Algiers?

overcast, snow rain mix expected, highs zero

Joan Collins unfortunately can't be with us tonight. She's busy attending the birth of her next husband.
John Parrott

Have to say I've never heard of John Parrott but I thought this quote was hysterical. There's a 23 year age difference between Michael and me - I'm almost 50 and he's turning 74 while we're in London. So wonderful being married to an older man. He's comfortable with himself, strong, wise and funny. Very secure.

One of our favorite quotes about age and relationships is from Groucho Marx who said, 'You're only as old as the woman you feel.'

We're all packed and heading to Montreal. Having lunch with the Muirheads then off to help launch the Canadian Mystery website. It's being organized by McGill University and is at the Redpath Museum. Especially appropriate since one of the big Canadian mysteries is who murdered 2 Redpaths in the early 1900's. I'll be doing a 'dramatic' reading about that. My readings can lack drama since all the characters sound all the same - they sound like me.

Then off to London on British Airways tomorrow. Was hoping Terminal 5 would be sorted by then, but apparently not. Should have known things weren't good when a week ago we received a cheery note from BA saying our flight from Algiers was landing in the new Terminal 5.

I'll blog again from London! Tell you all about our flight from Algiers (dear lord).

Be well -

Oh, just sugar-off

sunny, mild, gorgeous day, highs zero

Friendship with oneself is all-important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt

This is an absolutely stunning day. Picture perfect. Still lots of snow on the ground, but grass beginning to appear around the base of trees and beside our old brick home. Fed the dogs this morning then went out and fed the birds. Just wore a toque, mitts, a scarf and my regular clothings - no heavy winter coat. Wonderful.

It's a big sugaring-off weekend. That's when local maple syrup producers have parties and we all get together for baked beans and fresh bread - and the real purpose...boiling maple syrup drizzled on snow - where it immediately solidifies and turns into a kind of toffee. Then you take a stick or twig and roll it up and suck it. Yum.

It takes like childhood.

Of course, we have to elbow all the kids out of the way to get at it, just as we were elbowed as kids by greedy adults! Oh, the memories.

A local guy - Bobby Derby (upon whom Billy Williams in Three Pines is loosely based) - is having a big party at his maple forest today. It's also a fundraiser.

Had a great on-line talk yesterday for an hour with the wonderful readers and members of 'bookchatcentral'. My ridiculous computer kept kicking me off-line - but the members of the chat room were very patient and understanding. I felt like Curley in the Three Stooges racing at the wall and booooiing-ing back. Nyah, nyah, nyah.

But I sure enjoyed the chat - very supportive, there warm and thoughtful people. When we write in isolation I cannot overstate the important, at least to me, of people being supportive. And these people were.

And I know you are too - makes a difference.

One of the members was planning a Three Pines dinner - where she'd make meals described in the books. I thought that was a splendid idea. I wonder if people will come as their favorite character. I wonder if Nichol would be banned?

That would be fun for the next book tour - build it around a series of Three Pines dinners, that I could go to. Wonderful food and fun company. I'd come as Ruth - and I'm sure I'd be FINE.

Jane wrote to say there's a review of The Cruelest Month in the Richmond paper today - wonderful news. She included a very nice email she sent the book editor, suggesting a review. I blushed when I read it...but the third or fourth time I blushed less. Now I plan to have her email tattooed to Michael's chest.

I'm off - breakfast, then writing. My last day to write before heading to the UK. British Airways says we're going in to terminal 5. Oh, dear.

Oh, forgot to mention tomorrow - a couple of fun events...I'll be involved in the launch of the Canadian Mystery Project - all part of trying to get people interested in Canadian history. It's being done at the Redpath Museum in Montreal at 3:45 - and includes a few short talks - and I'll be doing a reading from a book loosely based on the murders of two Redpaths back in 1901. Fascinating stuff.

but before that Michael and I will be having lunch with three friends from Los Angeles.Cora, Oliver and Molly Muirhead. He's the son of one of Michael's oldest friends in the UK. Oliver is also a wonderful actor. I'll often see him in episodes of Will and Grace and Seinfeld and more recent stuff too. So that will be fun to see them again!

Long message, hope to blog tomorrow before we head to Montreal, then on to London on Tuesday.

Be well - beautiful day.

Bacon, eggs, coffee and friends - no mystery here

Sunny, cold, highs minus 10



A little 'bloggette' today - must run. Michael clearing snow off the car and starting it, and I'm supposedly up here putting dry cleaning in the suitcase. Pre-packing. Like a fish in a container ship.

Off to Sutton for breakfast with Cheryl at 8am, then coffee with Joan at 9:30. Feel odd 'scheduling' friends like that, but these days that's what it comes down to. Hope their patience extends further!

Then meeting Lise at work (she's my assistant) to go over last minute things, then doing the 'bookchatcentral' on-line talk at noon.

Then off tonight for a 5:15 meeting.

Received the revisions for the reading from the book based on the Redpath Murders that I'll be doing at the launch of the Canadian History Project on Monday in Montreal. Read and revised last night.

Must run - speak soon. Breakfast and coffee with friends...phew...feels like a huge exhale.

Speak to you tomorrow and hope this finds you well.

Another day

overcast, mild, highs plus 1

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
Winston Churchill

Things are starting to get busy. Am at 80,000 words for the new book. Not really sure anymore if that's long, or just right. Trying not to think about it. Re-read some of the stuff from earlier in the week, to get back up to speed, and found to my relief that I quite liked it. The 'Critic' must have been on coffee-break or at the bar in a brawl at the time.

Nancy Page coming this morning. She's our computer expert - debugs us, programmes us, gets us going when bad things happen. Though with me it's always the laptop and always when I'm on the road hundreds of miles from Nancy. We have an old computer we're donating to her to give to a local student. She also designed and printed my new business cards. She's wonderful. We did up 200 - thinking maybe we'd make each run a 'limited edition' and make each different. Like hockey cards. Makes it sort of fun that way.

Then off to dry-cleaners for UK clothing. And the office in Sutton to make sure I'm up and running on a thing called AIM - this is so I can do the online chat tomorrow at noon with bookchatcentral. I love talking to people like this, but hate the process of getting 'connected'. Still, Jill, who is organizing it is very patient. We'll see how long that lasts.

Did a conference call with some really smart readers in Austin, Texas last night. It was a book club and they read the books very closely and questioned me very closely. but not, I felt, with a view to tripping me up or finding fault, but just to push me to explain some of my choices. I always find that interesting.

Will also be writing this morning. I spoke to my UK editor, Sherise, yesterday and we've arranged to have Afternoon Tea at the Wolsely on Piccadilly next Friday. What fun!

Speak to you tomorrow.

But why does it have my mother's voice?

Mainly sunny, highs plus 3

I find television very educating. Everytime someone turns one on I go into the other room and read a book.
Groucho Marx

I love Groucho. One of my favorite lines from him is about Doris Day. He said, 'I knew her before she was a virgin.'

I go through periods of watching TV - but I'm very limited in my tastes. Biography Channel and HGTV. Mostly those house buying, house selling shows. Scares Michael. He's expecting to see a for sale sign on the lawn any moment. I particularly love Location, Location, Location. have blogged about that before. Pure fantasy, of course. I lie in my bath after a day's writing, and a 4pm it comes on. I watch Phil and Kirsty zoom all around the UK looking for homes. At extortionist prices. How do you in the UK do it? How do young families do it?

But that's my comfort food. Then I read books. Right now am snowed under reading books sent to me for endorsement. They're often very good, and it's a pleasure to help other writers - and my ego, in thinking my endorsement will help in any way. But I've actually started saying no, thank you. But it's a struggle. I think it's because I don't want people to hate me and I think they will if I say no.

Happily, I've started saying no, and you know what? People survive just fine. And so do I.

Have reached the amazing point in this book, which I reach in each and every book I write, where the whole thing is crap. Not just what I'm writing, but everything I've written, every word of the current novel is horrible, worthless, banal, confusing and poorly spelled. It's the nuclear bomb of criticisms, self dropped.

But it has happened with every book so far, so part of me is relieved it's here, and I can deal with it and move on. Shovel it out of the way. I'll tell you, the first time I felt this way - back in the first book - it was devastating. I believed it. I believed it the second time too, with the second book. But eventually I've learned that maybe this voice isn't right. I have a thick head, and it takes a disconcertingly long time to learn.

It's just the huge, stinking, slimy critic, clawing its way back into the room and demanding to be at the keyboard.

I spend a day or so letting it - then come to my senses.

There are people who see the worst, tear you down, want to make you feel like crap. Those people I don't let in my life. So why would I do it to myself?

So this is the end of it. The critic has left the building - to be invited back if she can behave herself, when it comes time for the editing.

Thanks for listening to the rant. Feels better.

By the way, spoke earlier this week at the Cote St Luc library. wonderful turn out, wonderful audience.

And tonight I'll be speaking by phone with a book club in Austin, Texas. So looking forward to that.

Be well. Speak to you tomorrow.

That Chocolate Bunny's a killer

Sunny, cold, highs near minus 5

I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed-reading accident. I hit a bookmark.
Steven Wright

I'm beginning to be quite annoyed by the length of this winter! I know, there's nothing I can do. But every now and then I get warmed beside the righteousness of a good complaint. Like now. There are two feet of snow out outside. It should be plus 5 and melting. Instead it's minus 5 with more snow forecast. At this rate it'll be August before it goes.

There - that felt better.

This is actually the first day I've felt stressed about the long winter. It's really a lovely day - brilliant sun - dazzling off the - WAIT! SNOOOOOWWW. Ugh.

Had a call this morning from Kathryn Kennison. She's a dynamo. She heads of the Ball Centre at Ball State University in Indiana. And she runs a crime writers festival called Magna Cum Murder. She's asked me to be the guest of honor this year - which of course I agreed to. It's a marvelous festival, in October. We go caught up and yakked and had a fun time. She hurt her leg and her doctor said it would never really be perfect again. She told the doctor this was distressing news because there were really only 3 good parts to her body. One was her legs, another were her gums and the last were her occipital bones. Now she was down to the final 2.

She's hilarious.

Wrote like a fiend this morning, which is why I'm late with the blog. Busy times. Am about 2/3rds of the way through the book. I hope. Either that or it will be the longest book ever written. Some days are harder than others. I find sometimes I just want to do anything but write. Root canal, peeling, wash the curtains. Anything. But I still write. If I give in to the laziness, well there's frankly no end to it. I think a huge amount of success in writing isn't so much creativity as perseverance and discipline. And, of course, gummi bears.

Looked around me at some stage early this afternoon, after I'd come up for air, and noticed I'd built a little fort around me. Books stacked everywhere. Reference books, cook books, poetry books, note books.

What a great life.

Our diets took a hit this past Easter Weekend, though not as bad as it might have been. As followed home from Richford by a chocolate bunny. or two. And a few eggs.

Michael, brilliant man, has discovered the real secret to losing weight. He re-adjusts the scales and has announced he's at his goal weight. No doubt with the help of the chocolate rabbit.

Who am I to disagree. And if he's there, then so am I!

We're off to Montreal tomorrow. I'm giving a talk and reading tomorrow afternoon at the Cote St Luc library. Oh, by the way, we've added an event in Boston to my schedule. I'll be doing a talk/reading/signing at the harvard Square Barnes&Noble on Friday May 9th. Just back from London and Washington. I'll be the one followed by chocolate wildlife. Hard to miss.

Be well - I probably won't blog tomorrow or Wednesday - but will speak to you Thursday.

A Deeply Cracked Easter

Sunny, cold, highs minus 9

Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen

How can you not love a guy who wrote that? Actually I used that quote in A Fatal Grace – as part of Clara’s art.

Happy Easter.

I once said that on air at CBC radio and a listener called in to lambast me and point out that this is not a happy day. Christ was crucified on this day. I was about 21 years old and deeply sorry I’d offended someone. So I apologized on air. It was only decades later I realized I didn’t agree with that assessment. But I believe what makes this holiday so special isn’t that Christ was crucified, but that he rose.

This is a holiday of hope. And how can that not be happy?

Indeed, it’s such fun to be speaking to you on this day. This is exactly the time when my latest book, The Cruelest Month, is set. Over the Easter holiday. In my book it’s a very late Easter – being a movable feast I did my goddess thing and moved it to late April. So that the spring bulbs would just be poking out. A promise. But fragile, vulnerable. And in the book we find out what happens to anything that exposes itself too much and too soon.

In the words of Shakespeare’s Wolsley’s Farewell (a wonderful speech): A killing frost. It nips his bud. And then he falls, as I do.

In the book there’s a killing frost – both physically and psychologically. Aimed at a villager in Three Pines, but also at Chief Inspector Gamache.

Spring is an unsettling season – and Easter an unsettling time. As one of the characters says – not everything is meant to come back to life. Not everything that rises up is a miracle.

I hope you enjoy reading The Cruelest Month as much as I enjoyed writing it. It’s about murder, of course, being a murder mystery. But at its heart it’s about second chances, and redemption.

Here’s to our cracks, and the hope and compassion that springs from them.