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Trying on other people's lives

by Donna

In addition to the usual Christmas festivities, for the last week I've been spending a lot of time house-hunting.  Not for myself--and I'm not sure whether to add "thank goodness" or "alas." My brother and sister-in-law are the ones looking forward to nice new quarters once they've made the tough decision about what to buy.  I'm the support staff-- chauffeur, GPS programmer, and purveyor of local expertise. I try to keep the munchkins--my twin four-year-old nephews--from tracking mud into the seller's houses and undecorating their Christmas trees. I try to be helpful when asked questions like, "This is a lot smaller than the kitchen in the last house, isn't it?"  I make sure none of the kitties get left behind--both boys have stuffed cats who must give their seal of approval to any potential new dwelling, but aren't very good at staying in the boys' hands once the excitement of exploring a new place kicks in.

I'm exhausted today--was it six houses we saw, or eight?  Feels like a dozen.  But I had a lot of fun.  So did my mom, for that matter, who declared that this was a lot like doing Garden Week, without having to buy a ticket.  Last time I looked, she was sitting in my rocking chair, poring over the brochures on the various houses we saw. 

Me, I'm trying to figure out how to use the whole househunting ritual in my fiction.  And it is a ritual, which is what saves you when you're six houses into an eight-house tour. (Or eight houses into a ten-house tour, or--you get the idea.)

You follow the realtor to the address, then pull up and confer about whether this one's worth touring.  One or two we nixed without getting out of the car.  If it looks promising, we let the twins out of their car seats, help Mom up the steps, and begin the tour.

First off, you figure out whether the owners are there. Nothing more embarrassing than poking through the whole downstairs, all the while saying things like, "Oh, my God, would you look at that wallpaper?" "It would look a lot less awful with some nice furniture" and "Is that a window treatment or a flock of mummified bats?"--only to find the owner (and presumably perpetrator) of the offending decor is upstairs listening. 

Quite apart from the embarrassing possibility of insulting the people with whom you might eventually want to conduct business, it's a whole lot easier to start forming an emotional bond with an empty house than one whose present occupants are still underfoot, smiling helpfully and trying not to wince when a four-year-old careens too close to a breakable object.

The ritual then requires that you systematically inspect the whole house, assessing every room, including the inside of every closet and a reasonable percentage of the cabinetry.  Comments like, "Oh, what a lovely sun-porch!" or "Nice big closets!" can be uttered at any time, but if the owners are lurking nearby,  comments like "Is that a room or just a large closet?" should be suppressed.

And the whole time, you should work on keeping an earnest expression on your face, as if this was a rather grueling ordeal, or at least a tedious one.  You absolutely should not show any sign that you're having a wonderful time snooping around other people's houses.  Trying on other people's lives.

Do they really have tea on the sun-porch on sunny mornings, sitting at the wicker table and gazing across their back yard at the woods?   Do they sit in those armchairs in the evenings, reading and toasting their feet in front of the fire?   Do they take bubble baths in the soaking tub?  Host elegant dinners in the dining room?  Cook gourmet meals in the sparkling clean kitchen?  Did they inherit those antiques or select them lovingly over years of scouring antique stores and flea markets? 

Or did savvy sellers (or their realtors) stage the whole thing, bringing in elegant knickknacks and even whole rooms of furniture to show the house at its best? Was it just coincidence of the season that every third house we toured reeked of cinnamon, or is cinnamon-scented stovetop potpourri currently considered the classiest mood enhancement for potential buyers?  When I was selling my old condo, my friend Tracey made me put half my books and most of my knickknacks in storage and ordered me to keep my kitchen spotless at all times.  Since kitchen cleaning was not one of my strong points, I ate out for most of the two months it took to show the condo.  I figured out all the cheap local places where, once I became known as a decent tipper, I could linger over a book and a constantly-refilled soda glass for hours and avoid all contact with the buyers who might be touring my apartment, opening my cabinets and shuddering over my closets. I found myself wondering--were these absent owners away for the holidays?  Down the street having a leisurely meal at whatever local place they flee to when potential buyers are on the way?  In a neighbor's house across the street, peering through the curtains? 

Is it only imagination and the accident of similar or dissimilar tastes that make you start liking some of the owners, sight unseen, and wishing they'd come back so you could meet them, and shaking your head with a slight frown over others, and finding it difficult to warm to the idea of moving into the home they were leaving?

If it's a nice house--and the realtor wasn't taking us to a whole lot of duds--trying on other people's lives goes to another level.  I start imagining myself drinking tea at that wicker table and gazing over the back yard.  (Never mind that my style's more a Diet Coke by the computer checking email when I first get up.)  I can see myself soaking in that tub, basking in that armchair (have to buy an armchair), and cooking and hosting those elegant dinners (do you suppose their cookbook collection conveys?

As we were driving home from the last house, it occurred to me that this is not that far from what we writers do for a living--studying the small, incidental details of life and using them to shape a story.  Using a person's environment to reveal his character.  Seeing an innocent setting or situation and starting to wonder "What if. . .?"

Of course, in case anyone who's currently selling a house in my neighborhood ever reads this, I hasten to add that I refrained from imagining any homicides in their houses.  No bloodstains on the polished hardwood floors or recently shampooed carpet.  No corpses concealed in the enviably large walk-in closets.  No suspicious earthen mounds in the elegantly landscaped back yards.  I was off-duty today.

Well. . . okay, there was this one house that had a wonderfully convenient laundry chute. . .

A writer reads, always

By Kris

Dana's recent blog, " We are imagining car accidents," which mentioned some writing-related movies, made me think of one of my own favorites, Throw Mama from the Train. In it, Billy Crystal's blocked-writer/writing instructor-character tells his students, "A writer writes, always."

As far as I'm concerned, smart writers always read, too.

I love books, and have since I was a tiny tot. I love the way they feel in my hand, their comfortable weight when they rest against my tummy when I read in bed…I love the way they look on shelves…I even love how they smell, whether it's that new-paper smell, or old. Mostly, though, I love the way reading transports me to other worlds, where new adventures and unexpected truths await me.

But even if I didn't like to read, I hope I'd see the benefit to writers in reading. When writers read — especially in the genre in which they hope to write, but really, all writing — so much just seeps into their unconscious minds. They learn about pacing by sensing the pace of different books. They learn to handle clues by both the clues they catch while reading, and those they fail to spot. When they hit a snag in their own works in progress, by having read extensively, they have immediate recall of how others have overcome that particular obstacle.

And best of all, this knowledge filters in automatically. It's a top-notch course in writing, and you don't have to do anything special, beyond reading for pleasure, to amass it all.

In On Writing, Stephen King wrote, "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around those two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut…I don't read in order to study the craft. I read because I like to read…Yet there is a learning process going on. Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach you than the good ones."

It's not a coincidence that published writers are often strong readers; there's a connection there. With the many published authors who appear at my store, I'm continually impressed by the reading depth most display.

Just this month, I was struck by two appearing authors. One was mystery author, Mark Coggins, whose latest title is Runoff. Beyond the many examples from mystery and other novels he cited in the course of the writing workshop he presented, in the Q&A session, Mark was also able to draw on numerous other examples of how good writers handled tricky problems. I was so impressed by the breadth of examples he was able to call up at a moment's notice. That's what a good reading background allows a writer to draw on on. You can't fake it.

Another example of a reading author was international bestselling historical-fantasy author Diana Gabaldon. Diana has appeared with us a number of times, and she always mentions the books she's read, and continually touts reading for others who hope to achieve her enviable success.

And if I stretched beyond December, I could cite countless authors who proudly and wisely identify themselves as readers. Look at how many new book-related blogs my sister Femmes have written.

But a significant number of aspiring writers that I encounter — either through my store or my writing classes — haven't cracked the cover of a book since high school. Don't get me wrong — many do see the value of reading, but many of those who hope to be published someday don't seem to have a clue when it comes to the best way to learn from those whodunit.

My husband finds this astounding. He's a musician, and he insists that wherever they are on the music continuum, aspiring musicians always listen to music so they can learn from the greats. He regards it as astonishing that so many writers don't avail themselves of the equivalent resource. 

I wonder why they don't. Is it a lack of time? Or that they've never developed the reading habit? But if they aren't devoted readers, and don't have an interest in books, why would they want to be writers? Writing is hard work. Harder still when you have only a vague awareness of what the outcome should be like.

For me, there's no debate. I can't imagine a life without books. This writer reads, always. But I also must be pretty careful with my time. Anything that promises to provide me with thrilling vicarious adventures and to improve my writing without a bit of effort on my part…well, that sounds like an amazing bargain to me.

Shady Ladies

Marlys

I was asked recently to discuss my fourth book (out of fourteen published) on a panel at our local library. The subject was researching and writing books set in Boulder County. THE MIRROR is a stand alone and by far the most successful of my published works and, after many years, still in print and the only one of those early books never optioned for film.

It is and was the odd tale of a young woman, Shay, and her grandmother, Brandy. exchanging bodies and time. It sold to major book clubs as well as science fiction, romance, Western, and mystery book clubs and was even stolen by Turkey, a country that stole whatever it wanted to by ignoring international copyright laws. My agent hated the manuscript because it was not in a popular niche and was nothing like I’d ever written before.

Everyone knew even back then that you have to write the same kind of book over and over so a reader knows what she’s buying (or something). I’ve got a couple of college degrees in history and I’m serious about it. Fact for the history book or paper is everything, but not in fiction. I take what I want to make a story ring true and then make up the rest because I can. Because it’s fiction. Some in the audience were angry that I picked part fact to mix with fiction because I wanted to. The heroine changes places with her grandmother after looking into an Oriental mirror, for Musesake.

(I do actually know it’s a great compliment. It’s wonderful to have readers like these–so taken with a story and the characters, they want to believe in the impossible.)

I played with it in my head off and on while I wrote other books, had kids, Boulder grew. I knew it had to be multiple viewpoint and would have to be in parts. I had to learn a lot more about writing. So began a nightmare beyond belief–sometimes exciting but it drove me nuts. A little less than halfway in, I realized I needed a gimmick, saw a movie where Betty Davis (I think) forced her dead son’s fiancee to don her wedding gown and step into a mirror to become his dead bride. I was so desperate I went back to add a mysterious oriental mirror and had to reshape everything.

There were characters in three different times I arranged in parts, the grandmother, her daughter, and granddaughter. A few characters in all three parts (times), the grandmother and daughter exchanging bodies driving the daughter/mother in between and me nuts. I’d begin a scene in one time and realized the character I was writing about was dead by now. I had the walls of my office covered with time charts–who was where when. What was going on in each scene. Who was seeing it. I felt guilty because my poor children lived with a maniac and thought nothing of it. And then there was research–how did prostitutes in the late 1890s ward off pregnancy? Not wise to discuss this at the family dinner table. A whole section of books on the seedy side of the West had been stolen from this same library I was speaking in. Cards were in the files–but the books had disappeared from the shelves–stolen. Probably so perverts like me couldn’t use them.

A complicated book like the Mirror is not written in a day, it need s time to evolve, to possess its writer and once finished and deemed timeless, cannot be followed by one after another every year–as sales people and publishers and big money would demand–write another Mirror–but do it now and fast and make it move like Clive Cussler and Tony Hillerman and Margaret Cole and with Charlaine Harris’s sense of humor. And throw in some Chic Lit while you’re at it–but keep it original, ya know? So what am I going to do about that?

I am into shady ladies right now. A little fact mixed with a lot of fiction. And you know what? On the site of that library where I spoke was one of the hottest houses of ill repute in all of Boulder. That’s the truth. In a way it’s kind of spooky.

P.S. The latest issue of a Mystery Writers of America publication quotes a New York literary agent as saying Chic Lit is out. (God knows what’s in.)

Mary Sue On The Case

by Toni L.P. Kelner

Do you know Mary Sue?

I've noticed during recent online conversations that one of the most common criticisms I see of the work of new science fiction and fantasy writers is that their protagonist is a Mary Sue. And if nobody else tells you, there are a slew of online Mary Sue litmus tests to make sure that your protagonist doesn't fall into that trap. So what's so bad about Mary Sue?

According to Wikipedia, "Mary Sue, sometimes shortened simply to Sue, is a pejorative term used to describe a fictional character, either male or female (male characters are often dubbed "Gary Stu", "Marty Stu", or similar names), that exhibits some or most of the clichés common to much fan fiction. Such characters were originally labeled "Mary Sues" because they were portrayed in overly idealized ways, lacked noteworthy or realistic flaws, and primarily functioned as wish-fullfillment fantasies for their authors, often very young and unsophisticated."

So, if I wrote a Star Trek story in which an idealized version of myself came on board the Enterprise crew and proved herself as a heroine of note to the bridge crew, I would have been guilty of this writing faux pas. Not that I would ever have imagined such a thing...

Okay, I admit it. I created a Mary Sue of my own. Several, in fact. I sent them off to explore the galaxy with Kirk and Spock, fight the Sheriff of Nottingham, charm a noble pirate captain, join U.N.C.L.E., and even visit the doctors of M*A*S*H.

But I was young, then. Now I'm far more mature. Just look at my Laura Fleming series. Laura--Laurie Anne to her family--is nothing like, Toni--Toni Leigh to my family. Sure she's a North Carolinian living in Boston, but I was born in Florida before moving to my family's home state of NC and I live in Malden, which is seven miles away from Boston. Laura is a computer programmer, while I was a technical writer. Her family is large and eccentric, while mine is merely large, unless you count the cousin who kept his money in a washing machine or the one who ran with a biker gang until she found the Lord. Our physical differences are striking--she's a full TWO INCHES taller than I am.

Hmm... Maybe she is a bit of a Mary Sue... So why didn't the editor gag when I wrote the books, and why was this never a criticism in the reviews of the book? As far as I can tell, mystery writers LIKE Mary Sue.

Okay, they're not crazy about the flawless Mary Sues who are loved and adored by all, but mystery readers don't seem to have any problem accepting an author taking parts of her own background and fashioning characters and stories around it. Look at archeologists Elizabeth Peters and Dana Cameron, who write about archeologists; Dick Francis, who has more than a passing acquaintanceship with horse racing; and investigative reporter Hank Phillipi Ryan, who writes about--you guessed it--an investigative reporter. And there are many, many more. Nobody accuses them of writing Mary Sues.

It hardly seems fair. So why does it happen that way?

I think it comes down to three things:

The first is the sense of scale. Most mysteries are theoretically based on reality, or at least closer to it than fantasy and science fiction worlds. So even if I idealize myself, I'm going to make myself taller, thinner, younger, and wittier. I'm not going to make myself the only surviving wielder of the Chatreuse Flame, destined to save the universe.

Second, part of the appeal of science fiction and fantasy is visiting new worlds and witnessing new situations. I don't know about you, but I'm a creature of this world. I don't know that I could convincingly fit any version of myself into a whole new world, no matter how much taller, thinner, younger, and wittier I was. I'd have to make so many changes that the character would no longer be recognizable as me, and therefore, not a Mary Sue at all.

Third, part of the appeal of mysteries is exploring unknown corners of this world. Mystery readers like learning about archeology from Cameron and Peters, investigative reporting from Ryan, and horse racing from Francis. (While it is certainly possible to research these milieus and convincingly portray them, it's a whole lot easier if you already know what you're writing about.)

So while the fantasy and science fiction writers are working extra hard to create characters who've never heard of The Brady Bunch, we mystery writers can write about folks who can sing along with the theme song. Mary Sue is on the case!

Taking Note

As a writer, I find myself taking notes at the darndest of times. My daughter's pony died a few weeks ago, and I found myself watching every little detail of his illness, death, and subsequent burial in our pasture as if the details mattered more than the memories of his long and very happy life. While I have no doubt that this will come in handy should I ever have time to write the horse book of the century I've got hidden inside, it felt a little...disrespectful.

Perhaps I should have been concentrating on how devastated my little girl would be when I called to tell her that her first pony had died suddenly, instead of how the old guy had thrashed around on the floor, casting himself against one cinder block wall in an effort to escape the pain of his rupturing cecum. How the vet's throat got tight and her blue eyes shed a tear or two when she told me that she'd done everything she could for him, and recommended stopping his pain. I could have focused on my own tears instead of how Daimon's shoulder relaxed when the vet gave him the IV cocktail that slowed his heart to a standstill.

But I didn't. I noticed it all. I felt it all too: the tears, the thrashing, the final release.

They loaded Daimon onto a flatbed trailer so that I could take him home. I took the back road. For some reason it seemed disrespectful to take the freeway, as if I was in a hurry to get it all over and done with. Once home, I had to scramble to find a backhoe operator. There's a lot of construction in the area and most good guys are busy. I finally got through to the man who had buried another horse for us awhile back. He came out with his young son, dug a hole six by six by eight feet deep and lifted Daimon by the feet and swung him down into the grave. His touch was so light that he could have been tucking a baby into bed instead of laying out a thousand-pound animal. He then feathered the dirt pile he'd created back into the hole, mounding it into a perfect oval to finish.

Taking notes. Sometimes it just feels wrong. But sometimes it serves to mark memories so that they'll stay with us. Daimon was one terrific pony. I'll hold him in my heart forever.

Making a List, Checking It Twice

When you deconstruct the word "eavesdropping," you get an interesting mental picture. I try to imagine myself hanging off a roof, trying desperately to pick up the chit-chat of the people standing on a porch below, waiting for someone to come to the door. I can't quite picture myself on a roof (Santa Claus I'm not), but the unpleasant and unattractive fact is, writers are eavesdroppers. I've followed people around in stores trying to catch the end of their conversation. I've pretended to look over lettuce and cabbage with deep fascination while the ladies behind me are exchanging gossip.

Holidays are especially fertile times for eavesdropping. People are reminiscing, and thinking about each other, and anticipating good times. This leads to some rich (and public) conversations. I hear some discussions that just beg for further explanation. I passed two women going down on an escalator, while I was going up. They were talking intently. Just as we came abreast of each other, the older woman said, "And I'll bet THAT'S why she's a lesbian!" I sure would have been interested to hear the beginning of that character analysis.

Hunting season is good, too. Men really open up during hunting season, and they open up in public places. My very favorite quote was garnered during hunting season two years ago. I happened to be in Kroger's, and I heard the butcher telling a male acquaintance about his hunt the previous day. "That buck was standing along the road, right where the ditch would've been if there'd been a ditch," he said. While biting the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing out loud, I had to admit that I knew exactly what he meant.

On the grimmer side, I once heard a couple break up in a restaurant at the adjacent table. They were very young, and very miserable, and neither of them had the determination to just get up and walk out. So on they sat, in silent gloom and tension, waiting for something to happen to end the situation.

These little slices of life, funny and tragic and intriguing, don't often show up in my books word for word. But the lessons I learn and the pieces of human behavior I'm taught by listening do stick with me, and sooner or later they'll inform my fiction.

That's something to remember when you're out and about this Christmas season. It's not only old Saint Nick who's listening to hear if you've been naughty or nice. There may be a writer listening, too.

We are imagining car accidents

Maybe because of the writers strike dominating the news and preying on (some of) our minds,  I’ve noticed tons of movies about writers on cable lately.  Last week alone I caught chunks of three of my favorites: Romancing the Stone (ever notice Joan Wilder writes for Avon?), Shakespeare in Love, and my new favorite, Stranger Than Fiction.  I always worry whether movies will get it right.  Having given up on movies rendering archaeologists accurately, I’m putting all my cinematic eggs in this basket.  And, probably for obvious reasons, the movies about writers get closer more often.

I can’t not watch Stranger Than Fiction, when it’s on.  The scene that gives this blog its title is one of my favorites:  a drenched, shivering, and miserable writer sits uncovered in the rain, smoking a cigarette, staring at traffic on a bridge.  Her publisher-assigned assistant, warm and dry under a cheery umbrella, asks “And what are we doing here?”   The answer is a lofty “We are imagining car accidents.” 

I love this. 

Not because it’s how I work—and it’s not how Karen Eiffel, the writer character, works best, either.  It turns out that all of her real inspirations come from the few, bare interactions she allows herself with the outside world: buying cigarettes, walking to work, etc.  She immures herself in her office/mausoleum; when she has her breakthrough, it’s on the bus.  Her forays to find gruesome ways to kill her characters always end with her imagining herself as the victim, not words on paper.  A suicidal tragedian who would visit her various “deaths” on her heroes, it’s people and mundane occurrences (an apple falling) that ultimately make her write.  Like Will in Shakespeare in Love hears a preacher ranting to a crowd about the evils of theater and steals a line for Romeo and Juliet.  Like the rest of us, her best stuff comes when she connects with real life, but even in her attempts to force inspiration, she puts her self into her work. 

I also love the scene because she’s being totally unselfconscious about what she does.  She doesn’t think about what it might sound like to a civilian.  We’ve all had the experience of talking animatedly about death and mayhem when the cocktail party racket suddenly dies down and the horrified stares begin.  The other night, two bartenders at a restaurant I frequent were joking about stabbing someone with a corkscrew; I said, nodding, “I killed someone with one of those, once.”  Turning to my husband, “When was that?” 

I swear to God, I thought they knew I write. 

The other moment in the movie that totally rocked my world was when Karen (Emma Thompson*) meets the character, Harold (Will Ferrell) whose life she’s been narrating—and dictating.  They’re discussing whether she should continue her masterpiece, which will result—inevitably—in his death.  It’s something every writer, especially mystery writers, have to decide:  we’ve created characters who in many senses are now real to us.  We love them.  How can we possibly destroy them?

The scene when she asks him, now knowing that he’s actually real, what she should do—and his response—is breathtaking.  For me, it’s practically mystical, that moment, the ultimate definition of the relationship between writer and character—and the movie nails it.  I’m not a mystical kind of girl, but damn.  It really sums up one of the most amazing parts of this job.

So.  What are your favorite movies about writers?

(*N.B.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I long ago decided that Emma Thompson would play me in the movie of my life, if it’s not done as an anime.)

When writers screw up

by Donna

One of the things we mystery writers know is that our readers are highly erudite and possess both a broad range of expertise and a keen appreciation for accuracy.  In other words, y'all are picky.  We'd better get our facts right, or we'll never hear the end of it.  Woe betide the writer who has his character flick the safety off on a gun that doesn't have one, describes her heroine shifting gears on a car that only comes in an automatic transmission, or routes a chase scene the wrong way up a one-way street.

I've probably committed my share of bloopers and blunders, but nothing like what I pulled off in The Penguin Who Knew Too Much.  And the ironic thing is that my faux pas didn't involve real world facts--I screwed up a detail of my own invented world.  A small detail, sure, but. . .

The offending passage occurred in chapter 33:

"No one should ever talk to the cops without a lawyer," Rob said, shaking his head. I was glad to know that Rob had absorbed that much wisdom from his time at law school. Given Rob's ability to get into trouble, probably worth the whole three years he'd spent learning it, even though he'd never gotten around to taking the bar exam so he could practice law.

I first realized I had a problem when I heard from Letitia Hope on August 22.  She said, in part:

What I'm really wondering, though, is whether you've "taken agin' " Rob for some reason.  I thought he was just fine as an intelligent and charming, but somewhat scattered young man.  In fact, he sounds like he has ADD to me, and if you've based him on someone who hasn't been diagnosed with an attention disorder, perhaps that person should be checked out for it.  Anyway, I'm sure you're going to get tons of letters reminding you that yes, he DID take the bar exam, just before his wedding, in Peacocks (which was referred to again in Puffins, where he is still waiting to hear if he passed), and DID pass it, though just barely, as noted in Flamingos (Chapter 8)!  Not only that, he actually "practiced" for a while, doing "scutwork" for his uncles!

Oops.  She's right.  And she's not the only one who noticed.  A couple of weeks later, on September 8, Phyllis Lewis also emailed me to point out:

One point, though, didn't Rob take the bar exam in Murder with Peacocks sometime in July?

And on September 10, Jessica Milner noted:

I did want to note that there was a problem in The Penguin Who Knew Too Much on page 190.  The paragraph reads that Rob had "never gotten around to taking the bar exam so he could practice law."  Since Rob did take the bar exam in your first Meg book, and his passing the bar showed up as references in other novels, it was confusing.

And on September 30, I heard from Virginia Braxton:

In Murder with Peacocks (paperback pg. 226) you say "Rob went out with his bar exam group to celebrate getting through the bar exams...." I believe that in one of the other books you mentioned that he managed to pass the bar. But in The Penguin ... (hardback pg. 190) you say "[Rob had] ... never gotten around to taking the bar exam so he could practice law."

I confess: I haven't gotten around to developing the kind of detailed character bible some writers use.  I've been relying on memory and the ability to do text searches, and that's not a good thing.  I'm putting that character bible on my project list.  So it doesn't surprise me that I goofed on a detail.  What amazes me is that not just one but four readers noticed.  Dang, but you guys are sharp!

Note that these aren't the only errors these and other readers have pointed out, just the most glaring, egregious one that can't be explained away by anything but "Oops!"

I'll have to come up with some explanation in Meg's world.  I suspect there was a phase where she wasn't sure whether or not he really did take the bar exam.  Maybe she suspected he blew it off and fibbed about it.  A suspicion that could have been intensified if she found out the legal scutwork he did for his uncles was nothing that couldn't have been done by a paralegal.  And if there's some kind of document you get to prove that you've been admitted to the bar in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Rob has probably long since misplaced it.

Yeah, this is sounding good.  So the official explanation is that yes, Meg had those thoughts about Rob never getting around to taking the bar exam at a moment when she was particularly exasperated with him and inclined to doubt anything and everything he said--Rob has that effect on people.  I'm happy to report that she subsequently checked out Rob's credentials and verified that he did manage to squeak through the bar exam.  Luckily she kept her suspicions to herself, so she didn't have to go around publicly apologizing to Rob for doubting him--although she was extraordinarily nice to him for several weeks, to make up for having privately doubted him. 

But to answer Letitia Hope's question about whether I've "taken agin" Rob--gee, I hope not.  Because you see--confession time--Rob is really me.  Not the whole of me, I hasten to add.  Only one side of me.  Meg's also me.  Meg's the part of me that tidies up the messy house; Rob's the part that creates the messes in the first place.  Meg tries to pay the bills on time and keep up with the filing; Rob doesn't even notice the bills and papers piling up. My Meg side does a detailed outline for each book and finishes her quota of writing every day; it's the Rob side that wants to blow it all off today and stay up till two playing Sims or Civilization, or dancing around the house listening to old Stones songs on the iPod. 

Of course, Rob's also the part of me that says, "Cool--extreme croquet!" or "Hey, lets go to the zoo and see the penguins."  Someone to whom I explained this said, "Oh, I see; he's your creative side."  No. True creativity isn't feckless and undisciplined.  I see creativity as arising from the balance between the Rob side and the Meg side; between the childlike, impulsive, spontaneous side of me and the side that takes all those thoughts and sensations and marshals them into some kind of order until they turn into a book.

I think Freudians explain all this in terms of the id, ego, and superego; popular psychology calls it left brain and right brain; I've been known to point out that I'm a Sagittarius with a Virgo moon.  Whatever it is, it keeps me sane, drives me crazy, and ultimately explains the person and the writer I am.  When I'm having a particularly productive, organized, and calm day, I sometimes find myself thinking that Meg would be proud of me.  And on other kinds of days--well, a fair number of Rob's quirks and adventures are semi-autobiographical.

So no, I haven't really taken agin Rob.  Meg was just having a moment of exasperation, and I've grown rather fond of that feckless but charming and entertaining side of my personality. Even when it does lead me into the occasional really silly blooper.