Reichenbach Fall Theory - Again!!!

I gotta come up with better titles for these things . . .

I decided to dig out my copy of Sherlock Season 2, and watch The Reichenbach Fall again, and something struck me while I was watching the scene where Moriarty comes to Baker Street just after the announcement of his acquittal.  He mentions a problem to Sherlock.  Their problem.  The 'final problem.'  When I initially watched this, I took it as meaning that Moriarty's final problem was how to best ruin Sherlock's reputation.  But what if that's not it at all?  I'm wondering now if his final problem was how to ruin Sherlock's reputation before committing suicide and therefore dying as a martyr.

I never noticed before . . .  The Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales book that Sherlock looks at in the school after the kids are kidnapped is in the same kind of packaging that the bread crumbs outside Baker Street that John picked up were in.

Once again, I apologize, I'm writing this as I watch.

"All fairy tales need a good old fashioned villain."

I keep coming back to that.  There's got to be something in one of those fairy tales that parallels this story!

Oh, my God . . .  I just realized . . .  The assassins that moved in within spitting distance of 221B Baker Street . . .  I thought they were more of Moriarty's men, stationed there to close the web around Sherlock.  What if the opposite's the truth?  What if they went there of their own volition in order to protect Sherlock?  I just passed the part where the one guy saved Sherlock from being hit by the car and then is killed when Sherlock shakes his hand.  Sherlock comments on it, on them being there to keep him alive because he has something they want.  But what if that's not entirely true?

Just reached the part where Sherlock and John escape, and where Sherlock says, "I'm doing what Moriarty wants.  Becoming a fugitive.  Run."

He knew what the game was.  He knew Moriarty was like a spider, controlling thousands of strings of a web, knowing exactly what buttons to push to make whatever happen.  And he knew that Moriarty was trying to destroy him inch by inch.  He said that, minutes before in the episode.

And yet, he plays into Moriarty's hand there, doing what Moriarty wanted him to do.  Why?  Why would he play into his hands like that?  Why run from the police, making things worse for himself (and John) instead of just dealing with whatever questions, and probably being released the next day?  Cuz if Sherlock is intelligent enough to solve the crimes, he's intelligent enough to figure out how to prove that no, he wasn't involved.  Why didn't he do that, instead of playing into Moriarty's hands?

"There's only one thing he needs to do to complete his game and that's to--"

I think I'm right.  Moriarty knew there would be a final confrontation between him and Sherlock and he knew he was going to die.  And if he died when Sherlock's reputation was in tatters, he'd die a martyr.  He'd die as someone revered, because he'd die as Richard Brook, the 'actor Holmes hired.'

I still don't buy everyone's explanation for why he needed Molly.  I'm still not convinced that she was in on helping him fake his death.  That kind of deception, especially that big of one for that long-term just doesn't fit her character.  I don't think she'd be able to keep up the illusion.  I still think she was asked to help restore his reputation, or something of that nature.

I think the gunmen could hear him.  I think part of the last step of things was Sherlock's own voice telling someone he was a fraud, and that, along with seeing him go off the rooftop, was what stopped the snipers.

This episode confuses the Hell out of me, to be honest.  I don't know what to make of it.  I come up with a new thought, and it contradicts something else I thought I'd figured out.

God, I can't wait for Season 3!

More on Jack of All Trades

I really should make it a point to write on here more often.  I've been busy lately, with the last few weeks of the fall semester in December, then my day job, babysitting for a friend of mine's daughter to try and make things easier for her after their house was damaged in the hurricane, and all in all, I just felt completely uninspired to write.

But then, several weeks ago, I started drawing stuff, including some pictures for co-workers of mine (which came out really cool, if I do say so myself,) and I knew it was only a matter of time before creative writing juices started flowing again.

They haven't, completely.  I haven't really written anything new to further complete Jack of All Trades, but I started typing it up.  Once I have that done, I'll have familiarized myself with the novel enough again that I'll be able to continue the handwritten version and finish it.  Then comes the editing process, which I hope won't take more than a month to complete.  Then, it'll finally be published.  I'm not sure what kind of timeline it'll take me to finish typing and then finish the handwritten version, so I hesitate to give a month when the book'll actually be out, but it is coming.

House Predictions

Okay, so I know House isn't specifically Sherlock Holmes, but let's face it: everyone by now knows that he's based on Holmes.

Unfortunately, I didn't seen the episode where 13 came back, so I admit, this could be a bit outdated of a guess for what happens.  However, even though I was a season off, I did call it that House was going to be driven insane.

The last episode I saw was the one where the morgue doctor cut into his own head and it turned out that his diagnosis had something to do with industrial strength soap.

I can't help feeling like what happens in the end, in the last episode, is that Wilson is going to die, and instead of wasting away from cancer, he asks House to assist him in suicide.  House, unable to deal with facing life without his best (and possibly only) friend, decides that after he does this for Wilson, he's going to kill himself, too.  When he does, Chase becomes the new head of the team.

Or possibly, Chase or 13 or someone saves House from dying by his own hand, but he's comatose, and again, Chase takes the lead and the final patient is House, and it's them trying to save him.

Two more days until The Reichenbach Fall!!!  I'm gonna be obsessing over this episode.  I've already pre-ordered my Sherlock Season 2 DVD.  :)

Jack of All Trades - Writing Freak Out 2

The way that I'm doing this novel is different from the previous ones.  I've already mentioned the more historical element as opposed to the fictional one.  Then there's the fact that whereas before, I was more interested in what Holmes's thoughts would be, and how he was handling the things coming at him, now I'm more interested in sitting back and observing his actions through Erik's or Watson's eyes.

This novel is made up of three narrators and then third person POV's of the murders.  Watson and Erik have the majority, but Holmes will narrate about three, maybe four, short segments.  One of which is the reveal for who Jack the Ripper is.  I imagined this in his perspective the first time I wrote a draft of it, and honestly, I can't picture it being in anyone else's perspective but his.

My issue now, though, is that I worry about it being too short.  I'm hand writing it first before I sit down and type it, and I'm already up to the double murder night, and I'm only on page 56 or thereabouts.  Fifty-six?!  I admit, when I transfer it to typed page and then it gets reformatted to what the page size is for MX, I may be pleasantly surprised, but it still seems very short right now to me.  And considering I felt this was gonna be one of the longer ones, that's not good!

I know, I know.  It doesn't matter how long or short something is.  If a book is five hundred pages, but it's five hundred pages of crap, the book sucks and people will hate it.  If it's a hundred pages, but it's a hundred pages of good, quality material, people will love it and appreciate it even in its shortness.

And I will admit, I still have to get through the double murder, Watson's issues, Erik's issues (which is what I'll handle after the third person perspective of the double murders,) different parts with Holmes, Watson determining that he's angry enough at his situations that he wants to pour over Holmes's notes and file on these killings and discover who the Ripper is himself, the half a kidney in the mail and the letters coming in, all supposedly from 'Jack,' which means I'll have to do another third person perspective part where 'Jack' is actually writing the 'From Hell' letter that mentions the kidney, Mary Kelly's murder, then there's the reveal itself and the repercussions that has on all the characters, the resolution of Erik's situation and his feelings about that clouding his mind so that he didn't see clues to help Holmes solve this sooner, then Mycroft--

Well, can't give that part away.  You'll have to read to find out what I'm doing there.

I guess I shouldn't worry so much about it being too short right now.  I have a lot more to cover in the month and a week between the night of the double murder and Mary Kelly's murder.  Then there's wrapping everything up after Mary Kelly's murder, and including Holmes's file on the killings, which is going to be at the end of the book.

I admit, I could have done a better job on Rendezvous.  And should have.  I just felt the lines from the musical were so perfect, it was hard not to write those exact lines down.  And I suppose I had too much of an influence from Angel of the Opera by Sam Siciliano, because I more or less modeled my Raoul after his.  I stepped it up with I Will Find the Answer, though.  Luckily, to my knowledge, anyway, there are no Jekyll and Hyde/Holmes stories where Holmes is dealing with the play version of Jekyll, therefore including Emma Carew and Lucy.  I had to truly mold my own version if I wanted to fit Jekyll's fiancee and the Unfortunate who draws him, and therefore Hyde, into her life.  I did model it somewhat after the book, because in Stevenson's novel, Sir Danvers Carew is the only man killed, and the deed is done with Jekyll's cane.

I raised the bar for myself when I wrote I Will Find the Answer.  I only hope that Jack of All Trades raises the bar even further.  I want it to be the best one yet.  I want people coming away from this novel, hungry for more.  Saying, "Damn . . .  God, I can't wait for the next one!"

Because, let's face it.  For the next one, I'll have to raise the bar even more.  And despite these little freak-outs on my blog, I will rise to that challenge.

Sherlock Holmes Idea and Novel Stuff

Mycroft: "Just once, can you two behave like grown ups?"

Watson: "We solves crimes, I blog about it, and he forgets his pants. I wouldn't hold out too much hope."

I just love that line.

Sherlock Holmes week is from July 30th to August 5th this year and the MX authors have been encouraged to come up with Sherlock Holmes awareness for that week.  I'm still working out the kinks and planning how to pull this off best, but I'm planning a Sherlock Holmes themed Jeopardy to take place that week.  It will take place Monday through Friday, with Friday being a competition between the four winners of Monday through Thursday.  I'm still deciding exactly what the prizes will be, but I'm even going to make up 'Sherlock Dollars' with the faces of different actors portraying Holmes on the front, and probably 221B Baker Street on the back.

I'm going to need 12 volunteers who would like to participate.  Possibly fifteen, if I have the final competition on the sixth day.  Anyone who would like to be considered, please note this entry with your name and let me know if we are friended on Facebook.  We'll need to be for this competition.

Jack of All Trades is going well.  I'm past the second murder, about to write about the inquest and John Pizer, and then I'm going back to Watson's point of view until the night of the double murder.  I'd thought I was only going to have Holmes narrate three segments in this novel, but I came up with a terrific idea that I'm going to use, which means that there may be four segments.  Though since this one is not primarily Holmes's project, I may take his narration out of the beginning, which means Holmes would narrate the part I came up with a few days ago, the discovery of who the Ripper is, and the very end.  The rest is narrated by Watson and Erik, as I've probably mentioned.  One thing I'm doing that I haven't before is showing notes from Watson's journal.  All his segments are always headed "From the Journal of John H. Watson, M.D." and that signifies that it's a printed version of his notes from said journal.  In this one, however, I include the notes that he's handwritten for some segments.

Well, so I don't give away too much about the book and its plot and exactly how much I'm screwing with everyone's favorite characters, I'll leave off here with a quote from the one and only Irene Adler.

Irene Adler: "Brainy's the new sexy."

Yes, it is...

Sherlock Holmes Themed Jeopardy

Wouldn't that be an awesome idea?  A Sherlock Holmes themed Jeopardy?  I'm kind of interested to see if I could put this together.  If people from the Internet were participating, though, we'd have to find a way to do it in real time.  That way, no chance for cheating!  :)

I'll think on this...

My First Holmes Encounter

I'd said once before, though I can't guarantee it was on this blog, that my first encounter with anything Holmesian was when my dad showed me Young Sherlock Holmes.  Recently, I bought a Kindle, so as to read the Holmes material, (and a few choice others,) that don't seem to be available in any kind of print form, much to my chagrin.  I still find it weird to 'turn a page' by pressing a button.  Yes, I have the old Kindle version, not something like Kindle Fire.

Anyway, so as to not get too sidetracked by Kindle talk, I had downloaded a free version of The Return of Sherlock Holmes, and was reading the Adventure of the Empty House.  As I was going through Holmes's version of how he survived Reichenbach and managed to 'come back from the dead,' a memory stirred, to quote Javert.  I remembered being a little kid, probably no more than six, and my dad telling me about Holmes and Moriarty in the Final Problem, and them both going over the Falls.  Then he told me there were still stories after that, because the one writing them had decided the main character survived.  (Yeah, I don't think he told me the names of the characters yet.  I think that came later.)

When I was a kid, my Nana and my uncle lived in a house on Staten Island.  Across the street from their house was what the neighborhood kids, (specifically, my best friend, Dolly,) called Muddy Mountain.  I wish I had pictures of this place.  I'm glad I have a videotape of it somewhere, because they completely changed it and now a row of houses are opposite what used to be my Nana and uncle's house.  Anyway, though, Muddy Mountain was called that because it was basically this huge, (well, huge to a kid,) hill.  It extended the entire block, pretty much, but there were so many trees around there that there were only two places you could really climb up and get to the top, where it even out in a wide enough space for a path.  The one place, it was pretty easy to climb up because it was rockier, had more trees to grab onto, and that one led up to a bigger plateau where someone had hung a rope swing.  Anyway, if you followed the path up a bit, it led to another hill that was pretty much just loose dirt.  Imagine a snow covered hill you can sled down, and just take away the snow.

Okay, now that I've probably digressed to the point of losing anyone reading this, the above paragraph had a point.  When my dad was telling me about Holmes surviving the fall at Reichenbach, I imagined something like Muddy Mountain, only with a waterfall.  And I remember imagining Holmes grabbing ahold of clumps of weeds, or random roots to catch himself before falling to his death.

I suppose I'm thinking about the Great Hiatus lately, not only because Amy Thomas has written about it in her blog recently, but because it's when another Holmes novel that I have in the works takes place.

I have the series of five: Rendezvous, Answer, Jack of All Trades, my Holmes-Dracula one that I'm debating naming The Darkness Within, and Finding Camelot.  After that, I've got three short stories in the works that I hope will be long enough to turn into a book.  But I've also got another novel I've thought up.

Without giving too much away, the beginning shows a parallel between a present time person, and Holmes at the moment he and Moriarty go over the side at the Falls.  I'm going to do this in standard Holmes fashion and have it be narrated completely by another character.  No Holmes first person in this one!  It's definitely going to take him out of his element, however.  Something that he hates, and throughout, he desperately tries to cling to the old fashioned, Victorian style that he's accustomed to.

It's going to be a challenge to write.  It's going to be a very different sort of novel.  Difficult.  I'm going to be poring over the Canon throughout probably every page I write once I actually sit down and begin attempting this thing.  But if it turns out even half as good as I'm imagining, I'll be happy.

Look for my next review, A Crack in the Lens, by Darlene Cypser, up in several days!

Save Undershaw

I've been thinking lately about "Save Undershaw."  For anyone who doesn't know, Undershaw is the house in England where Arthur Conan Doyle lived for a time in his life, and also wrote parts of, I believe it was Hound of the Baskervilles, as well as some of the other Holmes short stories.  It has fallen into disrepair and a group is trying to raise money to have it refurnished so that it doesn't get turned into a hotel, I think it is, therefore changing the inside irrevocably.

I admit, I haven't looked into this issue as much as I should be, but honestly, I'd like to have more information.  I wish I had the ability to go to England and see Undershaw.  Or just visit England, because I'm a huge Beatles fan as well as Sherlock Holmes.

Anyway, I think that this house should be preserved as it was.  Too many things are just tossed by the wayside now, in favor of 'modern wonders.'  There should be more care taken with things from the past, especially when they've housed such creative minds.  It's ironic that so many should remember Conan Doyle for a character he ended up hating because he felt said character overshadowed the more serious writing/other characters that he authored.  Yet I think that everyone who is a fan of Sherlock Holmes can appreciate the need to preserve things of the past.  For us Holmes fans/fanatics/obsessors, it's always Victorian England, circa 1880-odd.

Okay, I did want to write more, but unfortunately, I'm being interrupted by my hyper little parrot who doesn't seem to want to sit quietly on my shoulder.  Instead, he wants to climb everywhere, including on my head, which wouldn't be so bad, if he didn't then lean over and try to preen my eyelashes...

Links, Links, and More Links

Loving that Rendezvous is on this list. :)

Please check out this link and "Like" it on FB.

Rendezvous on Goodreads

I Will Find the Answer on Goodreads

I just wanted to include these in today's blog.  I do have a few things to write about, but I'll come back when I have more time to do that.  In the meantime, please enjoy these links, and I hope you'll pay attention to especially the second one.  Oh, and if you haven't reviewed Rendezvous or Answer, please take a moment and rate/comment on it on Goodreads or Amazon.com.  Thanks!

Jack of All Trades

I've been away for awhile, from this blog and from Victorian England.  I must confess, since about January, I had no inspiration to work on my next Holmes novel, Jack of All Trades, at all.

It's the curse of a writer, or at least this writer, to be plagued with writer's block.  Some days, the writing is absolutely wonderful, and everything that comes out of your mind, through the pen, and onto the page is a glorious celebration of the possible perfection of the English language.

Other days, however . . .  You feel like you couldn't put even a halfway decent sentence together to save your life.  Anything that does spew out of your pen is complete crap, not even worth editing later because it feels so choppy, so you may as well not even write it.

And of course, the third option.  Where you're just so uninspired that you don't even want to pick up a pen, let alone write anything.

I've felt all three.  And lately, I've just been feeling completely uninspired as far as Holmes.  Part of it was because I finally got a job in the middle of January after being unemployed for a year.  So I was getting used to that.  Then, the same week I began the job, I noticed that my hedgehog (yes, I owned a hedgehog,) was sick.  I brought him to the vet and was given antibiotics to give him twice a day.  Unfortunately, those didn't work, so he was taken back in for a biopsy.  When the biopsy came back, it was discovered that he had cancer all along his lower jaw, as opposed to a vicious infection.  On Feb. 4th, I brought him back to the vet and had him put to sleep because I was not going to let him starve to death.  He'd already been losing weight since the first time he went to the vet when that began.

It was easily the hardest thing I've had to do concerning a pet.  I loved my little hedgehog.  But at least I know he lived a long life for a hedgehog.  They lived about four to six years, according to a breeder site, and Sonic was almost five.  He would've turned five on the 18th of this month, in fact.

In addition to that, while I was searching for food he might be able to swallow more easily, I went into a pet shop nearby.  There, I saw a bird called a Black-headed Caique.  (Ki-eek.)  I've wanted one of these little parrots for about ten years now, since I first saw one at another pet store near me that actually closed about a year ago.  Well, a few weeks and my tax return later, and I brought him and his new cage home with me.

I wasn't doing no writing during this time.  I'm writing different Young Adult novels, too, which I hope will be published eventually.  I went back to work on one of those and wrote a good twenty or more pages for it, as well as starting to rewrite the one before it, and figuring out the starting points for the two after it.

Unfortunately, once again, I missed the Great Holmes Debate because my laptop was out of commission for several weeks before I could bring it to a repair place.  As it turned out, they recommended I buy a new laptop, so that's what I'm typing on now.  The keyboard is taking a bit of time to get used to, but hey, at least now I can type.

Which (finally) brings me around to Jack of All Trades.  I'd been writing it in a non-linear fashion - that is, whenever a part struck me, I'd start writing it, then rip it out of the notebook and place it in the appropriate spot in a binder I had to hold the notes - and that worked for a bit.  Normally, I don't write novels like that.  The only one I've ever done that way was Rendezvous, and the only reason that worked is because I knew the story of Phantom of the Opera so well, there was no way I've get confused over where a part happened.

As I said, for Jack of All Trades, it worked for awhile.  I've got my binder with the segments.  But I decided a couple weeks ago to write it in a linear fashion.  It's going rather well at the moment.  I'm not going to give too much away, but I've decided to do something different in this novel.  Holmes has decided to release this story to the public, though he's hesitant to do so.  Instead of writing it primarily himself, and having narration from Watson/Erik and/or others, he asks Erik to commandeer the manuscript.  There will be about three segments narrated by Holmes, but the rest is narrated by Erik and Watson.  I hope this will satisfy the ones wishing for more Watson time after the second novel.  I'm hoping to give both Watson and Erik equal narrating time, but I can say that the chapters Watson narrates will probably be longer, so it will seem like he has more focus.

I do understand readers' desire for Watson being in the limelight and not having his role supplanted, seeing as how I'm including Erik in these books.  I suppose the reason I give so much narration power to other characters is because, with the Conan Doyle stories, and with most other pastiches, we hear Watson's voice.  Holmes novels are rarely told in third person, and mostly, we see Watson's perspective, unless he has been taken completely out of the equation and we have a new narrator who is a relation to Holmes (as in Angel of the Opera or the Web Weaver by Sam Siciliano,) or is a random person Holmes happens to meet (Shadow of Reichenbach Falls by John R King.)  While I don't want to break up this iconic duo (because honestly, where would either of them be without the other?  Or, as Sherlock puts it in the first season of the BBC's Sherlock, "Where would I be without my blogger?") I also don't want to just have Watson's take on things.  I want to get into the other characters' minds, walk around in their shoes for a bit.

Well, I suppose I've rambled enough.  I'll have hopefully two interviews forthcoming, so I look forward to posting those on here.

Thoughts from Baker Street

I've always enjoyed Sherlock Holmes.  Ever since I was about ten and was shown Young Sherlock Holmes, starring Nicholas Rowe, Allan Cox, and Sophie Ward.  It quickly became a favorite movie of mine, though I had no idea back then that they were trying to explain why Holmes had become the way he is in the Canon.

I've watched other Holmes movies throughout the 19 years since seeing Young Sherlock Holmes.  Without a Clue, the Case of the Whitechapel Vampire, Murder by Decree, and Robert Downey Junior's Sherlock Holmes, to name a few.  About a year ago, I was in Barnes and Noble, (one of the few in my area that still has a DVD section,) and happened to see the BBC's Sherlock.  I picked it up, looked at it, and was both intrigued and apprehensive about the idea of a modernized Sherlock Holmes.  I'd seen Guy Ritchie's travesty and wasn't sure I wanted to spend thirty dollars on three episodes that I wasn't even sure would actually be any good.  But, it was Sherlock Holmes, and when I become a fan of something, I dive in headfirst.  So, I bought it.

I put it in my DVD player, honestly not knowing what to expect.  I knew intuitively that it was either going to be really good, or really, REALLY bad.  After watching the first episode, though, I was absolutely amazed.  I LOVED it, and I can't wait till the next three episodes are out and available on DVD.

In March of this year, I was on Amazon, searching around for Holmes books that looked interesting.  I found one that intrigued me.  Tracy Revels' Shadowfall.  It features more supernatural elements to Sherlock Holmes.  And that was how I found MX Publishing.  I'm now also an author for MX, and have two Holmes pastiches released: Rendezvous at the Populaire and I Will Find the Answer.  Both can be found on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.  The first two have Holmes matching wits with the Phantom of the Opera, and then coming face to face with Doctor Henry Jekyll and his evil counterpart, Edward Hyde.  I have three more that will come out as part of this series.  The next involves Jack the Ripper.

I'll write further blogs, reviewing different Holmes books that I've read, including those from fellow MX authors.  I can't promise I'll always like them, but I will do my best to find something complimentary to say, or a constructive criticism to give.