Laurie R. King: Mutterings

Recorded Books have been kind enough to send me some extras of their audio of Touchstone, to lay at the feet (and the ears) of my Faithful Readers—people registered on this blog, the LRK newsletter, Facebook, and two onto the Virtual Book Club. You can sign up for them all by following the links from the zippy new sidebars on the VBC

And, you can nominate your favorite library to the Laurie Loves Libraries list, if you haven’t already—surely they can use another copy of the audio? Just send their name and address to info@laurierking.com with the subject: Libraries.

All six drawings will be on July 25, good luck to all!

San Francisco airport’s international terminal has two arrival portals. An incoming passenger treks in from the arrival gate, rescues her bags from the roundy-roundy, queues up to submit her passport to the polite but unsmilng scrutiny of the Immigration official, hands over the form that vows she is not bringing in apples or radioactive waste or stacks of cash, and then pushes ahead into a featureless hallway, hoping the customs people haven’t spotted something on that form that makes them pop out and pounce on those bags as they go past.

In the meantime, those waiting to greet-and-fetch the passengers are milling around in the terminal, eyes glued to a series of television screens showing the traffic in those same featureless hallways. A constant trickle of people cross the screen: two women in saris corral three beautifully dressed children around a heaped-high baggage cart; a freshly-shaved man in a rumpled suit pulling a rollie case dodges a pair of yawning teenage girls in what look like pajamas, one of them grasping a pillow the size of her torso; a spry and determined septuagenarian aims her cart at freedom. Exhausted or exhilarated or irritated or comatose they come, making their way upstream like fish through a stark white stream, oblivious to the lens transmitting their images to the people waiting on the other side of the walls.

A few regulars know the eye is there, and remember it in time to wave to the invisible friends already in the outside world. When I came back from the UK three weeks ago and hit that last turn in the hallway, I remembered. I looked up and waved at the little lump in the ceiling with the lens in the middle.

And outside, invisible to me, forgetting in her excitement that there is no way I can see her gesture, my daughter waves back.

And that, dear friends, is what I am doing at the moment with my rewrite of The Language of Bees. I am making my way towards the exit, but I am also remembering the camera, and I am going over every page, every scene, every line to make it one on which you, the reader, forgets this is a story, and waves back.

I apologize for the silence here, we’ve had some poor sad idiot target the site with what Google calls malware (sounds like something out of Tolkein) that gave everyone’s computers the heebie jeebies when they tried to see the blog, so I thought it kindest to wait (and wait) until Google’s bots got around to checking us out. Should be fine now, thanks for asking.

In the meantime, we have had an explosion of satire on the nation’s news. No, this blog is not going to talk about the New Yorker cover, other than to say that I agree, some people at both ends of the political spectrum will, unfortunately, take it seriously.

But I do want to say something about the Obamas.

When you look at the various everyday aspects of a person’s life—be it food preparation, driving a car, handling finances, interacting with colleagues—you see that all those different activities tend to reflect the same personality. A man who doesn’t bother with ironing probably takes similar shortcuts in making his bed and keeping his checkbook; a woman who cooks a meal by scrupulously following every direction will tend to be as scrupulous in details of her daily job. A person who deceives at small things tends to be untrustworthy in the bigger things as well.

Politicians no less. So, I put before you two small everyday facts of life in the Obama household.

In an interview some months ago, Michelle Obama talked about how, while campaigning for her husband’s presidency, she would nonetheless fly home each and every night in time to put their children to bed.

And recently, in answer to an unscripted question about what he would say to young writers, Barack Obama talked about the need for writing skills, the fact that he keeps a journal, and how “Over the course of four years I made time to read all of the Harry Potter books out loud to my daughters. If I can do that and run for president, then you can find time to read to your kids. That’s some of the most special time you have with your children.”

A man and a woman who take the responsibility of raising children seriously just might do the same with the responsibility of running the country.

I am firmly convinced that if you gave one of those high school test questions with the drawing of a shape on it, and ask which of the four answer drawings best matched the back side of the original shape, writers would fall into two categories with their answers. The writers who got it right, who could envision the back of a nonexistent object, would turn out to be those who outline their books.

Then there would be those who looked at drawings A, B, C, and D in bewilderment, and said, if you give me scissors, tape, and paper, I’ll make the shape for you and we can see what it looks like from the other side.

That would be those of us who write without outlines. Who, try as we might, cannot envision a thing that is not in our hands. and yes, I know these questions are intended to test intelligence, but I don’t think it’s that simple.

Take The Language of Bees. I made an outline for this book, really I did. A true outliner might call it a proto-outline, but the sequence of events was there, beginning to end, with most of the middle clear in my mind if not on the page.

Okay, my victim dies on a Friday night, is found Saturday, and in the newspapers Saturday afternoon. Russell and Holmes figure out who she is Sunday morning, the police have the identity Sunday night.

So far, so good.

But, when do the newspapers find out who it is? Monday provides me with a good link to a witness, who reads of the death midday on Monday so her reaction can effect Russell’s investigation. However, if everyone knows who the victim is that early, it hampers Russell (not so much Holmes) considerably over the coming days, and makes it difficult to interview other witnesses.

Well, let’s see, this is 1924 and fiction, let’s have the newspapers be slow off the mark and not happen across the information for a while. That opens things up for Russell when it comes to questioning the victim’s circle, however, it would also be useful to be able to see their reactions to the victim’s death.

And this question, when do the newspapers know, is just one minor snag along the way. I begin to feel as if I’m walking through a bramble patch in a long sweater, one step forward and then a long pause to clear the hindrance.

I wonder if there’s a class that teaches a person how to envision the back of a nonexistent shape?

Alas, the Curse of the Brits has hit me again, and my beloved Poisoned Pen Press (UK) is closing up shop. Sigh. This means that, if you want live in the UK and want copies of their edition books, you’ll have to scurry. They still have copies of THE ART OF DETECTION (hardcover and paperback) and TOUCHSTONE, and a very few of A GRAVE TALENT.

Better news comes for you audio fans: TOUCHSTONE is finally available, from Recorded Books (www.recordedbooks.com or 1-800-638-1304—the ISBN is 978-4361-0902-4.) I’m not sure about downloads, if I get an answer on that I’ll let you know. In any case, here’s the (hmm, interesting…) cover:

This hilarious entry appeared yesterday on Jason Kottke’s eminently followable blog.  I’ll paste the bulk of it below for those of you who might have trouble seeing the small font–

The American Family Association automatically replaces words like “gay” with “homosexual” in the AP stories they display on their news site. When an American sprinter named Tyson Gay is in the news, the practice leads to hilarity.

Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials
Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday.

And on it goes…”On Saturday, Homosexual misjudged the finish in his opening heats…”, “Homosexual runs wind-aided 9.68 seconds to make Olympics…”, “Close call: Homosexual barely averts major flop in 100…”

This from the http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/070308/met_299022692.shtml
" class="external"> Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville, with thanks to the sharp eyes of VBC member Jessara, who comments, “Somebody around here has been reading Night Work, and the difference between fiction and nonfiction has eluded them”:

A Jacksonville man went to grab a beer and brought home a painful memento from his night out.

The 22-year-old sailor was knocked unconscious and had the phrase “Wife Beater” scrawled across his stomach Saturday outside Bourbon Street Station Bar on St. Johns Bluff Road.

The victim, who was arrested in March on a domestic battery charge, went to the bar by himself about 11:45 p.m. He said he left the bar and was walking toward his vehicle when he was knocked out. He woke up with a burning chest pain, according to the report. He lifted his bloody shirt and saw the letters stenciled into his stomach with a blade.

He went home and didn’t go to the police until Monday morning. He told authorities he was worried the incident might violate his probation.

So, having got my life, house, and correspondence more or less up to date (which is pretty good considering 3 weeks away generally leads to 3 weeks’ catch-up) I picked up The Language of Bees and began to read.

I always begin this first-read process swearing I will do it without a pencil in hand, just a fast read-through to judge the story, the pace, the overall quality of the plot and characters.

Uh huh, right. I got to the end of the first page before my itching fingers finally grabbed a pencil and wrote at the top of the page, Needs to grab.

And so it goes, with a burst of quick-read for a few paragraphs until I come to one that cries out for reworking, for making it clearer or smoother or for working in some point that leads up to a later revelation…

Until I figure out how to read with my hands tied behind my back, I’m doomed to fiddle. I can only hope that the fiddling doesn’t get in the way of my perception of the larger issues…

Blackwell’s Books has been the center of Oxford for as long as I have known the city–the center of MY Oxford, at least. At various times there have been as many as five separate Blackwell’s shops within the few hundred yards of Broad Street, but now the Traveller’s shop sells nicknacks and the children’s shop, where one could see part of the ancient city wall in the back while the kids were deciding which Asterix and Obelix they hadn’t read, is no more. Still, even with the main bookstore and the art shop, I am content.

So I was absolutely chuffed to be asked to do an event there this year for Touchstone. Adrian Magson and I sat and talked to a group of perhaps two dozen readers in the coffee house upstairs, but you can see part of the stacks over my shoulder. The Norrington Room, with its three miles of shelves where a person can find the Regius Professor of Divinity browsing alongside an Anglican priest from Uganda and a tourist from Calgary, is downstairs and to the left, but if you go, prepare to spend the day within that one room, until you stumble outside and follow the odor of hops and Scotch Eggs to the White Horse next door.

Incidentally, Dorothy L Sayers worked for Blackwell’s publishing house after graduating from Oxford, and the company published her first book, a volume of poetry. I can’t say I felt her looking down on us, but I am always aware of Sir Basil Blackwell himself, the founder’s son and the company’s director until his death in 1984 at the age of 85. Sir Basil was still around when I first started coming here, and he invariably greeted my husband with solemn pleasure. Then again, he greeted everyone with solemn pleasure, whether he recognized them or not.

The photo thanks to Adrian Magson and Jool Verjee, the great Blackwell’s events coordinator.

After my pilgrimage to Calke Abbey, I headed for Oxford. We own a house in the city, near Folly Bridge, where one can still see (and punt beneath) the Saxon underpinnings on which everyone from the Norman Lord of Oxford, Robert D’Oilley, to the ever-busy 19th century Victorians built and re-built this bridge over the Isis (the Isis being the Oxford section of the Thames.) One can also admire the small island halfway along the bridge where the alchemist Roger Bacon set up shop, or hire a punt and buy a choc ice at the one-time toll booth on the city side of the bridge. Our house is on the first road south of the river, and I have lived there for short periods any number of times over the years. Still, I have to say, summer ain’t my favorite time in Oxford. Not that the town and its surrounding countryside aren’t gorgeous then, it’s the people.

Tourists are not, I fear, attractive. In small numbers, maybe, but small numbers isn’t what you get in Oxford. Packs of foreigners roam the streets, talking loudly and stopping abruptly in the middle of the pavement (sidewalk) to read their maps. Few Americans this year, but the Italians, French, Germans, Russians, Japanese, and Indians made up for them.

May is nice, or September before the students come back. Summer is a time to duck into town early in the morning, winding through the streets to Blackwell’s Books for the latest books by those writers who aren’t published yet in the US, then making a raid on the Covered Market. This is my favorite shopping mall in the world, the Victorian Covered Market, where one can buy a loaf of wholemeal bread, a selection of British cheeses, and a punnet of English strawberries, acidic and delicate. Then escape from the increasing crowds and settle into a chair in the back garden, waiting for one of the churches to practice their bell-ringing. (And surely you’ve read Nine Tailors, Dorothy Sayers’ novel set around bell ringing? Or at least followed Robin McKinley’s blog on her experiences?)

But we had a nice event at Blackwell’s that night, with the friends-and-relations summoned by my stepson who is living in the Folly Bridge house, bolstered by half a dozen members of the reading group from the public library in town, where my kids used to raid the stacks during the periods we were living there.

And then to London, venturing in the next day for tea with Harry (HRF) Keating and his wife, the actor Sheila Mitchell, followed by an event at the library nearby. A hot evening and thin numbers, but good anyway.

Friday it was back to Heathrow and settle into my first-class seat, watching bad movies and enjoying John Harvey’s newest novel as the ground passed by with no effort from myself. I was met at San Francisco by my daughter, who managed to catch me waving into the not-so-hidden camera in the approach hallway out of Customs, and we drove back through a heat wave that was added a note of the piquant by a wildfire that blocked the freeway in Santa Cruz, dumping all the traffic onto side streets, so that a 2 hour trip was made to stretch four.

The next day, which found me well rested despite the sweltering temperature in the house, we had thunderstorms, adding a number of new wildfires to the one near the freeway. Santa Cruz County feels like a war zone these days, five major fires in the past month, accompanied by roaring bombers (of fire retardant) and thudding helicopters bringing baskets of water to bear.

But Monday the fog finally was drawn in by the inland heat, and I woke during the night to a cat seeking warmth and the need to find a blanket. Bliss.

And now, back to work.