P.S.: I want to be Jessica Fletcher of Murder She Wrote. She's retired and spends her days writing and snooping around. And she lives in a cute, albeit homicide-riddled, Maine village.
Friday, May 24, 2013
Pardon Me While I Back The Bus Up
P.S.: I want to be Jessica Fletcher of Murder She Wrote. She's retired and spends her days writing and snooping around. And she lives in a cute, albeit homicide-riddled, Maine village.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Location, Don't Punch Me, Location.
I've got it down to three.
I wouldn't mind being Alvirah Meehan in Mary Higgins Clark World. There are no pictures of Alvirah - a cleaning lady - so here's one of Hilda Ogden, another iconic cleaning lady from the world of Coronation Street:
And - I realised when I dowloaded this photo of her - my identical apron twin.
Why Alvirah Meehan? Anyone who's seen my house will tell you I'm not cut out to be a cleaning lady. Well, Alvirah lives on 59th St in New York with a view of Central Park and - crucially - she is a lottery winner. Also, she's married to a plumber, which is like winning the lottery all over again.
If I couldn't be Alvirah, I'd be Isabel Dalhousie in Alexander McCall Smith's Sunday Philosophy Club series. Now Isabel is a philosopher with inherited wealth, and I'm beginning to look shallow here, but the crucial factor is that she lives in Edinburgh. She lives in a house like this one:
a place I understand, with window weights and shallow presses by the fireplace, encaustic tiles in the vestibule and sarking to keep an eye on. As I wonder about when to have my California house checked for termites again and begin to plan a new barn to replace the one that blew down, I could quite happily revert to a big lump of Scottish stone.
And if I lived in Merchiston then, right now, tonight, I could hop in my rusty little manual shift Fiesta and visit my mum.
My final choice is the serious answer: I'd like to be Minnie Cassands in the opening chapters of Margery Allingham's Beckoning Lady (before it all goes wrong). Minnie is a splendid old trout, married to a splendid old buffer - Tonker - and when we meet her she's in the midst of preparing for their annual spectacular - a completely bonkers garden party held at their house, The Beckoning Lady, in Suffolk. Ohhhh - just writing that much means I'm going to have to read it again.
Minnie wears a Mother Hubbard and - again - an apron, buys too much Champagne and serves it all, and says things like "clowns are children without innocence; that's why they're so awful". She's right too. When I first read the novel, years ago, I took to her on finding out that she polishes her dining table by putting towelling knickers on fat babies and letting them wriggle. That's my kind of housekeeping. And Minnie Cassands is my kind of gal.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Lost in a Good Book
"If you could step into the world of a fictional sleuth or crime-stopper, which would it be? What would be your role/character in their story?"
I confess, upon reading this week's question, I was tempted to offer up the Lily Moore series, by Criminal Minds' own Hilary Davidson. Lily is a travel writer, after all, who flits from Manhattan to Spain at the drop of a hat, and spends her workdays in luxury hotels from Acapulco to Machu Picchu. But then I got to thinking, and realized -- exotic locales aside -- folks in Lily's orbit don't exactly have a great survival rate. So maybe instead, I'll wait and see how Lily's trip to any given locale works out before I book my ticket, and steer clear of her in the meantime.
So if not Lily's, whose book-world would I most like to inhabit? Easy: that of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next. Thursday, for those not familiar, inhabits an alternate reality in which literature is the dominant pop culture, and travel between the real world and the world of books is not only possible, but common. Thursday is involved in policing literature both in the real world (as a Literary Detective) and within the world of fiction (as a member of Jurisfiction). She also has a pet dodo named Pickwick, because of course she does.
Sounds crazy, doesn't it? In truth, it kind of is. But if you're as much a bibliophile as I am, it might just be your brand of crazy. Folks communicate via footnoterphone. There is a Great Library, which consists of every book ever written, and within it, a Well of Lost Plots, which contains works either unpublished or unfinished. Every character ever written lives and breathes (though the poorly sketched ones are kinda boring to hang out with). Which, incidentally, takes the pressure off of me for part two of this week's question. Who in Thursday's world would I choose to be? Any character in the whole of human history I felt like.
Provided they're a safe distance from Lily Moore, of course.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
The Crime Tour Takes Ontario!
I've finally finished my book tour for Evil in All Its Disguises, and it was capped off in the best way I could imagine: a four-day, seven-event tour with fellow crime writers Ian Hamilton, Robert Rotenberg, and my dear partner in crime Robin Spano. We hit a series of towns in Ontario, and we had a blast.
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| At the Woodstock Art Gallery for an event sponsored by the Woodstock Public Library (L to R: Robert Rotenberg, Robin Spano, Ian Hamilton & me) |
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| At Centre Fellowship in Orangeville for an event sponsored by BookLore. We also raised $600 for the University Women Scholarship Fund! |
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| In Orangeville |
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| At the Clemens Mill Library in Cambridge |
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| Being introduced at the the Brantford Public Library |
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| Robin reading in the stunning event space at the Guelph Public Library |
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| Getting a hilarious intro at the the L.E. Shore Memorial Library in Thornbury. Two truths and one lie about each of us... |
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| Signing books in Thornbury |
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| Murder and Mayhem on Mother’s Day at the Manticore in Orillia |
In case you haven't guessed, I love doing library events. This is the second time Ian, Robin and I have toured together (last year we were in BC with Deryn Collier). Anyone have suggestions for next year's library tour?
Monday, May 20, 2013
Welcome to Ocean Beach
By Reece Hirsch
If I could inhabit a fictional world, I think I would choose the Ocean Beach of Don Winslow’s “The Dawn Patrol.” First, it’s probably the most thoroughly entertaining crime novel that I’ve read in the past few years. Second, I like the notion of being a charter member of the
"1. Double overheads.
Friday, May 17, 2013
The Professionals
Thursday, May 16, 2013
I Need Style
What reference work (dictionary, thesaurus, style guide, etc) is indispensable in your writing? Why?
Here’s what I’ve got on my reference bookshelf (yes, these are actual printed books!):
The Dictionary of Clichés![]()
The Bantam Medical Dictionary
The New International Dictionary of Quotations
What Happened When
Woe is I
Chicago Manual of Style
The Elements of Style (otherwise known as Strunk and White)
Mark My Words
Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript
Webster’s Dictionary
Roget’s Thesaurus
The Synonym Finder
Illustrated Reverse Dictionary
The New York Public Library Desk Reference
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Quotations
A Treasury for Word Lovers
Do I ever use these books? What, with the Internet a click away? Are you kidding? Truth is—for good or for bad—I do most of my research/grammar-checking/spell-checking/synonym-finding/procrastinating on line.
From time to time, however, I will crack open my Chicago Manual to check on some arcane usage question (I slept through my high school English classes). There’s just something about that authoritative tome that I trust!
(This entry is “simul-posted” on Criminal Minds.)
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Reading, Writing, and Reference
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
The Importance of Mothers in Crime Fiction
| My mom, who hasn't embarrassed me since I was Angus's age. Snorkeling in T&C. |
Monday, May 13, 2013
Just the answer I need
by Meredith Cole
When I started my first book, I carefully collected a dictionary, a thesaurus, a baby naming book and various writing and formatting books and lined them up on my bookshelf. I also added our giant French/English dictionary because it looked weighty and important. I was a writer and I needed to show the world I was serious about my craft.
So when do I crack open and consult all these tomes during my writing process? Uh, almost never. I think I've opened the baby naming book once or twice. I get to that point in the story where I realize that all my secondary characters have names starting with the letter "P" and I need to fix it right away. But I find baby naming websites much faster and easier to use (quick--what's a Lebanese boys name that starts with an "R"?).
But the dictionary and thesaurus have gathered some serious dust over the years as I've grown to want the instant gratification (and the immediate results) from online sites. If I can't remember how to spell something, Google will sometimes even help me out by suggesting the correct spelling. I find this so helpful that I manage to suppress my uneasiness about how much information Google is collecting about me. It's also great not to have to leave my computer and interrupt my writing flow since I write often somewhere other then my desk in my office.
I just had to go out and buy a new bookshelf so I could pick up all the novels piled onto my floor (reading for contests creates quite a lot of clutter!). Perhaps it's time to get rid of the dictionary and thesaurus and make some more shelf space. But then I think--maybe the Internet will go down and I'll need to know something right away! So I keep them and tell myself I'll crack them open again one of these days...
Friday, May 10, 2013
Where's a Bat When You Need One?
I'm so excited about this week's question because I've just completed a second book featuring Odelia Grey's mother, Grace Littlejohn.
| #5 Grace's 1st appearance |
Even though readers know the story of Odelia's missing mother from the beginning of the series, Grace first shows up as a full character in Corpse On The Cob, the 5th Odelia Grey novel. She has a new family, is sober but not very likable, and offers no apologies for the abandonment of her daughter. To complicate matters, the first time Odelia sees her mother in over 30 years, she's hovering over a dead body.
Odelia is tough-minded and independent, she's also used to being on her own, having had to carve her own path most of her life. Nothing was ever given to her. Her parents' volatile marriage and divorce, her mother's alcoholism and disappearance, and her father's marriage into a bullying family, all helped mold her, for better or for worse. When Odelia marries, is it any wonder she finds it difficult at first to see herself as part of a couple - a united we instead of a solitary I.
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| Grace's next appearance - Out December 2013 |
“Are you allowed to eat that?” I asked my mother. “Don’t you have a cholesterol problem, like Clark?”
Yes, they do...
And now for some shameless BSP:
In addition to the Odelia Grey mysteries and the Ghost of Granny Apples mysteries, I write a digital short story series - Holidays From Hell. And, yes, I have a Mother's Day story! It's called Pull My Paw, available for only 99 cents from Amazon.
A dog with a flatulence problem wasn’t high on Judy Bowen’s wish list of Mother’s Days gifts, no matter how cute the canine. So imagine her surprise when the spa gift her eldest daughter, Norma, usually gave her was substituted with a little dog named Crankshaft who suffers from tummy trouble.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
A tale of three mothers
Dandy Gilver's mother started her off with a good smack in the chops by naming her Dandelion. Mr and Mr Leston were great devotees of the Arts and Crafts movement, so popular in the late Victorian age, and it seemed like a good idea, I suppose, to call their daughter after one of England's most neglected wildflowers. I think, in contrast, that if you want someone in your family to have a funny name you should change your own.
After the christening, Dandy's mother receded and Nanny Palmer came to the fore, as was usual in the upper classes at the turn of the 19th century. It's Nanny Palmer whose voice is still in Dandy's head and whose spirit hovers.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
If you wanna find hell with me...
Yikes. This week's question is a doozy. I mean, I get the Mother's Day angle and all, but some of us Criminal Minders write dark fare indeed, so whatever our attitudes toward our own mothers (hi, Mom!), our characters aren't likely to've sprung happy and well-adjusted from stable, supportive homes.
Sam Thornton, the hero (antihero?) of my Collector series, is a bit of an outlier as far as mystery protagonists go. See, Sam died back in '44, felled by an emissary of hell as a result of the devil's bargain he made to save his dying wife. And ever since, he - much like the man who killed him - has spent his days collecting the souls of the damned at hell's behest.
Sam doesn't think about his birth-mother much; she's part of a life he's long since left behind. But that's not to say he doesn't have a mother-figure. His handler, Lilith, is at once his boss, his mentor, his jailor, his confessor, his occasional antagonist, and quite possibly his closest friend. She also happens to be the physical embodiment of lust and carnal sin, so it's a minor miracle poor undead Sam doesn't have more issues than Oedipus and Norman Bates combined.
Those who've read DEAD HARVEST and THE WRONG GOODBYE are well aware Sam and Lilith's relationship is a complex one to say the least. But believe me when I tell you, you ain't seen nothing yet. The third book in the series, THE BIG REAP, focuses in part on the genesis of their relationship. It brings us back to Sam's first shaky days in hell's employ. To his first encounter with Lilith. To his first, and maybe most epic, collection ever. And when you see how it goes down, you'll understand why he never calls, never writes...
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Indebted
You don't want to ask Lily Moore about her mother. If you've read my books, you know they had a terrible relationship. In The Damage Done, the NYPD detectives investigating the death of a woman found in her sister's apartment make the mistake of bringing up Lily's mother in an interview. It doesn't go well. In fact, it goes like this:
“Cards on the table,” said Bruxton. He put both hands on the table and leaned forward, so that his face hovered close to mine. I guessed he was in his late thirties, but up close I saw the fault lines etched into his face. The lines made him look older, but the scars made him seem dangerous. “When were you planning to tell us about your mother?”
“My mother?” My mouth was dry. “What does she have to do with this?”
“We know,” he said ominously.
“Know what?” I wasn’t going to make this easy for him. If he wanted to dredge up the past, he could do it alone.
“Your mother killed herself on New Year’s Eve eleven years ago.”
I stared back at him silently while my stomach clenched in a Gordian knot. For a moment I felt 18 again, as if I were hearing the news for the first time, feeling it with the force of a slap. Bruxton’s voice was as flat and jaded as that of the officer who had told me about my mother. There was something triumphant in his face that made it clear he knew more than he was saying. He expected me to roll over in shock, or break down in tears. Instead my hands clenched into fists under the metal table and my nails sliced into my palms. “What does that have to do with this dead woman I’ve never met before?”
Bruxton stood up straight. “You’re a hard case, aren’t you?”
“What do you think my mother has to do with this?” I said, my temper boiling over. “What, is that your first line of investigation when you find a dead body?”
“No, but in this case…” Bruxton snarled back.
“How did you find out about my mother?”
There was an awkward glance between the detectives. “Actually, Brux was…” Renfrew started to say, but her partner cut her off.
“A neighbor mentioned it,” he said.
“What neighbor?” I demanded.
“From down the hall. Sarah Lyons.”
The face of the woman I’d met the day before floated into my mind. Claudia told me a little of your family history, she’d said. I imagined her gleefully spilling every ounce of gossip she’d gathered to the police. She’d pretend to be concerned, but deep down this was amusing for her. I’d disliked her when she’d shown up at Claudia’s door; now I loathed her.
“Lily, it’s important you understand,” Renfrew continued. “We need to know all the facts in an investigation. Even if they don’t seem relevant to you.” Her calm voice was like balm on a wound.
I took a deep breath. “My mother killed herself, but before she did, she had made many attempts. She would take pills, then call for help. They had to pump her stomach out at the hospital. You can check with Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca. She was there four times.” My shoulders were trembling. “I don’t think she wanted to die. It was her way of controlling Claudia and me. If we did something she didn’t like, she would threaten to kill herself.”
“Had you done something she didn’t like?” Renfrew’s voice was soft. I nodded and looked down at my hands. They were wrestling in my lap like palsied snakes. “She didn’t want me to go back to college in New York City. I don’t think she meant to die. She just wanted me to come back, and not leave again.”There's no way to antagonize Lily faster than bringing up her family history. But it follows her around wherever she goes. In the latest book, Evil in All Its Disguises, she knows something is terribly wrong at the Acapulco resort where she's staying, but she finds it hard to accept. Deep down, she's terrified that her feelings are a sign of mental illness and that she's following in her mother shadowy footsteps:
It took all of my energy to get my laptop out of the safe and onto the bed. At least I wasn’t dizzy anymore. The pounding in my head was probably from my paranoid delusions. Had I really thought someone was poisoning me? That was pure paranoia, and if there was one thing that terrified me more than anything else, it was the idea that I might end up like my mother. She was a drunk, but that wasn’t the worst of it. My mother had paranoid delusions that sometimes made her abusive, though she wasn’t completely crazy. She was also incredibly manipulative, and she had a talent for getting under my skin, and Claudia’s, wounding us with barbed words that went in like arrows and couldn’t ever be cleanly extracted. The last thing my mother ever said to me was, You only care about yourself, you selfish little bitch. I used to spend a lot of time wondering if she’d really meant that, or if she’d simply relished wielding words like weapons. Then I’d made the decision to put her out of my mind, and I did my best to stick to that.
When I was getting The Damage Done ready for publication, it hit me suddenly that people might mistake Lily's mother for my own. I realized that I'd given Lily my career and travel history and some of my personal quirks, and so it wouldn't be a stretch for people to wonder if my family history was like Lily's. That couldn't be further from the truth. My mom, Sheila Davidson, is my best friend, main cheerleader, and the kindest person I've ever known. She is also an unusually wise woman: when I was in second grade, she recognized my nature for what it was and got me into karate (a gift that keeps on giving). She's also the first reader on all of my books. This Mother's Day, all I can say is that I won the lottery when it comes to moms, and it's made all the difference in my life. I ended up dedicating The Damage Done to my mom, saying, "For my mother, Sheila Davidson, for so many reasons." Now you know some of the reasons!























