Sherlock lives, and lives forever!

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

A military man returns home wounded from the war in Afghanistan. Desperate for lodgings but short on funds, he meets with a potential roomie slumming in a chem lab at St. Bart’s. They hit it off, despite that the fact that the guy gleefully pricks his own fingers to get blood for an experiment.

Turns out, this eccentric oddball solves crimes for a living. Blood, you might say, is his business. He invites his wounded roomie to accompany him to the scene of his newest case. An individual has been slaughtered in an abandoned building, the word RACHE scrawled on the wall—

You’re thinking, dude, I so know this story.

But you don’t, because this is not the story by Conan Doyle. It’s the story by Neil Gaiman, which means that the word RACHE isn’t scrawled on the wall in scarlet, but in a hideous green ichor.

I wish I could remember when and where I’d first read that Gaiman had written two short stories in the Sherlock Holmes universe. Whoever mentioned it did so obliquely. I’m not exactly a fan of Gaiman’s work. I read one novel of his that was not to my taste, but I did enjoy the Sandman graphic novel series. But I am a Holmes geek, so I had to investigate further. Doing so turned into an interesting reminder of the seemingly endless adaptability of short stories.

The first Gaiman story, “A Study in Emerald,” is set in an alternate Holmesian universe, melding Conan Doyle with H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythology. It first appeared in a 2003 anthology of Holmes/Lovecraft mashups, Shadows Over Baker Street (Del Rey/Ballantine). Unfortunately, I can’t say more about the plot without spoiling it for you. What I can say is that the story crystalized for me that the more a reader knows about the Canon, the more pleasure they’ll derive from a great pastiche or parody. Each little reference—to a Persian slipper, say, or the letters VR or the name Jabez—brings a smile to the face of someone who holds that world dear. I shouldn’t have been surprised by Gaiman’s grasp of Holmes, knowing what he pulled off with Sandman, but I was.

The graphic novel in hardcover.

Some years later, Gaiman went out and did it again with another story, “The Case of Death and Honey,” which first appeared in the 2011 anthology A Study in Sherlock, edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie Klinger (Poisoned Pen Press). This story claims to be the final chapter of Sir Arthur’s “The Adventure of the Creeping Man,” the wacky tale of a university professor who starts exhibiting simian characteristics.

In Gaiman’s tale, Mycroft has died, Watson is ailing, and the elderly Holmes journeys to China in search of an elusive subspecies of bee raised by an Asian apiarist who is likewise getting on in years. I won’t say more about this one either, but suffice to say that the story belongs solidly in the realm of science fiction and fantasy. But so did Conan Doyle’s “Creeping Man”!

A quick look at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (here and here) informs us that each of these Gaiman stories has been reprinted a bajillion times, either in Gaiman’s own collections, or in “best of” anthologies and “weird” detective anthologies, so you won’t have trouble finding them. “Emerald” alone has been pubbed in foreign anthologies, been spun out as a game, a graphic novel, and a story-specific audiobook. A small boutique publisher brought out three gorgeous editions of “Death and Honey,” at three different price points, with or without an accompanying edition of the original “Creeping Man.” Depending on the rare book dealer you buy from, you can easily spend between $500 to $800 on the Gaiman-signed volume, if goatskin binding and gold-leaf edging are your thing.

Now, yes, you could look at all this and say, well, sure, we’re talking about Gaiman, a worldwide bestseller, so of course two short stories of his would engender this sort of treatment. And you’d have a point. But I’m constantly reminded that the short stories of lesser-known or downright unknown authors can inspire better-known works of pop culture. Every year at Thanksgiving, my wife and I watch a minor Holly Hunter film called Home for the Holidays, based on a short story by Chris Radant. Mary Orr’s story in a 1946 issue of Cosmopolitan was the basis for the Oscar-winning movie All About Eve. The 2016 Amy Adams science-fiction film Arrival, which I love, was derived from a short story by Ted Chiang, a nonfiction writer and SFF short story specialist.

Hoping to inspire myself, I read one or two short stories a day between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day 2024. I was often left thinking how many of them were so rich that they could easily serve as the source material for entire movies or stage productions. (I was especially charmed by the shorts and novellas of Connie Willis, contained in her collection, A Lot Like Christmas. )

Click to download PDF.

Getting back to the Canon, since tomorrow is Sherlock’s birthday, I might mention that the two Gaiman stories I discussed are apparently so beloved by fans that you can easily find and read them online for free. If you’re the sort of Irregular scamp who respects copyright, however, I’d suggest you download the free pdf of “Emerald” that Gaiman makes available on his website. It’s designed to look like an old Victorian newspaper, and the price is just right if you’re jonesing for a January Holmes fix.

Happy New Year!

See you in three weeks...

Joe

josephdagnese.com

And Down the Rabbit Hole We Go!

Happy New Year!

Another holiday season rapidly retreating in the rearview mirror, and here I am, penning yet another initial blog post of the new year. After reading far too many "Writing Goals For The New Year" blog posts (some of them the ghosts of my own work in seasons past), I've decided to buck the "This is what I plan to accomplish this year" trend amongst early 2024 writing blog posts, and instead talk about what I've been doing as background for my current work-in-progress.

(By the way, this will be the first of two posts: this one is mostly set up and background.)

So... research!

Why does it have to be soooooooo fun??????

Ask any writer about research, and unless they make up every single "factual" aspect of their writing (looking at you, spec fictioneers!), they'll have at least one anecdote about how they were researching something, which led them to another topic, and another topic, and another, and another.... you know, human nature.

Back in the beforetimes, when there was no internet (soooooo the Dark Ages), I can recall as a boy reaching for one of of the volumes of one of my family's prized possessions: a set of encyclopedias (in my family's case our chosen beacon of knowledge came courtesy of World Book), looking up something, reading the short informational article on it, and then seeing something else interesting further down the page. And when the Internet happened, it was only a matter of time before the live linked articles at open source knowledge depots such as Wikipedia began to facilitate the replication of such behavior.

Talk about your colossal timesuck!

As I said, human nature, right?

Add in the complication of a deadline, and here we are: the eternal writer's dilemma; how far down the
rabbit hole ought one to stray? That one takes some rigorous and honest cost-benefit analysis.

Let's take my current journey down the primrose-bunny-path-hole:

My protagonist's backstory includes a deceased naval hero father who served during the Barbary Wars (1801-1815): that series of naval actions the fledgeling United States undertook against state-run piratical enterprises run out of a number of cities in North Africa. Put bluntly, it became too expensive to continue to pay protection racket money to the rulers of cities such as Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. Cheaper to build a navy (which American political leaders such as Jefferson and Madison were nervous about giving too much power to) and go flatten some palaces.

The Burning of the Philadelphia by Edward Moran

(This conflict is where the Marine Corps Hymn got the inspiration for half of the immortal opening line: "From the Halls of Montezuma/To the shores of Tripoli," by the way.)

So over the course of collecting the names of as many participants in these actions as possible ("Presley O'Bannon," "Willian Eaton," "Stephen Decatur," "Richard Somers," "Edward Preble," "William Bainbridge," etc.), I came across the name of one James Leander Cathcart.

A quick thumbnail: Cathcart was born in  Ireland in 1768, sent to the American colonies to be raised by a sea captain uncle, Cathcart went to sea early, and in 1785 was taken captive by Algerian pirates while serving on a merchant brig, the Maria, out of Boston.

As with so many captives whose families didn't pony up ransom payments, Cathcart was initially put to work doing slave labor on construction projects in and around the port. Through a combination of good luck and pluck on his part, he was able to parlay a stint as a garden in the palace of the dey (ruler) into a change of his status. Over the succeeding eleven years, Cathcart managed to work his way up to working as dey's secretary responsible for translating and leading ransom negotiations with the diplomats of "Christian" nations looking to conduct business in the Mediterranean unmolested by such pesky inconveniences as Algerine raiders.

In 1796 Cathcart was tapped to negotiate his own release in addition to that of his surviving colleagues from the Maria. Once a treaty had been drafted, the dey sent Cathcart to the United States to deliver it. It is a measure of Cathcart's success as a "slave" of the dey that he actually owned the ship in which he traveled to Washington, D.C.- bought with the profits Cathcart had raked in thanks to the contacts he made while in the dey's service.

Once freed Cathcart married the daughter of a prominent Philadelphia family, began having children (the couple eventually had twelve), and embarked on a career as a diplomat, filling minor posts in places such as Madeira (where one of his sons, a future U.S. Senator from Indiana, was born).

Oh, and he kept a journal of his time as an Algerine slave.

Perhaps I ought to have mentioned that sooner?

Sailor, Slave, Businessman, Diplomat....Memoirist?

Tune in next time and we will dig beyond the thumbnail, and reap the barely dreamed of benefits of running down this line of inquiry!

See you in two weeks!

Chatting with Shanks

 

"So," I said. "When did you decide to become a thief?"

Leopold Longshanks raised his bushy eyebrows.  "Seriously?  Talk about blaming the victim."

"I don't know what you mean."

He leaned on my kitchen table, pulling his coffee cup closer. "I mean I'm a fictional character and if I steal it's because that's what you wrote."

"True enough, I suppose.  I was just trying to open the conversation."

"Sure, and make me look bad in the process." He shook his head.  "The readers will know who's responsible."

"Well, what would you have said instead?"

Shanks looked at the ceiling.  "Let's see.  I would have pointed out that  you ride a bicycle every day."

"Unless there's ice on the ground.  I'm not crazy."

"The jury's still out on that.  For one thing, you're sitting here talking to a figment of your imagination.  But my point is, it's not surprising that you thought of a way to steal a bicycle."

I reached for my own coffee.  "Well, mystery writers' brains do tend to head toward crime, as you would know."

"Correct.  But since you are relatively honest--"

"Relatively?"

Shanks shrugged.  "Just because you haven't been accused of of plagiarism yet..."

"Very funny.  Go on."

"Well, you had to think of some way to use your technique for bike theft without risking jail time.  You thought of me even though I am somewhat exercise-averse."

"You're lazy, even for a writer."

Shanks waved a finger.  "Don't insult our peers.  The point is, you  realized that you could send me on a writer's retreat and they are often held in park-like settings, where there might be bicycles available for the guests. After that, the plotting was easy."

"It looks easy if someone else is doing it," I replied.

"Well." Another shrug.  "Easy for me.  I'm a much better writer than you."

"Only because I created you that way."

"As you often remind me." He sipped more coffee. "When does 'Shanks in Retreat' come out anyway?"

"The January/February issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.  It's already available."

"Excellent.  Why don't you tell all those nice readers to turn off this blog and go get a copy?"

"I think you just did."

"Clever of me." He looked across the kitchen.  "Got any donuts?"  

 

My tribute to John Hughes movies

When I think of the movies of my adolescence, the first name that pops up is John Hughes. I'd bet many Gen Xers can say the same. While Hughes's breakout movie arguably was 1983's funny Vacation, it wasn't a teen movie. Not that teens didn't like it (we did), but Vacation was aimed at a wider audience. Then in 1984, Hughes released his first movie aimed at kids my age. And we saw them in droves--in the theater multiple times and then on video over and over and over. 

Which Hughes movies? It started with Sixteen Candles in 1984. Then in 1985 The Breakfast Club came out. Hughes followed that in 1986 with Weird Science and Pretty in Pink. And in 1987, Ferris Bueller's Day Off was released. There were other Hughes teen movies after that, but the ones I've mentioned here were the movies of my high school years. The ones I remember most fondly. 

Hughes didn't corner the market on teen movies, of course. I couldn't write this column without mentioning 1983's Risky Business and 1985's Back to the Future and Better Off Dead ("Two dollars! I want my two dollars!"). And there were great movies that came out while I was in college that fall into this genre, including Say Anything and Heathers.

What do all these movies have in common? They're about high schoolers who had a lot of freedom with little to no supervision. While for some '80s kids, these movies might have been pure fantasy, for others (like me), they weren't that much of an exaggeration. I look back on them fondly.

It was with all of these movies in mind that I wrote my short story "Teenage Dirtbag," coming out January 9th from Misti Media in the anthology (I Just) Died in Your Arms: Crime Fiction Inspired by One-Hit Wonders, edited by J. Alan Hartman. I was invited to write a story for this anthology (thank you, Jay), and when I looked at a list of one-hit wonders, trying to find a song that inspired me, "Teenage Dirtbag" jumped out. The song was released in 2000 by Wheatus, and I've loved it ever since hearing it on Dawson's Creek and then hearing it again and again on the CD (remember those?) Songs from Dawson's Creek volume two. (Yes, I watched TV shows aimed at teens while in my twenties and early thirties. Sue me.) To me, the song's plot screamed 1980s teen movie. So I wrote a 1980s teen crime short story based on it.

I would've had a harder time making the story believable if I'd set it now. Today's teens often have more supervision than teens in the 1980s did, and other elements of the story wouldn't be workable if it were set now. (Sorry for the vagueness, but I don't want to spoil things.) Those of you who haven't heard the song might be wondering about the story's plot, so here's an overview: In 1985, Travis rules his high school, tormenting other kids and pushing his girlfriend around—until nerd Brian falls for her and devises a plan to free all the beleaguered kids from Travis's bullying ways. 

The song has a line about a gun that made it a great basis for a crime story, though even people who know the song may not realize it. That line was mixed out in versions played on radio stations, but the original version of the song can be found if you look hard enough. If you listen to the song, you'll hear some other details I worked into my story. Brian listens to Iron Maiden. Noelle wears Keds (but not tube socks—that wouldn't have happened in 1985). And Iron Maiden did play at Long Island's Nassau Coliseum in May 1985, which is why I set the story then rather than in '86 or '87.

Overall, my story "Teenage Dirtbag," based on the Wheatus song of the same name, is a crime coming-of-age story. It's an underdog story. And it's my tribute to 1980s teen movies. I hope you enjoy it, reader. And John Hughes, wherever you are (he died in 2009), I hope it makes you smile too.

As I said, the book will be released on Tuesday, January 9th, in ebook and trade paperback formats. You can pre-order it directly from the publisher by clicking here. It also will be available from the usual online sources and, hopefully, independent bookshops.

The other authors with stories in the book (and the songs they based their stories on) are, in order of appearance: Vinnie Hansen ("96 Tears"), Jeanne DuBois ("Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye"), Josh Pachter ("The Rapper"), J.M. Taylor ("Seasons in the Sun"), Christine Verstraete ("Wildfire"), Sandra Murphy ("867-5309/Jenny"), Joseph S. Walker ("Come On Eileen"), Wendy Harrison ("It's Raining Men"), Bev Vincent ("Somebody's Watching Me"), Leone Ciporin ("Life in a Northern Town"), and Adam Gorgoni ("Bitch").

Do you have a favorite John Hughes movie (or 1980s teen movie)? What's your favorite one-hit wonder song, defined (for purposes of this book) as a group's sole big hit in the United States? ("Teenage Dirtbag" meets that definition, though Wheatus has had more big hits in Europe and Australia.)

"Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin." - Barbara Kingsolver

I know I’ve forgotten something, I just don’t remember what it is. 

I said that once, in all sincerity.  I think it adequately sums up the mystery that is memory.  Most of us are really glad to have memories, even ones clouded by misfortune, because they are a testament that we have lived a life.  I’m referring to long-term memory, which has a much different role to play than the short-term variety.  Short-term memory is responsible for me losing countless gloves and sunglasses, a few wallets, where I’ve parked the car, the most recent line of dialog on the TV and the name of the person I was just introduced to.

Speaking of TV, fictional eyewitnesses remember the color of the gunman’s jacket, his slight limp, a noticeable Brooklyn accent and the make and model of his getaway car.  In real life, eyewitnesses can’t do any of these things, which is why they’re mostly disregarded by cops and prosecutors.

People often say, “Aunt Harriet doesn’t remember what she had for breakfast, but she remembers the smell of her mother’s fresh-baked oatmeal cookies and the look of her prom gown.”  Well, of course she can, or at least she can conjure up what she thinks she remembers, and do it with total conviction.  In fact, she’s probably close, but not nearly exact. 

This is because long-term memories are stored in a different, deeper part of the brain.  A short-term memory is only good for a few moments before the brain wants to get rid of it, which it usually does with dispatch.  

It really doesn’t matter if your old memories are precise recreations.  Because it’s more important what you feel when dredging them up again.  This, to me, is the writer’s chore, to hold on to certain emotions and impressions, to later recollect in moments of tranquility, or when overcoming temporary writer’s block to meet a pressing deadline.  

A friend of mine, whom I’ve known since we were roommates in college, likes to play a game called, “Did that actually happen?”  It’s an occasional check-in on old memories, which he usually gets close, but never exactly right, according to my memory of the same event, equally unreliable. 

But as noted, it’s the feelings that matter.  I’ve re-watched beloved movies after a few decades have gone by, and often, usually, they’re not that great.  Better to have retained how they made me feel at the time, because I’m now much older, clogged with accumulated experience (wisdom is too big a word) and concerned with very different matters.  

As with Aunt Harriet, we assemble our long-term memories out of snatches of images and narratives gleaned from the last time we tried to remember what happened.  They are never quite right, but they’re what sticks in the brain as received truth, corrupted files that perpetuate themselves, and continue to warp, over time. 

I have no way of knowing if the recollected emotions are authentic.  Context is usually a good clue.  I saw Cream play at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia when I was about seventeen.  I think it’s a fair bet that I was thrilled to hear Eric Clapton at the height of his guitar-god powers.  I also remember him wearing a black knit beanie and spending part of the concert standing behind his massive wall of Marshall amps.  I remember Ginger Baker looking like a skeleton, seconds away from early death.  He made it to 2019, so he must have just been having a bad week.  Or maybe I don’t remember it correctly.  It doesn’t matter, since I also remember his drumming to be astonishingly complex, exacting and other-worldly. 

The whole night felt great, and that’s all that counts. 

Christmas Past

 

Most families seem to have their own traditions for the winter holidays in December, many of which get passed down from generation to generation. Some stem from the family's religion, some start up from events going on in the world, and some come from family circumstances.

Many of ours came from family circumstances. Because my dad, an electronics engineer, job-hopped a lot, we frequently found ourselves living in states far from the one my grandparents lived in. For several years, we (two adults and three kids) would get in the Kaiser (the car before the Studebaker) and drive from Ft. Worth, or Roswell, or Albuquerque, or Minot to the small town of Newton, Iowa, in order to spend Christmas with my grandparents. And, because we couldn't be in two places at the same time, we would spend Christmas Eve at my paternal grandparent's house where we kids got to open the presents they gave us, and we would spend Christmas morning at the maternal grandparents where we opened the gifts they gave us. In later years, after the grandparents were gone and we stayed home, the tradition morphed into we only got to open one present on Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas morning. The latter tradition got passed down to our kids and then from them to their kids.

Because we kids were always shaking the gift-wrapped packages and trying to guess what items were inside, the folks would often resort to trickery. Sometimes, the package contained only a single note which led to a treasure hunt to find another note or more, while the real gift was concealed behind the couch or in a closet. Loose marbles might be placed inside a gift box to roll around and confuse the receiver of the gift, or an inflated small balloon might be taped to the box before it was gift-wrapped. The gift giver was only restrained by his or her imagination.

Food itself often became a holiday tradition. My German grandmother always made a gooseberry pie for my dad and a rhubarb (not cut with strawberries or other fruit) pie for me. My pie always had sugar crystals on the top crust. Plus, she made her pie crusts with homemade lard. My mom was the last in the line of pie makers to make her pie crusts with Crisco. Both grandma and mom cooked up cranberries in sugar water to serve at the Christmas table. None of that weak cranberry sauce in a can. In later years, mom added marshmallows to the boiling mixture and stirred them in until they melted. When the mixture cooled in the refrigerator, a beautiful white froth raised to the surface of the cranberry sauce. It makes for a nice presentation. I still make my cranberry sauce in the same way.

And, don't forget those retold Christmas stories that come out from Christmas Past. Like the year my folks gave me a B-B gun, but I wasn't allowed to handle it until after dad gave me safety lessons. My dad then inadvertently put a B-B into the ceiling. That was a quick end to Lesson One. Mom was not happy with the new addition to the ceiling in her living room. Of course, the year I got an electric train, I had to wait until my dad and uncles got through playing with it before I could start.

Naturally, kids could be mischievous too. Like the year I rigged the stairs at my aunt's house with string and camel bells so us kids would be awakened when Santa came. Unfortunately, one of my uncles tripped the camel bell alarm system way too early on his way to the bathroom.

Regardless of your religion, I'm sure you have your own traditions, foods and family stories. Now is the time to lay aside any thoughts of hard times you may have had in life and instead warm your heart with any of the pleasant memories you might have. And, if you want to share those warm memories of good times, please feel free to tell those stories here.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all.....

Now go make some new family traditions to talk about.

       .....and may 2024 be a year of many publications !!!

2023 in Review

  

Another year's almost done, and I'm posting an easy-to-write column today: a look back at the stories I've published in the past twelve months. It's a task that's occasionally fun and occasionally disappointing. Sometimes editors seem to welcome me into their publications with grins and open arms, and sometimes they kick me off their doorsteps and then throw my hat after me like a frisbee. As it turned out, this was a good year, writingwise--a little better than 2022, not quite as good as 2021--and I guess I can't complain.

Here are some observations about my 2023 literary output and thought processes:

January

- I had 57 short stories published this year, and have 34 more in my PENDING file (accepted but not yet published). The reason that pending number sounds high is that 16 of those have been accepted for a 2024 (or early 2025) collection of my "detective" stories. 

- I wrote 25 new stories in 2023, fewer than usual, but many of those were longer stories, so maybe my typing fingers didn't know the difference.

- For the first time ever, I had almost as many stories published in anthologies as in magazines, if you count markets like Crimeucopia and Two-Minute Mini-Mysteries as anthologies. I think the reason I had more stories in anthologies than usual--even though I didn't see as many open-submission antho calls as I used to--was that (1) several anthologies chose to publish some of my reprints and (2) a good many others were invitations to submit themed stories--and I try hard to say yes to those. I don't always, but I try.

- Far more of my stories in 2023 were firmly mystery/crime than any other genre. Specifically, five of the others were Westerns--I love 'em--and four were SF/fantasy. Two more were a combination of Western and fantasy (picture the movie Cowboys and Aliens--or at least the concept behind it). One was published in an anthology called, if you can believe it, Monster Fight at the O.K. Corral. That one was a LOT of fun to write!

- Most of my magazine stories appeared in seven markets: AHMM, Strand Magazine, Mystery Magazine, Woman's World, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, and Black Cat Weekly. Nothing unusual, there. But I had a story in every issue of the Strand this year, which was unusual.

- I had only three private-eye stories published in 2023, two of them in Michael Bracken-edited anthologies. (Eight more PI tales have been accepted and are awaiting publication.) Andrew McAleer and the late Paul Marks are the ones who got me started writing about private investigators, for a 2017 anthology called Coast to Coast: Private Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea, and Michael published my first magazine private-eye story, "Mustang Sally," in 2020's Special PI Issue of Black Cat Mystery Magazine. I owe a great debt to all three of those editors, because (as I realize now) that kind of story is always interesting to write; I'd just never before gotten around to trying it.

July

- I'm repeating myself here, but for the second year in a row, most of my original stories published were longer than what I've usually written. I've tried to put a reason to that, and I don't think there is one. The storylines that pop into my head recently just seem to take longer to tell.

- In 2023, as in the previous year, I had three stories appear in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. I was fortunate there, because that doesn't happen to me often. Over the years my AHMM stories have usually been, alas, spaced much farther apart. Two of those three this year were installments in a series. 

- Not that it matters, but since we're talking about statistics, about a fourth of my published stories this year were installments from four different mystery series. Those series feature (1) Sheriff Ray Douglas, (2) PI Tom Langford, (3) Angela Potts & Chunky Jones, and (4) Fran & Lucy Valentine. The rest of my     2023 stories were standalones. 

- Around two-thirds of my stories were in third-person POV, none were present tense, and none were set outside the U.S. And, as it turns out, only two of my stories this year were published outside the U.S.

- Three of my anthology publications in 2023 were in music-themed anthologies. In all, I think I've now published seven stories in anthos with music themes (four of those were edited by Josh Pachter), and several more have been accepted and are upcoming. Not sure why that topic has become so popular in recent years, but I admit those stories are always fun to write, and to read. (How could they not be?--For each story, you have a specific song in your head the whole time you're writing it.)

- I think about two-thirds of my this-year's stories could be called lighthearted instead of gritty. Not necessarily funny, but they didn't take themselves too seriously. Violencewise, most would probably carry the literary equivalent of a PG-13 rating, and some were PG.

- Almost three-quarters of this year's stories were set here in the South. Part of that is probably laziness. Not only am I more comfortable writing about locations I'm familiar with, they also require less research. Another part of it is that--as I mentioned--I didn't have as many Westerns published this year as I normally do. 

One thing I haven't said, here: Every magazine I mentioned also rejected at least one of my stories this year. Sad but true.

December

What have you noticed about the stories you've published, or submitted, or written, in 2023? Is the structure, content, genre, etc., the same as, or similar to, what you've done in the past? Any experimentation or big changes? Have you tried any new or different markets? Any success there? Please let me know, in the comments section.

Meanwhile, I hope all of you had a great Christmas, and I wish everyone a happy and successful new year, lifewise and writingwise. 

See you next Saturday . . . which IS next year.

Let Them Want More

Got an email from a reader who said my book GILDED TIME left her in tears. She re-read the ending three times and it brought tears to her eyes. The book does not have a sad ending but I knew what she meant. Damn, I did my job. I'd purposefully left the storyline with an open ending. I stopped following the characters, let them walk off the scene, let the reader walk off wondering what would happen next.

A lot of writers do this. The hard part is to create characters the reader doesn't want to leave.

She asked if there would be a sequel and I wrote back I didn't think so. Everything I wanted to say was in the book. I told her to let her mind take the characters wherever she wanted them to go.

Took a moment to look back at some of my other books and realized how many of them ended similarly, like BATTLE KISS, USS RELENTLESS and especially DEATH ANGELS.

Series novels come with an automatic more to come. Unless the writer gets tired of following the main character around and writing his/her adventures. Haven't reached that point with any of my series characters. Yet.

It's all a process. SleuthSayers blogs have lots of advice, lots of suggestions on how to write. Some excellent information. Y'all who are new to following us, go back and read some of them.

For now, well, have a Happy New Year.

GILDED TIME a novel of the Gilded Age by O'Neil De Noux. Here is a sneak preview of the audiobook narrated by Gabriel Jose Perez. The narration is dynamite. The novel is already available as a trade paperback and eBook at amazon dot com.

LINK: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz-q8Biz1k4

That's all for now,

www.oneildenoux.com

Closing out the Year with Some Loose Ends

First of all, there's no "auld lang syne" in my house.  My husband Allan and I are more than happy to see the end of 2023 because it's been a hard year. A very hard year.

It started off with a call from a Florida detective to tell us that Allan's son, Eric, died in his sleep (he was only 53). It was the kind of call that we knew was coming (he'd been living on the beaches in Florida for 10-15 years), but it's still horrific when it comes. And never to be forgotten. 

Anyway, we started making plans as to what to do about the body... 

And then came a fight between exes, etc., for Eric's body, which got so complicated that I wasn't sure if I wasn't in "The Wrong Box", or "The Comedy of Terrors", or a soon to be a new version of "Vacation at Bernie's".  Among other things, there was a semi-fraudulent so-called mortician, another real mortician who turned out to be a drunk, and a torrential rain storm… 

I'm still juggling it all around in my head. But sooner or later, I'll figure out a way to write about it in a story.  As we all know, everything's grist to the mill to a writer.  

Also, Allan was in the hospital 4 times this year, March, May, July, and December (he just got out last week, barely in time for Christmas) for low blood pressure, then COPD exacerbation, for internal bleeding, and the last time for another COPD exacerbation. Our calendar is full of doctors' appointments, so we're having an active social life. Of sorts.  

Meanwhile, dear friends, this is why no Christmas cards have gone out in the continental United States...

As for me, I'm a bit fragile myself (I've been diagnosed with migraine headaches, when I always thought it was just really bad sinus trouble, on top of the a long-ago diagnosis of arthritis and osteoporosis), but I manage to take care of Allan pretty well. 

The good news is that Allan has done 3 portraits and is currently working on a memorial sculpture. 

And I'm still writing and getting published in various magazines and anthologies. The latest is "The Four Directions" in Black Cat Weekly #120 December 17, 2023.

***

And now for some loose ends of stories I can't forget or just found out about:

Back on Nov. 2^nd, in my "Crime and Punishment" blogpost (HERE), I brought up the case of Arnold March, 91, who was arrested for shooting his son.  But the story never mentioned the son's name, and nothing else was said for quite a while.  Well, there's finally been an update:  

Earlier this week, 91-year-old Arnold March was arrested and charged with attempted murder for shooting his son. Since the incident, Dan March, who was at first NOT identified by authorities, has gone through three surgeries to fix the gunshot wound to his arm.  Dan was transferred to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and a family member started a GoFundMe to try and help cover some of the medical expenses.  (HERE)  

And then there's a new one:  I would like to say I've heard it all, but this one has me going WTF? 

"A man was shot dead in the parking lot of the YMCA on November 15, 2023. [Police Capt. Tanner] Jondahl said, officers have determined two vehicles pulled into the parking lot and one person shot the other in the north entrance of the YMCA parking lot." While they finally named the victim - 70 year old Donald Michael Heinz - four days later, the shooter has not yet been named, nor have any charges been filed. “We want to have all the evidence before making a charging decision,” Brown County State's Attorney Winter said.  (HERE)  (Who is the shooter related to anyway? T. Denny Sanford?)

***

Meanwhile, going back to hospitals and doctors and such, it's my confirmed decision that what is desperately needed in this country are hospital doulas, who (if you've been in hospital for a certain number of days) will go home and/or meet you at your home and help you the first day back.  I had to bring every piece of home medical equipment to the hospital so they "could see if it was doing a good job for him", and then, the last day, lug it all back home, and then hook it all up again, AND go get new prescriptions, and did I mention dinner time?  Seriously.  GIVE US DOULAS!!!!  

***

But let's leave this year on a good note:  I remember, back in 1970 or was it 71? Sitting in the back of the Whisky a Go-Go in L.A., on  Sunset Strip, getting a little – okay, a LOT – merry, while John Mayall played on stage…

So here's my annual farewell to the year, an oldie but a goodie, "Farewell December" by John Mayall.

Time for reflection…
Winter is here
Goodbye December
The passing away of a year…

Watching the day of the wind
Blowing the dirt from the sky
Clearing the air for tomorrow
Bidding December goodbye

Make celebration...
Another year is gone
Now part of history
Got to be moving along…

Look for the sunrise…
Old days are dead
Goodbye December
Got a big future ahead

        — John Mayall