Recently in Novels Category

In the next few hours I plan to start work on my first novel. I haven't attempted to write a novel for a while -- maybe six months or a year. At least, I quit working on the book after an unpleasant experience in a community group. I won't belabor the point; I'll sum it up by saying, rather than look over my fiction with an eye for helping, I was ridiculed, embarrassed, and insulted. Partly with the aim of improving my writing, I think, but also with a hint of genuine resentment.

That's in the past now and it doesn't bother me. No sense in whining about being treated unfairly. The now is a good time; so I've decided to take today (except for the class I teach) and write as much as I can for as long as I can. Wish me luck.

The narrative is a mystery and a story about families, cultures, the past, the future, and San Francisco. I've been working hard to reconstruct the city based on literary traditions (adding a little something of my own; a personal twist). Now, since this is the beginning, I'd like to share with you three possible epigraphs, all of which work, in their way, to frame the themes of the novel. The second epigraph, I'm sure, will be this: "Russians have always made good policemen," from Paul Klebnikov's The Godfather of the Kremlin.

Please, if you have a moment, post a comment on my blog, and tell me which Arthur Conan Doyle epigraph you prefer. I have selected these three by hand from my favorite Sherlock Holmes adventures.

"You have heard me remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes, and occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any positive crime has been committed."

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Red-Headed League

"I have found it is usually in unimportant matters that there is a field for the observation, and for the quick analysis of cause and effect which gives the charm to an investigation. The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime is, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive."

Arthur Conan Doyle, A Case of Identity

" 'No, no. No crime,' said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. 'Only one of those whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have four million human beings all jostling each other within the space of a few square miles. Amid the action and reaction of so dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination of events may take place, and many a little problem will be presented which may be striking and bizarre without being criminal.' "

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle