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.

Zoë Sharp

“I’m sure Zoë will be in a much sunnier frame of mind tomorrow—or pretend she is. So stiff-upper-lip, that woman. Bless her murderous little heart.”

Hmm, thank you to David Corbett for that impossible introduction in his Murderati  blog yesterday. How to respond? If I wail and gnash my teeth, I’m being a wuss. If I carry on like nothing’s happened, I’m conforming to a racial stereotype. Ah well.

The truth is that I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the end of such an era as Murderati. This is my hundred-and-fiftieth blog here and for that reason alone it feels slightly momentous. It would seem that only JT Ellison, Pari Noskin Taichert and Alexandra Sokoloff have written more on these pages. I had no idea I’d been quietly scribbling away to such an extent.

Things have certainly changed for me since Ken Bruen first invited me to join the crew here. I hope I’ve grown as a writer—that every book has shown some slight increase in understanding the pursuit of a craft that’s ruled my life since I was about twelve.

I hope I’ve learned even more to value the friendship of other authors—those here and elsewhere. Mainly we connect via the internet. By Facebook and Twitter and goodreads. We email and support each other via Killer Thrillers and The Hardboiled Collective. But getting to sit and talk at conventions both here and in the States is always a pleasure. That’s why the bar at Bouchercon is always so crowded until the wee small hours. It’s not so much the drink as the craic, as they say.

But most of all I love the contact this blog has given me with people who love stories, who become totally wrapped up in the characters’ lives and whose enthusiasm for what we do never fails to give me a boost and a very large cheesy grin.

Like David yesterday, I can’t help taking the loss of Murderati hard. I too feel a personal failing—if only I’d been funnier, more insightful, more heartfelt, less insubstantial, then maybe the decision would not have been made to archive and shelve and preserve this like hold baggage not required on journey.

On the other hand is it better to go out with a bang than fade away? Better to go out on a high rather than jumping the shark? Or—even more silly than that—future-16th-president-of-the-United-States-with-axe-versus-vampire-during-horse-stampede fight from the truly laughable Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

So, this month will indeed be the Long Goodbye from Murderati, but I hope not from the contributors who have had the privilege to take this road, and from all those who have walked with us.

And if all else fails:

This week’s Word of the Week comes courtesy of my Twitter pal Jon Cooper. It’s ultracrepidarian which is a person in the habit of giving opinions, criticism or advice on matters outside his or her expertise. Well, we’re all guilty of that occasionally aren’t we?

Zoë Sharp

They say the best recommendation is word of mouth—a personal tip from someone you know and whose judgement you trust. But increasingly these days we find ourselves connecting with people in a less personal way as more and more of us take to shopping online.

Global economies are tanking as the rich get richer and the rest of us have to cope as best we can. It all boils down to the price of everything without taking the cost into account. We buy online because they don’t have high street overheads and it’s invariably cheaper, and because the high street is losing out on sales it becomes a sad collection of boarded-up windows, charity shops and bargain basements. Personal service seems to be a thing of the past. Soon we won’t have to speak to another real human being during our daily lives at all.

After all, we can order just about anything including our groceries over the internet. Our books, our music, buy insurance, search for a house. And if we do choose to go out we withdraw money from the cashpoint machine without going into a bank. If we do venture inside we’re being encouraged to use the automated deposit slots instead of waiting for a cashier window to become free.

We drive to the petrol station and pay at the pump instead of needing to go inside the kiosk and interact with the person behind the till. And even if we do they’re behind a reinforced glass screen. One supermarket chain near me will only let you pay at the pump and has no attendants at all.

Speaking of supermarkets there seem to be fewer tills open and more self-service lanes so even if we do decide to shop in person for our vegetables there’s no need to interact with an actual person in order to do so.

I wonder if the standard of salesmanship is partly to blame. The last time I tried shopping for electronics in a bricks-and-mortar store the sales staff could only tell me what was written on the side of the box rather than offering any informed opinions of their own. As I learned to read some years ago it seemed a bit pointless to pay a premium for the privilege of having someone else do it for me.

And when I go into a bookstore I love the insights and enthusiasms of the staff. Sadly, most UK independent bookstores I’ve been into offer no contact with the customers other than a bored, “Thanks,” as I open the door to leave empty-handed and if questioned they know less about the books than I do.

I will always pay extra for good service and solid expertise but not for lacklustre indifference, so I’ve gradually switched to doing more and more of my purchasing online too. The rest of Britain is very much the same. In fact, we in the UK are switching our allegiance online at one of the highest rates in the world. In 2010 we made 13.5% of all our purchases over the internet. By 2016 this is predicted to be 23%.

A survey reported on the BBC Business News last year suggested that while only 25% of us would give up sex for a year to maintain our internet connection instead, 65% would give up alcohol, 76% chocolate and 78% would forego coffee.

So, what do YOU buy online that until recently you would have gone out for to a real store. And why have you made the swap? Would anything make you go back to reality shopping for those items rather than virtual? Is there anything you would NEVER see yourself buying online? And finally, what would YOU give up to keep hold of your internet connection or are you sometimes glad to be without it?

This week’s Word of the Week is floccinaucinihilipilification, meaning the categorizing of something that is useless or trivial.

Zoë Sharp

This week for the first time I came across mention of a guy called Theodore Levitt. And having done so I’m ashamed that I had not heard of him before. He was a German-born American economist and editor of the Harvard Business Review. Among his other achievements Mr Levitt wrote an article called Marketing Myopia in which he raises some fascinating points about business—particularly big business—and why it fails.

Mr Levitt points out that “the history of every dead and dying ‘growth’ industry shows a self-deceiving cycle of bountiful expansion and undetected decay.” At some point every industry can be said to be booming but then it dies away. Usually this is because markets change and the industry fails to adapt, or because they become so fixated on mass-producing and selling their existing product that they no longer concentrate on the wants or needs of those buying that product.

Henry Ford is credited with inventing the first mass-production line for his cars. In fact, his real genius was looking at what his customers—or potential customers—wanted and realising that if he could sell a car for $500 he could sell millions of them. The production line grew out of that need to cut costs in order to sell at such a low price, but the marketing strategy came first.

Mr Levitt examines the railroad industry in the States, which he suggests fell into decline because it saw itself firmly as being in the railroad business instead of in the transportation business. It thought about what it was producing, not what its customers wanted, which was simply to get themselves and their goods from A to B as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Likewise, the petroleum industry is really in the energy business, whether that incorporates gas, nuclear, solar or geothermal energy. To cling to the past will ensure that new giants emerge and eventually kick the old giants to the kerb.

The long and the short of it is if you think of yourself as producing a product rather than satisfying a customer you are eventually doomed to failure.

But the most remarkable thing about all this is that Theodore Levitt wrote Marketing Myopia in 1960. It seems very little has been learned since then.

Three years ago a website called Digital Marketing summarized Mr Levitt’s original piece with the additional comparison of Hollywood and the TV industry. Those Hollywood studios who saw themselves as producing movies and nothing else have floundered. Those who moved into other areas of the entertainment industry seem to have, on the whole, thrived. (And I realise there will always be exceptions to this rule.)

That brings me to authors and books. To me I am not a producer of books I am a teller of stories. How people absorb those stories is almost immaterial—it could be via hardcover, paperback, car stereo, MP3 player, iPod, Kindle, tablet, PC, smartphone or cortical implant—and I can see that happening in my lifetime, I can tell you. At the end of the day it’s the story that matters, not the delivery system.

So, are publishers providers of stories to people who want to read them, or are they producers of books? And are the markets led by what the publishers want to sell to that reading public, or what the reading public wants to buy?

In bookstores in the States I am always amazed by the number of categories and genres into which books are divided up. In the UK it tends to be Crime & Thriller and True Crime. In the USA there are far more to go at, from Cosy to Hardboiled to Noir to PI, Police Procedural to Amateur Sleuth, Woman-in-Jeopardy, Serial Killer, Bodyguard, Vigilante, Investigative Reporter, Slasher/Shocker … the list is endless.

And now of course we have far more crossover with vampire detectives, werewolf private eyes, ghosts, zombies, witches, wizards and otherworldly beings who delve into the life (or undeath) of crime. Your main protagonist is just as likely to be keeping the peace on a distant space station as at a California Hellmouth, or use magic rather than deductive reasoning.

This all leaves me with some interesting questions. Who is leading the market now? With such a wealth and breadth of cross-genres and sub-genres out there, are readers finding more of exactly what they want (even if previously it fell between the cracks of established categories) or less?

Do you feel mainstream crime books are tending to crowd into a mould of what has been previously successful, or are we seeing more imaginative themes being explored? Has the indie/self-publishing revolution given you more choice? Or is it simply harder to find what you’re looking for because of sheer volume?

What do YOU, as a reader, want to read?

This week’s Word of the Week is hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian, meaning pertaining to extremely long words.

Zoë Sharp

Confession time. I last worked in an office environment—as in working for somebody else—twenty-five years ago. All I had on my desk back then was an electric typewriter and a landline telephone. The answering machine still had tape cassettes in it. I got to work in the mornings worked all day and went home at five-thirty.

OK, it was not without its occasional moments of drama, like the time I accidently got locked into the building one night and had to climb out of a upper-storey window and then scramble across rooftops to freedom. Or the time, one week into a new job, when the boss said, “Right, we’re off on holiday next week. If the bailiffs arrive while we’re away don’t let them take anything …”

But generally the biggest no-nos were arriving late or sneaking off early. People didn’t even leave their desks to have a smoke. In fact I used to work sandwiched between two people who both chain-smoked and would leave cigarettes burning in their ashtrays while they nipped out on some errand. They didn’t like it when I stubbed them out in their absence. My excuse was if I had to smoke passively while they were around then I was damned if I was going to do it while they weren’t.

My how things have changed. (Eeh, I remember when all this were fields, etc.)

And when I set up in business on my own as a freelance photojournalist back in 1988 my word processor was an Amstrad 9512 that had no internal memory and required the insertion of a Start-of-Day disk to remember what it was in the mornings.

If there was a mouse anywhere near it, it would have looked like this:

I was pretty technologically advanced by owning a computer at all I can tell you! Not to mention my Motorola brick phone. Groovy, man.

Distractions were simpler in those days. They involved staring out of the window:

And game of solitaire meant shuffling the deck before you began:

Early computer games were not exactly Call of Duty:

But now we’re overwhelmed with daily distractions. If it wasn’t for rapidly encroaching deadlines could spend so long getting sidetracked every day I could practically walk like a crab:

But that can sometimes be a good thing, and I thought I’d share with you some of my favourite time-wasting sites:

They Fight Crime!

“He’s a shy zombie photographer trapped in a world he never made. She’s a supernatural French-Canadian bodyguard who inherited a spooky stately manor from her late maiden aunt. They fight crime!”

Scruzzleword

I’m hopeless at crossword puzzles, but somehow I can’t leave this one alone.

Internet Movie DataBase

Always on my favourites’ list for when I want to know obscure facts. Did you know that Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, director of The Tourist is 6’8¾”?

What is your Pro Wrestling Name?

Mine came out as Full Metal Darkshadow, or the Diva alternative was Titanic Callgirl. How about you?

But just in case wrestling is not your thing, how about your Blues Name? Mine’s Steel Eye Davis.

So help me out here—or sink me deeper—what procrastination aids do you use to while away the help you concentrate while you’re mulling over a storyline?

And please excuse the BSP but the new trade paperback edition of KILLER INSTINCT: Charlie Fox book one, complete with Foreword by Lee Child, is now available. Hurrah!

‘Susie Hollins may have been no great shakes as a karaoke singer, but I didn’t think that was enough reason for anyone to want to kill her.’

“The bloody bar fights are bloody brilliant”―Marilyn Stasio, New York Times

This week’s Word of the Week is librocubicularist, which is someone who reads in bed.

And finally, don’t miss out on six free e-books by top authors including Murderatos past and present JD Rhoades and Alexandra Sokoloff, plus CJ Lyons, Karen Dionne, Grant MacKenzie and Keith Raffel. Feb 20-22nd! Get ’em while they’re hot!

Zoë Sharp

Since Christmas I’ve been editing a new book that’s a real departure for me. It’s a supernatural thriller rather than straightforward crime, although it starts with the brutal murder of a young girl and charts the effect this has on her parents and those caught up in the events that follow.

If asked to sum it up in a sentence, I would say it’s about a supernatural assassin who you summon with grief but pay with your soul.

A far cry from the close-protection world of my series character, Charlie Fox.

It’s not that I’m intending to move away from the series, far from it. DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten is just out and I’m planning the next instalment. Plus I keep receiving wonderful emails and comments on Facebook and Twitter from people who have either been reading the books from the start, or have only recently stumbled into Charlie’s world and are loving it. I don’t say this in any way to brag, but to express my own humbled delight that so many people actually seem to like what I do. Any writer will tell you this can be a constant source of amazement.

Without readers we are merely talking nonsense in an empty room.

But the new book is substantially different and that worries me just a little. It deals with the supernatural, for a start, with Buddhist philosophy and Catholic doctrine thrown in. It has an ensemble cast—a misfit group who band together to fight against an ancient evil, each for reasons of their own. As mentioned, it starts with murder, and there’s a strong theme of retribution and its consequences. But apart from the fact that it features a strong female protagonist, one who is prepared to make any sacrifice to do what she believes is right, it’s a very different story from anything I’ve written so far.

I’m nearly done with the edits. I’ve made substantial changes from the first draft, which is another departure for me. Normally I would self-edit as I go along and not make sweeping alterations after that. But this time I think—well, I hope, anyway—that it’s lifted the whole of the narrative up a level. I could be right, or hopelessly misguided. At this stage it’s impossible to make any kind of value judgement.

One thing’s for sure, though. For me it’s a total leap in the dark.

So, ’Rati. How willing are you to read something totally different from an author you’ve previously enjoyed, even if it’s maybe not a genre you’ve tried before?

What was the last leap of faith you made? And how did it work out for you?

This week’s Word of the Week is hagiography, which used to mean the biography of saints or venerated persons, but has now come to mean any biography which over-idealises or idolises its subject.

Zoë Sharp

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I find writing a synopsis the most difficult part of being a writer. But it’s also the most vital.

Even if you’re a seat-of-the-pants kind of writer, who sets out with an idea and runs with it until the end, you may still have to produce a synopsis after the event, in order to sell your masterpiece to a publisher.

If you go searching the subject, you’ll find almost too many websites, blog sites and articles to count. I’ve been hunting around and tried to come up with a general consensus of the advice that’s out there. Please feel free to add, contradict or explain your own theories!

If you’re a plotter to begin with, then you will probably already have the original outline you used as the backbone of your story. If you’re anything like me, though, by the time you’ve finished it will be covered in crossings-out and pencil alterations. So, your first job is to produce a clean, accurate outline.

I go through my manuscript as I’m writing and do a summary of each chapter or scene. A few lines, an idea of who’s doing what, and what might be happening behind the scenes to be picked up later. This is more for my own consumption than anyone else’s, however. It will not make the story sound particularly exciting, but it’s extremely useful when it comes to edits, because I can make my alterations to the summary and then transfer them to the manuscript itself.

But, I also write the jacket copy synopsis. This gives me a tight view of the book as a whole, and reminds me of the thrust of the story. The jacket copy synopsis I wrote for DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten, is this:

In the sweating heat of Louisiana, former Special Forces soldier turned bodyguard, Charlie Fox, faces her toughest challenge yet.

Professionally, she’s at the top of her game, but her personal life is in ruins. Her lover, bodyguard Sean Meyer, has woken from a gunshot-induced coma with his memory in tatters. It seems that piecing back together the relationship they shared is proving harder for him than relearning the intricacies of the close-protection business.

Working with Sean again was never going to be easy for Charlie, either, but a celebrity fundraising event in aid of still-ravaged areas of New Orleans should have been the ideal opportunity for them both to take things nice and slow.

Until, that is, they find themselves thrust into the middle of a war zone.

When an ambitious robbery explodes into a deadly hostage situation, the motive may be far more complex than simple greed. Somebody has a major score to settle, and Sean is part of the reason. Only trouble is, he doesn’t remember why.

And when Charlie finds herself facing a nightmare from her own past, she realises she can’t rely on Sean to watch her back. This time, she’s got to fight it out on her own.

One thing’s for certain, though. No matter how overwhelming the odds stacked against her, or however hopeless the situation may appear, Charlie is never going to die easy.

A taster, yes, but this is NOT really a description of exactly what happens in the book, so not really a synopsis in its true sense. But at the same time it’s relatively simple, it mentions only two characters by name, so it’s not too confusing, and it gives you a pretty reasonable idea of who, what, where, why, and the conflicts faced by the main character, both physical and emotional. Plus the present-tense gives it an immediacy and impact.

At the beginning I include the detail about Charlie because I never assume people know the character. And I make sure I include the word ‘her’ so people don’t get confused from the start that she’s a woman.

But to take this and turn it into the kind of synopsis I could show to a publisher means a LOT more work.

For me, the main jobs of a synopsis are to get across the following:

The theme.

The basic elements of the plot and what makes it different from other, possibly similar storylines the editor’s seen before. And NEVER say ‘and there’s this great twist ending’ without actually telling them what the ending is. They’re the experts. They’ll decide if it’s great or another cliché they’ve seen a million times before.

The attraction of the protagonist to a jaded reader.

If the subject or setting is topical or different or otherwise interesting.

To show that the writer can put together a good story, and write it in a stylish and gripping way.

So, to this end a synopsis should include the following:

The Hook―why is this book worth reading?

The Characters―what are their motivations, their emotions and the crises that challenge them?

The Story―told in a brief but enthusiastic way, as you’d describe a great movie you just saw to a friend who you’re trying to convince to go and see it. What happens, how the characters react, and what are the after-effects. Not, ‘the bad guys robbed the bank and then the good guys caught them, the end’.

The Climax―the event at which the protagonist overcomes or succumbs.

The Resolution.

But this is not often one linear story. There are different elements that have to be considered and combined. First is the basic story itself:

What’s the incident or action that kicks the whole thing into motion?

What are the main events that put obstacles into the path of the protagonist?

What is the climax to the story?

What is the resolution to the story? Not the same as the climax. The climax could be the big fight scene on a sinking riverboat on the Mississippi. The resolution is what happens once the characters get back to New York and events have had time to hit home.

Then there’s your protagonist’s story:

Who is he/she? What drives them. What do they want―or want to avoid―and what’s preventing them from achieving this?

What situation or incident brings about change in their life?

How are they affected by the events of the book?

What is the ongoing effect on the protagonist’s life at the end?

And, of course, the story of your other characters:

Who is the antagonist―what do they want?

How do they attempt to achieve their goals and what obstacles to they put in the path of the protagonist in order to do so?

Are they changed by the events of the story, or do they bring about change in the protagonist because of their actions?

The relationships within the story:

What are they at the start?

How do they develop or change during the course of the book?

How are they tested, changed or broken by the climax?

How are they different at the end?

And finally, people get hung up on the length of a synopsis. Brief is good, but not if it makes the thing boring. Better to go to two pages and grab somebody than stick to one and send them to sleep. Theme and effects are more important, I feel, than a blow-by-blow of the action. The main events should be enough.

Use readable font size rather than trying to squeeze as much in as possible by going to 6pt. Single or double spacing? I always use 1.5, but that’s personal preference. Some people also advocate putting a character’s name in capitals the first time it appears. Again, this is personal preference, but I would make sure that character is always described the same way throughout. Not by first name, profession, and then surname―too confusing.

 And just in case this has left you eager to put together a brief story of your own, I’m very pleased to mention the Flashbang Flash Fiction Competition 2013. Sponsored by CrimeFest. £2 entry free. 150 words maximum. Deadline March 1^st 2013. First prize is two free passes to CrimeFest. Shortlisted and winning stories published online. Full details here.

This week’s Word of the Week is deus ex Meccano, which is a kit of metal bits and pieces which allows you to construct the ending to your book :))

Zoë Sharp

“From what I’ve seen of you, Zoë, you treat people with a respect you somehow do not expect to receive yourself.”

This was said to me a month or so ago by someone I’ve known for a long time, if not closely. I had no idea he’d observed me well enough to form such an opinion one way or another.

My first instinct was denial. Or not quite denial but certainly qualification. Respect is not something that can be expected—not in the present world.

It has to be worked for, earned.

And once you have it, you can’t simply hang it above the fireplace like a dusty stag’s head trophy and expect admiration from all comers. It has to be carefully maintained or the moths will turn it into little more than a memory.

“I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking of me … All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”―Jackie Robinson

Respect is a living entity, always shifting, always in motion—much like the stag before someone shot and stuffed it.

One false move, and it’s gone.

I respect someone who has a no-nonsense competence without allowing their ego to enter the equation. It should be possible to be good at what you do without making yourself thoroughly unpleasant in the process.

But it seems to me that modern society will break down not because of some great catastrophe, but because of a series of tiny personal injustices. How many times recently have you experienced the following?

~Watched someone pick up a piece of litter they did not drop?

~Been let out into traffic by someone who had to inconvenience themselves to do so, rather than because they had to stop anyway?

~Been thanked by someone you’ve let out into traffic when you had to inconvenience yourself to do so, rather than because you had to stop anyway?

~Have a door held open?

~Had a car slow down to pass you walking along a wet road so you weren’t splashed?

~Been invited to go ahead by the person before you at the supermarket checkout because they’re shopping for a siege and you have only a few items?

These may seem like trivial examples—and indeed they are—but they are also the niceties of civilisation that make us human.

So, ’Rati, what petty injustices have you witnessed recently, or what random small acts of kindness?

Instead of a Word of the Week, this time round I have a selection of quotations on the subject of respect—or lack of it.

“You should respect each other and refrain from disputes; you should not, like water and oil, repel each other, but should, like milk and water, mingle together.”―Buddha

“They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.”―Mohandas K. Gandhi

“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”―Richard Bach

“Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”―Malcom X

“If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.”―Winston Churchill

“I get no respect. The way my luck is running, if I was a politician I would be honest.”―Rodney Dangerfield

“Men are so willing to respect anything that bores them.”―Marilyn Monroe

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.”―Lao Tzu

“I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.”―Edward Gibbon

“To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.”―Voltaire

“In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society, it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob.”―Salvador Dali

“I do respect people’s faith, but I don’t respect their manipulation of that faith in order to create fear and control.”―Javier Bardem

“Respect for ourselves guides our morals, respect for others guides our manners.”―Laurence Sterne

“I don’t have a lot of respect for talent. Talent is genetic. It’s what you do with it that counts.”―Martin Ritt

“I respect my limitations, but I don’t use them as an excuse.”―Stephen R. Donaldson

“If you are killed because you are a writer, that’s the maximum expression of respect, you know.”―Mario Vargas Llosa

‘“With the greatest respect,” I said. Always a nice phrase to use when you intend to speak without any.’―Charlie Fox

And on a slight note of BSP, <cough> this week saw the US publication of DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten.

“Zoë Sharp is one of the sharpest, coolest, and most intriguing writers I know. She delivers dramatic, action-packed novels with characters we really care about. And once again, in DIE EASY, Zoë Sharp is at the top of her game.”—New York Times best-seller, Harlan Coben