Lifescapes

rosemary

Rosemary is my favorite herb, and this is what it looks like today--a little rain (not enough, sadly), a few warm hours (80 degrees by mid-afternoon), and the blossoms pop out, sweetly, delicately blue, along all the stems. Some bushes are bluer than others, but it's easy to see why the story of the Virgin's blue cloak (flung over the rosemary bush to dry) is such a popular one. And here's a tea that I make right out of the garden: 2 parts rosemary leaves, 1 part juniper berries, crushed, 1 part mint, 1 part lemon grass. Tart and tangy.

Tomorrow is photo shoot day. A photographer from Texas Monthly is coming out to MeadowKnoll to take photos to go with an interview that is schedule for the magazine's April issue. A "side-bar" interview, it's called: running down the edge of the page. I'm always delighted to be in TM. It doesn't happen often (last time, it was with Hangman's Root, which TM chose as one of the 10 "Notable Books" of 1994). So I'm thrilled. Picture me washing my hair, rooting through the closet for clean jeans and a half-way acceptable shirt, putting on makeup (ACK!), and trying to look like a serious writer, whatever that is. I think I'll wear the red/orange/green socks my dear D-I-L Sheryl knitted for me, with sandals. Serious writers wear red socks, don't they?

And today . . . well, today is Celebration Day. I finished the last bit of polishing on Spanish Dagger, printed out the manuscript (it just took a jiffy on our new speedy printer), and got it ready to go flying off to New York tomorrow, about three weeks ahead of the deadline. I've been working on Beatrix #4, but took a brief leave of absence to go back to China and get her all prettied up for her next (omigawd, this is #15!) appearance.

Reading Note, from Maud Grieve's A Modern Herbal. Do check out the link--Grieve is delightful to read, although, since her book was published in 1929, you'll want to check her medicinal recommendations against more recent research:

There is a vulgar belief in Gloucestershire and other counties, that Rosemary will not grow well unless where the mistress is "master"; and so touchy are some of the lords of creation upon this point, that we have more than once had reason to suspect them of privately injuring a growing rosemary in order to destroy this evidence of their want of authority.

tiny things

There's always so much to see, here in the country. Big sky, wide horizon, tall trees, open spaces. The width and breadth and height dazzles, distracts, diverts. There's too much confusion here, too much, too much of everything.

So I look at the smallest things. These lichens, growing on a sumac twig. A garden of delicate branched plant forms, miniature fruiting bodies, microscopic spores. An orderly wilderness, flowering, fruitful, spilling pale, delicate colors: olive-green, green-gold, golden orange, red. The finest filaments, branched like coral, jeweled and rare. A garden of green threads and gold, simple and tender, patient, poetic, rooted in a slender branch.

The tiniest things, the most beautiful, the most unlikely, the things not often seen. The things I want to see today.

Reading Note. What does it mean, say the words, that the earth is so beautiful? And what shall I do about it? What is the gift that I should bring to the world? What is the life that I should live?--Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

pruning roses

No roses yet (this is last year's photo). But soon--in mid-April probably, while I'm gone on book tour.

This blossom (Old Blush, it's called) is the hoped-for result of what I've been doing for the past few days: pruning roses--always a tough job for me. I decided several years ago (at pruning time) that I have Too Many Roses: the exact count always seems to be different, but it's something like three dozen shrubs, climbers, ramblers, thorny and non-, antique and modern, spring bloomers and re-bloomers. But concluding that there are too many has never led to any sort of action. You can't just cut down a rose bush--at least, I can't. That would be like cutting down the children. So onward I go, pruning shears in hand, making tough decisions. It's a thorny business.

It's also embarrassing, because close inspection of the naked bushes always reveals the deficiencies in previous years’ prunings. A few years back, I had a garden helper who did the pruning for me. I didn’t supervise closely enough, and the result was . . . well, very embarrassing. For the last few years, I've done it myself, but probably didn't make enough tough decisions: more embarrassment.

This year, I'm paying more attention to clearing out the middle of the bush and pruning to favor outward growing buds. I wear a leather glove on my left hand and wield the clippers with my right. And I'm telling myself that the more I cut, the better the bloom will be. My arms are battle-scarred and I feel like a heartless brute, but the shrub roses are done. Time to get out the ladder and move on to the climbers.

There's a metaphor here, of course, and I need to take instruction. I'm more than half-way through the fourth book in the Beatrix Potter series. Time to stop plunging forward, go back to the beginning, and start pruning. I have at least one too many plots. If I don't fix the problem now, this book will be big, floppy, and undisciplined--like some of these rose bushes.

Reading Note.

Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Re-examine each sentence that you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? . . . Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it's beautiful? Simplify. Simplify.--William Zinsser

S is for Sue Grafton

I just finished reading  S is for Silence--Grafton's new Kinsey Milhone book (19th in the series). If you haven't read the novel, here's a brief recap: the adult daughter (Daisy) of a mother (Violet) who went missing in 1954 asks Kinsey to solve this very cold case. She does (of course), with her usual cool common sense. A good read, full of the usual Kinsey stuff that we all enjoy: junk food, Kinsey's minimalist life-style, and the on-again/off-again relationship with her current flame that always reminds me of Nancy (Drew, of course) and Ned what's-his-name. But it is the structure of this novel that interests me, as a fellow first-person novelist.

Grafton's series will soon catch up to the longest-running first-person mystery writer of all time: John D. MacDonald, who wrote 21 Travis McGee novels. But there aren't all that many of us, for a very simple reason. First-person mysteries are hell to write, and nineteen of them--well, damn. Is there anything worse than hell? I just finished #15 in the China Bayles first-person series (Spanish Dagger will be out in 2007), so I should know.

So when I see that Grafton is telling the backstory (the victim's story, the story of the crime) through multiple points of view (including the killer's, but not the victim's), I'm intrigued. This is a new narrative strategy for Grafton (in this series), and one that I'm planning to use for China in the Shaker book (set in Kentucky) that will be published in 2009. About half of S is for Silence is told in Kinsey's first-person voice, as she goes about investigating Violet's disappearance. Alternating chapters are narrated from various points of view, relating the story of the few days in July, 1953, that led up to the murder. This layered, multiple view-point narrative gives Grafton the opportunity to do something that a first-person novelist cannot do: go deeply into the other characters in the story, their motivations, fears, desires, feelings, and hidden thoughts. In first-person narration, the only character you can show deeply is the viewpoint character: your protagonist, who can only see what the other characters reveal to her or what she surmises about them. In third-person narration, you can go deeply into as many characters as you choose.

First-person narratives invite readers to identify with the character and create a strong reader-character bond. (Much of the China-mail I get is from people who say, in one way or another, "I love China.") But it's also terribly limiting, because the rest of the characterization is confined to externalities (spelled s-u-p-e-r-f-i-al), unless you give your protagonist the power to read others' minds.

So I was delighted to see Grafton's compositive narrative form: first-person point of view, alternated with shifting third-person point of view. She did an excellent job, especially with the several people who were strongly motivated to kill Violet, each for his or her own very good reasons. In fact, the motivations were all so strong, and so many of the potential killers had the opportunity to commit the murder that the reader doesn't know who did it until Grafton is ready to open the curtain. A good job, well done.

Of course, this strategy risks the ire of people who will feel cheated because they didn't get enough Kinsey. And since the novel is set in a different town, they're going to miss the usual series characters. But I felt there was a good balance here. Aside from minor quibbles (too many distracting, show-off details of 1953 brand names, for one), I enjoyed the book, learned from it, and congratulate Grafton on breaking out of the first-person form.

Reading Notes:

The writer's point of view is a choice among tools.--Tracy Kidder
I know I walk in and out of several worlds every day.--Joy Harjo

on the road again

Wish I could take this pair of Alaaska grandkids on my book tour. Wouldn't that be a kick? (Well...maybe if we had a traveling nanny and a trailer full of Luvs.) These kids' parents, Michael and Sheryl, toured them all over the US last summer, from Alaska to the East Coast and back again, so they are experienced travelers. Bet they'd love to go touring with Grandma.

Several people have written to commiserate about the big bad book tour. But I have to tell you, people, it's not all that horrible. I really do like to drive, not as much as these kids, maybe, but almost. Give me a nice set of wheels (especially a rental car that doesn't have dog-fur covered seats or a bushel of empty Coke cans rattling around), an open road, and a good book to listen to, and it's as good as a vacation, as far as I'm concerned. Throw in McDonald's salads for lunch and dinner, and I'm good for 3,000 miles.

Actually, I think this trip will be closer to 4,000, by the time the mileage is clocked. Peggy has posted the full itinerary here. We've been planning this baby since last August, and believe me, it's a triumph of travel engineering. Everything's scheduled (barring cancellations), and I've downloaded the maps to the events. (There's nothing worse than getting lost.) Next task: get the hotel reservations (also online, of course). All of this goes into a notebook, with a page for every event, maps, driving directions, etc etc. I'm actually beginning to look forward to it. Five whole weeks without cooking a meal or washing a dish!

But of course, the best part of the tour is meeting people, which is what this is all about. Selling books? Well, sure, my publisher would love it if that would happen. But for me, the biggest thrill is walking into a store or a library or whatever and seeing lots of people. Sheer heaven. (Conversely, the biggest let-down is walking into a place and seeing three or four, which has happened. Mystery writer Joan Hess calls these "the signings from hell"--almost as bad as signing in a mall, with your books on a card table outside the bookstore.) So if you're in the area, come and bring a carload of your best buddies and fill up all those empty seats. I'll love you for it.

Reading Note. You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.--Colette

fresh snow

Not this year! This lovely snowfall happened two years ago, on Valentine's Day--one of the prettiest we've ever seen here at MeadowKnoll.

No posting tonight, just the photo. I'm trying to finish up the permissions for the book Women Write about the Southwest (the editor at UT Press needs an updated permission log). And when that's done, it's on to the tour maps.

Happy Valentine's Day!

cat on a hot new ARC

It's been cold all day today, with an icy north wind, and Shadow has been sitting on top of the kitchen stove, her favorite place on chilly winter days, particularly since I have the oven on, baking potatoes. But this afternoon, she came into my office to sit on my desk beside the computer keyboard, under her favorite lamp, where she could warm herself beside a hot, newly-arrived ARC.

An ARC is an advance reading copy. These are put out by publishers for distribution to reviewers, booksellers, tour hosts, and the like. I got a few in the mail the other day, and will be sending them out to my own (short, very short) list. One reader (a botanist) who got one from my publisher emailed me this morning to tell me that I made an error in the botanical identification of Bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa). It seems this plant was reassigned some 20 years ago from the Papaveraceae to the Fumariaceae.

Sigh... Too late to correct this for the hardcover, but I've saved the email (thanks, Alice!) and will make sure the error is corrected in the paperback edition.

I've often wondered just what booksellers do with ARCs--especially since I regularly see them for sale here and there. (Yes, even at mystery conferences! and especially in the used book sections of the on-line bookstores.) This is definitely not kosher, since the book clearly says "not for sale" on the cover. (Well, you can't see it in the photo, but it's there, just above the title.) My question was answered in a link that Sharon Wildwind posted today on the Murder Must Advertise list. If you're interested, it's on the Bookweb site. I am wiser, having read it (thanks to you, Sharon), and will treat my ARCs with more respect from here on out--although I don't suppose it hurts to let Shadow warm her paws on one.

And if you're wondering whether that purple thingy on the other side of the cat is actually a crochet hook, you're right. I'm knitting a scarf (the yarn is Kollage/Passion/raspberry, very fun to work with) while I work on Beatrix, because writing involves more than just typing. Right? Yes.

The crochet hook is there in case I drop a stitch.

Reading Note, a meditation from At Knit's End (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee): At first the marriage between knitting and computers struck me as odd. Knitting seems like the opposite of computers, and I couldn't imagine that the two were compatible. That didn't last long. When I found out I could join a virtual knitting circle and ask 7,000 knitters worldwide what they thought I was doing wrong with buttonholes, I was hooked.

I will remember, should I choose to explore the virtual knitting world, that you can knit while using the computer if you put the keyboard on the floor and scroll with your toes.

winners!

The trouble with blogging about the writing process is that I don't have any pictures to post. But here's one you might like to look at while I'm blogging about Beatrix. This is St. Michael and All Angels Church, in Hawkshead, the market town where the Sawrey folk did their serious shopping. Beatrix went right past it every time she went into town.

The post is sort of about Beatrix, but mostly about the winner of the mystery characters raffle that we did with Story Circle. The raffle has been posted on my website since October, and the winners are posted there now. The idea is pretty simple: we raffled off the chance to put yourself into a character in one of the three mystery series I'm writing: China Bayles, Beatrix Potter, and the Victorian/Edwardian mysteries I write with Bill, as Robin Paige.

The raffle was a huge success--brought in just over $2,000 for SCN. (Thanks to all who entered!) We drew at the last session of the SCN conference: the old-fashioned way, pulling tickets out of a basket. I've emailed a questionnaire to each of the winners, to find out what about themselves they'd like to see in the book. (You wouldn't want ALL of your life story to appear in a China Bayles mystery, would you? I didn't think so.) Got the first reply yesterday, from Janet, the first-place winner, who chose to be in a Beatrix Potter book. I was especially inspired by one sentence: "In the past," Janet writes, "we have lived with a Tegu lizard, boa constrictor, many cats, a few dogs, and pet rats." Reading that, I knew exactly how I was going to use her character. Thanks for the inspiration, Janet--this is going to be a lot of fun!

Another contest: If you'll go to the main webpage you'll find an announcement of six more contests, one a week until the publication of BLEEDING HEARTS. Please enter! Peggy will be drawing the first winner on Saturday. This contest is free--you just have to answer a few very easy questions about herbs. They're so easy that I'm almost ashamed of them, but never mind: they'll get more challenging as we go along. So stay tuned for more winners!

Reading Note: by Jack London: You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

conferencing

Wow, that was fun! Just got back yesterday afternoon from the Story Circle conference, where a truly wonderful time was had by all, so far as I could tell. There were women from all over the US, from Canada, even. And (of course) from Texas. On Thursday night, we loaded up the goodie bags, which is what we're doing in the photo. From left to right: Penny Appleby, Linda Wisniewski, Peggy Moody (yes, the famous Peggy, webmavin extraordinaire!), and Leilani (she of the beautiful name). We probably ate as many chocolates as we put into the goodie bag, but don't tell anybody.

The conference was the usual sort of thing. Registration and keynote on Friday, with Rosemary Daniell, who started us off in fine style with "Strong Women Tell Their Truths." Sessions, lunch, and more sessions on Saturday; ditto on Sunday. My talk (entitled "Truth and Invention: When Strong Women Tell Tales") wrapped everything up. But what was wonderfully unusual was the easy, honest sharing that went on at every session, and the rich friendships renewed and begun. It doesn't get any better than this, in my opinion.

The blogging panel (Linda Myers, Joan Gelfand, and moi) was on Saturday morning, with online demos and discussion on Saturday evening. Good talk, good ideas, good disagreements. (Did you ever know three bloggers who agreed on anything?) We've come up with an idea for a Story Circle group blog--now let's see if any of us has the time to actually make it happen. Big question mark there, since we're all up to our necks in stuff to do.

I'll post more about this later, but just want to give you a heads-up on two things. The raffle for the mystery character was held yesterday. The winners (ta da! drum roll here!): Janet Balletto, Warwick RI (Beatrix Potter); Sharon Baehr, Diamond Bar CA (Robin Paige); and Melissa Grody of Waynesburg PA (China Bayles). Congratulations, gals! I'm looking forward to working with each of you and seeing what kind of mischief your characters can get up to in these books.

The other thing I wanted to mention is my new (more drum rolls here) Amazon blog, in the Amazon Connect program. It was something I was "urged" to do by my publisher (you all know what that means). I don't think the system is entirely operational yet. When it is, it will be interesting to see how the various parts of it work together. It won't replace this blog, but will be another way to get the word out about the books. And authors can use all the help they can get, of course.

Reading Note: from E.B. White, Charlotte's Web:

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.

writing buddy

One of the niftiest things about writing the Beatrix Potter mysteries is the relationship to other Potter people--people who really enjoy Beatrix's work. When I began working on the project, I did what I was trained to do back in graduate school and what I've always done when I work on an historical figure: I dug up everything I could find that had been written about Beatrix and began compiling a bibliography. I joined the Beatrix Potter Society and studied their newsletters to see who was currently working on her. That's how I ran into Linda Lear.

I already knew about Linda's definitive biography of Rachel Carson and admired its range, depth, and clarity. It was meticulously researched and absolutely thorough and balanced, yes--but far, far beyond that, I had the sense that here was a biographer who was so deeply engaged with her subject that she could see down to the bone. Linda embraced Carson's strengths but didn't gloss over the weaknesses: she understood them and could put them, thoughtfully and compassionately, into the context of the whole life. It's a rare biographer that takes that kind of time (she spent a decade on the project--a full decade!) and works with that sort of inclusive engagement.

So when I read in the BP newsletter that Linda was working on a new biography of Beatrix (due to be pubbed in 2007), I was delighted. I wrote to her as a fan, told her I was working on Beatrix fictions, and was thrilled when she wrote back. Over the past three years, Linda has read the manuscripts, answered my (often dumb) questions about Beatrix's life, invited me to be a part of her panel at last year's conference in Amherst, helped me connect to other Beatrix scholars, allowed me early looks at her fascinating manuscript, and engaged in long and productive email discussions with me about Beatrix's life and times. Wonderfully, generously helpful, of course--but that's an understatement. Linda is my lifeboat. She comes along when I'm feeling lost and lonely in the middle of a Beatrix puzzle and lifts me up.

Take Bertram, for instance, Beatrix's brother. Judy Taylor (Beatrix's chief British biographer, who is a fountain of knowledge about everthing Potter and also wonderfully willing to share), includes a few facts about his life in her fine study of Beatrix's life. Linda had more. In fact, Linda had even interviewed the niece of Bertram's wife and had visited the area of Scotland where he had his farm. And because Linda was willing to share her facts (not to mention the speculations we traded back and forth about the essential mysteries of Bertram's life), I could build this man into my current fiction with a strong sense of confidence. Although he will only appear in two of the eight books (three, at the most), he's an important character. He could have helped Beatrix once, when her parents refused to allow her to marry. He helped her later, in the same circumstances. Thanks to Linda, I think I know what he was about, more or less, and why he did what he did.

So today's post honors Linda Lear, mentor, friend, and writing buddy, who has lightened difficult days and provided advice and facts, facts, facts when I needed them most. When her biography of Beatrix is out, I'll let you know. In the meantime, read her study of Carson. Biography doesn't get any better than this.

Reading note, from Linda Lear's Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, p. 8:

Rachel Carson was first of all a child of the Allegheny River, its woods and wetlands. Although she could not see the wide bend of the Allegheny from the front porch of the Carson homestead near the top of the hill just off Colfax Lane, she could look over the white pines that grew along the north bank and see the traffic on the road running parallel along the opposite shoreline. She could hear the horns of the riverboats and paddle-wheelers coming and going on the river. In the spring the fog would rise over the river, hiding the road and muffling all sound, allowing an imaginative little girl to wonder where the river had been long ago and what sorts of things it had carried in its swift current as it curved sharply at Springdale and headed down its last sixteen miles on its way to converve with the Monongahela at Pittsburgh.