A Thank You to the Original Fashionista

My mother died 7 years ago this week.  Today would have been her birthday.  So I am revisiting this post for the first time since the original was posted.  (Yes, this blog has been going a long time!) 

(That's me on the right, after a modeling job, still wearing the last dress from the show.  Mom is on the left, her sister Marg in between us.  Circa 1986.)

My mother was the original fashionista.  From the day I was born, she dressed me like a princess in petite designer knock-offs.  So it’s no mystery why my latest mystery A PURSE TO DIE FOR (co-written with Cynthia St-Pierre) has a fashion theme to it.

I remember happy Saturdays with Mom traveling the subway to Eaton’s in Toronto, from the time I was five.  I would gaze at the super stylish manikins in the picture windows at Eaton’s and Simpson’s (both long gone) with pure delight.  It was the 60s and fashions were ‘mod’.  Colour sizzled. Makeup was bold.  And 

Mom was a gorgeous diva who turned heads everywhere.

Many years later, I took my own trips down the runway in Vancouver and Toronto, as an occasional fashion model for Marilyn Brooks and others.  And trip is the right word!  Sometimes those high heels were a little too stiletto.

Now, my own daughter Alex rules the runway, and has taken over as the family fashion Diva.  Why?

One of the tragedies of my life is that my mother died mere months before A PURSE TO DIE FOR was published.  It was my gift to her – a fun and heartfelt thank you for the brightness she created in my life.  Mom was the sun around which this family spun.  Her love of beauty in art and clothes reflected the beauty of her soul.

The heroine in A PURSE TO DIE FOR has the same fashion addiction, and the same big heart.  What Gina recognizes – and what my Italian mother so effortlessly portrayed – is that fashion is just downright fun, and we should take joy from it.

So to my dear Mom who walked the Rainbow Runway just months before A PURSE TO DIE FOR came out – this book is for you.  Miss you every day.  Ciao Bella.

"Not MY body." An Excerpt from my favourite book, THE GODDAUGHTER CAPER

Oh dear.  As authors, we aren't supposed to have favourites.  Please don't tell my other book-children.  Here's the start of Chapter 2, in the book that answers the question:

Do old mobsters EVER retire?

Chapter 2

It was almost nine. I drove to the place I was supposed to go. (Don’t ask—I can’t tell you.) It was a little place behind a little place in a not-so-well-lit area. The guys at the chop shop stared as I emerged from the car. They had the good sense not to catcall.

Tony (my second cousin Tony—meaning I have more than one) nodded at me.

“Gina. How’s things?” He was wiping his greasy hands on an even greasier towel.

“Same ole, same ole,” I said. Except for the dead body in my trunk. “You?”

“Good. The twins are growing. You should come ’round.” Tony looks like a Tony. And his wife, Maria, is equally front-page Italian.

He nodded to the trunk. “The Wanker dude?”

I gestured with both arms. “Not my body. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Strange they dumped it there at the restaurant. But no worries. I’ll get it to the retirement home.”

“The retirement home? Too late for that,” I quipped. “You mean the funeral home.”

Tony stiffened. He tilted his head. “Sure, whatever.”

He looked like he was about to say more, then stopped.

Maybe “retirement home” was new slang for “funeral home”? Like you sort of retired from life there?

“No probs. I’ll call you when the car’s ready,” he said finally.

I wanted to get out of there, but it was really dark. And I had no wheels. And I didn’t want to be seen at this place, so that meant no taxi.

I called my fiancé Pete’s cell phone. “Hey, can you come pick me up?”

“Where’s your car?” Pete asked.

“What?” Pete’s voice always does something to me. I might have been a bit distracted.

“Where is your car?” Pete repeated precisely.

“Oh.” I thought fast. “It needed a little work, so I took it in to the mechanic.”

“Does this have anything to do with the take-out on James?”

I shrieked a bit. Or, at least, that’s what Tony said it sounded like.

“What do you know about a murder on James?” I hissed into the phone.

“I work for a newspaper, remember? I hear everything.”

“Well, un-hear it. And get the others to un-hear it too.” Jeesh. All I needed was reporters following me around, and cops following them.

I gave Pete the address.

“I’m still at work. Pick you up in twenty.”

Before I could put my cell back in my purse, it started singing “Shut Up and Drive.”

“Wally the Wanker got whacked?” It was Sammy the String Bean, Vince’s underboss.

I hesitated. “Looks like two plugs from a .38. You mean you didn’t do it?” I wasn’t going to say we. There is no we in my vocabulary when it comes to murder.

“No way, Sugar. This is interesting. Gotta go talk to Vince.” He hung up.

BUY LINK on Amazon

DO AUTHORS EXPECT TOO MUCH? (wait a minute...this is a serious post! Has Bad Girl lost her mind?

(This post appears on that upstanding international crime blog SLEUTHSAYERS today!  Repeated here for my regular readers.)

by Melodie Campbell

I'm guilty of this one. I'll say it right up front.

Janice Law and O'Neil De Noux got me thinking serious thoughts, which is always risky for a comedy writer.

I make a living as an author.  But not a particularly good one.  Probably, I could make the same working full time at Starbucks.  As authors in these times, we don't expect to make a good living from our fiction.  It's a noble goal, but not a realistic one for the average well-publisher author with a large traditional publisher.

This isn't a new observation.  F. Scott Fitzgerald said something similar about his time:  The book publishing industry makes horse racing seem like a sure thing.

So if we can't expect big bucks from all this angst of writing fiction, what do we expect?

When The Goddaughter came out, there was quite a fanfare.  I was with a large publisher that agreed to pay for refreshments.  Eighty-five people overflowed the place for the launch.  Local newspaper and television brought cameras.  This doesn't happen in mega-city Toronto.  But in Hamilton, a city of 500,000 where my book was set, I got some splashy coverage.

Those eighty-five people included some of my closest friends and cousins.  I was delighted to see them support me.  We sold out of books quickly.

I've had another twelve books published since then. I've won ten awards.  I am still fortunate to get people to my launches.  But the mix has changed.  The people who come to my launches now are fans, not relatives and friends.  With a few exceptions (and those are friends I treasure.)

Back when I first started writing - when big shoulders were a really cool thing - I expected my friends and extended family to be my biggest supporters.  I've been fortunate.  My immediate family has been terrific.

But expecting your friends and extended family to celebrate your success in continual ways is a road to disappointment.

I've come to realize this: if you work, say,  in a bank and get a massive, very difficult project done, there are no parades.  Your friends and family don't have a party for you.  They don't insist on reading the report.  Your paycheck is your award.

Yet as an author, I have expected that sort of response from my non-writer friends.  I expect them to buy my books.  (First mistake: all your friends will expect to be given your books for free.  For them, it's a test of friendship.)  I expect them to show up to support me at my big events if I am in their town.  Maybe not every time.  Is once a year too much?

It's been a lesson.  I have people in my circle who have never been to a single one of my author readings or launches.  I've given my books to relatives who are absolutely delighted to receive a signed copy - but they never actually read the book.

Worse - I've done the most masochistic thing an author can do.  I've casually searched friends' bookshelves for my books.  Not there.  (Note to new authors: NEVER ask someone if they have read your book.  You are bound to be disappointed.  This is because, if they read it and liked it, they will tell you without prompting.  If they read it and didn't like it, you don't want to know.  If they didn't read it...ditto.)

Yet along this perilous, exhilarating and sometimes heartbreaking journey, I've made a discovery.  Your closest friends may let you down. I no longer see my closest friend from ten years ago.  I write crime and fantasy.  She let me know that she thought that unworthy.

People like her will find excuses not to go to your events.  I don't know why.  It could be a form of envy.

But the best thing?  Some people you least suspect will be become your best supporters.  This came as a complete surprise to me.  A few friends - maybe not the ones you were closest to - will rise to the occasion and support you in every way they can.  I treasure them.

To wrap:  Most authors need approval.  We're doing creative work that involves a lot of risk to the ego.  There is no greater gift you can give an author-friend than full support for their books.  Be with us at our events.  Talk enthusiastically about our books to other people.  We will never forget it, and you.

Do we expect too much from those around us?  Is it because we don't usually get a constant paycheck? What do you think?

On Amazon

Could she ever write anything straight? (in which comedy slurps into the latest work in progress)

Some readers may wonder if the humour they read on Bad Girl Blog carries over to my novels.  Here is an example:

From my current crime WIP (a Roaring Twenties Shipboard Mystery) -
THE MERRY WIDOW MURDER

Tony was pacing now.  “You can’t … Lucy, don’t tell me you’re thinking to hide a dead man in your cabin.”

“Nonsense, darling,” I said.  “How long could that last?  It wouldn’t be sanitary.”  I took a deep breath. “Actually, I was thinking of the deep blue sea.”

My so-called maid Elf nodded.  “Seems the thing.”

“At this point, we must think of Harry and what he would like,” I said.  “A romantic burial at sea?  Or being torn apart while all exposed on a cold slate coroner’s table?” 

Elf shivered.  “Bloody butchers.”

“Harry?” said Tony.  He was a sentence or two behind.

“Well, Tom, Dick or Harry.  He didn’t look like a Tom to me,” I said.

“Might be a dick,” said Elf.

“We don’t know that,” I scolded.

It Gets Harder (Praise and Imposter Syndrome)

by Melodie Campbell (Bad Girl...in which we admit that praise comes with a nasty side dish)

"the Canadian literary heir to Donald Westlake" EQMM, Sept-Oct 2018 issue

How the HELL will I ever live up to this?

A while back, I was on a panel where the moderator asked the question,
"Does it get harder or easier, with each successive book?"

"Easier," said one cozy writer, a woman I respect and know well.  "Because I know what I'm doing now."

I stared at her in surprise.

"Harder.  Definitely harder," said my pal Linwood Barclay, sitting beside me.

I sat back with relief.  The why was easy.  I answered that.

"Harder for two reasons," I said.  "First, you've already used up a lot of good ideas.  I've written 40 short stories and 18 novels.  That's nearly 60 plot ideas.  It gets harder to be original."

Linwood nodded along with me.

"Second, you've already established a reputation with your previous books.  If they were funny, people expect the next one to be even funnier.  It gets harder and harder to meet people's expectations."

This conversation came back to me this week, when I got a very nice surprise (thanks, Barb Goffman, for pointing me to it.)  Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine reviewed my latest book, and called me "the Canadian literary heir to Donald Westlake."

At first, I was ecstatic, and so very very grateful.  Donald Westlake was a huge influence on me.  I still think his book where everyone on the heist team spoke a different language to be one of the zaniest plots of all time.  To be considered in his class is a wonderful thing.

And then, the doubts started.  I'm now looking at my work in progress with different eyes.  Is this plot fresh?  Is it as clever as I thought it was?  Am I still writing funny?

Would Donald Westlake fans like it?

Or am I the world's worst imposter?

So many authors on Sleuthsayers are award-winning.  All of you will, I'm sure, relate to this a little bit.  Was that award win a one-off?  Okay, so you have more than one award.  Were those stories exceptions?  You haven't won an award in two years.  Have you lost it?

Will I ever write anything as good as that last book?

I'm dealing hugely with imposter syndrome right now.  It's a blasted roller coaster.  I know I should be spreading that EQMM  quote far and wide, on Facebook, Twitter, blog posts, etc.  Possibly, I should be buying ads.  And at the same time, I'm stalling in my WIP, with the feeling of 'never good enough.'

Luckily, the publisher deadline will keep me honest.  I work pretty well under pressure.  Next week, for sure, I'll get back to the book.

This week, I'll smile in public and suffer a little bit in silence.

The book causing all this grief:  on Amazon  

"Bawdy, Lusty and Fun" Bestseller ROWENA THROUGH THE WALL on sale for 99 cents!

This lovely poster was created by Alison Bruce. You can pick up the international bestseller ROWENA THROUGH THE WALL on Amazon for a short time at 99 cents! FREE, with Kindle Unlimited. 
"Bawdy, Lusty and Fun"

Go to my Books page above and click on the link!

Possibly have died and gone to heaven....

"the Canadian literary heir to Donald Westlake"

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

The look of my website is not the only thing new this week. 
(Hope you noticed the less flamboyant look.  Some well-intentioned yet clearly misguided people
are attempting to make me appear classy, bless their hearts.)

Many thanks to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine for the above quotable quote!
I am flattered beyond words.
I am also terrified.
HOW will I live up to this, in future books?

IN the Sept issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, in Jury Box, the following review of The B-Team.

Melodie Campbell, The B-Team: The Case of the Angry First Wife, Orca, $9.95. The Toronto Sun calls her the Canadian “Queen of Comedy,” but I like to think of her as the Canadian literary heir to Donald Westlake. After five books featuring mafia goddaughter Gina Gallo, Campbell has launched this spin-off series about a bumbling team of vigilante heroes led by Gina’s cousin Del and seventy-something-year-old former cat burglar Great Aunt Kitty. The fast-paced humor is characterized by situations that are simultaneously madcap and bizarrely banal.

on Amazon