From Gobbles to Gifts - Advent is here

We have many unbreakables on our tree.
This practice is a holdover from having toddlers
 and pets climbing our tree.

Every year, the first time I hear Christmas music in stores catches me by surprise. "Already?" I think to myself. But Christmas is big business, so of course they play it up.

We've barely got Thanksgiving boxed up, and we're inundated with sales fliers. Deals abound everywhere. Need sweaters, boots, or a party outfit? How about stuff for hunting or boating?One of the three dozen or so sales inserts from the Saturday paper will direct you to a bargain.

Anything you can't find locally is just a click away on the internet. Easy, right? Only if you're made of money. Most of us are pinching pennies, trying to stretch what we have to make it last.

Usually I start hyperventilating about now. There are Christmas cards to find and address. Letters to write. Cookies to bake. Trees to decorate. Christmas sweaters tucked away in my closet-where'd I put those things? Invitations to consider. Visits to schedule. And of course, gifts to buy.

Angels are a special favorite of mine.

I don't know what this says about me, but my gift-giving list shrinks each year. I buy for my family, of course, for my choir, and my best friends. One of my favorite events of the season is our First Coast Romance Writers holiday party where we have a blind ornament exchange.

The name for the swap is politically incorrect, but basically, when its your turn you select a wrapped package or "steal" from someone else. Once an item is stolen three times, its frozen and that person gets to take it home. Some years the hot item is a sparkly Cinderella stilleto, other years it's an angel or a purse. The catch is that the gift can't cost more than five dollars. I'm just bursting with the need to tell someone what my gift is, but I don't want to spoil the surprise. All I'll say is that he started life as a key chain fob. Now he's being repurposed as the stuff of our dreams.

This tree is from Christmas past.
 I haven't dragged everything down from the attic yet
 this year. Maybe in a week or so.

Let's talk decorating for a minute. Two of my neighbors are ready to go. One home has soft blue lights on a fence and multi-colored lights on the house. Another neighbor has bright red lights wrap candy cane style up the trunk of her palm trees. Lots of bows and swags on the house lights over there. I wonder if they'll adopt me or at least my yard.

Each year we discuss the pros and cons of decorating more than our tree. This year we'll put white lights on the fence because we have a daughter and her family visiting. We don't want to appear to be deadbeats.

Question: who do you decorate for? Yourself? Your family? Your community? Or do you enjoy looking at everyone else's decorations? I love riding around and seeing what others have done to their homes and yards - do you?



Happy Advent, everyone!

Maggie Toussaint
coming in 2012: Death, Island Style and Murder in the Buff

What's in your ... refrigerator?

A friend of mine is known for coming over to my house, sticking her head in my refrigerator, and asking in a high-pitched voice, "What do you eat? There's nothing here."

My refrigerator is usually fairly empty, but hers was always chock full of stuff. I didn't feel slighted by her comment, as we cook to suit here with minimal leftovers. Fresh meat comes home and goes in the freezer until we need it. Fruit and veges go quickly, so those don't linger about either.

Was she talking about all the sauces, pickles and juices? Not sure, but I have a fridge door of condiments. So, sure there's room in my refrigerator. I don't think its any big deal. Maybe its because I had daughters instead of sons - perhaps less food overall came and went over the transom.

Anyway, to get to the point of the blog, recently I came across someone who said they didn't store their syrup in the fridge, that they used the "ghetto" way of storing it on the pantry shelf. It got me to wondering how many jars of things don't say "refrigerate after opening."

Mini-quiz for the brave: are these things in your fridge or on your shelves: mustard, jelly/jam, syrup, soy sauce, worchestershire sauce, catsup, opened soda pops, pitchers of tea, pitchers of water. Feel free to add anything that you don't refrigerate on a routine basis that the rest of us might.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Maggie Toussaint

ps I'm part of the http://ebooks99cents.wordpress.com/ where there are new 99 cent ebooks listed daily. I'm on the menu for Wednesday. Check us out.

pss I'm also part of a charity cookbook which was recently reduced for gift-giving. Its in both electronic ($6.99) and trade paperback ($14.99) formats. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Sunshine-Baking-Memories/dp/0987725637

In High Cotton

By Maggie Toussaint

On a recent trip to the North Carolina shore, I enjoyed seeing the snowy whiteness of field upon field of ripe cotton. The plants appeared to be about knee-high, with generous mounds of fluff at the end of each stem.

I live in coastal Georgia, and history tells us that cotton used to be a big cash crop around here. To my knowledge, there’s not a single field of cotton grown in my county now, but apparently, cotton is a Big Deal in North Carolina.

These days, cotton havesting and processing at mills are done by machines.

There are many uses for cotton – clothing, medical gauze, bandages, towels, baby diapers, sheets, drapes, book covers, toys,shoes, glove liners, just to name a few.

In late fall the plants are tall, yielding the phrase High Cotton. The Urban Dictionary has three definitions for the phrase: well off in terms of happiness or wealth, having a lot of money, and coming into very good circumstances.

Fun cotton facts:

Fragments of cotton fabric dating back to 5,000 B.C. have been excavated from Mexico and Pakistan.

Wikipedia estimates 25 million tons of cotton are grown annually.

This wad of raw cotton was on the side of the road.
I think it looks a bit like a dragon or the
Loch Ness monster

China grows the most cotton.

The U.S. exports the most cotton.

During the late medieval period, Europeans believed imported cotton grew on plant-borne sheep.

About ¾ of an acre will yield 500 pounds (1 bale) of cotton.

Samples from cotton bales are tested and categorized into 14 grades of cotton based on color, fiber length, micronaire, strength, and other properties.

Harvested cotton is cleaned, combed, graded, spun, packaged, and shipped out without ever being touched by human hands.

Raw cotton and first drafts



On the left, smooth cotton from my vitamins.
To the right is my lumpy roadside cotton.
Big difference in appearance & texture.

Because I’m also wrapping up a first draft, I was struck by the similarity of a raw manuscript and fresh off the bush cotton. Both need a good bit of cleaning, combing, and grading before they’re ready for public consumption. Some cotton/manuscripts don’t make the grade. A high quality product has a special sheen and luster that is immediately apparent.
Here’s hoping we’re all in high cotton for the forseeable future. Hey, anybody seen my manuscript comb?


Maggie Toussaint
DEATH, ISLAND STYLE coming Feb 2012
http://www.maggietoussaint.com/

Mysteries: crimes of passion, opportunity, or premeditation?

Whodunit is often-asked as readers settle into a murder mystery, but the challenge to figuring out whodunit is to first identify why the murder occurred. What reason did someone have to commit the murder?


First, let’s think about the different types of murder motivations.

A crime of passion occurs when the act happens because of a sudden strong, overwhelming impulse. Some call this temporary insanity.

A crime of opportunity happens when the perpetrator sees a chance to commit the act and seizes it. Such acts have little or no premeditation.

By contrast, premeditated murder involves wrongfully causing the death of a person through careful consideration and planning.

In summary, murders are conducted as a result of careful planning, a found opportunity, or temporary insanity. Until this post, I thought my books contained varied murder motivations, but my mode of operation has been to vary the cause or emotion (power, revenge, greed, envy, etc.) behind the premeditation.

Spoiler Alert

In my Cleopatra Jones series, the victim in book one, In For A Penny, was killed in a premeditated manner for monetary gain. In book two, On The Nickel, the victim seemed to have been killed via opportunity, but the cold-blooded killer’s revenge included framing two scapegoats.

CALL TO ACTION!


Are murders in cozy mysteries are all premeditated? Any mysteries with crimes of opportunity or passion come to mind? Are the root motivations varied in police procedurals or other types of crime fiction? Are premeditated murders more interesting?

Be sure and leave a comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

MORE FUN!!! Scoot on over to my friend Ryder Islington's blog where she also dishes about this same subject - here's her addy: http://ryderislington.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/crime-of-passion-opportunity-or-premeditation/
Maggie Toussaint
Blending romance and mystery into compelling fiction
http://www.maggietoussaint.com/

Confessions of a catalog shopper

Tis the catalog season

I'd like to say it's the glossy pages or the stylish clothing or the unusual stuff, but the truth is, I don't know why I love catalogs. I just do.

This time of year, the great fall migration, most of them fly right into my mailbox and take up residence. I thumb through the slick pages, imagining what I'd do with a pair of leather boots that top my knees or a gift-wrapped tower of fruit or this year's version of a denim shirt. I imagine myself looking thin, blonde, and jetting across continents in my new versatile travel wardrobe. I wonder how many bathrobes a person truly needs, then I remember I own two.

I'm drawn to the dark jewel tones of fall - the midnight blues, the burnt umbers, the hidden lakes. I ponder the strategic placement of darts and ruffles, of beading and buttons. I wonder how to get my comfy body into the tailored-looking pieces I'm drawn to. I worry about clothing looking too young or too old. I worry if people can tell I buy separates on clearance and hope they will match something, sometime, somewhere.

Pages with fleece entice me to linger. Fleece is a special weakness of mine. Gotta have it. Socks, shirts, pants, gloves, jackets, robes, scarves, coats. I love to buy it for myself and as gifts. I can't tell you how excited I was to procure my infant grandson's first fleece jacket!

Back in the days of fulltime employment, I turned to catalogs for Christmas. With a list of sizes and color favs, I knocked out my extended family list in a couple of hours, and that was before the ease of internet shopping.

When I began writing, I cut out catalog people and saved them as characters in my books. That tough looking guy in a Rolex ad? Supreme bad guy. That funky gal in cowboy boots sitting in a giant martini glass? A lost fairy godmother.

Catalogs - they're the gifts that keep on giving.

Have a favorite catalog story? Please share!

Maggie Toussaint
Catalog shopper and sometimes writer

Cool Info Bites from Writer's Police Academy

ATF agent Rick McMahan and Maggie

by Maggie Toussaint

When it comes to learning about police lore, the Writer’s Police Academy is a font of useful information. Held at a Greensboro, NC police training academy and organized by Lee Lofland, this recent event was packed with hands-on knowledge writers need to know.

Hollywood cops have more technology than you can shake a stick at, and our everyday law enforcement groups would love to have a fraction of those gadgets. From TV, we expect DNA results in minutes or hours when the reality is more like months. For a rush DNA job, it takes about a week, though new procedures and tests are in development.



Barbara Graham and handcuffing instructor Stan Lawhorne



Sound intriguing? Read on for snips of other cool stuff:

Locard’s Principle – when two objects come into contact, an exchange of material occurs.

All people shed skin cells and hair every day, about 150 hairs a day.

CSIs turn the room lights out and use those itty bitty flashlights because it helps them see better. Footprints, hairs, and other bits of trace evidence really pop under these conditions.

If a bioterrorist comes to your neighborhood, don’t opt for the white dusk mask at the hardware store, get yourself a N95 respirator mask.

One key fits all handcuffs. Enterprising crooks hide keys on or in their bodies.



CJ Lyons takes down a suspect for handcuffing,
 with Cpl Dee Jackson



Bleach cleans up bloodstains, but its use is detectable. Blood can be detected even under multiple coats of paint.

Blood spatter is dependent on on velocity, directionality, and point of origin. Unless dripped straight down, the spot more resembles an infinity symbol, with some excursions.

A sniper can shoot a one-inch square at 100 yards. As they increase distance, say 200 yards from a target¸they can hit a two inch square and so on out to 1,000 yards.



At the crime scene, from left, Dr. Denene Lofland, Dr. Katherine Ramsland, and Maggie



In 97 % of homicides, the suspect is interviewed in the first 30 days. About 61% of homicides are cleared.

Witnesses lie.

Suspects give faulty confessions.

Ego is bad for investigations.

Moisture and higher temperatures accelerate decomposition. Don’t add garden lime to that shallow grave; it’s a plant nutrient.

Our gun laws derive from social and historical events. Only the US has a gun tracing system.



SEMWA's Stacie Allen, green shirt, takes super pictures



When undercover, a cop relies on personality, attitude, and persistence to get the job done.



At the Writer’s Police Academy, I experienced the FATS, the Firearms Training Simulator. They stuck a gun in my hand and showed me how to use it. Moments later, a scenario played out on the screen before me. I learned firsthand that it takes a special person to rush headlong into danger, that suspects don’t respect cops or guns. It’s easy for your brain to freeze, or for you to get tunnel vision and ignore the rest of your environment.



Guilford Co. Sheriff's Office Ltc Randy Shepherd



I’ve barely scratched the surface of my notes, but I hope I conveyed how valuable this experience was to me. At Writer’s Police Academy, writers get firsthand information, experience a micro-window into this law enforcement world, and receive answers to their policework questions.

I highly recommend it.

Maggie Toussaint

mystery and romance author

http://www.maggietoussaint.com/

 

PS don't forget - my award winning  HOUSE OF LIES is still on markdown at Kindle for 99 cents.

Favorite setting for my mysteries

by Maggie Toussaint

Since my Cleopatra Jones amateur sleuth series focuses on Cleo's family, I tend to write scenes at her home, her office, her ladies nine-hole golf league, her car, and her church. On the Nickel, the second mystery in the series, has several church scenes, but they don't have much to do with a church service. Most of the scenes involve activities that occur in a church building.

For instance, when Detective Radcliffe bars Cleo and her friend Jonette from the church parking lot crime scene, they race around to the back, to the thicket, where for years they watched the Sunday School ladies hide Easter eggs. While vying for the best vantage point, Cleo falls through the thorny bushes, landing smack dab in the middle of trouble - ending with her being led away in handcuffs.

Other church scenes involve a funeral reception, a church ladies meeting, and a bulletin-folding morning. In this book, Cleo tries to prove her mother didn't kill the church lady, her arch-rival, even though her mother's car is the murder weapon.

Cleo is Episcopalian, which is a Protestant church, just south of Catholicism and close kin to Methodists and Lutherans. Like the church, Cleo's life has seen upheaval in the last few years. Like the church, she is somewhat resistant to change, but life has a way of changing anyway, doesn't it? The conflict of new versus old, of time-honed prayers and joyful noise, of joy found and lost - those distinctly different yet eternally connected viewpoints are all rolled into a woman trying to cope in a world she can't control.

While I try to paint her into a corner with setting, character, and plot points, Cleo finds a way to cut through all the noise and triumph. She's my hero.

Want to read more? This post is a stop on a rolling blog tour. KT Wagner shares her thoughts on favorite settings at http://northernlightsgothic.com/a-setting-i-love-to-write  and Kathleen Kaska expounds on the topic at http://kathleenkaskawrites.blogspot.com/2011/09/favorite-place-to-set-scene-do-you-have.html while Ryder Islington talks setting at http://ryderislington.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/favorite-settings-in-my-writing/ and Nancy Lauzon adds her two cents at http://chickdickmysteries.com/2011/09/11/favorite-place-to-set-a-scene/.

Have a great week!

Maggie Toussaint
Mystery and romance author
http://www.maggietoussaint.com/