In the Name of Love by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/donaldson-yarmey-joan/


Family love stories

#1

My husband and I lived on an acreage and my husband work in the country for an oil company. Therefore he didn’t make it into town to buy me a Valentine’s card. So early Valentine’s morning he went outside and packed some snow into a pile. He got a can of red spray paint and painted a heart with an arrow through it on the snow. He also printed Be My Valentine on it. I could see the pile of snow from the kitchen window for months as it was the last snow to melt in the spring.

#2

My mother had moved from Alberta to B.C. to pick fruit and then got a job at a store in Vancouver. Mom’s parents, my grandparents sold their farm in Alberta and bought an acreage near Vancouver. My father was in World War II and was repatriated to Vancouver when it was over.

When dad left the army he got a job and began to look for a place to buy. My grandfather’s health was bad and so they decided to sell their acreage. One of mom’s friends was my dad’s sister and my dad found out about it through his sister. He bought my grandparents acreage and met my mother. They married seven months after meeting and were married for fifty-four years.

The way dad put it: He bought the acreage and got the daughter for free.

Finally, A Title -- or Two

For more information about Susan Calder's books, or to purchase visit her Books We Love Author Page. 

For the titles of my mystery novels, I inadvertently backed myself into a corner. My novels are series books. While the titles of individual books in a series don't have to follow a pattern, this helps connect the books in readers minds.

Mystery author Sue Grafton hit on a brilliant idea with her Kinsey Millhone 'alphabet mysteries.' Her plan was to write 26 books in the series, titled with each letter of the alphabet. She started with 'A' is for Alibi and continued to 'Y' is for Yesterday until illness stopped her one book short of completing the series. 

Sue Grafton, 1940-2017

A big plus for this particular pattern is the obvious order of the books in the series. Many mystery readers like to read series books in order, to follow the character and overall story arc developments. With Grafton's books they instantly know which novel comes next and next and next. For her titles Grafton managed to find a fitting word for some challenging letters --'Q' is for Quarry -- but modified the pattern for one book. Series novel # 24 is simply called 'X.' Her website notes X: The number ten. An unknown quantity. A mistake. A cross. A kiss.

I'd be curious to know how much the letter/word in each title influenced the particular story.

I didn't start with a plan of writing a four-book series set in Calgary's seasons. The working title for my first novel was In Remembrance of Me.  I felt the title suited the story, but it didn't identify the book as a murder mystery novel. While revising the story, I pondered what aspects of it might work in a title.

I didn't have this handy chart at the time, but settled loosely on #10 When Your Story Takes Place. In my novel's case, this was the season of fall, with its many resonant meanings, including the fall of (wo)man. Then I asked myself what popular mystery title word might go with it? How about Deadly?  Deadly Fall. I checked Amazon and library listings to see if the title was overused. To my surprise, it wasn't. 

The title for my series book # 2 didn't come right away, but it was easier. I knew the story would be set during The Calgary Stampede, my home city's annual 10-day rodeo and exhibition, which takes place each July. To continue the pattern, I wanted the word 'summer' in the title along with a reference to the Stampede. Titles like Summer Stampede and Stampede Into Summer didn't quite do it. Ten Days in July would have been great for a series incorporating months of the year in the title. Months rather than seasons would have also given me scope for more books in the series.

   
Then it hit me: Ten Days in Summer. Calgarians use the phrase interchangeably with Ten Days in July when talking about our Stampede. I set myself the challenge of framing the story with the Stampede's 10 day time period. Okay, I cheated a little by setting the first two chapters on the evening before Parade Day, the Stampede's official start. But events do begin on Stampede-eve with Sneak-a-Peak night at the exhibition grounds.    

And now I am working on Book # 3, set in Calgary winter. The case involves a hit and run car accident, which killed a woman under suspicious circumstances. Almost immediately, I thought of a great mystery book title, Dead of Winter. But a search on Amazon.com revealed a couple of dozen mystery novels with this name. Titles aren't copyrighted, but I'd prefer one that won't be confused with numerous other books.

Back to my Book Title Chart, I considered # 13, Where Your Story Takes Place. I decided that the hit and run would take place on a street named Wintergreen Close, which became my working title. I wasn't satisfied with it, but figured it could be okay.

During the Christmas holidays I was listening to music CDs while preparing dinner. A stanza from the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas" jumped out. 
                                             
                                                     Mark my footsteps my good page,
                                                     tread thou in them boldly:
                                                     Thou shalt find the winter's rage
                                                      freeze thy blood less coldly.

Winter's Rage. That's it! What is murder about if not rage and my story in particular features characters who can't get past their rage at what happened to them.  

Now as I write the book, I think of how to emphasize rage in the work. Except, the street, Wintergreen Close, has a large focus in the story and sometimes I like the subdued Wintergreen Close better. So I've gone from thinking that the perfect winter title is out of reach to having two titles I like. Who knows which one will win in the end? It's a work in progress.

       

Black Gold Isn't Texas Oil Anymore by Karla Stover

I just finished a book where a Sikh taxi cab driver in New York gets involved in the hair imports market. Naturally, a mystery ensues. A rather unusual topic, I thought, but one that taught me something. Before reading the book, I never gave any thought to hair extensions--to how Britney Spears could be bald one day and have a full head of hair the next. I wonder if she was thinking about the where her extensions came from as someone was attaching them. 

Right now, when women world-wide have jumped on the "me too" bandwagon and are fighting for equality with men, I recall something Caroline Cox wrote in The Guardian. "When women try and change their role," she said, "their hair becomes short and chic like in the 60s and 20s, but when gender roles become more traditional, fake hair comes in. Extensions also reflect a retrogressive attitude towards women's place in society."

Which brings us to a controversial commercial recently aired which compares actress Winona Ryder's comeback to the restoration of damaged hair. In the ad, Ms. Ryder has a beautiful head of hair. I wonder where she got it?

In 2010, a reporter named Scott Carney traced some of the ubiquitous tresses to Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams, a temple in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. There men and women were separated and, as Mr. Carney waited his turn, he noted that "The pilgrim at the head of the line bows low as a man with a straight razor makes swift work of his curls." (the pilgrim's, not the barber's.) Hindus offer their hair as a way of thanking the gods for answering prayers, or to honor said gods. The majority of India's Hindus have had their heads shaved at least once. Writing for motherjones.com, Mr. Carney found the shaving a disgusting business, noting that, the "Human hair contains all sorts of secretions, including sweat and blood, plus food particles, lice, and the coconut oil many Indians use as a conditioner. Put 21 tons of the stuff in a room blooming with mildew and fungus and the stench is overpowering."


Dieter Telemans/Panos


After it is cut, the hair--otherwise known as Black Gold--is carefully untangled, cleaned of all vermin, and washed in vats of detergent. When that is done, it is stored in warehouses until sold--curly hair to markets in Africa, straight hair to those in Europe, and both to the "cosmopolitan" United States. The sales bring in million to the temples; the pilgrims are generally paid little or nothing. It is the sacrifice that counts.

So here we are, with Ms. Cox's opinion, the me too movement, and long hair everywhere, often dragging down the faces of mature women. Perhaps, it is as Victoria (Posh Spice) Beckham said, "I love fashion, and I love changing my style, my hair, my makeup, and everything I've done in the past has made me what I am now. Not everyone is going to like what I do, but I look back at everything, and it makes me smile."

I think Ms. Beckham trumps Ms. Cox.
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