Sherlock Holmes and Me

By Vicki Delany

There is, as we are always being told in creative writing classes, no such thing as a new idea.

It’s all been done before. Take the story of an orphaned boy: a lowly (and lonely) childhood; a secret, ever-watchful guardian; dangerous times; an eternal enemy; the big reveal of the boy’s true identity; armed with knowledge of his destiny, boy saves world.

It’s been written a hundred times, from the tales of King Arthur to Star Wars.

The trick is not to come up with an original idea, because you probably can’t, but to make it your own.

Enter Sherlock Holmes. I don’t have to tell you how popular Sherlock is right now, from movies to TV (two series!) to more books than you can count. Colouring books, puzzles, mugs.  Old books reissued and re-illustrated, new ones being written.

Favourite characters reimagined.

Vicki Writing (not exactly as shown)

Vicki Reading (not exactly as shown)

Make it your own.

And I have. 

Meet Gemma Doyle, transplanted Englishwoman, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium in the Cape Cod town of West London. Gemma is also the co-owner of the business next door, Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room, with her best friend Jayne Wilson.

Gemma is highly observant and has an incredible memory (for things she wants to remember).  She is, shall we say, occasionally lacking in the finer points of social niceties.

Jayne is ever-confused, but loyal.

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, reimagined as modern young women just trying to get on with life.

Like the Benedict Cumberbatch character, Gemma deciphers cell phone signals and finds clues on the Internet. Like that Sherlock, Gemma’s relationship with the local police is complicated, but unlike that character, in her case it’s because she’s in love with the lead detective, but he can’t trust her because she seems to always know more about his cases than she should.

Elementary She Read, the first in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series from Crooked Lane Books, will be released on March 14^th.  I’ve taken a very light hand with this series, just having fun with it, and it falls firmly in the category of cozy. It’s now available for pre-order in ebook and hardcover formats at all the usual sources.

If you’d like a sneak peek at the first chapter, I’ve posted it on my web page. www.vickidelany.com

I’ll be running contests up to the release date; to catch all the news (if you don’t already) please like my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/evagatesauthor/) or sign up for my newsletter (send an email to vicki at vickidelany dot com)

THE KNOW-IT-ALL WRITER

I am delighted to invite my good friend Janet Kellough to blog for us this week. Now that I am also living in Prince Edward County, I am finding myself drawn into the character and the history of the area through Janet's enthusiasm. And her darn good books. (Who knows when you need to trap a muskrat.)

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The old adage in the world of writing is “write what you know”. I have heard this amended (probably on this blog) to “write what you’d like to know”. [Editor: That might have been me. VD]

It’s good advice and I have done both. I started out as a performance storyteller, spinning tales drawn from the lore of Prince Edward County, Ontario, where I grew up, and where my family has lived for generations. It was, and remains, a rich source of material. (Did you know that the Glenora Ferry was once hijacked and a 19^th century hangman bungled a double execution in Picton? The first was a prank; the second was grisly.) I have also written what I was anxious to find out about. The first novel in my historical series The Thaddeus Lewis Mysteries concerned a saddlebag preacher who stumbled across a serial killer. The bare bones of the story was right there in the preacher’s autobiography, waiting for me to pluck it out, but I was eager to fill in authentic details and bring the story to life. I now know more about Methodist Church history in early Canada than I ever thought possible. (It was complicated, cantankerous and contentious.)

In continuing the series, I discovered a further amendment to the aforementioned writer’s advice: “Write what you never dreamed you’d want to know, but have stumbled across and found fascinating anyway.”

The first two novels in Thaddeus Lewis were set firmly in familiar territory – eastern Ontario in general and Prince Edward County in particular. I fudged the third one a bit - 47 Sorrows began with an old newspaper clipping I ran across that described a peculiar incident in Toronto in 1847 when a wagon overturned and spilled a coffin into the street. It burst open to reveal two corpses inside. Scandalous! And intriguing! This led me to articles about the tragedies experienced by the influx of sick and starving Irish flooding into Canada that year, and to the “fever sheds” that housed them. After all, where better to set a murder than smack dab in the middle of a group of people who are dying anyway? I placed the bulk of the story in Kingston, Ontario, a place I know, but there was an exciting chase that led to Toronto.

The next book, The Burying Ground, led me into completely unfamiliar geographic  territory. The story revolves around The Toronto Strangers’ Burying Ground, a potter’s field which in 1851 was at the corner of Yonge and Bloor Streets. It was in the middle of nowhere back then. Honest. I spent hours poring over old maps. The harbour was different then, and the Don River hadn’t been straightened out yet. And the latest Thaddeus book Wishful Seeing takes place between Cobourg, Ontario and Rice Lake to the north. Oh wondrous intrigues of the early railway boom in Canada!  I knew nothing about it when I began, but now I understand why Cobourg has such an improbably spectacular town hall.

In the meantime, I took a dive into speculative fiction and found myself reading about genetics and the founder effect, as well as the differences between chimpanzees and bonobos. Right now I’m researching stories about sex in early Ontario. And I’m trying to find out what the Royal Shipyards in Deptford, England were like in the 1650s. I know how to trap a muskrat. I can make soap from scratch. I’m familiar with the diagnostic signs of typhoid fever.

I will admit that this kind of obsessive and far-ranging research might be most attractive to the sort of junkhead who watches Jeopardy and wins trivia contests (aka me) but it’s the thing that keeps me plunking words down on the page. Because I still don’t know what it is I want to know. And I may never find out, because I’ve discovered that I want to know everything. About everything. And being a writer gives me the perfect excuse to keep reading about it.

Thrilling in Slow Motion

I have to catch an early train down to New York City. So I'm going to make this post brief and interactive.

As you may recall, one of my writing projects is a crime novel set in 1939. I've been calling it a "historical thriller" because the plot does involve a race to uncover the details of a conspiracy and prevent a crime from being committed. But this is a race that happens over eight months in 1939. Although I hope for thrills and chills along the way, with an edge-of-your seat confrontation in the last few pages, I want to make my characters three-dimensional. They will drive the plot.

I'm trying to think of crime novels with thriller elements that extend over a substantial period of time — months rather than days. I'd love to see how the authors deal with pacing.

Any titles spring to mind?  Please share.

How We Learn to Love Books

Rick and Aline both wrote wonderful entries this week about being read to as a child. I'm sure every book-lover has a similar story. When your parents read to you when you're little, you learn to associate the experience with being loved and safe. I, of course, have stories of my own. Rick's story in particular brought to mind the Golden Book of poems and riddles my parents bought for me when I was little more than a toddler.

I had a lot of books when I was a kid. My parents bought them for me long before I could read, for which bless you, parents. This little Golden Book was one of my favorites, and I can still recite parts of it to this day. For instance: “What did the old woman say when she looked down the rain barrel?” Answer: OICURMT (It took me years to figure out what Oicurmt meant). But the poem I loved the most was You Are Old, Father William, by Lewis Carroll. I enjoyed it enough to memorize when I was a little girl. I still remember it, and as the years pass, it means more to me now than it ever did.

My parents took turns reading to me every night, and I never, ever let them weasel out of it for any silly reason like floods or fires or deathly illnesses. They read the same books to me so many times that I knew them by heart. I still remember very clearly an incident that occurred when I was about four and spending the night with my grandmother. I had brought my pre-sleep book with me, but my grandmother--a notoriously impatient woman--kept trying to skip lines. Needless to say this was not going to pass unchallenged. My grandmother also had a somewhat perverse sense of humor, so once she realized that she wasn't going to get away with it, she made a game of leaving out words and changing sentences to see if I'd catch her. I always did. This may have amused my grandmother, but it didn't contribute to a peaceful night's sleep for her little fusspot of a grandchild.

The joy of a good story well told turns a child into a book-loving adult. I spent much of my teenaged years and young adulthood with my nose in a book. So much so that my mother was a bit concerned about the fact that I'd rather read than play or hang around with friends. It was something of a joke in my family that if I was reading, I couldn't hear the phone ring or knocking at the door or gunshots and screaming.

A good book has gotten me through many a tough situation. A well written story teaches a child about compassion, perseverance, bravery, and lets him walk in another's shoes in a way a thousand lectures can't do. I can't imagine a better gift a parent can give her child.

p.s. On another note, don't forget that my first Alafair Tucker Mystery, The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, is being offered as a free download at Amazon and iTunes through the month of January. Don't miss your chance!

On being read to

by Rick Blechta

I really enjoyed Aline’s post yesterday, especially so since just the day before I was chatting with my wife and son about how enjoyable it was having someone read to you.

I’ve previously written here on Type M how one of my fondest recollections from childhood was being read to by my mother when I was ill. Early on, I couldn’t read, but even after I could, if I was especially under the weather, my mother would appear in my doorway with a book and read a chapter or two (if she could spare the time). This would happen a few times during the day..

I remember being so comforted by this. Perhaps I even made small illnesses a tad larger so that I could stay home from school and be read to. My mom was also an above average reader so that really helped. She could bring Uncle Wiggly adventures or Treasure Island vividly to life for a young listener. Later on, she’d bring me a book that she thought I’d enjoy reading while I was ill. Thus, I read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit for the first time – and this time I definitely malingered for a few extra days so I could finish those books.

When my own boys were a similar age, I would have loved to perform the same service for them, but alas, I had to be off at work doing my job of “crowd control with a beat” (teaching band to middle school students). My wife would read to them when she could but she was also busy. It’s always bothered me a bit that we might not have shared this pleasurable experience with them enough.

Reading to our boys, though, was a big part of the going-to-bed ritual. I must have read The Cat in the Hat several hundred nights running to my eldest (I’m not exaggerating), to the point where I could recite the entire story from memory (shades of Homer!). Since I was usually on “night duty” with the lads — my wife off at the Conservatory teaching flute as soon as I could get home — I read to them a lot, certainly most nights, until they were around six or seven.

The interesting thing to me is that later on one became an avid reader and the other probably reads one or two books per decade. However, the latter son is a now the father of two young ones, and lo and behold, a big part of his family’s going-to-bed ritual (at least for his 3-year-old) is reading a story or two every night before lights out. When my wife and I babysit, we’re more than happy to indulge the lad — probably, truth be known, with more stories than he gets from his parents on a nightly basis.

Of course over the years, I’ve shared my early reading experiences with my wife. Maybe ten years ago I caught the “flu from hell” and man, for a week was I sick! Miserable and alone upstairs one afternoon, my darling wife must have sensed I could use something special. Lo and behold, she appeared at the door, some book or other I’d been reading in hand, and asked, “Would it help you feel better if I read to you for a bit?”

My heart melted and I was a child again.

Tell Me a Story

I've just dismantled Christmas. The tree is in the garden awaiting disposal (why is there always one bauble left on the branches, however carefully you check beforehand?), the crib is packed away, the cards have gone and all the little sentimental ornaments are in the box waiting for another year.

This has been one of the special Christmases – the ones when you have small children in the house and the 'Santa stop here' sign has to be put out in the garden, the mince pie and carrot have to be left on the hearth and the ritual reading of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” performed. There aren't every many of these; children grow so fast and Christmas is never the same afterwards.

And the 'Read me a story' days pass quickly as well. My five-year-old grandson can read for himself but he still likes having a cuddle and being read to. His older sisters, bookworms both, now lose themselves entirely in what they're reading and have no need for a narrator.

I shall be completely redundant soon, sadly. It always went to my heart: the desperation in the voice of a non-reading child when everyone was busy – 'Please will you read me a story? Please!'

Humankind has always wanted stories, probably since the beginning of time and certainly before any sort of record began, with an oral tradition going back to long before writing was invented. And now neuroscience is coming up with a suggestion as to why they are so important to us.

When we see someone performing an action or feeling an emotion, the mirror neurone cells in our brain fire up so we experience something similar. If you look at the faces of people in a cinema, say, or watching TV, they are reacting as if something was happening in real life and they were experiencing it too. We empathise, thanks to our mirror neurones.

Empathy is a rewarding emotion, releasing the feel-good chemical oxytocin. So when we are drawn into a book with sympathetic characters, this may be what makes it hard to put down – we're addicts.

So no wonder the poor little mites, newly hooked on the stuff, get desperate. I can remember it vividly myself – the sheer frustration of holding a book with the story inside and not being able to pull it out for myself. I taught myself to read at four and to this day I feel a sort of panic if I'm going to be stuck somewhere with nothing to read. Until I read about the research, I hadn't realised that what I feared was withdrawal symptoms.

May all your books in 2017 be addictive and may there be many good times for you, even in this troubled world.

Guest Blogger: The Return of Hannah Dennison!

As Hannah is in no need of introductory help, I’m not going to provide it. I will say this, though: Welcome back! It has been too long indeed, Hannah.

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When Rick invited me to return to Type M as a weekend guest, I was delighted. Apart from the fact that a few years ago I had been a member of this stellar group of authors, Type M hosted my very first blog post and has a special place in my heart. I even remember the date—July 13, 2008. It was after I’d met Donis at my all-time favorite bookstore, The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale, whilst promoting my debut cozy mystery, A Vicky Hill Exclusive! Donis asked if I’d like to be a guest on Type M. At last I was a “real” author! I had made the cut! Frankly, that date still feels like yesterday although the starry-eyed newbie that I was then has long been replaced by a much more sober attitude to the realities of what it means to be a published author. Basically, writing is hard work—but would I swap it for any other profession? Of course not!

Since I wrote that first book, I’ve discovered quite a few things about my writing process. I’ve learned that each book is just as difficult to write. The only difference is that I have come to expect—and dread—the month-long panic and despair that follows reading the “shitty first draft” (to quote Anne Lamott’s well-known phrase). This panic gives way to a zombie-like numbness that accompanies the delete button as I cut about 70% of the shitty first draft and practically start again from scratch. I know that the key to finding the story is somewhere in that mess and that I just have to sit there and keep on going until it eventually materializes. It’s part of the so-called magic of the creative process. But trust me it sucks. HOWEVER … by about the fourth draft I start feeling excited as slowly, everything starts to come together. And yet with each new book I always fear that this will be the time it just won’t gel.

I’ve learned that the self-doubt monster will always be hovering over my shoulder and that the only way to ignore it is to focus on the writing and not the outcome. Even so, the monster lurks in the corner of the room and rears its ugly head from time to time, usually—and irrationally—when I’ve been given a lovely review or received a nice note from a reader which makes me question their intelligence and/or sanity. But at least I no longer beat myself up about negative reviews or spend hours obsessively Googling said negative reviewer to see how many stars they awarded other authors in the mystery genre. A word of warning—don’t go there.

I’ve also learned that it’s important not to put all your eggs in the proverbial one basket and always have a few elevator pitches up your sleeve. Sure, the term sounds corny but actually, it’s exactly how I sold my second series. It was a long elevator ride. This was at Malice Domestic (never under-estimate the importance of conferences) when I pitched an idea to an editor for a Hollywood nanny series that I’d been working on for ages. She pulled a face and said, “What else have you got?”

For some reason my widowed mother’s rash decision to purchase a highly impractical wing of a country house—without telling anyone—came into my head. She was 73 at the time and is now a spry 87. As you can imagine, my sister and I were really worried. It wasn’t so much the isolated location with a mile-long drive, no local shop and no public transport. The house was a money drain, with a roof in need of mending, heating and plumbing breaking down constantly and generally, the whole estate was falling apart. The editor loved it and asked for just a two-page proposal—which was just as well as I had nothing fleshed out at all! And so The Honeychurch Hall Mysteries were born

In a nutshell, my protagonist Kat Stanford stars in a hit road show called Fakes & Treasures. Weary of being permanently in the public eye, Kat switches careers initially to set up an antique business with her newly widowed mother, Iris. Kat’s mother, however, has other ideas. Kat is horrified to learn that not only has Iris secretly purchased a dilapidated carriage house on a crumbling country estate several hundred miles away from London, she’s actually an internationally best-selling author of erotica, writing under the pseudonym of Krystalle Storm. Kat sets off to make her mother “see sense” and ends up staying herself.

Yet, murder and romance aside, at the core of the Honeychurch Hall Mysteries is the relationship between a mother and daughter facing new and uncertain beginnings. I’m fascinated by the notion that it’s those who are nearest and dearest to us who are often the most duplicitous of all and so far, my fabulous readers are too! Happily, Minotaur will publish the fourth adventure in the series called Murderous Mayhem at Honeychurch Hall, in May 2017. If you’d like more info and a sneak peak at Chapter One, please sign up for my newsletter.

Thank you so much for inviting me today. Happy New Year everyone!

www.hannahdennison.com
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Generating Hope

Usually I'm a January Junkie. I love the beginning of a new year and fresh starts. My pervasive post-election depression is fading although there is no good reason to be optimistic about our political climate.

However, each day is one day closer to spring and I'm reminded that one of the most essential components for a writer is hope. The whole industry depends on little worker bees who are willing to spend a couple of years working faithfully on a product that might not make it to the marketplace.

Until we have iron-clad contracts or are a mega-star we have no guarantee that a publisher will produce our book, that the bookstore will stock it, or that the public will purchase it. Certainly we don't have a clue as to whether our books will get reviews, win awards, or that we will make some money.

Other than military expeditions, I don't think there is any occupation where there is a greater investment of blood, sweat, and tears where the odds are stacked against success.

The only rationale for writing books is love of the process, joy in creation, and because we can't help ourselves.

I've started my fifth mystery for Poisoned Pen Press. I'm thrilled with the two good reviews I've gotten from Kirkus Reviews and Publisher's Weekly for Fractured Families, my fourth mystery, which will be released in March. The book is a bit odd so I'm also surprised by the glowing critical reception.

But most of all I am genuinely relieved and surprised that after a difficult harrowing year my enchantment with research and my love of making plots work has magically emerged again. I honestly believe a book will simply come together if I faithfully plug away day after day.

Most of all I'm always surprised by the "gift" character that appears fairly early. This character knows what the book is about even if I don't. In Fractured Families it was a tragic little handicapped unloved child who kept a Commonplace book.

And so my beloved fellow Type M'ers and all of our fans and readers to begin this new year have hope for your writing, your friends and families, and our countries.

New year, same resolution

My resolutions rarely change.

2016 was a wild ride. The year ended with a Dec. 30 surprise 70th birthday party for my mother, Connie, who has 19 stents, has had two open-heart surgeries, has an artificial heart valve, and beat cancer last year. If anyone’s earned a party, it’s her.

Connie Corrigan

On the fiction front, I turned the page –– at least for the time being –– on Peyton Cote and in November started a new book that will take me the coming months to complete. Peyton is not dead. She’s far from it. But after a decade writing a third-person female, it’s nice to write a first-person male again (I began, after all, writing Jack Austin thrillers from 2000 to 2007).

While my personal reprieve provides me with a sense of clarity, the publishing world continues to spin in directions no one understands. Print and digital book sales figures industry wide were all over the place in 2016, but audiobooks appear to be on the rise. As are adult coloring books. Adult coloring books?

So what will 2017 hold for the book biz? Who knows? And in this volatile industry, I learned long ago to worry only about controlling what I can and setting lofty goals. This year, my aim is to make the book I began in November better than anything I’ve written to date. And to get book III of the Peyton Cote series, Destiny’s Pawn, in as many reviewers’ and TV execs’ hands as I can. (A producer and writer are shopping it currently.)

No resolutions for me. A new year, and hopefully, God willing, a new book.

Happy New Year!

The Year of FPIS

Happy New Year! It’s the time of year for resolutions. I don’t usually make them, but this year I’m declaring 2017 as the year of FPIS, Finishing Projects I’ve Started. You know, those UFOs* (Unfinished Objects) that are stuffed in closet corners or somewhere in a long forgotten folder on your computer.

For those of you who know me, yes I’ve said this before only to have the momentum slow down after a few months. This time I’m going to make more of a conscious effort to work on some unfinished project every day. I may not get all of my UFOs completed, but I should make good progress.

What kind of projects? you ask. All kinds. I have writing projects, painting projects, needlework projects, scrapbooking projects, home improvement projects, all that I’ve started or bought the supplies for, but haven’t finished.

I admit that I’m the kind of person who gets all excited about a new project, gets the supplies and starts it then, when a deadline looms or life intervenes, I set it aside. My intention is to get back to it, but sometimes I don’t. There’s an interesting article on Pick The Brain that talks about the effects of having partially finished projects hanging over your head.

It talks about the importance of knowing if a project is truly dead (ditch it) or you’ve just lost enthusiasm for it (salvage and repurpose what you can) or you still want to do it, but haven’t gotten around to it (make a plan to finish it).

I think there are a lot of psychological benefits to not having so many unfinished projects cluttering your life. I’m the kind of person who looks at a room in my house and all I see are the things that need to be done, not how nice the room looks. The husband, on the other hand, doesn’t view our house this way. Is this a male/female thing? or just a personality thing?

That’s my plan for 2017. What’s yours?

My wish for all of you this year: May you be happy and healthy, may you find success in all your endeavors, and may you finish all your UFOs.

* I first heard the term UFO used to describe an unfinished project on a panel I was on with other authors of craft-based mysteries. One author noted the term was used commonly among quilters to describe unfinished projects. I loved that so I’m using it too.

So here we are in 2017. What’s going to happen?

by Rick Blechta

I’m not going to belabour the fact that we’ve entered a new year. I sort of did that last week, or last year, or even 10 years ago on Type M. That’s right, there’s more than 10 years of history of this little blog we started, so I’ve done the new year thing quite a few times. Done it to death, actually.

So, where do I begin a new year of Type M posts?

Well, one thing I’ve been cogitating on is the change in mood the whole planet seems to be undergoing. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that multiple governments my possibly take a more totalitarian turn. That seems to be happening in the US, France, and other European countries. Russia is a dictatorship in all but name only.

Will this lead to the rise in novels with a more dystopian viewpoint? (Merriam-Webster: from dystopia — an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives) Certainly we saw more dystopian fiction in the late ’40s and ’50s, but mostly confined to Sci Fi and speculative fiction. Is it now crime fiction’s turn?

Or — as I speculated a few weeks ago — will more cozies, with their comfortable “world view” be published? I certainly don’t mind reading something challenging, but there are times where current events are overwhelmingly grim and I want to escape into a book describing a more comforting ethos, so it would not be surprising to me to see more cozies on the shelf.

Or will things not change at all in the writing world? Certainly there are numerous examples of people just hiding their heads in the sand and ignoring the blatant lies and untruths that swirl around us daily. I, for one, have become an incredibly skeptical reader in the past couple of years. Even the most trusted journalistic sources are spinning the truth more than ever. Journalists or politicians flat out lie, and when caught, throw up their hands and say, “So what?” That attitude didn’t wash when my mom caught me lying, and it still doesn’t. But we seem to care not a jot these days when it happens, because it’s so prevalent. Maybe the plots of novels will continue much as they have for the past several years.

With the publishing industry still grinding at what seems a glacial pace, I don’t expect any changes in the type of stories being published being manifested until at least two years have passed.

But those two years are certainly going to prove “interesting”.

A New Year at Type M

Happy New Year!

By Vicki Delany

I have the honour of being the first to post for Type M in the year 2017.

Vicki Writing (not exactly as shown)

Vicki Reading (not exactly as shown)

Can it be 2017 already!  I remember when we were so excited about the arrival of the new millennium.

Despite the doom and gloom in the world, it was an excellent year for me and everyone in my family, and I hope for you and yours also.

I try throughout the near to be a reasonably good person, I give regularly to charities of my choice, and I buy food and other goods locally and sustainably made whenever I can, but I was stuck by what Barbara said on Wednesday about consciously trying to do good in the world.  I liked that idea a lot.

Not just to be not an awful person, but to consciously try to be a nicer one. To do little things for someone if you can, or say a kind word. Good deeds do cost nothing, and a smile or a word of praise costs nothing at all.  We also have to be aware that it might be up to us to do what little we can to stop the spread of hatred and bigotry. Don't let small sneers or insults directed at groups or individuals pass. 

I am going to try to make that my resolution for 2017.  I don’t have much influence on the rest of the work, but I do have influence on myself and the people I interact with.

So, happy New Year to you all, and may you be what you want the world to be.

Guest Blogger Pascal Marco

Type M is delighted to start the year off right with guest blogger Pascal Marco, Pascal, a Phoenix business entrepreneur for over two decades, brings us his newest thriller novel, RENDER SAFE. The December 2016 issue of Suspense Magazine said this about the book, “Marco has . . . created an action thriller worthy of Grisham or Ludlum.” A University of Illinois Chicago Masters in Communications graduate, Pascal’s RENDER SAFE was selected as a national finalist in the thriller/suspense category for this year’s Best Book Awards. His Amazon Kindle #1 best-selling debut, IDENTITY: LOST, which New York Times #1 best-selling author Brad Thor called, “Fresh, compelling and incredibly intricate” also was a national finalist for the 2011 USA Book News Awards. The one-time steelworker from the South Side of Chicago currently resides in Mesa with his wife and high school sweetheart, Karen.

“Oh Brother, Who Art Thou?”

I recently got a phone call from my sister. In and of itself that was nothing new or  unique, since we’re very close and talk often on the phone or via texts. We’re less than eighteen months apart and have been close all our lives. But the ensuing conversation would strike me as being one that was different than any other we had had in the past. Specifically, she had called me to talk about the ending to my new thriller novel, RENDER SAFE. The book is a follow up to my debut thriller, IDENTITY: LOST.

In the first book I introduced my hero, Maricopa County (Arizona) Prosecutor Stan Kobe, and his sidekick, Chandler Homicide Detective Brian Hanley. The crime fighting duo return in book two to handle two disturbing murders, both multiple, both ten years apart, and both with victims who had died extraordinarily gruesome deaths. When she had texted me and said she need to talk to me about the ending to my latest book, I was worried at first that sis didn’t care for what she had read. It’s that little voice that goes off in every writer’s head that says, “Uh oh, what is this person going to ask me?” or “Uh oh, did I miss something and make a huge mistake?”

Fortunately, little sister asked neither type of question (phew!!) but rather was curious about some specific details at the end and wanted to know if she understood them correctly. Or maybe more so, she wanted to know what meaning(s) did my ending have, real or imagined. It was a harmless question, one I actually had fun discussing with her at length. The end result: I wanted the reader to think and wonder exactly how she did at the conclusion of the long and complex journey I had taken them on.

I thought the conversation was over at that point, since she had given me several replies of “Oh, yeah, I get it” and words to that effect. But the conversation wasn’t over. No, not at all. She then gave me one of those wonderful, long pauses we all like to write in dialogue. After several moments she said, “Oh, and by the way, I wanted to talk about that guy in your book and the way he killed those people. It scared me when I read it. I mean, I was thinking, ‘How could my brother think and write those types of things? I mean, Pat (my family and friends call me that), it was so graphic.’”

Aha! I had hit a raw nerve with my reader. I had pulled her so deeply into the story that her world was suspended so profoundly that her only recourse to pull herself out of my fiction was to ask this so, so innocent question. Of course, my reply was, “Well, sis, it is fiction, you know.”

This didn’t seem to appease her. “Yeah, I know, but, my God it was so real. Where did you ever come up with such an idea? I mean, because (another perfect pregnant pause) how would you even know about something like that and make it seem so real?”

At that moment, I felt the joy every writer must feel when they know they’ve mined deep into their reader’s psyche and grabbed a hold of it with an unforgiving and relentless hand, yanking them into the reality you’ve created on the page. Although I did feel a slight bit of remorse to cause my sweet sibling such dismay wondering if her big brother had skeletons in the closet she may not want to ever know about, I let that feeling pass and savored the deep satisfaction of knowing that I had been able to take her somewhere she had never been before. I had pushed her so deep into the story that her only recourse to snap back out of it was to question the writer’s knowledge and motives.

Ah yes, murder can have that kind of effect on people, so it seems. I couldn’t help thinking right at that moment of the sheer chilling beauty in the famous line we all know, “I’ll get you, my little pretty, and your little dog, Toto, too!”

So, when in doubt, just let it rip.
__________________

visit Pascal at http://www.pascalmarco.com

Chaos and Clarity

This is my last post of the year. There have been times this year when I've felt as if we've all fallen down the rabbit hole with Alice. But my own year -- when I've been able to shut out the rancor and craziness -- has been "not bad". In fact, it's ending on several high notes, with my first series poised to make a comeback and my other writing projects receiving encouragement. During the last couple of months, my publicist has more than earned her retainer by setting me up with great radio interviews. I have been doing a better than usual job of balancing the different aspects of my life. In fact, the chaos all around me has given me more clarity about my roles as a criminal justice professor. Seeking distractions, I've gone back to activities that I enjoy such as trying out new recipes and moving furniture around. I've tried Zumba and remembered that I love to dance -- exercise that I can enjoy doing.

One task remains before the year ends. I needed to dive into the clutter that has accumulated in one room in my house. For weeks, I've been shoving everything into that room. Yesterday, I discovered to my distress, I can no longer walk through that room. I have reached the point when glancing into that room causes me anxiety, when I close the door if company is coming, and left a note to my pet sitter explaining that it's my staging area as I prepare for a junk pick-up. Yesterday, I scheduled the pick-up because the idea of going into 2017 with that room messing with my feng shui was too scary to contemplate.

As the year ends, I want to tie up as many of the loose ends from 2016 as I can. I want to get graded student papers into their mailbox, finish the revisions I promised on an article, and get all of my odds and ends from projects organized, so that from January 2 until school begins I can get serious work done. In this respect, the end of 2016 is no different than the end of any other year. But I need to end this year with as much serenity as possible.

I wish you all joy and peace in the coming year. May we each find our own sense of clarity and calm in the midst of chaos. May we -- and the world -- find an exit out of the rabbit hole.

Harry, my own Cheshire Cat, who was undeterred by his dental appointment on Wednesday (four teeth removed and he was still hungry when he got home) sends his best to one and all. His advice for 2017 -- never miss a meal or the opportunity to curl up for a nap on any convenient surface.
 

The Return of the Raven Mocker; An Alafair Tucker Mystery for 2017

Happy New Year to all and Happy Birthday to me. Yes, today (December 29) is my birthday. It's the end of another decade for me, and the beginning of a year that I could face with some trepidation if I allow myself to do so. But let's be merry where we can! I'm celebrating 2017 by announcing the release of my ninth Alafair Tucker Mystery, The Return of the Raven Mocker, as hardback, paper, and ebook, on January 3.

Raven Mocker is a Cherokee legend, an evil spirit who takes the form of a raven and takes wing at night to possess the bodies of the sick and elderly and torment them until they die. When the Raven Mocker returns to little Boynton, Oklahoma, in the fall of 1918, he brings with him the great influenza pandemic that claimed fifty million lives all over the world. World War I is still raging in Europe, but the women of Boynton are fighting their own war as the epidemic sweeps through like wildfire. What a perfect time to commit murder. Who’s going to notice?

People are dying in droves, most of the doctors are gone to the war, and the nurses are all falling ill themselves. Alafair and her husband Shaw quarantine their younger children on the farm and Alafair moves into town to care for her stricken daughter Alice and son-in-law Walter.

No one has the time or inclination to wonder about the the circumstance when Alice's neighbor Nola and her son Lewis die, but Alafair suspects that these particular deaths were unnatural. The epidemic is so overwhelming that it is many days before the only doctor left in town can confirm Alafair’s suspicions. The only witness, twelve-year-old Dorothy Thomason, is so traumatized that she is rendered mute. Were Nola and her son really murdered, and if so, why?

My publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, is featuring the entire Alafair Tucker series, including the first, The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, which is being reissued with a new cover. I wrote a new forward for it, explaining  how I got the idea for a series set in my native Oklahoma, and how Alafair herself came to be.

In fact, iTunes is offering The Old Buzzard Had It Coming as a FREE download,. The Press aims to promote my series through BookBub, but the promotion won't work as intended unless Amazon also lowers their price for the electronic version of Buzzard to zero as well. They won't lower their price unless enough readers notify them that another outlet (iTunes) is offering the book for free. So allow me intrude upon you holiday season to ask you to help me persuade Amazon to offer Buzzard as free ebook. Here's how:

Please go to the Amazon page for the ebook version of The Old Buzzard Had It Coming by clicking here.

Scroll down to the bottom of the Product Details section where it says: "Would you like to give feedback on images or tell us about a lower price?"

Choose "tell us about a lower price" which will bring up a dialog asking to choose Store or Website.

Click on Website and enter the URL for the iTunes page:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-old-buzzard-had-it-coming/id1131439110?mt=11&uo=4&at=11lSh9

and and $0.00 for the price AND for shipping cost and then Submit Feedback.

That’s all there is to it. If enough people participate, Amazon will drop the price to zero. And if you make it over to Amazon (or iTunes) and the price is already zero, you can download your very own e-copy of The Old Buzzard Had It Coming for nothing.

On top of everything, I'm offering a giveaway of The Return of the Raven Mocker, and you can read the first chapter of it and all of my other books at my website, www.doniscasey.com.

Thanks for all your support over the years, Dear Reader, and may 2017 be a wonderful year for you and yours.

Here's to 2017

Barbara here. I'm late, I'm late! My Wednesday post was due at midnight, and is now twelve hours late. Blame it on the surfeit of wine, turkey, latkes, company, and activities of the past week. When Hanukah and Christmas festivities come at the same time, my usual quiet life is turned upside down. There were six of us staying in my little house that I normally share with just two dogs. There were bodies (live) in every room, bed, sofa and chair, and the din of chatter from morning until bed. At every new sound, my big baby dog barked, prompting the other to add her trademark scream.

There were fourteen people and four dogs crowded into my cozy living room and around my dining room table (well, the dogs were underneath) for latkes and turkey at "Christmakah", and to give you a visual image of under the table, Eva was the smallest of the dogs at 40 pounds. The largest was a Golden the size of a polar bear.

It's been a chaotic week but in our busy day to day lives, it's wonderful to have this time to reconnect with family, to put aside the pressures and demands of our regular work and to spend time taking walks, going to movies and out to dinner, and catching up on the news and adventures of those we love.

My Work-in-Progress sat on the bookshelf in my bedroom completely ignored, although the occasional pang of guilt flitted through me as I bustled past it. It sits there still, but its beckoning call grows a little louder. Maybe tomorrow I will pick it up. I will have forgotten my place in it and my train of thought, but I hope this forced separation will usher in some new insights, a brilliant new plot twist or a fascinating character. All that wine and plum pudding should be good for something, right?

In his post yesterday, Rick did a good job of saying good bye and good riddance to 2016. Not humankind's finest year, and with climate denying billionaires in charge who are interested only in power and profits, with little professed concern for the public good or the health of the planet we all share, 2017 is not looking great. I won't add to the doomsaying, but will merely urge everyone to think of one or two small things they can do - a couple of reasonable, achievable resolutions they can keep - to try to stem the tide if not turn it. Many good deeds cost nothing. Smile at clerks and waiters and strangers in the street. Shovel an elderly neighbour's driveway. Carry a harried mother's grocery bags.

Donate to a charity or two. There are many trying to alleviate the suffering around the world. Even modest donations can add up to a real difference. Many of them allow you to pay a small monthly amount instead of a bigger lump sum.  Check the provenance of the goods and food you buy, and try to avoid companies that exploit workers, use forced labour, or damage the environment.

I could go on, but I need to get this blog up on the site. So I will end with one last resolution that I will try to keep. To remember my Wednesday blog before the actual day is half over, and to be as entertaining and informative as possible. Here's to good intentions!

At the end of 2016, I’m wondering…

by Rick Blechta

So now I’m down to my final post of the year. I’m sure I’m not alone with how I tend to look forward and backward at this time of the passing season. It’s pretty well unavoidable.

It has been an “interesting” 365 days, hasn’t it? Sadly, I feel life has been tilted more to the bad side than the good in 2016. Politically, the world is a mess. The climate issue should be at the top of everyone’s list — and it isn’t. Corporate greed is running rampant. Problem is, like many things in life, we find out far too late when we’ve done something stupid. Climate change is that, in spades.

Personally, my year has been “good enough”. I had one novella published. (Vicki D always makes me feel so lazy when I see what she’s been up to. Actually, she could make any three authors feel lazy.) I’m working on a full-length novel, but I really need to turn on the afterburners in 2017 if I’m going to finish it and hand it over to my long-suffering agent before we reach this point in a year.

My problem with writing was my day gig of graphic design. The really big news of 2016 is that I finally was able to stop doing it. However, the bad part was that closing up shop took until December to be completed, even though I started the process in July! Now I’m getting used to the wonderful feeling that I no longer have to worry about clients and their deadlines. Deadlines I have now are ones that I make myself.

As for looking forward, I wonder what the next year will bring to book publishing. Self-publishing has become huge, but its practitioners are still viewed as “outsiders”. Will this be the year where self-published novels start racking up big sales? Will a big-time author take the plunge, begin self-publishing, throwing the industry into a blender and hitting frappé — because that’s what it would do. All the paradigms of our little world will be thrown right out the window when that happens. Frankly, I believed it would have by now.

I also hope that so many good people don’t shuck their mortal coil in the coming year. We lost a huge number, didn’t we?

I’ve made my resolutions for 2017, and over the years I’ve gotten better at keeping them. I won’t share them with you here because a lot of them are personal goals, but I will say that the top of list say: write more — every day!

So to all you out there: All the best in 2017 and may we all convene here at this time next year to see how it all turned out.

I hope we’ll all still be here…

Books to Keep

The Christmas guests departed at 6am this morning to get ahead of the forecast storm and the Boxing day homeward rush.  The house is silent and seems somehow empty, but outside the snow flurries are blowing, there are leftovers in the fridge and there is a lot to be said for a day in which there is no need to go out, the fire is on and there are Christmas books waiting for me.

We are a bookish family.  Even the grandchildren, 10, 8 and 5, are quite content to spend the down time on Christmas Day between one meal and the next, and to fill in the pause after opening presents from Santa and before attacking the ones from family and friends with either reading or being read to - barely a tablet in sight.

Reviewing my own Christmas goodies, I was struck that the book element consisted of two fat biographies my family knows I will find interesting, an Enid Blyton spoof (Five Go to Brexit Island) and a book of entertaining cartoons.  No fiction, yet everyone knows I read more fiction than anything else.

How many people buy hardback fiction any more?   My own hardback sales rely heavily on library purchases. For myself,  I am an eclectic reader and I don't have one particular favourite author that I wouldn't be prepared to wait for until the paperback came out - or the ebook, I suppose, though if it was a book I was really looking forward to reading I'd enjoy it more in physical form. (Not since Georgette Heyer, of blessed memory.)

Perhaps it's just me.  But if books were mice, we'd have the sort of  problem that would mean calling in pest control, so  I'm very selective about the books I actually keep as opposed to recycling via a charity shop:  For me to keep one, I must know I will want to read it again, or it must have some other significance to earn a place in one of the many crowded bookcases.  It has to furnish, not just the room, but the mind as well.

One of the nicest things a reader can say to you is, 'I have all your books...'  So may 2017 be a year when we all write the books that our readers want to keep and when, with the horrors and traumas of 2016 behind us, we may be able somehow to work towards a more unified and peaceful world.   

 

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Merry Christmas and Happy Killings!

Season's Greetings to everyone. It's been a busy, yet amazing year. I spent a lot of time on the road with WordFire Press, hawking books at various ComicCons from Miami to Seattle and parts in between. I got to meet old fans and make new ones. And I edited two anthologies and got several short stories published. Plus, I taught writing classes at Regis University and Lighthouse Writers. Like I said, it's been a busy year.

While we push books here at Type M, I can't ignore that many of us indulge in binge-watching. My favorite was the New Detectives on Netflix. The series detailed the use of forensics and old-style sleuthing to solve actual crimes. It was sobering but not surprising to learn that murderers tend to be, in order of most likely: husbands, boyfriends, wives, adult children, neighbors, and strangers. If any of you are contemplating homicide, word to the wise--ditch the murder weapon and destroy the notes or letters where you outline the steps to the crime! Rookie mistakes like that will get you fifty-to-life, if not a date with the needle.

For the New Year I've got an ambitious schedule. More stories to publish. Hopefully edit at least one more anthology. More touring. More teaching. Stay tuned.

Here's hoping 2017 brings good tidings for all of us. 

Advance Readers

The goal was to hit page 50, reach about 10,000 words, and then share the work with advance readers who would offer feedback. That happened last weekend.

It’s been a long road. Since July, I’ve written the first 50 pages of the work-in-progress maybe four different ways. Same plot. Same characters. But different points of view, narrators, and even tenses. About a month ago, I got things where I wanted them, and last weekend I hit page 50. So I shared the Google doc with my current agent, who is exceptional and never fails to call my bluff; a librarian, who catches even the smallest typo; and two people very familiar with the setting of the novel.

Some people wait until the novel is finished before offering it up for criticism. I can understand why –– new ideas coming at you while you work might nudge you off the road you’re traveling. And certainly when I finished three years of workshopping in my MFA program, the last thing I wanted was additional critiquing. As I wrote my first six novels, the process was simple: I composed the book, sent it off to my former agent (who offered very little feedback), and he submitted it. In fact, the submission process was my main form of critique –– many vague rejections and a few acceptances. When I have worked on multi-book contracts, my agent rarely read the sequels, only that original book. Often, the draft –– usually written on deadline –– went from me to the editor, then out into the world to face reviewers. The terror of that experience is well described by poet Anne Bradstreet in her work “The Author To Her Book”:
Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain/
… In critic’s hands beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known;
If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;

Maybe it’s age (I’m hesitant to call it wisdom), but I now want feedback as I write. It’s probably easier to receive critiques as I write the book now because I’m not flying by the seat of my pants. Typically, I have no outline. However, this time I have the plot roughly sketched out in a reasonably cohesive manner. Maybe that knowledge makes it easier to seek (and receive) feedback.

I’d love to hear how other members of the Type M community approach this. Are my colleagues in writer’s groups? Do they prefer to work alone? And why? Do they rely on an agent for feedback?

Fifty pages certainly don’t make a novel. But it’s a start, and I’m eager to hear if my advance readers think it’s a good one.

My Year in Books, 2016

It’s almost the end of the year. Time for my annual reading wrap up. I’ve always believed a writer should read as much as possible – both good and bad. You can learn a lot from reading both.

So far this year I've read 76 books (13 of them non-fiction, all but 3 of the rest crime fiction of one variety or another). There’s still a few days left in the year. I suspect I’ll get another 2 or 3 read.

During the year, I visited old friends and discovered new ones. In the old friends category, I finished off the Pennyfoot Hotel series by Kate Kingsbury, read another of Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range mysteries, and spent some time with Aunt Dimity. And I got to read another great story in the League of Literary Ladies series by Kylie Logan, And Then There Were Nuns.

2016 was the year I finally read a Lee Child book (61 Hours) and loved it. Yes, I know, everyone else has already read a Jack Reacher story. Better late than never... It was also the year I read all of the Family Skeleton mysteries by Leigh Perry (loved, loved, loved them all) and all of the Book Club Mystery series by Laura DiSilverio (also great fun).

The biggest surprises for me this year were how much I loved Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. What a beautifully written story, though sad! And how captivating I found The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson.

My favorite nonfiction book of the year is a toss up between Val McDermid’s Forensics: The Anatomy of Crime and Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages.

I still have stacks of books around the house and a slew of them on my Kindle, waiting to be read, but I'm always looking for something new to read. What books did you enjoy reading this past year? Any suggestions for me?

I hope all of your holidays are happy and that you have a wonderful new year. See you in 2017!

Hey! Anyone out there need a gift suggestion?

by Rick Blechta

This is going to be a philanthropic bit of outrageously self-promoting promotion.

Huh?

Well, it goes like this. To the right and left of this post are either authors (your hosts here at Type M) or the front covers of their most recent books.

If you’re still in need of some Christmas, or shall I just say holiday gifts, look no further! We’re a talented bunch of writers here, and well, our published works would look pretty darned good encased in wrapping paper and given to a relative or friend who enjoys curling up with an enjoyable book on a cold winter night (hot, too, if you happen to be in Florida at the moment).

So please, this gift-giving season consider a Genuine Type M for Murder crime novel. Or two! (Two is a great number.)

And help make the end of the year a little brighter for everyone involved, you, your giftee and everyone here at Type M.

We thank you!

And now I return you to your regularly-scheduled blog...

Goodbye to 2016 and Hello to 2017

By Vicki Delany

This is my last post at Type M for 2016. It’s been quite a year. Although it seems that the same cannot be said for the rest of the world, it’s been a good year for me.

New books, new contracts, new friends, even a new son-in-law to be!

Same house, same health, same family. And isn’t that all pretty much any of us want?

Vicki Reading (not exactly as shown)

Vicki Writing (not exactly as shown)

In March I went to Vietnam, which I absolutely loved, and in November to The Netherlands and Tunisia. February was Left Coast Crime in Portland and March saw the annual road trip to Malice Domestic with Mary Jane Maffini, Linda Wiken, and Robin Harlick.

What’s coming up?

In book news:

• The first in the new Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series from Crooked Lane.
• Not one, but TWO, Rapid Reads Novellas from Orca. The third Sgt. Ray Robertson book and the first Ashley Grant book. Totally, totally, different tone. 
• The third Year Round Christmas mystery in November. 
• Trip to India and Nepal in February with our own Barbara Fradkin
• Malice Domestic in April and then Bouchercon in Toronto in October

A wedding! Yeah! My daughter, Julia Delany, will be married to Coleman Webb in Nelson B.C. in September.

The start of a BRAND NEW crime writing festival here in Price Edward County called Women Killing it! It’s going to be September 1, 2nd and promises to be just fabulous. Great authors in an intimate small-town setting. We’re still getting into gear, but we do have a FB page and over the next weeks we’ll be rolling out our web page as well as the author line up and ticket info. https://www.facebook.com/WomenKillingItCrime/?fref=ts

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, and all the best for the new year.

Guest Blog: Len Tyler

Aline here. I'm delighted to introduce you today to Len Tyler, Chair of the Crime Writers Association. From this seat of immense power and prestige, he oversees the famous Dagger Awards, from the Debut Dagger for unpublished writers through to the Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence and contribution to crime writing. Despite this, he remains kind and undulgent to mere members such as myself and happily agreed to be my guest blogger this week. He has won the 'Last Laugh' award twice for his comic crime novel series as well as being twice short-listed for the Edgar Allan Poe award.

Len writes:

One of the things that you are always trying to do with your work is to instill a sense of time and place. The time of year my books are set often depends on when I begin them - it’s somehow much easier writing about a fine autumn day when it is actually autumn and you’ve just come in from wading through dry leaves with the sun low in a reddening sky.

The book I’ve just turned in (Herring in the Smoke) was begun last spring and, sure enough, the opening chapter is a bright, cold day in late March (and the final chapter is is set in early autumn, roughly when it was first drafted). Christmas features quite a lot in my work however, almost regardless of the progress of the real-life year as I write. Very often it plays a symbolic part in the story. The fourth novel in my Ethelred and Elsie series is Herring on the Nile. It is set (the title is something of a give-away) in Egypt and the narrator, an author, does not have a terribly pleasant time – he is pursued by somebody who does not wish him well, kidnapped in error and almost blown up. Finally, he returns to England just before Christmas. The time of year provides a symbolic healing. He writes in the final chapter: ‘From a window I can see, a little way down Horsham Road, the lights of a Christmas tree shining on the pristine white blanket. In front of me is my computer and a pot of coffee. I’ve just started writing a new book. It’s surprising how little you need to be happy.’

Ethelred’s attitude to Christmas shows, you might say, a certain amount about his character. His agent, Elsie, by contrast, has less enthusiasm for the festivities, referring to ‘that terrifying, yawning gulf between the Queen’s Speech and the earliest that you can decently go to bed’. You can tell a lot about people by what they like and dislike.

Christmas also plays an important part in my John Grey historical series, which begins in the 1650s, when Christmas had been banned by Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan regime. The lack of Christmas symbolises some of the joylessness of the period. When my narrator criticises his mother for celebrating Christmas anyway, it again tacitly comments on the respective characters of John Grey and Mistress Grey. John, though he constantly denies it, is something of a Puritan at heart and very much a child of the new regime. His mother refuses to allow Cromwell, or her son, get in the way of enjoying herself as she always has. John’s acknowledgement, at the end of the book, that it would do no harm to put up a bit of holly this year, is one indicator of how he has changed during the year.

Christmas 1657 saw a general round-up and arrest in London of anyone attending a church service on Christmas Day. That provided me with a sub-plot in the second book in the series, A Masterpiece of Corruption. John Grey, hearing of the plan, tries to warn his friends of the danger of attending church, only to be arrested himself. It proves not to be the most enjoyable Christmas he has had. One of the friends he was trying to warn does however very kindly visit him in prison to tell him what he’s missed. So, I always get Christmas in when I can. Why not? It was and is a great time of the year.

Occasionally the plot forces you to write about some other month. I am for example currently working on a book set at the time of the Great Fire of London. That was in September 1666, no getting away from it. The setting is the end of a long hot summer. Still, I can probably cover the aftermath of the fire – I can see the desolate ruins of London, the walls of the houses collapsed into heaps of now cold rubble and just the church spires left standing as strange vertical markers in a low, grey landscape. Then the white snow begins to fall, covering the grey ash, and somewhere, in the distance, from one of the churches that survived the conflagration, the bells begin to ring.

There’s symbolism there all right. Yes, I rather think that might work…

Holidays with My Characters

Posts from Rick, Barbara, and Aline about holiday customs got me thinking about Christmas when I was a child. I grew up in Virginia, and my parents both worked. Today, my family would be classified as among the "working poor."  That made holidays even more special because my parents always splurged on Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.

On Christmas morning, we had oyster stew and fried oysters for breakfast -- or, in the case of my brother, who would eat neither, his usual cereal.

I never asked why we had oysters, but I know now that the custom is supposed to have originated with Irish immigrants and become an American tradition. After breakfast, we went back to the Christmas tree to open any packages that might have been missed in that first rush to the toys. Our tree was the old-fashion kind -- a real tree that my father had chopped down on my grandfather's farm and that we decorated with tinsel, ornaments, and lights that had to be put on in the right order. The tree went up in early December.

I still have oysters on Christmas morning, but with less of the delight than when I was a child. Now, that I can afford to have them any time I'd like, some of the magic is gone. But it's nice to remember all those childhood breakfasts.

Thinking about all this, has made me wonder about my characters' holiday customs. I suspect that Lizzie Stuart, my Southern-born crime historian, had many of the same meals I did. Of course, she was born and reared in a small town in Kentucky by her grandparents. I must do some research on Kentucky delicacies that her grandmother, Hester Rose, might have served alongside her own childhood favorites from Virginia. And then they would have gone to church. Christmas Day and Easter would probably have been the only two occasions when Lizzie's grandfather, Walter Lee, would have gone without nudging from his wife. As a traveling man, a sleeping car porter until he retired, Walter Lee was not as religious as Hester Rose.

Does Lizzie still go to church on Christmas morning? Or does she share a romantic breakfast with her fiance, John Quinn? In the book I'm working on, they go to Santa Fe to spend Thanksgiving with Quinn's family. Quinn is 1/8th Apache. They will be spending that holiday with his half-sister and her family. His sister, mother, and step-father observe Native American traditions and customs that he does not. His sister, who owns an art gallery, is married to an archeologist, whose parents immigrated from Scotland when he was a child. What will be served at Thanksgiving dinner and what food memories will they share?

And what were Quinn's Thanksgivings like after his mother left his father? Quinn's father was career military and an officer. He had married Quinn's Native American mother and expected her to fit in. Did Quinn and his father join other officers and their families for holiday meals? Or, was his father impatient with such celebrations? Did he occasionally allow Quinn to spend Thanksgiving or Christmas with his mother and her family in Oklahoma?

Intriguing questions and something to think about as I'm imagining that Thanksgiving meal and the discussion over the table about how everyone intends to spend Christmas.

How do your characters spend the holidays?
 

A New Book Coming

On its way!

Remember this old folk song, Dear Reader?

The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men.
He marched them up the hill one day,
Then marched them down again.
When you’re up, you’re up,
And when you’re down, you’re down.
But when you’re only half-way up,
You’re neither up nor down.
And that about describes my life over the past two months.

Between my family’s little medical adventures and trying to get my upcoming book launch in order and attempting to make progress on my WIP, I don’t know why I bother making plans at all. Of course, any Zen master would tell you that making plans is what leads to misery in the first place.

Life must be getting back to normal, because I’ve returned to my old pattern of saying yes to everything anyone asks me to do and then driving myself insane trying to get it all done.  I am constantly chiding friends and relatives (mostly the female ones. You know who you are.) for overextending themselves and not particularly enjoying it, to boot. And yet I’m as bad about it as anyone. Part of the problem is that you don’t want to disappoint. And then, this one little project won’t take much time, and neither will this one, and this one, and this one, and there’s no end to it.
Well, damn it, Donis, just say no, and strike a blow for women* everywhere. And if I ever manage to do it, I’ll be sure and let you know, Dear Reader.

Now that my rant is over, I happily announce that I just received the hardback copies of my January release, The Return of the Raven Mocker. There will be a giveaway when the book launches, Dear Reader, and I will tell you all about it and about the book when next we meet here at Type M on December 29. (Which happens to be my birthday, and that means perhaps I’ll be the one giving you a present.) Until then, I wish you and yours the happiest of holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannuka, or whatever you celebrate.

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*with a nod to the men, as well. They are as guilt-ridden as the women.