THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER ISSUE # TWENTY-FIVE l5 FEBRUARY 2004

February must surely be the Wednesday's Child of the year. Despite its subtly lengthening days, this shortest of months routinely exhibits an unfortunate tendency to woe, with a middle o, and that rhymes with snow.

It has been said that snow and teen years are problems that, if you have the fortitude to ignore them for a sufficient length of time, will depart of their own accord. Well, we've been giving increasing piles of snow the cold shoulder (in more ways than one) for the past three months, but it just won't to take the hint, and instead continues to linger about the landscape like acrid smoke from a burnt dinner or house guests who've over-stayed their welcome.

Which latter social transgression we trust is not the case with this latest issue of Orphan Scrivener, which we now (as union-card-carrying relatives would say) put on the table for full and frank discussion.

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MARY'S BIT or WOOLLY THINKING

When we were children 8'o-clock was set in stone as the time when we had to hit our sacks. It's true that by special parental dispensation we were allowed to stay up "late" some nights to listen to the Goon Show or Journey Into Space, but by l0 past 8 most evenings my sister and I were tucked up in our bunk-bedded snuggery in the attic.

Needless to say, we'd read by torchlight for at least an hour after retiring, secure in the knowledge that even if one of our parents came tippy-toeing up the long staircase that hugged three walls on its journey from the landing below, the loud creakings of its Victorian era wooden steps would warn us of their approach in good time to conceal books and torches under the covers.

However, a much more sinister type of approaching steps were heard once a week most weeks, since they were often featured in one of our favourite BBC radio programmes.

Presented under the title Appointment With Fear, the series featured half-hour plays introduced by the suitably sepulchral and sinister tones of Valentine Dyall, The Man In Black. In memory at least these dramas were replete with menacing footsteps tapping slowly along dark alleys and exceedingly strange noises at ungodly hours -- often emanating from fictional attics, I may add, which made the shadows in the corners of our sloping-roofed bedroom seem *much* more interesting after these plays ended. Between the best efforts of the BBC Sound Effects Department and the vivid imagination of the young, we could almost see the thick, swirling fog pressing close to the windows of some isolated mansion, muffling all sounds except the grandfather clock in the hall as it began its whirring run-up to striking the twelve chimes of midnight and the supposedly locked study door began to squeak open...

However, it wasn't until I looked up the programme this afternoon at http://www.britishdrama.org.uk/mib.html#FEAR that I learnt plays for the series were mostly originals written by John Dickson Carr, with a sprinkling of reworkings of classic tales by Stevenson, Poe, and other luminaries of weirder fiction, including (of course) an adaptation of The Monkey's Paw.

The format of Appointment With Fear involved Dyall's Voice of Doom book-ending each play as well as providing occasional mid-drama links. By modern day standards the stories were not that ghastly and whereas our mother always claimed eating cheese sandwiches before bed-time caused nightmares -- although I for one did not find it so -- this wonderful drama series did cause a problem of a related kind in that after having had our latest Appointments With Fear neither my sister nor myself wanted the job of turning off the light.

The difficulty arose because the light switch was (naturally enough) next to the door, on the far side of which stood the old, mesh-fronted radio. The door was several paces away from our bunk. Who knew what might be lurking with evil intent behind the wardrobe between the door and our side of the room, or for that matter under the lower bunk? Which, I may add, was my berth.

Well, with a bit of ingenuity we came up with a solution. The light switch was of a type long discontinued, consisting a short, protruding stub terminating in a tiny knob. In the UK, dowsing a light involves switching up rather than down. So we obtained an appropriate length of wool, tied it tightly under the head of the switch knob, and then ran it from there up over the top of the afore-mentioned wardrobe, down to the bunk, and so into our grubby grasp.

The following week, once the play had concluded, I switched off the radio, got back into bed, and gave our semi- automatic light-switcher-offer a good, hearty tug.

Unfortunately the wool broke.

Childhood sometimes inflicts sad disappointments.

Looking back, it now occurs to me that a piece of string would have been a better choice for the task, but for some reason that never occurred to us. We continued to listen to the plays and then have whispered arguments about who should get the dreaded task of turning radio and light off. As oldest, it usually fell to me, and groping my way back, it struck me more than once how long it takes to cross even a familiar room when your eyes have not adjusted to the dark and there might be something nasty waiting...

In a touch of irony the programme's producers would surely appreciate, I noticed on the website mentioned above a presentation in a later series was called A Day At The Dentist. Now *there* is a play whose sound effects I shudder to contemplate -- let alone its plot line.

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

The BSP Ticker has picked up a wee bit of speed of late, so without further ado we'll let it rip!

AMAZING NEWS or LIES, LOVE, AND LACK OF LOQUACITY

We were speechless -- not something that happens often at Casa Maywrite -- when we recently heard Four For A Boy has been nominated for the first Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery Award. The award will be presented in about a week's time during the Left Coast Crime conference in Monterey. The other two nominees are fellow PPP scrivener Ann Parker for Silver Lies. Set during the silver rush, Lies revolves around Inez Stannert, a lady who runs a saloon/gambling joint in l879 Leadville, CO. Rhys Bowen, who writes about Irish immigrant Molly Murphy's adventures in l90l New York in For The Love Of Mike, is the third nominee.

MORE MYSTERIOUS MUTTERINGS or CONVERSING WITH CAROLYN

After our virtual voices returned, we chatted at length with Bellaonline's Carolyn Chambers Clark, who posed some very interesting questions concerning John's world. Our alibis, er, answers are freshly online and may be viewed at http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art16916.asp Our thanks to Carolyn for this opportunity to bend the virtual ears of her readers.

LOOKING AHEAD or CITING THE FIFTH

Speaking of John, his fifth adventure, Five For Silver, will soon sally forth into the world. While we don't wish to say anything incriminating, we will say it's something a bit different from early entries in the series. John's latest investigation is set during the plague of 542 and is undertaken after Peter, his elderly servant, is visited by an angel bearing a strange message which, it turns out, is true -- for an old friend of Peter's has indeed been murdered. Fiverfer will be published by Poisoned Pen Press on l March, so will be available momentarily. We hope you enjoy it.

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ERIC'S BIT or A SPELL CAST BY WILLOWS

For years I've named Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In The Willows as my favorite book. My grandmother read to me the adventures of Ratty, Mole, Badger and Toad and I remember those evenings spent sitting and listening beside the rocking chair in her living room as my introduction to the enchantment of the written word. Our circle of orange lamplight and the shadowy Victorian furniture beyond would dissolve into the Wild Wood or Badger's warren and my grandmother's voice might have been the sound of the River by which the animals lived. But while I recalled clearly the spell cast by the words, I recalled very little of the words themselves.

So I decided to read the story again -- or rather to read it for myself for the first time -- a perilous undertaking after nearly 45 years. I was not disappointed. My grandmother's comforting voice has been stilled for twenty years and her cozy living room long-since remodeled by strangers. But Grahame's words still held the magic that had touched me so long ago.

There are the gorgeous descriptions of river, fields and woods in all their changing aspects throughout the seasons, creating a vivid, irresistible world. And of course the appealing characters, all save for some nefarious denizens of the Wild Wood, as friendly and caring a group as any child could wish, but with enough quirks and peccadilloes, from Badger's anti-social tendencies to Toad's manic irresponsibility, to appear real, hardly a bunch of boring do-gooders.

Then too, the book is mostly about home, the thing best known and most important to a child. Ratty and Mole and the rest are always safe in some lovingly described home, or going home on a cold night, or thinking about being at home in their own warm beds. Which is probably why it is so horrifying when Toad arrives back from his adventures to find Toad Hall occupied by weasels and stoats.

This is one of many harrowing scenes. Losing one's home, or being lost in the dark woods on a cold night as happens to Mole, or having one's freedom taken, a fate suffered by Toad when he is thrown in prison for stealing a motorcar, are not trivial matters. The fears they stir are deep, so The Wind In The Willows makes for exciting reading.

Grahame's world is not only filled with real danger, but with mystery. The Wild Woods and the far off Wide World both harbor things unknown. In one chapter Mole and Ratty encounter the god Pan, who strikes the memory from their minds. As children, like Grahame's animals, we readily accept our strange and contradictory state, creatures seeking mundane physical comforts, some cozy den, in a limitless universe full of mysteries and wonders beyond our comprehension. But as we grow older we too often take the comforts for granted and forget that the wonders exist. I think it might be Grahame's mingling of domesticity and awe that makes The Wind In The Willows a classic. Then again, trying to explain the book like that makes me wonder if I haven't just caught some of Mr. Toad's overwhelming conceit.

[Editorial note: Eric contributed this essay to the Fostoria, OH, Library's celebration of Children's Book Week a year or so ago.]

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AND FINALLY

Speaking of the mingling of domesticity and awe, as Scarlett O'Hara memorably observed there is no convenient time for childbirth, death, or taxes. Given 2004 is a leap year, we do at least have an extra day and all of March before l5 April rolls around again, bearing on its back that pair of most inconvenient horrors, Tax Day and the next issue of Orphan Scrivener. Whereas filing tax returns can be put off beyond that date for a while, the arrival of our next newsletter is more than likely, so unless you leave the country or change your email address before then, we'll see you again on l5 April!

Best wishes
Mary R and Eric
who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the aether at http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/

Therein you'll find the usual suspects, including more personal essays and an interactive game as well as an on- line jigsaw puzzle (if you have a java-enabled browser) featuring One For Sorrow's boldly scarlet cover. For those new to the subscription list there's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned!

THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER ISSUE # TWENTY-FOUR l5 DECEMBER 2003

This month's Orphan Scrivener is being composed as snow falls thick and fast and weather forecasters are making noises about yet another nor’easter to follow in a day or two. Thus doubtless a number of subscribers will soon, if they haven't already, sympathise with the lot of the Pilgrim Fathers who, as U. S. Grant observed, came to a country sporting nine months of winter and cold weather the rest of the time.

One of Willa Cather’s characters opines winter hangs on so long in country towns that it becomes sullen, stale, and shabby, whereas on farms the usual workday round progresses beneath the weather, as streams meander along under ice. The equally chilly beginning of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe reveals in Narnia at that time it was always snowing and never Christmas, whereas snow or no our present round of holidays are not too far away now.

Psychologists declare these festive jamborees are often a time of great stress, so in the spirit of the season, we trust you'll forgive us by adding to yours by cybering you this latest newsletter.

On the other hand, at least it's not sullen, stale, or shabby...we hope!

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ERIC'S BIT or MARK HIS WORDS

Mark Twain wrote an essay that I haven't been able to locate, except for the fragmentary copy in my memory, in which he fulminated about the state of the world and called a spade a spade and worse -- a rant in today's jargon -- and ended with the explanation to the effect: I can dare to say all these things because I am a dead man.

He was right, of course. Or rather, he wasn't right when he wrote the words, but is, now, so many years after his death.

We tend to take words for granted. We use them constantly. They're common and disposable. They help us remember we need garbage bags and cat treats at the grocery store, yet they also preserve the thoughts of those whose bodies are dust, allow us to see through dead eyes, observe worlds that no longer exist.

It's been said that words have a life of their own, but that isn't true. By themselves they are only ink on paper or stored electrical patterns. They can only live in the minds of an audience. The audience is what matters the most. A writer is almost never present when his or her words are read. Some writers are as dead as Mark Twin, but once the words are out in the world, the audience doesn't need the person who wrote them.

It's the writer who needs the audience.

Last issue I mentioned starting a blog. Why, I'm not sure. Just because...or perhaps as it's the "in" thing, as we used to say. So I blogged a bit and stopped, and then blogged some more, and stopped again. It didn't feel right. Something was missing.

The audience.

Mind you, I'm not talking about an audience that applauds or communicates its existence in any manner. Rather what was missing was my own idea of a potential audience. When Mark Twain wrote that essay, which I hope isn't a figment of my imagination, obviously he couldn't have expected feedback from people who would be alive when he was dead. However, he surely wrote with those readers in mind, and this helped him shape the words.

There are those who purport to write for themselves, but I am not particularly interested in communicating with myself. Manipulating words effectively enough to reach others is the challenge, and it helps to know who these others are.

Some bloggers write about specific subjects and have an implicit audience. Others connect to a number of fellow bloggers, forming their audience that way. Perhaps some writers, blogging without specific readers in mind, feel they are addressing the entire population of the world wide web. To me, it just feels like talking to empty cyberspace.

I prefer to aim my writing toward someone. Mystery readers, for instance.

Many libraries are now online. Occasionally we browse and can see that someone in Texas or Alaska has checked out one of the novels and might be reading it at that moment. When I write, I'm motivated by this audience of people about whom I know nothing -- except that they read mysteries.

I'm fortunate there are people willing to read the books Mary and I write, who make it worthwhile to do something I enjoy doing.

Having said that, I'll bet irascible old Mark Twain would've been one heck of a blogger!

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NECESSARY EVIL or THE BSP TICKER

We have a fair bit of news this time around, so here ‘tis!

NOT YOUR KIPLING'S IF or FUN AND GAMES WITH ERIC

A month or so back KFAdrift, editor of the InsideAdrift Newsletter, interviewed Eric. The resulting chat -- in which Eric discusses writing interactive fiction computer games (IF) -- can be perused by visiting the InsideAdrift site http://www.insideadrift.org.uk/ and checking the archive for the November issue, or by going directly to the pdf file at http://www.kfadrift.org.uk/insideadrift//files/insideadrift1 1.pdf

Reading the newsletter will also provide pointers toward some good games written by folk who can *really* program! Interactive fiction is generally text only. The reader plays the part of the protagonist and participates by typing in simple commands, so don't worry, there are none of those thumb-wiggling shoot 'em ups.

GIFT FOR SUBSCRIBERS or YULE BE DRIVEN CRACKERS

Speaking of games, as an early surprise Christmas box for subscribers, we've uploaded an unpublished story in the form of an interactive game to our website (URL below). The Thorn can be played online or readers can download a version. Admittedly, it might turn out to be like one of those elaborate toys that look so cool way up on the store shelf, but when you unwrap it on Christmas morning turns out to be just lousy cardboard and the wheels fall off. Which is to say, this is an experiment which may run on some machines and just sit there on others, but the only way to find out is to try it and see.

TRUE LIES or RESEARCH REVELATIONS

We were honoured to hear a week or so back that librarian Barbara Fister (author of the mystery novel On Edge) quoted a couple of comments we'd made on the topic of research as part of her lecture on True Lies, Libraries, Research, and the Facts of Fiction. Addressed to the November 2003 retreat for members of the Cooperating Libraries in Consortium, her presentation also included observations on the subject from such luminaries as Loren Estleman and George Pelecanos. Interested parties can peruse the text of her lecture at http://www.barbarafister.com/TrueLies.html Our thanks to Barbara for this unexpected reference!

EH, CANADA? or A MYSTERIOUS ACCOLADE

A subscriber in Canada tells us that their local library is featuring Four For A Boy on its Picks of the Year shelf. Needless to say, we're thrilled. The accolade is much appreciated, even though the library's location is as yet unknown.

MEA CULPA or A SECOND HELPING OF HUMBLE PIE

When we mentioned A Second Helping of Murder last time we omitted to note its publisher is Poisoned Pen Press, the very folk who bring you John's adventures. Sorry about that, PPP! However, since we're revisiting the collection, we'll mention one or two other recipes therein while we're at it. For a start, there's a high energy cocktail from Elaine Viets rejoicing in the name of Absolut Bawls, Donna Andrews provides instructions for her grandmother's chocolate cookies, and Taffy Cannon shows how to make Rueben Dip. Meanwhile, Rhys Bowen appears with Madame Yvette's quiche- like leek tart and Mary's fellow Geordie Meg Chittenden reveals the Agony Of The Leaves -- and to put readers out of theirs, it's nothing to do with reading tea leaves!

(DE)SIGN OF THE TIMES or I-IN(G) THE FUTURE

Eric's spruced up the website, making it a bit simpler and, we hope, more attractive and friendlier to the wide variety of browsers out there. The front page now features the cover of Five For Silver, which will be published at the beginning of March. However, the paperback of Four For a Boy won't be appearing until June, because it will be a mass market paperback from ibooks, a Simon & Schuster imprint!

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MARY'S BIT or SAVAGING PULP FICTION

For a bit of light relief these dark nights, I've been reading some of the pulp fiction available at the Black Mask Online website. Currently I'm cutting a swathe through a tumultuous multitude of Doc Savage short stories. (If this type of work is not of interest, subscribers might like to look around Black Mask's mystery selection at http://www.blackmask.com/page.php?do=page&cat_id=38)

The Doc Savage fictionettes are classic examples of Good vs Evil adventures, usually with a dash of mystery, unfolding at a fast pace and often taking place in foreign settings. It's true these stories are not always politically correct, but that's hardly surprisingly bearing in mind the era in which they were scrivened. However, as with the Fu Manchu tales (a couple of which are available on the Black Mask site) they're excellent examples of the rattling good yarn wherein our hero leaps from one improbable situation to the next, pausing only to either deploy all manner of amazing inventions to thwart his pursuers or else engage in fisticuffs with assorted villains who are generally of unusual build, character and ambition, the latter inclination often being in the nature of world domination and/or making a fortune by illegal means. Good inevitably triumphs, even if Evil or its minions generally contrive to escape to stir up more trouble in the next entry in the series, which in Doc Savage's case is just as likely to take place under the waters of the Hudson River (hint: small submarines are involved) as in Switzerland or Portugal (reached, of course, by fast transatlantic Clipper).

Occasional references provide modern readers a smile or two. My favourites thus far include a telephone answering machine that records messages on a wire, the luxury flat at a highly prestigious address in central New York costing a whopping ten or twelve thousand dollars a year to rent, Doc's roadster, capable of zooming along at over 70 miles an hour (and furthermore fitted with short wave radio), his two- engined amphibian plane (used in one story to investigate dubious goings-on deep in the Amazon jungle, though he had to stop to refuel on the way), and last but not least large cellophane sacks fitted with elasticated hems serving to keep these bags snug against necks when used as gas masks.

Two observations about this series, if I may. First, it seems Doc's father, for reasons I've still to ascertain, arranged to have the boy raised by scientists from the time he was a baby to the day he left for college. Their aim was to make Doc a physical and mental uber-specimen, not to mention a scientific genius, and in this they certainly succeeded. Yet despite his less than usual upbringing Doc is a fairly normal adult although shy around women, whom apparently he doesn't understand. Readers these days could be forgiven for expecting such a psychologically damaging upbringing to produce a twisted, bitter, and vengeful monster, but in Doc's case the result was a modern day knight in shining armour, or rather a forerunner of the modern bullet-proof vest which he and his cohorts wear during dangerous investigations.

Secondly, and of particular interest to mystery authors, perusal of this fiction has provided an inventive excuse to trot out the next time an editor insists a book must specify details of whatever exotic poison did in Lady Whatsname- Chumleigh in the manor house library or disposed of the moustachio-twirling blackmailer awaiting his pay-off in the porch of the village church. In Birds of Death, the publisher inserted a note -- in mid-narrative, no less -- informing readers that the chemical formulae for gases and other such mixtures mentioned in the text were never precisely specified not so much because they could not be made, but rather on the grounds that such knowledge would be dangerous in criminal hands.

Since, however, readers are assured these concoctions are not impossible to replicate, perhaps such criminal elements as perused these inventive stories were diverted from engaging in plotting or executing wrong-doing for a while by spending days trying to recreate the marvellous mixes manufactured in Doc's personal laboratory.

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AND FINALLY

One of the things Mary notices about this country is that in many places the sound of church bells is sadly lacking. Few UK residents live out of earshot of such tintinnabulation, and so the peals calling the faithful to worship form part of Sunday morning's soundtrack, along with the sizzle of bacon and eggs and the rustling of the pages of the News of the World or the Sunday Times, depending on individual household demographics.

Tolling the passing bell at funerals (mentioned in Dorothy L. Sayers' Nine Tailors) and the clamour of bell ringing practice, which for some reason seems to be held mostly on Thursday nights, are other occasions when the bells are heard bawling brazenly. The happy custom of ringing a peal as a newly wedded couple emerges from the church is so much part of British tradition that its lack during the war years, when church bells would only be rung to mark invasion or victory, must have been particularly missed.

Indeed, the TV transmission of the wedding of Charles and Diana must have brought many a nostalgic lump to British throats when one section of the broadcast closed with a lingering, increasingly long-range, aerial view of the church steeple in the village near the Spencer family estate, the joyous ringing of bells fading way under and into a lush instrumental version of Greensleeves.

There will, however, soon be another event when church bells will be heard across Britain since in about a fortnight peals will be rung to usher in the new year. Will 2004 be a good twelve months for us all? Time will tell. Speaking of criminal elements as we just did, however, one thing we can predict is that the next issue of Orphan Scrivener will arrive in your email in-box on l5 February. So we'll be back then with, as the British say, bells on.

Best wishes for the holiday season,

Mary and Eric

who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the aether at

http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/ Therein you'll find the usual suspects, including more personal essays and another interactive game as well as an on-line jigsaw puzzle (at least if you have a java- enabled browser) featuring One For Sorrow's boldly scarlet cover. For those new to the subscription list there's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned!

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THE ORPHAN SCRIVENER ISSUE # TWENTY-THREE l5 OCTOBER 2003

Fall colour is at peak as we write, with the landscape draped in irregular drifts of yellow, ochre, gold, and lemon, occasionally rudely interrupted by a splotch or two of ruby foliage. Skeins of geese have been passing overhead after dark this week, disturbing slumbers with their eerie yelping calls, while the nightly insect chorus concert is gradually fading away. There are still bursts of bands of crickets creaking away as if they'd all just spilled out from the local pub as time was called and were standing at the door of the saloon bar discussing what to go next, but the demented sewing machine treadling sounds that form the cicada serenade are almost gone now. We've had our first frost on the pumpkins and cider, apples, gourds, and bunches of chrysanthemums are on sale again in farmers' markets, so, yes, the oracles are agreed: autumn is officially here.

Unfortunately for our readers, autumn's arrival also means the latest edition of Orphan Scrivener is about to fall on you.

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MARY'S BIT or STOMP A REED'S HERO

After a manuscript has cybered off to the press and before editorial comments arrive, we have a giddy space in which to unwind, a stretch of time when we can let down our hair and be silly.

A favourite silly pastime is playing with anagrams, and needless to say the Web offers a fair number of sites wherein visitors may enter "well known words or phrases" -- as the announcer used to solemnly intone when introducing Twenty Questions in the days of steam radio -- and receive them back rearranged into anagrams. Given the circumstances, you will not be surprised to hear I but lately visited one such page at http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html

With occasional re-arrangement of word order as necessary, I uncovered a few apt phrases in the yard-and-a-half long word-lists generated by words related to John's saga.

Take for example Emperor Justinian. His name and title metamphosed into JOINT RUNS A EMPIRE. Ungrammatical it may be, yet a number of historians agree that Theodora co-ruled in all but name. And speaking of John's least favourite person, the second part of the header for this burst of linguistic exuberance is a most fitting anagram for Empress Theodora. So is HADES POEM ROSTER, a suggestive phrase that immediately brings to mind Crinagoras, a whiny court poet who makes his first appearance in Fivefer.

Since we're on the subject I shall devote a few lines to Five For Silver. Set during the Justinianic plague of 542, John's investigation begins when his elderly servant Peter announces he's had a visit from an angel with a message concerning Gregory, an old army friend. It transpires Gregory has indeed been murdered, but then John discovers that Gregory was not what Peter thought he was...

In the course of his investigation John interviews people ranging from churchmen to lawyers to bear trainers and booksellers. There's also a holy fool who outrages Constantinople by such dreadful antics as dancing with the dead -- and there are many such, since thousands are dying daily in the city -- not to mention invading the imperial baths while Theodora is splashing about.

Other characters we introduce include Aristotle, dealer in dubious antiquities, and Sylvanus, keeper of oracles for a wealthy importer. However, sad to say, none of the latter's charges happened to be among those wonderful examples made by Greek smiths, whose oracular creations (according to William Butler Yeats' Sailing To Byzantium at least) sat on golden boughs and sang of events present, past, or future. Otherwise John's task would have been a lot easier!

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NECESSARY EVIL or BSP TICKER

We don't find BSP an easy task either, but gritting our teeth, here we go....

NEWS OF JOHN or FIVEFER FLAPS FORTH IN FEBRUARY

We'll now do a spot of oracular singing ourselves concerning a future event, although in this case it concerns silver rather than gold (that particular precious metal is what Six is for, and to heck with the grammar police...) Thus we will now duet (readers may wish to provide their own musical accompaniment upon paper and comb) in order to tell you:

The news you'll now hear
Is that in February next year
Fivefer will appear

Crinagoras would be proud of us!

CURRYING FAVOR or IS THERE MAYHEM STILL FOR TEA?

Speaking of publication dates, this month brings A Second Helping of Murder: More Diabolically Delicious Recipes from Contemporary Mystery Writers, edited by Robert Weibezahl and Jo Grossman. Over a hundred authors are represented and since we couldn't come up with culinary instructions for Saki's mysterious Byzantine Omelette (http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.6/bookid.1666/) we instead provided the very simple how to's for a dish we dubbed Justinian's Minimalist Egg Curry. Don't fancy that? No matter! Since contributors include Susan McBride, Denise Swanson, Alexander McCall Smith, George Pelecanos, Elizabeth Peters, and Robert Barnard, not to mention Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler and (surprisingly) Edgar Allan Poe, there is doubtless something for all tastes.

EAVESDROPPING ON AUTHORS or THE PPP BLOG

A few weeks ago Rob Rosenwald set up a blog for Poisoned Pen Press authors. Writers will be posting news about what they're working on, events they'll be attending, works in print, arranging for joint appearances, sharing ideas about writing and marketing, and so on, plus Rob and Barbara will post news about PPP doings and editorial advice. You can look in at http://pppauthors.blogspot.com

This instant posting method of web activity struck Eric as so interesting that he decided to start a blog of his own, devoted to material that wouldn't quite fit into the PPP blog. There will be thoughts about writing, of course, but also other short, random musings, and interesting links he happens across. It's a bit of an experiment which may or may not continue, but for now readers can check it out at http://groggyblog.blogspot.com

AUTHOR FREEBIES or OFFERS YOU CAN HARDLY REFUSE

Well, you can certainly refuse if you feel like it, but in any event for those who're interested, we recently began assembling a list of authors' freebies. Info thus far gathered is posted at http://home.epix.net/~maywrite/freebies. This is an ongoing project so -- as with the (mostly free) mystery-related newsletter listing we've got hanging out at http://home.epix.net/~mawyrite/newslet.htm -- we'll be adding to it from time to time as information arrives. So please feel free to pop in now and then and see what's new.

JOHN IN ROME or FINGERING THE MURDERER

Mike Ashley's latest anthology, The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits: Mystery and Murder in Ancient Rome, has just been published in the US by Carrol & Graf. The Finger of Aphrodite relates how John solves a murder committed in a locked room at a hostelry situated in Rome while the city is under siege by the Goths, a bunch last seen (or at least some of them) in Four For A Boy. Other tales include those penned by John Maddox Roberts, Marilyn Todd, Steven Saylor, Peter Tremayne, Rosemary Rowe, Gillian Bradshaw, and a fair number of the usual suspects -- plus one or two unexpected ones.

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ERIC'S BIT or WE ALL HAVE THE RAW MATERIAL

A couple weeks ago Mary and I received our favorite email from Barbara Peters, our editor at Poisoned Pen Press. It said, in effect, the revisions we sent were suitable, we're done. and Five for Silver is ready to go! Barbara always spots ways to improve books far out of proportion to the actual word count of any changes and additions. So the process that begins to feel like an interminable grind toward the end, to me at least, is over this time around. There's nothing between us and a shiny new book next February but one last hurdle: checking the ARC.

During the years Mary and I have been working together, I've learned that writing professionally, for an audience, is hard. In order words, it is just like anything else one might do professionally. This wouldn't be much of a revelation, except that so many people appear to be convinced that the best writing is easy to do, being simply the result of sheer inspiration or perhaps the innate superiority of the author's sensibilities. I've never subscribed to the "author as a special person" school of thought. Writers don't feel more deeply than anyone else. They don't have any particularly unique view of the world. Every person has a unique view, after all. How could it be otherwise?

Perhaps this is one reason I am leery of book signings and such. I am not an interesting person. Whatever I have to offer is contained in the books and short stories on which Mary and I have collaborated. I'm not that fabulous beast known as "the author," but merely someone who writes and hopes to continue to improve at the job.

Writing can feel like magic at times, such as when we toss around plot ideas and twists and turns start to appear as if from nowhere, or when characters we have cobbled together suddenly come to life and surprise us by their words or actions. However, we aren't performing authorial legerdemain. We are just allowing our thoughts free rein, something most of us aren't allowed to do much in our every day jobs. After all, what would my legal editors say were I to playfully make up a lot of amusing new laws for my next jurisprudence article?

Making up stories is one thing, but contriving for readers to also be able to join in and enjoy these fictions is something else. That's where the labor comes in. It's necessary to ferret out overused phrases, passive voice (I'm forever falling into the passive voice), and duplicated words, not to mention plugging an occasional hole in the plot. No matter how much I write, I still find myself occasionally employing empty adjectives. Yes, really, I actually do! Even after editorial comment and revision, the finished manuscript is never perfect, or anywhere near, but it is much better. At times I vow I will never again embark on such a project, but somehow I always do.

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AND FINALLY

Canada has just celebrated its equivalent of Thanksgiving, reminding Mary of the British harvest festival.

It wasn't just celebrated in rural areas because even though she lived in the city they took a tin of peas or peaches to church for the harvest festival service. These offerings were lined up on the stone window bays interspersed with an occasional loaf of bred or even on one unforgettable occasion a small sheaf of corn. After the service, the edibles were distributed to the less well-off, a charitable effort that naturally led to jokes about most of the local congregation getting their donated tins back.

There was not much tree colour to be seen there in October, since apart from a park several blocks away and a flattened, grassed-over tip about the same distance in the other direction, the only greenery close by was in the cemetery at the top of the street or on various bomb sites left for years after the war. The latter became unofficial rubbish dumps, which in summer displayed vivid yellow and red patches of coltsfoot, dandelion, and rosebay willow herb, but by October rusty bed frames, wheel-less prams, old sinks, discarded paint tins, and the like would again emerge from the undergrowth as these plants died away and winter began its journey down Scotswood Road.

The imminent advent of winter was also heralded when folk started to routinely get up to intricate, feathery patterns of frosty branches covering the insides of windows. These beautiful creations of Jack Frost also reminded the forgetful that it was time to get coal stocks replenished for the winter months. Thus you might say winter was heralded in black and white, and appropriately more black and white will come your way on December l5 when the next edition of Orphan Scrivener trundles into view.

Best wishes,
Mary and Eric
who invite you to visit their home page, which hangs out on the virtual washing line that is the aether at