Geoff Tate, one of my devoted fans — who may be my entire devoted fanbase — sent me a question in email that I thought I’d answer here.  He wrote:

I read the new Psych book last week. It was even better than the first one! I really enjoyed it. You stayed very true to the characters as they are represented on the show. I’m looking forward to the next one. Do you mind talking a little shop? Do you map out the plot completely before you write or are you like Stephen King and don’t know how it ends til you get to it? I love mysteries and I am writing one as a hobby (not for publication, just for something to do. I have a lot of free time on the road and this keeps me out of bars.) I guess my question is, what’s your process?

I can’t say I’m like Stephen King, especially when it comes to book sales and bank balances. But I will confess that I don’t outline these books the way I do when working on a TV show.  I spent decades writing detailed outlines for everything I did — both because TV demands that and because working with a partner demands it.  So when I started writing the first Psych book I decided I’d trust my story sense and jump off from a brief narrative outline. I do have a pretty good idea of where I’m going to end up, I generally know who did it and why, but how Shawn and Gus are going to get there I’m jumping out of the plane without a parachute. And the sheer panic that brings gives me the adrenaline rush I need to finish the book in the short amount of time I’m given.

Now if I may give my fan a little unsolicited advice — do as I say, not as I do. You should be outlining like crazy. Figure out your crimes and your clues. Otherwise you’ll end up rewriting and rewriting and rewriting.  I can get away with this because I’ve been plotting mysteries for decades, and by now I think I have a pretty good feel for what needs to come where.  But there was a lot of learning along the way to this point…

No, it’s not quite as good a deal as saving $985 on a used copy of Psych: Mind Over Magic,  but I’m willing to predict it might be an even better book (hard as that might be to imagine).

It’s such a good deal I couldn’t refuse it — even though I’d managed to come up with a foolproof way to keep myself from buying books. I invested in a hardcover copy of The Kindly Ones, and then every time I thought of acquiring something new, I felt so guilty that I had hardly made it past the third set of atrocities, I  wouldn’t let  myself pay for a new hardcover until I finished Littel’s little holocaust house of horrors. (Because there are bored children in India who would love a thousand-page catalog of sex, death, and Nazi perversions…) I can’t say I wasn’t tempted by the new releases from China Mieville and Sarah Waters I saw when I was signing yesterday at the delightful Mysteries to Die For, but one quick thought of Nazi sex torture kept my credit card in my wallet.  (I’m sure they were also available at the equally delightful Mystery Bookstore in Westwood, where I had signed earlier, but there I was so overwhelmed by the enormous stack of Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop hardcovers I couldn’t see anything else…)

But when the English edition of The Week rounded up reviews of A. S. Byatt’s new novel The Children’s Book, all of which compared it favorably to her masterpiece Possession, I could hold myself back no longer. Possession is not only one of my favorite novels, but one of three that I find myself rereading every couple of years. (The other two are The Magus and, for reasons I can’t even explain to myself, Narcissus and Goldmund. I’d throw Franny and Zooey in there, too, but I’m too embarassed to admit that.) I checked Amazon and discovered that the new book wouldn’t be out until October, and they were taken pre-orders for something north of $26.

So I checked Amazon UK — and found the book available new for eight and a half pounds. Even with seven pounds for international shipping, that’s still cheaper than waiting three months for an American edition.

Which is a lot of words to say: Go to Amazon UK and buy this book now. I did, and I’m a happier person already.

If you’ve just ordered that thousand dollar used copy of Psych: Mind Over Magic and you want me to sign it — or if you just want to buy a new copy at the bargain price of $6.99 and meet the author, I’ll be signing this Saturday, July 11 — twice!

At eleven am, I’ll be at the Mystery Bookstore in Westwood, 1036-C Broxton Avenue.

And at three pm, I’m be at Mysteries to Die For in Thousand Oaks, 2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd.

This may be the extent of my global book tour, so stop on by!