The “Brave New World” of Writing During a Worldwide Pandemic

Posted on October 29, 2021 by Sheri

Like many writers, I majored in English in college. I was that student who always asked, “Did Famous Dead Author really mean that wilting houseplant to be a symbol of death, or was that interpretation concocted by English teachers and college professors in an attempt to burnish his credentials as a Great Writer?” In other words, did the author in question think, “I believe I’ll add a dying aspidistra in the corner to give sharp-eyed readers a hint as to Nigel’s ultimate end.” Or was he merely trying to tell a good tale, and figured Nigel was just the sort of guy who would forget to water his plants? To paraphrase what Freud never actually said, sometimes a houseplant is just a houseplant.

Death Can Be Habit-Forming, John Pickett Mystery #11

Fast-forward more years than I care to count to 2020. I struggled to write during the pandemic, so much so that Death Can Be Habit-Forming, originally scheduled for March 2021, was postponed to May/June and then, when it became clear that I still wouldn’t have the book finished, to late August. Amazon is quite punitive to authors who don’t have their books uploaded by the deadline (about three days before the book’s publication date), so the pressure was on to finish with last-minute edits and submit the file. I’m pleased to say that I made the deadline—albeit by a scant two hours!

In this book, John Pickett Mystery #11, Pickett arranges to be committed to an asylum for opium-eaters in order to rescue a woman being held there against her will. He soon discovers that getting in was the easy part; getting out may prove to be another matter entirely.

As the last step before uploading the manuscript to Amazon, I used my laptop’s text-to-speech feature to listen to the entire 83,000-word manuscript over the course of three days; I’ve discovered that, since it reads back exactly what I typed, rather than what I “meant” to say, nothing works as well for catching the typos my eye tends to skim over.

But being so deeply immersed in the story over a short period of time with very few breaks, I noticed something I hadn’t before, something I hadn’t even noticed I was doing.

The pandemic, and the related lockdown, was there, permeating every line.

I knew, of course, that I’d included a reference to the recently developed smallpox inoculation. This was mostly plot-related; I’d needed a reason for John Pickett’s wife, Julia, to see something in the window of a shop in a part of London where she would not normally venture. Since the discovery and rescue of John’s previously unknown half-brother, Kit, had been the premise of the previous novel (Brother Can You Spare a Crime?, winner of the 2021 Colorado Authors League’s Award of Excellence in the Action/Adventure category), I decided she might need to consult with Kit’s dreadful mother on something. The challenge of finding a reputable school willing to take a pupil of Kit’s background is established early in the book, partly as comic relief and partly as one of the more quelling aspects of taking a child of the slums into Julia’s Mayfair household. Determining Kit’s inoculation status was a natural outgrowth of that situation.

Actually, I have no idea if the British “public schools” (ironically, what Americans would call private schools) had any policies one way or another regarding inoculation. Fortunately, since I was not using one of the existing schools such Eton or Harrow (acknowledging within the text that neither of these prestigious establishments would touch Kit Pickett with a ten-foot pole!), I could make up the rules to suit myself; such is the advantage of authorship.

“The Cow-Pock–or–the Wonderful Effects of the New Inoculation!” James Gillray, June 12, 1802

Doing a quick check on the internet to confirm my recollections of the date of the smallpox inoculation, I was reassured to find that the use of cowpox matter as a preventive against smallpox was first discovered by Edward Jenner, an English doctor, in 1796 and made available to the general public in 1798, so it suited my purposes very nicely. To my surprise, however, I learned that people then were just as wary of the inoculation as many are of the COVID vaccine today—although while the vaccine-hesitant today generally cite the haste with which it was developed and/or the lack of knowledge of any potential long-term effects, those in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries were afraid it might turn them into cows! In fact, there’s a wonderful cartoon by James Gillray from 1802 that shows a man, presumably Jenner, preparing to inoculate a nervous-looking woman with a substance labeled “Vaccine Pock hot from ye Cow,” while others, having undergone the same treatment, watch with dismay as small cows erupt from their arms, legs, and noses. A man on the far right has sprouted horns on his head, and a woman on his right appears to be pregnant. (Don’t tell me Gillray didn’t mean to imply that she was about to give birth to a calf, for I won’t believe you!)

The introduction of the smallpox inoculation into my book was a deliberate choice, albeit one that probably would not have occurred to me had the COVID vaccine not been so much in the news lately. But I hadn’t realized how closely John Pickett’s confinement reflected my own sense of isolation as the lockdown dragged on past the early talk of staying home for a few weeks in order to “flatten the curve” to a vague sense of going back to normal “someday” after a vaccine was developed.

In the book’s second act, Pickett becomes increasingly convinced that both his wife and the woman he has come to rescue are being deliberately kept from him. It’s no coincidence that I was writing those chapters just as the autumn spike in COVID cases put paid to my own hopes of being able to fly home to celebrate Christmas with my family; “Authority,” in the form of the CDC, WHO, and the ubiquitous Dr. Fauci, was conspiring to keep us apart, just as Mrs. Danvers, the sinister proprietress of the Larches, was doing to poor John Pickett.

I still don’t know the true meaning of that aspidistra wilting in the corner of Nigel’s living room, but I can testify that Death Can Be Habit-Forming reflects, and was influenced by, current events in a way none of my earlier works have been.

I only hope that we, like Pickett, will soon be set free.

[For more on writing in the midst of a pandemic, check out Bookstr’s roundtable discussion on this timely subject featuring five authors, of whom I am one: “Pandemic Writing: 5 Authors Reveal Covid’s Influence”]

All’s Well in Clerkenwell

Posted on June 8, 2020 by Sheri

After two hours spent mudlarking on the Thames foreshore, I might be thought to be ready to return to the twenty-first century. Not so! Granted, I was ready to crash in my hotel room for a while, but as it happened, the hotel where I was staying was like stepping back in time.

**The Rookery Hotel’s unassuming entrance on Peter’s Lane.**

Anyone of John Pickett’s day would have balked at reserving a room at any place calling itself the Rookery; in the nineteenth century, the word was synonymous with poverty, overcrowding, and general squalor. Today, however, it’s the name of a boutique hotel comprising three houses built in 1764 and still retaining a Georgian atmosphere. It’s located in Clerkenwell, a section of London due north of the City (“the City,” capitalized, refers to the portion of central London that was once enclosed within the old Roman wall) and a part of town I’d never visited before.

The Rookery Hotel as seen from Cowcross and St. John Streets. It’s the three gabled brick buildings at center left. Peter’s Lane, where the entrance is, is so narrow you can barely even make it out. (It’s just to the left of the brick building with the red lettering above its ground floor.)

The hotel’s address—12 Peter’s Lane, Cowcross Street—gives a clue as to the area’s history. I discovered this on my first afternoon there, when I took an exploratory walk in search of the nearest Tube station. (It proved to be Farringdon, in quite the opposite direction.) I turned a corner and found myself facing the Smithfield Market, London’s stockyard and meat market since the Middle Ages, and possibly as early as Roman times. Regency readers may know it best from the disparaging term “Smithfield bargain,” meaning a marriage made as a financial transaction. Suddenly Cowcross Street’s curious name made sense; cattle would have been driven right up the street here on their way to the market. (Can you imagine living in one of these houses, and stepping out your front door just as a drover was coming past, herding cows to market?)

Smithfield still operates today as a wholesale market, the only market in continuous operation since medieval times. The elaborate arched building dates to the second half of the 19th century; prior to that, it would have been an open-air market.

Turning back to the north, I soon came across a bit of still earlier history. St. John’s Gate, dating from 1504, is just about all that remains of the former headquarters of the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller. After Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries a few decades later, it was used for a number of different purposes, and in 1731 was the birthplace of the Gentleman’s Magazine, one of whose early writers—Dr. Johnson, no less—would later investigate the hoax known as the “Cock Lane Ghost,” which also took place nearby.

**St. John’s Gate (And yes, I walked through it. Because of course I did.)**

If any ghosts roam up and down the stairs or lurk about the corners of the Rookery hotel, I was blissfully unaware of them. I slept soundly until morning, when I checked out somewhat reluctantly, headed for the airport at Heathrow and twenty-first century life.

**The library, one of the ground-floor common rooms.**

**Look closely: that’s not a door, just a very clever way to make sure guests don’t wander into places they don’t belong.**

**Another common area. This one has an “honesty bar” and opens out onto…**

Mudlarking!

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Sheri

As I mentioned in a recent post, my trip to the UK last summer was specifically to research John Pickett Mystery #9, Into Thin Eire. Still, I already knew what Book 10 would be about, and one of my experiences on this trip provided a spark for that book as well. For while I was in London, I went mudlarking!

In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, mudlarking was an early form of recycling in which people, often children (called mudlarks), scavenged along the exposed riverbank of the Thames at low tide for anything they could sell. John Pickett was an occasional mudlark in his misspent youth, so I thought it would be fun to try something that he would have done. (The other option, pickpocketing, is, alas, frowned upon.)

I went online to learn what I could about modern-day mudlarking, and discovered that, for one thing, you have to have a permit from the London Port Authority. I also learned that they don’t recommend you go by yourself. If you do, you should at least be aware at all times of the location of the nearest stairs; when the tide turns, the river rises very swiftly, and it’s possible to be cut off.

So I searched for a guide to take me out. (Another advantage of going with a guide is that he has the permit issue taken care of.) I eventually made a date with Steve Brooker (aka the “mud god”), who’s been featured on the History Channel and written up in Time magazine and elsewhere. But while searching, I came across an article on mudlarking that quoted a curator at the Museum of London as saying (I’m quoting here as nearly as I can remember), “almost everything we know about childhood in the Middle Ages comes from finds the mudlarks have brought in.” It’s often said that times may change, but human nature doesn’t. Children lose things, whether in the twelfth century or the twenty-first.

Steve Brooker, aka the “mud god,” my mudlarking guide.
The skyscrapers in the background make up the
Canary Wharf business district on the Isle of Dogs.

Still, the idea of those toys, lost somehow in or along the river only to be washed up decades or even centuries later, started me thinking. In Book 10, Brother, Can You Spare a Crime?, John Pickett discovers he has a ten-year-old half-brother. That half-brother, I knew, would have had an upbringing very similar to John’s; what if he, too, had been an occasional mudlark, and had found a toy of some kind—one not necessarily of any monetary value, but something that he, a poor child having so little, prizes? And what if he (like all those medieval children) dropped it—not in the River Thames, but at the scene of a crime? I hadn’t even gone on my own mudlarking adventure yet, but thanks to the internet, I already had a head start on my next book!

You’ll be able to see how this element fits into the book when it releases on June 12, but in the meantime, here are a few photos of my own mudlarking finds. Contrary to what you might expect, we did not use a metal detector (in fact, the “mud god” has strong views about the use of metal detectors along the foreshore, and the role they play in erosion); instead, he taught me how to read the tides as the nineteenth-century mudlarks would have done.

I met up with Steve in Greenwich at the Cutty Sark, and we walked through the tunnel beneath the Thames to the Isle of Dogs, the peninsula formed by a deep bend in the river east of the City. (Incidentally, whenever you see London referred to as the “City”—capitalized—it refers to the portion of central London, roughly one square mile, that was once contained within the old Roman wall.) Why that particular spot? Because once upon a time, the Isle of Dogs was the site of a dumping ground for one of Henry VIII’s palaces. Dead people’s garbage dumps are a historian’s playground; so much can be learned by what people threw away, either by accident or deliberately. Which makes me wonder what historians will learn about us someday, but that’s a topic for another blog, written by another blogger.

THE PHOTOS:

**My favorite out of all our haul: a Victorian penny, about the size of a US half-dollar.**
**The reverse side gives the date as 1900.**

**A clay pipe, the “cigarette butts” of their era and one of the most common of all mudlarking finds.**

George V half-penny from 1934,
just a bit larger than a US quarter.

**A “sea biscuit” fossil; some modern-day mudlarks search for them exclusively.**

**George VI half-penny from 1939. (If you’ve ever seen the film *The King’s Speech*, he was its subject**.)

**Fragments of garnet, although not gem quality. In fact, these are industrial waste; the “sand” on sandpaper is actually finely crushed garnet. All waste products should be so pretty!**

**This half-penny says “new penny” because the UK had just switched from the old pounds/shillings/pence monetary system to**
**100 pence = 1 pound. (The half-penny was not removed from circulation until 1984.**)

Dress pin from the Tudor era. (Ink pen included to show scale.) We found three pins in all, and Steve seemed surprised/disappointed that there weren’t more. Apparently they’re usually very plentiful in the area, thanks to that Tudor-era garbage dump.

**Not all of the coins we found were British. Here’s a 1 rupee coin from India, dated 1999.**

**WWII bullet & casing. We found a whole cache of these, and I told Steve, “Well, there was your problem: you were supposed to put the bullets into the guns and *then* fire them at the Germans!”**

**10-cent piece from West Germany, 1970.**

A fragment of Blue Willow china. This stuff was all over the place! Most of it was blue, but there were a few shards of rose pink, too. And I wish *so badly* that I’d snagged a whole bagful of it! I’m sure I could have found something to do with it.

**We found several pieces of petrified wood. Here are two of them.**

There was more, including modern coins from the UK as well as a US quarter, a small brass button, a number of 19th-century nails. . In fact, I haven’t yet got around to cleaning it all! We were on the foreshore for about two hours before the tide made it necessary for us to curtail our hunt. Here’s a photo of all our finds:

I can’t wait to go again! Hmm, I wonder what I’ll find next time…

Research Trip 2019: London to Holyhead to Dublin

Posted on May 17, 2020 by Sheri

The current ban on international travel makes me especially glad that I managed to visit the UK last year, although pleasure wasn’t the first thing on my mind when I made the trip. I’d been working on Into Thin Eire (aka John Pickett mystery #9), and I’d just finished the chase through England, Wales, and finally Ireland that makes up a good deal of the book. But when I read back through those chapters, I realized there was one big problem.

“This could be set anywhere in the world,” I complained to my husband, “and it wouldn’t matter! It needs detail to ground it in a particular place.” I looked online, but internet research has its limitations; I just wasn’t finding what I needed.

“Do you need to go?” my husband asked. “If you do, book a flight. I’ll see you when you get back.”

At Denver International Airport, waiting to board!

And so I did. Since my husband didn’t have enough vacation time to take a week off (we’d taken a South American cruise back in February, and he’d used most of it up on that trip), I went alone—my first solo trip out of the country. (Mom was convinced I was never coming back alive.) I’d bought a BritRail pass at the same time I’d booked my flight, and so after taking a day to recover from jet lag, I set out from my hotel to Euston Station. My objective: to follow the path of my characters, making notes on topographical changes along the way.

After boarding the train and finding a window seat with a good view, I pulled out a little notebook I’d bought for the trip. As the train traveled westward, I made notes on the landscape: the flat green fields of the Midlands, dotted with sheep and occasionally bisected by canals (the latter sometimes affording glimpses of brightly colored narrowboats) giving way to the steep slopes of Snowdonia, the peaks hidden beneath a blanket of clouds, until finally setting me down in Holyhead, Wales, where I’d booked a room for two nights at a quaint bed and breakfast called Witchingham.

Sheep seen from the window of the train.

Witchingham, the bed & breakfast where
I stayed in Holyhead, Wales.

Once in my room, I walked the short distance to the water and strolled along the Anglesey Coastal Path, stopping to eat dinner at the Yacht Club restaurant. From the water’s edge, I could see the ferries returning; this was the reason I’d come to Holyhead.

Boats near the Yacht Club.
Note the castle ruins in the background!

Early the next morning, I called for a taxi to take me to the port, and took the Swift ferry to Dublin. The name refers to Jonathan Swift, not to the boat’s speed, although that would fit, too: I made the Irish Sea crossing in just over three hours, whereas for John Pickett and his traveling companions, even a smooth crossing would have been seventeen hours or more. The boat itself was like a small cruise ship, with a buffet brunch included in the fare, along with comfortable seats and big picture windows along the bow and sides. But I wasn’t the only person making a work-related trip: one entire deck was reserved for commercial trucks (lorries), with lounges set aside specifically for their drivers.

When we arrived in Dublin, I realized that in one instance, at least, John Pickett would have had the advantage over me: his packet sailed right up the River Liffey into the heart of Dublin, whereas my ferry docked along a rather nondescript commercial waterfront, from which we walk-on passengers had to take a bus into the city proper. After a day in Dublin, it was back to the ferry for the return trip, arriving in Holyhead just after midnight. (And me, with my north-Alabama/Appalachian-foothills accent trying to communicate by telephone with a Welsh taxi driver was the only real problem I had on the whole trip!)

In the morning, I took the train back to London for my next adventure—mudlarking along the Thames foreshore! But that’s a subject for another blog . . .