Month: March 2012

Thank You, Sherlock Holmes

My love affair with Sherlock Holmes began with tv and a series in the 1950s starring Ronald Howard (son of actor Leslie Howard).  That series hatched the idea of the mystery story in my brain and I’ve been indulging a love of it ever since. Thanks to tv I also thoroughly enjoyed Jeremy Brett’s amazing portrayal, and I absolutely love Benedict Cumberbatch’s quirky 21st century creation..

Thanks to that introduction to the mystery, I found Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie and Lillian Jackson Braun and Louise Penny and PD James and Jacqueline Winspear and more authors than I can count whose books are filed under ‘mystery’ at my local library–my favourite shelves! Fortunately too, there are always writers who keep bringing Holmes back to life, sometimes in short story collections, and sometimes in novels. One of my favourite of these writers is Laurie R. King, whose novel The Beekeeper’s Apprentice launched a series of books featuring Holmes and his wife Mary Russell. What more could a Holmes fan ask for? And do I own copies of all of the original Holmes novels and stories? Yes. Three copies actually. One is a set of paperbacks nearly falling apart. One is a large edition with Strand Magazine illustrations that a student gave to me, and the third is the ebook verion on my Kobo.

The first stories I ever wrote were mystery stories, too. One title that I remember is “Castle Mort.” I have no idea what happened in the story, but I do remember looking up the word for “death” in my French/English dictionary and thinking I was being awfully clever. My love affair with Holmes led to another place, too. I’ve published two stories featuring the great detective. One was published many years ago in THEMA Magazine. Along with solving “The Case of the Cumberland Barrister,” Holmes and Watson met their old friend Henry Higgins, whom I borrowed from George Bernard Shaw for a couple of pages. Just lately I sold a Holmes story for children to JLS Storybook Project, featuring two children who help Holmes solve a crime. I couldn’t have been happier doing the research, because I read many of the stories again to help me get the back into that special time of fog and gas lamps, horse-drawn carriages and meerschaum pipes. All research should be that much fun!

So, for the writing and the watching and the reading–Thank you, Sherlock Holmes!

Are there literary characters or authors that you “met” at an early age that still influence what you read or write? How do they work their way into your writing or reading life today?

Where Do You Like to Write?

Why I look forward to summer.

I have a few favourite, non-office writing spots.

In the winter I’m a big fan of my own livingroom. On a sunny day, I move my chair so that I can sit in the sunshine and feel its warmth while I write. It’s the reason we’ve had two houses in a row that face south. When it’s dark or gloomy, I hunker by the gas fire. My tools are pencil and paper or my Neo. I have a laptop, but I prefer writing tools without distractions like email, Facebook, Twitter, Free Cell, the internet–you get the idea. The music in my ear buds is classical.

I’m also a fan of writing in coffee shops. I often head to Starbucks at the beginning of a project or when I have no ideas or inspiration. I don’t leave until I have a story. I can’t give credit to any creative jolts from the coffee, because I only drink decaf, but I do wonder about the efficacy of their oatmeal bars and molasses cookies.

In the summer I love to write outside before everyone else wakes up. Me, a cup of tea, a journal and birdsong. I know that there’s traffic noise from a not-so-distant highway, but warm breezes, sunshine and the calls of cardinals, crows, and song sparrows push the noise far into the background. No music required here. I’m eagerly awaiting these days. As I write this at 7:30 in the morning, everything is covered in a white blanket of frost and the cyclist on the path behind my house just went by in winter jacket and toque. I guess I’ll have to wait a bit longer.

Do you have a favourite place to write? A favourite time? What kind of music plays in your ear buds?

John Wayne, Coronary Care and Africa

In 1962 I went to the Lyric Theatre in Kitchener to see Hatari!*, a film starring John Wayne and directed by Howard Hawks. I was 12, I was alone, and I fell in love with Africa. From then on if anyone asked me if there was any place in the world I wanted to visit, Africa was on my list. But it was on a “someday list”, on the border of fantasy land. The other destinations on the list seemed possible: Europe, Disneyworld, the Rockies. Africa? Not so much.

Flash forward 27 years and I’m lying in coronary care with a heart rate of 240 (no that’s not a typo) and scared witless. It’s amazing how focused you can get on those “someday” fantasies while machines beep around you in a medical ward 70 miles from home that looks like something out of Dickens.

A fortieth birthday, a shared bottle of wine, and my friend and I were contacting travel agents and planning a trip to Kenya and Tanzania.

Twenty-nine years later was it John Wayne’s Africa? The Africa of my dreams? Yes it was. We saw wildebeest, elephants, zebras, cheetahs and lions. Buffalo woke us a night running outside our window and hippos serenaded while we had a picnic. We went to Arusha and I saw the same tribespeople that had featured in the film. It truly was a dream come true. I played golf on Mt. Kenya, watched the sunrise over the Ngorongoro Crater, drank Tusker beer and I brought home a feature film in my mind that (I hope) I will never lose the technology to replay.

Have you had “someday dreams” that came true? Are you doing something now to make that someday happen soon?

*In Swahili, hatari means danger.

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