Name that baby!

You thought that once the Fifteen Weeks of Bees were over, we’d be finished with contests, right?  Ah no, we’re just beginning. How creative are you feeling?  Well, sharpen those pencils and wits, kids, because Laurie needs a title.  That’s right, The Green Man just doesn’t do it.  As a working title, sure, because it’s about…

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The devil’s in the details

I hate plots.  Why do I need a plot, anyway?  I have 300 pages of all these great scenes with all these grand characters, and then I have to sit down and do a rewrite that makes sure it all makes sense.  Because a mystery novel kind of needs to make sense.  Mainstream fiction can…

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Breathing in and out

Following a tour, I set aside days to breathe in, and breathe out. I tidy and scrub, I unpack my suitcase and shove it into the back of the closet, I wander out to the deck with a cup of coffee and reflect that I really should do something about the weeds.  I go to…

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Fifteen Weeks, at an end

As of today, the Fifteen Weeks of Bees is officially over. We opened its doors on the first of February, and thanks to the concerted efforts of a large number of highly competent and hard-working women (some of whom were not even related to me, although by now they may feel they are) we kept…

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Book tours

One of the odder sides of being a writer in modern times is the way a solitary, dreamy individual is periodically required to become a travelling salesman. Once a year, more or less, the person who spends her working days in clothing that resembles pajamas folds up her laptop, scowls at her hair, retrieves her…

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Mary Russell’s MyStory

Today is the first Tuesday in Fifteen Weeks that Mary Russell hasn’t had a new blog post over at her MySpace page. Instead, we have this. And a year from now, more or less, we’ll be giving a copy of the hardback of The Green Man to someone who illustrates the miniature book made from…

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Writing with a bulldozer

I had some questions about the seder songs I talked about last week.  My son-in-law’s sister tells me she took them from here and here, so now you’re all set for next year, right? ***** This week I sent the first draft of the next book to my editor.  The Green Man is nothing near…

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Name a character & Russell’s adventures

It’s been a week since we announced this, and we’re a quarter of the way up our goal for the Heifer International fundraiser. So I’ll say again: If you want to name a character (you, your mother, your cat) in the next Russell & Holmes, The Green Man, here’s your chance: just donate two or…

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Week ten: posts and giveaways

We’re racing now into week ten of the Fifteen Weeks—two thirds of the way through the celebration, and only 22 days until The Language of Bees goes on sale and LRK hits the road!   And it being a Monday, that means Miss Russell is posting over on her Myspace blog, where she and Holmes…

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Water-borne inspiration

As I may have said once or twice before, I don’t write to an outline. When I begin a book, I have some ideas, a few interesting scene possibilities, a social dynamic I want to explore—basically, all sorts of bits and pieces that in no way resemble a book. I set off into the stygian…

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