NEVER MARRY A CRIME WRITER (as presented to the Crime Writers of Canada at the Arthur Ellis Gala, Arts and Letters Club Toronto, May 2019)

 The Crime Writers of Canada went loco, and asked me to emcee the Arthur Ellis Awards this year.  Somehow they learned I might have done standup in the past.  Or maybe not, because they even paid me.  It may be more than my royalties this quarter.

 I dug back into my Sleuthsayer files to decide what might appeal to a hardened (re soused) group of crime writers en mass, with an open bar.  This is what resulted, and I’m happy to say the applause was generous.  You may remember some of this. 

 Arts and Letters Club, Toronto, May 23, 2019, 9PM

 Hello!  Mike said I could do a few minutes of comedy this evening as long as I apologized in advance.

 My name is Melodie Campbell, and it’s my pleasure to welcome here tonight crime writers, friends and family of crime writers, sponsors, agents, and any publishers still left out there.

 Tonight is that special night when the crime writing community in Canada meets to do that one thing we look forward to all year:  which is get together and bitch about the industry.

 Many of you knew my late husband Dave.  He was a great supporter of my writing, and of our crime community in general.  But many times, he could be seen wandering through the house, shaking his head and muttering “Never Marry a crime writer.”

 I’ve decided, here tonight, to list the reasons why.

 Everybody knows they shouldn’t marry a crime writer.  Mothers the world over have made that obvious: “For Gawd Sake, never marry a marauding barbarian, a sex pervert, or a crime writer.” (Or a politician, but that is my own personal bias.  Ignore me.)

 But for some reason, lots of innocent, unsuspecting people marry authors every year.  Obviously, they don’t know about the “Zone.”  (More obviously, they didn’t have the right mothers.)

 Never mind: I’m here to help.

 I think it pays to understand that crime writers aren’t normal humans: they write about people who don’t exist and things that never happened.  Their brains work differently.  They have different needs.  And in some cases, they live on different planets (at least, my characters do, which is kind of the same thing.)

 Thing is, authors are sensitive creatures.  This can be attractive to some humans who think that they can ‘help’ poor writer-beings (in the way that one might rescue a stray dog.)  True, we are easy to feed and grateful for attention.  We respond well to praise.  And we can be adorable.  So there are many reasons you might wish to marry a crime writer, but here are 10 reasons why you shouldn’t:

 The basics: 

 1  Crime Writers are hoarders.  Your house will be filled with books.  And more books.  It will be a shrine to books.  The lost library of Alexandria will pale in comparison.

 2  Crime Writers are addicts.  We mainline coffee.  We’ve also been known to drink other beverages in copious quantities, especially when together with other writers in places called ‘bars.’ 

 3  Authors are weird.  Crime Writers are particularly weird (as weird as horror writers.) You will hear all sorts of gruesome research details at the dinner table.  When your parents are there.  Maybe even with your parents in mind.

 4  Crime Writers are deaf.  We can’t hear you when we are in our offices, pounding away at keyboards. Even if you come in the room.  Even if you yell in our ears.

 5  Crime Writers are single-minded.  We think that spending perfectly good vacation money to go to conferences like Bouchercon is a really good idea.  Especially if there are other writers there with whom to drink beverages.

  And here are some worse reasons why you shouldn’t marry a crime writer:

 6  It may occasionally seem that we’d rather spend time with our characters than our family or friends. 

 7  We rarely sleep through the night.  (It’s hard to sleep when you’re typing.  Also, all that coffee...)

 8  Our Google Search history is a thing of nightmares.  (Don’t look.  No really – don’t.  And I’m not just talking about ways to avoid taxes… although if anyone knows a really fool-proof scheme, please email me.)

 And the really bad reasons:

 9  If we could have affairs with our beloved protagonists, we probably would. (No!  Did I say that out loud?)

 10  And lastly, We know at least twenty ways to kill you and not get caught.

 RE that last one:  If you are married to a crime writer, don’t worry over-much.  Usually crime writers do not kill the hand that feeds them.  Most likely, we are way too focused on figuring out ways to kill our agents, editors, and particularly, reviewers.

Why Book Tours are Expensive (More Comedy on the Road - with fond memories of being on the road)

 By Melodie Campbell

I’ve recently been on a book tour for my latest crime comedy, The Goddaughter.  Book tours are expensive.  You travel around to independent book stores and you sell some books and sign them.  It’s fun.  You meet a lot of great people.  But it’s expensive.  And I’m not talking about the hotel tab and the bar bill.

I should have just stayed in the bar.  It was leaving the bar that become expensive.

Nice night.  We decided to go for a walk.  It was dark, but I had on my brand new expensive progressive eye-glasses, so not a problem, right?

One second I was walking and talking.  The next, I was flying through the air.

Someone screamed. 

WHOMP.  (That was me, doing a face plant.)

“OHMYGOD! Are you okay?”  said my colleague.

I was clearly not okay.  In fact, I was splat on the sidewalk and could not move. 

“Fine!” I yelled into the flagstone.  “I’m Fine!”

I tried to lift my head.  Ouch.

“That must have hurt,” said someone helpfully.

I write mob comedies.  So I know a bit about mob assassins.  It may come in handy.

A crowd had gathered.  Not the sort of crowd that gently lifts you off the ground.  More the sort of crowd that gawks.

“Couldn’t figure out why you were running ahead of us.” My colleague shook his head.

I wasn’t running.  I was tripping and falling.

“That sidewalk is uneven.  Your foot must have caught on it.”

No shit, Sherlock.

By now I had tested various body parts.  Knees were numb.  Hands, scraped.  Chin, a little sore. 

But here’s the thing.  I hit in this order: knees, tummy, boobs, palms.  My tummy and boobs cushioned the fall and saved my face.  

 Yes, this was going through my mind as I pushed back with my tender palms to balance on my bloody knees.

“Ouch!”  I said.  No, that’s a lie.  I said something else.

I stood up.  Surveyed the damage.  My knees were a bloody mess, but the dress survived without a scratch.  It was made in China, of course.  Of plastic.

The crowd was dispersing.  But the pain wasn’t over.

Next day, I hobbled to the clinic.  The doctor, who probably isn’t old enough to drive a car, shook his head.  “Progressive glasses are the number one reason seniors fall.  They are looking through the reading part of their glasses when they walk, and can’t see the ground properly.”

Seniors?  I’ve still got my baby fat.

“Get some distance-only glasses,” he advised.

So I did.  Another 350 bucks later, I have a third pair of glasses to carry around in my purse.

Which means my purse isn’t big enough.

So I need to buy a new purse.

And that’s why book tours are so expensive.

Melodie Campbell got her start writing comedy (standup and columns.) In 1999, she opened the Canadian Humour Conference.

When Words Collide - Plot vs Character Grudge match!

Lots of fun yesterday on the panel at the When Words Collide reader-conference!

Normally, we would be in Calgary, having a blast.

Bonus:  I don't even hate the vid - pix

Back by popular request (thanks Mike!) - BATHING SUIT HELL or My War with the Madonna Suit

(first published in newspaper syndication, Bad Girl column)

By Melodie Campbell

Last week I had to do something that engenders the kind of enthusiasm that might be associated with a mass accident on the Gardiner Expressway.

I went shopping for a bathing suit.

Now let me make this absolutely clear.  I have been a bank manager in a low rent district where the con artists are trained at birth.  I’ve taught rowdy all-male classes of engineers.  I’ve taken two kids to Wonderland and positively laughed at the lineups.  So I’m pretty hard to intimidate.

Except in a swimsuit shop.

“Do you have anything with winches?”  I say to sweet little Clerkette.

“Is that a brand name?”  She squeaks back.

It is obvious from the start this isn’t going to work.  Clerkette looks all of sixteen.  She comes back with a two piece that might possibly fit a Barbie Doll. 

“Let me make this clearer,” I say patiently.  “Things have happened to my body in the last few decades.  I may be a little hard to fit.”

“No problem,” she says cheerfully.  “We have just the thing.”

I look around the store.  Walls of colourful bathing suits on racks, all looking about size 2.  The price tags, however, are size 20.  Why is it that the smaller the article, the greater the cost?

Clerkette comes back with a couple of fuchsia ribbons hanging from her fingers.  “Try this,” she says.  “It’s a Tanga.  They fit everyone.”

I squint at the ribbons.  “Where is it?” I say.

Men don’t have to deal with this.  No, indeed. Here’s what happens when a man goes into a store:

Man:  “I need a bathing suit.”

Clerk: “Do you want blue or red?”

Man:  “Blue is good.  How much?”

But back to Clerkette.  I try again. 

“Do you have something that is a little more structured, if you know what I mean.  Something that ‘lifts and redistributes’.”

“Ah!” says Clerkette.  “You want our ‘Madonna’ model.”

She hands me a steely black suit with hard cups that looks something like a medieval torture device.

“Perfect!” I say.  I go into the wee change room to try it on.

What ensues is a monumental fight between me and the suit that lasts about fifteen minutes.  (Shoppers: 0, Fiendish Designers: 1)  Finally, various bits of me have been forced into the chambers allotted to them.  Breathing is possible, barely.  I look in the mirror.  The result is not bad.  I look like an escapee from a Wagner opera, or an extra from an 80s music video, minus the hair. Take your pick.

 Like I said, not bad.

Which is a good thing, because there’s not a chance in hell I’ll ever get out of it.

THE ITALIAN CURE a Dewey Diva Pick!

A Dewey Diva Pick signifies a "hidden gem on a publisher's list"

Thank you, Dewey Diva librarians!

My Most Popular Humour Post: (with apologies to sane people everywhere)

I was recently asked to re-post this.  Obviously, we need a zany alternative to the news.  So here goes, with apologies to sane people everywhere.

Books I will Never Write: Dino Porn

By Melodie Campbell (Bad Girl, who wishes this could have been posted on April 1, even though it's largely true)

Apparently, I have been sounding too normal these days.  There have been complaints.  The following is an attempt to rectify that.  

People pay money for the weirdest reads.  Don’t believe me?

Dinosaur Porn

Yes, you heard that right.  This is a ‘thing.’  No, I don’t mean porn that randy male dinosaurs might read, involving somewhat sassy females of the same species who like a good time.  Last I checked, dinosaurs couldn’t read.  Not even the urban ones.

But I’m not here to talk about that.  I’m not even going to talk about the weirdness of someone wanting to write about sexual relations between a human of today and a creature that might possibly have become extinct during an ice storm back in the good old days.  All writers are weird.  Some are more weird than others (thank you, George Orwell.)

Nope.  I want to talk about the blatant inequity in the dinosaur porn field.  Not only that, in ALL areas of human/not-even-remotely-human erotica.

Don’t believe me?  Have you noticed that all these erotic books that star humans and some other race like Vampires or Werewolves or Aliens or Ducks (hey! Has it been done?) always feature a girl with the Vampire or Werewolf?  Or, in our case, a girl with the T-Rex?

Why is it always that way around?  Never do you see a young man being pursued by, say, a randy female dino.  I have to assume female dinos are more discriminating.   

Still, in the interests of fair play, I offer my version of Dino porn:
It might go like this:

“La, la, lalalala, la, lala, la, la…” <innocent young female stegosaurus frolics among the Precambrian (whatever) wild-flowers, unaware that she is about to be approached from behind>

“Hey hey,” says healthy male homo sapien, who obviously time-traveled here from another era.  “You on Tinder, babe?”

“Tinder?” says Steggy-gal, unfamiliar with the vernacular.  “Isn’t this a grassland?”

“How about I just show you my equipment?” says creepy guy, who might possibly be blind.  “I’ll just take it out here…oops, no. That’s my phone.”

“Oh!  There’s a butterfly!” says Steggy-gal, easily distracted.

“HA,” says creep, lining up to do the dirty. “Bet ya never had it like THIS before!”

“Gee, these flies are a nuisance,” says Steggy, batting the annoyance away with her spiked tale. "Why do they always hang around THAT end…”

“YEOOOOOOOW”

Okay, enough pastiche-ing around.  It’s discrimination, pure and simple.  Okay, maybe not pure.  And possibly more complicated than simple.  All those apendages… which reminds me. Girl with a Squid comes out in 2021.

Melodie Campbell writes some pretty wild comedy.  She even gets paid to do it, by poor unsuspecting publishers.  Check out her many series at Books in the menu above.

"a lovely feel-good pick-me-up" - THE ITALIAN CURE!

So delightful to wake up to this! Check out the entire review and more with the link below:
THE ITALIAN CURE: My Review:

"Travelling isn’t possible right now but take a trip to Rome with The Italian Cure, a lovely feel-good pick-me-up that you’ll enjoy as much as the delicious nougat and other treats described in this wonderful romcom."

theminervareader.com

Current Features

Click here for the whole thing:  https://theminervareader.com/

IN Great Company!

The Arthur Ellis Awards Gala will be virtual this year, alas.
Otherwise I would be sitting with Marissa Stapley, Samantha Haywood, Kevin Donovan and Brenna English-Loeb at the dinner, sharing a bottle of bubbly!  Great company to be in.

How Mary Stewart Rocked the Literary World and the Lives of Women like Me

On Sleuthsayers today with the following post, repeated here for my regular followers...

How Mary Stewart rocked the Literary World and the Lives of Women like Me

by Melodie Campbell

When I say rocked, I don't mean 'rock on'!  Nope, I mean rocked to the core.

Since mid-March, we've been in close to lockdown here in the True North.  That has given me time to revisit old favourties and be utterly shocked by the revelations therein.

When I was a young girl in the seventies, I graduated from Nancy Drew, to Agatha Christie, and then to the masters of romantic suspense, Victoria Holt, Daphne DuMaurier and my particular favourite, Mary Stewart.

Of course I did.  The hormones were running high, and the choice of males in my classroom left a lot to be desired.  I yearned for big romance.  But I wasn't happy with romance genre books and found them boring.  This gal wanted high adventure rather than sweet attraction.  So suspense, it was.

At that young age, I didn't even know what type of man I would want in my life.  Surely not Heathcliff.  Not Mr. Darcy.  Those heroes did not reach me.  Far too brooding and sulky.

Then I read My Brother Michael.  Holy Heartbeat, Batman!  There, I found the man of my dreams and the heroine I wished to become.

Most men of my age know Mary Stewart from her brilliant King Arthur and Merlin novels, The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills.  Wonderful books.  But I'm speaking of her romantic suspense novels in this column today.

Simply put, they were revolutionary.

Readers, did you know this?  A quiet revolution was happening in fiction, and Mary Stewart was at the epicentre of it.

In the 70s, I couldn't have put my finger on it.  Now, with decades and experience later, it's absolutely clear to me why she was my favourite.

Why?  Her heroines.  These women were educated and had careers.  They were veterinarians, Latin teachers, Shakespearean actors.  They traveled solo to foreign places!

But with adventure comes mishap.  For years, I had read books and seen movies where women waited to be rescued.  Even The Princess Bride, a movie loved by so many, had a princess who relied on others to rescue her.

I wanted a princess who would pick up the sword herself.  (Even more, ditch the princess.  I wanted her to be Queen.)

Mary Stewart's protagonists had courage and resourcefulness.  They fought back when threatened.  They risked their lives rescuing large animals (This Rough Magic) and even men (The Moonspinners.)  This was not only unusual for the time - it was absolutely groundbreaking.

Second reason I fell in love with the stories of Mary Stewart:  her heroes.

These were the men I wanted in my life.  Some may find this hard to believe (stop laughing) but I have been told I am a strong woman.  I was the sort of gal who was told by profs at university that I "didn't know my place."

In Stewart's books, I found the ideal man for a strong woman.  Her heroes were my kinda guys.  Well-educated, but when things go bad, they don't walk away from a fight.  There was a primitive edge there, a peel back of civilization when the chips are down.

In Airs Above the Ground, the male lead forces the hand of the villain down on a red hot stove burner while saying, "It was this hand, I believe?"  (The hand that had previously hit the hero's wife.)

I cannot begin to tell you how sexy that is.

In My Brother Michael, the heroine is fighting hard but losing.  Her lover arrives just in time to kill a
powerful Greek criminal with his own hands in a to-the-death fight; he breaks the fiend's neck.  Of course, said male lead also happens to be a classics scholar...but hey, in the UK, classics scholars can have commando training.  An unbeatable combination of brains and brawn.


Stewart was magic for a young miss trying to be more than society expected her to.  She was magic to an aspiring writer yearning for adventures.  But more than that, she was revolutionary.

My good friend Jeannette Harrison said it best:

"I think all female crime-fighters of today owe a huge debt to Stewart.  She was one of the first writers of popular fiction to portray women who were not helpless and hysterical in a crisis."

Think about that, you superhero and comic book heroines who kick butt!  All you female private investigators in fiction today!  And give a bow to Mary Stewart, who bravely gave us those role models over fifty years ago.

Vos saluto.

How about you?  Any other authors you would also salute?

Melodie Campbell was hardly ever a mob goddaughter, at least not recently, but she writes about one.  THE GODDAUGHTER DOES VEGAS has been shortlisted for the 2020 Arthur Ellis Award 

for Excellence in Crime Writing (Crime Writers of Canada.)  You can find The Goddaughter series at all the usual suspects.

Melodie Campbell
Winner of the Derringer and Arthur Ellis Awards
"Impossible not to laugh." Library Journal review of THE GODDAUGHTER

• www.melodiecampbell.com
• Melodie Campbell, Author, on Facebook
• @melodiecampbell

THE GODDAUGHTER DOES VEGAS shortlisted for THE ARTHUR! Crime Writers of Canada

Thrilled that Gina and Nico are shortlisted for the 2020 Arthur Ellis Award!  Thanks, Alison, for the heads up!

A litle standup - (or lie down, ahem)

Chanelling my stand-up days, with a little humour:

Interview with the Tenured and Talented Melodie Campbell! (okay, at least part of that is true...)

My honour to be on Lisa de Nikolits' Blog today! As expected, Lisa asks the teaser questions that one can't hide from (says the gal who was hardly ever a mob goddaughter, at least not recently)

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/19637850-interview-with-an-author-featuring-the-tenured-and-talented-melodie-camp?fbclid=IwAR3YDz5YjLtGy04Phm-Z-6SvKGmoEOEWfSRcoqqdbRTuJlcekeU-O8EeKjY

Here's a teaser from it:
Tell us something really interesting that's happened to you!
In 1993, I had a wacky comedy play produced in Toronto. A producer was in the audience, and he said to me after, “You are completely nuts. How would you like to come to LA and write pilots for us?” I sadly said no, because I had two pre-schoolers and a husband – how could I move them to the US. Besides…it was 1993. Who had ever heard of this outfit called HBO??

This has to be the worst mistake ever made by someone not legally insane.

Bye Bye Piano! (snif)

Sometimes you have to say goodbye to beloved things in a move.  My piano has a new home with some lovely people.  It also has a history that might interest people popping on here:

 History of the Vose Piano

In 1980, I was a singer with the Toronto Gaelic Singers, and our conductor was with the Canadian Opera Company.  She and I were good friends, and she heard of a sale of used grand pianos that was open to members of the professional music community in Toronto.

There had been a recession in the US, particularly in the auto industry states.  An enterprising man with connections to the opera company had gone down to Detroit with a transport, and brought back seventeen pianos. 

I had only been married two years, but I longed for a piano.  I was not only a singer; I had done twelve years of piano lessons and also played the violin.  As it turned out, I had a bit of extra money because I worked for Bell Canada, and the operators had been on strike.  As management, I had to do massive overtime on the ‘boards’ as we called it.  My job was the night shift, now 911.  My husband (who died in 2019) was a wonderful man who agreed that I should take the overtime money and buy a piano.

My friend got me in the sale, and we had a piano technician with us.  There were seventeen pianos in the old Toronto house where they were being stored.  The technician checked every one, and then told me to buy this one.  I had fallen in love with a pretty white painted one, and he shook his head firmly and said this piano was by far the best one in the place.  “Did I want a pretty piano, or a great piano?” I remember him saying.  I felt duly scolded.

He told me this was a Vose, from Boston – a well-known company that produced excellent instruments.  This particular piano had come from a hotel in Detroit that had gone bankrupt.  It had been used in a bar, by a singer accompanied by a pianist.  Before the piano was refinished (in 1985) you could see drink rings on the lid.

I paid $2100 for the piano, which was a lot of money at the time.  (It was the most expensive piano in the shipment.)  Our research since then told us that the piano was manufactured around 1923.  If you look at the legs, you will see it is definitely in the style of Art Deco. 

I played it for years, and my two daughters took lessons.  Ten years ago, I developed arthritis, so haven’t been able to play it much.

It’s been well-loved for nearly 100 years, and I’m delighted to have it go to its next good home.

Melodie Campbell  (Now with the Welsh Ladies Chorus)

Hey! A photo that doesn't make me want to kill myself...

I READ CANADIAN DAY!  Joan O'Callaghan and that sketchy broad from the Deadly Dames, at the Toronto Public Library in front of an audience of 60+. 
(Hey! a photo that looks like me, and doesn't make me want to kill myself.  Bonus.)

I READ CANADIAN! - Crime Writing Panel Tonight

Catch me at Armour Heights branch of the 

TORONTO PUBLIC LIBRARY, in celebration of 

I READ CANADIAN day! 

 I hear registration is full house, which just goes to show how many people are interested in Crime (okay, crime writing!) 

Worst Date Ever, featured in this poster for I READ CANADIAN!

My New Home! Classy people at Transatlantic - Happy to be represented out of New York again!

You can catch the rest here:
https://www.transatlanticagency.com/2020/02/13/welcoming-melodie-campbell-to-transatlantic/?fbclid=IwAR3gU-KfuKXD1NWQHbu7nRyeGefaXz6v5Bj3vQ6WZEVzmplo1iUkBqdCKls

How I became an overnight success in 26 years (That was one long night..)

By Melodie Campbell  (Bad Girl)

(Reprinted with Permission)

Three years ago, I wrote a crazy little book that won two crime writing awards.  (Okay, not three years ago.  It won the Derringer and Arthur Ellis three years ago, which means I wrote it two years before that.  Trad publishing takes time…but I digress.)

That year, I also won a national short story contest, with prize money of $3000.  The year after, I was shortlisted along with Margaret Atwood, for another fiction award.  (That was the year pigs learned to fly in Canada.)

The Toronto Sun called to interview me.  They titled the article, “Queen of Comedy.”

“You’re famous!” said an interviewer.  “How does it feel to become an overnight success?”

“That was one long night,” I said.  “It lasted 26 years.”

This blog post was inspired by Anne R. Allen

Not long ago, Anne had a post on her Top 100 blog:  10 Reason Why You Shouldn’t Publish that 1st Novel

(It’s terrific.  Click on the link, to see why.)

But that got me thinking about my own “overnight success.”

Here’s the thing.  I started writing fiction for money in 1987. (Nineteen Eighty-Seven!!  Big shoulders and big hair.  Wasn’t that two years before the Berlin Wall came down?)

I won my first award (Canadian Living Magazine) in 1989.  By the time my first novel hit bookshelves, I already had 24 short stories published, and had won six awards.

Plus The Goddaughter’s Revenge – the book that won the Derringer and Arthur – wasn’t my first novel published.  It was my fifth.

My Point:

I’ll drill down even more.  It wasn’t even my fifth novel written.  It was my seventh.  The first two will never see the light of day.  One has gone on to floppy disk heaven.  Although if God reads it up there, he may send it to hell.

I would never want ANYONE to read my first two novels.  Writing them taught me how to write.  I got rid of bad habits with those books.  I learned about the necessity of motivation.  The annoyance of head-hopping.  And the importance of having a protagonist that people can like and care about.

Yes, my first novel had a TSTL heroine who was naive, demanding, and constantly had to be rescued.  (For those who don’t know, TSTL stands for Too Stupid To Live.  Which can occur when the author is too stupid to write.)  Even I got sick of her.  Why would anyone else want to make her acquaintance?

In my first two novels, I learned about plot bunnies.  Plot bunnies are those extraneous side trips your book takes away from the main plot.  Each book should have an overall plot goal, and ALL subplots should meander back to support that one plot goal in the end.  My first book had everything but aliens in it.  All sorts of bunnies that needed to be corralled and removed.

Speaking of bunnies, I’m wandering.  So back to the point:

IN 2015, some people saw me as an overnight success.  I was getting international recognition and bestseller status.  One of my books hit the Amazon Top 100 (all books) at number 47, between Tom Clancy and Nora Roberts.*

But that overnight success took 26 years.  I had one long apprenticeship.

I tell my students to keep in mind that being an author is a journey.  No one is born knowing how to write a great novel.  You get better as you write more.  You get better as you read more.  You get better as you learn from others.

Being an author is a commitment.  You aren’t just writing ‘one book.’  You are going to be a writer for the rest of your life. Commit to it.  Find the genre you love.  Write lots.

And you too can be an overnight success in 26 years.

(The Goddaughter.  A much more likeable protagonist, even if she is a bit naughty.)