In the Act of Getting Out There!

Thanks to Pam Kelley and her blog, http://readinglifeobs.blogspot.com/2013/03/new-books-from-north-carolina-authors.html, for helping to get UNTIL PROVEN into the wider world!

HOW CAN YOU LEAVE A MYSTERY UNSOLVED?

That is the question I am asked at every reading of UNTIL PROVEN: A MYSTERY IN 2 PARTS. Good question.

Since I was 12 years old, the Rinaldi murder and trials have fascinated me. My father was a friend and supporter of Frank Rinaldi when Frank was wrongly accused of killing his wife, Sheila.

I always believed I would write about the murder and the trials one day. I didn't anticipate writing about them twice, once in fiction (UNTIL PROVEN) and once in non-fiction, (TIME OF DEATH). But I have done so, and now I look at the two accounts to see what I can learn about the connections between story, fact, fiction, and how they weave in and out in my life.

When I talk about the 2 books, I tend to stress the differences: characters who were insiders vs. real people who were outsiders; old money vs. little money; power vs. none; a young likable mistaken witness vs. a questionable witness who should have been a suspect.

But it must be the similarities that compelled me to write the two books. If I needed to use one word to describe the ways the two are alike, that word would be elusiveness. Truth is elusive. Facts are elusive. Justice is elusive.

For me, it is TIME OF DEATH that provokes questions, anger, indignation . . . and UNTIL PROVEN that takes the answers as far as they can go. If they can't go as far as we wish they would--well, my friends, let that be the answer.

Please read my books and let me know what you think.

TIME OF DEATH--FACT TO FICTION

TIME OF DEATH is now for sale as an ebook. (See note, below.) It is the true story of a murder that took place in Chapel Hill in 1963, when I when I was 12 years old. My family became involved because my father was a friend of the man accused of murdering his wife, Frank Rinaldi. Daddy and others stood beside Frank through a long ordeal that--in a second trial--ended with Frank being acquitted. But his life was forever changed. Wouldn't yours be?

In a much different way, my life was as well. At ages 12, 13, 14, I was impressionable. I learned a lot about loyalty to a friend, about the imperfections of the judicial system, and about hope. I wonder sometimes why I didn't become a defense attorney. It might have been a logical extension of the impact the Rinaldi trials had on me. Instead, I became a writer.

I knew for many years that I would eventually write about the Rinaldi case. It came out in fiction in my book, UNTIL PROVEN: A MYSTERY IN 2 PARTS. But UNTIL PROVEN is fiction. Fact was the seed-thought, but from there, my characters took on a life of their own, as fictional characters do for a writer. Their stories followed to logical conclusions that have nothing to do with the facts of Frank Rinaldi's experience.

Even so, I found that I wasn't through with Frank's story. It represented too much of importance to me. Facts may be found in who-what-when-where but the fifth question in that list is why. TIME OF DEATH provides facts as they were understood by people who were there. The district attorney who tried Frank twice had to provide the jury with a why: why would Frank have killed Lucille? Those who believe in Frank's innocence will tell you that the prosecutor had to make up the answers to that question because there no evidence that Frank did what he was accused of. Thus, in a court of law, fact may produce fiction.

For me, the questions why are, why was Frank charged? Why was he tried? Why was he convicted in the first trial? These are unanswerable questions in many ways, but I worked hard to make sense of what happened and why, in the context of the time and place. I strive not for fiction, but for a different kind of fact.

Note: if you have a computer or tablet or smartphone, you can download free software for Kindle, Nook or Kobo and then buy an ebook from Amazon (for Kindle), Barnes & Noble (for Nook), or kobobooks.com (for Kobo). TIME OF DEATH is shorter than book-length so it would be a good first e-read for you!

In the Act of Discovering 2013

If you saw my last post, you know that Time of Death is coming soon. The list of things to do is shorter. I've seen the first version of a cover design and that's an exciting thing to me. Makes it realer, somehow, and I'm so glad I have the talented Kelly Lojk to do the design for me.

And I kept my only New Year's Resolution: I sat down on 1-1-13 and began reworking, rewriting and reimagining the mansucript for a novel, STONE SOUP. It is set in a fictional mill town in North Carolina, Black Haw. Black Haw is mostly my mother's hometown, Lindale, Georgia, if it were set on the just a few miles from my house.

If you've read my book, UNTIL PROVEN: A MYSTERY IN 2 PARTS, you may remember that Eden lives in Black Haw in its 21st Century artsy Newer South incarnation. The action of that book is almost all in Piedmont and Piedmont is also a setting for parts of STONE SOUP.

It is fun to create a landscape, complete with towns, rivers, railroads, a university . . . whatever you need! It helps with characters, too, to have a clear vision of where they live and what they see when they look out their windows. It makes me realize how much what I see out of mine shape me. Is it a southern writer thing to be a bit obsessed with landscape? I'm in good company, that's for sure.

By the way, if you haven't read UNTIL PROVEN, can you explain yourself?

In the Act of Being a Writer Again

I'm not complaining, I hope you know, but it is hard to market behave like a publisher, a marketer, a regular person, and get any writing done. September, October and November 2012 taught me that.

In December, I've somehow managed to work on incorporating an editor's comments and fixes into my next project, Time of Death, and get it almost ready to go. I spent a couple of hours on it today without the need to think about Christmas gifts, a trip to see my nephew graduate from college, the Gaskin family Christmas gathering, or a dandy little 24 hour stomach bug. All of which have also taken their turn lately. It was a good couple of hours, reminding me what I'm about.

Time of Death is an interesting piece for me. It is the true story of murder and miscarriage of justice in Chapel Hill in 1963-65. I celebrated my 13th and 14th birthdays while the story spun itself out, for me the perfect age to absorb all of its lessons. A tiny bit of it became the kernal of my novel, Until Proven. I hope it will be interesting for readers of one to read the other, to see how imagination remakes facts in the service of some other truth.

My remaining To Do list:

• Get a cover designed
• Proofread and proofread again
• Format for various ebook sellers

Your To Do list:

• Watch this space for a publication date!
• If you haven't already done so, check www.lystrabooks.com and Lystra Books' Facebook page.
• Have a great New Year's Eve and a grand 2013!

In the Act of Borrowing from Myself

I posted this on my website, www.lystrabooks.com, and I like it enough to add it here. Think of giving this gift to your favorite writers, whoever they may be, this holiday season!


As a publisher and author,** I have read a lot about how books come to be bought and sold. There are detailed marketing plans and some clever ideas out there, but here is how it works: readers buy books that are recommended by a trusted person. Don't you?

Of course that trusted person could be a famous reviewer with a national following, but he or she is more likely to be a friend or family member. Sometimes he or she is a total and anonymous stranger. I've gone to Amazon just to read reviews, haven't you?


So if you've read a book that pleases you, make the author smile. Write a review for www.amazon.com or for www.goodreads.com. Tell five people. Buy it for a friend.

The author who has sold millions of copies and the one who has sold tens of copies have this in common. They were readers before they were writers. And when they put the hours, days, weeks, months and years into a book, all they want is for one reader to like it and to tell another reader about it.

I promise that's true. You may be thinking that Fame and Fortune must be involved, because why else would someone spend years on such an uncertain enterprise. I will promise you something else. F & F are rare in this crazy enterprise. Where they do exist, it is because way back in the misty past, one person liked a book and told another person about it.

So ultimately, if you love to read, it's worth your time to make a writer smile. It is what keeps him or her going.

**Until Proven: a Mystery in 2 Parts, written by Nora Gaskin, published by Lystra Books and Literary Services, LLC.

When Do I Get to Write Again?

I'm beginning to come out of the publishing tunnel. I've learned so much, getting Until Proven: A Mystery in 2 Parts out for the world to read (and in time for Christmas, too!) but it has been all-consuming for months.

Now I know what to expect when I do it again. Now I know what none of the numerous guides to self-publishing bother to tell you. Hence the tunnel.

Two nights in a row, I dreamed that I was running around in public places without much in the way of clothing on. You know, a good old anxiety dream. And I developed a twitch in my upper lip. I had to fight off a head cold. Could these things be related to the last details of publishing? You think?

I worked on Until Proven for more than three years before I declared it "ready" and shipped it off to the book designer at the end of June 2012. I never doubted that I had a good story and I am confident that I told it well. So why the nerves? Because now the book is in the hands of the judges--my readers. You.

The responses have been gratifying. The cold didn't develop. The questionable dreams have stopped. The lip doesn't twitch when I smile.

And my imagination is bugging me. It won't take three years for the next piece of work into the light. I have two things, one short and one long, waiting for reworking, reimagining and polishing. All for you. Watch this space.