by Anne Glynn
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It's party time!

7/20/2016

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Or it would be, anyway, if one of our beta readers hadn’t found some issues with The Fourth Brother that require some additional writing. How much “additional writing” we’ve yet to discover, but there are enough changes that it will delay the novella’s publication for a bit. I feel grumpy.
 
As the blog posts this morning, Glynn and I are both writing on different sections of the story. Once we're done, we'll switch pages and discuss, then, at some point, we'll be editing the new stuff, then we’ll have to send the new version to still another reader…and I don’t know about you, but I feel tired already. Things never go quickly, do they? Just when I thought we were out, this particular beta reader pulled us back in.
 
It was good thing she did, I realize that, and it was a brave thing she did, since some authors are unreasonably touchy about their work. (I’ve heard horror stories.) I’m grateful. Still, I was hoping to see this story come out before July faded away. Now I worry that the deadline might not be reached in time. And I’m so eager to start The Third Brother!
 
We’ve already started plotting the sequel, you see, and things are falling into place so nicely. My brain is scratching at me, itching to start the new tale. The Urban Dictionary defines “brain itch” as having part of a song stuck in your head. For me, it’s having part of a story stuck in my head. It has to come out!
 
If you’re wondering, the adorable young lady in the photo is one of our recent visitors. She was absolutely ready for the party we threw last week, thank you very much, even if she didn’t quite understand what everyone was celebrating. Or why. And speaking of last week….
 
It's been a gloriously wonderful, wearisome, eventful, tiresome, joyful series of days. Glynn and I were able to hug and kiss people we hadn’t seen in years. We traveled great distances, there was birthday party, we met a new family member, we ate sinfully, and there were just enough babies to go around. Barely.
 
But now we have to roll up our sleeves – well, Glynn does, I wouldn’t wear sleeves I have to roll up – and get back to work. I doubt I’ll be posting anything here next week but I have great hopes you’ll see me the week after, talking about the upcoming 4th Bro’ release. If that happens, when that happens, I’ll be ready to party.


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Ghost writer, part two.

7/14/2016

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Last week, I wrote about my search for the story behind the 1870-something murder of a bordello employee. If you must know, she was a more than the door greeter. She was a working girl but I try not to judge. It was the old West with more men than women, there was a definite demand for her talents, and not everyone had the desire or the skills to pick up a more traditional line of work. I’d found part of her tale in a section of a newspaper clipping but I wanted to learn the rest. I hoped to do so in a fun and entertaining fashion. This weekend, I joined my sweetie on a historical tour of the nearly-a-ghost town where the murder happened.
 
This was the kind of tour where the operators promised to share the gossipy bits of a town’s past. Death, murder and rich vs poor were definitely topics on the agenda. (*spoiler* Rich wins. It wasn’t the first time.) So, despite the heat wave lingering over us, Glynn and I made the sixty-mile trek to the charming and picturesque former mining town where so much of Arizona’s history had occurred once upon a time.
 
When we arrived at the site and, almost magically, found a parking spot – the tourists were out in waves, cars were circling in droves – I thought it was a sign that things were going to work out. I was being overly optimistic. As Glynn said later, finding the parking spot was the highlight of the day. I wish I’d taken a picture of it.
 
If you’re wondering why I’m not mentioning the name of the town or the title of the tour, it’s because the people we met there were so lovely. Regardless of how things turned out, the tour operator tried his best to keep us happy, the tour guide tried his hardest to show us a good time. We liked them. I’m not going to rat them out.
 
(I love that phrase, “rat them out”, it’s so Jimmy Cagney-ish. To rat on somebody goes back to the Prohibition era, so Cagney fits.  If the term had arrived a few decades earlier, I’d want to use it in one of our mail order bride stories.  “I wouldn’t rat on you, Quincy,” the pockmarked man sniveled. “Not me. It must have been Malone” and, sure, I know how cheesy that sounds. It’s fun cheesy, if you ask me.
 
Still, I digress.)
 
Arriving at the tour office, we were told there would be five people on the tour. There was the two of us, happily accepting a couple of bottles of ice water, and a family of three. We’ll call that family, Fred, Ethel and Daughter. With the tour van trapped in one of the town’s parking lots, Fred and his missus went to the touristy bar next door and cooled themselves off with something that wasn’t iced water. Meanwhile, Daughter decided she’d rather do anything else than learn about the mysteries of this town’s past.  
 
At the time, I thought Daughter was making a mistake. In hindsight, wherever she went for those 2.5 hours, I wish I’d gone there, too.
 
Meanwhile, the outside temperature kept rising. Taking a long look at the foursome that was accompanying him, our guide/driver decided this was a good day to abandon the walking portion of the tour and keep everyone in the van for the entire trip. Once the vehicle was freed from the parking lot, that’s exactly what happened. We climbed into the white Ford whatever-it-was and there we stayed.
 
The first thing the guide did was turn on the air conditioning. Because the van had been left in a parking lot, the air came out was fairly warm but that was okay. Sometimes it takes a little while for the coolant to kick in. And off we went, up into the mountains to…an unimpressive dirt lot where, if we looked through a chain-link fence, we could see some deserted-looking offices.
 
“Our story starts here,” the guide said, if my faulty memory serves, and he started talking about mines and mining and the growth of the town and –
 
I was a little distracted. The warm air stayed warm, blowing from the vents over our heads. Through the corner of one eye, I saw Fred in the seat behind me, trying to adjust his air controls. Whatever he did only made the vent blow harder. Not cooler, from what I could tell, but with significantly more force. While he struggled to return the mini-tornado back to its original setting, I sucked down what little water remained in my water bottle. Ethel was silent. As far as I could tell, she wasn’t moving at all. It was as if she’d climbed into the van and passed out from heat stroke.
 
Already starting to sweat as he talked, the guide turned toward us. Opening a big portfolio of photos, he showed us some ancient pictures of the town that used to be; the mine that used to be; the streets that used to be. At least, that’s what I think the photos showed. Most of them were so blurry, it was hard to tell.
 
Our guide acted as if these were the greatest pictures ever. Bright-eyed and apparently fascinated by the topic presented, Glynn asked some questions about mining life. I tried to adopt his attitude, asking different questions about the gold/silver/copper industry. I wanted to care, couldn’t quite manage it, but I tried.
 
Fred and Ethel didn’t share my false enthusiasm. Unmoving, they perched in the back seat like a pair of gargoyles in Hawaiian shirts.
 
Done with the parking lot, the guide raced the van into town. Despite the heat of the day, the sidewalks were packed and the streets were busy. (The people outside were crazy. I’d have been in a restaurant.) The passing traffic didn’t matter to our guide. Double-parking everywhere he went, the van inched along foot by foot as he narrated the history of every darn building we passed.
 
Crawl two feet. Stop, give a lecture. Crawl two feet. Stop, give a lecture. Not every location had a worthwhile story but, by gum, our guide was going to give us one, anyway. Photos flipped up, photos flipped down. Rivulets of water ran down every wrinkle in our determined guide’s face.
  
At long last, the van zipped out of town again and we all staggered into the terrible heat to look down a circular hole that supposedly extended into the earth. Maybe it was a mining shaft, or a water hole, I don’t remember; my mind no longer cared. This mysterious something was supposed to have been hundreds of feet deep, and maybe it was. Since the light illuminating the thing had gone out, it just looked like a black hole.
 
Edging up to me, Glynn whispered, “How are you doing?” Over to one side, I saw Ethel whispering to Fred. In the meantime, our guide kept chatting about the hole.
 
“I’m okay,” I said. It wasn’t true.
 
“Are you about done with this?” Glynn asked.
 
“I was two hours ago,” I whispered back. “I’m so done. I want to go home.”
 
“Another reason I love you,” Glynn said but, ever polite, we returned to the van and, being miles from our car and not wanting to interrupt whatever pleasure Fred and Ethel were getting out  of this early preview of Hell, we went to our next stop without complaint. The warm air kept blowing, the pictures kept turning, the misery kept building, and not once did our gregarious guide think of mentioning an 1870s working girl struck down in her prime.
 
Finally, finally, we returned to the town and a few familiar streets. The van was rolling past the day’s highlight – our parking space – when Fred interrupted our guide. “When you come to a stop, let us off, would you?”
 
“You’re serious?” Even with sweat coating his entire head, the driver seemed surprised. “I thought I’d take you guys –”
 
“We think we saw our daughter,” Ethel said. “Right here would be good.”
 
“Please,” Fred said, in a voice that sounded a little strangled.
 
“We’re getting off, too,” Glynn cheerfully said. I wanted to kiss him.
 
Double-parking the van, the guide opened our doors. Everyone told him what a great job he did, tips are offered all around, and the four of us bounded for freedom. Striding away from us, Fred and Ethel never looked back. If they’d seen their daughter, they’d decided against joining her because they went down the street as quickly as they could, disappearing from sight within seconds.
 
For me, the entire experience was quite educational. I now know the price of copper in 1878, and how 19th century market fluctuations helped build an Arizona mountain town. I guess I’ll never learn the history of What’s-Her-Name or the details behind her brutal demise, but I also know this: Functioning air-conditioning is priceless.
 
Trust me.

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Ghost writer.

7/6/2016

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​With our latest story trundling toward the finish line and with a little free time beckoning, Glynn and I did what many writers do when they have nothing urgent on the “To Do List”: we went off looking for another story to write, even though we have a new novella and another couple of novels already in the hopper.
 
Glynn wanted to write a short something based on this old photo, just because it's so cute. It was hard to tell him no, but I had a different project in mind.
 
This time, I was looking for a specific real life story. Quite a while ago, we went to an almost-ghost town (if the last dozen people had abandoned the place, the site would have qualified), where I’d stumbled over an 1870-something news clipping about a murdered prostitute. Plasticized, mounted on a board, far from complete, the news article intrigued me. I thought I’d enjoy doing a fictional take on the incident while trying to keep it as historically-accurate as possible. All I needed first was a little more information. The rest of the article would have been a good start.
 
There was only one problem. My memory is and always has been fleeting. When dealing with historical events, I often forget details and this poor victim had a name that would NOT stick in my memory. Some names are like that for me. (I’ve told Glynn he’s lucky he has an unusual name or I’d just call him Hey-You.) In this instance, with the article in front of me, I fretted. I didn’t have my notepad with me, Glynn had left his at home, and neither of us had a working pen or pencil.
 
As soon as we returned home, I vowed, I would write the name down so that I wouldn’t forget it. A few hours later, after having wandered through two dozen other sites, many of which featured ancient news clippings or antique photos or both, we went home.  Even as I scribbled the name on my notebook, I wondered if I’d gotten it exactly right. I turned on the computer. Found nothing under the name. Tried a variation of the name. Then another.
 
Still nothing.
 
Cursing my uncertain memory, I tried to recall which location had posted the original newspaper piece. It was one of three or four or six places, I was certain. Over the next few days, I continued my computer hunt using various search terms and different versions of the name I thought I knew. I found a few articles about poor murdered prostitutes from the 19th century, but not the one I’d seen before. It was very frustrating.
 
Forced to give up this particular quest, I promised myself that I’d return to the ghost town one day with my note pad in hand. And then I directed my energies toward our other stories and projects.
 
But for a woman who always forgets, I somehow remembered my interest in this story even as time went on. Every now and then, I’d try a little Google-Fu, fail to get any further, and set the challenge aside for another day. Then, many weeks later, I received an email from Travelzoo. The Travelzoologists offered me discount tickets on a history tour through the very same almost-ghost town. The sales pitch promised that the tour guides would talk about the rich and ruthless men that founded the town and the bordellos and the women who worked in them. We’d learn about the dark side of this little town, including some rich and fascinating tales of murder.
 
Bordellos?, I thought. Murder? This struck me as practically an email guarantee that we’d hear the juicy account of exactly what had happened to What’s-Her-Name from the 1870’s. I told Glynn we had to go and we had to bring our notebooks. I was about to find us our next novel.
 
With three novels already in the backlog, he wasn’t nearly as excited as I was. He grew a little more intrigued when I mentioned that Travelzoo was offering 40% off the tour’s regular price and all the ice water we could drink. The man can’t resist a bargain.
 
I made our reservations but, on the scheduled date, a storm front blew into the ghost town and we had to set a different date. A couple of months later, two days before our planned tour, we had a family emergency and couldn’t go. Again, I rescheduled. This week, unfortunately, a heat wave has taken residence, baking this corner of the world. Temperatures are 100+ and it’s so hot that even hairless little Poison refuses to venture outside after 7:00 AM. She’d prefer to enjoy a cool room and a soft sofa.
 
When Glynn suggested canceling the trip again, I told him we couldn’t, not with visitors about to descend in quantity (and quality) for weeks to come. I said this is going to be the weekend we find my poor little ghost and learn the truth about her passing. No matter what.
 
When he checked the predicted temperatures, his eyes grew large but he didn’t say another word about it. At least, not loudly enough that I could hear. He may have muttered something under his breath but I chose not to acknowledge it.
 
That’s the secret behind a long-term relationship, if you ask me. Pretend not to hear the mutters.
 
I think we’re going to have fun. Stop by next week and I’ll tell you what happened, and if this mystery was solved.

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July 04th, 2016

7/4/2016

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    Welcome!

    At the back of my paperbacks and e-books, you'll find this:
     
    A collector of vintage Barbies and younger boyfriends, Anne Glynn currently resides in the American Southwest.
     
    The truth is a little more complicated. I'm Anne and my S.W.P. (Significant Writing Partner) is Glynn. Together, we write as 'Anne Glynn'.
     
    However, I am a collector of vintage Barbies and I have, on occasion, collected the younger boyfriend. Not so much these days.
     
    I'm glad you're here.
     

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