Valerie Bonham

While ‘behaving like an author’ and researching markets, I find myself  amused that some of the least generous websites have binding copyright restrictions.

We are not a paying market, but if we deign to accept your story and expend server space on it, we own First North American rights, anthology rights, and if you ever republish this story anywhere, you have to say it was published here first.

Riiiiight.  No pay and limited author copyright is such an attractive deal.  Let me get back to you …

Hello to all the SheWrites bloggers joining in Meg’s latest Blogger Ball.  This blog (in my collection, and in addition to a website) is the one about writing.  The subjects of the entries mostly range among the process of writing as I’m still making-the-still-incomplete-move from non-fiction (sample) to fiction.  With luck, and lots of sitting in the chair, I’ll move to links to stories.

Nothing to add to that.  Just had to say it.

The women behind the curtain at SheWrites provide more than a meeting place for a community of writers.  Among the additional services is access to audio discussions about topics important to writers.  So far, the SheWrites channel on BlogTalkRadio site has a year’s worth of programs available for instant listening (I needed to choose between links at the bottom of the audio screen:  “Play in your default player,” or “Open in new window”).

• SheWrites channel
• Genre, Gender and Race: A Panel Discussion
• How Do We Write About Our Families and Friends?
• How Do You Know If It’s A Book?
• Francine Prose discusses “Reading Like a Writer”
• What Do Publishers Want?
• Funny Women She Writes Writing to Change the World
• White Readers, Meet Black Authors
• Sarah Wilson, Publicist and Book Marketing Expert, in conversation with Kamy Wicoff
• Lea Beresford, Editor, in Conversation with Kamy Wicoff
• Author/Editor Christina Baker Kline in Conversation with She Writes Founder Kamy Wicoff
• VP of Education BK Loren and Kamy Wicoff
• Kamy Wicoff interviews Literary Agent
• Erin Hosier Recession-Proof Your Writing Career! Kamy interviews Pamela Redmond Satran

I’ve already watched the series Rosemary and Thyme on PBS, but I’ll probably ask for the DVD set for either a birthday or Christmas present because the series is a mystery, and the theme is gardening, and Felicity Kendal is one of the stars.  I enjoyed Pam Ferris’s work in the series as well, but it’s Felicity’s performances I enjoyed for so many years on Good Neighbors (US title) /The Good Life (UK title).

• Rosemary and Thyme: Death in the Garden, Mystery Scene
  Try Rosemary & Thyme. That’s former horticultural lecturer Rosemary Boxer and ex-cop Laura Thyme who solve murders and rein in wayward gardens on each episode of the British series, which ran for three seasons on PBS.

Scenes from Rosemary & Thyme – Series 2 Episode 6 – The Italian Rapscallion

The moving, talking lion answering … thing … in Tim Guinee’s quirky private eye’s kitchen had me absolutely in stitches.  I’d say I want one, but I wouldn’t be able to get through a conversation for laughing so hard.

I really like the Guinee character, especially since I think Blake, the other ‘new’ PI, is nasty.  Scott Porter does a good job at being a bad guy — but I don’t think he can compete against Guinee’s character, especially with a plush toy lion whose head and mouth move making the lion appear to be talking in the caller’s voice.  That was inspired.

Me “talking to myself in the past.”  Talk to yourself, too.

• How to steal like an artist (and 9 other things nobody told me)

  The question every young writer asks is: “What should I write?”

  And the cliched answer is, “Write what you know.”

  This advice always leads to terrible stories in which nothing interesting happens.

  The best advice is not to write what you know, it’s write what you *like*.

  Write the kind of story you like best.

  We make art because we like art.

  All fiction, in fact, is fan fiction.

Much more at the blog.  Click on over.

It’s been awhile since I read one of the Inspector Ghote books, but I immediately recognized the name H.R.F. Keating in the ‘famous obituaries’ column  in this morning’s newspaper.  In looking at Mr. Keating’s online obituaries, I’m pleased to see that even without a guide in any of the books as to how the inspector’s name sounds — very pre-Internet with no idea of Google searches — I pronounced it correctly in my mind.

Inspector Ghote is a police officer in Bombay, India.  I know the proper name of the city is Mumbai, but in the books, Inspector Ghote lived in Bombay, and since I’ve read these books from a young age (the first book dates from 1964), Bombay is the name in my mind.

Mr. Keating wrote another series of books featuring Harriet Martens, a character I haven’t yet met, and I look forward to reading about her after my next trip to our local mystery bookstore.

• HRF Keating dies at 84, The Telegraph
• H. R. F. Keating, Author of Crime Series, Is Dead at 84, New York Times
• Prolific crime novelist, who created the humble Indian police inspector in Mumbai, dies of heart failure at 84, Indian Express

Yesterday’s writing consisted of writing group critiques.  I hope they were useful.

Today’s writing is a review at Amazon of Harry Shaw’s book, Errors in English.

Don’t try to keep up, you’ll just get winded.