Biking Inspired My Mystery Novel

 

 

Please visit Susan's BWL Author Page for book and author information

In April 2020, my husband Will and I got e-bikes for an activity to do during Calgary's shutdown for the COVID-19 pandemic. We'd enjoyed regular biking all our lives, but I'd grown tired of struggling up streets in my foothills home city and walking my bike up the steeper roads. 

The previous year I'd tried out an e-bike at a mountain festival and was awed by its instant power and the ease of pedaling up the base of a ski hill. Will and I considered upgrading to e-bikes then but didn't get around to it. Now, with a summer of limited options looming ahead, we checked out bikes at several local stores and settled on a small store close to our home.  

On our second visit I asked the owner/manager why his store was open when most retail outlets were closed for the pandemic.    

"Bikes are considered essential," he said, with a tone of pride or surprise. "We're transportation."

 

I used that line in my new novel, Spring Into Danger. 

That spring 2020 I was busy finishing the third book in my Paula Savard Mystery Series and starting to mull ideas for the fourth. Since Paula is an insurance adjuster, her next case would come from her insurance work. Ten Days in Summer (book # 2) involved a building fire with a suspicious death. Book # 3, Winter's Rage, developed from a hit-and-run collision that killed a woman. A theft case seemed the likely next adventure for Paula. How about a break and enter at a bicycle store? 

Our bike purchases led to several follow-up trips to the store. My front basket kept popping its screws and was eventually recalled for safety reasons. My spring-loaded seat came off whenever I grabbed it to lift the bike. Okay, I probably shouldn't be lifting the bike that way, but it's a habit. 

The store owner gave me a regular seat and ordered a replacement spring-loaded one. Each time we phoned or went to the store to enquire about the order's progress, he'd tell us about delays in the supply chain due to COVID protocols at the Vancouver port and the demand for bicycles causing backlogs in orders. Everyone was out walking or biking that shutdown summer. We witnessed the shrinking bicycle stock in the store. The owner told us people now had to wait months for e-bikes. 

In hindsight I wonder if I enjoyed those store visits as an oasis of normalcy in the midst of the pandemic shutdown. Grocery stores -- about my only other in-person shopping -- often had lineups. This bike store didn't. At the grocery store checkout, customers waited on floor markings spaced safely apart. Grocery shoppers crabbed about others blocking the aisles since we weren't allowed to pass anyone. Nothing like that at the bike store. By summer most grocery store workers and customers wore masks. I saw no masks in our bike store; the bottle of hand sanitizer on the checkout counter went unused. Grocery shortages annoyed me. We already had our bikes and were only missing my spring-loaded seat. It never did arrive. After two years of waiting, we and the store owner gave up. I find my regular seat comfortable.

My story mulling continued. If I set my next novel during the COVID-19 shutdown, an open store, with casual protocols, would give my sleuth Paula a chance to do much of her work on the claim in-person. Having characters meet face-to-face is generally better than phone calls for drama in story scenes, since more can be shown through body language. For the same reason, in-person would be better than having Paula meet story characters on online platforms, which would become her new work method when COVID-19 hit. The book could still feature plenty of Skype and Zoom calls to give a flavour of the times.  

I started writing the novel in fall 2021. So much had changed since the pandemic start that I felt a strange nostalgia for those first months, when COVID was new and frightening and most of us had no clue what lay ahead. I wanted to process that early experience and decided to set the story in April 2020, when the shutdown was in full force. The novel starts with Paula taking on a new claim -- a break and enter at a bicycle store that raises questions. Through her investigations, Paula navigates COVID-19 restrictions, which impact the characters and plot in so many ways that the whole story would change if I removed the pandemic.   

                      

Now we're into a post-COVID world -- sort of. Will and I are still biking, although we've done less each year as other activities reopen. Our biking got off a late start this spring thanks to holidays in the UK and Ottawa. In addition, Will's e-bike developed serious mechanical problems, which required more visits to our favourite bicycle store.      

    

Biking with friends in Banff - the hills are easy on e-bikes 

Creating a Novel Series Cover Brand

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BWL's Art Director didn't set out to create a cover brand for my Paula Savard Mystery Series. The first cover that Michelle Lee designed for me was for book # 2 of my series, Ten Days in Summer, published in 2017. The process began with me filling out a BWL Cover Art Form (CAF). I provided details about the story, its setting in Calgary, and the two main characters and suggested images related to these. At that time, BWL required that most novel covers include at least one image of a person. 

I plugged keywords into the photo image website, searching for ones that suited my protagonist and the story antagonist, a wannabe cowboy. None were exactly right, especially for Paula, my insurance adjuster sleuth. "Female detective" turned up images of young women peering through magnifying glasses. Paula is fifty-two and doesn't use that prop. Keywords "female insurance adjuster" showed women examining cars. The story involves a building fire insurance claim. I tried "businesswomen" and got images of women sitting in meetings, while Paula spends her time out on the case. 

I selected the best images for Paula that I could find along with images for my antagonist, which included a silhouetted cowboy.  I also suggested images of the Calgary skyline, fires, and a boarded-up house for the burned building. I don't think Michelle used any of the exact images I sent, but she meshed my ideas into a cover that was better than one I could have designed (see cover image above). The fire suggests the heat of summer in the title. 

Two years later, BWL republished A Deadly Fall, book # 1 in the series. During that short time period, book cover fashion moved away from portraying people and toward crisp and intriguing images that evoke a sense of the story. Now BWL's CAF stated that most covers would not include a person. I sent people image suggestions anyway, but I found it easier not to have to focus on finding an image that fit the characters in my head. On my CAF, I suggested images for the Calgary skyline and fall -- fall leaves on water, a path in fall, trees with colourful fall leaves, and falling leaves. Again, I doubt Michelle chose my actual suggestions, but they were her starting point to create this golden cover.   

When the third series book, Winter's Rage, was ready for a cover two years later, we were on our way to a series cover brand. My CAF included a few people image suggestions -- a woman texting, a man in a snowstorm, but I focused on images of the Calgary skyline in winter and winter driving, since this story was about a hit-and-run collision.  For the first time I considered colour. While red, orange, and yellow suited the fall and summer seasons of the first two books, I saw winter as white, blue, and black (night). Michelle came up with a cover that continued the brand with snowflakes and a frozen Calgary. Winter's book cover was blue, with yellow lettering that linked it to the colour of the two earlier books in the series.   

 By book # 4 of my Paula Savard Mystery Series, the series brand was established: Calgary skyline, colours to suit the story season, and additional images related to the season or story. Since bicycles feature prominently in Spring Into Danger, I included bicycle images among my CAF suggestions and chose Calgary skyline images that had a place for a bike or cyclist in the foreground. Here's the cover design for Spring Into Danger, which is scheduled for release in September. 

 I like how the cyclist pops into view. Whenever I look at this cover, I don't notice him until he emerges from the shadows. The book's blue cover with yellow lettering matches Winter's Rage and the covers for the four books have come full circle by including a silhouette on the first and last design. I look forward to seeing Spring Into Danger sitting on a bookshelf.   

Shelf Life by Eileen O'Finlan

 

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One way to know if you are a genuine bibliophile (aka bookworm) is by how much you love your bookshelves. This is more important than how many bookshelves you have. That could simply be determined by the amount of space available in your home. Therefore, it may not accurately project the depth of your love for books. It is more about how you feel when you look at the shelves you have. I have been known to spend time gazing lovingly at my shelves of books, taking them in as the things of wonder that they are. A warm, cozy feeling wells up in me as I contemplate my book collections. It's no surprise that I nearly swoon upon entering a library or bookstore. But the bookshelves I can view in the comfort of my own home are the best simply because they are mine. 

I have always dreamt of having a library in my house. Given the number of books I own, I suppose I do have one, but I mean one specific room dedicated to books. As yet, that is not a reality for me. Nonetheless, I take great pleasure in turning my entire house into a library. With the exception of the hallway, there is not a single room in my house that does not contain books. There are even a few shelves on the walls in the kitchen holding stacks of cookbooks. 

Despite the four bookcases in my living room...

     

                            (An antique from my grandmother's home holds non-fiction history books)

(A bargain at a second-hand store holds non-fiction and poetry)

                                                         (An online purchase hold fiction) 

(A rotating bookcase handmade for me by a very dear friend holds biographies)

... the shelves in the front entryway...

      This set of shelves holds a mix of fiction and non-fiction history books)

... the bookcase in my den...

(This one holds the books in use for research on the topic of whatever historical novel I'm writing at any give time.)

... the bookcase on the sunporch, and the five bookcases in my half-finished basement, I still have trouble finding places for all the books I collect so I've had to get creative.

The eight shelves lining either side of the fireplace once held a tea set, framed photos, and an assortment of knick-knacks. Four of those shelves have given up their accoutrement to make way for books.

(Mostly fiction on the shelves; Art & Photography books on one side of the mantel and Irish history on the other)

                                 

I have recently been thinking that I may have to find another spot for the tea set even if it means packing it away. There are too many books waiting for a good home. Many are currently piled in artful stacks around the house.

You may rightly ask if I've read all these books. Alas, I collect them much faster than I can read them. I also donate large amounts of books to the local library once I have finished reading them unless they are likely to assist me in research for a future writing project. This allows others to love them, too, and frees up space for more books. But no matter how full my bookshelves are, I find there's always room for more and even one small space on a shelf calls out to me for a book. This and the swelling of my heart that occurs when I take them all in, tells me that I am, without a doubt, a true bibliophile and proud of it!

                                                   

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For the Love of Reading by Eileen O'Finlan

 

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Click here to visit Eileen O'Finlan's website

Every loyal member of Goodreads knows they are encouraged to set a reading challenge for themselves at the beginning of each year. The challenge is to set a goal for the number of books to be read by the end of the year. Members can keep track by adding each new book they begin to their homepage and marking it completed when finished. The website keeps count of the total as well as tracking how many books the reader is ahead of or behind schedule.

I am a voracious reader, but before I started using Goodreads regularly I had no idea how many books I read in a year other than "a lot." January 1, 2021 was the first time I set a goal. Having no clue about the amount of books I could complete by December 31st I chose a random number - 60. I figured it was possible for me to read that many books in a year and I was curious to see how many I actually do read.

I noticed that many GR members had set goals of 100 or more, but though I'm an avid reader, I am not a fast reader and figured I wouldn't be able to finish that many. I enjoy reading far too much to speed through a book. I prefer to savor them. I was pleasantly surprised then, when I surpassed my goal of 60 books long before the end of the year. My final total was 83.

This year I've set my sights higher. My goal is 90. As of right now, I've completed four books and am two books behind schedule. No worries, though. I was many more books behind schedule at the start of last year and look where I wound up! Reaching 90 books just means I read a few more this year than last year. I refuse to speed up my reading just to reach this goal, though. Reading is one of the greatest pleasures in my life. It is not meant to be rushed. At least not for me.

I do tend to be competitive with myself, however so I know I'm going to want to hit that 90 book goal. Fortunately, there are no restrictions on what I read so if I fall too far behind by the end of the year - hello children's picture books! But I'm hoping I won't need to do that.

Where do you get your ideas?

 

                                                                                                                                                                          Please click this link for author, book and purchase information

"Where do you get your ideas?" This might be the number one question readers ask authors.

My quick answer is that ideas pop into my head all the time and they come from everywhere. My personal experience, conversations with other people, places I've lived in and visited, the news, books I've read, TV, movies, perhaps a painting or line of music. 

This winter, I'm editing a novel-in-progress, book # 3 of my Paula Savard mystery series, while mulling ideas for book # 4. With a series, many of the basic ideas are already there. I start with my sleuth, Paula, a fifty-five year old insurance adjuster, and her cast of supporting characters, who impact her personal life and, in some cases, her sleuthing. Paula and most of her family, colleagues and friends live in my home city, Calgary Alberta. I could send Paula to another location for all or part of the next book, but I see her as grounded in Calgary. Unlike me, Paula isn't drawn to travel, although book # 3 presents her with a future travel opportunity. For now, I think her adventures in book # 4 will continue in Calgary. 

 

    An often deserted pathway behind Calgary's Saddledome arena inspired my idea for the murder in the first Paula Savard novel, A Deadly Fall. 

My current novel-in-progress, Winter's Rage, ends in January 2020, with Paula at a crossroads in her life. Book # 4 will begin with her dealing with that situation. I've decided it will take place in spring, since Paula's first three mysteries happened in fall, summer and winter. But which spring will this be? January 2020 was right before COVID-19 changed the world. Will we next meet Paula in spring 2020, as she grapples with the start of the pandemic both personally and at work? Or will it be spring 2021, when the the pandemic is (we hope) nearing its end? I could jump over the virus and set the novel in spring 2022. This would make the time frame more contemporary to my publication date, although I find it hard to envision the post COVID-19 world. What things will return to the old normal and what will be the long term changes? The year I choose for this fourth novel will affect my ideas for it. Thoughts to mull during the winter.

 

Calgary's annual Stampede parade prompted ideas for a major character and an inciting incident in my second novel, Ten Days in Summer. 

  

While Paula got into solving mysteries as an amateur sleuth, I decided her subsequent ventures would come from her insurance adjusting work. Ten Days in Summer starts with a suspicious death resulting from a building fire. Paula naturally becomes involved in the course of investigating the property fire insurance claim. In Winter's Rage, she adjusts a hit and run collision and gradually suspects the fatality was no accident. 

This quiet, suburban Calgary street plays a large role in Winter's Rage.

For book # 4, I'm thinking that burglary could make a good cover up for murder. Last spring, my husband and I bought e-bikes at a local bicycle shop. I was intrigued by the store's booming business. With most of their usual activities shut down for the pandemic, Calgarians sought outdoor activities and many of us updated our old bicycles. That store and the two guys operating it are giving me ideas for the crime that will launch Paula's next mystery.            

I also want to include a ghost in book # 4, because ghosts both interest and frighten me. At the end of Ten Days in Summer, Paula's office moved to Inglewood, Calgary's oldest neighbourhood. Many ghosts lurk in Inglewood, a location for Calgary's haunted walking tours. The ghost rumoured to haunt her historic office building will challenge rational Paula, who doesn't believe in other worldly happenings. 

A ghost walking tour of Inglewood inspired my choice of  this "haunted" building for Paula's office.

All of these bits and pieces, swirling in my mind, will converge into the start of a story, when I eventually sit down and write the novel. As the story moves along, it will pluck more ideas from my usual sources. That's the plan, anyway, and it's how I get my ideas.    

  

E-biking last spring triggered ideas for my next novel 

 

Do Short Stories Sell?

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Some years ago, I participated in a reading event at a local bookstore. The theme was short stories. During the question and answer period, an audience member asked the bookstore owner if people bought short story collections. He answered, "No, not even when the author wins a major award." His example was the recent winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada's glitziest literary award for fiction. A Giller win typically results in a huge boost in book sales, but his customers weren't interested in buying the winner's short story collection. 

                                     Giller Prize glitz 

Short stories used to be popular. In the 1950s and 60s, writers could make a living by publishing them in magazines. When I started writing around 1990, big mainstream magazines like Redbook and Seventeen included a short story per issue. Neither magazine now publishes in print. A friend who writes short stories says that today online magazines provide many opportunities for short stories, but they often don't attract readers.

My writing has mainly focused on novels, but I got into short stories in my first creative writing class. Short works suit a class or workshop structure better than novels do. I suspect the proliferation of classes is one reason the short story genre has survived. A student can write a story in a week, the class critiques the whole work in an evening, and then the student revises and submits the story to journals that exist to publish the work of emerging writers.  

I've enjoyed writing short stories for reasons other than the relative speed from start to completion. They've been a chance to experiment with styles, characters and locations I couldn't sustain in a novel. I've written short stories with magic realism, a sociopathic narrator, and settings I've visited but don't know intimately. Other stories have led to novels. My series mystery sleuth, Paula Savard, had her origins in my short story, Adjusting the Ashes, about an adjuster dealing with a wacky insurance claim. 

The best explanation I've heard for the decline in short story readership is that television killed it. People in the mood for a short fictional experience have the option to relax with an evening drama or comedy. I'm guilty of choosing these over reading. I wonder if short story writing has responded to the drop in readership by shifting away from popular fiction toward a poetic style that appeals to fellow writers, but tends to be less satisfying to general readers.  

A short story exception that proves the rule is Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam. Sales of this book took off after it won the 2006 Giller Prize. A literary pundit noted that the collection of linked stories about medical students got the Giller bump because the writing is accessible, the characters relatable and the stories are strong on plot. Another exception is E. Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain, a long short story that had enough going on for it to be adapted into a hit movie, although I don't know how many people read this excellent short story.  

My home province of Alberta, Canada, played the role of Wyoming in the movie, Brokeback Mountain

Enterprising authors say the practical value of short stories today is to use them to draw readers to your novels. You can produce and sell a short story e-book online for 99 cents or offer it for free. If readers enjoy the story, hopefully, it will lead them to buy your novels. I'd like to try this one day with a couple of my longer works. Perhaps foolishly, I would also like to gather the stories I've written and published over the years into a short story collection, even if nobody reads the book.     

Canadian-American actor Eric McCormack hosted the online Giller Prize show on                  November 6, 2020. The Will and Grace star explained that he grew his moustache for a movie.    

Souvankham Thammavongsa was surprised in her apartment when she won the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize for her short story collection, How To Pronounce Knife 

WWC Online Writers Festival - Free This Weekend

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Every August for the past nine years, I've attended Calgary's When Words Collide Festival for Readers and Writers. I've loved the festival's energy, learned about the writing craft and book promotion, and acquired new readers and writing connections. When this year's in-person event was cancelled due to COVID-19, the organizers decided to go online. The festival happens this weekend. It's free and open to everyone.

I wasn't sure I'd get involved with the online version of WWC until I saw the first draft of the 3-day program. The organizers invited past presenters to fill vacant spaces on the proposed panels. Several topics grabbed my interest and I was given spots on these two panels:

Ten Things I Wish I’d Known  

When you started writing, what assumptions blocked your progress, lead you down dead ends, or limited your opportunities and experiences? Panelists share their initial faulty thoughts that slowed their journey into the writing world. 

After almost 30 years of writing, I wish I knew a few more things and hope to learn them from my fellow panelists. I'm familiar with all three from past WWC festivals and they've achieved success in their widely-varied directions. Our panel will take place on Zoom, Friday, August 14, 3:00 pm. All you need to do to attend is go to the WWC website and click on the event link in the program PDF. No registration or payment required. 

Me (right hand side) on a panel at last year's WWC

My second Zoom appearance will be on Saturday, 1:00 pm, Access Denied: A panel for writers on how to handle rejections and critiques, and communicate with editors/agents/publishers,

The agent on this panel will have a lot to share. I've become an expert on this subject during the past 30 years -- but I'm still standing!

When I'm not on a panel, I'll be cruising the WWC program for other panels, presentations and activities to attend. There will be up to five choices every hour from 1:00 pm Friday, August 14th, to 5:00 pm Sunday, August 16th. A number have already caught my eye:

Meet the Mesdames of Mayhem: Fresh from their award-nominated CBC Gem documentary, meet the writers with a century of combined killing time and learn how they freshen up their crime sprees for the 21st century (Sat, 2:00 pm).

Medical Errors and Tropes: A bullet in the shoulder that doesn't hit anything important? Knock-outs without actual damage? Induced comas? What is realistic and what is not? A discussion of common medical mistakes and questions in fiction (Sat, 3:00 pm).

Plus a couple of panels on editing, which I'm in the midst of doing now for my novel-in-progress. In addition, I've requested a one-on-one Zoom meeting about developing my social media strategy.  

Two fellow BWL authors will also be involved this year.  

Nancy M Bell: Blue Pencil Café
                         Pitch Sessions
                         Editors: When Can They Help and How? (Sat 12:00:00 pm)
                         The Dos and Don’ts of Successful Pitching, (Sun 3:00:00 pm)

David Poulsen: Crime Thru Time (Sat 4:00:00 pm)
                          From the Mean Streets to the Deadly Wilderness (Sun 1:00:00 pm) 

At last year's WWC festival, David and I participated in a fun panel with two other Calgary area crime writers.  For a (virtual) taste of what you'll get this weekend, you can listen to the podcast of High Crimes in Your Own Backyard.   

Partying at a previous When Words Collide festival. This year, WWC is hosting a Virtual Pool Party

 
 

 
   

  

This is a Pandemic, Not a Writing Retreat by Diane Bator

Yay! My new Sugarwood Mystery book came out June 1st! (Click on the cover to order Drop Dead Cowboy!)

On June 10, I was supposed to be taking my oldest son Nick, who is turning 25 this month, out to Alberta and B.C. to spend time with my brother Darryl, who is turning 50. Pretty memorable milestones but we won't be celebrating the way we wanted to be. This year, I will have to send them both love from a distance. Of course we planned to see other family and drive through the Rockies from Edson to Osoyoos, but that will have to wait.

There are so many things we haven't been able to do over the past several months. Of all the things I've really noticed is that my creative process took a holiday for the first seven weeks. Hearing those great words "this is a pandemic, not a writing retreat" helped. As much as we're isolated and some of us alone (except for a couple of cats who are starting to get on my nerves!) we're all dealing with the same situation.

What does my creative process look like right now?

Since I struggled to write for so many weeks, I turned to a previous addiction. Counted Cross Stitch. I've done many over the years until my kids got older and I focused my time on writing more than other pursuits. This one is called Sandcastle Dreams and it was kind of fun to take pictures every time I worked on it and share them on Instagram. No one else knew what the picture would look like, which made it even more fun.

  

Lucky for me, I have another one squirreled away and will start that one soon.

As for writing, I've been working from home since mid-March so my days begin with a few phone calls and emails as well as a daily Zoom chat. After that, I started off staring at the walls feeling numb. Once the wave of numbness passed, I began to listen to writing and other videos. It gave me a sense of camaraderie to hear how other authors and playwrights felt the same way. Slowly, I regained my sense of self.

I discovered I can attend virtual meetings that I could never attend in person due to scheduling. I am even attending a Left Coast Crime event this Saturday that I wouldn't have attended. Though I talked to other writers and listened to their stories, I just couldn't get back to writing my own.

Then I took a bath.

Suddenly, this character took over the second book in my Glitter Bay series and I couldn't stop her! She wasn't my original main character, Laken, but her sister Sage who has become my protagonist for All that Shines. Within two weeks, I'm on Chapter 7 and still going.

Since my routine has been altered, I've decided to make my time work for me without putting as much pressure on myself as I used do. I get up when the cats tell me it's time to get out of bed--usually by seven o'clock--then have coffee and breakfast while they go back to sleep. I do my work in the morning while my older cat, part Siamese, walks around me meowing because he wants my full attention, or to go outside, or a treat...  After lunch, if it's not nearly 40 degrees Celsius and my shoes won't melt on the sidewalk, I'll take a brisk walk before I sit down to write, listen to a lecture or two, read a book, or work on my website or the newsletter I'm struggling to set up.

Currently, I'm reading before bed every night to take my mind off the day's events. I have a huge stack of books from writers I've met and work with so reviews are due when I'm done each one. That's not a bad thing. In times like these, we all need to help each other and give each other what support we can.

How are you all faring?
Are you reading, writing, or have you found other creative outlets to keep your hands busy?
I'd love to hear about it.
Whatever you're doing, stay out of trouble and have fun!

Diane Bator
https://bookswelove.net/bator-diane/

http://penspaintsandpaper.com

http://dbator.blogspot.ca/

I Embrace Winter - Sort Of

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This winter, I've had the opportunity to attend Winterlude in Ottawa, Canada, the seventh coldest capital city in the world, according to WorldAtlas. Rather than huddle indoors, Ottawa region residents embrace the season each year with a festival spanning three weekends in early February. The focal point is the world's largest skating rink, running 7.8 km. along the Rideau Canal from downtown to Dow's Lake recreational area.

My husband and I stayed near Dow's Lake. When the Skateway opened, we headed out to the lake, eager to glide along the ice. We hadn't skated in ten years. I laced up my skates, took a step  - and retreated to the bench. Ice is slippery. Skate blades are too thin the for support. I don't want to fall and break a bone. My skating career ended, I consoled myself with a Beavertail. These pastries, sold at shacks on the canal, are fried dough in the shape of Canada's national animal's tail topped with anything imaginable. I usually get the Killaloe Sunrise, with cinnamon, lemon and sugar that brings out the flavour of the dough. The calories keep you warm in winter.

Hazelnut spread, peanut butter and Reece's Pieces on a Beavertail. As a true Canadian, I want to try maple someday. 

  

Beavertails Mascot at dragon boat races

Other highlights of Winterlude include dragon boat races on the frozen lake, snow slides in a park on the Quebec side of the river, and an international ice carving contest. Ottawa's fickle winter weather played havoc with the sculptures this year. A mild spell a few days after the carving competition ruined the ice statues' delicate features.

A carver at work on downtown Sparks Street. 

Sound travel tunnel on Sparks Street.

When I wasn't outside 'doing' winter in Ottawa, I worked on my murder mystery novel-in-progress, set in winter in my home town of Calgary. My victims go for a walk on the coldest night of the year and are struck by a hit and run driver. The wife is killed and the husband is seriously injured. Was it an accident caused by icy roads or intentional? Paula, my sleuth, asks the husband why they were out on such a miserable night. He answers that they love the silence when no one else is around, the exercise in brisk air, and the shimmering street lights on snow and bare-limbed trees. But for him and his wife that night, embracing winter turned deadly.   

                                                                  Night view from my Ottawa bedroom

HIking Season

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Today - Wednesday - is my hiking day. Ten years ago, after my husband Will retired, we joined a local hiking club. In a recent radio interview, I talked about the enjoyment we both get from heading out each week to the Rocky Mountains, a couple of hours drive from our city of Calgary.

"When I'm there, all my cares vanish," I said. "We carpool, too, and socialize with an interesting group of people."

The broadcaster commented that mystery writers might imagine insidious actions that could happen on a hike. He asked if I'd ever included this in a novel. All I could think of was one scene in my first book. Afterward, I realized that hiking appears in all three of my novels.

Overlooking Arnica Lake, Banff National Park

The scene I recalled at the interview happened in Deadly Fall, book one of my murder mystery series. Insurance adjuster sleuth Paula Savard hikes the Mount Indefatigable Trail in nearby Kananaskis with three suspects in the case she's become involved after the death of her childhood friend. As Paula reaches the trail lookout, she starts to think the two men on the hike are plotting something sinister. During a moment of panic and paranoia, she fears one of them will push her off the cliff. 

Will and I hiked this trail before we joined the club and had bought proper hiking gear. I found it a treacherous climb to an awesome view of the turquoise Kananaskis Lakes. I'd like to try the trail again with good boots and poles, but it has been closed for fourteen years due to grizzly bear activity. 

Mount Indefatigable south peak

Ten Days in Summer, the Paula Savard sequel, doesn't include a hike. But a suspect is an avid hiker and mountain camper. I felt this interest showed seventy-year-old Florence's physical fitness and spunk. Florence is camping in the back country when a fire damages the building she lives in and kills the owner, who occupied the ground floor apartment. When the fire is deemed suspicious, she refuses to provide the name of her hiking companion, even though he could give her an alibi. Florence is, by nature, defensive and doesn't let anyone push her around. She's also more daring than I am, since I'd worry about bears if I tented in a mountain wilderness.  

Not much protection in these little tents

Hiking plays the largest role in my third novel, To Catch a Fox. The book is partly set at a fictional self-help retreat in southern California. While personal growth and empowerment are the New Dawn Retreat's primary goals, the body is also viewed as important. The retreat's co-leader, Sebastiano, leads two hikes a day in the hills that enclose the valley location. Hiking struck me as the ideal physical activity for this spiritual place. Climbing trails is non-competitive, accessible to anyone who's reasonably fit, and requires little equipment.    

Rummel Lake hike, Kananaskis

It makes sense for writers to use interests and hobbies in their stories. Whether it's chess, doll-collecting or hiking, this is the author's passion and a subject he or she knows details about without the need for research. But I also want to create a wide range of characters and there are many Calgarians who give zero thought to hiking. So it might be time for a novel without one single reference to my favoured activity. My next novel in the Paula mystery series will take place in winter, when most Rocky Mountain trails are covered in snow and have avalanche warnings. Hiking will be far from any character's mind. 

Unless someone ventures on a mountain trail and the situation turns treacherous and suspicious.