The odd and awkward thing about Mr. J Goes to Washington ...

The odd and awkward thing about Mr. J Goes to Washington (working title) is that for a good two-thirds of the book, since I wanted to get away from starting every story with a corpse, it's a missing-person case: lots of small events that add up to, "What's Wrong With this Picture?" This requires VERY careful writing, like making a mosaic out of very tiny pieces. Thus, when the corpse does show up, it's the key to the solution, not the problem that needs unravelling.

So the problem of writing becomes, how does one carry the story when there's no corpse? It is a MYSTERY, not a MURDER-MYSTERY. (Excellent examples of this: Gaudy Night , by D.L. Sayers; Miss Pym Disposes , by Josephine Tey; Brat Farrar and The Franchise Affair, also by Tey.) Except of course in Mr. J Goes to Washington there's a number of corpses involved because part of the plot involves body-snatching.

A quiet gray morning again. Grocery-shopping, because I'm going out to lunch with a friend tomorrow.