bz/BVuW

An agent on whether you should post your writing online: http://dld.bz/BVuP

Konrath’s Resolutions for Writers 2011: http://dld.bz/BVu6

2010’s Best Nonfiction For Winning Family Arguments (NPR): http://dld.bz/BVur

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Pfeffernüsse (Gesundheit!) Gingerbread Snowballs for Santa from Cleo Coyle http://bit.ly/go4qmZ @CleoCoyle

Your characters offstage: http://dld.bz/BVbk

The Writing Life: How to Thoroughly Abuse Caffeine: http://dld.bz/BPgA @GeoffreyCubbage

Social media: Literary luvvies come over all aTwitter about tweeting (Guardian): http://dld.bz/BJPH

New Year’s Inspirations for Writers: 10 Creative Writing Websites: http://dld.bz/BJPC

5 ways to hone your blogging skills: http://dld.bz/BJPw

Your dialogue can do more: http://dld.bz/BJPs

Reading with Android 101, a reading app guide: http://dld.bz/BJNv

Writing is its own reward: http://dld.bz/BJKb

Are Your Verbs Showing or Telling? http://dld.bz/BJJW

8 Easy Things To Do BEFORE You Start Your Novel: http://dld.bz/BJJP

Villain Stereotypes: http://dld.bz/BJJN

Writers in prison: when having an opinion becomes a crime (Guardian): http://dld.bz/BJHW

How To Write A Home Run Story in 2011: http://dld.bz/BJHJ

Last minute gift ideas for writers: http://dld.bz/BJH8

On ‘show, don’t tell’: http://dld.bz/BGga

The art of pacing: http://dld.bz/BGfN

The art of creative writing goals: http://dld.bz/BPfh @storiestorm

Six things they don’t teach you about writing: http://dld.bz/BGfe

Don’t tag your emotions: http://dld.bz/BGeV

Simplify your life in 10 steps (and free up time to write): http://dld.bz/BFNW

How to Shop for Your Neurotic Writer: http://dld.bz/BPd3 @GeoffreyCubbage

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: The Diva Roasts A Goose http://bit.ly/f94okw @CleoCoyle

Beyond the Printed Page: Robert Sabuda is the superstar of the modern pop-up book: http://dld.bz/BFXp

From Story Pantser to Story Planner: One Writer’s Journey: http://dld.bz/BFWf

The One Thing About Social Media That Most People Don’t Think About: http://dld.bz/BFRG

Holiday Gift Ideas For Writers: http://dld.bz/BFRE

8 “Moments” You Absolutely Need to Deliver to Your Readers… And One That You Should Hope For: http://dld.bz/BFQX

7 Creative Principles of Pixar to apply to writing: http://dld.bz/BFQz

Blogger Becomes iPhone and Droid-Friendly: http://dld.bz/BFQu

The 12 Days of Christmas In The Land Of Urban Fantasy: http://dld.bz/BFQp

Creating Consistent Artist Brands: http://dld.bz/B9Fg

Twitterific–the week in tweets: http://dld.bz/BGf8

I got THE CALL! … Um now what? http://dld.bz/B9EC

On euphemisms (Ntl. Post): http://dld.bz/B9Ej

Best articles this week for writers: http://dld.bz/BGfn

5 Tips For Working from Home: http://dld.bz/B9Ee

10 of the best alps in literature: http://dld.bz/B9Eb

Myst. Lov. Kitchen: Welcome guest Janet Rudolph! http://bit.ly/fjmR9F @CleoCoyle

New Year’s Inspiration for Writers: Progress, Goals within Reach, and Bad-Ass Ambition: http://dld.bz/B9DD

One children’s book illustrator’s design process: http://dld.bz/B9D4

Don’t Write the Obit For Picture Books Yet: http://dld.bz/B9Dw