Magic Spreadsheet!

I'm a big fan of the Magic Spreadsheet, put together by Tony Pisculli and made famous by Mur Lafferty. (Thanks Tony & Mur!)

http://murverse.com/tag/magic-spreadsheet/
http://swimmingcatstudios.com/2013/06/02/what-is-the-magic-spreadsheet/


I was in a group of authors that put one together a few months ago and my writing count soared!  That sheet sort of fell apart - some folks just don't work the same way - but my productivity is definitely better when I touch it every day.

Putting up a new one now.  Just ping me at mrchrstn@yahoo.com if you're interested in being part of it.

Street Team

I'm looking to build a street team to harvest Amazon reviews! I'm giving stuff away!

It's simple:

• Review any one story and I'll send you a digital copy of any other story free! Wash, rinse and repeat until you run out of stories!
• Review all three stories and get:
• Physical copies of all three stories...or...this cool Sherlock Dracula mug!
• Digital copies of any and all Sherlock stories! (Present and future.)

Just email me at mrchrstn@yahoo.com with the review name and the info I'll need to send you stuff!

Nei boschi narrativi vittoriani: i casi letterari di Sherlock Holmes

Was very intrigued the other day when a student from Italy contacted me and requested permission to use Sherlock Holmes and Count Dracula: the Adventure of the Solitary Grave in her dissertation.  She very kindly sent me a translation (as I don't read Italian, sadly).  It had some very kind and interesting things to say.

Here's a  spoiler-free excerpt: (in English)

--Christian Klaver is an American writer of short stories of science and fantasy fiction, who published a collection of short stories entitled The Supernatural Casefiles of Sherlock Holmes. The adventure that I analyzed is a pleasant reading and the book was well received by critics and people in the web. The American author Amy Sturgis considers it "an unexpectedly rich and satisfying Sherlock Holmes-meets-Count Dracula tale" and blogger Suzanne Lazear, specializing in Holmesian pastiche, writes: "This blending of two major Victorian characters is written in a style so seamless you can almost believe it was found in the attic of one of Doyle’s editors".

--The narrator John Watson goes with the reader through the streets of Victorian London in a short novel that hits the mark.   [Edit: a longish short-story might be a better term.]

--Through an intense writing, Watson addresses the reader from the first line of the novel and gives him a share of his emotions

-- The main conflict is between the irrationality of the vampirism and the rationality embodied by Dr. Watson and Holmes

I'll include the full dissertation, but it's spoilerriffic, for those that don't want to know the plot yet.  You can contact Maria Cristina Tamagnini at mcristinatamagnini@hotmail.it

Thanks again, Maria, for the kind words!

This is a great article.  I usually skim through writing advice.  Partly because you can spend forever reading such stuff and partly because a lot of it is horribly, misguidedly, hilariously wrong for me.  Maybe right for someone else, but that's another thought.

The good stuff, the appropriate stuff, is worth reading through repeatedly, burning it down deeper and deeper, through and past your brain.  I agree with all six points.  I've heard them before, but still worth reading.

by Diana Peterfreund

http://www.genreality.net/the-end

I'm in the guest spot for the not-as-cannibalistic-as-it-sounds 'Eating Authors':

http://www.lawrencemschoen.com/plugs/eating-authors-christian-klaver/

Lawrence is a Campbell Award nominee, Hugo Award nominee, Nebula Award nominee, Klingonist and entertaining to be on panels with.  Check him out!

Estleman writes some of my favorite novel openings of all time. Like: "You hear some grotesque things about what happens to a man when he’s hanged; how his face turns black and his neck stretches to three feet and he soils himself, and it’s all true, except you never hear about the smell." - The Stranglers

Or "I was killing a conducter on the Northern Pacific between Butte and Garrison when my orders changed." - Port Hazard

Or this: "Forty years have passed, and I still can’t look at a game of billiards without thinking that’s the game that got me shot in Canada. I don’t mind telling you it’s spoiled me for indoor sports." - White Desert

Tough guy gold.

By the way, I'm just now starting The Stranglers, and I think it's my fav of his so far.  (Possibly not counting his Holmes vs. Dracula pastiche.  

Oho! Might finally straighten this issue out!

Sherlock Holmes: A Step Closer to Being Ruled in the Public Domain

www.hollywoodreporter.com

In February, Leslie Klinger, the author of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, brought a lawsuit in Illinois 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The public domain issue, I mean. I'm not sure it's possible to straighten Elementary out. Zing!