Rowing with The Boys in the Boat

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It's hard to find a good old-fashioned movie these days, isn't it? What we used to call a family movie, as in something you could take your kids to that isn't animated, and that grownups would enjoy as well. So for lots of reasons I was eager to see THE BOYS IN THE BOAT, and although we watched at it home, our daughter and son-in-law took our 8-year-old granddaughter to see it in the theater. 

And it is a good old-fashioned story, where you get to root for the remarkable achievements of the sporting underdogs. (Think Seabiscuit, with oars!!) and there is some nice history thrown in.

But what kept me glued to the screen was the rowing, because this is one of my not-so-secret fan girl passions, and the subject of one of my personal favorites out of all of my novels, NO MARK UPON HER. 

The book is set in Henley-on-Thames, where a female rower, who is also a police officer, is training for what she hopes is a comeback in the upcoming Olympics. When she is found murdered, Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid's boss orders him to investigate, and many twists and turns ensue. 

I spent a lot of time in Henley when I was researching this book. I even got to go out in a double scull with an Olympic gold medal-winning rower, Steve Williams OBE,. This was undoubtedly the scariest research thing I have ever done, but also the most fabulously exhilerating, and the most memorable. Even reading the opening passage in the book still gives me goosebumps, and I'm still chuffed that Stevie Williams said that I got everything just right.

And now back to THE BOYS IN THE BOAT. While the rowing scenes in the film are supposed to be in Washington and in Germany, they were actually filmed in and around Henley! I'm sure I drove my poor husband crazy all the way through the movie, saying, "Look! Look! That's Henley! That's the Thames!"

It was a lovely bit of novel-revisiting for me, so to celebrate I'm giving away a signed hardcover of NO MARK UPON HER to a commenter over on our REDS & READERS Facebook group!

How about it, REDs, have you seen the movie? Did you enjoy it? Any other recommendations for "family-friendly" recent fare?

P.S. I also highly recommend the non-fiction book on which the film is based, THE BOYS IN THE BOAT, by Daniel James Brown. It's a great story.

WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIN?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: When we were chatting recently about resolving to do things that were out of our comfort zones, I started wondering what we'd been willing to do for the sake of our novels.

Most of my research has been fairly tame, unless you count driving in the UK (which I do count as extremely challenging, most days) or walking around in the less salubrious parts of London, camera in hand.  I've done things like tasting whisky in the Scottish Highlands (fun, but not scary,) learning all about narrow boats on the English waterways (but sadly, I didn't get to actually go on one.) I suppose you might count walking down Brick Lane in London's East End after midnight on a Saturday night as wee bit dodgy, but not really terrifying.
But then, there was the rowing episode. Reading about competitive rowing was fun. Watching it--and the rowers--was even more fun. But then I got invited to actually go out on the Thames, at Henley, in a double scull with Olympic gold medalist rower Steve Williams. I blithely said, "Sure!"

And then spent the next two days quaking. I'm not athletic, or coordinated. My only experience in a boat with oars was in a canoe! I wasn't even sure I could get IN the boat without drowning, or worse yet, making a total fool of myself.

But I'm also stubborn, and there was no way I was going to back out. So I showed up for my rowing date with Steve Williams (who is the nicest, most patient guy imaginable, and the best teacher) and I did get in the boat, and I did go out on the river.

And you know what?  It was fabulous. Exhilarating. Maybe one of the best experiences of my life. And it sure did make the opening scene of NO MARK UPON HER feel real.

So I'm thinking, yeah, maybe we should push the envelope a little more often. What about you, REDS? What's the scariest thing you've done for research?  And would you do it again?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Hmmm, I think the scariest thing I've ever done in my writing career was giving a talk at the Philadelphia Flower Show. Not exactly life-threatening and not exactly what you meant, but I don't really deal in scary. I am totally jealous of your rowing experience though. That sounds like a blast!

DEBS: Hats off to you, Ro. Public speaking probably goes up there with sky-diving for most of us.

RHYS BOWEN: The one time I really pushed the envelope (apart from walking through the not-so-safe parts of New York City) was to agree to be an author-to-the bush in Alaska in winter. When I was in Anchorage for a convention the government decided to fly authors to remote communities to encourage young people there. I don't like small planes and said so. I was flown to Naknek on an eight seater and then to South Naknek, across the frozen river, on a two-seater. How much smaller can you get. I had to climb up an icy wing to enter. The seat belt was broken. It was sleeting heavily. On the way back I felt a little more confident and started taking pictures. "You want a closer look at that?" said the pilot with enthusiasm and dropped the plane alarmingly to within a few feet of the ground.

I also went ice fishing, dog sledding, snowmobiling. All were amazing experiences and I'm so glad I said YES.

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh Rhys, I went to the Bush in Alaska too. Only it wasn't really the bush...it was Homer, Alaska, and Lori Avocato and I stayed in a little bed and breakfast. A lovely experience meeting wonderful people, but I've always kind of wished I checked the boxes for small planes, sleeping on floors, eating whale, and pooping in a bucket...

My scariest experience for research? Playing with two real live professional women golfers in a tournament. I was terrified. But they were amazing, and like with your rowing Debs, I never could have gotten the details by standing on the sidelines.

HALLIE EPHRON: Rowing with a gold medalist. Flying to Back of Beyond Alaska. I have lived a very tame life by comparison. I once toured a brain bank. Another time I got into an MRI machine to see what a brain scan would be like. I test drove a GEM electric car -- though it never made it into the book. Toured a prison. None of it death defying.

DEBS: Lucy, I'd have been terrified. At least I wasn't competing, only hoping to stay afloat. Rhys AND Lucy, I so wanted to go to that Bouchercon in Alaska. We were going to make a family vacation of it, but the dates turned out to be too late for everything we wanted to do. I think my idea of adventure would have been closer to Lucy's, however. Rhys, I think you get the bravery gold medal here.  

But Hallie, I confess, I'm claustrophobic, and might rather go up in a small plane than be stuck in an MRI scanner.

What about you, readers? What have you done for your jobs that pushed your limits, and would you do it again? I'm going to give away a signed hardcover of NO MARK UPON HER to one of our commenters today, just because we think you all are pretty terrific.

P.S. And the winner of David Corbett's THE ART OF CHARACTER is Terri Herman-Ponce! Terri, if you'll email me your mailing address at deb at deborahcrombie dot com, I'll pass it along to David.  Congrats!
And just for

Deb Crombie is Making her MARK!

"Readers who savor excellent writing will find that Ms. Crombie delivers it again."

**New York Journal of Books

Hear that? It's the trumpet fanfare! It's fireworks!! See that? Its confetti! And watch this--its the Reds clinking champagne glasses to celebrate the publication of NO MARK UPON HER, the latest triumph from New York Times Best-selling Red Deborah Crombie.

Yes, yes, usually on Monday we chat among us all..and today is no different. Imagine us all--including you--sitting around someone's living room, each of us holding Debs' new book..and getting to ask anything we want! I'll start. And we're giving away a signed book to one lucky commenter!

(Oh and this just in: it's going to be a fun week on JRW. Nancy Martin. Joshilyn Jackson. And more! Who do you think of when we say: Cheese? Plus we wonder--does Father really know best?)

And now--Ta dah! Our fabulous Debs.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: There's not a person out there who doesn't think you're a Brit. Or hasn't at some point, tho

ught so I certainly did! I just have to ask: Debs, how did this all happen?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I don't know, I don't know! Is this the great unanswerable question of my life?? Some sort of weird swapped-at-birth, born-in- the-wrong-place thing?

Seriously, I think I can blame a good bit of it on public television. PBS began broadcasting in our market when I was eight years old, and I was completely hooked. I never missed a Masterpiece Theater (and read all the books upon which the adaptations were based, including all nine volumes of John Galsworthy's The Forsythe Saga. How, I don't know . . .) British comedies, mysteries, All Creatures Great and Small (I was such a James Herriott fan that my first book is set where he practiced in Yorkshire,) Monty Python (that was enough to warpyou for life) and then, of course, Dr. Who...

And then I read everything else British I could get my hands on. No logical reason for this passion. No one in my family was British or descended from British stock, as far as I know.

My parents took me to England as my graduation gift when I finished college. And that really was it. The minute I saw the checkered fields of Surrey spread out beneath us as we descended into Gatwick, I felt I'd come home. I still feel that way.

HANK: Well, we all fell in love with the Beatles, you know? And tried speaking with a British accent. But it didn't fly in Zionsville, Indiana. I went to England when I was--16? and adored it. But still... :-) But it sounds like you discovered more than you expected...

DEBS: It's very strange, but I'm certainly grateful for it.

After that first trip, I concentrated everything in my life on getting back, and I've been doing that in one way or another ever since.

HANK: It does seem like a--part of you was there, and you found it, you know? Kind of..spooky. In a good way, of course, Anyway, your new book instantly transports readers to another place..and off the bat, I must say it sounds as if you've immersed yourself in yet another surprising world. How'd you think of this? I mean, when was the moment you thought? ah. The River. And SAR.

DEBS: Two big things came together in No Mark Upon Her. Do you sort of have a jumble of ideas stewing aroun

d in your head all the time? Things you'd like to write about?

HANK: Jumble is precisely the word I'd choose! Or--chaos, or tangle. Hallie has what she calls a compost pile. (It's better than..no ideas, right?) So you do, too?

DEBS: Always. I actually call it "the soup." I'm continually throwing things in, then fishing out bits that might work together. I'd wanted to write about working dogs, and was fascinated by search and rescue. And somewhere, somehow, like Kieran, one of my characters, I fell in love with sculling and rowing. I can't remember the first time I saw a single sculler, or a rowing eight. (And if you don't know the difference between sculling and rowing, you will when you read the book, right, Hank?)

Anyway, was it Oxford? Ely? Or London, along Putney Reach? But I was enchanted. It looks so impossibly graceful, and it's so incredibly hard. I loved the contrast of it. And I think I'm always attracted to thinks that require obsession, and rowing definitely falls in that category.

HANK: Well, you'd set part of a much earlier book, Leave the Grave Green, in Henley, so you knew the town a bit, right?

DEBS: That's right. And then, once you start learning about competitive rowing, Henley IS the center of the universe, so Henley became the obvious choice for the setting. Then all those lovely universe-clicking-together things happened. I had a friend who knew the then-president of Leander Club, and through his introduction I got to stay at Leander for the first time. From there, I became absolutely immersed (only figuratively, thank goodness) in rowing.

HANK: Hands on? Or--oars on?

DEBS: I did actually get out on the river! Through a friend I'd made at Leander, I was introduced to Stevie Williams (that's Sir Steve Williams, two-time Olympic gold medalist in the coxless four). To my delight and utter terror, Steve offered to take me outfor a rowing lesson in a double scull.

That experience grew into the first scene in the book, and I think I can say it was the most exhilarating, frightening, fabulous research of my writing career.

HANK: So what's No Mark about?

DEBS: Duncan (that's Superintendent Duncan Kincaid) and Gemma (Inspector Gemma James) are coming back from a family celebration of their marriage when Duncan is called to investigate a suspicious drowning in Henley-on-Thames. The victim, Rebecca Meredith, was a competitive rower hoping to make a comeback at the upcoming Olympic Games. But she was also a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police.

Duncan soon learns that too many people had reasons to want Becca dead, and that some of them may have been in his own police force.

Gemma investigates the case from another angle, and it's only when the two halves come together that they discover very frightening truths that will threaten their friendships, their careers, and even their lives.

HANK:. Tell us about your life. How do you balance your two worlds?Or are there even more?

DEBS: Ha. I don't balance. At least not very well. For all my Anglophilia, I also love where I live, in Texas. There's my husband, daughter, family, friends. I love my old house, I love my town. I live about halfway in between the town where I grew up and the town where I went to college. You couldn't get more provincial.

HANK: That is so fascinating...I mean, you must have two brains: the Brit and the Texan. (Which sounds kind of like a romance novel...can't you just picture the cover?) What does your family say about it? (And this is the cover of the British version..MUST see them both!)

DEBS: I've learned that writers' families don't think what they do is the least bit glamorous, although my daughter loves going to London with me. Otherwise, they know the REAL story, which is long hours at the keyboard, other things not getting done, and lots of moaning and complaining on all sides:-)

And yes, I can see "The Brit and the Texan" with a nice bodice-ripper cover. Me, I'm just culturally confused. I say things in Texas that seem normal to me until people give me very strange looks...

HANK: Anyway-it all seems to work. Where did you write your first novel?

DEBS: I was back in Dallas (after having lived in England and Scotland for a while, but that is another story) but I missed the UK SO much.

I think the book was a way to assuage that constant ache of longing for Britain. And I

'm still doing that. Whenever I go to England my heart lifts in the most amazing way--I feel more "me" there than at any other time. And no time I spend there is ever, ever, enough. But then I miss home, too. So I make, ideally, two or three trips to England a year, staying two to three weeks at a time, where I research like mad and cram in as much as I can.

HANK: Do you write there?

DEBS: For a long time I wondered if I could actually write in England, or if I needed the distance of being an ocean removed back in Texas. But I've finished the last two books, Necessary as Blood and No Mark Upon Her, in the same flat in Notting Hill.

HANK: Sigh.It sounds lovely...tell us ONE thing about it...so we can dream at least.

DEBS: I've stayed in this flat for most of my visits since about 2002. (ed note: It's the photo at the top of the page.)

It's in the next street over from Portobello Road, and it's what the English call a "garden" flat, which means it's a half-level down on the street side, but garden level in the back. The place is a bit eccentric/shabbily/chic, with a gorgeous sitting room on the garden and a gas fire, and I absolutely adore it. Staying there has made Notting Hill seem like home to me, as it is to Duncan and Gemma, and I've made friends because of the flat that have spilled into other parts of my life and been the genesis of so many ideas for the books .

. . Oh, you said ONE thing. Ooops. I get a bit carried away...

HANK: Do you take a rest between books? Or do you know what's next?

DEBS: No rest for the wicked, right? Or writers. I'm always thinking about the next book, and as soon as I finish one I write the proposal for the next and start researching.

I'm now immersed in another book (my 15th!), another setting. When I wrote my first novel, A Share in Death, my daydream was that if I could sell it and write a series, I'd have an excuse to make regular trips to the UK, see wonderful things, stay interesting places.

Looking back on it, that was, I think, an astonishingly good plan, and so far I haven't come up with a better one.

HANK: Smiling--very wise! Finally--what have you learned about yourself do you think, in this process? And do you have one piece of advice to writers?

DEBS: Oh, hard questions, Hank.

I think I've know since my early teens that I had some sort of instinctive gift for words. But I never, ever imagined myself as a storyteller. That, I think, is a learned process. But it's taught me to trust my own imagination. There is always another story.

Advice? Read. Read. Read. Then write the kind of book you absolutely love to read, and pay no attention whatsoever to any advice about "writing for the market." That's the man behind the curtain, not the real thing. And there is always a place in the world for the real thing.

HANK: Debs, we are all so happy for you! Reds, she'll be here all day...but just say hi in the comments (and tell us your favorite British thing!) we'll enter you for a free signed copy of her book!

***************************************

"New York Times bestselling author Deborah Crombie is a native Texan who writes crime novels set in the United Kingdom. Her DuncanKincaid/Gemma James series has received numerous awards, including Edgar, Macavity, and Agatha nominations, and is published in more than a dozen countries to international acclaim.

Crombie lives in North Texas with her husband, German shepherds, and cats, and divides her time between Texas and Great Britain. Her latest novel, No Mark Upon Her, will be published by William Morrow in 2012. She is currently working on her fifteenth Kincaid/James novel."

A CONVERSATION ON WRITING WITH LOUISE PENNY

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Louise Penny and I have been friends since her publisher sent me the galley of her first book, Still Life. I thought it was the best thing I'd read in years, and that she would be a shining star in the literary firmament. (Turns out I was right, wasn't I?) There's nothing Louise and I like better than a chance to have a good old writerly natter. The last time we had a chance to do this in person, we were in London. We met Ann Cleeves at Le Pain Quotidien in Notting Hill, and lunch turned into a long afternoon chat about writing and books. Then Louise and I walked across Hyde Park on a perfect autumn afternoon and sorted out the state of the world.

So today, we thought it would be fun to have the sort of conversation we'd have in person, and to invite you to join in.


DEBS: First of all, congratulations on Trick of the Light. It's a brilliant book, I think perhaps the best of the series so far, which is saying quite a lot. The reviews, the awards, and the sales have been fabulous. Are you feeling a little overwhelmed by all this?

LOUISE PENNY: You are just so kind to say that, my friend. Thank you! Especially coming from you, whom I not only adore but admire as a writer - and aspire to. Thank you. You know, I think a lot of people assume writers are nasty to each other, and some are - but our reality is that your success helps me and my success helps you, and we're just happy for each other. Thrilled, in fact. I know far more writers of crime fiction who are genuinely happy for the success of others, than are not. This is quite a difficult field, so why make it worse by trying to bring others down? I try to stay away from people, other writers or otherwise, who are just nasty. Which is why I so adore you, Debs. you're the anti-nasty.

But, back to me, me, me.

It's a funny sort of feeling. Wonderful, exhilarating. The dream come true. People are buying the book, coming to events, writing me. But suddenly so much more is being asked of me. More events and interviews. And I'm not sure I have that much more to give. I think it helps that this isn't my first book but my seventh and so the success hasn't been like a tornado, out of nowhere, but a sort of lovely, slower, sunrise. But it's still easy to be dazzled by it, and thrown off a little. It's so hard, don't you find, talking about this without sounding like some spoiled little girl, burdened with success. And it's not a burden, but it is more draining. It's hard to explain this sort of contradiction. I love the success - completely. I love that people are reading the book and come to events, and am genuinely grateful.

But I also get run down fairly quickly. Tired. But it's not just the tour. What comes with this are a lot more discussions with the publisher, strategizing for what to do next, interviews. And suddenly the requests for personal appearances skyrocket. And I haven't, in the past, been very good about saying no thank you. I'm getting much, much better. But I feel horrible doing that. When the first couple of books came out I was the one begging for bookstores and libraries to pay attention, to invite me. I don't want to become that writer who's too big to visit a smaller library or bookstore -after all, they were the ones who created my success. Do you find the same thing? If we say yes to everything we have nothing left for writing, or our families and friends. But what to agree to and what not to? How do you handle it?

DEBS: I don't think I handle it very well, but I have become better at saying "no" over the years. You're on a punishing book tour schedule at the moment. It's always wonderful to talk about a new book, and to hear reader's reactions. But do you sometimes feel a sense of displacement? Because by the time a book is published, we, as writers, are usually well into, if not finished, with the next book. So we've been living in our imaginations in a new and different story for a good while. Do you have any special way of pulling yourself back into the just-published book, so that it has immediacy for you?

LOUISE: Oh, I love talking about this! Before Still Life (my first book) was even bought by a publisher I went to listen to a crime writer talk and he described being interviewed and asked about characters from an earlier book, and he said he sat there, stumped. None of it sounded familiar. The audience of other crime writers roared with laughter and recognition. I sat there, confounded. How could that be? How could you possibly forget characters or events from a book, since I had Still Life practically memorized.

But now I understand. I've just spend almost a year thinking about, living with and in, writing, considering and editing Book 8. It was all consuming. I was rushing to finish it before going out on this book tour for the very reasons you describe. I knew if I spent six weeks back in the characters and events of A TRICK OF THE LIGHT, I'd 'lose the plot' as it were, of book 8. I managed to finish the book and turn it in. But leaving it behind was a wrench. I felt like a cargo ship, one of those old, barnacled vessels that had to make a turn and wasn't doing it very quickly or very elegantly. Luckily, for the past couple of tours I've started with a five hour train trip from Montreal to Toronto. I take the book that's just being published with me, of course, and spend the trip finding readings for the tour and scanning it. Remembering
themes and phrases and characters. And just getting myself back into that story. What's been sort of fun, and very challenging, on this tour is that I've done a couple One Book, One Community events. This is where an entire city (or in one case, a whole Canadian province) chooses to read a single book - and then the campaign ends with the author visit. One place chose Still Life and the other chose Bury Your Dead. So I've found myself discussing three books - while still trying to disengage from Book 8. No wonder so many writers are nuts. I honestly think that as long as we show up to events clothed and sober, we're doing well.

DEBS: I know exactly what you mean. This week's panel at the Henley Literary Festival and the BBC Radio interview will be the first time I've really spoken in public about No Mark Upon Her, which I finished last November! So I'll be reading a galley on the plane to London, trying to drop myself back into the story and the characters and the place. I'm looking forward to it, too. Going back to a book is like meeting old friends, and it also really gets the gears going for the book-in-progress. Do you find that as well?

LOUISE: Great way of putting it. Meeting old friends. A year or so ago, when reading from Still Life for the first time in years I actually started crying. I think it was partly the pleasure of meeting those old friends - but also all the memories of that time, when Still Life first came out and I held my first book in my hands - that unimaginable time - all overwhelmed me. The problem I have, though, is when or if people ask why I did something in a book that is three or four or five years old. I can't explain why I chose the clothes I'm wearing - to explain something that I'm sure made literary sense at the time, many years later, is very difficult. I end up sounding kinda moronic. Do you find yourself in that position - explaining something from years ago?


DEBS: We've talked here on Jungle Red earlier in the week about writing mementos--I tend to save little physical things that remind me of a particular book. (Right now I'm looking at the painted enamel canal-ware mug I bought when I was writing Water Like a Stone, now holding pens on my desk.) Do you keep any physical touchstones that connect you with your books?

LOUISE: I don't. But I love the idea. Most of the things that remind me of writing a particular book I end up eating. Different sorts of pastries accompany me through different books. For the latest book it was these very thin cinnamon and raisin bagels, toasted. With a bowl of cafe au lait. Whenever I smell cinnamon now I'm immediately back in the living room, in front of the fireplace, writing. What I do have, though, is a playlist. I never listen to music while actually writing, but music really inspires my writing. I listen to it a whole lot while driving or walking - it opens something inside me. And each book has a different sound track. On flights I stare out the window and play the different sound tracks. On the ipod I have them all listed. And again, I'm transported. Do you find music plays a part for you? I'm really curious to know if you have any thing you do that allows you to get ever deeper into a character or a theme.

DEBS: I'm laughing out loud here. Your books always make me want to eat!!!! I dream of the food at the bistro!

And I love the idea of soundtracks. Could you give us just a little hint about what you've listened to for different books?

I'm not as good at listening to music as I should be, especially since two of the previous books and the one in progress center on music--opera in Leave the Grave Green, Gregorian Chant in A Finer End, and the main character in the b-in-p is a rock guitarist. I did listen to chant for at least a year while writing A Finer End--and I love the idea of your new book (more on that in a bit.) But at the moment I'm exploring all kinds of music that I'm not very familiar with, and loving it, but I hadn't really thought of making a soundtrack. Hmmm.

LOUISE: I'd forgotten you'd also explored Gregorian Chants. How wonderful. I knew we were sisters of the soul. My sound tracks are real mix ups of all sorts of music. Lots of Celtic - some classical, some classic rock like don McLean, some rap - I love Eminem, though I suspect he'd be humiliated to know a middle aged white Canadian woman was listening to him. Alicia Keyes, Ali in the Jungle, Lux Aeterna, Foo fighters. All a bit of a smush up.

DEBS: Have you found a way to integrate the private writer, the person who sits for hours struggling to get a sentence just right, wearing old sweats (in my case), and drinking endless cups of tea (although I imagine you drinking cafe au lait from the bistro) with the public writer, who is (more or less) well-groomed, articulate, and who must talk about a book as if it appeared full-blown, a WHOLE thing, not an amorphous jumble of ideas stuck together with terror, prayer, and the occasional
blinding burst of delight?

LOUISE: Oh, I do adore you - what a perfect description of the writing life. Old sweats, stained with bits of food and dribbled coffee or tea, fighting to keep terror at bay and sometimes, sometimes, standing up and feeling that wings have somehow sprouted. Elevated, miraculously, beyond anything I'd planned to write. Yes - that's me. And the real me. The touring me is also a facet, but much smaller. My preference is always to be at home, with Michael. Quietly. Not even answering the phone. A perfect day for me is one without other people. I'd make a great hermit. But not, I think, eventually a happy hermit. Meeting people, and having to go on tour, is probably a blessing.

I've been thinking about this and realize what I like and what I don't. I like doing the events. Standing in front of the room and talking with people about the book and the series. I like signing books and chatting with readers. I don't like a different hotel room every night. I don't like crappy hotel rooms. I don't like the travel itself. And while I know people are doing it to be kind and hospitable, and that it's part of the job for me - I honestly don't like the social side - the dinners I'm invited to. I'd rather order room service, conserve my energy, and use what I have for the event.

DEBS: One of my guilty pleasures is room service in a nice hotel room when I'm tour. Like you, I love the events and signings, but they're draining, so I tend to be very protective of that little bit of down time. I very seldom even turn on the television or talk on the phone. And I have my little hotel-room-as-sanctuary rituals; the careful unpacking, the book and reading glasses by the bed, sometimes even a little scented travel candle. It's a way to make it seem like the space belongs to me, and it's very centering after a day of throwing everything outward.

LOUISE: I'm quite anti-social. Always have been. But, oddly, I actually like people. But it can get overwhelming. I have to say, when I speak, I sure admit the terror and the muddle and my confusion and my crappy first drafts - and all my insecurities. you do too, I know. You're very open with your readers. Were you always?

DEBS: I've never forgotten how kind people were to me when I first started writing, and how overcome I was when I met REAL writers for the first time and they were not only nice to me, they seemed just like ordinary people. Which of course we all are, but I think we're also a little split. It's a funny job, isn't it? It requires a capacity--actually a very deep need, I think--for time spent alone. But on the other hand, I like people. I'm very social, I like interacting with readers and other writers. And if I didn't like people I doubt I'd enjoy writing about them as much as I do.

And speaking of the next book, I think you're finished, or almost finished, with the new Gamache novel. Can you tell us anything about it?


LOUISE: Dear Lord, woman, you're dragging me baaaaack. Bitch.Actually, as you know better than most, we never really leave any of the books behind, and certainly not the latest. Yes - book 8 is actually called The Beautiful Mystery and it's set in a remote monastery in Quebec, where the monks have taken a vow of silence but have become, unexpectedly, world famous for their recording of Gregorian Chants. It's such fun to see Gamache and Beauvoir in that setting, with men who barely speak. It becomes, really, an exploration of voice and communication - and all the ways we
express ourselves, with and without words.

DEBS: I LOVE this!!! (You knew I would!) And what a challenge this will be for Jean Guy. I can't wait to read it. And the one that's gestating now. But I suspect if I join the "write faster, writer faster" chorus, you'll hit me over the head with something.

LOUISE: But it will be edible. A croissant, perhaps. Killed by a croissant - death where is thy sting? Love the travel candle idea, thank you. I'm very scent oriented. And I just heard from Michael that your latest book has just arrived at our home - and I'm dying to get back there....a huge treat to look forward to at the end of the
tour.

DEBS: Louise will be checking in to Jungle Red today to answer questions and respond to comments, although honestly with her tour schedule I'm not sure how she's managing that! But do say "hi" to Louise if you have the chance. It's been such a treat to have her on Jungle Red!

LONDON CALLING

DEBORAH CROMBIE: As you read this, I will be back in lovely London, staying in my favorite little hideaway hotel in South Kensington, trying to recover from jet lag before going on to events in Henley on Wednesday. In the midst of my usual frantic packing and last minute prep (does everyone else do that, or is it just me?) I was trying to organize my thoughts about what I needed to do the following week, when I will be back in London and doing some much-needed research for the book-in-progress. And I wondered what I might bring back with me that will keep me feeling connected to this particular book over the next few months.

Because it occurred to me that over the years, and the books, I have begun to collect what I think of as "writing momentos." Not that I haven't collected enough British things over the years! (We're not even counting the London Transport posters, or the teapots, or my photographer friend Steve Ullathorne's London prints. Or the generic things like handmade journals from Portobello Market , jewelry, hats, gloves, scarves . . .)

But rather things that are specific to a particular book. Touchstones. (On Friday, Louise Penny has some interesting things to say about how she stays connected to her books.)

There is the painted enamel canal-ware mug that I bought at the Canal Museum in London when I was writing Water Like a Stone. It now holds pencils and pens on my desk.

A scrap of framed chant manuscript, from A Finer End. A (rather cat-hairy) purple tartan blanket from the Scottish book, Now May You Weep. AND, although the bottles of scotch bought while writing the book have long since disappeared (mostly drunk by other people) I still keep a bottle of good scotch to remind me of those wonderful visits to the Highland distilleries.

From No Mark Upon Her and my time spent in Henley, I have a Leander pink hippo mug, and a Leander wooly hat, which I actually wore out sculling on the Thames. (But that's another story.)

So what do I want to bring back this time, to keep me centered in the current book?

A vintage Fender Stratocaster. Preferably Fiesta Red.

Somehow, I doubt that is going to happen. Sigh.

What about you, Jungle Reds and dear readers? Do you need things that physically tie you to your books?