Harrogate Highlights

Donna Moore notes that Kevin Wignall "looks bugger all like his author photo" and she isn’t the first to make that observation. We’ll have to keep an eye on Contemporary Nomad to see if Mr. Wignall will admit to playing with photoshop to disguise his identity.

Julie Lewthwaite admits to sharing a bench with someone, and I find myself wondering if it’s the person Donna referred to being benched in her post. Ah, the rumours begin…

Vincent may have proven men don’t have the staying power of women, since he lives much closer to Harrogate than Donna does and couldn’t even manage three full lines so far. And he didn't have to deal with crutches either! (Look for more here in the coming days, when he’s slacking off from work, making fake wounds or filming.)

Man of few words that he is, Al Guthrie has only managed this so far.

Russel of the bench and hangovers took my threat about taking advantage of his cell phone number at ungodly hours seriously and actually managed a Friday post. I responded in kind by not ringing him up at 5 am. There's always next year.

James hasn’t checked in yet, but no doubt will in the days ahead.

Stuart did check in with the best blog post title regarding Al’s Theakstons win.

And Euro Crime has posted a bit so far and I expect there will be more details in the coming week.

Incidentally, I got that press release as well, which I thought was interesting. Not the details, just the fact that I got it. I always find it really weird when I get some sort of detailed but somehow impersonal press release on an author I know. Considering some of the things I’ve talked to Al about on the record I felt this release really tried to highlight his sweet and respectable side. Steered clear of the sexual habits of rodents and fish completely. And look at that photo. Does that look like the kind of guy who would kill puppies in fiction?

I’m sure we’ll also have a full recap from John Rickards but the last photo he posted prompted me to scrub my eyes with steel wool, so I can’t link over there. I’m still only seeing shadows, thanks to that.

And, of course, I’ll be looking forward to Ali Karim’s recap when it’s up.

There will undoubtedly be more posts to come, and I’ll try to add links in the coming days, but this is the cheat sheet for all the blogs you won’t want to miss.

Confessions of a Reader Who Never Fell Under Harry Potter’s Spell

JK Rowling is without a doubt one of the most influential authors in the world. Despite whatever critics say about her work, twenty years from now parents will read Harry Potter to their children and remember it as a book they loved from their childhood, something to share and pass on, the way people have passed on Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and Anne of Green Gables. If I had children, it would be the first two, not the third (which I’ve never read), The Great Brain series, the works of Jack London and Gordon Korman’s Bruno and Boots series, which he wrote the first book for when he was in grade 7.

Those books we read and loved as children stay with us over the years. Perhaps it’s because we read them at an age where it was still possible to believe a magic world was waiting on the other side of a wardrobe. Perhaps it’s because the greatest thing about being a child is having the ability to escape from the harsh realities of the real world without having the same experience of those realities that most adults have had to face, and returning to those books is like returning to a gentler time in our lives, when things weren’t so complicated.

Whatever the reasons, things we grow to love as children do stay with us. And for this reason alone, I admire JK Rowling.

Okay, so I haven’t read the books. I have read a few reviews, so I’m aware of the criticisms. I’m an author, so I’m aware of the jealousy factor. I didn’t read the books for a variety of reasons. One is that I have a bit of an aversion to anything too popular. I tend to catch on to things in syndication. Northern Exposure, for example. I’ve seen more of Seinfeld and Friends as repeats than I ever did when they were actually on air.

Another reason is that, limited as my reading time is, I’ve chosen to focus on the genre I write in with most of my reading. This was necessary over the past few years as I covered a lot of ground and explored the genre.

And then there’s the part of you that gets sick of hearing about it. Much the same reason I never read Dan Brown.

I do think it’s fair to say that deep down, every author wants some recognition for their work, and they’d like to be successful. And so it’s fair to say that some of the most popular best-selling authors out there – John Grisham, Michael Crichton, James Patterson, Dan Brown, JK Rowling – find themselves often on the outside, alienated from their peers to some degree. (I haven’t read any of them, btw.)

There’s a really interesting opinion piece in the Scotsman on the topic of Rowling resentment. It got me thinking, not so much about JK Rowling, but about why it is we’re suspicious of success. We seem to have this idea that anyone too successful must have sold their soul to Satan, be involved in witchcraft, have slept their way up the ladder, or have good access to blackmail material. We seldom trust success.

I think this is especially true when success comes quickly. We hear the stories, how Grisham couldn’t get a publisher so sold his first book out of the trunk of his car then got a movie deal, thus doing an end-run around the publishing business. Boom, instant success, right? Only in our eyes, because we heard of him after he had a movie deal and then got scooped up by a publisher. Hardly instant for him.

But it’s enough to persuade some to try self-publishing, vanity presses, anything, to get out there… Because perhaps they’ll catch on the same way. And if they don’t, then it’s easy to look at the ones who did make it and resent them.

A great thing I heard from another author: No other author’s success diminishes my own.

I’m not in competition with JK Rowling. If anything, I owe her my thanks. She has encouraged children to be passionate about books. My niece and nephew were at a midnight costume party for the book launch. Children going to book launches. That’s fantastic, because years from now a lot of those children are going to be adult readers. They’ve experienced the magic of the written word, what it is to be caught up in a story, and that will stay with them.

So, although I’ve read the spoilers, and then read a few of the reviews, Harry Potter mania isn’t much of an event for me, personally, but I do appreciate what she’s done for the book industry.

And I hope the reports of her potential new writing project are correct. Whatever she does, all the best to her. Whether you like it or not, JK Rowling has left her mark on the literary world.

Although I think my niece now admits to liking Eragon a bit better… Of course, that may be a defense mechanism, to be less upset by the end of HP.

But if you want a different view on the brouhaha, read the July 20 entry here. (No direct links to posts on this blog, so you may have to scroll down.) Just don’t drink anything before you read.

Hunter S. Thompson: Newspaper Tribute

A Colorado newspaper published a special edition with a tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson. I'd love to see a copy of that.

The Barry Nominees

The list is in, and my congratulations to all the nominees.

Best Novel

White Shadow by Ace Atkins
Oh Danny Boy by Rhys Bowen
The Last Assassin by Barry Eisler
The Prisoner of Guantanamo by Dan Fesperman
City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin
The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos

Best First

The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
The Berlin Conspiracy by Tom Gabbay
The King of Lies by John Hart
Still Life by Louise Penny
A Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read

Best British

Priest by Ken Bruen
Dying Light by Stuart MacBride
Sovereign by C.J. Sansom
The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom
Mr. Clarinet by Nick Stone
Red Sky Lament by Edward Wright

Best Thriller

Killer Instinct by Joseph Finder
The Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst
Relentless by Simon Kernick
Cold Kill by Stephen Leather
The Messenger by Daniel Silva
Kill Me by Stephen White

Best Paperback Original

Bust by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr
The Last Quarry by Max Allan Collins
The Cleanup by Sean Doolittle
Live Wire by Jay MacLarty
Deadman's Poker by Jim Swain
Crooked by Brian Wiprud

Best Short Story

"Cain was Innocent" by Simon Brett (Thou Shalt Not Kill, published by
Carroll & Graf)
"Shaping the Ends" by Judith Cutler (EQMM May, 2006)
"The Right Call" by Brendan DuBois (EQMM Sept/Oct, 2006)
"A Man of Taste" by Kate Ellis (EQMM Mar/Apr, 2006)
"Rosemary" by Paul Halter (The Night of the Wolf, published by
Wildside Press)
"A Case for Inspector Ghote" by June Thomson (The Verdict of Us All,
published by Crippen & Landru)


I'll try to have something more personal than a list in the next day or two.

Theakstons

Word is in that Allan Guthrie has won the Theakston's Award at Harrogate...*

More reports sure to come, since Ali Karim of The Rap Sheet is on the front lines. Although I'd figured Stuart MacBride to win, I'm delighted to be wrong. Well, not because Stuart lost, but he won the Dagger, so Al winning Theakstons is great, because they're both winners.

And now Stuart has something to whine about on his blog again.


* reported on 4MA via Donna Moore

Even More of Me...

Yeah, yeah, interviewed again. But how many times do I see my name in the same article as Otto Penzler and Charles Ardai? Matthew Baldwin has run a profile on Web Noir in The Morning News. The article is filled with insights from industry insiders and takes a look at the new trends in ezine publishing.

I realize I'm low-key right now, but I'm biting my tongue about something. Well, more than one thing, actually. But I will say this: Kevin and I have been saving something for a celebration dinner for some time now, and we're talking about making a day of it next week. When I'll be able to share the news publicly, however, is still the question.

Don't you just want to smack me?

There's Enough of Me Elsewhere...

Author and blogger Sandra Parshall recently interviewed me, primarily about Spinetingler and reviewing, but there's a little bit in there about the manuscript that's in play at the moment. And if you're curious about what will be coming from me next, you might want to check that out.

Apparently, it's my fault...

...that Brian has written an insightful piece on Black Crime Fiction writers. (Don't you love it when you get an email with the subject line It's all your fault! Being me, the first thing that goes through my mind is, What did I do this time and how did you find out?)

I was actually writing up something else for today. I’ve seen a number of reports and commentaries on the decision to give away Prince’s new album in a newspaper in the UK, and how it’s angered retailers, who are already suffering from declining album sales.

And I’ve been thinking about it a fair bit, because the debate rages over whether or not to give away books for free online and if this is hurting sales or boosting profile. There are a number of authors – and publishers – exploring the benefits of free downloads in an effort to attract readers to new authors, and even established authors are benefiting.

But Prince’s move to offer his album for free in a newspaper prompted his UK record label to drop his album. Prince is receiving a fee plus a royalty payment of nearly £500,000 from the newspaper for the rights to give away his new album. The publisher picks up the £750,000 costs of printing and promoting the CD. So Prince is certainly getting paid - and arguably more handsomely than he would have done based on the lacklustre performance of his last release, 3121, which sold just 80,000 copies in the UK.

I think the main reason that retailers are upset is not because Prince gave his album away: It’s because they were completely cut out of the loop and are unable to benefit from this.

The argument with books is that offering them for free online is actually increasing sales of books. Consumers check out a chapter, like it, and then buy the book.

In reality, I also think the reason that the book industry hasn’t been hit with the same backlash is that online sales are a drop in the bucket. Consider these numbers. DorothyL: approximately 3200 receive the digest. 4MA: approximately 1000. Members on Crimespace: 760 (approximately). The DaVinci Code sold more than 40 million copies (60.5 in print according to Wikipedia) and I assure you, I didn’t buy a copy, and neither did my husband.

Clearly, not every book-buyer is reading mystery digests. In fact, I’m aware of debut authors with targets of 25,000 copies sold in hardcover, based on their book deal. 25,000 copies. That’s a long way from 3200.

In reality, online book sales are estimated to count for less than 10% of all book sales, and I think 10% is considered generous. A lady at Kevin’s work heard his wife had a book published and asked for the information, started writing it down and then asked which stores had it locally. (My publisher doesn’t permit me to deal with books on consignment, so…) Kevin said it was available online. She put her pen down and said, “I don’t buy books online.” End of discussion.

My theory is that bookstores haven’t been as affected by freebies online because of the limited reach of the internet. I’m not discounting the importance of a web presence (I don’t even consider interviewing authors who don’t have websites. I simply can’t get the background information about them that I need and it drives me mad if I’m moderating a panel and there’s no information about the panelists. I’d like to introduce Joe Schmoe. He’s an author. Yeah, there’s a newsflash.) but I am putting it in perspective. Right now, the internet alone isn’t enough to build a career as an author, and therefore it isn’t impacting stores in the way that Prince's move clearly impacted music stores.

However, I think that authors and publishers should take note of this example and consider it carefully. We have two dogs. One of them is adorable in every sense, except one. When we built a pen for the dogs outside we built a big doghouse, big enough for the two of them. It's huge. Put shingles on the roof and with an earth floor it stays nice and cool in the summer, and always dry inside. But the dogs never lie in it. Why? Nootka prefers to poo in the doghouse. And what Prince did reminds me of Nootka's annoying habit. He could have struck a deal to give the CD away in stores as part of a promotion. Instead, he bypassed the businesses that have helped him earn a living from his music in the past. Perhaps he thinks that, being desperate for sales as they are, they’ll forgive and forget by the time his next album comes out. However, the laws of economics apply to businesses. Few people work for love alone. Given that Prince’s own record label dumped the album, he may not be a quick scoop by a UK label next time around. He may find himself cut out of the industry there. And if others follow in the freebie offering trend in the UK newspapers may not jump for another opportunity to spend a few million on him and his album. Has he put short-term gain ahead of his career? Time will tell.

The Rap Sheet recently reported on the proliferation of serialized novels and as this trend continues the industry would do well to remember bookstores. Rankin’s serial novel began a few months ago in the NY Times. I missed the release (which feels pretty pathetic, but there just isn’t a newsletter/forum/list network in place that circulates the latest in a timely fashion – “Inspector Rebus” depends on fans to volunteer info they hear about, and contrary to popular opinion I’m not on top of what everyone is doing). Kevin caught it and printed off the first section (because he knows I actually don’t like reading online) but he didn’t realize it was a weekly thing and missed the following installment…

Anyway, enough said. If I’d known when it was coming out I would have bought hard copies, but since I didn’t and live a considerable distance from anywhere that sells US newspapers I shrugged it off with an “oh well” and will wait for the printed copy next year.

However, if I had known in time to order print copies I would have gone with the original and possibly skipped the book.

I don’t think the serialized novels have hurt publishers or booksellers to this point, but there is a risk in giving things away for free that compete directly with what retailers are selling. People could consider that hypocritical, coming from an ezine editor, but this is something I’ve considered. Do ezines reduce magazine sales? I can only say I hope not. If I felt that it was hurting the industry more than helping, I’d evaluate what to do. But since most ezines publish only short stories and there isn’t a big market for anthologies and most magazines publish considerably more than short stories I don’t think we’re in competition at this point in time.

I do think, though, that there will come a point in time where publishers and authors should look at utilizing the value of free offerings as promotion in conjunction with supporting bookstores. I have the niggling beginnings of ideas in my brain, but those will be saved for some future date.

Meanwhile, my 2 cents is to pay attention. Make sure you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. As more people jump on the trend to serialize novels in newspapers and offer free ebooks we need to make sure we aren’t cutting booksellers off at the knees.

And be sure to go check out Brian's article. I'll have to finish devouring it when I get home from the library later. I'm a bit scattered today, as I have some major stuff going on, but nothing I can talk about. At least, not yet. : )

Crime Fiction & Politics

In a recent post at The Rap Sheet, J. Kingston Pierce wades in with opinion on legislation being pushed by a Republican that would ban violent TV shows from being aired before 10 pm. And for his efforts, he drew a wee, little bit of criticism.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had dissected the post in contrast to this more recent offering, that cites the pet peeve of substituting opinions for facts. This is not what Mr. Kingston Pierce did (in my opinion) but if someone had disapproved of his perspective I could have seen them making an attempt to discount the earlier opinion piece.

However, the complaint isn’t about the nature of opinions expressed. The complaint in the comments is that a crime fiction blog engaged in a ”political diatribe”

I understand that some people have no interest in politics. I can even respect their right to not want to hear any political opinions expressed…anywhere. (And I admit I say that a bit grudgingly, but we’ll get to why in a minute.) But what I have a hard time comprehending is that people don’t see that crime fiction has an intricate connection to politics, and the particular issue being addressed by J. Kingston Pierce is one that has significance to all those interested in crime fiction.

‘Broadcasters should not be allowed to use the public airwaves to disseminate violent or obscene material,’ Brownback said in a statement. ‘The abundance of indecent material on television is one indication of the coarsening of our culture.’” (Brownback is the Senator pushing this bill, and the quote comes via The Rap Sheet article.)

The second part of his own statement is the proof of why restricting the content of television programs will not solve the problems with US society - or any society. (My apologies, in that I don’t feel I want to thumb my nose at my friends to the south. This is your political issue, in a sense, but we watch the same shows and have many of the same problems here.) The statement, however, indicates clearly what I believe about TV and books: They reflect society and its problems.

I do not believe books and TV (or music, or video games) create the problems.

I said above that I grudgingly respected a person’s right to take no interest in politics. This ties directly to my feelings on this issue. My teen years were spent in an exclusive Brethren Assembly. Women were not allowed to speak and wore head coverings. You had to be in fellowship to break bread. When I traveled I had to carry a letter recognizing me as part of the fellowship in order to participate at other meetings. The mindset was such that even many of the elders in my church disapproved of me going to Bible school. I was discouraged (by some, not all) from listening to secular music (and for many years I subscribed to that philosophy). I had a harder time with the belief of some that I shouldn’t read secular books.

What I ultimately couldn’t accept within the church was the tendency to close your mind. For a few years, I guess I lived in something of a vacuum. And I can see how some people find shutting themselves off from society to be an escape. I’ve never been good at being blind… and everyone reading this no doubt knows I call things as I see them. In part, maybe I spent too much time biting my tongue, first in the Brethren Assembly, later as a missionary. When I left the Brethren I did it in what no doubt some of you would consider ‘true Sandra form’: stood up and said my peace to everyone (without a headcovering). Reading Lake Wobegon Days still cracks me up. Of course, there’s a hint of sadness there, because that day was the day that our church split in two, with many things leading to a rift that blew wide open when one of the brothers served communion to a friend of mine who smiled. The complaint was, “She doesn’t even look like a Christian.”

The point is, I know the rhetoric used by many of the most extreme fundamentalist Christians intimately. Put me in a debate on the evils of secular music and I can talk you out of ever turning on your radio. It may not be what I believe now, but I can still slip those shoes on for show.

What my misguided friends quibbling over TV programming fail to grasp is that reducing the amount of violent content shown before 10 pm on TV will not make the streets safer. In fact, I would argue it might make them more dangerous. If there’s nothing good on TV, more people will be out. And if more people are out that increases the number of targets for theft, assault, rape. The week of The Calgary Stampede has been the same week Calgary has suffered a rash of random stabbings, including one murder. More people on the streets, the greater the chance of violence. That is, after all, why the police go out in full force when there are playoffs happening for the NHL.

That’s a very weak point, in reality. An incidental. The real truth is that if we turn on our TV at 8 pm and flick from channel to channel and see nothing but loving families with bright smiles and sunshiny lives, we can delude ourselves into believing that our world is a happy place. Some might even convince themselves that this is true of everyone everywhere. However, it does nothing to address poverty, crime, divorce, abuse, alcoholism, drug addiction, terrorism or anything else that plagues our society. It is ‘out of sight, out of mind’ thinking. If I don’t see it, it isn’t real.

And isn’t it nice that you didn’t have to feel uncomfortable watching a show where a woman is beaten to the point she feels so desperate she shoots and kills her abusive partner, or that she’s willing to abandon her baby on a doorstep to spare the child from growing up with that violence? How wonderfully convenient for you that you didn’t have to acknowledge that the world is not a perfect place.

For those that do pull their head up from the sand long enough to take a look at the news, they will quickly see that changing TV programming regulations hasn’t solved a damn thing. And then they will focus their energy elsewhere. What’s next? Music? Radio? Video games? Books?

They’re putting the cart before the horse. It’s like giving sunscreen to someone dying of skin cancer - it might spare them the discomfort of one sunburn, but it isn’t going to do a damn thing to save their life.

In my opinion politics and crime fiction are intricately connected. Well, perhaps not all crime fiction. I can’t speak to the whole spectrum. But the part of the genre that I spend most of my time focused on is where the books are a reflection of society, where commentary is being made in a low-key fashion, through compelling stories. More than just entertaining reads, these books have weight because they’re actually about something important. They act as a window to the world at a point in time. Twenty years from now people will be able to read The Naming of the Dead and recall a chapter in history. G8 and the London bombings. The timing of the book coincides with my first visit to Scotland, so it will always convey a sense of the political climate of the time.

For myself, I believe that no matter how hard you squeeze your eyes shut and try to tune out the world, you are still affected by crime. You pay higher insurance premiums because of theft. You pay taxes that are used to hire police, fund the courts and house criminals in prisons. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you pay the price for crime.

And that’s where the politics comes in. It doesn’t matter if you don’t vote, know what parties are running or listen to the speeches or think about the issues. Someone gets elected, and they make decisions. They make decisions about whether or not to put half-way houses in your neighbourhood. They might be able to influence what shows you can and can’t watch at 8 pm… and they might also have some say in what kind of sentences criminals face. (Death penalty debates, for example. Here, we could argue consecutive sentencing. Do not get me started on that – we’ll be here for the rest of the month!) The decisions politicians make about funding for police departments and prisons can affect early release from jail for dangerous criminals, can affect whether or not there’s someone there to respond to calls when it’s you or a loved one who’s the victim. My husband’s on a fire department. Don’t think for a second that absolute responsibility for what happens within the department begins and ends with the department itself. There are always people in political positions who pull the strings.

So, for me, you can’t separate crime fiction from politics. That doesn’t mean the books I read are heavy-hitting propaganda. However, they do portray society, warts and all, and try to give a sense of how it all interconnects. There is probably no greater example of this than The Wire. If you aren’t familiar with this show (my God, where have you been? Picketing with the Senator, I suppose…) go look at that link. Just scroll down. Four venues of importance to tell the story: The Law, The Street, The Hall and The School. Because The Wire actually requires an attention span and some capacity to face things that might be uncomfortable (such as the violent deaths of some characters) what it does is demonstrate the intricate connection of all aspects of society. Each season has it’s arc, with a major investigation unfolding. Things are not wrapped up in an hour, they’re wrapped up in 12 or 13 hours. But beyond the framework of each season there is the bigger picture. Each season is like one panel of a quilt. It tells its own story, but is integral to the quilt as a whole, joining with the other panels to tell a larger story. What has been clear, from the beginning, has been the negative impact of the political power struggles within the police department, and how that actually aides crime by hindering police officers. In four seasons we begin to see it coming together, showing how in order to really change society we don’t need to ban violent TV programs or raise arrest quotas. What we need to do is simultaneously revamp our political, educational and legal systems to actually address the issues, rather than just keep slapping band-aids on bullet wounds.

As a former educator and huge fan of crime fiction I just love the show, and the insights. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tony Gray voiced David Simon’s own beliefs when he said that before you could even address crime you needed to get to the root and address problems with the education system and get to the kids before they started slinging on street corners.

Here I am, using a TV program to defend violence on TV. Some might discount that argument, but what I would say to Christians supporting this bill is that some of the most disturbing acts of violence I have ever read are contained in the Bible, and I don’t see anyone moving to ban that. We had David cutting the foreskins off men he slaughtered as the price for a bride. Brother raping sister. If we’re going to stick with the discussion from the perspective of religion, it’s called sin folks. “To miss the mark.” Darkness, the ability to commit violent or immoral acts, has been in the heart of each and every one of us since the dawn of time. The first child born to Adam and Eve was a murderer. And I hate to tell you this, but he didn’t kill his brother because he got the idea watching an episode of CSI.

Throughout history we have records of inquisitions, crusades, wars, genocide. Hitler wasn’t influenced by a bad episode of NYPD Blue and neither was Nero.

If people really want to “fix” what’s wrong with our society, they need to stop casting judgment on people and start meeting the needs that aren’t being met. For crying out loud, they have time to pursue a bill that will affect TV programming for two hours - when it would have no impact on curbing violent content on cable channels, and when so many of us have satellite that we can watch what’s on at 10 pm elsewhere when it’s only 8 pm at our home.

And we haven’t even touched on access to material via the internet. Who’s going to keep the impressionable and easily offended from viewing violent content on YouTube if they can’t even take responsibility to turn the damn TV off if they don’t like what’s on?

This isn’t exactly new opinion from me. I know I’ve touched on this before, but in light of the comment on The Rap Sheet I’m left scratching my head. If you don’t like what’s on TV, don’t watch it. (I seldom do.) And if you don’t like what’s on a blog, don’t read it.

Free choice. It’s a beautiful thing.

Jumping The Shark

Daniel Radcliffe says "What everybody would love to see is me having ditched school and then just going wild… That's what I'm determined not to give them."

The Harry Potter star admits that there are some people who will probably never separate him from Harry, but says he’s “just going to get on with it."

I’m glad to know that we won’t see him competing for scandal coverage in the press. In fact, I think we ought to give the kids that come through celebrity status without ending up in rehab a medal. Setting that aside, though, this article got me thinking. It is going to be hard for him to separate himself from Harry Potter. However, not impossible.

I was thinking about some who’ve failed to shake their past (that Home Alone kid) and some who’ve gone on to be quite successful doing other things. Rick Schroder’s part on NYPD Blue was quite a departure from his Silver Spoons days. I remember my initial what the hell? thought when I heard he’d been cast. As someone who was (ahem) never a die-hard NYPD Blue fan and only watched it sporadically, I actually watched it pretty regularly when he was on the show.

Another one who springs to mind is Leonardo DiCaprio. He’s come a long way from Growing Pains. (Another show I didn’t watch regularly.) I say this as someone who hasn’t seen Titanic and wouldn’t go see a movie just because he’s in it – I thought he was great in The Departed. And that movie featured another actor proving his worth – Mark Wahlberg.

One of the things I think that distracts from the roles of some actors is their own celebrity. There’s a difference between being an actor and being a celebrity. A big difference. And to be honest, I prefer the actors. When I watch a movie what should come through is the character, the role. Not the fact that so-and-so got $20 million for the part because they’re a name. I find myself almost distrusting those movies after a while. But when I hear Christian Bale has taken on a role I’m actually intrigued.

This is a problem that authors can face as well, and it opens up the series vs stand-alone debate. When an author establishes themselves with a series and it’s popular, it will always be difficult to make a transition and write something else. There are people who will love certain characters and it will be those that tie them to the series, more than the writing or the author.

However, there’s a real risk of jumping the shark with a series. I’ve abandoned two series where I felt the books were becoming repetitious. One author is doing something different now, and I tried one of those books but never really got into it.

Will I try something else by them in the future?

Possibly. There are a number of factors at work. If an author pushes a series to the point where you do feel they’re past due, they can lose some credibility with their readership. Of course, this is a tricky thing. A reader may lose interest long before the author does, and all readers are not equal. Others might have reached the conclusion long before I did, and there may well be others still begging for more.

The other factor will be how enticing the new material is.

It’s interesting to assess my own reading habits, because there are some authors I’ll follow anywhere and give their new stuff a try. I suppose it has to do with the level of consistency in what they’ve offered. In reality, I like series books, because I like following a character over time. And you already have a starting point with the new book. Every book you read is work in the beginning, because you’re getting to know the characters and sorting out what’s going on. And sometimes, I don’t want to get to know someone new. I want to catch up with someone I already like and enjoy spending time with. Call it lazy, call it my comfort zone… it’s something I enjoy as a reader.

As a writer, I find series books to have a unique challenge. For one thing, it’s always in your mind that you could hit the point where you’ve gone too far. For another, you don’t want to be repeating yourself. You want to be moving the characters and stories in to fresh territory. This is something that comes up with movies and sequels a fair bit – the sequels usually suck. Not always, but sometimes. Sometimes, you get the sense that the original movie was meant to be a one-shot deal, but because it was so successful they pushed it out for another go, just to make money. That’s something I’d never want to do with my books.

One of the ways I stretch and try to expand the scope of my portfolio is with short stories. Anyone who’s read SC will note it’s got quite a different tone from the short fiction, like Bull’s Eye, The Butcher, Last Shot and Fucked Again.

However, I’m already working on different things, one of which is a planned stand-alone. And that brings to mind the debate about whether it should be under a pseudonym, or whether I can carry it under my own name.

I have no idea right now. I think I’ll trust the discretion of my agent and editor when the time comes. I think the plus of putting it out under my name is that it helps alleviate the ‘typecast’ thing that can happen to some authors. But then, there are always risks…

In the program with Peter Robinson that I watched the other day, he said something interesting. He said he didn’t really want to be a writer, he just wanted to write. It’s something that’s stayed with me this week, and when I read the article on Daniel Radcliffe it struck the same note. The difference between writing and writers. The difference between actors and celebrities.

What is real about being an author is what happens between yourself and the blank pages, when the ideas are forming, the words are flowing and you’re creating your story. Conferences, book signings, interviews and all that jazz are incidentals. Sure you can have fun, but they aren’t your every day. At a guess, I’d say at least 80% of readers don’t participate on lists, read forums or blogs. When I talk to bookstore staff and now library staff, this is all foreign concept to them. If you read some lists/forums and then look at the bestseller lists you’ll be left to wonder who it is reading some of those books, because I never see people mentioning them as favourite authors.

It’s always nice to catch up with friends who happen to be authors, but I’m not going to kid myself that it’s the same thing as meeting readers.

Something to remember.


On that note, the waterfall story. I think I'll save that and share it on a special occasion. Which may be soon.

UPDATED TO ADD: Amra has an agent! Congrats Amra! I kept forgetting to post a link...

8 Random Things About Me

James Goodman tagged me, so I’m coming out to play briefly. Then I’m going to The Stampede.

First, the covenant:
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Okay, eight random things about me:

1. I played bass guitar in stage band in high school.

2. When I was 8 I was hit by a car while riding my bike home. The gentleman had gone to town to pick up his birthday cake (he was 80) and his cake somersaulted on impact, and so did I. I heard the cake was still edible, it just didn’t look good. I ended up with stitches in my head because I struck it on something. And the thing I remember most? The guy who got out of his vehicle from the other side of the road (the reason Mr. Birthday Man couldn’t pass me – solid traffic coming the other way) and picked up my bike and threw it in the ditch. He never even asked if I was okay. Jerk.

Almost a year after the car I was running along the beach and landed on broken liquor bottle, partially severing my right foot. That was incident #2 in my three-year run of catastrophes…

Disaster #3. I fell down a waterfall. Just don’t ask. In fact, forget I mentioned it. (Evil Kev is standing here laughing, saying “I didn’t know that.” Jerk.)

3. When we were in Indonesia we spent a day sailing out to Lambongan Island and went snorkeling. Despite multiple applications of sunscreen, I got a horrible sunburn. Fortunately, it was at the end of our trip. Unfortunately, that meant I had to suffer with it on the plane…

4. So, returning from Indonesia via Japan, I had one of those we must go now! moments. Kevin was rather annoyed with me, but I wanted to get to the airport right away. We took a cab (although we could have waited for a free bus) and when we got there to check in they kept asking us weird questions. “Just the two of you?” “Is Vancouver your final destination?” Once this was established, we were asked to take a flight half hour later because they’d overbooked. They bumped us up to first class on Air Canada and paid us a pile of money for our inconvenience, and bought us dinner.

5. My first marriage proposal was from an Italian man in a train station in Austria who was so… expressive I had to pry him off me. And his father was there saying, “If you feel this in your heart you must pursue it.” Yes, my first experience with Italian men when I lived in Europe. It wasn’t the last.

6. I went swimming in the Arctic Ocean. (I’ve actually gone swimming in the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, and the Mediterranean and the Irish Sea.) This may not seem like a big deal to you, but thanks to my near-drowning experience when I fell down the falls I actually have a fear of water.

7. If I don’t have to go out I’ll stay in my pajamas all day.

8. I have a piece of the Iron Curtain. Since I was living in Europe when the wall came down, I watched the carve it up at Checkpoint Charlie and do have an East Germany stamp in my old passport, so technically, I guess I’ve been to a country that no longer exists. Weird.

Now, I’m supposed to tag 8 people… I’m sending out the subliminal messages, have you got them? Okay, okay. How about James, Anne, Angie, Amra, Christa, Eileen, Trace, and Bonnie? But I won’t make it to your blogs to leave a note until tonight or tomorrow morning.

Music & Pop Culture References in Books

Music in crime fiction: the insert of a lazy author, product placement or an often essential ingredient?

Let me qualify part of my position before I state it. Undoubtedly, how each person feels about music will influence where they fall on this issue. It would be exaggerating to say that every Ruttan is musical, but growing up it certainly seemed that way. For me it was piano, fiddle and bass guitar. (And have I mentioned Deric Ruttan has a new single due to hit airwaves soon? He’s co-written hits What Was I Thinkin’? and Lot of Leavin’ Left To Do with Dierks Bentley. The lead-off single for Deric’s new album? A Deric and Dirks duet called Good Time.)

But I digress. (That was product placement, btw. It did nothing to create atmosphere, was pure indulgence.) The main thing is, for me, there’s always been music. Having an appreciation of music, and how to play, gives you an interesting insight into writing. With music, there’s as much said in silence, in the breath between the notes, as there is with the notes themselves. Timing is a critical element. As a writer, I look to my musical knowledge to remind myself to give pause where appropriate.

As someone who loves music, I actually love musical references in books. So, perhaps I’m a wee bit biased…

This came up in one of those weird flukes of timing. Last night I watched the program on Peter Robinson that Evil Kev had recorded for me. When he was sitting on his couch talking, there were bookshelves behind him and right beside him was the prominent display of Ian Rankin books. (Not really surprising, but there is a point.) When he was in his office he was showing how he researches, and for one book that part of the story happens in 1969 he has books with pictures of the location from the era, and he had a collection of popular music from 1969 that he listened to.

Then, I stumbled across this post about Rankin and music at Detectives Beyond Borders. (Well, okay, I was over there to reference the post about Ken Bruen’s appearance on the Craig Ferguson show. Evil Kev had expressed surprise that nobody – none of the industry blogs – had even mentioned it, and he hadn’t seen any posts on the show, so I pointed out the two I had seen…)

So, it was complete coincidence on both sides of the equation that I ended up reading this old article on Rankin’s radio series, Music To Die For. A series I remember listening to.

In my opinion, the Telegraph article is bizarre. It begins by injecting what the writer would have liked to see. However, there’s no author name on the article, so I don’t know who it is expressing this opinion. One assumes it was a reporter…

But the words “sadly” and “vainglorious” put it squarely in the realm of editorial opinion (although it isn’t noted that way. Or even as a review of the program).

And I feel like taking issue with the statement It's true that Rankin's dominance of the British crime-fiction market is remarkable - he commands maybe 10 per cent of all sales - but then again this may be partly because the competition here is not so hot. The Americans do it better. Whoever wrote it, I wonder what the hell they’re on. Um, Martina Cole. Val McDermid. Stuart MacBride. Mark Billingham. Simon Kernick (a Richard and Judy summer read pick, which is the UK equivalent of Oprah). Ruth Rendell. PD James. Alexander McCall Smith. Denise Mina. What a loaded, unqualified opinion thrown in the mix of an article that’s supposed to be about music in crime fiction.

The article goes on to say, But the harder questions, such as whether the use of music is not sometimes just lazy piggybacking, if not product placement, and whether or not resorting to it so readily further suggests that crime fiction as a genre is condemned never to be much more than mood music itself, were not raised. The most original use of music in crime fiction wasn't mentioned either, the appearance of the Goldberg Variations, beautiful 'beyond plight and time', in The Silence of the Lambs.

Um, I actually listened to the program, and I distinctly remember Karin Slaughter mentioning thoughts on using music as a lazy way to convey emotion. Factual error is followed by another opinion, as I’ve seen no survey or pronouncement from some identified body of authority to suggest that the music he’s referring to is, in fact, considered the most original use of music in crime fiction.

And then the article goes into a summary of some other show with a “real music-inspired policeman,” which apparently makes his strong Christian roots and references valid.

Whatever…

Um, are you sort of sensing I didn’t like the article? No, not much. I write opinion as well as (and occasionally even better) than whoever penned that but I don’t have the audacity to stick it in a newspaper and try to validate it as relevant. What really bugs me, though, is how often people will read something like that and, because it’s in the Telegraph or whatever paper, consider it to have some authority, but I’ll steer away from that. I may have pissed off everyone else in the world this week, so I need someone to offend next week.

Getting back to the issue, let me answer my own question. Music in crime fiction: the insert of a lazy author, product placement or an often essential ingredient?

My answer? Yes and no, yes and no, and yes.

I want to be clear that this is a generalization. There are undoubtedly those who use musical references as a lazy way to set the mood. I can’t say off-hand that I have an example that comes to mind, but I’m sure this is true of someone, somewhere. Claiming otherwise would be silly when I haven’t read everything in the world.

I’m sure there are also those who use music as product placement, or in such a way that it comes off as product placement. I haven’t really experienced it coming off that way to me. In reality, I’m not keen on product placement. I’ll split hairs on it. This is part of what I stated recently on the subject on 4MA:

I consider the appropriate interests of a character before I put a book in their hands, or music on the stereo. Just because I like something, it doesn't mean it will be their thing. For example, it's not at all a commentary on quality but there's just no way either of my protagonists from SC would read Vicki Hendricks - Lara and Farraday are both a bit...reserved about sex.

There's a difference between product placement and pop culture references, and that's something else to consider. In all things, there's a degree of "know your audience". I suppose if you're targeting people who like fashion because you're writing a series of fashion designer murder mysteries, making multiple references to brand name shoes and clothes and designers would be appropriate. As a reader, I'd be lost, though, because I know nothing about that world. That is always the risk that you face when you decide to mention stuff.

I love musical references, and have bought albums/tried out artists solely from references in books. I love book references. I'm not crazy about fashion references, but I own fewer than nine pairs of shoes. And offhand I only know where three are - my regular shoes, my running shoes and my sandals. (A characteristic no doubt influenced by the fact that I partially severed my right foot as a child and actually am not supposed to wear most types of shoes.)

However, products might have a specific purpose. They may denote wealth or lack thereof. They may also reveal character. We might assume someone who drives a Ferrari is more vain than someone who drives a Pontiac Firefly. (Said with absolutely no intention of offending anyone here!) It may also reveal things about access. I've been up to the Arctic, and there are some things that simply aren't available locally that we might take for granted. In a book if someone was missing and a search of their house revealed items that locals typically wouldn't have, it could be significant to developing the case. I'm trying to think of a good example but my head's blank - suffice to say that if a search of a home in Inuvik revealed a recent Canadian Tire receipt and there was no indication this person had been away recently, it might indicate they'd had a visitor who may have had something to do with their disappearance.

But even then, it would be delicate to use clues such as that, because unless you've been there maybe you wouldn't understand the significance. (And even those of us who've been there are left wondering what new stores they might have since I last visited. I mean, I can remember when Muskoka had NO McDonald's. Then Bracebridge got one... And eventually Gravenhurst. Referencing a stop at McDonald's in Gravenhurst automatically dates the book in my head, because it opened in 1989.)

On the subject of dating the work... Just about everything is dated, in some capacity. Cities grow or decline over time. Women today are able to hold different jobs than they were hired for fifty years ago. When I read something set in the 50s references to places/products that were common then establish the setting. And that actually communicates a lot to a reader. The world wasn't the same September 5, 2001 as it was September 12, 2001. One week and a world of difference. The timing communicates far more to the reader in a case like that - it carries with it fears and uncertainties, etc. Works that are timeless are not ones that don't have a sense of the era they're set in, but ones that reflect issues/concerns that are relevant to people as much today as they were whenever.

One other thing. There may be references that have some significance to the setting. If someone here is going for coffee there's probably as much chance they're going to Tim Hortons as Starbucks. (Okay, I don't know what share each company has of the market, because I hate coffee, but I know a lot of coffee drinkers who love Tim Hortons.)

For me, this is one of those things there are no hard and fast rules on. If it's the protagonist's car knowing more details (make, model) might make sense. It may also make sense to know something about the suspect's vehicle if it's significant to the story. A person's choice of vehicle might also indicate how easy it would be to identify it. You drive a red Honda Civic you won't stand out much, but if you're driving a gold Porsche you'll be easier to find.

So...in one book the references might work for me perfectly. In another, they might not work at all.

I can’t honestly say I remember reading anything that felt forced with regards to musical references. The truth, for me, is that music is something I consider important. Walk down the average street past houses and you’ll hear the faint (and sometimes not-so-faint) murmur of music from inside. People listen to music when they’re driving, many people wake up to music with alarm clock radios. Kids have Discmans and iPods. Almost every place I’ve ever worked has had music playing in the background or used music in the program.

In some respects, music is the international language. When you hear a song that’s heartwrenching you often don’t need to understand the words to know it’s sad. Here in the real world, music does invoke mood. That’s a reality. If I’m in a certain mood, where I could go either way, choosing to listen to sad music may make me cry and choosing to listen to something upbeat may get me out of my melancholic state.

To be honest, with music being as important to people as it is, I find it hard to fathom characters that never intersect with music. They never listen to anything on the radio when driving. They never turn on the stereo when at home. They notice a house/suspect/location/suspicious vehicle and remember intricate details about it but never walk through a neighbourhood and notice the music. That seems a bit unrealistic to me. Even if it isn’t something they ‘know’ or ‘like’ why not reference the noise pollution emanating from the neighbour’s house? You noticed their flower bed.

To me, this is where balance comes in. It’s all about what else is in the book. If the character is the type to notice and reference everything in detail, then I would expect music to be there. If the character’s a music fan, I’d expect it as well. There’s no one right amount of references that work – it will vary story to story, character to character, author to author.

One thing I do find curious is when someone says that the character’s musical tastes don’t fit the character as they see them. I suppose it’s fair as a personal observation. But one of the things I enjoyed Peter Robinson saying was that he’d given Banks eclectic music tastes because his own musical interests were diverse. I think that’s true of a lot of people. We all have some degree of range. Some who read here are crime fiction fans solely. Others are sci fi and fantasy fans first. Some like horror. Others don’t. If we can have range in our reading, why not range in what we listen to?

In reality, I don’t see how music can be carte blanche labeled as a cop-out for creating emotion. There’s a lot that goes into the atmosphere that tells us how a person is feeling. Music might be one component, but it’s only one component. In books it comes nowhere near being the substitute for acting that it often is on TV.

To me, anyway, music is natural atmosphere. A moment ago I was listening to someone working with power tools a few yards over. Not so long ago, it was my own dog, demonstrating his vocal skills. Right now, silence. If you step outside and hear Eminem blasting, or if you hear birds chirping, or if you hear nothing at all it might all be relevant as one component in establishing the setting. That silence might be coupled with houses with all the windows covered, and although it’s 4 pm and kids should be outside playing there’s nothing but a ball rolling across the yard, blown by the wind. Gives you a sense that something isn’t right. People perhaps hiding in fear. In another scenario, someone might be listening to some loud rap music and one of their crew tries to whistle a warning to them, but they can’t hear it because of the music so they get caught by the police or another drug dealer they’re beefing with…

It’s writing to our ears. And we talk all the time about writing to senses, about not just showing but letting the reader taste, hear, touch, smell when appropriate.

In my opinion, it doesn’t matter whether or not I like the music. It’s part of giving a picture of a scene, a person, a mood. Used as such, I think it’s tremendously effective.

Incidentally, I heard Rankin on a radio program a few years ago and as a result heard The Blue Nile and Jackie Leven, and loved their stuff. The Blue Nile’s album High is one you can get lost inside and Jackie Leven is a poet.

Email Woes

I have heard through the blog, and from a few select people who can get through, that both of my email addresses have been bouncing over the weekend. Something about messages containing prohibited virus or spam content...

As best as I can tell, when my email gets inundated with spam it gets feisty, since I do have a spam filter that weeds suspected bad mail into junk. But every now and again this happens.

I'm not going to post my other email address publicly because I don't want spam there. It's possible to private message me through Crimespace, and that's the best suggestion I have if there are ongoing email problems.

Some people are getting through so the email isn't completely disfunctional.

Rescue Me

Sometimes, I think Anne Frasier is using some sort of supersonic lazer-pointer-thingy to read my brainwaves. One of the things I've noticed since returning to the working world is that - gasp! shock! horrors! - you actually have to talk to people. So, while Lesa is reminding us that librarians are hipper than we think, Anne is talking about the loss of her verbal skills, as are many others.

And I can say for myself that librarians are, in general, more sociable than writers. At least, this one. I think I've talked more in the last week than I have in the last month. Well, if you extract overseas phone calls and my spouse from the equation, it's probably actually more like the past three months.

I think this is a good thing for me. I'm hoping that it makes the conference transition easier. Going from my extreme isolation/only-communicate-through-emails-and-blogs world to the mass of people always took a bit of getting used to.

Elsewhere, James has an awesome post up about the Dagger awards and various bar-related shenanigans. I could make all sorts of comments about the need to have Simon Kernick rescue you from being booted from the bar, but I'm too distracted with the shock that he's finally got his website updated.

And, in more local news, we have a stray cat that seems to be living on our property. I've thought this was the case for some time, because I would often see this cat sitting on our garbage stoop. This was always in connection with Chinook barking his head off and trying to break out of his pen. I'd also seen this cat drinking water from puddles in the lane behind our property.

This weekend, we spotted the cat hunting in our hedges. Then, Kevin partially dismantled the stoop when neighbourhood kids discovered that the stray cat was a mother cat, and had three kittens there, in a can. The neighbours took the kittens to care for them. Mother cat brazenly walked right past our dog pen and into our garage, presumably searching for her babies. Chinook went nuts.

Anyway, I feel pretty bad for her. You can't explain that her kittens are being cared for. We tried to give her some food, but she's completely wild. And it's hard not to worry. There are some people out here who trap cats and leave them to die. I suppose from that perspective, our property is a haven for this stray cat. Our dogs can't get out, so all they can do is bark. We don't have our own kids to torment her, and because our property had bushes all along two sides (plus trees) with berries we have a lot of birds, so she seems to be able to fend for herself okay.

But I'm still wondering if we left the shed door open just a bit if she wouldn't find it more comfortable in there...

Sense of Place

On Canada Day, I meant to post a link to this column that we’ve lost another little bit of our Canadian identity.

However, Christa’s recent thread on Crimespace, A Sense of Place, has had me thinking about what it is that creates a sense of place in a novel, and even what gives a country a sense of identity, and gave me an excuse to throw the link up now.

Christa touches on her childhood, moving around a lot. I think that’s actually something real and significant that doesn’t always translate to novels well. There are a lot of people who do not have a sense of identity linked to one particular place because they were never there long enough to feel connected. And in a unique way, that disconnect shapes their lives. Some seek stability, pick a place, settle down and never move again. And some never feel at home anywhere. That background experience does just as much to shape how they see the world as being born and raised in one local for all or most of the formative years can. I actually think that bringing a character in as an outsider to a local is an interesting way to see the place.

On the other hand, when someone has lived in a place for a long time, they have a sense of the history of the place in a way that others don’t. I don’t think anyone going to Ireland today for the first time can fully appreciate how much the country has changed in the last twenty years alone. Earlier today I was talking to my boss about the experience of seeing the Berlin Wall come down years ago. We were talking about books that have been updated and changed to be politically correct, and the one children’s series we were discussing bothered me a bit. By changing characters in the story to make it conform to present times, we lose a sense of time in those books. I wonder about that. Should we say that because we don’t agree with how people were treated then, nobody should read Uncle Tom’s Cabin?

That conversation really got me thinking about all of this, again.

I don’t think a sense of place is all about geography. It’s about attitudes. For example, I’ve lived in three provinces and (including Canada) I guess you could say five countries in my lifetime. Anywhere I was long enough to have a mailing address.

There are distinctly different politics and economics that come with different locales, even within a country. British Columbia, Canada, has a long history of voting provincial NDP and is a heavily union-based province by comparison to Alberta, Canada. Alberta has a long history of voting Conservative. (Highly generalized, but) in BC there’s more of a health and environmental focus. In Alberta, there are plenty of people with the No Kyoto/Wheat Board/Gun Registry bumper sticker on their vehicles. Some joke BC is our California while Alberta is our Texas. (Of course, they don’t joke about that loudly.) I stumbled across this perspective on Alberta stereotypes that was kind of funny, but it tells you something about how people outside of the province see it.

I do think that, to some degree, your perspective on a place will come through in your writing if you use it as the setting. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the new Ireland, as much as I read about it, because my own experience was at a different point in time. This also explains why sometimes, people who immigrate end up retaining a sense of cultural identity that doesn’t even really exist in the place they left – that culture has continued to evolve over time, but by removing themselves yet retaining their traditional practices, many who live elsewhere don’t experience the same evolution. Of course, that’s a general comment as well. It happens with some, but certainly not all who move from one country to another.

I personally think traveling does a person a world of good when it comes to understanding culture and identity and what gives a sense of place. In my own experience, living overseas for a chunk of time opened my eyes and allowed me to see Canada differently, good and bad. In general, Europeans have a high appreciation for Canada, so it’s easy to think of how nicely we’re viewed. It could even be easy to feel smug about that. But I was young, and I remember seeing some of the poverty and destitution in some of the places I went to and being so shocked by it. It wasn’t until I returned to Canada that I started seeing that in my own environment. It’s easy for us to filter things out, not always notice what’s right there in front of us (especially when we’re teenagers).

I know that people have different viewpoints on the merits/issues of grounding your story with a sense of time. For myself, I like the idea that a book becomes a time capsule. (Sure, there are books where this is not as important.) It’s impossible to touch on technology and not make your book somewhat dated. By the time books often are released there’s such a gap from them being written that software and systems have often changed, not to mention vehicles, economics and political factors.

But all of that mixes in a book to give it a sense of cultural identity. I don’t think it’s easy to separate one thing from the other. Ontario in 1990 felt a lot different than Ontario in 1984, and a big part of the reason was the impact of the recession coupled with the GST, and business after business closing their doors. There was a sense of desperation in the early 90s that has no doubt since faded as the economy has recovered. I don’t think it would be possible to accurately reflect the place without touching on the attitudes of the time.

Of course, since I also favour books that make social commentary, it’s impossible to separate out the time factor.

If I can get my act together, I might wade into the Crimespace discussion. But if you haven’t checked it out, it’s always interesting to see the differing perspectives on how people approach these things in their own work.

And at the risk of contradicting myself, I think less is often more. I’m still one who leans to the idea that what you include about personal history/geography should have a relationship to the story. That doesn’t mean you don’t describe it to some degree, but you have to be careful about overdoing it. And, as with most things, it’s a delicate balance.

Respect & Free Speech: It goes both ways

When I was still on Rara-Avis, I remember a poster asking to quote another poster. I don’t remember if it was for a blog post or article or just what, exactly, but I do remember the response from several listmembers:

It’s a public list. The comments are public. It’s nice of you to ask, but not necessary.

I share the sentiment (although generally speaking, unless I can provide a link to a forum post I’m quoting I usually do ask before quoting someone). Lists are public. As are most blogs and forums. And whatever is in the public domain is open to scrutiny.

Recently, a blogger posted a critique of DorothyL. I think it’s well worth reading if you’re considering joining that list. In my opinion, it gives a pretty balanced assessment of the good and bad and prepares you for what to expect.

I made a comment over there, adding other issues I’ve had with the list. My comment has drawn some fire, both on that blog, and on DorothyL itself.

By early June, I had essentially decided to leave DorothyL. I set things in motion for the Spinetingler subscriptions. I could go no mail and still post on DL about Spinetingler when a new issue is up, but I strongly disagree with using the list as a drive-by poster. You either participate in the community… or you don’t. That is my personal philosophy. Others feel differently and that’s their right.

The main reason I decided to leave the list was that it felt increasingly uncomfortable to participate in the discussions. I am well aware of my own shortcomings. I am nothing if not passionate about my interests. And when people are passionate, they can come off more forcefully than they intend and let their emotions cloud their judgment. I am guilty of doing that.

The thing is, what makes me most uncomfortable about DL is that I see what it’s brought out in me. I’ve had issues with off-list email for years. This is nothing new, nothing I haven’t stated on DorothyL (and if people don’t believe it, read the interview Julia Buckley did with me almost a year ago, where she asks me about DL and the hate mail.) The result is that I began to feel defensive about posting, because I anticipated backlash. And the way to cope with that was getting a thick skin and not caring what others thought, which opens the door to indifference, and that can lead to being disrespectful - sometimes without meaning to be.

Ironically, this is not the first time I’ve seen DorothyL publicly criticized. It’s not even the first time I’ve made some negative comments. I’ve made comments here, on Mystery Circus when we discussed it there, and I know I’ve read at least one other blog post this year about DL, and there was a recent discussion about DL on another list. And, before I read and/or commented on any of those discussions, I posted comments on DorothyL itself. One of those comments about my concerns was posted less than two weeks ago, after another dispute on the list.

My own philosophy is that forums/lists/blogs have some responsibility for being a safe environment for people to feel comfortable contributing in a respectful manner. I have discussed forum issues here before, so regulars are familiar with my issues with forums that get out of control.

The real problem for me is, whenever I’ve participated in something for a while it’s because I actually appreciate it. And then I care about it. And when I become aware of issues/problems, I want to fix them.

But I can’t. I’ve been on DL (first under my married name, then my maiden name) for around 4 years now, and I have come to the conclusion that despite raising concerns directly on the list for about a year and despite taking some issues to the moderators, things aren’t going to change. It’s become an environment I’ve felt increasingly uncomfortable participating in. I am aware that this is true for other people. However, the only people really in a position to ensure people feel comfortable expressing their opinions on DL without living in fear of public (or off-list) attack are the moderators. And the moderators certainly have the right to leave the list the way it is. However, every listmember also has the right to decide if that works for them, and act accordingly.

There are a number of people there I really like. That’s a big part of what’s kept me. I went no mail for a while earlier this year, when I was particularly hurt by something that happened on the list. A friend asked me to give it another chance. I did…

And I know I promised some people that I would take another month and think it over, but I just can’t.

Here’s part of my little life philosophy:

Silence is often agreement.
If you don’t speak up about something that’s happening, you can’t complain if you don’t like it.
If you care about something you make an effort to fix problems.

And here’s what I know:

As one person there’s nothing I can really do.

I have never participated in any other list where I’ve received the kind of unpleasant (and sometimes abusive) mail I’d get off DL, although that has largely tapered off since I started speaking publicly about it. I used to get people tearing me apart for subjective opinions over authors I liked and such. These days, I get a different brand of off-list mail, mostly from authors, sadly.

I’ve also had some wonderful emails from people who don’t post on the list. In the past month, I’ve become aware of the fact that some people aren’t participating in discussions precisely because they’re afraid of being attacked on the list.

That isn’t a problem I’ve created. It is a problem that exists, whether people want to acknowledge it or not.

If anything, I feel relieved that someone else had the courage to post a very reasonable and balanced assessment of the list and open the discussion. I did hope that, as a regular contributor to DL, a public acknowledgement that yes, there are issues on the list, might inspire some to think about how the list could address them. For example, banning abusive off-list email, and people harvesting email addresses off of DL and spamming people. I personally don’t think that’s unreasonable. It’s standard practice with most forums/discussion lists. Some reading here will remember a certain bout of spam on a certain forum that resulted in eliminating the ability to post photos…

You might wonder if I took the step of speaking publicly again, why not stick around and see if things do change? Well, I think the comments over there may give you an indication. I’m not going to post anything said directly on DL (although any of you can certainly go to the DorothyL site, log on and read there if you so desire – it is public). Not everyone who has responded to the topic at hand has been open to the idea of discussing the issues with the list. It feels a bit personal. And to me, that proves my point, and the point of all those who remain lurkers out of fear. If people disagree with you, they will judge you.

For those who know me and my background, you know I have little tolerance for bullying. When I was assaulted as a teenager I went through a lot of things. Regulars here know I was eventually sent to another school because school officials didn’t feel they could guarantee my safety, and my case worker from children’s aid supported the recommendation. I could talk about the irony endlessly, since most of the kids involved were high school drop-outs and just hung out on school grounds. But the result of going through that kind of bullying experience as a teen undermined my sense of safety in what was supposed to be a secure environment, and I went through a period of time in my life that I was always afraid to go out. All I was was a shy little nerd, and until the moment I got cornered by a gang and beaten I'd never met most of those people. Occasionally, I still struggle with it. It’s one of the reasons I don’t bend when I feel people are trying to push me around, but it’s also one of the reasons I believe in comfortable online environments where people can feel safe to contribute.

I survived three shut-downs of the old Rankin forum before it was finally terminated permanently. It was the first forum I ever read, back when I was trying to find out some information about tour dates, and it was my first experience of actually discussing books online. I loved that. Someone went on impersonated Ian Rankin... and took that once good place away from the rest of us who enjoyed it.

I guess I’d like to think I don’t give up easily, but it really doesn’t matter. I have had my share of disagreements, and I have definitely had times I’ve had to wear egg and apologize for getting out of hand. I’ve had times I’ve had to mend fences. I’ve had times I’ve been rightfully spanked.

I don’t believe this is one of those times. As I’ve said here (and over at that other blog) the evidence of my feelings and concerns can be found on DL itself, actually going back over a year (supported by the interview with Julia). I don’t mean to be malicious or disrespectful, but honest. Agree, disagree, stay, go… that’s a choice each individual is entitled to make for themselves, and I hope they feel good with their decision and wish each person all the best in the future. Anyone who knows me knows my door is always open for mature, civil discussion. I sincerely hope that the list becomes a more comfortable posting environment for everyone who does stay.

I respect everyone’s right to disagree with me if they do. I only ask that you show the same respect for my opinions.

VCR Alert

Ken Bruen will appear on the Craig Ferguson Show Monday. Check your listings - you won't want to miss it.

Speaking of Ken, I just finished A White Arrest. Yes, as part of my preparation for the forthcoming release of Ammunition, I am reading through the whole Brant series. This fall, I plan to do the same with all the Taylor books.

However, my Brant fix will be interspersed with other reading. Today, For The Dogs arrived, so I will be spending some quality time with Kevin Wignall. Assuming Canada Post is cooperative, by the time I've finished For The Dogs the new Wiggie* book, Who Is Conrad Hirst? should be here.

Add in that Evil Kev bought me Megan Abbott's Queenpin and Nick Stone's Mr. Clarinet today. Meanwhile, Kevin bought himself Jim Thompson, The Killer Inside Me and got another James Sallis book to salivate over.

I may not only need to give up blogging to read all these books, but sleep as well. I've also promised to read my first Michael Connelly and SJ Rozan offerings by fall. The problem with a backlist like Michael Connelly's is having a clue where to start.

Meanwhile, Russel is back, and he has an interesting post up about publishers. It's a very interesting perspective. I think, for myself, I've been a bit put off publishers that seem lazy with their editing. As in, they produce a high volume of books with typesetting errors that are annoying/cause confusion when reading (paragraphs bleeding into each other, for example) but the number is relatively small.

The more I learn about the industry, however, the more drawn I am to certain publishers. Evil Kev subscribes to Hard Case Crime. There are definitely some publishers dominating my bookshelves. However, I hadn't thought about it in quite the same way until I saw Russel's post.

The Dagger Winners Announced

The list is in, naming the winners of the Dagger Awards, handed out by the Crime Writers Association.

Duncan Lawrie Dagger Peter Temple - The Broken Shore (Quercus)

Duncan Lawrie International Dagger Fred Vargas - Wash this Blood Clean from my Hand (Harvill Secker), translated by Siân Reynolds

The CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Gillian Flynn - Sharp Objects (Orion)

The CWA New Blood Dagger Gillian Flynn - Sharp Objects (Orion)

The CWA Dagger in the Library

Stuart MacBride
“His books tell of life in all its grim reality, but this only adds to the appeal of this truly impressive new author...the grimmest of subjects, but leavened (thankfully) with dashes of humour. He’s bad news for the Aberdeen tourist industry, but great news for crime readers.”

C.J. Sansom was very highly commended in this category.

The Debut Dagger

Alan Bradley – from British Columbia in Canada – is this year's winner with The Sweetness At the Bottom of the Pie.

David Jackson, from the Wirral on Merseyside was Highly Commended with Pariah.

Congratulations to all, but especially Stuart, who can now no longer whine about being a loser.

Summer 2007 Spinetingler

The Summer 2007 Spinetingler went up earlier this week. It’s got a fair bit of stuff in it.

Short stories:
A Tragic Affair - George M. Burden,
Veronica’s Sweetest Gift - Steven G. Childress,
Laura and the Cowboy - Nikki Dolson
Ragamuffin Girl - Grant McKenzie
The Living Dead - Amra Pajalic
Rattenkreig - Stephen D. Rogers
The Inheritance - Pam Skochinski
The Rocks - Robert Wangard
Profiled - James R. Winter

This is a great batch of stories. I don’t want to get into dissecting them, because I could be here for ages. Check them out for yourself!

We also have an excerpt of Jack Wakes Up by Seth Harwood. For those who missed it the other day, Seth does weekly podcasts of his novel, and you can listen online for free. I did the intro of the ‘story so far’ last week, something that came about because my husband did a podcasting feature on Seth and Shannon Clute in this issue, and Shannon Clute also wrote a profile on Out of the Past and Behind The Black Mask.

There are interviews. A teaser of the forthcoming interview with Rick Mofina, which will run in the fall issue. Others interviewed include:

Steve Mosby
Sheila Quigley
Julia Buckely
Jon Papernick
Toni McGee Causey

And Marshall Karp is interviewed by Cornelia Read.

Two other ezines – Heliotrope and Pulp Pusher – are profiled. And there are plenty of reviews, including:

Broken Skin by Stuart MacBride (this is actually an opinion piece covering all three of his books that I wrote up)

The 50/50 Killer by Steve Mosby
A Perfect Grave by Rick Mofina
A Thousand Bones by PJ Parrish
Songs of Innocence by Richard Aleas
The Big Blind by Ray Banks
Baby Shark’s Beaumont Blues by Robert Fate
Street Raised by Pearce Hansen
The Concrete Maze by Steven Torres
Cruel Poetry by Vicki Hendricks
Lottery by Patricia Wood
Sinners and Saints by Eileen Dreyer
French Creek by Peter Rennebohm
The Sleeping Doll by Jeffrey Deaver
Scavenger by David Morrell
Double Delight by Rosamond Smith

I’m fully capable of saying we’re already getting a deluge of new submissions, and I hadn’t quite finished clearing my backlog. Sigh. I’m afraid that with the new job, and with a few of our readers unavailable, I may have to turn around and close again right away. I’m currently slotting stories for the Winter Issue scheduled for January…

You can also subscribe to get an email notice when there’s a new Spinetingler. Just email subscriptions@spinetinglermag.com with the word ‘subscribe’ in the subject line. Email addresses will be kept confidential.

For anyone interested, about a year ago there was a huge fire out here. Millions in damage. Kevin took a digital camera with him, and snapped a photo from outside. He kept the camera inside his turnout gear, and when he went into the fire it was so hot it melted part of the casing. Camera still works though, so we’re able to share an image of the fire with you.

And, join with me in wishing James Oswald all the best tonight. His story, Natural Causes, ran in the fall 2006 issue of Spinetingler. He wrote a full-length manuscript based on the story and it shortlisted for the Debut Dagger prize. He’s off to London tonight for the awards. No matter what happens, he’s a fantastic writer, and I hope this helps him land a publishing deal.

What if I said...

"The slice-and-dice books aren’t noir, but thrillers?". Since the blogs are in another round of ‘shame-on-some-unnamed-authors-for-making-books-too-violent’ it seemed appropriate to pull this out.

According to John Banville, in a conversation with Donald Westlake in an article in Newsweek, when asked why they thought that in the last few years the fiction best-seller lists have been "monopolized" by books about crime and murder, Banville said:

I think we live in a very violent time. The vast majority of people have never seen any violence in their lives at all. They might drive their car into their neighbor's car and their neighbor might shout at them, but that's about as near as they get to violence. So there's thing we're missing out on: "There's all this violence, all this blood and horror and so on. It must be quite fun. But I don't see any." So they get it from books. And I notice this trend of thrillers that are absolutely dripping with blood, seriel killers slicing people up. (My thanks to John McFetridge for pointing this out to me.)

The interesting thing about the comment is that when I do think over the books I’ve read so far this year, and consider the most violent of the bunch, they are usually thrillers. Said hero is shot, stabbed, beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened repeatedly but somehow finds the strength to carry on. And when our hero can endure all that physical stress, it’s little wonder the books can read like a poker game where you keep upping the ante, because you have to wonder what it will take to actually bring the guy down.

Despite that, it would be ridiculous to make a sweeping generalization about all thrillers here. And I wouldn’t keep reading anything I thought was gratuitous, so I would certainly not start throwing accusations at any of the authors I’ve read of late. I’m not interested in this debate or any finger-pointing. However, what it has made me think about is the real nature of suspense in a book.

John Rickards said with every fresh book of theirs or a friend’s comes the temptation to push the envelope that little bit more. In Book A, our hero is drugged by a hooker he picks up in Vegas, robbed and left by the side of a highway with no way of getting home and with the terrible prospect of explaining himself to his wife and family. In Book B, he’s drugged and robbed, but not just of his own money, but also that of a friend who turns out to be a mobster who wants him dead. In Book C, the mobster wipes out his family before the end of the story – after he’s had to admit he cheated on his wife. In Book D, the hooker gives him AIDS first. In Book E, she also takes his kidneys and maybe a foot.

I can certainly appreciate the temptation for some. I’m going to look at this through my own writing, because I haven’t got a ****in’ clue which books others think are gratuitous and I don’t care. That isn’t the point here. I’m going to talk about style and suspense, and at least if I pick on me, I’m not hurting anyone’s feelings.

I have a manuscript written called What Burns Within. Police procedural. Three protagonists. Multiple plot threads. It’s not what I’d call a lazy read. There is a ticking clock, which gives it a thrillerish aspect. It’s contained to a short period of time, with primary focus on the investigations. All of those factors can contribute to building up the suspense. A lot of people told me that once they read the first couple of chapters of SC they couldn’t put it down. (What I call the build-to-a-boil.) The difference with WBW is that you start off flying, and it’s actually a while before you get to catch your breath.

When I started the sequel, The Frailty of Flesh, I knew right away that the tone for the story would be a bit different. Oh, there are still three protagonists. The exit of some peripheral characters from WBW and entrance of new ones allows me to play with some different relationship dynamics. (And damn the one person who waltzed on me from WBW. I didn’t see that coming until I hit that page, and that really sucked.)

However, the tone for the story builds the tension in a very different way. A lot of the tension in TFOF comes from within, instead of without. WBW was working under pressure. TFOF is about facing the fears we all carry inside us, confronting your own doubts and, in some cases, demons.

There is skill involved in both forms. The advantage of proceeding this way means that TFOF allows me to dig deeper into the characters. When I started it, though, I worried about it. I worried that the pace was different.

In reality, the book is no less suspenseful, no less intense. Perhaps in some ways, it cuts deeper. I think of it this way: WBW is repeatedly being smacked in the face, TFOF is being knifed in the gut. I do personally believe that every book should be different. The flow of the story should compliment the nature of the cases being pursued. (This is one of those reasons when people talk about formulas I start tuning out. The movie script one has gone out of my head right now, but basically it’s where you have to have your major hook points at specified intervals through the story. How boring. I love it when I turn the page and the story just explodes or something comes out of left field and completely surprises me. I can’t stand it when things are too predictable, within a book or within a series.)

I was beating myself up comparing apples and oranges. (Really, I was indulging that nonsense most of us go through when we’re pleased with a manuscript, and then wonder if our next work can match it or better it.) Suspense in a story is built in different ways. I am not carte blanche dismissing serial killer books (having written at least one story like that myself… maybe more) but we all know there’s a temptation to drop a body to bolster the tension. Some openly admit it. One author told me whenever they didn’t know what to do next they asked, ‘What’s the worst possible thing that could happen now?’ and then they did that. Following that line of thinking, you can begin to understand how an author struggling with a manuscript might find themselves putting their character through beatings and dropping bodies left, right and sideways.

The thing is, I have no doubt that some authors somewhere are doing those things. Just none that I typically read. I think the book that came closest to the realm of unreal for me this year was The Bloomsday Dead, a book which does not qualify as noir but does qualify as a thriller. Score one point for Mr. Banville.

On the other side of the equation, African Psycho by Alain Mabanckou, Sob Story by Carol Anne Davis, A Thousand Bones by PJ Parrish and The 50/50 Killer by Steve Mosby were all excellent examples from recent reads of stories that built up an incredible level of tension within the story, literally keeping me up late into the night, turning pages. And they did it without dropping body after body after body after body, and without having people continuously beaten down. (And the new Spinetingler, which is up now, has reviews of the last two – the first two were reviewed in the Spring Issue.)

Frankly, I’m finding more authors with incredible talent for building up suspense not through action but through emotion, through the power of connection. You keep reading because you fear for the protagonist, or perhaps in spite of that fear. You keep reading because you have to know what happens.

End of the day, if a book is just one beating, one violent act after another, with a tiny bit of story sprinkled in between, it’s an action book. It’s not suspense, and I’d debate book to book whether it even falls in the broader category of crime fiction. Personally, I find more risk of thrillers going into the realm over overkill than noir, per se. However, I strongly disagree with Mr. Banville’s statement above, about how people think violence is fun.

I don’t write crime fiction because I think it’s fun, and that isn’t why I read it either.

That is always the problem with making sweeping generalizations. It’s easy to disprove the point inside of two minutes. In the same way that there might be some action films that I find too violent, there may be others that don’t bother me at all. Same with thriller books, same with noir.

But I must say, if the same old tired conversations about violence in noir and what noir means are dominating the forums and blogs, at least I’m not missing much. I had to laugh when I read John’s post (and used the excuse to link to it) because I’m just relieved there are others out there who’re sick of it.

Read what you want to read. Don’t read what you don’t like. But to tar a whole subgenre with an unqualified judgment is pretty weak. I don’t see any new trend emerging to publish stuff that’s increasingly violent, so either it doesn’t exist or I didn’t get the memo.

On A Personal Note: Changes

We all go through seasons in our lives, times when things are busier, and times when things are uncertain. My current status is both busier and unclear.

Theoretically, the new Spinetingler will be up later today - mid-week at the absolute latest. This all comes down to whether or not there are any more emergencies with the fire department. Being a long weekend, anything's possible.

I'll definitely circulate word when that's up, although I may be a bit slower than usual. Why? Well, I'm going back to work, starting tomorrow. All I'm saying for now is that it's a bit of a change of direction for me. However, since I'll be working part-time, and after the next few weeks mostly from home, it isn't going to have as much of an impact on my schedule as one would think. I've been really fussy about work options, because commuting to the city for a part-time position would eat up full-time hours.

Anyway, where will I be working? The library. But please don't tell any of the super-harassing authors who like to send spam, because I'm not buying their books. Although I will spend some time working in the library my focus will actually be on community-based programs to promote reading and the library.

Now that I've explained the busier, I hope the 'unclear' part makes sense. I'll be evaluating my schedule on a day to day basis, seeing how this is affecting my writing time. Obviously, the first thing to go is forums, but I expect I'll cut back a bit on blogging as well. Nothing personal, but the manuscripts get priority. I'll aim to check in 2-3 times per week. If it's more, great. I'm just letting you know so that nobody wonders what's up.

Meanwhile, you can get an extra dose of me simply by checking out my new story, Bull's Eye over at Pulp Pusher, where they also have a new interview with author Cathi Unsworth.

"She's No Dan Brown"

For those of you who've wondered what I sound like and have not yet checked out Jack Palms II it's time to head over there and listen to the latest issue. It's free, and yours truly gives the story so far right at the beginning.

In fact, in the new Spinetingler (theoretically up tomorrow) you can read an interview with Palm Daddy Seth Harwood, and the first few chapters of his work.

I say 'theoretically' because Kevin's off at a fire, and, well, one never knows when there's a fire. It could throw everything off schedule. Like my sleep.

In other news... Courtesy of Brian I have a new blurb. Actually, courtesy of Brian's mom. Her take after reading Suspicious Circumstances: "Well...she's no Dan Brown but I liked it."

Indeed. I have nowhere near as much money and don't have to keep a lawyer on retainer but now have this strange idea for a story about Emmanuel Carpenter, the reincarnation of Jesus. But I'm worried that might actually be the plot of a book I read 20 years ago and that I'm really remembering someone else's story. I think I'll stick to things I know nobody's writing about. Like Zombie dogs, and The Farting Cheese Fanatic.

On a serious note, it always seems a bit more personal when terrorist attacks happen at a place you've been yourself. Being familiar with the Glasgow Airport, yesterday's news was not just sad and disturbing. It was similar to how I felt after the Madrid train station bombing a few years ago, and the Bali terrorist attack: It sort of takes away a memory. Deep down, you know you can't return to places and expect them not to have changed, but when you see terrorist attacks on them on the news, you realize that in a different way.

I'm relieved that the attacks have fallen short of their intentions. I know right now, there are people out there who've been planning to go to Harrogate Crime Festival and are now nervous about traveling. Two years ago I went in the wake of the London bombings. The British are (unfortunately) familiar with dealing with terrorism. I have no doubt they'll be on full alert and everything possible will be done to ensure the safety of the public.

That said, I can only try to imagine how all our Scottish friends are feeling about this right now. I hope we've seen the worst of it.

For those who need something to lighten the mood, courtesy of Norby: There's a Problem With My Printer. You know, I've experienced something quite similar to this myself. Except for me it usually involves yelling, not pulling out a video camera.

And with that, to bed.