Random thought: Snow makes everything look peaceful, like it’s covering up a crime.

Reminds me of the time I was working a murder scene at an apartment complex when the sprinklers came on and the blood at our scene was getting washed away. It was bad, but it could’ve been worse—like the time a speeding van, being chased by the police on an unrelated crime, drove RIGHT THROUGH my crime scene (the body was in the street), dragging the corpse half a block. Try explaining those skid marks to a jury!

But… I digress. Time to send a shoutout to Rob C. for gifting me the prompt that inspired my Story of the Week, coming to you from San Francisco where the annual Left Coast Crime convention is taking place this year. We’re at the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero. As my fellow Mel Brooks fans are well aware, this is the hotel where a couple of iconic scenes from Mel’s “High Anxiety” were shot. Every time I peek over the balcony to the atrium below, I’m reminded that I’m “up pretty high. Can’t get any higher. It’s a long way down. You fall from here and your brain will get smashed like corn beef hash.”

Here’s your story.

           Simplifying the Complicated

Julie and her Russian co-worker, Irina, sat in the bar.

“You’ll like Jack,” Julie said, “if he shows. Sometimes he’s M.I.A.”

“I don’t know what is M.I.A.”

Jack sat.

“It’s an acronym, which he loves. That’s him, in the Italian suit.”

“I know,” Irina said. “M.I.A. means Man in Armani.”

“No,” Julie said.

“Macho, intelligent, athletic?”

“Wrong.”

Irina squinted. “Musically Inclined Alto?”

“What am I missing?” Jack asked.

“I’m Matryoshka Irinushka Abdrazakov.”

“I can’t say that.”

“But my initials spell M.I.A.” Irina laughed. “You I am liking, so maybe call me Mia.”

“Cool!”

Prompt: M.I.A.

Click the red button below to tell me what you think about the Story of the Week

NOVEL NEWS & NOTES…

I’ll share just a couple of quick observations/updates re: my latest adventures with Questionable Characters. My latest trend (which I’ve heard other writers do), is to start each writing sesh by reading the last few pages of the previous day’s work. So far, I’ve found that this lets me get up to speed and in the flow much quicker than if I just start out cold, picking up right where I left off. I do simple wordsmith fixes, but no heavy editing. Often, I will find mistakes or other distractions for the reader. One thing I’ll catch is picking up words I’ve repeated in the same paragraph. Their fine words, but usually a quick trip to the thesaurus can eliminate the repetition.

Another trick I’ve adapted is to end each session by leaving a note for myself about what I want to write next, which speeds up the newest writing session. If I don’t already have that figured out, and I’m not faithfully following my outline because of changes I’m making (and there are lots of those in this draft), it takes me a lot longer to start typing. In these cases, there are lots of mental gymnastics going on which is, I know, still writing, but it doesn’t look like it since actual words are not appearing on the page. That can be mildly frustrating, but it’s all part of the process.

One final reflection about this current process… when I start the new session with the proofreading of the most recent pages, I can always tell when my last session was a good one—when I was in the zone. When I’m writing like that, I find a lot of mistakes that come in the form of missing words. I’ll see things like “He ran into house.” I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m thinking faster than I can type, and in my quest to get it all down quickly, the brain edits out words that actually need to be there.

OK. That’s it for now. Next time out, I’ll try to remember to tell you about my S.F. adventures from Left Coast Crime (the convention, not the actual crime committed there).

Scotty out

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