BRAIN FARTS

Both my sister Kathy and I have been following Susan Wittig Albert's blog tour, promoting the latest book in her China Bayles series, Nightshade. Her posting on the Working Stiffs blogsite (http://workingstiffs.blogspot.com/2008/04/from-one-book-to-series.html) was our favorite so far. In it she posed the question "How do you make your amateur sleuth distinctive enough to carry a book into a long running series?" Her answers - think niche, think setting, think character and character ensemble, and most important, allow the character to grow - made me realize why I got hooked on her series in the first place. Before her books, I was never a big fan of mysteries. The characters never seemed to learn from their mistakes, and I hated knowing from the get-go that the PI's girlfriend was bound to get knocked off, because he was incapable of sustaining a relationship for longer than one book. Susan changed all that.

After reading this post, Kathy sent me a note asking "Didn't that give you the urge to write some fiction?" I jokingly replied with "OK, here's the retirement plan: You and I team up to write a mystery series, since you are the expert on them (she's probably read 2 or 3 a week for the last 20 years), and we'll put Carolyn in charge of marketing." Our other sister, Carolyn, worked for several years at The Mystery Bookstore" in Dallas, where they were constantly hosting mystery author book-signings. On top of that, she's a corporate event-planner extraordinaire.

Almost immediately, Kathy shot back a note saying "Now doesn't that sound fun! I think you should be in charge of the niche. Has gardening been overdone, do you think? I'd enjoy character development, but I'm not sure if I could think of a mystery that hasn't already been done. Hmmm...something to think about while lying around for a couple of months (she's about to have both knees replaced).

I couldn't resist answering with "How about a main character who has moved to the Hill Country and is in the process of becoming a locavore? ;) Just think of the interesting characters you could introduce while she's out there searching for the best local growers, cheesemakers, vintners, olive oil producers and bakers. And what about that whole battle over whether it's better to buy organic, or local and seasonal? That's just fraught with tension!

I'm pretty sure I lost her there, because her reply was "Locavore? Is that a real word, or did you just make that up?" However, just in case she does take this idea and run with it while she is laid up, I think you all should know that everything in this blog is copyrighted, and John has oodles of lawyers in his family!