The Security Girls

Keys . . . to the Future

2008-05-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

by Nina Wright

I’m ready to go. Again.

Last week I flew to the Lone Star State. This week my destination is the Sunshine State.

Sound like fun? Not entirely. This is all business travel, all the time. Of course I promote my books wherever I go; however, my reason for traveling is pure survival: I need a new day job, so in order to get one, I’m going where the jobs are.

Where the jobs aren’t is here in my corner of Ohio. Sadly, we have the foreclosures to prove it. My lovely oak-lined street has become a depressing place to take an evening stroll because so many homes are now abandoned. This is what you’d call a “nice neighborhood”—situated near a large park and a major university. Unfortunately, people can’t afford to live here because they can’t find jobs here anymore. We're hearing the old joke way too often: "Will the last person to leave please turn out the lights?"

The up side of my situation is that I’m going to have a new series of adventures, probably in a part of the country where I’ve never lived before. And I'm sure it will inspire me to write something completely different because that's what happens every time I move.

The down side is that I have to move. Again. But after moving four times in the past five years, I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I’m ruthless when it comes to deciding what I can live without, a practice that has made me bolder at cutting the flab from my fiction.

Although I'm starting this adventure alone, my fiancé plans to join me. He has a house to sell, and he needs a new job, too. We didn't foresee the problems that make this move necessary; they've complicated our lives. Nonetheless, he's proud of me for being resilient, and I'm proud of him for being adaptable. Many of our friends haven’t changed jobs or homes in twenty years or more. They can’t imagine psyching themselves for interviews and new careers in faraway places.

This much I know: even when you don’t think you have choices, you always have choices. For starters, you choose how to look at every moment of your life. And you focus on the fact that things get better. They do, they do.

Plus, it's all grist for fiction.

Tomorrow I’ll be in the air before the sun comes up. Even if the power goes out as I’m leaving my apartment—which happened last week—I’ll be able to get my automatic garage door open and my car out; I’ve learned how to handle that small emergency. Even if I lose my keys in the parking lot of one airport and don’t discover they’re gone until many hours and miles later when I’m in another airport—which also happened last week—I won’t worry. People find keys, and they turn them in.

Even if nobody found my missing keys, I would have keys again.

Please tell us about your "keys"--your survival strategies, recoveries, or contingency plans. We all got 'em, or we don't get far. My father taught me that lesson long ago. It's still working for him, I might add: today he turns 96!

Happy birthday, Dad, and happy travels, everybody!

Clooney & Redford: The (First) Video

2008-04-15T21:50:00.000-07:00

I shot this 40-second video the day after two kittens became brothers: Clooney, the five-month-old Birman, and Redford, the three-month-old Devon rex. One of my (catty) friends wondered whether Clooney would know that Redford was a fellow feline. . . . You have to spend a little time around Devons to get that one. Or maybe you can tell by watching my mini-video.

Rules of Engagement

2008-01-30T22:53:00.000-08:00

by Nina Wright

A funny thing happened on the way to writing this blog post. I got engaged . . . to be married. Here I was, all set to blog about “unexpected guest” characters—you know, those fictional folks you don’t see coming who nonetheless show up on the page and change everything—when my significant other slipped a ring on my finger. A very nice ring, I might add.

The Unexpected Guest Character post will have to wait because my new status as fiancée has filled my head with entirely different notions. And I’m not talking about wedding plans although The Event will certainly require some forethought. Not to mention the fact that we're contemplating a move to another part of the country. No, what I’m thinking about now is the way my attitudes toward love and lust manifest in what I write.

During the years when my previous marriage—a long one gradually destroyed by his preference for booze over employment—was in decline, the women in my fiction were either leaving their husbands or coping with the death of their husbands. That includes my first teen novel and my first Whiskey Mattimoe mystery. In the years following my divorce, I wrote about women falling into passionate love with thrilling but inappropriate men. Let's just say I enjoyed the research.

My ex insisted he never saw the divorce coming. Being drunk most of the time made it hard for him to keep up. He might have got a clue if he had read Whiskey on the Rocks or Homefree, or even considered the titles. One of my plays offered a big tip: the heartsick protagonist leaves her husband for a fictional character. My protagonist was more desperate than I was.

Enough about what came before. What’s happening now is that I’m engaged to a tender, funny, generous man who puts family and friends first. Although more into sports than literature, he used to be a professional speechwriter; thus, he respects my work. I met my fiancé when I wasn't looking for love, yet I knew almost immediately from our ease with each other that he was Mr. Right. Never mind that he wasn't my “type,” and I'd never written about loving a man like him.

In the movie Definitely, Maybe the hero concludes that finding the right partner may be more a matter of when than whom. Put another way, you have to be ready. I opened my heart and recognized a fine man when I met him. The rest was easy. But if I'd met my guy a couple years earlier, I doubt we would have clicked. Timing, as they say, is everything. And I'll go a step further: anything I've ever tried to force has failed, be it a relationship, a storyline, or a laugh.

Fiction is the realm where I play with my fears and fantasies. But life is where I live them, and it offers more surprises than I can make up.

Books by Nina Wright

2008-01-09T09:19:00.001-08:00

Click here for more information about these titles.

Summer's Done

2007-09-23T22:55:00.000-07:00

Cause for deep sighs: a swimming pool closed for the season.

Fortunately, I’m a natural optimist and a native Midwesterner, so I know how to appreciate change, including the shift from glorious summer to frosty fall. That doesn’t mean transitions come easily for me, but I’ve learned to find payoffs in the inevitable. Crisp morning walks and indoor swims will take the place of sunny days at the pool and beach. I’m not yet ready to contemplate the next step, winter. One shift at a time, please.

Although Whiskey Mattimoe and I are both strong swimmers, she would beat me in competition. Nonetheless, I have saved my own life in deep water more than once. My close calls didn’t involve solving murders, and they took place in Lake Erie as opposed to Lake Michigan. But I draw on those experiences whenever I toss Whiskey into the waves, as I did in Whiskey and Water, the fourth book in the series, due out just before next swim season.

The real reason a closed pool makes us sad is that it signals the passing of time: one less summer left in this life of oh so finite summers. On the sunny side—and I’m looking for payoffs here—my desk is more inviting in October and November than it is in June and July. Shorter, colder days spell fewer external distractions. When the furnace is running, my fiction engine kicks into high gear.

The pool may be closed, but for me, new doors are opening. I spent Summer ’07 moving, recovering from an injury, and falling in love. Yes! Last spring I met a man who changed the way I thought about my future. Lo and behold, I changed his outlook, too. When summer ended, and it was time to close the pool, we realized that our connection was far more enduring than swim season and way more fun.

Flannery, my Demon Devon

2006-10-29T22:28:00.000-08:00

Sure, she looks relaxed, but this kitty can wreak havoc. Flannery has been the inspiration for several cat characters I've written, including Yoda in Whiskey and Tonic and Ruby Tiger in The Fine Art of Following Cats.

Blissfield, Michigan: It's a Real Place

2006-07-21T19:58:00.000-07:00

This is where the Security Girls (Sam and Dessie) live with their Security Cats (Fiona Whiffer and Ruby Tiger). Well, the jury's still out on Ruby Tiger....

CLICK on the map to enlarge it. Then look for these locations:

Can you find the River Raisin? Gorman Road? South Lane Street?

These are actual places--in both the real world and the fictional world of The Fine Art of Following Cats by Nina Wright.

Read the book and follow along on the map. See where Fiona Whiffer leads Sam and Dessie!

Meet the Security Girls!

2006-06-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

Meet the Security Girls, eleven-year-old Sam Stonemather and her best friend Dessie. They join forces with two talented cats and the local teen-queen of technology to track down a missing TV star who may or may not be hiding in Blissfield, Michigan--a town that sounds boringly perfect but isn’t. As Sam says, “The trouble with Blissfield is it’s so quiet, people stop paying attention.”

Dessie and Sam are always on the lookout for what grownups miss. When a Lurker appears in Dessie’s neighborhood, followed by a Hollywood agent who can’t tell one Midwestern state from another, the Security Girls know something’s up. They enlist the special skills of Jennifer Yin Goodhue, a fourteen-year-old scientist training herself for a career with either NASA or the CIA. If only Sam’s big sister Alex would offer to drive once in a while. Bicycling everywhere is hard, even with satellite guidance systems. Then along comes Ryder, the coolest real-life detective the Security Girls have ever met. Okay, he’s the only one they’ve ever met. Surprisingly, they teach him a few things.

Following Fiona Whiffer, a cat who sniffs out mysteries, and Ruby Tiger, a kitten with helpfully oversized ears, the Security Girls have a brush with fame--and flames--and manage to save a family.

Want to know more??? Then you'll want to read The Fine Art of Following Cats, a new middle-grade mystery by Nina Wright. This book is looking for the right publisher. If that might be you, contact Nina at nina@ninawright.net, and she'll hook you up with her agent.... Take a peek at Chapter One below.

CHAPTER ONE
Trouble in the Neighborhood

Fiona Whiffer is coming through my bedroom window, and her head is purple. I mean she has a purple streak on her head. Fiona Whiffer is an all-white cat except when she’s our Emergency Messenger. Dessie and I have a code and some watercolor markers. When Fiona Whiffer arrives with a purple head, that can mean only one thing: There’s trouble in the neighborhood. This time Dessie saw it first.
Don’t ask me how, but Fiona Whiffer knows what color she’s wearing. If we give her a purple streak, she moves fast. If we paint a red streak, she moves faster. Red is the most serious alert in our system. It means EMERGENCY. Purple is the second most serious, and Fiona Whiffer knows it. She leaps from my windowsill to my bed. Next she starts rubbing against my arm. If I don’t get up, she’ll knock something off my dresser. She makes sure I see her purple head.
You’re probably wondering why Dessie didn’t just phone me. At this level of crisis, Security Girls don’t leave traces. We spring into action.
Dessie Preston is waiting for me at her house. Her real name is Doris Esther, the same as her great-grandma. But she hates that name as much as you would. She calls herself Dessie and so does everybody else. My name is Sam. Really, it’s Samantha Rose Stonemather, but that’s way too long. Like Dessie, I’m eleven years old and a Security Girl. In fact, I’m the original Security Girl. I started this business with Fiona Whiffer. Then Dessie joined up.
Eleven is a good age for security work because people don’t expect you to be doing it. In fact, they don’t expect you to do much of anything except go to school, do your homework, and maybe play an instrument or a sport.
That means you’re almost invisible if you want to try something else. And that’s a good thing in this business. Especially in a small town like ours.
Let me tell you something about Blissfield. My parents say it sounds like a perfect place. And it almost is, most of the time. The trouble with Blissfield is that things are so calm, people stop paying attention. Then when there’s a crisis, they’re not ready. But Dessie and I always have a plan.
Fiona Whiffer won’t follow me when I hurry out the door. For now, her work is done, except for washing the streak off her head. And she’s starting to do that already. Afterwards, she’ll stretch out on my bed for a long peaceful nap. She expects me to keep Ruby Tiger away from her. Ruby Tiger is my red tabby kitten. She’s a nuisance and very immature. Sometimes she tries to help with security work. But, as my mom the lawyer says, “The jury’s still out on Ruby Tiger.”
My mom says Fiona Whiffer is her own cat. By that she means Fiona Whiffer is too independent to belong to anybody. One day last year she showed up out of nowhere. Using her special sniffing talent, she helped me solve a mystery. In fact, she was whiffing, as I call it, the first time I saw her. That’s how she got her name and became a Security Cat.
My family and Dessie’s family take turns taking care of her, so she always has food, water, and a safe place to stay. As my dad the lawyer says, “Fiona Whiffer doesn’t owe anybody anything.”
She only comes around when she wants to. But that always turns out to be when we need her.
It takes me exactly six minutes to get dressed, brush my teeth and hair, and fly out the door. Luckily, it’s a workday for everybody except old people and kids on summer vacation. My parents are at their office, so I don’t need to tell them anything. That can really slow you down.
Riding my bike to Dessie’s house also takes six minutes. I call my bike the Mean Machine because one of my sister’s boyfriends painted a frowning face on the front fender. My sister told him to do that, and her boyfriends do whatever they’re told. In this case, I like the result. It reminds people that I’m a force to be reckoned with, even if I am still a kid.
I park the Mean Machine in front of Dessie’s house. She’s waiting for me on the porch swing, her notebook open on her lap. Fortunately, her mom’s at work, too, so we can get right to it.
Dessie nods at the house next door.
“We’ve got us a Lurker,” she whispers.

Meet Fiona Whiffer

2006-05-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

Meet the real-life Fiona Whiffer, a white cat with an attitude--and a talent for solving mysteries.

The Story Behind the Story

2006-04-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

How I happened to write a funny mystery about two girls and two cats in Blissfield, Michigan. . . .

Once upon a time, I lived on a farm just outside Blissfield. And I had five cats. One was a fluffy, feminine white cat who could sniff out trouble before it happened. Another was a little tomboy tabby kitten with oversized ears who was fast and rough and liked to get into trouble. Those two knew how to handle all my other cats, plus my two dogs, and every single visitor who ever came to my farm.

The story was born the day I noticed my white cat sniffing the air and twitching her tail. I realized that she smelled something I couldn’t detect, something she thought I should investigate. Every time she did that, sure enough, there was a crisis I could solve by just following my white cat. Because she seemed to be “whiffing” the air, I nicknamed her Fiona Whiffer.

Then I started thinking about what my friends and I liked to do when we were ten or eleven years old. We loved playing with our cats and riding our bikes and spying on neighbors. We also liked to imagine what older kids and strangers in our town were up to. Thinking back on those days, I began to write about Samantha Rose Stonemather and her best friend Dessie Preston, the Original Security Girls. The result? A novel called The Fine Art of Following Cats.