The Work

 I've been missing in action lately. Too much going on in my personal life (nothing horrible, thank goodness, just a lot of stuff). I've been reading my blogmates' previous posts, and oh, they are so on the money – about why we like horror stories, and how unfortunately the real world is a horror story right now.  I can hardly watch the news or read a newspaper any more. The only thing I can try to make sense of these days are my own writings about human nature.

Last week I got hold of a fabulous book on the act of creating, written by one of my favorite historical novelists, Steven Pressfield. It's entitled Do The Work : Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way. It's a little tiny thing, less than 100 pages, but like all of Pressfield's writing, it is pithy as hell and right to the point. The blurb for the book says that it is "an action guide that gets down and dirty in the trenches." One of the first things he suggests a writer (or any artist/creator) must do before he begins is determine what the work is about. After I read that sentence, I had to put the book down and ponder for a minute.

You see, I'm right in the middle of the first draft of a novel, and the best I can say is that it's about...150 pages long. I have a fabulous set up, great characters, some fantastic scenes. It's a cold case murder, but besides trying to find out who did it, our heroine is trying to prove the main suspect did not do it. As usual, I'm having a little trouble figuring out how my protagonist is going to figure it out in a believable way. 

A few weeks ago, there was a thread on one of the mystery writers' discussion groups concerning victims. Why, one author asked, are most victims in mysteries horrible people? Why then would anyone care if the killer was caught? Interesting question. It made me think back over my twelve mysteries and consider who I have killed, and why anyone cared. Thus far, my victims have been: 1) an old buzzard who had it coming, 2) a sad case, 3) a member of the family, 4) another member of the family, 5) a couple of haunted young men, 6) a guitarist in a mariachi band, 7) a really, really bad guy. 8) another really bad guy, 9) a bunch of innocent people, 10) a sex-trafficker, 11) Rudolph Valentino

Of the slate of victims, only three were terrible people whose deaths left the world a better place. None of the rest deserved their fates. So the point in most of my mysteries is to find justice for those who met a tragic end. However, why would a reader care who killed the bad guys? Does it have to do with the simple intellectual challenge of solving the puzzle? Does it have to do with making sure an innocent person isn't implicated? In one of my favorite books, Hell With the Lid Blown Off, the victim is awful but all the suspects are perfectly lovely people. No matter who gets fingered, it's going to be sad. Or is it? In this new manuscript, I have a similar moral dilemma.

I love those.

Talent—Innate or Learned?

In his Tuesday entry, below, Rick pondered the question of how much one actually needs to know in order to successfully write a novel. He concludes that howsoever much one studies the craft, a basic talent for storytelling has to be present in order to begin a novel.

I, Donis, find this a fascinating concept. I do believe that one can learn the basic precepts of writing and with practice become very competent at it, even successful. But it does seem to me that some people just have it—the natural ability to craft a tale that rises above the rest. A few years ago, I wrote an entry about talent on this site that addressed this very concept, which I reproduce below with a few modifications:

Do you believe in predestination? Are we born to write, to act, to paint, to be mommies or accountants? Or is it Karma? Is this our reward, our fulfillment? Perhaps our punishment. In his wonderful little book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield says that basically every human being is born with God-given, unique talents, and if you don’t use them, then you are a wastrel and an ingrate. (I paraphrase.)

Therefore, if you are driven to write (paint/parent/account), you must write, or fly in the very face of God.

How’s that for motivation?

Like most authors I know, I began writing when I was a child. In fact, I can’t remember when I didn’t write little stories. The earliest piece I remember clearly was called “The Black Cat”. The protagonist was a little girl who turned into a cat every night. I don’t remember what she did. I don’t think she used her powers to save kittens from storm drains, or any other catly heroics. I only remember her drinking cream from a saucer on the floor. Apparently she didn’t retain her human moral values when she transformed.

I loved to make up stories mostly because I loved to read stories. When I was a girl, the world in fiction was as real to me as my actual life, if not more so. Before I could read, I adored being read to - and here’s the key – I was read to, continually. I was given picture books when I was more interested in chewing on them than looking at them. I therefore learned to read very early, and consequently began writing very early. Bless you, Mama and Daddy. You gave me a gift that influenced and enriched my entire life.

Now, being an avid reader doesn’t necessarily make one want to be a writer, but I think it is a prerequisite. I do think a healthy self-regard is extremely helpful. Listen, learn, be guided, and practice, and never think you can’t improve, but never let anybody write your book for you, either. There is something each of us has to say or do that nobody else in the long history of this wide world can say or do, and if you don’t give it a try, you deprive the rest of us of your singular talent.