Stranger Than Fiction

I'm in several Yahoo groups for all sorts of mystery-related associations and reading groups. All kinds of great information comes through on these lists but every once in awhile members will share some crazy news they've read. I read two items over the past two days that I just felt like I had to share.

One's pretty funny; the other is pretty disturbing.

Shall we start with funny?

This is from The Writer's Forensics Blog (http://writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com/), which is written by D.P. Lyle, MD. For regular readers of my blog, you might remember that Dr. Lyle is the doctor who helped me with the poisoning scenario in my book.

He has a regular category he sometimes posts called Stupid Criminals. In this post, he tells the story of a woman, who at the time of her crime was serving on a jury for a credit card theft case in the Bronx.

During the trial, guess what she did? She stole a credit card from a fellow juror and went on a shopping spree!

Well the credit card noticed the unusual activity and alerted the man from whom the credit card was stolen. He called the police who tracked the activity and found a security camera revealing the woman shopping.

This case hasn't wrapped up yet, because the woman is claiming that the man was hitting on her and gave her his credit card to use. Yeah, right!

Ok, now for the disturbing item.

This originally comes from a Memphis newspaper I think. The body of a woman who has been missing since January was found last week UNDER a MOTEL BED INSIDE a metal frame with a mattress and box spring on top. It appears the body had been there SINCE HER DISAPPEARANCE!

That means her body was inside that bed for almost three months in a hotel room that has been rented out to people since her body was put there!

Her body was eventually found because a fould odor was reported by motel staff. Uh, you think? A body rotting beneath a boxspring and mattress for a few months? I can't believe it took three months to smell that!

According to the police the room has been rented out five times in that three month period and been cleaned "numerous" times as well.

And nobody smelled anything wrong? Noone sleeping on top of a rotting corpse sensed anything amiss? Their nose never wrinkled at a putrid scent rising from beneath them?

It just grosses me out thinking about it.

To make the whole thing just a little bit weirder, or maybe more pathetic, the police knew that the missing women had been living at the hotel and that she'd been staying in that room. While they went to the motel and spoke with some staff members, they never went inside the room to investigate!

OK, maybe I've seen one too many CSI episodes, but that just seems plain remiss.

Anyway, after reading this, I'm thinking maybe I need to start lifting up the boxspring and mattress on hotel beds before I snuggle in for the night. I don't EVER want to find out afterwards that I was sleeping on a corpse!!

Hey gals, whaddya think of in-air ladies only bathrooms?

Sounds crazy, right! But it's real. Japanese carrier All Nippon Airway is introducing women-only bathrooms on most of its planes, for all international flights. According to the air line, the new loos are in response to passenger requests -- from female passengers.

One women's only bathroom will be designated at the back of the plane. It will display a pink version of the universal symbol for women's bathrooms -- you know what I mean, the stick like figure in a skirt. If this bathroom is in use, women are free to use any other toilet that is open.

However, men may only use the women's only bathroom:

1.) When required for safety reasons -- I've been trying to think of a saftey reason that would require a man to use a bathroom, but haven't been able to come up with one yet...

2.) When a male passenger is not feeling well -- well, doesn't that defeat part of the purpose! Part of the reason to use a women's only bathroom is that when a man is having "stomach" issues, it usually (I said usually) smells worse than when women have the same problem.

3.) When there are very few female passengers and the women-only designation has been lifted for the flight -- can you imagine the overhead announcement. "Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen. As there are actually very few of you ladies onboard today, we'll be lifting our women's only bathroom rule. Gentlemen, please feel free to use the lavatory with the pink women on it."

So what do you think?

Personally, I think it sounds great! I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the bathroom, realized I forgot to put my shoes back on before I left my seat and ended up with sticky socks! I try very hard not to think about what's making my socks sticky!!

And like I said before, we all know guys' crap smells worse than women's, right??

A flight comparison Web site in the UK, Skyscanner, polled its visitors about what they thought of the idea. Interestingly, the concept divided the opinion of respondents almost in half.

The poll asked whether travelers agreed with All Nippon Airway's move? 46% of voters agreed with it, and said all airlines should do the same. 51% isapproved of the idea.

Hmm, you think that division is a divsion by sex. Most women perhaps agreeing and most men disagreeing?

In its press release announcing the results of this study, Skycanner said "With fewer toilets to choose from when flying, men may have to queue for longer on flights that offer women-ony WCs."

Well, it's about time!

So what's your opinion?

Volunteers need in Spain. The only requirement -- speak English.

Want to go to Spain for two months? Want to go and have someone else pay for your housing? Are you a retired or former teacher and can you do it a month from now?

The Spanish government is seeking retired teachers for an English language education project that gives qualifed applicants the change to teach English for two months in 12 different schools throughout north central Spain.

Done in collaboration with a company called Vaughan Systems, this program follows a succesful pilot program. The program recruits native English speakers to enhance the English-learning process of pre-schoolers and early elementary school students. For anyone who's been to Spain you'll that as a rule they don't speak English very well over there. That's because its never been stressed in their schools and they dub all English-language movies in Spanish. This new program targets the youngest students to get them started early.

Volunteers will help as teaching assistants giving kids the opportunity to practice their English, particularly their speaking skills.

The program runs from April 12 to June 12 and seeks retired school teachers with previous experience. The studen age groups range between 3 and 12 and classroom size between 25 and 35. Spaces are limited.

In exchange for their volunteer work, the project covers housing in a single or shared apartment in the town where the school is located, insurance for the duration of the program and transfers from Madrid.

Positions are available in various locations throughout the Castile-Leon area in Segovia, Zamora, Burgos, Leon, Palencia, Soria, Valladolid and Salamanca.

Vaughan Systems, the partner company, is the largest language training firm in Spain. Every year the company brings some 1,500 volunteers to Spain (not necessarily teachers, just native English speakers of all ages) for a locally-famous adult English-learning program called VaughanTown. The program is a six-day conversation program that pairs native English speakers with Spanish people to help them learn to speak English better.

In 2006 the program was called Englishtown and I did it for a week. You can read an article I wrote about here.

If you're interested in participating in VaughTown go to http://www.vaugantown.com/. If you're a retired teacher and interested in the two-month program send your resume and a cover letter to project coordinator Mayte Ziga at mziga@vaughantown.com.

And the winner is....

The winner of the February raffle is Sharon W.

Sharon won an uncorrected proof of "Holiday Grind" by Cleo Coyle.

A new raffle starts this month. Anyone who leaves a comment during the month of March is entered into the drawing. This prize for March is a paperback copy of "Rotten to the Core" by Sheila Connolly.

Good luck!

Participatory Research

As I become more involved in my own writing and as I read about other writers and their processes, one thing I hear again and again is how writers research many aspects of their book by doing them and trying them.

So, if a writer's book includes the main character riding a dune buggy, the writer makes sure he or she has ridden a dune buggy so the experience can be described accurately. I believe this is one of the reasons so many writers write about what they know. The research is already built into their lives.

But at some point ever writer is going to have to write about something unfamiliar. Sometimes book and/or Internet research is enough. In some cases finding an expert to talk to is sufficient. But other times, the writer really does need to get out there and experience whatever it is firsthand.

With that in mind, when I was offered the opportunity to take a gun class -- during which I would get to see guns, touch them, shoot them! -- I decided it was too important to pass up. While my main character is not a cop and for the most part will not be dealing on a daily basis with gun toting people, I am writing a murder mystery series and chances are at some point a gun will appear in the books.

In fact, a gun appears in the book I'm writing now. And quite frankly, I was just going to write the scene(s) with the gun based on what I've seen on TV. And I'd probably get away with it. I don't know how many people are going to read my book who are very familiar with guns. But once the opportunity was in front of me, I would have been remiss as an author if I didn't take it.

And I'm glad I did. I learned a lot. I learned what they really look like, what they really feel like, what it smells like when a gun is shot, what the actual shot looks like, what it feels like to shoot a gun -- all things I can use in my writing.

Of course, those were the things I expected to learn, but I learned more than that. I learned what a bullet wound does (thankfully not first hand!). I learned what gun oil smells like and what tools are needed to clean a gun. These were not things I had thought about before, but both will appear in the book I'm writing.

I found the class both interesting and disturbing. I didn't particular like shooting the guns, though I had my favorites. A few were too powerful for me. Just shooting them at a paper target got my heart pounding in a way I didn't enjoy.

All anecdotal stories aside, I did not find shooting guns to be empowering. I think I realized I have absolutely no desire to have that kind of power over someone -- especially the power that comes from the higher caliber guns.

But I am so glad I took the class, because I believe it was an important experience to have and I believe it will make my writing that much more realistic.