July 19, 2017 Minutes

Sisters in Crime Hawaii July 19 minutes

Meeting started at 6 p.m.

Rosemary Mild read her eight-page story on “The Case of the Missing Pumpkin.”

A story about a 10-year-old girl named Poppy Kittlemin who lived with her parents in Cherrywood, Maryland. There were 65 families living there, and 20 children amongst them.

One night, a month before Halloween, she yelled for her Mom, and told her Mom she heard yelling. Mom said she was having a bad dream. Poppy told her Mom about the dream in the Baddies back yard. There was a large swimming pool but it was sinister black, unfit for man, beast and bird. The back yard was also filled with broken, rusting junk. After that she went to sleep with her Old English Sheepdog, Muffin.

In May, the Cherrywood Community Association announced a Halloween pumpkin contest for kids up to 15 years old. The children welcome to bring pumpkins to O’Shannon’s front lawn for judging.

Poppy planted seeds to grow a pumpkin. As the months went by, several emerged, one much larger than the rest. On rainy days Poppy went out with paper towels to wipe them dry because the website told her too much water would cause fungus and rot.

On Halloween morning, Poppy woke up half an hour before the contest. She rushed down and her Mom told her Muffin the dog was let out half an hour ago. When Poppy ran into back yard, she saw that her pumpkin was gone. In its place were dirt, rotting vines and insects crawling around. In tears she realized someone must’ve taken her pumpkin.

Poppy and her Mom found their pumpkin broken up and scattered all along the sidewalk in the direction of the O’Shannons’. Next door, they could see Muffin on the Baddies’ lawn, with pumpkin in his mouth. Poppy noticed maggots on the dog’s nose. Mom told her, “Dear, it looks like the bottom of your pumpkin was beginning to rot. You left it in the ground too long.”

Clara Poppy ‘s friend had stolen the pumpkin. She confessed, and said she couldn’t grow a pumpkin.

At the end of the story, Poppy received a small bag of Halloween treats as a prize: “the Booby Prize for Best Maggoty Pumpkin Pieces.”

Rosemary Mild then read Myrna Spurrier comments concerning “The Case of the Missing Pumpkin.”

The story is believable for the most part. In general, I enjoyed reading it and felt empathy for the family and their feelings about the neighbors, the nightmares, the closeness of mother daughter etc.
But Best friend wouldn’t steal her friend’s pumpkin a classmate perhaps but not “Bestie.” Also, a best friend wouldn’t lie, maybe one or two but not months worth, plus they would have played together and checked each other’s pumpkins.
Nine-year olds don’t keep secrets very well.
Mrs. O’Shay wouldn’t have picked up the pieces, they almost made Mrs. K. puke…maggots are disgusting.
Perhaps if she knew about Poppy’s efforts from a visit or saw the pumpkin on its way over?
A ten-pound pumpkin is not very big…
Poppy was going to use her wagon, so the implied weight is much larger and if it was that full of maggots it would have fallen apart much sooner like as Clara picked it up in the garden.
The community would probably give her the bag of candy for trying, but never have a sense of humor about an award title.
Pumpkins don’t grow “in” the ground, on.
Dogs don’t like small wriggly things on nose it tickles, would probably roll on it but not eat it.
“Even if it didn’t win, she had an entry to be proud of,” kids expect to win; there’s no pride. This is an adult statement.
They each would grow a pumpkin in their own backyards.
Harry Potter reference serves only to place the story in the last two decades, other than that seems irrelevant, a dog is always the best pet.
I liked the whole grow a pumpkin, mom helped research etc., but the end message of the story implies it wasn’t worth the effort…after her friend betrays her, the pumpkin rotted even though she cared for it carefully.
It destroys the image of was a friend is supposed to be.
It’s a good story for discussing how a friend should or shouldn’t act and whether Clara was actually a friend at all.
Maybe it’s just me, but I like happily ever after stories, life is sad enough.
The mystery part was fun, but I thought the dog took it to play with and rolled it down the street….I didn’t guess it would be her evil “friend.”

NAMES in BOOKS

Katharine Nohr – to find a name in a book go to Internet -“Popular names in 1980”.

Rosemary Mild mentions: A Mighty GIRL- The world’s largest collection of books, toys and movies for smart, confident and courageous girls. Website is: www.amightygirl.com.

Kent Reinker - Names are original. In S Carolina, people use mother’s name for child’s first name. In Ohio, you will call your child Mary Sue. They combine the names a lot in that state.

UPDATE on Current Member Projects:

LARRY MILD Larry writing his memoir. 56,000 words/halfway there. I’ve had an unusual life: a military life, a civilian life, research, engineering, 2 wives, 2 children. That’s where I am now. He said he has no writer’s block. The way I write is like a shotgun. I’ll have several ideas and write it down and reform it till I’m satisfied. I walk around with ideas in my head. I don’t sit down to write until it’s in my head. I never had a writer’s block. If I had a problem where it’s not working out the way I want to, then I’ll go to the next chapter or the next book and come back to it. Usually when I come back to it, I’m ready to go.

ROSEMARY MILD -working on my sci-fi novel and writing a book – how to create a mystery. Problem- we have a title for a novella “Unto the third generation.” When googled the title found another book with same title published in the year 1913.

Worried, but can do a sub-title for it cause it’s a sci-fi book. However, if a person goes on Amazon and comes up with that other book dated 1913, then what happens? Some answered: it doesn’t matter.

We also are writing six short stories for online magazine.

LIZBETH HARTZ - I would like to read an essay to you all and have your feedback. Topic: Angel Hero Murder in Hawaii – a true story. I’ve got a published book and two screenplays. One of which is going to be shown to a producer. I’m also taking a class, because I’m trying to learn to write a blog post to bring interest in my book.

My publicist got me a huge list of fighter fighting forms / he is comparing my book to the most well known memoir of fire fighters by Dennis Smith a former New York City fireman and written all this best selling books.

Quincy found this e-mail list. Now, I have to draw interest by writing blogs.

Do people read that much on the blogs? In one blog, you’re not suppose to exceed 600 words. This essay is 1,000 words. It will be in thirds.

How do you get someone to find your blog? - Also taking an On line writing class, which is creative non-fiction. I have a story about a woman who was threatened by violence. There is so much domestic violence against women. If I had not had a champion I would have been a victim. I was wondering if there could be types of blogs of women who have been abused and got out of it. Called this a fiction memoir because I had to change the names and dates, but that is not the same as a based on a true story where you change other things – events, dialogue and change (composite) characters. Talking about women or other writers – how do you go about writing a memoir of a crime story if I use real names I could’ve been attacked. He was out of prison after seven years. I called it a fictionalized memoir because I changed the names.

They can sue you if a person recognizes the character in the fiction story under certain circumstances. I even went to a lawyer and had him write a letter for my publisher. It would be impossible for a person to collect money because it would be public record. I’m not making them lose their income.

I would want to appeal to women. Did you hear about the case where this woman did everything she suppose to. She had restraining orders, but the husband still went and killed their son. People who are under restraining orders aren’t logical.

Katharine said the problem is that if you encourage people not to get a restraining order and they die because they don’t have any protection. That almost put you in a negligent position. I wouldn’t be telling anyone not to get a restraining order. I would rather tell them to get a restraining order. I did a lot of studying of spousal abuse. People can’t just get out because of the brainwashing. I just read a book called “Scared self-less” by Michelle Stevens. She explains what the psychology of what abuse is. I never read any other book like this before.

The best way for people to get to your blog is start getting involved in other people’s blog. And start commenting. Start participating in the social media and start commenting. Put a link to people you respect in your blog and they will put a link to your blog in theirs. You start growing in readership by other bloggers.

KATHARINE NOHR - It’s hard work to keep up with social media.

I have 23,000 followers on Twitter. I have 23,000 followers in LinkedIn. On Facebook, I have 50,000. It’s hard work to keep track of all this social media.

Every morning, I wake up and one hour in morning Before I go to bed another ½ hour on social media. Throughout the day, five minute here, five minute there and 10 minutes here. mProbably two hours a day I devote to all this platform.

My rules are no politics, no religion, all entertaining and all positive. In LinkedIn, I post once a day-usually a sports story. To get 2,000 followers on Twitter – you have to be very skilled. Retweet-to forward a tweet to your followers. It is like forwarding a text message or an e-mail.

To get more than 1,000 on LinkedIn means you have to have a lot of guts. I got kicked off a couple of times, because you have to connect only with people you know. However, I am connected with people all over the world from all different walks off life, mostly professional. I can find someone all over the world, mostly in sports. How and why is because I work very hard at it. Do ridiculously crazy things on social media.

KENT REINKER - When I went to Left Coast Crime, I was on a panel. The panel leader was an editor. I kind like what she did on panel, so, I approached her, and we made a deal. So, she’s now my editor. Her name is Jacque Ben-zekry. I haven’t used a professional editor before. I usually use two strong women who help me-my wife and my older sister. I’ve been giving them my books to edit, especially since they give honest appraisals. My wife can pick up any missing comma.

She sent me a four-page analysis of the novel of everything she liked and what she didn’t like. I would reorganize the chapters, but she said that I should focus more on single character and cut back on some of the side characters. I’m through editing the first 100 pages. She’s exactly what I’ve been looking for in an editor. It was a good choice, and I’m just delighted by what she’s done. It cost me $1,800 to have her look at my book three times.

Basically, she sends it all to me and gives me a deadline. I have to give back to her the revised version by Aug. 21, which is great because I’m going to the mainland next month.

My editor’s name is Jacque Ben-zekry. She has a website: www.modifyeditorial.com.

Projector: Kent said he’s willing to let the club borrow his projector.

LANA BILLMAN - Moved here 14 years ago. I always wanted to write and be a published author, but raising kids (Life) keeps getting in the way.

I had a story that I started in Hawaii. In 2013, I decided to do NaNoWriMo, and I wanted to do it the right way. So, I created the story concept and finished it. I had 40,000 words on the story. I was going to do a workshop on line, and I started getting critiques on it. The first few critiques I got threw a wrench through the whole thing. I write suspense, murder and mystery.

DAWN CASEY - I’m writing the book for the past 10 years. Just reading it for the last time. “I don’t like doing it.”

JENNY DELOS SANTOS I just signed up with a publisher named Brittiany Koren, who is Katharine Nohr publisher as well. Right now, I am adding more words into what I already had, which was 33,000 words. I need to go up to 45,000 words, and my deadline is August 31, 2017. My book “Falling Perfectly Without Trying” will be ready for sale by March 2018.

NaNoWriMo