Seattle Folklife Festival, 2009

     No writing yesterday, the day before, or the day before that. The Seattle Folklife Festival has been taking precedence during my Memorial Day Weekends for 38 years now. Three full days
and evenings of widely-defined folk music, dance, literature, and food, which leaves me feeling as if I've had a three-week vacation.
     Seattle is unique in many ways. I don't know of any other big American city where 100,000 or more people can cram into an open space, with no violence, threats, or expressions of hostility. (Yes, I know that last year there was a shooting, but one crazy person in 38 years is not indicative). Men danced on the green with men, women with women, men with women, and vice versa. Guys with six inches of spiked hair and six pounds of metal in their faces danced with grannies in sun hats.  And the sun stayed out all day, for all three days.  In Seattle.  Really.
     Popular Seattle-area comic Kermet Apio showed the breadth of his talent, playing a fabulous set of Hawaiian slack-key guitar, and singing beautifully, as his daughter, wife, and sister (who
choreographed one of the pieces) danced to the music. Talk about genetic influences.
     Here you see Underground Swing, a great group which plays hip gypsy jazz and swing. After their set, I got to hear Howlin' Houndog and the Infamous Losers, with their Freaky-Ass Country Blues-Tonk. Really. You get the idea.
     Back to the book today. Only 362 days till the 2010 Festival.

In The Dark, A Review

     From time to time, I'd like to give a heads-up on a book I've just read and thought well of. So here's a short review of IN THE DARK, by Brian Freeman.

     This story is one hell of a train ride. Thirty years before, on a Fourth of July night in Duluth, young Jonathan Stride first made love to his future wife, Cindy. On the same night, and nearby, Cindy's sister Laura was murdered. The case never was solved.   Now, Stride is a police detective, still in Duluth. Cindy died of cancer several years ago, and Stride lives with policewoman Serena Dial. He's happy in his new life, but can't get the unsolved murder out of his mind.
     Enter Tish Verdure, Laura Starr's best friend in high school. She's returned to Duluth, intending to write a book about the troubling case. The more Tish snoops around, the more clear it becomes that  she's threatening someone. A brain-damaged teen-aged girl drowns. Is there a connection?
     The plot is fast-paced and intelligent, and suspense is unrelenting. Nothing seems contrived. Characters are very well drawn, with flaws for the good guys and sympathetic points for the baddies. Dialogue is realistic, never cliched. Though there's abundant difficult material, including brutal use of a baseball bat, extreme child abuse, incest, voyeurism, and death of a very sympathetic character, the author manages to make none of it gratuitous or sensationalistic. Most of the actual tough stuff occurs off-stage. And the bittersweet ending is right on.  The nature of many of the characters is underscored by the striking (sometimes bleak) surroundings and harsh weather of northern Minnesota and North Dakota. This story wouldn't work in a temperate setting.
     Of the many arresting lines in the book, here's my favorite: Stride is talking to his former high-school geometry teacher about the two cases he's investigating: Laura's murder and the drowning of the teen-aged girl. He says he remembers the parallel postulate from geometry class: If two lines cross a third and form less than two right angles, then eventually the two lines will meet if extended far enough. "It's something I find in most of my investigations," Stride says. "Sooner or later, the lines always intersect."
     I have one question (not a spoiler). When a body is found out-of-doors, after a drenching rainstorm, the police discover semen at the site, but not right next to the body. Can someone enlighten me on how the cops might have been able to notice/discover this?

The Big 70 Bash

Here's the writer, aided as always by wife Myra, about to cut the Fabulous Special-Order Chocolate Cake at his Big 70 Birthday Bash last Saturday evening. Thirty-some friends helped celebrate the  event, which featured a program of ragtime piano by Seattle legend Dan  Grinstead, and telling of snarky stories about the G. O. H. by his children and a few long-term friends. Emcee was son-in-law Peter Greyy, a standout Seattle-area standup comic.
Larry made the point that although Three-score and Ten is both the Biblical statute of limitations and the classic retirement age, he has no intention of heeding either injunction and intends to keep cranking out the mystery novels as long as mind and body hold out, and as long as son Casey continues his ready availability as Tech Support.

You Just Can't Please Everybody

At an informal library event involving several authors, I got to
talking with a lively older woman. She asked what I wrote, and after
I'd told her, she asked, "Do you take the name of the Lord in vain in
your books?"
"Well," I said, "Some of my characters do use strong language,
including taking the name of the Lord in vain, but never just for
effect. I try to tune in to the way different people talk, and
anything they say needs to be appropriate for them and for the
situation in the story. They don't use four-letter words just for
effect. Same for violence and sex. They've all got to be integral
to the needs of the story."
The woman's smile got even brighter. "Oh, you can use all the
four-letter words you want in your books," she said. "And put in all
the gore and kinky sex you'd like. But I can't read books that take
the name of the Lord in vain."
Lesson learned. You write what's in you, the way it comes. Try to
tailor your books to please everyone, you'll be publishing blank pages.

Outlining Plots and Characters in Mystery Novels

The last few days, there's been a lively discussion on the DorothyL Digest (http://www.dorothyl.com) about whether authors should outline a novel before writing Word One, or fly by the seat of their authorial pants. The responses confirmed a long-held opinion: no two writers approach their stories in precisely the same manner. Here's what I wrote:

For my first couple of mysteries, I tried to outline the plots and describe the characters in advance. But then, practically as soon as I started to write the story, the characters ignored all my a priori efforts. If anything, what I'd put down beforehand held me back.  So for the next four books, I became a pantster, started with a character or two, and a general idea of where they were going. Still rough sledding - first drafts took forever, and rewrites were extensive.
For my current book, I decided to try a middle approach. I took my initial characters and my general sense of direction, and wrote just a few lines about what they were going to do first, and next, and after that. Finally, after about five or six scenes, I hit a wall, and that's when I started writing the first draft. The characters fleshed out the skeleton very nicely, and as I approached the roadblock, I found I could look ahead from there. So again, I wrote short descriptions of scenes as far as I could see. I'd call it a Carrot and Donkey Approach. Four sequences, and I finished the first draft in about one-third my usual time, and then rewrites went at least twice as fast as usual, with many less drafts. The pudding that's THE RAGTIME FOOL should be in for the editor's proof in about a month.  
I guess we just keep learning. That's one of the great things about writing. You never know it all - at least I don't.
One more thing: to keep track of events and people as they develop, when I finish each chapter, I write a short summary of what happened, so as I go along in the first draft and with rewrites, I have a linear record of who did what to whom, and when. I'd be lost without that.

If there's one constant, it's this: published authors write regularly and frequently. But there don't seem to be any hard-and-fast rules on just how best to go about it. It's trial and error, with more than the occasional tribulation.

Rich Egan's Missouri Ragtime

When I go to bookshops to talk about THE RAGTIME KID and THE KING OF RAGTIME, people ask me whether they can buy CDs so they can actually hear the music I've been referring to. Usually, I give them the names of a recording or two of classical ragtime, music by Scott Joplin, Joe Lamb, and James Scott. Great music, but there's more to ragtime, and it's readily available.
Scott Joplin's goal was to transform the rough-and-ready folk ragtime music of the 1890s and earlier into a classical form, to be played strictly as written, preferably in a concert hall, rather than in a bar or a brothel. But the prototype also developed along other lines, the most prominent of which is usually called Missouri, or midwestern, ragtime, a more boisterous music, but with a prominent days-gone-by feeling.
Richard Egan of St. Louis is a pianist-composer-historian whose playing taps heavily into the nostalgic mode. Rich has two CDs available: FROM THE LAND OF RAGTIME (Piano Joys#PJ006) and LOWLAND FOREST (Piano Joys#PJ023). Listen to them, and you'll come away with a comprehensive feel for ragtime music today.
Just about everyone has heard Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag," and "The Entertainer," but on the Lowlands Forest disc, Rich plays four lesser-known Joplin pieces, "The Sycamore," "Eugenia," "The Rosebud March," and "Pleasant Moments," and one by James Scott, "Sunburst Rag." You'll also hear midwestern/southern/country rags from a hundred years ago, such as Charles Hunter's "Tickled to Death," and modern pieces in that mode by Tom Shea (a wonderful player-composer who died far too young in 1982), David Thomas Roberts, and Rich himself. There are a few pieces by Brun Campbell, The Ragtime Kid; if you don't want your feet to tap when Rich plays Brun's tunes,  you'll have to tie them down. Then there are the outright barnburners, like "Old Dan Tucker/Bingo" and "You've Been A Good Old Wagon But You've Done Broke Down," which will take root in your brain and not give you respite for days - not that you'd want it to. And  if you think nostalgia ain't what it used to be, take a listen to Rich's rendition of "Slippery Elm Rag."
Rich Egan's playing is the antithesis of the old pizza parlor style: gussy it up and bang it out. This guy is sensitive to every emotional component of ragtime, and is in every sense an interpreter of the music. Give him a listen. You won't be sorry.

John Daniel's New NonMystery

        Many mystery writers work in other forms as well, including nonfiction.  I've had three nonfiction books published: "The View From The Vue," recollections of life as a med student and intern at New York's Bellevue Hospital more than 40 years ago; "The Enchanted Ear, or Lured Into The Music Box Cosmos;" and the long-out of print "Genetic Engineering: Threat or Promise?"
        John Daniel is one of my favorite mystery writers; his sly, slightly-out of kilter sense of humor and ingenious, hectic plots made books such as "The Poet's Funeral" and "Vanity Fire" impossible to put down.  Now, John has produced something very different, but no less readable.
        The Ballad of Toby and Lark is subtitled A Cat Fantasy.  It's a short book, 53 pages, written in free verse, and accompanied by charming, engaging drawings by the author.  The story is that of Toby, a sixteen-year-old boy, in love with Lark, a gardener twice his age.  Unfortunately, because of their age difference, Lark's affection for Toby doesn't go beyond the maternal, and the object of the boy's affection decides to cohabit with Toby's handsome but nasty Uncle Pewter, a hunter.  Toby finds his way to Mistress Mangle, a kindly herbalist-witch who keeps a house full of cats.  The witch turns Toby into a handsome tomcat; as such, he returns to Lark's house, and she welcomes him as a pet.  Uncle Pewter, though, is less than enchanted, and tosses Toby-cat out on his ear, whereupon he trudges back to Mistress Mangle's.  The witch brings in Vixen, an attractive young woman-cat (and once a human woman), to concoct a scheme to take revenge on Toby's uncle, which is all the more satisfying because of how appropriate it is, considering Pewter's occupation.  But then, Toby has to made a choice: assume cat form permanently or go back to being a human.
        One could read this story as a little fairy tale for grownups, but that would be a mistake.  At first read, the tale reminded me of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, but where that book could offer only a fatuous pseudo-profundity beneath its surface, The Ballad of Toby and Lark plumbs interesting depths, some of them dark, even troubling.  Basic attitudes and preconceptions are called into question. 
        Moral and existential ambiguities are prominent in all of Daniel's fiction, and the author is very good at presenting dilemmas, while leaving interpretation and judgement to the reader.  The Ballad of Toby and Lark challenged me to consider the nature of love and sexuality, both in and of themselves, and in relation to each other.  I found myself thinking hard about interactions between people and non-human animals, and weighing the pros and cons of dangerous, devious actions with malice aforethought, committed against distasteful people. 
        Then, there are the characters themselves.  For example, Lark is not a lawyer or an accountant who enjoys gardening as a hobby; as portrayed, she's not even a farmer.  There is "...cheese from her goats, and from the bees, sweet honey, and sweet garden peas..." but we never see her producing these.  What, really, does she cultivate in that garden?
        There is no sense of geographic specificity about the setting, though various details project an image of antiquity, casting a feel of timelessness and universality upon the story.
        For a small investment of money and time, The Ballad of Toby and Lark yields high dividends in terms of enjoyment and stimulation of the imagination.  I recommend it highly, and part of that recommendation is that you read it slowly, and more than once.