I have been (as is evident from the quotes) rereading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I was experimenting with the computer-downloadable e-reader softwares, and I’m reading this one on the Adobe version.

It has given me yet another idea for what to do with the endlessly importuning Sander Lamori, who will not be buried, despite the best gravediggers. Sander is a lot like a detective. I have also been watching lots of HOUSE and BURN NOTICE and thinking about episodic serial narratives (Sander was always going to be a serialist) that are focused around the solving of a problem.

But although I can think of a detective, I can’t write detective stories. I am not the sort of person who is good at tying up loose ends, let alone fabricating them. The word “puzzle” has always led me to look frantically for my brother, who is, of the two of us, designated to solve all the puzzles. I am not designed to design puzzles. I have never read a detective story in my life in which I did not flip past all the technical bits. (I enjoy doing puzzles, but mostly as an excuse to hang out with the aforementioned brother. If he’s not around, I tend to start playing with the puzzle pieces and imagining them as members of a chorus and making them dance and talk and have dialogues and get in fights…you get the idea.)

I have, however, always been more actively interested in the Holmes stories in which, as Watson remarks, no crime has been committed whatsoever–psychological intrigues, misunderstandings between lovers, etc. In those cases, I have often felt, I might be able to give advice, or construct a character who could. Perhaps I might be able to write problem-oriented stories in which, rather than crimes, psychological or romantic problems are brought to the heroes for advice; and perhaps Sander and his straight, humorless female sidekick might, against their own better judgment, get drawn into meddling with / trying to remedy the love affairs of their fellow teenagers. Maybe one of them writes the love advice column for their school paper.

I think this is a very good idea, and if I am not murdered by a shadowy organization, I shall undertake it.

If I do not do this, either, perhaps one day I will manage to write a story about all the different (unwritten) Sander Lamori stories that have never been written. Zombies seem to be very trendy right now.

Also, incidentally: House/Wilson = Holmes/Watson. I must be the last person on the planet to notice that.