Author Archives: Murderati

Conventional Behaviour

I enjoy going to conventions. Sounds pretty obvious, but I know not everybody does.

I went to my first one in the US almost by accident. We had some car photoshoots lined up in Daytona Beach, Florida around Spring Break, and discovered that Sleuthfest was the weekend after. It seemed rude not to go. I sought advice from Brit author Stephen Booth, who’d been to a lot of these things. He was encouraging, and got in touch with ex-pat author Meg Chittenden – once a Geordie (from the Northeast of England) but now living in Seattle.

I arrived at Sleuthfest not quite knowing what to expect, only to be pounced on by Meg who said Stephen had asked her to look after me. What a welcome. I can’t think of a nicer person to have holding your hand at such a time. And later, as a sign of this mutual affection, Meg and I would attempt to stab and strangle each other at other conventions all around the country. (Long story.)

Apart from Meg, and Rhys Bowen, I was the only Brit author at Sleuthfest that year. (And both those delightful ladies are now US residents, so I’m not entirely sure they qualify.) It was pretty clear that I was a bit of a novelty item as far as the organisers were concerned. I can’t think of any other reason why they put me on probably the best panel of the event, alongside guest of honour, Robert B Parker, and SJ Rozan, Jonathan King, and the PJ Parrishes – top quality award-winning, best-selling authors every last one of them.

And me.

I didn’t even have a US publisher at that point, and I realised part way through the introductions that nobody with any sense was going to be remotely interested in anything I had to say. So I did the only thing I could short of setting fire to the curtains. I kept it brief and made people laugh. And afterwards, I met the person who was to become my US editor.

So, since then I’ve been to quite a few such events, and the subject of which conventions the other ’Rati were going to this year cropped up just before Christmas. A few people commented about the ThrillerFest event in NYC – that they were keen to go because of its location, on the grounds that they could always slip out and explore the city while not actually taking part in a panel or a signing.

Now, part of me can understand this completely. I love New York. But if you’re going to bother registering for a convention and staying in the expensive Midtown hotel in the middle of the high season, what’s the point in not being there half the time? And it’s not just NYC that exerts this pull. I remember asking one very well-known author at Bouchercon in Chicago what he’d been doing all day, only to discover he’d spent most of it off in a bowling alley, away from the convention hotel. At Left Coast Crime in Bristol, one author I spoke to had spent the afternoon on his own at the cinema.

Am I missing something here?

It’s not like the best of the big players don’t hang out in the bar and chat. Lee Child is always approachable at these events, so is Jeffrey Deaver, Harlan Coben and, of course, our own Ken Bruen. And surely, if you’re just starting out, then spending some time around the lobby, the book room, the bar, is a golden opportunity to mix and mingle not just with other authors, editors and reviewers, but readers and potential readers as well. The people who go to conventions are, almost by definition, the most enthusiastic. If they like your books they will buy lots of them and recommend them vociferously to all who cross their path. Why would you not want to meet and talk to them?

I remember meeting a best-selling Brit author at one of my first conventions who looked down his nose at me and asked if I was "just a reader?" At the time, of course, I smarted just a little bit that he didn’t recognise my name, but afterwards I thought, how can you phrase it like that? All those ‘just’ readers are the ones who’ve given you your success. And disappearing for half the convention when people may well have paid to attend solely because they saw your name on the program is cheating yourself as well as them.

So, opening my mouth to change feet for the last time, here’s my two-penny-worth of advice for convention-goers this year:

1. DO spend as much time as you can in the public areas – you never know who you might bump into. If you want to play the Greta Garbo card, stay at home. Or if you really want to see the city, add a day or two onto the end. At least that way you don’t have to bother checking out on Sunday morning.

2. DO have a cover-all greeting just in case you’re introduced to someone whose name you don’t recognise and you don’t want to cause offence. My personal favourite is to ask, "So, what are you working on at the moment?" This is equally appropriate whether the answer is, "Oh, Spielberg’s asked me to put together the screenplay of my latest gazillion best-seller." Or, "Oh, no, no, I’m just a reader …"

3. DON’T, if someone asks the above question, give them a blow-by-blow account of your entire plot. The elevator pitch should be enough. If you’ve come up with something genuinely interesting, they’ll ask you to expand. If not, then simply telling them more about it will probably not help.

4. DON’T get totally rat-arsed in the bar every night. Yes, I know you’re there to enjoy yourself, but there are limits. This is a small industry. If you say or do something unforgivable, then being drunk is a very poor excuse.

5. DO make an effort to turn out for the early morning panels. Often the authors on them feel they’ve been handed the graveyard shift and it’s nice to give them a boost. And we don’t mind if you bring coffee and donuts!

6. DON’T, if you’ve been given one of the above panels, go out and do point #4, and then publicly complain that you’re not at your best. Those of us who’ve made the effort to come and hear you speak will feel insulted that you didn’t think we were worth staying sober for. And we’ll take our donuts away …

7. DO keep it short and sweet when you’re on a panel. Hogging the microphone, however witty you are, will not win you friends in the long run. Neither will starting every sentence with, "Well, my character does this …"

8. DON’T ask for a panel assignment if you don’t enjoy public speaking. If you’re better one-to-one, then just follow point #1 instead. You’ll probably make a better impression that way.

9. DON’T, if you’re asked to moderate a panel, have any contact at all with your fellow panellists before the event. Don’t learn how to pronounce their names if there’s any doubt about it. Don’t forewarn them of any questions you intend to ask. Don’t meet up more than five minutes before the panel start time to discuss tactics, that would make it far too easy for them. Don’t run the biogs you intend to read out to the audience past the panellists beforehand – after all, all the info on their websites will be bang up to date, won’t it? Don’t forget it’s essential to ask at least one highly embarrassing question, one totally irrelevant question – such as a piece of mental arithmetic – read out the most inappropriate out-of-context segment of a sex scene, pretend to take a phone call, or bring members of the audience out for a bit of a chat on an unrelated subject.

Oh, hang on, have I got that wrong … ? Not sure, because I’ve either been on, or been watching, panels were everything in point #9 has happened.

And those of you who disagree strongly with any of the above comments will no doubt be delighted to hear that a fellow Brit author has asked if I might like to take on one very unusual public speaking event this year.

In Baghdad.

Finally, my latest Word of the Week is plethora. A wonderful word that means an excessive fullness of blood. Can’t you tell I’ve just been writing about the victim of a long-range sniper?

Totally Random Bullcrap

by Rob Gregory Browne

I’m still trying to finish my third book (yeah, yeah, I know). Hope to finish it tonight. I’m in the last few pages and things are looking good, but you never know. So I’m once again taking the lazy route and throwing down some random b.s. for folks to chew on:
—

DO YOU LIKE WHAT YOU WRITE?

William Goldman claims to hate his own work. Says he never thinks it’s any good.

Anyone who has read Goldman knows he’s delusional in that regard. And it’s no secret that I think he’s a brilliant writer.

A few years back, I was working as a staff writer on an animated television show called DIABOLIK (Hey, it was a hit in France!), and was partnered up with a very talented writer/producer who quickly became a good friend.

One day, as he and I were riding in his F150 along the bumpy road leading to his ranch, he told me that of all the writers he knows, the ones who think they’re good, the ones who love their own work, usually stink. And the ones who believe — like Goldman — that they’re mediocre or worse, are usually great.

I didn’t respond. Was he trying to tell me something?

I don’t generally brag about the quality of my work, but I have always taken great pride in my writing. Like anyone else, I bounce back and forth between loving it and loathing it — at least when I’m working on a project — but I generally think I’m a damn good writer.

I’ve told the story before about the friend who thought he’d written a masterpiece that turned out to be one of the worst things I’ve ever read.

But I think most of us have to have a certain confidence in our work. Otherwise, why on earth would we keep writing?

And I tend to think that Goldman secretly knows he’s a heckuva writer.

So was my producer friend wrong? Or are those of us who believe we may have something special a victim of our own egos?
—

DO YOU READ THE LABEL?

Suspense, Romantic Suspense, Thrillers, Mysteries…

I see all these labels and wonder what they really mean. Take Romantic Suspense, for example. It seems to indicate that you’re about to read a romance novel with an underlying thriller plot. Yet I’ve read a number of Romantic Suspense novels that put the romance on the back burner.

I’ve also written a thriller that has a romance in it. True, the romance is a minor part of the story, but it’s there and I think it works and LIKE the fact that it’s there. It gives the book an extra little kick. So have I written Romantic Suspense? If I went under the name Roberta Browne, do you think the publishers would use that label?

Then there are the mysteries that have a touch of thriller in them and the thrillers that have a touch of mystery. What do we label them?

I understand the need for some kind of label. Readers want to be able to head straight to their favorite section of the book store and find what they’re looking for. But since there often doesn’t seem to be any particular rhyme or reason for these “sub” labels, I’m not quite sure why publishers bother.

Isn’t it a mistake to market a book as, again, Romantic Suspense, filling readers with certain expectations, only to let them down when the book strays from the conventions of the genre?

How many times have you seen a movie advertised as a flat-out comedy, only to discover that it’s a drama with comedy overtones? How many times have you seen trailers feature a specific plotline that turns out to be a minor part of the story, and the movie is not even close to what you expected when you bought your ticket.

But maybe that’s what it boils down to: you’ve already bought your ticket. You’ve already paid for the book.

I think, however, that this kind of deception is not only misleading to the reader, but a disservice to the writer. Imagine the number of fans who might be turned off to a writer simply because he or she didn’t deliver what the label on the spine of the book promised?

Or maybe I’m making a big deal out of nothing. I’m no marketing expert.

What do you more seasoned writers in the crowd think?
—

DO YOU HAVE TROUBLE NAMING NAMES?

I have a helluva time naming names. I sit for hours trying to come up with names that suit my characters and, I’ll tell you, it never fails that I wind up changing them.

And I’m never fully satisfied with the ones I settle on.

I always worry that they’re too generic. But at the same time, straying too far in the other direction gets a little silly.

John Sandford, who happens to be one of my favorite crime writers, goes a little overboard with his character names. Lucas Davenport is wonderful, but he’s had a number that momentarily threw me out of the story. Doesn’t ever hurt the story for me, but it does give me pause.

And I don’t hear anyone else complaining.

Like anyone else, I keep a baby names book at my desk. I also check the phone book a lot, looking for interesting surnames. But, like I said, I usually wind up with something that sounds a bit generic. They grow on me after awhile, but, still, I worry.

When I was wading through my email this morning, I came across an interesting source for names:

SPAM.

Yes, that’s right. Maybe spam is good for something after all. Have you ever looked at some of the names they use on email spam? Here’s a sampling of this morning’s:

Bringing L. Strengthen
Harems H. Hewett
Lazy McWriterpants
Kidney Crane
Waller Pendanglis

Now those are NAMES. Not a generic one in the bunch. Most of them accompanied by promises of penis enlargement and endless erections.

So I no longer have to worry. If I’m stuck for that perfect character moniker, all I have to do is open up my spam folder. Easy as Tommy McPie.

What about you? How do you name names?
—

DO YOU EVER HOLD CONTESTS AND FORGET TO DECLARE A WINNER?

It has come to my attention that I held a caption writing contest awhile back and never picked a winner. I blame it on age. Or drugs. Take your choice.

Anyway, the winner of the caption contest with WHITE MEN CAN JUMP, is Naomi Hirahara. Congratulations Naomi. I don’t remember what you won, but as long as it doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg, you’ll get it soon.

Oh, to be Lee Child!

By Louise Ure

“When I’m done writing that final scene, I save the work then press Send and never read it again.”

That’s just paraphrasing the conversation I had with Lee Child a couple of weeks ago in New York, but it’s very close to what he said, and it stunned me.

I was in town for an MWA Board Meeting and a signing at Partners & Crime. Lee had ambled over from his apartment to join the fun. As he and I often do, we found ourselves braving the icy January temperatures outside the bookstore in pursuit of nicotine.

I’d told him my third book was done, but that I wasn’t completely happy with it yet.

“Then it’s not done, is it?”

Well, when you look at it that way, Mr. Smartypants, I guess not.

I’m a revisionist, you see. Once I have the entire book down in a concrete form, I go back and change everything. Not just tightening the writing or adding a bit of back story. Everything. The characters’ names, the point of view, the ending. When I revised Forcing Amaryllis, I changed who the villain was. In The Fault Tree’s revision, I changed the crime that had been committed.

The editing I have planned for this third book could turn it from a chrysalis to a butterfly. Or not. But it will definitely be changed.

That’s not the way Lee works. When he sits down to write, he rereads and edits the work from yesterday and then adds new scenes or chapters. And on the last day — when he finishes that final scene – he hits Save and then sends it off to his editor.

WHAT????? No rereading from page one to see if it still makes sense? No agonizing over the final line in the penultimate chapter? No second thoughts about having all those character names starting with the letter M? No angst about whether the protagonist’s motivation is clear in that scene?

I think Lee’s vision is clearer and his aim is truer than mine. He doesn’t outline, but he knows where the book is going and how to take it there. And the fact that he’s written nine more books than I have doesn’t hurt either.

I, on the other hand, muddle.

I wallow.

I vacillate.

And I revise.

Lee knows when a book is done because that’s when he’s written the last line. I know a book is done when I’ve exhausted every possible avenue of change, written and erased an additional forty thousand words, and bored myself silly rereading it.

I would love to end my second-guessing. To have that kind of confidence or skill. To write a book, hit Save and then Send.

Instead I plod along, wiping out entire casts of characters and rebuilding back story to support a plot development I came up with later.

This third book will change in ways I haven’t imagined yet. And the revision will probably take just as long as the original creation of the book did.

Oh, to be Lee Child!

I’m traveling back to San Francisco from Seattle today, so I may not be able to check in on blog comments as often as I’d like. But I’d love to hear your stories. Are you Child-like in your work or do you find Ure-self agonizing over revisions? When do you know your book is done?

And it’s Primary Day in 22 states. Go vote, or I’ll have to take away your whining rights for the next four years.

Pick up lines

by Pari

Hey, baby, wanna come to my place?
Are you new in town?
What’s your sign?

My mind is in the gutter today, a rare locale for a soccer mom. If I close my eyes and go with the imagery, I land in an animated world with overdrawn characters wearing push-up bras, puce dresses and hot pink stiletto heels. A Toontown for writers. Wordsville? Remember Jessica Rabbit? It’s her sultry voice (Kathleen Turner’s) that I hear.

Only this time she’s saying, "I’m not bad . . . I’m just written that way."

I’m thinking about the differences between innocent flirting and one-night-stand flirting, between love-making and purchased sex.

I’m fixating on the why of book-looking and buying.

What makes readers pick up our work? What’s the click, the magic ah-ha, that inspires them to buy?

Is it a glossy cover?
Reviews
Word of mouth?
Placement in a store?
Television appearances, newspaper features, radio interviews?
Is it presence, participation and mentions on listservs and blogs?
Is it the first line? The first paragraph?

What promises are made in those initial encounters? What promises are kept?

Have you bought books that looked luscious on the surface and turned out to taste like bargain-brand dog bones?
On an impulse, have you paid for tomes with the outward appeal of pimply nerds, only to find that they’re tigers in bed?

Here’s the honest truth:
I have no idea what makes me pick up a book. I have even less of an idea about what makes me buy it. The longer I’m an author, the longer I do this dance of writing and promotion, the less I’m sure of anything.

Some of my cohorts astound me with their energy and creativity when it comes to marketing. They’re at every single convention. They comment on every blog and listserv. They answer their emails at warp speed and send out newsletters consistently.

Wow.

I used to be one of them and . . .

I can tell you this:
I don’t think it did me much good; it might even have harmed my credibility as a serious writer.

I do know that hearing or seeing an author’s name everywhere ISN’T ever the factor that makes me buy his or her book. Never. As a matter of fact, it often works to the contrary . . . because I’m contrary. I tend to run away from that person in the bar who seems too desperate for a relationship — or sex.

Do the most successful writers flog their stuff everywhere? You might tell me that they’ve earned the right not to. But I doubt they ever did the Full-Monty marketing in the first place. Certainly the love-me-please edge is absent from their interactions with their publics.

I’m not quite sure what I’m trying to say with this blog. I think I have two themes here, but they feel related in a fundamental way.

All I know is that more and more, I just want to write. I want my words and stories to be the impetuses that tempt and, ultimately, convince readers to buy. I want other people to talk about my works instead of me beating my own chest all the time.

Back in Wordsville, I’m watching two women. One sits at the counter and orders another a pink sloe gin fizz. Her eyes scope out every man in the place. She’s got a buy-me vibe and a body to match. The other woman is at a table in the corner. She’s alone too. In her hand is a smoky scotch on the rocks. In the other rests a fine cuban cigarillo. Her mouth curls in a quiet smile as she observes this crazy world.

You know which one I’d like to be . . .

Gotta match?

Things they don’t tell you about this author deal

by Alex

I actually have a long list of good things I could say. (Reader mail, for example!) Coming from screenwriting, as I’ve said many times before, most days I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven. But there are a few things that are an essential part of the job that no one warns you about that can really work your last nerve. And it’s winter, and I’m on a deadline, and I’m grumpy, and I’m missing Love Is Murder so that I can MAKE the @#$%^&* deadline, so I’m going to dwell on the bad.

Being an author requires a skill set that no one would necessarily think you’d need to have.

And if this is not Number One among the evil things about being an author, it is surely a close second:

The technology.

Oh, look, I’m okay with computers. Not a whiz, not a slouch. Against all odds, I manage to figure out most of what I’m supposed to do. (Except “tags”. What are “tags” and why are they important? And how am I supposed to do them? On Typepad, for example? When I write a post, and there’s a box for Technorati Tags… what do they actually want from me? What’s the upside of doing them, if I can ever figure out how to do them, and what’s the downside if I blithely leave them out?)

I feel the pain of any new author who is confronted with the vast array of Internet – stuff – that we’re all supposed to be masters and mistresses of to do the promotional aspects of this job. I would be freaking the @##$ out if I hadn’t had to teach myself how to make the unofficial WGA website, WriterAction, happen a few years ago. I was arguably the least qualified person in the entire Writers Guild to do it, but apparently, for whatever reason, I was also the most motivated, which gave me a sort of slash-and-burn determination about web-related issues. That learning curve has been a lifesaver in my new career as an author.

Take, for example, MySpace. Which requires more scary html than other author-related activities.

In general, I love MySpace because it’s such passive promotion. Once you get your page up there, people pretty much find you, and it really only requires 20 minutes a week to approve your Friend requests and answer your mail, when you remember to do that, of course. You have a presence without any work, and people on MySpace actually buy your books, how great is that? But once in a while it takes some work, and it’s harder to figure out than a lot of the other places.

This week I had to update my MySpace page for the release of THE PRICE. I managed to post a new blog and update my profile and upload the new bookcover image and it was all pretty intuitive, nothing suicide-inducing. The problem was the template that I’d initially somehow managed to get up there to make my profile just a little more than the basic MySpace profile. After I’d put my new PRICE bookcover up, the old background color was just ungodly, an horrific clash against the colors of the new cover. But when I tried to go on the site of the template I’d used, to change the colors, it wasn’t letting me on. And it’s not like you can get live help from these free sites, right?

Well, I’m not exactly sure how I did it, but I managed to figure out what the color code was from some other link and get it in there to my site and change the color background to something halfway compatible. This is not, mind you, something I’m ever likely to be able to replicate, and not in any way professional design caliber, but at least now clicking on my MySpace profile will most probably not induce nausea, and that’s a victory.

But my blood pressure? Worrisome.

Then there’s the whole mailing list thing. Yes, I have one of those mailing list services, Vertical Response, which I found through one of those essential-for-new-author weblists, Murder Must Advertise, and it’s a wonderful thing in theory: with Vertical Response you can build a newsletter with templates and images, and import mailing lists and all this good stuff. Perfect for authors who actually take time every week to input their mailing lists and that kind of left-brained thing that authors are not likely to be genetically programmed to do.

Authors like me, for example.

But, you know, I did a Vertical Response mailing list a year ago when THE HARROWING came out and lo and behold, I still have an imported list of e mails from people who actually care about me and so I can build a newsletter with cool images and links and everything and automatically send it off to those saved lists with one click, and theoretically I can also build more lists out of the five zillion business cards I traded with people on my promotional trail this last year, and everyone in the free world will know about my book release by the time I’m done…

That is, if I had either an assistant or the kind of time to input all those new addresses.

Which I don’t. But, still, I’ll do what I can, and Vertical Response helps. Once you get over the sheer overwhelming panic about having to sit down and DO it.. you realize what a godsend it is.

It’s MADDENING, though – the technical stuff. I’ve recently switched back to Mac from PC, which meant I had to download Firefox to use instead of my more familiar Internet Explorer to even be able to use Vertical Response, and at one point I thought I’d lost my entire newsletter that I’d been building for the last two hours because I clicked the wrong whatever and forgot where Firefox keeps previous open windows…

At which point, everything went black for a minute…

You know, Jane Austen didn’t have to deal with this kind of thing.

(Then again, we don’t have to deal with primogeniture, so… I’ve got to admit we’re ahead.)

Okay, this is the point. (Hah – you didn’t think I had one, did you?) You know what I would like to see? Never mind all the panels and workshops on where stories come from and how to create character. Anyone who’s ever put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard knows all that already. You just DO.

Give me a panel on how to do tags, all right? A workshop on Top Ten Technology Tips. How do you change the background color on your MySpace page? How do you do that thing to hook up all your blog sites so you only have to post a blog once? Or just even show me how not to lose my newsletter on Vertical Response.

And while we’re here, what are YOUR techno rants and tips?

And for bonus points, you guessed it – what ARE tags, and why exactly should I care?

The Lost Days, or Babble, Babble, Babble

by J.T. Ellison

Ever have those days that no matter what you’ve set out to do, you can’t make it happen?

I’m having one of those days. It’s Monday, after a hugely successful library event in Alabama. Copyedits were turned in Saturday, jetting to New York overnight in their glorious little envelopes. There’s something special about overnight mail. The sense of urgency, of expectation, of accomplishment, well, it’s just one of those fun things. Whether I’m expecting it or sending it, I get a little thrill.

I had a very intense round of copyedits last week, making sure I made the book the very best I could make it. Copyedits are the last chance to make substantial changes, and I knew I wanted to plug a couple of holes in addition to whatever issues the CE caught. I had to be doubly careful to make sure all the little things we left or changed in the first book were consistent in this one. Like calling Taylor by her nickname on the force, LT. Common usage among police officers. It’s short for Lieutenant, obviously. In the first book, we kept it as LT. This copyeditor wanted it to read L.T. Which meant a ton of STET scribbled on the manuscript. When that happened, I realized I needed to be extra careful that everything from book 1 was consistent with book 2. Which meant twice the work.

No worries, that’s what we’re here to do. Make things right. Right???

So I was especially happy to send these CE’s back to New York. I count my blessings. Being copyedited is an eye opening experience. Much to learn, much to absorb. Every house has their style guide, so there’s that to consider. I’ve learned so much about formatting through the CE process… silly little things like the chapter heading is simply the spelled out number. Don’t indent the first paragraph after a heading or break. Little things like that. I try to incorporate the typesetting into the development of the manuscript. I now understand when published authors tell writers on submission not to worry about fancy formatting. The CE will just remove it anyway. Don’t waste your time. Got it.

Once the CEs were off, it was early to bed for a Sunday appearance, and plans to finalize for a Tuesday night signing. Busy, busy, busy. I figured Monday would be a perfect day of rest. I’d read, maybe watch a movie or two.

Instead I found myself hitting refresh on my email. After a morning that is better unremembered (I may blog about what upset me at a later date, once I’m sure nothing can be done about it) I got myself into four separate conversations and we spent most of the day "e-talking." I mindlessly refreshed Crimespot, my email, the news sites, my email, reread the same three or four blogs (I guess wishfully thinking that a fresh post would appear by magic for my enjoyment,) cleaned out my bookmarks, checked my email, debated about what organizations to re-up and which to let memberships lapse, checked my email… I read a grand total of one page, looked at the clock and saw it was 4:00 PM. Lost the whole day, for nothing. I decided to heck with it, I’ll just nail a few blog entries. So here I am.

It’s funny how I get myself derailed on the "day after." I’m finding this more and more. If I’ve traveled over the weekend, I have to have a day to goof off. If I finish writing a book, I need at least a week, if not a month, to recover. If I’m waiting to hear back from someone about something, I have a very difficult time not checking to see if that answer has come in. It irks me, these lost days. I hate that I’ve wasted a perfectly good opportunity to do… well, anything but goof off.

I was so excited last Sunday morning. I was digging in my overnight case for my mascara, getting ready for the Alabama gig. It was only and hour and a half drive, no sense in overnighting it. (I asked them to take my accommodation stipend and donate it back to the library, and they were pleased. I was fed well instead.) So as I was putting on my makeup, I realized that wow, I can actually unpack this. I don’t need to go out of town overnight for, let’s see… oh. I might as well leave it packed. Two weeks. A grand total of two weeks at home. If it gives you any perspective, that case has been packed since November.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t change anything. Lost days are just the nature of the beast. But being on the road in support of a book is hard work. To be honest, I’m tired. I can’t even imagine what people like John Connolly, who tours for a month in a different country, must feel like. Nowadays, I get overwhelmingly excited that I have a weekend at home. Of course, that means people who’ve been neglected need to see you, but at least I don’t have to dress up for them.

There’s no such thing as taking a vacation anymore either. You have to plan to do drop ins wherever you are. It’s a mind boggling turn of events. You never look at travel the same way again.

They say be careful what you wish for.

My biggest problem is the more I’m on the road, the longer it takes me to get back to my rhythm. And one of the things that newbie writers don’t realize is when you write two books a year, you are working on three at once, at all times. Start from this moment in time. While the copyedits are being done on 2, book 3 is being read by my editor, and I’ve started on book 4. In another couple of months, there will be galleys of book 2 and edits of book 3 while trying to finish book 4. Then there will be launch of book 2, copyedits on book 3 on the 4th book being turned in, which just means that work on # 5 needs to start. It’s insane. And I love it.

Add into this that writing and touring and getting exhausted is FUN. Let me repeat that. It’s FUN. I love
meeting new people. I’ve nearly licked the fear of speaking in front of a
group. I love meeting people who’ve read the book and liked it. I love
meeting the librarians, and booksellers, and festival coordinators —
people who love the written word as passionately as I do.

But since I’ve always been able to write four hours a day and not travel, it’s taking some time to adjust to the new expectations. What do you do when you travel to get your head back in the game quickly? Is it better to schedule a month to do all the promotion, then stay home the remainder of the time? Do you really lose out if you don’t travel to all the conferences?

I’m more convinced than ever that I need to limit myself to one or two of the biggies (next year I’m thinking about BCon, RWA and Romantic Times) and intersperse one or two smaller cons in. I love the book festivals, and think they are an excellent way to get your name in places you’d otherwise never be known, so you have to add in a few of them. Then you have your regular signing events… I’ve actually said no to a couple of invites because A — the money wasn’t available to make it happen, and I just can’t talk myself into making a huge monetary commitment to get myself in front of ten people, and B — I’m burning out. When, in the midst of all this travel and promotion, will I have time to write?

These are the issues new writers need to grapple with. You vets out there know how to manage all this. Can you throw some advice my way???

Wine of the Week: Cascina Pellerino Langhe Nebbiolo

If You Know What I Mean

I’m sitting here in my living on my couch, my laptop on a small table in front of me, my TV (on, of course) another six feet in front of that. Beside me is the book I’ve been reading, and on the recliner to my left the latest issue of SEED magazine, something I’m anxious to get to. And to top it all off, on the arm of the recliner, barely six inches away from me, my phone with full internet access and my daily sudoku puzzle awaiting my attention. Did I mention my brother gave me a Wii for Christmas?

At the moment I’m wondering how I ever even wrote a short story let alone a novel.

Distractions are everywhere, and they are no more evident than when I’m at one of those points in my manuscript that seems to just drag along. Where every sentence…scratch that…every word needs to be wrenched from my keyboard with a crowbar, or, if necessary, plastic explosive.

This all comes to mind because I’m at one of those points now. It happens with every manuscript, but it still annoys me. Each time I start a new novel, I think, Not this time. I have yet to be right.

How do I combat this? How do I keep the distractions out of my way?

I don’t know. I don’t have the answer. I give up.

Okay…I don’t give up. I enjoy writing too much. But even with this enjoyment the distractions are often more than tempting. They way I do it, and the way I think most successful authors probably do it, is to keep a specific schedule.

I think I remember reading in Stephen King’s ON WRITING that he writes for a specific amount of time each day…it might have been writes a specific amount each day…I guess I could go upstairs and get my copy and check, but the TV’s on, remember? And right now there’s this cool documentary about building a manned base on the moon…anyway…King has a schedule and he keeps to it.

I have a schedule, too. Mine is kind of a combination between time and quantity. I get up every weekday morning at 5 a.m., and am sitting in front of my computer by 6 a.m. latest. I’ll write for a couple hours and try to get at least 1000 words. Don’t always make the goal of quantity, but I try to keep to my goal of time as often as possible. Weekends I try to snag at least a couple of hours on one of the days…hopefully both. This is what works for me. This is what gets the stories written.

And the distractions? That’s what evenings are for.

And since it’s evening when I am writing this, you’ll excuse me while I go bowl a game or two on my Wii before I finish that sudoku puzzle then get back to the book I’m reading, because I gotta tell you, 5 a.m. comes around pretty quickly.

What do you do to keep on track?

Brett

January Blues

by J.D. Rhoades

First off, I want to thank everyone for the birthday wishes
sent to me here and elsewhere in the last couple of weeks. They were greatly appreciated—and
greatly needed.

See, my birthday notwithstanding, January’s always a
tough time for me. I don’t know what it is exactly. Maybe it’s the cold weather
(Yeah, I know, it’s colder where you are. Thanks for the information. I’m still freezing). Maybe it’s the bare trees. Or the fact that everything
seems to be colored gray, black or brown. Post-holiday let-down may have something
to do with it. It’s most likely a combination of all of the above.

Whatever the cause,
January’s the month when every regret, every fear, every hurtful word ever said
to or by me, every failure, every humiliation and
embarrassment, comes to roost on my shoulder and whisper in my ear. And those
bastards are heavy.

I am not, as you may have surmised, a barrel of laughs in
January.

But here’s the thing: I feel like hell, but I’m writing like
crazy. I finally got a handle on the main character in my current work in progress, and it’s taking
the book in a new direction that I really like, one that’s a lot edgier than before. When I can
grab the time, I’m blazing through a thousand-plus words in
an hour and a half. There are pages and pages of notes in my notebook about not
only the WIP, but a half dozen other ideas for other projects. I’m throwing off ideas like sparks.

It’s not the first time this sort of thing has happened. When I wrote The Devil’s Right Hand, I was tremendously depressed that my
first book had sunk without a trace. I was in a funk. But the words kept flowing.

Nor am I the first person who’s noted a link between
depression and creativity. There’s the long, long list of great writers and
artists who suffered from depression: Hemingway, Van Gogh, Woolf, Tolstoy, etc.
(This is the point where the black bird on my shoulder whispers “you ain’t
them”).

Psychologist Eric Maisel wrote a book called The Van Gogh
Blues in which he theorizes that artists tend towards depression because, more
than other people, they look for “meaning” in their lives, and when there’s not
enough of that, they have a “meaning crisis” which brings on depression. He
doesn’t explain, however, why depression can actually seem to stir creativity. (Or
maybe he does. I gave up on the book after a chapter in which Maisel used the word “meaning”
thirty-two times on one page. I don’t see the efficacy in replacing depression
with severe annoyance). Psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison theorizes that many creative people actually suffer from bipolar disorder. So when I answer the question "Why do you write?" by saying "mental illness," I’m only half joking.

A few years ago, I actually did seek professional help and
went on medication for the depression that was, at that time, eating me alive.
I don’t remember much about that time, which worries me. I do remember that it
was shortly after I gave up the Wellbutrin that I started writing creatively again after not doing it for over 15 years.

This leads me to the inevitable question: Would I trade blissful happiness for
not being able to write as well–or at all?

So what about it, fellow ‘Rati? Do you think you write
better when you’re depressed? Is there something seeeeriously wrong with us? Or is it just me?

Shards in Desperance

By Ken Bruen

Jan 29th is PATRY FRANCIS DAY

Here be … grace under fire.

Battling with a serious health problem, she stands as a shining example of:
“She may have the illness but goddammit, the illness will never have her.”

Her debut novel, THE LIARS DIARY was and remains one of the highlights of the year.

She has true grit and heroism doesn’t always have to be writ in neon, sometimes it shines brightest from the most unassuming of people.

Her novel sits on my desk and her sheer spirit rests in my heart.

I’m not often associated with gratitude but today, I give thanks for a world that has such wondrous people as Patry in it.

For today, I hope she will know that she is deep and deepest cherished.

______

February is looming, dark and rapid. Here, that means the Feast of St Brigid, and I know, we have a Saint for most everything but St Brigid has her own cross. You’re thinking

“Don’t we all.”

Like the drunk staring up the crucified Christ and muttering

“Any chance of me getting a turn up there?’

St Brigid’s cross is made of reeds, and beautifully interwoven and naturally, if you hang her cross in your home, the house will be blessed.

A close friend of mine from the UK moved here recently and rented a house near the ocean.

So, to keep things green if not downright Irish, I got hold of one of the very old St Brigid’s Crosses and gave it to her.

I ran into her a few weeks later and she glared at me. I went

“What?”

She said her house had been broken into, all her valuable stuff taken. I felt it was more St Brigid’s fault than mine but am I going to lay it off on a Saint?

Me life has enough dark shadows without having a Saint pissed at me. I muttered some half-arsed apologies and commiserations. She let me run me course and then delivered her blow, hissed

“They took everything except that bloody cross!"

Had I an answer?

No.

I could have told her the burglars must have been Irish as they’d never steal St Brigid.

That would be like … mi-adh … which is Irish for serious bad karma.

You can take it as gospel , to coin a phrase, that I won’t be sending any crosses to you guys in the near future.

My doctor friend was round yesterday and is one of the few remaining Irish people to still drink tea. Now that we’re prosperous, we’re into designer coffee and tea is rare and rarer.

You can’t fob him off with a tea bag, he wants the whole nine yards, the leaves and the tea pot heated, plus the cups, left warming on the stove.

He also likes scones with lashings of butter. He’s a doctor so am I going to mention cholesterol etc.

He wouldn’t listen

He’s the one who gives the advice and when I finally get the tea gig arranged, he sits back, asks

“So, what changes have you made for the new year?"

Apart from not handing out any more St Brigid crosses, there isn’t a whole lot of resolutions I’ve made. Before I can answer, he says

“Course in your case, change is not to be confused with improvement.”

He can bring his own damn scones next time.

Here are some lines I recently came across

The bluebird of happiness

Sits upon your shoulder

It used to be afraid of you

But now

The bird

Is getting bolder.

For some bizarre reason, I read these lines aloud to the Doc and he goes

“What do they mean?"

I think they’re self evident and say so.

He sighs and among my least favorite sounds is the sigh, especially when it’s directed at me, he rolls his eyes and I had thought that rolling your eyes was something they did in sitcoms.

I ask him

“You don’t like it?”

He gives me his medical look, the one they instill in training, it’s a blend of pity and artificial sympathy with just a tiny hint of impatience and he asks

“Can we expect that you’re now going to be happy?"

God forbid

True to my heritage, I answer a question with a question, go

“Would that be so startling?"

His mobile shrills and he answers then turns to me and says he has to go.

At the door, he leaves me with

“I think those scones were a tiny bit stale.”

I had a scathing reply to this but alas it didn’t occur to me till an hour after he left.

It’s that time of year I give my lecture in the college, twice a year I get to do this and it’s on my doctoral subject.

I get a real buzz from those occasions as it keeps me in touch with my teaching days and I get to stalk the podium, if not exactly like Rilke’s Panther, then at least with a certain amount of glee. The Head of The Department was going to cancel this year as the last time I gave the talk, it was mystery fans who turned up.

I’d been reading David Wolpe’s wondrous book, Floating takes Faith and trying to get my tongue around beautiful words like

Tzaddik

K’dushah

Hayatzer hara

And a line that sings to me

“God” says the Kotzker, “Has plenty of angels. What God needs is some holy human beings.”

My priest friend is beguiled at my friendship with a Rabbi and my fascination with the Torah and tells me

“Every time I think I have you nailed down, you go off in a new direction.”

As a recovering catholic, I tell him

“The more I learn, the less I know.”

I am aware that will piss him off.

It does

He mutters

“No wonder you write such dark books.”

He’s a priest so I let him have the last word, call it my good deed for the day.

The ferocious winds continue to batter the city and when I wake this morning, no kidding, my gates have been blown clean off, I find part of one a few hundred yards down the road and the rest, is, if not … gone with the proverbial wind, then certainly headed towards America.

In truth, I’m not even thinking about gates or replacing them, my mind is focused on

Patry Francis.

My hand rests lightly on her novel, my heart sends out its warmest wish.

Ergonomic office furniture.

Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash is one of my all-time favorite books. Published during the infancy of the Internet, this cyber-punk epic follows the adventures of Hiro Protagonist, a pizza delivery guy for the Cosa Nostra who also happens to be the greatest sword fighter on earth. When a deadly computer virus threatens the virtual reality world known as the metaverse, Hiro is called to duty. The result is a sci-fi thriller full of action, mystery, and razor sharp satire. Snow Crash is hip, funny, and a whole lot of fun. It’s also about 440 pages long.

Stephenson’s most recent offering, The System of the World: the Baroque Cycle, Vol. 3 is 928 pages. I will NEVER read The System of the World.

And I doubt I’ll read Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, which sits on my shelf taunting me. It’s 1168 pages long.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not Stephenson who I’m avoiding–he’s an incredibly bright guy and a fine storyteller. It’s all those damn pages.

My resistance to bulky books was once a source of secret shame. I felt people would judge me for it, telling me that I had a short attention span, calling me a victim of MTV. After all, thick books are signs of intelligence, right? They say to the public, "I’d rather be reading than anything else in the world."

Since that time, I’ve come to my senses, weighed my options, and did the math. Sure I could read Cryptonomicon (1168 pages remember). But instead, in that same amount of time, I could also read…

James Sallis’ Drive (only 158 pages)

Duane Swierczynski’s The Blonde (226 pages)

Ken Bruen’s Magdalen Martyrs (a quick 274 pages)

Victor Gischler’s Gun Monkeys (284 pages)

Max Phillips’ Fade to Blonde (220 pages)

I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right, it is a damn analytical way to look at the joy of reading. After all, books shouldn’t be about numbers. Books should be about the experience, about losing yourself in the pages, not about math. But as a writer, how do I trade the chance to hear five distinct voices, to delve into five unique styles, for only one?

Of course, in the end it’s a matter of personal preference. And I admit that some stories simply call for thick books. In his last post, Mr. Guyot mentioned Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove (960 pages). I’ve not read L.D. (that’s what the kids call it today, much like the O.C.), but I did read the shorter Streets of Laredo, which was a hefty 560 pages but read like it was 300. It was a big story with tons of characters, and it warranted a big book. So McMurty gets a pass. That’s right; MacLean is giving a pass to one of America’s greatest writers. I’m sure he’ll sleep easy now.

But I wonder if many of the big books out there deserve the same weight. How many of these six, seven, eight hundred page bibles could’ve run a bit leaner, and been better for it? And why is it some blockbuster novelists start out lean early in their careers and get thicker and thicker as they make bigger names for themselves? Do they have more editorial control and push editors off to the side?

But wait, there’s more….

Do readers feel they get more for their money when they purchase a thick book? If that’s the case, do publishers push for more pages from their novelists?

Inquiring newbies want to know.

Personally, I’ve never read a book over 400 pages and said, "I wish it was just ten chapters longer." My favorite novels were the ones I didn’t want to end, the ones that satisfied me but didn’t leave me bloated.