Dot Dead Diary

The W.C.

I've been a member of my synagogue's worship committee for the past few years.  Yesterday I received an email from the committee chair in which she asked if I wanted to continue service on "the W.C."  I answered in the affirmative, but suggested she find a more felicitous abbreviation for the committee.  (Perhaps it's the two years I lived in England, but W.C. definitely does not mean "Worship Committee" to me.)  She didn't think it was necessary until I sent her this (hypothetical)  exchange between my wife and me.

Him:  I'm going to the WC.

Her:  Thanks for sharing.

Him:  I'll be back in two hours.

Her:  You're going to the WC for two hours?  What for?

Him:  A meeting.

Her:  Meeting?

Him:  Yes.

Her:  How many people do you need to go to the WC?

Him:  A minyan. [i.e., 10 adults]

Her:  You can't go to the WC by yourself?

Him:  What good would that do?

Her:  You could take care of your business.

Him:  Not without prayer and discussion with others.

Her:  You need prayer and discussion when you go to the WC?

Him:  Of course.

Etc.

The Liar's Diary by Patry Francis

Over 300 blogs are joining together to publicize The Liar's Diary by Patry Francis, which appears in paperback this week. I don't know Patry, but I do know about her fight against cancer that is preventing her from being being on the road promoting the book herself.

Here's what Mystery Scene Magazine said about her book:  "The Liar's Diary is a dark book, engrossing from the first paragraph. Deeply textured, it is more psychological suspense than a simple mystery. The inevitable murder is the climax of the book, after which the tension relaxes, but the story still holds real surprises for the reader. The Liar's Diary is a beautifully written first novel by an author who has previously distinguished herself through her poetry and short stories."

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

You can read what Patry says about her fight against cancer here.

You can see the posting about her at Inkspot here.

And what Laura Benedict who organized The Liar's Diary Blog Day has to say here.

Below is The Liar's Diary book trailer.

God bless.

Hangin' Out with Fellow Scriveners

I spent Saturday afternoon listening to the entertaining, deadpan, and outrageous Cornelia Read at M is for Mystery.  We repaired afterwards, along with two other friends, to a local pub where conversation and potables flowed.  Unfortunately, I am not going to get to read Cornelia's newest, The Crazy School, right away.  #1 is home for semester break and she has confiscated it.  She loved Cornelia's tour de force debut, A Field of Darkness, as much as I did.

BTW, it does seem to be the hang-out-with-authors time of year.  A week ago I went to see Louise Ure, again at M is for Mystery.  Shortly thereafter, I rectified a long-standing sin of omission by reading her first book, Forcing Amaryllis -- easy to see why it won a Shamus award -- and picking up her second, The Fault Tree, which will be read anon.  Wednesday evening, #4 and I are going to sneak into Kepler's where Anthony Horowitz, author of the Alex Ryder series for kids, has sold out the place.

Holiday or not, I'm heading over to the cafe to get my daily quota written.

Cash Infusion for Bookstores

A column in this morning's Wall St. Journal says that "from Chicago to Brooklyn, NY and from Houston to Eugene, Ore, loyal customers have been "stepping up and putting down serious cash to save their neighborhood bookstores."  Kepler's, my hometown favorite (which, BTW, has sold well over a thousand copies of Dot Dead), is the poster child for these stores.  In October 2005 the store closed but was rescued by community members who put up the money to reopen the store.  Clark Kepler told these investors, "This is an investment from the heart.  Don't do this if you expect to see the money again." 

Following Kepler's example, Tsunami Books in Eugene, Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Brooklyn's Community Bookstore, and Bob & Bob in Los Altos have all been saved by locals putting up cash, including some who had to dig deep in their pockets.

I myself pay something like annual dues to Kepler's and Bob & Bob.  The money is well worth it.

Here's what I don't get though.  I have asked a friend if he would pay $200 a year to keep Kepler's open.  The "yes" comes back instantaneously.  Then I inquire why he bought the latest bestseller at Border's.  "Because they are selling it for 40% off," he replies, "and Kepler's is charging full price."  He doesn't see any contradictions there.  I do.

Breakfast with Barack

This morning I had breakfast with Barack Obama.  I'd met him last June and came away with a favorable impression-- enough to want to hear him again.  Today, in speaking to me and a couple hundred others, the Senator was inspirational, insightful, optimistic, funny, and approachable.  He'd been good in June, but he was great today.  He dazzled me.

I don't use the term "dazzled" lightly.  I spent four years on Capitol Hill and have worked with and heard from many members of the "world's greatest deliberative body."  I haven't ever been present where a politician spoke better.

What I care most about in a president is not what he or she will do to make my life easier or better.  What I want is a president who will help make this country the best possible inheritance for my children. The Senator spoke eloquently about how to fix our "disease care system," to achieve better education for the young, and how to make the United States stand for the right thing in the world.  My wife, too, was impressed.  "There's so much more there than you hear in sound bites on TV," said she.

In the breakfast crowd were a fair number of venture capitalists, my brother among them.  The Senator asked for our support in terms familiar to those VC's.  Supporting him, he said, was a moderate risk investment with a very large potential payoff.  Exactly.

Plotting Along

In half an hour or so, I'm heading over to my favorite café to wrestle with my work-in-progress.  While I rap on my laptap keys, dialog flows, characters emerge, and description is captured.  I'm not talking about quality here; I'm talking about how hard or easy it is to get the words down on paper.  My nemesis is plot. 

In a misery-loves-company way, I found some reassurance yesterday in a Wall Street Journal interview of playwright David Mamet.  He's asked, "How hard is plot for you?"  Here's his reply:  "I once worked for a summer laying sod.  This is the only thing I've ever done that was harder than that....  You stare at that sheet of paper for years and know there's something hiding in there."

What Mamet says reminded me of the quote from the great sportswriter Red Smith: "There is nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."

Terrible Reality

I write mysteries and thrillers. When writing them, I live in an alternative reality where deaths occur. It turns out though that alternative reality is not as real as the one I live in when not writing.

I met Benazir Bhutto in college where she kept the name Benazir to herself and introduced herself as “Pinkie.” One night at a bull session in my dorm room, she and I had a screaming match over what should be done in the Arab-Israel conflict. One of her friends ran from the room crying because she could not handle our disagreement. For me politics discussed at high volume was situation normal. Evidently for Pinkie, too, and our argument made no difference to our casual friendship. Someone told me that newspapers in Pakistan opposed to her ex-foreign minister father alleged that his daughter was hanging out with Jews and left-wingers. Maybe so. I myself did not spend a lot of time with her, but I did fit both categories.

Pinkie and I overlapped at Oxford, too. I remember going by her room at Lady Margaret Hall, which in those days was women-only. She seemed overly appreciative of the visit and insisted I take an oversized tea tin – which I still have somewhere – as a gift.

I did not see Pinkie after Oxford, but when she was assassinated two days after Christmas, I felt it. My college friend had been murdered. Bullets had torn through her. That's reality and it is terrible.             

               

Pinkie as an undergrad.

Cross-posted at the Inkspot blog.

A Blasphemous Interview

You can check out my interview of best-selling author Douglas Preston here in the January issue of The Big Thrill.  While he often writes with Lincoln Child, in his latest venture, Blasphemy, he's flying solo.  Doug is the brother of The Hot Zone author Richard Preston, and you can read in the interview about their lifelong efforts to gross out family and friends alike.

Fiction from a Real-Life M

Way back when, I was counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee.  I drew on my four years in D.C. dealing with terrorism, ambition, and the White House while writing the manuscript of Two Graves.  So when I recently came across At Risk, the 2004 thriller by Stella Rimington, the former head of Britain's MI5 (that's the job M had in the James Bond books), I couldn't resist seeing what she could spin out of her 27-year career.  I was rooting for her as someone who was publishing her first novel at age 59, but I had no great expectations.  Surprise.  It's riveting -- at least so long as she sticks to the main story of tracking down two would-be terrorists and not the clichéd details of the hero's home and love life.  I read it in an evening (the first one of the year) and stayed up past midnight to finish.  Bravo.  Dame Stella has written two more thrillers which I'll check out.