WICKED WEDNESDAYS

Oops...did I write that?

I don't want to wade into the Margaret Wente brouhaha that's popping up in the media these days. Suffice to say that I often enjoy her columns and even bought her book, You Can't Say That in Canada many moons ago. What it does bring to mind, however is the fact that, "there's no such thing as a new plot". Sorry, I'm unable to attribute that but it's definitely not my original thought.

As a writer, that does cause me concern. I read so much, often in the sub-genre I write, so it could happen without my being aware. Oops, I've used someone else's idea, description, location in my story. I do read cosies, even though I know many writers won't read anything similar to what they're writing, mainly for that reason. But I feel I need to stay on top of what my publisher is choosing as new series, in particular. What grabs their attention, and presumably therefore, the support of the reading public.

It's difficult enough keeping a series fresh and moving forward. This information adds some insight into "trends" and possible ways to keep the series alive.

I've been giving a lot of thought to just this aspect of writing -- keeping a series from fading into an untimely ending. I've thought about writing a short story, for some variety in writing styles; trying to do a Rapid Reads; starting a second, totally new series; any or all of the above.

What I do is write a blog a couple of times a week, and mystery reviews. But is it enough? Time will tell.

How do you keep your series fresh? Anything I've mentioned or are you just naturally the type of writer who works with your characters to keep things compelling and at the top of readers' lists?

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

A KILLER READ
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
READ & BURIED, coming Dec., 2012;
available now for pre-order
www.erikachase.com

MAYHEM ON MONDAYS

Freshen up...

What do you do to keep a series fresh? I ask that as I'm plunging into the fourth book, realizing too that summer is almost over and I haven't done most of the things I'd planned to do.

On that list was firstly, to write a short story. I don't have a market in mind nor a deadline but I thought it would be a good way to stir up the creative juices. I'd also wanted to tackle the first manuscript in an earlier series that never went past three rejection letters. I still like the concept, even after putting it aside for several years but know it really needs a another attack. Maybe I'll change it from first to third person. Maybe it won't get done this summer after all.

An aside about that book -- since I've written it, some of the details have changed such as a location and therefore, the description of that place. So, the question is, to leave it as a book set in the late nineties or update it? Of course, electronics are greatly changed, too which could impact some parts of the story. More to consider. Will I ever get back to it?

I've also toyed with the idea of writing a Rapid Read. I'm impressed with the ease my colleagues seem to be turning out these gems. I notice however, that's still on the list. Not much has been crossed off, come to think of it.

I've always looked forward to the fall. Maybe it came from working for the school board once upon a time as a community worker. All things were possible as new programs were starting and eagerness abounded. So, maybe just maybe, I can multi-track and check something off my list, along with writing #4.

But will it give me that extra benefit of writing an Ashton Corners Book Club mystery from a place of freshness? Time will tell.

So, back to my original question...how do you keep a series fresh? Start another one, perhaps?

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

A KILLER READ
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
READ & BURIED, coming Dec., 2012
www.erikachase.com

TUESDAY BRINGS TROUBLE

Change is good!

I think it's time for a change!

The country's had a birthday; so have I; so has Mystery Maven Canada. Another year starts afresh and change is good. I've often found change hard to deal with, especially when it involves something I totally enjoy. But it's part of living and growing as a person, as a writer, as a blog.

I'm bringing about the change in my writing by fleshing out a new series, while moving forward with another in the Ashton Corners Book Club mysteries. I also want to write another short story, something I haven't done in a while. I figure all these efforts will help keep my writing fresh and my brain evolving.

So, it's time to look at this blog. Mystery Maven Canada started two years ago -- yes, it was early July, 2010. It was an idea I had since deciding to close Prime Crime Books...a way of keeping in touch with customers and keeping them informed about upcoming books. It morphed into a vehicle for other mystery writers to reach the public and a way to share news and thoughts about the changing world of publishing.

But I feel it's becoming more of a diary, which, I'm told, is what most blogs are. I hadn't meant it to be so focused on my thoughts...and they're running thin these days. But most writers are busy, well, writing. Deadlines loom, life intrudes, blogs become a chore. I've really appreciated the willingness of the authors I've contacted to write guest blogs. Their input has added a lot of value to this blog. But as I said, writers are busy people.

The Ladies' Killing Circle have gamely kept Thursdays a day of lively and reflective reading...but, they all have deadlines, too.

We miss Mary Jane Maffini's input but she's had to focus elsewhere for several months now, although she's easing back into writing these days.

And the publishing world...well, what is there to say about it? If you're an afficianado of paper books, it's a sad prognosis. If e-books are your forte, the news is better but still, it's an unruly field and it, too will have to evolve.

I've been flogging the lack of media attention to mystery writing in Canada. One caveat is the CBC which has come through with flying colours, devoting an entire month on their Canada Writes website to Canadian mystery writing and also, continuing to highlight our wonderful authors on various programmes.

What more is there to say?

I mean, really...what more is there to say? I'd like to hear from you. That's what the comment feature is for. I'm thinking of changing the weekly format and this is the time to tell me, what do you want to read on this blog? Who do you want to hear from? What news?

I will say that reviews will continue and probably, become more prominent. What I'd like to say is that I'll also have more immediate author news posted -- more in the way of events, launches, upcoming releases, TV deals...all that juicy stuff. But I need to hear from the authors themselves in order to do that.


So, what's it to be? How should Mystery Maven Canada change? Do you care?

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

A KILLER READ
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
READ & BURIED, coming Dec., 2012
www.erikachase.com

MAYHEM ON MONDAYS

So, what now?



I'm all pumped up after the Bloody Words weekend in Toronto. It was such a high, schmoozing with old friends, making new ones, getting some great ideas at the panels and basically enjoying the enthusiasm that readers generate. I can't stress enough the importance of these conferences for writers and readers alike. Thanks to the entire Bloody Gang for once again doing such an outstanding job!

But, here I am, at my computer, ready to write with nothing on the go. No looming or even distant deadlines. How can this be and what am I to do?

My 3-book contract with Berkley has been fulfilled, except for the editing stages. Book 2, Read & Buried, has a copyediting stage to go through before its Dec. 3 release date. Book 3, with a working title of A Deadly Plot, went into my editor last Wed. Whether the contract will be extended depends now on how sales of A Killer Read are going and that won't be determined until this fall. Ouch. Talk about being on tenterhooks.

However, being all pumped up as I am, I've decided it's best to start on book 4, just in case. If it's not bought, then it was still a useful writing exercise. I think, after listening the the novella panel, it would also be fun to try my hand at writing a Rapid Reads, also not a guarantee sale, but a challenge to keep my writing fresh by trying a different length and style. There's also that first novel I've been meaning to rewrite...being such a sage at this point ~. And, it's always good to have a short story in the hopper, just in case an opportunity to submit arises.

Hmmm...seems I do have things to do after all.

That's, of course, in conjunction with spring (soon to be summer) cleaning, landscaping challenges, and an awful lot of correspondence to catch up on.

What's your next project? Or are you near finishing something at the moment? I wish you lots of energy and enthusiasm. I've got it at the moment so better get to it!

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase

A KILLER READ
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
READ & BURIED, coming Dec., 2012
www.erikachase.com

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

Creative Writing

Elif Batuman, author of The Possessed - Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, an autobiography, notes that early in her career she applied for and received a fiction writing fellowship at an artists’ colony in Cape Cod. On a windy, cold March day she went to have a look and reached conclusions about what she called the transcendentalist New England culture of ‘creative writing’ and asked herself why it would be good for her to read short stories by short-story writers who didn’t seem to be read by anyone but embryonic short-story writers?

She found it a puritanical culture embodied by colonies and workshops and the ideal of ‘craft’. This didn’t appeal to her because she believed writing was the means to deal with the human condition, to search for meaning, to celebrate the never-ending fascination of human interaction.

Craft said nothing about this. Instead it focussed on the negatives: show don’t tell, murder your darlings, exorcise the passive voice, omit needless words etc. It was a culture of the negative paired with the challenge of using active, brisk verbs and vivid nouns.

I don’t agree with all she said because in any discipline you have to learn the basics, the ‘how’, before you can move on to deal effectively with large topics. In painting when you want to learn how to manipulate a medium it is not helpful to have an instructor tell you to express yourself because you don’t have the technical ability to do that. So too with writing. It’s true that emphasizing the negatives, may seem a joyless approach but how do you show or tell the aspiring writer how to choose the perfect word.

Despite the fact that I didn’t totally agree with her the following paragraph in which she deals with modern short stories amused me.

“The first sentences were crammed with so many specificities, exceptions, subverted expectations, and minor collisions that one half expected to learn they were acrostics, or had been written without using the letter ‘e’. They all began in medias res. Often, they answered the “five W’s and one H.””

Certainly, in mystery writing we are exhorted to grab the reader’s attention as quickly as possible but perhaps we overdo it?

Batuman goes on to attack the use of proper names in modern stories. As she says, ‘they come flying at you as if out of a tennis machine.’ “Each name betrayed a secret calculation, a weighing of plausibility against precision”. She gives examples and then discusses the fact that Tolstoy often used the same name for two characters in the same book or that Chekhov’s characters often had no names at all.

Speaking for myself, and who else can you speak for, I found the how-to books, and the summer as well as the year-long program at Humber immensely useful but perhaps this was because I aspired to write mysteries not literary fiction. I do recognize the validity of her comments and they made me think about rules and writing and the unwillingness of some writing teachers to concede that there is so much more to writing than following rules.

How important are the rules that circumscribe our writing? Does knowing the rules give you license to break them?

A member of the Ladies Killing Circle, Joan Boswell co-edited four of their short story anthologies: Fit to Die, Bone Dance, Boomers Go Bad and Going Out With a Bang. Her three mysteries, Cut Off His Tale, Cut to the Quick and, Cut and Run were published in 2005, 2007 and 2007. The latest in the series, Cut to the Bone, will be published by Dundurn in November. In 2000 she won the $10,000 Toronto Star’s short story contest. Joan lives in Toronto with three flat-coated retrievers.

CRIME ON MY MIND

Changing directions!

I started my writing life with novels. Reading, of course. Then attempting to write them. In grade 8 English, as it turns out. But later again, when my son was a toddler and I had temporarily left the workforce.

It started with a creative writing course through the continuing education department of the local school board. Genre writing actually. And from that, a membership in the Ottawa Romance Writers which led to a critiquing group, which led to me and Vicki Cameron attending the Romance Writers of America conference in Boston. The year was 1988 or close enough. At one point, the now legendary tale goes, we looked at each other and decided we were at the wrong conference. We ditched the rest of the sessions and headed to Kate's Mystery Books where we immersed ourselves in mystery novels and joined Sisters in Crime.

Imagine that -- we'd decided to write mysteries!

Back in the routine of an outside job, I wrote every morning for an hour or more before getting my lad ready for school. And, I wrote two novels neither of which is published. Nor will they ever be!!

The other big step was Capital Crime Writers which led to another critiquing group, which morphed through a couple of years into The Ladies' Killing Circle. More novels were worked on -- and also, not published-- and eventually short stories dominated, for me anyway. Besides, they were easier to tackle once Prime Crime Books came into the picture. (I always used to chuckle when customers would daydream about the magnificent life of owning a bookstore & being able to just sit and read or write all day. NOT!)

The Ladies were -- and still are -- dynamite in the role of critique group, inspiring and supporting. But the days of editing anthologies are over and we're proud to have put out seven of them. Most of us are writing novels these days. My earlier attempts were police procedurals but my series is a cosy set in the southern U.S. Quite a departure from where I started out many years ago.

And I love it.

There's no reason why we shouldn't evolve as writers, not only in our writing abilities, but also by trying new things. New sleuths, new genres, new setting, maybe even mainstream. That's what being a writer is...writing what moves us, intrigues us, entices us to stretch those boundaries and habits.

Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A Killer Read coming April, 2012
from Berkley Prime Crime
www.erikachase.com

LADIES' KILLING THURSDAYS

Lost and Found

For an author, short stories are a wonderful experiment in new ideas, voices, themes and settings. Because they are about a 20th of the length of a novel and take about a month to write rather than a year, the author feels free to try on new personae and venture into new storytelling techniques and characterization that would be too risky in a 300-page novel. My novels tends towards the dark and complex, but in short stories I have tried out humour, lived inside the head of a comatose patient and a small child, and traveled to unfamiliar, exciting locales. Short stories are rejuvenating and invigorating, like the palette cleansers between heavy courses in the literary life of a writer.

My very first published short story, the poignant, disturbing “Secrets of the Night”, appeared in 1995 in the inaugural anthology of The Ladies’ Killing Circle,

itself entitled THE LADIES’ KILLING CIRCLE. And what an exciting moment it was! I remember when Linda Wiken, then the owner of Prime Crime Mystery Bookstore in Ottawa and herself a member of the Ladies Killing Circle, phoned to say the first shipment of books had been delivered to the store from the publisher. It was a blustery, wet day in November, but I leaped into my car and drove down right away. The thrill of opening that book to see my name in print for the very first time is a feeling I will never forget. Since then, I have had the privilege of having eight short stories published in the seven Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, and have become a member of that deadly circle myself, but the thrill never fades.

One of the frustrating things about short stories, however, is that they are often published in magazines and newspapers that disappear with the passage of time. Since that first publication sixteen years ago, I have had almost thirty short stories published, but only a handful are still accessible to readers. Most are buried in magazine archives somewhere, hidden from even the most thorough Google search. And so it is with that very first story in the inaugural anthology. THE LADIES’ KILLING CIRCLE has been out of print for years, and until now a persistent reader had to scour the used book stores to get their hands on it. Lost in the passage of time was the award-winning story by Mary Jane Maffini entitled “Cotton Armour” and the wickedly funny twist on killing your husband in Vicki Cameron’s “Birdbrain”. Gone are stories by the unforgettable Audrey Jessup, founding member of the Ladies Killing Circle, as well as LKC members Joan Boswell, Linda Wiken and Sue Pike.

But no longer. The arrival of ebook technology has made lost stories accessible again, and we six members of the Ladies Killing Circle have decided to venture into this brave new but exciting world. We have spent the last couple of months packaging our original six stories, plus the story entitled “The Little Treasures” by Audrey Jessup, who died in 2003 but remains our mentor still. In her honour, we have named the mini ebook LITTLE TREASURES, and for most of us, it contains the first stories we have ever published. Truly milestones to be marked. The ebook will be out in all formats soon, and we are justifiably thrilled. Because apart from the joy of seeing our firstborns back in print, they are all damn good stories. So stay tuned!



Barbara Fradkin is a child psychologist with a fascination for how we turn bad. In addition to her darkly haunting short stories in the Ladies Killing Circle anthologies, she writes the gritty, Ottawa-based Inspector Green novels which have
won back to back Arthur Ellis Awards for Best Novel from Crime Writers of Canada. The eighth in the series, Beautiful Lie the Dead, explores love in all its complications. And, her new Rapid Read from Orca, The Fall Guy, was launched in May.

WICKED WEDNESDAYS

Planting a Seed

Spring is a lovely time to plant seeds. You can grow some pretty flowers, or sow some heirloom veggies to impress the neighbours. Most kinds are fairly simple – you just throw them onto the ground & spread some soil onto them, water & PRESTO! – fabulous lush posies or crazy big vines full of tomatoes or far-too-many cucumbers.
There are also some finicky seeds that you have to rest in the freezer for a time, or score their edges brutally with a sharp knife. I try to stay away from those, or just buy readymade plants in the nursery.

I have a friend Nancy who loves to say, “I’m planting a seed.”

Nancy is a lovely girl, but she’s no gardener. But she is always full of ideas & plans, some many months away. She likes to plant her seeds early. A day after Christmas, she will call & say, “I was thinking about summer holidays & you two coming to the cottage for a week. These are the dates I am thinking of for July – I’m just planting a seed.”

I like to plant seeds in the spring as well, although mostly the non-garden variety these days. This time of year makes me think about shorts weather & losing that winter weight, and about clearing out those cupboards that are overflowing with clothes that I might or might not ever wear.

I think about renewing my gym membership and getting back into a new exercise routine and I think about maybe clearing out some of the excess books that my husband says that I have piled in every room of our house. Or not.

Then there’s always the “Ideas File” in my computer. These are brilliant ideas for short stories that sometimes come to me when the gentle snoring beside me wakes me up, or when I am riding home from work on a crowded bus. I meticulously jot them down with the outline and details that came with the spark itself. And then it gets filed away. I think perhaps some of these ideas are the finicky kind of seeds that are usually marked “advanced” or “professionals only”.

This might be the spring that those ideas actually get planted and watered and fertilized and sprout some fruit.

Then again, I might just stick with tomatoes.

What seeds are you planting this spring?


Catherine Lee (Cathy) is a college textbook buyer in Ottawa, has been a bookseller and book buyer by trade for most of her life, and is a member of 2 book clubs. She became a book lover on her parents’ knees at story time & by flashlight under the bed sheets. One of her greatest pleasures is sharing great books with friends, of course while sipping wine.