Where Plot Ideas Come From: Tracks in the Snow

Turkey track, solo ... or so you might think

Two clusters of turkey tracks crossing the stream: Look closely.

Mourning dove, "pigeon toed."

It's cold here this weekend -- bursts of snow keep arriving, and it was nine degrees when I went outside. Although the chickadees call (their two-note mating call) in early morning, the woods go nearly silent later in the day, as we all hold our warmth close, self-protection in what can still be wild winter on the ridge. Tonight's forecast threatens subzero temperatures, not unusual for mid March, although it won't last. The trees are signaling buds and more.

Silent though the woods can be, the larger birds are on the move. With the snowcover down to a fragile couple of inches, seeds are everywhere for them with just a quick scratch. How different they are from one breed to another, though. See the solo turkey track in the first photo? It could fool you if you don't follow further -- the second photo, taken not far from the first, reveals that a family of at least half a dozen turkeys passed along here, crossing the stream around the same point.

The third photo means a lot to me as I work slowly to bind all the plot threads together in my "Nancy Drew-style" mystery, ALL THAT GLITTERS. I'm in the last few chapters and it has to go "right" in order to build to the climax I want. There are homing pigeons involved in the plot -- and the tracks in photo 3 are of mourning doves, the wilder sort of pigeon here on the high ridge. I hear their plaintive calls all morning. See how the footprints angle back to each other, always crossing, as the round-bodied bird appears to waddle along? That's where we get the expression "pigeon-toed" -- to walk with one's toes pointed inward, so the right and left feet appear to leave crisscross trails.

The cold air, the photo, the reflection on pigeons, and then, breakfast with strangers at Polly's Pancakes in Sugar Hill, NH, where you often share a table as the staff packs everyone in -- that's what it took to move me to the next component of ALL THAT GLITTERS. Suddenly, I know what's coming next.

PS - You can read the chapters as they are written, at WattPad: http://www.wattpad.com/3668250-all-that-glitters-chapter-1-all-that-glitters-by.

"Snow Day": Perfect for Writing!

Last night's steady "flurries" gave us about four inches of snow by morning, and long before I got out in it, the deer had tracked all around the front and back yards, "pruning" the apple trees again. Darn! Well, I'll put up more fencing on Monday, after the weekend rain clears the ground.

Meanwhile, it was a perfect Snow Day. After routine morning chores (getting the papers for my husband, for example) and a happy-booted walk up on the ridge, I reached the desk, happy to escape to the three writing projects underway. Three!! Well, part of this past few weeks of silence has been spent in research and thinking, and I knew where each one was meant to go.

And now it's suppertime, but I've had a perfect writing session. PUNCH, the sequel to The Secret Room, is well underway, with chapter 1 expanded and ramped up to the tension that I wanted in it: http://www.wattpad.com/8080389-punch-a-vermont-mystery. (If you live in northern New England, you'll recognize the friction that "four wheelers" evoke in the community, as Shawna and Thea face the first day of school -- under circumstances that distress them both.)

Second, the new book CHARLIE'S PLACE is off to a great start -- again, chapter 1, but this chapter reflects a 3-hour planning session with co-author Sue Tester, as well as 10 days of wrestling for the perfect words and images. I can't share that one yet, but I'm very, very excited about it.

Third is the new chapter -- chapter 28! -- of ALL THAT GLITTERS, a chapter that's confusing and stressful and part of the turning point of the book, as it's going to explode in two kinds of risky behavior within the next two chapters. Teen sleuth Felicity "Lucky" Franklin is in deeper than she knows ... thank goodness Michelle and Sandy are there with her. And a few other friends, too. Click here to start reading.

What's left for the day? Book reviews, of course! Watch the Kingdom Books review site this evening. I've got a lot to talk about -- and hope you'll join some of the conversations that these trigger.

PS -- EVENT COMING UP for COLD MIDNIGHT: Sat. Dec. 8, 10 a.m., at the Davies Memorial Library in Waterford, Vermont, I'll be talking about the Northeast Kingdom in 1921 and sharing photos and research that lie behind the unsolved "real" murder in the novel. Hope you can join us. If you can't, you can still order a signed copy at www.BethKanell.com (or pick up the book or e-books at local Vermont shops or online).

Values and Writing: What's Your Stand?

Around 2003, when I began writing THE DARKNESS UNDER THE WATER, I was well aware that outrage was one of the emotions driving me. I love Vermont so much that it's sometimes an ache inside me -- and reading (and copyediting) the nonfiction book Breeding Better Vermonters shocked me: People were verbally tormented, physically operated on (with the same motives as Hitler's), and made to suffer for generations, right here in my home state. Somebody needed to tell the story. And my way of "getting into" a story has often been through fiction. So, I decided to write a book from the point of view of a Vermont teen in 1930, coming to realize both the risk and the value of her Abenaki heritage.

With THE SECRET ROOM, I wrestled with some other areas where I thought things could be made more fair: in the way the history of the Underground Railroad is reported in northern New England, and in the important area of girls and math, an area dear to me because I've always been "good" in math and science, and in fact took a college degree in chemistry (there were two of us "girls" among the eight chemistry majors in our senior year at Michigan State University in 1969).

Now it's almost time for COLD MIDNIGHT to be published (the eBook is already available; the printed book comes out November 3). And again, I've pinned to a part of history (underneath the murder-mystery plot) that involves two issues that matter to me: the injustice of America's first federal legislation that discriminated against an ethnic group -- the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 -- and the class structure that can make things rough for kids from working-class families.

My own family, when I was growing up, lived in a house about three-fourths down the slope of the mountain that defined social status in Montclair, New Jersey. My dad moved into management during those years, but for a manufacturing firm where he still dealt with blueprints and machines. Neither of my parents knew much about four-year colleges, and I was the first in the family to complete a bachelor's degree. Saturdays were for yard work and housecleaning, not for "cultural enrichment," although sometimes Saturday afternoons could include a visit with our family friends the Buffingtons, where the dad was a teacher and the mom, like mine, mostly stayed at home until the kids were in high school.

In the past few years, I've come to understand something else about my family that probably helped create the way that I approach writing a novel: My grandfather Ernest, born a Jew in Germany in 1898, told me when I was about 12 years old that the most important value in the world is "Tolerance." He spoke from his observation of World War II, the concentration camps, survival of families, and much more. And on my mom's side of the family, the Quaker stance of my mother's mother's family was my mom's great source of pride, because she knew it involved taking a stand for justice when injustice flourished. Here are scans from a letter that my grandfather sent home to his two small sons, as he traveled in Egypt in the 1930s, probably on business:

What are your values? How do they affect what you write, what you read, who you share books with? Share a few sentences here; I'm interested.

COLD MIDNIGHT: Early Bird Access to the eBook

Amazon and my fabulous publisher, Raphel Publishing, just made it possible for readers in a rush to download the eBook of COLD MIDNIGHT, a month before the printed book will release (Nov. 3). Got your Kindle, iPad, or other reading device warmed up and ready? Let me know what you think of the book! Here's the link for COLD MIDNIGHT in e-form. Have fun!

PS -- for a look at some wonderful old St Johnsbury, Vermont, postcards, and other images that relate to the mystery, check the Pinterest site.