Fads, Let Me List Them

I generally listen to the news as I grin-and-bear (more bearing than grinning) my daily commute, however, one morning I was so out of it I just left it on the rock&roll station that is my husband's choice of ear food, and I noticed something about current music. I should place this in some context. The rock&roll station he listens to has an eclectic mix of current offerings, classic rock, and some blues thrown in to show how cool they are. Although owned by a huge media conglomerate, it has wisely realized that pre-programmed shows in this market won't work, and it seems that the DJs actually have some choice in what is played. So the other day I'm listening to a Beatles song and the next song up is something "today-ish," which is a nice way of saying I don't know who in the hell is singing.

What struck me throughout my entire drive is that current music and current style of writings are dove-tailing each other. Wildly popular music (and I even include Adele in this although I do adore her voice) is essentially notenotenotenote, different two notes, notenotenotenotenote. I assume this is due to the influence of rap, but there is virtually NO melody. However, this lack of melody is always compensated for by a kick-ass percussion background. I don't know enough about rap to make any sort of intelligent statement about it other than to me, personally, it's more spoken word, with a kick-ass beat to it.

Books these days are more or less the same. Little characterization for the main protags (or in some cases NO characterization--where's the "melody"), however, we do have kick-ass world-building (essentially the percussion of the novel), and the minor characters seem more thought out than the main characters. To me a book doesn't move forward unless the main protagonist is somehow affected by what happens in the book. All the world-building in the world can't save a book for me unless the main character moves.

This is why writing a mystery series is, inherently, limiting. Because aside from solving mysteries, your main protagonist needs to move emotionally, and how many personal epiphanies can one character have? I think you can have five books of epiphanies, and after that you either stop the series or the book becomes basically a soap opera with a mystery included. The mystery in a novel fulfills the same role as world building does in the fantasy novel. It is key, but it's not *key*, if you get my drift.

Fantasy novels are easy to pick on because world building is so integral to their structure, and even as I wade through popular reviews of such books, many of their readers *only* care about the world-building, so maybe the authors are writing to their readers; I don't know. I think a lot of mystery readers really only care about plot. The classic mystery's roots are embedded in Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, who never age and never change. Not that I haven't torn through the entire Christie oeuvre; I have. But in general, such one note protagonists don't work for me. A number of books I've read recently just don't *go* anywhere. Oh, physically they do, as in lots happens, and I can't say they aren't well written, because a lot of them are, but the main character stands still while everything happens around them. It's not a personal journey, which, at heart, I think every book needs to have at its core.

Or if it doesn't, then it's a comment on the character's existential crisis (and I don't usually throw those sorts of terms around because, well, how pretentious, but here I really do mean this). Two writers who pull this off are Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Frankly, most of the books I've read who have a moribund protagonist are *not* using this character as emblematic of modern existential angst, they are just being lazy, but indeed the whole point of Chandler and Hammett's novels *is* the existential centerlessness of Marlowe and Spade. So, yes, it can be done and done beautifully, but it must be part of the whole concept, not because, wow, the world building/plot so shiny, ultimately so hollow.

Time to re-read The Long Goodbye.

Enough with the heart attacks

Two recents authors (both of whom I adore) have had their protagonists suffer heart attacks. I am now asking for a moratorium on this convention, precisely because I think it IS becoming a convention and it's a wee bit deux et machina for me. I have noticed that both these writers are men, and I'm wondering if this is something men think about. Of course, women think about breast cancer (which to my mind is much more insidious and possibly life threatening, as opposed to a heart attack which is--in most cases although not all--a wake-up call).

So. Yo. Male authors. No more heart attacks. It's becoming cliche.

Computers are evil and Canada

I have wasted an entire week of my life trying to deal with a computer virus on my new laptop. And as much as I hate Microsoft on principle, I've been on the phone with a number (FAR TOO MANY) of extremely helpful phone minions. Depending on the severity of the problem, they keep bumping you up to someone more savvy. But it took hours of phone time on crappy connections, and while I have some facility with accents, a weak connection makes that sort of back and forth difficult. What command? Plus, the entire thing was a PC guilt trip because I really couldn't hear, but I was sure they thought I was being an American xenophobe. Sigh. Is xenophobe a word? You know what I mean.

Anyway, am setting up daughter in new apartment for her second year of college. It's in a kick-ass part of town with lots of, well, everything around her. Kinda funky, but then that's college and I am envious. Living in a semi-dump has its advantages. Life is simpler. No hanging baskets or roses to fret over. No driveways to seal. Meals are haphazard affairs. Not that I don't love my house, my yard, my cats, but all these silent demands for attention tend to overwhelm on occasion. Love the roses, hate the upkeep deal. But then I do love roses and we put up these graceful trellises, and once again it's that no free lunch deal. Trellises+roses=beauty+upkeep.

And let's not even talk about the college issue. I buy lottery tickets on a half-assed basis, and my greatest fantasy is not about buying that chateau in France with my millions. It's about buying time. I would become a full-time student again. I'd start off in landscape architecture (Gertrude Jekyll being an idol of mine) and then? Who knows? I think college is wasted on the young. What I know now? I look at the list of my daughter's classes and I salivate over the possibilities.

I return to the U.S. tomorrow. And book number three. I am up to 9000 words and have a goal of finishing this sucker by Christmas. Ambitious, but not impossible. I have reached a stage in my writing where the process is more intense, but it's neater and cleaner. I write and it takes twice as long to finish a chapter, but it's a chapter where the concept is done. Written in stone. That's why I love writing. It's not static. The process changes the more adept you get. In some ways it's much harder, because I tend to overwrite and then I must go back and parse out all the bullshit writing, but now at least I have goals. How to get there, conversely, has because harder because I am less satisfied with my writing the more I write, but having goals is half the battle. What am I achieving in this chapter? You should always have a goal--actually several goals--in each chapter.

Edit. Winning the lottery would allow me to write full time. Perchance to dream.

Will post answers to crossword puzzle. Got derailed on that because of ugly virus and then getting daughter settled. There really aren't enough hours in the day.

Reminder! EVENT!

Yes, at Bookwagon in Ashland, Oregon, on Friday, June 12 2 6:00 pm. BE THERE!

Northward Ho!

Hello! We have survived horrible, no good, very bad board meeting. We have had daughter home from college for two solid weeks. We have toiled in the garden to the point where I can actually have my mother over for tea and not be embarrassed about the state of my soil. We are cone-free, the diabetic dog having reached the point where her eye is, well, not seeing but not dying either. We are going to Ashland! Yes, as in Ashland, Oregon.

Yes, peeps, I will be appearing at Bookwagon in Ashland, on Friday, June 12th at 6:00 pm. The lovely folks there have invited me for a book event. For more information, check out www.booksandoldlace.com.

Husband and I used to go there yearly before the children. Children have a way of killing any thoughts of road trips (as if I don't spend enough time in the car as it is), however, we are so looking forward to this. Blasting rock and roll in the car as we head up Highway 5. I've appointed myself in charge of the play list, otherwise it will be five hours of Neil Young. Which. Well. No. Some Allman Brothers, Stones, sneak in some Les Dudek, and some Santana.

See you there.

Flails hands

I have just heard from publisher (Poisoned Pen Press) that Roux Morgue will be a pick for their Mystery of the Month Club for July. HUZZAH!

Aside from the general all-purpose squeal of delight that this elicited, this is yet another instance where you (or I mean me) suffer from complete whiplash. The really egotistical side of you (or me, rather) says, "Well, of course, your book was picked, it's a decent book," and then the naysayer, the snarky voice of fail, sneers, "Why your book?" Why indeed.

Most of the writers I know suffer from varying degrees of this narcissistic lack of self-esteem or this self-denying narcissism. You enter a book store and look in one direction, and sniff, your book is certainly as good as that lot there, but hey! A glance down the opposite aisle and All THOSE books are so much better than yours. It's a seesaw, one that I try not to ride, because of all the deadly sins, envy is the one I'm easily guilty of, and it's the most self-destructive emotion I know. It paralyzes me every time. I can't help but compare my writing to others, and while I might actually have the chutzpah to believe that I'm better than 80% of the general writing population (okay, maybe 70% on a good day), that doesn't matter. It's the 30% who are better than me that make me want to hit the delete button.

In my search for that perfect book that will make me a perfect writer, I stumbled across one book that might not keep those mean reds at bay, but it certainly explains why I get them. It's called The Midnight Disease. It's a nonfiction book about the brain and writing, and it's written by a neurologist who is also a writer (who has possibly one of the most engaging non-fiction styles I've come across in a long time). Anyway, it has lots of interesting bits about writers and ego and writer's block and just some damn fine insight into this crazy compulsion to put bits of our soul down on paper for the world to praise or deride. The wonderful thing about this book is the realization that your neurotic and obsessive compulsive traits are not unusual, and, in fact, pretty much ho hum and are shared by quite a few writers. Which somehow that made me feel a whole hell of a lot better. Safety in neurotic numbers.

Highly recommended.

Waves

Pull up a chair. No, closer. This is my new blog page.

I'll be posting material here time to time on events, musings, thoughts about writing, your general all-purpose writing blahblahblah.First things first: my website is http://www.rouxmorgue.com/. I hope to keep it updated, but I'm pants at that stuff, so please come here first to see what's shaking.

What's shaking, you ask?

NEW BOOK, THAT'S WHAT!!!!!

Roux Morgue, by me
ISBN-13: 978-1590584880

Yeah, finally, I'm getting around to publishing the latest in the Mary Ryan, Pastry Chef series. The last three years have not been kind: father died and lots of health issues. Suffice it to say, I'm here, although missing several organs, but am doing great. In a fit of "OH MY GOD, I'M ALIVE," I finished the second book in something like three months.

Fortunately, my dear publisher, Poisoned Pen Press (PPP), had not forgotten me (I wouldn't have blamed them if they'd said, "Claire, who?"). Anyway, April 2008 publication date. Coinciding with the publication of Roux Morgue, PPP will be reissuing Beat Until Stiff in trade paperback. Huzzah!Mary returns to her alma mater, Ecole d'Epicure (which does not, in any way, shape, or form, resemble my old alma mater, the California Culinary Academy) to teach pastry. And much to her surprise (but not ours), people start dying. O'Connor reappears in all his sexy glory, Thom reappears, and I've added a couple of new characters.I'm definitely going to Malice Domestic at the end of April, and Boucheron in October, where my publishers will be getting a Lifetime Achievement Award. I plan on scheduling other author events, so stayed tuned.

Glad I'm back.

Cheers,

Claire