There are times when I tend to have brilliant ideas during my sleep state. I then wake up only to find that I can’t find paper and pencil fast enough to get the idea down in a concrete form. So now I have a computer ready for me at a moments notice in my room. Sometimes this works, and other times not so much. I’ve made notes, sent myself emails to my work address, just to keep these ideas alive.

Now I will admit that I have a writer stuck somewhere deep in me. I keep thinking of plots and stories for murder mysteries. Not to contain myself in just 1 genre, I’ve had ideas for the old west, 30’s, current, and some in the future. Some of my ideas for stories even contain aliens and flying saucers. My problem with all of these stories, is that the background about the time period, the crime, the actual solution (if there is one) are very strong and in depth. The characters never pan out. Let’s face it they are just plain boring. After reading 1 chapter of a story, my late wife told me she didn’t care who died or even if they all did. She was right about that. I’ve written over 20 chapter 1’s. In each case, when I visit these stories again after a time, I find the characters weak and uninteresting.

I may be a bit hard on myself, but when I read books, I usually hooked by the end of chapter 1. If I don’t find enough there to catch my interest, the book is usually put aside. There are few authors, that I know through previous works that I will go past chapter 1 if my interest isn’t peaked.

What does this have to do with late night ideas? Well most of my previous ideas were for stories, problem solving at work, or how to finish some project I am working on. So now I have this idea, it doesn’t involve a story or a problem at work or home. It could be beneficial to me. A bit early to be certain, but that is how it is. No characters to develop, no computer problems to solve at work, just a plain simple idea. Hmmm, now to make sure I remember where I put it…. My documents/mylatenightidea…..

A friend at work loaned me a book that she thought I would like. The authors of the book were Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The story was one of a series and the title was “Brimstone”. A very good book revolving around a New Jersey Cop and an FBI agent. I’ve learned that this book was part of a continuing series of D’Agosta and Pendergast stories. Each one dealing with some strange crime. They could be weird science disguised as occult, or even ‘real’ monsters. The story telling was gripping, and these books are very hard for me to put down. Some were a little tense for late night reading, but all of them kept my attention.

I’ve read the following and am working on the others. I would recommend them for any who likes good mysteries.

Relic — First book in the series
Brimstone — not sure where this is in the series, but I think there is more than one book before this one
Dance of Death — Follows right after Brimstone

For those of you who live in my area, forget the local library for a month or so, I just checked out the following

Reliquary — 2nd book I think
The Wheel of Darkness
The Book of the Dead
and Mount Dragon — Not part of the above series.

Good reading..

Sort of…

Years ago, one of my favorite things to watch was the series “Mystery” on PBS. I’m not even sure they have that on anymore, but I enjoyed it when it was on. This series generally brought classic fiction mystery novels to television. Hosted at one time by Vincent Price and then Diana Rigg, this series brought to the screen books and stories like Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and a favorite of mine Brother Cadfael.

I had not read any of the Cadfael mysteries before seeing them on TV. I had read most if not all of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, and quite a few Miss Marples and Poirots. Since I knew the good treatment the BBC gave the other mystery stories, I was pretty sure that Cadfael would be no different.

As a pleasant surprise, I found that I was correct. I read the many Cadfael novels starting with “A Morbid Taste for Bones”. This was the first PBS/BBC show I saw on Cadfael, and it was also the very first book. Good of them to keep the chronology of the books. After that first show, and reading the first book I tried to read the books before watching the shows on PBS. Generally a very good match of book story to TV story. The characters had the same depth in both instances. They did add a little thing here or there, but it didn’t affect the story telling or change the feeling and meaning of the original story. If you can find these shows (I’ve seen them on Cable every now and then) check them out. If not check out the books from the library. The author is Ellis Peters.

Now what brought this all up? Well the topic of one of my previous posts reminded me of the first story. I just had to read it again. I may finish it tomorrow when my daughter is at rehearsals.

In case you read or see the series. Good reading or watching….