It's a Miracle

 Donis here. I've just started a three month gig as Writer in Residence at the Glendale, AZ, Public Library, and the work on my latest manuscript has suffered a bit as I try to get things started and keep everything in order. This very day (Thursday Sept. 12), I'll be teaching a class on world building, and since I haven't done an in-person class since the pandemic, I've been spending the last week or so polishing up my presentation skills.

I'm getting to the end of my first MS draft, and am very anxious to finish. But there are only so many hours in the day. How, oh how, am I going to get everything done in good order and have it all look like something?

In the movie Shakespeare in Love, whenever things look absolutely hopeless, the theater owner, played by Geoffrey Rush, tells a concerned investor that "everything will turn out all right."

"But how?" asks the worried investor?

"I have no idea," replies the theater owner. "It just always does. It's a miracle."

This is the way writing is for me, at least up to a point. I don't outline the story before I begin. Usually start out with a juicy idea for a murder. For a couple of days thereafter, I ponder on what interesting and unlikely person may have committed this murder. Then I think about the setting and which characters will be involved. I so some research on what was happening in that place at that time, which usually gives me some really interesting story elements.

Then I sit down at the computer and go, go, go, from the beginning to the end. I never end up where I thought I would. I never go in the direction I planned. The story goes where it will and the characters behave however they darn well please. I have been known to be reading on the screen the words my flying fingers are typing and exclaim, "Holy crap!", because I had no idea that was going to happen before it did. Sometimes I get lost and am unable to figure out where I'm going or how I got there. Often I get horribly stuck. But I keep typing, even if I'm spending days typing nothing but drivel, because suddenly I realize that the drivel has given way to deathless prose, and I pound my forehead on the desk, because I don't have a clue how I did it. Then one day I come to the end, and lo and behold, I have a book. I put it away for a few days because at this point I've completely lost any objectivity about the thing whatsoever.

Then, I take it out and look at it with fresh eyes and say, "damn, this isn't bad!" Once again, everything turned out all right. I have no idea how. It just always does. It's a miracle.

Putting All My Ducks in a Row

 

Donis here. I’ve already reached a point in the first draft of my new manuscript where I have begun to rewrite. After I finish first draft, my beginnings never do match the end, for somewhere in the middle of the writing, I change my mind about this character, or this action, or this story line. Generally I don’t waste time by going back to the beginning and fixing it to fit my new vision. I can get (and have gotten) caught up in an endless merry-go-round of fixes and never reach the end. I'd just keep going until the book was done, with every confidence that I could repair all the inconsistencies when I was finished. However ... this time I'm trying to write something that is totally different than all my previous novels, and I find myself suddenly deciding to omit a situation or a character who isn't working out, or changing the entire drift of the story. 

So I've ended up doing the thing I don't recommend doing - going back and rewriting parts of the beginning before I get to the end. So, this book may take me forever to write, but by damn, I want it to be consistent throughout. I expect if I ever end up making this a series, I'll know the characters so well it won't require so much diddling about.

We’ve all heard many times that writing is rewriting, and anyone who’s ever scribbled a page knows that’s true. At least I’ve never met a literary Mozart, whose first draft is so perfect that it doesn’t need any alteration. In fact, most authors I know, even very well known and accomplished authors, think of their first drafts as something too embarrassing to be seen by anyone. It’s the rewriting that makes the book. If I may repeat something I’ve said here before - and never let it be said that I missed an opportunity to repeat myself - you have to have that block of marble before you can carve out a statue of David.

Rewriting is the fun part, as well. For me, at least, the first draft is eked out like bone marrow, but with the rewrites, I have something to play with, to refine, to remodel, to put makeup on and make beautiful.  I’ve just begun my  rereading and adjusting, making sure that the beginning matches the end.   

When
I reread a finished MS, it’s interesting to see how it all turned out, to remember what I originally had in mind and see how the tale changed as I moved through it.

The tangled string

 Oh how I wish I had been at Bouchercon! Reading about everyone's experiences, both in this blog and on Facebook, has made me realize how much I miss in-person conferences where I meet old friends, make new ones, laugh, learn, commiserate, and celebrate with kindred mystery lovers, both formally during the panels and informally at the bar, lounge, patio, etc.

I haven't been to a conference since before the pandemic, and although I was sorely tempted by this one, Labour Day weekend is always a very busy one, and the costs can get out of hand when you factor in a flight from Eastern Canada. Sadly, the Nashville Bouchercon is on Labour Day weekend  as well, but I also greatly enjoy Left Coast Crime, so maybe I'll go to Seattle in the spring.

I had hoped to be able to brag in this blog this week about finishing the first draft of my new Inspector Green novel, which has been trundling along at a leisurely pace since last winter. I had set the goal of September 15 to get to the end, but unfortunately, this novel refuses to end. It is rambling on and on, which I know is not a good thing in any novel, let alone a mystery, but new complications keep cropping up and right now it feels like a tangled string.. It's supposed to be 90,000 words (give or take) and I am already at about 93,000, with the ending tantalizingly close but still playing hard to catch as I approach it. During rewrites, I do delete and tighten, but I also expand and enrich, so normally I end up with a fairly stable word count. 

When I am writing the first draft of a novel, I'm in creative mode and don't want to lose that edge and momentum by editing or rewriting as I go along. It's full steam ahead and fix the plot holes, wobbly characters, and dropped loose ends once I get the whole story down. Since I don't outline and only plot in fits and starts as the story evolves, I don't know what the story is about or its full shape, until I reach the end. 

A lot of fixing and tidying happens in second draft, or third or fourth.

I suspect when I finally reach the end this time, I will have a lot of tidying up to do. I like my books to pick up momentum as they near the end, not ramble on with endless complications to be solved. I hope when I write my next blog in two weeks, I will have written The End and will have good news to report. It's a book, it's going to work, and I can fix this.

The Eighth First Draft

I have just begun the preliminary research and planning stages for my next novel (number 14), and soon I'll be in that apply-glue-to-rear-end-and-sit-down-in-front-of-computer-whether-you-like-it-or-not stage. Wringing out the first draft.

Or trying to. I find my mind wandering at the most inconvenient times, and considering that I have a tendency to give in to random thought as it is, I'm not having any luck completing the tasks I should.

For instance, rather than work on the manuscript I've just spent the last fifteen minutes naming my rock band. I was listening to Death Cab for Cutie when it occurred to me that they must have come up with their name by throwing darts at a dictionary. "Donis," I say to myself, "if you close your eyes and stab your pencil point at random spots on the newspaper, surely you could come up with your own effective band moniker." I've done this several times and have a whole pile of likely band names in case anyone is looking. Here are the latest, my four, three, two, and one word band names, in just the order random chance dictated.

Those Filet-Mignon Panini

Makes an Error

Secret History

Camera

I discovered several books ago that if I’m going to be able to power through the pain of a first draft, I have to set myself a rigid writing schedule. This is difficult for me, since I’m not by nature a disciplined person. I don’t enjoy forcing myself to put words on the page, whether I’m feeling inspired at that moment or not. I’m always anxious and unhappy for much of a first draft. Why, I ask myself, isn’t this better? It seemed like such a good idea when it was still in my head.

Why do I put myself through it? I’m never sure I can pull it off, no matter how many times I’ve pulled it off before. But then there are those days, even while you’re struggling with the first draft, when you do hit the perfect note, or compose a passage so beautiful and true that it brings tears to your eyes. Ray Bradbury spoke truth when he said that real success comes when you begin to write from the inside, and not from the outside.

Besides, once the first draft is finished and you’re on to the second and third and however many more, world without end, it all starts to come together and you realize with a start that you’ve got something. Maybe that old mojo is working after all!

p.s.  Years ago I heard Jerrilyn Farmer say that an editor told her once you have had seven books published you've pretty much made it. Until she had seven books published, then that same editor said, "Once you have ten books published... "

Critique Group!

 I have finally joined a critique group. I have been writing for untold years and I have never been in a critique group before. The major reason for that is because, historically speaking, whenever anyone criticized my work my first thought was "You're an idiot." Then I'd reconsider and realize the suggestions were spot on and I needed to make a bunch of corrections. It's exhausting.

I think that one has to be incredibly careful to find a group of people to work with who are simpatico, and that's not easy. I function better on my own. I tend not to show my first draft to anyone. After writing thirteen published novels, I feel like I know the direction I want to go, and I don't want to be influenced by someone else's ideas.

However, since the pandemic I feel I've really lost my mojo, so I need the motivation to stay on top of things. I joined a great group, only six experienced authors, all published, all with a very good eye for plot and characterization. When others critique my work, sometimes I listen, and sometimes I don’t, but I am always shown an original way to approach the story/characters//plot.

Having to have something to show at every meeting has really made me pay attention to the way I write. When I teach writing classes, I tell the participants that a good way to pound out a first draft is to start at the beginning and go go go straight through to the end. Don't worry about quality or even making sense, just get that manuscript out. The real art of writing comes in the many subsequent drafts as you go over it and over it, shaping, changing, making it beautiful. Yes, writing is rewriting. 

Well. The truth is I don't' really do that, as a rule. Joining this group has taught me that I don't follow my own advice when I'm working on a first draft. Every book I've written has come about in its own individual way. My usual method seems to be like quilting. I write scenes out of order, like individual quilt blocks, then sew them together in an order that makes sense, advances the plot, makes a beautiful picture. 

Maybe next time I'll go from beginning to end. I've done it before. I've started at the end and written the beginning last, too. As long as a book comes out of it, whatever works is the right way to do it!

I hope my new critique partners are patient with me.

 

The cherry on top

 Last week I hit a milestone in my current work in progress. After about ten pads of foolscap scribbling, I wrote ... 

This has been an extremely challenging book to write. Many times it felt as if the words, the ideas, the plot, were being dragged out of me, inch by painful inch. I don't know the reason for this; perhaps the overarching angst of the pandemic, with its distraction of waves going up and down, the wait for a vaccine, the ongoing daily struggle to stay safe, and the increasing, astonishing craziness of people ranting on social media, throwing stones at politicians (in nice, peaceful Canada), blocking health workers from accessing hospitals, and guzzling horse dewormer.

I've been trying to write this book as this drama dragged on and on and often felt the pointlessness of it all. What did my made-up story matter, after all, compared to the catastrophe unfolding in the real world? So the book was written in fits and starts, with real life disruptions in between which made me completely forget where my story was going. All the usual writerly doubts were magnified. Doubts like "this story is crap, I can't write anymore, it's nothing but a jumbled mess," etc. 

But finally, I got to write The End. Now I know it's a book, and I know what it's about. Now I can fix it. Rewrites are all about fixing the jumbled mess. Normally when I am writing, I keep a separate file containing all the things I have to fix. Add this, take away that, change this, develop that. Plot holes and inconsistencies need to be plugged, characters need to be tweaked to fit the job I have ended up giving them, or their job has to be tweaked to fit what they've become. Settings and background are enriched. 

This time, I never did keep that file. I spent so much time wandering in the wilderness that I had no idea what needed tweaking or changing until I finally limped across the finish line. So I now have to keep all these things in my head as I reread and adjust the story. So the rewrites may be as arduous as the first draft.

This is not to say that the book is bad, or that I'm unhappy with it. Against all odds, I think I have managed to write a pretty good book, although readers (and my editors) will be the judge of that.

One of the challenges I faced was choosing the title. The title is like the cherry on top of the sundae. Until it's in place, the book doesn't feel truly finished. For me, a title should capture the essence of the book. It is my final statement about what the meaning of the book is. Titles come to me in various ways at different stages of the writing process. Sometime I know it before I start to write, like HONOUR AMONG MEN, sometimes a phrase that I write suddenly leaps out at me as the perfect title, as in FIFTH SON. 

Wreck Bay, site of the 1960s commune,
as it is today.

This book has a few themes but the historical backdrop to it is the hippie movement of the late 60s and early 70s, coinciding with the anti-Vietnam war movement. As I was writing, the Dylan song "Blowing in the wind", kept floating through my head as a reflection of the struggles of the central character. Dylan was the voice of that movement and that era. So the first title I came up with was Blowing in the Wind. But I wasn't sure whether younger readers would know the lyrics well enough to get all the references, so I sprinkled a few lines from that song through the book (in dialogue and other ways). However, although copyright laws allow me to use a song title, they don't allow me to use even a single phrase of the lyrics if the song can be identified by that phrase. 

Back to the drawing board. Or rather back to the internet to research other 60s protest songs to find one that would work using the title alone and that would reflect the character's struggles just as well. Fortunately, having been part of that protest movement and having listened to all those artists many times over, I had some basis for where to look. And I soon found a title that was not only just as good, but in fact better. THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE. This is a phrase so well known that people can finish the sentence even if they have never heard of singer/ songwriter Phil Ochs.

Now THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE is heading into its first rewrite, with its cherry sitting firmly on top, capturing its essence perfectly.

The Sacred Process

 I almost misspelled the title of this blog, making it "The Scared Process" rather than "The Sacred Process." Actually, one word is as good as another. There have been a series of posts by my beloved Type M blogmates about their writing process. 

The truth is that writing a book is about like raising kids. Anyone who has had more than one quickly learns that what applies to one child doesn't the next. I thought after I wrote my first novel all subsequent books would be really, really easy. Ha!

There has been one constant, however. When I'm doing my best work it's a quota of five pages a day, five days a week. That's for the first draft, not subsequent drafts. The truth is that when I don't stick to that I deliberately let life interfere. 

Life, of course, just interferes naturally, without one bit of encouragement from me. When my kids were little I got up very early in the morning and hoped by some miracle I would get my writing done before they popped out of bed. That didn't happen often. Consequently, I learned to write anytime, any place, and under horrendous circumstances. 

Now I don't feel like I'm under any kind of pressure and it's not good for my productivity. Because I slithered away into historical novels I jeopardized my slot with mystery novels. Nevertheless, I'm in the middle of a new mystery that I feel very passionately about. I have a good idea (I think) for the following book, if I have the guts to write it. But I cannot summon up my old stern inner strictness. I'm prey to all kinds of ill winds: meetings, and socializing, and lazy lunches, and too much reading, and binge TV. 

Five pages a day--not polished--is a fairly wicked, but not excessive output. I've learned that when I stick to the quota, on the days I really, really don't want to write my work is just as good (or bad) as days when  words come easily and ideas merge. I've noticed that when I settle for fewer pages, I write more self-consciously and piddle around. When I push for the five and am semi-desperate to just get them done better ideas come out of nowhere. 

Again, I talking exclusively about first drafts. My first draft is totally linear. I never write scenes out of sequence. The following drafts are a different process altogether. That's a critical and intellectual undertaking. At one time I was a first draft junkie. Now I like straightening out a manuscript the best. 

Strangely, I've never known two authors who approach writing the same way. 

Talented, best-selling author Sandra Dallas, once said in a keynote speech that she "didn't understand the writing process." She said she just knew that it worked.   

Out of Season

 

I have this silly morning glory plant that thinks it's a perennial. It's not. It's an annual. It thinks it's purple, too, instead of the usual bright blue. But there it is. Against all reason and the laws of nature. I'm amazed and I love this tenacious little rebel.  

This glorious little flower and Barbara's post put in mind of writing out of season and under trying circumstances. I have no idea how I managed to write when I had little children and a truck-driving husband who was gone a lot. After Don bought the truckline, everything was easier. Our joke was that after we were married twenty years we decided to try living together. 

Becoming a writer requires a great deal of tenacity. I think that's why I developed a quota system: five pages a day, five days a week. As I grew more successful the challenges of raising kids were replaced by the reality of 21st century marketing demands. There is always something that threatens to sabotage my writing. Email is simultaneously a blessing and a curse. 

Looking back, I don't know how I survived without Google. It's a pleasure to find quick answers to research questions. I used to rely on interlibrary loan. It involved lengthy delays and when a precious book arrived I would get suckered in to reading the whole thing. I read a whole book on fitting horse collars just to get one paragraph right for Come Spring.  

My microfilm collection is extensive. I use it to write academic stuff. I even have my own microfilm reader. It's not a printer, so I have to take some reels to our university library to print out hard copy. 

One of the biggest traps of becoming serious about writing is insisting on writing under ideal conditions. It simply has never happened for me. I would love to say I always write in the same place, at the same time every day, but in fact the only thing that's stable is my output.

For me, the quota system works for first drafts. Barbara and I both do a first draft in longhand. When I transfer this to the computer, the requirements are different. I type in a chapter a day, try to incorporate my notes, and straighten out plot issues. 

I have a peculiar method of outlining after I've written a chapter in longhand. I type a summary of the chapter with the setting at the top, the page span, and most important, the chain of events.

Ah, that chain of events. If nothing is actually happening in this summary, nothing is happening in the novel. It's deadly dull.  

This outline is printed on pink paper. Pink for promise. I tack each chapter on a cork strip. The pages are then replaced with yellow ones, because the light is beginning to dawn and I try to fix the mess. When these pages are replaced with blue ones, it means I'm going after language. This manuscript is now true blue. As good as I can do. 

Like my little morning glory it's my own way of doing things. Despite all logic or reasoning. 

In search of a name

It's two weeks since I wrote my post 'Ready, set go!' about putting my pen to paper and getting started on the first draft of my new, no-name Inspector Green novel. At that time I had about 10 pages written. I am now proud to announce that I have 73 pages! Mind you, it's 73 handwritten pages and half the paragraphs are crossed out, but still, it's progress! Moreover, while I was doing that, the proofs of my novel THE ANCIENT DEAD arrived from the publisher and I have been wading through those too. And I had to prepare a talk to give to the local editors' association.

As an aside, that group is impressive! It was a regular monthly meeting but almost all the seats were filled. Not only did they laugh at my jokes but they listened for nearly an hour and then asked questions for another half hour, despite a snowstorm brewing outside. One tip I learned for any association struggling with poor attendance: serve excellent snacks (croissants, cheese, strawberries, among other things), and in addition to coffee and tea, serve alcohol! I noticed several members pouring Baileys on their ice cream.

I also updated my website, did some social media fiddling, and spent hours researching on the internet. And by the end of two weeks, I had 73 pages and two problems. First of all, no body. There was lots of mystery and intrigue, but I was writing and writing and writing without ever reaching that crucial point in a detective novel: the appearance of a body. It arrives on p. 74, but it remains to be seen, once I get this handwritten scribble down on the computer where I can examine it, whether that's soon enough. I don't think I've ever put off murder for so long before,

The second problem is, no-name doesn't cut it as a title. A title is like the cherry on the top of a sundae, the perfect touch that ties the whole creation together. Sometimes it comes to me easily, even before I've started the book. Sometimes it jumps out at me from a phrase I've written. Other times I play with words, comb through Internet quotations and generally tear out my hair before I hit upon the perfect title that captures the essence of the story.

No-name is about domestic violence, so I toyed with variations on the wedding vows. 'For better or for worse' and 'Till death do us part' have both been done to death. To have and to hold... Meh. I combed through Shakespearean quotes online. Nobody does death quite like Shakespeare. But so far, I've struck out.

So the search continues. I hope that by the summer I will have found my answer. Stay tuned!

From zero to sixty and back again

AKA the ebb and flow of a writer's life. There is a schedule in the lives of writers. For me, it is this. I have about a year to fifteen months between book deadlines, and find it usually takes me a year to write a book. More if there is a substantial amount of research. I usually start almost as soon as the previous book is handed in to the publisher, and the early weeks consist largely of thinking. And chewing my nails. What should I write about? What should I explore next? What do I want to say? And what kind of trouble can I put my characters through this time?

During this time, ideas slowly begins to form and I push them around, looking at them from various angles, fleshing out the barest bones to see if there is enough meat. Kicking the tires, so to speak. After I settle on a promising, bare bones theme, I start to research. I visit the library, I search Amazon and order obscure books from ABE, I scour the Internet. I read and read, taking lots of notes while the bare bones take on more meat in my head. And because my head has only so much room, I start to jot ideas down in a file called "plot and research notes". I like Aardvark better, so may steal that for my next book.

Eventually the starting point for the book emerges out of the mists, and once I have that toehold, I start to write. Still researching, still groping forward, and with only the vaguest idea where I'm going. The plot and the ideas evolve as I write. I try to write every day, usually for the morning, and always try to finish a scene. The book and I lurch along in this haphazard, step-by-step fashion for several months, by which time I am about halfway through the books and six months from D Day. Deadline Day, or Dreaded Day, or whatever it feels like at the moment.

At that point I start thinking backwards from that D Day. I need to give my Beta readers at least a month, preferably six weeks, to critique my manuscript and I need at least two weeks to incorporate their critiques and do final polishing. Before I give it to the readers, I need at least a month to fix up the rough first draft and make it the best I can. There is no point in wasting readers' time with a book I know is still full of plot holes and crappy characters. Which means if I want to meet deadline, I need to finish my first draft three to four months before D Day.

Which gives me two to three months to write the second half of the book, when I have only the foggiest idea where it's going!

Yikes.

These past three months I have been in that boat, madly rushing to complete the first draft and fix it up to send to my beta readers. Which I finally did – yesterday. It's a very odd feeling. I've been desperately yearning for this day. Dust balls and dog fur balls have accumulated in my house, weeds have taken over my garden, the fridge is empty, and most of my friends think I've died or moved to Australia. I've had my pedal to the floor for several months, with the storyline and the characters in my head all day and feeling guilty whenever I couldn't give them the time they needed.

And now, suddenly, the foot is off the accelerator and I am coasting to a dead halt. The book is in "rest" mode for four to six weeks while I wait for the verdicts of my trusted readers. Now I have time to look around at the dog fur and the weeds, the full laundry basket and the empty fridge, and I don't even know where to begin. The morning stretches ahead, unstructured and without demands (except those listed above).

I know I will revel in the slower pace and the empty brain, and I will start to do all the things I have been neglecting. But for a week or so at least, the absence of "being a writer" is discombobulating. And I feel vaguely itchy.

As if I should be writing something. This blog, for example.

Beginning a New Series

Tempe Public Library

I, Donis, started my Writer in Residence program on May 1 at the Public Library here in my hometown of Tempe, Arizona. Tempe is a town of about 140,000 people, not counting the students at Arizona State University (another 60,000). And yet Tempe only has one public library. No branches. Still, the one library is quite the establishment. It is incredibly busy and the number of events it sponsors is mind-boggling. The librarian in charge of events, Jill Brenner, is particularly interested in offering writing programs for the city, and judging by participation, these programs have been wildly successful.

I am Writer in Residence for this summer, May through July, when any locals who haven't left town to escape the heat are looking for some kind of indoor activity, because hiking or picnicking when it's 115º is not fun. So I'll be available to consult one-on-one with aspiring writers for a couple of hours on the days I am in house, and I'm contracted to present six classes throughout the summer on some aspect of writing. All very lovely and well and good and charming, and I'm going to enjoy that.

I'm also supposed to write on my own book, and that is a lot more work. Especially considering that I'm working on the first novel in a new series. I've written ten Alafair Tucker novels over the past thirteen years. I know those characters like I know my own family. And now I've set myself the task of getting to know a whole new bunch of folks who are living their lives in a place and time that I have never written about before. I have crossed over a couple of characters from the first series, which is comforting. At least there's one person I know well in this new world! But it's exciting, as well, to move to a new state and start living among a new crowd.

But I'm a little anxious. How successfully am I going to be able to pull you into this new world, Dear Reader, and how willing are you to go along with me. In his book on writing, This Year You Write Your Novel, Walter Mosely said, “a novel is a collusion between the author and the reader.” The reader wants to walk in your character’s shoes, to believe in the world you’ve created, and you don’t want to let him down.

I’m often anxious and unhappy for much of a first draft. Why, I ask myself, isn’t this better? It seemed like such a good idea when it was still in my head.

Why do I put myself through it? I’m never sure I can pull it off, no matter how many times I’ve pulled it off before. But then there are those days, even while you’re struggling with the first draft, when you do hit the perfect note, or compose a passage so beautiful and true that it brings tears to your eyes. Ray Bradbury spoke truth when he said that real success comes when you begin to write from the inside, and not from the outside.

Besides, once the first draft is finished and you’re on to the second and third and however many more, world without end, it all starts to come together and you realize with a start that you’ve got something. Maybe that old mojo is working after all!

By the way, if you'd like to fly over to Tempe on your day off and sign up for a writer consultation with me or attend a class, you can find all the requisite information about the Writer in Residence program here.

Keeping Up With the Times

I’ve started a new novel and am slogging along in the jungles of the first draft. When I’m trying to get a first draft to look like something and having a tough time of it (which is always), I often wonder why I put myself through it. But then if I didn’t have a first draft I wouldn’t have anything to revise. I much prefer doing revisions to writing the first draft of a novel. In my metaphorical little world, writing the first draft is a coarse, rough, sweaty process. You slap that gesso on the wall by the bucket load and slather on the background paint. It’s messy and hard and, for me, a daily act of will to accomplish. But rewriting takes skill. It requires a true eye, real delicacy and finesse to shape that big old expanse of plaster into a work of art.

With rewrites, you get to see the story change shape and, if you’re lucky and skilled enough, grow into something beautiful. Of course, there are those horrible moments when you realize that you’re going to have to lose a scene that you really liked, or that word of which you are so enamored because it no longer fits the picture. I think perhaps that’s when you know you’re a real writer, when you can cut good stuff for the greater good of the story.

I must comment about Barbara's post, below, about how a writer faces the end of her book. I totally relate to her fear of not being able to pull it off. It's really horrible to know exactly how you want it to come off and not be sure you have the chops to do it. I never quite achieve the brilliant, knock-your-socks-off triumph that I had envisioned, but I'm usually pleased enough in the end. I often don't know exactly how it's going to end, myself, until it does. Once I do finish a book, I love to go back over it and fiddle with it, changing a word here, a sentence there, like polishing a new-made piece of furniture. Pulling off a great ending requires not only skill, but insight and not a little luck!

And one last word about computers (see Rick’s cautionary entry, April 17, below). I’m about twenty years behind the times when it comes to technology. I wonder if the reason isn't because I have no kids to shame me into keeping up with the times. For those of us who attained majority before the advent of the computer age, it just ain’t fair. We aren’t stupid. But we grew up in a world that required a whole other set of skills.

I hate to sound like an old curmudgeon who goes on about how she used to live in a shoebox in the middle of the road and eat mud for supper when she was a child, but that’s not going to stop me. I write a historical series, but I don’t think the past was better than the present.  Far from it.  I’m not nostalgic for the past. I don’t rue the fact that the world is changing. That’s the way it is. But it does seem that I hardly recognize the planet I grew up on any more. I don’t value the things that most of society seems to value.

I expect this happens to everyone, and has since the beginning of time. I wonder sometimes about those souls who manage to live to be 100 or 110. How must they feel about the fact that everyone else who understood their world has entered the choir eternal? How must they feel when the very world they knew how to live in is gone, when they find themselves on what amounts to a different planet, and they are the only ones of their species left in existence?

Hmm, there’s a plot in there somewhere. And now I beg to be excused so that I can go back up all my work.

Finalist

This coming weekend I will learn if my 2017 novel, The Return of the Raven Mocker, has won this year’s Oklahoma Book Award. I was notified a month or so ago that Raven Mocker is one of the finalists in the fiction category. This is the eighth of the ten Alafair Tucker mysteries to be a finalist for the award. As of this moment, none of the eight have won. The truth is, though, that whether I finally win or not, I will not be disappointed. It's pretty good news to be a finalist for the award eight times for eight different books, and I am most happy about it. The entire finalist list is sent to every library in Oklahoma and it’s hard to top that kind of publicity.


Now that I think about it, I have to admit that I don't readily feel disappointment when something doesn't pan out, nor am I particularly elated by success. I've had a lot of both success and failures, and when the dust settles, nothing much is changed and I am still me. Another author told me once that she shopped a novel around for eight years, and she grew so calloused by rejection that when her agent did sell it, she felt nothing. I can easily be seduced by praise, though, and I wouldn't say no to an award of any ilk. Something has to keep you going in this business, because the likelihood is that it won't be riches.

A wall full of finalist consolation prizes.

I have just begun the preliminary research and planning stages for the next novel in my series. and soon I'll be in that apply-glue-to-rear-end-and-sit-down-in-front-of-computer-whether-you-like-it-or-not stage. Wringing out the first draft.

Or trying to. I find my mind wandering at the most inconvenient times, and considering that I have a tendency to give in to random thought as it is, I'm not having any luck completing the tasks I should.

For instance, rather than work on the manuscript I've just spent the last fifteen minutes thinking of names for a rock band. I discovered several books ago that if I’m going to be able to power through the pain of a first draft, I have to set myself a rigid writing schedule. This is difficult for me, since I’m not by nature a disciplined person. I don’t enjoy forcing myself to put words on the page, whether I’m feeling inspired at that moment or not. I’m always anxious and unhappy for much of a first draft. Why, I ask myself, isn’t this better? It seemed like such a good idea when it was still in my head.

Somerset Maugham follows a similar rule about sitting down to write whether you’re in the mood or not. An interviewer once asked him if he kept a strict writing schedule or if he simply waited for the Muse to strike him before he sat down to compose. He replied, "Oh, I wait for the Muse to strike. Fortunately she strikes every morning at precisely nine o'clock."

My piece of advice? The number one thing that works for me is just to sit down and do it and quit trying to figure out how to do it. Quit fooling around, Donis. The dishes will wait.

p.s. I looked up the Somerset Maugham in an attempt to get the above quote right, and I must say that Maugham is a fountainhead of quotable wisdom. Here are a couple that particularly spoke to me:

"The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected."
"There are three rules for writing a novel Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."
"You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences."
And this, which seems especially apt right about now: "My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror."

Summertime. And the Living Ain't Easy.

109.2 °F

My latest manuscript is in the hands of my editor. It will more than likely be after the Independence Day holiday before I hear the verdict. I expect a great deal of rewriting is in my future.

In the meantime, I, Donis, am working on a couple of short stories, doing some book reviewing. Trying to accomplish something. Anything. But it is summer in southern Arizona and trying to get anything done is problematic to say the least. A friend of mine pointed out that Arizona summers are the price we pay for our gorgeous winters. The winters are fantastic and it is nice to rub it in when it's seventy degrees and sunny here and ten below with fifteen feet of snow and ice everywhere else. However, summer is a steep price to pay.

The past week or so hasn't been too bad. Daily highs of 108ºF to 111ºF. One can tell a long-time Arizonan by the fact that she thinks as long as it's below 110ºF, that's "not too bad". Early in June we had several days between 115º and 118º. They were predicting 120º, so we dodged the bullet there.

There are Arizonans who brag about surviving or even loving the heat, just as native North Dakotans brag about the cold. But I'm not one of them. Three months of super heat is exhausting. I get cabin fever. I try to get any errands done in the morning, but banks and stores often don't open before nine or ten a.m., and it's already hot enough for sunstroke by then.

My writing life is not helped by my heat-induced ennui. I have to gear myself up for the task of writing. A few years ago I read an interview with Walter Mosely in which he said it was no problem for him to sit down day after endless day and write, since to him writing was like having to have sex every morning. It may be his job, but he still enjoys it very much.

I wish I were the same. I don’t love it, as a rule, especially when I’m just beginning a new work. I love the ideas, I love working out the details of the story. I love the imagining. But for me writing the first draft is like writing a term paper. What I really love - the endorphin rush for me - comes when I am finished, or nearly so. Then I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment, and amazement that I created something that I like so much. Because I always write what I like to read.