Malice (Way After) Thoughts

I had intended to post these thoughts last Wednesday, just a few days after coming home from Malice, but I was deluged with client work and chores.

Attendance

This was my first Malice. In fact, except for some Edgar Week panels I attended in 2000, this was my first conference. I loved it! There were lots of panels, lots of attendees, and lots of inspiring talk about writing and reading and mysteries.

But despite my first-timer’s impression, attendance was apparently down from previous years. What does this mean? Does it reflect the reduced interest in cozies and traditionals that we keep hearing about? A reduced interest in reading in general? Or was it perhaps just due to a tightened economy? If the first, should I put my amateur-sleuth mystery in a drawer and start writing a thriller?

No. After more years as a book publishing professional that I care to admit to, I know that trends come and go. Like plots, there are only so many, and like miniskirts, each one always comes back into style. I’ll continue to work on my book, and when I finish it, I’ll start another—perhaps in the same subgenre, perhaps in a different one. If it doesn’t sell now, I’ll have something ready to go when the publishers are interested again.

Renewed Determination

Malice is a readers’ conference, not a writers’ conference. The panels are slanted toward readers, there are no agent pitch sessions, there are no editors prowling the hallways. But I accomplished my purposes: (1) to support my friends who were up for awards, (2) to meet in person some of the people I’ve become friendly with online over the past several years, and (3) to chase away the last shreds of doubt and guilt over my decision to devote substantially more of my work time to my own book and less to client projects. Perhaps next year, when I’ll have two books ready to circulate, I’ll go to Sleuthfest or Bouchercon, but this year I’m extremely happy I chose Malice.

David Skibbins Wants You

One of the panels I attended, “Devious Devices: What Makes Their Sleuthing Unique,” included David Skibbins, author of the Tarot Card Mystery Series, featuring amateur sleuth Warren Ritter. Skibbins’s first book about Ritter, Eight of Swords, won the Malice Domestic/St. Martin’s Press Best First Mystery Competition in 2004. The second book in the series, High Priestess, is currently available in paperback; the third book, The Star, is out in hardcover; and the fourth, Hanged Man, is coming out in August. A pretty standard publishing history. Until now.

Skibbins is inviting his fans to help write book five. After he posts a chapter on the blog on his website, fans can leave comments with suggestions about where the book should go next. The suggestions can be about anything—characters, plot twists, red herrings, whatever. Sound intriguing? To join the fun, just hop on over to Skibbins’s website.

Reality Check

The weekend of Malice Domestic, Washington, D.C. recorded the highest number of murders in one weekend in many years. On Saturday alone, four people were shot within a period of four hours. According to yesterday’s Washington Post, 18 people were murdered in the month of April. If you’re writing a light-hearted or humorous murder mystery, this really makes you stop and think.

Are We There Yet?

A major topic of conversation among the people who drove to Malice was how utterly horrible the last leg of the trip was. With all the money we’ve been spending on the conflict in the Mideast and toilet seats for Air Force One, why can’t we afford to put up a few highway markers in our nation’s capital? I ended up in bumper-to-bumper traffic halfway back to Baltimore because I didn’t realize the highway I was on was the wrong one. I had to pull off the road and look back over my shoulder at the sign marking the highway’s entrance to figure out what route it was. Later on, after having trouble finding the correct exit, I ended up in the Pentagon parking lot, stopping a very kind man in a uniform that had lots of stars and stripes and bling. His directions were perfect.

Perhaps this is why attendance at Malice was down this year? Perhaps some no-shows are still wandering, lost and hopeless, up and down and around Washington.