English: The breakfast parlour at Sir John Soane’s Museum as pictured in the Illustrated London News in 1864. Category:Images of London (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here are some quotes which keep me refreshed, from the well of clear water produced by inspirational writers.

A writer’s job is to get outside one’s self, to pry, listen and eavesdrop, to find out what you don’t yet know. (Bret Lott)

There is nothing new in literature, there is no new way to tell a story, no more breakthroughs to be made.  It’s all about the details. (Bret Lott)

You don’t have to have a long track record to become interesting to an agent or publisher.

In creative writing you are always a beginner.  Once you feel you are an expert, you can’t write anymore. (J.L. Borges)

If poets are genuine, they must keep on repeating: ‘I don’t know.’  All they can do is keep on trying. (Naomi Shihab Nye)

If you can’t take the first step, take the second. (James Richardson)

After this life, we need a second life to apply the lessons we have learnt. (Dunya Mikhail)

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Soane Museum 5 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another fantastic source of inspiration is the tiny but perfect study of the architect Sir John Soane at his quirky and lovingly renovated house/museum in London.

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San Diego City College Learing Recource City retrieve a book (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It doesn’t happen often anymore.  Yet I need it, it’s like a tonic.

I now read so many books for reviewing purposes, or for my reading challenges, that I don’t often have this luxury.  But I should occasionally escape the tyranny of my TBR list and do this more often.

Besides, I usually have two or three books on the go at the same time, so it’s not possible.  But why not?

What am I talking about?

The hiatus.  The pause.  That wonderful moment when you finish the pile of books on your night-table and stop.  To breathe.  To ponder.  To contemplate that world of endless possibilities.  What am I in the mood for next?  What new treasure will I discover, what old favourite will I pursue?  Everything is within our grasp…

O brave new world, that has such writers in it!

I’ve been knee-deep in non-creative stuff lately, so this is my attempt to remind myself to be creative. Or to remind myself that I do have a book in mind! Here is the opening of Chapter 7 of my novel-in-progress, introducing the policeman who will help our two main protagonists to resolve the murder mystery.  The action takes place in a small town in the sub-Carpathians in Romania.  This is a slow, descriptive start to a chapter after some rather action-packed scenes, because it introduces a new character, one who will become important in the course of the investigation.  Do you feel it gives you a bit of insight into the character – too much, not enough? Would you read on?  And does it give you a bit of the local atmosphere?

Sergeant Dinu Vlăhuţ was up the stepladder, adjusting the flags in front of the Town Hall.  One of the flagpoles had got stuck again, so he had to get fiercely manual with it.  After all, you couldn’t have the national flag flying half-mast, as if it was a day of national mourning.

He’d climbed up there while it was still early and relatively cool, and he was in no hurry to get down.  It wasn’t like he had any exciting cases waiting for him in the office. Meanwhile, Gina and Lili at the public counter were more than capable of dealing with the ID card applications, criminal records checks and traffic fines.  Not that many of those ever got paid.

The Curtea de Argeş Police Station was located on the ground floor of the Town Hall, on the left. It didn’t even have a separate entrance, and they’d often get people wandering in asking about permits to open up shops or property certificates.  Dinu believed in helping people out and mucking in, but he did wish he could have a more slick, streamlined operation. A couple of computers wouldn’t go amiss, either.

However, according to the American cop shows he liked to watch on TV – and which now, after the Revolution, were plentiful on all TV stations –  NYPD didn’t have much better premises either.  Lots of open-plan offices with dingy furniture and everyone talking over each other while manning the phones…  Let’s face it, a darn noisy and tiring environment!  Surprising anyone ever got any work done, let alone solved complex crimes and hunted down serial killers, as they all seemed to do on a weekly basis.

He surveyed his surroundings from his superior vantage point.  Although Curtea de Argeş boasted a history dating back to the Middle Ages, the Town Hall was a modern building, designed to be functional rather than architecturally memorable.  It looked exactly like a school or a hospital, or pretty much any public building in Romania since the 1970s.  But Dinu was quite fond of the old place. At least it hadn’t been painted over in garish colours, like some other public buildings in recent years, in an attempt to freshen up after years of Communist decay.  There were even some flower arrangements on either side of the steps. And, because the gardener was paid directly by the Town Hall, he did actually bother to use the sprinkler every other day, so the grass was much greener than anywhere else in town in  mid-August. And…

‘Excuse me,’ came a voice from below, ‘Are you a police officer?’

Dinu looked down.  A pretty young woman was looking up to him.  Instinctively, he put his hands up to adjust his hat, then realised that he had left it down at the bottom of the stepladder. It had the annoying habit of falling off, being ever so slightly too large for him.

OK, time to get down.  He scooped up his hat as he descended and set it smartly on his blonde wavy hair,  his mother’s pride and joy.  He  folded up the stepladder. ‘Yes, I’m a policeman.  How can I help you?’

‘I wanted to find out more about the accident that occurred here a few days ago.   I am a friend of the deceased. Who would be the best person to talk to about that?’

She was indeed quite a looker. Surely there was no harm in being polite and helpful, although he was – of course –  a married man.

His room, his mind, and the rest

She appropriated, triaged, rejected

With cool gherkin competence.

Neglected to fashion belief in his eyes –

Best leave him to wonder and finally mourn.

She entered, effortlessly limber,

And impoverished us all.

Finally I make it in time for Open Link Night over at dVerse Poets Pub – one of the friendliest and most talented community of poets I have seen online.  Or in person.

Poenari Castle, Romania

This was always going to be a hard sell for me.  Not only do I not like vampire fiction or film series, all of which tend to take themselves far too seriously (with the exception of the tongue-in-cheek British series ‘Being Human’), but I also am tired of being associated with vampires simply because I originally come from the Carpathian mountains.  To be precise, my father comes from the place where the so-called Dracula’s castle stands in ruins, Cetatea Poenari.

I’ve become somewhat tired of explaining that the vampire myth has always been far stronger in Bulgaria and Serbia, even in Greece, rather than in Romania.  That Vlad Ţepeş the Impaler was indeed a historical figure but has nothing to do with the pale Count imagined by Bram Stoker, and indeed, very little to do with Transylvania.  That the bad press Vlad received during his life and especially after his death was deliberately promoted by political rivals. Yes, he was a bit of a tyrant, creative in his cruelty and ruthless in meting out punishment – your everyday despot of the Middle Ages, then!

Vlad Ţepeş, the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia (1456-1462) (died 1477) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

However, I tried to set all of that aside and read Elizabeth Kostova’s book about the search for Vlad the Impaler’s real grave with an open mind.  It is a novel where the real hero is historical research itself.  It owes much to the original ‘Dracula’  novel by Bram Stoker, and it is all about a story within a story within a story, with letters and stories by different characters in different periods (some historical, some more recent) creating a sense of time-travel.

The unnamed main narrator was a sixteen year old girl when she discovered an ancient volume and a secret stash of letters addressed to ‘My dear and unfortunate successor’. Gradually, despite her father’s reluctance and fear, she uncovers the innermost secrets and horrors of her family’s past, including how her mother and father first met.  Narrators past and present travel all over Europe, finding emblematic documents in obscure libraries and taking in many eerie sights on and off the beaten tourist track.  Along the way, they encounter strange characters, dangerous librarians and the living dead.  They also find corpses, missing friends and each other in the process.  All in all, it makes a change from the vampire type novels aimed at the Young Adult market, but some may find the insistence on documentary detail and the lengthy descriptions slow down the action.

I quite enjoyed the first few chapters, the gradual quickening of horror, the Victorian style and atmosphere (although it is set in the 1930s, 1950s and 1970s). But it just felt too long and repetitive after a while and yes, there were inaccuracies. The characters all seem to have the same voice, regardless of their period, culture or sex.  If you want examples of thrilling research and discovery combined with love story or complicated action, A.S. Byatt’s ‘Posession’ or Umberto Eco’s ‘Foucault’s Pendulum’ are much better.  I have to admit that from about page 300 onwards (only half-way through), I skimmed through the chapters, simply because I did not want to admit defeat and abandon the novel.

I read this book as part of my Global Reading Challenge, aided and abetted by Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise.  It is my contribution to the wildcard category – the Seventh Continent – an alternative setting you might not normally consider for crime fiction.

Curlicued dawn calls.

My heart fills: joyful chorus

of effort not mine.

Only in our dreams

Do birds contemplate:

Singing, breathing become one.

Oh, to fly into summer

on the wings of mellow tunes,

nestle in pink buds!

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OresmanLibrary, nymag.com

In an idle moment (ha! as if I ever have those!), I was going through the book reviews I have written over the past year or so of blogging, both on this site and on the Crime Fiction Lover website.  I wanted to see if there were any patterns emerging.

Well, the first and most obvious pattern is that I read a LOT of crime fiction – I would say about 80% of my reading is dedicated to this genre.  And sometimes I worry that this will affect my own writing, as I also write in this genre.  Will I become too influenced by the writers I admire?  My excuse is that I read such a variety of books, from shaky debuts to authors at the height of their powers, from all over the world, with all sorts of different cultural influences and styles, that I am safe.

Within the crime fiction genre, over the past year I have read 26 police procedurals, 10 thrillers (of the high-octane action variety), 10 psychological thrillers (of the ‘hide under the covers and shudder’ variety), 7 ‘form-busters’ – that don’t fit neatly into any category, 6 classic detective novels, 5 cosy mysteries, 5 noir, 1 medical thriller and 1 historical crime novel.  After some pondering, I came to these conclusions:

1) Police procedurals are the most popular form being written today (and I include forensic teams or psychological profilers in that category, as they work so closely together).

2) This doesn’t necessarily reflect my personal preference. I like noir far more than that, and I like action thrillers far less than that, for instance.  However, sometimes you have to review books for which you do not have a natural inclination, which makes me wonder if I am doing them justice.  Perhaps someone with more of an appetite for non-stop action scenes would view them more kindly and convert my 3 or 4 stars to 5 stars.

3) I expected my non-English literature to outweigh my English one.  By this, I mean literature that was originally written in a language  other than English (I did in fact read a lot of translations).  However, in the case of crime fiction, I certainly read more English-speaking authors – 37 – than foreign ones – 31.  When it comes to overall literature, perhaps the balance is slightly better: 50/50.  And this, despite the fact that I am in a place where you have to make an effort to find English or American books (that are not translated into French).  That probably does indicate a slight preference for the familiar or a sense of ‘coming home’ to my well-known authors.  Then again, perhaps it just shows a reluctance to step out too far from my comfort zone.

But perhaps the most obvious conclusion is: with all of the business travel and workshop-preparing, and with all of this reading and reviewing, when on earth do I get time to do any writing?

Answers on a postcard, please.

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… they know more swear/slang words in French than they do in English.

… every sentence is prefaced by the exclamation ‘La vache!’ (and no, they weren’t referring to the Montbeliard cows producing Comté cheese, who were grazing peacefully on every field we passed during our holidays).

… they demand ‘explications’ for every single command you issue.

… older son is writing an encyclopedia because he likes to pontificate about things and he has heard of Diderot.

… younger son builds Eiffel Towers with rulers, protractors, pens and rubbers (in earlier years, it used to be the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth).

… they have opinions on the policies of François Hollande and compare him with Sarkozy

Maybe it’s time to head home soon?

Then again, on a sunny day like this…

Louise Penny: Dead Cold

Stefan Slupetzky: Lemmings Zorn (in German)

Mari Hannah: Deadly Deceit – review coming up on Crimefictionlover.com

Marcus Malte: Garden of Love (in French) – troubling, unusual storytelling, playing with your mind and perception

Esi Edugyan: Half-Blood Blues

Martin Walker: The Crowded Grave – beautiful sense of place and an easy, fun read despite the grim subject matter (ETA separatists, terrorist plots etc.)

S.J. Bolton: Dead Scared – thrilling read about a spate of suicides amongst Cambridge students

Quentin Bates: Chilled to the Bone – review coming up on Crimefictionlover.com

Petros Markaris: Liquidations à la grecque (Greek original, read French translation) – veridical, if depressing portrayal of a country and a city in profound crisis

Not a single bad read among them, which is unusual. And my pick of the month is the only not-quite-crime-fiction read of them all: ‘Half Blood Blues’, for the self-assured, inimitable voice of a black jazz musician.  The plot was somewhat predictable and yes, there is a bit of a mystery about it, although perhaps not quite enough to call it crime fiction.  It felt very much like ‘Amadeus’ and Salieri’s jealousy of the seemingly effortless genius of his younger rival, Mozart.  It also very nearly won a Booker Prize, which just proves once more that genre distinctions are meaningless and that crime fiction can be very literary, and literary fiction can be very criminal too!