The weekend of the New England Crimebake in Dedham, MA, a conference for crime writers (and readers). Good this year with Charlaine Harris, Dennis Lehane, Catherine Hall Page, Julia Spencer-Fleming and other great New England Crime Writers. And editors and agents, too. Such fun to hang out at the bar and talk writing, shoes, robot vacuum cleaners, writing, New York, the Yankees, the Red Sox, various presses, writing, and well, yanno. . . .
I pitched my latest almost complete oeuvre, which I had to go back and fix after the main character killed the bad guy. Man, that changes everything.
I realized that every manuscript I've ever written has a journey as big part of the story. The current novel is a road trip, racing up and down the Eastern seaboard and then off to Chicago and finally Reno and the Black Rock Dessert. In Festival Madness, it as the trip to Burning Man. In Promiscuous Mode, the character traveled to Wisconsin. In World of Mirrors, the trip was to East Germany. In the Shadow Warriors the characters congregated at a German university after bogeying through Singapore and Hong Kong.
I just returned from San Francisco. Who said every novel is either a journey or a quest? Or both. Think of On the Road. Think of Canterbury Tales.
An editor said the most boring beginning is to find the character setting out on a journey. I dunno. Sounds good to me.
Marcel went to Balbec and to Venice. And to visit Aunt Leonie. I think Proust was a homebody, especially in his later years. Finally he locked himself into his lonely room and wrote. That is what I need to do to finish this book. Why does it take so long?
The Other Odette
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