Novels and Work

Alain De Botton has a thought-provoking article in today's (Sunday) Globe about how few novels take place in an office setting or even a work setting. This is true even in the mystery genre. You have various cozy hobbyists and PI's who are usually in the office only for a customer to come in and get them out of the office. Cops are seldom seen at their desks. But in point of fact, maybe the work that police and firemen do are one of the few occupations that writer's dwell on. Oh yeah, and the movies.

The headline of De Botton's article reads Portrait of the Artist as a Young Data-Entry Supervisor.
Ain't gonna happen. My writing group is not big on "Office scenes."

In fact the pictorial book, A Day is the Life of America, if memory serves me, did not have a single photograph of the inside of a real life office. I was working at the time and felt the familiar pang of alienation. Invisible again.

I have beaucoup scenes set at the office in my as-yet-unsold novel Festival Madness. The office is a high tech firm and I try to portray how a consultant (yet another occupation) would work there. Of course the office experiences an FBI raid and some late night fornication and things that make (one hopes) the reader want to turn the page, and the fornication may not be so rare, but of course the raid is.

It is difficult to write about life in the office because people in meetings or sitting in front of computer screens, butt in chair--all activities that can be deadly dull and you need some conflict (also found at meetings) to move the plot along. It is harder than a dysfunctional family scene or cops at a crime scene. And many writers, as Botton pointed out, have had dumbed down day jobs allowing them to write, but not jobs which require a huge committment of mental resources.

I had the kind of job which required the intellectual committment, and yes, writing was hard. Promiscuous Mode also took place in an office, and, well, we know that it's still unsold, too. Not from a lack of conflict and interesting goings-on at the office. Well, maybe. What do I know?

Of course there is the television program, The Office, and cultural snob that I am, I don't really watch network TV, but the program seems to be popular. Maybe not with people who read. Oh dear, there I go again.

Botton's new book is The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, of which there are many.

By the way, I just finished Sue Grafton's T is for Trespass, and as a writer she spends quite a bit of time on Kinsey Milhone's work in her office, and nary a client showed up to distract her from her bookkeeping, etc. You really get a feeling for how a PI might REALLY work, including some of the boring cases which of course turn out to be not so boring.

Botton is discussing literary writers, not genre writers. His book sounds interesting.

Off to Florida to conduct research, part of a writer's (genre or otherwise) work. Not the "plant butt in chair" tedious part. I will see for myself for my drug lord works, eats and sleeps. Yes, I show him in an office and eating lunch like an ordinary office worker. Hey Alain, how cool is that?

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Elaine Viets, The Deadend Job series has lots of information about the heroine's dead end jobs. Hilarious, too. The books are funny and witty and altogether a good read.

Cyber Czar

All this news (you do read a newspaper, don't you?) about the Cyber-Czar has me thinking of The Shadow Warriors, the book about Information Warfare that I wrote in the late nineties, published as an e-book in 2001, and by Booksurge in 2003. Jeepers, that's six years ago.

One of the cool things that in the opening pages of the book the protag is reading a paper about the appointment of the new cyber czar.

When we actually have an "info war," perhaps a mainstream publisher will pick up The Shadow Warriors, give it a quick edit and put it out for the world to find and read. Maybe it will even be available on the Kindle.

The "Warriors" are really rather fun, a dark romp, with scenes from Singapore and Hong Kong to a university town in Germany and Boston's Fanieul Hall and Public Garden. The sweep of history, if you will. It was such fun to write and I still had a lot of passion for writing in those days.

Now I carefully craft words, almost bloodlessly, although every now and then I work up a big push of enthusiasm when a scene that interests me needs to be written. Not true, really, but I had MORE enthusiasm in the old days when I thought a mainstream publisher would snap up my novels like carp after a worm.

Didn't happen.

I've been tweaking Festival Madness. When I wrote about Burning Man, the passion came back, because I could return to the Man, actually be there in my writing. I've been tweaking the beginning. Still not quite there. The queries weren't eliciting requests for the full manuscript or even partials. Zero interest. Sometimes I want to set my hair on fire.

Once more into the breach. Thank god the stuffed escarole is history and tonight we had black bean soup with chorizo and chicken and it was tastsy. I'm making composed salads from the garden and the supermarket and using my plane grater and they are good, good good.

Reading Sue Grafton's T is for Trespass. She's such a fine writer. Her writing never calls attention to itself, but keeps you on the page.

I loaded three more books and my friends manuscript onto my Kindle. Wheee!

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Report on the Kindle

It's actually a lot of fun to read on the Kindle. My first and so far only book is Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time. It's not what I expected, but her writing is sublime and I am enjoying it a lot. No way to lose your place. Shuts off when you get up to do something.

I'm still working on getting my novel downloaded to it, and the learning curve is a little, well, curvier. I'll definitely put another book or two on it before leaving for south Florida. Taking my new notebook as well. A high tech trip, along with the digital camera.

The trip is for research on my WIP. Work In Process to the uninitiated. I have travelled to South Florida for years and years, either on business or pleasure and sometimes both. However, I never thought I would find myself writing about it. Heaven knows, there are so many authors who use the setting, and it's a great setting. Carl Hiaasen comes to mind. John McDonald's Travis Magee (sp?) hung out, as well as many others. The Florida MWA is a large and productive group.

Nevertheless, my character headed to Florida and I followed her, and she went to Miami and Key West, locales I only had a passing acquaintance with, and now I need some telling details. My drug lord lives in Miami and the character makes a crucial trip to the Keys. Again, the plot follows its wimsey, in a controlled way, of course.

The web is good for research, but nothing beats being there. So I'm off. The best thing is the book takes place this time of year, so I should be able to nail weather, sunsets, what's blooming, how wilted one feels, and all that good stuff. Yes!

More anon.

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How Doth Your Garden Grow?

Eating fresh herbs and lettuces almost every day. The spinach looks promising. We had a cool damp day which is good for the cold weather crops.

The blankety-blank hummingbird feeder is leaking sugar water all over everything. Despair!

New bird today. Black and white with pointy beak, a little small than a robin. Lots of birdsong down by the slough.

I made stuffed escarole, a vegetarian, Italian recipe tonight. Stuffed with seasoned rice, it was pretty good. Enough for two meals.

Making preparations to visit South Florida to finish research on my fem jep novel. Very exciting.

Cats are back to normal, except Annie had a bad dream this afternoon. Now wouldn't it be incredibly cool to understand cat dreams?

I have a good cat story I want to write. Too many projects. No time to be bored. That is good.

More anon.

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The Big Birthday

Here we are in Boston on our "Staycation." Note the words "stay" and "cat." We stayed home for the kitties, who had enough trauma for one week with Annie's seizure. They seem to be back to normal.

Yesterday we viewed the Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto exhibit at the MFA, then had a lovely if expensive brunch in the main dining room. Obviously one pays for the live music, the luxurious banquettes, the serenity and the garden view. But nice. I think I liked Tintoretto best. Always a soft heart for rebels.

I got a Kindle which has provided awe that one small device could be so cool. I've always wanted an e-book reader ever since I first pubished the Shadow Warriors as an e-book, or rather RFI West did. I am still getting used to it. Downloaded a Josephine Tey book first as a great price.

About the birds there is the following to say: they are scarce, and I hope it's because they are feasting on those $#**!$ inch worms. The goldfinches are at the thistle seed feeder in force, and yesterday with three males, there were a lot of fights. The hummingbird is back at her feeder, so sweet. Sometimes I spy her in the tree. We finally saw a chipmunk. Something decimated them over the winter.

Carnage on Cocasset Street. Hope it wasn't the neighborhood fox. And the white geese are missing from Glue Factory Pond. I know. Horrible name. Whatchagonna do? I carry all the wildlife worries in my breast.

The beets and the spinach have been transplanted to their proper homes, and now the garden is officially "ready." We will still get a bag of impatiens tomorrow. Lots of work and many tasks this year.

How about that orange rhoddy? I am the proud mom.

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La Laiterie

Last night we ventured to Providence and finally ate at La Laiterie in Wayland Square north of Brown. OMG! The cheese plate was to die for. The green salad did not bore us and the mussels! Yum! Ate way too much bread sopping up the sauce. The restaurant is closing for renovation, and will open again in the fall.

We managed to hit Brown graduation weekend with huge crowds and traffic and I had to remember my own college graduation and how I dragged my parents to a middle eastern restaurant and then an Indian steak house. I know! Sounds strange. Houston for you. The cows were not sacred. Nope! I don't know what my Kansas grandma thought of such weird food. In those days it would not have occured to me to ask if these cuisines were all right with everyone.

I'm revising Festival Madness for the umpteenth time. Seems to be getting incrementally better.

We had a cat crisis this week and cancelled my birthday trip (Big birthday) to Montreal. Poor Annie had a seizure, witnessed by all. She is O.K. Back on diuretics and now thyroid meds. Freaked her out, as it did Thisbe her housemate and both S.O. and I. How can you leave town when the cats need you badly? It would be so stupid to go and wonder how things were at home every other minute. So we're having one of those staycations.

So far so good with dining and shopping and gardening and a walk. My orange rhoddy is abloom, and I'll post a photo tomorrow.

I am totally freaked out about this birthday. Major bummer. But the writing comes along and if I'm ninety when I publish, well, so be it. Wouldn't be the oldest author.

Not any wiser, that's for damn sure.

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Smoking

We broke out the smoker on Friday, and smoked a nice hunk of salmon. Easy as pie, just start a fire, dump 1/2 cup whiskey into the water and put the salmon on. Two hours later, it was done, perfectly moist and tender, incredibly tasty.

Today I took it to a meeting with paper thin slices of red onion, capers, dill (lots of dill) and a cream cheese spread made with chives, scallions and yes, dill! Served with rye bread and lemon wedges. Looked beautiful, tasted better.

The best part? There was just enough left for our dinner. What a treat. Love them capers.

We'll do some kielbasa and maybe a turkey breast if we can get started early enough. Smoking isn't like throwing some burgers on the grill. You have to check the fire, check the progress, add more charcoal. It's a process. Of course the salmon, smoking quickly, was easy.

I wasn't sure what would chips I was using, because the bag had lost its label. Maybe apple or alder. Whatever it was, it went perfect with the salmon. A mild smokey flavor, not overkill.

So, here's to a summer of activity on the grill and with the smoker. Maybe I'll try to smoke some mozzarella. Now, there's a thought.

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Upmarket?

So now all (or some) of the literary agents are looking for "Upmarket" mysteries. Hard to know what this is. I think these are novels that used to be called "mainstream" mysteries. My take was that these books were a little longer, with a little more emphasis on character, and maybe even taught the reader something or took her to a place she had never been. Not exactly literary mysteries, but books with good writing that would interest someone who did not read the more "traditional" strictly who-done-it mysteries of 75,000 words.

One has to be careful because it is easy to step on toes and feelings in this business. God knows, I should understand that. And I think I have been writing upmarket books for years, but maybe I didn't know how to market them. The thing is, can the author call her own novel "upmarket?" I mean, what does that say? A whiff of snobbery? Some would say yes.

Oh yes, and these hoity-toity upmarket books may cross "genres," a no-no for the people the publisher hires to explain the book to the bookstore employees. You see, they have to know where to shelve it. But then why are agents looking for books that are hard to shelve? Hmmm. Inquiring minds want to know. Maybe they sell, even if the would-be reader has to look around the store. Word of mouth? Word of mouse?

Another weird thing is that the thrillers and suspense books are usually stuck with the "mainstream" books, and the mysteries get their own section. Why is that?

My current book is suspense. It's hard to keep the suspense going all the time, so I've resorted to cheap techniques like putting a kid and a cat in danger. Plotting is damn hard work, I say.

So far, my novel has grown to 55,000 words. If I were writing a "traditional" mystery, I could stop there. I personally think of these lite-on-words books as little chickenshit mysteries, but that's just my take, a book you can take up at 9:00 and put down at 11:00 and know who dunnit and it sure as hell wasn't the butler. Take Agatha Christie. But she understood how to tell the same story over and over and make it sound different. Well, lots of series authors do that. There is nothing the matter with chicken shit. As an adjective it means small or unimportant. The kind of thing Otto Penzler is always complaining about women writing, the cozies if you will, or traditional mysteries as the purists call them. Of course Penzler doesn't call them chicken shit. He's implied worse.

My take. One is always walking on bloody eggs. Ewww! Exactly. Or Eggsactly.

I think a lot about what I am writing because I suck as describing my own work. Bill Gates meets Moll Flanders. O.K. I hate these stupid-assed comparisons like that. They tell you nothing. All right, the co-mingling of such an incompatible-sounding duo tells you that there's loose morals and technology afoot. But I could just say that. Loose morals and technology. Maybe "Bill Gates meets Moll Flanders" just has that certain je-ne-sais-quoi. Actually, I've never had the nerve to say Bill Gates meets Moll Flanders in a query letter. Too stupid.

Next week we're off to Montreal, the Paris of Canada, and a week later I'm flying down to South Florida to finish the research on this book, In Flight, my suspense novel. Is this also upmarket? Don't think so. I do like my Colombian Drug Lord. It took forever to get into his head. Think I need another chapter from his POV. That's Point of View if you're not into literary acronyms. Fem jep is Woman in Jeopardy, which is what I'm writing now. Fem Jep, two POVs and I'm hoping it will come in around 90,000 + words, but let's keep this sucker under 100,000. Upmarket or not. Probably not. Who the hell knows?

What is upmarket, anyhow? If you know, please post a comment.

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Three Trapped Tigers

Since I promised to loan Three Trapped Tigers to a friend, I'm frantically trying to finish reading it after umpteen years. No plot, just drinking (lots and lots of drinking) driving around and huge riffs on language. Almost a Cuban version of On the Road, except the friends never leave Cuba. The setting is Cuba before the revolution, and one of the characters says he's off to join Fidel, but we haven't seen that happen.

I had a history professor who told the story of driving around in the countryside just before Castro came to power. Revolutionaries in camo stopped his car, and asked for his identification. He showed them is membership card in the socialist party and they embraced him. Brother!

I think we were shocked that he was a socialist. Good stories go on forever. I would like to visit Cuba sometime. Castro was young once, and idealistic and made a big splash when he took over. Then the firing squads came in and the idealism, well, idealism and firing squads are not compatible.

We were mightily impressed by the big retrospective on Cuban Art that the Montreal Fine Arts Museum had a year ago. It would be interesting to find out what became of the author of Three Trapped Tigers. I think I'll investigate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_Cabrera_Infante

Very interesting. Who knew? Castro's regime alienated many who had originally wished it well. Cabrera Infante got in trouble with everyone, the hallmark of a true artist. Now, I'll definitely finish the novel. (He didn't like "Tigers" referred to as a novel. I think of it as one long riff.

Later,

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Mystery, Science Fiction and Fantasy

I got out my robot fish story this week and spent some time on it. There were some bad sentences and also some boring sentences, and I trust those have been put to bed. This wasn't really a crime story, although drug running and spying played a major part in it. It is certainly not a mystery. The fish was mostly science fiction and part fantasy, but most of all it was a character study. Odd how these stories take shape.

My other short story, now submitted, was also a character study. Nothing much happens, but it's what doesn't happen that's important. Maybe I am a literary writer. Fortunately, the story is still a "story" with a beginning, middle and an end.

I have a cat story, told, of course, from the cat's point of view that I need to get down on paper. For me, short stories take forever to write and re-write. Almost as bad as a novel.

Then there's my long short story about an accident that also needs to be told. Most of the research is done, the plot is in place. So write it, girl.

And Maxine is waiting, with a kid running around in an electrical storm trying to find a lost cat.

Where do you send science fiction? I found three magazines. I'm sure there are more. You can google them if you want to submit. They also pay pretty well, a fact that gladdens the heart.

Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and Asimov's Science Fiction. I'm so glad I found them. The fish, Francis, is glad, too. Francis is amazed that he can experience "glad." Now I'm wondering about my cats.

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Plant Buying Day

The day(s) we trek to Briggs or Pollilo's or all the way to Windy-Lo Nursery are better than any other days, birthdays, holidays, lazy days, days on vacation.

Today the sun shone down after a long week of clouds and rain. The temperature was a mild 70 degrees, and we were off to Briggs. En route, I have to give myself a little pep talk, the nature of which is "don't buy too much, don't spend to much, don't go crazy and grab inappropriate plants no matter how pretty. Get something old, something new and something blue. Fill the spots you have. Don't go crazy."

It is soooo tempting. The pots! The wind chimes! All the garden accoutrements just waiting for one's Master Card. Sigh!

We bought tomatoes, basil and parsley, all things I don't have growing from seed. Also two pea plants to climb a trellis and maybe even provide ta! da! PEAS. Reliable petunias for the other window box. Some new stuff for a planter, and of course nasturtium seeds for the strawberry jar. Another creeping phlox for the rock garden. Two fab begonias for the deck.

I have rosemary, lots of wintered over geraniums and cuttings (large by now) of coleus to take outdoors. We also got a fuchia for the front porch. One did all right there last year. Did not buy the bag of impatiens yet.

Now, of course, all the stuff has to be planted, either this afternoon or tomorrow. Then I can feed and water and hopefully pick and harvest and bask in the glow of the garden, enjoy the hummingbirds and the butterflies and nuture my new babies.

Today is my favorite day, plant buying day. What's your fave?

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The Boston Globe

If the Boston Globe disappears, I'll have to change my life. Every morning, S.O. brings the Globe up to the bedroom with my coffee, and I drink and read until I am awake. This is a 26 year old ritual, and the Globe, like the coffee, is a daily fix. I can't even imagine life without it, and my favorite columnists, the curmudgeonly Alex Beam, the sports write-ups, the recipes and restaurant reviews. All the stuff I read about. Even the Craig's List Killer.

I mean, what could possibly replace the daily paper? I began reading The Denver Post when I was a young teenager, and at college I read the Houston Chronicle, then continued life with the St. Louis Post Dispatch, and the the Chicago Tribune. The daily paper is a part of my life, and I mean the LOCAL daily paper. We also get (hopeless readers that we are) the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

But we LIVE IN BOSTON.

Duh!

It would be awful if all those people lost their jobs. People I know. This just can't happen. I blog, I tweet, I friend, but I also read newsprint.

This just can't happen.

Grrrr.

Edgar Winners

I wasn't at the Edgar's banquet on Thursday, but MWA announced the winners right afterward.
Ta Da!

The Grand Masters were James Lee Burke and Sue Grafton--there couldn't be better picks than those two.

BEST NOVEL Blue Heaven by C.J. Box
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR The Foreigner by Francie Lin
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL China Lake by Meg Gardiner
BEST FACT CRIME American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories by Dr. Harry Lee Poe
BEST SHORT STORY "Skinhead Central" - The Blue Religion by T. Jefferson Parker
BEST JUVENILE The Postcard by Tony Abbott
BEST YOUNG ADULT Paper Towns by John Green (BEST PLAY The Ballad of Emmett Till by Ifa Bayeza
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY "Prayer of the Bone" - Wire in the Blood, Teleplay by Patrick Harbinson
BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY In Bruges, Screenplay by Martin McDonagh ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD "Buckner's Error" - Queens Noir by Joseph Guglielmelli

RAVEN AWARDS Edgar Allan Poe Society, Baltimore, Maryland Poe House, Baltimore, Maryland
MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD The Killer's Wife by Bill Floyd

Sue Grafton and James Lee Burke are so gracious and witty--I enjoyed sitting in on their Symposium interviews. Each one signed a book for me. James Lee Burke admitted he had waited nine years between publication of books 2 and 3 and submitted the book 111 times. So let Suck It Up forever be the motto. We never think of published authors having these issues. The book went on to win (I believe) a Pulitzer. So take heart, ye weary writers.

I rode busses in NY and didn't worry too much about the flu because I had my tiny bottle of hand sanitizer with me.

In my next blog, I'll discuss trying to get out of a restroom without contaminating your just-washed hands. This ain't easy.

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Back in Beantown

The Symposium was edifying, as usual, and I had many good meals and a great trip to the MOMA to see Into the Sunset:Photography's Image of the American West, a stellar show with some in your face images and not exactly beautiful snow capped mountains and amber waves of grain if you get the drift. But good stuff, and I can't tell you how many times I was brought up short, thinking, "yes, that's exactly how it looked." The shock of the familiar seen on display in a museum. http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/97

Got stuck in hideous traffic yesterday, and took a break from the drive to piddle down to Old Saybrook (Saybrook Point) and gobble down a lobster salad and some wine.

Cats happy to see us, as always, which they let us know in their inimitable ways. No mad meows. Annie licked S.O.'s beard and Thisbe bit my toe. Love is strange.

Laundry is done, mail picked up, food in the house and the precious sprouts did not die. Think I'm growing a beanstalk. Fee Fie Foe Fum. Better get those suckers in the ground. Bleeding heart blooming. Lots of little seedlings up. Only recognize the mesclun. We are going to be eating well this summer, unless disaster or the rabbits strike. Bad bunnies.

Now I need to get back to writing, don't ya know?

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