From the Milwaukee Journal:

Minnesota woman still missing, feared dead

St. Paul, Minn. – St. Paul police have received more than a dozen leads from a tip line set up to help find a missing Minnesota woman, but haven’t yet found her, a spokesman said Saturday.

“At this point it’s difficult to qualify the leads until we follow them all the way through,” said department spokesman Howie Padilla.

Kira Trevino, 30, was last seen the night of Feb. 21 as she left work at the Mall of America, but authorities found so much blood in her car and home in St. Paul that they believe she is dead. Her husband, Jeffery Dale Trevino, was charged Thursday with two counts of second-degree murder.

From various TV news reports, I have gathered other facts.

They found the trunk liner from Kira’s car soaked in her blood. There was blood evidence in various rooms all over the house, suggesting she put up a struggle before her alleged death. The carpet was pulled up in the home by authorities, revealing a pool of blood that made the impression of a head and torso.

But, honestly, what freaked me out were the pictures of the couple. In every single picture Kira was smiling, but Jeffery was not. If this was a visual devise used by the media to portray Jeffery as cold blooded, it was well played.

Change is an uncomfortable process, especially for a self-righteous Lutheran. The answer, “because we’ve always done it that way,” is very popular where I’m from. So is, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” It’s that stubborn resolution to remain constant in the inevitable face of change. It comes from stalwart farmers who refuse to back down from the elements and bitterly judge folks who try try sully their traditions with “progress.” “Different” is a derogatory term here.

Yet things must “progress” anyway or nothing gets done. This is especially true in writing. No matter what you write, until it’s printed, until the control of the story is out of your hands, things must change.

Writers are artists. Writing is an act of personal self expression, just like painting, composing, sculpting, etc. In some ways that’s wonderful. A writer plays with rhythms in dialog. A writer sculpts a description with a plethora of adjectives at their disposal, weaving metaphors and clever turns of phrase through their story. A well written story will emotionally move a reader, much in the same way a well composed song will move a listener. It’s a work of art.

There in lies the rub. Because writers are artists, they are stubborn about changing stuff, sometimes even a single word. That word is beautiful. That word makes the whole paragraph, maybe the whole thought. How dare anyone have the audacity to mess with that word. It’s sacred.

Um, no it’s not. It’s just a word. A paragraph is just a group of words that progress a story. And a story is only as good as it’s reception. If you want to live in a cave like Gollum; clinging to your “precious” story, savoring every word like it’s air, and reveling in your own self-importance, that’s your business. If you want your work to be appreciated by others, to be “received” publicly, you must be willing to change it.

Your story will only become something that deserves an audience if you allow it to evolve. It needs to molt off all those precious descriptions. It needs to pair down all that witty banter, and it needs to streamline all those thoughtful metaphors. A word is only sacred when it has earned its keep in the valuable real estate that is your story.

In the words of my people: “Don’t put on airs. Who are you trying to impress anyway?”

There are lots of cop cars, news vans, and pick-up trucks in the Dairyland Murders series. Advertisers are going to want their products used as props in the show. Since most law enforcement vehicles are limited to the big three (Dodge is Chrysler’s baby, so don’t go splitting hairs):

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