JT Ellison

Revisions can be hell.

I’m currently working on a revision of book 5, THE IMMORTALS. When I started, it looked like it was going to be simple. I needed to add a subplot. No big. Move a few chapters around, dump the story in the appropriate spots, read through and voila! Revision done.

Yeah. Not so fast, there, Sparky.

After staring at the computer for three days trying to decide just exactly how I wanted to do this, I realized it wasn’t going to be the snap I first thought. If I wanted to do it right, I needed to do things a little differently.

I write in a very linear fashion. There are a few times when I’ll jot notes toward the end of the manuscript of what the next chapter is about, or throw down some words to describe my climax. But for the most part, I start at the beginning and write sequentially, allowing the story to unfold as I go instead of jumping around from scene to scene.

I had a great opportunity a few months back—I was the media escort for Diana Gabaldon when she came to Nashville. Now that’s not a job I’d ever want again, because I was a stress monkey the whole day, worrying about getting her to the right place on time (you’d think since I live here I wouldn’t be so damn worried, but I was.) One of her talks, she mentioned how she builds a book. I’d heard this before, but I paid special attention this time, to see if it was something I could do.

Diana writes scenes. Separate, living, breathing entities. When she has enough of them, she starts stitching the book together. Sometimes she’ll find that the season is wrong, or the time of day, and rewrite it to match, but for the most part, the way she puts it together sounded absolutely seamless.

Now, I’m a realist. Of course it isn’t seamless. Proper chapter and scene arrangement is vital to the story – you can’t have things out of order, your readers will get confused.

So when I realized I needed to do this subplot, I decided to try it her way.

Surprisingly, it’s sort of working.

But here’s where I got stuck. The subplot revolves around a situation that happed six years earlier. You know what’s coming next. Yep, I have to write in the dreaded of all forms – the flashback.

Stop your groaning.

I’ve never written in flashback before, not extensively like I’m doing now. It’s not the easiest endeavor. Which is fine, I’m always up for a challenge. But I don’t know what the standards are. As the story unfolds, I’m seeing two things: one, it could be a book of its own, and two, I might be better served if I have a second POV. But you’re not allowed a second point of view when you’re flashing back in someone’s head, are you?

I spent a day fretting about this, then finally called New York.

My brilliant editor scoffed slightly and said, “Write it and see if it works. If it doesn’t, you’ve cost yourself nothing.” Which of course is the right answer.

It’s not the easy answer, though. No one wants to spend time exploring when they’re on deadline. I immediately mentally resisted, listing out all the reasons why I shouldn’t try – time being one of the biggest ones. I’m not much for throwing work away—when I write it, it goes in. The idea of writing scenes basically on spec to see if they might work is an anathema to me.

But in the course of all this angst, I suddenly realized what I was really asking. I wasn’t worried so much about the dual POVs in the flashback. I was asking if I could break the rules.

And since when do I ever worry about the rules?????

Happily, when I went to my office, this was the first thing I saw. It’s on my door.

“There are no rules except those you create, page by page.” ~ Stuart Woods

 

You can imagine the chagrin I felt. Permission? This is writing, damn it. We’re writers. We are the all-powerful creators of universes. We do what we want, when we want. We defy gravity, boundaries, planes of existence. We bring the dead to life. Yes, there are rules, but it’s our job, our mission, to break them. That’s what we do. All successful writers thumb their nose at the rules. Even Stephen King says, “Know the rules so you know when to break them.”

Ah. There’s the rub. We’re allowed to break the rules, but we have to know them first. Okay. Consider this your hall pass.

Here’s the rallying cry. Go forth, and break all the rules. Write something today that’s been eating at you, something that you’re worried about. Something your mind says won’t work. Maybe it won’t. But until you get it on paper, who knows???

When’s the last time YOU broke the rules?

Wine of the Week: 2007 Primaterra Primitivo

PS: Happy Friday the 13th!! Unlike Halloween, good things usually happen in the Ellison household on these days. I hope something good happens for you too!

by JT Ellison

A couple of weeks ago, darling hubby took me to see the symphony. It was a wonderful program—Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 in D major, Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole, a world premier by Roberto Sierra—but the absolute highlight was Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 2 for Cello and Orchestra. The cellist, a young woman named Elisa Weilerstein, strode on the stage in a purple gown, her flowing brunette locks hanging free around her shoulders. She was stunningly beautiful. She shook the first chair’s hand, nodded her thanks to the audience, arranged herself in front of the Maestro, and dove into the piece. It took no time at all to see we were in the presence of genius.

Weilerstein didn’t play the cello. She became the cello. Her body language, facial expression, the set of her shoulders, all bespoke the story. She plucked the strings with a raw energy, her bow flowing, cutting, ripening the notes, and I literally had to force my mouth closed. The maestro was inspired by her performance, and become more animated himself. The orchestra as a whole came to life, each member hanging on Weilerstein’s every note. 

And we, the audience, were told a story by a genius.

Elisa Weilerstein spoke to me through her music, and in so doing, she garnered a fan for life.

I’ve always likened the symphonic medium to books. There’s a delineated three to four act structure, and the music follows the classic unfolding storylines: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action and Dénouement. The music build and retreats, ebbs and flows, allowing small bits of foreshadowing for the massive climax, the lingering notes closing the piece in a final dénouement. (Rachmaninoff’s Concerto no. 3 lends itself especially well to the crime fiction storyline.) I am particularly drawn to these compositions; it’s always so lovely to see this structure in action.

What is genius though?

Wikipedia defines it thusly:

A genius (plural genii or geniuses) is a person, a body of work, or a singular achievement of surpassing excellence. More than just originality, creativity, or intelligence, genius is associated with achievement of insight which has transformational power. A work of genius fundamentally alters the expectations of its audience. Genius may be generalized, or be particular to a discrete field such as sports, statesmanship, science, or art.

Although difficult to quantify, genius refers to a level of aptitude, capability or achievement which exceeds even that of most other exceptional contemporaries in the same field. The normal distribution suggests that the term might be applied to phenomena ranked in the top .1%, i.e. three standard deviations or greater, among peers. In psychology, the inventor of the first IQ tests, Alfred Binet, applied the term, to the top .1% of those tested. This usage of the term is closely related to the general concept of intelligence. The term may be also applied to someone who is considered gifted in many subjects or in one subject.

“A work of genius fundamentally alters the expectations of its audience.”

In those terms, we’re all genius, to a point. Everything we do affect those around us. We are our own individual purveyors of chaos theory. Every movement, every breath, every blink ultimately alters the course of reality. The Butterfly Effect, as it’s more commonly known. Again from Wikipedia:

The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly‘s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. While the butterfly does not “cause” the tornado in the sense of providing the energy for the tornado, it does “cause” it in the sense that the flap of its wings is an essential part of the initial conditions resulting in a tornado, and without that flap that particular tornado would not have existed.

We writers and readers are daily participants in chaos theory. Writers put words on the page. A year later, a reader holds the finished novel in their hands and reads those words. Their lives can be inextricably altered by the concepts in our work. Our lives have been changed, because we’ve made a psychic connection with the reader. We’ve told a story, and the reader has absorbed the tale.

But there is a step past all of the psychic entertaining we do, a moment in time when even more magic happens. That moment is the book tour, where we meet the readers whose lives we’ve altered.

There have been many roundups of the most recent Bouchercon these past two weeks. I came away with a sense of pure awe. The numbers were staggering – of authors and of fans. There was a moment on Saturday night, at Lee Child’s annual Reacher’s Creatures party, that I realized the collective conscience of the crime fiction world was present and accounted for in a single, stiflingly close room. I was among the geniuses of our genre, of writing, of our finest creativity. Not everyone was there, of course, but if you had a single copy of every novel published by every author in that room, the numbers would wobble the shelves of a mid-sized town library. I made that comment to Mr. Child, who opined that if you added in all the books we’ve read, the numbers would be astronomical.

I know I’m touched each and every day by the genius that permeates out community.

But being a writing genius isn’t enough. Our livelihoods depend on readers. In these changing times, with digital books making a play for large shares of the market, with major wholesalers discounting their titles to openly take a loss, we need readers, fan, more than anytime before.

Mediums change. That’s the nature of our society. Our cultural conscience, though, will remain strong and vibrant, regardless of whether we’re reading electronically, listening, or holding a hardcopy book. Because our collective genius is captured in those words.

I read a fabulous article recently by Nashville-based author Ann Patchett on touring. I know tours aren’t nearly as prevalent as they were, but the article is about more than the physical state of touring, it’s ultimately about the metaphysical connection authors have with readers. Jane Friedman, who developed the modern book tour with Julia Child’s second cooking novel, says to Ann Patchett:

“What hasn’t changed is the connection between the author and the reader. If anything, it’s even stronger. The people who come out to your signings are real…fans.”

And there’s the trick. The folks who come to the conferences, to the readings and signings, are the drivers of the industry. Yes, there are many, many readers who never set foot near an author or conference. But that one fan who puts their hand on your shoulder, who says you’ve touched their heart with your books, can sustain an author for a very long time.

The next time you’re touched by genius, stop for a moment. Appreciate it. Appreciate the phrase that caught your eye, the musical notes that create a melody, the lyrics that speak to your soul, that perfectly shaped fallen leaf. Recognize you’re in the presence of genius, and allow that to spark your own creativity.

Today’s question is self-evident: When was the last time you were touched by genius?

Wine of the Week: Compliments of my parents, who loved the whimsical label – 2007 Michael David Petite Petit

JT Ellison

There are times when nothing comes.

No words. No ideas. Nothing.

This is one of those times.

After four years of blogging, I’ve simply run out of things to say.

But that’s not a choice I can make. Even when there’s nothing floating around in my brain, no pithy comments, no stellar advice, no embarrassing moments to share, I have to write my blog. It’s a commitment I’ve made to you, the reader, to my blog mates, and ultimately, to myself.

So.

I will force the words onto the page, and hope for the best.

Thankfully, I’m not having this problem with the books. Books are fine. Books are groovy. The ideas are flowing non-stop, and so are the words. I’m at that awkward time of year that I’m writing a new book and editing a forthcoming title, which is always hard. It happens every time I’m just getting my legs under me with a story, boom – I have to all stop and go focus on the one prior. This is good and bad.

For starters, I am writing a series, which means the characters, their foibles and triumphs, all build from book to book. It makes life easy because the world is already built, the characters, for the most part, are the same, and I can simply insert them into a new case. But now that I’m six books in, changes are happening. Characters lives are altered.

One of the tricks I was using is coming back to bite me in the ass – setting each book seasonally instead of annually. As a matter of fact, book five begins within a couple of weeks of book four, and book six starts literally a few days after the end of book five. The fifth book takes place over three days. So that’s a lot of Taylor’s world sandwiched into a very short period of time. How much can a character change in three days?

Well, the obvious answer is as much as I want her to. But I’ve always tried to avoid major changes in her life – she is who she is, and if I’m writing her correctly, her reactions are going to be consistent regardless of circumstance. Consistent, in my mind, is good. But is consistent good for the character, the series, the stories?

I guess I don’t have anything to blog about because I am so involved in the decision making process of these two books that it’s taking all of my mental energy.

And of course, now that I’m forcing myself to type, it seems I have a topic after all.

Remember the old tongue twister: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

That’s kind of where I am with my girl. How much change can she sustain and still stay true to her nature? What kind of change is good, and builds the character? What kind of change is too much to handle? If I want to keep moving her story forward, she’s going to have to change, and change significantly.

Meh. I am starting to understand how shortsighted I was way back when I started writing these books. An iconic character is a noble goal, but no matter what you do, they have to change or the series becomes stagnant.

Let’s use our venerable favorite, Jack Reacher, as an example.

In my mind, Reacher is the ultimate series character. He is iconic in every sense of the word. He is a hero. He is consistent. You know what you’re going to get when you pick up a book by Lee Child.

But Reacher is far from predictable, and therein lies the true majesty of an iconic character. One who can alter subtly instead of “CHANGING” is the goal I had in mind. He even tries to change himself, but always ends up back where he started.

John Connolly’s Charlie Parker is another example I draw from when thinking of excellent series character. Parker does change, appreciably, but that change is a dynamic reaction to his circumstance in the opening book, and the rest of his changing is that subtle altering over the course of the series that Reacher does. Every time Parker tries to change, he ends up ruining things, so it’s easier to stay the same. (I’m simplifying this a wee bit, but remember, I’m struggling for cogent thought today, so bear with me.)

Well. I’ve now given myself a lot to think about.

How about you? How do you feel about series characters, and their evolution over time? Do you like drastic change, or something less appreciable? Any examples you could toss into the mix to help me think this through would be great appreciated!

(I’m at Bouchercon this weekend, so forgive me if I’m a bit lackadaisical. I’ll try to get to everyone over the course of the day.)

Wine of the Week: 2008 Tormaresca Neprica Puglia 

JT Ellison

I have been the absent-minded professor lately. It’s the worst feeling in the world. I’ve lost the beautiful silver and rope badge holder Randy gave me for my birthday, can’t find my earbuds to my phone (which means no talking in the car, I need to be hands free to handle the new behemoth I’m driving, ie: the foster truck), misplaced the receipt for a very expensive blouse that needs to be returned. I stepped in as a media escort for one of my literary heroes, Diana Gabaldon, and ended up driving the wrong way three times, made wrong turns, nearly ran a red light. And that’s just the past week.

Knowing I was becoming a stress puppy, I signed up for a virtual Zen retreat. I know that’s an oxymoron, but the concept is sound – the retreat consists of emails with podcasts, discussions, guided meditations, just like you were at an actual retreat. One little problem. I’ve been too busy to open the emails and actually participate.

In and of themselves, nothing on this list is world-ending. Add them all up, though, and it’s indicative of a more serious problem.

I. Am. Distracted.

Why am I so distracted? Now, there’s a good question. Stress over the new book, which isn’t exactly writing itself? Stress over trying to keep the marketing and promotion side of the business under control, coiled for the perfect opportunity to strike and get my name in front of millions of people? (Okay, thousands. Hundreds. Ten?) Stress over maintaining some semblance of normalcy while traveling all over the country to attend conferences, trade shows and literary festivals? Stress about personal issues that I have absolutely no control over?

You get the idea. Things are a little crazy around here. Randy’s business has taken off and he has more work than he can handle. I feel the same way. And the response to having more work than you can handle is… you work all the time.

We writers are a rare breed. Every moment of our day is related to our work, even when we have full-time jobs. Every conversation is loaded with possibility, each chance meeting, traffic jam, song on the radio… anything and everything triggers our internal senses. Commit that shaft of light to memory, the look on that woman’s face, the smell of the wet asphalt, the indescribable color of that fallen leaf. It’s no wonder we go on overload sometimes.

I already knew the bane of being self-employed is getting yourself to stop working and actually focus on living life. I didn’t realize that everyone seems to be having this problem until I read this article in the Wall Street Journal, which I found via Karen Doherty on the wonderful Quo Vadis blog.

We are a twenty-four/seven world now. We are immediately accessible not only to our bosses, our friends, and our family, but to strangers as well. Facebook, Twitter, e-mail etc., is our main path of communication. And they don’t close for business at 5 p.m. five days a week. Being self-employed is even worse. Instead of having a set schedule – in the office at 8:30, lunch at 12, home at 5:30 (or 9) – we have to mandate our own time. Some folks are brilliant at this. Some can’t find enough hours in the day.

That’s what being driven is all about. Who can fault that?

But…

The WSJ article was a wake up call for me. I wrote a few weeks back about how social networking is killing our creative spirit. I see now that’s its much more than that. Our inability to turn off, the relax, to let things go for a few hours. That’s what’s killing us. I don’t know about you, but I’m on the computer pretty much from the moment I get up to the time I go to bed. Yes, I turn it off for TV and reading, but it’s still an all-consuming presence.

When’s the last time you took an hour to yourself? No kids, no music, no planner, no computer. No multi-tasking, not even slipping a few minutes of reading in. Just you, living in the moment.

Yeah. Me too.

What’s the solution? Well, the WSJ article’s suggestion of one day a week completely unplugged is a good start. I can do that. With a thorough understanding of what I need to accomplish during the week, altering the allocation of time should be relatively simple. I use a time map anyway, I’ll just shift some things around. Cuts will have to be made, and there’s no question where those will come from – online and the social networks. I’ve actually been pretty good lately, (it all feels so superficial anyway) so that’s not a big loss.

Slowly but surely, I feel like I’ll be able to take my life back from stress and worry. Will I be able to shut my brain off for a whole twenty-four hours? That’s doubtful, but so long as I have a notebook near me, I can write things down as they occur and move on. I won’t be setting a slew of new goals—I agree with this premise on Mnmlist.com that setting too many goals, too stringent goals can mean we’re determining our happiness based on whether or not we achieve those goals—but I am going to try to unplug for a day a week.

We’ll see if that helps.

What about you? Have you already come to the realization that being plugged in 24/7 is bad for you? Or are you still grasping, trying to find the right balance? And are you sick to death of these types of articles? I know time management isn’t exactly mystery oriented – well, it is for me, because how I manage my time is directly proportional to the quality of my writing, but you know what I mean… : )

Also, in much more fun news, here’s the brilliant cover for my newest book, THE COLD ROOM (2-23-10)

That means we’ve also redesigned JTEllison.com and everything! Take a peek at the site and let me know what you think!

Wine of the Week: 2005 Cannonau di Sardegna Riserva