(As you may have perceived, the new iPod has a name.)

Anyway, I had no idea how much information a person could put on an iPod. Like, not only their songs and videos, but photos and notes and an address book. Which is a handy thing to know, should, say, Jordy ever go missing. He doesn't have a cell phone (although I may look into whether it might be practical for someone in the band to have one they use for emergencies) or a Blackberry, but he'd almost certainly have an mp3 player, and investigators poking around in it would at least be able to form an impression of him.

(I probably need to create a tag just for that one idea, since this seems to be where I'm keeping all my notes.)

So last night on the treadmill I was thinking about this idea again. (It's the kind of thing I let myself think about a little bit and then I leave alone so as not to wear it out or derail the story I'm really writing.) I think I've decided that, if I include the spacey kid character as the stallion owner's helper (don't worry, when I add the new tag to all the relevant entries you'll be able to look it up if you need to)--anyway, if I do add him to the mix, he can be the ex-wife's son and the stallion owner's stepson, and as far as their horsey friends are concerned the fact he still lives with his stepfather about half the time is simply further evidence that, while the two exes hate each other, it's more recreational than real. Like, they are one another's arch-nemesis, but everybody they know thinks they're only about half-serious. When Ronnie gets killed off, none of the ex-couple's horsey friends believes Mary Lou did it, because with Ronnie gone who will she fight with?

As I say, I'm sort of hanging on to this one in case I ever decide to really write it. You never know, once I'm finished with Kowalski, this one could be an actual publishable story!

If I was to do the Inundation of Appaloosas story for real (and one day, maybe I will) the harmless space cadet character could easily be the kid who helps the stallion owner around the barn. Only, unfortunately, I would probably be forced to kill him off because he would almost certainly do something stupid that the killer couldn't put up with.

I say this, and yet I notice that the lead in my current mystery was intended as Victim #2 in a story I never ended up writing, because I got attached to him and just couldn't kill him off. So you might want to place your bets now on whether, if I ever get this story off the ground and include the character, he'll actually come to a grisly end.

The stallion owner fondly inspired by Ronnie Hawkins? Alas, he's toast.

The mystery writing group had a meeting last night, which was pleasant. We normally just read bits of what we're working on and shoot the breeze a little--it's not a critique group by any means. Last night one of the members asked for some input on a new and improved opening scene (verdict: it is indeed new and improved) and the hostess gave us a writing exercise that turned out to be quite a lark. She made up a series of lines that must be included in the piece of writing (we all used them as our opening lines) and then we had ten minutes to write something. If you didn't like your first pick you could take another, but since mine featured the detective's sister-in-law, a stuffy Anglican bishop, coming into the agency to ask for help with... [sentence ends]

Well, I kept it. By the end of my excerpt the stuffy sister-in-law was drinking vodka (it really should have been gin) with the detective and telling her in fits and starts about a long-lost out-of-wedlock son. If I was going to do anything with it, the detective would be a smartass and the early part of the story would be sort of irreverent and light-hearted, and then the whole thing would get progressively more serious. I figured the kid's father, a career petty criminal the sister-in-law should have been smart enough to stay away from, is threatening to sabotage her career by Revealing All about the kid.

I'm almost certainly not going to do anything about this but it interested me, given that I have never really decided who Jordy's biological parents are, or anything much about them. So it was kind of an interesting exercise, if only in spotting how I can twist almost anything to serve the story I am currently working on.

Likewise those books about the Grateful Dead. I'm afraid the post over the weekend may have been a dead (heh) loss for any fans of the band who wanted to know whether the books are worth checking out. They are. A Long Strange Trip tries to be more of a history, while Living With the Dead reads like the writers are still high. The second book kind of reminds me of Up and Down With the Rolling Stones, only less muck-raking and a great deal more affectionate. And pretty damn funny. Although really, Long Strange Trip is also hilarious because it researches the same stories Living does, and presents them in far greater detail.

Although no matter how you slice it, even for someone with no particular attachment to the band, reading about Jerry Garcia slowly killing himself is pretty hard sledding.

( And then I just go on and on about character kidnapping, so nothing to see here. )

I actually have a pretty good grip on reality, honest. I know the difference between real people and the ones in my head. It's just always a cause for some rejoicing when the two collide a little bit. Which, I guess, may well happen here. I mean, the material is too good not to use!

I posted last week that I've been given a lead on a good drug for my killer to use. In thinking it over since then, I don't think the cops will be able to come to any conclusions about whether Gareth has had it prescribed at any time. However, given the state he was in just after the old band broke up, they consider it highly possible that he was taking anti-depressants at some point, so they continue to consider him a prime suspect.

Until the shooting incident at the campground makes it obvious the killer is still at large.

I think I'll run with that for the moment. Now, to find some time and brain cells to actually write!!

I've kidnapped my mother's comment and have it carefully stored in case it ever comes in handy for a story. Say, an occasion when Jordy's out filling the bird feeders at his parents' place and he ends up covered in chickadees.

Erica: "Nice Tippi Hedren impression you've got there."
Jordy (sheepishly): "I was going for more of a Saint Francis Of Assisi vibe, actually..."

I mentioned in the last Gloryhound post that during one of the breaks between sets I was talking to Erin, one of the bar staff who is another aspiring writer, about the Robax experiment I conducted over the weekend. I was planning on getting a couple of different kinds of back pills (which I will eventually use up anyway, knowing my back) and a six-pack of beer and setting up a lab in my kitchen, but after the lilac head on the ginger ale I confess I was concerned.

Erin suggested switching drug classes entirely, with the eventual result that I have discovered that Ativan, an anti-anxiety medication, comes in liquid form and would certainly be a bad thing to add to somebody's beer.

Now, the reason I went with a Robax-type drug in the first place was because it is available over the counter and the police would figure Gareth could easily get hold of it. You can't generally get Ativan without a prescription, but considering our killer's history it makes complete sense that he would have been prescribed something like this and therefore have access to it.

Plus, one reason the police eventually let Gareth go is because of the shooting at the campground, which occurs while he's locked up (which is, in fact, one reason why it occurs: the killer is trying to get the police to let Gareth go so he'll be a target again.) But that fact could be bolstered by the fact that there's no indication he'd ever been in a position to have access to this type of drug. (Thin, I know, but it's one of a couple of factors.)

Anyway, this is an improvement and means I don't have to spend the weekend turning beer foam funny colours.

Which is actually kind of a shame, but there you go.

I mentioned a week or so ago that I was getting a book out of the library and wondered if I could focus on the large print format. The print turned out to be fine, the problem was, alas, that I just didn't care for anyone in the book. There are books that in theory should work for me and just turn out to be blah, and this was one of them. And there were even quarter horses!

Okay, one of the things that amused me about the story was the name of the main character's yearling colt: Peppy Leo (which you'd think has been used by now) in honour of his great-great-grandsire Mr San Peppy and his whatever-grandsire Leo San. On the one hand, it demonstrates a knowledge of the bloodlines she's writing about. On the other, I find it absolutely hilarious when breeders dig eight generations back for a famous ancestor to name the horse after.

The thing most worth noting about this story is that it uses the artificial-insemination-fraud plotline I suggested for my inundation of Appaloosas idea. (What's really funny is that none of the horse breeder characters seem to be able to discuss the details of AI or breeding or use the word "stud," let alone "semen." I don't know about you, but the horse people I know are not nearly so prim!)

However, the idea of the nasty joke which turns out not to be at the heart of the mystery is still up for grabs. Dibs!

I can't see anyone bumping you off for providing them with this:



Or this:



Although admittedly, it'd be less of a shock if you started out with this:

It's a few years old and American, but the trends and characteristics reflect what I've been reading about this generation for a while.

It reflects my father's comment, late in his career as a high school teacher, that the last bunch of kids he taught were in general much kinder and more concerned about others than in previous years.

I'm interested in this generational stuff partly because it explains a lot about why the young people I encounter at work, the barn, and elsewhere are so much pleasanter to deal with than I remember kids being back when I was one.

I'm also interested partly because of this post by llygoden which referred to a writer who was disgusted with the current state of fiction and young writers. It sounds very much as if he fell into the trap of believing that all people of a certain age should be as his generation was at the same age, and if they didn't there was something wrong with them. (This is a common problem with Baby Boomers, but I'm sure I only think that because there are so many of them.)

The current generation are not the same as their parents' generation, because their experiences are different and the way they were raised is different. I once listened to a generational researcher, who is a Boomer himself, explain that his WW II-generation parents were affiliative and concerned about others, while his own generation were rebellious and disrespectful of authority and often others ("Remember, the National Guard at Kent State were the same generation as the people they were shooting at. The represented two different ways of being aggressive"--I never thought of that) And his kids are part of the respectful, affiliative, concerned-for-the-group Millenial generation. He giggled that when he was young and raising hell, his dad used to say, "Wait until you have kids of your own!" And he did! And his kids are nothing like he was! So his generation has largely gotten away with it!!

Anyway--generations are not individuals and I know there are assholes in every group, but there's something in this. And as I was thinking about my latest story idea it occurred to me that Kowalski would be impressed and influenced by the music of the old Sixties band, and the old guys would like knowing that a young band was still into what they did... but there would be a lot of times when each band's group behaviour would... puzzle the other. Their experiences and assumptions about almost everything would be that little bit different, beginning with the fact that Kowalski encountered the older band in the first place while happily listening to their parents' record collections. With their parents, in some cases.

Which could actually be a lot of fun to write and could make an interesting thread, if I wanted to concentrate on getting the details down. It's a thought, anyway.

While going on and on about The Last Waltz the other day I commented that the movie (and backstory in general) had given me an idea for a murder mystery. (Of course, grocery shopping sometimes gives me ideas for murder mysteries, but I digress.)

In thinking it over harder, I think the guitar player who ends up getting murdered would have to be the one who'd changed his ways and made friends with Kowalski. It just wouldn't work if they were friends with someone who wasn't murdered, and I can't think of a good reason to not make the victim the guy everyone else was mad at. (Mind you, I might come up with something.)

So the old band mates would be together rehearsing for their first show in years, a deliberately low-key but sentimental affair to mark something like the fortieth anniversary of their first album or something. The drummer, who carries a grudge, didn't want to come and still blames the guitar player in part for the death of one of the old members. The keyboard player and bassist talk him into it. Murder ensues, et cetera.

The problem that occurred to me was this: the bass player character (you can call him... Rick) is the least likely suspect. So he should be the killer (unless I decide to kill him after all and... I don't think I can.) But because he is the least likely suspect, by the Law Of the Cozy that actually makes him the most likely suspect, if you follow. So either way I can't win.

And then I realized that the surviving keyboard player (call him Garth...) a quiet and well-disposed and temperate fellow, is an equally unlikely suspect for different reasons.

So whatever I do, including making both of them victims or both of them innocent, I will be equally right and equally wrong, so it's even.

The one thing I cannot do is have the drummer (call him... well, you get it, and of course I have to call them all something else even before I start imagining them into characters of my own)--anyway, the one person who absolutely can't have Dun It is the drummer, because he is the likeliest suspect. And lately I have read a few stories in which the likeliest suspect is actually the killer, and you know, it's really not all that much fun and far less surprising than I think the writers were hoping.

However. I may need to think this one over. Possibly over Christmas when I am too surrounded by confusion to do any serious writing on a real story.

Hmm.

I mentioned over Thanksgiving that I'd gotten a copy of The Last Waltz for five bucks. It came out in theatres in 1978, when I was about eleven and it was rated R (for what???**) so of course I didn't see it at the time.

( This is a long one. )

If I get back to the horsey mystery series idea, I will totally include a scene set at an agriculatural fair, just for the joy of having the bad guy attempt to evade capture by bolting through the collecting area outside the ring. He'll run headlong into the middle of the Musical Ride, my heroine hard on his heels.

Once she gets over being distracted by velvety black muzzles and explains things, there will be plenty of cops around to take charge.

I always say I dislike characters who have no good reason to keep information away from the police, well, here's my chance to address that. In a fairly silly way.

When latsyrk and her husband moved into their place, I helped carry boxes and empty some, which is when I learned that they have a set of heavy-duty steak knives made by Paderno. I have a few Paderno pots and they are awesome, but of course when I saw these babies, the first thing I thought was, "Wow, you could totally kill someone with one of those!"

I thought, of course, that the cops would immediately suspect the home owner of doing the person in. The defense would be, "Hell no! Paderno is really expensive! I wouldn't be stupid enough to kill someone with my good steak knife!"

And then, a few weeks later, I was in Zellers (Target equivalent, for my American friends) and found that Paderno has a deal with them and the set of knives cost something like twenty dollars.

* Sigh *

Bang went my idea.

Although I suppose the person who owned the knives didn't have to know they were available at Zellers, until the cops pointed it out, and then she at least cheered up knowing she could replace the one missing from her set.

Also, this being the case I can certainly afford more Paderno cookware than I thought I could, although I should really visit the outlet at the local mall sometime just to look around...

Anyway, it was an idea.

So it occurred to me that Canadian Idol ended without my taking much notice, as did Big Brother and American Idol before it. I'm slightly relieved to note that I seem to have mostly kicked my reality-TV habit. Whew!

Mind you, some of those shows are still a murder mystery waiting to happen. I've got Dead Famous by Ben Elton on hold at the library, which is apparently a Big Brother-themed mystery. I'd have killed everyone else in the house by about day three, so there you go. (And there's a creepy little Canadian flick called With My Little Eye that's about a Web version of a Big Brother type of show. Quite scary, really.)

I'm disappointed that so far nobody's written an Idol-themed mystery that was any good. Ben Elton wrote a non-mystery novel about a season in a show like that, but nobody died. Sadly.

And there's an American writer who has a "rock'n'roll detective" character who's a little too impressed with his own cool, but he's not bad. The first book in the series was obviously about Marilyn Manson, and the MM character was handled sympathetically, as though he was a person worthy of our interest. In the second one I'm pretty sure he killed off Madonna under a pseudonym, which didn't bother me none. But the third was his Idol-themed one and it was useless. Like, about four-fifths of it was a cooler-than-thou diatribe against the show, the contestants were cyphers, nobody cared about the kid who died or worried that any of the others might be next, and the solution didn't make sense. It was like he figured he could sell a book with that theme and he didn't even do anything interesting with his distaste. You read more interesting rants all over the Internet.

What really irked me was his contention that the big TV studio was so powerful that nobody would ever even find out the murder happened, or that someone famous was convicted of it. Because in the second case, tabloid reporters would never dream of taking pictures of a minor celebrity at an embarrassing moment.

And in the first case, naturally nobody noticed the kid was dead. His friends never called or emailed him and wondered why he never got back in touch. His girlfriend never tried to find out what had happened to him. None of his grandmother's friends ever asked "how's your grandson these days?" No nosy blogger or entertainment reporter would ever get suspicious. Of course not. For if there's one thing the Internet has taught us, it's that people are not nosy and do not resent being given no answers to their questions.

It was stupid and perfunctory and he should have just written something he was interested in, you know?

Of course, this leaves the field free for my far-superior story. My heroine is based on Nikki McKibbin, for whom I had a soft spot in season one. The character is a young single mother who feels bad about leaving her youngster behind for a few weeks (with her mother, and her friend Travis, whose role becomes important later on.) Her last words are, "If she wants to colour her hair, make sure she uses the Kool-Aid without sugar in it!"

In my version, votes would be cumulative, so the killings are hard to cover up. And the killer is finally caught when he/she tries to murder one of the cute little girl singers who responds by screaming and then pummeling the killer with a high-heeled shoe.

I know, I know. I'm never going to really write it. But it amuses me to plan it out.

I checked the plan book where I found the two I discussed yesterday. There is a Web site. And here's the house I picked for Jordy's family.

It's not a super-large house, which I thought was appropriate for this family, so when grandparents come to visit someone *coughJordycough* is going to have to sleep in the family room. I like the way the family room is sort of attached to the kitchen. It flows naturally into the kitchen and makes it comfortable to hang out in the general area, which is what people in the Maritimes instinctively do. You could put a kitchen table in there pretty easily and eat there instead of the dining room. Actually, it would also be nice if there was a fireplace or a woodstove back there but I suppose that detail could be added if it ever becomes an issue. I like the way this plan sort of encourages you to do most of your living in that part of the house. I don't mind that the dining room is a little removed from the kitchen because it won't get much use anyway except on special occasions.

Upstairs, Jordy's room is at the front of the house and Erica's is just behind it. And you can see how much access they have to the porch roof.

This is the other option I considered. I really like the setup of kitchen/breakfast nook/"hearth room," and I like having the fireplace kind of in the heart of the house. (My parents heated with wood, in a wood stove with a glass door so you could always see the fire, and this has clearly affected me.) However, the plan really does seem more formal than the other, and I don't see the MacPhersons being entirely comfortable here.

Upstairs, there are four bedrooms, which as I mentioned yesterday would be convenient when grandparents came to stay. "Bedroom 3" is the one I'd have assigned to Jordy, and note the smaller window in the section marked "Open to below"--that's the one he'd have to be careful of, in case of accidental... well, "defenestration" is falling out of a window. Does the same word apply if you're falling into a window??

Anyway. There you are. I think I would keep the first house yellow. It's a welcoming colour.

I've mentioned that I need to plan out what happens next in my story, so I've been making notes lately. (Whether I can make it work is another matter.) I have a tentative plan for who is suspected and interviewed and in what order.

I've also planned out, in more detail, exactly how Jordy figures out who the killer is and why. Part of it is the same "eureka moment" he had in the original draft from November 2005, when he realizes the killer is using an alias based on his own name. However, there are a few things that don't add up for Jordy before then. (This stuff is based on a continuity error I made in the original story and decided I would keep.) I need to go back and add another few conversations with the killer, but what I've got ties into one of Jordy's most salient personality traits: he pays attention to other people and remembers things about them.

What happens is this:

Kowalski meets the catering guy, George MacShane, early on. He makes a crack about how they're staying at "Ted and Lucinda Goodnight's."

Later, in a bit I have to insert, probably right after Jordy talks to Adrian, George mentions to Jordy that he's a local guy.

Throughout the course of the story Jordy has been wondering where Mr. Goodnight is, and whether he exists. After the campground shooting, when we finally meet Ted Goodnight, Ted turns out to be Mrs. Goodnight's grandson. Jordy wonders why he was so convinced there was a Mister Goodnight.

Eventually, though, he remembers the conversation with George. His point is, if someone was talking about him and his mother, they'd never say "Jordy and Kate MacPherson." They'd be "Kate MacPherson and her son Jordy," or "Jordy MacPherson and his mother, Kate." Saying it the other way makes them sound like a couple. Jordy figures out that George doesn't actually know the Goodnights or their relationship, he was just trying to sound like a local. So the question is, why would he lie about something like that?

The "eureka moment" follows soon after, on the heels of Jordy's realization that, while you might get really upset if a friend got killed, you'd be even more upset if your child was the victim. So maybe he should not be concentrating on suspects his own age.

There has to be more to it than that, obviously, but that's a big part of it--the thing that doesn't make sense. The thing is, George assumed Jordy wouldn't be paying attention to him and would not remember anything about him, but we've already established that he does in fact remember details about people. I'll have to work in some kind of precipitating incident to lead to the final confrontation, because confrontation is not Jordy's style unless he's cornered. But I can work with this.

One thing about spending all my time reading and thinking about murder mysteries: pretty well everything I touch ends up having some sort of sinister application. Although this one is so obvious, I'm amazed I didn't think of it earlier.

I read a lot of those Golden Age mysteries, and it seems to me that back in the day murderers may have given up a little too quickly. And maybe didn't have the confidence one would expect in a criminal mastermind. Because really, how many books of the era do I recall ending with the cornered killer taking cyanide rather than face trial and disgrace? (Or, as is pointed out in the comments--the noose.)

Quite a few. And okay, in the case if a spy or some underworld figure, I guess I can see it. (No, I can't--you don't get to be a major figure in the underworld without nerve!) I suppose the plausible suicides are in the cases where the killer is some solid member of the community who can't bear to face the music (generally the motive behind the crime in the first place.) But even in an era when cyanide was apparently readily available "to kill wasps," who carries it on them?

I thought about that while making my lunch this morning. And what occurred to me is, given my cozy little band story, I could totally use that setup. I'd just have to establish that one or more characters were allergic to peanuts. Then, when the denunciation scene occurred in someone's house, the killer could bolt for the kitchen.

Jordy is puzzled, because there's no way out of the apartment through the kitchen. He and Kowalski give chase in case the guy is going to return clutching a bread knife, but--they arrive not quite in time to stop him from swallowing a big gob of peanut butter. And by the time the ambulance arrives, it's too late.

Mind you, I'm not saying I would ever have the nerve to use this. But if I'm ever in a situation where I want the killer to do himself in, I might just use this method. Definitely likelier than your average modern Maritimer having access to a couple of cyanide capsules.

Okay, a while ago I posted about a nebulous idea I had for a story in which an unscrupulous stallion owner whose champion stallion is infertile substitutes an Appaloosa, with colourful results for mare owners. Discussion ensued--more than I planned on, for sure, because it was strictly at the hee-that-would-be-hilarious stage and had not yet risen to the level of an actual plot.

However. The discussion pointed up some areas of weakness in the initial idea that I'd have thought about if I'd taken it a step further. And after the discussion I actually did think about it a little more seriously than I'd bothered to previously.

What's the point of the inundation of Appaloosas? Just that--the spotty baby horses showing up where they're not expected. The unexpected Appaloosa arrivals struck me as the sort of event that would be funny as hell--if it happened to some other mare owner. (In my case, of course, any arrivals of Appaloosas would be fervently hoped-for.) The story is a murder mystery, but I actually planned to think up some other motive for the murder: the foal scam is just how the perspective characters get involved. The stallion owner was going to have given plenty of other people reason to be much angrier at him.

When I got thinking about it, though, the thing I was left with was, I liked the idea because it struck me as a good joke.

And there we have it: it's got to be a joke. An elaborate, somewhat nasty joke.

Ta-da!

So: the stallion owner (who in my mind is starting to resemble Ronnie Hawkins) is fairly recently divorced and doesn't get along with his ex. He's got a malicious sense of humour but is basically not a bad guy. The ex-wife is a little tightly wound, but also basically all right. The local horse community is elaborately tactful because it's a small one and nobody wants to get in the middle of a fight.

The main character is a young woman who teaches some lessons at a local barn, where she used to keep her Appaloosa gelding, Willie. Willie died of colic a few months ago so she's between horses, and the barn owner lets her ride her youngsters. (For convenience we'll call the stallion owner Ronnie, his ex-wife Mary Lou, the main character Julie, and the barn owner Charlene.)

In the divorce Ronnie and Mary Lou each kept the horses who were registered in their names--she has a couple of thoroughbred broodmares and her jumper, and he has his quarter horse gelding he rides in team penning. But they also owned a young stallion in common, and the horse is pretty much Ronnie's pet. So the deal was that he retained physical custody of the stud but she could breed to him.

While all this was being worked out, Ronnie was diagnosed with lung cancer, and his outlook wasn't good.

Because he and Mary Lou can hardly be in the same room together, they agree the first breedings of her mares will be via transported semen. (I need to check on whether the Canadian Sport Horse Association will register foals conceived in this way. I know the Jockey Club won't, and the AQHA will, so if CSHA demands live on-site cover or I can't find the info I'll just have Mary Lou breeding appendix quarter horses.)

Julie and Charlene get involved when Ronnie talks Charlene into a test breeding with her QH mare, Calista. Charlene is an old friend of Ronnie's and although she points out that she's not interested in a great big ol' English-type horse, she finally goes along with him. She knows Mary Lou well and has some sympathy with Ronnie's explanation that he just wants to make sure everything goes well so he won't need to deal with Mary Lou any more than is necessary this breeding season. He's philosophical about "kicking the bucket" but there's some aggravation he says he doesn't need.

So after Calista is confirmed in foal, Mary Lou's mares are bred. Calista foals first. Julie, the App fancier, is present at the birth and thinks the leopard baby is wonderful, just a dream foal. Charlene's first comment is, "The old bastard!"

The next morning Charlene heads over to confront Ronnie (Julie is tagging along because this is too good to miss) and that's when they meet the App stud he has stashed. They both recognize him on sight:

Charlene: "That's the few-spot stud Linda Robinson used to ride in the pennings! He always throws a ton of colour! The old bastard was counting on it!"
Julie: "I always did like that horse."
Charlene: "Well, I know where you can get a good deal on one of his babies! And the old bastard must have known I'd offer the foal to you!"
Julie: "I could name him Waylon..."

By this time Ronnie is not in very good shape but he's delighted with his joke and the anticipation of Mary Lou's reaction. He points out that once he's kicked the bucket, Mary Lou will have the original stallion all to herself and be able to breed as many mares as she likes. Julie and Charlene agree it was a really dirty trick, but what are you going to do to a guy who's already dying of lung cancer?

Well, murder him. Which someone does.

Obviously this is just a sketch of one element of the story, there would need to be more going on and more characters with other agendas. I'd want to make both Ronnie and Mary Lou essentially sympathetic, though the sort of people Julie can only take in small doses.

Who knows if it'd hang together as more than a sketch, or if I'll still be interested in it when I finish with Kowalski. However, it's fun to think about.

I've already mentioned my recurrent desire to set a mystery at the Regional Gliding School. I still don't have anything firm in my mind, but over the weekend I had a couple of ideas. Just because it amuses me to cross characters from one story to another, I thought Jordy's girlfriend Vanessa might be an instructor as a summer job. And that made me think that, when I was a cadet I'd have been intrigued to say the least if a scruffy hairball like Jordy dropped in to visit one of the instructors.

Which naturally led to the idea that Jordy is in town with Kowalski to play at a bar, and a handful of the cadets get the bright idea to sneak off-campus to find out what they sound like. It starts out as a dare. I had the idea that Jordy, who's met a couple of them, catches them hanging around outside and recognizes them but doesn't give them away.

And then I realized the actually usable part of this idea involves the kids sneaking back afterward and finding the body. And there is no good explanation for why they were in that particular place at that particular time. They figure if they let on they'll get kicked off the course and sent home, so they keep quiet and sneak back to bed. Leading to the expected confusion as to when the murder occurred, and someone being suspected who would probably be cleared if the cadets had the guts to speak up.

Still very rough, possibly unusable in any form, and I probably won't get to use Jordy and Vanessa. But at least I have a possible angle to approach the idea from next time I think about it.