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The End! (But not really.)

by Donna Andrews

Friday night I typed the glorious words "THE END" on the last page of my current work in progress.  (And thank you for asking: it's called The Real Macaw, and it involves animal welfare and the financial woes facing my fictional but not, alas, atypical Virginia town of Caerphilly.)

And as soon as I typed those glorious words--THE END!--I went off and had a small celebration.

Really small.  I popped the top of a new can of Diet Coke.  I posted to Facebook.  I had dinner with a writer friend at Macaroni Grill.

And when bedtime came around, I printed out the last three chapters of the draft and curled up in bed to read through them.  I went to bed with the satisfying feeling that those last three chapters work.

Equally satisfying was the fact that before going to sleep I had covered those three chapters with comments and corrections that would get me off to a good start on the next task: revising and polishing.  Which I started on yesterday.

One of the ways I know that I've grown as a writer is that I no longer dread revising.  I wouldn't go so far as to say I love doing it, but I accept it as a completely normal and absolutely inescapable part of the writing process. 

Not that revision comes naturally to me.  I have my fair share of writer's inertia, that tendency (or maybe it’s a need) to assume that once I've written something, it's great!  And the grasshopper in me is right there saying "Yay!  It's great! Time to do all those things we've been putting off till I finished the book!"
 
Just like the ant in the fable, the professional part of my writer's brain says, "Okay.  It's great.  But it needs to be greater.  Let's revise."

Grasshopper brain pouts and says, "But you've been doing that iterative editing thing all along.  So you don't need to revise anymore, right?"

(Iterative editing is my term for what Reed Farrel Coleman talked about in his session on revision at MWA University earlier this month.  It means that you don't just write and move on; you keep going back over what you've already written, polishing and revising.  On days when you're having trouble getting started, rereading and editing what you did over the last few days can get the motor going.  And it means that by the time you finish the book, most of it has been slowly polished and revised into pretty good shape.)

"Yes, iterative editing is good," Ant brain says.  "But it doesn't take the place of a proper revision."

"Aha!" Grasshopper brain exclaims.  "To do a proper revision, you have to have a cooling off period, right?  Time to cool off!"

"You cool it when you think it's finished," Ant brain says.  "We know it's not."

At this point, Grasshopper brain sulks, Ant brain takes pity on it and allows it to goof off for a couple of hours, and then returns, inexorably, to the revisions.  Thank goodness for Ant brain, or my books would be turned in woefully underrevised (and probably woefully late as well).

In October, I'm teaching a class on revision and polishing for the local chapter of Sisters in Crime.  So now is a good time for me to test the techniques I'll be sharing with my students. 

A lot of them have to do with finding ways to see your work with fresh eyes.  Like reading aloud.  Yes, the whole book.  It's worth doing: the ear hears problems that the eyes would never see.  I also like printing the book out in a very different (but very readable) typeface, grabbing a handful of red pens, and going someplace quiet that's NOT my usual workspace.

Always looking for new tools for the arsenal.  If anyone has some killer self-editing advice, please share it here!

(Grasshopper brain: "Why don't we just take a break while we see what people suggest?")

(Ant brain: "No.  Pick up that red pen.")

Bringing a novel to life

By Kris Neri

When I finish one of my novels, I feel such an uplifted sense of accomplishment that all the hard work I put into it simply drifts from my mind. There is such a sense of inevitability about the outcome, it’s hard to remember that book didn’t always exist. Yet when I focus more on the actual details of the process, then I’m shocked that I actually managed to finish it at all. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder how any book makes it to completion, mine or anyone else’s.

 

While discussing our novel-writing experiences recently with some author friends, we discovered that, whether we’re outliners or blank-page writers, it’s not uncommon for our WIPs to develop gaps in them along the way, and for us to have blind spots when it comes to those gaps.

 

I’m not talking about teensy little omissions, I mean good-sized ones that, if they were to remain uncorrected, would be the first problem any reader or reviewer would cite as the reason why the book didn’t work. Fortunately, we do always note those holes in time to fix them, though often not when they first appear.

 

My friends and I all agreed that, during the writing of our books, we had forehead-slapping moments when we realized we’d ignored some key point in the story. It’s humbling when a writer who lives day-in and day-out with her story can become so focused on some aspects of it that she fails to notice she hasn’t included other critical elements. But apparently, lots of us do.

 

Is it just that too many threads go into a complex mystery for us to keep all of the balls in motion at every moment? Can we blame sunspots, or brain skips?

 

Of course, those gaps and blind spots can work to our advantage, too. I love it when I feel an overwhelming impulse to put something into a manuscript without any idea why I feel such a need to include it. When the impulse is strong, I always follow it, only to discover, several chapters later, that it wasn’t just an interesting idea, but an absolutely necessary ingredient. I’m always astonished to discover precisely how beautifully it fits into the plot, and appalled that I couldn’t see how necessary it would become from the time the idea first appeared.

 

My author friends and I also confessed that, as we race toward a deadline, in the final days, when the book should be essentially complete, we’re always still fixing things. Gaps and omissions we simply didn’t see until that point. And those fixes invariably need other little fixes, as we struggle to integrate something that clearly needed to be there all along, but which we simply didn’t recognize the necessity of including.

 

Despite my grousing, I’m really in awe of what happens within the writer during the process of creating a novel. There’s such an intuitive part of it. The unconscious aspects that dovetail together on their own are nothing short of magical. When the unconscious is working well for me, I have to keep reminding myself to stay out of its way. Yet if I stay totally out of the way, the job will never be finished. The unconscious might do some amazing work, but it does leave those gaps and omissions for the conscious mind to fill in.

 

The trick seems to be getting each part of the mind to do what it does best, in exactly the right proportion.

 

It’s that proportion that seems to be the sticking point. I revel in those magical gifts, while simultaneously working to keep all the balls in play, making sure those balls are not falling through any plot holes.

 

I just haven’t worked out that formula precisely yet. Have you?

 

 

 

 

Surprise Inside

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

I have a deal with my husband.  Well, several, but one of the biggies is: no surprise parties. Maybe it's a control thing, who knows. But the idea of opening the door, unsuspecting, to a roomful of hooting and hollering pals, cheering because they have collectively misled and surprised me, creates a  knot in my stomach and brings tears to my eyes.

In fact, I'm sure that's what my reaction would be, to burst into tears, ruining my mascara and composure, and making my eyes puffy for days. Everyone would be dressed for the occasion, and I wouldn't. Everyone would know the plan, and I wouldn't.

If you're the object of a surprise party, they are celebrating that you're the dupe. That everyone has fooled you, put one over on you, the unperceptive and unintuitive bozo who was lead to believe one thing was happening, when everyone else knew--

 

 it was really something completely different.

 Okay I can see how this is a jaded and glass-half-empty interpretation, and that may be true. But I dont like not knowing. Many people love to be surprised.  And maybe that's why my recent article in Spintetingler magazine is engendering such, well, controversy. And yes, even a bit of name-calling. 

Affectionate, to be sure, but name-calling nonetheless.

Here's the scoop. The essay reveals, in the form of a bit of a confession, that sometimes, not always but sometimes, I read the end of a mystery novel first. Well, not first-first. I read the first chapter or so, and then--here it comes and don't gasp--skip to the end and see what happens.

Then I go back to where I was, near the beginning, and read to the end again.  Here's a bit of the article.. 

....in a well-written mystery or thriller, something about the ending is right there in the beginning. It has to be. That the book is a cohesive whole, every little individual word of it creating the big picture. And when the author brings you to a terrific original unique ending, it makes the whole book work. The puzzle pieces rearrange, right? And you say; oh, now I see what the author was doing!

Shutter Island. Murder on the Orient Express. The Sixth Sense. Whether you like them or not, knowing the ending (before you got there) would make you read the book or see the movie in a different way, right? You would see the clues, you would see the foreshadowing, you would understand what techniques the authors used to fool the reader and how they lure the reader into believing one way–when reality is another. How they play fair—or how they don’t.

There's more, of course, how I got to that realization about endings, and how it doesn't hurt to know what happens, it doesn't spoil it for me--it enriches the experience. Read the essay, if you have time and see what you think.

http://www.spinetinglermag.com/2010/08/20/hank-phillippi-ryan-the-ends-justify-the-means/comment-page-2/#comment-17599

But what's realy hilarious, now, are the comments. Several dozen so far.  Hallie Ephron, a dear pal and incredibly successful author, including an award-winning book on how to write a mystery, says something like : "Ack! Way to ruin a good read!" That's paraphrased, but you get the picture.

Nancy Martin, another huge star in the mystery constellation, called me a cheater! (We are incredibly fond of each other, so it was all said in affectionate jest, I'm very sure.) 

And there's a lot more. But, bad influence that I apparently am, many commenters are seeing my point, and realizing that sometimes the means justifies reading the ends. Have you ever done that? Or do you enjoy not-knowing?

I love to read with my antennae up. It's very difficult for me to read a mystery (or watch a movie or TV show) without trying to guess what's going to happen.Without trying to reverse-engineer the plot and see what the author is up to. (In fact, I just interviewed Lee Goldberg (of MONK fame, among other major-league credits) for the Sisters in Crime blog, and he's fascinating about how he watches mysteries. Check it out here

 http://sisters-in-crime-sinc.blogspot.com/2010/08/hank-phillippi-ryan-talks-to.html )

And that's why a surprise party for me would never work anyway. I have to think that as soon as my dear husband and friends started plotting and planning, I would sense that something untoward was going on. I would wonder about the strange phone calls,  the funny silences, the furtively exchanged glances and secret signals. It's hard to put one over on a mystery author, right?

We know when something is up. And sometimes, maybe just sometimes, it's more fun to be in on it than being the one who is fooled.  (Oh, I love a good surprise ending. It's just okay with me--sometimes!--to know it in advance.)

What do you think?

Criminally Bad Book Signings

By Elaine Viets

Hurricane Irene was closing in on Fort Lauderdale. The hurricane was due to hit in 12 hours and the sky was an ominous green gray.

But I had a book signing, and I am a trooper. (Also an idiot.) I drove 30 miles to the signing and sold eleven paperbacks.

The storm was much worse by the time I drove home at nine that night. Palm trees (not the fronds, whole trees) were blowing across the highway. Rain pelted the windshield so hard I couldn’t see. My car crawled home at twenty miles an hour. On the long drive, I kept thinking, I’m going to die. I’m going to die and I did this for five bucks in royalties.

You’d think I would have wised up, but no. A large chain bookstore in the burbs of Fort Lauderdale wanted me to sign my biker mystery, "Rubout." The manager was an enthusiastic fan.

"We’ll have a terrific time," he said. "Wear your leather and we’ll have a contest for the best-dressed biker. We’ll have a real party."

I had my doubts. This was Martha Stewartville, where people put cute twig wreaths on their doors and sent party invitations.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "I’m six feet tall and I look pretty scary in leather."

"They’ll love you," he insisted.

I showed up on the appointed night in boots, chains, and enough black leather to scare every cow in Kansas.

That’s when I found out the store manager had quit – but not before he’d ordered the books for my signing.

After he left, the store did no advertising for my event. I clomped into this whitebread store looking like I’d just broken the neck off a beer bottle in a bar.

The staff dropped me in the "speakers area" and abandoned this disaster. My "Rubout" paperbacks were piled on a table in front of the children’s department. You read that right. I stood in front of the kiddie books in biker boots and black leather. The kids were fascinated by my outfit, especially the jingling chains and leather zippers. Their mothers were not. They grabbed their children and dragged them to safety.

I looked out on the empty chairs in the speakers area. I was about to escape when a small woman with a tough New York accent sat down and said, "Okay, do your spiel."

So I did. I talked about my mystery and when I rode with the bikers from Wilmington, Delaware, to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC. I talked about the annual Leather and Lace biker ball in St. Louis.

When I finished my talk, my audience of one grabbed people who walked by, saying, "Buy her book. She’s good."

Thanks to her, I sold six paperbacks.

After half an hour of torture, she announced, "You’ll make it."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"My son’s in standup comedy," she said. "You’ve got what it takes to succeed."

Last Friday night, I signed at "the biggest book signing in Florida." At least, that’s how the Mystery Florida Conference in Sarasota billed it.

Was it really?

I don’t know. But any conference that brings in Michael Connelly, Lisa Unger, Tim Dorsey, Lisa Black, Mark Billingham and a host of other New York Times bestselling authors will draw a crowd. Especially when you add a bar. Books and booze produce a lively crowd.

If it wasn’t the biggest signing, it was one of the best. I had good sales and posed for photos with readers. What a difference a few years make.

That dismal chain bookstore where I had my biker signing is now out of business. I’ve started two new series since then and currently have 15 books in print.

I never saw my fairy godseller again.

I wanted to tell her she was right. I may not be a wild success – but at least my audience doesn’t run away anymore.

 

 

Just Your Type

 
By Elaine Viets

Stocks are down. Housing prices are plummeting. But I’m offering the investment deal of a lifetime. You can buy my 1959 Smith-Corona typewriter for only $2,000.

Sure, the machine is fifty-one years old. It doesn’t have spellcheck.

But I typed some of my earliest work on that typewriter, including my first published poem, "Our Flag."

"Oh, flag in the sky, waving so high," it began, "guarding the land of the free."

The rest of that epic was lost to literature.

After I tapped out of poetry, I switched to speeches and journalism, which set me on the path to novel writing. The Smith-Corona has been long since retired. It rests in its boxy case, holding my fax machine.

I didn’t realize that my fax machine was sitting on a potential gold mine. Selling authors’ old typewriters is the latest literary trend. My $2,000 Smith-Corona is cheap at twice the price.

John Updike’s old electric Olympia 65c typewriter sold for more than $4,000 at Christie’s, according to the New York Times. The auction house had estimated its value between $4,000 and $6,000.

Updike bought the electric typewriter in London in the late sixties. No one can prove that Updike wrote any of his Pulitzer-prize winning Rabbit novels on it, but the Olympia has the "ghost image" of part of a commencement speech on the original ribbon. I can hear you yawning now. That may be why the auction house got only $4,375 for the machine, even with the original cover and metal typewriter cart.

At the same auction, Jack Kerouac’s Hermes 3000 (that’s a manual typewriter, not a designer scarf) fetched over five times as much – $22,500. It was from 1966. The Beat Generation novelist used it to write lots of letters to his agent, most of them asking about money.

Cormac McCarthy’s old typewriter tap-danced into the big leagues. His Lettera 32 Olivetti fetched $254,500. It came with a letter from McCarthy himself saying he typed "every book I have written including three not published" on the machine.

I’m not as famous as Kerouac, McCarthy or Updike – yet – but I have literary potential. My mysteries are taught at universities in the United States and at the University of Shimane in Japan.

Besides, I’m more fun to read. I also answer my emails, which none of those dead authors can, so I can help scholars with dissertations about the archetypal symbolism of high heels or deconstructing the chicklit mystery.

If you need this information for the record, here goes: My Smith-Corona typewriter has never left my office. I have the gray metal stand and the original case. The squat, portable manual typewriter has green plastic keys and steampunk charm.

Step up and bid on literary history. I’ll even throw in a bottle of Wite-Out.

 

 

A World Of Hurt

by Mary Saums

I've been listening to some of The Teaching Company Great Courses. I love these, particularly my latest find, the series on British Literature. After I finished the second volume, I hurried to the library to get the next one and headed straight for the audiobooks section. Where my heart sank. Someone else had checked volume three out already.

Nothing else appealed really, but I took home another Teaching Company set, the first volume on World Literature, with reluctance. Greek tragedy, Roman schmagedy, blah blah blah. If those and other super-early works were boring with little interest for the modern reader, I could skip to discussions on later works.

Whoops. Once again, I was wrong, wrong, so utterly wrong. Once again, a phrase that has haunted me through the years whispered in my head, Use Your Mind.  

Maybe the details of the first plays and epic poems aren't my cuppa, but hearing lectures on these writings, one after another through time up to the fifth century, brought home the fact that nothing changes. And also two other things related to books and writing that we all already know:

1. Humans Kill. Those ancient stories are centered on war, where heroes slaughter opposing tribes on battlefields, and on murder, where the same heroes kill friends, business associates and family members when they come home. What a way to live. You kill in your day job and also in your off time. 

2. Stories Enlighten Humans. When we read or hear these stories, we learn who we are as far as our tendency to kill and do other stupid things and, more importantly, we see that we need to change for the better.

Great writing shows this with memorable scenes. The Teaching Company lecture on Beowulf points out that this epic narrative begins and ends with a funeral. In between lies much warring and killing. It shows a people, called the Geats, who have more of the same to look forward to. Here are a few lines from the end, after Beowulf's funeral pyre has been lit:

A Geat woman too sang out in grief;

with hair bound up, she unburdened herself

of her worst fears, a wild litany

of nightmare and lament; her nation invaded,

enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles,

slavery and abasement. Heaven swallowed the smoke.

We all know this scene. We know it in our bones.

 

We know it from every news story on wars in our lifetimes

 

from all over the world.

 

Nothing has changed. 

  

A news report might give us the facts of war, but here in these lines, it is the powerful close-up of the writing and the beautiful translation by Seamus Heaney that affects us. Fiction shows us personal suffering in a way that non-fiction writing can't.

So, authors, that's our heritage. Whether we write poems, novels, short stories or plays, we do it to enlighten by telling a person's story. We lowly mystery writers certainly follow in the tradition, with stories about what causes people to kill and the consequences of crime in our day.  

Think big. It isn't impossible to write something that will change the world. Books and movies have global distribution, so ideas spread quickly. Screenwriters have incredible potential to reach and influence since everybody loves a good movie.

There's even a recent Beowulf movie, one with a hunky star.

That doesn't hurt. Though I doubt ancient warriors had teeth so white. 

I hope a movie that will bring about world peace and happiness is in the works right now. It can't come too soon! No matter how dark things look, there's always hope.

Meanwhile, I look forward to more Teaching Company CDs. I wonder if the Brit Lit Volume 3 has been returned yet ....

Spelling it out

by Dana

I had one of those weird little moments last week.

I'd just got done typing “the phone rang,” when my phone rang. 

Funny thing was, it happened again, about two hours later. 

I'd typed “the dog started barking its head off,” when...you guessed it.  The neighbor's dog must have seen a coyote or Sasquatch or a KISS cover band or something, because it started yapping to beat the band.

One coincidence like that is odd, and fun, but two...

I did what anyone would do.  I immediately typed in “And then she got a call from her fabulous agent, who had a giga-buck book contract on the table, complete with a movie deal and Daniel Craig already attached.”

And waited with my hands folded.  Quite patiently, I might add.  Nearly fifteen minutes. 

Nada.

I tried it again, this time wearing my Magic Wishing Shoes.

No luck.

Ah well.  It was worth a shot.

Obviously, those were coincidences.  I've been spending so much time at my keyboard lately, that my private fictional worlds and reality outside were bound to overlap at some point.  The thing is, sometimes you need to spell it out, say it out loud, not so pixies will come and make things happen, but to instruct yourself.  To grossly paraphrase the line from Risky Business (and I'm pretty sure this will be the only time I quote from a Tom Cruise movie), if you can't say it, you can't do it.  When you can state explicitly what you want, you give yourself a much better idea of how to go about doing it. 

That's because wishing clarifies things, in a way.  It's immediate; you don't hedge, you don't think.  You're usually pretty honest, because it's a short statement.  It's not a bad place to start. 

When I started writing my first book, I read the rough draft and wasn't thrilled.  Not knowing where to start fixing things (things I hadn't yet identified), I absently thought “I wish it was more exciting.”  Being that honest (and, really, that concise), led me to ask the correct questions:  what is dragging it down?  What can make it better?  Where do I start to lose interest?  What kind of book do I want it to be—cozy?  Harder boiled?  Those questions got me started revising POV and perspective and level of detail and style. 

It also took a bunch of work and a flock of (say, a dozen more) drafts.  But that book sold and is much better than where it started out. 

Pay attention to those little, disposable wishes.  There's something in them that might point you in the right direction.

Malicious Myths

by Donna Andrews

"Have you registered for Malice Domestic yet?" a fellow writer asked recently.

"Well, yes," I said. "You see, I'm going to be toastmaster this year."

And fair warning, folks--as toastmaster, I consider it part of my job to drum up attendance.  Would it help if I mention that Carole Nelson Douglas is guest of honor, with Sue Grafton as lifetime achievement winner?  And yes, they will both be there, too.  Janet Rudolph will be getting the Poirot Award, Anne Murphy will be the fan guest of honor, and we'll be paying tribute to the memory of a beloved longtime Malice author, Lyn Hamilton. If this sounds like your cup of tea . . . .register now!

I've also decided it's part of my job to clear up a few Malicious Myths.  So, in no particular order . . .

Myth #1: Malice is only for cozies

Hell no!  Malice, according to its website, is designed to salute "the traditional mystery--books best typified by the works of Agatha Christie. The genre is loosely defined as mysteries which contain no explicit sex or excessive gore or violence."  And if you want to know how broad Malice's definition of traditional is, just look at some of the writers who have, over the years, have been nominated for the Agatha award, which is given out at Malice--Elizabeth George, Margaret Maron, Anne Perry, Barb D'Amato, Nevada Barr, Deborah Crombie, Jan Burke, Sharan Newman, Rochelle Majer Krich, Laurie King, Virginia Lanier, Sujata Massey, Kate Ross, Harlan Coben, Laura Lippman, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Jacqueline Winspear, Dan Stashower, Jane Cleland, Hank Phillippi Ryan, Louise Penny, and Meredith Cole. Yes, there have also been plenty of cozies nominated.  Cozies are traditional mysteries. But so are a lot of books whose tone is a great deal darker.  Malice salutes the entire wonderful range of traditional mysteries.

Myth #2: The Malice board picks the Agatha Award nominees

Also a resounding no!  The Agatha Award is a fan-based award.  Everyone registered for the convention by December 31 gets to send in up to five suggestions in each of the award categories--best book, best first book, best short story, best nonfiction, and best children's/young adult. The Agatha Committee tallies the suggestions, identifies the top five (sometimes six or seven, if there's a tie), and puts them on the ballot--where you, the readers, can select the winner at the convention.

Then why have a committee, some will ask?  Good question.  The committee's main job is to make sure the books suggested are actually eligible. For example, if a book that gets a lot of suggestions for best first novel turns out to be, say, the fabulous Nancy Pickard testing out a pseudonym, it's not really eligible.  Or if a popular short story turns out to be a reprint from three years ago--also not eligible.  And very rarely the committee reluctantly disqualifies a book that contains explicit sex, excessive gore, or gratuitous violence. (However popular Silence of the Lambs might be, it probably wouldn't have gotten past the committee.)

So this means that if you register by year-end, you can have a say in what works are nominated for the Agatha Award!  And even if you dawdle until early spring, you can still come to the convention and vote.

Myth #3: Malice is a writer's conference
No.  Malice is a fan convention.  It exists to give pleasure to mystery readers.  At Malice, readers can connect with their favorite authors, hear about books by authors who might become new favorites, and spend an entire weekend surrounded by kindred spirits.

A writer's conference provides classes on writing craft, helps educate aspiring writers about the business of publishing, and optimally gives them a chance to meet with agents and editors.  Malice does none of these.

It's a bit of a sore spot with the Malice board, because every year they get at least one evaluation form that complains bitterly that Malice has failed meet the aspiring writers' needs and fallen down on its stated mission of helping unpublished writers get published.  As it happens, that's not, and never has been, Malice's mission.  Malice's website makes its mission pretty clear: it's an annual fan convention saluting the traditional mystery. (Not that Malice is opposed to seeing aspiring writers make the great leap, and to that end, Malice offers the William F. Deeck-Malice Domestic Grants Program for Unpublished Writers. If you win the grant--currently $1500--you might want to use it to go to a writer's workshop or conference.)

Similarly, Bouchercon, and Left Coast Crime are primarily fan conventions, although in some years their organizing committees may also arrange for writing tracks before, after, or during the conventions. But not every year, so before registering, aspiring writers would be wise to check the website or, if necessary, contact one of the organizers to find out if it will meet their needs.  Better yet, aspiring writers could look into a conference like Sleuthfest that is specifically designed to serve aspiring writers.

Why doesn't Malice just add a few writing panels to keep the aspiring writers happy?  If the Washington area were totally devoid of opportunities for writing instruction, maybe the Malice board would take that on.  But it's not.  The Writers Center offers a wide variety of classes.  American Independent Writers holds at least one conference annually.  The local chapter of Sisters in Crime periodically sponsors writing instruction--in May, Chris Roerden did a day-long seminar for SinC, and the chapter has other writing instruction sessions in the works. Later this month, the DC area is hosting the pilot for MWA University, a day-long writing seminar sponsored by Mystery Writers of America (and featuring, incidentally, two Femmes Fatales as teachers, Hank and me.) These are wonderful events, put on by people who know how to organize events for the aspiring writer.

Which, thank goodness, means the Malice board can relax, and concentrate on what it has been doing for over two decades--putting on a damn fine good time for readers and writers.

I should add that Malice is far from a waste of time for the aspiring writer. There won't be any specific classes or any one-on-ones with agents and editors.  But you can learn a lot there--I know I did before I was published. I learned about my craft by hearing writers I admired discuss plot, character, voice, and other elements of writing.  And I learned about the business by hearing my favorites talk during panels about how they got published--and in a few cases tell how it really was after a few drinks in the bar.  Unpublished writers with learning styles like mine might find Malice and other fan conventions productive uses of their time.

But it's not a writer's conference.  Just saying that so nobody has any misconceptions.

Myth #4: I can't go to Malice--I wouldn't know anyone there.
You might not know anyone there when you walk in--but if you love mysteries, Malice is a great place to meet other avid readers.  And run into a few of the Femmes Fatales.

Any more questions? So, we'll see you at Malice this May?