C is for Crimebake

So, I mut be the only person at the the entire New England Crimebake who did not get her photo taken with Sue Grafton this weekend. The shy little skinny kid who hung back from the swings in first grade is still someone who does not feel comfortable intruding herself into photos, conversations and stalking literary agents thru the hotel trying to pitch her novels to them. Nope! Would rather bathe in hot pitch. You can give countless Toastmaster's speeches, stand up in crowds, yada-yada but the shy person always remains, at heart, a shy person.

I remember a conversation with my mom in the early days of high school. I had a girls get-together at our house, and afterward, my mom analyzed the girls and their behaviors. C was too forward, and J was just about right. In my mom's book, a "too forward" woman was not a good thing. Since my mom was always a forward person, this was sort of interesting. She obviously did not consider herself so. Hanging back (like moi) was not good either. Striking a balance was right. Hey, how does one do that? I am still hanging back. Not that a photo with Sue actually means anything. But it would have been sort of nice. Because Sue is very nice and I try to be nice, too. Nicely nicely, thank you.

The conference was great, and there were a few little SNAFUs that went unnoticed and of course always undercurrents of competition and "stuff" that we writer's like to write about.

Once I sort through the last pile of paperwork and get food in the house, we're good to go. I can think about Thanksgiving and Christmas. Is one permitted to hide until the holidays are ove? Please? It's too late to start Nanowrimo. Best get on the stick and make a little plan, and keep writing. Keep things sane. Keep things simple. Make soup.

I missed all my HBO programs and Mad Men last night to watch the blankety-blank Pats game. The horror!

For a good overview of the Crimebake, read this blog: http://patremick.blogspot.com/

Significant Other did the moody, atmospheric cover of the 2009 Crimebake program. Cool, yes?

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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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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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Off To the Big Apple

From Beantown to the Big Apple tomorrow, the occasion being the MWA Edgar's week, esp. the Symposium, God, how Platonic. I missed last year, being in a funk about my writing. This year, the funk is worse, but since I've resolved to give up crime fiction for mainstream or maybe even literary fiction (can I still do that?) this may be my last year, and I've been trekking down to NYC for at least 10 years for this event.

I have learned a lot about "the state of the market" which grows worse every year unless you are a top gun like Sue Grafton or Harlan Coban, and I've met some nice people, and rubbed elbows and pitched two books. I haven't pitched Festival Madness, and I suppose I should get an elevator pitch ready. For all it's worth. I've learned not to mention the KGB or Osama Bin Laden with reference to these books because that's sooooo yesterday. I've learned that people I met last year (never mind two years ago) won't remember me. I've learned that agents and editors would really rather talk with agents and editors other than aspiring writers, but that's o.k., too. In their shoes, so would I.

I've learned that it's really true. If you're standing like the wallflower at the orgy in the midst of 200 people, that if you just smile, someone will approach. This can be the most forced, shit-eating smile in the world and someone will at least return your smile.

So: life lessons learned at the Edgar's. I used to go to the banquet, too, now, alas, no longer affordable. I was always seated in Siberia, but that was O.K., because there were nice writers seated there, too, and why wouldn't I be in Siberia? Me and The Shadow Warriors. That cocktail party was even more excrutiating unless one of my New England writer buddies was along.

Some of my fellow Guppies (the Great Unpublished) will be there, so I should have lunch companions, although I didn't mind eating alone at a cool Italian place two years ago. Sat at the bar, had a wonderful lunch with wine and an attentive waiter. Sometimes, when one is in a certain mood, others think that you are SOMEBODY and serve you well.

When we were young and sexy this happened to S.O. and I at Chasen's in LA (best table in the house) and also at The Bakery in Chicago (seated in the kitchen where all the VIP's were placed.) The photo shows that young woman.

"You're up in an aeroplane, you're dining at Sardi's." Well, those were the days, and I never write about them, but I'm thinking maybe I should, and tell all the secrets, but I probably won't. Or will I? Nope. Have to outlive everyone first, including myself. Ha ha.

So after this ramble--ramble, not rant, I need to check on the orange yogurt bread and get my chicken breast in the oven. And pack. Those not-too-old-not-too-unstylish clothes. And wash my newly cut, streaked hair. "You're dining at Malibu, alone on the sand."

Onward.

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Snarky Reviews: Sunday New York Times

Zowie! With a couple exceptions the book reviews in today's (1/27/08) New York Times are downers. Drew Gilpin Fault's This Republic of Suffering:Death and the American Civil War gets a rave from Geoffrey Ward,. Don't know if I'm up for 346 pages of Death and Suffering.

All Shall Be well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well by Tod Wodicka, which got a rave in another publication was slammed. Sounds like an interesting book.

A Golden Age by Tahmima Anan, a novel about the birth of Bngladesh gets off to a "muddy start," but redeems itself. Another tempting book.

Riding Toward Everywhere by William T. Vollmann was panned by J.R. Moehringer. This, too, is a book I look forward to reading because some of my relatives went "on the bum" during the Great Depression and rode the rails. One of them later became an entrepreneur and made a lot of money, lived an interesting life in a tiny Kansas town and became a world traveller, even learned Spanish late in life.

Ezra Pound: Poet, receives an even review from Charles McGrath. Of course Pound's life is so odd and interesting and controversial that reviewers (not this one) always tend to review the man and not his biographer's work.

Ellington Boulevard by Adam Langer, not just a novel but a New York novel, is again, more of a mixed review but basically positive. I've been visiting New York since I was a young bride (is there ever an "old bride"?) but have never felt there was a novel in these visits, or even a short story. Wonder why. No drama, no conflict? Note to self: dig deeper, you fool.

I don't read horror, so I skipped the review of20th Century Ghosts. Also skipped the review of Patrick Buchanan's book, since I figured I wouldn't read it either.

Still to read; The Cure Within, another book I wouldn't be inclined to read but the review might be interesting. Ditto, Alfred Kazin, a Biography.

Pat Barker's new novel, Life Class, got a basically panning review. She was put down for not writing a novel like her other novels. What's a writer to do? This was apparently too romantic. I was particularly interested because the book is about painters and World War I, and I am getting into a novel about (among other things) a painter and some research let to an idea for yet another novel.

News on the Trade Fiction vs. Mass-Market Fiction lists. Atonement is #1 in Trade and #5 in Mass-Market. The movie and then the Academy Award nominations have really helped this book. Hooray for tie-ins. Must gladden Ewan McEwan's heart and portmonnaie.

Pillars of Earth is #3 in Trade and #15 in Mass-Market, a surprising, to me, reversal. I Am Legend is #10 in TB and # 7 in MM. (I just hit a forbidden key and lost this post, BUT, due to total paranoia I had already submitted it a couple times. Ha ha. Blogger!)

A note about the hard-cover list: Janet Evanovich zoomed to the top with Plum Lucky. I love Stephanie Plum and that series. Both Evanovich and Sue Grafton, #8 with T is for Tresspass,
are excellent writers and storytellers and deserve all the success they have achieved. Both are dead serious about their writing and craft. Sisters in Crime!

Happy reading. Stay tuned for another food post. Hey, eating and reading some of the best parts of the day, n'est pas?

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CWA Cartier Award

While we are on the topic of writing awards, Sue Grafton has received a well-deserved honor. I picked up this news in DorothyL and am quoting:

CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION 2008 CARTIER DIAMOND DAGGER WINNERThe Crime Writers' Association has awarded its Cartier Diamond Dagger for 2008 to the best-selling American novelist, Sue Grafton.

The presentation of the award, made for sustained excellence in the genre of crime writing, will be made by M. Arnaud Bamberger of Cartier and will take place at a champagne reception at the Gore Hotel, Kensington, London SW7 on May 7th 2008.

SUE GRAFTON was born in Kentucky in 1940, the daughter of mystery writer CW Grafton. After receiving a bachelors degree in English Literature from the University of Louisville, she worked as a TV scriptwriter before her Kinsey Millhone alphabet series of PI mystery novels found success. The first in the series, 'A is for Alibi' was famously inspired by her own divorce. "For months I lay in bed and plotted to kill my ex-husband, but I knew I'd bungle it and get caught so I wrote it in a book instead."

Three of Ms Grafton's novels have won the Anthony Award at the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention; she has won three Shamus Awards, and in 2004 received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award given to a California writer whose work raises the standard of literary excellence.

All the books in the Kinsey Millhone series are set in the fictional Santa Teresa, CA, which Ross Macdonald used as an alternative name for Santa Barbara in his novels. Ms Grafton plans to carry the series all the way through to Z. The latest number one best-seller, 'T is for Trespass', was published in the US in December 2007 and will be out in Macmillan hardback in the UK in April 2008.

Ms Grafton's novels are published in 28 countries and in 26 languages, including Bulgarian and Indonesian, although she has consistently refused to sell the film and television rights, claiming her experience as a screenwriter "cured" her of the desire to work with Hollywood.

On hearing of the award, Ms Grafton said: "News of my being named the 2008 recipient of the CWA's Cartier Diamond Dagger so astonished me that I thought at first it was a practical joke. The note from my British publisher, Macmillan, was typically understated: 'I have some good news from the Crime Writers' Association. They would very much like to award you the 2008 Cartier Diamond Dagger at a ceremony in London on 7th May in Kensington.'

Good news !?! I read the message three times and then checked the e-mail address just to verify that it had been intended for me. The publicity director was gently inquiring if I might attend the ceremony. I am absolutely delighted to respond that I'll be there with bells on, as they say over here. I'm thrilled with the news and honored at the prospect. I confess I'm still slightly worried there's an error in the works, but I'll be there nonetheless."

Sue Grafton wins the Cartier Diamond Dagger in its twenty-third year. Previous winners include John Harvey, Elmore Leonard, Ian Rankin, Lawrence Block, Sara Paretsky, Colin Dexter, Ed McBain, Reginald Hill, Ellis Peters, Leslie Charteris, Ruth Rendell, Dick Francis, John Le Carré and PD James.

Way to go, Sue! I love her mysteries. She's a great writer and nobody does weather and old people better.

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Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

In less than a week, I'll know whether World of Mirrors made the first Amazon cut. If it did, I'll be weaseling around and asking friends, fellow-writers and even my wonderful blog readers who are also Amazon customers (is anyone not an Amazon customer?) to sign in, read my first chapter and write a short review. And do tell the truth. If you think it sucks, I need to know that, too.

This is so demeaning, but of course even more demeaning is if the chapter tanked/and or cratered with the reviewer and was rejected. Right now my self-confidence if at the bottom of the storm sewer with last year's leaves and a few old mouse carcasses. You get the idea.

And I have a cold. I never catch colds. I am blaming it on not eating meat for 2 weeks, and missing all that good zinc and B-vitamins.

We had chicken cutlets with tomatos, capers and wine tonight, ripped right out of the food section of today's Boston Globe. Very tasty, and enough for tomorrow. The tomato and parseley looked so cheery, almost like Christmas was back. It's always a shock when everyone takes down the Christmas lights and the night is so dreary again.

Made reservations for Sleuthfest today, and I continue to tweak the beginning of Promiscuous Mode. I decided it didn't have enough tension and conflict for the beginning of a crime fiction novel. Why did I ever start writing crime fiction? I don't even much like to read it anymore, however, I still want to read Sue Grafton's latest. I don't get tired of her. And then there's poor old Proust who I've been dawdling over for 13 months and 772 pages.

My first readings of Proust, I totally missed all the humor. How is that possible? There is a lot of humor, not in the romantic love parts, but in his descriptions of the daily life of the family. Humor enlivens any kind of writing. Humor enlivens life.

Rant alert! Boston is a dirty town, sad to say. The "T" is dirty--people strew newspapers all over. Sullivan Square was filthy. The sidewalk was a continuous garbage can. Disgusting. We came here from Chicago which was, by comparison, squeaky clean. End of rant.

Another warm day, but rainy, and I didn't walk because of my blasted cold. It's almost worse than having a broken ankle. Onward.


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