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Grafton
I think the problem with her is more of the fact that her character is aging much slower then she is. It's been close to 20 years since the start of the series and about 2 years in the life of her character. She is at a much different place then she was when she started writing the series.
posted by
mikea18
on September 14, 2006 at 5:45 PM
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I run hot and cold on Grafton.
I run hotand cold on Elmore Leonard and Larry Block, too.
Anyone who writes that many tends to become a little stale or dink off a foul ball once in awhile. I love Robert Parker's stuff, but after thirty some novels, Spenser has become more of some kind of Red Cross Knight rather than a regular character. At least Parker will go out and invent new ones.
posted by
strat
on September 14, 2006 at 5:53 AM
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Strat, Hover away
Thanks for the link. Years ago, when I started planning my series, Janet Evanovich came along. (Oddly enough, I had met her but didn't connect it to the series until a year or so later.) I remember reading her first book and thinking that my voice had been stolen. It freaked me out. She speaks just like people I grew up with. (I'm from Baltimore, and she's from Jersey. Serious personality similarities on the small neighborhoods.) Also, the character is a bailbonds recovery agent. My cousin works in a bail bonds office. Well, I've had to change all of that around. Geez. I'm so concerned that when I get this out, I'm going to hear that I stole her style. Anyone who reads my blogs will get that I have a certain voice. The voice is exactly the same in my fiction. It's a little bizarre.
Do you read Grafton? I've been getting progressively let down with her, much like the Kay Scarpetta series with Patricia Cornwall.
Thanks for the other referrals. I'll look them up. I'm always looking for a new one.
posted by
terpgirl30
on September 13, 2006 at 2:15 PM
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Sorry about hovering in your comments here, but check this out:
www.lindabarnes.com.
posted by
strat
on September 13, 2006 at 5:55 AM
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Woops, that's Crumley...
posted by
strat
on September 13, 2006 at 5:49 AM
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I haven't seen anything new by her for some time.
I was kind of wondering, myself. I don't think she died, or anything like that.
You know, another one I liked a lot just sort of faded out of the scene -- Steven Salomita(I thinnk I spelled that right). He wrote great hard boiled detective fiction --former New York cabbie with a real ear for language -- and I haven't seen anything by him in years. Or James Crumbley, for that matter.
I'm glad I never had to do Catholic school, being a fallen away stiff-backed round head from way back. But we did have those huge wooden hall passes in school. Pretty funny stuff.
posted by
strat
on September 13, 2006 at 5:48 AM
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Strat
Any news on Linda Barnes. It just stopped. I don't think I read the books in order. I started in the middle, then went back. I've done searching so I know I got them all. She just seems to have stopped.
The underwear thing...yeah, Catholic school kid, Catholic School mom. The piece of fiction I've been working on, a mystery series, uses the underwear reference or something like it. I have to draw on my own stuff, so she's a Catholic School kid. My dad and I were going through the references. Kids who have had nuns by their sides all get the references. (The hall pass we had to use to go the bathroom was meant to stop kids from asking teachers if they could go...It wwas a 3 foot tall, plywood cutout of a toilet. I was tall, but really skinny. I don't think I used the bathroom in that school more than a handful of times in 8 years.
posted by
terpgirl30
on September 12, 2006 at 11:17 PM
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I love Carlotta Carlisle! Linda Barnes rocks!
But I must admit, that's kinda like your mother's warning to always wear clean underwear, just in case you get in an accident and go into a coma, and all the emergency room knows that you're not wearing clean underwear... Come to think of it, that it is a little scary.
Damn it!
posted by
strat
on September 12, 2006 at 1:16 PM
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Terpgirl--- I totally identify with this, and it gets worse as I grow older
posted by
Jazwolf
on September 10, 2006 at 7:19 AM
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Passion I know it was meant as a compliment
but to show up in a frustrated group of unpublished writers as anything but a visiting big sister would be horrific for me. Since publishing is how I've made my living most of my life, it would be the one last sane thing for me to lose. And it may still happen. never say never. Sigh.
posted by
terpgirl30
on September 9, 2006 at 12:08 PM
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You show up as one of Ms. L's new students.
In the Frustrated Unpublished
Writers Support Group
posted by
Passionflower
on September 9, 2006 at 10:45 AM
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chaos as a prelude to organization and tranquility...
up in the air and frazzled, then down with it and cool. The pendulum swings back & forth, reaching a low point each time it swings. You'll soon have the chaos and clutter packed away, the house will be staged, and you'll get your asking price. One day you'll have the perfect revenge on the one that done you wrong: you'll live well.
posted by
Pat_B
on September 9, 2006 at 5:37 AM
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girl
I agree with you about smaller places. Moving is a bummer though!
posted by
Offy
on September 9, 2006 at 2:08 AM
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fear of dying
are you sure you aren't sitting in my bedroom. I just finished the selling of the house, and it took a month to get out. Talk about a bunch of junk
posted by
Lanetay
on September 8, 2006 at 11:40 PM
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