Writing in Paradise...Usually

 I’ve enjoyed some of the blogs here on Type M that detail locations where our fellow bloggers like to write and some of their writing habits.  As many of you know, I live on the coast of North Carolina.  We have a house on Bogue Banks Island, which is a barrier island south of the Outer Banks.

It sounds exotic—saying I live on an island.  It’s about twenty-one miles long and at its narrowest point, you can see both the ocean on one side of the island and Bogue Sound on the other. It’s a vacation destination with thousands of vacation homes, about ten hotels, and fabulous restaurants, boutique shops, and stores where you can buy anything from swimming suits to fishing tackle. 

In the “off season”, late autumn, winter, and early spring, it’s very quiet here.  There are times you can walk the beach and not see another soul.  That’s when I enjoy this island the most.  

But this is June and while it’s not yet officially summer, we are inundated with tourists.  The restaurants all have long lines, the grocery stores are overcrowded, and the roads are clogged with people trying to find their way around. 

I’m not complaining because this is when businesses here on the coast make their money.  Our county has a year-round population of slightly less than seventy-thousand people.  During the “season”, that grows to over two-hundred and fifty thousand people.  It can put a strain on infrastructure and that includes the internet.

Think of it as a pipeline from one end of the island to the other.  During the “off season” demand isn’t particularly stressful.  But when we have two-hundred thousand people out here, all downloading Netflix or playing World of Warcraft, that internet pipeline clogs up quickly.

Case in point, my publisher has re-released my first book Random Road. Our publicist arranged to have a Zoom interview with me and Barbara Peters from the Poisoned Pen Bookstore.  Full disclosure, Barbara has been one of the editors on all of my Geneva Chase mysteries.  

She told me that the interview would go anywhere from a half-hour to an hour, depending on how well it went.  

It was awful.

The internet kept dropping the Zoom connection.  She’d ask a question or make a commentary to which I’d start to answer and about halfway through, my screen would freeze.  The only way to get back in was to start the process over…every damned time.  Once, when I popped back onto the interview, I held up a glass of wine and said, “I’m turning this into a drinking game.  Every time I drop out, I take a drink.”

Barbara grinned at me, held up her own glass of wine and said, “Way ahead of you, kiddo.”

Unfortunately, the connection did not get any better.  Needless to say, the interview was over at a half hour.  Blessedly.

But all in all, this is a lovely place to work.  My home office has a window overlooking our front lawn. If I feel like a stroll, the ocean is a few minutes from the house.  

And now, I must get back to my WIP.  I have a July first deadline for my fifth adventure with Geneva Chase, and yet again, I’m putting the poor woman through hell. 

Where are we all headed?

By “we” I mean writers. And by “headed” I mean, What will the future of professional writing look like?

This is a topic I’ve found myself discussing often recently. I mentor writing teachers often, and when we talk about how to best prepare student writers for the future, I keep coming back to NetFlix.

Crazy for a book lover to say that? Maybe. But maybe not.

I live in a house connected to a dorm that is home to 180 teenagers, and I teach and work with these students eight to 12 hours a day. I know their interests and have a pretty good handle on what makes this group of next-generation professional writers tick. And as a writing instructor and literature teacher, I need to meet students where they are as I create curricula (for students) and design workshops (for writing instructors).

This is where it gets interesting: where are student writers learning the art of narrative?

When teaching Dickens or Conan Doyle, we talk about serial publications and discuss how readers eagerly awaited the next – weekly – installment of the story. Recently, I found myself in conversations where I said, Kids are learning narrative structure and the uses of narrative tension from shows they watch (or “binge watch”) on Netflix. (Admittedly, as someone trying hopelessly to catch up to the upcoming season of House of Cards, I know where they’re coming from.)

Would I rather students actually read Dickens’s novels or all of Conan Doyle’s work (or even the Harry Potter books instead of viewing the films)? No doubt. But I have reason to be hopeful. This spring, I offered my Crime Literature students an alternative to our term paper: Create an NPR-style podcast. S-Town is popular among them. Not all, but maybe a third of the class took me up on it. They produced detailed scripts (complete with background music, street sounds, etc), researched widely and deeply (the paper topic is Discuss the symbiotic relationship between crime and society, so it’s wide open), and produced 8-minute podcasts. And these were terrific, impressing peer students, my English department colleagues, and blowing me away.

The assignment didn’t introduce them to television writing per se, but it did expose them to the digital form – and just maybe to the place where narrative and technology will intersect in their futures.

Merry Christmas and Happy Killings!

Season's Greetings to everyone. It's been a busy, yet amazing year. I spent a lot of time on the road with WordFire Press, hawking books at various ComicCons from Miami to Seattle and parts in between. I got to meet old fans and make new ones. And I edited two anthologies and got several short stories published. Plus, I taught writing classes at Regis University and Lighthouse Writers. Like I said, it's been a busy year.

While we push books here at Type M, I can't ignore that many of us indulge in binge-watching. My favorite was the New Detectives on Netflix. The series detailed the use of forensics and old-style sleuthing to solve actual crimes. It was sobering but not surprising to learn that murderers tend to be, in order of most likely: husbands, boyfriends, wives, adult children, neighbors, and strangers. If any of you are contemplating homicide, word to the wise--ditch the murder weapon and destroy the notes or letters where you outline the steps to the crime! Rookie mistakes like that will get you fifty-to-life, if not a date with the needle.

For the New Year I've got an ambitious schedule. More stories to publish. Hopefully edit at least one more anthology. More touring. More teaching. Stay tuned.

Here's hoping 2017 brings good tidings for all of us.