choosing not to speak, or to speak as little and as briefly as possible. Can a structure do that?

Well, I was thinking of Andy Warhol's "Empire"--I'm on a Warhol kick, these days--and it seemed to me that the building had something to say. And that got me thinking that we live in a world where we're constantly afraid that the structure of our lives is trying to tell us something.

So, yeah, I completely agree with you. And yeah, it's deliberate.

Ah, got it. I'm Warhol-challenged, so that would have passed me by entirely, that particular connection.

Ah, got it. I'm Warhol-challenged, so that would have passed me by entirely, that particular connection.

Yeah, the whole thing stemmed from an experiement, trying to look at Warhol from a pop-culture blender POV, which of course, was Warhol's own POV. I had a near-nervous breakdown putting myself in that place, let me tell ya.

Victor, even when I'm not completely sure I know what you're talking about, your language (word choice and juxtaposition) and rhythm (again, juxtaposition, the word for the meaning that will fit and make that line/phrase work) is awesomeinspiring. This makes me want to pace and read it out loud. Yeah!

This makes me want to pace and read it out loud. Yeah!

This is about the highest praise you can give a poet. THANK YOU!

Deb, insent.

(blush) Victor, I did. The pacing was kind of anticlimactic, but...

Susan, quickie backflung.

May I say, WOOT!, here?

Just asked to write my own copy for the 2005 Fall Minotaur catalogue. 150 words, give or take a dozen. This is what I sent:

(suggested catalogue copy for Minotaur Fall 2005) Matty Groves

When Ringan Laine and his band, Broomfield Hill, are invited to the prestigious Callowen House festival, he accepts. There's one catch: Callowen is haunted, by a very famous ghost. And that ghost, Susanna Leight-Arnold, is the subject of one of England's most famous ballads.

After two close encounters with ghosts, Ringan and Penny are relieved to know that no exorcism is required of them. Callowen's imperious and eccentric owner, Miles Leight-Arnold, is quite proud of the family phantom.

Almost immediately, Jane Castle, Broomfield Hill's flautist, realises that there's more than one ghost moving through doors and walls at Callowen House. Something evil, dormant for five centuries, has been awakened by the sensitive Penny's presence, and held there by Jane: the spirit of a man killed by Edward Leight-Arnold in 1629, for the crime of lusting after Lady Susanna. And Jane bears an uncanny resemblance to the famous portrait of that long-dead wife.

Matty Groves is the third novel in the Murder, Music and Ghosts series.

Ooh, that sounds really good.

OK, I am now officially laughing my arse off.

Toni Plummer pinged me back to say it needed to have a blurb, a series summation about what makes the series different and unique, at the end, and that was standard for catalogue copy. OK, sez me, but I used the catalogue copy from the first two books as a model, and neither has one. So, no visual reference. Can you send me a sample?

She does:

"With its wildcatting spirit, The Rogues' Game is a high stakes novel and an exquisite quest for revenge."

and

"A sophisticated contemporary novel written in the classic tradition of Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, The Young Widow is the debut of a fresh new voice on the mystery scene."

and

"With vivid details and quirky but down-to-earth characters, Christine Poulson evokes the rich academic life of Cambridge, England with masterful strokes."

So, I write back, hmmmm, tricky, this being book number three, and neither of the first two having had one of those blurbs. Would something like this work?

"The Murder, Music and Ghosts series, with its clean, evocative writing and engaging characters, melds everyday modern life with the echoes of history, and the acts - and consequences - of days now gone."

Says Toni: That's WONDERFUL!

Boy, are these folks easy to please.

What cracked me up in another direction was that, at the instant I was writing all this - catalogue copy at my publisher's request, for Matty Groves - I get an email from my agent, answering a query I'd sent about how much she wanted on Cruel Sister before we pitched to Ruth. Says Jenn, well, not sure what the protocol is for pitching before the last option book is officially accepted. I haven't heard anything back from Ruth in Matty Groves yet, have you?

Other than having just been asked the write the catalogue copy for fall 2005 for that very book? Nope.

Publishing is weird.