Pull Up A Chair To Owen McKenna's Kitchen Table...

The single best thing about being an author is getting up in the morning and reading fan mail. People write to say what they liked about my books. And occasionally they point out glitches and mistakes and other things I've overlooked!

A couple of days ago, I got a really fun email from a reader named Debbie. In addition to complementing my books, she pointed out some discrepancies about Owen McKenna's kitchen table in my various books. This was interesting because I haven't thought much about Owen's culinary environment. I guess I should pay better attention!

I've put Debbie's letter below, followed by her notations of my table descriptions.

My return note to Debbie is below that.

Here is Debbie's letter:

Firstly---let me say I LOVE your 10 books!  I just finished #9, since I started w/#10....then went in chronological order---I now have my sweetie reading them.  Your Owen McKenna series is as exciting as the Lee Child's Jack Reacher series.

Anyway...

I am an avid reader, and noticed spelling mistakes...but, the mistake that bothered me the most---was---does Owen have a kitchen table or not?  I didn't cut & paste all the references---but, I do want to know!

Thank you!

Debbie

Another reference to "Owen"  having a kitchen table:

as I carried it to my little kitchen table

Borg, Todd (2011-07-15). Tahoe Hijack (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (Kindle Location 1780). Thriller Press. Kindle Edition.

and again!

Diamond sat with me at my little kitchen table.

Borg, Todd (2008-08-01). Tahoe Avalanche (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (Kindle Location 1268). Thriller Press. Kindle Edition.

add this:   entrance to my kitchen nook. Her eyes were wild, ransacking my homemade butcher block table and Shaker chairs,

Borg, Todd (2007-08-01). Tahoe Silence (An Owen McKenna Mystery Thriller) (Kindle Locations 111-112). Thriller Press. Kindle Edition.

Dear Debbie,

Thanks so much for writing. I'm glad you are enjoying the adventures of Owen and Spot!

I believe you've set a new bar for astute kitchen-table observation! I'm impressed! Of all the letters I get about writing details, you are the first to notice my discrepancies regarding McKenna's kitchen table.

To bring you up to date:  

McKenna used to have a crude, home-made butcher block table.

But one day, Spot, in his excitement about going for a walk, spun around, hit the table, and broke off one of the table legs. The table top fell to the floor and cracked in half. McKenna used his splitting maul to turn the butcher block table into firewood for his wood stove, and the heavy pieces heated his cabin for two weeks.

McKenna ate standing at the kitchen sink for a few days and then found a cracked vinyl table top for free at a garage sale (no one was willing to pay the $4 price), and with some hinges from Scotty's Hardware in South Lake Tahoe, he attached it to the wall of his kitchen nook.

The laminated table is homely, but the hinges work great. When it's folded out of the way, Spot can now push his food bowl around the area without bumping so many obstructions.

As for the spelling mistakes you've noticed, I claim no excuse. Were I to attempt an explanation, I'd venture to say that most are of the homophone kind: altar/alter, rein/reign, peek/peak etc. I clearly have a neural dysfunction that permits me few graces in the spelling department.

Fortunately, many readers point out the spelling errors to me, and they gradually get corrected in reprints. 

Thanks again for your thoughtful culinary comments, although I must now confess to a bit of trepidation about my new book, which is due out in August. Does Owen eat at the counter? The table? Is it still made of vinyl? We'll know in a few months!

Sincerely and earnestly (Really!),

Todd

Do Dogs Grieve?

Years ago, when our first Great Dane was two years old, we learned of a Great Dane pup that needed rescuing. We never knew what the puppy's owners were struggling with, but we saw the need for a new home for the puppy when we went to their apartment and found the puppy chained to the handle of a kitchen cupboard, barely able reach its food and water.

The people were relieved to have us take that dog off their hands. We named her Scarlet.

That little puppy grew up to be the happiest, sweetest dog you could ever know. She clearly was connected to us in every great doggie way. But Scarlet had an even greater devotion to our other dog. Watching those two dogs play together was a great joy. Their emotional connection was deep and obvious.

Eventually, the inevitable happened, and our first Dane died at the age of 10. Scarlet, now 8, was so profoundly depressed that she couldn't function in any way. She stopped eating, drinking, sleeping, playing. The dog who lived to run wouldn't even walk. Desperate, we took her to the vet.

My wife's sketch of Scarlet with her nose tucked under her paw

After examining her for a few minutes, the vet said, “I hate to tell you this, but it appears that your dog is dying of grief.”

We asked, “Is there anything we can do?”

He said, “I can't promise it will save her, but I think your best hope is to get another dog as soon as possible.”

We immediately went dog shopping and brought home another puppy.

The effect on our depressed dog was slow, but she began to get better. She began drinking and eating. Eventually, she rediscovered play. She went on to live until the age of 13, the oldest Great Dane our vet had ever seen.

As all pet owners know, the emotional lives of animals are as real as the emotional lives of people. Yes, people might be more complicated, but our emotions are no more profound. When you watch dogs play, it is obvious that their joy is just as joyful as that of any human. And when you watch a dog dying of grief, you can't deny that it is their depression that's killing them. Animals under severe stress sometimes give up and die just like humans do.

Scientists studying animals – and the general media that reports on them – made another small step forward into the obvious this week as Time Magazine did a story on Animal Grief. (Note that you have to be a subscriber to read the entire article.)  The article reports on scientists who've studied how various species deal with the death of their own. They looked at elephants and apes and dolphins and crows and horses and, of course, dogs and cats, and they found significant and unmistakable signs of serious grief in the animal world. Many species even have complex rituals they enact when one of their own dies.

I've written about animal intelligence and emotion before: 

Animal Intelligence Is Always Underestimated

The Emotional Intelligence Of Dogs

This new article in Time Magazine prompts me to visit the subject again. Scientists are coming around. They've slowed down their knee-jerk impulse to label our observations of animal emotion and animal intelligence as anthropomorphizing, the unfounded attachment of human qualities to animals.

Some day, the experts will finally recognize what the rest of us have always known. Animals have lives that are nearly as rich and full of complex behaviors and social structures as the lives of people. (It seems that some of the time, some animals have richer and fuller lives than some people!)

When a Dolphin baby dies, the mother shows profound and complex grief. She keeps lifting the dead baby to the surface for days, and other Dolphins join in a long-term mourning ritual, refusing to leave the dead baby.

People are clever, and we are lucky enough to have opposable thumbs, which led to specialized brain development (imagine what dolphins might do with opposable thumbs!), but it's arrogant to think that our suffering when one of us dies is greater than the suffering animals endure when their loved ones die. If your grief is powerful enough to kill you, it's all powerful, regardless of what species you belong to.

Beauty Follows Science, or Sailing On Lake Tahoe is Another Kind Of Wind Power

I often watch the sailing regattas on Lake Tahoe and admire the beauty of airfoils designed to extract power from the wind.

A few weeks ago, I saw a second cousin to those gorgeous sailboats.

I was driving through the Mojave Desert when I overtook a slow-moving truck with a flashing sign that said “Oversized load.”

Wow, talk about understatement. You know those logging trucks where the cab is connected to the rear wheels not by a truck structure but by the logs themselves? This truck was like that, except it seemed like it was maybe 200 feet long.

I slowed as I moved into the left lane to go past.

What I saw was a fantastic, beautiful, monstrous curve of white. It may have been made of fiberglass or titanium or some other techy material. I couldn't tell. It curved in all three dimensions and brought back hazy memories of reading about hyperbolic paraboloids from science texts back in college.

I thought it was the largest – and one of the most beautiful – abstract sculptures I'd ever seen. Then I realized what I was looking at.

It was a single blade for a monster wind turbine.

I slowed my car, matched speeds with the truck, and stared at this wing that was much longer than those on a 747 jet and, with its complicated multiple curves, probably more complicated in design. It was like an America's Cup sailboat-meets-Mars-mission technology.

Up close, it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen, a beautiful shape that was designed to extract power from the wind. It was beautiful because the the science behind its design made it that way.

It is humbling to realize that the science of function is integral to many things of beauty. When I look at the spectacular sails of the boats out on Lake Tahoe, I realize that their beauty comes from a design that is all about function. 

WoodWind II Sailing Cruises on Tahoe

After seeing that huge turbine blade, I can never again look at the spinning blades of wind turbines without seeing them like sailboats. These are sails that turn. They take the invisible wind and turn it into electricity. A wind farm with many turbines is like a regatta with many racing boats. Instead of producing an afternoon thrill ride on the water, the turbines power our lights and appliances.

Beauty follows science.

Tucson Festival Of Books

I was one of the authors exhibiting at The Tucson Festival of Books, held on the University of Arizona campus. 

It was a great time, and I met a lot of mystery readers. And who wouldn't want to visit warm, sunny Tucson in March? Saturday was cloudy and rainy and windy, but hey, the temperature got all the way up to 47 degrees. Locals called it "a severe weather event." But the sun came out on Sunday, and the thermometer practically broke as it punched through to 56.

At night in the hotel, I was able to get some writing time in on my laptop.

My artist wife got some drawing in as well. Here is her sketch of me working on my laptop as I ruminate on the next adventures of Owen and Spot.

Wait, How Big Is Tahoe? 29 Years!

You've all heard the statistics about Lake Tahoe. They're on the back of restaurant menus, on calendars, in the wikipedia articles, on the travel websites. Length (22 miles), width (12 miles), depth (1635 feet), total water volume (150 cubic kilometers).

Tahoe From Space

Okay, it's a big lake. But how big is it in terms that we can understand?

Here's a statistic you've never heard.

I decided to run a few numbers. I wanted to know this: If every person on earth drank eight glasses of water a day and they dipped it out of Lake Tahoe, how long would the lake provide everyone on the planet with drinking water? A day? Several days? A few weeks?

We've got a bit over 7 billion people on this planet. That's a number too big to really grasp. Line up 7 billion 5-foot, 6-inch people and they'd stretch around the earth 291 times. Put all of us head to toe and we'd go to the moon 30 times. That's a lot of people. So if we're all drinking our recommended intake from the lake, how long would it last us?

Over 29 years.*

That's a lot of water from one mountain lake.

So the next time you drink a glass of water, invite everyone else on the planet to join you. Let's everybody do it eight times a day for 29 years.

Live large. It's Lake Tahoe.

*For those of you who want to do the math, there are a bit more than 4 eight-ounce glasses in a liter, a thousand liters in a cubic meter, a billion cubic meters in a cubic kilometer, and 150 cubic kilometers in Lake Tahoe. Divide by 7 billion people, then divide by 8 glasses a day, then divide by 365 days in a year, and you get 29 years. That's a lot of water.

The Joys Of A Fictional Dog

Spot, as many of you readers know, is a 170-pound Harlequin Great Dane. He's also fictional.

Dog Breed Info

He seems real, as I've learned from the number of emails I get telling me to say hi to Spot and give him a pet.

I based his personality on a combination of the three Great Danes we've owned. Same enthusiasm, same goofiness, same levity – life's a game!

Of course, real Danes have some pretty amazing traits that Spot can only do in our imaginations. What's my favorite? Well, it's hard to beat the way a real Great Dane, when you're sitting in a chair or on the couch, will walk around behind you and drape his giant head down over your shoulder and lay it on your chest, his ear right next to your mouth. When you whisper into the ear of a Dane who's doing this, you can sense the slightest movement in his head as he wags his tail. He won't lift his head up off your chest unless you push him away. He just wants to be as close to you as possible.

Of course, there are some advantages to fictional Danes. They're a bit easier to train. It's less work to pick up after them. And if you have to suddenly leave town, there's no scramble lining up a dog-sitter.

But there's no substitute for the real, living, breathing, wagging thing.

The Most Important Thing About Research

At nearly every talk I give, I get a question about how I do my research. I always explain that I usually spend some time Googling my questions about a topic. (Sometimes I just type in a few disjointed words. Sometimes I type in an actual question.) The results that pop up range from fascinating to dead ends. At each step, I think of other questions. I end up clicking through a wide range of links, and usually I get so interested in the topic or related topics that I learn much more than I need for a particular part in a book.

Sometimes, after I've learned the basics, I'll call an expert. The reason is that while you can read enough about some subjects to become quite knowledgeable, you may find that your writing about it, while technically correct, doesn't have the right flavor. Talking to an actual person can make a huge difference.

This is one of the most fun things about writing. I track down an expert, call them up, tell them I'm working on a new book that has a story thread about (insert subject here: forest fires, avalanche control, autism, long-lost Mark Twain manuscripts, weapons, art forgery, gold mining, search and rescue, genetic engineering). You get the idea.

I've never been turned down. I assume that's because people like to be helpful, and they probably also welcome a break from their routine. Going out to have coffee with a writer who wants to pick their brain is more fun than a typical meeting at the office.

Another kind of research is exploring the arena in which you are writing. For me, this can range from hiking and skiing and biking and sailing around Tahoe to traveling to other cities and visiting places that might turn up in my books. I may even explore museums that house the kind of stuff I'm writing about. Sometimes, I poke around libraries or businesses that intersect with my subject matter.

In sum, research is fun and enormously interesting.

Which brings me to the most important part of research.

You have to know when to quit.

When you've learned enough for your purposes, it's time to stop researching and write your book.

Thorough research is critical to getting most stories to work well. But research has caused more writers more procrastination than anything other than email and other internet distractions.

Learn what you need, then turn it off. It's time to write.

The Thinking Center

Tahoe's Clarity Is Improving!

 The UC Davis scientists who study this stuff dangle the Secchi disk (basically a white dinner plate or a black-and-white plate) down off the shady side of a boat at mid-day. They lower it until they can no longer see it, at which point they note the depth. After they start pulling it back up, they again note the depth when the plate reappears. Often the two figures vary a bit, so they average them. And just to make sure that they are getting reliable data, they do this measurement many times during the course of a year.

The average for 2012 was 75 feet. The lake hasn't been that clear since 2002.

UC Davis's John Le Conte research vessel

Before we get too excited and smug, it is good to remember that when they started taking these measurements in 1968, that little Secchi disk could be seen 102 feet down!

While this improving trend is great, the reasons why it is happening are less clear. At this point, the best guess is that the main mitigation has come from all of the infiltration ponds that have been built to catch and filter runoff water from streets as well as rebuilding creeks that once had meandering paths and flood zones but were dredged and straightened by developers in years past.

There is lots more to do. There is still a scary number of drainage pipes that dump dirty storm runoff water directly into the lake. These have been documented by the Tahoe Pipe Club.

There are infestations of non-native mussels and fish that lead to algae blooms. There are massive ongoing erosion areas from old road cuts such as Meyer's Grade.

And there are other problems that might be even harder to tackle, such as the nutrient load from dust and dirt that blows in from the Central Valley, especially when the farmers are plowing or burning slash. Scientists have even identified silt that has blown into the lake from China's and Mongolia's Gobi Desert after a dust storm half a world away.

But for now, we are glad that the lake is improving, and we salute those individuals and groups that made it possible!

Do You Want To Write A Novel?

I encourage anyone who wants to write a novel! Making up stories for a living is the greatest job there is. Here is one of the most helpful things I can think of.

Writers write.

I know, it's an old cliche, but it's true.

The whole thing about the art of writing being the application of the seat of your pants to a chair is accurate. But much of writing isn't the typing part. The majority of writing is thinking. This happens in a variety of ways. Writers are often working on their novel even as they wash the dishes, drive to appointments, shovel the driveway, or take a shower. (I can't tell you how many times I've gotten out of the shower, completely focused on my book, only to wonder if I remembered to wash my hair – what little of it there is.) For me, much of writing is done taking long walks, walks where I'm not bird-watching or talking. The most important part of writing an effective novel is figuring out the intricacies of plot and conjuring up characters that are as real as your next-door neighbor. One can do much of that while engaging in habitual activity that doesn't require thinking.

But, unfortunately, this mix of writing while doing something else doesn't work if the something else involves talking or hanging out with other people. Nor does it work when the TV or radio is on. (Listening to background music, whether it be Yo Yo Ma or Aerosmith or Louis Armstrong is different, but only if your brain can keep it in the background.)

Writing at Carleton College

In short, if you want to write, you have to say no to most activities most of the time. I often think that that is the hardest part about writing, disconnecting yourself from the phone, the internet, the TV, the radio, the other people in the house.

Yes, some people like to write while surrounded by a crowd, but they are a small minority. I, too, have written entire chapters at Starbucks or the airport. But mostly, one needs to be alone and quiet.

So if you want to write, one of the best things you can do is turn off your phone, find some quiet solitude, and start writing.

Speaking of which, I better get back to this novel I've been working on.

Writers write.

Tahoe Tunnels

There's something about secret tunnels.

I was weaned on the Hardy Boys mysteries. I believe that my parents had somewhat loftier hopes for my reading. But when I showed a dim enthusiasm for the grander works of literature, they were happy to simply have me read, so they introduced me to the Hardy Boys, of which my dad still had a few copies left over from his boyhood.

I enjoyed the stories (and was a little in love with Joe Hardy's girlfriend). But what I remember best were the book's covers.

They were classic over-the-top scenes of drama, like the dime novel pulp covers from the '40s and '50s but without the sexy women in lingerie. This was far beyond simply judging a book by its cover. I have to assume that uncountable boys like me bought the books for their covers.

One cover theme that was featured on many of the books in the series was the secret passage, the secret door, the secret panel... all of which invariably led, by my boyhood calculation, to a secret tunnel.

Now, I live in an area with real tunnels! We have the Cave Rock tunnels, many old mining tunnels, railroad tunnels, natural underwater tunnels through which you can dive, old flume tunnels. We also have the 600-foot tunnel at the Thunderbird Lodge on the East Shore, built by the eccentric, super-rich George Whittell.

 George's secret tunnel allowed him (and his lion named Bill) to travel unseen from his mansion to the boathouse of his Thunderbird boat, the beautiful old woodie that still goes half the speed of light and looks even faster. We also have the Cal Neva Lodge in Crystal Bay where owner Frank Sinatra had tunnels built to allow him, Dean Martin, Marilyn Monroe, and other pals to escape their fans and paparazzi while they moved about the Tahoe property. There are rumors, too, that a few other Tahoe mansions, old and new, have tunnels.

You can even take tours of many of these tunnels, secret and not-so-secret.

Whether a tunnel bores through Tahoe granite or simply tantalizes from the cover of a book, there's something about secret passages. And tunnels, hidden from the world, are the epitome of secret.

Perfect subjects for a mystery writer.

Maybe Owen and Spot will one day encounter a secret tunnel.

Winter Night In Tahoe

 Fresh snow on the deck, lights turned down low, sparkling fire in the little red wood stove, stars visible out the skylights, Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue on the stereo, Cabernet in the wine glasses... it's time to think back on good times past. Thanks for the memories.

The Power Of Stories

I was very young when I first noticed that a good story can move you more than real events in real life. Like many kids, there were books I read over and over, story records I listened to until the needle wore out the groove in the vinyl. 

Don't get me wrong. When tragedy strikes in real life, it can pull you down into the quicksand until you can't breathe. And when you fall in love in real life, you can fly better than the birds.

But good stories have a power that transcends much of normal experience. When we want to experience a good time, we may go skiing or hiking or get together with friends, drink beer, and tell jokes. We may travel and visit fine restaurants and wineries. But over and over, people use their free time to go to the movies or turn on the TV looking for a good story. And of course, those of us who love to read pick up a book.

Erika sent this pic from Miami Beach

What we often find are stories that can be funnier and make us laugh more than the funny things in real life. Make us cry more than the sad things in real life. Scare us or move us or give us the chills or make us swoon more than in real life.

It is this power of stories that make them so compelling to write. Like most authors, I'm always trying to put together a powerful story. I always wish I could do it better. But when I get email from a reader who tells me how my story entertained them, moved them, made them laugh or cry, made them worry and fret, kept them up all night, my spirit floats weightless for a little while.

Of all the tiny marks I've made in this world, telling stories is the most rewarding. People have been addicted to, and smitten by, stories from the very beginning of people-time.

Stories have amazing power.