Job Satisfaction

It’s Debby because it’s Wednesday. I love following Rick. His posts are always thought-provoking, and this one had me laughing out loud. I can relate!

Though I should have been sitting in front of my computer, I play in a tennis league and was happily cavorting (okay, shuffling) around a court on Saturday when I got a phone call from my older son, a college senior. He had a detached retina and needed surgery. As in get on the soonest flight you can, Mom. Since we live in Honolulu and he’s in college in Boston, this meant jumping through some hoops.

Continental Airlines was very helpful by giving me a special rate, whew, and I got on a flight that night. He had his surgery, which is done on an outpatient basis, on Monday and is doing fine, except that he has to remain face down for at least 10 days. But I feel like I’ve been in a time warp. If it hadn’t been Veteran’s Day, with roads blocked off by police horses and bands (nice, actually), I wouldn’t have known it was Wednesday.

Some of you may already be familiar with retina surgery. Certain retinal detachments are repaired by injecting a gas bubble to press the delicate retinal membrane back where it should be so that it can reattach. I think that’s a reasonable explanation without making you either gag or go cross-eyed with boredom. This air bubble has to stay on the BACK of his eye, hence face-down. This is pretty tough on the patient’s neck and back. In fact, he says his back hurts more than the eye—and he’s twenty-one. I don’t know what people my age do. Morphine drip?

The part about Rick’s blog that had me laughing out loud in particular was the part about walking down the street and making a spontaneous 180 degree turn. People here in Boston probably think I’m certifiable, as in Looney Tunes. I gave up checking my watch or acting like I had a phone call. I nearly took out a couple of dodderers more than once, and it was mostly due to one pharmacist.

The first pharmacy I went to didn’t have the eye-dilating painkiller (scopolamine, in case some of you are wondering; he was already taking Percocet) we needed, as in right now. Neither did the next one. The third one did. I walked to the counter, still on the phone with the aid at the doctor’s office, who was trying to steer (and calm) me.

“May I help you?” the pharmacist asks loudly, interrupting me mid-question.
“I’m talking to the doctor’s office.” I feel the need to explain. “Did you get the fax she sent over for the prescription?”
“No.” Pharmacist presses her lips into a thin line, then asks, “Patient’s name?”
I tell her.
“Birth date?”
I tell her, while the doctor’s aid waits patiently on the line.
“Don’t have it.” Pharmacist turns her back on me and walks away.
“Wait, will you talk to the doctor?” I hold out my phone.
“No.” Continues behind the counter, then has second thoughts. “They have to call us. It’s against HIPAA regulations.”
“What’s your phone number?”
She throws a business card down in front of me and simultaneously recites a number that is different from the one on the card. Fortunately, the aid at the doctor’s office hears the number and two seconds later, I hear the pharmacy phone ring. Twenty minutes later. (for prepackaged eye drops), I have my son’s prescription.

I wanted to leap over the counter. What is it with some pharmacists? Not all, grant you, but I’ve seen this attitude before. Most of them have good educations—to count pills, I guess. Job satisfaction must be low.

Meanwhile, my son has his eye drops and I thank my lucky stars—again—that I write crime fiction. That pharmacist probably earns more than I do, but I have so much more fun. I’m going to work on this scene, just wait. In my story, someone’s going to choke her.

No inspiration

Hi there Type M readers!

I've sat here for a good half-hour trying to come up with a topic for my weekly post today. Usually I have this all worked out well ahead of time. Today? Nothing. So I'm going to use a cheap dodge and pass on a very clever email I received last week. I call these things "philosophical one-liners". It is word-oriented, though. I'd like to tell you who came up with them, but I haven't got a clue. Enjoy!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid High-Crime Area" routing option.

More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?

Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase "Regards" again.

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

There is a great need for sarcasm font.

Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the hell was going on when I first saw it.

I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying to finish a text.

Was learning cursive really necessary?

LOL has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say."

I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart," all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart."

How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said, "Yes, that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"

What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks, Mario Kart.

MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

Bad decisions make good stories.

Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public, I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!

If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem...

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

"Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this, ever.

I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'

I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damnit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

I think that if, years down the road when I'm trying to have a kid, I find out that I'm sterile, most of my disappointment will stem from the fact that I was not aware of my condition in college.

Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what to do with it.

Even under ideal conditions, people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet my life everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time.

My 4-year-old son asked me in the car the other day, "Dad, what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?

It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.

Revising Negative Image (and a trip to Criminal Minds)

Vicki here. I got back from my East Coast book tour to find the revisions from my editor at Poisoned Pen for Negative Image, the fourth Molly Smith book. I didn’t even have a day to relax and enjoy the release of Winter of Secrets.

As usual most of her comments are pretty good; I agree with them. But I really hate squeezing someone else’s ideas into my lovely manuscript. For example, without giving too much away, a couple in the book are in crisis. I have him coming home after work and sleeping in the spare room or sitting in the den with the door closed and the hockey game (he hates hockey) turned up loud. The editor said that for various reasons he really should have moved out. Not a big point, no, but it does make sense, considering what is going on with these people, that he not be in the house. But now I have to have a scene where he decides to go to a motel, a description of a lonely man eating his take-out Chinese meal in a crummy motel room, his wife arriving to talk things over. And find places to fit this new stuff in, into what I thought was a smoothly moving story.

Do I have to do all this? No. If I stuck to my guns and said that I want him in the house because blah, blah, blah, she’d probably let me have my way. But she’s right, and I know she’s right so I really don’t have any guns to stick to.

Similarly there is a medical situation in the story. She found my disease-of-the-week to be too weak (actually too strong for a small town hospital to handle) so suggested I come up with a better medical situation. I wrote to a doctor I know describing what the outcome has to be and asking how I can get there and got some good suggestions. Now I have to go back and change all the references to why he’s in the hospital.

Will it make for a better book? Almost certainly.

But I don’t have to like doing it!

All this week (yes, for a whole 7 days) I am the guest blogger at Criminal Minds. (http://7criminalminds.blogspot.com/). Today I am talking about setting a police series in a small remote community, tomorrow about the RCMP in Canada, Wednesday about what readers expect from police procedural novels. Something different every day. So come on over and say hi.

Thrill Rides - Win a Book

As part of her guest stint, C.J. would like to give away a copy of her novel Warning Signs. . Leave a comment for C.J. and she'll chose a winner.

THRILL RIDES

Hi guys! Thanks to Vicki for inviting me to Type M!

For those of you who don't know me, I'm CJ Lyons, a pediatric ER doc turned medical suspense author. My first book, LIFELINES, was published by Berkley in March, 2008 followed by my second book, WARNING SIGNS, in January and my third, URGENT CARE was just released last week. For more info on me or my books feel free to visit my website http://www.cjlyons.net

I'm lucky enough that not only have I found two careers that I love (medicine and writing) and can make a living at, but also that I get to teach others about. I used to teach parents, kids, EMS professionals, nurses, doctors, firefighters, and even law enforcement officers. Now people pay me to travel across the country and teach about writing, and the most common question I get is: What is a thriller?

Good question. I've had the privilege of judging ITW's Thriller Awards since their inception as well as judging their romantic counterparts the Ritas, Golden Heart, and Daphne awards. Up until this year, for the Thriller Awards alone that meant reading around 150 books, trying to determine not the best book, but the best thriller among them.

So what makes a thriller?

My first and favorite definition of a thriller comes from David Morrell: if a thriller doesn't thrill, it isn't a thriller.

I love this definition, it's very intuitivie and visceral. But most of my students want something more definitive. Now, anyone who knows me is laughing by now because both in medicine and writing, I'm known as a bit of a maverick. I don't play by the rules, tend to think out of the box, ignoring convention, protocol, and boundaries.

In fact, my books are shelved in General Fiction and Literature (usually near Moby Dick!) because they're medical suspense novels with thriller pacing, romantic elements, and told from the point of view of the women of Pittsburgh's Angels of Mercy's ER.

Hmmm....so how many genre boundaries do I cross? Medical drama, suspense, thriller, romance, women's fiction?

Yeah, definitions are sooooo not my forte! So instead, I came up with a spectrum to describe my work and others--and to answer my students when they ask that pesky question.

Here's my take on the whole mystery/suspense/thriller spectrum:

--mysteries: deal with "Who" as in "who did it", "who will solve the case", etc. Mainly focused on a past event that begins the action (usually a dead body )

--suspense fiction: why? Why did the criminal act that way, why did the victim become the victim, why does the crime solver care and become involved. Mainly focused on the present--the impact of the crime on the psychology of those involved.

--romantic suspense: again focuses on "why" but with an additional "why should these two people be together" added. The romance is so intertwined that you can not remove it from the rest of the plot.

--thrillers: focus on "how" as in How will we save the world? ("world" being anything from the entire universe or planet to a country, town or other "larger" entity) How will we stop this terrible thing from happening? How will the hero find the courage, strength, tools, allies, etc necessary to overcome overwhelming odds? How will it all end?

The emphasis is on the future which, in my opinion, is what gives thrillers that wonderful free-fall feeling, that head rush of adrenalin as the stakes keep building and building.

Yes, you can have lots of action in mysteries and suspense, but the larger stakes and that constant forward momentum are what make thrillers, well, thrilling

--"Thrillers with Heart" (a term I coined for my own work) have at their core an emotional relationship that adds another dimension to the action plot. Again, like romantic suspense, this essential relationship can not be dissected out.

So, where do my books fit into all this? Let's see.....LIFELINES was defiitely a thriller. The stakes escalate tremendously until most of the city of Pittsburgh is at risk. And, as for that adrenalin rush? Well, Publishers Weekly called it a "breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller"

My second book, WARNING SIGNS was more of a mystery. You don't know it until the end of the book, but everything that has happened is driven by a crime that took place in the past. The book is an investigation, and while the pacing is thriller-like, the stakes don't escalate tremendously from start to end. It's definitely focused on solving the puzzle of a mysterious disease killing patients--before it kills the main character, a medical student.

The third book in the series, URGENT CARE, falls into the suspense category, although given the rising stakes and pacing, some might call it a thriller....I suspect this is where the term "psychological thriller" is used. But this book is definitely focused on the psychology and relationships rather than the investigation or stopping the killer.

It's about why these victims, why this kind of crime, why this badguy is the way he is, why we fall in love with one person and not another, why we get up in the morning and go to work and do the jobs we do, why we live the way we live.....It's dark, and edgier than the other two books, I think, because it dares to delve more deeply into the murky realms of the human heart and mind.

Here's my challenge to you all--and yes, there will be prizes! Take a look at your own work or those of your favorite MSW authors, past and present, and see where they fit in this spectrum.

Some will be easy to place, others not so much. What do you think about genre-blending in your mystery/suspense/thrillers? A good thing? Why or why not?

Thanks for reading!
CJ
PS: To celebrate the release of URGENT CARE, I'm hosting a contest. One lucky winner will have their query package critiqued by my agent, Barbara Poelle of the Irene Goodman Agency. Check here for more details: http://cjlyons. net/2009/ 10/08/cjs- query-contest/
About CJ:
As a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her cutting edge suspense novels. Her debut, LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), became a National Bestseller and Publishers Weekly proclaimed it a "breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller." The second in the series, WARNING SIGNS, was released January, 2009 and the third, URGENT CARE, on October 27, 2009. Contact her at http://www.cjlyons.net

Carolyn Hart Days

Donis today.  I’ve just enjoyed three most inspiring days.  Carolyn Hart was in town, promoting her latest novel, Merry, Merry, Ghost.  I was able to spend a lot of time with her, mostly eating with friends and talking about writing.  Carolyn Hart is the author of more than 40 published mysteries.  She is best known for her two series, the “Henry O” books, and the “Death on Demand” series.  In fact, her 20th “Death on Demand” book will be out soon.

As anyone who knows her can attest, Carolyn is the dearest person in the world, and a true mentor and guardian angel for new and aspiring authors.  She was an amazing help to me when I first started out, and still is.  Besides, we have something of an extra bond, since we’re both Oklahomans, of which there aren’t that many, at least in comparison to Californians or New Yorkers or Massachusettsians.

We spoke of many things writerly, and every evening as I drove home from our latest supper outing, I was practically electric with ideas, and actually speeding to get home and write.  When writers get together and discuss the Craft, something occurs that is more than just an exchange of ideas - it is, as my friend Judy Starbuck noted, more like an exchange of molecules, and you become more than the sum of your parts.

I have hermit-like tendencies, as do a lot of authors, but I cannot deny that getting together with fellow practitioners is extraordinarily energizing.  This is the major benefit of writer’s conferences, I think, just to be in the presence of others like yourself, and be able to exchange molecules.

One interesting discussion we had fits in very well with Charles’ observations of the previous post - playing God.  Carolyn has just started a new series featuring a ghost, Bailey Ruth Raeburn, as the sleuth (now, there is an original idea).  She said that it is quite exciting to create a whole new world, deciding what her ghost protagonist can and cannot do, what powers she has, how much she can know, the whole circumstance of her presence on earth.  

All kinds of things can happen in a book that don’t happen in the real world. Yet, once Carolyn sets the parameters of Bailey Ruth’s existence, she can’t change them just because she wants to.  Bailey Ruth can’t be able to move objects in one book and unable to in the next, for instance. Even if you are writing about the most imaginative alternative universe, the world of which you are god, like the world Actual God created, has to function by its own internal logic.

****

Our very own Vicki Delany is guest blogging today for the Fatal Foodies (http://fatalfoodies.blogspot.com)  She’s writing about the most wonderful time of the year - for writers!  Happy eating.

****

p.s. Okay, you East Coasters, what do Massachusettsers actually call themselves?

I’d do a better job

Charles here.

One of the best things about being a writer is that I get to decide how things end. I put events into motion, explore different angles, hint at possible reasons and justifications, and in the end, I decide who did what to whom and, most importantly, why. I admit that I enjoy lopsidedly skewering those with points of view that are different than mine since they do it to my points of view in their books (isn’t that so, Glen Beck?), and I enjoy painting the world not always as it is but as I would like it to be. God complex? Sure, but at least I’d get it right.

When I’m writing I get to pick where the crime takes place, who gets killed or wounded, how they die and who they leave behind. I like it when my books’ helpless victims turn out to be not so helpless after all, and while no one deserves to die (well, almost no one), let’s just say some will be missed less than others. I also get to pick the story’s villain. I get to pick the name, sex, age, ethnic background, appearance, religious views, political stance, what they drink (or don’t), how they like their steaks done, what sports franchise they cheer for and what’s on their itunes. While I do like to make suspects out of everyone, I know that when it comes to the final act, I will determine how it all plays out and only the most deserving will suffer.

This omnipotence is comforting since, until I can figure out how, I have little control over much of anything. If I did, missing kids would be found safe, terrorist bombs would fail to go off, white collar criminals would all get caught and psychiatrist Muslim army majors wouldn’t walk into administration buildings to kill 19 and wound dozens more. Crazy psychiatrists? Violent Muslims? Military personnel who snap? Hack clichés. Insulting stereotypes. Too unrealistic to be true.

Well, it would be if I was God.

The Ones That Get Away

Raymond Carver’s collection of stories entitled Where I’m Calling From is on my nightstand along with a paperback copy of John Irving’s The Water-Method Man, a postcard picture of Mt. Kahtadin, and a photo of me fishing with my kids in Maine’s Baxter State Park.

Not a pen and not a pad of paper.

So I missed one last night.

Not sure entirely what I missed. My watch read 1:13 a.m. when I woke, not from a dream, but rather with an idea. Something had come to me in the middle of the night, something to do with what I’m writing, a whispered suggestion from the gray edges of my subconscious. I can remember only that, like a clumsy fisherman, I fumbled around the nightstand in search of paper and pen only to locate Raymond Carver—who sure as hell doesn’t need my cluttered ideas.

So, at 1:13 a.m., I had a choice: Stand and find something to write on…or roll over, convincing myself I’d remember the idea in vivid detail in the morning.

ZZZZZZZZZZZ

And, thus, I missed one.

This is not a fishing tale. I won’t tell you that the idea was T—H—I—S G—R—E—A—T! I don’t know how it would have impacted my story. Maybe not much. But maybe, just maybe…

And that’s the point of this entry. I know I should sleep with a pen and pad next to my bed. I tell fiction students to do it. In my weeklong summer workshop, I even give each student a pad, insisting they carry it with them and fill it with ideas or character sketches or lines of dialogue. Yet this morning, I am the parent who insists his child wear a bike helmet but fails to heed his own advice only to get a well-earned concussion. There will be a pad and a sharpened pencil next to Raymond carver tonight.

That’s where I’m calling from.