Ask the Author: Anna Waterhouse
Answered Questions (9)
Anna Waterhouse
Thanks, Steph!
Anna Waterhouse
Hey Steph! Kareem and I may be more than willing, but the publisher has to believe a fourth book will make financial sense for them. (Publishing is getting more and more costly.) We're still waiting to see how the third book does. So if you liked it, please encourage others to buy/rent/read it!
Anna Waterhouse
Hi Mary. I do not. Three so far! The rest depend on the number of readers we have, and Kareem's and my schedule. I certainly hope we'll get to do another one. Thanks for your interest!
Anna Waterhouse
Hi! I'm glad you think ACD would approve! Kareem and I were trying to be faithful to the originals while still charting a new course.
Kareem was always in love with all things Sherlock Holmes/ACD and had an idea for the original story. (His family is originally from Trinidad.) I'd worked with him on other projects, so we started talking about ideas. When a publisher became interested, we got more serious and developed a storyline. Then we batted it back and forth and saw we could work together, which is very important. Talent is great, but if you're always struggling with different visions....not so much. When the first book proved successful, we attempted the second, then the third.
Thank you for going on the adventure with us!
Kareem was always in love with all things Sherlock Holmes/ACD and had an idea for the original story. (His family is originally from Trinidad.) I'd worked with him on other projects, so we started talking about ideas. When a publisher became interested, we got more serious and developed a storyline. Then we batted it back and forth and saw we could work together, which is very important. Talent is great, but if you're always struggling with different visions....not so much. When the first book proved successful, we attempted the second, then the third.
Thank you for going on the adventure with us!
Anna Waterhouse
Hi, Steele, and thank you for asking. Kareem is the aficionado of all things Holmes, and he's also the one who wanted to focus on Sherlock's older brother Mycroft — thus leading to the series.
In the first book you mention, his idea was to take Mycroft and his sidekick Cyrus Douglas to a place that would have definitely felt foreign to their Victorian contemporaries: the island of Trinidad. When he was young, Kareem's grandmother used to tell him stories of various pesky 'spirits' that haunted the island and its children, and so we built the plot from there.
Then we started to investigate what was happening in the Caribbean around the year 1870. (As with Conan Doyle's books, we were less interested in keeping the villains a secret than we were in Mycroft's exposing how the villains carried out their nefarious plan.) I would write a chapter, pass it over to him, he would write and make notes, pass it back, and so forth. He concentrated on plot, and I concentrated on dialogue...that way, we didn't step on each other's toes! (His are bigger.)
I hope that answers your question...we appreciate your reading Mycroft's adventures!
In the first book you mention, his idea was to take Mycroft and his sidekick Cyrus Douglas to a place that would have definitely felt foreign to their Victorian contemporaries: the island of Trinidad. When he was young, Kareem's grandmother used to tell him stories of various pesky 'spirits' that haunted the island and its children, and so we built the plot from there.
Then we started to investigate what was happening in the Caribbean around the year 1870. (As with Conan Doyle's books, we were less interested in keeping the villains a secret than we were in Mycroft's exposing how the villains carried out their nefarious plan.) I would write a chapter, pass it over to him, he would write and make notes, pass it back, and so forth. He concentrated on plot, and I concentrated on dialogue...that way, we didn't step on each other's toes! (His are bigger.)
I hope that answers your question...we appreciate your reading Mycroft's adventures!
Anna Waterhouse
The short answer is "bills." (I wish I were kidding.)
The longer, more complex answer: I don't think about inspiration. I dig in. I happen to love research, and before I know it — and really, without knowing it — I'm inspired. For example, what in the world is "mourning jewelry"? The investigation leads me to consider where and how it could be useful to this story. I follow one thread that interests me…and pretty soon I'm focused on plot again, and I'm writing about my characters' interaction with this 'thing' that fascinated me — with the hope that my enthusiasm will carry through to the characters, and from them to the reader.
And even though "Mycroft Holmes" was the product of two imaginations, the same holds true. Kareem wanted to begin the novel with the Oxford/Cambridge crew race: something that, I must admit, wasn't in my wheelhouse at all. But the more we talked about it, and the more I researched it, the more vivid it became. Together, Kareem and I found that 'thread' (in this case, the unexpected winner of that race in 1870), and from that one thread a passel of scenes were born.
The longer, more complex answer: I don't think about inspiration. I dig in. I happen to love research, and before I know it — and really, without knowing it — I'm inspired. For example, what in the world is "mourning jewelry"? The investigation leads me to consider where and how it could be useful to this story. I follow one thread that interests me…and pretty soon I'm focused on plot again, and I'm writing about my characters' interaction with this 'thing' that fascinated me — with the hope that my enthusiasm will carry through to the characters, and from them to the reader.
And even though "Mycroft Holmes" was the product of two imaginations, the same holds true. Kareem wanted to begin the novel with the Oxford/Cambridge crew race: something that, I must admit, wasn't in my wheelhouse at all. But the more we talked about it, and the more I researched it, the more vivid it became. Together, Kareem and I found that 'thread' (in this case, the unexpected winner of that race in 1870), and from that one thread a passel of scenes were born.
Anna Waterhouse
There's no such thing. You're either a writer or you're not. You might be 'aspiring' to be published, but the moment you write something that you long to share with others, you're a writer. So the first thing I'd do is to forget all about the 'aspiring' part, which keeps us in a rather infantilized state of 'about to be.' Instead, go ahead and call yourself a writer, even if it's scary, even if you feel "unworthy." And then do what writers do, which is to write. Don't let yourself off the hook with qualifiers. And please, don't limit yourself to writing "what you know." (If that were the criterion, I'd have to write only about certain parts of California, Oregon, New York, and Italy between the 1960s and the present.)
Instead, follow a thread that interests you. Hang onto it, see where it leads.
Instead, follow a thread that interests you. Hang onto it, see where it leads.
Anna Waterhouse
Crazy-making, right? I deal with it in two principal ways: the first is by plowing through with a sort of battle-worn, boots-in-the-mud slog. The trouble with that way of doing it is that I end up keeping very little of what I wrote, so it's only to make myself feel 'productive' at the time. But sometimes it's enough to shake me out of the stupor. The second is to realize that writing isn't simply and solely about writing. It's also about walking, and thinking, and vacuuming, and making coffee, and reading, reading, reading. (Something GoodReads folks are quite familiar with!) It's about giving yourself a break, even if you don't "deserve" it, and allowing an 'aha!' moment to happen, and to put you back to work.
Anna Waterhouse
It wasn't my idea. It was Kareem's. He's had a thing for Mycroft Holmes since his rookie year in the NBA. I had to play catch-up, reading Leslie Klinger's fabulous two-volume Annotated Sherlock Holmes, and digging in to Victorian England. (And Victorian Trinidad!) What's interesting about going along with someone else's idea is how possessive you will get about it all, as soon as the characters start coming to life. Then you wonder why on earth it never occurred to you in the first place. I guess it's good to be open to creative impulses — even if they're someone else's who is willing to take you along for the ride!
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