Ghosts Must Do Again

By Ken Bruen

AND GHOSTS MUST DO AGAIN …

Those lines by Auden continue with

WHAT GIVES THEM PAIN

What brings those lines to the forefront of my mind are the posts by Dusty and Alex about sometimes hating writing. Oh horror, heresy etc. A writer not always loving their craft. Arthur Miller, well into his 70’s, said every morning he sits in front of the blank page and

Feels … terror.

I don’t think any of the writers I respect ever said it was easy.

There are mornings, when I see a ton of email, I give a sigh of relief as it means I can defer actual writing for a bit. If I skip a day, for whatever reason, and don’t actually write, I feel guilty and no rationale will eradicate it.

There’s no real mystery, pardon the bad pun, to writing. You just sit down and do it.

Right.

How hard can that be?

And writers block … they say, think of your bank manager, and you’ll be back on track.

The days of blankness, when I really don’t have a single thought in my head, I just barge and blitz through it.

Blood from a stone.

Above my desk is a quote from Somerset Maugham. Now I don’t think he meant it as a curse but that’s how I interpret it, it goes

“The compulsion to write and no talent.”

Jesus wept.

I had always believed that if you wanted to write, you must have some talent, however vague or latent.

One of the finest books on writing is, Becoming A Writer by Dorothea Brande and a passage in there goes

… an inclination to reverie, a love of books, the early discovery that it is
not too difficult to turn a phrase – to find any or all of these things in one’s first adolescent consciousness is to believe that one has found the inevitable, and not too formidable, vocation.

Wow, is that ever the road to ruin

As in … I want to, therefore I can.

Fook.

Malcolm Bradbury makes a wonderful point

“Good writers are generally, first and foremost, good readers.”

Amen.

In my experience, the best writing comes at a personal cost, when the words have to be gouged from your very soul and for that reason, they ring true.

There are the bleak dark days when you write and think

“Christ, this sucks.”

You do it anyway.

Then sometimes, not too often, you hit on magic, the words jell, the writing sings and you don’t need a critic or another person to tell you it’s good.

You know and there is no better feeling on the whole planet.

In its very rarity, lies its conviction.

Recently, finishing up a new book, it was the usual slog, the uphill battle and then, voila, I hit paydirt, a whole page of dark alchemy. I didn’t stop to wonder where it came from, or what put it into play, I just went with it.

Then the acid test, how did it read the next day.

God almighty, it was even better than I thought.

After more than twenty books, I’ve had that feeling maybe three times.

The edit came back a few weeks later with that whole passage deleted and the comment

“This doesn’t work at all and is not up to your usual standard.”

Deflation?

Take a wild guess.

And then you have to shrug, mutter, however darkly

“The hell do I know?”

The end question

“When is a writer done?’

Like, retiring?

For me, it’s when they prise my cold dead fingers from the keyboard.

My wife used to say, on being asked what it was like to live with a writer

“It’s not a problem as long as you know you’re only part of the plot.”

Is there anything else I’d rather be doing?

No.

January has come in cold and wet, no surprise, it’s expected. But on Jan 4th, I was up at the crack as usual, had me first cup of coffee, got stuck into my writing and didn’t actually raise the blinds till nearly 7.15 and went

“Holy hell.”

Snow.

And heavy snow.

We don’t do snow in Galway, unless you mean one of the many terms for cocaine.

My daughter is 15 and she has never seen snow, apart from movies, Christmas cards and her Geography books.

But the real deal, never.

We went out into the yard and her eyes, lit up in wonder, truly enchanted at it.

She was lit up for the whole day.

Next day, it was gone and her face, like she’d lost something truly precious, and she asked me

“Will it come back?’

I didn’t know

I said

“It might.”

Like the snow, you never quite know what any day will bring.

Lou Boxer, undefeatable organizer of Noir Con sent me a beautiful card with the greeting

Leaves tremble

Roots remain still

Blessed be.

Later in the day, I meet with an ex –nun, who used to work at The Magdalen and after she left the convent, she wrote a superb play on the laundries. She is a fine poet and we went for coffee to celebrate her new book of poems. They are quite extraordinary, and later, I’m still so taken with them, that I write her a long email , extolling them. She phones me and asks would I be willing to write an introduction to the collection.

I would.

And did.

Because of the nature of my books, I am perceived here as anti-clerical, despite the fact that I taught my daughter her prayers in Irish and one of my closest friends is a priest. It seems incredible now that when I attended Trinity, Catholics had to secure permission from the bishop.

I went to meet with him and he was a notorious bully. I asked if I might have permission to attend and he snapped

“What’s wrong with our own Universities?”

I tried to explain that the course I wished to follow was only available at Trinity.

He refused me permission.

I went anyway and I remember a friend commenting

“You’re like … excommunicated.’

Woe is me.

On the outside, which is a place I think writers thrive.

Least I do.

The final word I’ll leave to my Rabbi, David, who shared with me, from The Talmud

“Learning is more important than action-

When the learning leads to action.”

And lest I got too deep, he added

“Logic is neat

Life is messy”

This morning, I was up earlier than usual and you guessed it

Praying for snow.

A line of Bruce from Thunder Road uncoiling in my head, jelling with Auden

“The ghosts of all the girls you sent away."

Objectionable content

by Pari

You’d think a traditional mystery writer would know how to keep her nose clean. And yet every book I write contains elements that someone, somewhere, finds objectionable.

Usually, I can anticipate the problem spots. In CLOVIS, I figured it would be the UFO theme, and, yes, the talking cat. "Is this a mystery or science fiction?" people wanted to know. "Is this another cutesy kitty book? " "Do you believe in UFOs?"

In BELEN, I knew I’d catch some flack about the religiosity vs spirituality theme. And guess what? The worst review I got for that book came from the Salt Lake City Tribune. Coincidence? I’m just sayin’ . . .

With THE SOCORRO BLAST, I thought people would object to the idea that our current national paranoia squirts out, in unbecoming ways, even in small towns.

But . . .

An early ARC reader identified another potential problem. She wrote, "You realize, of course, the trouble you’re going to get into with the bulk of the organized Jewish community over this novel!"

Um, no, I hadn’t.

She went on with: "This is the first that I’ve seen a Jewish character telling it like it is, and ‘they’ are going to have a big fit! . . . expect the usual comments: anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, self-hating Jew, etc. etc. . . ."

I was stunned.

Sure, Sasha has major issues with her cultural and religious identity. She’s absolutely merciless in her reaction to one of her nieces, so much so that the woman can seem like a caricature. And, it’s true that Sasha and her mother have a very difficult time respecting that her sister has embraced a much more conservative form of Judaism.

That’s the point of the book!
EVERYONE has prejudices and intolerances.
It’s also a fact that we’re often hardest on those nearest to us, those we’ve known the longest. All this emotional baggage we carry becomes magnified during family crises.

On the surface, SOCORRO is a traditional, amateur sleuth mystery.
It’s a fun and interesting read.
Many people will leave it just at that.

But the truth is, I want it to be more . . .
I want it to make readers think about our personal and societal biases/fears in this post-9/11 era. I hope SOCORRO has more depth, more potential for discussion, than my first two. So, I asked UNM Press to include reader questions at the back of the novel.

I’ve even gone one step further. My sister (who holds a PhD in education) and I developed a webquest project for college students and book clubs to explore these issues in depth. While the project is in its infancy, I planned it as a supplement to the book from the get-go.

You can probably imagine my first reaction to the warning from that kind mystery reader.
It was sorrow.
I’d missed the mark, gone too far.

Then I thought about what it means to be a writer. I thought about WHY I wrote THIS particular book. I looked at the letter from New Mexico’s First Lady, Barbara Richardson, that she sent along with her blurb. In it, she wrote: "I thought the manner in which you brought in the discussion of such issues as discrimination and racism was very thought-provoking. You make the reader aware of feelings that possibly lie very close to the surface of one’s own emotions."

Wow. Mission accomplished.

Now, I’m clear. I was true to Sasha’s character and her development. I was true to her story.

My questions today are:
1. Why do some fiction writers bother taking risks with subject matter in their works?
2. Do all writers do this on some level?
3. Why not play it safe, try to make everyone happy?
4. Can you think of any examples of writers who’ve taken risks, who’ve spotlighted something a particular group of people would rather not face?

This should be an interesting discussion . . .

P.S.
THE SOCORRO BLAST goes on sale this Wednesday. I can’t tell you how excited I am!

breathing sanctuary

A little over a week ago, Andrew Olmsted had someone post his final blog; it was something he’d prepared in the event of his death. Andrew was a Major in the army, stationed in Iraq. A sniper bullet killed him and Capt. Thomas J. Casey on January 3rd, and Maj. Olmstead–a regular blogger–left words behind for his readers, friends and family.

Words.

In his post, Maj. Olmstead asks that no one politicize his death and use it to make any pro or anti war arguments, and I think that greatly reflects the man he was. What struck me, though, and has stayed with me for days, is the description of himself he put up in his sidebar. It is the description of his philosophy, the thing he’d want the world to know about him:

"This is a vanity site that gives me the opportunity to comment on current events, or anything that catches my eye. What I post here is intended to put my thoughts on particular issues up for discussion; I do not pretend to be infallible or anything close to that. When I post something, it is what I believe, but it may be based on inaccurate information or faulty analysis. Where that occurs, I look to my readers to help me find the facts and improve my analytical abilities."

I did not know him, but I would have liked him. In addition to intelligence, he obviously had a sense of humor:

"But all the tears in the world aren’t going to bring me back, so I would prefer that people remember the good things about me rather than mourning my loss. (If it turns out a specific number of tears will, in fact, bring me back to life, then by all means, break out the onions.)"

I couldn’t begin to say for certain whether or not his words brought comfort to his family and friends, but I would imagine they did. I think one of the major drives in this fundamentally isolated society we have is a desire for connection, to know that we somehow have left our thumb print on the psyche of the world. It’s one of the reasons blogging has become so popular.

Years ago, before blogging, there was "online journaling" where everything was hand coded. By the time I joined into the fray, there were probably a whopping two or three thousand online journalers. The group got so large, they were able to stage conventions where they talked about how to journal, how to write the entries, topics of interest, etc. We all joined "journal rings" which were the result of cutting edge software that allowed a reader to move from one journal to another. These rings were generally organized around something the journalers had in common: location, political affiliation, eye color. And everyone proceeded to put their life online, much to the horror and shock of their parents and family and friends. The press would occasionally note the trend, and more often than not, the article would have the air of "what are these crazy people up to?" about it. And mostly, people wondered why on earth journalers would want to put their lives up for all the world to see.

We come into this world with shouts and exclamations and we go out with someone (hopefully) saying a few words over our grave. A couple of centuries ago, the in-between of those two stages pretty much guaranteed that the world we lived in would at the very least know us: as a society, we tended to stay put. We lived near extended family, traditionally had the same friends all our lives, the same neighbors. But now, we’re often separated from family and friends by miles or continents, we move around for jobs, we have MP3 players or cell phones shoved in our ears, computers on when the family comes home for dinner (if they even all manage to get there at the same time), and a world full of news of mismanagement and war and loss and need. It’s hard to feel connected.

Words.

Friday, JT posted about the refuge she felt at the library and Saturday, Alex posted about a writing retreat, and it reminded me that we are breathing the sanctuary of words.

I got a letter a few weeks ago that meant a lot to me. A woman wrote that her mom was dying of cancer and things there had been incredibly tense and difficult; she’d read my book and in the middle of all of that heartache, she’d laughed until she cried. If I could have ever chosen a few words to say about me at the end, I would choose her letter. I know the things (the life philosophies, the themes) that creep into my writing on what I’d like to say to and about the world. But if all that fails and I’m gone and the only thing the world sees is what my writing says about me, and it’s that laughter is a gift to share, then I’m good with that.

Words. Sanctuary. Refuge. Remembrance. Future.

When we write, we hope to entertain. Connect. We’d like to consider what we have to say to the world and look at our writing as a venue. But I think we also know that the words have a window back into our soul. So what does your writing say about you? Readers, what does your favorite author’s books say about them?

Retreat

by Alex

I’m out of town this week at this writers’ retreat: www. Weymouthcenter.org RGB was talking about synchronicity this week – here’s one for you.

I’ve been to this retreat once before – it’s a fantastic thing. Any North Carolina writer who applies for the Artist in Residence program can spend up to two weeks a year at Weymouth. (Sorry, no photos – there’s only dial up, here! Which means much, much more writing gets done, of course…)

I got sucked into this wonderful program by the Raleigh mystery writers (I should say goddesses or divas!) I hang with: Margaret Maron, Sarah Shaber, Diane Chamberlain, Katy Munger, Kathy Trocheck and Diane Chamberlain. We’re more a regular lunch group than a critique group, but when we go on retreat, which we’re starting to do frequently, we convene at night to brainstorm on any problem that any one of us is having (and of course, compare page counts).

Weymouth is an amazing place – a 9000 sq. foot house on 1200 acres (including several formal gardens and a 9-hole golf course) that’s really three houses melded together. It was a “Yankee Pleasure Plantation” in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the fox hunting lodge of coal magnate James Boyd. James Boyd’s grandson James rebelled against the family business to become, what else? – a novelist. Boyd wrote historical novels and his editor was the great Maxwell Perkins (“Editor of Genius”), and in the 1920’s and 30’s Weymouth was a Southern party venue for the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, and Thomas Wolfe. That literary aura pervades the house, especially the library, with all its photos and portraits of the writers who have stayed at the house.

It’s a fantastic place to write – pages just fly. And for me it’s particularly great to be here because I’m presently writing another haunted house story – two professors take a group of psychically gifted students into a house with a history of poltergeist manifestations. And Weymouth is the model of the house I’m using, so here I am, inside my own novel.

The synchronicity I mentioned before is that the other mystery writers scheduled a Weymouth retreat months ago, and we came down to the house on the very day that my characters were moving into THEIR haunted house.

I’m telling you, writing is a little scary.

More than a little scary, in this case. My pages are going well, but I am writing about a haunting, after all, and every time I turn around there’s knocking on the walls (the pipes in the kitchen), weird manifestations (a team of horses trotting by with a buggy on the road outside) and rooms that are just literally too creepy to go into after dark. Last night I had to go all the way back upstairs, across the upstairs hall and around to the front stairs to get to a room I wanted to go to because I was too freaked out to cross the Great Room in the dark.

It’s good, though – I wake up with whole scenes in my head. And given my deadline (talk about scary) it’s being lifesaving to have this turbocharged atmosphere to work in.

I’m lucky – unlike authors with children and day jobs, I don’t have that much to have to escape from in my regular life – I write full time and theoretically I can do just as much or more at home as I could on retreat, because I have all my books and files and library all around me. But this whole experience has sold me on the writers’ retreat thing. There’s nothing like committing to nothing but writing for a certain number of days. The work you get done is exponential, and your subconscious gets loaded up with all kinds of new images that will undoubtedly work their way into some other story.

But if you don’t hear from me next week, you’ll know why.

The house got me.

Ex Libris

J.T. Ellison

I grant thou wert not married to my Muse
And therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book

Sonnet LXXXII, William Shakespeare

I’ve not had the most auspicious start to my new year. A rather unpleasant allergic reaction meant a trip to the doctor, a shot in the bum, and a prescription for a funny little drug called Atarax, which has well-deserved warning labels — DO NOT DRIVE, DO NOT DRINK, DO NOT PASS GO… okay, I added that last one, but that’s what it felt like. Because when you take one of these puppies, you need to be prepared to leave the planet temporarily.

Grumpy and itchy and feeling like a horse kicked me in the hip, I left the doctor and needed to kill a few moments while I waited for my prescription to be filled. To sooth my wounded ego, I decided to drop by the library and pick up a book I ordered that had just come in. Why not, right? If I’m going to be ill, I may as well enjoy myself.

I parked and started in. A little old woman, and I’m being as literal as possible — she was tiny, shriveled, with suspiciously blue hair and stick legs under too bulky clothes — came charging out of the doors. Clutched in her gnarled, heavily veined hands was THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE.

She passed me, and I smiled at her. She gave me an unfathomably severe look and kept on going.

Was she a teacher, perhaps? Had she decided she needed a refresher? Or was she like me, just in love with old Will, and wanted to immerse herself in the glory that is his work? Maybe she’d never read him, and he was on her Bucket List. Doesn’t matter. In the midst of my misery, it made me happy. A moment of grace.

It’s the reading that binds us, you see.

Genre matters not a whit. It’s the revelation that comes from the written word, the visceral reaction to the story, the telepathic communication we have when we discuss a book with our friends. Our love of this hallowed form permits entry into the most elite of all secret societies. Don’t you hear people say "I haven’t ever read a book," or "I haven’t read a book since I was in school?" Don’t you feel sorry for them?

Not to be an elitist, but really, as readers, our lives are simply richer than non-readers. We have the gift of imagination. It is the greatest gift in the world.

After my epiphanous interlude with the blue lady and her Shakespeare, I went into the little building. It was busy. They must have just finished a program — ours has tracks for both seniors and children. The lobby was chock full of people, young and old, milling about, getting books off the shelves, reading magazines. The warmth flowed through my chest again. It is so damn good to see people excited to read. It makes my world complete.

I don’t make resolutions, per se, but for the new year, I did commit to spend more of my time reading and less playing on the computer. To that end, I’ve been stocking up on books. I traded a slew of material in at McKay’s, our used book emporium, and brought home several books by Stephen King and Ursula Le Guin, a few of the ones Alex has been talking about here recently, including the POISONWOOD BIBLE, the new Richard Russo, a couple of Harlan Coben’s, and THE SHADOW OF THE WIND, which my friend Mary Saums recommended months ago. Books. BOOKS. Bliss.

You’d think that was enough to hold me for a while, but as I started playing in the library, my arms were suddenly full. I was like a child with a cotton candy machine at my beck and call. "Spin me some more! More! MORE!"

Over the years, I’ve discovered so many writers at the library. After we moved to Tennessee, before I made any friends and started writing myself, it was my refuge. There aren’t a lot of bookstores in my part of town, and I didn’t know my way around well enough to venture out alone. But the library was right down the street. I’d see something that interested me, get the book, read it, and subsequently rush out and buy the rest of the series. Several names came to me because of my library. John Sandford. John Connolly. Lee Child. Laura Lippman. Karin Slaughter. Tess Gerritsen. Barry Eisler. I became a devoted fan for life of all of these incredible writers, all because of a random chance in the stacks.

With the advent of their computerized ordering system, I don’t spend a lot of time browsing in our library anymore. It’s relatively small, and of late, I’ve just ordered the books I need online, then run inside in a hurry to grab the title. Many I simply buy directly from our bookstores, though I’d be homeless if I bought at the rate that I read. After a rough year of deadlines and projects, just twenty minutes in the library stacks felt like coming home.

More than coming home. I felt like me again.

What has given you a moment of grace lately?

Wine of the Week: Woop-Woop Shiraz. and a few extras to boot, to say thanks to the lovely lady from Down Under who made my week. Besides, it fits how I feel after popping one of these little pills. Whoop – whoop!

All Roads Lead To …

Zoë Sharp

I read Brett’s debut post last week and thought it might be a good idea to give my own road into writing. OK, so actually it was more of a clasping at straws in the desperation of a blank mind in the face of so much wit and insight. Apologies to those who’ve already been bored to tears by me at conventions and heard any or all of this before.

I took a weird path into this game. Is there a normal one? I wasn’t a noted student, opted out of mainstream education at the age of twelve and did correspondence courses until I was legally old enough to go out and get a job. The local authority sent me to see a careers advisor when I was fifteen or so. I told him I was interested in writing. He said, "We’ll put you down for clerical."

I’d already written my first novel by then. It still sits, unpublished, in a folder in the attic. A children’s story, but no fledgling Harry Potter. My father threatens every now and again to dig it out and see if it will fly on eBay. I have it well hidden.

A few years later I ended up at my local newspaper, selling display advertising – the ads in the front half of the paper, rather than the classifieds. A soulless job if ever there was one. Everybody suspects that half the money they spend on advertising is wasted, but they don’t know which half so they resent spending any of it. I lasted six months of impossible targets and nail-biting deadlines and picked up a temporary heart murmur for my pains. Towards the end, my manager – knowing I wouldn’t stay past the probationary period – asked the editor if there was any chance the editorial side would take me on. I’d already written advertorial copy and he knew that’s where my interest lay. The editor turned him down flat. "No qualifications." They fired me.

I looked at getting those qualifications. Seven years of study just to become a cub reporter. I gave it up. Instead I sold pensions, delivered yachts, taught people to ride horses, and a few other things I thought might turn into long-term careers but didn’t. During this period I acquired my first car – a broken-down Triumph Spitfire MkIV wearing more different colours of paint than Joseph, with a six-inch nail holding one of the front brake calipers in place. Not my first choice, but the best I could get for the money. I rebuilt it, worked out how to make it go round corners, resprayed it Brooklands green. And started to write about it.

Before I knew it, I was writing for the classic car magazines. In 1988, with an arrogance that frankly shocks me now, on the basis of a couple of accepted articles I gave up my job – no loss there – and turned freelance full time. It was four years before one of my magazine editors asked me what qualifications I had. By that time I could tell them they’d been sending me cheques for four years. What more did they want?

The freelance market was good, the rates reasonable, so I expanded the scope of my work. An editor asked could I supply words and pictures? I borrowed a camera and gave it a try. My fiction writing ambitions went on the back burner, until something happened to revive them.

I was sent to see a bloke in south Wales to do an interview. But when I arrived it soon became clear that the car I was supposed to be featuring didn’t … actually exist. And he looked kind of shifty when I turned up with my Other Half, Andy, in tow. The bloke made some sort of lame excuse and we left, annoyed at the wasted trip. It was only afterwards that I started to wonder what he had planned. I’d made an appointment, so he couldn’t claim he wasn’t expecting me. The only thing that had thrown him was that I hadn’t come alone. And what then?

A couple of years previously, Brit real estate agent Susie Lamplugh disappeared after going to show a prospective buyer round an empty house. She was never found. It struck a chord. Especially when, after that abortive interview, every time my picture appeared alongside a regular column I was writing in one of the classic car mags, I got death-threat letters. Professionally done, with the words cut out of newspaper like a ransom note. Telling me I was scum, telling me they knew where I lived and my days were numbered.

The only good point about the whole thing was that the letters were going to the magazine’s London address, not to my home, so clearly the ‘we know where you are’ bit was something of an exaggeration. Nevertheless, it freaked me out. The police never tracked down who’d actually sent them.

As for my reaction, I learned self-defence from a little black belt karate and kyushu jitsu instructor with a benevolent smile and steel fingers. I did not, as has been erroneously stated in the past, learn to shoot in order to protect myself. I probably would have done, but it was mostly illegal in the UK by then and, besides, I could already shoot to competition standard.

But I did start to write fiction again. Maybe it was a form of escape, of regaining control. Maybe it was a desire to create a world where the bad guys died screaming. I wanted a strong female lead who wouldn’t buckle when she was put under threat, and one day Charlie Fox turned up on the doorstep of my mind, fully formed, with an attitude and a motorbike, a traumatic past, a failed military career, friends who loved her. She said, "I’ve got a story to tell. You might want to write this down." I didn’t argue.

And, in one of those little tweaks of fate that so rarely happen, several years after I turned freelance I got a call from the publisher of the newspaper who’d sacked me, offering me the editorship of another paper in the same group. I let them take me out for a very nice lunch to discuss the position, then turned them down. Maybe I should have told them I simply wasn’t qualified …

Synchronicity

by Robert Gregory Browne

I grew up playing with tape recorders.
My father was something of a gadget geek and he made sure he had one
of the first reel to reel tape decks when they became available to
consumers. I can’t remember the make or model, but it was one of the
most glorious things I can remember owning. I spent hours recording
my voice then speeding it up to sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks.

When I got older, I fell in love with
old radio shows, so a lot of my time was spent locked in my room,
trying to emulate the western shows I heard on nostalgia radio. I
created characters and voiced all the voices — yes, I was a complete
and utter nerd — and added sound effects and music.

Around the same time, I started using
the family Super 8 movie camera to make super hero movies. We didn’t
have the luxury of sync sound in those days, so in high school, when
I shot and edited a blatant rip-off of the movie Deliverance (minus
the squeal like a pig scene), I was forced to use non-sync sound when
we played the movie for executives from Fuji films, who went on to
sponsor the short in a national filmmaking contest.

All throughout these years I played
guitar and a bit of keyboard. I had been writing songs since the
age of thirteen and a few years later won a couple of local
songwriting contests.

During that same time, I also loved to
draw. For many years I was convinced I was going to be a commercial
artist, and even took a job at my local television station as an
assistant to the art director.

When home computers became available, I
took to them immediately, learning to do some minor programming and
jumping onto the Internet long before it became a household word.

And, of course, there was writing. I
wrote my first "short story" in intermediate school,
penning a cops and robbers tale that may or may not have had an
ending. As I got older, I started writing episodes of my favorite TV
shows — Rockford Files, Harry O, Hawaii Five-0 — in hopes that I’d
somehow be able to break in.

As you can see, I had a number of
different interests as I was growing up.

And that was my problem. During all
those years, I was so torn between being a writer, a rock star, an
artist, a computer geek and a filmmaker that I had absolutely no idea which to choose.
It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I finally decided to
concentrate on one thing — writing — and when I turned 35, I won a
Nicholl Fellowship and sold my first screenplay.

Now, many years later, I find myself
beginning my sophomore year as a novelist — the thing I believe I
was meant to do all along. It took me a helluva long time to figure
that out, but here I am, for better or worse.

But what I find truly amazing is that
it seems that all those years I spent pursuing those different interests were
simply preparation for this phase of my life. Why?

Because now — amazingly enough — in
addition to writing, I find myself utilizing all of the other skills
I acquired along the way to help me promote this career I’ve finally
discovered.

My love of audio recording has helped
me learn the art of podcasting. Fellow Killer Year and Murderati
blogger Brett Battles and I do ~~weekly~~ ~~monthly~~ occasional podcasts
about the craft of writing.

My love of art has helped me develop an
eye for design, and my experience with computers and the Internet has
helped make developing my websites a breeze.

My love of songwriting has helped me compose
music for audio and video promotional materials, and my love of
filmmaking has led me to creating book trailers and short video clips
for Murderati.

And it’s all truly coming together for me this Saturday. I was asked and accepted a gig to teach an MWA workshop on podcasting and book trailers in Little Tokyo.

It seems as if some cosmic force had something in
mind for me when it divided my brain into so many segments. All those
years I spent pursuing these separate passions, wondering what the
hell I was finally going to do with my life, seem to have come
together (just as my kids have left the house) to
turn me into a kind of one-man band, allowing me to do all of the
things I love doing —

— and, I might add, saving me
thousands of dollars in the process, because I’ll be damned if I’ll
hire anyone else to do this stuff for me.

I don’t consider myself a big believer in fate, but what else do you call it? Someone, somewhere must have had a plan, and it sure as hell wasn’t me.

But what I really want to know is this:

How did fate know I’d be such a cheapskate?

The Illusionists

By Louise Ure

You’ve heard of the work of Julian Beever, right? He’s the chalk artist who has been creating optical illusion drawings on sidewalks in Europe, the U.S., Australia and Brazil for the last decade.

Although his drawing surface is simply flat pavement, he uses a technique called anamorphosis to create the illusion of three dimensions when viewed from the correct angle.

From flat, gray pavers Beever builds a world of chasms and pools, globes and spheres. Entire city blocks that exist just inches under your feet.

But when viewed from any other angle, the drawing makes no sense at all.

That’s the same globe, stretched out over forty feet in order to create the 3D effect.

Anamorphosis — creating a three dimensional world from a flat, blank surface — is a pretty good description of writing, too. But it’s even more relevant to the mystery writer, because this trompe l’oeil can only be achieved when viewing it from the proper angle.

And that’s what solving mysteries is all about.

If the characters in our books stood at the right angle … if they had the right perspective … enough information … there would be no mystery at all. All the pieces would fit.

But one character might be standing at the side. He might only know his tiny bit of the story.

Another character might be in the middle of it all, adding scratchy chalk marks that look inconsequential until viewed from the right angle.

The protagonist may stare at the pavement until the colors swirl and blur before his eyes, but he won’t be able to see the whole picture until he arrives at just that perfect spot and sees how all the pieces fit together.

It’s all about illusion and perspective. The point of view we choose. Whether or not to get inside a character’s head. Red herrings. Lies. Suspects. Subtly dropped clues. Unreliable narrators. Misdirection. Plot twists.

And whether it’s a thriller, a horror story, a bit of noir or a traditional mystery, when we do it right, the reader thinks it’s magic. So do I.

Here’s to the magic.

P.S. The Fault Tree goes on sale today. I’ll be on the road, laughing, scratching and telling lies. Hope to see you there!

Catching it from behind, lobbing it forward

by Pari

Let’s talk mentoring.

There’s the formal route. International Thriller Writers pairs debut authors with seasoned ones. Mystery Writers of America works to partner writers, whose publishers have abandoned them, with others who’ve weathered this traumatic career challenge.

Sometimes, when I’m in self-pity mode, I wish I’d had the benefit of an established mentorship program. But, the truth is, my informal experiences have been pretty darn good.

Dozens of people have taught me in my career so far. These are the folks — not always writers, btw — who took the time to answer my questions thoroughly. They’re the ones in whom I’ve confided fears and awful emotions such as jealousy and envy. They’ve responded with compassion . . . and a punch to the solar plexus when necessary.

In the past, many of these informal mentors didnt realize I’d thrust them into that role. People like Steve Brewer, Connie Shelton, Susan Slater, Suzanne Proulx, Deborah Donnelly, David Corbett, Barbara Seranella and Maryelizabeth Hart took me under their wings at my first Left Coast Crime convention. Because of them, my introduction to the mystery world was a glorious one.

I didn’t ask these generous souls to guide me. They just stepped up and did it.

Right now, my life is filled with informal mentors again. In my critique group, I’ve got five astounding teachers — all experts at one thing or another. At the First Friday group I attend in Alb. (started by Tony Hillerman and Madge Harrah among others), I sit, listen, and am agog at the wealth of information and perspectives I can get in one little room. The writers on this wonderful blog, all my fellow ‘Ratis, are incredible teachers, too.

On listservs such as the one for the American Crime Writers League, Mystery Writers of America’s breakout, and the one for Novelists, Inc., I’m simply floored with the responses to my — and others’ — serious questions.

I apologize if I seem like I’m gushing. I’m on the verge of a new book release and, boy, I’m feeling mighty grateful.

Think about it . . .

There are authors in our community who serve as examples to us all — without even trying. Lee Child can wow a roomful of fans and make every single one of them feel valued. He’s also extremely kind to new authors. Charlaine Harris has her incredible following because of her writing — and the risks she’s taken with it — AND is nicer than warm peach pie a la mode. Jan Burke saw a problem with crime lab funding and did something about it. Donna Andrews tirelessly volunteers for Sisters in Crime and Malice Domestic.

These people are my mentors, too, though I rarely contact them privately.

And I haven’t even mentioned booksellers; professional reviewers; or the fans who create and man listservs, write reviews, work at and organize conventions. So many of them have given me pearls and helped me avoid pitfalls.

Isn’t it amazing? Doesn’t this astounding altruism just blow you away?

Most of the time, I still think of myself as a neophyte in the publishing world; I’ve got the same jitters and joys in anticipation of book #3 as I did with #1.

Yet I’m no virgin.

People have begun to ask me questions. They pull me aside at conventions now and trust me enough to keep confidences and respect their vulnerabilities.

I only hope to be as gracious and giving as those who’ve taught, and continue to teach, me.

So, let’s celebrate the givers today. Let’s celebrate our mentors. Are there people who’ve helped you — either formally or informally — to achieve your dreams?

I can’t wait to read what you’ve got to say.

i don’t know what the hell to call this one

by Toni

Part I

Conversations while I am copy editing:

Someone Who Is Remarkably Still Alive*: "Are you done yet?"

Me: "Am I still breathing?"

SWIRSA: "Does growling count?"

Me: "Then I’m not done."

later

SWIRSA: "I’m curious. You made all of this up, right?"

Me: "Yes."

SWIRSA: "It’s your writing. You got to pick and choose what went in there."

Me: "Yes."

SWIRSA: "So why didn’t you put only the stuff in that you wanted to keep the first time around and save yourself all of this trouble?"

Me: "Do you prefer burial or cremation?"

Part II

Writing comedy is a lot like stealing a car while on crack and with a couple of AKs in the back seat while you’re moseying on over to the police station to thumb your nose at the cops, just to see if you can get away with it.

Part III

There is no "easy" — no matter what the genre. Not if you’re reaching for the high bar. There’s comfort knowing other writers feel the same way.

Part IV

Writing well, I’ve learned finally, isn’t some big, mysterious code to be broken, and there isn’t some aha! moment where all is revealed if you just click the tumblers to the right one more click. There are a lot of little truths writers pick up along the way and each writer’s application of those truths is what gives the writer his or her voice. Some of these I heard early on, but didn’t quite get them the way I do today, after years of practice. Some I wish I’d heard a lot earlier–I think I would have learned quicker.

Elmore Leonard has done this better, but here are a few basic little black dresses of truth:

story = character in conflict

I used to hear a lot of people saying story = character, but that leads to the misapprehension that a writer can go on at length about a character’s background or childhood, where we’re learning all about how the person became who they were, and we’re bored to tears (if we’ve gotten very far). Unless the conflict — the story that’s going to be resolved one way or another in this telling — starts in that childhood, cut to the conflict of the now.

This also means that each scene should have conflict. If it doesn’t, the story has stopped. Find the conflict, whether internal or external, and let it inform the action of the scene.

Active voice:

This is a personal choice, but I prefer active voice. Examples (caveat — it’s one a.m. and I am copy edit blind, so these aren’t great):

(passive) Joanne was running down the street.

(active, but flat) Joanne ran down the street.

(slightly better) Joanne sprinted down the street.

(more visual) Joanne’s tennis shoes slammed against the asphalt, faster than her heartbeat. (Feel free to chime in with better examples.)

Another point: commitment. Whatever type of story you’ve decided to write, commit to it. Don’t try to be all things to all people. It’ll never work. Expect to offend some, and be disliked by others. This is like choosing shoes to go with the outfit. (I have just lost every single guy who reads the blog.) The red ones may go or the black ones may go, but you’re gonna look pretty dumb if you wear one of each. And if you decide to pick the purple, then by God, work the purple and don’t be worried about whether or not purple is popular.

Be specific. You don’t appeal to a wider audience (generally) by being generic and appearing to write about Every Man (Woman), but by writing about a unique experience. Sci-Fi notwithstanding, this is generally about what it is to be a specific human facing a specific trial that matters in a very specific way.

Okay it’s your turn–what writing truth or preference do you keep on your mental checklist of things to do to improve your writing?

(*no, this wasn’t my spouse, who has way more sense and is very supportive)