Turned around latest edits from agent and worked on reducing the word count. Things are looking good and I think we'll finally be ready for submission before too long. It's been an educational process in a good way.

There's an xmas horror-dark fantasy-sf themed flash fiction contest going on over thisway, should anyone want to try their hand: [link]

Plotty people, I need some thoughts here. As you may or may not know, I'm writing a novel about a soul musician, his friend's murder, and, as a sort of B story, he's trying to track down a sort of "forgotten" concept album he worked on long ago that the hard-core geeks are always asking him about(Picture if Marvin Gaye's "Here, My Dear" and Brian Wilson's "Smile" had an album-baby) He's about to ask a former crush if she has it, but she ends up smacked around with a rifled hotel room because it's a mystery and tropey as that is, it doesn't hurt to have a second act of violence in Act Two...however, aside from that, the muses didn't leave much of a motive...why might someone do that?

Does the album have any sort of secret coded messages in it? Or maybe a song with hidden meanings, like it's really about an old flame who doesn't want that song heard by ANYONE EVER?

Could be.(I guess I have to stop blaming Raymond Chandler's drinking for how "The Lady In The Lake" turned out...I'm very sober right now and lose the thread ALL THE TIME.)If you don't know the story, apparently they were working on the script for "Lady", and they called Chandler all frantic..."So, who killed her?" They say Chandler said he didn't know.

That sounds exactly like the Big Sleep story. That dude never knew who killed anyone.

I don't think that that was ever the point for him, no, but now I'm wondering if he did it twice, or if we just heard it about different books.

Oaky, what if she's dead because of some drug issue--killed by a dealer she owed money to. Maybe she told him she was gonna trade him the masters of the album for a large debt But she lied and doesn't have them and he killed her. he could be a dealer/music fan, so when our hero meets him, it could make a good scene.

Oo, Scrappy the plot whisperer! I am totes going to hit you up sometime.

That could work, too, because that's how she got them in the first place. I'll have to cogitate about that.(/inner Boyd Crowder)