Okay, okay, it’s been a long silence. My apologies! What a year!

I just returned from signing books at the LA Times Festival of Books. Thank you so much, those of you who took the time to come by a booth and wish me well. It’s a joyous amazing thing when people tell me they’ve read the book. Wow. In the Mystery Bookstore booth, I was signing next to Carol Higgins Clark and Mary Higgins Clark, beautiful, gifted, stunning looking women. Bobby McCue ran around in a straw hat and jeans, passing out waters, making everybody comfortable. Linda was in a T. Jefferson Parker hat. (Very cool, Jeff; great idea). Bobby and his team had a party for writers Friday night at his warmly appointed store in Westwood.

I know I’m sounding like a columnist for a social page, (down to the description of what everybody’s wearing), but it was a moment where it started to sink in. I’ve written a book that’s now on the shelf. In lots of countries. I saw my friend John Lescroart at the party Friday night. He’d blurbed The Timer Game and has a new book out made the New York Times bestseller list.

I am over the moon. And truly, one of the nicest parts, is meeting all of you. When I was signing in the Mysterious Galaxy booth (with Michael Connelly, Cornelia Reid, Rita Lakin) a reader came up with a Timer Game ARC to have me sign. And a book. It still makes me smile. That and the memory of Maryelizabeth (Mysterious Galaxy owner) under a beach umbrella.

There were over a hundred thousand people a day on the UCLA campus. To be there, signing in the same booths with authors I love and respect—wow. What a thrill.

I’m hard at work on book two. It is part of the Grace Descanso series and it’s great fun to be talking to these characters again who feel so real.

Thank you again, for your many kindnesses. And your patience. And your words of cheer about the book. I appreciate them all.

I’m still trying to get a handle on how to do things. (Which somewhat explains why I have never updated my Amazon site. The Internet is daunting. Ditto with my answering on My Space.
My plan, at this point, is to try and keep in touch more on the fly, but spaced closer together. . . Hope to hear from you!

Oh, and those of you who have encouraged your friends to buy The Timer Game, thank you!

The Universe listens.

And yes, responds.

I always believed on some level that to be true but about a year ago I tried it out and that’s what I want to tell you about.

I’m writing this at 12:30 in the morning in the lobby of the Convent Garden Hotel, as we get ready to fly home from Europe.

I’ve been visiting the sales team for Harper Collins, which will be publishing the novel in the UK. An amazing, gracious, lovely group of men and women I’m thrilled to be working with.

I know I’ve been slow blogging, but things have been, well, a little busy.

The Timer Game will be published, as of today, in ten countries. Ten. Five languages, (including Chinese text and Chinese character).

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around how stunning that is.

I’ve been to Alaska for Bouchercon since I last wrote, where I was asked to moderate a panel of bright new writers (Laura Bennet, Isabella Moon, Michael Wiley, The Last Striptease, Gabi Herkert, Catnapped and Ken Isaacson, Silent Counsel). It was a lovely honor to be able to shepherd them through one of their first panels as a published author and I was thrilled to be there.

And I’ve been working on a series of what I call webisodes about the novel to run on You-Tube. Do you remember the old Folger Coffee ads, where the couple meets cute in the hallway and everybody tunes in to see the commercial (not a great product, sadly–freeze dried coffee, but the commercial was stunning). The guy later went on to be in the Buffy series as the teacher. . . Anyway, that was the feel I was after. To introduce the main characters and create small cliff-hangars. They’ll start running on my new webpage, www.thetimergame.com which will be up and running mid-November as well as on You-Tube.

I didn’t want to tip any of the suspense in the novel, so I decided to go deeper into how the two main characters meet in a remote village in Guatemala.

If you’d like to be alerted to the webisodes (they’re 1 1/2 minutes each and we’ll start running about two a week or more starting mid-November, you can sign up on my mailing list and we’ll let you know automatically when a new one airs.

Shooting these in LA with SAG actors and a real crew was a daunting and exhausting experience. But great fun. The two main actors, Sarah Sido and Troy Zuercher, are superb and Sandra Kersulis created sets out of virtually nothing that were amazing. She also did heavy hod carrying lifting mostly by herself. But that’s another tale for another day.

The director I worked with, Kai Soremekun, was one of the original fifty bright directors Speilberg picked for his One The Lot program. When I first walked into her home, I saw the exact quote I have by Goethe hanging on the wall:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can begin it

for boldness has genius power and magic in it.

Pretty cool quote, huh?

And I was am sitting here in this grand hotel, my feet on a Persian carpet, I am so aware that Goethe’s right. We must dream our dream to see it realized, but the key is getting off the sofa and past our own fear to make it a reality. For over a year, I’ve carried in my wallet a small, two-sentence phrase about The Timer Game novel. I have the same words over my computer. It’s not important to know what they are, only that reading them helps me see the book always in the world as it was meant to be. Reading it calms me and centers me. The words weren’t true when I wrote them, (although, of course they were–I had only to step into that), but the words became true through time.

And now I read them and am in awe. They’re coming true. They are true. That’s huge.

Dream your best dream for yourself. Dream it with clarity and kindness. And know that the Universe–at least as born out in my singularly small but spectacularly important to me sampling—listens.

I’d love to hear from you. What have you asked from the Universe? What have you gotten back? And know it’s never too late for that note in the wallet.

Stunning things this month! 

I received my St. Martin’s Minotaur catalog, and The Timer Game is a First Edition Selection.  (It’s on page 6, guys, a very big deal in my world).   They’re making some modifications to the cover, but I love it!  And I’ll send it along when it’s ready.

The cover from the UK is amazing.  Here.  See for yourself.   

And yes, (at the risk of repeating what you’ve already seen) The Timer Game is available for preorder at www.amazon.com
    
The webgame that’s being created is terrific. 

Soon there will be a link to my new webpage www.thetimergame.com  and it’s here that the webgame will go up, along with. . .well, some other cool stuff!

____________________________

Okay, so here’s the thing.  There’s always a thing, right?  

I’m trying hard to let go of the idea of getting it right.

That’s a tough one.

Courage, writers.   Courage, all.

I say that with a bemused smile on my face.  I’m having trouble sleeping.  

It’s exciting, what’s happening, and I guess I’ve never been much good at just letting things. . . be.

Years ago, I was picked as a playwright to participate in the National Playwrights Conference, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center.   I was fresh from Alaska.  We’d just moved down to San Diego.  And suddenly I was in Connecticut, spending a month at Waterford, working with top notch actors (Delroy Lindo was in my cast), directors, dramaturgs.   And being part of a group of phenomenally brilliant playwrights like Jeffrey Hatcher.

I was terrified.

I’d worked so hard to get there, and then. . .there I was.

It’s one thing to work really hard to earn a place at the table, and another altogether when you realize you’re not certain which fork to use.

I mean, I can do forks.  Forks are easy. 

It’s life I sometimes have trouble with.

So.  I was at the O’Neill.  And the biggest, most amazing part of it to me, (aside from watching my piece go up, hearing the words come through the spirits of brilliant actors) was meeting the head of the Center, Lloyd Richards.

Oh, Lloyd. 

You, oh, you.  Were amazing.  And still in my memory, always and always, are. 

Lloyd Richards, who nurtured August Wilson and directed Fences on Broadway.  Lloyd Richards, who tapped John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck), Tina Howe (Painting Churches), Wendy Wasserstein (The Heidi Chronicles). . .

And me.   (And no, John, Tina and Wendy were not there the summer I was—but they had been, and that brought hope to us all).    You push hard to get through the door and then you’re through it.

Believing it wasn’t an accident, that’s the challenge.

Lloyd offered each of the playwrights, the summer I was there, the chance to sit alone with him in his office.  And ask him anything.

I’ve had lots of time to reflect since that summer.  I have no idea what the other playwrights asked him when they were alone, but my guess now is that perhaps some of them might have asked for a shot at taking their work on into New York.   If I’d had my wits about me, I would have.

First, you need to understand.  Lloyd Richards is formidable.  Or was.    (Sadly, he died recently).   Which is interesting (the formidable quality), since in person he’s probably not that big of a man.  Yet to me, he was the size of John Wayne. 

He looked at me kindly across the great expanse of his desk.  

And asked me, what did I want from him?

Teach me, I replied.    Rules to live by.  You are a wise man.   And you have achieved so much.  Teach me what you learned about how to live.

Lloyd appeared somewhat stunned.  He rocked back in his chair.   That’s a serious thing, what you’ve asked, he said.   It’s going to take some serious thought.

I could come back, I said, already half out of my chair.

And that quickly, he fired back at me an extraordinary set of rules. 

I’ll tell you one of them.

Permit, rather than reach.

Wow.  That’s pretty huge.  In a world where I’ve done nothing but work, head down, moving on to the next thing, never sure about where I’ve been or the path through, permitting involves, well, stopping.

Taking a breath. 

Offering thanksgiving for the moment.

Reach, I know that one cold.   It involves sweaty hard work, sometimes being grabby, taking things that don’t belong and later being awash in humiliation and regret, but permit. 

Oh, what a lovely ring that had.   That has.

Permit implies you’ve already earned your spot.   All you have to do is show up.

Permit implies choice.   Not hunger.

Permit.

That’s my gift to you, in honor of Lloyd Richards’ life.   I wasn’t able to make the gathering in Waterford this summer, and hear the tributes of other playwrights, but I carry forever the words of this kind man in my heart.

When you do the hard work you were meant to do, when it all seems very difficult, when success seems tenuous and not the least bit likely. . . 

Permit, rather than reach.

I’m late, blogging this month, but oh, what a month.

I finished the second Grace Emily novel Out at Night.  My editor at St. Martin’s Minotaur had extended the deadline to July 15, since she was busy on her end before that.  Books have a funny way of expanding into the time allotted; no, all writing projects have that capacity, and this book turned out to be a hugely complicated one.

I’m dealing with a serious subject in this second one:  good and evil and how at some point, we all make a choice.   The novel I’m quite certain will go through several more permutations before it’s really done; in my mind the next night I was already busy rewriting the last page, but it is—for now—a draft.  

Fred had planned this lovely trip for just the two of us that would culminate in a weekend in New York for Thrillerfest, where I was speaking on a writing panel.  We were planning on leaving July 7 from San Diego.  We’d both thought that was sufficiently past the initial deadline of June 1 so that we’d really be ready to decompress.  Sadly, I carried my computer and tons of research work and various drafts along with me and spent the vacation working.  Fred would go out into the world (we were in Washington D.C., staying at the Willard—an amazing, historic hotel), and carry back to the room stories of the world outside—monuments and parades and museums.  At night, I’d break for dinner with him and a walk, and then I’d repair to the room again, to write.   At some point, we moved over to Fred’s brother’s home in Maryland.  Jerry and Jill live on a magical tributary that feeds eventually into the Chesapeake, and every morning, Fred and I would wake up to the sifting silty sounds of water and birds. 

And then I’d drag my work up into a sequestered room and write.

The next generation down came a long distance with their beautiful happy little kids to see us. . .and I’d break for dinner and go back and write.

Oh.   And then we moved over to the Hyatt in New York.  The first night was painful—we’d been moved into a very small room that faced a building, a room across from the ice machine and the service room in which mattresses and extra furniture was stored—and all night long the party happened out in the hall to the raucous sound of laughter and the clanging cascade of ice, broken occasionally by the grinding noise of a springy hideabed banging against the service room doorframe as it was rolled into the hall.

The book was due that next night and I was worried. 

Okay, alright, I finished it.  My agent and editor happened to be chatting at the doorway to the St. Martin’s bash for writers that next night, and I put a flash drive into each of their palms and finally took a breath.  Fred and I got a new room and our life was easy street.

I have no idea what I said during the panel the next day, nor at the banquet that next night.  My brain had shorted out completely.

One fun thing:  (okay, there were a lot of fun things, but I’ll stick with this).   I met a couple of times with part of the team designing the game for my webpage.  I’m pumped.  This web designer is phenomenal, and the game’s going to be a lot of fun.   So work is progressing. . .

Okay, so this reads like a Christmas letter.  A long catalog of stuff.

Yet I feel curiously light. 

E-mail if you want; tell me your catalog of stuff.  Let’s see if we can spread some of this lightness around.

The e-mail part is working now and by next month, maybe I’ll even figure out a way to answer back.

And then we can all be light together.

We have a firm pub date now for The Timer Game.  It will be in stores January 8, 2008.   I’m thrilled.  I’ll post the book tour schedule when I get it.  Oh, and I’m going to be on a panel at Thrillerfest in New York City at the Hyatt on Saturday, at 1 p.m., July 14, called So You Want To Do What To My Baby?   About taking books and making them into movies for TV or film. 

Writing.     

I’m still at work on a second thriller; the deadline is now July.    It’s part of a series.  This second thriller takes place just a little after the last one ends.

Really I want to talk about my pounding headache, how my teeth ache from it, how hard it is to get to work today and how much I have to accomplish. 

But I won’t.

Okay.  So.  Deep breath.  Square those shoulders. 

Writing.

I discovered something, or more likely, rediscovered it. 

If I show up, they do, indeed, come.  

If I’m here at my desk long enough, staring out over the prayer flags in my window, over the burst of purple fuchsia in my garden and down to the boats and blue bay and city along the horizon, they do indeed show up.

The trick is staying open to it; not censoring it, not telling a character who hurtles into the scene as if shot from a cannon politely but firmly that she needs to leave now, because I’m expecting a truly wonderful character any second to walk through that door and when he gets there, he’s going to lay pipe like nobody’s business, so scoot, little dumpling in the Birkenstocks, go into somebody else’s studio and wait patiently there.

Because see, it always turns out that that character’s the key to the whole thing, that reaching into her bag of magic tricks she pulls out a connection to the main character I’d never anticipated, or a Glock, or a miniaturized  replica of Folsom prison that includes a tunnel out, not to mention a really great slinky dress.

So sit.

Or stand.
  
Or pace.

Or lie in bed like Edith Wharton and fling papers covered in crabbed handwriting onto the hardwood floor for somebody else to collect, but show up.

That pretty much goes for life, too.

Showing up is a lot of it.

On most days, it will carry us through.

I’m swamped, but in a good way.   Sad to say, I haven’t had time to activate the mailing list feature on my webpage, but hope to have it up and running by my June blog.

 

I was working hard on my second thriller with an eye toward the June 1 deadline, and then my copyeditor at St. Martin’s sent along the copyedited version of The Timer Game; I stopped my work and have spent days poring over the manuscript and addressing questions she’s raised.  She’s done a great job, and her work has made the novel even better.  A novel is such a slippery thing.   I know inaccuracies are going to creep into this one, but it’s great having somebody watching my back when it comes to things like correct spelling of locations and proper names.   I have to have the manuscript returned to her by next Monday, so between that and finishing the new thriller, I’m trucking.

My terraced garden in front of my studio window is an explosion of flowers that remind me of the

Colorado mountains.  Sometimes a hummingbird comes eye-level with me, suspended whirring in space.  I’m within a few feet of it, over the top of my computer screen, separated by a pane of glass.  It’s stunning, this small blur, this burst of life.  (Right now, as I write this, it came, fed, and left, all within maybe eight seconds).

I’m realizing it doesn’t take long, (eight seconds; remarkable), to experience a small burst of wonder. 

That’s what I’m wishing for you, this month.   That during the intensely busy lives we’ve built for ourselves, we take a breath, a moment, a chance.   To see.   To let it in.  Over and over this month, while I’m working, pushing, focusing, I plan to step back, take a breath, and find again inside that small sliver of a time where hangs suspended, whirring  wings.