Promoting Literacy & Celebrating Community

AHHAH (Arts Holding Hands and Hearts)
explains their purpose as “empowering youth, strengthening families, and mobilizing communities through literacy, mindfulness, and expressive arts.” AHHAH’s programs have touched and improved the lives of many people in the Coatesville and Kennett Square area, about 35 miles west of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The programs are online now in keeping with safety precautions during the pandemic. But a child can still have a bedtime story read to them, and people of all ages can participate in mindfulness or yoga sessions. (See AHHAH’s Facebook Videos.)

AHHAH held a “Labor of Love” fundraising campaign Labor Day weekend. Videos were released throughout the weekend with dramatic readings of poetry written by youth participating in AHHAH programs. AHHAH expressed gratitude to their volunteers and supporters, and six individuals were presented with Community & Volunteer Impact Awards. I am honored to be one of the six.

Individuals can make a difference, especially during stressful times. If you need help, reach out to those around you. Friends, neighbors, or other community members may need your help. Something as simple as a kind word can brighten someone’s day. As individuals or by working together, we can help improve the lives of others.

Undisciplined Writer

I admit it—I’m an undisciplined writer. I’ve gotten sloppy in my retirement, enjoying my time off even though I’ve mostly stayed at home this year. There’s no reason NOT to write. Is it a COVID slump? Perhaps, although it might be the senior citizen version of youthful acting out.

My productivity ebbs and flows, but when creativity and inspiration hit, it’s not always focused on writing or the most effective use of time. This week, I created a party game for a book launch scheduled early next year for a book that’s still being edited. Today I was double-booked for webinars. I tried and failed to watch them simultaneously.

It’s been busy on the literary front, but I’m being pulled in five different directions by five different writing projects. I’m not getting anything accomplished.

I really should make a schedule and stick to it. For example, go to bed at a reasonable hour rather than binge watching series reruns until midnight. Don’t skip my daily walks. (My dog reported me to the ASPCA last week.) Most importantly, schedule writing times during the week and PEN them into my calendar. I have too many erasers handy to use a pencil.

House Cooling Party

Oppressive August and September heat waves blanketed SoCal with high temps and high humidity. My new air conditioning system was installed during a heat wave, and my house is now comfortable.

The result? An urge to celebrate with a dinner party, christened a house “cooling” party by my son. My dinner parties are opulent affairs (wink- wink-) with one-to-three socially-distanced guests and their dogs. My son and grand-dog (Finn) visited with me, Libby (my dog), Hazel (Libby’s other best canine friend), and Hazel’s owners.

Hazel’s owner, Tim, suggested the photo op for the House Cooling party—wearing heavy coats inside the newly air conditioned house.

And how is this related to writing? I had dinner with my muses. All the canine and human guests are in my books. Hazel was the neighbor’s dog in Emma’s Best Friend is a Robot. The spin-off, Hazel, Hero of Dog Beach, is currently with the illustrator. Finn and Libby have cameos in the second children’s book, and Libby played an important role in the first McGregor mystery. My son is Detective Scott McGregor’s best friend. (My daughter, Scott’s girlfriend, was unable to join us due to prior commitments.) Hazel’s owner, Diana, works in the Fresno Police Records Department and alerted Scott to a clue in his first case. The adults attend Scott’s house parties where Tim often plays and sings.

The following weekend, another heat wave struck bringing temperatures near the one-hundred-degree mark in the full shade … and another air-conditioned, socially-distanced doggy play date / dinner party.

The heat waves aren’t bothering me as much as they used to.

Photographing Meteors

Perseid meteor photo by Wayne Woodcock

Guest post by Wayne Woodcock

(Research Assistant for the Detective Scott McGregor mystery, Forever After)

2 cameras.

5 nights.

13.25 hours.

12,225 exposures.

10 really good pictures, maybe.

I used two cameras shooting the nighttime Perseid meteor showers. A Sony a6300 with Olympus 55mm f1.2 lens using an OM to E mount adapter, shooting wide open, four second exposures ISO 1000. The other camera was a Sony a6500 with 16mm f2.8 lens and fisheye adapter, shooting wide open, 25 second exposures ISO 1250. Both cameras were set to manual focus and exposure and continuous shooting, locked on using a wired cable release. Shutter speed was calculated using the 300 Rule to reduce the star trail movement in each picture and exposure adjusted by changing the ISO setting.

Images were recorded continuously for at least two hours each night. The morning after each photo session, I spent hours backing up to an external HD and processing the still images.

Using the Sony Imaging Edge Viewer program, I was able to create time lapse movies from the thousands of exposures as videos that lasted a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the number of exposures in a session. Meteors streaked partially across the sky. Planes and satellites crossed the entire view region, both moving slower than the meteors.

StarStaX Perseid meteor photo by Wayne Woodcock

Using StarStax, I created star tracks that showed the circular movement of the stars around the North star. Meteors, planes, and satellites showed up as straight lines crossing the concentric star paths. The StarStaX photo was compiled from 327 exposures taken over 23 minutes (elapsed time).

Every night I saw spectacular meteors in one direction while the camera lenses were pointed to a different quadrant of the sky. I got about ten really good still shots. The time lapse movies are fun to watch trying to spot the meteors.

It has been about 30 years since I had last done any nighttime photography. Way back in the days when rolls of film were sent off to be processed before you could see what you had as images. So I looked on the internet, read some articles and watched some videos. That is where I found out about the 300 Rule, StarStax and tying a hand warmer to the camera lens to keep it from fogging up.

Wayne Woodcock is an amateur photographer who has traveled the world and seen all seven continents through his camera viewfinder.

Wayne and Joan, of husband-wife “Team Woodcock,” added depth and different perspectives to the research gained from the August on-site exploration of the settings for Detective Scott McGregor’s third case. As experienced researchers, they are occasionally available for assignments to exotic locations.

Book Research

Moran State Park, Orcas Island, WA

My third Detective Scott McGregor mystery is set in the San Juan Islands in Washington State’s Puget Sound during the annual mid-August Perseid meteor showers. I visited the setting so I could write about it more convincingly.

My research assistants and I explored the islands for dastardly locations and situations to make the heroine of my story suffer immeasurable agonies: being hungry, injured, and scared while lost in the forest and pursued by someone with evil intentions. All of this sadistic behavior on my part is supposed to make for good reading.

Book research is hard work. My assistants and I stayed in bed & breakfast inns on two different islands. We trekked countless miles through dense forests. We viewed fabulous scenery from scarily high overlooks. We braved the midnight cold to watch meteor showers. We consumed alcohol in waterfront taverns and island breweries. Ya gotta feel sorry for authors, right?

Story Structure in TV Shows

Halfway through the season of a recently binge-watched mystery drama, I realized it was a cozy. It met the major requirements for the genre described in a Nancy Curteman blog: an amateur sleuth; a murder occurring before the story began; a small pool of suspects; the sleuth becoming a target for murder; and no sex, violence, or cussing.

And halfway through the season I knew whodunnit. It wasn’t the actions the character did or didn’t do, but how the actions were presented. I recognized the approach from studying the craft and writing mysteries myself. I enjoy watching mystery shows and observing how plot points are played out, especially when it’s accomplished in a subtle manner.

Recently I’ve been re-watching Midsomer Murders, an English detective series based on the books by Caroline Graham. The detective, DCI Barnaby, has a seemingly endless supply of village suspects, and there are often multiple murders. Keeping track of clues and connections in this series can be difficult, and the identity of the guilty person can be a surprise until the end.

The Midsomer Murders scenery is beautiful, but before you pack your bags for a lovely English countryside vacation, you may want to read this blog post: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village.

Writing and Procrastination

Sometimes the words just won’t write themselves. If this month were a writing race, I’d still be at the starting gate. I haven’t been motivated enough to prod myself into action.

My favorite part of writing mysteries is designing the crime, creating clues, and implicating innocent people. Making the plot work is a skill transferred from developing countless flowcharts during my computer programming years. The plot structure for Forever After, the third McGregor mystery, is already in my current manuscript. Now I have to fill in the gaps, and that’s less exciting for me.

To feed my procrastination tendencies, an annoying time-wasting habit has crept back into my life: watching television. Several years ago, I cancelled the cable tv and rediscovered spare time. I used that time to write. I have access to old series, though, and recently I’ve binge-watched seasons of several English and New Zealand shows I’d previously never heard of.

If only a giant Monty Python (BBC comedy) foot would drop down from the sky and kick me back into action.