Closing Out the Year 2016

At the end of every year I look forward to the opportunity to begin afresh. This is fairly typical of Americans, and probably of everyone. We like markers to tell us where something ends and something new begins. We like certainty. We like knowing. But the end of December is an arbitrary date, no matter how we justify it. Every culture finds significance in certain parts of the calendar, and we base our thinking on these artificial dates.

The people of Kerala have three New Years to celebrate and use as markers. Everyone in Kerala celebrates New Year's Eve on December 31. But Hindus also celebrate Vishu, which is the beginning of the harvest year and occurs in the month of Medam, which roughly corresponds with April. Everyone in Kerala celebrates Onam, which falls in the month of Chingam, which corresponds roughly with August/September. This lavish holiday celebrates the return of King Bali from the underworld, who visits to see that his people are happy.

I had expected to write a piece on setting and meeting expectations, and perhaps that is still a good idea. I began the year planning on finishing up certain manuscripts and publishing them, either with my regular publisher, Five Star/Gale, Cengage, or on my own. Some of my goals seemed perhaps too ambitious, but all of them were realistic in that I knew they were doable. I could write a certain number of words per day and complete the mss. But that, as it turns out, is not enough. My goals were tied to those of people I'd never heard of.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FYFXFN4 

I finished a Mellingham mystery, but on the day I sent it in to Five Star, word came down that Five Star was ending its mystery line. The publisher that had brought into the world two Mellingham mysteries and three Anita Ray mysteries, with another under contract, had decided to move on into another line. I wrote about that here, almost exactly a year ago, January 19, 2016.

www.amazon.com/When-Krishna-Calls-Anita-Mystery/dp/1432832255    

Let me say here and now firmly and clearly that I greatly admire and appreciate the decision by Five Star to honor their contracts. Days after I signed my first book contract, with G. K. Hall in 1985, the new owner, Macmillan, sent out notices to dozens (or more) authors that their contracts were being cancelled. And that practice is the norm. You can imagine the uproar. I'm grateful Five Star/Gale, Cengage didn't do the same. They published When Krishna Calls in August, as promised.

As a result of the change in direction at Five Star, two manuscripts sit almost finished (an Anita Ray mystery and an Anita Ray collection of stories). Why? Because there is little future for a series for which most of the rights are held by the author, who has already exercised them. In a few words, there's not much for someone else to buy. I will finish the mss, but there is no deadline to motivate me.

But there's another reason. I think we have to acknowledge when it's time to move on. I loved visiting Joe Silva and Mellingham, and I have always been passionate about India. The Anita Ray mysteries were a way for me to participate in a culture I have loved and studied throughout my life, but the opportunities for that have shrunk, and I am first and foremost a writer. It's time to move on and write something new. 

So why a photograph of a winter wonderland? As people in cold climates know, winter is a season when the earth prepares for spring. The trees may look dead, but they're not. The land may look desolate, but it's not. Beneath the gray and white are colors and new life waiting to burst forth. 

Over the last year and a half I've been working on a new idea. I don't write fast, certainly not like some of my colleagues, but I have committed myself to a new series that won't be a complete surprise to some who know me. (But it certainly will be to others.)

As we close out this year, which has had its share of surprises, ups and downs, and miseries for many, I hope we all find something better in 2017.

Watch this space. More to come in the New Year.

Useful Sites for Details of Setting

In an interview P.D. James once described consulting an accomplished climber on the details of scaling a particular cliff. She took careful notes, wrote up her description of the ascent, and showed it to her friend. He read it through carefully, nodding at each line, and then laughed out loud at the end. When she asked him what was so funny, he replied, “You’ve gotten all the details of the climb right but you let him make the climb in an hour or so. It’s an eight-hour climb!” Details matter.

Whenever I begin a new story I establish in my own mind, and often in my ongoing notes, the time of year, general weather considerations, and any other details I’m going to rely on to tell the story. This can be more complicated, or less so, depending on where the story is set.

When I’m writing about India, for example, I don’t worry about the length of day because my setting, in Kerala, is so close to the equator that the weather is hot or hotter, the sunrise and sunset are consistent throughout the year. Further, each one happens quickly. South India doesn’t have lingering, color exhilarating changes at twilight. South India does have, however, deciduous trees, and I have to make sure I refer to them dropping their leaves, for instance, at the appropriate time. For the most recent Anita Ray mystery, When Krishna Calls, all the trees mentioned are in full leaf if not in bloom.

When I’m writing about New England and other parts of the world, I like to have a reference for the relevant time changes. Several websites allow me to track sunrises, etc., for any part of the year. I use one that allows me to printout a calendar for a particular month that includes daily timings, such as sunrise, solar noon, moonrise, and length of day. I can choose to include other information if I want. http://www.sunrisesunset.com/USA/

I also like to use a real sequence of days, in order to get the weather right but also to avoid using the same kind of weather day in and day out, unless it bears on the story. There are lots of weather sites that allow a user to type in a zip code to get the weather for that location over a period of days or longer. https://www.wunderground.com/history/

In Come About for Murder and other Mellingham mysteries, the setting is sometimes established by noting what is in bloom. I want to avoid using the same plants again and again, so for this problem I consult one of the many online calendars for planting. I prefer the site for the National Gardening Association, which offers several useful pages of information. https://garden.org/apps/calendar/

Details matter in a mystery, and getting the setting right is just as important as getting right the effects of a particular poison or details of the uniform of a serviceman or woman.

For the Anita Ray mysteries and Mellingham mysteries, go here.