Why I Did it--SPOILER ALERT!

If you haven't yet read Who Buries the Dead, STOP RIGHT NOW! Everyone else can follow me below the cover image for an explanation of a certain event that occurs near the end of that book.

Okay, everyone who hasn't read it stopped above, right? Right? Because you really don't want to spoil it. As the rest of you know, there is a death at the end of Who Buries the Dead; the death of one of my favorite characters. When I first handed in the proposal for this book to my editor, she didn't want me to do it (she really likes this character). But when I explained my reasons, she said, "Yes; you're right."

So what were my reasons?

I should begin by explaining that this character was not originally intended to be part of the continuing cast. I had intended to kill him off in When Maidens Mourn, the first book in which he appeared. But I kinda fell for the guy, and I couldn't do it. Plus I realized what a great and useful character he was, so I let him live. But I never intended for him to live forever. Why?

The main problem is that he is too much like Sebastian. He not only looks like Sebastian, but his character is quite similar, too. For an author, that causes issues. Hopefully those issues didn't show because I worked hard to minimize the effects, but believe me, it was hard.

A second reason is that, once a cast of characters gets too large, it becomes unwieldy. Different readers have their favorites and they tend to be disappointed when Hendon or Kat (yes, some readers do like her!) or whoever doesn't get much page time. For me, plot and pacing are always trumps, so I never bring on a character simply for the sake of spending some time with him or her. But the more characters there are, the harder it becomes to work them all into the plot. The longer this series goes on, the more characters we're adding. That meant some judicial pruning was in order.

I found that in many ways this particular character's scenes were in danger of always hitting the same note. Plus, the more we--and Sebastian--got to know him, the less enigmatic he became. I wanted him to remain something of a mystery; a vaguely ominous threat.

And while this character is gone in one sense, he is not in others. His death is an important catalyst that propels the story arc of Sebastian's personal quest forward. In the next book, When Falcons Fall, Hero and Sebastian travel to Shropshire where they meet Jamie's family and learn a lot more about him, the necklace, and a certain other mysterious figure from the past. I also have a complication involving a little boy that is coming up.

Another factor that influenced my decision, although it was far from the primary one, is the realization that with a series, it becomes increasingly difficult to convince readers that any of the continuing characters are really in danger. If a reader is thinking, "Oh, she wouldn't really kill off Gibson/Hero's mother/Tom," then suspense suffers. Admit it: from now on, you're going to worry more when someone is threatened; right?

I won't deny that I miss Jamie. Because the next book, #11, When Falcons Fall, takes place away from London and thus away from everyone except Sebastian, Hero, and Simon (and Tom, Calhoun, and Claire), I didn't really notice his absence. But I will admit that it pained me when I was writing book #12. And he continues to haunt me. In fact, he haunts me so much that I've been toying with the idea of writing a contemporary mystery series set in New Orleans (although it's hard to find the time, I firmly believe it's a good idea for a series writer to occasionally do other things to keep from getting stale). And I find myself more and more inclined to make the protagonist of that series the descendant of a nefarious London tavern-keeper named Knox....

Answering AMAM (Ask Me Anything Monday): Sequels, Editorial Changes, and E-books

So, chugging right along on my answers....

Becca asked, "Do you plan to re-publish your romance novels? Maybe as ebook?

Yes! I've finally, finally, finally managed to officially wrest the rights back from my original publisher and I've started the process. I'm both excited and a bit intimidated, since self publishing is new territory for me and I'm rapidly approaching the deadline for my next Sebastian book. I'll be doing Midnight Confessions first because it was essentially a historical mystery in romance clothing, and I'm hoping I can use it to draw new readers to the Sebastian series. Next will be Beyond Sunrise. I've already sent both books off to be scanned, and the very talented designer who does my website is creating the covers (deciding what sort of images to use and defining a look that could be used to brand and draw all seven very different books together was hard!) . Then the scans will need to be edited, and the books formatted, and the cover copy written, and a good friend of mine has volunteered to help me actually put them up. Once I do the first two, I'll move on to the next two until I eventually get them all up, along with a contemporary romantic suspense that was never published and that I'm really excited to be getting out there.

Becca also asked: "Is there something you changed in a novel (a name, a story arc, a location, a person's appearance) because you and your editor thought it best but now you truly regret it?"

I was forced to make a huge change to the ending of my first historical romance, Night in Eden. I rewrote the end of that sucker THREE TIMES, but they kept kicking it back. Finally, I was so desperate I just sent a wall of water crashing down to end it all. And even though it's a historically accurate wall of water that really did happen, it's still the ultimate deus ex machina ending, and I've always hated it. But they were fine with it! Also, in Midnight Confessions, at the last minute they decided the heroine's surname was too long for the cover copy (yes, really) and made me change it. They gave me something like an hour to come up with a new name. Character names are hugely important to me and I can spend months agonizing over them. I hated the change, it was traumatic, and I'm seriously thinking about changing her name back when I self-publish the ebook. I could go on and on. I've been forced to change book titles many times and I'm rarely happy with the result. And my editor made me change Kat's age at the time of her first love affair with Sebastian. She said that while it would have been seen as normal at the time, it might offend some modern sensibilities. The problem with that is I later forgot we'd made the change and slipped back into using the original age.

Susan J asked: "You mentioned something about writing a novel set in modern times about Sebastian's and was it Jamie Knox's descendants? Would it be set in England or America?"

Writers are always spinning ideas in their heads, and I should probably know better than to mumble about some of my flights of fantasy in the comments section! But since I did, I actually have two ideas. One is a historical set in the 1840s in the Middle East or Colonial Africa with a certain young viscount named Simon and a beautiful, independent-minded woman whose mother was, ahem, a famous actress in her youth. I'd love to write that book, but I doubt I'll ever get the chance because it wouldn't be very commercially successful. The other idea I have been kicking around for several years is for a contemporary mystery series set here in New Orleans. After what happened to Jamie in Who Buries the Dead, I consoled myself by toying with the idea of making that protagonist his descendant. I may still do that. This book is far more likely to be written--as in, I'm actively plotting it. The problem is finding the time to write it....

Where Do Your Ideas Come From?

Where do you get your ideas? This is something writers hear a lot, and for reasons I'll never understand, a surprising number of authors find it an annoying question. I don't.

Most of my ideas come while doing research for another book. The core idea for Why Mermaids Sing came to me when I was researching shipwrecks for Beyond Sunrise, my last romantic adventure. The mystery surrounding the death of the Dauphin, the core idea for Why Kings Confess, has fascinated me since I was a doctoral student in the 80s. Even songs can be inspiring: the idea for When Maidens Mourn came from years of doing my morning yoga to Loreena McKennitt's lovely version of The Lady of Shalott. But other sources are less easy to pinpoint. The idea of having Paul Gibson buy the body of a man who had been murdered--the inspiration for Where Shadows Dance--came out of the blue one night while I was taking a bath. And some ideas are such accretions that it's impossible to say where they came from.

Because I have a lousy memory, over time I tend to forget the details of the process. Which is why I was excited when, in the midst of a mammoth cleanup of old emails over the weekend, I came upon a letter I'd written to my daughter in the autumn of 2004. She was attending university in Egypt at the time, and I was working on the proposal for When Gods Die. Because it talks about where the idea for both Gods and a certain necklace came from, I thought those of you who've read the book (if you haven't, there are spoilers) might find it interesting. Here is the relevant section:

I have finished the draft of my proposal--synopsis and the first 4 chapters. I will sit on it for a week, then polish it some more and send it off. For some reason adding the bit about the necklace really fired me up. It's so funny that I didn't think of it before. The whole backstory behind the murder is a conspiracy to put the Stuart heir (for my purposes, a Savoy prince) on the throne. The murder victim (who was not a part of the conspiracy but was in love with one of the conspirators) has always been fascinated by the Stuarts because she's a descendent of James II and his Welsh mistress. Sebastian agrees to look into all of this because she is found wearing a necklace that his mother was wearing the day she was supposidly lost at sea. When I first came up with the idea, I was going to have it just be a necklace. Then when I was writing the scene, I was wracking my brain, trying to figure out how to make it believable that the Machievellian Lord Jarvis would have recognized a simple necklace in order to be able to convince Sebastian to help. I got as far as having Sebastian kneeling beside the body and reaching for the necklace, and I'm still thinking, What does this necklace look like? Then this lightbulb goes off in my head, and suddenly I'm describing Polly's necklace and the legend about it growing warm and choosing its next guardian. I put in Druid priestesses and links to James II, and it added this wonderful whole new dimention to the book that wasn't there before and that gives it a fantastic lift. Now, instead of just being a necklace, it's this very special, mysterious necklace that is going to weave its way into future books, too. It's so bizarre I never thought of it before, since Goditha Price was the inspiration for the Welsh mistress. Only problem is, I can't remember what the design was called. Tri-what?

I should probably explain that the "Polly" I'm referring to was a distant, 103 year-old-cousin. She had in her possession a necklace given to one of our common ancestors by his mother, Mary, an illegitimate daughter of the prince who eventually became James II and a lady-in-waiting to the Queen named Goditha Price. When Mary's son Edward was exiled from Scotland after a Jacobite uprising, she gave him the necklace along with a heartrending letter that Polly still preserved (She also still had his sword! How neat is that?). The legend of the necklace growing warm and choosing its next owner, as well as its supposed ability to bring long life, was explained in Mary's letter to her son. She says it's why she gave it to him--to protect him. The funny part of this snippet from my email to my daughter is that it shows just how much of a spur-of-the-moment afterthought weaving this tale into the series was. And I had totally forgotten that.

Incidentally, although history records that Goditha was James II's mistress (Samuel Pepys rather nastily refers to her as "fat Price"), the birth of her son is not officially recorded, and I've received some ugly "you made that up" pushback on-line for telling this story. However, in addition to the sword, necklace, and letter, Polly also had in her possession ancient pages cut from a beautiful, gold-leafed, illuminated bible that had Edward's genealogy going back on both sides. I've also been involved in genetic research for porphyria, and my version of that nasty blood disorder is extraordinarily rare and traces back to the Stuarts. It's all enough to convince me the story of Mary's parentage is true and I frankly don't care if anyone else believes it. I've told the tale only because it felt wrong to let people think I was clever enough to make up the necklace legend when all I did was borrow it. Apart from which, if I wanted to invent grand genetic ties, I'd pick people I admired more than a woman who has gone down in history as "fat Price," a guy who got his head cut off, and another guy who lost his throne! What a heritage.

Finished!

I've spent the past I-don't-know-how-many weeks rereading the entire Sebastian St. Cyr series and taking copious notes. And I'm FINALLY finished.

It was quite an experience, alternately fun, insightful, and (when I found mistakes) horrifying. The most hilarious error I discovered was one place where instead of "Mayfair" there was "Mayflower." Seriously! Apart from being a weird mindslip in the first place, how did that slide past my dozen or so rereadings, my editor, the copyeditor, and whatever minions are supposed to read the galleys after I go over them? Oh, oh, oh.

At any rate, the fat notebook you see in the photo above is the result of the last weeks' labors, all 100-plus pages of it. I even drew a family tree for Sebastian that stretches back 200 years (no,you can't see it!).

I'm now starting back to work on Where the Dead Lie. And one other thing I did last week was approve the new cover for #11, When Falcons Fall, due out in March of 2016. It's by the same illustrator as the last several books, and we have a new model who looks much more like my own personal vision of Sebastian. It'll be interesting to see if y'all agree. I've asked for permission to reveal the cover, so hopefully that will be coming through soon. Stay tuned.

Reading Myself

I've always made it a practice to never read my own books after they're published.

I still remember the rapture of receiving the very first copy of my very first published book, Night in Eden, nearly 20 years ago now. Bubbling over with excitement, I opened it, and my eye immediately fell on a typo. Eek! Then I flipped a few pages and found a mistake inserted by some well-meaning person after I'd seen the galleys (they italicized First Fleet, evidently thinking it was the name of a ship). I slapped the book closed, and that was it.

As a result, I haven't read What Angels Fear since I read the galleys back in 2004. And when you're writing a series, that's not a good idea. So a few weeks ago, I took a deep breath and sat down to start reading my own series, from book one on through.

In some ways, it's been fun. But in other ways, it's painful. There are things I know now that I didn't know I didn't know ten years ago. (It's the things you don't know you don't know that get you every time; if I know I don't know something, I look it up.) Those mistakes make me cringe.  And while I started out keeping continuity notes, I've since realized I didn't write down everything I should have, and I haven't been very good about keeping them up, either. It's one of those things I tell myself I'll do later, except by then I'm deep into the next book. (Yes, I'm doing it now.)

The one thing that made me laugh is a change my editor requested in the first book. You have to understand that I had been thinking about the backstory and personal story arc of this series for years before I ever started writing it. As originally envisioned, Sebastian fell in love with Kat when he was 21 and just down from Oxford, and Kat was 16. He was in the army six years, and by the beginning of Angels had been back in England since the previous spring, making it seven years since he'd first fallen in love with her. Well, my editor wanted me to make Kat seventeen, because while sixteen would have been just fine back in the nineteenth century, she (or perhaps someone else in the publishing house) worried that it might offend modern sensibilities. So I changed it, although I wasn't happy about it, and it messed things up a bit, reducing the time he was in the army to five years, and requiring him to have been down from Oxford a year before he met her, which didn't work so well, either.

And then, obviously because I had always thought of the story my way, I promptly forgot the changes. (I also never changed the continuity notes I'd already made on that book.) I found one place in the middle of When Gods Die that is consistent with the years given in Angels (that's probably where I was in the manuscript when she asked me to make Kat older). But in every book I've read since (I'm just starting Maidens), I slid back into the timetable I originally envisioned. It was a serious shock to be reading Angels and see seventeen... five years....  I literally said out loud, "Oh, hell! How did I forget we did that?"

Which leaves me with something of a quandary. Because the lovely thing about modern publishing is that you can change a book after it's published. True, you can't change the ones that are already out there in print, but you can change the ebook. Any subsequent editions can also be changed (Angels has gone back to press half a dozen times or more). Obviously, my preference is to change the timeline in Angels back to what it originally was, rather than change all the books since then. Of course, my editor might not like that (I've yet to point out the shift to her). But given that she slid right over the sixteen in all the later books, it must not have offended her after all?

Focusing

I can't believe how long it's been since I put up an new blogpost. My excuse is that I've been focusing on getting this $#%& book finished in time for Christmas. But I've resigned myself to the fact that's not going to happen, and now I'm simply trying to get it to a good stopping point. Angel's been helping by draping himself over my arm while I'm trying to write.

I've decided to do the ARC giveaway for WHO BURIES THE DEAD after Christmas, when life will be more sane. Hope that doesn't disappoint anyone too much. I'll be putting up another post soon, I promise! Now back to work...

Why I Wrote Zip Last Week

After years of putting it off, last week we finally had our upstairs air conditioner replaced. Turns out the old hvac closet is too small to meet new code regulations, which means the system had to be relocated to the attic. While we were at it, we decided to replace all the ducting, boxes, and vents (we've had mold issues ever since Katrina) and install a duct in the master bedroom closet since it gets hot enough in there in the summer to melt shoes. That meant I had to completely empty the closet (because, drywall dust and dirty workmen).

All those workmen in the house, opening up holes in the attic, pounding, ripping, sawing, dragging heavy equipment in and out, etc, meant I had to lock up cats. Huck and Angel were shut in my office, and Huck showed his displeasure by claiming my desk chair and giving me the evil eye every time I suggested I might want to type. Everyone else just howled.

And then, once the work was all finished, I had the joy of cleaning up and putting everything back in the closet (still working on that). What fun--not. Although I did find some things I'd forgotten about, including my childhood collection of dolls in native costume, added to every time we visited a new country or my dad was sent somewhere (he was in Intelligence). Of course I had to stop and play with that. I also decided to use the opportunity to try on everything with an eye to my upcoming March book tour (yes, it is happening; more on that when the dates are finalized).  That was also fun--not.

Between the galleys for the hardcover Who Buries the Dead and mass market Why Kings Confess, Scout's death, and now the hvac overhaul, it feels like ages since I wrote anything on this new book. To work.

My Notebook

Some time ago, I asked readers to leave questions they'd like to see answered here, and I've slowly been working my way through them. So, here's a question from Liz:

My question has to do with your notebook. To what extent do you use a notebook and pencil/pen vs a computer. For instance, do you use the former to organize the plot and the latter to do the actual writing?

Once upon a time, I composed my books while sitting at the computer. Theoretically, writing at the computer is faster since it eliminates the need to transcribe. But then, after Hurricane Katrina destroyed my office, our house, and everything for miles around it, life was chaos; I had a book due, and I was finding it extraordinarily difficult to write. A friend of mine, Rexanne Becnel, has always written her books by hand, in a notebook, in a coffee shop. So I decided to try it (the notebook part, not the coffee shop part; I like solitude and quiet). The change broke whatever was blocking me; I was able to write Why Mermaids Sing in record time, and I've written by hand ever since.

I like it for a number of reasons. I have a bad back thanks to breaking it in a tobogganing accident years ago, so I find sitting for hours on a sofa, chair, or porch swing far more comfortable. Once upon a time it also took me away from the ever-present temptations of the Internet, but smart phones and iPads have wiped out that benefit. But most of all I like it because I find I write better by hand. Someone recently did a study showing that the act of holding and moving a pen stimulates creativity better than typing, so it's not simply my imagination.

In a sense, I've come full circle. When I first started writing, my kids were little and I wrote in a notebook because it was portable--I could take it to swim practice or dance classes or flute lessons.... You know what being a mother is like. Once upon a time I wrote on the backs of old printouts, but I've become more finicky with age. Now, I absolutely must use the same brand and weight of crisp white legal pads and the same type of pen every time I write. I try to type up each scene or chapter as I write it; I edit as I transcribe, and then I print it out and edit it some more. I keep the manuscript clipped together in sections. Here's the first part of book #11, which as you can see has no title yet:

 And of course, sitting on a sofa makes it easier to manage this guy:

Angel does love to 'help.'

Finished!

I've finally finished Who Buries the Dead, the tenth book in the Sebastian St. Cyr series. This one has been giving me fits and is technically late in terms of its deadline, although since it won't be published until March 2015, it's actually early (the publishing world is weird). At any rate, it's FINISHED. So now I'm filing papers and cleaning up my office and my house and trying to do all those things I've put off for the last year, except there are so many of them I know I'm never going to get around to even a fraction of them.

And the worst part of it is, it's Christmas time. I haven't done any shopping, or bought a tree, or done any decorating. Much of that is due to the fact that I'm finding it hard to get into the spirit of what is normally one of my favorite times of the year; my older daughter is now living in San Antonio and my younger daughter has been spending that past two weeks in England for the wedding of her half sister. Add in the extent to which all these sick cats have consumed my life, and who has time for Christmas? Maybe this weekend...

Back to Answering Those Questions...

I've let this thread slide far longer than I'd intended, so without any further ado, here are the answers to some more of your questions:

LOgalinOR asked, "I have thoroughly enjoyed all of your historical romance novels. Any chance of writing any more in the future?

The reason I quit writing historical romances was because I was being pushed into a direction I didn't want to go. I enjoyed setting my stories in whatever period or place best fit the romantic conflict I wanted to explore, and I happily ranged all over the place--the American Civil War, Medieval France, nineteenth-century Australia, etc. But then publishers noticed that authors who wrote linked series with 5 brothers/7 cousins/4 good friends sold best, so I was told I had to "pick a time and place and stick with it."  I knew I could never do that; it seems such an artificial way to come up with story ideas, I don't know how people do it (although some do it very well). So I decided that if I had to pick a time and place and stick with it, I'd rather write a historical mystery series in which I could explore the lives and conflicts of my main characters over the course of multiple books. Plus, I understand from authors who still write historical romance that the genre's list of do's and don't is far, far more restrictive than it ever was (they always say to me, "How did you ever get away with the things you did?). So I guess the answer is that as long as the genre is headed in its current direction, I could never write in it. That said, I really, really enjoyed writing the romance that is an important part of WHY KINGS CONFESS.

Lesley asked, Have you considered writing another Jax and Tobie book?

I found being contracted to write two books a year very difficult, and when my mother started failing and we moved her in with us, it became impossible. I didn't exactly decide not to write another Jax and Tobie book--I had lots of ideas for future stories. But I finished that contract first and decided to focus on the Sebastian series since I was still under contract for more of those books. Then the Sebastian series started doing much better, and I wasn't happy with the way the Jax and Tobie series was being published, and after my mother died my grief provoked a serious period of writers' block. The thing about the publishing industry is that you can't let a series slide; after a certain amount of time goes past, publishers think readers have forgotten and so they don't want another. At this point, probably the only way I could ever get them to consider another Jax and Tobie book would be if Hollywood made a movie out of one of the earlier books.

I doubt I'd ever want to be contracted to write two books a year again. But I do think it's important for me to occasionally write something different in between the Sebastian books because I believe an author needs the challenge of stretching and trying new things to stay fresh. So, ideally, I'd like to write other books but not under contract and--full confession here--I did just that last year. I wrote a mainstream historical set in the American Civil War about what happens to the women of a small Southern town when a thirteen-year-old girl kills the soldier raping her mother. The book has received lots of praise from most of the editors who read it, but the topic is touchy and no one seems to know how to market it, so I haven't sold it to anyone. Writing it was not a logical or wise decision--I knew the subject and setting would make it difficult to sell. But I can't regret doing it; it was a magical experience, and I think it grew me as a writer.

The above photo of is of the climbing rose that grows up in my lemon tree. My roses are covered with buds and my lemons and oranges are almost ripe, so I really, really hope this nasty weather headed our way doesn't bring us a freeze.

Back to Writing

Life has been getting in the way of writing a lot lately. First, a huge chunk of my time went to helping my daughter get ready to move (and fixing up her furniture, as discussed in the previous post). Then I went over to San Antonio for a week to help her get settled in. Then, just to complicate things, the day after I came home, I smashed my right hand so badly I could neither type nor hold a pen. Talk about frustrating!

But I've now picked up where I left off with Who Buries the Dead, which will be book # 10 in the Sebastian St. Cyr series for those keeping track. All that time away enabled me to come back and look at the manuscript with fresh eyes, so that I immediately spotted solutions to a few niggling little things that had been bothering me. I wouldn't exactly describe the last few weeks as a vacation, but it has certainly been a break, and I hope that will prove to be a good thing.

While we were gone, one of my climbing roses invaded the screened in second-floor gallery where our two cats with "elimination issues" (fondly known as the P Cats) live. I plan to cut it off even though they're not toxic to cats, but in the meantime, Whiskies has really been enjoying it!

House of Cards

It's that time of year again--when I'm plotting a book, and our dining room table disappears under lines of index cards. My technique is always evolving, but generally involves some combination of color-coded cards and flags. The yellow cards across the top are labeled "Part One" through "Part Eight," since when I'm plotting I find it helpful to divide the book roughly into 50 page chunks. If you see the line of cards closest to the camera, you'll realize that I have the ending of the book plotted out already, along with the beginning; now I'm working out where things will fall in the middle.

The working title of this book--which will be number 10 in the series--is WHO BURIES THE DEAD, and I may actually get to keep that one since my editor has already told me she likes it.

And yes, that is a coffee cup sitting there; my attempt last year to give up caffeine did not work!

Finished!

I sent the manuscript for Why Kings Confess winging off to my editor in New York this afternoon. It's not technically due until 1 February, so I'm actually a few days early.

Now I need to start giving serious thought to book number ten. But first I intend to reward myself with a couple hours of playing my guitar, and a nice big hot fudge sunday!

Hunkering down on Hunker

A writer can use everyday words such as walk, look, or think hundreds of times in a book, and no one will notice. But you need to be more careful with "shiny" words; less common words such as serendipity or ubiquitous draw attention to themselves and are therefore memorable. That all seems self evident; but a problem arises when an everyday word for the author is a "shiny" word for most readers. Which brings me to hunker.

Sebastian hunkers down a lot, generally beside dead bodies or to examine evidence. Sebastian may not be a dandy, but we wouldn't want to give Jules Calhoun the vapors by having Sebastian dirty his doeskin breeches by kneeling. He could squat, which is after all essentially another word for hunker. But I spent so many years camping as a kid in Idaho and Oregon that squat brings to mind someone answering a call of nature behind a tree. Not an image I care to evoke.

There is crouch, and Sebastian does sometimes crouch--especially when he needs to examine two bodies in a row. But crouch is a word that for me carries connotations of hiding--so Sebastian is more likely to crouch down behind a wall when some bad guy is shooting at him. He could bend or stoop, but those words are generally used to imply a motion from the waist, not a lowering of the entire body.

That leaves us with hunker. Some people think of hunker as a modern, uniquely American word, but it is not. It's actually a rather old word, from the Norse huka, which meant--yes--to squat. It is thought to have come to English via Scotland, and was in common enough usage to make it into the dictionaries by the beginning of the eighteenth century. This is important; you'd be amazed at the number of words we use that Sebastian's contemporaries didn't--so I can't.

I actually use hunker a fair amount in my everyday speech, which is I suppose why I was surprised when I learned that other people see it as a "shiny" word--shiny enough that my use of hunker is even a subject of conversation on Goodreads (really!). In speech, I probably use it most often in its other meaning--best illustrated by the sentence, "Rather than evacuate for the hurricane, we decided to hunker down in place." But I also use it rather than squat because--as I said--squat is one of those words I avoid except in a certain context.

At first I considered altering my habits and making an effort to avoid a word that leaps off the page for some of my readers. But I've now decided, no. Sebastian will continue to hunker down beside murder victims and dying witnesses. And, who knows, maybe he'll help to popularize a word that really does deserve to be better known.

(By the way, the photo of Steve above shows another advantage of the word hunker, since this position is quite common but is technically a half-kneel, half-squat for which there is no word. A knaut?)

For Word Lovers

I recently stumbled upon a great blog called Not One-Off Britishisms (I'd provide the link, but Blogspot's new program is giving me fits, as usual. If you're interested, it's at britishisms.wordpress.com/) The author is an American, and his blog is dedicated to outing insidious Britishisms creeping into American English (something he finds vaguely despicable and utterly pretentious.) It makes for entertaining reading, especially for people like me whose own language has become hopelessly confused.

As a child, I attended a school taught half in Spanish and half in the Queen's English. I first moved to Australia in 1975 (Wow, typing that makes me feel old!), then to England. I spent 16 years married to someone who was educated in Britain and spoke the Queen's English; lived to Jordan where all my friends were Aussies and Brits, or Jordanians taught English by Brits; then moved to Australia and raised a couple of kids who spoke Aussie. If I wanted to be understood, I learned to adapt.

There were some words I always steadfastly refused to embrace: mum (I refuse to be a "mum"), bathers (bathing suit), and nappies (diapers) being the ones that come to mind, along with expressions such as "made redundant" (let go). Some I adopted but have since mostly dropped, such as bin (waste basket), tin (can), and crisps (potato chips, since what Americans call french fries are chips).

Others are such delicious words that I refuse to part with them, or they fill a gap in the language. Into this category fall whinging (sort of like whining, only subtly different), punch-up, car park (much easier to say than parking garage), fancy (as in, "I think she fancies him" or, "Fancy a hot fudge sunday?"), daggy, and knackered (the last two aren't exactly for polite company). Some are so useful, I've noticed Steve has also adopted them. For instance, what DO Americans call that strip between the sidewalk and the street? We call it "the council strip".

But what amazes me in reading NOOBS is the number of expressions or words I didn't even realized are Britishisms. Reading this blog is like an extended "oops" moment, even though I don't subscribe to its operating theory that using these words and expressions is pretentious. But as someone who employs words for a living, you'd think I'd be more aware of my own speech. Yet I did not realize the many, many words and expression I use that could sound pretentious or odd, and at times be incomprehensible to most listeners. Into this category fall proper (as in, make a proper spectacle of yourself), make a hash, on the back foot, dab hand, have a quiet word, cock-up, barman, sacked (fired), hang on (as in, "Hang on, are you telling me Americans don't say that?"), sorry (as in "I didn't hear that; could you please repeat it?).

Not that I plan to try to change, because language is a fluid thing, and we all add and lose expressions and words over the course of our lives. Still, if you love words, the blog makes for fun reading.

A Rose by Any Other Name

We hear all the time that there are legions of men out there who won't buy a book written by a woman. It's why Joanne Rowling published the Harry Potter series as "J.K."; she knew boys would be less inclined to pick up her books--even though they're about a boy wizard--if they had a female author's name on the cover. Ask your typical male for his favorite books, and he'll inevitably give you a list written by male authors. When there's a woman on the list, it's usually Harper Lee, and an astonishing number of those men who cite her don't realize that the ambiguously-named author of To Kill a Mockingbird is actually a woman.


For a long time, I thought this prejudice worked from the male side only, since despite the fact that a huge majority of both book readers and book buyers are women, books written by men still make up the vast majority of best sellers. Obviously, women are more willing to buy books written by men than men are to buy books written by women. The gender distribution on the bestseller list is changing, slowly. But readers still have a lot of expectations and prejudices when it comes to an author's gender, and it seems that female authors aren't the only victims.



I was surprised the other day when a good writer friend of mine mentioned off-handedly that she rarely read books written by male authors. "I find they don't usually delve into emotion and character interaction the way I like." Now, I knew this woman loves to read what she calls "girlfriend books" and books that focus on interactions within families; in other words, the kind of angsty, meandering, introspective books that have a tendency to send me running for the hills while screaming "Nooooo!" But I'd always assumed she chose her books by subject; I didn't realize that at some point she'd consciously come to the conclusion, "I don't like books written by men."

Now, this might strike many of you as one of those "Well, duh!" moments (I have a lot of those). But the fact is, while much has been written about MEN not reading books written by women, we don't hear so much about the reverse.

In thinking over my own reading history, I can honestly say that I read books written by both genders. Yet I refuse to buy a love story written by a man unless I know in advance it ends happily (no Bridges of Madison County, The Notebook, or Cold Mountain for me. Seriously; what is it with you guys? Afraid that if a couple live "happily ever after," critics will think you write like a girl?). And--the ultimate irony--I'm also leery of suspense and thrillers written by women, largely because I've found in the past that they generally don't give me what I'm looking for. That said, though, I'm always open minded. (Or at least, I try to be.)

Interestingly, my friend revealed her thoughts on male authors because she was in the middle of reading a book, written by a man, that was giving her all the emotion and character interaction she craved and normally assumed she wouldn't find in book with a male name on the cover.

So what about you? Do you find that you have expectations based on an author's gender? Does an author's gender influence your buying habits, and if so, in what way?

Why I Love YouTube

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I was getting ready to write a scene the other day that involves the bad guys blowing up a building with gunpowder. And it occurred to me that I didn't have a clue what that would look like. So I Googled "gunpowder explosion" and found this really neat YouTube video that is one of an eight-part British television program called "The Gunpowder Plot--Exploding the Legend" in which they actually recreate the explosion planned by the famous would-be Gunpowder Plot assassins.



They go into all sorts of wonderful detail about early gunpowder and of course the dynamics of such explosions. And then we get to actually see the an explosion taking place, right before our eyes. A writer couldn't ask for anything more!

Huck, Revisited

One of my favorite books growing up was The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. My older sister checked it out of the library and first read it to me when I was seven, but I enjoyed the experience so much that I immediately sat down and reread it myself. Then our new lab puppy gnawed one end of the cover, so we had to buy the book from the library and it became ours. At the time it seemed a calamity (money was tight in those days, as my dad was in grad school) but it was really a gift. And since it’s one of the old 1930’s copies with the Norman Rockwell illustrations, I’m still glad to have it, chewed back cover and all.

I don’t remember how many times I read Huck Finn during my growing years, although I’ve no doubt the story had an enormous influence on me in ways I probably still don’t understand. But it had been a long time since I floated down the Mississippi with Huck and Jim, and so this past weekend I downloaded the book to my iPad and revisited my childhood.

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What did I discover? That the book is even funnier than I remembered—or perhaps it’s simply funnier than I completely appreciated as a child. I was surprised by how clearly I recalled some segments, while others I remembered hardly at all. And as an author, I am in awe of Twain’s imagination and the way in which he wove together theme and character development and moral questioning.

I was also interested to discover that controversy has surrounded the book from the beginning; it provoked outrage back in 1884, when it was first published. Because it’s one of the first books written in the vernacular, critics called it rude and crude and morally objectionable. It was banned from libraries. Fast forward to our own era, and once again, Huck Finn frequently finds itself the focus of a storm of controversy, largely because the “n” word peppers the entire book and the character Jim is denigrated as stereotypical. Legions of earnest parents, educators, and moralists insist that children should not be allowed to read it. A new edition actually substituted “slave” for every “n” word in the book (even when referring to free men). At one point, CBS filmed it for television and left out Jim entirely!

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Ironic, given that Huck Finn was written as a biting satire on racism and the moral hypocrisy that allowed it to flourish. The book is populated with a legion of nasty or foolish white people, from Huck’s “pap” and the “duke” and “king,” to the silly sisters who hand over their fortune to charlatans and multiple vicious mobs. Even Tom Sawyer is far from admirable; he cruelly (and dangerously) withholds the truth about Jim simply so he can have a grand “adventure”. The only really admirable adult in the entire book is Jim. Jim is brave, loyal, honest, trustworthy, and a good, loving father (in deliberate juxtaposition to Huck’s “pap”). Yes, he is superstitious, but so were most uneducated people in those days (see The Adventures of Tom Sawyer), and as the book progresses, his wisdom becomes more and more apparent to both Huck and the reader. I understand African-American frustration at being so often relegated to the role of wise mentor. But this is not a book about a black man aggressively fighting his way to freedom; it’s about a boy learning valuable lessons about human nature, racism, and hypocrisy as he grows to manhood. How is it a bad thing that his teacher is a black man?

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As for the “n” word, how does an author write a book set in an era when the word was used by most of the population, and not use it? I can understand its offensiveness to people today; but does that mean that historical novelists must write anachronistic dialogue? Isn’t that rewriting history for the worst possible reasons? Why pretend that something offensive did not happen? Should we portray racist bigots as less offensive than they really were, simply to avoid using an historically accurate but vile word? How is it a good idea to throw away what could be learned by a thoughtful, sensitive, honest exploration of those times?

Your thoughts?

Virgin Territory

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Yesterday, I wrote the first chapter of the ninth book in the Sebastian St. Cyr series. This part of the writing process is, for me, an exhilarating blend of trepidation and excitement: excitement for this shiny new idea that beckons and beguiles, and worry that it won't come up to the standards set by the previous books or that the story contains some fatal unseen flaw that will eventually cause the entire book to crumble into an unfinishable mess.

It's at this point that I can sometimes become confused when I talk to my readers, who've just finished the newly released book while I am obsessed with the events and people of a book they won't see for two years. Floating in production between us is the book I just finished, What Darkness Brings, which won't be published for another year. The time lag is frustrating for me, too, but the truth is that I am a very slow writer and these books take a long time to plot, research, and write. I wish I could write faster, and I know I could produce a different kind of book faster. Just not these.

What is this new book about? Hmm, I think maybe I'll keep that quiet for a while yet. Its working title is Why Kings Somethingoranother. (Yes, I actually put that at the top of the synopsis I submitted to my editor.) She loves the idea, incidentally--especially since this book will finally answer one of the questions she's been asking me about for ten years now: What happened to Sebastian in the war that came so close to destroying him?

The image above is a free wallpaper from this site.

A Rare Luxury...Or Not

One of the things that make this writing business a bit crazy is that authors are usually one or more books ahead of their publishers. For those of us on a one-book-a-year schedule, our next book is typically due on our editor's desk at the beginning of the same month our newest release is coming out. Thus, with the release of When Maidens Mourn scheduled for 6 March, the final manuscript for the next book in the series, What Darkness Brings, was due 1 March. This has two effects. First of all, authors find themselves suddenly having to talk about a book they finished some twelve months before and generally wiped from their minds in order to focus on the story at hand. But perhaps the most brutal aspect of this kind of schedule is that an author can find herself frantically pushing to finish a manuscript at exactly the same time she needs to devote loads of time to scheduling book signings, doing interviews, writing guest blog posts, updating websites, designing newsletters, etc, etc. It can make life pretty insane.

So this year I was feeling rather cocky. Once, I'd had dreams of finishing the eighth book in the Sebastian series by last fall, which would have given me four or more "found" months to start a new book. That didn't happen, thanks to some scary family illnesses, my daughter's wedding, and a ton of houseguests. But I still finished my manuscript with weeks to spare. And I thought, This is nice; for once I'll escape that deadly double crunch that always comes right before a book's release.

But you know what? Having finished book #8, I'm now deep into the planning of book #9. This is, for me, one of the most intense and pleasurable of the stages of writing. And just when I want to lose myself in the creation of this new story, I find myself instead constantly answering emails from my editor and publicist, designing newsletters, trying to remember when my next interview is. Which just goes to show that there's no pleasing some people.

An updated schedule of events:

February 28, 6:30 PM & March 3, 12:30 PM (CST)
Interview with Susan Larson on "The Reading Life"
Listen live on line or access the archives at
wwno

Saturday, March 10, 2-4 PM
Garden District Book Shop
Corner of Washington Avenue and Prytania Street
New Orleans, Louisiana
Book signing

Saturday, March 25
Tennessee Williams/ New Orleans Literary Festival
11:30 AM-12:45 PM panel—"Bet You Can't Read Just One: Mysteries for Fun"
Muriel's Jackson Square
New Orleans, Louisiana
With Ace Atkins, Barbara Hambly, and Greg Herren

Saturday, March 31, 4:30
Murder by the Book
2342 Bissonnet
Houston, Texas
Booksigning


I'll also be doing a guest blog on Wednesday, 29 February at Paperback Dolls.

Now you'll have to excuse me, because in the mists of my imagination, Sebastian is on his way to confront Marie-Therese, the daughter of Marie Antoinette. And Gibson has just rescued this lovely Frenchwoman with a mysterious past who....

Note: the above beautiful image is by Jon Miller Whiteny. Visit his site at jomiwi.com.