CHASING MOONBEAMS

by Steve Steinbock

I realize that the title of today’s Bandersnatches sounds like something borrowed from a Fred Astaire movie or a Cat Stevens song. I’m also following up on Deborah’s Femme Fatale column from yesterday which waxed on climate in fiction. But I actually found myself doing that very thing — chasing a real moonbeam last night. The moon was full outside, but I couldn’t see it. I was inside, it was late, everyone was asleep, and I was heading upstairs. I saw a glimmer on the floor. It could have been one of three things: (1) moonlight was reflecting on the floor, (2) I was being visited by faeries, or (3) I’d been hitting too much of the other kind of moonshine.

I was voting for option 1.

It was very pretty. The glow had a pinkish-orange gold hue to it that reminded me of the way the sunset would hit the limestone and dolomite buildings throughout Jerusalem, setting off an otherworldly aura.

The odd thing was that I couldn’t find where the moonlight was coming from.

I stepped back, turned around, and looked up. I tried to place myself between any window and the glowing spot on the floor in order to find the source of the light. I was about to admit that I had become victim to a supernatural hoax when I realized that the light was coming through an upstairs bathroom skylight, casting its beam along a path that was blocked from my view. Damn,

I’m a magician. I should have figured that out sooner.

Writing fiction is a lot like chasing moonbeams. We know the story is there. We see its glow. But we need to harness the beam — saddle up, climb on, and go for a ride — in order to make the story happen.

Stories, like moonbeams, are fleeting things. They are always around us, but we rarely notice, and when we do they disappear or we go about our daily routines, forgetting the glow. Ideas are all around us, plot spores hovering in our breathing space waiting for us to inhale them and grow them into fully developed stories.

Following up on Last Week

In my previous column, after telling about my encounter with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, I shared thoughts on genre and on writers who think themselves above it. I still haven’t read Dennis Lehane’s The Given Day, but I repeat that it walks like a crime novel and quacks like a crime novel. Perhaps Lehane feels like he’s done all he can with the Private Eye subgenre. But he’s a nice guy, and I sure hope he doesn’t forget where he came from.

I cryptically referred to another writer who had left the mystery world behind because she thought she was above it. I felt funny writing about her, even without using her name. Was I being fair?

While at Bouchercon last week, I had the opportunity to check my facts. If anything, I was being generous to the author of Appalachian sagas. Numerous people reported things said by the author that were insulting not only to mystery and crime fiction, but to its best practitioners.

Life After Bouchercon

Speaking of Bouchercon, it was wonderful. Approximately 1500 authors, editors, reviewers, agents, booksellers, and fans gathered in Baltimore for three and a half days of panels, meetings, parties, signings, and shopping.

For me, attending Bouchercon is a little like Gene Kelly stepping into Brigadoon somewhere in the highlands of Scotland. Bouchercon is a community that pops up once a year, and its regular attendees are villagers who pick up conversations right where they left off twelve months earlier.

I saw many dear friends in Bouchercon, and met others for the first time.

Friday evening I had dinner with Liverpool solicitor Martin Edwards, who has dropped by Criminal Brief from time to time. A delightful man and a wonderful writer. Saturday night I dined with longtime friend Doug Greene and EQMM and AHMM editors Janet Hutchings and Linda Landrigan. Sunday night, in an eleventh hour airport encounter, I shared dinner with the lovely and talented Rosemary Stevens (creator of the Agatha Award winning “Beau Brummell” series as well as the “Murder-a-Go-Go” novels under the name Rosemary Martin).

Saturday night I participated in a Pub Trivia contest in which I teamed up with James L. Warren, aforementioned Rosemary Stevens, AHMM editor Linda Landrigan, and mystery historian Marv Lachman. We might have won if I’d gotten there earlier.

I spent quality time with my friends from DAPA-EM (a secret society of mystery people – I’d tell you more, but then I’d have to kill you; think of us as the Trilateral Commission of the mystery world). I’d intended to meet up with them Friday night, but was waylaid by S.J. Rozan and James Lincoln Warren, whom I followed to a poker game. I’m not much of a poker player, but S.J. had a bottle of Maker’s Mark, so I was obliged to follow. The game was attended by Parnell Hall, Bill Fitzhugh, Max Allen Collins, and somebody who used to be Steve Stilwell, among others.

Time spent with fellow Criminal Briefers was delicious. (Rob and Deborah, hope you can join us next year). John, Leigh, the Zemans, and friend of CB Hal White were all delightful. Melodie and I found that we were kindred spirits in the ways of the world. And Criminal Brief founder James Lincoln Warren, what can I say? Jim, I love you, man.

In all, the conference was for me a little taste of heaven. I came home still on a high, with a smile on my face, knowing that in twelve months, Bouchercon will rise again in the highlands of Indianapolis. Hope to see you there.