Back to School (back to mystery)

The other day I heard a commentator say that the back-to-school shopping season was second to Christmas for retailers. As we’re responsible for a grandson, I can see why. His sixth grade school supply list runs a full page—notebooks, three-ring binders, folders, ruled paper, No. 2 pencils, erasable pens (whoever heard of such in years past), glue sticks, liquid soap, ad infinitum. He also needs a new roll-around backpack. The old one came apart at the end of school (I think they’re designed with that in mind).

He wants to buy a laptop, which he insists everybody in his class has. I believe that as much as I believe they all have a motorbike and a swimming pool. Anyway, we gave him $100 toward a laptop on his birthday, and he’s agreed to pay the rest out of his savings. We’ll get this and everything else we can find when Tennessee has a sales tax holiday next weekend. It should pack the malls with moms and dads and other fortunate (it says here) grandparents.

School kids need new shoes, shirts, pants, jackets, sweaters. Since grandson goes to a private school, we have to buy special items like shirts with the school logo emblazoned on them. Then there are miscellaneous items like lunchboxes, which aren’t necessarily boxes anymore.

Where’s Obama when you need him? We could use a little back-to-school stimulus. Of course, the stores will love it. But as a mystery writer, how do I get in on this retail bonanza?

We received an email a couple of days ago (I don’t think you can have a kid in school without email) with a 2009-2010 Summer Reading list. That’s right, Summer. After all, it’s only ten months till that magic time rolls around again. And guess what’s first on the list for Seventh Graders?

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For Eleventh Graders, the book is Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

Okay, they’re classics, but they’re mysteries. If these high schoolers learn to read mysteries, someday they might pick up one of mine. Meanwhile, their parents need to hold back a little of that back-to-school cash to spend at the bookstore on The Surest Poison. That'll support the local economy.

The Odyssey Project: where stories come from

Readers, and writers, too, have always wondered where the characters and their stories come from that seem to magically appear as our fictional creations stream out onto the computer screen or come to life as blobs of ink on paper. Interestingly, not all people can do this. It is usually ascribed to a nebulous notion about something called a talent for writing.

I have a confession to make. Some time back I held the winning ticket for a lottery jackpot worth several millions of dollars, even after being drastically cut for a single payout and reduced further by the IRS’s unseemly slice. After quite a round of negotiation with the lottery folks, I got them to award the prize to a fictitious name (sort of a nom de flam, as in flimflam). I convinced them that I intended to use the money for a research project that might easily become skewed if it became known and was linked to me.

The Odyssey Project, as it was called, brought together top flight minds in the fields of psychology and sociology, specialists in behaviorism, motivation, and human development. Their task: to locate the source of the fictional experience.

The name Odyssey was chosen for obvious reasons. Homer’s tale of Odysseus and his heroic struggle to return home from the Trojan War is one of the earliest classics of imaginative fiction. It is both inventive and inspiring. Little is known about the writer, but it is believed that he was a blind bard. He gave us something to shoot for.

The researchers conducted hundreds of interviews with authors, never revealing their true intentions. You have no doubt read many of them which have appeared in both print and digital versions online. Others, in collusion with medical practitioners, studied the physical and mental makeup of writers around the country. Some, masquerading as sleep clinic personnel, did research on brain waves of sleeping authors who reported they had taken whole plots from their dreams.

Lexicologists read hundreds of books, comparing the range of words and meanings that contribute to the sources of thinking from which our stories spring. Mathematicians studied the patterns of letters and words used to convey our thoughts. Authors’ pharmacy records were surreptitiously gathered to determine the possible effects of prescription drugs on fertile minds.

After this exhaustive range of material was tabulated and collated, a group of learned scientists poured over the mass of pages and discussed its implications. Their final report was brief but concise.

“These people who call themselves authors are nuts. They have no clue where this stuff comes from, and neither do we.”

There you have it. The next time a reader asks where you get your ideas, you can speak with scientific authority.

10 things you can do to help a local author

This is something I copied off the Internet a few years ago. Unfortunately, I didn't copy the author's name, so it will have to go as Anonymous. The writer was self-published, but the advice would go well with most any non-bestselling author these days. I have shortened the opening paragraph and made a few editorial changes.

SURE, I'd love for my book to be a bestseller, but for that to happen not only does it have to be a good book which, of course, I think it is, but it has to have fantastic support from the buying public--that's you. Please, after reading it, if you like what you've read, won't you help make it a bestseller for this local author by doing one or more of the following?

1. Books make great gifts. Buy another copy as a gift and help spread the word about it by sharing it with new readers and tell your friends they've just got to read it, too!

2. Drop a line or email to your local newspaper. Tell them and their readers that you've discovered a great new writer that they don't dare to miss.

3. Go to Amazon.com and give a review of the book. And, yes, be honest. If there's something you don't like about it, feel free to say so. I think I'm a good writer but I'm smart enough to know I'm not perfect and I can't please everyone all the time.

4. And while you're online, go to your address book and tell everyone you know that they've just got to read this great new book by a great new author! Tell them they can go to Amazon.com or any of the other book sites to order the book.

5. Host your very own Book Reading/Signing Party. That's right. Invite 10 or more of your good friends for an evening of fun. I'll bring the books. You provide the wine and cheese or whatever you'd like. Oh heck, maybe I'll even bring a bottle of wine. Then you pick the section of the book you'd like for me to read. Afterwards, I'll be happy to answer questions about the book and the research I've done or even about writing in general. And, of course, I'll sign books.

6. My daughter tells me everyone has to write Oprah about how good the book is and how hard it is for good writers without celebrity status or connections to get noticed by the big publishing houses. Well, why not? If anyone can give a book bestseller status, it's Oprah. And I'm not the least bit snooty--I'd be thrilled if Oprah liked my book.

7. I'll be very happy to do a Reading & Book Signing at your club or organization.

8. Buy an additional copy of the book and donate it to your public library. You'll be providing the library with a great book and introducing new readers to a great new local author. Donations of new books to the library are even tax deductible.

9. Are you a blogger? Heck, I didn't even know what that was until recently. But if you have your own blog or visit other blogs on a regular basis, add your thoughts about the great new writer you've discovered. And let people know how they can get their hands on a terrific new book.

10. And if you have connections to the entertainment world, please pass the word about this great new author and book you've discovered.

Thank you so much! Please feel free to contact me with your thoughts or suggestions.

End of story. Come to think of it, this could very well be Support an Author Week. Feel free to pick a few of those ten and...uh, the name is Chester Campbell and the new book is The Surest Poison. No obligation, of course.