Your Hidden Masterpiece

 RHYS BOWEN: I have been thinking about what to do with my papers when I die. I know Debs has bequeathed hers to a university. The librarian at Berkley has expressed interest in mine. The truth is that I have very few papers. I keep notebooks with story ideas, plot points, but I no longer have manuscripts with corrections written in . Nor do I have correspondence between Rhys Bowen and Louise Penny or the Reds. (Not that our musings are the stuff of great literature in the way that Hemingway and his like wrote)  It’s all online these days.

But I do have some boxes somewhere in the storage room that contain snippets of ideas that never saw the light of day. One of those turned into In Farleigh Field. I had written the first few chapters around the year 2000 and showed them to my then agent who declared that nobody was interested in WW2 and she thought it crass and tactless to write about people living in big houses in England when so many were suffering on the Continent.  So I put it aside then, only to think about it recently and decide that it was a good story, show it to my current agent and end up with a number one bestseller.

Which makes me think what other brilliant ideas I might have lurking in boxes. I know of one such idea. When I was writing children’s books back in the Eighties I came up with a fun idea about a girl who is sent to a snobby boarding school by her aunt. It’s called Greenwich Academy, only the taxi driver gets it wrong and drives her to the next door Witch Academy and she learns to ride broomsticks and do spells.  My then agent though this was stupid. If only, right?…..

(by the way, I have changed agents since then!)

I don’t have many completed manuscripts and I might even have thrown them away. I wrote a couple of novels in college—angst-ridden young women contemplating the meaning of life. But I have to say that most of the good ideas I’ve had I’ve been able to use in some for or other. My theory is no good story goes to waste.

So I’d like to hear from you, Reds. Do you have any masterpieces hidden away? Have you ever re-read an old manuscript and found good parts that you can use?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Nope. Nope nope nope. One of my nicest days recently was when I did a newsletter about how I was getting rid of a lot of old papers and memorabilia. (Did I need TEN copies of every magazine with me on the cover? I mean--will I ever look again, as fabulous as they were? And if not me looking at them, then who the heck cares?) But a reader emailed me, all upset, saying she was the curator of a library, and was aghast that I would throw these things away. So..that was nice. But I threw them. 

I still have way too much stuff, and I do have printed out manuscripts with corrections, certainly. And notebooks with ideas, come of which clearly became parts of books and dialogue. (If anyone could decipher them.) ANd i do love seeing those, actually. Like the one where the elusive solution to  The Murder List just burst into my mind and then I wrote it down. And I did save that.  But I don’t think they would provide life-changing revelations for anyone! 

JENN McKINLAY: I’m with Hank. I throw out everything. I assume everything that’s important is online these days, and I don’t think I’ll be of particular interest to anyone in the future. I have kept a handwritten journal since I was a kid. Those I fully intend to burn before I die. If I don’t get to it, the Hooligans have been told to burn them without reading them. They certainly don’t need to know about my sordid youth! 

LUCY BURDETTE: I only wish I had lost masterpieces stashed away! Usually an unpublished manuscript is in the scrap pile for a reason--I was learning to write as I went. Except...I had written a book called MARRIED SEEKING MARRIED that never got off the ground. When Hank asked me to contribute a story to the Bouchercon anthology this year on the theme of Second Chances, I thought of that title. The story is very different from the novel, as it takes place in a bar in Key West, but the idea worked. And there was another unpublished book called UNSAFE HAVEN that my agent revived and sold--it will be out from Severn House this fall! Let’s call it a found masterpiece LOL.

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING:  I'm always a little dubious about recently-deceased popular authors who (their publisher is happy to announce) have left behind numerous unpublished or half-finished manuscripts. In my experience, publishers are putting the screws on their best selling authors to get pages out as fast as possible, and are willing to put almost anything available into print. As for me, I have a library's worth of novel ideas, notebooks for each book I've worked on, and the foul matter (what a wonderful phrase!) from the first three of four manuscripts, back when it was still all on paper.

I do have the half a science fiction novel I've spoken of before; the one that started me on the road to writing mysteries. I've always thought I'd like to dig that out and rework it at some point...

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I wish I had a lost manuscript tucked away in a drawer, Rhys! Maybe there are some scribbled notes in a notebook or journal somewhere. I don't keep multiple drafts of work in progress, either--I delete as I go. I do, however, still do an edit on a printed copy of a manuscript, just because I catch things that way that I never see on screen. Maybe those will be of interest to anyone who looks at my collected stuff someday.  A couple of years ago, the University of North Texas (UNT) library did an exhibition of some of the material I'd given them, and it was interesting to look back at my notes for that very first book and see that my process hasn't changed much over the years. And on a fun note, I'm in very good company as they also have all of Larry McMurtry's papers.

RHYS: Not shabby company, Debs! I also have a printed copy that John and I go through carefully but I regret that I toss them when the ms goes off to the editor. When about the writers who are our Red Regulars? Any gems re-found?