The Glamorous Side of Doing Research?

By Penny Warner


Smart writers set their books on fabulous cities, exotic jungles, or romantic beaches, knowing they’ll have to go there to “research” the place for their books. But I somehow end up in a cemetery. That’s because my latest murder mystery, HOW TO PARTY WITH A KILLER VAMPIRE, features a film wrap party for big-time movie producer Lucas Cruz. Cruz is celebrating his latest release—a vampire parody film—by throwing a lavish party in a graveyard. It’s a pretty gloomy venue for Presley, but she’s hoping to make it so much fun that partygoers won’t even notice there are more dead than living guests…

Meanwhile, I get to hang out in Colma, AKA the “City of Souls,” to do my research. Nestled in the hills just south of San Francisco, Colma claims the deceased population outnumbers the living, 1.5 million “souls” to 1,600 residents. The city was founded as a “necropolis” in 1924, and offers 17 cemeteries for humans, plus one for pets. Apparently, the city of San Francisco ran out of room for its dead, evicted all existing cemeteries in the city limits, and relocated them to the south. The motto there: “It’s great to be alive.”

What better setting for a book featuring vampires.

Truthfully, I found cemetery city to be fascinating. After checking out the shops that offer fancy granite headstones and flower marts with “easy to install” bouquets of floral arrangements, I headed for the pet cemetery called Pet’s Rest, (not to be confused with Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, where the pets actually came back to life after they were buried.) This pet cemetery is filled with tiny headstones that mark the names of well-loved pets—“Shadow” the rabbit, “Gyzmo” the dog, “Mr. Furry-Face” the cat. They’re buried here, along with the occasional bird (“Tweety”), fish (“Ahab”), lizard (“Godzilla”) and monkey (“Darwin”), plus thousands of other well-loved companions.

Next I headed for Hills of Eternity and located the grave of Wyatt Earp, the famous lawman. There are lots of well-known names resting in Colma, like William Randolph Heart (he’s at Cypress Lawn), Joe DiMaggio (at Holy Cross), and Emperor Norton (Woodlawn). There was even an award-winning musical filmed in Colma called, appropriately, “Colma: The Musical.” Not many towns can claim the same.

When I finished my research, I concluded that Colma is certainly a peaceful place, with its immaculately kept lawns, colorful floral bouquets, and quiet pathways. It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. And I really need to start setting my books in places like Paris, Hawaii, or at least the Amazon Jungle.

**

Penny Warner has published over 50 books for both adults and children. Her latest is a mystery series featuring event planner, Presley Parker, and set in the San Francisco Bay Area. HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY, features a wedding on Alcatraz, HOW TO CRASH A KILLER BASH, offers a Murder Mystery Party at the de Young Museum, HOW TO SURVIVE A KILLER SÉANCE, features a Séance Party at the Winchester Mystery House, and HOW TO PARTY WITH A KILLER VAMPIRE is set in Colma, the City of Souls. Her middle-grade mystery, CODE BUSTERS CLUB: THE SKELETON KEY, was just published.

Contact Penny Warner at www.pennywarner.com or pennywarnerink@yahoo.com.

Book Covers

I wrote a few weeks ago that I had finished the first draft of Book 5 in the crochet mysteries. Now I'm rewriting and the days are flipping by in an alarmingly fast rate. I more or less figured how many pages a day I would have to rewrite to finish it by my December 1 deadline, but that was supposing nothing else interferred. Does that ever happen?

So, last week I got an email from my editor. She knew the manuscript wasn't due yet, but she'd just gotten word they wanted to have a cover meeting for it. Did I have any ideas for a cover and could I send fifty to seventy-fives pages of the manuscript so they could see the flow of the story.

I have loved all of my covers and the art people have really been able to create what I had pictured when I was writing, but they have always had the whole manuscript. I wanted to do whatever I could to help them with the cover for Book 5 which might be Hooked on the Holidays or A Holiday Yarn. In the past I have sent them pictures from books or magazines to give them an idea what some of the crocheted items in the books look like. This time the afghan that is a major clue only existed in my head. There was no time to make the whole thing, so I made up one square of it and sent them a photo.

Crocheted snowflakes are mentioned a lot, too. I am still in the process of creating the pattern for a snowflake that will be included in the book, but had the snowflake I put in my blog a while back. I sent a photo of it.

The other pattern in the book is going to be for a vampire scarf. The bookstore where Molly Pink works is hosting the midnight launch of the new book in a super popular series about a vampire who crochets (it's helped him deal with his lust for blood). One of the Tarzana Hookers comes up with the idea for the scarf. As she says, everything about it says vampire. It's black and white. The black is for the vampire's favorite color of clothes, the white for his pale skin. The half double crochet stitches look like fangs and the edging has a fang like look, too. And the scarlet tassel -- well, that's pretty obvious. A scarf winds around the neck and what body area is more appealing to a vampire? I sent a photo of it, too.

Even though it's doubtful, the vampire scarf will be on the cover of the book, my editor said she really likes it. I do, too.

AS my blog sisters have been mentioning, next week we're all writing on craft. Just to give a heads up, I'm going to be writing on setting.

Packing It All In

I have to set aside working on the next crochet mystery to get ready for Bouchercon. I love to travel, but hate to pack. This trip is more of a challenge to pack for. Beyond the usual clothes and incidentals, I need to bring along crochet samples, bookmarks, autographed by author stickers and the pens that write on glossy bookmarks.

This year at the big mystery convention in Indianapolis named for Anthony Boucher, there is going to be something new. Since there is a whole niche of cozy mysteries that revolve around different crafts, they are having a craft room. From Thursday through Saturday, different authors will have about an hour to lead an activity. My blog sisters Joanna, Camille and Monica are all taking part along with me and a whole list of other authors.

My project is a Molly Pink Dishcloth, which is pictured at the top. It’s easy to make and hopefully can be made quickly. I sent the directions a while back so they could be copies and the woman I’ve been in contact with assured me they are getting the supplies. Good. If I had to bring 30 balls of cotton yarn, it would either be a clunky suitcase or no room for clothes. Still I want to bring samples of completed dish clothes and one made just to the point of adding the edging.

Then there’s my book. I might have set it aside tonight to get my stuff together, but I will work on it while I’m gone. That means taking along my notes. Notes that hopefully are all together. Thank heavens for laptop computers and flash drives, even though I’ve been known to carry along a hard copy.

Picking my crochet projects to work on during the trip is easy. There is the neck piece I want to finish on the plane so I can wear it at the convention, and the vampire scarf I’m working on for my next book.

Clothes are just an afterthought.

By the way, there is still room (at least last time I looked) in all the craft room activities. So, if you’re going to Bouchercon go to http//www.bouchercon2009.com/specialevents.html to sign up for any of the craft activities. There’s no extra charge.