Bright Babble From The Bayou.

Two weeks ago I wrote about Bouchercon in New Orleans last month.  Here are some words of wisdom I gathered there:

"Historical fiction is very liberating because you don't have to explain why the cell phone doesn't work." -  Laura Joh Rowland

"Writing is a hobby that I don't have to buy golf clubs for, or worms for fishing." - Josh Pachter

"What if I write about that but not at all about that?" - Brandi Bradley

"I have killed my ex-husband about twelve times." - Pamela Ebel

"I love editing. I love publishing. I love bookselling. I hate writing." - Otto Penzler

"Research is a deep dark rabbit hole that I just love." -Wendy Gee

"We fistfight a lot in the South because everything's so far apart we can't wait for the police to show up." - S.A. Cosby

"I've never seen a writers' block problem that couldn't be solved by conversation with other writers." - Jonathan Maberry

"What's romance without a good murder?" - Meredith Anthony

'If you find my stuff funny it says more about what's wrong with you than what's wrong with me." - Jeff Markowitz

"I was tired of the Civil War before I was born." - Henry Wise

"A great opening line is a cheap magic trick." - Ivy Pochoda

"I've built a career on sarcasm." - Gini Koch

"You're writing a story to entertain people, not put them to sleep.  We have Ulysses for that." - Charles Todd

"What are you saving your time for?" - Polly Stewart

"How can you write about crime fiction if you don't do crime?" - William Boyle

"In school I read 'The Lottery' and it broke me.  I don't think you should read it at the age I read it." - Jason Powell

"That which we call a dead body smells the same in all time periods." - Laura Joh Rowland

"All of America has become the South." - Ace Atkins

"My editor always calls my books cozies on crack." - Rachel Howzell Hall 

"Deadlines are the writer's friend." - Thekla Madsen

"My agent and I had a difficult divorce." - Bonnar Spring

"Only Elmore Leonard was born Elmore Leonard, but we can all get closer." - Mysti Berry

"The pillars of the South are religion, class, sex, and race." - S.A. Cosby

"Can her friendship survive being a serial killer?" - Emma C. Wells

"What do you kids call dancing these days? Just dancing? You're letting us down on the slang." - Gini Koch

"If I'm stuck in the doldrums I give my characters a side quest." - Brandi Bradley

"Sometimes the tipping point doesn't tip for many years after the pre-tipping." -  Laura Joh Rowland

"I go to the library because that's where the cool kids are hanging out." - Jonathan Maberry

"The adage that it's a privilege just to be nominated is bullshit." - Don Bruns

"Write about characters, not caricatures. We're not all Boo Radley. We have shoes now." - S.A. Cosby 

"I don't think you can have a story without character development." - Steve Steinbock

"I'm very much a Joseph Campbell meets Save the Cat kind of writer." - Rachel Howzell Hall  

"A crime novel without a bar is like a day without sunshine." - Eric Beetner

"I have a lottery ticket. It proves that math education in public schools is a failure." -Wendy Gee

"Humor comes from a place of trauma. You figure if I make the guys laugh, maybe they'll stop hitting me." - Libby Klein

"Scanty-cladness is a futuristic trope." -  Laura Joh Rowland

"My grandmother made the best sweet potato pie in Virginia and I will fight you about that." - S. A. Cosby

"I was going to say something unflattering about myself but I'm vain." - James Lincoln Warren

"Everything you cede to a machine is something you are not learning to do. You are the passenger, not the driver." - Jonathan Maberry

"My Victorian series you can blame on PBS." - Laura Joh Rowland

"I was born in the 1960s, so how is that a historical period?" - Nancy Herriman

"Books that have no humor in them I find unrealistic." - Matt Goldman

"Hopefully this novel that I'm working on right now will be out before we're all dead." - Rob Byrnes

"I google great first lines. Sometimes I see my friends' lines there and I get sad." - Rachel Howzell Hall 

"Someone said I like your books but I don't like your main character at all. I said, you know that's me, right?" - Libby Klein

"Aristotle also wore a Snoopy hat." - Tim Maleeny

"If you're trying to be timeless, good luck. "We've already got Pride and Prejudice." - Elizabeth Rose Quinn 

"It's like la la la, oh shit." - Rachel Howzell Hall