Earlier this week, I told you all about the indefatigable Anthony Trollope, and how he filled whole library shelves by writing 250 words a day, day in and day out.

I remember.

As did I, but what I remembered turned out to be wrong.

Which is to say that I stand corrected.

By the estimable Fred Glienna, who provides the following quotation:

“It has at this time become my custom—and is still my custom, though of late I have become a little lenient of myself—to write with my watch before me, and to require of myself 250 words every quarter of an hour…This division of time allowed me to produce over ten pages of an ordinary novel volume a day, and if I kept up through ten months, would have given as its results three novels of three volumes each in the year.”

That’s a little different from what you wrote.

No kidding. “Trollope is alleged to have worked in quarter-hour increments,” Fred explains, “but he certainly cranked out more than 250 words a day.” Indeed he did, and just imagine how much the bloody man could have accomplished if he hadn’t stopped every fifteen minutes to count words.

Never mind. For as long as I can remember, I’ve known about Trollope and his 250 words, and what I knew now turns out to be false. Ah well. Can’t win ’em all, can we?

Evidently not.

On the other hand, one does come out ahead now and then, and the June 23 New York Times Book Review contains the following from its “By the Book” Q&A with Scotland’s Denise Mina:

“Who’s your favorite fictional detective? And the best villain? Best detective: Matt Scudder. Best villain: Rodion Raskolnikov.”

I am, as they say, not half chuffed; Scudder, who never expected to find himself mentioned in the same breath with Raskolnikov, is over the moon. (Well, perhaps I exaggerate. Scudder is not the sort to get over the moon about much of anything, is he?) If you’re new to Denise’s work,Conviction is brand-new, and an excellent place to start. And click here to read the whole piece in the Times.

And now, while I’ve got your attention—

Oh? You actually think they’re still paying attention?

I live in hope. I wrote a foreword to my cross-genre anthology, At Home in the Dark, and I’ve seen it quoted in reviews and cited here and there, and thought some of you who haven’t picked up AHITD might welcome a look at its introduction. It’s way too long to tuck into a newsletter, so I’ve posted it on my website, where you can see for yourselves.

And if it should induce some of those who read it to dig deep and buy the anthology…

So much the better. But it’s certainly not a requirement.

And that’s it, and not a moment too soon. I wouldn’t be sending  this out to you but for the need to pass along Fred’s correction of my Trollopean error. I don’t know whether I’m turning lemons into lemonade by so doing, but I have to say I feel better already.