Writing and Insecurity

By Thomas Kies

I’m nearly finished writing the first draft of a new book.  It’s not part of the Geneva Chase series which I’ve loved doing.  This has a male protagonist (kind of nice not writing as a woman for a change), different location (I love Connecticut, but the cost of living is wicked high and it’s time to write a mystery using new scenery), and a different vibe.

My publisher hasn’t committed to the book, and I don’t know if they will. I hope they do.

As a matter of fact, there’s no guarantee that it will ever see the light of day.  It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve written a novel that was never published.  As a matter of fact, before I found an agent (she’s the best) for Random Road, I had written four other books.

Before Random Road, was I feeling insecure?  Hell yes.

I still am. 

As I continue to steam ahead on the new book, there are some days where I think this is the best piece of fiction I’ve ever written.  And then, later that same day, I wonder if it’s the worst piece of crap ever knocked out on a laptop.

Yeah, insecurity.  

I asked my browser if any other writers have suffered from insecurity.  This is what it said:

Yes, many famous writers have suffered from insecurity. For example, Ernest Hemingway was known for his insecurities and his tendency to compare himself to other writers. F. Scott Fitzgerald also struggled with insecurity throughout his life. Virginia Woolf was known to have suffered from depression and anxiety, which often made her feel insecure about her writing.

● "I have written a great many stories and I still don't know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances." - John Steinbeck

● "I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent." - Stephen King

● "I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within." - Gustave Flaubert

● "I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering." - Robert Frost

I’m going to get back to writing.  Luckily, at this point, unlike Frost, I know what the end looks like.  When I started, the characters were foreign to me.  The villain or villains unknown.  The story yet to unfold. 

Now the characters are like old friends.  I hope you get to spend time with them as well.

www.thomaskiesauthor.com

Cataloguing Things I See

  This weekend, my wife and I are enjoying time spent in Southport, NC.  It’s a lovely, quaint little village right on the edge of the Cape Fear River.  From the shore, you can see Oak Island and Bald Head Island.  

It just so happened that this is the same weekend as a huge vintage car show.  I loved seeing a 1963 Ford Galaxie, similar to my the first car I ever owned.  All metal, massive engine, big as a beached whale, no AC, no power windows, a radio that was only AM, and a steering wheel the size of a hula hoop.  

Even the smell of the leather interior brought back memories. A new car smell is nice, but a car with some age to it is even better.  I don’t know why.

Southport is also famous for being a location where movies and episodes for television shows have been filmed.  Some of the movies include Firestarter, Crimes of the Heart, Weekend at Bernie’s, I Know What You Did Last Summer, as well as many others.

The town’s most favorite (yes, they seem to have a favorite) is Safe Haven adapted from a Nicholas Sparks novel.  Now, admittedly, romance is not my genre, but we did watch the movie before we came to visit.

During the movie, they clearly identified the location as Southport, North Carolina. We took a golf cart tour of the town and our guide cheerfully pointed to where all the scenes were filmed.  Of course, our guide also informed us that he’s met a few of the celebrities.  One of them was Ryan Seacrest who was dating one of the actresses in town at the time.  Mr. Seacrest’s bio states that he’s five feet eight inches tall.  Our guide said he’s 5’7’’.  The guide told us that he had doubts as to the veracity of the biography because standing next to him, he felt like an NBA player. 

So, what does any of this have to do with writing mysteries?  Nothing, really, other than I’m filing and cataloguing things that I see, sounds that I hear, scents I smell, and people that we meet.  All grist for the mill. 

Lesson for today, nothing is wasted on a writer.  Enjoy everything and then use it in your next story. 

One last thought, the Washington Post ran an excellent opinion piece about how novels are important now more than ever in difficult times.  If you get a chance, take a look!  

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/24/why-read-novels/

Opinion | Reading novels in times of trouble - The Washington Post

What in the World?

 by Charlotte Hinger

I'm going through a novel, tightening wherever possible, and discovered the strangest thing. I dislike the construction of "said he" rather than "he said." But the "said he" usage is throughout my book. I have no idea how that happened, or why I didn't notice it. 

Thanks to the power of global searches, I will simply ask Word to find "said" and look at how it's used. Of course, it's better if "said" is used sparingly. That is not to say it should be followed by an adverb, but unique vivid description of action or a character tag. 

In addition to "said he" I'm annoyed by long passages of unattributed dialogue. I find too many authors think their dialogue is so skillfully done that the reader can easily tell who is speaking. 

For that matter, I don't like fiction that has no quotation marks. Writers who omit them strike me as affected in some way. 

Now, I'm worried that my previously published books have some peculiarity that I was unaware of. Are my other novels riddled with "said he"? What else have I done? I don't have the guts to look. 

Writers who care about improving become much better craftsmen over time. Even if no one is coaching them. I don't know how this happens. To be honest, I don't understand how the writing process works. All I know is that I'm better than I used to be. 

I have a contract for the book I'm revising now. Word count is limited to 105,000. That's quite reasonable. It's easy to find 10,000 words that should be deleted. What's scary is that every paragraph is just terrible. They all seem bloated. 

Does anyone ever reach the point where we get right the first time?

Writing That Sings

Writing That Sings

 By Johnny D. Boggs

This week finds me in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the annual International Western Music Association convention. What makes a writer of prose want to hang out with songwriters, poets and performers?

After all, my key is “out of;” a meter is something I feed to keep from getting a parking ticket; and notes are what I owe the bank or my scribbling that I can’t read three hours later.

But when I was sloppily writing short stories as a kid, sometimes I would decide: This needs a theme song. I’d pen dreadful lyrics, which I would imagine Frankie Laine singing.

That said, my friend Micki Fuhrman and I co-wrote a song that placed second – out of 116 entries – in the IWMA’s songwriting competition this year. Micki, who also writes fiction, won a Spur Award and finalist honors this year for Western Writers of America’s Best Western Song and is nominated for four IWMA awards this year, including Songwriter of the Year.

Jim Jones, a multiwinner of IWMA awards, also writes Western novels, so I asked him how writing songs helps him with his fiction, and vice versa.

“For me, a song is in some ways a synopsis for a novel,” he said. “If you write a song, you have a synopsis. And if you have a storyline, it gives you tons of songs to write.”

Jones mentioned Mike Blakely, a Spur Award winner for Western novels and Western songs. “Mike has transformed many characters from his novels into songs.”

The song Micki and I cowrote came about when we were talking about the placement of words. I said something like, “Take signing a letter ‘Yours Truly.’ What if you flipped the words to ‘Truly Yours?’” Next thing I know, we have a song titled “Yours Truly, Truly Yours.”

Micki’s album Westbound, nominated for IWMA’s Traditional Western Album of the Year, includes a song I wrote – “Loving County,” inspired from Elmer Kelton’s classic Texana novel of the 1950s drought, The Time It Never Rained.

Studying great songwriting helps when I’m writing prose. There are beats to dialogue, action scenes, descriptions. Sentences need a rhythm.

“I came into fiction writing as a professional songwriter,” Micki told me, “and I believe the skills I learned composing songs shaped the way I write stories.

“With a song, I have about three minutes to set up a scenario with a beginning, middle and end. Every word has to work hard, and the more ‘picture words,’ the better, since I see the lines of a song as movie frames.

“Now, as I write a short story or a novel, I subconsciously follow the tenets of songwriting: rhythm, pacing, fluidity of words, alliteration, color and emotion.”

Thank goodness, I don’t try to sing while writing pros. But when I’m looking over a draft, I will often think back to lyrical styles of songwriters I’ve long admired – John Prine, Guy Clark, Johnny Cash, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Pete Seger, Jimmy Webb, Carole King, Count Basie, Townes Van Zandt, Loretta Lynn, Bob Dylan, Sam Cooke, Jon Chandler, Rosanne Cash, Woody Guthrie, Bob McDill, Johnny Mercer, Joni Mitchell, Tom T. Hall, Bob Seger, Mickey Newberry, Bruce Springsteen and, yes, Blakely, Jones and Fuhrman – and incorporate some of that into my prose.

It might not always sing, but every now and then I’ll hit the right note.

Connections

 

Connections

By Johnny D. Boggs

The telephone rang last week, and I pushed away from the keyboard and answered. The news stunned me.

Karl Cordova died after cardiac arrest the day before. He was 52.

Karl worked for, and loved, the National Park Service, serving as superintendent at Casa Grande (Arizona) Ruins National Monument and Pecos (New Mexico) National Historical Park. I met him after he moved to New Mexico to take the Pecos job. His two sons and my son were in the same Boy Scout troop -- Karl eventually became Scoutmaster, and I was one of several assistants -- and all three boys played baseball. I coached baseball with Karl, sometimes against him, and umpired a few ballgames in which the boys played.

                                                        Karl Cordova at a naturalization 

                                                        ceremony at Pecos National His-

                                                        torical Park in 2016.

I have never met anyone as calm and collected as Karl. He never lost his cool -- hard to do when you're wrangling pre-teen and teenage boys.

The sad news also had me thinking that as a writer, you often never know if you touch readers, and it's a blessing when you have. It's a bigger blessing when you realize how a reader can touch you.

The last time I say Karl was in March. He invited me to bring the family to a dinner in Pecos with Friends of Pecos National Historical Park on the eve of the park's annual Civil War Encampment (the 1862 battle of Glorieta Pass, in which Union forces turned back a Confederate invasion, was partially fought on what's now park property). I'd talk a bit about writing historical novels and answer any questions.

Over the years, I had given Karl some of my novels, and he had bought others. His father, he said, was a big fan of my books and loved Westerns. When you write in this genre, you hear that fairly often: My father reads ... My grandfather reads ... my great-grandpa reads. ... Well, Karl said he liked my books, too, though I'm pretty sure his sons had no interest in reading Westerns.

But that night, Karl told another story.

He was visiting his father in the hospital. His dad was reading Hard Winter, if my memory's right. I said, "I kinda like that one myself." They talked about my my writing style, how they liked the way I told different kinds of Westerns, how I did my research, how I made my characters realistic, believable, human. I was wondering if my hat would fit when I had to leave.

And then Karl said:

"My father passed away that night. So I'll always remember that the last conversation we had was about your books." 

Readers have written letters or emails or even telephoned to say how much they like something I've written, or why they didn't like what I'd written. But I'd never heard anything like what Karl said that night. I signed a copy of the book in memory of Karl's dad.

This morning, I'll be at Karl's funeral. This afternoon, I'll be back in the office, writing a novel with a deadline fast approaching. But I've already rewritten part of that book. A few days ago, I called up the Word doc and went to the dedication. Deleted what I had written, then replaced it with:

In memory of Karl Cordova (1970-2022),

fellow baseball coach, Scout leader, and friend;

and his father, Bill (1936-2020),

who liked my novels.

Do You Need an Agent?

Last Friday, I spoke to a group of about thirty people in our county’s writers’ group.  I talked about the number of books I wrote before I finally found an agent (five) and how even if you get an agent, there’s no guarantee that you’ll find a publisher.  

That had actually happened to me in 2001.  The book was called PIECES OF JAKE and it convinced an agent in New York to sign me to a contract. My agent, however, only shopped my book to the top publishers in New York.  He didn’t try any of the indies.  When he couldn’t find a publisher to take me on, he dropped me like a bad habit.

I was devastated. I didn’t write another word for two years.

But in 2016, I found my agent and she found a publisher willing to take a chance on me.

One of the subjects I talked about with my group, was how I found my agent and how important it is, these days, to have one.  It’s getting harder and harder to find a publisher willing to look at an un-agented manuscript. Agents have become the gatekeepers.

They have all the contacts, know the trends, and know who is willing to take a chance on a debut author.  After all, publishing is business and taking on a new author requires an investment from the publishing house. 

One of the questions I got during my talk was-- how much does an agent charge to look at your work?  The answer is no legitimate agent charges to look at your work.  If they sign you to a contract, and if they find a publisher to take you on, and when you get paid your advance, then the agent receives their commission.  And the agent/client relationship can be a lifetime thing.  The agent also gets a percentage of all your royalties.

But the agent is always looking out for their client’s best interest.  Have you ever tried to decipher a contract from a publishing house?  Or figure out how a royalty is calculated?  That’s what your agent does.  

How did I find mine?  First, if you’re writing fiction, your novel needs to be complete and it helps a lot if it’s edited.  And a little advice—you’re first sentence needs to be kick-ass.  My agent told me that she gets one hundred queries a day. You don’t have a lot of time to catch an agent’s attention.

But then you need to hold their attention, so your book needs to be tightly written with well-drawn characters and a solid plot. 

What I did after I had confidence in my book, was Google literary agents, mysteries, debut authors.  About thirty names came up.  Then I did as much research on them as possible and when I wrote my query letters (emails) they were tailored to each individual agent.  No cookie cutter queries. 

Then I followed their submission guidelines to a fault.  Some wanted the first fifty pages, some wanted the first few chapters, and some wanted a synopsis. 

Four agents asked to see a complete manuscript. That was a first for me.

I eventually signed with one of them after she and I went through the manuscript page by page over the phone (she’s in California and I’m in North Carolina).  Finally, after we agreed on some minor revisions, she asked if I’d like to take our relationship to the next level—a contract.  

For a fledgling writer, I was over the moon.  The only other feeling like it was when she called me and said we were getting a contract from a publisher. 

A good agent is not only essential but they're also nurturing and wonderful mentors.