FINGERS CROSSED

by Louise Ure

 

Farewell to all my 'Rati friends.  And fingers crossed for continued murder, mayhem and crime in your life.  And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

Much love,

Louise

Pain and growth

by Pari

Title#1
Adventures in colonoscopy-land

(Are you still reading?)

If you are, you’re already doing what I wanted to write about. Though it may have been fun to take you through the bends and kinks of my innards, my main goal today is to look at when we do things we don’t want to do because we know we need to. (Yes. I'm making an assumption here that this blog is worth reading.)

Title #2
Who died and made us all Puritans?

Decisions such as undergoing colonoscopies, closing down long-running blogs, or, frankly, opening ourselves to parenting, all require faith. They rest upon the idea that putting ourselves through some kind of pain -- or struggle -- will ultimately result in something good.

Title #3
The Puritans were wrong

We’re not all a bunch of losers who constantly need to atone through physical hard work and emotional self-flagellation. But most of us also aren’t going to get very far without putting ourselves in a position to experience pain, sadness, or regret . . .

This last week has been a really difficult one for me. Each unhappy event can be directly traced to a decision I made voluntarily, one I knew would try my body/heart at some point:
the colonoscopy
the upcoming end of Murderati
becoming a parent

And yet in the trials of these experiences, I feel only gratitude for having made those decisions because I know I needed to -- for my health, for my future writing career, for my wholeness as a human being. Stepping into risk with my eyes open allows me to embrace all the unexpected good that goes along with that action. Difficulty doesn’t equal negativity. It doesn’t always equal growth either.

It’s just not fun.

However, I do believe that a certain amount of pain is necessary in a fully lived life. The urge to protect myself from it is powerful, but the urge to grow and learn is stronger. And I’m very grateful for that.

Questions:
1.  Do you remember a moment you decided to do something you knew would be difficult/painful, but you did it anyway?
2.  Was it worth it?

THANK YOU

by Brett Battles

The problem with not being able to do my Murderati farewell post until late in the month is that much of what I would normally say has already been said. At the risk of repeating at least a portion of what others have written, I owe JT a debt of gratitude for asking me to be a part of something great…something that has become an institution. And to the rest of the then current member—most prominently, Pari—my undying thanks also for backing the idea of asking me to join.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. I believe the last time was last summer when I guest posted about my jump into the independent publishing world. When I first started with Murderati, I was a traditionally published author with, I believe, two books out. My career was looking up and I was just about to take the step into full time writing. Actually, the span from my traditional publishing life through the independent phase of my career clearly demonstrate the vast changes in the publishing industry Murderati has been around to witness and report on.

Looking back through all the post here—and by no means am I talking about just mine—is like taking a walk through living history. The ups, the downs, the highs, the lows, the triumphs, the uncertainty, the just plain excitement of being published. It’s all there. And I am so grateful for having been able to be a part of it.

Of course, the most important part of Murderati has never been those of us who were writing the posts. It was all of you—the readers and commenters who helped create this wonderful community. I personally want to thank you all so much.

I’m glad to hear an archive of the Murderati posts are going to remain up and accessible. If nothing else, some future grad student could use the info found here to write a pretty damn good research paper. Hell, maybe even a book. Not that we know anything about books here.

As I write this, I have a glass of beer beside my computer. Really, I do. Let me take a moment, raise it in the air, and say, “Thank you Murderati, every damn one of you. To remembering the past, while forging ever forward!”

AND IN THE END

by Stephen Jay Schwartz

 

And in the end

the love you take

is equal to

the love

you make

These powerful words

from the Beatles

Their last statement, on their final album, Abbey Road.

Let it Be was released later, but recorded earlier.

Abbey Road, their final thoughts. Life and music and politics and love. Kinda like the final thoughts of a bunch of authors I know.

And what a beautiful, complex set of songs the Beatles left for us in Abbey Road. From the whimsical Octopus's Garden to the dark, atonal Because, and the long medley that begins with You Never Give Me Your Money and climaxes at The End, with wild tangents along the way, growing, evolving, escalating toward those final words, the words that sum it all up, that boil it down to the essential truth: "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

When I was in college, in music school, I used to skip my sight-singing & ear-training class and hide in the campus music library where I listened to Abbey Road, over and over and over again. Upon receiving my D in the class, my instructor asked me why I rarely showed up. I told him what I'd been doing. He stared into space for a moment, then nodded. "I can see that," he said. "You picked good teachers."

The Beatles were diverse, ever-changing, impossible to categorize, and full of surprises.

When I look at the seven-year life of Murderati I can't help but think about the music of The Beatles. Billed as a site where mystery-thriller authors marketed their books and shared stories about their adventures in publishing, Murderati grew into something more, a collection of diverse voices sharing their opinions on everything under the stars. Filled with surprises, Murderati was diverse, ever-changing and impossible to categorize. Exactly the kind of organization/disorganization I can relate to. And, like The Beatles, the members of Murderati are deliciously talented. I've sat amazed and overwhelmed by the insightful discussion I've read here. The dialogue and dialectic. It's the Algonquin Round Table of the mystery sect, and I feel fortunate and honored to have had a spot in the room.

I'm lucky I got in when I did, to have a few years to write my 111 blogs. A number, by the way, that has always been magical for me. Three ones. It has become a tradition in my family to wish each other "Happy Anniversary!" each time we see the clock change to 1:11. It began with my wife and I after we took a romantic trip to Santa Fe and spent an evening at Ten Thousand Waves in a hot tub under the stars. The number on the door to our private room was 111. The "Happy Anniversary" was our little ritual and it spread to the kids when the kids came 'round.

So, it's seems symbolic that my final blog for Murderati is 111.

I've always loved the fact that Murderati was a living thing, a place where artists moved into and out of. Authors came and went, but their words remained. It's refreshing to know that the words will always be there, archived, for us to reference years into the future. Murderati remains as a testament to our time, to the world of publishing as it was. It's a fascinating freeze-frame of the state of our art as things moved into the digital age. The excitement and fear of this moment are captured in our postings. Murderati exists as an historical reference to one of the greatest times of change ever experienced in the world of publishing.

I'm glad a number of past authors have come by to say goodbye. These are the folks who were here before and during my time, and I've missed their voices on the blog. It feels like a family reunion.

I only feel sorry that the site can't continue as it has these past seven years, so that current readers of the blog could experience the joy of becoming Murderati bloggers themselves. It seems unfair to them, most of all.

I will miss this place.

But it doesn't have to be so serious and sad. Even The Beatles, with their heavy message at the end, let us know that the final word, after the final word, was something else entirely.

Fourteen seconds after the end of The End comes the strike of a chord and the start of a silly little ditty called Her Majesty. A slap-happy, tongue-in-cheek drinking song that ends on the upbeat of an incomplete measure and reminds us that The Beatles, as deep and inventive as they were, simply wanted to have fun.

Because, if you're not having fun, what's the point?

I hope you've all had fun here. I have. I hope you've allowed yourself the opportunity to be silly and whimsical. I certainly have. Sometimes humor offers the greatest insight. After all, it's the flip-side of tragedy, and no one knows that better than the authors and readers of the mystery-thriller community.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the yellow submarine has arrived, and there's room for one more.

Happy Anniversary!

                                             *     *     *

(Remember to pop by this weekend for postings by past-Murderati authors)

                                             *     *     *

Oh, and if you're going to attend the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC this weekend, I'll be moderating a panel called "Crime Fiction: Secrets and Spies" with Philip Kerr, Eric Van Lustbader and Tom Epperson on Sunday at 12:30.  And I'll be signing at the Book Soup booth, also on Sunday, at 3:00 pm.  Hope to see you there!

Lost For Words

Zoë Sharp

The title for this, my last ever Murderati post, came easily. And then I was stuck.

I'm all out

of clever things

to say

I am genuinely lost for the right words to express how I feel about the end of this era. Part of me is desolate. The friends I’ve made on Murderati have been wonderful and I hope we won’t lose touch but I fear that may happen so easily. Time just seems to disappear. The last time I turned around it was Christmas. Now we’re well into Spring and CrimeFest in Bristol is only weeks away.

Writing for Murderati has been hard in the way that I find all writing hard — because I want to do my best and therefore I sweat and swear over it. I can’t bring myself to do a ‘I couldn’t think of anything so here’s some rehashed old stuff’ type of post. Sometimes I felt I missed the mark entirely but on those occasions when you seemed to like what I’d written it reminded me so strongly why I do this. Not just the blogging but the whole writing thing.

After all, there are far easier ways to make a living.

I’ll never shake that feeling of wonderment when I get kind comments on my writing and my books on Facebook or via email. I hope very much that I’ll continue to hear from everyone — writers and readers and all the friends I’ve made.

But Facebook — and more especially Twitter — is designed for one-liners rather than anything more substantial. Are we losing the longer more thoughtful — and more thought-provoking — blogs to this Brave New sound-bite World? And is that what you prefer?

How many of you still read blogs regularly, or how many of you have graduated to grazing from your Twitter or Facebook feeds?

One of my favourite parts of blogging here has always been choosing a Word of the Week. Well, as I won’t be doing that here any longer I thought I’d leave you with a selection:

Adoxography — the art of skilled writing on an unimportant subject.

Batrachophagous — one who eats frogs.

Charientism — an artfully veiled insult.

Defenestrate — to throw out of a window.

Exsibilation — the collective hisses of a disapproving audience.

Filipendulous — suspended by a single thread.

Gymnophoria — the sensation that someone is mentally undressing you.

Hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian — pertaining to extremely long words.

Inaniloquent — saying foolish things.

Jumentous — smelling like horse urine.

Knismesis­ — light tickling.

Lethologica — the inability to recall a precise word for something.

Mallemaroking — the carousing of seamen aboard Greenland whaling ships.

Nudiustertian — pertaining to the day before yesterday.

Onychophagy  — the habit of biting one’s fingernails.

Petrichor — the smell of rain on dry ground.

Qualtagh — the first person you see after leaving your house.

Recumbentibus — a knockout blow, either verbal or physical.

Skoptsy — the act of self-castration.

Tarantism — an urge to overcome melancholia by dancing.

Ultracrepidarian — one of speaks or offers opinions on matters of which they have no knowledge.

Vigesimation — the act of killing every twentieth person.

Wanweird — an unhappy fate.

Xenobombulate — to malinger.

Yclept — by the name of or called.

Zabernism — the misuse of military authority or bullying.

Thanks to Unusual Words for these. That’s all from me, folks. Thank you all so much. It’s been a blast hasn’t it?

Hope to see you on the Other Side.