Places have voices, just like authors do. Places have texture, flavor, smells, and that elusive quality of “feel.” For Erin Hart, it’s the bogland of Ireland. For G. M. Mailliet, it’s the English village, embodied in her fictional town of Nether Monkslip. For Cara Black, it’s Paris. Come to think of it, we should all have at least one book set in Paris. The tax write-off alone would be worth it. As for me, I seemed to have fastened onto the Hollywood sign as my icon. See? It’s right there on the header. No, I don’t live there, but every time I’ve been to LA in the past few years, I make a point to go there, and when I can, to rent in the neighborhood just below the sign, which is its own village within the Hollywood Hills specifically and LA generally. There are other villages within LA. You could even say that LA is at its best when you are intimately involved in one or another of its villages. My enchantment with this particular place began when I read that the iconic “HOLLYWOOD” sign used to read “HOLLYWOODLAND” and signified one of the early subdivisions that was meant to beckon the newly minted wealthy of the nascent movie industry. From there, I gobbled up the stories: Humphrey Bogart’s house in the storybook style, Bugsy Siegel’s illegal casino at Castillo del Lago (whose other famous resident, Madonna, outraged neighbors by painting a retaining wall in blaring crimson and yellow Continue Reading →
Posted in On Writing, Researching the Murder Mystery, Uncategorized
A few years ago, I worked a few weeks with a high school geometry class. One of the students was someone I’d been told identified as a male, though this individual had a delicate face, with a feminine jaw line, a nose far daintier than mine and long-lashed eyes, even though the haircut was short and masculine as were the clothes the student wore. To my shame, I too often went on automatic when using pronouns and used “hers” and “she” instead of “his” and “he” from time to time. When I did so in a study group, asking where “she” was today, I was sternly reprimanded by the other students. I was embarrassed and wished I could have done right by the student. I’ve thought about this so often, that maybe it’s the reason a “genderfluid” character made an entrance in my mystery and refuses to leave. So I had to get this character right. I read post after post and went to every site I could find that was an advocate for people who do not identify with gender the way a large portion of the world does. First, I was merely searching for vocabulary: is there an accepted set of pronouns I could use for a person not readily discernible as male or female? (The answer is that no, there is not one universally accepted set of pronouns, see: www.warren-wilson.edu/~writingcenter/Gender-Neutral_Language.pdf ). However, in doing this search, I realized that while pronoun use is an important issue, there Continue Reading →
Posted in Researching the Murder Mystery
Last week I found myself perched on a typical Hollywood Hills neighborhood overlooking both a slice of the 101 as well as the panorama of Los Angeles framed by the green hills of a canyon. My daughter was with me (15) and I’d warned her that at least one day was going to be “Weird Hollywood Day,” so I could get in some research on my mystery set in Hollywood. Little did she know. I dragged her from one vintage bungalow court to another, up and down Beachwood Canyon and its backroads, and challenged her nerves making a 100 point at the end of a skinny alley behind the Sowden House where one character takes a nosedive into the courtyard. However, the part of the day that strained her patience the most was no doubt our forays into two Hollywood cemeteries. Cemeteries play a role in my book, a fairly juicy one. I’d been to one in LA on a prior trip, to visit the grave of a silent movie star I was thinking of putting in the book (I wanted to assure him I’d treat him with respect). This time, however, I was there to case the joint. Graverobbing, for better or worse, will have a definite presence in my book–but think more along the lines of the gravediggers of Hamlet than Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Is it weird I got really excited when I saw that there were some shed windows (from a studio backlot, no less) a person Continue Reading →
Posted in Researching the Murder Mystery