Dot Dead Diary

New York, New York

#1, who is a high school senior, had a college interview in the City (this time New York, not San Francisco) this morning.  We flew out from Oakland on Jet Blue Sunday.  We're both logged in now tapping away using Jet Blue's free WiFi connection.  The plane should be boarding already, but it's running 30 minutes late.  I'm using the time to post this blog.

Lucky #1.  She got to tag along while we visited bookstores.  A couple of weeks ago, I called Manhattan's four mystery bookstores:  Partners & Crime, Black Orchid, Murder Ink, and Mysterious Bookshop.  The first three ordered copies of Dot Dead.  (Why didn't they have them already? I asked myself.)  I spoke to the paperback buyer at Mysterious Bookshop, which used to claim they carried every mystery in print; he said they do not carry books published by one of the hottest new imprints on the market, Midnight Ink.  Odd?

#1 and I were greeted like long lost relations by Maggie Griffin at Partners & Crime.  She and I went through the goings on at Bouchercon.  We were in some of the same places at roughly the same times.  Don't know how we missed meeting there.  What fun!   Edgar winner Bonnie Claeson of Black Orchid couldn't have been more gracious.  She queried #1 on her college application labors.  We both lamented the state of independent bookstores in these United States.  Bonnie reported that Dot Dead has been selling at the store; fellow Edgar winner Joe Guglielmelli evidently took a fancy to it.  Signed copies at Murder Ink, too, which was just a block or two from where we stayed.  Visited another 10 Barnes and Nobles and Borders, eschewing cabs and subways and hoofing it all over the island.  Yesterday we started at Partners & Crime in Greenwich Village and trooped to 83rd and Madison.  Over half the stores had copies of Dot Dead in stock.  Is that good news or bad?  Had they just been festering on the shelves since publication date?  If they didn't have any copies, were they sold out or had they never had copies?  Anyway, the one thing I know is that signed copies prominently displayed do not just lay around.  They get bought.

Amidst our peregrinations yesterday we did stop by the Museum of Modern Art.  (As is appropriate on a bookshop tour, we ran into Shirley Bob of Bob and Bob in Palo Alto just outside there.)  It's amazing to walk into a room and recognize every picture from Van Gogh's Starry Night to Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon.  Today we wedged in a quick forty-five minute tour of the Met's exhibit of Americans in Paris 1860-1900.  Not to be missed.  Admired once again Sargent's Daughters of Edward Darley Boit that #1 and I had seen last February at the MFA in Boston.

We're boarding now.  Gotta run.  Wish we'd had time in the City to visit with more folks.  More soon.

Sex Scenes and the U.S. Senate

As we get closer to election day, campaigns are heating up.  Have you heard the latest?  The Washington Post writes:   

"Virginia Sen. George Allen (R) has accused his Democratic opponent, James Webb, of writing inappropriate sex scenes Virginia Sen. George Allen (R) has accused his Democratic opponent, James Webb, of writing inappropriate sex scenes and demeaning descriptions of women in his fictional books, the latest character attack in a close and nasty campaign.

"With 10 days remaining before Election Day, the allegations about sex-laced passages in Webb's writings inject a new question into a campaign that has centered almost exclusively on character issues: Should the author of a fictional work who runs for office be personally held to account for the scenes in his books?

"Webb, a former U.S. Navy Secretary, responded angrily Friday on Washington Post Radio, defending his novels as serious works...."   

Did you know that, in the folly of youth, I ran for political office?  And of course now I have written a novel that contains sex scenes involving an unmarried couple.  It's a good thing I didn't write the novel first and then run for office.  (I note from Webb's website that he and I worked on Capitol Hill for the same four-year period, he for House Veterans Affairs Committee and me for the Senate Intelligence Committee.)

I started thinking about novelists who became successful candidates for elective office.  (Not politicians, who once elected to office, wrote novels.  In that group there's former Massachusetts Governor Weld, former Senator Hart, Senator Boxer, former Senator and Defense Secretary Cohen, etc.)  I came up with a grand total of zero in this country.  (In England Churchill wrote a novel that was published the year before he was elected to parliament, but he supported himself as a writer for almost his entire working life.  Disraeli did write novels before entering the electoral lists.) 

Do novelists just have too much sense to get caught in the hurly-burly of politics?  Is a politician a doer, while a novelist is an observer?  Why aren't more novelists sitting in the Senate or House?  If Webb, author of the acclaimed Fields of Fire among other books, is elected, will he be the first novelist to sit in the Senate? 

Sitting in a Cafe Writing

Shelly King gets a few locals together for Wednesday night write-ins in a Mountain View cafe.  The thinking is that peer pressure will squeeze the words out of you.  It kind of works.  I promised an essay to a couple of authors who are putting together an advice-to-writers anthology and managed to knock out a first draft of 1200 words in two hours.  That's motoring for me.  (Maybe it was the caffeine in a large chai latte.)  So now at 8.15 PM I'm ready to go home, but my wife asked if I could pick up #2 from play practice at 9 since it's on my way home. 

Killing time, I just checked out worldcat.org and discovered that going to Bouchercon in Madison, Wisconsin looks like it paid off in an unexpected way.  The library there has just received two copies of Dot Dead and has two more on order.  Also learned that Sue Ann Jaffarian, whom I last saw at Bouchercon, has started a blog.  Sue Ann is funny and delightful in person and her blog shows every sign of being the same.  Check it out.

Location, Location, Location

I spent all of Sunday up in San Francisco in customer meetings (for my day job).  During a break in the action, I slipped into the Borders in Union Square where I found five copies of Dot Dead that I'd signed a month or two ago.  None had sold.  They were tucked away on the mystery shelf between the Mario Puzos and Ian Rankins.  I found space to put two on an endcap in the mystery section and three on a table near the entrance.  (Shame on me!)  When I went back today, only one copy remained.  Bookselling is no different than real estate.  Location, location, location is what matters.

Two More Reviews

Googled Dot Dead this afternoon and found links to two newspaper reviews that I hadn't seen online before.  A review by Carol Ferguson ran in the Royse City Herald-Banner on October 10.  It's terrific.   Here's her lead:  “Dot Dead: A Silicon Valley Mystery may be Keith Raffel’s first novel, but he knows a thing or two about grabbing a reader’s attention." 

Where is Royse City, you might ask?  Well, I checked.  It is in the northeastern corner of Rockwall County, Texas's smallest county, 32 miles northeast of Dallas.  The 2000 census counted 2,957 souls there.  I keep asking myself why a review in the Royse City paper and not one in, say, the San Francisco Chronicle?  (Click here to see Sex and the City, my rant on San Francisco.)  In any case, thank you, Ms. Ferguson, for asking for a copy of Dot Dead and for the review.

Last month's review by fellow mystery writer Lora Roberts has shown up online.  (I mentioned this review in a posting last month.)  I did not have to check on the city where the paper that ran this review is published.  It's my hometown and the setting for much of Dot Dead -- Palo Alto.

Dot Dead Sex

This morning's Torah portion contained the injunction to "be fruitful and multiply."  (Genesis 1:28)  Well, I was at the synagogue this afternoon talking to Rabbi Micah, who's a big fan of Dot Dead, and naturally, enough, the subject turned to relationships in the book including those of the sexual variety.  He told me he had asked my #2 whether she enjoyed the book, and she told him that I would not allow her to read it.  It is true I have told kids #2, #3, and #4 that Dot Dead is rated PG-32.  However, it is also true that, in writing the sex scenes, I was conscious of being a father and of the fact that some day my kids would assuredly read them.  Although there is premarital sex in Dot Dead (that's one reason it is PG-32), the sex is being two loving adults.  How do other writers with children handle their sex scenes?

The Creative Process: Structure versus Randomness

The genesis of Dot Dead can be traced to a mystery-writing course taught by the wonderful Peggy Lucke at UC Berkeley Extension.  Peggy showed the class the outline for her novel, A Relative Stranger.  If memory serves, it was almost 50 pages in minuscule script.  I don't write that way.  With Dot Dead I just sat down and wrote.  Sometimes I'd get stuck, work might intervene, the manuscript could be put in a drawer for a couple of years, but somehow the book got finished.  The objective, I thought, was to just to keep writing.  As Julie Smith says, "Don't get it right.  Get it written!"  Moving from chapter to chapter in Dot Dead, I could be as surprised by what happened as any reader.  That was much of the fun, the adventure of writing.  Even the identity of the murderer changed as I wrote.

So now I've written 123 pages (to be exact) of Book #2, tentatively entitled Coup (the "p" is silent, Godson).  The words have been slowing to a trickle.  I need more action in the story, and I wasn't sure where to find it.  Today, driving to the office, listening to news radio, inspiration struck from nowhere.  The unconscious mind at work!  I have an idea that should move the story along and bring some tension to the plot.  Hallelujah!

If you're a writer, do you map out your book?  Or just plunge in and hope for flashes of inspiration as required? 

The Great Ross Thomas

Wood Haut has posted two long pieces on the late, great Ross Thomas.  If you've read Thomas's stuff, lucky you.  If not, you're even luckier since you should have some great reading ahead of you.  Like Wood, I'm fond of the  Artie Wu books, but I'd rank his Briarpatch as one of the dozen best mysteries of the last half century.

Maybe the Fat Lady Hasn't Sung After All

I just complained last week that the book promotion party might be over.  I now have four indicators that I might have spoken prematurely.

• Last week Dot Dead slipped off local independent bookstore Kepler's bestseller list.  Kepler's has just posted the paperback fiction list for the week of October 15 and Dot Dead is back on top.
• Sunday night Tony and Sheryl Klein hosted a talk/signing for neighbors.  (What gracious hosts!)  When I grew up in Palo Alto, I knew everyone in the neighborhood.  Not anymore.  But I discovered what a great group of people live within a stone's throw of our abode.  And they all seemed enthusiastic about Dot Dead.
• There are lots of Stanford references and characters in Dot Dead; consequently, Stanford Bookstore has asked me to do a talk/reading/signing on November 14 at 6PM.  (Feel free to put it on your calender if you're local.)
• A high school friend I haven't seen in 20+ years just sent me an email asking if I would speak to Novel Women, her book group.

Sex and the City

My last posting, entitled Books and Naked Women, set a Dot Dead Diary record for page views.  Hmm.  I wonder why.  The link from The Rap Sheet probably didn't hurt, but I guess sex (or an allusion to it) sells.

What does San Francisco have against me?  (Out here in NorCal, San Francisco is known simply as "The City;" as you can see from the photo, that's what the Warriors uniforms said in Rick Barry's heyday .)  I have been on TV in LA, Seattle, San Jose, and Denver plumping Dot Dead -- not on any station in the City.  Was reviewed in the San Jose Mercury.  Nope, not in the San Francisco Chronicle.  Have surrounded the City with book signings in Palo Alto, San Jose, Menlo Park, San Mateo, Oakland, and Berkeley.  But nada in the City itself.  Libraries in Alameda, Livermore, Mountain View, Oakland, Palo Alto, San Jose, San Mateo County, and Santa Clara (both the county and city) have multiple copies of Dot Dead.  (The Palo Alto and San Mateo County libraries have 10 copies each!)  The San Francisco Library has none.  (But I should acknowledge that one was ordered Friday.)  Maybe this is all revenge for my calling the City a suburb.  I commute north from Palo Alto toward the City on 101 each weekday morning.  I cruise along at the speed limit the entire way.  On the other side of 101, traffic crawls.  Why?  Because people in the City are commuting to their jobs in Silicon Valley.  What do you call a place where people live, but commute elsewhere for their jobs.  A suburb!