Celebrating the Launch of the Kate Clifford Mysteries

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book launch, historical mysteries, Kate Clifford, Medieval Women's Choir, Seattle Mystery Bookshop, the Kate Clifford series, University Bookstore, York

May–what a glorious month in which to launch my new sleuth, Kate Clifford. On Tuesday, publication day, I’ll be signing books at noon at Seattle Mystery Bookshop.  Wednesday evening, the Medieval Women’s Choir will help me launch the series with glorious medieval music at University Bookstore in the U District (Seattle). An exciting few days!

Kate has collected wonderful prepublication reviews.
“…what Robb really excels at are action scenes, and there are several sprinkled throughout the narrative. They really make this a rocket powered read. … The story of Kate’s brother’s death, threaded through the story, is especially horrific…. It’s wonderful to have a new novel and character to cherish from this talented writer.” Robin Agnew, owner of Aunt Agatha’s Bookstore

“The Service of the Dead by Candace Robb is a strikingly well crafted novel that is a compelling page-turner from beginning to end. Very highly recommended…” Midwest Book Review

“Robb’s deft hand creates a realistic political and commercial climate as King Richard II’s reign draws to a close in 1399…a satisfying historical read…with … its strong political setting and multiple plot strands.”  Booklist

“It is a winner!… The story has many surprises, betrayals, intrigue, danger, and death. All are expertly spliced into the main thread of the story, drawing historical facts and historical fiction into a tapestry well worth reading. I give the book five stars…” Raven’s Reviews

“…the novel resonates with its compelling portrayal of an England on the brink of crisis.” Publishers Weekly

Heady stuff!

The collaboration with the choir is a dream come true. Women’s voices—that’s been the theme of my writing of late, with the novels The King’s Mistress and A Triple Knot. After working with Alice Perrers and Joan of Kent, strong women trapped in the gilded cage of the royal court, I felt the need to return to the women of York—and Kate Clifford took shape in my imagination. From the first she refused to be a secondary character. So I gave her a history, a reason to be skilled in weaponry, ever vigilant, pragmatic about the dangers of being a woman determined to choose her future, scarred emotionally, and liable to have skeletons in her closet resurrecting in her life.

I also gave her an otherness, like Owen Archer. Like him, she’s an integral part of the city without being completely at home there, which I believe works well for a sleuth. Kate feels out of place in the city. She was brought up in the country, the far North of England, the border country with Scotland, with feuding, Scots raids, and the defense of the family manor a constant in her childhood. Her parents brought her to York for her safety. But, as my readers already know, York of the late medieval period is not a place of safety. Kate is a bit wild, with her Irish wolfhounds, her weaponry, the way she’s chosen her household help. But she’s determined to make the best of her life in York.

I hope you’ll enjoy her adventures!

(Rest easy. This does not spell the end of the Owen Archer series. This is yet another set of characters who, I hope, will capture your hearts.)

 

An Appreciation of the Art of Editing

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editing, editors, historical mysteries, Kate Clifford, medieval mysteries, Pegasus Books, The Service of the Dead, York

Editing is an art.

Before I was a published writer, I worked as an editor of scientific and technical publications in a university laboratory. I came to the job without a strong background in the lab’s research area, oceanography, underwater acoustics and polar science, but with a curiosity about how things work, and a skill for seeing patterns. So I would ask questions about an object until I understood it, and questions about the manuscript until I understood what the writer had intended to say, and then helped the author(s) fill in the missing steps so that readers (often administrators who had long been away from hands-on work in the field) could grasp the intention, the process, and the results.

You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. ~  Arthur Plotnik

It might not seem as if scientific and technical papers are written from a fire burning inside the researchers, but you’d be wrong. Those who are passionate about their work devote their lives to small aspects of the larger picture. I respected the people I edited, was often in awe of them–and a bit jealous. I wanted to pour my passion into something of my own, as they did. But mostly I enjoyed the work and found it deeply satisfying.

Editing is the same as quarreling with writers—same thing exactly. –Harold Wallace Ross

I began this post just after I’d finished working with my editor’s first pass on The Service of the Dead, the 1st Kate Clifford novel. This part of the process of writing involves a dialogue with the editor. She calls something out, either questioning it or asking for more information, and I look at the passage, puzzling out whether she just didn’t get it, or I didn’t say what I meant to say, or I skipped a vital point, and, as I read, I often find myself wondering just what I did mean. By this time I have gone over the manuscript many times, and it’s been edited by three careful readers. yet there will still be passages that don’t stand up to a challenge. A good editor teases all this out by asking questions that occur to her as she reads.

Step two: I revise, clarify, then send it back. She reads, still paying close attention to the questions that arise as she reads, because quite often clarifying one passage illuminates a slight problem in another.
Editor: Why hadn’t she considered this?
Author: Oh, good point. Fixed.
Editor (or Author): Uh oh, now that she’s considered that, wouldn’t she do this?
And so it goes, back and forth, until we’re both satisfied. In the process, we develop an appreciation for each other’s dedication to getting it right. That’s a good author/editor relationship, and I’ve been blessed with several, including the current one.

So I don’t agree with the quote from Harold Wallace Ross above. An editor who quarrels with the writer has forgotten that he or she is an advocate for the writer. Or, as James Thurber put it so well:
Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, ”How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?” and avoid ”How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?” –James Thurber

My editor and I have now resolved the manuscript. Between the two of us we teased out several subtle but rich threads that were there, but hidden. It’s now with a copy editor.

When I described this process to my husband, he nodded. “You’re writing for the reader; the editor is reading for the reader.” He’s right. As I was for the administrators on whom the lab depended for their funding.

But back to my first statement: Editing is an art. There is nothing simple about reading another’s words and gleaning precisely what it is they mean to say, then helping them add or subtract or clarify in order to allow it do say just that. And how to do this with compassion—the scientists often hated writing, suffered over the first drafts, but (most) knew how crucial it was that the report was not only clear, but communicated the brilliance, the significance of their work. Asking them to rewrite was asking a lot. So, too, with a novelist. Our characters come out of our psyches, we pour our hearts into the work, and a novel is a long undertaking. So the editor must not only be gifted in the art of shaping a story and felicitous language, but must also be perceptive, psychologically astute.

So let’s give editors a hearty cheer for working so brilliantly behind the scenes! Time for you to take a bow!

 

Why I Do What I Do

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historical fiction, historical mysteries, Medievally Speaking, writing the historical novel, writing the middle ages

In case you missed it, Michael Evans recently interviewed me for the Medievally Speaking blog. He caught the flavor of the exchange so well in the title, using a quote from one of my responses: “My fiction is the natural outgrowth of my fascination with the times.” So true!

You can read the entire interview here: http://medievallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2015/01/my-fiction-is-natural-outgrowth-of-my.html

I’ll be exploring some of the issues that arose more fully here. Stay tuned!

And, in case you’ve forgotten who Michael Evans is, here’s a link to the Q&A he did for my blog: https://ecampion.wordpress.com/2014/08/11/interview-michael-evans-on-the-mythic-eleanor-of-aquitaine/