I would like to welcome Elizabeth Crowens back to the blog for #ThisorThatThursday.
Favorite thing to do when you have free time: Watch movies or catch up on streaming series and read books completely unconnected to the research I’m doing on my current work in progress. I call the latter—mindless entertainment—I don’t have to think about accomplishing anything. I can just relax and enjoy myself.
The thing you’ll always move to the bottom of your to do list: Taxes and anything to do with health insurance. The U.S. really needs to transition over to socialized medicine like the UK, all the Western European countries, Canada, and Japan. I have strong opinions about this.
Things you need when you’re in your writing cave: Peace and quiet. No distractions…and a handy cup of coffee. That’s why I work in the middle of the night. This morning, I woke with a headache, in part from sinuses and in part from construction outside. That’s the problem with living in New York City. There’s always street noise.
Things that distract you from writing: Street noise—see above. A dog going berserk, because its owners left him alone for two long. Stupid and unnecessary pings on my phone from political candidates I’ve never heard of and don’t care about. (Please tell me the trick to get my name off those voter’s registration records, so they’d leave me alone.) Robo calls of any sort, especially redundant reminders about upcoming doctor’s appointments I don’t want to go to.
Favorite snacks: Dried fruit (healthier than candy if you need something sweet), Haagen-Dazs or Van Leeuwen ice cream (I’m picky. It’s got to be the good stuff. Unfortunately, it’s expensive!) Extra crunchy Cheetos. Chocolate-covered raisins. Almond Joys.
Things that make you want to gag: Casu martzu! It’s a rare Italian cheese filled with live maggots! Yes, you heard me right. Google it. The first time I ever watched the TV show, “Bizarre Foods” with Andrew Zimmerman, he wanted to try this delicacy. I thought I was going to vomit.
Something you wanted to be when you were a kid: Go skiing. My parents were never in to it. I’d get jealous of kids who’d go on family vacations and would get lessons.
Something you do that you never dreamed you’d do: Kiss the Blarney Stone in Ireland! LOL. It was such a treacherous climb, if you made it to the top, you might as well go all the way.
Something you wish you could do: Knit and crochet. I almost considered buying a knitting machine once since I was so inept doing it the old-fashioned way. It amazes me watching people at writers conventions who sit in the audience and knit or crochet while listening to the panelists.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: That’s something I can write a book about, so I’ll keep it a secret.
Things to say to an author: I just read your book. I loved it and gave it a five-star review!
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: Did you use AI to create that? (When you clearly didn’t!)
Most daring thing you’ve ever done: Years ago, my sister and I stole my brother’s car, and I drove his huge monster truck—something I wasn’t used to driving at all. Now, I can’t even remember what that emergency was, but obviously it was really important. She knew where he kept a spare set of keys, not only for the ignition and to open the car but also for his steering wheel lock. If I recall correctly, he was out with Mom somewhere, and they were using her car. My sister’s car was at the mechanic’s for repair. I flew in from out of town and didn’t have a rental, so I was dependent on my sister or Mom to drive me around for the three days I was there. Somehow, an emergency came up, and we needed to find Mom right away, but my brother was just the sort who would call the police and have us arrested.
Something you chickened out from doing: Jumping off a high diving board at a public pool. I held up the line, climbed back down the ladder, and the lifeguard warned me that if I do that again he’d kick me out.
The funniest thing to happen to you: I’m going to rephase this slightly and make it the funniest thing I did to my dad. My mom was always an emotional person. My dad was always more even keeled. But I gave my dad a jaw-dropping moment when I invited identical twins over for a sleep over and told him only one person was coming over. I much rather had played the practical joke on my mom, because her reaction would’ve been much more dramatic. However, I told my friends to wear identical pajamas.
My parents went out with friends when the twins’ parents dropped them off. When my folks came home, I orchestrated the two girls switching each other out. One would stay upstairs while the other remained in the living room. My parents kept doing whatever they needed to do but remained on the first floor or went down to the basement. Besides the upstairs hallway, our second floor only had a half-bathroom, and two bedrooms—mine and my brother’s. He was out of town at the time. The twin-in-hiding would stay in my room.
Finally, my dad said he was going to take a shower in the downstairs bathroom. I orchestrated it so when he got out of the shower and passed the living room, he’d see two girls sitting there instead of one. When that happened, I had never seen him so surprised in his life.
The most embarrassing thing to happen to you: Another kid story: I was about 13 and part of a community center theatrical group who performed at hospices and nursing homes. I borrowed a skirt with an elasticized waist that was too big for me, so I cinched it in with a giant safety pin. Unfortunately, the pin came undone during a dance number and fell on the floor. Next thing you know, the skirt was hugging my ankles, and I stood there, in horror, with my panties showing under my sheer pantyhose. I picked up the pin, ran through a strange hospital where I didn’t know my way around, searching desperately for a ladies bathroom to fix it. When I returned, I received a round of applause, and everyone shouted, “Encore! Encore!”
The most exciting thing about your writing life: Having a New York Times bestseller agree to write a blurb for my novel. It really lends to your credibility, especially if you’re at a book fair and someone mentions out loud if so-and-so recommended the book, it must be worthwhile. (And then they whip out a $20 and hand it to you!)
The one thing you wish you could do over in your writing life: The very first book I had published was speculative fiction, which means science fiction-fantasy-horror or, in my case, paranormal instead of horror, or SFFH. For that novel, I picked the wrong publisher, but I was new to writing and especially the business end of the industry. Previously, out of the many jobs I had when I was younger, I had only worked in a used bookstore and not a new one. For the most part, new bookstores will only acquire books that are returnable to the publisher if unsold, and I had never heard of this. My publisher was from the UK. Because it was cost-prohibitive, they didn’t have a “returns” policy through Ingram (the printer) and bookstores in the U.S. Therefore, almost no bookstores would stock their books. Every so often, I’d find an indie bookstore who would take my books on consignment, but it was a hassle. Often, they returned the unsold books immediately after an in-store event. It was a lot of work for little profit.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but since this was my first novel, and it was with a foreign publisher who did virtually no distribution in the States beyond Amazon, it screwed up my chances for being nominated for Best First Novel at science fiction and fantasy conventions. Then, years later when I switched to writing in the mystery genre, except for Malice Domestic, it ruined my chances of being eligible for being nominated for Best First Mystery novel, because it wasn’t my first novel, even though it was in another genre. I had no idea that by making a bad choice with the wrong publisher, that I would get shortchanged both coming and going. Also, the publication of that SFFH novel eliminated my eligibility to apply to certain grants and writing competitions, because those organizations no longer defined me as an unpublished novelist. Meh!
Recommendations for curing writer’s block: Take a bath or a shower. It’s surprising that once you are completely relaxed, your intuition kicks in and either reminds you to do something or comes up with a solution to your problem.
Things you do to avoid writing: Spend too much time on social media to see how people are responding to my posts. Usually, that cuts into my reading/research time vs writing, since I write in the middle of the night. To avoid writing, I’ll make up an excuse that I’ve had a stressful day or I don’t feel well. Then I’ll turn off my alarm or snooze button and go back to sleep. Shame on me!
