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Chapter 1
In my dream, I walked days and nights through the woods to reach the clear stream. A tower built to look like a silo loomed at the water’s edge, and I knew I was home. The creek gurgled, the moon shone, and the frog sounds of night sang to me. I laid down to rest and was swept with serenity. There was warm breath on the back of my neck and a comforting hand on my shoulder. I felt protected, covered in the safety of night and cozy warmth. But when the hand crept purposefully lower, and I smelled digesting Schlitz on the tepid breath, I knew I wasn’t in paradise anymore. My body lurched awake, and I was standing before I even remembered I had been lying down. The vertigo caught up with me, and I clutched at a bedpost as I blinked rapidly.
“What!” I yelled.
“Sunny?” Slurred the voice in my bed.
I shook my head and some REM-spun cobwebs fell out. I wasn’t in my apartment in Minneapolis where I had lived for nearly ten years—a little loft on the West Bank where I shared a bathroom with a sexy, blue-eyed horn player in his sixties and a compulsively clean law student. I had moved out of there in March, leaving my cheating boyfriend and my career as a waitress and grad student in the U of M English program, and had been house sitting for my friend Sunny ever since. I was living in her little doublewide on the outskirts of Battle Lake, Minnesota, and there was a strange man in her bed. My bed.
I flicked on the cat-shaped lamp and angled the lit ears toward the intruder still sprawled in my bed on top of the handmade Amish quilt I had lucked on in the Fergus Falls Salvation Army. I yanked it from under him and covered up my body, clad in only my summer pajamas—an oversized, threadbare white tank top. I was usually comfortable with my 5’6”, 140-pound frame, but I wasn’t a flasher. I pulled my disheveled hair away from my face and stared down my pointy nose at the relaxed drunk.
“Sunny isn’t here.” I was hoping to conjure a verbal vanishing potion, but my heart was still pummeling my rib cage, and my voice shook. Luna, my foster-dog, barked from outside my open window. “Who are you?”
“Mira?”
I squinted. Happy Hands knew me, and his voice scratched an itch in the back of my memory. “Jason?”
“Yeah. You’re not Sunny.” He sounded bored.
Yup, it was Jason. I had met him through my moody friend C.C. ten years earlier when my hair had been dyed black, I smoked clove cigarettes, and dark, flowing clothes were my signature. Thank god for evolution.
Back then, C.C. and I were both awed freshman trying to act like we weren’t scared by the vastness of the University of Minnesota and its 40,000-plus students. We had ended up as dorm mates through the luck of the draw, two small town girls, and hit it off from the word go. She had brought me to her hometown of Battle Lake on Thanksgiving break of our first year. A few months later I introduced her to the guy who gave her genital warts, so I suppose looking back we’re even.
During that first introduction to Battle Lake, I met Sunny, one of C.C.’s close friends. I also met Jason, a high school classmate of theirs. I knew him from the parties C.C. and I would road trip to during college breaks, but he and I never really connected. He was the guy always trying to get in everyone’s pants, the one who tried to marry anyone not dumb enough to sleep with him.
He was tall, over six feet, with dark hair and dark eyes, cute in a way that would be hot if he were an actor but was just average since he was a perpetually horny fiber optic cable layer. In small town tradition, Sunny and Jason had slept together in high school, as had most of their friends. Musical beds. I suppose the process evolved out of long winters and bad TV reception.
I hadn’t seen Jason in over five years. Word was he had to relocate to Texas to find a woman to marry him since every woman in Minnesota had turned him down. Apparently he hadn’t gotten the news that Sunny had moved to Alaska for the summer, and he was making his area horn call.
“What’re you doing back in Battle Lake?” I asked. I felt lightheaded and ill. It occurred to me that Otter Tail County had some sort of magnetic pull on people who entered. That’s the only way to explain why I was still here, running the library and writing for the local newspaper, after the last month I had lived through. It’s a long story, but the short version is that I had just started falling for a guy when I found him shot through the head in the library a couple days later.
When I had first met Jeff, I was impressed with his maturity and character. After he was shot and left for me to find, I learned again the harsh truth that how I feel about someone has no effect on whether they get to live or die. I thought I had learned that one well enough when my dad died in a car accident the summer of my junior year in high school, but in my experience, life keeps dragging you back to the same table until you pick the right food. Anyhow, the whole Jeff ordeal taught me the mental benefits of tying up loose ends. I had also turned twenty-nine last month, but that milestone got lost in the shuffle.
Jason sat up and rubbed a red scrape on his shoulder, his back to me. He had put on about forty pounds since I last saw him, and I couldn’t help but notice that he had stripped down to his faded black boxers. Confident guy. “I’m in town to visit the ‘rents. Got anything to eat?”
My mouth opened in a yell, but he was out of bed and in the kitchen before I could answer. Apparently, if he wasn’t getting laid, he was getting fed. I squelched the urge to hand him a mirror. I had just seen a show on chimpanzee behavior on the Nature Channel and was pretty sure the shiny glass would keep him busy for hours. No, better to get rid of him. As I grabbed for my robe, I hissed at the part of me that was thinking like a schoolgirl, worried that he would get mad at me if I was rude to him when I knew I should be kicking the trespassing bastard out on his ass. Media conditioning is a bitch.
I looked around my bedroom for a pair of shorts to pull on under the robe. The wrought-iron bed was stripped down to its sheets, and I grabbed the quilt off the floor and tossed it on top. The bed was kitty-corner to the wall because I liked angles. Behind the metal headboard was my reading stand on which the kitty lamp stood, next to the William Kent Krueger mystery I had been reading before I fell asleep. The twelve foot by ten foot room also had a dresser with a vanity top, a tiny closet with a cheap door, and a dirty clothes hamper. I dug out the cut-offs I had been wearing earlier today from the hamper and tugged them on.
Now that I was no longer terrified by an intruder in my bed, I could not ignore a black memory that was squirming its way into my consciousness. I didn’t want to be overwhelmed by the remembering, but I couldn’t sit on it any longer, not now that we were bathed in light and I could hear him making himself comfortable in my kitchen.
It had happened a few years ago, that black memory, the summer before C.C. and I graduated from college. The night had opened with promise—a bonfire by the lake, a keg of Leinenkugel’s, and a CD player hooked up to someone’s car lighter. I remember feeling pretty that night, and excited to be with friends.
Jason was there, and it wasn’t long before he hit on me. His hair was longer then, curling around his shoulders and shiny black. He leaned in to tell me a joke, and his wide grin was flirtatious. He really was cute. I was flattered by the male attention but not drunk enough to latch on to the token male slut so early in the evening. When I didn’t bite, he moved on to the next chick, and I forgot about him. He hadn’t forgotten about me.
When I walked into the woods to pee, he followed me quietly. He waited until my pants were down to push me back on the ground and cover my mouth with his fist. His hand smelled musty, like composting leaves.
I heard Sunny call my name at the same moment the zip of Jason’s pants cut through his fumbled grunting. He jumped off me when Sunny appeared and then staggered back to the party. She was weaving and giggling like we were playing hide and go seek and didn’t stop him when he shoved past her. Though she helped to clean me off, she didn’t have much sympathy for my situation. She wanted to keep the good times rolling and said he was just drunk and had misinterpreted my interest. She seemed mildly offended that I would even consider that a good friend of hers could be a potential rapist. I started to wonder if maybe I had overreacted.
I saw Sunny laughing with Jason later that night as I sat on the fringes of the party and tried to act normal, chain smoking so I’d have an excuse to keep my hand in front of my swollen mouth. I still don’t know what was more of a betrayal—Sunny’s lack of support for me or Jason’s aggression.
In the small town tradition of German descendants, however, we never talked about that bad night again. Life went on and when I ran into Jason, he was distant and vaguely unpleasant. Everyone else treated him like a loveable goofball, though I did notice that some people made a point to steer clear of him. Myself, I got to the place where I wondered whether I had imagined the whole thing, or maybe he had been too drunk to remember his attack on me.
Despite the passage of time and my own self-doubt, it was still impossible to feel comfortable with him in my house, but I didn’t want to work myself into a panic attack, either. I rationalized that there were plenty of people who liked Jason, and he did have a good sense of humor. I stopped just sort of making excuses for his past behavior, and strode purposefully into the kitchen.
“So, I bet your parents are happy to see you.” With my thumbs, I was inscribing infinity patterns on the nail of my middle fingers. I shoved my hands into my robe pockets to hide this nervous habit.
“Haven’t been there yet.” He grabbed a pot from the particleboard cupboards, and stuck his hand in the food cabinet all in one smooth move. “You’re gonna need more Potato Buds.”
I sucked in a deep mouthful of air in a trapped sort of way and sat down on a stool next to the island, girding myself for a confrontation. I knew from experience that it would be easier to get rid of him full than kick him out hungry, so I promised myself I would show him the door as soon as he was done eating. This was my house and I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me in it. At least not for longer than half an hour. I slowed my heartbeat, made a mental note of the objects within reaching distance that I could use as weapons if need be—the knife rack was inches away on the crook of the island, and I could touch the nearest lamp with my hand right now if I wanted to—and turned to look into the night.
The June evening was unusually warm, following the precedent set by May, and soaked in the smell of fresh-cut grass and rich, black dirt. If I listened below the sounds of boiling water and clattering pans, I could hear mosquitoes whining. Whiskey Lake’s waves lapped against the rim of its sheltered arm 600 yards from my front door, and the oaks and elms stood still as stone, their fresh leaves hanging motionless and a little too green from the exhilaration of spring. I cocked my head. If there was no wind, there should be no waves. I stood and walked to the open door and peered through the screen. Sure enough, I caught the low hum of a motorboat on the far side of this sheltered offshoot of the lake. I looked at the clock hung by the door. It was 2:34 a.m.
“What’s a boat doing out at this time of night, and with no lights on?” I whispered, my fingertips on the cool screen.
I jumped as Jason answered from directly behind my left shoulder. “Probably looking for the diamond. This lake’ll be crawling by tomorrow.”
Interview with Jess Lourey
Hi, Jess! Thanks for taking time to chat with us. Please share with us a little about yourself, your background and any important accomplishments. For starters, how did you come into writing?
Four hundred and twenty three rejections. Two published novels. Not very good odds, but I'm working with them. It started when I was five. I wrote this poem for my grandfather:
Grandpas are full of love
Grandpas are full of tickles
But grandpas are especially full of pickles.
People loved it. Aunts hugged me, cousins were jealous, uncles asked me to immortalize them next. My poetry skills have not evolved since that day, but the enchantment with words and their power to make people see the world through my eyes has grown inside of me like a watermelon seed.
I finished my first novel when I was 26. It featured three women traveling across the United States, three women suspiciously like myself and the two best friends I had taken a road trip with a couple years earlier. Like most first novels, it was embarrassingly self-involved, full of overwritten description and twenty pound dialogue tags: "Why doesn't my alcoholic father accept me for who I am?" Hannah asked pityingly, rubbing the burning, salty tears from her chocolate brown eyes.
Amazingly, no publisher would take a look at the first three chapters. (The fact that I was submitting directly to publishers shows just how green I was.) I tried some light revising, working under the new author misconception that my work was great and the world just wasn't ready for it yet. When the adding of more adjectives didn't net me a three-contract book deal, I took a sabbatical from writing the Great American Novel and got a real job. I ended up with two Master's degrees, one in English and one in Sociology, and a teaching job at a rural technical college.
But, like most writers, I couldn't stop thinking of book ideas, writing down sparks of description or snatches of conversation that I overheard and would love to write about, feeling lazy and envious when I read a fantastic novel. When the nagging sense of ignoring something important got too strong, I started writing May Day, the first in my Murder by Month series.
It turned out mystery writing was an excellent fit for me. I enjoy structure, adventure, humor, justice. My first draft was complete, I thought, at 45,000 words. Confident that I had found my niche, I sent out 50 query letters and received 50 rejections. I researched the field, poring over the Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime websites, reading all that Preditors and Editors had to offer me, camping out in Jeff Herman's fantastic reference book as well as the Literary Marketplace and AAR. Out of all those resources, two points stuck with me: no one would read a book shorter than 50,000 words, and if you're writing a mystery, publishers only want series.
I hired a freelance editor and pumped her up to 52,000. Next, I wrote June Bug. Then, and only then, did I begin my systematic plan of attack to wear down the publishing Behemoth. I sent out 200 query letters. When the rejections started trickling in, I sent out 150 more. Not an agent or small press was spared. If they represented books, they heard about May Day and June Bug.
If you're keeping score, that's three books written, zero books published. Why did I put so much effort into this? Because when I write, I feel like I'm in the right place at the right time. How did I know May Day and June Bug didn't suck on five different levels like my first novel? Because I had done the research, including reading nearly forty books in the mystery genre, I had studied what made them great, and I had sought out and adhered to feedback from a reliable and well-recommended editor.
Finally, a bite. I found an agent. We never met -- she lived out west on a commune, where she edited technical manuals and studied the healing power of crystals. After six months and a handful of offers from publish-on-demand companies, we parted ways amicably. I found another agent shortly after that, and after a year of rejections from New York publishing houses, she found my books a home with Midnight Ink, an innovative new imprint of a respected Minnesota publishing house.
May Day came out in March of 2006, has received critical acclaim, and is available anywhere you can buy books. June Bug comes out in March 2007, Knee High by the Fourth of July in September 2007, and August Moon in March 2008. I'm also developing a series which I hope to shop to larger publishing houses, and working on a mainstream fiction novel outside of the mystery genre.
So, as of today, I'm at 423 rejections and two novels. Most people would have given up a while ago, and there is a word for those type of people: sensible. The rest of us, we're called writers.
Q. Where do you get your story ideas?
I get a lot of my inspiration in dreams and sleep with a journal next to my bed. I also pay attention to the world. I'm an avid people-watcher, eavesdropper, and listener, and much of what I see, hear, and read morphs into stories. However, many of my ideas (and often the ones I consider my best writing) come out of whole cloth -- I am at my computer, committed to turning out at least five pages, and once the pump is primed, the story unfolds from the cosmos, through me, and onto the page.
Q. How did you find an agent/publisher?
Dogged determination or a pathological unresponsiveness to reality. You pick. They're the same thing. If you want healthier directions, here's what I got:
1. After you've fully and honestly revised your novel based on feedback from at least three trusted sources, write a query and a synopsis. This requires a whole 'nother kind of writing -- sales and marketing. Get feedback on your query and synopsis, and consider hiring a professional editor.
- "Dos and Don'ts: How to Write a Perfect Query Letter"
- "The Complete Nobody's Guide to Query Letters"
I've had great luck with Laine Cunningham of Writer's Resource editing my marketing materials.
2. Get a list of potential small presses and agents who would be a good fit for your work. Don't ever submit to any source that requires a reading fee or any other money up front; the only money you should pay out is postage and printing costs to an agent. Places to look to compile this list:
- Jeff Herman -- Insider's Guide To Book Editors, Publishers And Literary Agents (Check your local library)
- Literary Marketplace (Check your local library.)
- The Association of Authors' Representatives
- The Writer's Market (Check your local library for the 2006 edition).
- Consider reading all of Jeff Herman's book or all of The Writer's Market before you submit; if you can afford it, buy one or the other. They're both full of excellent tips.
3. Submit your work to at least 100 agents and small presses. If they all reject, consider what your initial readers said and look for patterns in the rejections to find areas you still need to revise. If you didn't earlier hire a professional editor, seriously consider doing so now (I've had great luck with Jessica Morrell). After you've made significant revisions, submit to another 100.
4. Keep Andre Bernard's Rotten Rejections (Pushcart Press, 1990) close at hand. It's an inspirational collection of rejection letters received by Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Jane Austen, and others.
5. While writing and submitting, attend conferences for writers in your genre. Often, there will be agents and publishers there willing to hear a pitch from you. Organizations that represent the type of writing you do (Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, Horror Writers Association, Sisters in Crime, Writers Guild of America, The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) should have a list of relevant conferences.
Q. Do you have a disciplined writing schedule?
I do not. What I do have is a full-time teaching job, two young children, and stories that won't leave me alone, so I make it work. With every book, finding time to write is like wrestling with a monkey. A clever, strong monkey that doesn't want to wrestle and would rather watch TV, or read someone else's book, or clean the bathroom with a Q-tip. Some nights, the monkey wins, and I watch The Office or go to bed at 9:00, but I win often enough that I can turn out a book every six months.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: when I write, I feel like I'm in the right place at the right time, and that is not a sensation to be wasted. But even though it's always satisfying, it's never easy.
Q. What do the people of Battle Lake think of your mystery series?
I set the Murder by Month series in Battle Lake because that's where I was living when I first hammered out May Day. I was impressed with the warmth and humor of the people in the town and the beauty and variety of the landscape, but also disturbed by the number of unusual deaths and quirky characters. In other words, it was the perfect place to stage a long-term mystery series. Overall, I've gotten very positive feedback from the residents of Battle Lake.
Q. What is your claim to fame?
I am the author of the Murder by Month series. May Day, the first in the series, came out March 2006, and June Bug was just released two weeks ago. Knee High by the Fourth of July comes out September 2007, and August Moon should be on shelves by March 2008. You can find excerpts from all four as well as information at my website, www.jesslourey.com.
The series is humorous, feminist, and completely small-town. It's a comic caper sexy cozy. The series takes place in Battle Lake, Minnesota, and features amateur sleuth Mira James. She has been relocated from Minneapolis to Battle Lake and deals with culture shock, a shallow dating pool, and dead bodies.
Q. How long have you been writing? What made you put that first story down on paper?
I've been writing since I was around five. In fact, when I first heard the word "cursive" in first grade, I loved it so much that I made my family call me that for weeks. I have only been writing well for about four years, however. A lot of my original stuff was crap, though you couldn't have told me that at the time I was writing it. I started out with mainstream fiction, short stories, and overwrought poetry. Then, about five years ago, I was at my aunt's, and there was nothing to read but mysteries. I picked up a Tony Hillermann and Janet Evanovich, and was hooked and inspired.
Q. Do you write in a particular genre? If so, what genre is it?
The genre I write in is mystery, and the sub-genre is comic mystery.
Q. What was the first story? Where was it published?
I published a couple short stories in college journals, but I have never been comfortable with short stories. It's hard for me to dial down my characters and plot twists. I like the broad canvas of a novel.
Q. How long did it take to write and publish?
I wrote May Day, the first in the series, in about two years. It took me another two years and over 400 rejections before I found an agent and then a publisher.
Q. What was the process?
Denial. I sent out 200 query letters to all the agents and small publishers I could find. I checked Writer's Market, Preditors and Editors, the AAR. When rejections started trickling in, I hired a freelance editor, pumped up my query and my novel, and sent out another 200. I had enough momentum that there was no turning back.
Q. Who’s your favorite author and why?
I know it's cliche, but I love books. I love them. Asking me my favorite author is like asking me my favorite food (another thing I love). Somedays you want ice cream, and so that ice cream is your favorite food. Another day, you want spicy Chinese, so that's your favorite food. That said, the authors I keep returning to are Barbara Kingsolver, William Kent Krueger, Margaret Atwood, Janet Evanovich. They all are great at character development and setting.
Q. How did you deal with rejection letters, if you received any?
Ha! Have I received some. The trick is to sift out the useful information from the non-useful. If enough rejection letters point to your lack of character development, for example, then you should seriously conisder developing your characters more. Fortunately, most of my rejections were form letters, or in some cases, only strips of paper, so I didn't have to think too much about them.
Q. What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing?
Hands down, its character development. Your characters have to be realistic--fiction realistic, not real-life realistic. People in real life are too inconsistent. I also like humor, and dialoge that is natural.
Q. How do you develop your plots/characters, ideas/concepts ? Do you use any set formula?
With mystery writing, you have to start at the end and work your way forward. You know what the crime is and who did it (the ending), and then you start telling the story. So, I create the kernel of the story, maybe a three page sketch, and then I just start writing. I'm surprised at some of the characters I meet.
Q. What do you do to unwind and relax?
Read, garden, and bake.
Q. What do you like to read?
Right now, mysteries, but anything with a tight plot and characters I want to spend time with.
Q. What does your family feel about your writing? Are they supportive?
Incredibly supportive. My mom comes up one night a week to watch my kids so I can devote four hours straight the writing. The rest of it is stolen time.
Q. What inspires you? Who inspires you?
Bits of overheard conversation, stranger mannerisms, stories that spark another story.
Q. Are you working on any projects right now?
I am currently promoting June Bug, and so have writing on the back burner. This summer, I'm going to begin a novel about a 13-year-old Dakota girl forced into a boarding school in 1920s South Dakota.
Q. How do you handle Writer’s Block?
I don't get it. My first drafts don't always have quality, but they have quantity. I think Writer's Block is caused by outside expectations. If you don't expect anything from yourself except that you get some words on paper that you can sculpt later on, you can do it.
Q. What is most frustrating about writing? Most rewarding?
Since my first novel came out, I've spent more time promoting than writing, and I think that is standard in the business. Most rewarding is meeting other authors.
Q. What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given as a writer? What’s the worst?
Write for yourself is the best. I hope I haven't given any terrible advice.
Q. If I were sitting down to write my very first story, what would your advice be?
I wouldn't give advice. I would give encouragement. Sitting down to write your first story is a wonderful thing to do, and if it feels good while you're doing it, if you feel like you're in the right place at the right time, than there is no better way to spend your time.
Q. What is your best advice for getting published?
I actually have everything I've learned in a handout on my website:
I hope the information is useful to other aspiring writers!
Q. What has been the single most important part of your success?
I think it's important to always write for personal satisfaction. We could always be better writers, or different writers, or promote more. It's important to not let that become overwhelming and remember why you started writing in the first place.
