So, hmmm, we focused more on being storytellers than being historians.
For us, writing "Murdermobile" was a labor of love over a number of years, squeezed in between careers and raising a child. We always thought we had a good story -- not great literature, just a fun and entertaining cozy mystery that might be a good summer read. There are worse things to give the world.
New York publishers didn't show interest, so it sat on the shelf.
When e-publishing emerged as a viable, easy way to put a story in the public realm, we got all excited and took the plunge quickly. In the process, we revisited our story and, on a whim, decided to make our heroine five years younger by moving the story's date five years earlier. (Now that we think about it, we're not sure why. Perhaps it was society's relentless adoration of youth and the pressure to present a younger face to the world that made cutting five years off Hester's age seem a clever stroke. Or perhaps one of us just had a stroke. Maybe both.)
In any case, it wasn't the brightest whim we've ever had. Moving the date up, it turns out, played havoc with the timing of a bunch of real-life events to which our story alludes, ranging from the O.J. Simpson trial to the advent of dot-com millionaires. It's sort of the same reason that time travel is so perilous: There are just too many tricky side-effects you have to watch out for.
Noble reader, forgive us. One of you called us on it ("Hey, you said your story was set in 1991 but the Simpson trial wasn't until 1995!") and we have to admit we muffed it.
So -- One advantage to being the publisher of your own novel is that you can issue a revised, second edition anytime you wish. So that's what we're doing. The new edition is now on Amazon. We've asked that they make the updated version available to previous buyers.
We've restored the original date of the story, to 1996. Hester is five years older, in her late 30s instead of early 30s. In many ways, that age better fits her personality as we wrote her. It stands to reason that she's more world-wise, a bit more experienced in relationships, perhaps more open to trusting her own judgments of people and, well, forming close friendships in a flash. (If you've read the book, you'll know what we're talking about.)
In the end, we're really just doing this writing for the fun of it. But we do take it seriously, because we're creating a world into which we hope you'll enjoy escaping for a few hours. And if that world has a problem with time warps -- well, that's just not right.
Thank you for reading. We hope you'll join us for the next story, "Murdermobile 2: Corpse of Discovery." We're having fun writing it.
-- Brian and Barbara Cantwell
For us, writing "Murdermobile" was a labor of love over a number of years, squeezed in between careers and raising a child. We always thought we had a good story -- not great literature, just a fun and entertaining cozy mystery that might be a good summer read. There are worse things to give the world.
New York publishers didn't show interest, so it sat on the shelf.
When e-publishing emerged as a viable, easy way to put a story in the public realm, we got all excited and took the plunge quickly. In the process, we revisited our story and, on a whim, decided to make our heroine five years younger by moving the story's date five years earlier. (Now that we think about it, we're not sure why. Perhaps it was society's relentless adoration of youth and the pressure to present a younger face to the world that made cutting five years off Hester's age seem a clever stroke. Or perhaps one of us just had a stroke. Maybe both.)
In any case, it wasn't the brightest whim we've ever had. Moving the date up, it turns out, played havoc with the timing of a bunch of real-life events to which our story alludes, ranging from the O.J. Simpson trial to the advent of dot-com millionaires. It's sort of the same reason that time travel is so perilous: There are just too many tricky side-effects you have to watch out for.
Noble reader, forgive us. One of you called us on it ("Hey, you said your story was set in 1991 but the Simpson trial wasn't until 1995!") and we have to admit we muffed it.
So -- One advantage to being the publisher of your own novel is that you can issue a revised, second edition anytime you wish. So that's what we're doing. The new edition is now on Amazon. We've asked that they make the updated version available to previous buyers.
We've restored the original date of the story, to 1996. Hester is five years older, in her late 30s instead of early 30s. In many ways, that age better fits her personality as we wrote her. It stands to reason that she's more world-wise, a bit more experienced in relationships, perhaps more open to trusting her own judgments of people and, well, forming close friendships in a flash. (If you've read the book, you'll know what we're talking about.)
In the end, we're really just doing this writing for the fun of it. But we do take it seriously, because we're creating a world into which we hope you'll enjoy escaping for a few hours. And if that world has a problem with time warps -- well, that's just not right.
Thank you for reading. We hope you'll join us for the next story, "Murdermobile 2: Corpse of Discovery." We're having fun writing it.
-- Brian and Barbara Cantwell