Writing crime fiction?

I have been pondering about this for quite a while. Instead of blogging (or just blogging), maybe I should try myself on something meatier. It appears that there is no acting course in sight, so I need to be creative differently. I have been reading true crime history, I have also got news from my blogging friend Leigh Russell who recently got back from a writing workshop in the South  of France (neat place to do a writing workshop), my cousin has published a book, so I was thinking: why not try myself at crime fiction? It is my natural inclination. My brother has been pushing me to write something for ages and ages, Montreal is such a great setting for crime stories because of its crime history, yet has seldom been used in literature (we got quite lucky TV-wise, at least once) and it could be for me a way to deal with homesickness.

So I need to gather my thoughts together, get my scribbless in order and those bits and bots of writing out and try my luck. I never considered myself a natural writer, not like I am (I like to think) a natural actor, but I will need to give it a try. I wrote my own take on the story of Jack O'Lantern here (read it here and here), now I could try at something different.

Where to write

Maybe it is because Leigh Russell will be hosting a creative writing workshop in the South of France and because Mozart's Girl blogged about Beatrix Potter and the Lake District, anyway I thought quite a lot about writing places. I mean you write in a setting, a place where you can get your mind focused on the task ahead and which hopefully gives you inspiration, whether it is to blog like I do or to write a novel or whatever. J.K. Rowling started writing Harry Potter in a train, which is a lovely place to read when the journey is long, but I never thought it was the ideal place to write. She used to write in cafés too, which again I find a lovely place to read, but too public to write. During my years as an undergraduate, some cafés in Montreal were simply overcrowded with aspiring poets and writers. I wonder if they published anything.

I always dreamed of having an attic room to work in. This would be for me the best place to write. It is usually quiet, you feel closer to the elements, far away from the busy rooms of the house, it just fits writing. And you can always look out the window when you cannot find inspiration. I sorely lack an office in an attic room in this attic flat. I guess the basement could work well for writing. A garden too, if it is quiet enough and if the weather is nice.

Now if we widen the focus and thinkof writing environment, the ideal place depends of what you are writing. For any kind of fiction, the French midi seems like a pretty good place. Since I consider crime fiction mainly an urban genre, I think I would rather write it in a city (you know which one), with just enough noise and a crime history for source material. If I ever write horror stories, I hope my attic room will be in a quiet English village. There is nothing more deliciously sinister as quiet English villages. If I wanted to write fantasy, I would probably choose an English village too. But of course, one would have to be quite wealthy to afford the luxury of writing in so many places, depending of his mood and what he is writing. I suspect this is why successful writers often owned many houses. Others have to compromise. Given the choice, I would choose an attic room, wherever it might be, to write anything.

Fighting Sunday melancholia

My readers know that I find Sundays boring sometimes. I mean they often make me feel melancholic, moreso at the the last Sunday of a month like this one and when on top of that the day is rainy. But today so far I managed to fight the feeling pretty good, via various means:

-I read a fair deal, mainly Cut Short by Leigh Russell (who has been reading this blog for quite a while now, it was about time I start reading her). Nothing like crime fiction to forget about boredom, especially on a rainy Sunday. It is also good to have time to read (I will go back to it straight after I blog this).  I don't read nearly enough these days.
-I watched a bit of I Claudius on Youtube, which is nice to rediscover. I love British soaps when they are set in Ancient Rome and are murderous enough.
-Have a big hearty breakfast with peanut butter (Skippy as I cannot find Kraft here). Food melancholia is often the worst kind of melancholia, so it is nice to have something that is akin to what I find at home.

It appears that I blog lists these days. And that my posts are a bit trivial.