The Lady Killers

Happy Halloween

Cara here on Halloween,

This is very cool. I found the link on Sarah Weinman's blog
Ghosts at Trinity College in Dublin
http://www.trinitynews.ie/index.php/culture/books/282-dublins-dark-side

Apart from buying candy and putting a candle in the window for the few trick or treaters we get, I'm
gearing up for a workshop on Setting that I'll do tomorrow at Book Passage. Rhys and I conducted a shorter
version at the mystery conference a few years ago. I'm borrowing one of your exercises, Rhys!

Next week I'll speak at the Ingleside Library then in two weeks on to the Miami Book Fair and sun!
I'm on a panel with Leighton Gage, another Soho author and signing at the booth of Murder on the Beach, a great indie run by Joanne. Cuban food here I come!

Tomorrow in France, Nov. 1 is Toussaint, the day everyone goes to the cemetary and puts flowers on the departed. A few years ago I was in Pere Lachaise cemetary on Toussaint and at Chopin's grave. The place was a scene, crowded with flowers, candles and Polish people holding a vigil...kind of amazing.

Bon Halloween,
Cara

Wanderings

Rhys on Wednesday..

It seems to me that all our posts recently have been about travels and coming home. well, I'm home this week, or rather I think I am. Still not sure.

we drove down to our condo in Arizona last weekend and now we've slipped back into the Arizona routine. But is it home here? I don't think so yet. It still feels as if we're borrowing a nice condo in the sunshine and I tiptoe around straightening things up and making sure I don't leave a book lying on the bed. I had definitely mixed feelings about driving down here the other day--and about leaving home behind. The view from my balcony in Marin county is just stunning at the moment with the slanted fall sunlight and the valley below me dotted with red and gold. We've had a very mild fall so I've been sitting out on the balcony in the balmy evening air, watching the first stars and the lighs across the valley and thinking how lucky I am to live in such a glorious place.

So I was a little reluctant to leave it yet again and make the trek to Phoenix. I love the condo here, I love being near the other grandchildren, but I've been on the go and on the road all year and I suppose I just want a month or so in one place, with nothing on my calendar. That was the plan with Arizona--time to wind down, get some writing done. But I was only here one day when I had to speak at Arizona State University and I'm up in Sedona for a library event next week and then Tucson for two events the week after that. When will I ever learn to say NO!

I turned in a manuscript for the third Georgie, ROYAL FLUSH, at the beginning of October, and I don't have to start the next Molly book until January. So what am I doing now--feeling unsettled and guilty that I'm not sitting at my computer, working. True i do have some short stories I've promised Strand and Alfred Hitchcock magazines, but I should be able to switch off and enjoy some down time, shouldn't I?

I need to go out into the desert with my new camera and get really involved with something other than writing. Maybe I'll show you a photo next week

Rhys

Signings etc.

Here I am in sunny southern California, staying with my son and family. I had a couple of signings on the way down. At the one at M for Mystery in San Mateo, a woman turned up whom I'd met at Left Coast Crime in Bristol (UK) a couple of years ago. We reminisced about the fire alarms that made the conference so notable! Both at the conference hotel and the overspill hotel, all guests were hoicked from their beds in the middle of the night and sent to stand on the ice pavement in their nightclothes. Quite the most exciting conference I've ever attended.

The second signing was at The Mystery Bookstore in LA. This has just changed hands, and I was happy to discover one of the new owners is a Daisy fan :-)

I've been walking my granddaughter to school (proud Gran--she got 100% on both her math and her spelling tests!); walking on the sea wall; meeting old friends for an Indian meal; and trying not to think of the book I should be at home writing. My excuse is another signing: I'll be at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego on Saturday Nov. 1st at 2 pm.

On the way home, I'm going to stop en route to attend the first Manchester University alumni meeting of my life. Never thought in student days that I'd be getting together with fellow M/c grads in Orange County, California!

Back from Texas...

Ann Parker here, Monday's child for the Lady Killers, back from the Women Writing the West conference in San Antonio (where I got to see and wander around the Alamo... the REAL Alamo... for the first time ever). The conference was great, but I'm pooped, everyone at home is in a mess, and I'm not going to be able to stay awake much longer. I'm reading Spunk and Bite by Arthur Plotnik, and very much enjoying it. He provides a sampling of some internet word-a-day sources for fun and writerly delight, including The Word Spy, Worthless Word for the Day, and A.Word.A.Day.

almost home

Sharan here, late on Saturday.  I've spent the last two days at a conference of the National Coalition of Independent Scholars ( www.NCIS.com ) It's a solidarity group for people, generally with advanced degrees who are not employed in Academia ( or those who are under employed, like adjunct professors) The group has been around for 20 years and it is set up so that people can continue their scholarly research. They provide a sort of validation for people when they send in paper proposals, give travel grants and act as the umbrella organization when one is applying for a grant.  The papers I went to today were all on various aspects of women's history and I learned a lot.
It's nice to be here in Berkeley, where it's still summer, but I'm eager to get back home and to work.  Of course, next week I'll be in Ashland, Oregon where I may not have Internet access but, from November on I get to hide out in my cave and write.  Wheee!!  I did learn that my last mystery THE SHANGHAI TUNNEL will be out in paperback, maybe by Christmas but certainly soon after.

That's all the news from me. By the way, I want a Sarkozy doll!   

Sharan

The French President's Voodoo Doll

From reuters:

“French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to sue a publishing company unless it withdraws a Sarkozy doll that comes with a “voodoo manual” instructing readers to plant pins in it, his lawyer said.

The doll is emblazoned with some of Sarkozy’s most famous quotes such as “Get lost you pathetic arsehole” — his words to a bystander who refused to shake his hand at a farm show last year. Readers are encouraged to plant pins in the quotes.

“Nicolas Sarkozy has instructed me to remind you that, whatever his status and fame, he has exclusive and absolute rights over his own image,” lawyer Thierry Herzog wrote to publishers K&B in a letter published by newspaper Le Monde.

Confirming details to Reuters, Herzog said Sarkozy would sue the publishing firm if it didn’t respond and pull the product. K&B has issued 20,000 copies of the manual and doll.

The company has also issued a Segolene Royal doll representing Sarkozy’s rival in last year’s presidential election. Her lawyer said she was also considering legal action.

Voodoo is a religion rooted in West Africa.

My friend who lives in Aix-en-Provence sent me
this and asked 'do you have a Sarah Palin voodoo doll?'

Have a good weekend,
Cara

Flying South for the Winter

A very miserable Rhys on Wednesday: I obviously picked up a bug when I was flying home from Baltimore last week. I fought it off with zinc, vitamin c etc until two days ago it won. Now I'm in the throes of a mierable cold--eyes and nose streaming, can't breathe, and I've a million small things to do.

I decided I must have been a bird in a former life. The first sign of turning leaves and a cold wind in the air and my thoughts turn to flying south. So I'm off to our condo in Phoenix this weekend--which means deciding what comes with us and what stays. Luckily we furnished the whole thing last spring but there are certain comforts of life I need to have with me--my favorite music (okay, I must be the only person in the universe not to have an ipod), photos, my current favorite clothes. And then there are all the things I always intend to do when I have time: write the 3 short stories I have promised various magazines, take up watercolor painting seriously, finish sweater I have been knitting for a year and then there is research on Houdini, who I have decided will be part of the next Molly book.

so a mound is piling up in the front hallway, an amount suitable for Marco Polo to take across the Gobi desert. And a strage fact--however much we cart down to Arizona, there never seems to be any less here in California. One day I'm going to seriously declutter!

Rhys

www.rhysbowen.com

Heading south: Signing dates

I'm off to California this week, signing Black Ship at M for Mystery in San Mateo, Sat. 25th at 1; LA Mystery Bookstore, Sun. 26th at 1; and the following w/e, Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego, Sat. Nov. 1st at 2. Come and see me!

On Sunday I spoke to a book group at a Victorian house in town. They'd read--most of them had read--the only book I ever set in America, The Case of the Murdered Muckraker. It ends up in Eugene, chiefly because so many people had asked when I was going to set a book here. I used real Eugene people I found in the Register Guard archives, so at a pinch it can be described as being about Eugene history. Only trouble is, it's very much out of print and unavailable, so I had to lend them a few of my very few copies.

Shelton-McMurphy-Johnson House. Built in 1888, on Skinner Butte, named for Eugene Skinner, eponymous early settler of what was temporarily known as Skinner's Mud Hole.

In case anyone is wondering whether I made a fool of myself at the poetry reading in Salem last week: at least no one booed. I was told (by friends) that I added colour to an otherwise somewhat flat evening. I played my recorder, I sang, I read my illustrated poem, the latter aided by a young and kindly audience member who figured out the projection equipment--four terrifying machines hooked together (The organiser of the poetry series was stuck in an airport in California). And I ended with my famous recital of Jabberwocky. I have to say a couple of Asian gentlemen in the audience looked a little confused at the last.

Of Plotnik, sploosh, and slang

Ann Parker here, Monday's child for The Lady Killers, with much thanks to Leslie for straightening me out on last week's quote by Arthur PLOTNIK, not Arthur POLOTNIK.

In fact, Leslie, I owe you double thanks, because in wandering around the internet, looking for things Mr. Plotnik had written, I came across a description of Spunk and Bite, which sounds like my kinda book! Anyone who engages in a serious discussion of onomatopoeia, citing "THROCK," "SPLOOSH," "booped," and "whooshed" is my kinda guy.

Speaking of stumbling and wandering, I found (or stumbled over) a GREAT website:
Historical Dictionary of American Slang. The reason I'm so excited about this, is that you can search slang in a number of different ways. You can put in, oh, say, "kill" (since we're mystery folk here) and find out that "bump off" "waste" whack" "do in" etc. are all slang terms for "to kill" and what year the terms came into common use. Or, you can enter "bump off" and find it means "to kill." I love the date fields: you can ask the dictionary to find only slang used before 1880, for instance. My only complaint: Not enough slang! I want more!

Why are my characters revolting?

Well, only one character is actually, but that’s bad enough. Jane here, annoyed because one of the investigators in my current mystery has rebelled and absolutely refuses to fit into the plot I’ve planned for him, so I’ll have to alter it.

Now when I say this sort of thing to non-writers, I get sceptical glances, or uneasy smiles, as if I might be about to add that I’ve got fairies at the bottom of my garden. But at least on a writers’ blog I’m safe. I hope.

It does sound daft, though, doesn’t it? I created this character, indeed all my characters, out of my own head, from nothing. They are not, repeat not, real people. So logically I can direct and control them, like a puppeteer manipulating marionettes. They’ll go where I send them, they’ll speak the words I put into their mouths.

Who am I kidding?

If the characters have taken on real form and substance, and especially if they’ve appeared in several books, then they are like real people in that they have certain traits, certain ways of behaving. Their personalities may be fictional but they are well-defined. As with real-life friends, I know how they’ll feel and act in any given situation. Which means if I find myself writing against their grain, I simply can’t make it work.

The other day I wanted my sleuth Aurelia and her investigator brother to go together to visit old friends in the Roman frontier area; she has been invited to a party there which is clearly not all it seems, and he should have gone with her, because they will both be needed there later on. But as I researched and wrote about the problems on the frontier I saw a way to ratchet up the danger a notch or two. And when I came to the scene where Aurelia and Lucius are planning their journey, I discovered that Lucius, the pesky idiot, has decided to go on his own now. He refuses to allow Aurelia to visit there herself because it’s too dangerous. As head of a Roman family (their father is dead,) he has the power to stop her. I wish I had the power to stop him, but I haven’t.

Of course she’ll get there eventually; that comes from her character, obstinate and not easily scared. (Let’s face it, she’d better, or I might as well ditch the plot entirely.) I realise too that how she manages it, and the quarrel between the siblings, add tension to the story. But I could have done without mutiny in the ranks just when I thought I could see ahead to the next few twists of the plot.

I suppose it’s my own fault. As a reader, I like mysteries that are character driven, so that’s what I aim for as a writer. I’m not minimising the importance of ingenious plots and vivid settings, but for me, it’s the people in a story that keep me turning pages. So if achieving a character driven story requires, now and then, a character driven author as well, I must just grin and bear it. It isn’t logical, but it’s a fact.

And in case anyone’s wondering, I really haven’t got fairies at the bottom of my garden, at least I’m pretty sure I haven’t...