The LadyKillers

Ivory Towers?

By Diana Orgain

Certainly when the ladykillers scheduled this topic, we had no way of knowing that it was the release week of Disney’s Tangled on DVD. Well, in all fairness, I probably knew. Because I’ve known for weeks and even months. That’s what happens when you’re a mother of a 7 year-old girl, you know these facts.

For some of you – you may not even know what Tangled is…it’s the story of Rapunzel.  You knew that, right? Hence the tie-in to Ivory Tower topic – you remember… the girl locked in the tower with the 70ft long blond hair? However, the story of Rapunzel as told through Disney is more or less the same story as Cinderella, which is more or less the same story as Beauty and the Beast, which is more or less the same – oh – you get it. Missing mother, evil step-mother, magical powers, pretty princess, true love’s kiss…

All fairy tales guaranteed to pull at your heart strings – only my daughter won’t let me cry when I watch with her.  I’m not sure why this is. I’ve asked several moms and it seems that kids don’t like their parents to be overly emotional at cartoon characters…I can’t imagine why – isn’t that the entire purpose of the show?  What am I missing here?

Do you have any ideas how not to cry when true love’s kiss resurrects a dead lover? If so, please advise. Oh – and why don’t the kids like emoting?

Ivory Tower vs Beige House

The topic is Ivory Towers. Apparently some writers live and write in them. I live and write in a Beige House. In the burbs. Surrounded by cats, kids, and couch cushions. Not exactly the writing life I pictured, but it works.

I spent last weekend I attended Left Coast Crime in Santa Fe. Hardly an ivory tower, the whole city is mostly flat and beige, but there were plenty of writers there. They were bustling from panel to panel like bees, in search of literary enlightenment—or a hug from an old friend.

I managed to catch three panels—one on crafty mysteries, which was fun, one on legal thrillers, which was intriguing, and one on the state of publishing today, which was puzzling. Since the publishing world seems to be changing by the minute, I was looking forward to hearing about the elephant in the room—the expansion of e-publishing. Unfortunately nobody quite knew what to think about the latest news regarding Amanda Hocking, the million-dollar e-kid turned traditional, and Barry Eisler, the half-million-dollar man who went e-wol.

Between panels I headed for the Beige Outdoors. I climbed rocks like a kid at Tent Rocks National Park. I explored Indian cave dwellings at Bandelier National Park. I looked for ways to sneak into Top Secret Facilities in Los Alamos, with signs that read “Danger/Explosives.” As a mystery writer, I couldn’t help but be curious about what’s going on there these days…and how I can get a good mystery novel out of it.

I headed home full of enough ideas for a dozen books. Now I’m back in my beige house, on my matching beige couch, working on another mystery, without the benefit of an Ivory Tower. Who needs an Ivory Tower when you’ve got conferences like Left Coast Crime.

What was your take on the conference?

Ah, the Ivory Tower!

- from Susan

I worked in colleges and universities for a l-o-n-g time and my advice is don’t kid yourself: there’s no more ivory up there than anywhere else. Faculty squabble, jockey for position, worry about money, and look down at us as unnecessary (until they need something) and non-intellectual colleagues. The administrators privately sneer at the faculty as lazy snobs who couldn’t balance their own checkbooks, much make the kinds of business decisions the managers must tackle every day. The top executives like to tell themselves they could all be successful (read “highly paid”) CEOs if they wanted to be, which makes the board of trustee members, who frequently are, roll their eyes and look at their Rolexes.

Oh, and students? We all claim to love them but the current crop too often drives the faculty nuts with its entitlement issues (“But I never get Bs…”). Administrators see them as tools for fundraising brochures and revenue or as the reason they never get to spend Saturday nights at home. And so it goes in the ivory tower.

I say this partly in jest, but not so much that I’m ready to take it all back. In fact, in the third Dani O’Rourke mystery, which I’m writing now, the setting is a college campus and not a few of these sweeping stereotypes come – I hope – to vibrant life. I did enjoy my days in the ivory tower, and the charm of the academic seasons. I still have faculty friends, a president or two I stay in touch with, and a few people I mentored who check in with me now and then to tell me about their latest triumphs. 

I think a lot of my fellow LadyKillers are also connected to that world, and I can’t wait to read what they – and you, dear reader – say about the ivory towers in your history!

 

 

Ivory Towers -- By Michael A. Black

I’m sitting in the Albuquerque airport waiting for my plane thinking about ivory towers and the just-finished Left Coast Crime conference.

What does one have to do with the other? I’m not sure, except that this week’s topic was supposed to be ivory towers. I remember reading that a few months ago and thinking, that should be fairly easy to write about. I’ve spent a good deal of my life using the metaphor about people who live in ivory towers and thereby lose touch with the hard working citizens of everyday life. We usually think of these people as aloof and separated from the common people by virtue of wealth and social status. But is this accurate?

I’m not as sure as I once was, but rightly or wrongly, a version of it does exist in real life.

My Chicago Police buddy, Dave Case, and I meet once or twice a week for a cup of coffee at the local McDonald’s to talk about police work and writing. It’s an interesting place full of regular customers, and a few other quirky individuals. The clerks all know us, and stand ready to ring up our customary order: a cup of coffee for me, a large diet pop for Dave, and a copy of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper for each of us. Bill, a retired pipe fitter, sits at his regular table next to ours, his white Ford Thunderbird convertible parked in plain view of his table. Then there’s an enormous guy named Henry, who’s a bit mentally challenged. He waits for someone whom I assume is his nurse, who escorts him to a special place of employment or school. There are a couple of homeless guys who tend to wander in at erratic intervals and beg customers for money. We usually have to escort them out at the behest of the management. Big Ray, Dave’s friend who’s also a Chicago Police officer, usually stops in on his way from dropping his kids at school and sometimes talks for a few minutes about the usual things---our families, jobs, etc. Sometimes we complain about our bosses too. Last week the conversation turned to the upcoming changing of the guard in Chicago. The city is going to have a new mayor for the first time in a couple of decades, and some changes in the police department due to the expiration in early March of the contract for Superintendent Jody Weis.

Weis wasn’t popular with the rank and file on the PD. He was a transplant from the FBI and had never been a cop in uniform. His federal background, as well as a few immediate and unpopular command decisions, got him off to a bad start with the men and women he was appointed to lead.

“He should have never dressed himself up in uniform,” more than one disgruntled copper was heard to say. “He hasn’t earned the right to wear it.”

It was certainly true that before coming to Chicago the superintendent had never worn a cop’s uniform, patrolled a beat in a squad car, or answered a call of shots fired at three in the morning. It was readily apparent from the get-go that he was considered an outsider. Many saw him as one of those people who had been insulated from the real world of big city policing. To them, he was from one of those ivory towers I was talking about. Was this the truth? Regardless, it was the perception of the rank and file, and, as they say, perception is reality. This perception not only made the superintendent’s job harder, but it put him in one of those crucial positions that can, as they say, either make you or break you. It was a tough task to overcome, and in the opinion of many, Weis never passed muster.

Let’s face it, police work is essentially considered a blue collar occupation, even though in reality there are many elements of the job that require a high level of sophistication and intelligence. Don’t get me wrong. This is recognized. Education is a plus and helps you advance and make rank. But first you have to get through what’s known as the school of hard knocks. Every rookie knows when he comes on the job that he’ll be considered a rookie until he earns his street legs by showing that he can handle himself in an emergency when you’re taking a few hard knocks, or giving them. It’s those hard knocks that trip up a lot of “ivory towerers.” (Grin. Is that an official word? It is until the end of this blog.) As Clint Eastwood said in Dirty Harry, “Don’t let your college degree get you killed.” In other words, get your “street smarts” so you can survive. And that’s one degree you have to earn the hard way.

In a way, the same can be said about earning your way in the writing business. There are a lot of similarities for putting your heart and soul into a story and sending it off, only to face the possibility of rejection with no encouragement. It’s another kind of school of hard knocks, and as a writer, you have to earn your way too. Rejection is the norm rather than the exception. But, as I often say, there is no truer test of character than adversity.

As I also said in the opening paragraph, I’m on m way back from Left Coast Crime, a neat conference where fans, aspiring writers, and established writers can all mingle and enjoy each other’s company for four days. I had a special treat of meeting up with my fellow Ladykillers for some delightful conversation at breakfast this morning. It was great to finally meet face to face in a group setting after sharing each other’s blogs and thoughts for the last several months. We even posed for a picture together.

This year’s conference was in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was my first visit to the Land of Enchantment, and I must say, it lived up to its billing. I found myself fascinated by the adobe architecture and brightly colored designs. We took some time to gambol about the city and into some very interesting neighborhoods. The streets were laid out in a fashion that seemed to be akin to the old western trail for which many are named. A lot of the houses are set behind wooden fences or stone walls. Clearly, New Mexicans value their privacy. Still, I found Santa Fe to be a friendly and enjoyable place. The starkness of the landscape impressed me as being very hard as well as beautiful. It’s a rough looking place and makes one realize that you have to acquire a certain toughness to live there.

Which brings us back almost full circle because we started talking about people living in ivory towers. I didn’t see any on my trip to Santa Fe, but then again, those metaphors can be deceiving.

News and Ivory Towers

NEWS??

Some of the LadyKillers are finishing up at Left Coast Crime, including the intrepid news reporter, who will add an update later today (if there is anything to add).

 

A passel of LadyKillers met in the lovely La Fonda Hotel for Sunday breakfast at the Left Coast Crime mystery convention. (Left to right) Michael A. Black, Margaret Lucke, Mysti Berry, Ann Parker, Camille Minichino, and Priscilla Royal.

 

IVORY TOWERS

Next week's topic: Ivory Towers. According to Wiktionary, an ivory tower is: "A sheltered, overly academic existence or persepctive, implying a disconnection or lack of awareness of reality or practical considerations."

Time to Solve the Crime

Staci here, to talk about time. I could easily spend the entire column talking about how I don’t have nearly enough time for my writing, but I complain to my poor husband enough about that problem. Instead, I’ll focus on how time is handled in books. Is there a certain limit on how much time can pass in a mystery before the detective solves the crime?

I’ve heard the rule that the plot must be wrapped up in a matter of days, with two weeks being the most you can get away with. And I can see the logic in that. You don’t want a month-long gap in the investigation (perhaps the killer has fled the country or the police are waiting on DNA results), even if the author summarizes that time passage in a single paragraph. It really slows down the momentum and makes the reader wonder what happened during those missing weeks, even if the answer is “nothing.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I’m currently reading A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow. I’m toward the latter part of the book, and the bulk of her investigation has occurred in a single twenty-four hour period (I keep expecting Kiefer Sutherland to pop up any minute). While she’s spent most of that time just sitting and talking to people, the pace seems quick and the suspense is heightened because of such a compact time frame. You just get this sense that the story is steamrolling toward a conclusion.

But I think most mysteries fall somewhere in between. The case usually lasts a few days as the detective or amateur sleuth interviews potential witnesses and suspects during the day, then hangs out with friends in the evening or has dinner with a spouse. And if it’s a cozy, they go to bed at a reasonable hour, which takes away eight solid hours of investigating right there. You can’t have the detective walk the seedy late night streets, avoiding propositions from ladies of the evening or the call of a drug dealer, when the story takes place in a small town where most stores close by ten. So it might take the sleuth a few days to follow all the leads and figure out the killer.

But that’s okay. As long as the story is well-plotted and I’m entertained, the detective can take as long as he or she needs. 

Time for Crime

By Margaret Lucke

"Now then, Mrs. McGillicuddy, where were you at the moment when Colonel Horsefeathers met his untimely demise?"

Time is a crucial element in a mystery. Take time of death. The investigator needs to know it in order to recreate events and solve the crime. The suspects need to know it so they can polish their alibis. In traditional mysteries the solution often hangs on split-second timing. The jealous Signorina Bimboli spied Mrs. McGillicuddy slipping through the French doors of Cobweb Manor at precisely 9:15 p.m. Could Mrs. McG possibly have traveled the seven miles to Grimley Green in time to clobber Colonel Horsefeathers with his hockey stick, an event that occurred, according to his conveniently smashed watch, at exactly 9:32?

Here a few other ways that time figures into our favorite genre:

The time span of the investigation. How long will Mrs. McGillicuddy get away with murder? Only as long as it takes for Sherlock Spade to discover that she's guilty and to drag her to justice.

In a mystery the action occurs over days, or at most weeks, rather than sprawling out for years or generations in the way of so much mainstream fiction. A shattering event like a murder or a threat of imminent violence has an urgency that precludes a leisurely approach.

It's easy to lose sight of how tight the time span is. When my first novel, A Relative Stranger, was a work in progress, my critique group took three years to read it, one chapter per month. It was part of their lives for so long that they were astonished when they reached the end and realized the entire book takes place in less than a week.

How soon the murder takes place. Writers sometimes ask, "Do I have to put a murder in chapter one? There are no rules about this, of course, an early murder helps to start the story rolling. I recently reached the halfway point in a highly recommended book and found myself perplexed; I'd been told it was a mystery, but so far there was no murder, no crime, no investigation, and to my mind no suspense.

When the seeds of the crime were sown. Did Mrs. McGillicuddy whack Colonel Horsefeathers because he flirted with Signorina Bimboli at teatime? Or because he discovered that staid, respectable Mrs. McG is really the notorious Lady Marzipan, who disappeared 20 years ago with the viscount's jewels? Some murders are impulsive crimes of passion. Others are committed to keep long-buried secrets from surfacing -- a hidden crime or obsession or betrayal, after festering for two decades, now threatens to burst open for all to see, if a conveniently timed murder doesn't eliminate the risk.

When the story takes place. Most mysteries are set in the time in which they are written. But a medieval monk, a Victorian Egyptologist, a seventh-century Chinese judge, several magistrates in ancient Rome, and other sleuths have come ambling down the corridors of the past. Historical mysteries -- set anywhere from a decade to many centuries ago -- are one of the hot trends in the market.

Where the book comes in the series. Once upon a time the eccentric village detective and the loner p.i. had no life outside of solving crimes. They've given way to protagonists who operate in a real world, with homes and families, friends and lovers. And just like real people, their relationships and circumstances change over time.

This creates a challenge for the writer -- how do you let your characters grow and develop, yet not leave the reader who doesn't discover you until Book Four feeling frustrated and bewildered? It’s fun but not always possible to read a series in order. The author needs to make sure that each book is complete and satisfying on its own, while giving fans the pleasure of following Sherlock Spade and his pet bloodhound Bunter as they undergo life's changes. I once heaved a book by a well-known author across the room when it became clear after 50 pages that I had to have read the preceding book if I was to have any hope of making sense of this one. No, I never sought out the earlier work.

When do we read and write mysteries? Ah, the really crucial question. With life so busy, busy, busy, it's hard to spare enough moments for Mrs. McGillicuddy and friends. So many mysteries, so little time!

As Time Goes By...

Ann Parker here, every-other-Thursday blogger at the LadyKillers. Besides time being relative (a little tie-in to science, the kind of thing I allow myself to indulge in on Fridays on my Time-Travel Whiplash blog), it also is the subject of endless musical musings. Here are a couple of my faves...

• As Time Goes By (Sorry, YouTube embed is disabled on this one, but you can view it through clicking on the title above or following this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vThuwa5RZU ).

• Time — Pink Floyd (remember that loooong intro? It's here. Be patient...)

• Turn, Turn, Turn —by Judy Collins, wow, what a voice (and with Pete Seeger! It's the '60s all over again!)

 

Finally, if you're a punk rock aficianado, I found a listing of Punk Rock Songs About Clocks and Time on the the OnlineClock.net site. Knock yourself out! ;-)

Well, that's all the time I have for now. Do you have any favorite songs/music about time? I'd love to hear about it. There's always time for more music in my life...

Time -- it's all you have

From Camille Minichino, now hopefully on her way to Santa Fe.

 Over on The Real Me, I've been blogging about Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro, and the movie based on the novel. It's all about the precious little time we have until we die and how death is inescapable.

Children from The National Donor Program looking through an office window to find a Possible (parent).

The beautifully written book and the (almost) faithful movie can set you back, however, pushing trivial thoughts and even happy thoughts so far into the recesses of your mind that you have a hard time getting up.

 So I decided to shift to "light" for LadyKillers and talk about time management.  Here are my rules, created on the spot.

1. Try never to say  "I don't/didn't have time for . . . ," but "I didn't make time." This reminds us that we make choices every minute, even when we think we don't have a choice. (Read "Never Let Me Go" for a lesson on that!) 

2. Do one distasteful thing a day, so they don't pile up. Make that call to the telephone company or to the person you hope will not be there to pick up. Today I hemmed a pair of pants. Ugh.

3. You don't need to work hard on your WIPs every day, but you do need to keep it at the front of your mind. Even if you have only 10 minutes, you can  look up a reference, edit one paragraph, add one or two lines of dialogue.  

 

4. Handle each piece of paper or email as few times as possible. When you open a piece of paper mail, file it, do what it says, or toss it immediately. Color code email immediately: red means reply soon, green means reply eventually, purple means leave for reference until event is over, and so on.

5. Take heed of Carl Sandburg: Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. 

6. Read something funny every day to keep you from wasting time by whining about how you don't have enough time.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time

On the subject of time, I ought to give fair warning. I am approaching the seventh decade. Many of like ilk discuss the past, starting with “back in my day” and wistfully continuing with the suggestion that my day was simpler and infinitely preferable to now.

Wistful is the operative word. When we were living in the time, it was never simple and often not preferable. Perhaps, when we talk about our past, we lose our distance vision. I remember my parents talking about the good old days. But just how good were the 1920’s through 1940’s for most minorities? I have friends who either escaped the Holocaust or had family who did—or did not. I doubt they look back on the 1940s as a good time.

So, I am not going back to my day. Instead, I’ll go much further back and ask how we can recreate the true complexity of a time when no one in living memory experienced it. In short: not easily. But that’s what historical novelists have to do.

Like the past of our parents (or our own), distant history was not simpler. It was a mishmash of ignorance, wisdom, violence and compassion. Not all our remote ancestors walked in blind lock-step any more than many today. If they had, we wouldn’t have modern medicine or even our current social advances, although the latter are always fragile if one reads enough history.

Of course, original sources are crucial to understanding any era, but even they have limits. The survival of documents can be iffy. To read Shakespeare is to have one idea of Elizabethan theater language. To read Marlowe is another. Menander presents a very different approach to Greek comedy than Aristophanes. If we didn’t have Euripides, we might continue to assume that the ancients cared little about women or their life experiences. Imagine how future historians would define American society if the primary original source was the radio work of Russ Limbaugh.   

Solving the problem of historical accuracy grows harder the farther back we go. Small but perhaps telling details of everyday experience are irretrievably lost, like a gesture that might change the meaning of a statement. Does anyone really know how spoken Latin in the Roman Republic sounded? In the Middle Ages, did no one ever question the existence of God?

So why not write costume dramas and forget about research? Because historical fiction, even if absolute accuracy is illusive, can bring a unique immediacy to times past if done with respect for both scholarship and the unchanging nature of humanity. History contains lessons and warnings for any generation and is as crucial a subject to master as math and science. The symbols used to express or defend concepts may be different in each era, but the impetus for action has never changed.

So time travel does matter—as long as we don’t view it though the haze of wistfulness.