Author Archives: Murderati

Home Away From Home

By Louise Ure

(Sorry if you’ve tuned in to hear from Ken Bruen this Tuesday. We’re doing some rescheduling, and I’ve jumped in again.)

There have been a lot of hotel rooms in my recent past. A lot of minibars and scratchy TV images and windows that don’t open. But I had a chance to enjoy an especially fine hotel while at the Edgars this weekend, and I don’t mean the Grand Hyatt where all the festivities were held.

The Hyatt was fine, don’t get me wrong. They did about as good a job as a giant, faceless hotel chain can do. But there’s something wrong with the image when there’s a line of automatic check-in kiosks at the front desk but not one living hotel employee behind them.

No, my fine hotel experience was the luncheon at the Carlyle Hotel on 76th Street with my agent, Philip Spitzer.

It’s always a joy to spend time with Philip anyway, but this one was special. You see, his son is a waiter in the Carlyle’s famous dining room, and he kept bringing over courses of things he thought we’d particularly enjoy.

The ice tea gave way to an especially warming Pinot Noir. Our simple pasta lunch was augmented by a “Mille Crepe” dessert. (You’ve heard of Mille Feuille? The dessert with a thousand, thin puff pastry layers? Try it with a thousand paper-thin layers of crepe and surrounded by an intensely reduced raspberry sauce.)

It took us a full three hours to get past the stories, the news, the health updates, and the jokes and onto business. It was grand, made all the better by the surroundings.

The Carlyle fits almost squarely into the kind of hotels I prefer: older than 75 years and fewer than 75 rooms. (I have to cheat a little bit with the Carlyle as it has 187 rooms, but with its reputation as John F. Kennedy’s love nest and having Woody Allen drop by every Monday night to play in the bar, I’m willing to cut it some slack.)

I don’t always have the luxury of sticking to that 75/75 rule, sometimes for financial reasons and sometimes for scheduling, but here are a few more of my favorites:

Lodge on the Desert, Tucson, Arizona

Begun as a private residence in 1936, The Lodge on the Desert has expanded to 60+ adobe bungalows set among eight acres of gorgeous desert landscaping in the heart of mid-town. I have written more of my best lines at dawn on my private patio there than any other place I’ve ever worked.

Pavillon de la Reine, Paris, France

Opened in the 17th century, this place surely meets my “more than 75 years old” guideline. It also has the sweetest, most buttery croissants from room service — better than any other place in Paris. You’ll fall in love all over again.

The Sorrento, Seattle, Washington

At the top of the Madison hill, the 100-year old Sorrento offers gorgeous views of downtown Seattle. If you can tear your eyes away from the tea room or the Hunt Club on the first floor, that is. And they take dogs. Nuff said.

Ventana Inn, Big Sur, California

Okay, I’m cheating. Ventana Inn is only thirty-four years old. But it has only sixty guest rooms, so maybe it sort of averages out. Set on 243 acres on the cliffs above the Pacific Ocean, Ventana Inn is the place to make you forget your real life no matter how crazy it is. And you even get your own personal hammock on your porch.

Amandari, Bali, Indonesia

Okay, more cheating. This Ubud sanctuary was only built in the 1980’s, but when it’s this perfect, it still makes the list. Private bungalows with sliding walls that open to create instant ramadas. Private gravity-edge pools. Private outdoor sunken tubs where two Balinese beauties strew your bath with rose petals, wash you, dry you, and then massage you. This is your brain in Paradise.

Okay, ‘Rati. I need more suggestions. Do you know of any 75/75 hotels? I’m in a traveling mood.

PS: Here’s my favorite photo from the Edgar weekend, with thanks to Elaine Flinn for sharing it. I can attest that Ken’s arms are as warm as his words.

A Look to the Future: Wanna Play?

by Pari

It’s the summer of 2010. Gas costs $8/gallon. Air fares have nearly doubled. Hundreds of thousands of books have been published. Hundreds of thousands more writers have published books themselves.

The American Booksellers Association has lost more than 50 percent of its membership. The biggest national bookstore chains have merged into one super corporation AND this new entity is now in the publishing business too. AND it’s only carrying its own products or those produced by "affiliates."

Sorry to be a bummer, man, but the landscape is changing.

When things look bleakest, I am an optimist. Maybe it’s my contrary spirit. I just don’t like being told that anything is all gloom and doom. In the middle of great change, great opportunity exists.

What will our brave new world of literary livelihood look like? With the millions of voices sure to be flogging their works in the near future — and doing it to a shrinking market — how will we writers continue to build careers, to make enough to send our kids to college or pay for that pesky root canal?

Believe it or not, I’m not upset or even worried . . . not yet.

My agent, who has been in the business for more than 20 years, talks about how people have bemoaned the demise of the industry, of books, for as long as he’s been selling manuscripts. Yet, books and the biz are still around.

I suspect that staying power will still be the name of the game. That, and sheer determination.

But I want my crystal ball to start working NOW! I want to find the mechanisms to meaningfully connect with potential readers even if I don’t travel to their neck o’ the woods. There must be new ways to engender that personal touch besides "Friending" or "Guesting on Blogs" (Virtual book tours, as they’re practiced today, are the same kind of thing).

Do you remember when acclaimed Canadian author Margaret Atwood came up with the LongPen? Everyone scoffed. Not so, now. Virtual book signings — real events with interactive video — may be the way of the future. They’d certainly be greener.

What about the authors who have managed to turn their websites into entire and vital communities? Charlaine Harris has done it. I met 16 of her fans who traveled from as far away as Texas to attend Malice Domestic this year. She’s got a message board and all kinds of conversations going with her fans. Now the fans are taking some of the load off of her, but she still visits and posts often.

Are there media out there that we haven’t ever discussed, only dreamed about, that may truly aid us all? What about holographic book tours? Why not? How about books you can talk with — and where the author answers back?

What else is out there — or might be — if we just let ourselves have fun and imagine?

Come on, jump in and let’s see what we can come up with. It’s time to have some fun.

random things I do not understand

by Toni McGee Causey

Random things I do not understand, but will somehow make it into a book:

Two men decided to move a meth lab through Baton Rouge. In their moment of brilliance, one of them must have turned to the other and said, "Hey, let’s move this highly flammable lab that can blow up." Wherein the other thought, "Why do it half-way? Let’s take the bumpiest interstate on the planet! I know! Let’s go through Louisiana!"

Saving spiders. I do not understand this. A friend of mine wrote a funny blog about the spider that was sort of taking over her bathroom, and I responded:

I had one in the kitchen once and I felt sort of bad (poor, lost spider, didn’t
mean to come inside) and I caught him in a glass jar. He wasn’t huge,
but was quite fuzzy-looking and I was curious so I got my trusty field
guide on spiders out (what do you mean, what field guide? you all don’t
have field guides? geez. I have a field guide for every critter around
here that can possibly slither in and/or eat me. I’d like to be able to
leave a coherent description of the culprit if I’m dying, thank you).
Anyway, so I check the trusty field guide and find its photo and the spider on there is
kinda fuzzy, but not as fuzzy as my spider, and
then I realize… my spider’s fuzziness is… moving. As in, separating. It
was like the Borg. There were more than 100 (I am not exaggerating)
baby spiders stacked up on Mom or Dad or Uncle Walt there and they
started leaping off and investigating the glass, which then made me
realize… if that spider hadn’t been under glass, all of those babies
would have been in my kitchen.

Now? I kill the damned spiders. I have a rule: you stay outside? you live. You cross that line? you die.

When they start paying they mortgage, they can make the rules.

I do not understand relationships where the women "let" the men do certain things as a reward for doing everything else they’re told to do, nor the men who let them. This particularly applies to those loud, well dressed reality based housewives shows where I think the point is to not only out bitch each other, but out maneuver their husbands, more than anyone else has done at the same time. But then I realized, I just must not have known the rules for using my Glittery Hooha (technical literary term there, as defined by Lani Diane Rich and explained by Jennifer Crusie). (For the romance world, that blog explains it best… and I want to know why two people fall for each other, no matter what genre.) (I love that blog and term.) (I know. I wrote about glittery hoohas.) (My mom has probably had a heart attack just now and when she wakes up, I am going to be in big trouble.)(Because this is the deep south and we do not admit in public that there are hoohas, no matter how glittery.) (There was a sale on parentheses.)

So, what do you not understand? Wide open, anything goes.

And starting today, every Sunday until my book release, end of this month, as in May 27th, I’ll be giving away two signed copies of both books — Bobbie Faye’s Very (very, very, very) Bad Day and book 2 — Bobbie Faye’s (kinda, sorta, not exactly) Family Jewels — to one of the commenters (US/Canada), 18 years old and up. (Hey, there is cursing and murder and mayhem and sex, almost all at the same time. I am not getting in trouble here.) So post anything you do not understand in the comments and next Sunday, I’ll announce a winner… each Sunday for four weeks.

There’s more going on here…

by Alex

There was a great post by Nancy Martin and a whole slew of accompanying stories over at The Lipstick Chronicles this week about disastrous wedding experiences. Well, actually, humorous disastrous wedding experiences, which is why I decided not to contribute my own most bizarre wedding memory – it was just too dark. Maybe it’s the stuff I write (you think?) but out of the multitudes of weddings I’ve attended and participated in (I had EIGHT good friends get married within a year, egad – one of the reasons I keep putting that wedding thing off myself), all with lovely and funny and heartwarming stories galore, it’s this one particular incident that, well, haunts me, so much so that I didn’t want to invoke it and cast a pall over that happy thread.

So I thought I’d tell it here, where you all are, you know, used to me.

It was a gorgeous wedding at a club by the ocean. Rich father plus highly artistic bride and groom and highly artistic friends helping so everything was stunningly lovely with no expense spared. Great dance band, entertainment by friends, the bride in a gasp-inducing princess gown. Lovely, lovely, lovely, perfect in every way.

And then came the toasts. All touching, funny… until the FOB. Okay, he was drunk, but that’s not unsual in itself. But when he started to speak, an uneasy hush fell over the crowd. He was telling a story about the bride, and it was just – wrong, the whole sense of it. He said that when she was born, they thought she was autistic and the way he said it made it sound like there was no hope, so they’d never expected much from her anyway. (She is not impaired in any way, by the way – quite the opposite – beautiful, brilliant, talented, charming) We kept waiting for an upturn, a happy ending, even something remotely mitigating, but no. It was horrifying. More than just disturbing in the moment – it felt like – the moment in Sleeping Beauty when the evil fairy shows up at Princess Aurora’s christening and curses her. It felt – prescient.

I wish, really now I’ve wished a thousand times since then, that all of us, the couple’s friends, had stepped in like the good fairy to cast some kind of counter-spell, right there on the spot, wedding protocol be damned. But what? We were all too stunned to even move.

The couple’s first child was diagnosed with autism a few years after birth.

Now of course that story gnaws at me as a writer because of the fairy tale curse aspect of it – I’m completely obsessed with the theme. But it wasn’t just me – all of us who knew the couple knew that something large was going on there – something more than ordinary – a foretelling. It was a moment that ordinary reality seemed to stop and you got a glimpse into the future, or at least a possible future (which is why I so wish one of us at the time had been an experienced witch or yogi to perform some kind of counter-ritual or blessing).

And because of the book I’m writing (yes, STILL writing…@#$%^&) I’ve been thinking about that a lot recently – the moments when we get a glimpse into a bigger, deeper reality. You read enough about psychic events experienced by ordinary people, as I’ve been doing, and they’re all so very similar.

– The crisis apparitions, where a loved one is hurt or dying and appears in some way to a relative or mate at the moment of death, either as a full-fledged apparition or a signal, like a mirror shattering.

– The precognitive dreams: A young mother has a nightmare that her new baby is crushed to death when the light fixture above the crib falls – she wakes up screaming and runs in to the nursery where she finds the baby perfectly fine, sleeping soundly, but she takes the baby into bed with her and her husband – and two hours later they’re awakened by a crash from inside the nursery.

– The visitations from dead loved ones who have something to say about where your mother’s bracelet is or where the new will was filed.

– And of course the ordinary psychic things that happen all the time – the wife who dreams that there is another woman in bed with her and her husband – and discovers that he is, indeed, having an affair. The teenager who decides at the last second to take the left turn instead of the right, even though it will mean an extra five minutes getting to his friend’s house – and as he makes the turn he hears the screeching of brakes and a grinding of metal back there at that very corner.

Yes, yes – all these things can be explained as simple, ordinary perception. The young mother noticed subconsciously that the plaster around the light fixture was cracked and her dream warned her about a very real danger. The woman whose dead husband visits her in a dream to tell her where the bonds is remembering that her husband made that stop at a certain bank one day and her dream makes it her dead husband telling her so so that she’ll pay attention. The teenager registered that a car was driving too fast on that side street out of the corner of his eye. (I can’t as blithely explain how people see their loved ones at the EXACT moment of death, but I’m sure there’s someone out there who can debunk that one, too.)

But I think – reality is a lot more mutable than skeptics want to admit. And I’m not just talking about our perceptions and instincts and intuitions. I mean the whole of the universe gives us signs all the time.

The morning my grandmother died, I woke up and walked outside and the sunrise was just – surreal. The whole sky was flaming orange and red and pink – much more like deep sunset than the pallid pink of LA sunrises. The pecan tree in my back yard towered against that sky, and in the tree were hundreds, hundreds of cawing birds. It was earsplitting, mindblowing.

A half hour later I got the call.

When I look back at those moments that I knew something more than I realistically should have known, there is a heaviness to them, an import, a hyper-clarity – even a time-slowing-down quality. And so it seems to me – and it’s said by spiritual teachers – that if we all paid more attention all the time to these insights, synchronicities, we’d be able to see the signs all the time.

So that’s my spring resolution, since it’s such a lush and pretty day today that it seems like a resolution is called for.

I’m going to pay more attention to the signs – the dark and the light.

So I know all of you have stories to tell about visitations, prescience, telepathy, dream signs, and those just larger-than-life moments. (Yes, all of you – even the people who don’t believe always have stories about friends…)

What’s on Your Desk?

by J.T. Ellison

I’m in New York today, running around being a tourist post-Edgars. Since this was also my birthday week, I’m taking the shortcut of posting a piece I wrote for a magazine called The Verb. I hope you’ll forgive me for not checking in until later — but check in I will. Happy Friday!

It’s beneficial for a writer to be asked this question every
once in a while. Metaphor aside, the place where we create is vital to our
productivity.

I have two desks. One is upstairs in my home, in a bedroom
converted to an office. It’s a funny little room, a connector into the bonus
room over the garage. It’s got awkward angles, but a nice big window which
looks out onto the river birch. The tree is big enough that it blocks out
everything else, but that’s fine. In the winter, it’s not much fun, but in the
summer, the cardinals live in the tree, and at 5:00 each evening, they have a
cocktail party. Apparently it’s open invitation, because all the cardinals from
the neighborhood, the surrounding neighborhoods, probably the state congregate
in the tree, jostling for space on the branches. They are gossips and scolds,
and have a merry old time of it. When I worked in my office full time, the
cardinal cocktail hour was my signal to start wrapping up for the day.

My space upstairs has
evolved into more of a business office than a creative space. When I first
started writing, I was working on a tiny computer table. The keyboard tray was
so small the mouse wouldn’t fit, so I developed shoulder issues from the
constant up and down movement. When I started my second book, I decided Enough!
We bought lovely furniture to replace the tiny desk. The pieces fit snugly into
the corner (I’m a big fan of angled placement) with a desk to the right which holds
my printer and files, and a bookshelf to the left. The desks are two-tiered,
with cavernous hutches that are loaded with books, magazines, files and knick
knacks, including my precious Ted the Bear from Harrods. He’s there to bring me
international flair.

The top two shelves of the bookcase to the left hold my
favorite titles – LOLITA, ANTHEM, WUTHERING HEIGHTS, all my Austens, Hemingway,
Dickens, Conrad, Norton Anthologies and Greek Mythology texts. My shelves of
Classics. Most are the books I read in school and thought were fabulous enough
to keep. Which was pretty much all of them.

The center desk has my computer screen, a full sized rip-off
desk calendar, a small desk calendar called “The Year In Space” which has so
many cool photos of distant galaxies and stars that if you’re stuck, a quick
glance will humble you. I like to be reminded that while I’m struggling, there
are things that are much more important happening. There’s a black rubber,
bendable string cat that I’ve had since I was ten, and a green-faced Wicked
Witch pencil topper. Next to those childhood trophies is a small golden clock
that was a gift from the Secretary of Commerce. Tons of paperclips in magnetic
holders, post-it notes and separate containers for pens and pencils finish out
that section. There’s also a fantastic Mexican ceramic tissue box cover, the
cords to my iPod, the envelope that stores all my business receipts, speakers,
and the box that holds my special embossed cards for thank you notes. Along the
top, front and center, are my special books: the ones I’ve gotten signed by
authors I love, and my first run Harry Potters. Friends get co-op space too, so
the first thing you see when you walk in is their current title. A POISONED
SEASON by Tasha Alexander is at the forefront right now. As you can tell, I
love having everything in its proper space.

On the shelf to the right is a framed print of a Chinese
character from the I Ching called CHAOS. The small print below says “Before
the beginning of great brilliance, there must be Chaos. Before a brilliant
person begins something great, they must look foolish to the crowd.”

I love that sentiment. It’s how I approach my work, and my
life. Chaos equals risk in my mind. If my life is organized, it leaves plenty
of room for my mind to be chaotic, and as such, my work to push the edge.

My big black leather chair swivels, and to the left of the
window is another chair, cushy and comfortable, a table with a lamp, a white
board for plotting and a corkboard. All
my conference and self-congratulatory detritus, book covers, important emails
and notes go onto the corkboard. There’s another sign on the table, this one
stone. It says, “Don’t Piss Off The Fairies.” Amen to that. Without the magic
sprinkles of fairy dust, where would we be?

But I spend my creative time downstairs, in my black leather
recliner. The windows have a view of the street, I can distract myself with the
neighbor’s comings and goings. The cat sleeps on the bench to the left of the
window on a large red plaid flannel, snoring and twitching her way through my
day. There’s a slate table to my left that holds my drink, the phone (whose
ringer is off,) an Italian pottery catch all for pens, and a basket below for “stuff.”
A magazine rack to the right handles my notepads and current files.

I sit in this chair with my laptop on my lap and write.
After all the care and feeding I put into creating the perfect office upstairs,
my lap has become my desk.

So what’s on your desk???

Wine of the Week: From a pre-birthday dinner this week, a fabulous and surprisingly affordable bottle.

2002 Terre dei Volsci Velletri Riserva

Be sure to let it breathe for about fifteen minutes before you try it. Nice and dry with a beautiful finish.

————

This essay first appeared in The Verb in February 2008, a very cool ezine. I asked for and received permission to post it here.

The Peripatetic Scribe

by Zoë Sharp

It’s that time of year again. The time of year when I start to think about The Tour. Last September, with SECOND SHOT fresh out in hardcover and FIRST DROP gleaming in a brand new coat of mass market paperback, we undertook what felt like the Mother of all Tours. Andy and I covered just over 17,000 miles by land and air in 23 days, taking in twelve states, and visiting thirty libraries and bookstores for events and drop-ins, hooking up with nine other authors along the way. Including, of course, our very own JD Rhoades.

And in October, with THIRD STRIKE due out in the States, we’re contemplating doing the whole thing again. Oy vay …

Whether it’s worth doing something on quite this scale is always going to be a debatable point. Yes, FIRST DROP hit the top spot on the IMBA paperback best-seller list for September, and SECOND SHOT, from memory, placed in the top five jointly with Stephen Hunter and Kathy Reichs. But it meant 23 days away from home – and therefore work – and an enormous logistical exercise, planning hotels, flights and journey times.

Yes, there were some cock-ups along the way. Avis – who, it seems, don’t always try harder – let us down badly almost on the first day, and we ended up missing one event in Vermont. (We wrote Avis a heartfelt letter of complaint on our return, and have since had a refund on our car rental for that trip and a very nice hamper, thank you very much. But still …)

We didn’t realise we’d lose an extra hour crossing Indiana, and therefore turned up for an event at Jim Huang’s The Mystery Company with two minutes to spare, instead of the hour and two minutes we thought we had in hand. Then, climbing back into our rental car at the end of that night, the door swung back on me in the dark and I managed to dislocate a finger, though I didn’t find out that’s what I’d done to it until some weeks later. And the traffic in Chicago just sucks.

Of course, however extensive you think you’ve made such a trip, the first comment anybody makes when you post the itinerary is, "Oh, but why aren’t you coming to X?" The thing is, it would be wonderful to do the thing in fits and starts, a week on the road at a time, perhaps, followed by a few days back at home to catch up and do laundry, if nothing else. But, coming from the UK we have to travel 3000 miles just to reach the east coast, never mind any further, so we have to take an all-or-nothing, one-hit approach.

So, this time around we’re looking at possibly trying to get to thirteen states, and maybe – just maybe – a quick hop over the border into Canada. Starting after Bouchercon in October, covering the east coast from New England down to Florida, and making our way slowly westwards in a kind of broad zigzag according to the routes flown by good old cheap-but-definitely-cheerful Southwest Airlines.

I have to say that I enjoy meeting and talking to people. I like doing events and conventions, and speaking in public doesn’t faze me. I was the after-dinner speaker for the local Magistrates’ Association last week, standing up in front of a hundred dignitaries, including the local Member of Parliament and the Lady Mayoress. No problem. I even managed to find a suitable rude joke to finish off …

But sometimes it’s hard work. I mean, I know that bookstores have huge calls on their time and resources, but there were times when we travelled hundreds of miles to be met with no clues that anyone knew we were coming, and maybe half a dozen books to sign. We arrived a little early at one bookstore on the first tour a couple of years ago and were asked if we’d like a coffee while we waited. When we said yes please, they pointedly directed us to the coffee shop further down the block. We couldn’t have felt less welcome if they’d added, "And close the door on your way out …"

On the other hand, last year I seemed to be following one particularly well-known author round the country, and bookstore after bookstore told me how arrogantly rude and objectionable this author was, both to customers and staff. There is, as always, a happy medium.

Predominantly, however, last year’s tour was filled with delightful memories. That barbecue at Jim and Donna Born’s place in Florida, out by the pool in the lanai, and ‘helping’ with a bit of DIY. (Did you ever get that kitchen back in, Jim?) Having dinner with Meg Chittenden and her husband, also Jim, at the top of the Space Needle in Seattle. (So sorry to hear you’ve been so ill, Meg, and all best wishes for a speedy recovery!) Being given a whistle-stop tour of Industrial Light and Magic by John Billheimer’s son, Wayne, who just happens to be a producer there. The view from Janet Rudolph’s hilltop home in Berkeley. The lady who bought a full set of Charlie Fox hardcovers from Mystery Mike’s, including the incredibly difficult to get (and expensive) KILLER INSTINCT, spending a small fortune in the process. Bless you!

I could go on, and on.

But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll pose several questions. How do you feel about authors touring? As an author, a reader, or as a bookseller? Do you like to meet the people behind the words, or do you wish that’s exactly where they’d stay? Do you have any horror stories from your own tours, or been present at an event where it all went horribly wrong? And do you have any advice or tips to make it as painless a process as possible? I have one or two of my own.

1. If you’re taking a number of internal flights, pack so as to take carryon bags only if at all possible. We managed this and it saved us an enormous amount of time and frustration every time we landed. Of course, on an extended tour this means having to do frequent laundry, which leads me to my second tip:

2. Pack clothes that are similar colours, or that can be washed together without causing a disaster. Also, pack clothes than either dry real quick, or can be tumble-dried without something dire happening to them.

3. Take sat-nav. I have all the North American maps on my cell phone, with a cigarette-lighter charger and a stick-on bracket for the front screen. Tap in the zip code and it takes you to the door, almost without fail, regardless. The only glitch was that if you asked the system to take you to an airport, it tended to try and direct you to the freight terminal, so eventually we either keyed in the street address of the rental car return, or just let it get us close enough and then Followed The Signs. How quaint.

4. Take eye drops. Horribly early starts, airplane air-conditioning, and equally horribly late nights, do not make you bright-eyed nor bushy-tailed. The latter I can’t help you with, but the Visine certainly cured the pink eyes for me.

5. Don’t try and persuade a bookstore to have an event if that’s not their thing, or they don’t think they’ll get enough of a turnout to make it worth their while. Just dropping in, signing stock, having a cuppa and being amenable, puts far less strain on everybody concerned, and can often be just as good for you as an author.

6. If you’re planning this yourself, rather than your publisher, make sure you have it absolutely straight with your PR person – preferably in writing – who is doing what as far as publicity is concerned. It’s no good having a post mortem after the event that’s filled with, "But I thought you were going to …" It’s too late then, the opportunities have already gone by.

7. If you’re very kindly invited to stay with friends along the way, take them up on it! Not only does this save you another night in a soulless chain hotel, but it makes you feel even more welcome – particularly as strangers in another country. But, if someone says they’re remodelling their kitchen, don’t help them tear it out. You never know when Home Depot will actually turn up to refit the new one, and then you’ll feel bad for weeks afterwards. We’re still feeling guilty about that, Jim …

And finally, this week’s Word of the Week is peripatetic, meaning an itinerant; walking about; a teacher who is employed to teach at more than one establishment, travelling from one to another; an Aristotelian. Hence peripateticism, the philosophy of Aristotle, as he was said to have taught in the walks of the Lyceum at Athens.

Lost in Translation

by Rob Gregory Browne

You know you’ve made it when you suck in German.

Last week Dusty talked about Amazon reviews and author reactions to them that are sometimes misguided if not downright crazy. Dusty mentioned Tess Gerritsen, who has also written about negative reviews on her blog a few times, and she and I recently agreed via email that a good old fashion EXPLETIVE DELETED to an empty room can do a lot to cleanse the soul.

Good reviews are wonderful and make me momentarily feel as if I might actually know what I’m doing when I sit down to write a book, but the key word here is "momentarily."

Bad reviews, however, seem to settle in deep and simmer for awhile — perhaps even forever — a constant reminder that I truly, truly suck and should probably give up this fantasy of ever being a "real" writer.

I like to pretend that I can simply shrug them off, but I think I’m fooling myself. What’s worse is that I can’t find it within me to ignore the particularly depressing one-star monstrosities. They’re the proverbial train wreck that I can’t stop gaping at — except that I don’t just happen upon them. I actually seek them out.

Seem hard to believe?

I subscribe to a service called Google Alerts. It’s a pretty spotty little service, but the idea behind it is that every time your name is mentioned on the web, Google notifies you and gives you a link to the page that mentions you.

Last week, I got a notification that my name was mentioned on Audible Germany. This isn’t all that surprising considering I have an audio version of my book for sale there called DEVIL’S KISS (the German title for KISS HER GOODBYE). When I went to the page, I discovered I had a few reviews for the book and, surprise, surprise, one of them was a one-star.

So what did I do? Did I shake my head and just walk away?

Ha.

Believe it or not, being the glutton for punishment I am, I actually copied the one-star review, written in German, took it over to my favorite translation website, Babelfish, and pasted it into the translator.

This is what popped out:

A book of point of zero, which was to be borne only by the speaker at all. A completely not-saying banal mixture of likewise banal already Trade Union of German Employees nature works such as
Sutherlands/Roberts Flatliners (this nevertheless importantly more excitingly) and Steven Kings pseudophilosophical blood Erguessen…Completely unclearly that this ‘ work ‘ found at all a publisher and
then even still into the lists of sales of Audibel succeeded, in order to bore our brains… Recommend the money to save!

Now, there’s enough in that ridiculous "translation" to pretty much get the point across. This guy thought my book sucked, big time.

So what exactly was I thinking here? Why on earth did I take it upon myself to translate this review in the first place? Am I a complete masochist or what?

Fortunately, the same website had a couple of five-stars, one of which I feel duty bound to reprint here:

This ‘ Hoer’ book has still somewhat differently than most of them, because according to my opinion reality, dream, fantasy, its and Nichtsein devoured so closely with one another is that one can become dizzy and the own imaginative power thus no borders are set. It works
still for a very long time after…

Outstanding read. The individual characters come super more rueber and before the mental eye run off the book than film proper. For people, which do not only believe in the things those it see can, must. Much pleasure.

I’m not sure what a "Hoer" book is (it sounds a bit like a Long Island working girl), but the final words, "Much pleasure" are enough to give me that momentary reprieve from literary self-loathing I crave.

Yet despite my own pleasure, the phrase Recommend the money to save! (complete with exclamation point) from the one-star review keeps creeping back into my brain and, let’s face it, it’s my own goddamn fault for translating the sucker in the first place.

The saving grace here is something that all of us who have managed to get into print have to remember: we have reviews.

Good or bad, it’s truly a wonderful thing that we have reviews at all, and I’ll take a bad review any day over not being published at all. A bad review is proof that I’ve made it. A bad review in German is proof that I’ve REALLY made it, because I can thank my lucky stars that people in Germany are actually reading my book. In fact, I just got a royalty check from that amazing country, so you definitely won’t hear me complaining.

So, go ahead, bring on those bad reviews. Because no matter what they say, I know I am blessed to be doing what I love………..

So now, for the writers in the crowd, it’s your turn. Post a Bablefish translation of your favorite review, good or bad. I just love to read those things.

Oh, and while I’m here, I guess I should plug KISS HER GOODBYE, which was released in mass market paperback here in the U.S. yesterday and can be found at your favorite bookstores and, I’m told, your local Walmart.

I guess I should brace myself for more reviews…

Dear Abby, Dear God

By Louise Ure

DEAR ABBY: How can I make my husband understand that eating out every Sunday after church is not only a waste of money, but also makes going out for special occasions not as important as they could be? I try to explain that we could do something besides eat out, but he only wants to do that.

We spend anywhere from $80 to $100 each week on dinner out. My husband puts it on a credit card. Now, I’ll admit that I’m not that "up" on how credit cards work, but I know we’ll have to pay them off eventually. We don’t have the kind of money to splurge every week. How should I deal with this?

— TIRED OF EATING OUT, HAMPTON, VA.

I probably should be posting about what a fine time I had at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. It was truly grand to catch up with old friends and reconnect with such fine booksellers as the folks at the Los Angeles Mystery Bookstore, Book ‘Em Mysteries, and Mysterious Galaxy. I’m still reveling in the weekend and I’m sure the heat rash I developed will be gone by the time I get to the Edgars® celebration on Wednesday.

I could also be writing about how much I’m looking forward to attending my first Edgar® Awards banquet. I’m especially proud of our Northern California nominees, David Corbett (for Best Paperback Original) and Michael Chabon (for Best Novel). Add to that a long lazy lunch with my favorite agent in the whole world, and the trip sounds like heaven.

Or I could be talking about that curious peace I’ve found this week since I’ve sent in the final revision to Liars Anonymous and am hovering over the opening page of the next book.

But I’m not thinking about those things. Instead, my attention did a double flip dismount and stuck the landing last Thursday when I read the above letter to Dear Abby.

“I’ll admit that I’m not that ‘up’ on how credit cards work, but I know we’ll have to pay them off eventually.”

WTF????

I know the banner at the top of this blog says “Mysteries, Murder and Marketing” and this post has nothing to do with any of that, but I can’t keep quiet about this.

Who is this idiot? Clearly she’s an adult – a woman old enough to be married, anyway. The letter doesn’t say anything about her educational background or whether she has kids or a job outside the house. But is there truly anyone in America who doesn’t know how credit cards work?

I have the same reaction every time I see the flight attendants demonstrating how to put on a seat belt, for all those folks who have never seen one before.

Okay, Eating Out in Hanover, VA. Here’s how it works. You show the card. You eat. You get a bill for that amount, plus some extra for having used their money instead of your own. Now you owe more for that dinner you couldn’t afford than you would have if you’d paid for it in cash.

Good Kind Christ. No wonder the economy is in the toilet.

I haven’t always understood the finer points of finance. Back in the late70’s, when I was spending more money on recreational drugs than I was on rent, I ran up a credit card debt that was bigger than my entire annual salary at Foote Cone & Belding. A co-worker named Jill took me across the street to The Rusty Scupper, bought me a double shot of tequila, and melted my credit cards in the ashtray. It was the nicest thing anybody has ever done for me.

I started saving my drug money and bought a house. I spent wisely. I invested well.

And I got smarter about finance.

I learned about the pitfalls of debt and interest and commodity futures. I taught myself to read balance sheets and annual reports. To understand that supply and demand are only part of the equation. Fear, crowd mentality, and “irrational exuberance” are equally significant factors.

So last July, when I took a look around at the craziness going on in this country – in our divided politics, in our spending and lending practices, in the stock market, in car purchases and gas prices – I could no longer validate the key underpinnings of the market that allowed me to believe that we were on solid footing.

I cashed in everything.

This year has brought about other changes. I paid off the credit card balances, then transferred any remaining debt to lower interest cards. I entertained at home more often then I went out. When the vacuum cleaner died, I still replaced it with a Dyson, but I bought it off Craig’s List.

Most of us are feeling the pinch. Maybe we’re using the library more. Walking to the corner store instead of driving. Going to one convention instead of three. But that’s only the beginning of the changes.

Things are going to get worse before they get better, and I don’t just mean the stock market. I mean the foreclosures, the ballooning credit card debt, our kids’ inability to get student loans, a quadrupling in the price of gas, and shortage of rice around the world.

And we still have people like “Eating Out” who say that they “aren’t ‘up’ on how credit cards work?” Honey, you’re part of the problem.

Feel free to vent, my Murderati pals. Do you know anybody like “Eating Out?” And how have you been economizing this year?

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

by Pari

I’m on the road today in Oakmont, PA at the Mystery Lovers Book Festival. Chances are I’ll meet a lot of people and some of them will sign up for my email updates. To stay in touch with readers, I use a private Yahoo group to which no one else can post. It’s a clunky solution. However, it doesn’t cost me anything and it’s not offensive to the people who’ve opted in.

I’ve also been on the receiving end of quite a few author electronic newsletters. I end up deleting and/or unsubscribing from most of them. Often, they’ve come without an opt-in; someone has harvested my email address and assumed I’d be interested in his or her story. Wrong-o.

But there are some missives that keep me reading. I don’t care a whit about photos, graphics or other layout issues (of course, legibility is a plus). For me, the biggie is content. The newsletters I like best are those that include something beyond the author’s ego — professional tips, interesting tidbits, reasonable personal revelations . . .

I tend to send out my own updates infrequently. Often, I don’t get it together to send them out on a regular basis. And I never send just to stay in touch; I have to have something important to say. You see, I hate getting spam and don’t want my efforts to be considered as such.

My updates are personal, about my writing life, what I’m up to and hope to accomplish. I assume that every single person who has opted in wants to know this information.

Lately, I’ve been doing something different. In my last update, I sent a short selection from The Socorro Blast featuring a character that didn’t make it into the final book. I loved this guy, Byron Hicks, loved everything about him. Only problem was . . . he didn’t have anything to do with the story.

My update readers really enjoyed getting something that no one else had seen. I adored the fact that Byron could take a bow, that he had an audience after all.

Today, let’s look at author newsletters:
What kinds do you like? Despise? Got examples?
What do you feel is important to include?
Heck . . . are they even worth doing in the first place?

— — — — — — — — —
I’ll try to check in on the conversation today. If I can’t, I’ll respond to any comments on Wed.

Writer Beware

by J.T. Ellison

I’m not a suspicious person by nature, but I do try to rely on common sense when it comes to the business end of writing. I think one of the most important adages to remember when you’re trying to get published is this:

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Now, what do I mean by that? If someone is promising you the moon and the stars, if someone claims they can make magic happen in your writing life, if someone offers you a shortcut — suspicion should be the first emotion you register.

And here’s the problem. New writers who aren’t plugged into the community don’t know any better. It isn’t their fault. Well, it is their fault, for not using their common sense and researching the hell out of every sweet deal they come across. But I’ve seen person after person get taken in by promises, and it’s driving me nuts. Unsavory characters prey on ego, and the fallacy that you’re a gifted writer right out of the chute with the very first thing you’ve ever written.

How do I know??? Well, I’ve been the victim of a couple of scams myself, and had to learn the hard way.

So I thought we could cover some of the basics here, and if you wonderful Murderati readers could chime in on the back blog to give your instances, maybe, just maybe, we can avert some serious heartache for those new writers around us. We need to rise up and educate our new writers so they don’t get their dreams shattered. Loud, public dissent will help.

I’ve wanted to do this column for a long time. In the past two months, I know three people who’ve been victims of major scams perpetrated by unsavory agents, publicists and so-called publishing houses.

The first was a friend who wrote a book, a memoir, and submitted it to a local agency. She came to me after they’d offered her a contract, saying "Guess what! XXXX says they are going to publish my book!" I’ve been in this game long enough to know that when an untried writer is accepted on their first pass with an agency no one has ever heard of, something is fishy. And that isn’t a slam on this particular writer’s ability, it’s just common sense.

So I asked for more information and I looked them up. The first thing I noticed was they were literary representation, not a publishing house. So my radar goes off big time, because any agent who guarantees that they’ll get your book published is pulling your leg. Agents can’t guarantee anything. Just like publicists can’t guarantee anything. If an agent says "I’m going to work my ass off and do everything in my power to present your work to as many editors as I know who would like to read such a book," you’re golden. "I’ll get you published?" Warning bells.

So the site looked pretty legitimate. I went to source number two — Publisher’s Marketplace. I know there are agents who don’t report their deals, but the ones who do are legitimate. Or so I thought… this agency had a deal listed with a major house. (Wow, I thought. They might actually be for real. How about that. My instincts were off.) So with cautious optimism, I asked her to show me the contract.

Cue screeching brakes.

I’ve never seen something as scary as this contract. Remember that this is with a literary agency. (Many do their deals on a handshake rather than a contract.) The contract started off standard but quickly devolved into a horror show. The things they asked for were so far out of bounds… Not only do they charge fees, including travel for the agent to meet with prospective publishers, they ask for power of attorney, to be named beneficiary on the individual’s insurance policy, require rights to be transfered to the agent’s heirs in case of death, and take all rights to publicity. I burned my finger dialing the phone to tell her NOT TO SIGN IT.

And then I turned them over to Preditors and Editors, because that’s all I could do.

That’s one of the most egregious examples I have for you today. Another was a friend who was approached by a publicity firm who were lining up her book tour and speaking engagements, and wanted several thousand dollars in cash up front. Little problem. The book hasn’t been written, much less agented and sold. Yet this agency was more than willing to take the author’s money and book a tour. Um… yeah. Unsavory, at best.

I ruined another woman’s life this past weekend when I unveiled that her brand new publishing contract actually meant that she’d just self-published her book. I don’t want to get sued, so I’m not going to mention the name of the company (there’s already a massive class action lawsuit against them) but here’s the tip. If you send a manuscript to a publishing house and they send you back a contract to sign, be wary. That’s just not how it works. And I felt horrid, because she’d gone into her morning thinking that she was the bomb, that she’d published, and when I told her how self-publishing actually works, that as long as you have an ISBN you can be listed at Amazon, that you buy the books from the publisher and have to hand sell them, that the vast majority of bookstores and chains won’t touch self-published and vanity presses because of the returns issue… suffice it to say she was crushed. "What can I do?" she asked. "I already signed the contract. I had no idea." Then she started grumbling, "I thought it was too good to be true."

Folks, word to the wise. Have an experienced entertainment lawyer look over your contracts.

Better yet, get an agent and let them do the heavy lifting. Many agents are lawyers, and you’ve got it all wrapped in one nice package.

Now please don’t flame me because I’m not a proponent for self-publishing. I think that if you have a book that you’re interested in your close friends and family reading, and you aren’t trying to start a career writing multiple books that will be carried in bookstores and pay you royalties, then that’s a fine way to go. But if you’re a new writer who wants to write more than one book and get paid for doing it, DON’T DO IT. Even if you hate the idea of a traditional New York Publisher, think you’d rather not go to the trouble, there are several incredibly great small indie presses that are worth investigating. Poisoned Pen Press, Busted Flush Press, Bleak House, Capital Crimes — all of these are wonderful houses that any author would be proud to be published by.

So here are the rule to live by:

The money always, always, always flows to the author, not the other way around. If you have to purchase your books from the publishing house for distribution, run away.

Do your research. Google the name of the agency or publisher with the word "warning" in the search. That will give you an idea of whether they’re legit. Familiarize yourself with Publisher’s Marketplace and see who’s making deals, and with what houses. Those are the people you want on your side.

Find a lawyer, or at the very least an established writer you trust to tell you the truth.

Join the major organizations for your genre, and invest in a membership with the Author’s Guild, who have free legal advice for their members. Most of the major organizations have a listing of royalty paying publishers who are legitimate. There are publishers who aren’t on those lists who ARE legit, but you’ll need to do your research to make sure before a submission is made.

Check out sites like Preditors and Editors to see who is legitimate and who isn’t.

For agents, go to the Association of Author’s Representatives to see their members and read their Canon of Ethics. Not all legitimate agents are AAR members, but ALL legitimate agents abide by the canons. If they don’t, or won’t openly discuss their list of authors with you, or want $1500 up front to get going to cover their expenses, look elsewhere.

Hear what’s really being said, not what you want to hear.

The biggest problem new writers are faced with is desire. You’ve worked so damn hard, have slaved away writing your book, and you WANT to get it out to the reading public. We understand. We were there once too. But DO YOUR HOMEWORK! There are several easy steps you can take to ascertain whether the offer you’ve been approached with is legitimate. Because that’s the problem with scams. The veneer of legitimacy can be shiny and obscuring.

Like I said, I’ve been faced with scams. I had an agency agree to represent me, give me some editorial advice, and then ask for $2500. They wouldn’t release a listing of their clients, which is a big no-no. And when I Googled them, WARNINGS appeared everywhere. NOT.

My other mistake was less obvious. I met an "agent" at a festival. She took me to dinner after a session, told me she was new to the game and was looking for hungry authors to work with. She dropped everything and helped me make a submission to an editor I’d met at the festival. And then, nothing happened. It wasn’t that she was doing anything wrong, she just wasn’t doing much of anything… but she burned up my time – calling me daily, lamenting her disintegrating marriage and her desire to quit agenting and start over as an actress. I kept coming up with places to submit, no letters would go out. When a friend got me in front of a big time NY editor, this pseudo-agent was supposed to send the manuscript under her name. Never happened. By the time I realized that and sent it myself, the editor had lost interest. I severed all ties immediately and started over fresh. Thankfully, I only lost a couple of months. I’d continued to write while all that went down, and had new material. I followed my own advice above and started looking for someone legitimate.

One last little piece of advice. This can be a tough, humbling business. There will be times when you’re down, when you’re vulnerable. At this moment, there are people who will latch onto you who are horrifically negative and suck every ounce of your lifeblood away. These emotional vampires are everywhere, ready to bring you down the moment you open your mouth to complain. And they are especially dangerous because they come in the guise of friendship, then systematically dominate your world with their petty problems. These glass half empty people are EVERYWHERE, and it would serve you well to avoid them. There’s commiseration, and then there’s an unhealthy view of life. You know exactly who they are. Excise them, and you’ll be a happier person all around.

Just as I finished typing that last paragraph, a friend sent me this email. Perfect illustration of the above point:

One
evening an old German told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside
people.

He
said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow,
regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies,
false pride, superiority, and ego.

The
other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence,
empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

The
grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his Wise Old German
Grandfather: "Which
wolf wins?"

The old Grandfather simply replied, "The one you
feed."

Ain’t that the truth.

I know I’ve missed some great tips and warning signs, so I’d be most appreciative if the established authors, agents and editors out there would chime in. Let’s stop these piranhas before they gnaw anyone else’s dreams into oblivion.

Wine of the Week: Cakebread Cabernet Sauvignon Another suggestion from a friend, and wow, is it good!

Stop by J.B. Thompson’s blog today for a chance to win the newest title by one of my favorite authors, Robert Fate!

Update: Please check out this blog entry at Writer’s Beware for more on the subject. Then read all their entries for a fuller education on submissions and publishing.