K. Orme's Blog

"It also has the first part of chapter one sitting pretty in Plot Factory. The first draft will be finished by July 31st, I assure you that."

Remember this? Take a good long look at it. It was when I promised that the first draft of a Holmesian pastiche would be finished by July 31st.

You know what wasn't finished by that glorious day, o' day o my brother's birth?

It was my book. It was my gosh dang diddly darned book.

But I did start writing it a good... 14 days into August and made very good headway into... about the... actually I'm still in the first act. It's a funny thing. I think I'm technically on the chapter that ends the first act.

I would henceforth like to blame *dun dun*... I would henceforth like to blame *dun dun* ... I WOULD HENCEFORTH LIKE TO BLAME NETFLIX for ruining my chances of finishing that one during the summer months.

... I watched all of Season 4 of Stranger Things in one day. (the 14th.) I was sick. We had started it when my brother was over for his birthday. He started it without me and I missed Steve Harrington saying "boobies" about 029328778 times and I'm still ticked at my brother thinking I didn't want to hear that. (Because I did.)

So I like, did a run through of the episodes in record time and uh. Midnight happened and I was sobbing and making impulse purchases on Etsy of my new comfort character not being ... unalived.

So you know what I still haven't written? My Sherlock Holmes pastiche.

You know what I have written? A crap ton of fanfic. Fanfic that stays on my harddrive or that my friends can read. Wherein homeboy is safe and sound and maybe a little chewed up but not croaking out "I love you, man."

You know what I'm publishing come the end of January?

A Romeo and Juliet retelling set during the Satanic Panic in the 1980s Small Town USA.

It should be a short story if my stupid need to be verbose and include so many scenes (pertinent to the plot) wouldn't get in the way. But I DO need an 80s makeover montage at some point in there. Here's hoping I can at least finish THAT.

Wow that's a shocking title. I never thought I'd be writing a blog post about *this* topic, but here we are. So basically, I got to thinking about the private life of Sherlock Holmes (and I don't mean the movie directed by Billy Wilder with Robert Stevens as Holmes. Though, I must admit, that is one of my favorite Holmes movies. The music is very lush and the whole ballet sequence is hilarious. Poor Watson.)

But back to what I actually was thinking about, was well, Sherlock Holmes and his... softer relationships. We know that he doesn't trust women and thinks that even the best of them have some agenda of some sort. (which I think the Billy Wilder movie touches on very well, having women that Holmes starts to feel affection for turn out to be murderesses or enemy spies.)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said that Holmes was like a computer and just as likely as one to fall in love. (well... loosely paraphrased. It wasn't an actual computer. Computers weren't invented yet.)

I tend to remember the one computer from the 1970s Willy Wonka movie (aka the good one. No offense Depp) has a conscience about telling where the Golden Tickets are.

Here's the thing. People don't usually start off jaded. Something usually makes them that way. So I wonder, what could it have been that closed the door to Holmes's heart.

I think about what Jeremy Brett said about Holmes, that (paraphrased) "perhaps he had seen a woman across campus and had fallen in love, but she hadn't given him the time of day, so he closed that door forever."

I also am reminded of Young Sherlock Holmes (the 80s movie that is like Harry Potter meets Sherlock Holmes in the best way) where ah, spoiler I guess (the movie is thirty something years old now) the object of young Holmes's affection is shot and killed in front of him, thereby rendering him unable to love again.

Holmes has said that "women have seldom been an attraction to me for my brain has always governed my heart."

My g-d he is the only man to not think with his other head. I'm quite frankly impressed

I don't think this is to say that he is never attracted to women and possibly attracted to men. I don't think that's the point at all. In Lion's Mane, he says "I have never loved, but if the woman I have loved--" showing a propensity for attraction toward his opposite sex.

Holmes is just so very able to squish down any attraction and emotion he might have into tiny particles. He can then put those feelings in a box. And then put that box in another box. Mail that box to himself. When it arrives, he can SMASH IT WITH A HAMMER HAHAHAHA.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had no need to write a romantic attachment for Holmes in the canon stories, which is fine. Watson got the action.

All this being said I don't think it is wrong for authors to take a gander into the private life of Sherlock Holmes. Just because Sir Doyle didn't write it, doesn't mean it could play a feature in pastiche, homage, books with Holmes as the subject that were not written by Doyle. (Whatever you'd like to call them. But I'll leave fanfiction as a term for fiction that cannot be traditionally/self/indie published and only published on sites like fanfiction.net and archive of our own.)

However, we probably should remember that Holmes is very much a smart man who knows his anatomy, if not systematically, is rather smart concerning scientific facts (for his era) and so on.

When authors take the opportunity to delve into Holmes's private life, they often decide to forgo the fact that he has smashed his feelings when they arrived on his doorstep by return of post.

Is this a giant blogpost written due to the fact that a book I read had him take advantage of an Irregular in a gross disgusting manner and then have it being chalked up to "well he was still a human man, so I guess it would happen."

perhaps

Holmes *can* have a sexual life if played off well and as in character as much as it can. Though keeping him celibate is just as good too.

I think I'd like to see it more played off as Spock's parents. Whoever the woman is the emotion and he's Sarek. I think that would be able to suit the canon enthusiasts fine and involve the ones who want to delve more into Holmes's private life.

And on a final note, leave Irene Adler alone. She just wanted to get married and move on with her life. Let her live a happily ever after with her husband for goodness's sake.

All of this was simply my take on what I think would make for good pastiche and fiction about Sherlock Holmes. You can write whatever you want or read whatever you want. (But also, if you write Holmes taking advantage of the Irregulars in some way shape or form, I will find you. I have a certain skillset.)

As I've written chapter one of my pastiche, herein titled The Missing Heiress (title subject to change), I'm feeling that olde imposter syndrome kicking in. I feel like the voice I'm writing in is very telling and not very showy, which I'm usually pretty decent with. I'm sure it's an easy tonal fix, and I'll get over this slump very soon after a good cathartic cry that I will inevitably subject my mother to listen as I sob about my life in shambles and other hyperbolic nonsense. (And then she'll perhaps give me ice creams as consolation?)

But furthermore, I want to draw the reunion of two characters after one goes away for three years in all angsty romantic mushy glory.

Or commission it. It's one thing to draw my own art, of which I can, but it's another thing to go to Artist's Alley in a convention or on Fiverr.

Am I writing this blogpost to procrastinate doing both writing the pastiche and drawing or commissioning art?

...yeah, I'll get back to work.

I'm writing a pastiche. It haven't written a novel since November 2019, and Pondered in her Heart, which is not a pastiche at all, was originally conceived in 2014 and finally written in July 2019. After a long bout of writer's block, artist's block, whichever you want to call it, and a good deal of post-publication depression (especially concerning the editing job my house paid for. Ah well humans do the human thing sometimes. :) ) I finally broke through to be able to plot and start a new novel.

A Sherlock Holmes pastiche series.

Well, it wasn't supposed to be a series. It was supposed to be a standalone but then I kept seeing different stories with the same original characters in different situations, so I guess I have to write a series now, not that I'm complaining. It'll keep me busy for a few blocks of time.

But this leads me to an interesting string of thoughts. I was at Barnes and Noble the other day to return a book I already owned (and in hardback no less!) when I was reading the mystery writer's magazine.

Sherlock pastiches are still on the market and being published, which bodes well for me, who's well, writing some.

But ah, well, I don't seem to fit the mold of most of the pastiche writers. They do tend to be graying gentlemen.

I am not a gentleman, though I am graying. (My hairdresser noted that i have gray face-framing bits of hair and I henceforth dyed my hair all black in protest. But I digress.)

Furthermore, I find the readership to be of a similar nature to that of the authorship. Of course, not all of them, but looking at the reviews on various pastiches, similar faces pop up and I am a fairly observant person. There is a statical upswing in favor of not people like me.

I do worry a little concerning the content of my books. I aim to be more canon-caring than not. This isn't a series of Benedict Cumberbatch's (brilliant) version of the character transposed to 1887.

But it does take some liberties that William Gillette also used so I do have some pause.

It's not going to stop me. I have a very aesthetic set of mood-boards, Spotify playlist, mock covers I've created, and a tidy pinterest board. It also has the first part of chapter one sitting pretty in Plot Factory. The first draft will be finished by July 31st, I assure you that.

Anyway, these are just my ramblings and worries about writing a pastiche when I am a woman of nearly thirty in a market that is saturated with pastiches, and a market that is mostly owned by gentlemen.