California Here I Come
I arrived in LA Tuesday, looking forward to five signings and a three day mystery conference . Tomorrow night I will be at Metropolis Books at a Sisters In Crime event hosted by Lee Child. They’ve invited five authors to talk, drink wine and mingle. It’s a tough job but I’m up to it. Then I’m on a panel with four other authors and we have to discuss humor in mysteries. Again, I think I can hold my own. (No mention of wine being served at this event but who knows?) Yesterday I visited Mysteries To Die For in Thousand Oaks and signed and talked to a wonderful group of people. They didn’t serve wine but I think I’ll suggest it the next time.
This murder specialty store features nothing but mysteries and only the best of those. Casey’s books were prominently displayed.
I’ll have a full report next week on what promises to be a very intersting week.
Don
Help the Honeybee!
OK, here’s something you probably didn’t know about me–I am a beekeeper.
Yup, there’s a hive in my backyard (a second one is coming this spring) and inside on a warm, summer day, you’ll find about 60,000 honeybees.
Why?
I can’t say. Not for sure. I can tell you that I’ve always been fascinated with bees and part of that might have come from reading Sherlock Holmes stories as a kid. You know, when he retired from the consulting detective business, he became a beekeeper. And though I have no memory of them actually doing it, I do have a vivid memory of an old home movie that shows my dad’s mother and father at their beehive. There was my grandfather (in Polish, we called him dziadza–pronounce that jaja) covered head to toe in bee gear. He had the jacket, the heavy canvas pants, the hat, the veil the gloves, the boots. He was a small man, he could barely trudge to the backyard beehive.
Along behind him came my busha . . . in her cotton housedress and apron. No veil, no gloves, sticking her nose and her hands in that hive like it was no big deal.
That picture has always stuck with me, and I think it’s part of what propelled me to get my first hive last year. Honey? Not yet, but then, last year was the worst year for US honey production on record. Hoping for a crop this year and when we get some and put it in bottles, we’re going to include a label that says “Busha’s Bees.”
All that being said, did you know that honeybees are responsible for pollination of one-third of all the foods we eat? And that each year, there are fewer and fewer bees? Without honeybees, we’d be one, hungry planet.
Even if you don’t want 60,000 bees in your yard, you can help support the honeybee population. One way is to think of the honeybee as you’re planning your summer garden. If you do a little research for your area and climate, you can find plants (like beebalm) that attract bees. Bees also need water to process nectar into honey and to keep their hives cool. You can leave a shallow dish of water in your garden (shallow is the operative word, bees aren’t good swimmers!) or leave a hose on a very slow drip.
And don’t worry that you’re asking for trouble. Though they can be aggressive when they’re protecting their honey supplies, honeybees are, for the most part, gentle. Those bees that hang around picnics and get in your soda pop cans? Those are actually yellow jackets, a kind of hornet. Honeybees are usually too busy collecting nectar to worry about humans, and since the only things they eat are pollen, nectar and honey, they’ll never crash your party.
For more information on how you can help the honeybees, check out the Haagen-Dazs ice cream site (www.helpthehoneybees.com). You’ll be doing the bees–and the world–a favor.
Monday with Judy
Last week I watched the PBS production of The Thirty-Nine Steps. Now, usually, I like PBS productions because I think they tend to be truer to the originals than most. However, this was not true of this one. I kept thinking throughout the show that this wasn’t what I remembered of the book, but it had been so long since I had read it I wasn’t sure. And I was too lazy to get up and get the book during the show to check it out.
I did reread the book this week though, and I was right. There really wasn’t much that was true to the book. Not that I didn’t enjoy the production, I did. And I suppose there was enough that they had to say it was “based on” John Buchan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps, but they should have said “loosely based on”.
Some of the names are the same, including the hero, Richard Hannay, and the spy/victim Scudder. But there is no girl in the book. I guess PBS people thought romance was necessary for the production. The basic premise remained the same: Hannay gets involved through Scudder in a spy adventure. But instead of being killed just as Hannay meets him, Scudder actually lives in Hannay’s flat for several days. And Hannay has more time to prepare for being on the run in the book than he did in the production. He decides to run and hide out for three weeks, because in the book he knows that the assassination (in the book of a Greek, in the production they used the real assassination of Archduke Ferdinand) will take place in three weeks, and he can’t warn anyone earlier, but must be in London to stop the killing.
Some of the running and hiding is the same; there is a political meeting at which Hannay appears. But much is different, including a time spent as a road worker. Even the thirty-nine steps are different; in the production they are part of a house in Scotland where Hannay and the girl are held prisoner, but in the book they lead from a house to the sea in southern England.
I always wonder what an author thinks of having his/her brainchild changed this way. If someone wanted the book enough to buy it to produce, wouldn’t you think it was the story; the characters; the setting that was wanted? Why change it? And isn’t it arrogant to think that your idea is better than the original? Why not just write your own original story if you think you are better?
I once asked Aaron Elkins about this. Many years ago one of the television networks did a series supposedly based on Elkins’ books, with Gideon Oliver, the physical anthropologist as the lead. But the TV. made him black, gave him a daughter, and moved him from the west coast to New York, if I remember correctly. I thought he might be upset about this metamorphosis of his character. He and his wife said they cried all the way to the bank. I guess that is a good way to handle it. Maybe you just take the money and don’t look back.
As a reader/viewer I personally dislike it when the movie/TV show changes what was written. Sometimes I won’t watch something if it is from one of my favorite authors. Should have done that with Elkins, but I was so excited that they were making a series of the books I loved, I got sucked into it. I know there have to be changes made sometimes, as in the Harry Potter books. There they managed for the most part to remain true to the books, though in the last movie there were a couple of scenes that were not. It is possible to take a book and turn it into a great movie; just see To Kill a Mockingbird.
Anyway, I enjoyed the PBS production, since I didn’t remember the book as I watched, so I wasn’t yelling at the TV. that things weren’t right. Books are better, though.
Writing in the time of chaos
Well, now that we’ve sold our condo and bought a house, things are crazy here. We’re getting a new dog, packing everything we own, and trying to maintain our sanity.
Usually one of my greatest helps in keeping my balance is writing, but it’s difficult for me to focus for long periods of time on one thing at the moment. I now tend to write in fits and spurts. I can manage a page or two before the phone rings or some other moving crisis arises — when should the movers arrive or when should they come to clean the new place? As a result, I’m feeling a bit more stressed than usual since my major destressor is only available in small doses. I still have a place to write. This room won’t be touched until the last minute, and I’ve promised myself that my writing space will be the second thing I set up in the new house. (Bedroom will be first.)
With my writing trip to Austin coming up in June, I need to bang out some more chapters before heading off there. Hopefully, late April and June will bring the quiet time I need to get more done (but of course, that never happens!)
How does everyone else cope with writing in chaotic times?
CR Corwin
If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time at all, you surely remember our good buddy, CR Corwin, who died in 2008. We miss him at the the Lil’ Blog. His humor and his insights were always welcome.
Now, there’s a way you can help memorialize CR.
The University of Akron has designated a Robert C. Levandoski Endowed Writing Award. (Yes, that’s CR’s real name, and he taught fiction writing at Akron U.)
You can donate online at:
http://www.uakron.edu/donate/
If you do, make sure you specify you’d like your donation to go the writing award.
Or you can contribute the old fashioned way by sending a check (and again, a note that you want your contribution to go to the writing award) to:
Tim R. DuFore
Department of Development
University of Akron
Akron, Ohio 44325-2603
I can’t think of a better way to honor CR’s memory. Well, except maybe to have a Reuben sandwich in his honor!
Monday With Judy
The past two weeks have seen me in front of my TV. for way too many hours. Who knew I’d get hooked on curling? Anyway, watching the Olympics has stirred an interest in mysteries involving sports. I don’t know of any mystery taking place at an Olympic site, either during the games or around the games, does anyone? I’m sure there are some murderous feelings generated in and around the village.
Maybe the Munich Olympics and the real tragedy there has kept people from using the games as the setting for fictional crime. Or maybe I’ve missed some mysteries. (It does happen.)
Also coming up is the Iditarod. Now, there is a great mystery: Murder on the Iditarod Trail by Sue Henry. It is so great the publishers even keep publishing it and you can still buy a new one! I became a Sue Henry fan from this book, and continued through all the adventures of Jessie Arnold, the musher, and her State Trooper friend Alex Jensen. If you haven’t read this book, read it in the next couple of weeks to get the feeling that you are on the trail with the mushers as they trek from Willow to Nome. Make sure you are nice and warm when you do this; the book will chill you in more ways than one.
So between the two events I started thinking about sport themed mysteries. One of the first writers to come to mind in this sub-genre, if that’s what it is, has to be Harlan Coben. His books with Myron Bolitar, an injured basketball player now a sports agent, are great. Harlan’s other books are great, too–the man can write. Several authors have sportswriters as protagonist, including Bill Granger, John Logue, James Sherburne and Crabbe Evers’ retired sportswriter turned investigator Duffy House. Also, Shannon O’Cork has a sports news photographer; Julie Robitaille has a TV sports reporter, and one of my favorite writers, Alison Gordon has a female baseball news writer. She gives us a Canadian viewpoint, too. I wish there were more of her books!
Golf seems to be a fairly popular scene for murder; Aaron and Charlotte Elkins have a golf pro as one of their team of protagonists, and Barry Cork, Conor Daly, Keith Miles, and Bruce Zimmerman show us golf and crime from Scotland through Westchester County, NY to the international scene.
You can enjoy a mystery with auto racing (Bob Judd), diving (Doug Allyn, David Poyer and Victoria McKernan), fishing and hunting (David Leitz and Victoria Houston), football (W.L. Ripley), sailing and yachting (Richard Butler, Tony Gibbs, Valerie Wilcox and Dorothy Dunnett), tennis (Martina Navratilova and Jack Bickham), soccer (Paul Bishop), mountain climbing (Gwen Moffatt) and wrestling (Liza Cody).
And since spring training is started you can shape up for the season by reading some truly great baseball mysteries. As I said, Alison Gordon, who was a sportswriter herself, writes wonderful books with a real feel for the game and the players. Crabbe Evers goes from ball park to ball park as his special investigator for the Commissioner seeks out wrongdoers, with the help of his niece.
David Nighbert and Richard Rosen also have baseball themed books, but I have to admit I haven’t read them. I’ll have to look for them, but both were published in the eighties, so may be hard to find.
And then there is Troy Soos. I love his books with Mickey Rawlings, a journeyman second baseman in the 1910’s, who travels from team to team and always runs into trouble. Mr. Soos has other books without Mickey, and anything he writes is well worth reading, but if you want a nice nostalgic look at our national past time (if it still is), then look for the ones with Mickey. Grab some popcorn and a cold beer, and take yourself out to the ballgame for a few hours. If you live in the Northeast or Midwest it may be hard to ignore the snow out there, but a good imagination comes in handy.
So, if you want to embrace the snow, hop on the sled for the Iditarod. If you want to believe that spring is coming, try some golf. And if you want to join the boys of summer a little early, you can’t go wrong with Alison Gordon, Troy Soos or Crabbe Evers. And if any of these are too energetic for you, and you are just a laid back fisherperson, then Victoria Houston’s books are for you. They all have “Dead” in the title, from Dead Angler to Dead Hot Shot, and they involve a retired dentist who loves to fish. Of course, he keeps being interrupted by dead bodies. Great reads, all of them.
And now that the Olympics are about over it is back to reading for me. Shall I warm myself up with some summer reads, or by reading Stabenow or Henry or Alistair MacLean’s Ice Station Zebra or Night Without End, books I usually save for a hot July day to reread. I love having choices. (And time to read!)
An honor for the blog
The Little Blog of Murder was named one of the 50 Best Blogs for Crime & Mystery Book Lovers this month.
http://www.courtreporter.net/blog/2010/50-best-blogs-for-crime-mystery-book-lovers/
What a week!
Well, as you read this, I’m getting ready to submit another offer on another home. Last Friday, shortly after posting my piece on waiting, the wait was over. We accepted an offer on the condo and sold. That left us homeless, so we’ve been in a mad rush to find a new place.
We had originally looked at a home last weekend and made an offer. We learned before the final offer that the home was not quite as represented (to say the least.) Some major problems had not been disclosed, and in some negotiations that would make Kissinger proud, we backed out of the deal. The offer and what we would have to do were not in line.
So we spent a week driving around our area, searching for a macguffin, the perfect home. We found several very nice homes, but nothing perfect. We picked the best of what’s on the market, which is a very nice bi-level and decided to make an offer.
Now we’re back to last week’s column and waiting. I leave for a conference next week, so the faster we can get this resolved the better!
When I can, I’m trying to write and read for the new biography. I want to get this finished in 2010, and current events are not helping. I don’t know how one can write the very best works when so much chaos is around them. I’d love to hear from others about how to focus on your writing when the things around you seem to be taking all of your attention!
Jeff
Sluethfest
I’m in sunny Deerfield Beach for Sluethfest, the mystery conference. If anyone reading this is attending as well, please look me up. Please, buy me a drink. Please.
Sluethfest is a great conference for anyone interested in the process of writing a mystery. Today will be loaded with classes and how to sessions. The next three days will be filled with panals of authors, agents, editors and more who will talk about writing, selling, publishing and promoting a novel. There are discussions on the future of publishing, the glory of the past and on and on. It’s by far the best panal for unpublished authors I’ve ever attended. Lots of personal attention. Again, if you happen to be here, please say hi. I’m thirsty.
Don
City of Light, City of Magic
An article in a recent Forbes magazine has declared Cleveland the Most Miserable city in the country.
Apparently, part of the criteria they used to determine this was economic, and it’s hard to argue with that. Cleveland’s been hit hard by the economic downturn. Jobs are few and far between, property values have dipped. So when it comes to financial factors, sure, we’re a little down in the dumps.
But whoever determined we’re miserable needs to take another look. There’s a lot about Cleveland that would surprise people who’ve never been here. Yeah, there’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and it’s a whole lot of fun, but there’s more to Cleveland than that.
We have a fabulous park system that rings the city and is known as the Emerald Necklace. We have a national park, too, and (lucky me!) it’s not far from where I live.
We have always had housing that was amazingly affordable, even before the industry took a nosedive. When I talk to my friends in places like DC and California, they’re amazed at what $200K can buy in Cleveland.
We have nice, safe neighborhoods (and bad ones, too, but what city doesn’t?), and truly world-class museums. We have an orchestra that’s been declared by those in the know to be the best in the world, and they play in a hall that is truly breathtaking.
We have a wonderful ethnic and cultural mix of people that’s reflected by all the names in the phonebook that are impossible to pronounce and all the great restaurants. In the mood for Thai? Polish? Italian? Middle Eastern? Any kind of food you want is here, and compared to most places, prices are reasonable.
We have professional sports teams that sometimes actually play like professionals.
Cleveland is a great place to raise children. It’s a place where you’ll meet sold, hard-working people who are proud of their heritage and the city where they live.
Miserable? Not hardly! We’re tough and determine and we’ll bounce back. We always do.
Take that, Forbes magazine!
