The Christmas Mystery of the Silent Snuff Box

      We had a Thanksgiving Day guest this year to whom I showed a little musical snuff box, c1840s, with a lovely 2-tune Swiss musical movement below the snuff compartment. The man asked whether I'd consider selling it to him, so he could give it for Christmas to his wife, who is ill and housebound. He thought it would brighten her life.
      I'd had no desire to sell the piece, which I'd bought 25 years before in England, but I decided, under the circumstances, to let it go. I thought I'd get more pleasure from imagining my guest's wife enjoying the music than I would, listening to it myself.
      For the past couple of years, I'd been working intermittently to coax another, more-elegant, snuff box back to playing its music, but nothing I tried had had any effect. After my guest left with the snuff box for his wife, I decided to fill the space on the shelf with the recalcitrant, silent box. At least, I could look at it.
      But as I put the box into place, I pushed the start button...and music played. When it stopped, I pushed the button again, and again, music played. I can't begin to tell you why.
      As a confirmed skeptic, I'm comfortable saying that mysterious things do sometimes happen, and letting it go at that. Coincidence, coincidence. But what a great little Christmas story.

The Little Mystery of the Trains of Littlefield

      There's been a longstanding conflict among the citizens of the town of Littlefield. Some of the residents are convinced their town was the setting for a miracle. Others insist the event can be understood through rational processes.
      It all began early on a foggy morning many years ago, when Olaf Nielssen climbed into the engine of his train in Calico, fifty miles west of Littlefield. His fireman looked concerned; the old Norwegian engineer had that set to his jaw that said he'd had another argument with his wife, and would be stubborn, pigheaded, and obnoxious all day.
      At the same time, Sam Gibbons stumbled into the engine of his train, in Sea Flats, fifty miles east of Littlefield. Sam's fireman shook his head. The engineer had been drinking again. It was going to be a long day.
      The trains set off at seven A.M., one eastbound, one westbound, and an hour and a half later, as they approached Littlefield, Harold Mallon, the stationmaster, walked out onto the platform, and to his horror, saw the trains speeding toward each other on the same track. The westbound train was supposed to slow, permitting the eastbound train to be shunted aside to another track. But both trains were going full speed ahead.  
      The reason why the westbound train didn't slow was that Sam Gibbons, drunk as a lord, had passed out atop the throttle. The fireman had tried to pull the engineer away from the controls, but slipped on some oil on the floor and knocked himself cold.  
      On the eastbound train, the fireman pleaded with Olaf Nielssen to hit the brake, but the engineer shook his head. By gum, he had the right of way. He was not about to yield.
      As the trains approached, hell-bent for leather, Harold Mallon buried his head in his hands, and waited to hear the horrible crash. But it never came. A moment later, the stationmaster peeled his fingers off his face, and to his astonishment, saw the two trains, still on the same track, vanishing eastbound and westbound.
      To this day, Littlefield remains divided. Half the citizens are certain divine intervention spared their town a disaster. The other half claim that the event is easily explained through straightforward logic and reason: Norse is Norse and Souse is Souse, and never the trains shall meet.

      OK, I've got that out of my system for a while. I'll be better behaved next week.

Death of a Dentist

       My dentist is a very nice man, but just seeing him come around the corner into the examining room breaks me into clammy sweats. I've taken in stride a number of uncomfortable medical procedures performed on unmentionable parts of my anatomy, but having a dental cavity filled leaves me feeling like a soaked dishrag.
       I know why I feel this way, and it still doesn't help. My first dentist was, believe it or not, my godfather, a long-time family friend. He was a large person, topping 300 pounds, bald, and usually with a cigar sticking out from one or the other corner of his mouth. Unfortunately, my baby teeth were persistent devils, wouldn't fall out to provide space for their successors, so they had to be pulled. This was always done under nitrous oxide, which induced terrible dreams and had me throwing up for hours after I awakened. Consequently, routine dental checkups came to be events which would keep me awake for several nights beforehand.
       When I was ten, an X-ray showed the need for another extraction. I jumped out of the chair, and told the dentist and my mother I wouldn't have it done unless I could "have the needle" I knew Mother got for her dental work. They both agreed, but when I sat back down, the dentist threw his hairy arm across my chest, slammed the nitrous mask over my face, and pushed. I started hitting, kicking, screaming, until finally I lost consciousness.  
       After I woke up, my mother scolded me for kicking "Uncle Doc" in the shin, and so hard. In between barfs, I told her I was sorry I hadn't kicked him higher, and that I'd never let the liar near me again. Nor, I added, was I terribly pleased with her. Several solemn promises later from both miscreants, I relented - what's a ten-year-old kid going to do? - and got my dental maintenance and repairs done under local. But the damage was done. There's no way I can anticipate a dentist-visit with anything short of terror.
       So, when I began to write murder mysteries, you know what was one of the first ideas to come into my head. But I've never written Death of a Dentist, and I doubt I ever will. Whenever I think about spending every day of a coming year and more in a dentist's office, I get the cold collywobbles.

Two October Writing Events Not To Be Missed

     The Poisoned Pen Web Con, the world's first virtual mystery convention, takes place on October 24.  It's not to be missed.  Come visit with your favorite authors (myself included) via panels, presentations, and coffee-shop chats.  Pitch a manuscript to an editor.  Some events will be via video, some by audio, and some, text.  All attendees will receive a goodie bag full of writings by those same favorite authors. 
          When's the last time you could attend a major mystery/crime writing conference for $25, travel and hotel costs included?  For full information, go to http://ppwebcon.com/

     Warm up for this virtual extravaganza by attending the Field's End presentation, "Refueling the Creative Mind, with creativity coach, Jurgen Wulff.  This takes place on Bainbridge Island, WA, on October 17, just a week before the Poisoned Pen Web Con.  Check out Field's End Fall Event Page, http://www.fieldsend.org/Event.html

   Here are the details for the presentation:
Date: Saturday, October 17
Time: Registration: 8:45 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
          Presentation from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
(lunch break from 12:00 noon to 1:30 p.m.)
Location: Bainbridge Pavilion Cinemas
          403 N. Madison, Bainbridge Island
Cost: $65 early registration (August 1 – 31)
         $85 regular registration (after August 31)
         $60 group fee (5 or more people registering together)
In a presentation by this popular writing coach, writers will be led through a series of connected seminars to explore four innovative, right-brained ways they can prepare their creative minds for the acts of writing and revising. The seminars include
I. Alter Ego Strategies
II. Right Brain Visualization
III. The Q Method of Analyzing Text
IV. The Transformation of the Inner Critic
 Writers will be guided through a few brief interactive exercises during the presentation to illuminate these strategies and will be provided with useful handouts for application afterward.
• The goal of Wolff's presentation is to help creative writers to discover fresh, personally meaningful insights into their own creative lives as a way to unlock and engage their strengths.
• This presentation offers benefits not only to writers of all disciplines and genres but also to other creative people for whom storytelling and narrative are important components of expression.
• Come prepared to explore potential breakthroughs in your own creative process! Participants are not required to have a work in progress in order to attend.
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ABOUT JURGEN WOLFF
Jurgen Wolff has taught creativity techniques and workshops worldwide for more than 15 years. He was also the publisher and editor of Brainstorm: The Creativity Newsletter for ten years (it now continues as an online publication).
His creative writing books include Your Writing Coach (Nicholas Brealey, 2007) and Do Something Different (Virgin Books, 2005; published in 5 languages).
His own work includes a long list of writing credits in the world of entertainment, including feature films, plays, short films, television movies and miniseries, animated films, journalism, short stories, radio scriptwriting and television series. He divides his time between London and California.
Jurgen's website: www.yourwritingcoach.com
Brainstorm: www.brainstormnet.com
Time to Write (blog): http://timetowrite.blogs.com/weblog

A Blast at Seattle Mystery Bookshop

     It's always a pleasure to start off events for a new book at Seattle Mystery Bookshop.  This is a quintessential independent mystery bookstore with the motto, "For mystery lovers who know what they want, and for those who haven't a clue."  They ain't whistlin' Dixie.
     For the debut signing of The King of Ragtime, I had a good time catching up with the old friends who showed up, and talking about mysteries to a bunch of new readers.
     Signed, dated copies of The King of Ragtime remain available (SMB, 117 Cherry St, Seattle; 206-587-5737, or staff@seattlemystery.com)

A Very Satisfying Writer's Moment

     It's always nice when a reader tells me s/he enjoyed one of my mysteries, but some compliments really stand out.
     A woman home-schooling her thirteen-year-old son told him to read the first part of The Ragtime Kid, then report to her on the use of language in the material. When the boy finished that portion of the book, though, he didn't want to go on to his next assignment because where he'd stopped, a group of bigots seemed to be getting the upper hand, and he couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen. His mother agreed. A while later, her son ran up to her, waving the book, and shouted, "All right! Those sons of bitches got exactly what they deserved."
I'll be grinning for a while.

THE KING OF RAGTIME: First Review

In its June 30 issue, Publishers Weekly printed the first review of THE KING OF RAGTIME. Here's what they had to say:
     Set in Manhattan in 1916, Karp's well-crafted second homage to ragtime (after 2006's The Ragtime Kid) charts Scott Joplin's race against time and the effects of a ravaging illness to secure his musical legacy. Joplin has written a musical play that he wants Irving Berlin to publish and produce. In the past, Joplin has accused Berlin of plagiarizing his music, but Martin Niederhoffer, a piano student of Joplin's and an employee of Berlin's firm, persuades Joplin to try Berlin again. When Niederhoffer and Joplin are seen fleeing the scene of a murder, they're forced into hiding while Scott's friend Nell Stanley, a musician, and her music publisher father try to find the real killer. Going undercover at Berlin's publishing company, Stanley proves to be a formidable detective, though her investigation uncovers some painful truths about both Joplin and her father. Karp's meticulous research helps create a vivid picture of the time and locale. Memorable, authentic characters are another plus.

Could Gandhi be a murderer?

Not that long ago, a thread on a mystery discussion group caught my attention. It had to do with historicals, and whether or not it was appropriate for a real-life person from the past who had no criminal record to be put into print as a murderer. With very few exceptions, most of the correspondents insisted that this should never be done, that it would be tantamount to a post-mortem smearing of the person's reputation. The majority opinion also held that such a course would make a story unbelievable, and that it would be not only immoral, but bad art as well.

I think a writer's primary obligation, one that overrules all others, is to be true to the story. In writing an historical, I do all I can to present known facts accurately - otherwise, yes, my readers will be distracted, and unable to remain in my fictional world. But I'd have no problem with a story which features a well-known historical figure as a murderer, so long as the motive for the murder is accounted for, and fits comfortably into the history.

Fictional people, no less than inhabitants of the real world, are never one-dimensional, and we all have at least a couple of pretty unsavory characters who sit on the boards of directors in our heads, and determine our thoughts and actions. Suppose that as a young boy, Gandhi witnessed a horrific attack by a British officer on someone he dearly loved. Not only that, the attacker contrived to get off scot-free. Then, when Gandhi reached his mid-teens, he was suddenly and unexpectedly presented with an opportunity to murder the attacker, and without even thinking about it, he did just that. Then, afterward, perhaps over years, as he considered the situation, he came to the realization that his act of revenge had done no one any good, that he'd lessened himself in his own eyes, and that an uncompromising pacifism is the only proper human course to take.

Or, how about an alternate-universe story? Suppose Gandhi's boyhood broodings, followed by his murderous response to the British officer set him on a course of violent opposition to the British occupation of his country? How might the world be different now?

To make it clear to readers what was real in my stories and what was made up, I write afterwords to my historicals. Still, I don't think any fiction writer can smear the reputation of an historical figure. In fact, I suspect that most of the subjects so portrayed might even be entertained by the idea of taking to the stage for a few hours to play murderer.