JUST FOR FUN

by Earl Staggs

Back in November, during the Mystery We Write Blog Tour, I wrote this piece just for fun. You won’t find any historically verifiable facts, but maybe you’ll enjoy a chuckle or two.

I called it

The History of Publishing. . .according to Earl

Long, long ago, a bunch of guys were sitting around the cave telling stories to each other and one of them named Hiero came up with an idea.

“Hey,” he said, “we should preserve these stories on rocks.”

So Hiero came up with a bunch of symbols for animals and fish and birds and people and other things. They invented a hammer and chisel and started chiseling their stories on rocks using the symbols. Since Hiero made up the symbols, they called them Hieroglyphics.

I was just a kid then, but I studied hard and became a chiseler.

Then one of the women fell on a basket of grapes and squashed them into liquid and one guy said, “Hey, we can use that to draw our stories on the cave walls.” We took some hair from a mastodon’s leg, tied it to a stick, and used it as a brush. Soon we learned to drop women on other fruits and berries and came up with other liquids. We named it ink, and soon were drawing our symbols all over the cave walls.

That went fine for a while until some guy invented something he called paper. He said, “Hey, let’s put our stories on paper.”

A guy over in the corner named Webster said, “Hey, that’s fine, but enough with the symbols. Let’s use words. I just made up a whole lot of them and someday everybody will be using them.”

So we invented pencils and pens and started putting words on paper. That became very popular, once you got the hang of picking the right words.

Now, some people were better than others at picking which words to use. Webster came up with a word for what we were doing. He called it writing. The ones who were good at picking the best words became known as writers. I was tired of chiseling, so I studied hard and became a writer. It was tedious work doing one page at a time, though.

A few months later — and you’ll notice I’m condensing the time frame to make this move a little faster – a guy named Gutenberg invented a machine he called a printing press. What a boon that was! Put words in a flat plate, smear ink on it, and print thousands of pieces of paper. Oh, my. We were on a roll.

Then another guy had the idea of putting those pieces of paper in a pile and gluing them together. His name was Booker, so we called them books.

About the same time, a couple of guys named Royal and Underwood invented gadgets called typewriters. That made it a lot easier for writers to write books.

That was great. Soon we had stacks and stacks of books. Remember Webster, the guy who came up with all those words? Even he got into the act. He gathered up all his words, put them in a book, and called it a dictionary.

But what to do with all those books? A guy named Barnes said, “Hey, I have a friend named Noble. We’ll go in together and open a store to sell the books.”

Before long, we had huge companies called publishers cranking out books, and we had bookstores all over the world selling them. The whole system needed more people to make it work, so editors, distributors, shippers, and warehousers were born. Another group of people said, “Hey, we’re agents. You writers send us your stuff, and we’ll sell it to the publishers.”

Yes, a lot of people were involved in the system, but it worked. Everybody was reading books.

Meanwhile, up in Seattle, a couple of kids named Jobs and Gates were putting things together called computers. Not the huge things big companies were using. These were small enough to sit on a desk and soon everybody had one. This made it even easier for writers to write. These machines could even communicate with each other over a web that covered the whole wide world called the Internet. Wow! Talk about progress.

Things were about to change, though. A guy named Amazon started selling books over the Internet. You didn’t even have to go to the bookstore. Just order them through your computer, and they’d be shipped to your door. This Amazon guy went one step further. One day, he said, “Hey, look what I invented. I call it a Kindle. I don’t have to ship the books to you anymore. I’ll just send you the words and you read them on this thing. We’ll call them ebooks”

Remember those guys named Barnes and Noble? They said, “Hey, we have one of those, too. We call it a Nook. Soon, there was a bunch more of them. A lot of people weren’t reading printed books anymore. They were reading ebooks in the palm of their hands. Talk about change!

More changes were coming, though. A bunch of writers were sitting around one day and one of them said, “Hey, we don’t need agents and publishers and distributors and all those people. Let’s publish our ebooks ourselves. Since all those other people won’t be getting any of the pie, we can sell them for only a couple bucks and still make more per book than before.”

And that’s how it all happened and that brings us to where we are today. Writers have a choice of going the traditional way through agents and publishers or we can publish our own ebooks.

No one knows what changes the future will bring. It could be the entire publishing industry will crumble, and we’ll go back to preserving our stories on rocks. If that happens, I’ll be okay. I still have my tools and I can be a chiseler again.

If you’ve read all the way to here, you now know everything I know about publishing. If you’re still in the mood for reading, here are some things you can read on my website at http://earlwstaggs.wordpress.com

MEMORY OF A MURDER. A mystery novel with a long list of Five Star reviews. Click on it at the top of the page and read Chapter One.

SHORT STORIES OF EARL STAGGS. A collection of 16 short mystery stories in an ebook. A variety of stories ranging from hardboiled to soft to humorous. Click on “Earls Short Stories” for more information. Now on sale for 99 cents for all ereaders.

Click on “THE DAY I ALMOST BECAME A GREAT WRITER” and read the story some say is the funniest one I’ve ever written.

There’s also “WHITE HATS AND HAPPY TRAILS” about the day I spent with a boyhood idol, Roy Rogers.

Good reading and good writing to you, and let’s make 2012 the best year ever for all of us.

MAN FREED AFTER 27 YEARS IN PRISON

by Earl Staggs

In 1984, two girls, ages 14 and 15, were abducted at gunpoint, tied up and raped. Shortly afterward, they spotted a man driving a car and identified him as their attacker. He was convicted on their eyewitness testimony.

On May 12, 2011, Johnny Pinchback walked of a Texas prison a free man. Fortunately for him, Dallas County still had evidence which, when subjected to DNA testing, proved he was not the man who raped them.

Twenty-seven years behind bars. For a crime he did not commit.

Pinchback is now fifty-five years old and starting his life over again. He said, “It was pretty hard, but I trusted in God. I knew one day I would be a free man.” He also said he held no animosity toward the two girls who misidentified him. He plans to devote his life to helping others who suffered the same fate.

While I admire his attitude, I’m not sure I would be able to hold faith that long or be that forgiving. Like him, I wouldn’t hold hard feelings for the two teenage girls. They thought they were doing the right thing. I might have bad feelings for the defense attorney for not doing a better job, and I’d probably have bitter feelings toward the prosecutor for doing his too well.

There was no physical evidence linking Mr. Pinchback to the crime. He was convicted solely on eyewitness testimony, which is notorious for being wrong.

According to the Innocence Project, a non-profit organization which works to reopen criminal convictions that were made before DNA testing was available, "Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing."

The Dallas County District Attorney said this case illustrates the need for the Texas Legislature to pass bills reforming eyewitness identification procedures and rules on storage of evidence. He urges everyone to contact their representatives about passing such bills.

I think it illustrates much more than that.

DNA testing was not available in 1984, but has been in use since the early to mid 90’s. Why did it take so long to apply that testing in Mr. Pinchback’s case? Bureaucracy? Red tape? The incredibly slow movement of the courts in this type of situation? Probably all of those. And how many others are still in jail, fighting for such testing but are unable to get it? It is incomprehensibe that it takes years – many years – to have this kind of testing done. Knowing a large number of people are incarcerated who could be freed, something should be done to expedite the process.

I understand DNA testing labs are backed up and everyone must wait their turn. Okay, why not set up more labs? To me, that is an easy solution to a situation involving a great deal of injustice. There are certainly more people in prisons who will be freed in the future by DNA testing, and each one of them will, most likely, receive compensation. The amount varies with each state. In Texas, for example, the current law states exoneration is worth $80,000 per year of incarceration. That means the sooner these people are freed, the less it will cost the state. The savings over a short number of years would easily be more than the cost of establishing a DNA lab.

I’m not pushing for these people to receive less money, but I’m sure their freedom means more to them.

It makes sense to me. What do you think?


Earl Staggs

SHORT STORIES OF EARL STAGGS now available for $2.99 on Amazon for Kindle and on Smashwords for other ereaders.

Here’s a free one – Read "The Day I Almost Became a Great Writer," a short story good for a few laughs at earlwstaggs.wordpress.com

SOLVING CRIME IN REAL LIFE

by Earl Staggs

I watch a lot of true crime shows on TV. A&E has several of them, as do several other cable networks. CBS has an hour show on Friday and Sunday evenings called “48 Hours Mystery.” NBC does one called “Dateline,” although they often preempt true crime for the latest celebrity scandal. These shows offer, in documentary form, true crime cases filmed in the locations where they happened with many of the real people involved in the crime. You see how the crime (most often, a murder) occurred and follow the investigative steps taken to solve it.

I find it interesting how crimes are solved these days. My favorites are when an old (or “cold”) case is solved after years have gone by. In many of the cold cases being solved these days, the crime occurred either before DNA testing was available or when it was in its infancy. A lot of them are reexamined using modern DNA techniques and innocent men and women are being freed and the guilty are caught. I love it when that happens.

On scripted crime-solving shows such as CSI, NCIS, Law and Order and so many others, crimes are solved by following the book, so to speak. Police officers do all the things they’re supposed to do in their investigative steps. Crime scenes are taped off, technicians scour the place for fingerprints, footprints, DNA, hair and skin samples, and witnesses are interviewed and interrogated. That’s how it’s supposed to be done.

In true crime situations, unfortunately, it doesn’t always happen that way. Law enforcement officers are people, and people make mistakes and omissions. Not every city and town has the resources for the minute scrutiny we see on scripted cop shows. As a result, mistakes are made, evidence is missed or lost, and the guilty don’t always get caught.

In one cold case show I saw recently, the original investigation was seriously flawed. It happened in a small town and involved a police force not accustomed or equipped to handle a murder case properly. The crime scene was contaminated when everyone in the neighborhood and every police officer in the area tramped through it out of curiosity. Valuable evidence was ignored. Available fingerprints and DNA evidence went unnoticed. Fortunately, when a cold case squad reopened the case, they found an article of clothing in the evidence box with the killer’s DNA and tracked down a murderer who thought he had gotten away with it.

We writers may feel we have to make certain our characters, particularly police officers, follow procedures to the letter. If we don’t, someone may call us on it. “That could not happen,” they may say, “because investigative procedure requires. . . .” Or, “The District Attorney would never make a mistake like that.”

The fact is, we may choose to write about real life, and in real life crime cases, mistakes, omissions, and errors in judgment do happen. They happen especially in small towns with limited experience and budget limitations.

It’s too bad real life crime is not scripted like the TV shows. More cases would be solved.

ANOTHER CLASH OF GIANTS IN TEXAS

by Earl Staggs

The dust has barely settled on a major battle here in the Lone Star state and another one is just beginning. The Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers fought it out for the Super Bowl Trophy. Now two other giants are squaring off.

This time, it’s Amazon.com versus the State of Texas. The prize is not a trophy, but a ton of money. This contest is not about athletic ability on the playing field but about power and muscle at the negotiating table.

Here’s the opening from an article in today’s local paper:

“As a result of an ongoing tax dispute with Texas, Amazon.com has decided to take its ball and go home. The online retailer said Thursday that it would shutter its Irving distribution facility April 12 and cancel plans to hire as many as 1,000 additional workers rather than pay Texas what the state says is owed in uncollected sales tax. Texas wants $269 million from Seattle-based Amazon in past-due sales tax. It sent the bill to the company last October.”

Amazon is appealing the case through “an administrative process” and claims they have a special sales tax loophole. The State is standing firm on the basis that Amazon must play by the same rules as other retailers. One trade group in Washington representing traditional retailers called Amazon’s actions “callous.”

So what does Texas do in this situation? It could forgive the $269 million in sales tax and hope Amazon leaves its operation where it is, keep their present employees and add 1000 more. The State’s economy could certainly use that. Or it could hold fast and watch Amazon pull out and take the $269 million with then.

Then what? One possible result might be that other large companies could follow Amazon’s lead. From this crime writer’s perspective, it sounds like corporate blackmail. Suppose other 500 pound gorillas in business suits decided Texas (or any other state if you think about it) would write off major amounts of past-due taxes if the company threatens to move commerce and jobs elsewhere.

I don’t know how this will play out. Like a good mystery novel, we have a beginning and a middle and will have to keep reading to see how the ending comes out.

Earl Staggs and June Shaw Have Joined Our Blog Team

by Jean Henry Mead

Earl Staggs and June Shaw are among our latest blog team members. Earl's a Kentucky native who's semi-retired in Fort Worth and June is a Louisiana grandmother who lives in Cajun country. So we have a diverse group of bloggers who will be appearing here twice a month.

In addition to Earl's mystery novel, Memory of a Murder, his short stories have been published in a variety of mystery magazines, one of which earned him a coveted "Derringer Award." His novel grew out of a short story he'd written featuring the same protagonist and required more than two years of writing and revising. It was published in 2005, but "after a promising start, the small press which published it went under, leaving me stranded." he said. "I then happened upon my second publisher, who has been in business for more than seventy years and who was looking for mystery novels set in the Chesapeake Bay area. Mine fit perfectly, and I’m extremely happy with Tidewater Publishing, who brought out the second edition of Memory of a Murder in 2008. I’m also happy that my book has earned nine reviews on Amazon and three on B&N, all of which are Five Star, their top rating."

Earl has always liked mysteries. "I suppose it’s because I enjoy the challenge of a puzzle so I love a good solid whodunit that keeps me guessing all the way to the end. I also love seeing the bad guys get what’s coming to them, something we don’t always see in real life. I think most people are the same, which explains the popularity of mystery and crime books, movies and TV shows. I’ve also written a few short stories I consider humorous or just for fun without a mystery or crime involved. I’ve not yet tried other genres such as fantasy, science fiction and such, but I have a few good years left, so who knows?"

The worst part of writing for Earl is "when I know where the story needs to go, but I can’t figure out how to get there. It’s that tear-your-hair-out, why-did-I-become-a-writer-anyway, this-story-sucks phase that can come anywhere between the first chapter and the last. Call it sagging middle syndrome, writer’s block, or some of the phrases I’ve used to describe it which cannot be printed in a public forum, but for me, it’s the worst part of writing. Even worse than a rejection or a bad review.

"The best part of writing for me is when I don’t have to worry about the worst part. The story takes off on its own and all I have to do is type it as it happens in my head. The characters know where they’re going and what they’re going to do and I happily go along for the ride, barely able to type fast enough to keep up. I love the best part of writing. I only wish it happened more often."

When asked which writers most influenced his own writing, he said, "That goes back to my earliest reading days when I was impressed by Hemingway and O’Henry. Hemingway for his strong, sparse writing style and O’Henry for his magical ability to weave a completely rounded story into the format of a short story. I’m not at all surprised when I see elements I learned from those two gentlemen in my own writing."

Writing is one thing. Promoting books is another. Earl does a great deal of networking online in various writing groups and does as many speaking and signing events as he can. "I love talking about writing with other writers, so my favorite event is speaking before a writers group. Recently, I’ve given talks on the difference between writing novels and short stories and how to incorporate backstory without boring the reader. I also enjoy very much meeting with readers groups since, after all, that’s who we’re writing for."

His advice to fledgling mystery/suspense writers is "to never stop striving to be a better writer. There are a lot of good writers out there and competition is tough. Being good is not good enough. You have to be better than good, and that requires constant work. To sum it up, I like to say, “Always make sure the next thing you write is better than the last thing you wrote.”

Earl will be blogging here on the 2nd and 4th Fridays of the month.

June Shaw's debut novel, Relative Danger, received her publisher's "David Award" for Best Mystery of the Year. The novel also received glowing reviews from Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times, which described her protagonist as "a granny with attitude." Her third novel, Killer Cousins, has been reviewed as "a bowl of spicy gumbo."

June has always lived in Cajun country. Her mother's family spoke French, and she incorporates elements of her background in her novels. Her main character, owner of a successful copy editing agency, travels a lot. June says "The widow thinks she wants to avoid her hunky ex-lover so she can rediscover herself, but he opens Cajun restaurants in all the places she travels, and she is so bad at avoiding tempting dishes and men. So many scenes take place in his restaurant with terrific food and Cajun recipes and even really popular Cajun jokes."

Her protagonist, Cealie Gunther, a feisty grandmother, is a very independent gal. "Cealie is who I want to be. She will do and say anything without considering the consequences or worrying about what anyone thinks. Lots of readers tell me they want to be Cealie."

Killer Cousin has been described by a bestselling author as “The ‘a la mode of Agatha Christie, Miss Marple and onward" . . . "One of today’s major authors that I love is Janet Evanovich. I’ve been thrilled to have some compare my books to hers."

June has also written plays that were produced “off-off Broadway” as well as a script that aired on a local station. She describes them as "dramas, major tools along the way in my learning to write novels. I was pleased to have my scripts acknowledged so well and produced, but a producer for major plays told me I should get involved in theatre if I want to keep writing stage plays. Some producers in L.A. loved my screenplays and told me to look them up once I moved there. I only wanted to write. I have five children and wasn’t about to move away. A female screenwriter suggested I try novels. She said they weren’t easy to sell but could be written and sold from anywhere. I stayed here in south Louisiana and went after learning to write novels."

June's family has always been most important to her,including her 102-year-old mother who lived with her. "Two of my little granddaughters (I have 8) love to make up stories, so many they’ll become the next writers in the family. None of my family members are sounding boards. I just ask them for information I need for research. My mom moved in with me five years ago because macular degeneration made her almost blind. But she was still coming to line-dance classes with me in December and was a major inspiration for my main character. Even though Cealie is nowhere near Mom’s age, she has her spunk.

"Mom lived and danced until the end. She died January 31 [2009] at age 102 1/2. We had such lively music and humorous eulogy that our mayor, who spoke on a radio station the next day, told everyone he’d been to the most fun funeral he’d ever attended and then talked a lot about Mom. I have great memories. A picture of her dancing the Macarena for her 100th birthday is on my website, www.juneshaw.com."

June loves creativity and "I especially love my characters. Quirky and unique, they are people I want to spend much time with and want readers to do the same. What annoys me about writing is not having enough time to write as much as I’d like to. Actually, I’m retired from teaching and have all of the free time I want, but I do have a large family. Spending quality time with them is most important, as is time with my squeeze Bob and my friends. I also love to dance. So I’m really not often annoyed with writing or not finding time. I normally do whatever I want with my time and love it!"

Her advice for novice writers is "read read read, and write write write. If you want to be a writer, then write. Read often. That’s work, too, helping you see what you like or dislike. Study books on writing. Join groups, attend conferences.

"When I was in ninth grade, I decided that one day I would be a writer. My life was always full, and I had no writing classes. I married young, had five children in six years and then my husband died. I taught school for twenty years, played with my eight grandchildren—and then sold a novel! Earlier, I didn’t have time to read novels, much less try to write them. But that desire stayed. I sold the second novel in the series and began the third. It’s a whole new life and terrific fun! If you want to be a writer, then be one."

June will be blogging every 2nd and 4th Saturday.

Words and Music

By Pat Browning

Once upon another life I lived in a Victory Hall. World War 2 was going full blast. The only men on campus were soldiers, sailors and flyboys. Frat houses had been turned into Victory Halls for female students.

Every evening before dinner, we trooped downstairs and gathered around the piano to hear one of our girls play boogie-woogie. She played by ear and I can see her yet, smiling and tapping one foot while she pounded out Tommy Dorsey’s Boogie Woogie.

Another time, another place. I don’t remember how I surfed into a smokin’ video by the Swiss pianist, Silvan Zingg, but I live on the Internet so whatever I was looking for faded to black when I found Zingg. His video “Dancin’ The Boogie” snapped me right back to college days. Great piano work and two of the best jitterbuggers – William and Maeva – I’ve seen in action since those wartime college dances.

Back then, I had never seen jitterbugs like the sailors from New York and New Jersey. Maybe it was the cute bellbottom trousers, but whatever it was – they had it in spades. My one regret was that I was too bashful to get out on the floor and give it a try.

Silvan Zingg is still working on his web sites. “Dancin’ the Boogie” is on YouTtube, but the video is of poor quality. The best quality video is on his BoogieGroove web site under Gallery. The tiny url is http://tinyurl.com/c7sgl6

One YouTube video not to be missed by boogie lovers is Zingg’s twin grand pianos duet with French pianist Jean-Paul Amouroux. It’s at http://tinyurl.com/c3kt3n

It’s not just free music you’ll find on the Internet. Short stories abound, as authors look for new audiences.

One example: two delightful short stories by Carola Dunn, free for the reading at http://www.belgravehouse.com

Both stories feature Daisy Dalrymple, Dunn’s character from her novels. In “Storm in a Tea Shoppe” there’s foxglove in the soup at Daisy’s favorite tea shoppe. In “Unhappy Medium,” Daisy and a friend go to a séance in a story with a surprise twist at the end.

Earl Staggs is writer with a short story to be read at Mysterical-E, a free mystery ezine. The Staggs story, “The Missing Sniper,” features Adam Kingston, a psychic who’s called in by a sheriff to figure out who tried to assassinate a state senator. You can read the archived story at http://tinyurl.com/apnnzy .

Adam is the kind of character you wish you could know personally. Staggs developed him further in his mystery novel, MEMORY OF A MURDER. The novel was first published by Quiet Storm in 2005, and republished with an intriguing new cover in 2008 by Cornell Maritime Press.

In the current issue of Mysterical-E you’ll find “Becalmed in Hell” by I. Van Laningham, the latest in Van Laningham’s long-running series of Andi Holmes short stories. Opening line: “Viet Nam, like alcohol, gets into your blood; death is the only cure.”

Set in 1971, this story finds Andi at Fort Monmouth, married, and about to end her army career. An old Viet Nam regular named Phil tracks her down and hires her to find his car, which was stolen by a “pretty boy” he picked up in San Francisco. A gritty, well-written story, you can read it at http://www.mystericale.com .

One of my favorite writers is Peter Abresch. We go back to 1998 when he wrote his first James P. Dandy Elderhostel Mystery, BLOODY BONSAI. I reviewed it for The Hanford (California) Sentinel, and have kept an eye on him ever since. He has written five Elderhostel mysteries, going through publishers Quiet Storm, WriteWay and Intrigue Press in the process.

His latest, NAME GAMES, is available through CreateSpace. I read it in a downloaded manuscript and liked it very much. To those who don’t know, Elderhostel is a travel/study program for senior citizens, so the Elderhostel mysteries are set in different locales.

But Abresch doesn’t stop there. Along with free writing tips on his web site, and a newsletter with his poetry (which is quite good and on the spiritual side) he has “founded” Sidewalk Books. You can hear two humorous stand-alone mysteries free on his podcasts – CAPITOL COVEN and IF THEY ASK FOR A HAND, ONLY GIVE THEM A FINGER.

Those two books are also available in print, on CD – oh, heck. Just go to http://sidewalkbooks.com and let the author explain it all to you.

Words and music. They’re part of our makeup – the need to create, to communicate. They started with jungle drums and drawings on cave walls, perhaps even earlier. They’re going strong, out into space and beyond … someone playing boogie woogie, someone writing a few good words