One Writer's Work & Working Process

by Sheila Webster Boneham

Whenever I speak to readers and other writers, certain questions about my work and my work habits tend to come up frequently. I thought I would ask and answer a few of the common ones today.

What am I working on?

As usual, I'm working on several projects. One is novel set in the high desert of Nevada. It's about half finished, and I have worked on it in fits and starts between other books already under contract. I just delivered Shepherd's Crook, the fourth book in my Animals in Focus mystery series, to the publisher -- look for it fall 2015 -- and I'm playing with ideas for possible new series. I also write "creative nonfiction," including a number of essays published in the past year, and I have a memoir about dogs, family, and other things underway, as well as several new essays, short stories, and poems in various states of completion. Writer's block has never been a problem for me!

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Good question, and the answer depends on which of my works we mean. For now, I'll stick to my mysteries. The Animals in Focus series has (surprise!) animals who are vital characters in the stories. They are not, however, "humanized." They don't solve crimes or answer phones, and I don't presume to speak for them other than through their own behavions. In other words, in contrast to a lot of fictional animals, I strive to make mine as realistic as possible. 

The main human characters in my books are in their fifties and sixties and very active, and that's a little strange in genre fiction, it seems.

Before I turned to fiction and literary nonfiction, I wrote seventeen books about dogs, cats, and animal rescue. Breed Rescue (Alpine Publications, 1998), winner of the 1998 Maxwell Award from the Dog Writers Association of America, was the first comprehensive book about starting and running a canine rescue program, and Rescue Matters! (Alpine Publications, 2009) expanded the scope to include cats and other household pets. 

 

Why do I write what I do?

That is an interesting and, I think, unanswerable question. In creative work, I'm not sure that we entirely choose our subjects or our genres. A psychologist might get to the bottom of some of my reasons for writing what I do, and occasionally I have some deep and startling insight as I'm writing or walking (or dreaming). But all in all, it's all a bit mysterious.

How does your writing process work?

I'm never entirely sure what people mean when they ask this. What I think of as my process, though, is this: I write every morning, and I have done so for years. Now, when I say "every morning," I mean almost, because there are days in which something else intervenes. But for the most part, I do begin my days by writing. I tend to fiddle for the first half hour or so, figuring out what I want or need to work on. Then I get down to it, and if I'm really lucky, I enter the deep, enveloping "flow," a creative place not unlike runner's high. Then I'm no longer in control, and all I can do is set the words down on the screen or, more rarely these days, on paper. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sheila Webster Boneham is an award-winning writer who writes across genres and interacts across species. She is the author of the best-selling Animals in Focus mystery series from Midnight Ink and of seventeen nonfiction books, including Rescue Matters: How to Find, Foster, and Rehome Companion Animals (Alpine Publications, 2009, updated 2013). Sheila also writes creative nonfiction, literary fiction, and poems, and she teaches writing classes and offers individual mentoring for aspiring writers. Find her online at www.sheilaboneham.com, on Facebook, or by e-mail. Sheila runs the Writers & Other Animals blog and the companion Facebook group. Sheila holds a PhD in folklore from Indiana University and MFA in creative writing from the Stonecoast Program, University of Southern Maine. 

Maintaining Balance in a Creative Life

by Sheila Webster Boneham

She is in her place and moves with perfect balance.

Walt Whitman                     

Balance. I've long been a great believer in balance in life. Not necessarily moderation, mind you, but balance. Hard work balanced against hard play, or hard rest. Think very long nap on a rainy afternoon. 

Indian Paintbrush looks to me like creative inspiration feels.
©2010 Sheila Boneham. Evans Canyon, Reno, Nevada

For creative people – writers, painters, musicians, whatever – balance can be hard to achieve. The siren that is creative work is seductive. It can sing its way into our brains and make us attend to its needs until our joints lock. That same siren, though, can be painfully shy, hiding itself at the first hint of distraction. Good movie on TV? You can write that poem later! Friends want you to come play parcheesi? The painting can wait. The socks in your sock drawer are rebelling? Clearly more important to organize them than to write that novel.

There's always some seductive path calling, "Follow me!"
©2011 Sheila Boneham, Wrightsville Beach, NC

I jest. Sort of. The truth is that there’s always something else to do. Some distractions even look from the outside very much like actual work. You’re a writer, you’re on the computer – checking what’s happened on Facebook in the last ten minutes, and reading the latest writers’ group digest post, and checking the five hundred blogs you frequent because HOLY COW! You might miss something that will make or break your career!


I confess. I do all those things. Sometimes. But in the past fifteen years I’ve also written twenty three and a half books, sixteen tons of articles (more or less), several poems (very recently!), and the various related documents – query letters, proposals, blurbs, bios, bull..., er, marketing materials. So, rumors to the contrary aside, I do maintain some degree of balance.

My animals have helped balance my life.
This is Lily - UCDX Diamonds Perennial
Waterlily, AKC CD, TD, RN, CGC, ASCA CD,
TDI - earning the first leg of her ASCA CD. 

How? A surprising (to me, anyway) number of people ask me that. It’s no mystery, really. I compartmentalize my time, and have done so for so many years that my "time habits" are part of me. I write in a local café every morning, beginning around 7:30, ending around noon, with a half hour or so off for breakfast with my husband. I go home, have lunch, have tea. I read for a couple of hours. Take a short nap most afternoons. Go for a long walk, sometimes with my dog Lily, sometimes with my camera, sometimes just with my eyes and my ears and my thoughts. I often write again in the evening, or go to readings or other events, or meet with friends, or paint and listen to music, or watch a movie at home. And ok, maybe an hour of Frasier reruns. We all have our vices. I read some more late at night, when everything is quiet. I sleep. And things get done, because I know I have those four or five hours of dedicated writing time, and I use them to....write!

Sometimes balance requires that we move forward; sometimes it
requires that we find stillness. ©2012 Sheila Boneham, Wrightsville Beach, NC

Balance, of course, should extend to all of life, not just work. Because creative work is so personal, it can be very difficult to separate the artifacts of our creativity – the books, the paintings, the beaded book covers – from our Selves. But the truth is that our creativity comes from without as well as from within. We need experience of the world to feed the fire inside. The precise experience each of us needs varies, but we all need something. A few days without my writing time make me crave my keyboard, but I know from experience that if I lock myself away to do nothing but write for more than a day or two, my siren stops singing. I need time in nature, travel, long walks, cuddles with my dogs, talks with my husband, flowers, music, my friends, good books, photography, art. 


What do you need to balance your creative work?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sheila Webster Boneham is an award-winning writer who writes across genres and interacts across species. She is the author of the best-selling Animals in Focus mystery series from Midnight Ink and of seventeen nonfiction books, including Rescue Matters: How to Find, Foster, and Rehome Companion Animals (Alpine Publications, 2009, updated 2013). Sheila also writes creative nonfiction, literary fiction, and poems, and she teaches writing classes and offers individual mentoring for aspiring writers. Find her online at www.sheilaboneham.com, on Facebook, or by e-mail. Sheila runs the Writers & Other Animals blog and the companion Facebook group. Sheila holds a PhD in folklore from Indiana University and MFA in creative writing from the Stonecoast Program, University of Southern Maine. 

Finding Inspiration Across the Arts

by Sheila Webster Boneham

Creative people tend to be creative in multiple ways. Most of my writer friends, for instance, pursue other creative activities when they’re not writing. Several of them make jewelry. Others paint or draw or sculpt. Many writers also garden. Some sing or play instruments, compose music, act, sew, decorate their homes.... If you’re creative, there are really no limits (other than time) to the possibilities.

Wading In -by Sheila Boneham
(watercolor, 11 x14, in private collection)

Unfortunately, our culture tends to treat creative pursuits as frivolous. For most people, giving expression to creative drives comes after the “real” job, and friends and family too often consider painting, writing, and other “artsy fartsy” activities to be secondary, unnecessary, even a waste of time. What a sad attitude. And counterproductive, because creativity feeds on itself, and people who cultivate artistic pursuits become better problem solvers in areas not conventionally thought of as “creative.” (This is one of many reasons to keep art and music in our schools, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

Which raises an essential question: what is a “creative” pursuit? (I won’t even touch “art”!) I believe that nearly anything can be done creatively. My husband, Roger, is an extremely creative cook. He modifies recipes with abandon, deleting an ingredient here, adding one there, adjusting proportions, and revising the next time around. Tom Saunders, the “main squeeze” in my mysteries, does the same when he has time.

Pretty in Pink by Sheila Boneham
(watercolor, 16 x 20, in private collection)

Janet MacPhail, the protagonist of my Animals in Focus mystery series, is a professional photographer, and getting good shots of the animals who are her subjects certainly takes some creativity. She also trains and competes with her dog and cat (yes, her CAT!). After decades of competing in equine and canine sports, I can tell you that good animal trainers are very creative. The best trainers find ways to engage an animal mentally, physically, and emotionally so that learning is a game. Oh wait! That goes for teaching people, too! I hope that everyone reading this has had at least one teacher who brought joy and innovation to the lessons. If you have had such teachers, you know how much more readily we learn when lessons are wrapped in Creative Spirit.

We human beings are, deep down, creative beings. Have you ever known a child who didn’t want to make things of her own design? Have you ever heard of a human society that had no art of any kind? To be healthy and balanced–to be fully alive–we must allow our creative instincts room to play. (In fact, I do not believe that creativity is strictly human, but that too is a topic for another time.)

Cock of the Walk by Sheila Boneham
(oil, 10 x 12, in private collection)

Writers, painters, gardeners...people! We are all on journeys not only to make new things, but to learn as we go. Like the student with the creative, inspiring teacher, we all benefit from trying new things from time to time, and (I believe) from feeding more than one passion. My primary creative activity has long been writing, and I write across genres -- fiction, nonfiction, essays, poetry. But I also enjoy painting, photography, dog training, and gardening. One of these days I’ll take a pot-throwing class (good excuse to get dirty!). Occasionally I make myself some earrings. And here’s what I’ve learned:



No matter which of my interests I pursue at a given time, my subconscious is playing around with one or two of the others. An answer to a question about a character’s motivations in a piece of writing may surface when I’m painting or drawing. A problem in the composition of a painting sometimes pops into my head while I’m choosing flowers for a hanging pot. Birds whose behaviors I capture with my camera suggest a line of poetry.

Burning Bright by Sheila Boneham
(watercolor & India ink, 16 x 20,
in private collection)

So make a play date with yourself one day soon. Do something creative, something outside your usual art form or genre or medium. If you’re a painter, write a poem! If you’re a novelist, draw something. If you get really ambitious, look around for a class in something completely new. You don’t have to show anyone else what you made, and you don’t have to stick with everything you try, but moving creatively beyond our comfort zones creates (there’s that word!) new energy in the more familiar pursuits. And besides, it’s fun!

Maybe I’ll sign up for that pot-throwing class.



~~~~~~~~~

Sheila Webster Boneham is an award-winning writer who writes across genres and interacts across species. She is the author of the best-selling Animals in Focus mystery series from Midnight Ink and of seventeen nonfiction books, including Rescue Matters: How to Find, Foster, and Rehome Companion Animals (Alpine Publications, 2009, updated 2013). Sheila also writes creative nonfiction, literary fiction, and poems, and she teaches writing classes and offers individual mentoring for aspiring writers. Find her online at www.sheilaboneham.com, on Facebook, or by e-mail. Sheila runs the Writers & Other Animals blog and the companion Facebook group. 

Reflections on 2014

by Sheila Webster Boneham

I've never been big on making resolutions for the New Year. First of all, I spent so many years attached to academic schedules as a student, a university faculty member, and wife of a professor that I tend to think of January as the middle of the year. More importantly, resolutions are usually too big, too rehashed, and too vaguely framed. I'm more of a goal-setter, with specific benchmarks that I can track. (Yes, I make spreadsheets for everything -- running and long-distance walking goals, writing goals, whatever.)

Still, I do like to mark the end of each year with a look back. This year, I thought I'd share some of the ups, downs, and whirligigs. I'd also like to say 

to everyone who has been part of my journey this year. 

Writing, as most of you know, is central to my life and my identity. It's natural, then, that many of the ups, downs, and whirligigs of 2014 have been linked to writing, publishing, and not publishing. Here's a summary....

• Catwalk, my third Animals in Focus mystery, launched in October. Yay!

Drop Dead on Recall (Midnight Ink, 2012), the first of the mysteries, won the 2013 Maxwell Award for Fiction from the Dog Writers Association of America. 

The Money Bird, mystery #2, was nominated (that is, it is a finalist) for the 2014 Maxwell Award (winners to be announced in February 2015).

• My agent, Josh Getzler, sold mystery #4, Shepherd's Crook, to Terri Bischoff, acquisitions editor at Midnight Ink. It's almost finished, and scheduled for publication in the fall.

• My essay "A Question of Corvids" won the 2014 Prime Number Magazine Creative Nonfiction Award, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Award and for the 2015 Best American Science and Nature Writing anthology. Please note - I almost didn't enter the contest but my friend & brilliant writer Penny Guisinger gave me a shove. Thanks, Penny! Please also note - this essay was declined by seven other magazines in 2014.

• I had three essays and three poems published in literary magazines.

• I received twenty rejections from literary magazines for essays and poems. 

• I've written and am about to turn in mystery #4, to be published in the fall. 

• I have another novel, several essays and poems, and a memoir in progress, and more ideas cooking. I won't be bored any time soon!

• I taught several writing classes and mentored two writers privately over the past year. I love teaching, both for whatever little help I can give an aspiring writer and for the many things I always learn from the experience.

• I attended some inspiring writerly events - the North Carolina Writers Network Fall Conference in Charlotte and the Press 53 Gathering of Writers in Winston-Salem were outstanding!

• Best of all, I've had the support of a terrific network of people - the MFA community at the Stonecoast Program; the many readers and writers I see in real life and "see" on social media; my husband Roger; my lovely Labrador, Lily (who reminds me that there laptops are for cuddling, too!); Pomegranate Books, whose owner Kathleen Jewel, is a champion of authors, particularly local authors, and of readers; my Sea Quills critique-group buddies Nancy Gadzuk, Charlene Pollano, Georgia Mullen, and Mike Connolly. 

Without life at large, of course, the only thing I would have to write about would be me, me, me, and even I would get bored with that limited subject matter, so I do make an effort to live away from the page. Adventure and joy and beauty are essential, and sadness, too, plays a part. Some "life" highlights from 2014 include....

• I took a wonderful train trip in May - I flew to Washington, DC, then took the Capital Limited to Chicago, the Southwest Chief to Los Angeles, the Texas Eagle back to Chicago, and the Capital Limited back to DC. I'm ready to go again! Choo choo! (Two of the essays I mentioned above are about train travel - if you'd like to read them, they are "The 'I' States" and "Nocturne: Nebraska". 

• We said farewell to a number of the Australian Shepherd puppies we bred - they were all around 13 years old, and they had wonderful lives with their people, but every one of them was still "our puppy."

• I spent many wonderful hours walking around this beautiful area of southeastern North Carolina where we live. I'm especially fond of walking on Wrightsville Beach and at Airlie Gardens, a place filled with magical scenes like the one you see here. I'm hoping to take a long-distance walk in the coming year. 

• I started and completed a Couch to 5K walk/run training program, and have been running three days a week for four months now. Wahoo! 

There was more, of course. It's impossible to write a whole year in a few words. It's been a good year, all in all. So here's wishing you and yours a happy, healthy, & creative 2015! I hope you'll follow this blog - and perhaps find me and the Writers & Other Animals Group on Facebook, too! (That was another thing I enjoyed in 2014 - starting this blog. If you have a little time, scroll back through some of the terrific posts by terrific authors who have shared the journey!)

Sheila Webster Boneham is an award-winning writer who writes across genres and interacts across species. She is the author of the best-selling Animals in Focus mystery series from Midnight Ink and of seventeen nonfiction books, including Rescue Matters: How to Find, Foster, and Rehome Companion Animals (Alpine Publications, 2009, updated 2013). Sheila also writes creative nonfiction, literary fiction, and poems, and she teaches writing classes and offers individual mentoring for aspiring writers. Find her online at www.sheilaboneham.com, on Facebook, or by e-mail.

Why Editors Reject Submissions by Terri Bischoff

I'm delighted to have Terri Bischoff, acquisitions editor at Midnight Ink, as my guest today. These points don't apply only to "major submissions," but also to anything we send out that represents us as writers, including blog posts. Thanks, Terri, for letting me repost this - the original ran in August at Hey, There's a Dead Guy in the Living Room.  ~ Sheila Boneham

What makes me reject a submission?

I have been asked at conferences how many rejections I make per each book acquired. I have never actually done the math, but I would guess it’s probably somewhere around 200 rejections to one acquisition. Insane, right? As a writer, what can you do to make your manuscript stand out? What makes an automatic rejection? What makes me stop reading?

Let’s tackle the automatic rejection first. I only accept submissions electronically. When I open up the Word document, I am expecting proper formatting.

• The entire book is saved all as 1 file – a Word document is preferred.
• Font in Times New Roman or something similar, 12 pt font.
• All text is double spaced.
• Please eliminate extra line breaks, spaces, or returns. For example, only 1 space required after a period.
• Please denote intentional white space with a # symbol.
• Do not use the space bar to create the tab that begins each paragraph. Allow Word to do that for you.
• Page numbers are required; please include them in the footer or header.

I have received manuscripts in funky fonts, in 14pt font, single spaced, etc. If I have to do work to make your manuscript readable, well, I’m not going to read it. Also, I am sure you have noticed those green and red squiggly lines under words. Fix those. With the exception of dialect, if a manuscript is full of squiggly lines, it’s an automatic reject. I don’t have time to fix your manuscript, no matter how good it may be. Remember, at all times, this is a business and you need present a professional, polished manuscript.

What makes me stop reading?

This is a little bit harder to put my finger on because there are so many reasons. As a writer, you need to draw the reader in immediately. When I start reading a submission, I want to be compelled to find out what is going on. I read as long as it takes for me to get to no. It might half a page, it might be 250 pages, or it might be the whole manuscript. I need to hear your unique voice. I need you to show me what is happening and where the book takes place. Don’t tell me your protagonist is freaking out and driving fast. Show me how she nearly clips a pedestrian and that she takes the turns with squealing tires. Or show me her quirky, colorful personality. Or immerse me into the scenery so much so that I feel like I am in the oppressive heat of Minnesota when it is 100 degrees outside with 90% humidity and you start to sweat the minute you step out of your office building. You have exactly one page to engage your reader. I am absolutely sure that I have rejected some great books because I haven’t read long enough. If your story really takes off on page 35, you need to cut off those first 34 pages.

No passive voices! And make sure each of your characters has their own voice. By doing so, you not only solidify the character, but you can (and should) drop dialogue tags. Create a character bible, so you know all your characters inside and out. That will keep you from having them do something that is totally against their nature. Develop your antagonist. Why is your bad guy the bad guy? Does he have any redeeming qualities? People are a mix of good and bad so your characters should reflect that. It will help the reader identify with the characters. And at the end of the day, that is what you are looking for. You need the reader to have an emotional response to the characters and the situations they are in. I know I am reading a good manuscript when my heart beats a little faster and I bite my nails to the quick.

Another hint – know your audience and what type of book you are writing. If you are looking to hit the cozy market, you can’t graphically describe the murder scene. If you are writing suspense or a thriller, you need a fast pace and danger around every curve. The tone and the action need to match.

If you can do these things, you are on your way to an excellent submission. That does not guarantee that it will sell though. Every editor has his or her own style. I like my characters to be a little quirky. I want them flawed and interesting. A different editor may be looking for something else entirely. Write your best book. Join a critique group and revise. Polish that manuscript. Knowing you only have one shot at an editor, make sure it is as perfect as you can. Then take a deep breath and send your baby out into the world!

Terri Bischoff joined Midnight Ink as an Acquiring Editor in October 2009.   She leads all editorial directions and creates the seasonal lists.  She has dramatically increased the number of titles per season, publishing 30-36 titles per year, as well as expanded the type of crime fiction MI has published.   Terri has a wealth of experience and knowledge in both mysteries and in bookselling, having been involved for 17 years in all areas of bookstore operations, particularly as book buyer and reviewer.  She has worked at Kramer Books in Washington, DC, and more recently, Terri owned and operated Booked For Murder Mystery Bookstore in Madison, Wisconsin. 

Image, Text, and Dogs, Part 2

by Sheila Webster Boneham

Today's post is part 2 of two posts about how texts and images featuring dogs have been combined since human beings began to do such things. You can find Part 1 here. Thanks for being here - comments welcome!  ~ Sheila

Medieval and Renaissance artists often depicted saints in the company of faithful dogs. Saint Roch (Rocco) is a case in point. Legend holds that Saint Roch was born into a wealthy family in 1295 but gave away his earthly possessions twenty years later when both his parents died, and soon became known for miraculous cures. When he himself became ill with an unspecified “plague,” he was banished from human society. A dog, it is said, found him dying in the woods, licked his wounds, and brought him bread. The healer was healed. As the patron of dogs and of people who love or work with them, Saint Roch is often portrayed with a dog at his side or licking his wounds. Even today his image holds power and appears on medals given in many traditional “Blessing” ceremonies. Originally meant to secure safety for hunters, especially riders following hounds, such Blessings are now commonly held for pets of all kinds in religious and secular ceremonies around the world, and in my experience, dogs are far better represented at such events than are other animals.


Again, though, darker aspects of humanity are frequently embodied in images of dogs and in language. The unflinching loyalty that makes dogs “faithful” in human eyes also makes them appear to some as cringing cowards. For stray and feral dogs, survival often depends on scrounging for food in garbage dumps and other unsavory places, and malnourished, parasite-ridden dogs have been used to symbolize depravity, cowardice, thievery, and other negative human traits. Some Medieval and Renaissance artists were obvious in their use of the dog as a negative symbol. Titian, for one, is said to have included toy dogs in many paintings of female nudes to symbolize female seductiveness and infidelity, and Flemish artists often used dogs to denote treachery and persecution. In modern American culture, these negative associations are primarily linguistic; calling a person a dog, bitch, son of a bitch, cur, or pup is rarely well received. Images of dogs used to provoke negative responses seem to involve specific breeds rather than dogs as a species, and which breeds are held in negative public regard changes over time. 

From The Book of the Hunt by Gaston Phoebus. I love this
illustration - the images could be from a modern book on canine
care, or from someone's website or social media page!

As secular works emerged during the Middle Ages, and as Europe drifted toward the Renaissance, interest grew in understanding the natural world. Books on animals appeared, usually with an emphasis on husbandry and hunting. The fourteenth century Livre de chasse (Book of the Hunt) by Gaston III, also known as Gaston Phoebus, is perhaps the most famous and most lavish of medieval hunting books. The work, which is “organized in four parts and written in a clear narrative voice” (“Gaston Phoebus”), covers a range of topics, from training and handling hunting dogs to their selection and care to methods and equipment for hunting various types of game. According to the Phebus Historical Foundation, it was a book ahead of its time, “present[ing] an impressive knowledge of the natural sciences—long before the age of modern empirical science—with detailed observations on the various animal species” (“Gaston Phoebus”). Like its counterparts today, Gaston’s Livre de chasse is illustrated with exquisitely detailed miniatures, and it is easy to imagine the book’s select few readers scrutinizing the dogs in the pictures while their own dogs slept at their sides.


Invention of the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century spurred a publishing surge. Although religious texts dominated early press publications in Europe, by the following century tales of strange places and creatures brought home by explorers had captured the popular imagination, and “scientific” bestiaries and herbals became ever more popular. Woodcuts were used for illustrations in early printed works, but during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, technological advances gave rise to better methods of printing illustrations. Eighteenth-century printers developed copperplate etching and engraving methods that further improved the quality and detail of printed images. 

Illustration from Robinson Crusoe,
1893 Czech edition

As books became affordable and literacy in Western countries increased, secular fiction and nonfiction books became more popular. It seems natural that our best friend the dog should appear in many of them, whether in a minor or major role. In fact, illustrations sometimes elevate dogs to larger roles than they enjoy in the texts of certain books. In Robinson Crusoe (originally published in 1719), for instance, Daniel Defoe barely mentions his hero’s dog, but illustrated editions of the book often include the dog in at least one image (Britton). Other classics such as Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz feature dogs as prominent if not central characters, and show them in cover and internal illustrations. Novels with dogs as central characters, including such classics as Beautiful Joe (1893) by Margaret Marshall Saunders and the Sunnybrook Collie books (1919-1940s) by Albert Payson Terhune, first appeared in the nineteenth century, and judging by the sixteen thousand titles listed under “Fiction and literature: dogs” on amazon.com, the genre remains alive and well.

Nonfiction books about dogs, both narrative and informational, are also published by the hundreds each year, and most of them are generously illustrated. Although line drawings are still used, most illustrations these days are photographs selected not only for their ability to convey information (“here’s what a well-trimmed toenail looks like” or “here’s a portrait of Skippy”) but also for their emotional appeal. Readers like images that tug at their heartstrings. Even highly regarded narrative nonfiction books in which dogs are central, such as Mark Doty’s Dog Years, include at least a few photographs. 

~~~

And then, of course, there are books like these! Available from your local bookseller and online. Personally autographed copies available here. 

"Equal parts mystery and dog appreciation, with a dash of romance thrown in for good measure, this second case for Janet and her pals (Drop Dead on Recall, 2012) is accessible to fans of all three." ~ Kirkus Review

"The intricate plot [of Drop Dead on Recall] has plenty of surprises, red herrings, and interesting details about animals. Fans of Laurien Berenson or Susan Conant will especially enjoy this pet-centered mystery." — Amy Alessio for Booklist.

Rescue Matters! How to Find, Foster, and Rehome Companion Animals "...should be in the library of any serious animal lover and any library catering to them."  — Midwest Book Review

Five Facts about Sherlock Holmes, and a few about my cat by Sandra de Helen

by Sandra de Helen

My cat Stanton, a Maine Coon known as the gentle giant of the feline world, is my muse. I've lived with him since his birth nearly eight years ago, and in that time he has encouraged and supported me by sharing his fur, alerting me to spiders and bugs he wants me to put outdoors, always welcoming me home from my travels, and sleeping on my lap once I put the computer away.

He also helps out by writing his own blog (though only when the spirit moves him, he's a muse, not an author). It's called Stanton Advises Writers, and boy does he. He can be a bit snarky when it comes to correcting mistakes and laying out his pet peeves. I think it helps him to de-stress. As a side benefit for me, his writing makes me laugh.

As my published books are descended from A. Conan Doyle's works about Sherlock Holmes, my muse suggested I write something about Sherlock today. Not everyone who reads my books is a huge fan of the great man, although many are, and can probably skip ahead to the pictures and links at the bottom of the page. Or, stick around to see how many mistakes I make, and then tell me about them in comments. I do hope you'll comment, one way or the other!

FIVE FACTS ABOUT SHERLOCK

The character of Sherlock Holmes was based on a former professor of Doyle's. In fact Doyle dedicated The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes to Dr. Joseph Bell, who then wrote to Doyle "...you are yourself Sherlock Holmes, and well you know it."

Sherlock Holmes's greatest nemesis was Professor Moriarty. Moriarty didn't appear in the oeuvre until The Final Problem in which both Holmes and Moriarty die.

Doyle's fans would not let him rest. They wanted more Holmes! So Doyle brought Holmes back to life, explaining his death as a neat trick. Moriarty didn't return from the dead, but he makes another appearance in The Valley of Fear which is written as a prequel to the other story.

Sherlock Holmes was the original CSI. Because of his methods, real methods began to appear: keeping the crime scene clear during investigation, stopping so many bad habits (eating, drinking, tromping around), analyzing blood, foot prints, and so on. Remember, Doyle wrote these stories beginning in 1891.

The phrase "Elementary, dear Watson" was never used in the printed works.

ABOUT SHIRLEY COMBS

Shirley first got the idea to be a detective because of being teased by her schoolmates about her name. They called her Sherlock, and she developed his methods for investigation at an early. She didn't become a private investigator until much later, but it was always in the back of her mind. When she and Dr. Mary Watson met at a self-help forum, her fate was sealed.

Shirley doesn't have pets. She conducts experiments in her home laboratory, and wouldn't want any pets hurt. She shows her feelings for one animal in particular in The Hounding when she "rescues" a baby chimp from the Portland Zoo.

Dr. Mary Watson, however, is a cat lover. She has only one, Martha Kitty. Mary takes excellent care of Martha, and spends a lot of time with her.

The other animals in The Hounding are trained attack dogs and another dog owned by one of the suspects. No animals are injured or killed in my books. The attack dogs are used to frighten, and they come to no harm.

Although the friendship between Shirley and Mary will continue to grow and change, each of the books stands alone. You do not need to read The Hounding prior to The Illustrious Client.

Both books have free excerpts on Goodreads and Amazon. Both are available in paperback and ebook. The Hounding is also available as an audiobook, and the audiobook is in progress for The Illustrious Client.

Sandra de Helen lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. de Helen is a member of the Golden Crown Literary Society, Sisters in Crime, and Dramatists Guild. 

Follow her on Twitter @dehelen 

Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/drmarywatson.

Website: http://SandradeHelen.com

Blog: http://Redcrested.com

The Hounding: http://amzn.to/1jFW42X

The Illustrious Client: http://amzn.to/1hKb6AH