"Mother! Oh God, Mother!"

By Jeannie

Before I answer this week's burning question, I'd like to take a moment to thank my fellow criminal minds for inviting me to join them. I'm honored to be included in such a diverse and frighteningly creative group.

Now, on with the show!

This week we're discussing whether or not we've ever worried about our family's reaction to a scene we'd written. Short answer: Yes...sort of. Let me explain why.

I'm a native of southwestern Mississippi. I grew up in a rural area with conservative values. Crime, sex, and the supernatural were not topics discussed around the family dinner table. Sex was especially taboo. When I asked my mother were babies came from, as all children do, she changed the subject. So I asked my older brother. His answer was that I'd been found under a dirty cabbage leaf in the garden. (For those who haven't heard this before, I grew up what was essentially a 40-acre farm.) I then asked my older sister, the nurse, and well, let's just say that I was the most well-informed six-year-old in first grade.

Do I worry about my family's reaction to a scene I've written? Sort of. I'm not worried so much about how my siblings will react. No, the reaction I'm most worried about is my mother.

Mom is everything you would expect to find in a sweet, Southern lady. She raised her children to sit up straight, be polite, mind their manners, and eat their vegetables. When we misbehaved, we had to stand with our noses in a corner of the kitchen in her version of Time Out. Having her daughter write about vampire cops tracking vicious serial killers through the streets of small Mississippi towns was not a subject for which Mom ever considered she'd need to be prepared. Naturally, I have discussed certain aspects of BLOOD LAW with her, just to give her a "head's up." I'm not worried about the murders, or even the sex. She's already said she'd skip over the sex scenes. No, I'm worried about "The Shower Scene."

I'm sure we're all familiar with Alfred Hitchcock's "shower scene" in Psycho, one of my all-time fave films. It's masterfully filmed and the transition from the blood (actually chocolate sauce) swirling down the drain to the unblinking, lifeless eye of Janet Leigh's character lying on the floor gives me shivers. Then comes Norman's cry of "Mother! Oh God, Mother! Blood! Blood!" Oh, yes, Hitchcock knew how to create tension and chills.

While I'd never seek to compare myself to the Master of Suspense, I have my own "shower scene." I can't go into great detail because I want to save the full shock of the scene for my readers, but I can say that it is a powerfully telling scene about my antagonist. Yes, it involves my bad guy and not in the way you'd probably think. In all honesty, I'm surprised the scene made it into the final book. I actually expected my editor to ask me to cut it. When she didn't I began asking myself why. After reading it through again for copy editing, I now realize that what I'd considered a late addition scene was one of the most insightful, and yet creepy scenes, in the entire book. The question that is formed in the reader's mind at that moment is very similar to the one that forms in the viewer's mind when watching Psycho: How much of what I'm seeing (or reading) is real?

For me, "The Shower Scene" is a key scene, but it's also the one I worry about the most when I think of my mother reading my book. I'm hitting a couple of different taboos in that one scene, and depending on her reaction, I think there's a kitchen corner with my name on it in my future.

Oops - My Bad

Gabriella Herkert

Catnapped and Doggone

You’d have to read the dedication in my first book, Catnapped, to know what I think of the mistakes in my books. I do what every self-respecting toddler does, I blame them on other people. Which is handy since there are plenty. The truth is, they're all mine. Each and every boo-boo has my paw prints on it. I make mistakes of fact and timing and plot and character. I am ever grateful for the readers who accept the unseen wink and cut me a little slack. But I’m also grateful for the eagle-eyed readers who let nothing get by them.

It wasn’t the worst mistake I ever made (I sometimes cut my own hair – believe me that is far worse than anything that could end up on a piece of paper) but my most memorable spotting situation arose when I received an email in response to my first book about three weeks after it came out from an avid mystery reader. Three weeks. That is real time for a first time author without a major publicity storm surrounding her. My fabulous feline character Flash, the only character in my debut based on an actual “person,” had mysteriously changed color. You have to understand, Flash was real. She lived to be nearly twenty years old and I saw her every day for the first thirteen years of her life before I went away to college and in the middle of the story, for no reason whatsoever, she went from gray to black. Clairol take me away.

That’s bad, I know. But it got worse. The reader didn’t tell me exactly where it happened. Just “in the middle.” I had no doubt whatsoever that the amazing Mood-Ring Cat did magically change color. This reader quoted entire passages, told me that the clothes I put on Russ in one scene didn’t match (I write what I know) and gave me page number references for three typos. I knew she was right. Flash had somehow gone dark. I wrote to thank her for reading the book with such care but couldn’t admit I didn’t know when I’d gone off the tracks. I reread the entire manuscript twice and couldn’t spot the mistake. I went out and bought a copy of the finished book, for full price mind you, at a big name bookstore to see if somehow Flash had managed to get Crayolaed in the final version when the manuscript had stayed true to her natural coloring. I couldn’t go to the Seattle Mystery Bookshop because they know me there and would ask me why I needed to buy a copy of my own book. What would I say? I’m checking page by page to see if my fur ball ended up with an editorial dye job? And forget about using Microsoft’s magical search engine to find the problem. Any idea how often a mystery writer uses the word black in a four hundred page book? Night is black. Clouds are black. Guns are black. Black is the new black and it’s on every page.

It took me longer to find the paint job than it had taken that amazing reader to write to me. I became obsessed. Crazed. Nuttier than I already was which is pretty darn nuts. But darned if that reader wasn’t right. And if anyone reading this decides to duplicate my lunacy, I’ll send the first person who sends me a correct page reference a fleece vest with the Catnapped logo.

Thanks for reading. And letting me know when age has impaired my ability to match my own socks.

Gabi

Guilty. Again.

By Michael

As I join Josh, CJ, Jeannie, Kelli, Joshua, Sophie, Shane, Tim, and Gabriella – “Criminal Minds” whose writing I greatly admire – I wish could say that I’ve been innocent of making mistakes in my writing. The man who made them may have looked like me, but I was out of town, at home asleep, anywhere but at the scene of the crime. I wish. But while my readers have been too kind to alert me to the mistakes I’ve made, my editors have saved me from a few, ranging from small to very large, that otherwise would have gone into print.

One of the small: In THE LAST STRIPTEASE, a corrupt ex-judge, living the high life, owns a 280 Sun Sport powerboat. I’ve never been on a 280 Sun Sport. I’ve never even seen one in person. But I Google with the best of them and I decided that this boat had the right amount of testosterone for a guy like the ex-judge. I did have enough experience with boats, though, to know that a 280 Sun Sport must be 28 feet long, unless the 280 meant 280 feet, which it didn’t since ads for the boat showed bikini models stretched most of the length of the front deck and I knew they weren’t taller than six or seven feet at most, including the legs. So, I wrote the following lines: “If you stood the judge’s boat on its end, you could use it as a rocket. Twenty-eight feet of speed and power.” Except the 280 Sun Sport isn’t twenty-eight feet long. As my copyeditor informed me, it’s twenty-nine. Why my copyeditor bothered to check that fact I never asked. But I was grateful.

One of the large: THE LAST STRIPTEASE wasn’t originally called THE LAST STRIPTEASE. It was called LITTLE DOGS IN LEATHER CORSETS. It’s a name that’s close to my heart and if I ever buy a 280 Sun Sport I’ll paint it on its stern. But my first readers looked confused after finishing the manuscript and said in the kind of soft tones one uses with the sadly misguided, “Mike, there are no dogs in the book. And no leather corsets.” I corrected them: there are, in fact, two dogs and both of them wear leather corsets, if only for a moment and in an incidental scene. But I took the concern to heart and changed the title to UNROBED. St. Martin’s bought the book under that name, but my editor’s first question was “What do you think of your title” – this in a tone that said how little she thought of it – and I answered, “Actually, I’d prefer to call it LITTLE DOGS IN LEATHER CORSETS.” After an uncomfortable pause, she said, “What do you think of THE LAST STRIPTEASE.” “I love it,” I said.

Thank God for editors.

MY EMBARRASSING MISTAKES ...

No, no--these aren't embarrassing mistakes. (Shame on you for even thinking that, O dear reader!) They are reader Kaye Barley (center) and crime writers Ken Bruen (left) and yours truly at Bouchercon 2008. I'm running this photo because Kaye's the November winner of our Barnes & Noble gift certificate! More on that below; meantime, Shane's Biggest Mistakes . . .

It's true. I've never had a reader point out a mistake. I've been reamed on a few occasions for something a character said or did, but never for a factual error.

Which is not to say I haven't made one. I surely have an array of bonehead errors over the course of BLOWN AWAY and CUT TO THE BONE. I will surely have more in TORN APART, coming to bookstores July 6. (Yes, I took a correspondence course in plugging myself while confessing my sins. I got an A.) I certainly will eff-up in every book I write.

Why? Cause I'm human.

I take extremely seriously my duty to prevent errors, to the extent of driving for hours to locations to see if facts on the ground match my Mapquest research (online maps are mostly right, but not infallible); dripping gasoline on my tongue to accurately describe the taste (bitter and metallic, with aftertones of leather, citrus and persimmons); and wading into an icy river to see what physical reactions my detective hero, Emily Thompson, might experience when escaping a serial killer (for the record, that would be shivering, gasping, curling in on myself, and shrinkage, though that's a problem for the author, not Emily, cause she's a girl and, um, yes, well, let's move on, shall we?)

But nobody's perfect, and the face-reddening errors are probably there. It's just that readers haven't called any to my attention. (This is where Rebecca and Kel would normally jump in to shout, "What readers????" but they're imbued with the holiday spirit and thus holding themselves back.) Naturally, I choose to take the readers' silence as, I Have Committed None.

Who says denial is just a river ...

NEWS FLASH: NOVEMBER'S WINNER IS KAYE BARLEY

Applause! Applause! The fabulous and talented Kaye Barley, a voracious reader who brightens every book conference she attends, is the winner of November's Criminal Minds prize for ... uh, just being you. We appreciate your followage of our efforts no end, Kaye, and to prove it, I'll send you a Barnes & Noble gift certificate. And, if you promise not to point out my embarassing mistakes, an autographed copy of CUT TO THE BONE, my current book. Everone join me in huzzahs for Mrs. B, and check out her own wonderful blog at:
http://meanderingsandmuses.blogspot.com/

PEOPLE I WANNA SLAP SILLY(CONT.)

A Sarah Palin speech scheduled at the private College of the Ozarks in southwest Missouri was expected to draw a crowd of 5,000, and the school said it agreed to keep out reporters. The few media outlets that did manage to gain access to the speech did so by using one of the free tickets given away to the public, and the college asked they not report on Palin's address."I can't take their tickets and ask them to leave, but we have asked them (local reporters) not to (attend)," said College of the Ozarks spokeswoman Elizabeth Andrews.

My comment: The public has every right in the world to hear the thoughts of this highly public figure who might run for the presidency, Ms. Andrews. We do that through reporters, as we can't be there outselves. Which is why your "no reporters" closure reminds me so much of the "No dogs or Jews" signs we saw on public beaches not so terribly long ago. What are you afraid a reporter might see, anyway? It's not like a presidential candidate would say something inane like "I can see Russia from my front porch ..."

Shane Gericke's third crime thriller, TORN APART, will be published July 6, 2010, by Kensington. Visit him at www.shanegericke.com

O Vocative, Where Art Thou?

By Kelli

"What's the most embarrassing mistake you made in a book that got caught by a sharp eyed reader?"

Ahem. A mortifying topic. And here we are, exposing ourselves in public, admitting that we're actually (gasp) fallible. :) (and Shane, no comments from you or Rebecca about "exposure", OK?)

I recently received a review in an academic newsletter for members of a Classics organization. I'm glad to say it was very positive ... but it did point out an error in the Latin in NOX DORMIENDA.

Y' see, Latin nouns have these things called cases. The cases all have different endings and serve different grammatical functions (the nominative is a noun that's a subject, the accusative is a direct object, etc.). The vocative case is used in direct address: "O Copy Editor, why must thou mess with my words?" That kind of thing.

When I first wrote NOX, I wasn't going to use the vocative form, even in direct address. Then I changed my mind.

Hence, the error. I forgot to change every single instance of direct address to the vocative case, and with second declension masculine nouns ending in -us, that means changing the -us to an "e", and ... and ... hey, wake up out there!


Other things I had to watch out for: the right kind of Latin. Latin changed over the centuries (fancy that!) and the Latin from Plautus' era (you probably know him, even if you haven't heard of him--his plays were the basis for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum) was a lot different from Latin in the first century AD. Which was much different than medieval ecclesiastical Latin, etc. I made sure the Latin used was consistent with the era and not too archaic. And of course, there is a lot of Latin profanity in the book, too ...

Now that you know more about an ancient language than you were bargaining for, I hope you'll forgive me for not including quite as much raw Latin in CURSED, the sequel to NOX. Still plenty of pithy epithets and even a phrase from Cicero--cui bono--that has become a staple of criminal investigation techniques everywhere. But honestly ... I don't want to mess with the vocative again.

It could kick Caesar's butt!

P.S. The grammatical construction in "NOX DORMIENDA" is called a passive periphrastic. It takes the noun (NOX, meaning night) and combines it with a gerundive (DORMIENDA--a kind of verbal adjective, that ends in "a" to agree with the feminine gendered NOX). The passive periphrastic connotes obligation or necessity. In this case, it means--literally--a night that must be slept. In other words .... The Big Sleep. :)

Did I do that...?

by Josh

Yes, it's true. By way of introduction I quoted Steve Urkel, not because I was a fan of his show but because, well, of all fictional characters in the history of the narrative form, he is the one whom I most resemble.

Let me elaborate with a topical example.

Like any good neurotic scribe, I devote as much thought to my Acknowledgments page as I do the rest of the novel. Should I thank my father before my mother, and if I do, does that mean no more surprise sweaters from Mom? If I ignore my friends from high school, does that mean they'll ignore me at our 20th reunion? Decisions, decisions. But, finally, after I believe the 99th rewrite, I decided that my Acknowledgments page for my first novel, Nuclear Winter Wonderland, was finalized and I zipped it off to my editor.

A few months later, the proof for said book arrived. Mmmm, proof of said book, argchghgh...

Once I'd finished fondling my proof, I studiously perused its contents to circle any errata. This was it. I was the last defense between my baby and the public. I was going to be diligent. I was going to be exacting. I was going to need a lot of red pens.

Finished with my task, and proud of my hard work, I sent the proof back to my editor and awaited the day when my novel would be in the hands of Barnes & Nobles customers all around the country.

MOTHER: Oh, Virginia, you have to read this new book - there are no typos!
DAUGHTER: Really? Is he single?

Ah, hubris. Because, as it turned out, there was one glaring mistake, and it was right there on the much-deliberated Acknowledgments page. Perhaps I could have caught it during my perusal of the proof, but I, in my foolishness, had concentrated on the contents of the novel. And now it was out there, in the world, irretrievable.

MOTHER: Oh, Virginia, can you believe the author forgot to mention his stepmother in his special thanks?
DAUGHTER: He must be single.

Yes. Yes, it's true. My stepmother's name was not there. Had she been an Evil Stepmother, the kind who colloquied with mirror mirrors, that omission might have been excusable, but my father's new wife was and is the warmest, most lovable, and most giving person ever born in the state of Minnesota. When my father was in despair over his divorce from my mother, when he was lonely and despondent, this woman, Shiela Aldes (correct spelling), appeared in his life and she changed his life (and thus, by extension, mine). I would have preferred a thousand typos to this one boneheaded mistake.

And as it turns out, there were a thousand typos as well - but more on that another time.

Bloopers

From CJ

What's the most embarrassing mistake you made in a book that got caught by a sharp eyed reader?

Grrrr.....don't you just hate it when this happens? I'm especially sensitive to it when it's something medical. Like the opening credits to HOUSE which consistently showed an Xray backwards (the heart is meant to be on the LEFT in most humans!)--although, HOUSE is so filled with outrageous medical bloopers, that I haven't watched it in years, so they may have fixed that by now.

But given that a recent survey revealed that over 1/3 of Americans "learn" about medicine from prime-time dramas like HOUSE and GREY'S ANATOMY, well, let's just say that makes things a bit disheartening for someone like me, a real-life doc who tries her best to get things right in her books while still keeping them as entertaining as possible.

Which isn't easy--medicine changes so darn fast that sometimes what I carefully researched and was correct when I wrote the book has been reversed by the time I get to copyedits. Like for LIFELINES when the American Heart Association changed all of their resuscitation protocols while I was working on the book! I had to wade through 400+ pages of new protocols to make sure my doctors and nurses were doing things right.

Of course, they've since changed....again! Medicine is like that, which is why I try to give writers a break when I see things that are wrong. Except for that whole heart is on the left side thing, sorry House, that hasn't changed and probably won't anytime soon.

What really bothers me isn't when a writer gets a fact wrong, it's when they get an entire profession wrong. Any real world doctor who made as many mistakes as the "Nation's best diagnostician" would have had their license yanked and be in debt from the malpractice and civil suits long ago--in not in jail for assault and battery.

Yet House not only thrives, he is pampered, coddled, and encouraged in his outlandish violations of ethics, scientific thinking (no, throwing every antibiotic in existence at a patient just "in case" they have an infection is not sound science), and logic (yes, let's please have the junior medical staff member be the one to drill into my brain instead of a fully trained neurosurgeon)

Only a great actor like Hugh Laurie could pull it off--and we love him for it! We forgive him for getting things wrong 3 times out of 4 and almost killing his patients time and again with his incompetence. Now that's genius! Acting and writing.

If only it weren't about medicine, then maybe I could sit back and enjoy, lol!  And for your enjoyment, here's a HOUSE blooper reel:



So, what books, TV show, or movie drives you nuts with their "bloopers"?
CJ

About CJ:
As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels. Her debut, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), became a National Bestseller and Publishers Weekly proclaimed it a "breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller."

The second in the series, WARNING SIGNS, was released January, 2009 and the third, URGENT CARE, October, 2009. Contact her at http://www.cjlyons.net

Star Struck

Gabriella Herkert

Catnapped and Doggone

Do I ever get star-struck? I’d like to pretend that I never, ever lose my cool, but I was a fan, a reader, a rabid devourer of literature long before my first book made it into print. Being in the same room as some of the people whose pictures smile at me from the back covers sitting on my bed stand honestly gives me chills. Naturally, I’m excluding those authors who are already dead. I’d still get chills but they’d be a whole different kind of physiological response and, an entirely new genre.

Harlan Coben was at Bouchercon a couple of years ago. I love his stuff, both the Myron Bolitar series and the stand alones. I particularly like how he’ll take a minor character in one book and give them a starring role in a completely new story or vice versa. So, I got my chance. He was on a panel just ahead of a panel I was doing. The line to talk to him was around the block. I stood. I waited. And waited. He was incredibly generous with his time and, I suppose, his wisdom although I was too far back to hear. I got close enough to tell that he is taller sitting down than I am standing on a box. Then, nature called. Loudly. I could abandon my post and speak on my own panel in relative comfort or I could meet “the man” and ask the embarrassing question that had plagued me since I first read an interview with him years before. What can I say? I’m weak and so is my bladder. I never did get to meet him. He was always surrounded by people and I just couldn’t think of an articulate lead-in to what I really wanted to know. I was dying to know …and missed my chance to find out...if he’d kept in touch with the roommate who’d been the inspiration for Win Lockwood. Him I’d really like to meet. In the end, it was a little too literati eHarmony with witnesses for my comfort level. Too bad since I’ve got a penchant for the true psychos.

Unlike my spineless Coben debacle, I did introduce myself to Janet Evanovich at the MWA Edgar symposium several years ago. She’s the size of my thumb. Very tiny but a ball of energy even from across the room. I felt we were kindred spirits based mostly on the two most obvious things we have in common, smart mouths and red hair. I wanted to ask about her agent, how she’d redefined mystery and broken out of the romance mode. When it came time, however, I asked about her shoes. She was wearing basic white sneakers. I hadn’t seen them while I’d been awaiting my turn and was so shocked to see Stephanie Plum’s alter ego in Keds that I blurted it out. “What’s with the shoes?” Deadpan, she told me she was going bra shopping and wanted to be comfortable while doing it. A smarter, faster brain than mine would have had a comeback or at least been able to process the information. I must admit, I was flummoxed. Yes, flummoxed. Not a state I generally find myself in. I did suggest Nordstroms had a nice selection. She could have been messing with me. Or she could just have been a woman in need of undergarments. The magic that is Janet Evanovich left me never knowing which. Even now, I laugh, thinking about it. I’ve even incorporated it into my own non-sequitor repartee. When asked, by someone who clearly couldn’t care less, what I’m up to I say ‘bra shopping.’ By the time my response is processed, I’m striding away in my comfortable shoes. Hey, I'm living in the Pacific Northwest. Berkenstocks are considered high fashion.

Final confession. I, like every writer trying to get to that moment when writing might actually be enough to provide three square meals a day, am stalking Oprah Winfrey. I don’t write Oprah book club books. Not the ones she used to pick or the more recent crop of non-fiction or classics. I haven’t even read many of the ones that have received the magical nod. But I want people to read what I write. When she says the word, millions hear her. And she’s still reading. In a world where she’s made billions on television, she clearly still fondles the pages of her favorite dog-eared books. Just like her audience. I would love people to read my books or stories but I’d be happy just to say thank you for keeping reading cool. It matters to every author. It matters to every reader. And I am, as always, both.

Thanks for reading today.

Gabi

Welcome to the family

When I first attended a crime writing conference years ago, a very kind woman pulled me aside and said, "This is your first conference, isn't it?"

Clearly I had the stunned look of someone unused to walking around with a badge around his neck, bumping into authors you'd read for years, and signing books for fans you didn't even know you had. I think I'd gone to the conference with some trepidation about writers, anxious there might be a cloud of literary pretense hovering over the whole affair. I couldn't have been more wrong and have never forgotten this woman's keen observation about the mystery world.

"Crime writers spend their whole day killing people on the page, so they get all their aggressions out. They're lovely, unpretentious people." And then she paused and added, "There are only 3 or 4 jerks, and we all know who they are."

She nailed it, and I had a blast at that conference. Sure, I met some people I admired over the years, and they didn't disappoint. But in the crime fiction arena those in the know realize it isn't about big names or little names, just that we're all in it together, and that's why you go to the conferences. To hang out with the people you love, dear friends whose names you see regularly on the bookshelves but whose faces you see only two or three times a year.

ONLY ONE AUTHOR I'D GO SEE ...

John Sandford. Great guy. Superb novelist. Blows-out-your-eyeballs protags in Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers. Fellow ex-newspaperman, won the Pulitzer even though I ... didn't. Yep, I'd fly anywhere, anytime, to see John at a conference.

But that's it. Just John.

And, Jodi Picault. Maybe her. All right, yes, definitely her. Tremendous stories about seriously messed-up families, which isn't normally my cup of tea, as I prefer thrillers, but the writing's so damn compelling I can't help but read.

But that's it. Nobody else ...

Except Tom Wolfe. Dennis Lehane. Robert B. Parker.

And that really is it.

Cause hell, I've met all the rest at a conference ...

Thanksgiving!

By Kelli

"What big name author is enough to get me to a conference?"

Well--to echo my fellow CMs--I don't go to conferences to meet big name authors. I go to meet and visit and talk with everyone I can, from pre-published authors to readers to book dealers to librarians to bloggers to editors to journalists to fans ... because, taken as a whole, this entire community--the whole maryann, as my Dad likes to say--is wonderful, and one of the biggest joys in my life.

That said, some of the greatest names in this business belong to some of the truly nicest people--people who epitomize the supportive spirit and overwhelming generosity that characterizes writers who write about crime. And I'd go out of my way to meet many of them--especially if I could get a chance to thank them personally for the inspiration or support they've given me.

Magical, wonderful things happen at conferences ... lifetime friendships form, relationships blossom, creative energies get refilled. My first Bouchercon--Alaska, 2007--will always be very special to me, and the people I met there share a certain bond. In fact, that conference kicked off CITY OF DRAGONS--I came home and started writing. Just one reason why the book is dedicated to that event and the incredible community it represents.

I try my hardest never to miss Bouchercon, Thrillerfest, Left Coast Crime ... and I hope to add Crimebake and Sleuthfest and Crimefest and Malice Domestic to that list eventually.


So yeah, I love conferences ... because I love the people who go to them. :) And for all of them, I'll be saying a very sincere and deeply felt thank you, as we officially celebrate Thanksgiving.

And thank you, loyal CM readers! We've made it to the six month point with our virtual conference panel, and hope to be bringing you more fun and thought-provoking posts in the next year. :)

Take care, everybody!

Love You, Love Your Book

by Sophie

What big name author is enough to get you to a conference?

There are writers I admire for their prose alone. There are writers I didn't take much notice of until I met them, and then I loved them instantly for their kindness and their smarts and their humor, and by the transitive property of my affections, I loved their work as well. There are a handful of writers I admired until I met them and found them boorish or arrogant or, worst of all, mean - and then I wished I'd never met them at all because their work is now dead to me.

If it's on the tip of your tongue to impugn this notion, save your breath. I completely understand that I'm not supposed to judge works of literature based on the nature of the authors who penned them. Too bad. That's the way I work and I'm not going to change. My love of fiction is visceral; if I love a story it bumps and roils in my head through all the days of its reading (and those are likely to be several; I am not a one-sitting reader) and its tendrils reach into everything I do. The story becomes like -

I know: the story becomes like this. You're in grade school and you've stolen a sheet of your mom's good watercolor paper (because your mom was an artist - more on that another time). You also stole a bit of charcoal crayon. Using charcoal on watercolor paper is never a good idea, but you can't resist because of the gorgeous texture of the paper and the allure of getting that sin-black dust all over your fingers. Anyway you take a shot, you draw a horse, it doesn't work (it never works) you erase the whole mess with one of those gummy gray erasers (oh I can get high off the smell of those things just remembering) and then for penance you go ahead and paint some insipid thing in watercolor. A scene of a rocky shore, let's say. But underneath is the shadow of your failed drawing. Its traces show through the paint. No one else sees it, but no matter how many family members dutifully ooh over your little ocean picture, all along *you* know that it's the horse beneath that they are really looking at.

So it is with a story. Back when I was reading the early Lehane series, I would go through my days carpooling and picking out tile and going to the grocery store, and I would appear to be saying all the appropriate things ("Let's go with the darker grout" and "Three McNugget Happy Meals, please") but all the while, Patrick and Angela were right there with me, whispering in my ears and causing a hell of a distraction.

When you live with stories like that, their source - their authorship - becomes very important. At least to me. Its an intimacy that perhaps trumps all others - access to my imagination, most cherished quadrant of my brain for sure. Not just anyone gets to come stomping in there. Enter that realm and turn out to be a jerk - it's the equivalent of tracking mud on my carpets and ashing in the potted plants and calling my dog ugly. And I can't read you any more.

I would rather be deceived. I would rather live in ignorance, believing the best of you, never meeting you at all. But that's not possible, because at heart I'm curious as can be, and I can't ever seem to get out of the bar anyway, so eventually I'll meet every author ever born.


And as I said it's far more common for me to be pleasantly surprised. Like when I met Laura Benedict. there she was, sitting at a table with these patterned tights and tasteful ankle boots and I was completely intrigued because, honestly, what kind of darkness could such a polished woman possibly write? We talked the evening away and I loved her right away and I got home and picked up her book and bam, instant fan. I think it's because of her exquisitely gruesome ordinary-world-meets-unspeakable-horror skills, but it sure doesn't hurt that she's, you know, Laura.

Anyway, I think I wandered a little there. Would I go to a conference just to see a cherished author? No...and I might even avoid them just to keep the magic alive - the magic being the impossible big shoes I have created for them in my mind. Much safer to hang around with all the good souls. I just spent the weekend at this writing thing with some stuck-like-glue friends. I love their books - how could I not? Because I love them.

Cornelia Read at the Berkeley Mystery Writing Intensive last weekend

A certain agent reacting to Cornelia's book - trying to reconcile the author with her work?

Because You Never Know

What big name author is enough to get you to a conference?

By Rebecca Cantrell


I thought I was going to be the first curmudgeon of the week, but CJ beat me to it. She’s right though. I don’t go to conferences hoping to meet big name authors. Not that I’m not thrilled when I do. It was wonderful finding out that Lee Child is as charming as everyone says, the James Rollins is very funny, and when I met R.L. Stine it took all my self control not to go all fan-girl on him.

But the people I spend most of my time with are other writers whom I know and don’t get a chance to see enough of, such as our very own Kelli Stanley and Sophie Littlefield, both of whom are pee-in-the-pants funny. Or wise and funny CJ Lyons. Or the ever charming Tim Maleeny and Shane Gericke. I’ve never met Gabi, but I want to, even if I won’t eat anything she gives me after reading her questions to Lisa Black, whom I also met in Indianapolis.

And then there are the wonderful wild cards. This year I finally got to meet Jen Forbus. I didn’t spend as much time with her as I would have liked because I got cornered by a guy who wanted to talk about Prague in 1589, which was likewise fascinating.

I also met a former world champion fencer and writer, Mitchell Graham, who actually met Helene Mayer (she won the silver medal for Germany in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and was the only Jewish athlete competing on the German team). She shows up in my next novel, A GAME OF LIES, as do references to fencing that are now much more accurate.

I once sat next to a very shy woman at a technical translation conference who turned out to have written her PhD thesis on Weimar Germany and had translated novels and autobiographies from some its major players. This was a few months after I decided to set my book in 1931 (the end of Weimar-era Germany).

You could never get away with this in a movie, as the coincidences are just too great. But for me, conferences are always like that. I just happen to stand next to someone who has the most amazing story to tell. It’s not always a big name, although it sometimes is (I don’t think I can ever look in Joseph Finder’s freezer without cracking a smile). Sometimes it’s another early career writer like me, or a writer who isn’t yet published, or a reader, a historian.

It’s not the big names that get me to a conference, it’s everyone.

No such thing as a "small" name....

From CJ

What big name author is enough to get you to a conference?

Honestly? No one. Okay, before you throw tomatoes at me, there are a number of reasons.

#1 Big names at big conferences draw big crowds--what are the odds of getting any "quality" time with them if you don't already know them?

#2 As a professional writer, I'm at conferences to connect with readers of my work, both old and new. So I choose my conferences based on the kind of audience they draw.  I'm more interested in which fans will be there than which "big" names.

#3 Conferences cost money (usually more than it would for me to travel abroad for a week! but then I'm a frugal traveler) and time, neither of which I have a whole lot of right now.

So that's the reality. But here's another reality--relax and let good things happen.

That's how I met the wonderful David Morrell at my first Bouchercon in Toronto. I said hello and told him I lived in Scotia, PA where he set several short stories, precursors to his First Blood novel.

We chatted and he personally escorted me to the very first International Thriller Writers meeting--where I then met tons of my other "gods" and "goddesses". It was at that same Bouchercon where I also met two of my all time thriller heroines: Lisa Gardner and Tess Gerritsen.

This led my becoming the Chair of the first ThrillerFest (a job Shane has this year for TFest #5) which led to my meeting Sandra Brown, Clive Cussler, Lee Child, and many, many more life-long heroes of mine.

Most important weren't the "big" names I had the chance to meet, but the many wonderful not-so-big-yet names who have now become my closest and dearest friends--some published, some unpublished, some writers, some readers, and all more valuable than any chance to shake hands with a "big" name in a bigger crowd.

So my advice? If you're a fan, then by all means go to conferences--we writers love, love, love meeting our readers!!!

If you're a writer and looking for networking opportunities, then get involved!

And for both, volunteer! You never know who you'll be teamed up with--you may end up driving Robert Crais from the airport or escorting Nora Roberts to a signing....

So who is your dream-come-true "big" name to meet?
CJ


About CJ:
As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels. Her debut, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), became a National Bestseller and Publishers Weekly proclaimed it a "breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller."

The second in the series, WARNING SIGNS, was released January, 2009 and the third, URGENT CARE, October, 2009. Contact her at http://www.cjlyons.net