Blogs

I've had such fun writing this series, especially with TRIPLE CROSS which unfolds at Churchill Downs and in the town of Louisville during the two weeks leading up to the Kentucky Derby. Research was particularly daunting considering the party atmosphere that descends upon Louisville, especially since I wanted to get those details right. You may enjoy viewing the book trailer at www.kitehrman.com.

There were plenty of mystery lovers at the Southeaster Flower Show in Atlanta! We had a great time there, in part to all the attention we enjoyed from the fine folks at Eagle Eye Bookstore from Decatur who supplied our Peggy Lee Garden Mystery books. We gave our poison plant and forensic botany program on a HUGE stage which convinced us we need to expand our program. Those flower boards looked small up there! We had to leave "Officer Cindy" our six-foot forensic botany subject at home for repairs that weekend but she'll be in good shape by the time we go out again.

Well, I do this a lot... play the "what if" game. (My son used to call it "Wuff"). It goes like this, and is of great help to a writer: Wuff I was sitting here typing, and I suddenly heard an unearthly scream coming from under the house...?

Or: Wuff I was just walking out of Safeway, when I saw my friend--WHO DIED LAST YEAR--go past pushing a cart ??

Or: Wuff I woke up in our 140 year old house . . . only to find myself transported to the year 1908?

It is thoughts like these that get the writerly juices flowing, and the creepy scenarios spark a new plot for a novel of suspense.

Website: http://www.herbertholeman...

Email: writer@herbertholeman.com

So, yeah, no... I'm not a novelist. I don't write novels. I am not currently writing a novel.

I write for television and film, and occasionally I write short stories.

But that's it. No novels.

I tried it once. Actually, three times, and novel writing isn't in my DNA.

I have tremendous respect for those of you that write novels. I cannot.

So, why are you still here? Go look at someone else's blog.

The Los Angeles Times reports today about how CHEETAH GIRLS novelist Deborah Gregory got screwed by Disney. Hollywood cheating novelists isn't a new story, but the timing of this one, on the same day the strike ends, underscores why screenwriters need the Writers Guild of America:

I'm not-very-diligently working on the newest Mark Stoddard mystery. This will be the sixth in the series, and I think it's time to retire that hardworking, small town detective and let him sail off to Tahiti (or somewhere) with his Significant Other. I think that five or six books is about as far as a humorous mystery series can go. The jokes wear a little thin after a while. My hat is off to those writers who can keep their noses to the grindstone and write about the same characters for fifteen or twenty adventures in crime.

Do you remember little Dorothy Gale? She was a terribly naïve teen from Kansas with questionable taste in fashion who owned a scruffy little dog named Toto. Dorothy used to daydream about traveling “over the rainbow.” (During the 60s, anyone might have accused her of partaking in one too many shrooms—but for the sake of this post—work with me.) Before I sold, Dorothy and I had a lot in common, but like her, a looming cataclysmic event would change my future.

Lee Lofland's guide to everything cops and robbers.

http://www.leelofland.com...

I think I am going to be on the road forever. I mean that. My new book, MURDER AT THE BAD GIRL'S BAR AND GRILL, comes out in June. I have dates booked until 2009. I may go insane. I may not. But, here's the list. If I'm in your town, please stop by. I'll be the crazed red-head draped in tiki lights offering pina coladas at the door. more later.....xo, n

Panel Moderator and Signing
March 29, 2008
Virginia Festival of the Book
Crime Wave
Killer Occupations 10 a.m.

Life on the Streets with Cops and PIs
4 p.m.
Omni Hotel
235 West Main Street
(434)971-5500
Charlottesville, VA