Tonight begins with a distinguished speaker’s lecture, to get things off in the properly academic mood. Before which people have a drink, and after which everyone rushes off to dinner reservations with friends. Friday begins bright and early with the Gillette luncheon(drinks beforehand) run by ASH, the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, which is dubbed the “distaff”side of the Holmes world. Frankly, I’ve always wanted to be an adventuress…

Then Friday night, the yearly bean feast that is the BSI dinner, in black tie (No, I do not wear an evening gown: writers are granted the Bohemian exemption.) which makes for an impressive group photo (another annual rite.)

(A thought: perhaps my refusal to don a gown relates to my lack of Adventuress status? One must admit, Adventuresses and kid evening gloves seem to go {ahem} hand in hand…)

Saturday, if you are about in Manhattan and have some dollars in your pocket, you could come to the Roosevelt Hotel (45 E 45th) from 9 to noon and buy a copy of A Study in Sherlock, having it signed by me, Les Klinger, Sj Rozan, Jan Burke, and Neil Gaiman. Also copies of The Grand Game (Les & Laurie) and various other books.

Then we BSI wander off for–you guessed it–a final drinks party.
I may need a few days at a spa, when this is over, sipping wheatgrass tea.

Here’s what I’ve done in 2011:

This represents eight writing projects—only the writing projects, you understand, not the conventions, engagements, book tour, or family stuff.  From the bottom up (I’ll put links, in case you want to read excerpts or order things):

1.  Volume one of The Grand Game, a collection of Sherlock Holmes writing that Les Klinger and I did for the Baker Street Irregulars.  I helped select and edit the essays, and wrote the introduction, which laid the groundwork for the collection’s organization along the lines of Biblical Criticism: “Textual, Higher, Radical, and Midrashic Sherlockian Criticism.”  It’s actually quite a clever piece, although if you don’t have a background in Biblical studies, it may not make a whole lot of sense.

  2.  “Beekeeping for Beginners,” an e-novella published in July that gives the meeting of Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes from his point of view—the opening scenes of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice really didn’t tell the whole story.

3. Pirate King published in September, and although the actual writing of the book was done in 2010, the online activities associated with a new novel bulldozed my summer: contests, guest blog posts, and a free short story (“Parrot King”) are but the tip of the iceberg.  We’ve left the “Laurie ARrrgh! King” events up, here.  

4. A short story for a collection that originally bore the title, Fantastic Dicks, it being intended as a cross between fantasy and private investigator fiction—I had already committed to it when the editors decided on the less titillating title, Down These Strange Streets.  “Hellbender” was a ton of fun to write, totally different from anything I’ve for a long time, and has left me tempted to dip my toes into more SciFi.

5. A Study in Sherlock, published in October, makes for a very different kind of anthology from the scholarly Grand Game.  Les Klinger and I asked a bunch of writers who are not knows for their Sherlockian interests to write something “inspired by the Sherlock Holmes ‘Canon’.”  We had a fabulous time with it, and everyone is so happy with how it turned out, we will be (yes, already on the docket) doing a second volume.

6. The Arvon Book of Crime and Thriller Writing.  A little over a year ago, my friend Michelle Spring asked if I would co-author a book she’d agreed to do for the Arvon foundation in the UK, on crime writing.  Arvon is not known in the US, but in the UK it is a highly respected writing foundation that holds week-long courses on various kinds of writing, from crime to poetry, taught by two writers with a guest writer coming in mid-week.  Like most writers, I’d played with the idea of doing a how-to book, but decided I never would a) because I wouldn’t make the time for it and b) because I don’t do enough teaching to have a firm grasp on what is needed.  However, Michelle does, and this would give me a chance to say my part on craft.  It was a ton of work and taught me far more than I’d anticipated, but it’s now finished—we’ve just today (!) sent off the final draft.  It will be published on both sides of the Atlantic next summer.

7.  Volume 2 of The Grand Game.  Les Klinger did the majority of the work on this volume, and wrote the introduction, although I do have a learned paper in the collection itself, the key portion of a Distinguished Speaker Lecture given to the Baker Street Irregulars in 2007.  If you wish to read the definitive answer to the question of Dr Watson’s war wound (PTSD? Early onset Alzheimer’s?) here will be your chance.

8. And finally, Garment of Shadows.  The bulk of my writing time during 2011 was taken up with Russell & Holmes 12.5 (if we count Beekeeping for Beginners as the .5) which will be published next September.  As you can see from the photograph, this is still a manuscript, in the copyedit stage.  Which means that over the Christmas “holidays” I will be nose-down in paper, sorting out the copyeditor’s corrections and my editor’s lethal little penciled remarks that turn into entire plot problems.

9. And in January?  I start the next book, a sequel to Touchstone.

But I’m very glad it’s (more or less…) finished, and I think it’s going to be a work of great Truth and Beauty and more than that, even Usefulness.

Now, I have a Whole! Week! Off! before I get tucked into the copyedit revisions for Garment of Shadows.  Thanksgiving, indeed.

All your holiday shopping, on one fun event.

What if you wrote to them, saying:

In 19th century England, a new kind of hero—a consulting detective—blossomed in the mind of an underemployed doctor and ignited the world’s imagination.  In the thirteen decades since A Study in Scarlet first appeared,  countless variations on that theme have been played, from Mary Russell to Greg House, from ‘Basil of Baker Street’ to the new BBC Holmes-in-the-Internet-age.

Now, you don’t generally “do” Sherlock Holmes.  Which is precisely why we’re writing, because we suspect that you have in the back of your mind a story that plays a variation on the Holmes theme.

All we ask is that you let the Holmes stories inspire you.  You might want to write a straight Holmes pastiche, or a graphic story, or a tale about Mycroft or Mrs Hudson or Billy the page.  The story may take place in Victorian Baker Street, or in Mughal India—or on the first manned flight to Mars.  Perhaps the plot takes inspiration from a Conan Doyle tale?  Or your detective suspects that his case is related to one Holmes faced?  Or…

And what if these great writers read that proposal and decided that yes, they did have that kind of tale in the back of their minds:

Alan Bradley
Tony Broadbent
Jan Burke
Lionel Chetwynd
Lee Child
Colin Cotterill
Michael Dirda
Neil Gaiman
Laura Lippman
Gayle Lynds and John Sheldon
Phillip Margolin
Margaret Maron
Thomas Perry
S. J. Rozan
Dana Stabenow
Charles Todd
Jackie Winspear
…and the editors, Les Klinger and Laurie R. King.

Why, you’d have: A Study in Sherlock, Stories Inspired by the Sherlock Holmes Canon.

And if you scroll down a post. you’ll see Charles Todd’s reflections on Holmes’ England.