The Lady Killers

Death and Taxes part deux!

Rhys writing rapidly on Tuesday night, because we leave Arizona at dawn tomorrow to drive back to California. Great pity as the weather has just become stellar--80 degrees and brilliant blue skies and the wildflowers about to come out.

Never mind, I'm only in CA for a few days before it's off to Hawaii. Writing isn't such a bad life after all! But Carola's title struck a chord with me because I'm in the throes of taxes, or rather getting everything together so that the tax man can make sense of things--having two offices doesn't make life easier. And I'm also constantly thinking about killing people because I'm in the middle of a new Molly book and I think I've worked out a fiendishly clever plot twist. Whaaaa haaa.

But I've never much gone in for the clever ways of murder like the speckled band. In fact most of my victims get bumped off in primitive ways--shoved off cliffs, bashed over the head, stabbed, shot. However, I've become a little more subtle in my upcoming Molly book, In a Gilded Cage. I'll say no more but the killer is quite clever.

I think the whole genre has shifted from whodunit to whydunit, from plot to character. The personal life of the sleuth, the pyschologogical profile of the murderer are now more important than decuding that the victim was killed by a curare tipped cigar.  I must say I've always been a fan of the clever puzzle and most mysteries on TV are so easy that I find myself shouting out after scene one, "It's the brother, you idiots."

But if the character of the sleuth doesn't grab me, then I'm not willing to follow along even with the cleverest plot.

And to finish with a piece of breaking news: A Royal Pain has been nominated for the Agatha best novel! The competition is formidable: Louise Penny, Anne Perry, Julia Spencer-Fleming and Donna Andrews so I'm not expecting to come away with a teapot this year, but it is super to be nominated again.

Rhys

Death and Taxes

It's that time of year again. I was going to write about doing my taxes, but the subject is just too appalling to tackle, so I'm going to write about death instead.

Specifically murder, of course. How important do you--as writers--think it is to come up with different ways of killing your victims? Do you care--readers--whether it's ye olde blunt instrument, the dagger in the back, cyanide in the whisky?

Golden Age mystery writers, between The Wars, often went to great lengths to murder in ingenious ways. A simple pistol to the cranium just wasn't enough. They set complicated traps with  springs, and a string tied to the trigger, and a needle through the wax of a candle that would release when it burned down.

I do try not to have the same method of murder in two consecutive books, but I can't say I go to any great lengths to come up with a new and fancy modus operandi every time. It's the circumstances and characters involved that interest me.  I don't much care if the body is found in the bathtub or at the bottom of the cliff.

Shrove Tuesday--it's time to go  make pancakes (crepes, to be eaten English style rolled up with sugar and lemon juice). Arsenic in the batter, anyone?

Carola
PS Check out my  Hollywood Today interview

The agony of ellipses . . .

Three dot . . . or four dot. . . . That is the question. And not the only one I have, to be honest.

Ann Parker here, Monday's child for The Lady Killers, promising a short post because I'm nearly at the end of proofing the ARC of Leaden Skies. About an hour more, and I can circle back to the beginning, to solve the mystery of the mad ellipses.

 Honestly, I took out tons of the little beasts in the final draft, but some (I'm not counting how many) still remain.

And so, the question is, which style should I follow? The Chicago Manual of Style provides three options. 

1. The three-dot method (appropriate for most general works and many scholarly ones), in which only three . . . dot dot dot . . . are used. All the time. No exceptions. Period.
2. The three-or-four-dot method (appropriate for poetry and most scholarly works). Three dots show omission within a sentence; four mark omission of more than one sentence.
3. The rigorous method (for legal works and such), which I didn't even bother to read about.

In my case, I usually (but not always) use ellipses in dialogue to show faltering or interrupted speech. But still, that begs the question, should it be method 1 or method 2?

The other punctuation mark that is driving me over the edge and around the bend is the apostrophe. But not just any apostrophe. I'm talking "this n that," "half n half," "to n fro." Guess how that wayward n-in-the-middle is supposed to appear? Try this:

'n'

Because, of course, there's a letter missin' from either end.

And the agony of the apostrophe continues . . . (dot dot dot)

A good friend, who is a cracker-jack editor and proofreader, ripped through one copy of the ARC while I've been plodding through the other copy. She delivered her marks and remarks yesterday. Her overall note begins:

I'm ready for book 4 right now!

Then, she continues:

In your next book you may not use any contractions preceding the first word of dialogue!!

In other words...
"'Twas a real problem with those dang wrong-way apostrophes," she said. (No, she didn't say that. I did, to make a point.)

Well, I'm throwing in the towel, waving the white flag, and sending a plaintive note to my publisher asking what they prefer for ellipses. As for this 'n' that and all the rest, well, I have my answer, so forward I go.

transitions

Sharan here. Here being home for a bit.  I had a good week, finally finishing the edit of the book Heloise and the Paraclete that my friend, Mary, left unfinished at her death. There will probably be more fussing to do on it but the worst is over, I fervently hope.  I also put together a tentative outline for my book on the various theories about the end of the world.   Now just a short story to finish and I can work full time on Doomsday.  I'll let you all know if I find conclusive evidence that it will be any time soon.

Also, Michael Allen Dymmach sent me the photo she took of me with General Custer in Chicago.  I believe he just stopped by on the way to Little Big Horn, where he was actually hunting for the Templar treasure and was defeated by the Guardians who were both descended from the Templars and the lost tribes of Israel.  [I think I'm getting the hang of this conspiracy stuff]  Anyway, I'm including the photo and shall also put it on facebook, just to show I'm not all stuffy academic.

Where do I go from here?

I am at the point in the book I'm currently writing in which I am asking myself what the hell I am doing. I suppose I have written enough books now that I feel I have to continually set the bar higher and higher. But this time I decided to set my next Molly Murphy book in the world of illusionists, featuring Houdini. It seemed like a great idea before I started: what if there was an illusion that was so clever and so complicated that nobody could figure out and Molly is called upon to do the impossible.

Brilliant premise. But now I have to come up with a way to solve the impossible. I have been reading everything on Houdini, delving into everything I can find on illusionists and watching every episode of Masters of Illusion on TV. By now I know how most tricks are done, which I have to admit spoils it when I'm watching on TV. But an illusion that nobody else can solve? I'm hoping that inspiration will come as I plunge ahead or we may end up on page 300 by having Molly confess that she hasn't a clue.

This should serve as a warning to all writers. In fact I've stressed it when I teach at writers' conferences--don't base your book on a premise. First think through whether this premise can actually go somewhere and turn into story and have a satisfying outcome. Of course all good stories are character-driven and it is Molly and her personal life that we are following in these books. It may be her last case--she has promised her fiance that it will be...so it will interesting for me to see where it goes and how she tries to handle a case that is beyond her abilities.Until now she hasn't been the best of detectives and has often stumbled on answers more by luck than judgement.

But at this moment I wish I wrote literary fiction and could end my books with characters wandering off alone on a beach, thinking about the meaning of life!

One for the birds

The past weekend was the 2009 Great Backyard Bird Count. I've been doing it for several years, and being way behind with my present manuscript didn't stop me. If I didn't have bird-feeders outside my office window, I'd spend all my time staring at the screen and my  eyes would suffer even more than they do. That flicker of wings on the edge of my vision makes me look up and out, as we're told we ought to regularly while working on the computer.

What do I see? Housefinches and goldfinches; Townsend's warblers and  yellow-rumped warblers; nuthatches and hairy woodpeckers (that's what they're called--they look feathery to me). My favourites are chickadees, black-capped and chestnut-backed. Then  there are juncos--not to be confused with junkies or winos--and bush-tits--not to be mentioned in polite circles.

As I walk by the Willamette River every morning, I see water-birds too. Ring-billed gulls, mallards by the dozen, Canada geese, occasionally a great blue heron, a kingfisher, a pied-bill grebe, a flock of scaup impossible to count because they keep diving. Also impossible to count are the double-crested cormorants, just because there are so many. In the winter they roost in the cottonwoods, looking like strange black fruit. At dawn they take off to fly to favourite fishing spots on the river or the reservoir. Literally hundreds of them pass over head, wings whirring, in great Vs.

The GBBC is for scientific purposes, the data from thousands of counters all  across the country being used to study  changes in the  distribution of birds and thus the state of the environment.

But birds are for the soul.

Carola

Need a good laugh?

Oooooh it's Ann Parker here, Monday's Child on the Lady Killers, with a chocolate hangover of major proportions. And the weather is blustery outside. And I have a "to do" list a mile long, including organizing taxes and reading the ARC of Leaden Skies.

What I need is a good laugh.

And if you, dear reader, feel the same for any reason, we're in luck. I have the start of a list of sites/blogs that tickle my funnybone, below. If you have any others that get you smiling, please let me know. February may not be the cruellest month, but April (and taxes) are right around the corner, so let's bring on the laffs.

Cake Wrecks
Who would have guessed cakes could be so funny? The tag line to the site Cake Wrecks is "When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong."

Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats
(lol = laugh-out-loud)
If you haven't come across the mangled-captionated photos of cats, then where, on the Web, have you been? I get a daily collection of these delivered to my email to help me get going.

... And being the nerdette I am, I love science and science-related funnies

off the mark science cartoons
By Mark Parisi (who does other cartoons as well, btw)

lab-initio
Subtitled: "...the continuing archive of largely satisfactory (with some exceptions) science and general caroon foolery by nick d kim ..."
Here's my fave about quantum mechanics.

XKCD
Subtitled: "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language."
Math AND language?? Honestly, what's not to love here (particularly if you throw in sarcasm and romance).
Thank you, Ian, for pointing this one out to me! :-) ... And what does XKCD stand for, anyway?

Now... how about you? Have anything to add to the list?

I hate a tidy office

Jane here, and yes, I definitely hate a tidy office. Or I'm sure I would if I ever had one. I don't think I ever have, and I'm realising the fact in full force today. I'm reorganising my office to accommodate my new computer. This means I'll have to disconnect everything, remove the layers of dust behind all the equipment - some of them have historic value and I should call in an archaeologist. Then I'll have to re-assemble it all again in a new and more convenient order. But that's for tomorrow; today is just preparation. I've been sorting, tidying, filing, and oh heavens, cleaning, so tomorrow I'll be ready for The Big Move. Yuk. It's driving me mad. What a relief to sit down at the computer and post to my fellow Lady Killers.

The trouble is, I know (and you all know too) from long experience that whenever you unplug computer systems and re-plug them together again, however careful you are, you can be sure something, or several things, will not work properly. The printer won't print, or the scanner won't scan, or the network won't - er - network. Bother! Rats! Or to use an expletive favoured by an old friend, stink and drains! Double stink and double drains! And several other expressions less suited to a public blog!

Oh well, even if bits don't work, I'll be able to re-assure myself that everything is clean. I suppose that's something. I'm off now to buy shares in companies that sell dusters and furniture polish. But I'll be back to post something sensible from my squeaky-clean quarters by next week.

Not quite Spring...

I came back to Portland from balmy Chicago and found that it had snowed while I was gone.  I took a day to sort out my laundry and the mail and am back at the computer.  I have two deadlines for the end of this month and then can get back to Doomsday.
I do like being an author for short periods.  It's nice to have people apparently interested in what I have to say and it's wonderful to meet readers.  I also like being picked up and taken to nice hotels and told to have fun with the room service menu.  But, when I get down to it, I'd really rather be in my cave in a tee shirt and sweat pants, writing away.
A lot of people say they want to write a book when they mean they want to have written one, to go on tours and do interviews.  That's only because it sounds glamorous -- it did to me, too, before I tried it.   But really the best part of writing a book is actually writing it, even though it's stressful, frustrating and never quite what one had in mind at the start.  The next best occupation is doing research. 
Speaking of which, the reenactors in Chicago were a mine of information for historical researchers.  I think every mystery convention should try to coordinate with them, perhaps have joint panels.  I did have my picture take with General Custer and hope to put it up soon.  Mrs. Custer was very nice about it.

A happy Valentine's Day to all!!   Sharan

It's Sam Spade's town, we just live here

Cara here on Friday,

Wednesday night I attended the book launch for Joe Gores new book Spade and Archer, the prequel to The Maltese Falcon, at John's Grill, Dashiell Hammet's old haunt. It's also where we hold our local MWA meetings. But Wednesday night it was Joe Gores night and rightfully so. After spending four years writing this book, a labor of love and passion he said and with the blessing of the Hammett family, he rose from his place at the table next to Hammett's grandaughter and took center stage for a few moments. Joe needs a cane now due to a bum knee, but listening to Joe speak with the muffled cable car bells outside was special, a moment from another time. I felt privileged to attend and that his friend quoted part of my review from the SF Chronicle of Spade and Archer.

"....Gores delivers the streets gritty, the action hard-boiled and the feel of late-night mist seeping into your bones. His rhythmic language, the poetic yet staccato-like dialogue, the one-liners are in true "Maltese Falcon" style. Gores gets it pitch perfect.

We follow Spade to the Chinatown back alleys, in his battle with dirty cops, Financial District millionaires who control society - money talks then as now - and working for the outcast, the fringe of society while making the wealthy pay. If Spade doesn't know the score, he goes undercover and finds it, whether from bank security guards, a restaurant owner in North Beach, a limping dock hand. Because, after all, as Spade tells the Fat Man in "The Maltese Falcon," "You have to deal with me now, because this is my town."

And from fog-wrapped Telegraph Hill, to bustling Grant Avenue, up the cable car lines to Nob Hill, down to the hilly streets of Noe Valley rooming houses, it is.

Prohibition didn't curtail Spade's drinking or the dame walking in his office door and spelling trouble. It's not cliche - Hammett more or less invented the private eye novel in "The Maltese Falcon," the loner detective, whose image reflects even now. Spade is the gold standard by which all private detective crime writers, consciously or not, get measured today. Down these mean streets, that Raymond Chandler's P.I. Philip Marlowe walked, Spade walked first. Despite Chandler's franchise on Los Angeles, Hammett first cast the mold in San Francisco. A daunting task, but Joe Gores delivers the real deal. This brand of hero who knows in the end it's either him or me, a womanizer, bright under the exterior, who trusts no one. Yet there's a romantic tamped down in Spade somewhere that we sense and a pragmatic idealism. After all, Spade works for the little guy and the big guy because you had to in "his town" to get anywhere.

Gores pulls the reader in with Hammett-style sparse economy and telling details. He paints every scene vividly, evocatively and with a savvy like Spade's own. Spade changes and is more hardened as he's forged by the city and the crime he investigates. "Spade & Archer" brims with plot twists, and just when the reader thinks "aha," the story switches back, and you never see it coming.

Hammett would have approved. So would Sam Spade.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/08/RVO415I1FO.DTL

have a wonderful Valentine's Day,

Cara