NEWS
Dark Water published 5th August 2010



EVENTS
20-23 May 2010 - Bristol Crimefest
3 June 2010 - Millport Library
22-25 July 2010 - Harrogate Crimefest

You can now get in touch with me on Facebook, or on email at caro.ramsay@ntlworld.com should you want to book me for any events etc.

And a special hello to Melanie - nice to get your letter and I hope your own writing is going well.

As you can see above I am now on Facebook and I am amazed I have so many friends!! I suppose that's the great thing about Facebook, people can be your friends and you don't actually have to know them... which can be helpful!

Seriously though it is nice to hear from people who talk to me at events and maybe ask my advice on something (misguided but complimentary!). People at events are always genuine, very nice and chatty and sometimes ages afterwards I think... I wonder how they ever got on with that... then they bounce up on Facebook and say... oh hello, remember me I was the one with the poodle at... (Yes I am one of those people that remember the dog rather than the person) and it's great when they take the time to get back in touch and let me know how it went.

Unfortunately the world of publishing is on its knees at the moment and I don't think anybody is buying anything which is a shame as so many people put in such a big effort to make it all work. However, I hope we have weathered the economical storm and that over the next two years it will all pick up again. Just need to tighten the hatches and work a bit harder!

Oh and there has been great initial feedback about Dark Water from people who do have to say they like it! Comments include 'scary', 'very scary', 'your best yet' and the usual comments from my friend in the tourist board requesting a book that has good weather in Glasgow (what fiction). Book four is set during a heat wave, I promise.

Meanwhile, the house dog, a rescue mutt called Emily (a specific breed of dog in this part of the world known to Billy Connolly as a 'BGD', Big Glasgae Dug... they are are kind of brown, ugly and normally found upending a wheelie bin in search of food) has become the enforcer of the street. A rather large and handsome Weimaraner decided to try and chat her up, he was not on a lead and was trying to be rather amorous in his attentions. He was very handsome but I can only compare it to James Bond trying to chat up Miss Marple and getting a very severe slap in the process. Mr Weimaraner has since been more careful in his approaches to lady dogs since Emily had a go! All dog owners in the street think this is good news as he is a bit of a lad with the lady dogs and the street has a few unexplained cross Weimaraner puppies and a few very cross owners.

Meanwhile, for recreation I've been reading the diaries of Gyles Brandreth... an amazing peep into the life of a type of person whose path I would never cross although as I type that I realise I have met him twice and am about to see him again at Bristol. He is totally bonkers in the nice eccentric way he comes across on tv. But his diaries are amazing... boarding school and travelling across Europe on his own at seven years of age! At seven I doubt I could find my way to the bike sheds. His historical stand on prisoners rights and human rights makes amazing reading for those of us who only really know him for wearing funny jumpers on TVAM.

And class has been very interesting. There was a strange topic of conversation at writers' group - foxes are getting very tame:

ME - Yes, they are urban now and live on a diet of chicken tikka masala.

JC - It's only a matter of time before they take a baby.

CR - No, I think that was a dingo and I'm sure the dingo was innocent in the end.

That provoked a discussion that proves it's a common held belief in some parts of the west coast that foxes do kill and eat children!! So of course, I go to class and the lecture is about bodies left outside and who gets there first in a decomposition sense. And then the lecturer said it, 'foxes do not like the taste of human flesh... they do like the bone marrow but not the flesh... and rodents will gnaw away at the long bones of your hands and feet to sharpen their teeth.' Which means of course that you are, in reality, more likely to be eaten by the faithful hound that falls asleep in front of your fire every night than any creature of the forest. I think that was a line in Bridget Jones... something about 'I shall die in my flat alone and be eaten by my Alsation!'

More soon.

Caro

The symptoms of synopsis

NEWS - Dark Water published 5 August 2010

EVENTS -

Bristol Crimefest 20 -23 May 2010

Millport Library - 3 June 2010

Harrogate Crimefest - 22 - 25 July 2010

I think the government should put a health warning on the word 'synopsis'. It should be considered a stress related illness and the request for 'synopsis' (or whatever the plural is .... answers on a postcard please, I've asked people with an awful lot of grey matter and they can't agree!!) should be accompanied by prozac and chocolate to deal with the sense of hopelessness and isolation it entails. I remember well having difficulty understanding the T lymphocyte response and it was only when the lecturer said ... think of B lymphocytes as hand to hand combat (Stewart Granger coming down the stairs buckling his swash immediately entered my mind) and the T's as the Indian scouts coming back to base with reports that Big John Wayne and a Hollywood camera crew are about to descend ...so they need to get reinforcements!! This analogy was then taken up by the TB immune response; the cowboys all in a circle and the Indians going round and round... stalemate. And that I understood. I could see it all in my mind, Bernard McLaverty who I so adore, said good writers always see it in their mind, like a film or like reality ... (gives rise to the adage that if you can't see it, you shouldn't film it. We don't really want to know in the last line that the narrator is a cat, or sofa, or the back shock absorber of a Toyota Corolla) the visual aspect of the film would give it away ... instantly.

But the synopsis is dry, methodical, precise and rather grown up and well behaved. There's a Percy Perfect Prefect thing going on about the synopsis and I think you should be able to present synopsis in a variety of ways ... music, song, dance, french mime, finger puppets .... Can you tell it did not go well???

Meanwhile I seem to be a celebrity endorser for a local candidate for the election. I confessed at the time I knew nothing about politics (in fact politicans are probably the precise people that are good on synopsis and therefore not to be trusted). But this candidate is a good friend, and decent human being and on these grounds alone I think he'd be a good egg in parliament ... somebody who is honest, has a nice wife, a very well behaved, polite child and a cute dog. He has job worries and money worries just like the rest of us and lives a very normal life. So I am keeping my fingers crossed for him.

I can reveal exclusively that Gordon Brown was boogying on down at the Showaddywaddy concert in Glasgow recently, shame it was a Gordon Brown and not THAT Gordon Brown ... but somehow I find the latter image rather pleasing.

On pain of death and getting my fingernails pulled out by my editor, I am going back to my synopsis, might just have a look at how that volcano is doing ...

Or maybe walk the dog again

Or make a cup of tea

Or start my sitcom...

Or do my procurator fiscal essay!!

Caro

News - Dark Water published 5th August 2010

Events

Bristol Crimefest, 20 - 23rd May 2010

Millport Library - 3rd June 2010

Harrogate Crimefest, 22 - 25 July 2010



Sometimes writing is a great life. And sometimes it ain't!



Good times are when a little innocuous looking email pops into your tray, bringing you the glad tidings that the new book has sold to the audio book company and therefore you have made money without typing a word.



Bad times are when you are happily typing away, the words are rolling across the screen, death and violence reign on the keyboard and hours pass with no caffeine or chocolate and the writer doesn't even notice - and then the phone rings and junior practitioner has slid down a mountain in Switzerland without the aid of skis, coming to grief with three limbs pointing one way and the fourth in quite another.... and can you come in and do the clinic. That is like being pulled away from good friends in the pub, just as one is about to relate a really funny joke that you have heard before but you'd really like to hear again. And it can take a wee while to get back in the groove of the story and the mood of the character again.



I've been asked to do an event at a school that shall remain nameless - last time I went there they were convinced I was Gordon Ramsay's sister. One thought I was Gordon Ramsay's mother (that child barely got out alive). So it'll be interesting what they come up with this time. Nice kids who don't have much in life yet let you have it with both barrels and like to get as good as they give. Could do with them running the country actually.



Am having a good time reviewing my Desmond Bagley and Duncan Kyle books. Just reading The Honey Ant... good story but plotholes that my editor would stick pins in your eyes for... people being shot at and not caring all that much and not mentioning it for a few pages. It's also interesting to see how the role of women has changed in novels written by the same author in 1960 then 1980. In the earlier they point and keep quiet a lot. By the 80's they have degrees and kick ass!



So I'm away to study my forensics now. Sufflocation, my word for the week.



Bye.

Hi all,

Well another busy week. The copy edit of Dark Water is away - nice to see it tucked in and put to bed, belt and braces. Very interesting to read through it again, like a proper book. Still find it hard to believe I write them once I see the finished article.

The events are picking up. Was in the great city of Edinburgh last week, very nice crowd - witty and informed. I really enjoy getting chit chat going with the audience - there's nothing worse than listening to a boring author jabbering on about how fascinating they are. Tell them what they want to know and make them laugh in the process and you can only do that if they ask.

They are hoping to ask me back, with Helen Fitzgerald. If you don't know Helen and aren't easily shocked start reading her now. It's the kind of crime fiction that you think you shouldn't laugh at but then do because it's very funny and very well written.

Meanwhile, wrote 6,000 words today. I think that's due to the fact I've tentatively started running again as my lungs have decided to work again - never be Paula Radcliffe - but it's a start. Funny thing about writing - that doing some other meditational activity often really cranks up the word count. The writing goes on in the head - readjusted, edited and rewritten, once back in front of the computer, it's all simply recorded paraphrasing my stable mate Val McDermid (we have the same agent) she said her productivity dropped by one third when she went full time at writing. Thinking time is still thinking time whether you are sitting in a traffic jam, walking the dog, or staring at the computer screen!

Last week was also Weggie Wednesday - get hold of them on their website! - at the end of last year they asked Helen Fitzgerald and I to do a talk on crime writing but it was more like a comedy routine. There should be some photos of both of us on their website - October the 14th my faithful pa has just told me!! - the photo will have both of us with our mouths open no doubt. Weggie Wednesday is a friendly get together in the pub with like-minded creative types ( I am afraid I have a distrust of the word networking as it has visions for me of used car salesmen arse licking) but the Weggie crowd are really great. Good fun, good topics and speakers who get buzzed if they go on for more than ten minutes. So if you are a Glaswegian check the website and come along and say hello. It is the type of place you can turn up and be made to feel welcome.

So in the next week, the week of the really long synopsis... the long synopsis goes on longer than the bubonic plague and is twice as unpleasant but for writers with triple plot devices, it HAS to be done. There you go, that sounded as if I knew what I was talking about. If I survive the long synopsis, you might hear more next week!

Hello,

Another busy week, one of those busy weeks that ends up achieving not much.

Meanwhile, I have ordered all my Desmond Bagley books - they are re-issuing them in two novels in one book format. I'm looking forward to revisiting them all.

Duncan Kyle is proving a little more difficult, I'm in the process of sending my serfs round secondhand bookshops with a shopping list.

The fourth novel is coming on a storm. I'm trying to learn a bit of Russian pronunciation - which is OK, then trying to learn some Russian spelling - not so OK.

And in the meantime I'm studying hard for my forensics exam. A good piece of advice I received was to practice writing for three hours in order to sit a three hour written exam. The physical art of writing is becoming a thing of the past now. Most information nowadays is 'typed in', no handwritten copy first and doing a three hour writing stint uninterrupted fairly puts some strain on the writing hand when your not used to it.

Or something....



Caro

Apologise for the late blog but I have been ill - a strange lung condition caused by a potentially fatal mould... for a few weeks over Christmas I thought I was living in a Desmond Bagley thriller. But while I've been lying around attached to oxygen and inhalers my evil little brain has been active. (At this moment I should point out that all crimewriters are prone to exaggeration - but the condition had four names - all Latin - therefore it must have been bad!). Enforced physical rest has pushed the body count of the new book to five.

Strange things happen when writers sit down with a blank screen in front of them and the Waverley paddle steamer seems to have taken centre stage at the start of the novel. Most Glaswegians, especially those who grew up in the shipbuilding centres of Govan and Clydebank, will have deeply ingrained memories of being dragged on the Waverley for a "pleasure" cruise as part of a summer holiday treat. Being Glasgow fair fortnight wind chill factor minus five and the marvellous scenery blotted out by rain laiden clouds, I was always dragged into the bowels of the engine room where it was all explained to me in great detail for hours on end.

I was probably four years old at the time.

But with most memories it's the sound and the smell that remain most clearly in my mind, the sweet almost sooty smell of the engine oil that stayed with me on the train all the way home.

And I think that the publishers are pleased to know that the Waverley is sailing on the Clyde on a summer's day when the sun is splitting a cloudless sky ... see above comment about crimewriters and exaggerations!!

The new book, Dark Water has a pencilled in publication of the fifth of August 2010. The cover is, I think, the best one yet, very atmposheric and threatening.

I have been invited to attend the Harrogate Crime Festival. My panel is called "A Scotsman, an Englishman and an Irishman go into a bar"... Haven't heard yet who else will be participating but I presume it will be an Englishman and an Irishman.

I have also been asked to appear at Bristol where my topic for discussion is "Sex in the Gutter". Why they thought of me for that I have no idea...

The marvellous award winning journalist and crime novelist Tony Black is running a series of workshops in Edinburgh and he has asked me to take a workshop based on my own experiences of the editorial process - so that should be fun. Last time we had the whole audience doing the theme tune to Jaws just to demonstrate the importance of reversal.

I will try to blog again next Tuesday.

Take care. Caro.

third degree burns

I don't see a time when I'll start a blog that does not say... well it has been a busy week! The highlight of it was doing my workshop on 'The art and craft crime writing' down in Kilmarnock at the lovely Burns Monument. The workshop is informative, helpful and extremely funny - not alway intentionally so it has to be said - but great fun all the same. To show how to build tension and the role of the reversal in crime writing we do my version of the screenplay of Jaws ... in one minute... accompanied by a white shark (well it was a blue whale but it was a crime workshop not a David Attenbortough special and they all should have been creative types with good imaginations!). It went down a hoot and you can always tell when they are enjoying themselves - some smart arse at the back starts doing THAT music.....

The rest of the evening was taken up doing a double hander with Gary Moffat, he of Daisy Chain fame. Nice guy, lawyer, great writer, if you ever get the chance to see him... go! The Burns monument is a great venue for many things, including weddings, nice hall, great gardens for photographs. The lovely Louise who was in charge said, totally off the cuff... 'Yes, you and Gary are in the wedding suite tonight!' Much carry on type tittering all round.
I do wonder when listening to other writers... particulary at big conferences... at Bristol there was a lawyer, a coroner, a peadeatrician and a pathologist on the panel who are all best seling crime writers... do lawyers and medics write slightly differently because of their background? The obvious answer is yes until you look at the books... and then think... no they are actually equally violent and nasty types on paper no matter what they do for a day job!!
thanks to all who turned up, sorry to those who drove home no able to get THAT tune out of their head...
oh no, I'm at it again now...