Falling Down, The Blog

I'll have what she's having

Ok, consider me gobsmacked.  Hank Phillippi Ryan is scaring me.  And I've not even started reading her Agatha-award winning mysteries, which have gotten RAVE reviews from Robert Parker and Sue Grafton.  Four books in the time it took me to learn how to post a blog.  AND..this is the scary part...she is a full-time TV newscaster in Boston with tons o' Emmys to her name!  What is she taking?  May I have some? Please?

 She's also on the board of a jillion important writer's associations and for a laugh, go to her website and look at her events.  Seriously, I think her next book should be about a writer/investigative reporter who's cloned herself and no one knows it.

  “Sassy, fast-paced and appealing. First-class entertainment.”

    **Sue Grafton

 “I love this series!”

    **Suzanne Brockmann

Hank Phillippi Ryan knows the television business entirely, she understands plotting and she writes beautifully. No wonder I loved Drive Time. Anyone would.”

**Robert B. Parker  author of Spenser for Hire

Now, after already winning an Agatha for her first novel, she's nominated for another for her latest, and for a short story she's written as well. 

Here's our interview:

 

Growing up, did you ever think you’d be an investigative reporter?

 

Definitely—not. You know, I have a funny juxtaposition of desire to be in the spotlight—and sheer terror of being in the spotlight. I love my job in TV—and have to go live and unrehearsed al the time. Confession: I’m still terrified every time. I want to be perfect, and when you’re on live, you can’t possibly be. That’s one reason why I love investigative reporting—there’s more time to work, and dig, and polish, and produce, It’s like making a little movie, and I can make it as perfect as possible.

How did the character of Charlotte ‘Charlie’ McNally come about?

 

What a great question. I have NO idea. She was born when I got a weird spam in my email. It was what looked like lines from a play by Shakespeare.  I thought--why would someone send a spam like that?  And it crossed my mind--maybe it's a secret message.

 

I still get goose bumps telling you about it. And I knew, after all those years of wanting to write a mystery, that was my plot. And that turned out to be the Agatha-winning PRIME TIME. But Charlie? Well, I knew I had a good story, but who would tell it? A television reporter, of course. And she just instantly popped into my head. Named, fully formed. I knew her perfectly.

 

The other characters were more difficult to get to know. But now, Charlie surprises me a lot! And I love when that happens.

 

5.   Is she anything like you? Has she ever done anything you wouldn’t do to get your story?

 

When my husband talks about Charlie, he calls her “you.” As in—when “you” are held at gunpoint, when you track down the bad guys, when you solve the mystery… and I have to remind him, “Sweetheart, it’s fiction. It didn’t really happen.”

But a couple of things: I’ve been a TV reporter for more than 30 years. (Yes, really.) And so it would be silly, in writing a mystery about TV, not to use my own experiences. Think about it—as a TV reporter, you can never be wrong! Never be one minute late. Never

Your husband’s a criminal defense attorney. Does he read your work or give you any tips or even ideas for plots?

 

He’s the most patient man on the planet. Yes, he's really the only person who reads my pages while they’re in process. When I first started writing PRIME TIME, I'd give hi my five pages or so a day, and I'd hear him laughing and I was so delighted!  And he would tell me every day how terrific it was. Then, about fifty pages in, I went in for my daily pat on the back. And he had a funny look on his face.  "Honey?" he asked. "Is something going to happen soon?"  So I knew I had some work to do.

 

AND FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WANT A FREE COPY OF YOUR CHOICE OF HANK'S FOUR BOOKS:

Sign up in the join my typepad list box in the upper left. (if that doesn't work, send me an email to [email protected]. Two winners will be randomly selected and Hank will send you a signed copy.  What a deal!

 

Old Dogs, New Tricks

This next paragraph can be skipped.  It consists entirely of a rant, otherwise known as kvetch gone beserk.

For those of you who noticed the strange post with Judi Fennell's adorable face and nothing else, well, it's because TYPEPAD thinks I don't have enough to learn and has changed the way you post.  This week has been nothing but new technologies I can't (and frankly don't wish to) understand.  Big Brother exists except I think he's taken the form of big box stores with spanking new computer systems that are "optimized" for your convenience.   I would really really really liked to be asked what is optimal for me.  Instead, somehow, after my old computer had to be sent off to the infirmary for triple bypass surgery, I made the mistake of wandering into Office Depot with a question about how to copy email messages.  Somehow, within a few minutes I had purchased a new laptop for $549 and been talked into a whole series of "improvements."  By the time I left the store with my new computer it cost me $1000 and it's a whole new operating system, a whole new outlook express and WORD 2007.  It's as if I have never before used a computer.  Not only that, the one reason I bought the service was the promised me they could copy my emails from the past three years onto the new machine but lo and behold, now, no one can find them.  Even better, "for my convenience" the technician erased the only copy I had on a $26 flash drive.  If you've read George Orwell, double-speak is alive and well.  I do not wish to join the revolution.  I just want my old Windows XP, my old Word 2000 and a zanax.  I just want the wizards of technology to stop 'improving', 'optimizing' and second-guessing what I want.  Now I finally am signed on to TYPEPAD and they've changed everything as well!

If anyone is wondering why the economy has gone down the tubes, maybe it's because all of us are spending so much time trying to figure out how to use new and improved technology, we can't get anything done.

So, apologies to Judi Fennell, whose book,Catch of a Lifetime came out last week.  She writes 'tongue in cheek paranormals' or, as she calls them, 'fairy tales with a twist.'  The cover is a nice twist on the bodice rippers of old: it's the male breasts that are displayed, and a fine set they are. 

 

Okay, this came out a bit bigger than I intended and I'll be danged if I am going to change it.  Let's just say the mermaid is out to save the world, or at least the world's oceans and what better perk than a swashbucklin' boat captain to loll around with..

If you click on Catch of a Lifetime link you can go to Judi's website and see for yourself.  I promise, the next time I get back on this I will know how to do better!