Author Archives: Murderati Members

House Slut

By Louise Ure

The feeling has been building for months, and I finally have to admit the truth. I have become a house slut.

I know what you’re probably thinking. That’s just Louise cocooning. Not showering until noon and working all morning in her hospital scrubs and bunny slippers. Well, that’s right too, but that’s not the kind of house slut I mean.

I mean that I spend hours a day coveting other people’s houses and doing everything I can to get me one of those.

It started innocently enough. I saw an ad for a charitable organization’s lottery, where ticket purchases would enter you into a drawing for a two million dollar home in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. Wooden pillars in the living room rescued from a demolished bank downtown. An infinity pool. A library, for God’s sake! And a good cause to boot, I said to myself, writing a check.

But then the obsession grew.

Every day I’d check out the website and scroll slowly through the room photos one more time. Would my couch fit in front of that window? I’d clearly need a new dining room table. I checked out barbecue grills for the back deck and mentally paced off the space I’d need for the credenza.

The fascination lasted for months. I worried about whether the turn into the driveway was wide enough for me to get the racecar in, and whether we could get good Chinese delivery in that neighborhood.

The letdown was huge when I did not win. I had fantasies of toilet papering the house of the snooty bitch from Walnut Creek whose name was drawn.

Bloodied but unbowed, I reentered the fray.

I started checking out available real estate on line and requesting “new listings” from a half dozen real estate websites. Ashland and Portland, Oregon. Napa Valley. Palm Springs. My inbox swelled with “mini-estates” and “must sees!”

Patty Smiley once wrote about researching houses online as a way to come up with settings for her Southern California characters. Maybe I could use that as an excuse. I added Sedona and Tucson, Arizona to the bookmarked sites and new listing updates.

Soon I was spending two hours a day taking virtual tours and clicking on Google Street View to see what it would feel like to pull into that driveway. I crossmatched the zip codes to education and income level to get a feel for the neighborhood. I checked the political donations from nearby addresses to see if the neighbors had ever contributed to George Bush.

Television shows became a more passive but equally time consuming effort and HGTV was my nemesis. Property Virgins. My First House. House Hunters. House Hunters International. What You Get For the Money. Bought & Sold.

And of course, the HGTV Dream Home Giveaway, the mother of all house lotteries. No check writing required this time, but you have to enter once a day for the best chance. So now there’s an extra fifteen minutes a day to enter … under my maiden name, my married name, my husband’s name, my dog’s name.

Do I really want to live in St. Lucie, Florida at all? It doesn’t matter. I covet this house. I am a house slut.

Unwilling to put all my hopes into that international jackpot of The Dream Home, I searched out smaller, more accessible home lotteries. Oakland, California. Mesa, Arizona. Charlotte, North Carolina. And I drooled. Nine thousand square feet of empty space in the Oakland Hills made my San Francisco house look like a chicken coop. My feet itched for the cool touch of Saltillo tiles surrounding the pool at the Mesa house. I was smitten.

But it hasn’t ended there. I scan the real estate section of any city I visit. I check out the offerings in real estate agents’ windows when I walk past. I use the dog as an excuse to tarry in front of a neighbor’s opened curtains, imagining their home with my furnishings. I even downloaded the Zillow app for my iPhone to discover the property taxes, square footage and comparable neighborhood sales of any house I point my phone toward.

I am obsessed, and clearly a house slut.

Help me, ‘Rati brethren. At least help me limit my search.

It’s clear that I have moving on my mind. But where to?

Here’s what I’m looking for:

• A city/town with 50,000-75,000 population
• No snow
• Primarily one-level architecture
• A political mindset in the blue shades
• Au courant enough to at least have arugula in the grocery stores
• Proximity to water would be great, but not required

Where shall I focus my next house slut efforts?

Somewhere today

by Pari

Somewhere today a young woman sits in a muddy blind, her uniform wet through.
She knows she needs to pay attention to what’s happening, that she has to distinguish between a clap of thunder and the burst of a gun.
But all she can do is think of her baby graduating from kindergarten back home . . . without her.

Somewhere today a boy reaches for an automatic with only one hand.
The wind blows dust into his teeth and eyes.
He manages to prop his weapon against a sand-filled sack, using the stump of his other arm—the one where the rebels sliced it off at the elbow—to keep the rifle steady.

Somewhere today a mother waits on the tarmac, watching the military plane land.
It bounces two times on the runway.
Her son would’ve laughed at that.
Through the blur of tired and salty tears, she sees them lift the unadorned casket.

Somewhere today a father stares at the last letter his daughter sent to him.
He’s memorized every word, read between every line so often it’s merged with the next in a confused gray.
Three weeks and nothing.
Not a note, not an email, not a text.
He looks to the broad blue sky and wonders where she is, if she’s all right.

Somewhere today a young woman is shot in a border town —
wrong place, wrong time —
the “collateral damage” of a drug war she’s never played a part in.

Somewhere today a group of young men claim a village for their tribe.
From behind a bush, a lone survivor sees them crushing children’s toys underfoot while laughing at the fall of former friends.

Somewhere today war will blast dreams away
cut lives short
and make sorrows long.

Somewhere,
someday,
I pray
we’ll have no need to remember the lives lost in wars close and far,
that new memories will be forged, will grow clean and pure like the tiny pines bending in a simple breeze
on a mountainside
once charred but now bringing forth hope.

Somewhere . . .
Someday . . .

The Author as Student

Allison Brennan

Sometimes, I wonder why I’m so easy. It’s as if I have a tattoo on my forehead that reads: ASK ME! I’LL SAY YES!

My recent “YES!” came when Kathleen Antrim asked me if I’d present a workshop at CraftFest, the sort of “pre-ThrillerFest” craft portion of the programming.

The thing is, I need to TAKE some of those classes. I’ve always enjoyed listening to better storytellers than me share their wisdom. I don’t always agree with them, but I always take away a golden nugget that then becomes a valuable tool in my writers toolkit.

For example, Suzanne Brockmann, a fabulous NYT bestselling author, gave a workshop two months before I got my agent and sold. It was about writing connected books. Not specifically a series, like our Tess or Toni or Brett, but books where a secondary character gets a future story. I’d been thinking about writing something like that–when I first started writing THE PREY, I imagined the three Flynn siblings would each get their own book, which is why I signed up for the class in the first place (and because it was Suzanne Brockmann, storytelling extraordinaire.) But one of the brothers ends up dead, and the sister I didn’t feel any connection with by the time I was done writing, so I finished the book as a stand-alone.

Now, if anyone knows Suzanne, you know that she’s an uber-anal plotter. She has color-coded character charts and timelines. She has a 100+ page color-coded outline that takes her longer to write than the actual book. She has multi-book character-arcs. Did I mention they, too, are color-coded?

She shared with the class a link to her color-coded multi-book character chart. I nearly died. I thought, “If I have to do this to sell, I will never sell. I’m doomed.” I’m not joking, folks. I started to panic. I can’t plot to save my life. I might have hyperventilated. I’m sure I poured another glass of wine.

You might think I didn’t learn anything from Suzanne’s class. On the contrary, I learned at least two valuable lessons. 1) Every author writes differently. I don’t need to be a plotter or an organic writer or an outliner or a free-spirit. All I need is to put one word after another and finish the story–however I am able to do it. And 2) when writing connected stories, secondary characters are important. Throwing out a named character who has even a small role in the book will undoubtably lead to reader mail, and you’re pretty much wed to their backstory as you gave it in the intro book.

This actually caused me some problems in writing SUDDEN DEATH because I introduced Jack and gave him a mysterious backstory. I had absolutely NO idea what his backstory was–all I knew was that he had come home twice in 18 years–once for his nephew’s funeral, and once when his sister was kidnapped. Why? Hell if I knew then. But I was handcuffed into the details I did share about Jack, and had to develop a story with those restrictions.

Yet, it was even harder to write FATAL SECRETS where I had two main characters I had never met before and had absolutely no threads to pull from previous stories that grounded them. I had to figure out everything about them as I wrote. (Well, I knew Dean Hooper because he was Will Hooper’s brother from KILLING FEAR, in a scene that I apparently deleted in the copyedits because I can’t find it in the finished book, but I knew he was a year older, was a hotshot with the FBI, and lived in Washington. So even though the scene was gone, I couldn’t ditch that impression of him.)

Anyway, I’ve taken a lot of classes. I took an on-line class on romantic suspense taught by the brilliant and talented Lisa Gardner (who generously gave me a quote for my FBI trilogy–I love her even more now!) Margie Lawson, a brilliant psychologist, teaches a class on editing that, ahem, truly tested me. She uses color-coding to dissect writing in order to empower your stories. Yes, color-coding (sheesh, does everyone else use color-coding? Am I the only black-and-white writer out there? Black=ink; white=paper.) But I learned from Margie how to fix my prose. When I edit, I usually read outloud–and sometimes, the rhythm is off but I don’t know why. While I don’t get out my highlighter and start marking up my manuscript, I think about her advice on weak words, unnecessary repetition, and finding the emotional key of the scene. I was able to absorb her lectures and use the lessons that fit in with my writing style.

I’ve taken classes from cops, from retired CSIs, from attorneys. Before I was published, I took classes on how to write a synopsis (I still can’t write one to save my soul, but Laurie Campbell‘s fantastic class “Writing the Selling Synopsis” really helped me put together something half-way decent for THE PREY by focusing on the selling points of the story, not necessarily what I as the author thought was important.) At Romance Writers of America, I’m presenting a workshop with our Toni, her publisher Matthew Shear, and our agent Kim Whalen called “Smart Women, Short Skirts” about writing kick-ass, intelligent female characters who are STILL women.

I’ve given several workshops with Toni, and taken several, and I can tell you . . . if you’re going to RWA, you don’t want to miss this. So many workshops focus on the heroes, that writers–especially romance writers–sometimes forget to make the heroine stellar in her own right.

RWA always has an incredible list of presentations for all levels of writers, from the unpublished to the newly contracted to the seasoned professional (and they also have a special track of workshops just for published authors.) I’m particularly looking forward to the Chat with Nora Roberts, which I always seem to miss every year; Evil 101: Where True Crime Meets Terrific Fiction presented by a retired judge; and He Said, She Said: Doing the Other Sex and Doing Them Well by Andrew Gross and Carla Neggers. And more. A couple years ago, the published author keynote was a panel of book-buyers from Borders, Walmart, BN and BAMM and it was to this day the single best presentation I’ve ever heard at a conference. I learned more about distribution, buy-in, sell-through, and shelving than before and since.

Maybe because I’ve been attending RWA for years and feel comfortable there, I don’t have a problem talking about the few things I’ve learned since I’ve been published.

But ThrillerFest is different.

Maybe because I straddle two genres I don’t know if I’m ready to present a workshop–on my own–at TFest. A panel? No problem. I love panels. If I don’t know anything I can just smile and nod at the wiser person next to me–one year in Arizona it was Sandra Brown, last year in NY it was Carla Neggers. Both very successful, long-time, talented romantic thriller writers. This year, I have a panel with James Rollins et. al., and I’ll gladly defer to the funny and talented Jim. But on my own?

Yet I said yes.

Banging head on desk. Ouch.

Honestly, I love workshops, both presenting and attending. But I still have so much to learn that I don’t know if I can impart nuggets of wisdom on my chosen topic, STORY IS CHARACTER. I believe it, I write it, I live by it. To me, the story is nothing without characters. But can I help anyone? That, I don’t know.

Anyway, I’ve gone through the list of programming at ThrillerFest and once again, I’m floored. I want to go to so many of these workshops because I know that I’ll learn something; yet I’m not going to be able to fit them all into my schedule. And some, sniff sniff, conflict.

Lee Child’s “Creating a Series Character: Some Readers Want Growth, Some Don’t. Where’s the Sweet Spot?” I mean this is exactly what I need because I’m creating a series character! Something I’ve never done before! And Jim Rollins’ class about writing three books a year and still having a life–I write three books a year, but I have no life. I want to find out where I get one. And Jim’s also on a panel on Friday about blending genre, which he did solo for my RWA chapter a few years ago and what I learned there I’ve applied to my writing. I’d love to hear him and the rest of the panel talk about the pros and cons. Then there’s the publisher/writer relationship presented by top editors and agents–something that is a must for every published author, I’d think. And of course the gun panel . . . “How to go Ballistic . . . gotta go to that one. And the panel that has Carla Neggers, Lisa Gardner, Jeffrey Deaver, John Lescroart, and more . . . I’d listen to them talk about anything. Why? Because I know that I’ll learn something. I always do.

And that’s the reason I go to the panels. To learn. Even if it’s a topic I know a lot about, often the way the information is presented makes me grow as an author and businesswoman. The minute I think I know everything about writing, the moment I say, “Well, it’s only James Rollins, what does he know?” is the minute I fail. If I’m ever going to improve as a writer, a storyteller, a businesswoman, or a person, I need to keep listening to others. It’s why I still read craft books, re-read my favorites, attend workshops, enjoy speeches, and even present workshops. Because even in the presentation, I’m learning something through the questions and through my preparation (ok, I don’t prepare for workshops. I’ll just admit that now and get it over with. It’s too much like plotting. It’s why I love Q&A best.)

One of the best teachers out there is our Toni. She gave an incredible workshop at the PASIC conference about writing for Hollywood–and shared several side-splitting stories. Sometimes, you sit down and talk with Toni and she’s just one of the gals. Fun, funny, smart, but just regular folk like me. But when she goes into “the teacher mode” she rocks. If you ever get a chance to take a workshop from her, run to it and get a front seat.

Sometimes, it’s not the workshops at conferences that yield the best nuggets of wisdom. I remember two years ago when Toni and I were at the RWA conference–or was it the ITW conference?–and she explained acts to me.

Yes, you’re thinking I’m dense. And I am when it comes to story structure. I really don’t think in terms of acts or scenes or turning points. And I don’t know how Toni and I got on the subject of story structure, but she took out a little piece of paper and drew a bunch of line graphs. One she split into a three act structure with neat little peaks and valleys, leading to the final climax, with a dip for the final resolution (the hero rides off in the sunset with his horse.) Then she drew out how someone, and I can’t remember who or what movie, changed the way the three act structure was thought about, but going up, up, up, up without the little valleys. I suppose that’s constantly escalating stakes or something, but I don’t know. She also explained the four act structure with the midpoint. I’d recently listened to a story analyst speak to my San Francisco RWA chapter about the four act structure and then ran home to check the midpoint of all my published books, certain that I didn’t have a midpoint as he defined it. But, ironically, I did have a major turning point–all seems golden, or all seems lost–at every midpoint within 10 pages. I was shocked. I just pulled open FATAL SECRETS (okay, BSP moment here, the book came out last Tuesday.) The midpoint is where the hero and heroine are learning a steady stream of information in their investigation and they are thinking they are close to victory . . . only to have everything fall apart on them shortly thereafter. And then more and more losses. And more bad news. In SUDDEN DEATH, they are at the end of their rope, the bottom of the investigation, they have no idea who’s killing these people, and then they get even worse news.

But I didn’t plan it that way. It just . . . happened.

I don’t think writers need to know why all the time. Writing is so personal in so many ways, that to dissect it kind of makes it mechanical. I don’t mind looking at the story after the fact–usually in copyedits where the process seems more clinical anyway–but I don’t consciously plan the story, plot the story, or push the story in any direction. Yet, looking back, I can see how the advice, suggestions and guidelines of great writers, storytellers, agents, editors and friends, have all unconsciously become part of my process.

We all take classes, whether writers or readers, for a day job or just for fun. What’s the best thing you’ve learned, the tidbit or teacher that keeps you coming back for more?

ESP, parapsychology, Zener cards, research, and THE UNSEEN

by Alexandra Sokoloff

Hmm, something big is happening this week… if only I could…

Oh, RIGHT!!! The Unseen is out on Tuesday! THIS TUESDAY!!!

The Unseen is a book that has been percolating for a long, long, LONG time.

I’m sure a good number of you recognize these:

The Zener ESP cards.

I don’t know about you, but just the sight of those images gives me a thrill. Maybe I mean, chill… because it’s all about the unknown. Do we have that sixth sense, the freaking power of extra-sensory perception, or do we not?

Well, parapsychologist Dr. J.B. Rhine said we do. All of us. And in the late 1920’s, on through the 1960’s, he used the brand-new science of statistics to prove it, in controlled laboratory experiments that made him a household name.

I have no idea how I first came to hear about this, but then again, I grew up in California, specifically, Berkeley – and astrology and Tarot and meditation and anything groovy and psychic was just part of everyday life.

And it was very, very early that I first heard of Dr. Rhine and the ESP tests. In fact, my sister the artist made a set of her own Zener cards when we were in just fourth or fifth grade. I swear, it was in the air.

Here’s the principle: take a pack of twenty-five Zener cards, five sets of five simple symbols: a circle, a square, a cross, a star, and two wavy lines, like water. Two subjects sit on opposite sides of a black screen, unable to see each other, and one subject, the Sender, takes the pack of ESP cards and looks at each card, one at a time, while the Receiver sorts another set of cards into appropriate boxes, depending on what card s/he thinks the Sender is holding and communicating.

Pure chance is twenty percent, or five cards right out of a deck. Because if you have five cards, chance dictates that you would guess right 20 percent of the time.

So anyone who scores significantly more than 20 percent is demonstrating some ESP ability. (The Rhine lab generally used 5 sets of cards for each test run).

You can try it online at any number of places, including here.

And seriously, don’t we all – or haven’t we all at some point – think we have some of that? It’s kind of seductive, isn’t it?

Now, what Dr. Rhine was doing with these Zener cards was truly revolutionary. By the 1920’s the whole world, pretty much, was obsessed with the occult and spiritualism, especially the idea of life after death and the concept of being able to connect with dead loved ones on whatever plane they were now inhabiting.

There were many factors that contributed to this obsession, but two in particular:

1. Darwin’s publication of THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES, in 1859, which began a worldwide anxiety about whether there was any afterlife at all… and a fanatic desire to prove there was… especially among some scientists, interestingly enough.

And

2. The Great War, or as we know it now, WWI, in which so many people died so quickly that traumatized relatives were desperate to contact their lost – children, to be blunt – infants, as in “infantry”, underage cannon fodder – and have some hope that they were not lost for eternity.

The Great War really kicked spiritualism into high gear.

This was the age of “mediums”, most of whom were total frauds, con artists who used parlor magician tricks to dupe grieving relatives into believing their lost loved ones were coming back to give them messages – for a hefty price.

Well, (after a brief stint in botany and an abrupt switch to psychology) Dr. J.B. Rhine began his career debunking fraudulent mediums. His commitment to the truth won him a reputation for scientific integrity and a position at the newly established parapsychology lab at Duke University in North Carolina, the first ever in the U.S., where Rhine and his mentor, William McDougall, embarked on a decades-long quest to use the brand-new science of statistics and probability to test the occurrence of psychic phenomena such as ESP and psychokinesis (the movement of objects with the mind).

Using Zener cards and automated dice-throwing machines, Rhine tested thousands of students under laboratory conditions, and by applying the science of statistics to the results, came to believe that ESP actually does occur.

Rhine’s wife and colleague, Dr. Louisa Rhine, conducted her own parallel study, in which she gathered thousands of accounts from all over the world of psychic occurrences and followed up with interviews, from which she isolated several extremely common recurring patterns of psychic experiences, such as:

Crisis apparitions: in which a loved one appears to another loved one at a moment of extreme trauma or death.

Precognitive dreams: dreaming a future event.

Visitations in dreams: a dead loved one coming to a loved one in her or his sleep to impart some crucial bit of information.

Sympathetic pain: in which a loved one feels pain in a limb or elsewhere in the body when another loved one is injured in that place (often this is birth pains that a female relative will experience when a daughter or other female relative goes into labor).

The Rhines’ daughter, psychologist Sally Rhine Feather, has written a fascinating book on the above called THE GIFT, which was extremely helpful in my research for The Unseen.

Now, most people who read about the paranormal and parapsychology, even casually, are aware of Dr. Rhine and his ESP research. But most people are not as aware that researchers in the Duke lab also did field investigations of poltergeists, starting in the late 50’s and early sixties.

Poltergeists!

I don’t know about you, but that just rocks my world. What ARE they? Are they the projected repressed sex energy of frustrated adolescents? Are they ghosts? Are they some other kind of extra-dimensional entity? Is it all just a fraud, a fad, perpetrated by people who wanted media attention before the advent of reality TV?

So I’ve always wanted to so something, sometime, about the whole Rhine/Duke/ESP/poltergeist thing.

And then a few years ago I was visiting Michael in North Carolina and, as he is wont to do, he handed me a column torn out of the newspaper about a lecture on the Duke campus called: “Secrets of the Rhine Parapsychology Lab” and said, “You should go to that.” Because he knows I like that kind of thing, but he had no idea that I’ve been obsessed with Rhine since I was – seven, eight, whatever.

And I did go to the lecture, and I was stupefied to learn that after the parapsychology lab officially closed in 1965, when Dr. Rhine reached the mandatory age of retirement, seven hundred boxes of original research files were sealed and shut up in the basement of the graduate library, and had only just been opened to the public again.

Is that a story or what?

All those questions that instantly spring to mind. Why did the lab close, really? (Well, in truth, Dr. Rhine retired. But what if…) Why were the files sealed? Was someone trying to hide something? And most importantly – What the HELL is in those boxes? SEVEN HUNDRED boxes?

So you know that question authors love: Where do you get your ideas?

That’s where I got my idea for The Unseen. From the double extra large Southern man I live with. Get yourself one, they’re worth the trouble. Most of the time.

But it all started with a childhood obsession and years of random research on the subject that suddenly caught fire with some specific field research and one choice factoid.

So the lesson here, I think, is –

Forage widely. If a lecture at a library or university sounds intriguing, take a chance and go. You might get a whole book handed to you. And just always be adding to those open files in your head of potential projects. Read voraciously on the subjects that interest you. All this random research does eventually achieve critical mass, and suddenly you have a book.

We are so lucky as writers that our JOB is to pursue the things we’re passionate about. Take advantage and enjoy the hell out of it.

So now, for those of you who find the above intriguing, and/or who like your mysteries with a touch of the real-life uncanny, and/or who have gotten something out of my story structure posts, or who just love me in general, here’s your chance to show the love. Go buy The Unseen from your favorite independent bookstore RIGHT NOW, or if you can’t bear to think about getting dressed today, from Amazon(and then go buy great greeting cards and other people’s books from your favorite independent bookstorethe next time you’re dressed and out of the house. If ever. Because I’m hardly one to make assumptions about that.).

And if you have no money at all, don’t despair, because first, you’re not alone, as I think we’re all painfully aware these days…

And second, we all still have the great gift of our public libraries. Go online right now and reserve The Unseen from your local library. If they don’t have it yet, please please please – request it. Libraries have suffered cutbacks just like the rest of the known universe, but before the crash, the formula was that a library would buy a new hardcover for every five patrons who requested the book. So that is some truly powerful support you can give to your favorite authors: request a book, and that’s one-fifth of a hardcover sale, at no cost to you. Believe me, it really, really helps. (In fact, why not check out books by ten of your favorite authors every time you go to the library? I do, every single time. And I’m at the library A LOT.)

And now it’s your turn: tell us about a project that caught fire with the perfect research factoid. Or about a subject you wish you could find a thriller or mystery about. Or, on a completely different track: have you ever experienced a crisis apparition, a precognitive dream or visitation, or sympathetic pains? Or do you know anyone who has? Do you believe these things happen?

Have a great Memorial Day holiday.

And I hope you enjoy The Unseen.

– Alex

(I’m doing a very laid back, non-Konrath, un-type-A blog tour in between running around doing the physical tour thing, so check my Screenwriting Tricks for Authors blog if you’d like to drop in!)

Murderati Anonymous

by Stephen Jay Schwartz

When JT asked what title I would like under my name on the Murderati blogsite she suggested The Newbie, since this had been her title when she first came onto the blogging scene. She also suggested “The Newcomer,” which jumped out at me since it ties directly into my novel, BOULEVARD, a crime thriller set in the world of sex-addiction amidst the dark, present-day streets of Los Angeles. The protagonist is a sex-addicted, LAPD Robbery-Homicide detective.

I’ve done a lot of research on the subject of addiction. I’ve read David Sheff’s “Beautiful Boy,” Nick Sheff’s “Tweak,” Marilee Strong’s “A Bright Red Scream,” William Cope Moyer’s “Broken,” William S. Burroughs’ “Junky,” most all of the texts by Dr. Patrick Carnes (the preeminent researcher in the field of sex addiction), Lauren Greenfield’s documentary film “Thin,” Nikki Sixx’s “The Heroin Diaries,” Augusten Burroughs’ “Dry,” as well as many other novels, memoirs and textbooks on the subject of addiction. The compulsion and addiction topics I’ve studied cover the gamut: Meth, crack, heroin, speed, nicotine, alcohol, anorexia, bulimia, self-abuse (cutting & burning), over-eating, workaholism and sex addiction. I’ve done a lot of “boots on the ground” research as well, attending meetings and interviewing addicts, narcotics officers and health professionals. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on the subject of addiction, but I’m certainly well-informed. One of the things I’ve learned through my research is that the Twelve Step meeting is a wonderful place to heal.

In the world of addiction, the phrase newcomer refers to someone who is new to the meeting. The newcomer arrives raw and wide-eyed and terribly vulnerable. He stumbles into the meeting searching for guidance or empathy or both.

He takes a seat among old-timers and veterans who view his sudden presence with trepidation. Is this kid going to make it? It’s his first day and it’s going to take a lot of one-day-at-a-times before he achieves even an inkling of serenity. Is he going to have what it takes to keep coming back?

The veterans know how hard it is to follow the path. They know the challenges, and they know that the newcomer will invariably make mistakes along the way. There exists a strange, symbiotic relationship between veteran and newcomer. The veteran often forgets the wild, out-of-control feelings he had when he first started recovery. The group encourages the veteran to listen to the newcomer’s voice so that he might recapture the sense of overwhelming excitement he had when he first started working the program. When he realized that there was, in fact, a path to follow.

Is it appropriate to compare the veteran Murderati authors to a room full of addicts? They seem like a crowd that can take some ribbing. And, while I am making a bit of a playful comparison here, I don’t want to make light of addiction. Too many families have been broken, too many loved ones have been lost. So I hope the readers of this blog take what I am saying in the spirit in which it was written.

The metaphor works. Here I am. New guy. Friggin’ excited as hell that my book is being published. Happy to discover there’s a recovery process from the painful years I’ve spent writing in dimly lit rooms and cafes, separated from my wife and kids, adding five, six, seven hours to the end of each day at the office. I might wonder, what does recovery look like for me? How does one recover from a lifetime of anticipation?

Here in this room I see a path. Every one of these authors was once an unpublished writer. And then, every one of these authors became a newcomer.

My recovery process has already begun. It began when I got the phone call from the guy who would become my agent. When the book sold, a month later, I could feel my feet planted firmly on the ground. Then came nice little moments that felt like thirty, sixty and ninety-day chips; selling the audio rights, selling the Italian language rights, executing my editor’s notes, seeing the first page proofs, the copyedit proofs, the ARC. Seeing my book available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I’ve had a year of “sobriety” from the anxiety of not-being-published and the book isn’t even out yet. Being invited to join the Murderati authors is like receiving my one-year chip and a cake all at once.

The Twelve Step meetings work because their members share the experiences that define who they are. Experiences that define them as alcoholics, or tweakers, or sex addicts. Or, as in this room, the experiences that define them as writers. They share so that other writers will see how difficult the path is for everyone, not just for the unpublished writer, or for the newcomer.

Part of the job of the newcomer is to share his First Step. The First Step is a public recitation of all the crazy shit that happened to him, and all the crazy shit he did as a result of the crazy shit that happened to him, and how all of this emerged as his addiction of choice, and how all of that eventually led him to the room he’s in now, sharing his First Step. I think I can say that my addiction of choice is writing. It has led me to this room. And writing isn’t a bad thing. But it can certainly be an addictive thing, and a compulsive thing. Not to say that I haven’t had other addictions or compulsions that have complicated my life. I’ve had my share.

In future blogs, as part of this “Author’s First Step,” I will share my experiences about how I got published. I’ll relate my story, which is different from Brett’s story or JT’s story or Rob’s story. And it will be different from the stories that other writers will tell after me, other newcomers who join Murderati in the future.

I was fortunate—I published my first novel shortly after I finished writing it. And because of this it might appear that I haven’t experienced much rejection or failure. But I also spent twenty years working in the film industry and much of that time was spent writing spec screenplays that never sold. Now as I look back on it, each of those screenplays was a stepping-stone to the novel, to Boulevard. Each and every one of them gave me the thing I needed to be what folks in the film industry call an “overnight success, twenty years in the making.” And there’s still so much more to achieve.

As a newcomer I think it’s important to share some of these experiences with the Group to underscore the fact that there are many paths to success, and a lot of them look, at first glance, like failure.

Blogging is a lot like sharing, which is the Twelve Step term used to describe the process of talking about one’s daily struggle. Sharing personal stories, telling them to the room. Sharing is important not because we like to hear ourselves talk, or that it feels good to talk and be heard, but because when we share our struggles we open ourselves to others who are facing similar challenges, and it reminds us all that we are not alone. We are a community. We, at Murderati, are a community of writers. I was not published—I struggled—I was rejected—I struggled—I tried I tried I tried—I was published. The stories I heard from other writers along the way gave me the strength to continue, all the while knowing in my heart that I would someday succeed, providing that I always wrote, listened carefully to feedback, and did what was necessary to improve my work, one word, one sentence, one paragraph, one chapter, one draft, one day at a time.

I’ve considered some of the topics I plan to talk about in future blogs: The Joy of Research, How to Find a Book Agent, How to Find a Film Agent, The Development
Process in Hollywood, Adapting a Novel to Film, Creative Visualization, Story Analysis Using the Writings of Joseph Campbell. There are also subjects I find close to my heart, subjects that have influenced my style as a writer. One I’m looking forward to exploring will be called Kerouac, Jazz and the Art of Spontaneous Prose. And there will be plenty of playful, silly blogs, after I learn to chill out a bit, when my friends remind me not to take myself so seriously.

To finish off the Twelve Step allegory, I’ll throw out a few interesting commonalities:

It’s helps to have a sponsor. I’m lucky because I feel like I’ve walked into this room with three caring sponsors: Brett Battles, JT Ellison and Tess Gerritsen. Brett and I met in college. We lived in the same dorms, went to the same parties, had many of the same classes. I lost touch with him for twenty years, until just recently when I found him on the Murderati blog site. He’s become a good friend again and he’s helped me prepare for the things I expect to encounter as a published author. He also gives wonderful tips, like “Always ask a person how to spell their name when you sign their book.” For my part, I introduced him to the best writing café in Southern California. Tess has also been there from the start, from the day I sent her a blind e:mail asking for advice on how to get an agent. She gave me help that made a difference, and then she read my galley and gave me an amazing blurb, one that continues to make a difference. And then there’s JT, who has been a vocal supporter and who gave me the official invitation to join the Murderati authors. All three have given me blurbs and advice and support. I couldn’t have found better sponsors.

A few other Program phrases jump out as I write this…

Just Show Up. Just show up to the meeting, even if you don’t feel like going. Just show up to your computer. Even if you don’t feel like writing or if you don’t think you have anything to say. Rest your fingers on the keyboard. Close your eyes. Tap, tap, tap.

Keep Coming Back. To the story. To the page. To the computer. Don’t give up. Don’t stop the process. Finish the book.

And, though I’m not very religious, I’m growing more spiritual as my days grow shorter. I’ve come to see that the Serenity Prayer applies to just about anything that challenges me:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference…

Thanks for attending Stephen’s Friday meeting of Murderati Anonymous. Keep coming back.

Here’s listening to…

By Brett Battles

I’ve always been a big fan of audiobooks. I used to listen to them as I sat in near motionless traffic every day during the morning commute on Los Angeles freeways. One thing I learned early on was that a good book could be ruined by a bad narrator, and a so-so book could actually come across pretty entertaining with a decent one. And when you had good on both ends?…Wow!

When I finally got my deal at Random House, one of the things I secretly hoped for was an audio deal. It would be a dream come true, kind of a full circle thing for me. I was lucky, that dream did come true when my debut novel was picked up by Books on Tape.

And to top it off, I was truly honored to have the great Scott Brick on board as narrator.

For those of you unfamiliar with Scott, he is one of the top narrators in the audiobook business. Quite simply, he is fantastic. And as an added bonus, he also brings along a built in fan base that follows his work.

The audiobook of THE CLEANER was a big enough success that Books on Tape signed up for my follow up, THE DECEIVED. Unfortunately, Scott was over booked last year, so he was not able to narrator. The person who did was good, but I have to say that I was ecstatic when it came time to record this year’s release – SHADOW OF BETRAYAL – Scott was once again onboard.

But that wasn’t all …

I then found out that they would be recording here in Los Angeles. A couple of quick emails later, I was invited to observe for a couple of hours! I could hardly wait.

Finally, when the date arrived, I made my way to the Random House Audio studios in Woodland Hills, and I brought with me our own Robert Gregory Browne.

The studio is located in a well landscaped business park that houses God know what else, but I imagine the same kind of businesses that populate similar parks across the country. Though few, I’m willing to bet, have audio studios as tenants.

On the day of our visit, Rob and I were a little early, so we got something to drink at the café located next door, then showed up right at the appointed time. We were led back to a small studio that consisted of a sound proof booth, and a larger space for the director and guests (us.)

Studio

The first person we met was Tony Hudz, director and recording engineer. He’s been in the audiobook business for many years, and he and Scott have recorded over 30 books together. We didn’t meet Scott right away, but we could see him on the other side of the large window in the wall that separated the sound booth from us. He was in the middle of reading, but soon he came out and joined us.

Both Scott and Tony made us feel right at home. We spent a good fifteen minutes talking and joking and getting to know each other. Then Rob and I settled back in a couch along the wall, and Scott went back in the booth to continue reading.

It’s a truly surreal experience to listen to a trained actor read your work. There were times when I couldn’t even remember writing the words, and one time when I realized I’d used the word “still” in to successive sentences, making me cringe.

Scott is amazing. He reads near flawlessly. Occasionally he’ll stop and re-read a sentence, but that is more to give different emphasis than he did the first time instead of stopping for a mistake. The way he works is to read two pages, then take a break, and look over the next two pages. The whole process was a complete pleasure to watch.

As the recording went on, Tony would explain some of the finer details to us, telling us about his role, and describing Scott’s methods. I don’t know about Rob, but I learned a helluva lot that day.

About twenty minutes before we were to break for lunch, Scott came out of the booth, and I went in. See, since I was there they wanted to interview me. The interview will be included at the end of the book. So for about ten or fifteen minutes, I was the one behind the mike, while Scott fired questions at me from the other room. I was a little nervous at first, but it turned out to be a ton of fun. Not sure how well I did…guess Rob can speak to that.

Second Career? Doubtful…

When I was done, the four of us went back to the café Rob and I had stopped in earlier. We had a great lunch. For the most part I just listened as Tony and Scott told us stories of recordings they’d done in the past. Then Scott and I realized we shared a love of sci-fi, and talked about that for a while.

As you can imagine, it was a fantastic day, and one I will not soon forget.

Here are a few more pics:

Scott Brick and Me

Me, Scott, Tony Hudz, and Rob

If you’re interested in audiobooks, here are a few links to check out:

scottbrickpresents.com – Scott has his own company that he uses to record some of his favorite books, you can learn more about him and those book here.
Buy THE CLEANER at Audible.com
Buy THE CLEANER at Booksontape.com
Buy THE DECEIVED at Audible.com
Buy THE DECEIVED at Booksontape.com

So, do you enjoy audiobooks? Do you have a favorite narrator? Is there an audiobook you’d suggest those here who read Murderati might want to check out?

If Only These Were Book Reviews

It started with a T-shirt. The Three Wolf T-shirt.

Let me explain.

We all spend a lot of time here blathering on about writing our books and all the hard work that goes into it and the trials and tribulations of the publishing world. But a lot of us forget that books and newspapers and magazines — traditional media, in other words — are not the only place to find amazing writing.

Blogs are the obvious outlet for people who have not yet made the transition to traditional publishing (assuming they have any interest in it). There are thousands of blogs out there with some truly creative people writing them.

But today I discovered something I didn’t know existed. An outlet for writing — writing humor, in particular — that you wouldn’t normally think of when looking for a good laugh.

And it started with a T-shirt. For me, at least.

But not in the way you’re thinking. I’m not talking about T-shirt slogans. Certainly those, like bumper stickers, have been around for years and have been a great means of expression for some very funny people.

What I’m talking about are — get this —

Amazon product reviews.

Yes, you read that right.

Amazon product reviews.

Today, thanks to a link on a website, I had the great pleasure of reading some of the funniest damn stuff I’ve ever read in my life. Product reviews gone viral.

But rather than try to explain it to you, I’ll simply give you a few links and let you read for yourself.

First up, the T-shirt in question. And this is one SPECIAL T-shirt. Be sure to scroll down to the reviews:

http://tinyurl.com/dy9ukm

I particularly like the one that by Chaon that says, “I accidentally spilled a glass of Tuscan Whole Milk down the front of this shirt, and my soul was torn from my body and thrown into heaven by a jealous God.”

Which, of course, led me to Tuscan Whole Milk, which is a jackpot of comedy stylings:

http://tinyurl.com/auatdw

My favorite review so far? By J. Fitsimmons, titled COMBINE WITH OTHER FOODS!:

“Has anyone else tried pouring this stuff over dry cereal? A-W-E-S-O-M-E!”

Then, finally, there’s Uranium Ore, which even has a review in the form of a poem:

http://tinyurl.com/chopwh

I not only had a great time reading these — literally laughing out loud many times — I was really struck by a) the wonderful creativity that went into them; and b) how, in the age of the Internet, you never know where you’re going to strike gold.

All of this may be old news to some of you, but it’s certainly a surprise to me. And I love it. I can’t wait to read more.

I wish Amazon book reviewers were as entertaining.

So now that you’ve read some yourself, what are your favorites? Which ones made you laugh out loud?

Or, if you know of some hilarious reviews for another product, please post a link so we can all have a laugh.

—

And yes, I know this is a silly blog topic. My lovely wife thinks I should be talking more about Casting the Bones, my new website for aspiring writers, and telling everyone to come to RobertGregoryBrowne.com for a chance to win an iPod and other prizes (ending soon!), or mentioning how my new book, KILL HER AGAIN is out now in the UK and will be coming to the US late next month….

But I just felt like laughing today. I hope you do, too.

Name that character… or not

By Tess Gerritsen

Over on my own blog last week, I shared an email I received from a reader who pointed out a few details she disagreed with. This was one of her comments:

“If you are talking about a nurse, instead of saying “nurse- do this or that” give him or her a name and refer to them by that and tag the nurse title after the name.”

She was referring specifically to a scene at the beginning of my novel, THE SURGEON, in which my heroine, a trauma surgeon named Dr. Catherine Cordell, must save the life of a man who’s bleeding to death. Cordell comes racing into the room to find a crowd of medical personnel frantically trying to save the patient’s life. In this scene, I don’t refer to any of the nurses by name, only by role (e.g., scrub nurse). Multiple voices are speaking in rapid-fire medical lingo, including a disembodied voice from the lab, reporting results over the intercom. Except for Cordell, the only two characters who are given names are the senior surgical resident (Dr. Littman) and a terrified medical student who’s pulled in to assist.

Except for Cordell and Dr. Littman, none of these characters shows up again in the book.

The reader felt that the scene demonstrated my lack of respect for the nursing profession. If I truly respected nurses, her reasoning went, I would have given the nurses names and professional titles. I wouldn’t just write “A nurse said: ‘I’m not getting a systolic!'” I’d write: “JT Ellison, RN, said: ‘I’m not getting a systolic!'”

What she failed to understand is that my primary responsibility, as an author, isn’t to demonstrate my respect for every profession that shows up in the pages of my stories. My job is to keep the pace moving, and to not confuse my readers.

Suppose I did what that reader wanted me to do, and named the nurses in the room. Imagine how the scene might play out:

Half a dozen faces flashed looks of relief as Catherine stepped into the room.

Ron Littman, the senior surgical resident, gave her a rapid-fire report. “John Doe Pedestrian, hit and run. No bowel sounds, BP’s down to sixty over a zip. I did a paracentesis. He’s got blood in his belly.”

Catherine turned to the circulating nurse, whose name was Cornelia Read, R.N. “Open the laparatomy tray.”

Louise Ure, another R.N., called out: “I’m barely getting the systolic!”

Standing across from Catherine was a scrub nurse, whose nametag said “Allison Brennan, R.N.” Beside Allison was another nurse, Alexandra Sokoloff, who was starting the I.V. “Where’s our O neg blood?” asked Catherine.

Zoe Sharp, R.N., hung up the phone. “It’s on its way.”

The intercom buzzed. “This is Brett Battles in the lab,” said a voice. “I have the hematocrit results.”

Nurse Toni McGee poked her head into the room. “Dr. Cordell! Another patient’s just rolled in the door!”

Catherine picked up a scalpel. Glancing around the table, she scanned the personnel watching her. Ron Littman. Cornelia Read. Louise Ure. Allison Brennan. Alexandra Sokoloff. Zoe Sharp. Toni McGee. She registered each of the names one by one. Then she looked down at the patient.

Too late. He was dead. (But at least she remembered everyone’s names.)

Okay, so this is an exaggeration. But it does illustrate a point: that whenever you introduce a new character by name, you slow down the action. You’re providing a detail so specific that it forces your readers to pause and make note of it, because they assume that you’ve provided the name for a reason. This character must be significant. Why else would you call attention to his name?

I recall reading a scene by a bestselling thriller author (who shall remain unnamed) that takes place on an airplane. Within three paragraphs, the main character is introduced to about ten fellow passengers, each of whom is given a first and last name and occupation. I remember thinking that these people must be significant to the plot, and would surely turn up later.

They didn’t. They were never again seen in the book. They appeared only that one time, stated their names, and vanished from the story. To this day, I’m puzzled why the author felt he needed to throw in ten irrelevant names. I can only guess that he wanted some friends to see their names in a book, so he obliged them — resulting in a clumsy and amateurish few paragraphs.

Obviously, characters who are significant to the plot or who appear in several scenes should be named. Likewise, characters who contribute significant amounts of dialogue. But with single-scene characters, it’s up to the author to decide which ones need to be named.

Just choosing a name is a challenge, and if I can avoid having to come up with one, I will. Sometimes, though, I’m forced to reach for my tattered copy of “What Shall We Name the Baby?” so I can dub a character.

If there are several people with the same occupation in the scene, and I want to call attention to a particular one, I’ll give him a name. For example, if four crime-scene techs are in the room, and one of them makes a startling discovery that results in dialogue, he’ll be the one, and only one, who gets a name.

If the character’s occupational title is too long and unwieldy, such as a “public affairs representative”, I’ll be tempted to call him “Hancock” rather than repeatedly refer to him as the “public affairs representative.”

If there’s more than one cop in the room, and they both have speaking roles, then I may give them names so I don’t have to refer to them as “cop #1” and “cop #2.” Alternatively, I can make them physically different from each other, and use those physical differences (e.g., “the tall cop” or “the female cop”) to distinguish them.

Choosing the right name isn’t as easy as throwing a dart at the phone book. Sometimes I’ll spend as much time settling on a name as I do writing the scene itself. I find myself juggling a number of different issues. Does the name match my vision of the character? (Which name sounds more like an action hero, Percy or Jack?) Do I have a believable ethnic mix, or are there too many Smiths and Joneses in the story? Is “John Green” too forgettable, and should I change it to “Leon Krum”? Does the book have too many characters whose names begin with S? Is the name hard to pronounce? Is it weird or distracting or inadvertently hilarious?

With all these issues to think of, it’s no wonder I’m selective about which characters I choose to name. It’s hard work!

Fat Chance

by Pari

How do we do it?

How do we get anything done?

I have good reason to ask those questions because I’ve accomplished squat for a week. Yeah, sure, I’ve had some incredible coups for Left Coast Crime 2011 (more on that in another post), but I’m talking about writing . . . getting the damn words on the page.

Zilch.

I can trace the current chaos in my life to an exact moment.

One month ago, the breeder of our late dog Finn called.

“I’ve got this puppy,” she said. “Now. . . I know you probably will never buy an animal from me again. But I’ve got this ten-month old pure bred yellow lab and his owner just had a stroke. If you like him, you can have him for free.”

I didn’t dare speak.

“I understand he’s a little fat,” she said.

Could we do it? Could we bear to bring another dog that wasn’t a little puppy into our home after we’d failed with the previous rescue dog merely two months earlier?

“Well you can bring him on by. I’d like to meet him at the very least.” O, foolish, foolish me!

Fat didn’t begin to describe him. The dog looked like a harbor seal. He was also incredibly sweet, totally loving with my children and . . . unable to run across the yard without looking like he might have a coronary.

We fell for him hard.

That was it. He was ours.

Oops.

There was one little problem. We’d already entered into a contract with another breeder for a brand new puppy—a black Labrador.

Last week, we brought said puppy—his name is Loki—into our home. He’s now eleven weeks old.

I feel like I’m dealing with an infant and a toddler all over again. Unless I stick Loki in his crate and put Chance in a separate room, I can’t even hear myself think let alone attend to whatever muse has the courage to enter our house.

Did I mention that it’s the end of the school year and there are all the last-minute chidren’s activities that strangely crop up this time of year? Did I mention that my husband is working gawd-awful hours because the company he works for is splitting from another company and he’s right in the middle of it all?

Wah wah wah.

I have no tolerance for my children’s whining, but I find myself doing it now. I manage a sentence or two in the new book and then it’s time to take Loki out for a potty break. Another sentence and Loki and Chance are going at it—growling and barking so that I can’t begin to concentrate. A word more and it’s time to pick up one of the kids from school or get the food to a classroom for some end-of-the-year party.

I know it’s going to get better. I do.

Chance is looking good; if I ever fail as a writer, I can open a doggie boot camp. The poor guy has lost at least 10 pounds and is looking quite suave. He’s settling in very nicely.

When the kids are out of school, I’m actually going to put myself on a schedule — 8-noon, Monday-Friday – so that I can get back to my own business.

Five more days . . .

I’m embarrassed that I’m not more of a super writer, more of a professional, who gets up at 3 am to write. But right now, I’m pooped, or, actually . . . Loki just pooped in the front room. Oh, no!

Stop that, Chance! Let go of that pair of underwear!

Loki! That table isn’t for chewing . . .

Help!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tell me,
when was the last time your life was utter chaos? How did you handle it? How did you manage to regain, to tame it?

Mentors

by Toni McGee Causey

It’s funny, but I would have thought the man didn’t even know my name. I had known him for some time as the teacher who was the writer-in-residence at LSU. David Madden, nominated for a Pulitzer in 1979 for The Suicide’s Wife. (He would go on to be nominated for another Pulitzer in 1996 for The Sharpshooter.) He intimidated the hell out of me.

(An aside: David intimidated the hell out of most people. He enjoyed that, he said a couple of days ago. He liked to start with a bad impression and then improve from there.)

I was in Allen Hall, second floor, walking past his office one day—just an ordinary day. I had no idea my life was about to radically change. Fifteen years ago, and I can still tell you the color shirt he had on (light green). Gold rimmed glasses. Khaki pants. And I can tell you that, because the moment struck me like lightning: David stopped me in the hall and asked, “Why haven’t you applied to the MFA program?”

I looked around to see who on earth he was talking to, and realized he was talking to me. “Uh, I have.”

Now, LSU had a very firm policy of absolutely not taking their own undergraduates into the grad program. I knew this, and applied anyway. (What was the worst they could do? Say no?) I did not hold out a lot of hope for an exception. However, as a young mom of two, and a partner in a construction company, I couldn’t exactly parade across the country to attend any other program, so I figured I might as well apply to LSU. And I knew David was the head of the program; David had created the MFA program at LSU.

“I haven’t heard back from them,” I continued. I probably looked calm and cool on the outside. On the inside, I was thinking, holy shit, he knows my name! And then wait… is that a good thing or a bad thing?

“I hear your stuff is good,” he said, more to himself I think, than me. “You’re published, right?”

“Just non-fiction.” I had been selling freelance articles for about ten years at that point—I had, in fact, interrupted that career to return to school because I wanted to go back to my first love, fiction, and I needed some structure to do so. I also wanted to finish the degree (which was referred to for so long as “that damned degree” that we started calling it TDD for short.)

“Bring me some samples and let me see.”

And then he was off, heading to class to scare the bejesus out of a few dozen other students.

The next day, I dropped off samples of my writing and a couple of days later, David stopped me in the hall and asked me again how the application was going.

“Well, I think there’s some concern because I’m an undergrad here,” I said, and he frowned at me from behind those glasses as if I’d just said, “I think there’s some concern that I have green ears and three noses.” I had no idea if “you’re an undergrad here” was the euphemism for “we think you suck and we’re not admitting you,” but I suspected it was.

“I read your stuff,” he said, as gruff as blunt force trauma. “You’re in.”

And the next thing I knew, I got an acceptance letter.

We talked about this a couple of days ago—David just retired, and a few of us met him for lunch. I wanted him to know how he changed my life. I’m not entirely sure I would have had the courage to keep writing fiction in the face of rejection if he hadn’t stepped in and intervened.

(A note about MFA programs… you learn when you enter that you don’t really know enough to claim to know anything at all. When you leave, if you’re lucky and you’ve had good teachers, you realize you’ll never know enough to claim you know much at all, but that that’s okay. The point of writing is the discovery and any kind of school is just part of the journey.)

One of the finest things about writers is that, on the whole, we’re supportive of each other. Sure, we’d like some of the good stuff to happen to us, but as Victoria Alexander said at the PASIC conference, “It’s not that we want it to happen to us instead of our friends. Just in addition to.” Writers have an inclusive sort of competition—let’s push each other to be better, let’s cheer each other on when we accomplish that goal, and let’s encourage each other when it’s going rough because one day, we will need that same encouragement.

I have been exceptionally lucky in mentors. Chocolate covered lucky. Max Adams (who happens to be stunningly talented) ran an amazing online workshop that I credit with being one of the very best educational experiences of my life. Sharp, funny, brilliant writer Rosemary Edghill took the time to mentor me through the initial phase of my writing Bobbie Faye as a book (switching over from it as a script, as it was originally written) and then introducing me to my editor. Harley Jane Kozak stepped up and said, “Sure!” when ITW asked her to mentor this crazy new writer and has been an absolute joy. There is just no one funnier than Harley and I love her work; last year at RT, Harley had me in tears at lunch, she was so funny.

Our own Allison Brennan probably had no idea what she was getting into when we first met online. (I am like Kudzu. I am everywhere and hard to kill.) Allison’s super talented (and doesn’t seem to realize it); she’s smarter than any five people put together (no, seriously, there were tests). Mostly, I’ve never met anyone nicer. She’s mentored me through all sorts of business questions. I understand (well, as much as I think they can be understood) royalty statements because of Allison. (25 years doing accounting for our construction company didn’t hurt, but seriously? I am pretty sure the first royalty statements were created by the people who thought they would utilize string theory or alternate-universe-math.) I have a firm enough grasp on returns to be sufficiently depressed and best of all, I respect the hell out of her. [I know that when I pick up her books, I’m in for a great read. It doesn’t get much better than that, folks. Her newest book, FATAL SECRETS, is damned good, and is going to be out on Tuesday. Here’s a description:

Fiery ICE Agent teams with cool-headed FBI Assistant Director to stop a deadly human trafficking conspiracy in northern California.

And because I think this is an awesome review:

RT Book Reviews gave it a Top Pick and said: Bestseller Brennan’s new heroine is the epitome of a survivor. In this chilling thriller, Brennan explores the consequences of sliding from fierce commitment into obsession. The sociopathic villain at the center of this tale is truly revolting. A master of suspense, Brennan does another outstanding job uniting horrifying action, procedural drama and the birth of a romance — a prime example of why she’s tops in the genre.

She’s taught me more about publishing than anyone else… which made me curious… who were her mentors? I asked and here’s what she said:

Mr. Kubiak. My sophomore English teacher who was both kind and belligerent, tough and supportive. He’s the teacher who most inspired me to read classic American literature. (My junior year was English Literature–I didn’t like that a fraction as much, partly because of the teacher I had. Except for reading Hamlet, which is probably my favorite Shakespeare play.) Mr. Kubiak set the bar for teachers, and while I’ve had some really good and some really bad teachers, Mr. Kubiak taught me the most that I actually apply in my writing. I still have the Prentice-Hall HANDBOOK FOR WRITERS that I used in his class. He also challenged and pushed me harder than most. I tended to be a student who naturally did well, so I slacked off most of the time because I knew when the final came around I’d ace it. Mr. Kubiak didn’t let me slack off.

Patti Berg. When I first joined Romance Writers of America (specifically the Sacramento chapter) as an unpublished writer, Patti Berg was one of the published authors who immediately introduced herself and made me feel welcome. When I sold, she was one of the first to congratulate me. When I hit the USA Today list my debut week, she’s the one who called to tell me. (I had no idea the list was online the Wednesday before!) When I nervously asked her to do a workshop with me at my first RWA conference in 2005 (after I sold but before my book came out), she happily agreed. She has been hugely supportive of me and my career and is one of the most genuine people I know.

Mariah Stewart. When I first sold to Ballantine, I thought I knew nearly everything there was to know about publishing. After all, I’d gotten an agent the old-fashion way (blind query) and we’d sold pretty quick. But after asking my agent hundreds of really, really stupid questions, I realized I knew next to nothing about the business. Mariah Stewart emailed me out of the blue and introduced herself, leaving an open door for any questions I might have. I was nervous because she was a major author and I was nobody, but I started asking questions and she gave me honest answers. If it wasn’t for Marti, I would have made far more missteps than I have. Now, I can talk to her about anything–professional jealousy, our publisher, agents in general, covers, whatever–and we have a terrific friendship. She’s the big sister I never had, and I’d throw myself in front of a bus for her. (Though I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that!)

[I met Mariah Stewart at PASIC and Marti and I joked that I was her “grand-mentee.” She is as amazing as Allison says.]

As writers, we’re really in this together. Readers out there are generally not going to just read one book a year. They are, we hope and pray, going to read more than one, and I want the other books they pick up to be really great, because I want them to love that hobby, to love taking the time out of their hectic schedule to give some time to an author, and we need a lot of good books for that to happen. I know I haven’t felt like I’d learned enough about the business until maybe this year to feel like I could genuinely answer questions on the business, but I hope to be able to pass along some of what I’ve learned and make someone else’s path a little easier. We are a tradition. A tribe. A Club. A culture. A belief system.

We are family.

I know I could spend several more hours listing people who’ve been mentors for me—who’ve either influenced my writing or answered questions. But for now, I want to hear about someone who has mentored YOU – whether it’s in writing or ANY other field. Give a shout-out to someone who encouraged YOU. AND TO CELEBRATE MENTORS, I’m going to give away FIVE COPIES of Allison’s previous book, SUDDEN DEATH, to five people who comment. I’m going to be doing other mentor-and-friend giveaways for the next couple of weeks, so come back to win.