Russell Swag

At long last, by popular request: new Russell swag on the Cafepress store. The Mary Russell Companion t-shirts, mugs, iPad cases, and Other Stuff: All about the world’s greatest detective …and her husband, Sherlock Holmes. Maybe your companion dog needs a Companion Shirt? Or you just want to be cool with water from a Dreaming…

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Laurie’s wanders

I’m moving around England, using research as an excuse for seeing something of this gorgeous May countryside.  Yesterday I walked all over Oxford, finding one new museum and another one that has closed down, leaving only a vestige in the corner of the Town Hall.  Also bookstores, of course.  I have been staying in the…

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This week I’ve…

This week I: – Sent Dreaming Spies in to my editor, waited a day, and received back word that she adores it, that it’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever written, and that perhaps more to the point, she’s going to send me a check.  – Finished my parts of The Mary Russell Companion, coming to…

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Deep Breath

When is the end not the end?  When it’s a book, and its author knows that a first draft is crap. I sent a very rough first draft of Dreaming Spies off to my editor today.  This proto-novel is an exceedingly thin 270 pages, missing one of its two endings, with sporadic character development, a…

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Storyteller’s whispers

Storyteller is a tease. Storyteller whispers in the writer’s ear, makes promises, leads the writer on… and then goes silent. There are basically two ways to approach a book.  For some, Storyteller speaks in advance, clearly laying out the book’s logical sequence, opening hook to ending coda. For others, like myself, a book is an…

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