What do you want?

Actually, let me start with a couple of other questions before we get to the one in the title of this particular blog.

Here’s an easy one: Am I insane?

Short answer: YES.

Hello. My name is Pari Noskin Taichert and I’m a volunteer slut. I just don’t know when to stop! Where is the twelve-step program for THAT?

You see, I’ve just agreed to chair Left Coast Crime 2011. It’s going to be in Santa Fe and will be the weekend of March 24-27-ish (Make your plans now. Start saving and register early.). Although we haven’t quite committed in writing, I can tell you that the hotel where this LCC will be held is absolutely marvelous – pure New Mexican, historic, magnificent location, utterly charming.

It’s also small – perfect but small (as are most things in Santa Fe with any true SF history) – and that means that many, many of the attendees will have to stay in other hotels close by. I can feel the headaches before we’ve even signed any agreements.

Yeah, I know.

What the hell was I thinking?

The funny thing is that I accepted because I think it’ll be a wonderful and interesting challenge to come up with a venue, program, Guest of Honor, etc. all of which will truly show off the New Mexico I know and love.

When I was first approached for this responsibility/opportunity, a close friend said to me, “Are you stark raving mad?” And after she calmed down: “Think of the PR opportunities.”

In truth that’s not why I’m doing this.

I’ve now been in the writing business long enough to have healthy skepticism about PR & networking resulting in more than PR & networking.

We writers need sales. I doubt anyone is going off to buy my books today because I’ve chosen to take on this task.

And I have to live with a certain cognitive dissonance about all of this too. Hypocrisy even. Because I’ve blathered passionately right in this blog about trying to cut out distractions in my life.

Great job, Pari. Wonderful way to bring peace and quiet to your life.

Okay. Enough about me . . .

I have a few important questions for you.

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

For people who’ve attended a mystery convention:

Does the Guest of Honor, Toastmaster etc. really matter? (Are they deal makers or breakers when you’re deciding about conventions?)
What kinds of panels or other programming do you adore – or abhor?
What subjects would you most like to see explored in programming at a con?
Would you prefer an awards dinner (if we could make it fast and fun) or a Sunday brunch?

For those of you who’ve never been to a convention:

     1. What might entice you to come?
     2. Do you understand the why of mystery conventions, that they’re for fans and authors to get together?
     3. Do you have any questions about them right now? (Maybe some of us can offer a good perspective.)

To all of you:

Thanks

. . . and wish me luck.

Music and the Muse

In April of 2007, I bought my first iPod. It was the fifth generation, on which I could watch television shows and movies as well as listen to music and play games. I bought it primarily to watch the second season of my favorite show, SUPERNATURAL, and the first season of HEROES so I didn’t have to wait for the DVD set to come out the following fall.

Between my husband and I, we had a lot of records and CDs. Because you are allowed to make an archive version of purchased music, I downloaded my favorite albums onto my iPod. But I didn’t actually expect to listen to the music while writing. I first plugged my iPod into my car to listen to the audio version of ON WRITING by Stephen King–read by Stephen King. If you like this book, and enjoy Stephen King, you’ll LOVE him reading it. It was as if he was sitting in my passenger seat talking to me like an old friend. And I’m not usually a fan of audio books because I can read faster than I can listen.

I was writing at Starbucks at the time, and eventually started bringing in my iPod without much thought. I realized over that summer that I found I wrote faster when I listened to music. In fact, harder and louder the rock, faster I wrote. So I went home and spent a fortune on iTunes buying favorite songs that I didn’t have on CD. My library is now over 1300 songs, though there’s roughly 250 that I listen to far more than the rest. (For example, I love Pink Floyd. But Pink Floyd is album music, and you have to listen to the entire album. For some reason, I find this distracting when I’m writing.)

I’ve realized that it’s partly to trick my mind–if my ears are focused on music, I’m not eavesdropping on conversations around me. Or distracted by birds chirping outside my home office. (I found out real quick that there’s a big difference listening to music through earbuds and listening through home stereo speakers. Only the earbuds work to focus my writing.)

When I have my earbuds in–and I invested in real nice, clear Bose earbuds–I hear and see nothing but the story in front of me. Amazing when you think of it — I thought music would be distracting. But I’m not actively listening–the music is simply in my head, giving part of my mind something to do so it doesn’t distract me from the story. Sounds strange, I know. I think because I’m so used to multi-tasking–not just as a mom, but in my previous career in the Legislature when I was used to juggling many projects and thinking about one thing while doing something completely different–I find it hard to focus on just one thing. The music helps me do that.

When talking to writers, I’ve found there are just as many who need complete silence or white noise–our Rob is one–in order to write as there are those who need music. And those who need music, there are about as many who can only listen to instrumental and those who need songs with lyrics. I’m someone who needs songs with lyrics. I think this is because instrumental music is distracting because I’m making up a visual story to go with the sound; with lyrics, that story is already there. And because I know the songs so well, the lyrics almost disappear.

My 5th Generation iPod crashed and instead of getting it fixed, I bought the iPod Touch. I love it. (Well, I love everything about it–the sound, the calendar, the games–except for the sucky battery life.)

To celebrate my new toy, I created a playlist of music from my favorite television show, SUPERNATURAL, largely because the program plays music that I like. I bought some new stuff–songs written in the 2000s. For me, this is huge because I’ve always believed that no good music was made after about 1983. (I credit my oldest daughter with my ability to expand my musical horizons. She introduced me to some terrific, new rock music. So I can now listen to Led Zeppelin in the same playlist as 3 Doors Down; and Katie is one of the few teenagers who appreciates classic rock. She created her own playlists on my iPod and my husband’s iPod so when we drive together, we listen to music we both like.) Some of the songs are not available on iTunes, so I’m debating buying the CD. Some of the songs not available I already had–like AC/DC.

Right now I have 46 songs on this playlist, and I’m adding to it every week. “Oldies” like BAD MOON RISING by CCR; CARRY ON WAYWARD SON by Kansas; RENEGADE by Styx; STRANGLEHOLD by Ted Nugent; and TURN TO STONE by Joe Walsh. And “Newsies” like EVERY ROSE HAS ITS THORN by Poison; SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE by Muse; SPEAKING IN TONGUES by Eagles of Death Metal; and MEAN LITTLE TOWN by Howling Diablos.

I think one of the reasons I’m so tickled about finding new music that I like is because for the longest time I believed that only rap was produced for the last ten years. Lots of people–particularly young people–love rap. Great. But I don’t. If it comes on the radio station my teens like, I hit the classic rock station without hesitation. Because while there is some popular music I can tolerate, rap ain’t it.

My oldest daughter is a music addict. So much so that she did her science project on whether music had an impact on the behavior of goldfish (I still have two of the four alive in a bowl in my office . . . ) She learned they don’t like hard rap music anymore than I do–they swam erratically at the bottom of the bowl. And they love the Righteous Brothers and swam smoothly, using the full bowl. At least, that’s our story 🙂

For fun, I went to my “Top 25 Most Played” songs and was surprised at the rather eclectic top ten:

Sweet Home Alabama Lynyrd Skynyrd
I’m Shipping Up to Boston Dropkick Murphys
We Used to Be Friends The Dandy Warhols
Sunday Bloody Sunday U2
I Hear the Bells Mike Doughty
Carry On Wayward Son Kansas
Bohemian Rhapsody Queen
Rocky Road to Dublin Dropkick Murphys
Spybreak (Short One) Propellerheads
Tom Sawyer Rush

Some of the Top 25 surprised me (like #21 “Every Day I Write the Book” by Elvis Costello.) There’s one thing that the top 25 songs have in common–they made it onto multiple playlists. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed over the next few months . . .

Does music help you work, whether you’re a writer or not? What are your top five most played songs on your iPod (if you have one) or what CD is in your player?

(As an aside . . . recently my husband bought a thingie to plug a turntable into the computer to burn CDs because, alas, we don’t have a record player anymore. Can you even buy records anymore new? I don’t think so. When my 15 year old came into the room while he was lovingly fondling the ancient vinyl, she asked, “What’s that?” And VCR tapes are fast becoming obsolete as well. Does anyone remember 8-tracks tapes? My mom had a car with an 8-track tape player. Yep, I feel old. And I had a black-and-white television until I was five.)

Location is a character.

by Alexandra Sokoloff

One of the things that you hear ad nauseum in Hollywood story meetings is: “And I think Seattle (Rome, San Francisco, New York, L.A., Akron) should be a character in this movie!”

Not that it’s a bad note (although it’s funny how you can predict who will say it, and how you, the writer, must always pretend that it’s the most brilliant and startling idea you’ve ever heard). It’s just that to me this is so obvious I don’t know why anyone would ever have to bring it up. It’s like saying your story needs a plot.

Of course the location is a character.

This is excruciatingly crucial when, like I do, you write on the supernatural side, and it must seem that the very land and/or city, and/or house (or in my current WIP, boat), and elements are conspiring against the human characters. There are vast forces at work, and they have their own intelligence.

But it’s not just in my genre. I think one of the key promises of a novel, any novel, any genre, is that it takes you, the reader, away from wherever you are. That’s one of the main reasons we read, isn’t it? And even when you, the writer, are writing the darkest of dark stories – set in a prison, or in the middle of war, or an impoverished country, or a supernatural dystopia, your reader, for whatever twisted reason, is picking up that book to BE THERE. And it is one of your non-negotiable jobs as an author, or filmmaker, to take them there – completely out of their own body, their own house, their own city, their own reality, and into yours.

“Yours” being the operative word, here, because it’s not enough to say that the story is set in Boston and leave it at that. It has to be your Boston, or your character’s Boston.

“What is it about Boston for you?” a friend asked me recently, as I just finished another book set there.

It’s true, Boston is one of MY cities. Along with London, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Death Valley. Well, that’s not a city. But you know.

My friend really asked the key question, the question every writer should always ask her or himself about the location of his or her story: “What is it about Boston (or whatever) for you?”

Boston is one of those places that I fell in love with the instant I landed in it. It is so twisted, Boston – literally and figuratively… the streets were built along meandering cow paths. They make no sense at all. You round a corner and you could be anywhere. Or anytime.

And then all of that history – the cradle of the Revolution! – and intellect, and literature, and music, and art, and cathedrals, and witches.

Aha. That’s a lot of my personal take about Boston, right there.

For someone like me, obsessed as I am with the devil, Boston is a gold mine. I can write stories about the devil and witches walking around in that city, with the utmost confidence and realism, because they have, and they do.

Here’s another example. Synchronistically, this post turns out to be a great follow up to J.T.’s delicious account of her trip to Napa. Napa is (in spades!) a region with character. It reminds me of the overwhelming influence of the vineyards and wine-tasting imagery that Alexander Payne portrayed to perfection about Central California’s wine country, Sideways. For native Californians, Payne hit every iconic location he could cram into that story; we have all done all of those things, repeatedly (the only thing he left out was the Madonna Inn, which is a whole movie in itself.) The themes of alcoholism and creative inspiration and California excess are pillars of the movie, and the wedding and road trip themes are also completely in line with the mythology of wine country (if I had a dollar for every vineyard wedding I’ve attended… every road trip I’ve taken through Central California… ). And it’s no accident that the characters are a (failed) writer and a (failed) actor – that is mythically Californian. Payne captured the unmistakable character of that region, as well as making it his own. If you want to know what it’s like to live in California, watch that movie.

My new thriller, The Unseen (out this month, for all of you who have been waiting with bated breath) has North Carolina as its character location, and oh, boy, is it a character. Now, I could not have begun to do that story justice from the point of view of a native Southerner – because in case you haven’t noticed, they’re all crazy. 😉

But I could tell it from the point of view of a fish out of water, a Californian transplanted to the South, and experiencing the whole state for the first time. And that point of view I think achieves a quality of isolation and alienation that’s very useful in a supernatural thriller.

Doing my research and being true to the reality of the place was, for me, key. The story is based on real-life experiments done in the Rhine parapsychology lab on the Duke University campus, and I could not have asked for a more Gothic and spooky and atmospheric college to play with. I felt like I was tripping, walking around that school for the first time, it’s that perfect for the book.

The overwhelming forests of North Carolina (I’ve never seen so many trees in my life) were another great atmospheric element. You can hide virtually anything in those damn trees. For a child of the Southern California desert it’s terrifying not to be able to see vistas, and those endless forests are the labyrinth (with all of its mystical implications) that is so much a part of my personal thematic imagery.

Since the story is about a poltergeist house, I had to create a poltergeist house that was absolutely a character in its own right. One that I could know the shape of like I know the lines in my hand – every room and hall and stairway and imprint.

And because writing is magic, I found the absolute perfect haunted mansion: the Weymouth Center, and was actually able to live there for a whole week.

It’s a real haunted house with an awesome backstory; it was one of the “Yankee Playtime Plantations”, the Southern manors that were bought up after the war by newly moneyed Northerners and turned into hunting lodges and sex retreats. I mean, vacation houses. This one was also a hangout for literary lions such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Sherwood Anderson, and “editor of genius” Max Perkins.

And oh, you bet that vibe permeates the manor and grounds. The house is not just creatively inspiring in the day and completely terrifying at night… it’s also a total turn-on. My haunting turned much more erotic than I was expecting, because that’s what was actually there in the mansion. Really. It has nothing to do with me.

We are so lucky that as authors our job includes traveling to and
experiencing as many different places as we can get to. Free research! We are even more lucky that so many of the conferences and conventions we attend (Left Coast Crime, Bouchercon, ALA, PLA, World Horror Con, World Fantasy Con, Romantic Times, Romance Writers of America National) “force” us to travel to different cities every year, thus providing whole universes of research with the price of admission. If you’ll take a look, every single one of those cons goes all out to provide field trips specific to the city and area, as well as seminars and field trips by, for example: law enforcement officials who speak about the particular issues they deal with on their turf and famous criminals and crimes of the region; ghost walks through the cities; and tours of the host city’s most interesting features (like the underground street in Seattle at a recent LCC). No matter how overbooked I am at a conference, I never miss the city tours and local law enforcement tracks.

It’s a beautiful system. We can promote our books, meet with our agents and editors, and do all our location research in one weekend.

Because you never know when you’re going to need the character of Denver. Or Phoenix. Or Napa. Or Madison. Or Indianapolis. Or New Orleans. Or the Big Island. Or….

So tell me, ‘Rati writers and readers. What are your favorite cities, or regions? What books and authors portray location as character particularly well? What do you authors do to create the character in your location? Or what convention have you been to that’s given you the best character introduction to a city you’ve ever had?

– Alex

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors

In Vino Veritas

by J.T. Ellison

Ahhh, vino. Anyone who’s been reading this column for more than a few Fridays knows I am a complete and utter wine junkie. An amateur oenophile. A lover of the dark juice, a disciple of Dionysus, a proponent for good wines and vineyards. When we first started Murderati, and I had nothing to say (odd that we’ve come full circle) I thought I’d give a wine tip every week, just as a sort of value-added incentive to read the columns. I’ve given hundreds of wine tips over those three years, so many that I’m considering hiring someone to go through and list them all out for me so I have a record. Because I don’t have a list of all the wines I’ve recommended.

Does that surprise you? I know you know I’m a complete control freak, borderline OCD about so many things, but keeping track of my wine consumption? I’m terrible at it. I’ve started too many notebooks to count – separating them into varietals, countries, years. I put them into lists and then forget to add to it. I’m a bit hopeless, and that’s not the way a real wine connoisseur acts.

Well, I’m not a real connoisseur. I’m just a thriller chick who likes her grape juice.

So when hubby told me he was taking me to the Napa Valley for my birthday, you can imagine how excited I was. We’ve been to Italy a couple of times, strolled through pour favorite vineyard, Tenute Silvio Nardi – learned about tastings and fermentations and the benefits of French oak from our friend Jeorge, the estate manager. We know Francis Ford Coppola has been there, his wine team spent a few weeks learning from the Nardis. (More on that later) And my family name, for those who are interested, is Nardi. Winemaking, apparently, is in my blood.

We touched base with friends we know have travelled in the area for recommendations. We quickly discovered that this can be a pricey trip, because most of the vineyards charge for the tastings, anywhere from $10 a person to $25. That can add up quickly. It was recommended to us that we stay in Sonoma, the less trafficked and less commercial part of the wine country. But Sonoma’s expensive, so we decided to go the economical route of a bed and breakfast in Napa proper, taking advantage of the great travel deals (many, many hotels are doing specials now, three nights for the price of two, that kind of thing.) Turns out that was our smartest move. Napa proper? Not so commercial after all. And the B&B was perfectly located at the mouth of Highway 29 and Highway 128, two of the most beautiful stretches of road in the world. Breakfast in bed daily, a spacious, clean and quiet room with a fireplace and DVD player, a comfy bed and oodles of hot water – it was heaven.

The first day we’d arrived at about 3:00 pm local time after a full day of traveling. We were tired and hungry, and poor hubby had a cold (we were hoping it wasn’t hamthrax, we’d stopped at a local store for a jug of hand sanitizer and there were people in masks.) The B&B manager pulled out a map and a slew of tasting coupons (despite the prices, the coupons were along the lines of two for one tastings, etc.)We decided to forego the tastings in favor of a cheeseburger, which we found at the Napa Valley Grille in Yountville. Napa and Sonoma are made up of a multitude of small contiguous charming towns, with vast tracts of vineyards stretched between them. Most picturesque.

Food served, along with buttery focaccia dipped in rosemary, pepper, garlic and sea salt infused olive oil, we ventured into our first wines. Hubby had a Tangley Oaks Merlot, and I tried the Napa Cellars Merlot. Both were excellent, and we had a first moment of fortune – they’d emptied the very last bottle of Tangley Oaks and didn’t have enough for a full glass, so that one was on the house. Just the right way to get the trip started.

As we left, we noticed a tasting room for Verismo Wines. We stopped in for the heck of it and discovered three excellent wines: Stretta (aged in American Oak), Stella (aged in French Oak), and a surprisingly good Malbec, also aged in French Oak. I’ve never been much for the Malbecs, but this was rich and deep, just great.

Back at the B&B, 5-7 is cocktail hour – with lovely crudités, several wines to taste and some elevator Muzak. We retired early with a bottle of Stretta in our room, lit the fire, doped up the hubster and got a great night’s sleep.

DAY TWO

This was the last day of the decade for me. We wanted to see some redwoods, so we rose late, programmed Tara Stella Gypsy (our Garmin Nuvi, named such because Tara is the Buddhist goddess of navigation, Stella for stars, and Gypsie for… yes, GPS) and off we went. Tara has a plethora of cool features, and we trusted her implicitly to get us around.

The Armstrong Redwood Forest was about an hour north and west of Napa, and we weren’t disappointed. HUGE trees. HUGE. Towering to the sky, thousands of years old. Having grown up in a forest, it was especially peaceful and perfect. We shared some cocktail peanuts (thanks, Southwest!) and just spent some time being, astounded at the silence in these woods.

Glancing at the map, we knew we were close to the coast, so we figured what the hell. Tara happily obliged us with a point of interest entry called Goat Rock State Beach. That sounded promising. Driving through the forest, knowing that just around the curve, something glorious awaited us, we were breathless in anticipation. An eagle soared down and got in front of the car as if he were leading us to the rocky cliffs. I couldn’t help myself, I mentally recited some Tennyson.

The forest quickly gave way to flatter land, yellows instead of greens, and suddenly, there it was, this gigantic cliff with the Pacific gleaming beneath us.

We drove down, taking a million pictures, then parked and walked along the soft sand. Goat Rock is one of the most dangerous beaches in California – the water sneaks up on you and there’s a twenty foot drop shelf right at the water’s edge – we nearly got creamed by a wave trying to dip our fingers in the pacific.

That beach was one of the speechless moments. I don’t have them often, but they burn themselves into my memory banks to stay on forever.

We finally dragged ourselves away and headed to Seghesio Vineyards in Healdsburg. There’s definitely a warming process with some of these wine folks – they assume you know nothing, and treat you a bit disdainfully until you say something in the magic code language of Dionysus (something about oak barrels usually suffices.) Then they open to you and treat you well. That irritated my populist heart a bit, but whatever. There’s also a bit of competition between Sonoma and Napa, with the Sonoma folks looking down their noses at the Napa folks, which I had absolutely no time for. All that aside, we tasted several really good wines at Seghesio: the 2006 Cortina Zinfandel, made in the Dry Creek Valley, 2007 Costeria Pinot Noir, which was a bit too new for me, the 2005 Auradou Zinfandel, also from Dry Creek Valley and the stuff the Old Vine Zin I recommended last week is made of. The 2005 Home Ranch Zinfandel had some Sirah in it, making it fruity, and the 2005 Home Ranch Petit Sirah was excellent, very peppery and laced with black fruit. But the standout was the 2005 Venom. Grown on Rattlesnake Hill, it’s their baby Brunello, and it was rich, spicy and very full-bodied, the kind of wine you want to let breathe for at least thirty minutes, then consume with a superior steak.

The purveyor at Seghesio suggested a fine Italian restaurant in Healdsburg, and since it was past 5:00, we decided to break for food. We ate at a great place right in the Healdsburg Square called Scopa. Scopa is run by a young couple who take their food seriously but keep the atmosphere light and friendly. It was also local vintner’s night, where they have local growers and bottlers wait tables and introduce their wines.

This night, the vineyard was Ceritas. Grown on a rocky slope at the Escarpa Vineyard in the Burgundy tradition, their 2007 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir was outstanding, probably one of the best Pinots I’ve ever tasted. They only get about 70 cases off the land, and they’ve sunk their life savings into this vineyard, but I bet it will pay off for them in spades. The wine will be available in August, 2009.

The lovely waitress at Scopa suggested we drive the 128 back to Napa. It’s a windy road, but the sun was just getting ready to set and the vineyards were sheathed in the gloaming’s glow – it’s always my favorite time of day, but this was especially gorgeous. The drive took nearly an hour, but it was so worth it.

We rolled into Napa wanting to taste one more wine for the day. We found ourselves at UVA, a lovely Italian restaurant (are you seeing a pattern here???) We had glasses of Monticello Sangiovese and desert – a strawberry tiramisu for me, flourless chocolate for Randy. Throw in a decaf cappuccino and it was time to call it a day. We popped KISS THE GIRLS into the DVD player, lit the fire, and crashed.

Just think. On the last day of my third decade, I was in a forest, on a beach, in a vineyard, ate in two Italian restaurants, drank several gorgeous glasses of wine, watched a movie, had a fire, and did all of the above with the man I love. Every favorite thing in my world. It was one of those perfect, special days that couldn’t be planned if you tried. Sometimes, the road less travelled does pay dividends.

Next Week: DAY THREE, the Rubicon Estate, and how I managed to slip Francis Ford Coppola a note.

There are plenty more photos of the trip here and here.

A Family Story

Before I start…wanted to let you know I’m holding another sweepstakes to win an advanced copy of my new Quinn novel SHADOW OF BETRAYAL, due in stories July 7th (July 2nd in the UK under the title THE UNWANTED.) Details here.

By Brett Battles

This week my parents are up in Seattle visiting my mom’s dad. He’s going to be 97 this summer, and while he’s obviously been a pretty hearty guy, he’s starting to slowdown. Still, come on…97? That’s some pretty good gene stock to be from. Way to go grandpa!

Even more interesting? Until about 12 years ago, he wasn’t even part of any of our lives.

See my grandmother was a bit of a flighty gal, God love her. By the time she died, she’d been married 3 times. The man I now know as grandpa was the first. He apparently came around during a break grandma was having with her boyfriend, a guy she got together with again after grandpa was out of the picture. Boyfriend, a nice guy my mom tells me, became husband #2.

That didn’t last either. After he was gone, and this was when my mom was still a girl, grandma met and married the man who would stay with her to the end, the man that for many years I thought was my mom’s dad, not step-dad.

Husband #3 was one of those step-parents who insist that they come first ahead of pre-existing kids…in other words my mom. For some reason, my grandmother indulged him. Needless to say, he and my mom didn’t have the best of relationships.
For some reason, my mom’s step dad took a liking to me, and we bonded over a love of baseball, so I have nothing but good memories of him. But if you ask my brother and sister, their experience with him was much the same as my mother’s growing up.

Anyway, circling back to husband #1 – the man I now know as grandpa. It was the mid 1930s in Los Angeles…depression time. Grandpa was having a hard time finding a job, plus I have a feeling he could already read the writing on the wall, so he picked up and moved back to the northwest where he had family and knew he could get work. He did ask his pregnant wife to come with him, but grandma had no interest in moving out of L.A.

So that was the end of that.

Unlike these days, it was very easy back then to loose touch. And that’s what happened. Grandpa, who was a thousand miles away when his daughter was born, did exchange a few letters with my grandmother’s sister, but after a while even that stopped.

When I first heard that the grandpa I knew wasn’t my mom’s biological dad I was probably 15. My immediate reaction was, of course, surprise. Over the years since then, I’ve made the suggestion now and then that she should try to find her biological dad. For years she said she might, but I could tell she was reluctant, so I didn’t push too much.

Then, after my grandmother passed away, I got a call from my mom. She told me she’d hired a company that looked for people. Within less than a week they had an address for the man who had moved away before she was even born. We were all surprised that he was still be alive, it meant he was somewhere in his eighties…(turns out he was 85 at the time).

Mom hesitated again, just a little bit this time, but finally wrote him a letter. I believe he called her right after receiving and reading it. And the next thing we knew, he’d driven down from Seattle to my parents’ house in California.

To my mom’s credit, though she had some tough questions about why he never got back in touch with her, she put that to the side. It helped that Grandpa is actually a really nice guy, and easy to like. In the twelve years since they reconnected, their relationship, and all of our relationships with him, have deepened.

And, on top of everything, we have this really cool family story now.

While this probably sounds like it’s a post about my grandfather, what it’s really about is my mom – the life she had to put up with, the willingness to take a chance and reach out, the ability to put old hurts aside, and, ultimately, the decision to not let any of the bad stuff affect her outlook on life.

She’s been one of my biggest supporters, always encouraging my writing and anything else I wanted to try. In fact, and this is a true story, after they named me when I was born, she said to my dad, “Brett Battles…that would be a great name for an author.” HA! Hilarious, but true. I guess I was predestined from almost Day One. Everything I’ve become is due in large part to my mom.

Thanks mom, and have a great mother’s day!

Against the Wind

by Rob Gregory Browne

IMAGINE THIS SCENE FROM A MOVIE:

It’s 1983. A woman sits behind a typewriter, finishing up a page. When she’s done, she types THE END, pulls the page out and adds it to a large stack next to her on the desk.

She smiles, then goes to a liquor cabinet, pulls out a bottle, and pours a drink to toast a job well done.

All is good in her world.

NOW IMAGINE THIS ONE INSTEAD:

It’s 1983. A woman sits behind a typewriter, crying her eyes out as she finishes up a page and types THE END. She pulls the page out, adds it to the stack on her desk, but she’s crying so hard that she has to blow her nose. She reaches for a tissue, but the box is empty. So she gets up, still sobbing, and goes to the bathroom, looking for some toilet paper. The roll is empty.

Moving about the house, she steps into the kitchen and grabs a note off the refrigerator — one that says BUY TOILET PAPER — and uses it as a makeshift kleenex. Then, moving back into her living room, she opens a cabinet, pulls out a tiny bottle of “airplane” liquor, intending to use it for a toast, but when she tries to get the cap off, it won’t budge. It takes all of her strength to get the cap loose and she finally makes her toast.

And it’s quite obvious that this woman is a complete mess.

Okay.

Now, tell me, which of these scenes would you rather watch?

Me, I’ll go with the second one. In fact I have, in a wonderful movie called Romancing the Stone. And I think most people would be much less inclined to fall asleep during version two than they would if subjected to version one.

Version one just sits there. LAYS there, in fact.

Why?

Because it has no conflict.

As you may have guessed by now, I’m piggy-backing on yesterday’s post by Tess. I was so struck by the aspiring writer’s attitude that I couldn’t contain myself to just a comment.

I needed more space.

And while I was certainly struck by the refusal of the woman in question to face reality and take the advice of the multitude of people who had tried to give her constructive criticism, what got me most of all was her insistence that her story just didn’t need any conflict.

I’m sorry — what was that again?

Conflict is the cornerstone of storytelling. Conflict is what grabs our interest, makes us want to continue watching or reading. And this isn’t just limited to movies and novels.

How many of us would watch the news if all we saw were happy, feel-good stories? People THRIVE on conflict, and the person who suggests that her story doesn’t need it, is completely out of touch with what good, solid storytelling is all about.

Your basic plotline — no matter what kind of book you’re writing — always centers around characters in conflict. There’s usually both an internal conflict AND an external one. And the external conflict should challenge or contribute to the character’s internal conflict (and probably vice versa).

Otherwise what is the point? If you give me a story about two people sailing through life without a care in the world other than they can’t make up their minds, then I might as well watch paint dry. I need something in that story to grab me by the heart or the throat, to give rise to my emotions. To make me laugh and cry and root for the hero. And if all the hero is doing is contemplating his or her navel, then, please, get me the hell out of there.

Now, to be fair, none of us really knows what this woman’s love story was about. And just because she wasn’t able to articulate the premise in a few sentences, does not mean it’s terrible.

But based on her apparent disdain for the concept of conflict, I’d say the chances are pretty good that it won’t set the publishing world on fire. Many of you said as much.

So does this mean that all love stories suck? Of course not. Some of the greatest stories ever told have been love stories. There are a boatload of pretty wonderful romances — the books this woman so despises — out there, and they have conflict up the wazoo.

What about coming of age stories? Again, no. They don’t all suck. One of my favorite books of all time is James Kirkwood’s There Must Be a Pony, about a teenage boy coping with a troubled, movie star mother. Kirkwood was a wonderful writer who certainly understood what makes a good story tick.

There is a writer/teacher, now dead, whose name unfortunately escapes me at the moment (maybe someone can remind me), who likened a story to a basketball game.

You have opposing characters. Two teams. Each of those teams has a goal: to make as many points as possible by putting a ball through a small “basket” at the opposite end of the court.

But because these teams are both determined to get the most points, one side puts up all kinds of obstacles to try to prevent the other side from reaching their goal.

This is conflict at its finest. Its most compelling. And if you have a vested interest in one of those teams, you will scream and cheer and jump up and down whenever they encounter and, hopefully, overcome those obstacles.

If all you had was a single team bouncing a ball down the court with no one to challenge them —

— nobody would watch.

And it’s no different for storytelling. Your characters must have a goal — no matter how trivial it might seem — and they must have strong opposition to that goal.

Conflict is one of the most essential elements of telling a good story. Sharing that moment when a character overcomes conflict is what lifts us. What thrills us. What sends us soaring.

As Hamilton Mabie once said, “A kite rises against, not with, the wind.”

And anyone who doesn’t — or refuses — to understand that had better learn it fast or give up storytelling altogether.

Won’t take advice? Good luck.

by Tess Gerritsen

I’m a big fan of persistence. Anyone who’s listened to me talk about what makes a writer successful will almost always hear me say that persistence is one of the characteristics of the successful author. The business is designed to weed out those of us who don’t have the determination to keep writing, through rejection after rejection. But the flip side of persistence is sheer, blind stubbornness, and that is just as likely to doom your chances of making it as a writer.

I ran into just such an example of blind stubbornness a few weeks ago. I was attending a writing conference and had the chance to meet many aspiring novelists. Over lunch, I got into a conversation with two of those unpublished novelists, and asked them about their work. Both had completed their manuscripts. Both were eager to tell me about their plots. The gentleman on my right, an attorney, quickly launched into his premise. Within three sentences, he had me hanging on his words. I got that wonderful punch in the gut that told me: Yes! This guy has a story I want to read! I don’t want to give it away because it’s his plot, not mine. All I can tell you is that he was able to tell me in short order who his main character was, what motivated that character, and what the over-arching crisis was. And it was a doozy.

I then turned to the writer on my left. She too had completed her manuscript — in fact, she was almost finished with her second. It took her about ten minutes to tell me what the story was about, and basically it was this: a man and a woman are in love, but the man decides to go to sea, and spends the whole novel coming to the realization that he loves the woman enough to give up his seafaring life and marry her. In the meantime, the woman has to convince her family that she belongs with this man. Finally, in the very last chapter, the man and woman meet up again and get married. The end.

I asked the writer, “What’s the major challenge these characters face? Other than finally making up their minds?”

She said, “That is the challenge.”

Is there something keeping them apart? A villain, perhaps? Someone or something that keeps them from their goal?”

“No. The real story is about how the woman finally grows up and decides that she shouldn’t listen to anyone else, only her own heart.”

“But what’s the conflict?” I asked her. “Something external, not just two people fighting with their doubts?”

“Oh,” she said. “I hate conflict! I don’t understand why stories always have to have conflict. It’s so formulaic.”

I told her, quite honestly: “Without a central conflict, the story sounds like it might have a hard time selling.”

She gave a dismissive wave. “That’s what the agents keep telling me. All they ask for is conflict, conflict, conflict! “

She had submitted the manuscript to dozens of agents and editors. Needless to say, no one wanted it. So she’d gone the self-publishing route, and all her friends told her the book was a work of genius. “I’ve decided that this book deserves to be hand-sold,” she said. “Not handled like all that popular junk out there.”

(Which is probably what she thinks my books are.)

The conversation, I’m afraid, didn’t much improve over the course of that lunch. I kept trying to offer her bits of advice. Based on the plot description, I thought the book sounded like it belonged in the romance genre. “And if it’s a romance,” I told her, “There’s a problem with keeping the hero and heroine apart for the entire story.”

“I hate romance novels,” she said.

“But it’s a love story, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but it’s not a romance. It’s not one of those books.”

“Have you read many romance novels?” I asked her.

“I’ve tried. But they’re all so horrible.”

“So what is your book? How would you categorize it?”

“It’s not any genre at all,” she said. (By that point, I think she was pretty well fed up with my asking her idiotic questions. After all, who the hell was I but a popular fiction author?) “It’s something bigger! It’s — why, it’s a coming of age novel!” she said.

At that point, I think she expected me to genuflect. But secretly, I was thinking: Oh no! Another one of those dreaded coming-of-age manuscripts. Not that there’s anything wrong with a coming-of-age novel — it’s just that so many of them are written by people who can’t sell theirs, and they proclaim loudly that it’s because publishers only buy crap. They can’t come up with any other explanation for why no one wants their work of genius.

Even though this particular writer had heard the same advice from multiple agents, she refused to believe that there was anything wrong with her manuscript. No, the problem was with everyone else — the agents, the editors, the monolithic monster known as New York publishing. Everyone, including yours truly, was telling her that her story needed a central conflict, but she refused to re-write her novel. She was right, and everyone else was wrong.

Now, it’s true that you can’t always trust the advice that others give you. During my career, I’ve been told not to write a series, only stand-alones, because “stand-alones always sell better”. I’ve been told that I should stick with medical thrillers and not write crime novels. I considered that advice carefully, and eventually chose to go with my own instincts. But the point is, I did listen.

Even established writers don’t have total control over their creations. We listen when editors tell us our stories still need work. We listen when the marketing department tells us our “perfect” book titles are clunkers. We’ve learned to accept advice and work as part of the team, because even though writing may be a solitary profession, the business of publishing is not.

Autodigititis

This is the second in my series about occupational hazards for writers.

Lately I’ve become aware of a chronic condition that has dire consequences for my future relationships with copyeditors, my agent and others.

I can trace it back to when I was eleven. That late 1960s’ summer, my mother decided I needed a skill of some sort. While I thought my guitar playing had money-making potential, she insisted on something more mundane. Beginning on the second day of my vacation, I had to walk four miles every day to my pediatrician’s house.

No. I wasn’t sick yet . . .

It was his wife I had to see. Mrs. Levin was a retired typing teacher. She’d spent decades at a “business college” teaching future secretaries how to hit those keys—quickly and accurately.

So for three months while other kids splashed at pools and played in the sun, I sat in a small pantry that had been converted into an office and typed juj juj juj juj ftf ftf ftf fuf fuf fuc fuc . . .uck uck uck . . .

It was hell.

I hated it.

I’m pretty sure that’s when my condition began, though it had a long incubation period.

After 90 days – yes, I had to practice on weekends too – I could type faster than I could think. (It was a more amazing feat back then than it is now). Since that time, my hands have flitted easily on any keyboard, my fingers tap-tapping words without inhibition. With few dexterity issues to block me, I could write whatever wild images came to mind.

However, I’ve noticed that my fingers don’t cooperate as much as they used to. This isn’t the beginning of arthritis . . . or dementia. It’s motor stubbornness, autodigititis – the odd accumulation of habits that I never realized I had acquired.

The worst offender is any word that starts with “par.” I am simply incapable of typing it without adding that damn “i” at the end.

Pariticipate.

Paritition.

Let’s parity.

Not up to pari.

There are other words that stump me too — not because I don’t know how to spell them, but because my fingers want to go somewhere else:

New Mexican always ends up as New Mexico

Michael is always, always Micheal

Does is always doesn’t first.

Apple is Appel (That’s my grandmother’s maiden name. I could use that as an excuse but I didn’t know her much and thought of her even less frequently. Perhaps it’s genetically encoded?)

Familiar and familial become family.

And forget words that end in “on” instead of “ion.” I’ve mistyped Allison more times than I’m willing to admit.

On it goes . . .

I don’t know why my fingers work this way, but they do.

Am I the only person with this affliction? Should I hie me to a yoga retreat to slow both mind and body?

Or . . .

Do you suffer from this too?

If so, what are your symptoms?

Perhaps . . . together we can beat this insidious disease before it bates . . . oops . . . beats us.

focus

By Toni McGee Causey

This past week, I finished proofreading book 3, WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON, and sent it off next day to the publisher, and then I promptly died.

Okay, not entirely dead. Just mostly dead. Apparently, not hanging onto details real well, either, since I absolutely thought I had to be somewhere at noon today (as I write this, Saturday), and it turns out that it’s next Saturday at noon. Good thing it wasn’t last Saturday, huh? My mom said, “But I sent you an email with the date, and you responded.” I probably did. When I’m on deadline, I’ll agree to just about anything that will make the noise of whoever is talking to me go away so I can finish the sentence (or rend my hair). She could’ve written, “By the way, I’ve decided to store a thermo-nuclear weapon in your office, do you mind?” and I would’ve said, “Sure! Over there! Corner! Bye!”

My kids got away with murder when I was like this. (And sometimes, still do.) I have been known to forget major events, family. I am not even telling you how many times things caught fire in the kitchen. (Which was really embarrassing when the oven was just ten or so feet from my desk and I heard my oldest son shouting, “MOM!! MOM!!” and I looked up, saw him standing there, pointing to the oven… which was billowing black smoke while the fire alarm blared. Um. Yeah. This is why I do not cook.)

Über focus. Tunnel vision. Going with the flow. Or, as I like to put it, mad freaking panic. Steep incline, wet roads, no brakes. Get ‘er done.

It is really amazing how creative you can be when you have to be.

Now. That said, I am totally brain dead. [Brain dead enough to not realize that I agreed to PAINT THE SPARE BEDROOM. I would not be the least bit surprised to find out I agreed to purchase some sort of new fangled gadget that would assure me world domination or thinner thighs. (Wow. Wouldn’t that combo be great?)]

Anyway.

As you can see, I’m a goner. I think the only thing I’ve managed to do since then is Twitter (I can sort of manage 140 characters). (sort of) (barely)

So tell me, because I know I cannot be the only one, what have you forgotten to do… or gotten yourself committed to doing… while you were super focused? Bonus points for the craziest.

Write Like They’re Dead

By Cornelia Read

So, my mother is really pissed at me this week. I kind of don’t care, which has made my sister and my uncle and all my mom’s friends also pissed at me. On the other hand, my friends, my dad, and my sister’s carpenter think everyone pissed at me should get the hell over themselves already. Which is nice. (My niece just says, “With family like this, who needs television?”)

The basic issue is the way I portrayed Mom in my forthcoming novel, Invisible Boy. I told her a year ago that she wasn’t going to like it, since I was dealing with her most execrable choice in our long line of stepfathers, the one who molested my little sister (that part described with my sister’s permission, for which I’m very grateful.) Not to mention Mom’s refusal to stop hanging out with the guy socially even after my sister finally got up the courage to tell her what had happened, some ten years later (or, you know, apologize for having made us live with a shithead sexual-predator fucktard for five years.)

My general attitude at this point is half “The Truth Shall Set You Free” and half “Payback’s a bitch, bitch”—with a smidge of Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense in there somewhere, too.

Anyway, God help anyone whose children write hugely autobiographical novels. I’d be grateful if mine become investment bankers, you know?

The manuscript’s on its way to the copy editors, I’ve said my piece, and Mom’s welcome to write her own book. I just wish her seventieth birthday party and my little brother’s graduation from the California Maritime Academy weren’t this weekend. O joy, o rapture.

I have no doubt that the crap parts of my childhood are what made me a writer—gave me the urge to forge the uncreated conscience of my race in the smithy of my soul and all that. Something about having been denied a voice in the midst of a bunch of evil bullshit grownups as a kid made me want to goddamn own the narrative when I grew up. I know I’m very fucking lucky it turned out this way, in the end, though it’s a little weird to have my mojo prevail in such a profundity of spades, too.

That being said, it would be nice if the critics actually like the thing, not to mention the people who will be generous enough to buy a copy next March. It would suck to be disowned over a shitty book, you know?

On the bright side, I’m on a plane to New York right now, leaving the whole mess 3000 miles away for a good forty-eight hours. Also, I’m watching the Oxford eight row against Cambridge on my Jetblue TV, and all the boys are so pretty.

How about you, ‘Ratis? Ever piss anyone off with your writing? Ever want to?