Not So Cozy

I just finished reading Stalking The Angel by Robert Crais. Great book. Even more, great second book. There appears to be no Sophomore Slump here. The pacing, characters, dialogue, plot and humor of The Monkey's Raincoat did not fade.

At the Pirate meeting on Monday, I talked about the book. That I really enjoyed it. And I talked about finding a series of cozies called the Home Improvement Can Be Murder series. That's right. A series of mysteries centered around a woman who is renovating a Victorian house. I have to admit being taken aback. But Shane said, "Write yours better." Then Jenny said, "Yours isn't really cozy anyway. And you can go less cozy."

Good points. My protagonist is a man who does this as a job. It is a cozy, by broad definition. But it certainly isn't what most people think of when you say cozy. Surprise, right? That someone with my personality isn't writing about a wooly-headed old woman who busybodies her way into solving a murder?

I think that this revelation will help with my own renovations of my book. That's the great thing about the Pirates.

Process Improvement

A few years ago I worked at MCI/Worldcom. Back before The Big Layoff of 2002. I was part of group whose responsibility was to improve processes. Specifically invoicing processes, but we also were asked to help with many other kinds of processes.

Shane's very funny, and amazingly accurate, post did save a lot of time and effort for Deb and me. So, I will agree to write one article and see not only how much time it takes, but what impact it has on my other writing. Then I'll decide if I want to become a columnist.

Thanks for cutting to the chase, Shane! And for a good laugh yesterday.

Getting to The End

Interesting First Monday last night. There was some great discussion about Deb's book, which I've read and like, but have a hard time with all the characters at the beginning. Then we moved on to our usual format.

Deb and Jenny spent a lot of time trying to figure out how the Harry Potter series will end. I guess I'll have to read the books one of these days. The movies are okay. I'm not sure why I've resisted reading them so much. Maybe it's all the hype around them.

Someone asked me about HM. I told them about the problems I'm having with just wanting to end it even though it's far too short. Shane asked if it wouldn't be okay to write the beginning, then the end, then the middle. I don't see why not.

I think that's what I'm going to do. I have a five-day weekend to put it in practice. Maybe that will be my process. Maybe not. But I feel like I need to experiment and the first book is the place to do that.