Two Weeks?!

Ever notice how time is relative? I don't mean Einstein relativity, or Stephen Hawking's musings on the universe. I mean how it is subjective and personal and relative to you and what you're doing.

I took a look at the date of my last posting, and had one of those animated eyes-bulging, double-take moments. It's been two weeks ... TWO WEEKS!

On one hand, it seems longer than two weeks, because so much has happened. On the other hand, tempus fugit, and flew fast. See ... that's what I mean. Relative and subjective.

Now, before describing why and how I've been Time's fool (to quote Willie S.), I am hereby undertaking an official pledge to keep up with my own blog every week. Here's hoping the old man with the sickle won't be chasing after me, horror-movie style. :)

So what has caused my chronological conundrum? Well, on August 1st, we celebrated a launch party. And quite a fete it was ... Bourbon and Branch, the famed and fabulous speakeasy in San Francisco, provided the setting and the most delicious cocktails this side of Harry's Bar in Venice, circa 1932. And yes, even absinthe was served!

On the menu were two delicious drinks, invented for the event: the Roman Noir (an amarna/mint/honey confection, dark, slightly bitter and delicious), and the Nox Dormienda (dreamy, white, frothy, with citrus and elderflower and an orchid on top). The setting was the library, complete with secret door and amazing ambiance. And I'm proud to say that Bourbon and Branch just won the Best of the Bay award from the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Diane Kudisch of the San Francisco Mystery Bookstore was my indefatigable and wonderful bookseller ... another Best of the Bay award-winner! So we all had reason to celebrate, and celebrate we did.

But the most important ingredient of all -- that which makes a party a wonderful, memorable time -- the people. I really can't tell you how good it felt to be surrounded by so many friends and colleagues from all the strands of my life ... the writing community to comic store buddies to SF State. And I had the chance to meet new friends, because guests brought other guests!

Local writer-friends from MWA and SinC and ITW and out-of-town friends participating in the RWA conference ... my agent, friends from Red Room (the best space for writers!) ... I could fill up this blog with a list of my wonderful, generous and beautiful guests. Which included, by the way, a contingent of talented Romans dressed in costume, from the Legio X Fretensis.

My beautiful, funny, smart and unique mother was there, of course, and she brought her friends, one of whom drove 250 miles from Fortuna to come. The joint was jumping. I'm posting a few pictures here ... these and many more will soon be up on a new page of my website, a kind of photo scrap book of past events. Hey, with my small house, I need to electronically store my memories! :)

I really felt like George Bailey (at the end, not the beginning). :) I just wish I'd had more time to talk to everyone for longer. And I'm immeasurably grateful to everyone for coming to the party!
I'm writing an article about it ... it was such a special event for me -- a career launch as as well as a book launch -- that I need to give it some more thought and time. More details when done.

The next day was my first book store signing/reading at the terrific M is for Mystery, which was absolutely wonderful. People actually came! I've heard all the stories from the road, and I'm fully expecting to encounter an audience of none for some upcoming event, but I was elated to meet some interesting and terrific readers my first time around. And I picked up a Certificate of Honor from the City and County of San Francisco, signed by our mayor, in recognition of Roman Noir. So my new genre has been officially recognized by my beloved, shimmering jewel of a city. :)

Sunday, a week ago today, I spent the morning with dear friend Jordan Dane, who'd flown out for RWA (and had come to the party). Then I came home and collapsed, exhausted but happy.

The last week has been a return to normalcy, of a kind. Day job. Box dinners. Trying to catch up with all the myriad book stuff I'm behind in, now that Nox is officially and truly out in the world. I'm still behind, but am diligently trying. And writing my WIP.

Thursday night I also had the great fun of guesting on a library panel in Morgan Hill with Terri Thayer and Penny Warner, and getting to see Becky LeVine and Beth Proudfoot again (we'd met at my first-ever conference -- No Crime Unpublished -- last June).

Yesterday was a MWA NorCal meeting at John's Grill, where we were able to hear scintillating stories from legendary female private investigator Sandra Sutherland.

And that brings me to today. Still with too much to do and not enough time to do it in, but I'm adjusting to the new normal, and hoping that Time will be kind. And not in such a damn hurry!

Next week: A small and long overdue post on Nora Prentiss. I'll be in Seattle for a signing at the fabulous Seattle Mystery Bookshop on the August 22nd, too.

Party photos: Bourbon and Branch library, around the bar, Romans!, the uber-talented and wonderful Jordan Dane and sensational Simon Wood, two of the most talented and beautiful and nicest women in the biz, Michelle Gagnon and Heather Graham, and the Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller, looking like a million bucks in white (not black). :)

It's Alive!

You ever have one of those Dr. Frankenstein moments? Maybe even a Young Frankenstein moment?

You know, when you pinch yourself because you just can't believe that you and Igor have actually succeeded?

Well, it happened to me on Friday. The ARCS (advanced reading copies or galleys) of Nox Dormienda arrived. Did I think of a snappy, noirish line from one of my favorite movies? Did I raise an eyebrow like Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, or sing "Put the Blame on Mame"?

No.

Two lines occurred to me ... the aforementioned "It's Alive!" as uttered by the imitable Colin Clive, and those immortal words of Teri Hatcher's, when she guested on Seinfeld:

They're real--and they're fabulous.

So now Mondays are the new Sundays, as we assemble press kits, reviewer addresses, and requests from relatives into mass mailings of what looks like a book with my name on it ... nah, couldn't be. This isn't real ... is it?

It's a landmark along the road, another reason to celebrate. Your book is real, like parenthood, when you hold the responsibility for it in your hands. Even an advanced reading copy. And it's necessary to celebrate, as I'm reminded when I read the wonderful Write Free newsletter, which should be a must read for everyone who writes or wants to write, or really, anyone who is trying to fit creativity into her life.

Check it out, give it a try. You'll be glad you did.

Something else I'm reading? Well, I just finished an advanced reading edition of another author, Jordan Dane. Jordan is going to be everywhere very soon -- her first book, No One Heard Her Scream, pubs in March -- so I'd suggest ordering now before they sell out, and don't forget you heard it here first.

She's got three books pubbing back to back this spring, all in the romantic suspense genre, but really--they cross over into thriller, mystery, police procedural categories. Vivid characterization, intense suspense, creepy and all-too believable villainy ... you owe it to yourself to check these out! The next two coming up are No One Left to Tell and No One Lives Forever.

Another fine author (who also happens to be a real heroine -- an emergency-room pediatrician) is CJ Lyons, who is launching Lifelines in March. I've read a sneak preview of the first chapter, and if you like medical thrillers and shows like ER and Grey's Anatomy ... well, you're in for a treat. I'll be picking up my copy at Left Coast Crime.

CJ, Jordan and I -- and my guest blogger, whom I'll be discussing in a minute -- are all members of the Thrill Begins, the International Thriller Writers Debut Authors Group. We've all been on this journey together. So my enthusiasm is doubled--first, because the books are tremendous, and secondly, because we're part of the same class, so to speak. That's a terrific feeling, and a relatively new one in publishing circles, spearheaded by the Killer Year group of authors. KY, incidentally, has a killer anthology out ... another recommendation.

Now, what about that guest blogger? Well, I'll be posting for Declan Burke's Crime Always Pays when we get to Denver. And fellow debut author and historical noir writer Rebecca Cantrell will be stepping over here, to Writing in the Dark, to share her observations about all kinds of things ... including how to write noir in sunny Hawaii, where she lives, and how to channel early '30s Berlin when you're sipping mai tais in 90 degree weather. Becky's book, Even Smoke Leaves a Trace, will be debuting in 2009, and I'm already in line for an ARC ... it's haunting and elegiac, the kind of poetry that noir inspires in the best of writers ... and she is one of the best.

Speaking of noir ... I saw Ida Lupino's favorite film the other day. Ladies in Retirement (1941), another example of period-setting noir. The environment is a lonely house on some rugged, decayed looking English moor, circa the 1880s. Ida co-stars with her husband at the time, Louis Hayward, noir stalwart Evelyn Keyes, Elsa Lanchester, and a great supporting cast.

Charles Vidor (Gilda) directed; the story is based on a stage play popular the year before. Essentially, Ida plays a woman willing to do anything -- emphasis on the anything -- to keep her barmy sisters happy and out of the insane asylum.

It's a marvelous film, owing something to Night Must Fall, but Vidor's angles, the starkly contrasting cinematography, and the cat-and-mouse game Ida plays with Hayward's character make it, in my opinion, even better. Lupino was one of the greatest actresses of the golden age ... and never nominated for one of those glittery and sexless statuettes they call an Oscar.

Unfortunately, Ladies in Retirement isn't on DVD or VHS ... I caught it on TCM. Watch your listings, which is almost as good a sign-off as "That's the way it is."

See you next week, with my last post before Denver and Left Coast Crime!