The Single Writer's Guide to Dating; a guest blog by Jill Edmondson

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING:  Jill Edmondson claims she's not acquainted with fetish parties, or brothels, or phone sex hotlines, all of which her PI, Sasha Jackson, has found herself neck-deep in. Uh huh. Okay. We'll ignore the fact that both Jill and her sleuth are into serious rock music, Toronto night life, and are looking for love (in the case of Sasha Jackson, sometimes in all the wrong places.) And we know Jill is serious about her work - you don't get glowing reviews from the Globe and Mail, the Hamilton Spectator and Ellery Queen by sitting on your duff ogling pictures of half-dressed men. (Although wouldn't it be nice if literary success worked that way?) So I'm prepared to believe Jill doesn't have a sexy cop tucked away somewhere - especially when she tells us the perils and pitfalls of dating while writing...

I have long brown hair and blue eyes. I like long walks on the beach, candlelit dinners, cuddling by a fire, and... Oh wait, wrong website. Or maybe not.

Since re-entering the dating world a while ago, I’ve become acutely aware of the fact that a lot of people out there don’t like to read. Also since re-entering the dating world, I’ve developed a new understanding of my relationship with reading and writing.

Let me be clear: This isn’t necessarily about my books. Usually, I won’t even tell a potential date the titles of my books; if anything I might say they’re mysteries and leave it at that. But I do try to make it clear upfront that writing and books matter to me. And yet... 

I can’t date a guy who doesn’t like reading, and thinks it’s a “boring waste of time” or something to do “when there’s nothing better to do”. Guys have said those exact words to me. Many different guys. It doesn’t seem to matter what the source of the date is - whether we met at a party, or on an internet dating site, via mutual friends, at a singles event... As shocking a realization as this is, a lot of guys out there aren’t into reading. Who knew?

One man I chatted with via an online dating service told me he would never read my books, but maybe his teenaged son would. Huh? I hadn’t told him the titles or given him so much as a synopsis of the story. I have no idea why he thought his son might want to read them, but why the man himself would not. I didn’t even bother going on a first date with him.

Then there was the dude I met via friends. We had gone on several dates, and it looked like there was some potential for this one, but... We were on a day trip, and along the way, I blathered something about book stuff. I think I was stuck on a plot twist, and I asked for his opinion, whatever. He muttered some kind of vague answer. I looked at him carefully and saw blankness. So, I asked him if the writing talk was boring and he said yes. Needless to say, the rest of the outing was awkward, and there was no kiss goodbye.

In another instance, I told a guy that I write mystery novels. He asked if they’re nonfiction. Ummm...

I’ve given a fair bit of thought to this. At times I’ve wondered if I’m being a bitch, or if I’m being too sensitive. But methinks not. My books are my passion. Writing isn’t just a fluffy little pastime to while away a Sunday afternoon. My stories aren’t just a cutesy little hobby to keep me from being bored.

Books and writing are a huge part of my life. As any author knows, writing the book itself is only one part of the gig. There’s also the promoting and social media side of things. At last count, I had done well over one hundred events in support of my first three novels, everything from store signings, to library readings, to meeting with book clubs. And let’s not forget the social media stuff. I blog several times a week, I tweet every day, I do promos on Amazon, and anything else that seems like a good idea.

If a potential date isn’t into reading and doesn’t get why writing matters to me, then what possible future is there for us as a couple? Is he going to think I’m wasting my time blogging? Is he going to roll his eyes when I say I have to meet with a book club? Is he going to yawn when I tell him about my afternoon signing at Chapters? In tandem with this is the fact that much of my social life includes author friends and aspiring writers (and often usually involves single malt scotch as well, but that’s another blog post). I also enjoy going to author readings and launches, and I look forward to annual events like Bloody Words. 

Then of course, there is the bookworm inside of me. Long before I ever even thought of trying to pen my first manuscript, I was an avid reader. I usually read between 50 and 75 books a year, and read about twice as much nonfiction as fiction. I love discussing my recent reads with people, sharing my thoughts on whatever book, eager to hear another’s take on it. I also love hearing what others are reading, what it’s about, why I might like it, how cool that plot twist is, and so on.

So, while I have tried to be flexible and open-minded, I’m going to dig in my heels. I have come to the conclusion that a lack of interest in books and reading is a deal-breaker for me. Maybe from now on, instead of asking “what’s your sign?” or “do you come here often?” I’ll ask the guy what he likes to do before going to sleep, or what’s on his bedside table. Oh, wait, that could lead the conversation in another direction entirely...


The fourth book in Jill Edmondson's Sasha Jackson PI series, Frisky Business, has just been released. You can find out more about Jill and read excerpts from her books at her website. You can catch more of her writing at her blog, friend her on Facebook, compare books with her on Goodreads and follow her on Twitter as @JillEdmondson.

 

The Mystery of the Missing Character: a guest blog by Jill Edmondson

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: The descriptions for Jill Edmondson's Sasha Jackson series include words like "classy madam," "fetish party," "naughty sex" and "talking dirty," so you KNOW the Reds are all over this like gin on olives. 

Ahem. Because, of course, we're fascinated by the way Jill has set the traditional PI story on its head. In a field crowded with flat-foots and and gumshoes, her sleuth has a penchant for high-heels and phone sex. When a unique character like Sasha Jackson pops up, it's easy for other writers to say, "Why didn't I think of that?" Well, you're in luck, because Jill is going to tell us exactly what sort of research and planning goes into "thinking of that."

Attention All Aspiring Crime Writers!!!! Here’s a $1,000,000 dollar whodunit idea, and it’s yours this week for free! That’s right: FREE! You just have to read the rest of this post and then act on the advice contained herein...

First some background...

Quite some time ago, long before I was published or before I had even finished my first manuscript, I attended a seminar for wannabe mystery authors. The speaker emphasized that a writer should know – really and truly be familiar with her genre (whatever it may be). Get to know the best-selling and most prolific mystery authors of that genre. Get to know the characters, the settings and the conventions of whodunits. In addition to being a sort of training - which reading the genre most certainly is - a great degree of familiarity with whodunits will also help you to figure out WHAT’S MISSING FROM THE GENRE. And that’s what you should write.

Let me explain...

If there are few-to-no police procedurals, then you should write one. If there are few-to-no gay detectives, then you need to create one. If there are no visible minority private eyes, then that’s what you must invent.

Some more background (but this time it’s nerdy...)

As part of the course work for my MA, I did a number of papers on Crime Fiction, and in particular I looked at women in crime fiction. After reading something like 728,351 mystery novels featuring female main characters, I could safely say I knew what the genre had to offer when it came to female lead characters. There are bodacious bounty hunters, ingenious investigators, cunning caterers, awesome attorneys, terrific taxi-drivers and so much more.

It is interesting to note (and I’m not the first one to notice this) that crime fiction, overall, has mirrored and embraced demographic shifts. Verisimilitude is contemporary mystery fiction’s word of the day. Crime fiction protagonists are no longer overwhelmingly male (let’s give a round of applause to Marcia Muller for this). Whodunit protagonists are no longer isolated loners walking down those mean streets.

Modern sleuths now have families and close circles around them, whether those bonds are with traditional families or chosen ones, such as a “little sister”, an elderly landlord, a niece, or someone else. Indeed, many sleuths have children of their own, which is cool. It’s nice to see art imitate life.

In fact, there are even a number of single parents in the world of crime fiction. Two of the first hardboiled dicks to have offspring were Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder and Michael Z. Lewin’s Samson, although neither of these divorced dads has custody of his children. Les Roberts’s Milan Jacovich mysteries has dad taking the kids on alternate weekends. Then of course, there is the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly: full time cop and full time single dad with teenaged daughter. 
 

Single moms (more specifically: custodial single moms) abound in mystery as in real life. According to Parents without Partners, single mother families numbered 10 million in 2000, 46% of which have more than one child. Mystery readers can check out single moms like Elaine Viets’s Josie Marcus, Marianne MacDonald’s Dido Hoare, Diane Mott Davidson’s Goldie Bear, and Anne Underwood Grant’s protagonist Sydney Teague. What’s interesting to note is that these characters are a mystery shopper, a bookseller, a caterer, and an advertising agency owner respectively.

I’m almost at my point...

What you may have begun to notice is that the male single dads (whether custodial or not) are all officially employed in law enforcement on some level or another. They may not all be cops or licensed PI’s but they make their living from solving crimes. The female single mothers on the other hand, are all amateur sleuths – shopkeepers stumbling over dead bodies, chefs happening upon a cadaver. For too many of the single moms in mystery fiction, crime solving is an accident, a sideline, a by-product of their “real job”. 

So here’s the idea (and YES, I know!)...

If you want to write the character that the genre seems to be missing, then you should write a single mother who earns her living as a cop or an investigator or something along those lines. There’s room for a new series in which a female protagonist is employed in an official crime solving capacity, and not simply an anthropologist or a photographer who tripped on a corpse. She should have at least one kid her who lives with her full time.

Yes, yes, yes. I know about the Joanna Brady series by JA Jance (and, indeed, Joanna Brady is not the ONLY single mom who solves crime for a living, but given the number of titles in the series, she definitely stands out). The widowed Joanna is the Sheriff Cochise County in Arizona. Great series, love the character. But the genre has room for another Joanna, and mystery readers (you already know that more women buy mysteries than men do, right?) would most likely be happy to have one or two female versions of Harry Bosch.

So there you go: Create a supermom-supersleuth who juggles badges and baby bottles, handcuffs and homework, guns and gummi bears, and my guess is that you’d have a winner.

You’re welcome!

You're going to be thanking Jill for more than her clever writing tips. Dead Light District, the second book in the Sasha Jackson series, is available as a FREE Kindle download today and Sunday, the 14th and 15th of July. The Lies Have It, the third book in the series, will be available as a FREE Kindle download on Wednesday and Thursday, Julia 18 and 19. No e-reader? No problem!  Jill has three signed copies of her first mystery, Blood and Groom, to give away! Leave a comment letting us know what you'd like to see in an original sleuth, and you could be one of the lucky winners.


You can learn more about Jill Edmondson and her books at her website. Jill also blogs, and is on Twitter as @JillEdmondson