Author Archives: Murderati

A Tribute To Paper … In Paper

By Louise Ure

Hi, all. A very short post from me today, but a good one.

In case you haven’t heard before, there’s a rash of anonymous gift-giving going on. Specifically, some incredibly talented artist is creating paper sculptures out of books, and leaving them as gifts in libraries all across Edinburgh.

Even more specifically, they often feature one of Ian Rankin’s books. One even includes the tiny face of Rankin in a crowd scene.

The notes offer thanks, “in support of libraries, words … ideas.”

I won’t paraphrase the good articles I’ve read about this; they’ve already done a lovely job describing the artwork, the librarians’ reactions, and the deepining mystery behind the gifts. Take a look at this write up from a blogger at Central Station, for the whole story, and lots more great photos.

And when you come back … go ahead, we’ll wait … let me know what kind of tribute you’d leave in a library. Or if you were equally as talented as this paper-craftsman, what author or book would you choose to eulogize?

Banned Books Week

By Allison Brennan

I rarely write dual posts here and at my other blog, Murder She Writes, but I’m making an exception because yesterday launched Banned Books Week.

You can read the original post here, which also lists the prizes and blogs participating in the Banned Book Blog Hop — well over 200 of us! (To win my prizes, you have to comment over there, but you have all week to do so!) However, I’ve updated and expanded the original blog just for Murderati readers 🙂

From Ray Bradbury and FAHRENHEIT-451 (one of my all-time favorite books):

“Somewhere the saving and putting away had to begin again and someone had to do the saving and the keeping, one way or another, in books, in records, in people’s heads, any way at all so long as it was safe, free from moths, silverfish, rust and dry-rot, and men with matches.”

I’ve always found it ironic that a book about the tragedy of book banning (through the total physical destruction of books-fire) has been banned by different people for different reasons.

Parents should be the arbitrars of what their children read. If I, as a mom, ban a book from my house, that is my right. One of leaders of the Banned Book Blog Hop, “I Am A Reader, Not A Writer” said, “All books have their place, but not all books belong on every shelf.” I wholeheartedly agree.

In a free society, no one has the right to ban a book for ALL.

The ALA has a list of the 100 most challenged books in the past decade, and the Harry Potter series tops the list. And we’ve all heard about the controversy surrounding Mark Twain’s classic THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN (#14), Laurie Halse Anderson’s SPEAK (#60), and ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET by Judy Blume (#99.) And classics like ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, CATCHER IN THE RYE, and THE GIVER have been on the controvery lists for a long time. (Though I never really understood why.)

But there are some books that you may be surprised are on the list. The Captain Underpants series (#13) (a fun cartoony comic-style book that is perfect for little boys. Yes, there is potty humor. I have two boys and a husband. They all love potty humor.)

Or Eric Carle’s DRAW ME A STAR (#61) (ages 4-up), which was objected to because it relates loosely to creationism. (THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR is still one of my favorite early children’s books–Carle is an amazing and inspired artist and storyteller.)

Or the Goosebumps series (#94) by beloved R.L. Stine.

But maybe the series that stunned me the most was the Junie B. Jones series (#71) by Barbara Park. I’ve heard that some people have issues with Junie’s grammar, but she’s either in kindergarden or first grade, and speaks how most of the kids that age speak. They’re fun, they teach a lesson in a fun and age-appropriate way, and they are great for early readers giving them confidence to read chapter books because they’re simple without being stupid. I love the series and have bought all (or nearly all) of them for my youngest daughter.

I support fully the right of parents to not allow their children to read books they don’t approve of, for whatever reason. I do not support the right of parents, or anyone, telling ME what my kids can (or can not) read.

Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who give up essential liberties in order to protect a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

The First Amendment, as is the entire Bill of Rights, is the foundation of our essential liberties. Books are truly the permanent, enduring foundation of free speech. Our military men and women have fought and died for more than two hundred years to protect our freedoms–freedoms many of us don’t think about, or take for granted.

There are countries where people are killed or imprisoned because of what they say. There are countries where people are killed because of what religion they practice. There are countries where women have no rights, where women are punished when they are raped because, in the eyes of the government, their rape was their fault.

These are countries where government bans books and information.

Censorship is not a liberal or conservative issue. Banning books and ideas affects the left and the right equally.

But it all starts with banning one book.

What’s your favorite banned book? I have many, but FAHRENHEIT-451 by Ray Bradbury is one of my all-time fave books. For little kids? It would have to be Junie B. Jones. I read all of them to my youngest daughter when she was 6 and 7 (or she read them to me!)

How many of the banned books have you read on the ALA most commonly challenged books? In my lifetime, I’ve read 37 (books or series) of the 100.

And if you get a chance to head over to Murder She Writes this week, comment there and you are eligible to win one of many, many prizes, including an advanced copy of my next Lucy Kincaid book, IF I SHOULD DIE.

Go read a banned book. It won’t kill you. I promise.

The Lifecycle of a Novel

It’s that time again.

I have a new book out on Tuesday. And since I’m at Bouchercon today, I thought I’d take this moment to share with you the journey I went on writing WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE.

(Journey? It was more like a hike up Everest, K9, and Rainier, all in a week.)

I got the idea for WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE on September 14, 2009, and started writing the book July 23, 2010. It was easier in the beginning. Or so I thought.

But back to the book’s inception. I’d just returned from vacation, and had an unbelievable amount of work on my plate. I was getting ready to shoot the video for the OWN Network, so my thoughts were not exactly on writing as much as what I would wear. I was revising THE COLD ROOM, which was three books ago. I was starting to work on THE IMMORTALS, and slightly fleshing out a concept for SO CLOSE THE HAND OF DEATH. I was not thinking four books from that moment. Not at all. And yet, I was in the car, and heard a song by Tori Amos called “Welcome to England.”

And I saw Taylor stepping off a plane at Heathrow, into the waiting arms of Memphis Highsmythe. You may remember Highsmythe from THE COLD ROOM, the wounded Scottish Viscount who joined the Metropolitan Police of London – New Scotland Yard – a man who in many ways mirrors Taylor – the privileged upbringing, eschewing their parents’ wealth and influence to strike out on their own, a sense on longing, of solitude, even when surrounded by loved ones.

I was curious about why she would do such a thing, but knew I’d have to explore the idea. So I made myself some notes and put the idea away so I could focus on what was at hand.

But ideas like this, so big, so different, wend their way into your psyche. From that moment forward, I was writing toward this book, even though I wasn’t consciously doing so.

When it was time to start working on Dead Lie, I knew much more about the reasons for Taylor’s flight to England.

She’s been grievously injured. She’s not healing. She can’t work. She is deathly afraid of what all of this means.

And most importantly, she can’t talk.

Having a mute protagonist was terrifying for me. Dialogue is a hugely important part of my books, the interplay between Taylor and her team, her lover, the victims of the crimes she investigates – it’s not something I wanted to take from her. But I had to. She had to be forced into a corner and fight her way out. Not fight against a villain, but against herself.

And I wanted it to be more than that. This tale is very much a version of the classic fish out of water, a person set into an environment that is unfamiliar, unsettling. I knew I wanted to set the book in Memphis’s world, London and Scotland, with the Scottish Highlands as the backdrop, at Memphis’s ancestral home. His haunted castle. His Manderley.

Suddenly, I was writing a gothic. In the vein of Du Maurier’s Rebecca. Complete with a questionable housekeeper, an errant friend, a dead first wife, and a serious case of PTSD.

When you’re used to the blistering pace of a serial killer thriller, and the ease of writing a mouthy protagonist, having both those crutches taken away from you is at once both scary and liberating. All the rules I’d followed in the books that came before were thrown out the window. I knew I wanted this to be a stand alone – even seven books in – especially because it’s seven books in. And it’s the first book printed in the trade paperback format – so it’s a chance to reset, if you will.

But well before the marketing decisions were made, I was struggling. The story was unfolding in ways I didn’t like. I kept returning to the proposal I’d written, in June of 2010, trying to find the thread that would lead me through.

The truth was, I was scared.

I’m still a relatively young writer – young as in this was only the eighth novel I’d written. I’d just lost my beloved editor, I was trying a completely new genre, and the resistance I was feeling, all self-imposed, of course, was stifling. As much as I wanted to tell this story, I just didn’t believe in myself. I didn’t think I could do it justice.

On the surface, everything was flowing wonderfully – I took two trips to Scotland for research, both of which were amazing – I highly recommend setting books in other countries so you’re forced to go outside of your comfort zone to make the stories come alive. I loaded the book with the things I’d seen – the setting wasn’t ever the problem. It was the story. Despite my proclamations to have a gothic, I kept trying to sandwich in a serial killer subplot.

While I was in Scotland the first time – the Peter Tobin case broke. Tobin is a Scottish serial killer who killed several women and was sentenced to life in prison. While we were in Scotland, the police connected him to Bible John, a serial killer from the 70s.

Now, the possibilities there were endless. And eerily reminiscent of Nashville’s own Wooded Rapist, who worked across town with a different MO and moniker – the Dome Light Rapist…

So I tried to dump all of that into the book, thinking the straight suspense wasn’t going to work.

I was wrong. The serial killer aspect of the book was terribly distracting. In the end, I cut the whole subplot.

There was a second subplot that disappeared – the story of John Baldwin’s son. Too much information, too little space to have it.

And still the book wasn’t working.

I’ve never walked away from a story before, but I nearly abandoned this manuscript several times. The thing about art is recognizing when something isn’t working, and giving yourself permission to walk away.

But I’m stubborn. And I loved this story. I loved Taylor’s frailty. I loved the backdrop of Scotland. I loved that my incredibly strong heroine was seeing things, hearing things, being driven to the brink of insanity.

And that she had a true attraction to another man.

So I focused all my energy on Taylor and her forbidden relationship with Memphis.

I listened to the feedback form my beta readers, and then wonderful new editor.

I revised and revised and revised.

And two days before I was due to turn it in, the book came to life. After a looooooong conversation with one of my best friends, in which I expressed my desire to toss the book out the window, she said something that made me see all the missing pieces. I rushed through a full revision in two days, and boom, there it was.

You’d think that the more books you write, the easier it gets. The better you get at telling stories. The quicker you can lay down your ideas.

That just isn’t true.

Writers can be incredibly myopic. That’s why we have editors and beta readers and critique groups. It was my tribe that helped me see the forest for the trees in this one. And once I could see that forest, everything was so plain. I just needed to get out of my own way and let Taylor be the star. I’ve always seen her as unassailable. Perfect. Larger than life. In WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE, she is flawed. Physically and emotionally flawed. Weak, even.

And so much more interesting for it.

And here we are – eight revisions later – with a new baby being born. Makes it all worthwhile, really.

I have a few more stories about the writing of this book on the Tao of JT, plus a contest, so stop by and check things out! Or buy your copy now! Remember to support your indie bookstores too!

Wine of the Week: Ca Veja Nebbiolo d’Alba We had this bold, rich wine last night – it was perfection!

Where All The Dead Lie Trailer from JT Ellison on Vimeo.

Things That Make You Go “Hmmm …”

Louise Ure

Last week Gar wrote about Dumb-Ass Titles (DAT) and Kick-Ass Titles (KAT). His premise was that Dumb-Ass Titles must fall into all three of the following categories:

They are one word

That word is in ubiquitous use

They are predictable.

By and large, I agree with him on that definition. In fact, I would add two more criteria to that (as I think Gar did in his discussion points). For me, the authors don’t have to commit all five of these sins at the same time; any one of them would turn me away.

Any title that relies on a pun

I already have my handy all-purpose apology towel out to wave at all the writers whose publishers forced you into cutesy, punning titles as a way to suggest a lighthearted tone in your work. I feel your pain. But it probably worked with most folks.

Any series titles that must subscribe to a series inclusion (alphabet, numbers, elements, the same noun)

I’m looking at you here, Barry Eisler. “Rain Fall,” “Rain Storm,” “Hard Rain”? God, I couldn’t tell you which one I read even after I finished it. I know I bought one book three times. (Hmmm… maybe that’s what the publisher had in mind, after all.)

Later in the post, Gar went on to describe a Kick-Ass Title as one that draws the reader in, but does not rely on any secret or double meaning.

That’s where we part company.

My definition of a Kick-Ass Title is one that:

Has an unexpected joining of previously unrelated words

Has a secret or double meaning

Makes me go, “Hmmm, I wonder what that’s about?”

An unexpected joining of previously unrelated words:

The poster child for these titles is Wallace Stroby’s previously mentioned, “The Barbed-Wire Kiss.” Are there two words in the English language that belong together less? And could there possibly be any other two words you’d like to find out more about? Hats off, Mr. Stroby.

Jeffrey Moore’s “The Extinction Club” falls into that category for me, too. I’ve got to find out more about a book with that title.

As do Barbara Kingsolver’s “The Poisonwood Bible, ” and David Liss’s’s “The Ethical Assassin.” The key is the conjoining of a usually negative word with a usually positive one: barbed-wire, extinction, poison and assassin versus kiss, club, bible and ethical.

I’d use the example of “Slap Happy,” but together those words have their own connotation. Which brings me to another kind of favorite titles:

Titles with secret or double meanings:

I’ve been warned against these in my own work, but I absolutely adore them, for myself and other writers. “The Fault Tree” is, of course, a literal tree in my book, but is also the engineering term for a diagram to look back at how the failure of a project took place. I like having both of those images in the title.

It’s the linguist side of me that makes me love titles like Duane Swierczynski’s “Expiration Date,” Louise Penny’s “Still Life,” and Christa Fausts’s “Money Shot.” Sure, they’re common phrases, but in the high stakes world of crime fiction, they convey so very much more. Gar might fault those titles for being “ubiquitous” but I think the added frisson of the double meaning makes them truly KATs. (I wonder if “Greenwich Mean Time” would fall into the same category? Or “Past Imperfect”? They sound like good titles, maybe not KAT, but leaning that way.)

Michael Connelly’s “The Lincoln Lawyer” plays on the double meaning of Lincoln, but also falls into my final category of Kick Ass Titles:

Titles that make me go “Hmmm… I wonder what that’s about?”

This is probably the largest collection of books in my house, because, after all, these are the books that got me interested enough in finding out more that I took them off the shelf in the bookstore. And in truth, isn’t that all a title is truly supposed to do?

I give you Toni McGee Causey’s “Bobby Faye’s Very, Very, Very, Very Bad Day.”

Anything by James Lee Burke:

John Irving’s “A Prayer for Owen Meany.”

And, as much as I hate to say it, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”

With titles like these, I will never be bored in a bookstore. I will be yanking these things off the shelf like they were AA batteries in blackout, sure to keep my interest piqued for another 400 pages.

My own new collection of potential titles includes the following, many of which would probably land on Gar’s DAT list. Alas, that’s just the way I’m drawn.

Valley of the Handless Men

The Last Place you Look

A Silver Bullet for Miss Kahlil

Punish the Monkey (and Let the Organ Grinder Go)

Flotsam at the Dog Star Café

So, whatcha’ think? And which kick-ass titles come to mind for you guys under this expanded definition added to Gar’s post? Any titles you’d love to see written?

Home again, Home Again

By Cornelia Read

So with any luck, while you are reading this I will be driving a U-Haul truck from Exeter, New Hampshire, to Park Slope, Brooklyn.

That would be if New York can avoid tsunamis, tornadoes, typhoons, monsoons, and any other kind of natural/manmade disaster to which geography is heir for the rest of this week. (and yes, I KNOW that Route 66 doesn’t go through New York. But still, it’s such a great road-trip song…)

I will be returning to the city of my birth, the closest thing I have to a hometown. And I am feeling pretty fucking awesome about that.

I’ve only got temporary digs, at the moment–a rental in a brownstone that’s been sold already, super cheap until the actual closing (through October, anyway.) Here’s a pic of what will be my new block:

Pretty damn great, right? Small but with a garden…

At the moment, it is Thursday, and I am supposed to be packing. More than I have already packed. I pick up the U-Haul tomorrow afternoon,

and have to book the guy to help me load it, and have the post office forward my mail, and remember to turn off the electricity and cable before I hit the road. And all that other grownup stuff I so totally suck at.

I have actually made a list of all the shit I have to do between now and Saturday. It’s a Word file. It scares me. I prefer not to open it. This is part of the reason I suck at being a grownup.

But… I have moved before (NYC to Long Island

to Hawaii

to Long Island

to Carmel

to Dobbs Ferry

to Long Island

to NYC

to Rhinebeck

to Bronxville

to NYC-for-the-summer-of-sophomore-year-in-college

to Dublin

to NYC-for-the-summer-of-junior-year

to Long Island

to Williamstown

to Syracuse

to around-the-world-for-a-year-with-a-backpack

to Syracuse

to Pittsfield

to NYC

to Boulder

to Cambridge

to Berkeley

to Exeter

to… NYC again.)

It will happen. I will get off my bed and put on some REALLY LOUD MUSIC and actually start putting dishes in a box and throwing out more of my clothes (okay, not throwing out, carrying down to the garage in my current building to pile on top of the donations box, but still: DUMPING.)

And then… then I will be on the road again.

Please wish me luck, and forgive me for not checking in on comments… I’m trying not to drive off the BQE right now…

Cliff Jumping? Oh, Hells No.

Back in January of ’09, I wrote a post here called Cliff Jumping – not about actually jumping off of cliffs, but about seizing your dreams. About not letting fear get in the way of your career. About taking chances.

I’ve been feeling rather hypocritical about all that lately. You see, while I take chances all the time in my work, real leaps and bounds, in my personal life, I don’t.

In fact, I’m a bit of a scaredy cat.

Say it ain’t so, JT!

Oh, but it is. I’m afraid of heights, spiders, clowns. Speaking in public – one that I managed to conquer. I hate staying by myself overnight when Randy is out of town. I don’t like scary movies, or scary books. I will steer clear of anything that includes the words “nerve-wracking” “surprise ending” “spine-tingling” or “the last five minute will blow you out of your seat.”

I’ve never been a big fan of being scared, but there’s more to this. It’s becoming almost phobic. Something deeply rooted in my psyche. And the worst part is, when I get frightened by something, it manifests, and then I start to dream about it. And the dreams are a thousand times worse than anything I can experience in real life. Which starts a really bad pattern of not wanting to go to sleep because I don’t want to experience the dreams, then having to knock myself out with Ambien and the like to get to sleep, lather, rinse, repeat…. Unhealthy, to say the least.

When I start down this unhealthy path, I realize this, recognize it for what it is, and try to move on. But last year, looking at this phenomenon, I started to see a pattern.

The more cliff jumping I do in my business life, the more reticent I get in my personal life.

I am getting quirky.

Maybe it’s age. Maybe as you get older you have a tendency to pull back, to be careful. To allow your rational mind to say no instead of hells, yeah, bitches. Let’s roll! Or maybe it’s more than that. Because I didn’t used to be this way. This sense of must control everything started about ten years ago, and with it came the fear.

I don’t know. All I can say for sure is I don’t want to be scared anymore.

Which involves, as you can imagine, some desensitization therapy.

Last year, when I did the autopsies, and managed to get through it without fainting, falling down or throwing up, I realized something. If I can watch people being cut open, I can handle just about anything.

When Randy and I went to Santa Fe for Left Coast Crime this spring, we drove north and stayed overnight in Taos. I adore Taos. It’s a funky, eclectic ski town, filled with art, cool shops and galleries, amazing food, and really laid-back people. I first went with my parents to meet the artist R.C. Gorman, ten or so years ago, and fell in love. So I wanted to show my man, and during our explorations, we found ourselves out at the Rio Grande Gorge.

And the Gorge has a bridge. A bridge without any safety controls. No nets or wires or anything to keep people from going over the edge.

Now, ten years ago, with my parents, my dad could barely get me to agree to get out of the car. I most certainly wouldn’t go anywhere near the bridge. He, fearless, strode out into the middle, took pictures, and came back, obviously exhilarated.

I was just feeling blessed I didn’t get anywhere near it.

Being afraid of heights is a little different for every person who experiences it. For me, I get vertigo. Bad vertigo. And experience this bizarre desire to fling myself off the edge and see if I can fly.

Which wouldn’t be a good thing.

But in my newfound recklessness, I decided I was going to go out there, come hell or high water.

Or steep drops into the abyss…..

So out we went, me clinging to Randy’s arm like a limpet. The first glance down I nearly threw up. Literally. Everything started to spin, I felt dizzy and nauseous. It was awful. But I kept walking.

And I discovered something really amazing.

Once I have a chance to orient myself, the vertigo stops.

It took about five minutes – yes, I stayed out there that long. Standing in the middle of the road, mind you, until the very end, when I edged closer to the railings, and actually looked over into the gorge.

I was still nervous, but at least the urge to fly receded.

Here’s proof that I really did go out there.

Fast forward to this week. Randy and I went to the Harry Potter park at Universal Studios. If you know me at all you know I am a huge fan of all things Potter. I had some seriously high hopes for the day. We went in, and I was giddy with excitement. You see, there are roller coasters. And I had decided that come hell or high water, (or steep drops into the abyss…..) I was going to ride them.

We started at the castle itself. I’ve heard amazing things about this. You tour Hogwarts, seeing all the nooks and crannies of the castle, Dumbledore’s office, the Gryffindor common room, meet the sorting hat. It takes 45 minutes to wind your way through. And then you get on a ride that is called the Forbidden Journey experience.

I don’t know what I was really thinking, but as usual, I was wrong. The castle part was… meh. It had some cool stuff, but it wasn’t a 45 minute tour through Hogwarts in the way I was thinking. (That was my reaction to the whole park, actually. There was no charm. But I digress.)

And then came the ride.

And that’s when the wheels came off.

All throughout the lines were big signs and warnings: if you experience motion sickness, you should not go on this ride.

I loved the sign… but it had me a little worried. I do get motion sickness. Always have, ever since I was a kid. But I ignored the signs. There were kids all around me. How bad could it really be?

I don’t know what I was thinking. I expected something like the old Disney Haunted Castle ride. Boy was I wrong.

We got seated, they tucked us into the carriage, we went sideways, Hermione blew some powder at us, and poof, we were off.

Almost immediately we went upside down, tilting backwards. The screen in front of us started to move, come to life, really, and the next thing I knew, we were flying.

I had to shut my eyes.

I had to shut my damn eyes.

It was like IMAX, where you are literally in the scene. I got queasy immediately. Didn’t even take a heartbeat before I knew if I didn’t shut my eyes, I was going to boot.

I tried opening them a few times, and caught glimpses of the amazing technology. But the ride is a gyroscope, so add gyroscope to the already unbalanced feeling I get from IMAX and you have a recipe for sure disaster.

I didn’t barf, but I also didn’t get to see 85% of the ride.

And I was so mad at myself.

This wasn’t fear. I wasn’t afraid of what was happening. This was a bona fide physical reaction. I’ve always had motion sickness problems. Like reading in a car – hell, looking at the email on my iPhone while riding in a car makes me nauseous. Strangely, I don’t get sea sick. Ever. I love boats. So if anyone has a medical answer for that, let me know. Because I want to go back and go on that ride, and experience the whole thing.

Didn’t get on any rollercoasters either – right after we left Olivanders, it started to rain. And I mean pour buckets from the sky rain. They shut down all the rides.

So we left, taking with us my new wand, and a queasy bellyful of regret, which was part fury at myself, and part that second butterbeer (which is very good – like cream soda with butter)

Oh well. You can’t win them all, right? I conquered the gorge, but a children’s ride undid me.

So tell me, ‘Rati – when’s the last time you were terrified?

Family Secrets

Louise Ure

I’ve just returned from another sojourn to Seattle, this time a happy one to celebrate my father-in-law’s 89^th birthday. Seattle proved welcoming, with 80 degree days and windless nights. Perfect for short sleeves and dining alfresco.

Ade had regained his strength from an earlier setback and was once again ready to dine out, go shopping, visit the bank and try his hand at the casinos. A fine celebration all the way around.

Until we got the call about Uncle Bob.

Bob was the last remaining of Ade’s wife’s six sisters’ husbands. Did you follow that? He’s my father-in-law’s brother-in-law.

My only exposure to him over this last thirty years has been this image of a dirty old man who greeted me at Christmas with a bear hug and then ground his pelvis into my crotch. I learned to embrace him with my elbows locked and my torso turned sideways.

Every family has an Uncle Bob, right? Mine is Cousin Pete (or Re-Pete) as we call him for his reiteration of his favorite stories and his sometimes breaching of personal space norms. You live with it, right? No family is perfect.

In later years, my contact with Uncle Bob was escorting him to the casino with Ade. He started with martinis at 9:00 a.m. and by noon grew adept at pinching my ass or my breast as I was positioning his walker for him. His language was foul and bigoted, but I cut him some slack as a 90-year old who was having to adapt to a world changing faster than he was.

I didn’t know much about his family, except that the kids never came over for the big family gatherings and his wife was a sweet and exceptionally devout woman for whom the church played a central role in life.

Uncle Bob had been taken to the hospital for an unknown illness that was soon determined to be a fibroid piece of flesh that had wound its way around his intestine. Surgery was successful and they sent him home. But three days later, it was evident that the surgery had taken too much of a toll and his organs and systems were all shutting down.

We spent the day with him on Wednesday, by which time he was no longer conscious or tracking any activity around him. Frail and cadaverous in the bed, I couldn’t even recognize the face that had leered at me across the blackjack table.

One of his daughters was there, stoic and silent, making sure the blankets and air conditioner were correctly positioned, and that she’d dissolved the necessary pills and painkillers in a little water. She wasn’t crying, and neither was her mother.

Strength, I thought. Momentary strength that a caregiver has to find in those last hours, in order to help usher a loved to the exit and to not cause extra grief to the rest of the family and friends.

He died while we had tuna sandwiches and lemonade on the back deck.

Calls were made: to the coroner, the mortuary, the hospice service that had provided the hospital bed, the agency that had sent sweet young men from Nigeria to act as 24-hour caregivers. (I hope they didn’t have to put up with too much racist ranting from Uncle Bob before he lost consciousness.) Cell phone calls reached the rest of his children and the neighbors.

It was only then that the stories started.

“I was worried about how to keep him from driving,” his wife whispered. “But I did not pray for this. I promise you, I did not.”

“After everything he did to you? After he broke your arm? You would have been justified,” the daughter said.

Aunt Phyllis cast her eyes down.

“After he shook Carol so bad when she was one month old that she was unconscious? After he beat up Rick so badly that he hasn’t been home for thirty years?”

The dam was broken, and all the stories came out. Beatings. Violence in language and fists. Controlling his family to the point of enslavement. Children leaving home at fourteen, just to save their lives. Two of his children living within a half-hour drive of the house but would not come by or come to any funeral service.

I’ve known Uncle Bob for thirty years and never knew any of this. Family secrets.

And at that makeshift eulogy on the back deck on the day he died, no one had anything good to say about the man, not even his gambling partner, Ade. “I don’t know why I stayed friends with him,” he said. “I guess I always hoped he’d change.”

Some family secrets shouldn’t be secret at all.

Those Magic Moments…

by JT Ellison

Don’t you love having epiphanies?

Those lightning bolt moments of awareness, enlightenment, insight that alters your consciousness, your actions, even the course of your life?

I’ve been on the road a lot over the past two months. Florida, New York, Florida again, Colorado (where I am now) and then to Florida once more, then on to St. Louis for Bouchercon. Six roundtrips in two months – for me, that’s a lot of on the road time. A lot of out of the groove, snatching time to write, long stretches without Internet access, and even, blessedly, some downtime. I have been writing the whole time, and I’ve also been sick. Those of you who saw me in New York got to witness that first hand, and now I’m catching another little summer chest cold. Ugh.

But along these crazy paths, I’ve gotten time to do some thinking. About my work, and my life. About what I want to be doing, and where I want things to go. And with that kind of Jack Handy deep thoughts come the epiphanies.

The first was along a darkened road in Florida. This one was so hand to forehead smackingly obvious that I felt like a true idiot when I figured it out.

I’ve been blogging for many years now. First weekly, then bi-monthly here, and also infrequently on my own blog, Tao of JT. I’m sure every blogger in the world who also writes novels has the same issue—you tend to think every moment spent away from your novel is a moment lost. But it’s something we need to do. Each and every moment in the real world can be mined for blog material. At least that’s my thinking. I’m always examining moments and situations and wondering, “How can I turn this into my Murderati blog?”

I went through this when I first joined Twitter. I started thinking in 140 character updates – how can I share this experience in 140 characters or less, make it relatable and also funny? Thankfully, I trained my mind away from that, because it’s just too easy to get lost in that kind of thinking.

Blogging, Twitter, Facebook – the sharing of information we find important, but the vast majorities of others don’t.

I’ve always viewed these extraneous activities are relatively unhealthy endeavors. Outside of blogging, which has taught me the discipline of deadlines and getting butt in chair to write, even if it is non-fiction.

My epiphany was thus: I’m a novelist, damn it. I shouldn’t be mining my moments for blog material. I need to be using those little vignettes in my fiction.

Ding. Dingdingdingdingdingdingding!

I think I knew this unconsciously, because so many of my vignettes do get poured into my fiction. But realizing I was thinking in terms of what to blog instead of what to write was revelatory for me. And of course, my first reaction was I must stop blogging.

We at Murderati have seen a rash of authors having this revelation lately. The more we focus on our fiction, the more books we can produce, and in the current environment, which is undeniably rough, the more good books you can write, the better off you are.

Since I’m prone to the drastics sometimes, I forced myself to take a step back, and talked myself off that particular ledge. At least for now. Instead, I have been working very hard to reprogram myself to think in terms of fiction instead of non-fiction. To separate what is story, and what is information. What is narrative, and what is insight.

The second epiphany was during the writing of a book I’m working on. I’ve always said writer’s block is your story’s way of telling you you’re going in the wrong direction. I hit a point in the story that just didn’t feel genuine. Something was very wrong. I started trying to talk it out – to Randy, to my parents. I’d just decided to go ahead and call my agent and get his take when it hit me. The part I was concerned about wasn’t the issue, it was 15,000 words earlier – an action the heroine takes that is … well… I don’t want to be too hard on myself, but the course of events was just plain STUPID. As in stoopid, stupid.

When I saw that, the path to the next act became very clear. Phew.

The third epiphany came early last week, when I sat down to a beautiful long clear writing day and got exactly jack shit done.

I was so mortified with myself that I figured I needed a public tongue-lashing. I wrote a blog and detailed all the things I had done instead of creating – and the responses gave me an interesting thought.

Sometimes, I need a little external motivation. I know people think I write fast, but as we’ve discussed, I am a bulimic writer – I gorge on words during marathon writing session instead of doing a good job of the daily grind. Take one look at my travel schedule and you see how that’s playing out for me. It’s cacophonous. My good habits have been broken. I need to reset, majorly.

I used to be able to do the daily grind. Before conferences and promotions and book tours – all the things that have to happen if you want to get your name out there.

I am a writer. My JOB is writing. So damn it, writing is what I’m going to do, even if I have to publicly report in what I’ve done that day to get myself back on track.

So if you’re interested in that daily grind, I’m writing it up on Tao of JT. I’m posting at 5pm each weekday, just a little snippet of what I’ve done that day – the good, the bad, the ugly. I of course have been feeling a little guilty about this – as I went into last week looking at ways to cut back my non-fiction writing, and instead seem to have quadrupled it. But I know myself, and I know what I need.

The fourth epiphany came just this morning, as I was reading through my RSS feeds. It isn’t exactly a revelation to you that I try to follow a minimalist lifestyle. I am working on finding my inner zen, because the more serene I am, the more serene my surroundings, the better I work, and the happier my family is. This journey has been fraught with setbacks, but I finally feel like I’m making progress. This morning, I was re-reading “30 Lessons from 30 Years” by Joshua Millburn of The Minimalists, and his number 10 slapped me across the face.

10. Finding your passion is important. My passion is writing….

My passion is writing.

Ding. Again.

My passion is writing. Writing. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, the manipulation of words to convey meaning, emotion and story is my passion.

I don’t need to feel guilty about blogging. That isn’t necessarily time away from writing. It IS writing. It’s all writing. Every time I put my fingers to the keyboard, I’m creating.

Duh.

Sometimes I feel so new to this game. I imagine my more experienced colleagues are reading this and laughing behind their hands at my naïveté. But hey, we all have to have our own realizations. No one can tell you exactly how to climb the mountains. They can just wave when they climb back down and tell you how exhilarating it is when you reach that zenith.

So, ‘Rati, tell me – Have you had any epiphanies lately?

Wine of the Week: Layer Cake Primitivo Super yummy!!!

Think Globally, Act … Not At All

Louise Ure

I got a research survey call that other night that stopped me in my tracks.

You know the ones. They only want “a minute of your time.” They promise it’s not a telemarketing call. Sometimes, if the topic interests me and I have the time, I’ll do the survey. Better my voice be heard than some Octamom with a fifth grade education, she says snarkily.

This time the topic was politics and it was a real live person on the other end of the line, not a recording. Those are both good things. Politics is a topic right up my alley these days and you can hurry along a real person, unlike the automated survey calls.

But then he started asking about San Francisco’s interim mayor, appointed six months ago when our previous mayor, Gavin Newsom, became Lieutenant Governor.

I blushed so furiously that I imagine the interviewer’s headset heated up across the wires.

I didn’t know the interim mayor’s name. I didn’t know we had one. Or an interim Chief of Police, since the last one was promoted to San Francisco Attorney General when the previous person in that position was elected Attorney General for California.

Sure, I voted in that election, but then it dropped clear out of my mind. It never occurred to me that my mayor was no longer in that position. That the Attorney General would have been replaced by someone else. That the police chief was also part of that magical game of chairs.

What was I thinking?

Having already committed to it, I bluffed my way through the interview, pretending that I knew the issues and individuals involved. (I hope not all respondents are as duplicitous and dumb as I was in my answers, but I do not hold out much hope.)

I thought I was a person who was voracious about staying au courant. I could debate either side of any argument (Should we build a mosque near Ground Zero? What’s the difference between taxing earned income and non-earned income? How does burka wearing effect French culture? Do CFLs pose a risk to American health or way of life?) because I knew the facts and opinions from both sides. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a point of view. I just think that persuasion is most effective when it is the product of an informed view of both sides of an argument.

But where was I getting most of my news? From national and international online sites. I knew more about Pech Valley in Afghanistan than Hayes Valley across town. More about the Kobe beef and foie gras sandwich at BLT Steakhouse in New York than I knew about where to go to brunch in San Francisco. More about the Casey Anthony trial than I knew about the July shooting by the Bay Area Rapid Transit Police here in July.

For God’s sake, I know more about the State Senators in Wisconsin than I know about my own state representative. Who is that, anyway? (I can tell you my congressional rep, but only because it’s Nancy Pelosi and she’s a pretty big national figure.)

I quit taking the local newspaper after Bruce died, because I could no longer work the crossword puzzles (an aphasia of some sort that has lasted to this day) and the piles of unread papers reproached me every week. I didn’t watch any local TV news in favor of some other, lighter programming that was on at the same time.

Today, I don’t know who represents me in our state legislature or who serves on our city board of supervisors. I don’t know what new restaurants opened in the Bay Area in the last six months or what the ballet program is this year. I know where to shop for clothes in Sydney or Seattle but couldn’t tell you the same thing about San Francisco. I spend more time on the phone with Australians than I do anyone in California. I have more friends online than I have in the neighborhood.

I am a Citizen of the World, but not of San Francisco. I’m getting nothing from – and contributing nothing to – living in this paradise of tolerance and good food.

What ever happened to Think Globally, Act Locally? I know, that slogan was originally intended to mean that global environmental problems could be attacked with sound, local policy, but it should also hold true for other passions, problems and interests.

If I care about women’s reproductive rights, why don’t I get involved locally? If I’m a devotee of the Food Channel, why don’t I seek out those new places here at home? If I send money to foreign countries for literacy or food programs, why don’t I start by doing the same thing here?

I don’t make many pledges these days, because I know that I’m likely not to fulfill them, but here’s a pledge from me. I’m going to be a better San Franciscan in the future. I’m going to know what’s going on in my city and my state and when it’s important to me, I’m going to take action to make sure my voice is heard. I may not get a newspaper subscription again, but I promise to read up on the local goings-on online. I may even leave the house every now and again to enjoy this fair city.

So tell me, ‘Rati, do you still feel like a local resident or more like a national or international one? And either way, what is the one thing about your community that you most like or would most like to enjoy more?

P.S. Oh Lord, while writing this, a second research survey call came in, once again about the San Francisco mayoral race. Ha! Gotcha’! I’ve read up on the candidates now.

Marked Flesh and Media Whores

by JT Ellison

I’ve finally started reading THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.

How I’ve managed to go this long without knowing the actual storyline of the book is remarkable – especially since it was the very first ebook I ever bought. I haven’t read a single review. I don’t know any details at all. I know it swept the world away, but today, 100 pages in, realizing it’s a story about a missing woman… the set up seems utterly prosaic. Though I am invested in the story, I am afraid to be disappointed by going forward and finding that this is simply a regular tale, one not mythic, not life-changing, not genre-transcending.

All of that is in direct conflict with the books’ backstory, and current about to be a blockbuster movie status. The dead author, one who’s been in turns accused of gross misogyny and tender enlightenment, who witnessed a girl’s rape in his teens and by all accounts spent the next 15 years trying to rid himself of that mental horror. The battle for his estate. The films, heralded, revered, and soon to be released in the US. In all honestly, I didn’t feel there was any way the book could possibly live up to the standards of which the media shrieks set forth.

But how could that be? The idea that this book (these books) aren’t supremely special in some way is anathema to me. There must be more. There has to be something unique and brilliant about them, or else they’re just another mystery and we’ve all bought into the hype and that ultimately lessens the craft.

What, at its most base, is this whole spectacle about?

A story that explores the mystery behind a missing girl.

When I realized that, I went – That’s it?

No way. There is so much more to this story – I can already see that. And as I read, all the bits and pieces from the past few years, the details I’ve purposefully obfuscated, are coming into focus.

I didn’t want to read this book. I’m not sure why. I adore a good thriller. Maybe it’s because I’d just tried and failed with Jo Nesbo’s REDBREAST (just wasn’t in the proper intellectual space at the time) and the whole Scandinavian thing scared me. Or maybe it was the warnings about the financial stuff at the beginning. Being told the first 50 pages of a book are boring, but to stick with it isn’t exactly the way to get me on board.

I’ll be honest, I bought it, and I’ve glanced longingly at the cover several times, but it wasn’t until the US movie casting that I decided I was going to give this a chance. The whole Daniel Craig as Blomkvist is a beautiful thing, but that wasn’t it. It was sweet-faced Rooney Mara, who was asked to transform into hard-edged Lisbeth Salander.

Before

After

It was that transformative process that got me interested in the story, in actually finding out what all the fuss was about. For at one time, Lisbeth Salander was, on the surface at least, a fresh faced ingénue as well.

The choice to mar flesh is one made for a variety of reasons. I have several piercings and a couple of tattoos. Unlike many babies I see nowadays, I wasn’t allowed to pierce my ears until I was ten – and that event stays firmly lodged in my mind. My hands shaking on the long drive to the store. The smelly black marker, perfectly aligning the spot where the needle would go. The cold alcohol wipe. The sharp snap of the gun shooting the hard metal through my tender lobes. The euphoria when they held up the mirror and the two twin glints peeked from either side of my head. I felt like such a woman walking out of the mall with my small gold studs. I couldn’t stop looking in the mirror. At my birthday present. The marking of my flesh for the first time.

There’s something quite… addictive about it. Ask anyone who’s pierced themselves and they’ll tell you. Tattoos too. It’s strange, really. Incomprehensible to some, yet—dare I say?—a turn on for others.

I didn’t feel the lure to mark myself again until I was in my teens and decided to double pierce my left ear. Not both ears. Just the left one. The asymmetry appealed to me. Unbalanced. Off-kilter. It fit my personality.

The method was exactly the same as six years earlier. I felt that same rush.

My father, on the other hand, had kittens. Several litters, in fact.

Eventually he forgave me, in the form of a gorgeous little diamond. Just one. Only for that spot. I wore that stud in my left ear for years, a secret acceptance from him, the first true acknowledgement of my autonomy, the powerful knowledge that I could be myself and yet still be loved, and was heartbroken when it was stolen, along with the small diamond earrings my grandmother gave me for graduation, on my honeymoon.

I haven’t worn a diamond in its place since.

The next marking came in the form of a triple piercing in that same left ear, which I let close soon after, because it just looked strange to me. But in ’95 I went for something different – a helix, through the cartilage atop my left ear. I still have that piercing, a small silver tension hoop. I’ll never take it out.

The belly button was next – it took separate piercings to get it right, too. Then the tragus – that’s the bit of cartilage in your ear closest to your face. I wanted to do my nose too, but Darling Husband drew the line.

So I started on the tattoos.

Trust me, as good little pearl-ed, bow-ed, preppy college republican was replaced by the hippy Goth artist within—replaced, ha. Eradicated is more like it—the folks around me started to wonder.

Why, exactly, was I doing this?

That is a very hard question to answer.

A, I think it looks cool. B, while having needles poked into your flesh hurts, it’s a different kind of pain. C, there are times you want to make sure you remember. Good times, and bad.

The first tattoo, the Chinese symbol for strength, was designed to give me just that, a tangible, physical, always apparent symbolic reminder to stop, breathe, and remember that my strength comes from within. It was a very serious tattoo. The second, the symbol for rebirth, was inked when I felt I’d achieved that exact moment of true inner strength: the stasis of my life was suddenly over and I was hurtling forward into the world I live in now. It is a joyous mark, and I had no idea until later that the combination of the two meant Phoenix Rising. From the ashes. I couldn’t have picked something more apropos if I tried, and as such it means so much more.

The little purple butterfly I just thought was pretty, but as our Alex pointed out to me years after the fact, apparently my subconscious needed the evidence of that shattered chrysalis in a more permanent form. It is a delicate little fancy.

I was five tattoos in when I realized I may have gone to far. I had wanted an Ichthys on the inside of my foot below my left ankle, but was talked out of it. (Tattoo artist: “I can’t guarantee this won’t rub off eventually.” Me: “Well, then I need to do something different – I want something permanent.”) Idiots, the both of us. He wanted to get paid more and I was too naïve to realize it. I ended up with what was supposed to be a rising sun but instead we referred to as the Death Star – and he did the colors backwards so I had to have it redone. Two layers of ink – one orange, topped with red and yellow.

I chose to remove that one, a process which more than made up for my idiocy by putting me through some of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. I do hear removal is better now, but at the time, I was a laser stricken guinea pig.

The phantom of that tat lingers on my left ankle. One day I’ll go to a cosmetic tattoo artist and have them ink the areas that hyper pigmented back to a more natural skin tone. But for now, it’s a reminder to me to think things through a little more. To look before I leap, which isn’t the easiest thing for me.

So I’m settled at five and one-half piercings (the tragus I stupidly removed trying to endear myself to some Nashville Junior Leaguers and it closed up, but I’m going to have it redone) and three tattoos – the small butterfly in profile on my left shoulder blade, and the two Chinese symbols on the inside of my right ankle. I adore all three and would never, ever mess with them. The ankle especially.

That doesn’t mean I’m not considering a fourth, one in a slightly less obvious place so I wouldn’t have to show it off if I didn’t want to.

A dragon is always foremost in the considerations.

Which brings me back to Mara Rooney, about to be immortalized as the girl with the dragon tattoo. For the movie, the piercings she did were all real – lip, brow, nose, nipples, four holes in each ear. The tattoos are drawn on, but the piercings – that took some guts. If you don’t have this particular predilection… well, suffice it to say, I’ll be a fan of the movies because of what Rooney did for her art.

Click Photo for full poster (NSFW)

I haven’t finished the book yet. But I already like Lisbeth. I’m rooting for her. And now I’m dying to find out exactly what each of her markings are about.

Have you marked yourself in some way? Do you regret it, or are you glad for it?

Wine of the Week: Snap Dragon Red