The Mystery Project, to which I’ve alluded to several times on this blog, is a 15-chapter serial, The Girl in the Green Raincoat.
It’s slated to begin in the New York Times Sunday magazine on September 7.
Oh, and it’s a Tess Monaghan story.
And she’s pregnant.
mazel tov!!!!!!!!!1
Wow — how extremely cool! Congratulations to you and Tess!
Great – how do I get this if I’m not a NY Times subscriber? Will it be printed elsewhere? onine?
Thanks!
Congratulations, to you and Tess!
Yikes! Wow! I can hardly wait! And she’s pregnant….hmmmmmm
If this link works for you:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/magazine/funnypages.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
then I think you should be able to read it via the Internet.
should I start knitting?
congrats
Yes, Crow is the father.
But no more details until this fall, one chapter at a time.
Awesome! Congratulations!!
Holy Cow! This is so exciting!
Laura, how does this affect your publishing schedule? Will this be an extra book, or will it be published as Tess book in the normal order of things?
Sandra,
This is an interesting question and, at the risk of boring others with this tale of inside baseball, I’ll share it.
The Times first approached me in March, right before publication of Another Thing to Fall. Of course, I was thrilled, but I had to figure out how to do this without affecting the timetable on the novel-in-progress, a stand-alone called Life Sentences. Which was already slightly behind schedule because I had taken a month to write “Scratch a Woman” the novella for the short story collection. (Which just got a nice Kirkus, by the way.)
After some soul-searching (and some very generous advice from other writers who had done the serial), I decided I could manage if I: a) outlined the serial pretty ruthlessly and b) broke my writing day into two parts, working on the novel in the morning and the novella in the a.m.
“The Girl in the Green Raincoat” will be mine to do with as I like three months (or maybe six, I can’t recall the details) after the final chapter appears. Michael Connelly published his as a full-length novel, The Outlook; “Benjamin Black’s” The Lemur is available as a trade paperback. I haven’t decided exactly what its future form will be, and the decision isn’t mine alone; Morrow has a definite say. In fact, I couldn’t have done this at all without the trust and support of all the people in my publishing life. To recap: In 2008, I will have written two novellas and a novel. (Knock wood, but the novel has crested the 85,000-word mark and the end of this draft is definitely in my sights.)
Yes, it was difficult, but as one of my favorite novelists often notes, writing isn’t exactly ditch-digging. As tough as the two-fer schedule was, the hardest part was trying to keep the two projects compartmentalized. Life Sentences and The Girl in the Green Raincoat are very different in tone and style, as the stand-alones and Tess novels usually are. The Times project had an additional challenge: fifteen chapters of uniform length. That, by far, was the most difficult part.
By the way, I still owe a short story in 2008, once I’ve turned the novel in. It’s my hope that 2009 will be a slightly less antic year. But that was what I thought 2008 would be. As the old proverb says: Man plans, God laughs.
When Michael Connelly’s The Overlook ran as a serial, I printed off each chapter and we actually waited and read it as a book. I don’t think we will have that discipline for Tess. Besides, people will be writing about it here.
When the Bosch book came out, it had material that was not included in the serial. In future books, surely people who didn’t have knowledge of, or access to, the NY Times serial will need to know about Tess’s pregnancy.
Gee, and i get to say I knew you when…..
I have friends who subscribe tot he Sunday NYT and save it for me. Every few mnths, a couple bags arrive at the house and i spend hours happily getting my hands filthy (I don’t care what the NYT says, they use crappy ink!) and caching up on everything from the sports section and news to of course, the magazine and book review.
I admit to not liking any of the serials they’ve run so far. i just haven’t clicked with them, whether text or graphic. This will be such an exception because honest and true, no suck-up here, I’ve yet to read something you’ve written that i have NOT liked.
Way cool, Laura.
Congratulations on the impending arrival!
Cannot wait for the NYT magazine series and also for the upcoming stand-alone. Friends will have to wait for returned calls, bills will have to wait to be paid, frozen food will be taken out of the freezer until reading is finished.
What a wonderful treat for autumn weekends.
I, too, cannot wait to read this. And when the time comes, should there be a virtual baby shower on TMP?
Tess is very worried about the evil eye, so no baby shower until the baby is here.
However, she may end up registering at the martial arts/weapons store in South Baltimore . . .
Oh, this is really awesome!
I can’t wait to read it…although I’m not sure how well this will work for me as delayed gratification is not my friend.
But I’m really excited for a new Tess story, and yay for Tess being pregnant!
Wonderful, I can’t wait to read it. I got my husband a Kindle for his birthday, I’ll make him try out his new toy with the NYT and read it that way.
And, may I say “I told you so”–completely unread I knew that of course it would be publishable!!
Congrats, Laura! Really looking forward to this.
Ga-ZOINK!
I can’t wait! I live in NY and pine for Baltimore and Tess stories. Tess in the NYT is my perfect Sunday morning!
Too cool.
Great news! Can’t wait!
Brenda, the only thing that matters is that you’ve found the books. Glad to have you on board.
Having just discovered Tess, and reading backwards in time, I’m dashing out to the bookstore for a disciplined approach to Tess’ early years. A pregnant Tess!
Laura Lippman you are bringing great joy to my reading life! How did I not find you until now?