The Road to Publication con't. . . .

by Kit Ehrman

During my “Road to Publication” post on January 27th, I mentioned that I’d provide some specific pointers and ask some hard questions for those looking to get published.

What follows is a list I compiled and saved in an email draft because I receive so many queries from writers who want advice on how they can break in. One question (complaint, really) that I hear time and again is: “How can an agent or editor make a decision about my work based solely on a one-page query letter? They won’t know how well I can write unless they read the whole manuscript?”

Believe me; I understand this sentiment and sympathize with the writer’s frustration, but once you look at the other side of the equation—what it’s like to be the gatekeeper—you can see the validity of the “query only” limitation that is often part of the submission process.

A query letter serves the purpose of letting the agent or agent’s reader know if the project is something they’re interested in pursuing; therefore, it has to be extremely well written.

Editors and agents are swamped with submissions so, imagine if you will, the office receiving 200+ manuscripts a week instead of 200+ query letters. Query letters are a necessary evil of the publishing business because the competition is so fierce.

There are many things every writer can and should do to improve her odds. Ask yourself:

Editing
• Have you edited the manuscript many, many times?
• Have you studied the rules of grammar? (You need to understand them before you can break them for effect.)
• Have you learned the industry’s conventions such as proper manuscript format?
• Has your manuscript been through an objective critique group?
• Have you hired a professional freelance editor to give you input? (Get references if you go this route.)
• Have you had a lot of readers, who are familiar with the genre you’re writing in, read the manuscript and give you feedback?
• Is the manuscript as perfect as you can possibly make it?



The Query Letter
• Have you attempted to get writing credits to include in your query letter by entering contests or publishing short stories in genre-specific magazines?
• Have you studied what should go in a query letter?
• Have you polished your query letter ruthlessly?
• Have you shared different versions of your query letter with your critique group to see which one is most effective?
• Have you studied books on querying agents? (The Sell Your Novel Toolkit by Lyons is a good one. So is a book by Kathryn Sands about making the perfect pitch.)



Selecting An Agent
• Have you researched possible agents carefully?
• Do you know how to select the right agent for you?
• Have you looked through the acknowledgements pages of books similar to yours so you can determine agents who like the kind of thing your write? Oftentimes, an author will thank his or her agent in the acknowledgements.
• Have you gone to writing conferences where you can verbally pitch your book to agents?
• Check out a website called Predators and Editors that lists agents to avoid.

Acting Professional
• Have you joined the organizations relevant to the genre you’re writing in so you can become familiar with the publishing industry?
• Have you attended conferences in order to network with other writers, authors, and industry professionals?

I highly recommend that you go to Miss Snark’s website. She’s a New York literary agent. This site is no longer active, but there’s a wealth of information here. Beginning with this link, you can see how she evaluates the hook in a query. What gets her interest, etc. This is very insightful for seeing what works and what doesn’t. Here’s the link where the hook evaluation begins: http://misssnark.blogspot.com/2006_12_10_archive.html. Also, search this website because you’ll find a lot of useful information about the industry in general.

It takes talent, luck, and perseverance to get published. The best way to deal with the query process is to start on the next book while you’re doing it so you don’t become obsessed or depressed by the process. And you’ll be glad you have another book that’s partly done when you do get published, because once you are, you’ll have to promote the first book while you’re writing the second.

Good luck!
Kit Ehrman
www.kitehrman.com

Road to Publication . . .

by Kit Ehrman

Nothing in my past would ever have hinted at my becoming a published author. Nothing . . .

I didn’t particularly like writing. I still remember a supposedly “spooky-scary” story that I wrote for a ninth grade creative writing class. It had a decent opening—heavy fog moving in off the ocean and a feeling of doom—and, well, that’s as far as I got. My teacher scrawled “Where’s the ending?” on the top of the page. A technical writing class in college further confirmed that writing was not fun and not for me.

When I think about it, I wasn’t even a voracious reader, but I did become a fan of mysteries, and I’m sure that’s where every writer’s journey begins. Somehow, I skipped over Nancy Drew, the Hardy boys, and Agatha Christie. My introduction to mystery came with the incomparable Sherlock Holmes followed by an obscure collection of George Bagby mysteries that I devoured, and finally my discovery of Dick Francis in 1977. Though I had no inkling of the momentous nature of this event—finding my first Francis, a Reader’s Digest edition of IN THE FRAME—I was taking my first step toward becoming an author.

After reading IN THE FRAME, I read every Francis published at the time, quit the government job I was working, and went to work on a horse farm. That job was followed by stints at the track, delivering foals on breeding farms, returning to college to become a vet assistant, and more horse jobs.

Flash forward twenty-some years. I was a stay-at-home mom with three boys, ages three, four, and five. I had two horses of my own and some borders in the barn. Reading was a pleasant release from my daily routine, and of course, I gravitated to mysteries.

On July 22, 1996, I was nearing the end of a mystery, and I was disappointed with the decisions the author made in letting her protagonist do something that I thought was so stupid in an obvious effort to push the story into an exciting climax. I decided I could do better.

So, why did I think I could do it? This sounds kind of weird, but when I would read, especially a Francis novel, I’d wake up with his voice running in my head. I know. Weird, right? But I had full confidence in myself, and when I began writing, I couldn’t turn it off. I was so thrilled. Those early months of discovering a story were the best I’ve ever had in this business. I was infatuated. Enthralled. I was God of the world I was creating, and I was having so much fun.

I completed the initial draft of AT RISK in three months. As usual, I threw myself into the project and studied tons of books on writing . . . took classes . . . joined a critique group. Because I was exploring the process and essentially teaching myself to write, the early draft was way too cumbersome. I spent the next two years tightening and revising AT RISK (I’d estimate the manuscript went through twenty complete revisions) before I decided to market it. Even so, I began marketing before the manuscript was ready, but when it was ready, it was picked up by Poisoned Pen Press, the second largest publisher of mysteries in the country. And it went on to be extremely well reviewed, including a review in The New York Times. Visit my AT RISK website page.



Like Laura said, getting published depends on both luck and perseverance . . . and skill. If I hadn’t kept revising and improving the manuscript, if I hadn’t been afraid to make changes and put substantial time and effort into the project, the manuscript never would have been picked up. Luck comes into play in finding a receptive reader, because writing and voice and subject matter and the actual execution of the work are all so subjective. Timing’s important, too. If the publisher had just released an equine mystery, they’d be unlikely to look at another so soon.

The publishing climate was different in the ‘90s, too. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to query agents or editors, so I queried both and found a publisher before I found an agent. Interestingly enough, on the whole, the rejections I received from editors were much nicer than the ones I got from agents. In today’s market, though, more and more publishers are closing their doors to submissions from writers, preferring agents to perform a vetting service first. And it’s getting harder to break in and harder to stay in the game once you are published. Despite the seemingly dire publishing climate, readers still need new books to read. Agents still need to pick up new clients. Editors still need to acquire new manuscripts, so don’t give up.

Next time, I’ll post some specific pointers and ask some hard questions for those looking to get published.

Happy reading and riding!
Kit Ehrman
www.kitehrman.com

Favorite Horses . . .

by Kit Ehrman

During my last post, “Favorites . . .” (September 23, 2008) I talked about how writers feel about their books and how difficult it can be to answer: “Which is your favorite?”

It’s even more difficult to pick a favorite when friends want to know: “Of the horses you’ve owned, which was your favorite?”

How can I answer that? Each horse that I’ve had the honor of owning was special in his or her own way, and they were all so different, with varied and unique personalities, quirks . . . moods. Lots of non-horse people don’t really get that, either--the idea that a horse even has a personality! But, boy, do they.

My first horse, Stoney, was a 15.2hh, flea-bitten gray Quarter horse/Arab gelding. To read more about our adventures together, check out the post “Riding Adventures . . .” (March 25, 2008).

Stoney was such a hoot! He was personable and ornery and a veritable bulldozer on trail rides (Quarter horse attribute), but he’d spin me right out of the saddle if he spooked . . . at the sight of a deer, no less! Like he’d never seen them before.

He was my “Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde” horse. When he was good, he was very good, and when he was bad, well . . . let’s just say, he was a challenge.

I remember the day I purchased him and took him home to the hunter/jumper farm where I worked at the time. He looked so out of place: at least five-hundred pounds overweight with a roached mane that was growing out and stuck straight up in the air; his Arabian blood hadn’t done anything to refine his head or thick throatlatch; his back was a little too long, or his legs were too short, depending on how you look at it; and to say he had solid legs would be putting it tactfully. But he was mine, and I was thrilled.

And boy; was he an alpha horse. In short order, he moved to second in command in a field of twenty-five to thirty geldings. Second only to Orion, a Thoroughbred/Percheron cross.

Stoney’s rather sheltered life, before I purchased him at age six, made for an interesting transition. Training-wise, he’d gone Western and had just stepped over a few baby fences. I doubt he’d ever been in an indoor arena. There was much he had to learn about his new world. In fact, I don’t even think he’d seen something as commonplace as a chair.

After he settled into his new stall that first day, I took him out to get him acclimated to the farm’s sights and sounds. We happened to approach a black, plastic chair located in the cut-through to the indoor arena. He lowered his head to take a sniff, and as he exhaled, his breath caused a puff of dust to mushroom off the seat. He flew backwards as if he’d been shot from a cannon.

Despite the fact that he wasn’t the best beginner’s horse, and he may have damaged my confidence at times, I loved him very much, and I swear; he knew it. After months of training and lots of work, he began to fit in and even looked the hunter part, albeit still a little chubby.

If Stoney wasn’t hyper on the trail, with some pretend spooks or healthy bucks thrown in--a barn-sour tactic he liked to employ with the hope that we’d go home early (and when he did manage to dump me, he got his wish)--he was just downright lazy. Normally, I worked for everything I got out of him by using my seat and lots of leg, especially when we worked in the ring on the flat. But one ride stands out from the rest. I went on a trail ride with my boss’s daughter. She was riding an adorable gray pony. A mare. Well, apparently, Stoney thought she was adorable, too, because he followed that pony down the trail in the most collected, elevated trot imaginable. Soft mouth, rounded back, no leg needed on my part. A ride made in heaven . . . but most likely born of hormones.

He was a great guy, faults and all.

Rather surprisingly, keeping his barn sour "afraid to be in the woods alone" attitude in mind, he did very well when I took him to some cross country events. He had lots of GO out in the open. I was the one holding us back. Here's an old picture from 1983.



I find myself thinking of him frequently this time of year, because autumn a few years back was his last. He’d grown arthritic to the point that I could no longer keep him comfortable. Even standing for the farrier was an ordeal, and I made the decision to put him down at the age of 31. But he lives on in my heart and in cherished memories, and he shows up in my writing from time to time.

Next time, I’ll tell you about my first rescue horse, Koby.

Happy reading and writing,
Kit
http://www.kitehrman.com

How We Deal With Issues In Our Books, Or Not . . .

The posts on Equestrian Ink over the last week or two have been thought provoking, to say the least. I’ve been thinking about the slaughter issue for quite some time, especially since the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503/S. 311) was introduced and is making the occasional headline. And this profound topic was going to be a part of my next mystery, although that has changed, but that’s a whole other story.



But research for that book took me to places I didn’t want to go, mainly to a video that I found on the web of a horse being killed in a Mexican slaughterhouse. I have a pretty good imagination, and this was so much worse.

Then, thanks to Laura Crum’s tip, I spent last night reading the Fugly Horse of the Day where I found examples of incredible human stupidity, laziness, and disregard for what is right and moral, as well as some admittedly funny stuff, too.

One reason so many horses end up on a slippery slope that may very well lead to slaughter is that so many humans breed inferior animals with poor conformation and unsuitable temperaments. They don’t properly care for and train the horses they do own, and they don’t take responsibility for them when they can no longer do their job, preferring to have them take their chances at auction where they are at extreme risk.

I owned my first horse until his death at age thirty-one, when I had to put him down because of old injuries and arthritis that anti-inflammatory medicine could no longer touch. He let me know when it was time to let go.

I am sad to say that, after him, I sold three other horses. They were all gorgeous, well trained, and athletic, and perfectly suited for their new owners, but I’ve lost touch with them over the years. And that was a mistake. If I ever purchase another horse, it will be for life.

Anyway, I have very strong feelings about human responsibility in the human-horse equation, and some of my opinions find their way into my mysteries. I don’t preach. After all, I write to entertain, but my character has his own opinions, and it’s only natural that he would consider them as the story plays out.



In DEAD MAN’S TOUCH, Steve gets his first look at the world of horse racing after working exclusively in the hunter/jumper arena. Here’s a short excerpt:

I flipped through my program and matched names to faces. None of the trainers looked younger than forty. Most were much older. One was a woman, and all of them were white. The grooms were easy enough to spot, wearing numbered pennies over tee shirts and jeans. They were a mixed group. Black, white, Hispanic. Old, young. Male, female.

The horses themselves were not what I was accustomed to. Nothing like the fat, glossy horses, essentially expensive pets, that resided at Foxdale. These animals were lean and hard. As I watched the bettors along the rail study the Form, I realized that the horses were viewed simply as a commodity. If they couldn’t earn their keep, they were out.

A signal must have been given, because the trainers legged the jockeys up onto the horses’ backs, then the grooms took them out onto the track.

The grooms peeled off their pennies and dropped them into a plastic bin as they slipped through the barricade. They walked back on the path I’d taken while the trainers went into the grandstand through a side entrance. A guard stood at a podium just inside the doorway, checking passes or ID’s of some sort. I retraced my steps. As I drew level with the barricade, I turned and looked back at the grandstand. A wall of sheer glass reflected a single line of cumulus clouds drifting across the horizon.

I walked back and leaned against the fence next to four of the grooms, three guys and one girl with halters and lead ropes draped over their shoulders.

A distant bell rang. The horses broke from the starting gate and surged forward in a rainbow of color.

Happy reading and riding,
Kit
www.kitehrman.com

The Night Shift (con't.) . . .

by Kit Ehrman

In my last post, I wrote about my all-time favorite job: delivering foals on the night shift. I adored that job and have many fond memories such as the one I described in my post of June the 3rd--witnessing a mare nickering to her unborn foal.



The mares I dealt with were Standardbreds, and in case you’re not familiar with that breed, they’re the harness racehorses (the trotters and pacers) that pull the sulkies and usually, in my experience, race at night. They’re similar to Thoroughbreds in many respects, but overall, they’re less high-strung, and the wonderful mares I worked with bore this out.

Most of them were extremely easy to deal with and tolerated my presence before and after the delivery with a kind generosity. Only one had a reputation, and lucky for me that she did, because I was warned about her. The woman who trained me had delivered her foals twice before, and she told me that soon after delivery, once the mare was on her feet, she’d try to kick me, and sure enough . . .

We followed a strict procedure foaling-out. Once the mare entered the first stage of labor, if we had a chance, we’d wash her vulva and udder, then braid and wrap her tail, warm two enemas for the foal, and wait as unobtrusively as possible for the mare to enter stage two, when her water broke. During the delivery, we offered gentle assistance if needed and made sure the foal’s nose and mouth were clear of the amniotic sac once he was delivered. After he kicked free of the umbilical cord, we’d treat it with an iodine solution and administer the enemas. (A foal’s first movement is sometimes difficult and can make him colicky.)



But back to my troublesome mare. After the delivery chores were completed, we were supposed to strip and bed down the stall with a luxurious layer of straw that we banked along the walls. I had finished one half of the stall, and was working on the next, when the mare spun around and fired with both hind hooves. I actually had to use the pitchfork to hold her off so I could get out of the stall.

But that was it. The rest of the mares were dreams to work with, even a maiden mare that I had to open up as she bore down to deliver her colt. Her vulva had been stitched partially closed some ten months earlier, to keep containments out of the birth canal after she was confirmed in foal, and the vet had missed opening her up. She was a sweetie; although, when I think about it, she was a bit preoccupied with the contractions when I got to work on her.

So, in and of itself, the job was exciting. Patrolling the barns in a driving blizzard was a highlight, but my nightly patrols took a sinister turn one season when a serial arsonist settled in the area.

Even in the dead of winter, we kept the barn doors cracked for ventilation purposes. One morning, around two-thirty, I was checking a mare to see if her teats had waxed up when I stepped out of the stall and glanced down the aisle. There was an orange glow on the horizon.



I realized the fire was located in the direction of my house. I hopped in the farm truck and drove past, relieved that it wasn’t my horse barn that was burning, but a neighbor’s structure used to house farm equipment.

My boss considered hiring someone to patrol the barns with a shotgun, and I was relieved when he didn’t. I figured I had a better chance being shot by mistake than encountering the arsonist. Eventually, the fires stopped, and the horse farm was never impacted, but I’ll never forget how I felt when I stepped out of the stall that morning and saw that glow on the horizon.



Here’s an excerpt from COLD BURN:

At four-thirty on a bitter February morning, the arsonist struck for the third time.

I’d heard about him from the guys who worked the day shift. So far, he’d entertained himself by torching vacant buildings, and as I stood in the doorway at the end of the barn aisle, listening to the mares moving in their stalls behind me, I hoped like hell he’d stick with his game plan.

I slid the heavy door farther along its tracks. An eerie glow marred the horizon as if a monstrous red moon had tilted on its axis and risen behind a screen of cloud and smoke. Without a reference point, distance was impossible to judge. Six miles away, the Rappahannock River snaked through the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, but the blaze looked much closer, and that worried me.

I had just finished feeding the mares in barns one and two and still had four more barns to work my way through before I was supposed to check seven and eight. They were located on the newest section of the farm, directly to the northwest. Directly in line with the fire.

I decided to ditch the schedule and head over earlier than usual.

When I turned to close the door, the bay mare in the stall to my left angled herself in the corner by her feed tub so she could peer through the bars on the front of her stall. She stared at me with such unnerving intensity, I could have sworn she knew more about what was going on--and what was yet to happen--than I did. But I was letting my imagination run away with me. If anything, her superior senses had provided her with far more information about the fire than I could ever hope to understand. I inched the door down the track, blocking out her image as deliberately as if I’d closed my eyes to her.

Happy riding and reading,
Kit
www.kitehrman.com

The Night Shift . . .

by Kit Ehrman

I’ve been doing some spring-cleaning (the worst kind, actually: in the garage) and admittedly a little late in the season. Feels more like summer cleaning. Here it’s already June 3rd, technically wrapping up one of my favorite “horse” seasons: breeding and foaling time.



When I worked at a Standardbred breeding farm in Pennsylvania, our last foals would be hitting the ground about now, and generally, we humans were pretty darned happy that the season was coming to an end, what with the constant and seemingly never-ending chores that revolved around getting five-hundred to six-hundred mares in foal: ultrasounds, palpations, teasing the mares to see if they were receptive, and the actual breeding, itself. Even the stallions were probably happy to take a break. But I was always sad to see the season end because foaling-out was my all-time favorite horse job. My record was four foals on one shift.

The schedule was fairly brutal for foal attendants. We worked alone with only two of us splitting the nighttime hours for the season. I worked the midnight-to-seven shift for five days, then work a double shift (six p.m. to seven a.m.) so my counterpart could have off, then I’d have my day off. The day off would occur every weekend, and somewhere in there, I’d usually be awake for 30 hours before I got to bed – every single week.

Despite the difficulty of working when your body thinks it should be asleep, I loved the job more than any other. I loved being the only person on the farm and loved the connection I felt with the mares, the things I learned and observed . . . the wonderful privilege of being with these animals and getting a look into their lives that most people don’t have the opportunity to experience: listening to a mare snoring; watching one dream; feeling the contentment and peace that settles over the barn around two in the morning; watching a light snow fall when most of the world is asleep . . .



I incorporated one of the most touching things I’ve witnessed, when it comes to broodmares, in the following scene from COLD BURN:



Note: Steve has just returned from a rather racy party at a millionaire’s home and is relieving his partner on foal watch:

Maddie sat sideways on a hay bale with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms clamped around her shins. Her right shoulder and hip leaned into the stall front, and she’d rested her head on her knees. As I walked down barn three’s aisle toward her, at five past midnight Saturday morning, I wondered if she had any idea just how titillating her pose was. To begin with, she wore jeans snug enough to cut off her circulation, but drawing her legs up as she’d done, tightened the denim even more.

I sighed. Then again, maybe it was the mood I was in. I’d always found that lack of sleep triggered some primal need to copulate, and the party had completely messed up my schedule, not to mention the sensory input overload.

I smiled as I remembered Elaine’s reaction to Hadley’s invite and guessed she hadn’t wanted to lose her ride to an orgy of sex and alcohol. She’d been anxious on the drive home, but I’d been thankful for her interjection and told her so. I liked my sex private.

Pulling my gaze away from Maddie, I glanced toward the dark storage area in the back and thought, as private as a horse barn, anyway. “What’s going on?” I asked.

Maddie jerked her head toward the stall as I realized the mare wasn’t standing in plain view. “I think she’ll go tonight. She hasn’t heated up yet, but I bet you’ll have a foal before daybreak.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah, well it’s not so cool for me if they’re all gonna start waiting for your shift.”

I grinned and stepped closer so I could see over the bottom half of the stall. As I looked over the edge, the bay mare rolled onto her sternum, touched her muzzle to her belly, and whinnied. “What’s she doing?”

Maddie slipped off the hay bale and stood beside me, her right arm brushing mine. She whispered, “She’s talking to her unborn foal.”

“You’re shitting me, right?”

“Uh-uh. She’s had four or five foals already. She knows exactly what’s going on, and she loves her babies. She’s such a devoted mother, one of the best mares I’ve ever worked with. I’ve foaled her out two years in a row, now, and she’s always talked to them.”

I raised my eyebrows. “But before they’re born?”

“Uh-huh.” Maddie turned toward me and licked her lips. “And now, it looks like you’re gonna have the honor.”

“Hmm.”

Next post, I’ll tell you about some real-life spooky events on the night shift; one of which triggered the opening to COLD BURN.

Cheers,
Kit
http://www.kitehrman.com

Party Central . . .

by Kit Ehrman

Yep. “Party Central.” That’s the best way to describe downtown Louisville as the first Saturday in May approaches.



There are over seventy Kentucky Derby Festival events, beginning with the spectacular Thunder Over Louisville (North America’s largest, annual pyrotechnic show). Other events include the Pegasus Parade and some wacky events like the Run for the Rose’ in which servers from area restaurants race around an obstacle course balancing glasses of wine. And these events, along with the actual horse racing, draw over 1.5 million visitors to Louisville.



In TRIPLE CROSS, I was putting Steve in the middle of all this, so I had to check out the party scene myself, for accuracy’s sake, of course. One of my favorite Derby Festival events is the air show and Thunder, the official start of the whirlwind Derby party.

Fairly early in the book, Steve is invited to a Thunder Party by Rudi Sturgill, a wealthy young man who has a runner in the Derby. After the fireworks wind down, Rudi decides to move the party to 4th Street Live! Louisville’s entertainment district. They settle on Sully’s Saloon, and this is where Steve gets his first hint that events have gone horribly sideways.


4th Street Live's pumpkin-colored, steel lattice supports a glass roof that covers an entire city block.


Colorful lighting and an elevator's exposed gears are some of 4th Street's unique touches.


Only in Louisville: Portable commercials in Sully's Saloon! If you can't tell from the photo, that's a laptop screen suspended above the guy's head. He wore a powerpack around his waist.

Later, in TRIPLE CROSS, Steve takes a friend to Maker’s Mark Bourbon House and Lounge. I just loved this restaurant. Very trendy.


Maker's Mark Bourbon House and Lounge's fabulous 58' bar.


Red-tiled pillars, sheer curtain walls, honey-colored floor.

During my research forays, I was frequently struck by the dissonance between the late night party scene and the early morning work taking place in the barns at Churchill Downs. The men and women who care for and worry over the horses’ health and wellbeing, well, their lifestyle and routine and focus is so far removed from the partying and the money funneling into the town, I couldn’t not think about them.



In any case, I enjoyed my time in Louisville. The party atmosphere was overwhelming and seemed to permeate every aspect of my visit, and I loved discovering the fancy restaurants and party spots, but one of the side benefits of writing is learning about unusual, unexpected places. Once of those places is Wagner’s Pharmacy.


The grill at Wagner's Pharmacy.

I first heard about Wagner’s from an adorable, elderly woman whose husband had been a racehorse trainer. I met her at a book launch for DERBY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, a collection of short mystery fiction revolving around the Kentucky Derby. At the time, I had no idea that I’d ever write a Derby book, but she was so enthused, I couldn’t help but remember her recommendation. And, I’d been curious. What could a pharmacy have to do with horse racing? She’d told me that backstretch workers and racehorse owners hung out there. I had to admit, I was intrigued.

Then I visited Wagner’s. The place is amazing.


Every inch of wall space is covered with racing memorabilia.

Directly across from where I sat at the counter hung a photograph of Secritariat, and I have no doubt that it was carried across the street some thirty years earlier.



If you're ever in Louisville, and if you love horses, don't miss Wagner's. It's located on 4th Street, right across from Churchill's Gate 5. And the food's great, too.

Of course, Wagner's is mentioned throughout TRIPLE CROSS because any backside worker with a pulse would have eaten there. So, here's an excerpt featuring a scene set in this amazing landmark. Steve's trying to avoid the police when he slips inside.

Wagner’s Pharmacy was a misnomer, really, because it was part café, part sundries, part liquor store, and one-hundred percent unique. The glass door eased shut behind me, efficiently dampening the street noise while jumbled voices and the sounds and aromas of sizzling food flooded my senses. I’d been inside once before, and I swear, the place was straight out of a forties movie. I looked for an empty seat. Booths lined the wall on my left. Tables and chairs filled the center of the room. A Formica counter stretched down the right-hand wall where customers sat on barstools upholstered with pumpkin-colored vinyl and watched the cook fry up their eggs. I stepped down the sloped floor and slid onto an empty stool at the end of the counter, planted my boots on the runner.

Wooden plaques hung above the grill and featured seriously dated paintings of eggs and bacon, coffee and toast. The damn things had to have been tacked up there before my mother was born.

First impressions are often flawed by preconceived, erroneous notions, and my initial look inside Wagner’s had taken me by surprise. The establishment that so many people talked about and patronized, backsiders and the wealthy alike, was a dump. But it had an irresistible charm, mainly because it could not have existed anywhere else in the world. Everywhere you looked, on every square inch of wall space, hung period photographs of horses and jockeys and the men and women who owned and trained them. Directly across from where I sat hung an eight-by-ten glossy of Secretariat after he won the Kentucky Derby in unbelievable fashion on May 5th, 1973, and I had no doubt it was an original that had been carried across the street and had decorated that space for thirty years.

Pure and simple, Wagner’s was a walk backward through time. And the food was damn good, too.

I ordered bacon and eggs and biscuits and gravy and was halfway through my meal when my cell rang. I wiped my fingers on a napkin and flipped the phone open. “Cline.”

“Coast is clear.”

I smiled. “Who’d they talk to?”

“Mr. K,” Jay said, referring to Kessler. “Bill Gannon and his employees, couple Hispanic stable hands, me, the guy Kessler was talking to.”

“Know who he is?”

“From what I heard, guy’s an owner. Maybe a potential client.”

“Did the cops interview with the press around?”

“Used an office. Even so, the reporters were buzzin’ round like flies on shit.”

“Apt description, there, Jay.”

He grunted. “Get your ass back here, and bring me something to eat.”

I closed my phone and was scraping the last bit of egg and biscuits and gravy into the center of my plate when someone stepped alongside my shoulder and placed a hand on the countertop. A small, feminine hand. I turned my head.

Detective Bonikowski stood at my side in her fashionable suit--this morning’s choice, a charcoal gray herringbone--paired with a pink silk blouse with the buttons left undone at her throat.

“Detective.”

“Mr. Cline.” She swept the room with a practiced glance before her gaze returned to my face. “What are you doing here?”

“Taking a break.” I gestured toward my plate. “Eating.”

“You take breaks in the middle of walking a horse?”

I smiled. “Not usually.”

“Did you think we were coming to hook you up?”

“It crossed my mind.”

“And now?”

I glanced at her and sighed. “No. Your shoulders are relaxed. Your hands are nowhere near your weapon or cuffs, you’re unbalanced with most of your weight on your left foot . . . and you’re alone.”

Her mouth twitched. “I wouldn’t need backup to handle you.”

I swiveled around on my stool and squinted at her, wondering if the implied meaning was simply a case of wishful thinking on my part. “How’d you find me?”

“Driving past. Looked in the window . . . you know? Advanced police work.”

I grinned.

Cheers,
Kit
http://www.kitehrman.com

The Genesis of a Kentucky Derby Book . . .

by Kit Ehrman

After I finished writing the third book in the Steve Cline Mystery Series, COLD BURN, which is set on a thoroughbred breeding farm in Warrenton, Virginia, and the manuscript went off to the typesetters, it was time for me to come up with a story idea for the next book in the series. I have to admit, a novel set at the Kentucky Derby was not my first choice.



After wrapping up COLD BURN, I spent three months plotting and researching the fourth book, only to have it rejected on synopsis. So, I had to come up with something, and fast, especially if I wanted to maintain a book-a-year schedule. A schedule I’ve since demolished, I might add.

Anyway, while casting around for a story idea, I considered all the people in Steve’s life, and my focus settled on his father, racehorse trainer Chris Kessler. I decided that Kessler finally had a horse capable enough and talented enough to run in the Kentucky Derby. I pitched the idea to my editor. She loved it, so Steve and I were off to Churchill Downs!


View from the Backside


The Backside

After getting permission from the powers that be at the storied track, I set about researching Louisville and the Derby Festival Events and the backside of Churchill Downs.


Riverfront Plaza


A Gallopalooza Horse on Main Street

I came up with the “horse mystery” quickly, but it didn’t feel substantial enough to carry an entire novel; plus, I generally like to layer a second mystery into the story when possible, anyway, so I came up with another mystery that would complicate the plot in a big way. I started my research online, amassing hundreds of pages of detailed notes that would later filter into the story itself. Then, it was time to visit Louisville and Churchill for onsite research.


Morning workout


Afternoon sun winking off Humana Building

Meanwhile, I had to think of a way to get Steve involved in the mystery I’d designed for him, and it had to be believable. So, I turned to real life. I had taken a Private Investigations course a while back, and one of the topics that we studied dealt with the Public Information Act. Essentially, we learned about the amazing amount of information that is available to the public. And we were given a final assignment: to learn everything that we could about a person unknown to us. Our instructor’s parting words were: “Whatever you do, don’t follow your subject.”

He didn’t want to be called by the police when we screwed up.



Well, those words have stuck with me over the years. I had it in the back of my mind that I could use his sentiment somewhere down the line in a story. So, I decided that Steve would take the same PI course. (He loves working with horses, but he’s interested in investigations, as well.) Steve’s course is wrapping up just as he heads to Louisville. While there, he decides to complete the assignment so he can turn it in when he returns to Maryland.

Unfortunately for Steve, the person he chooses to investigate winds up missing under mysterious circumstances, and the race is on . . .



TRIPLE CROSS: A sinister plot of deceit and revenge unravels beneath the famed Twin Spires of Churchill Downs.

Here’s the opening to TRIPLE CROSS:

The assignment was simple enough. Pick a random subject and learn as much as you can about him. Name, address, phone number. DOB, mortgages and property taxes. Car description and plate number. VIN if you didn’t mind being obvious. A simple assignment if I’d been in Maryland. But I was six-hundred miles from home, standing within eyeshot of the famed Twin Spires of Churchill Downs. Logistics would be complicated, but nothing I couldn’t overcome.

First and foremost, I needed to select a subject. But on the backside, with all the “Slims” and “Ricos” and “Willies,” figuring out someone’s real name was a tricky proposition at best. Track employees were supposed to keep their photo IDs displayed at all times, either dangling from straps around their necks or clipped to their shirts, but most backsiders found the practice cumbersome and ended up slipping them under T-shirts or stuffing them in back pockets. And whomever I chose needed to have at least a tenuous tie to the community. On the backside, that could be a problem, too. Of course, I could have picked a jockey or a trainer or a local celebrity, but I wanted someone who wasn’t in the news. Someone ordinary. Normal.

Yet I suspected there was nothing ordinary or normal about this place or time. Not in the town of Louisville, and certainly not in the barn area at Churchill Downs. Not fifteen days before the running of the Kentucky Derby.

Even before the sky had brightened, and the lights illuminating the Twin Spires lost their brilliance to the new day, traffic on Fourth Street had increased until the whine of tires on asphalt pushed through the chain-link fence that separated the backside from the rest of the world.

Today, it seemed like that fence wasn’t doing any damned good.

Also, don’t forget the Kentucky Derby documentary that I mentioned in an earlier post. If you’re interested in viewing it, and it’s playing near you, please try to catch it early because twenty-five percent of the box office from the opening week will be donated to the worldwide leader in equine research – The Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation. If you can, please support the film the week of April 18th. To learn more, visit: http://www.thefirstsaturdayinmay.com/

THE FRIST SATURDAY IN MAY

by Kit Ehrman

I spent the afternoon in Louisville today. The magnolias, daffodils, and tulips were in bloom, and naturally, my thoughts turned to the Kentucky Derby. As hard as it is for me to believe, the big race is only twenty-five days and counting.

Time flies.


Statue of Aristides, winner of the first Kentucky Derby.

Considering the fact that my latest mystery, TRIPLE CROSS, is set in Louisville for the running of the Kentucky Derby, you’d think that I’d be a huge horseracing fan when, in fact, I’m not.

I am most definitely drawn to racing, but this is solely a byproduct of my love of the horse, and I have to admit, after Barbaro, my feelings about horseracing are even more conflicted.

Racing is hard on horses, but so are all the equine sports at the upper levels. Let’s face it; as soon as humans are thrown into the mix, our natural competitiveness (and sometimes, greed) causes us to push our horses. So, it’s up to us to do the best job we can to ensure their safety and continued health.

Some will be critical of how we “use” horses, but the truth of the matter is: many of the top equine athletes love what they do.

What happened to Barbaro was tragic, and it broke my heart. But it was an accident. I have admired Barbaro’s trainer, Michael Matz, for decades, having become familiar with him as he competed on the Grand Prix circuit, rode in the Olympics, and later, saved several children when Flight 232 went down in an Iowa cornfield. He is a horseman in the truest sense of the word.

Michele brought up the topic of equine movies in an earlier post. If you haven’t heard about it yet, THE FIRST SATURDAY IN MAY, an independent documentary about the 2006 Kentucky Derby, filmed and produced by two brothers, will be released nationwide later this month, on April 18th. Here’s a clip from the movie:



To learn more about THE FIRST SATURDAY IN MAY, visit: http://www.thefirstsaturdayinmay.com/

I found this wonderful clip on YouTube (from the movie) of Michael Matz introducing Barbaro to his son. It's very sweet and really highlights Matz's temperament and horsemanship. Click here.

So, while I'm not a big racing fan, this excerpt from TRIPLE CROSS, sums up how I (and Steve) feel about racehorses:

There’s something about being on the backside of a racetrack just before dawn that is truly magical--standing along the rail when the light’s just coming up, watching the horses move fluidly across the damp earth, their dark shapes silhouetted against a rainbow sky. You stand there, breathing in the clean air, listening to the steady primal rhythm of a galloping horse, and the rest of the world simply does not exist.

Cheers,
Kit
www.kitehrman.com

Adventures with Stoney . . .

by Kit Ehrman

I purchased my first horse, a big flea-bitten gray, when I was twenty-three. Stoney was a sweet, wonderful guy. He was green when I bought him, but he advanced quickly. He was usually very solid and steady in the show ring and did well in low hunter and pleasure classes, often earning several champion titles in one show. He was also well behaved when I took him to some combined training events. But there was one place where his ornery side came into play—out on the trail . . . alone.

In company, he was great. Stoney preferred to lead. He was bold and confident, and riding him felt like driving a bulldozer. “You want to go up that ten-foot muddy bank out of the river?” “Sure, no problem.” I’d point him, and off he’d go.

“What, no trail?” “Not a problem.” I might get scratched up with briers and gouged by tree branches, but none of this held him back.

And he loved river crossings. He’d stand in the middle of the current while schools of fish swam between his legs. I have no idea what he thought they were, but he’d cant his head and watch them dart beneath his belly. And I’d have to be careful, because he liked to roll, especially when it was hot. I would have loved to have taken him for a swim, though we never had that opportunity.

But when we set off alone, I never knew if I’d be walking home or riding because he had this nasty habit of bucking as we came out of stream crossings or after jumping a log. He didn’t get me off much, but when he did, he’d gallop for home.

I remember this one time when we were out in the woods, and he started bucking after we jumped a log. He put his nose to the ground and pulled me right out of the saddle. I was actually straddling his neck as he continued to buck down the trail, and it was then that I made the decision to bail instead of risk slipping beneath his hooves. I lunged to the side and hit the dirt, and off he went down the trail. I ran uphill and almost caught him as he whizzed by on the switchback. When I’d finally trudged back to the stable, I couldn’t find him and was afraid he’d remain forever hidden in a dense corn field. But, he hadn’t stayed out in the open to pig out. He’d squeezed into the stall we used to store hay and was chowing down on a bale of alfalfa.

We had some adventures in groups, too. My boss was a wild woman in the saddle. She took a bunch of us novices on a cross-country gallop. Stoney was so excited by this barely-controlled, group gallop, I spent much of the run trying to keep his bucking under control. We slowed to a canter when we reached a wooded trail. My boss was an excellent horsewoman. She was riding Pocket, her son's beautiful bay hunter. As he cantered down the trail on autopilot, she was twisted around in the saddle, watching her band of excited students, when I noticed a heavy low branch jutting across the trail. I warned her just in time. Otherwise, she would have been knocked right off.

The land surrounding the horse farm where I worked at the time bordered Maryland’s Patuxent River, and it was extremely hilly and wooded. When I first purchased Stoney, he had no clue how to get us to the bottom of some of these hills except to make a mad dash down them. He’d stand at the top, worried, shifting his weight; then he’d take a deep breath and just go. I eventually got him to understand that he could take his time, and those big scary hills lost some of their menace.




Columbia Horse Center

My fictitional Foxdale Farm, where Steve works, is based on the Columbia Horse Center.

The hours I’ve spent riding, especially cross country, show up in my fiction. Here’s a little excerpt from AT RISK, where Steve has taken a school horse out for a nighttime ride. One of the boarders had noticed a six-horse that resembles the trailer used in a horse theft, and Steve is going to check it out:

Wooded hills sloped upward on both sides of the river, and except for a faint gurgling, where fast-moving water tumbled over a natural dam, the meadow was quiet. I might have found it peaceful except for the night’s objective. I looked at my watch. Seven-fifty-five. I had two hours before the last lesson was over, before Karen would check to see if we’d made it back.

When we came to a stretch of meadow where the footing was safe, I bridged the reins together over the crest of her neck--to act as a brace in case she stumbled--then crouched low over the saddle. She automatically lengthened into a ground-covering canter, the instinct for speed there for the asking. Her body rocked beneath me, her muscles straining, footfalls muffled, breath coming faster, louder, filling my ears. I pressed my knuckles into her mane and relaxed into her stride. The brisk air stung my face and pulled tears from the corners of my eyes. The ground beneath us was a blur, the speed intoxicating for both of us.

Where the meadow narrowed into a track not much wider than one of the old logging roads, with trees thick on both sides, I brought her back to a walk. Jet swiveled her ears and tossed her head in irritation.

“Sorry, girl. Can’t run here.” I patted her neck. Steam eddied through her coat, curling upward in tendrils, and I could smell her sweat, stirringly primitive. A link to the past. The result of countless years of man and horse working together.

I owned Stoney until his death at age 31. He was a great guy, and his memory lives on in my writing.

Happy reading and riding.
Kit Ehrman
www.kitehrman.com

Track Conditions . . .

by Kit Ehrman

When I began writing the Steve Cline Mystery Series, I knew so little about the publishing industry, I didn’t realize that there was such a huge demand for series books, especially in the mystery genre. But, luckily for me, I wasn’t done with Steve when I wrapped up AT RISK. I still needed to explore the reasons behind his strained relationship with his father, and discovering that answer took me (and Steve) to the racetrack in DEAD MAN'S TOUCH.



Once I decide on a story idea, I begin researching right away because my findings often influence the developing plot.

I had worked briefly at Laurel Park years before, and all the delicious, sensory-filled memories of that experience were firmly embedded in my mind. But I was greedy. I wanted more.


Laurel Park grandstand and paddock area


Laurel Park grandstand

In my search to learn of others’ experiences and impressions of what it’s like to work on the backside of a racetrack, I discovered TRACK CONDITIONS, a beautifully-written, heart-wrenching memoir by Michael Klein.



TRACK CONDITIONS is a poetic, episodic narrative of the author’s five-year stint working as a racetrack groom as he journeys from track to track in an effort to reclaim his lover while battling alcoholism and dealing with the damaging effects of a sexually-abusive stepfather and a mother who suffered from depression.

Granted, this is not your typical equine book, but it is unbelievably moving and lyrical. To give you a sense of Klein’s writing style, I’ve pasted a brief excerpt below:

"One morning, Jewel was gazing into the middle distance after the last set of horses had gone out to the track, a distance lined with momentary hazards: a groom having trouble getting the tack off a horse; a filly not standing still for the blacksmith; sparrows in distress swimming in a necklace of high notes up to the haylofts."

During his time on the track, Klein had the good fortune of being Swale’s groom and the bad luck of being fired weeks before the Kentucky Derby-winning colt ran in the Preakness. The cover photo above, taken by Puff Anderson, shows Klein and Swale.

Ultimately, it is horse who saves man.

Over the years, I’ve read TRACK CONDITIONS twice and will read it again. I can’t say that reading it changed anything in DEAD MAN’S TOUCH, but I suspect that some of the story’s mood filtered into my own writing.

Happy reading and riding . . .
www.kitehrman.com

Heroes and Horses

by Kit Ehrman

The protagonist or hero of a story is one of the most important elements a fiction author must deal with, one that deserves a great deal of forethought and consideration.

When I set out to write my first mystery, AT RISK, on July 22, 1996 (yes, I actually remember the date) I already had the opening scene in mind. What I needed was a character to tell the story. A hero.



First off, I decided that my hero would be a guy, in part, because I like guys and, secondly, because much of the fiction that I’d been reading featured male protagonists. I grew up reading Sherlock Holmes and George Bagby, and later, I fell in love with Dick Francis’s equine novels. And my perception at the time, flawed as it may have been, was that guys had a lot more freedom, took more chances, and were more exciting than . . . well, me.

Then there was the fact that I wanted a lot of freedom writing this character. I didn’t want him to resemble me too closely because I suspected I might feel inhibited if I thought the reader was thinking: this is who the author is.

So, I took a chance, bucked the tradition of women writing female protagonists, and developed barn manager and amateur sleuth Steve Cline. Without realizing it, I bucked another tradition by writing a very young protagonist at a time when older sleuths were the norm. His youth (he’s 21 in AT RISK) was actually trickier than nailing the guy thing.

While I was working through the first drafts of AT RISK and the opening chapters of DEAD MAN’S TOUCH, I took two writing courses offered by Writers’ Digest magazine’s Novel Writing Workshop. Both times, I requested a male instructor and was lucky to be paired with Steven Havill and William G. Tapply. Havill writes a police procedural series set in New Mexico, featuring Undersheriff Bill Gastner, and Tapply’s series features Boston estate attorney Brady Coyne. Both men, along with my husband, were a tremendous help and quick to point out when I got it wrong!

So, who is Steve? To make him more complex and interesting and real for the reader, I gave him personal issues to deal with along with the story problem. He grew up in a wealthy but emotionally distant family with two older siblings. He attended a private school and spent many of his summers “at camp” because his parents were too busy to parent. Despite the excessive wealth, his relationship with them was damaging, and eventually Steve becomes estranged from them when he leaves college to work in the horse industry. Many of the choices he makes, including his penchant for risk-taking, are linked to his strained relationship with his father and a subconscious need to prove himself.

Steve has been so much fun to write. He’s young, reckless, flawed, but also principled. At times, he seems real.

Speaking about real, many of the horses I’ve known and loved, or have just worked with, have found themselves in the pages of my books. A troubled horse in AT RISK, Cut to the Chase, a.k.a. Chase, is modeled after a horse who used to be boarded at a hunter/jumper farm where I worked. The real Chase, whose official name escapes me, was an open jumper: a huge seventeen hand, coppery chestnut gelding with a lot of white on his legs. The barn crew used to affectionately call him “Jaws” because he loved to nip his handlers. What fascinated me about the real Chase was the fact that, though ornery when handled from the ground, he was a sweetheart under saddle. He was a gorgeous, fluid mover and a truly gifted jumper.

What has surprised me most about my fictional horses is the way they magically come to life, seemingly on their own. One of my favorites is Russian Roulette. He’s a character in DEAD MAN’S TOUCH and TRIPLE CROSS.



I didn’t intentionally model him after any horse from my past, but he came to life nonetheless. Here’s a brief excerpt from TRIPLE CROSS when Steve is getting ready to go talk to the police and wondering whether he'll be free to leave once he meets them:

I gathered my trash together, left it sitting on the tack trunk, and walked over to Ruskie’s stall. He poked his head over the stall guard before curling his neck around to nuzzle my waist. I hooked my arm across his neck and smoothed my hand down his face. Resting my forehead against his mane, I breathed deeply, inhaling the indescribable blended odors: his skin, his sleek chestnut coat, the sweet smell of his breath, all combined with the mix of straw and hay, and I was reminded of the generations of horses who had passed through this barn. Derby runners, most of them.

Ruskie was uncharacteristically still, and I wondered if he sensed the tension fizzing in my nerves and pressing against my skull like a bad headache.

I had no guarantee I’d be here tomorrow. None at all.

He lipped the thin belt keeper at my waist, then smoothed his muscular lips along my belt. Knowing that a nip was likely next on his agenda, I straightened.

I stopped at Storm’s stall and patted him, told him to be a good boy, and when I turned around, Jay said, “What? No hug for me?”

I grinned and told him to wish me luck.

-----------

Here are a couple photos of the actual Derby Barn at Churchill Downs that I took while researching TRIPLE CROSS:


This is the Derby Barn. Note the press. They are everywhere.





“The horse: friendship without envy, beauty without vanity, nobility without conceit, a willing partner, yet, no slave.” ~ Anon

Cheers,
Kit
www.kitehrman.com