Writing in a New Place

View from the road in Hagåtña, Guam

Greetings from Guam!

After nearly a month on the island of Guam, my hubby and I are in our own apartment. Our household goods haven't arrived yet, but we've successfully hooked up with a local internet provider. 

I have no excuse for not jumping into my writing projects.

New Project Set in Guam

One project I'm excited to begin is a women's fiction novella series set on Guam. The idea is to share what I'm experiencing through a fictional character named Stephanie Smart, a literary writer whose star has begun to fade at the same time she experiences a personal drama. She decides to move to Guam and get away from all the mess of her former life. She meets a man who says he's there on international business, but is he hiding something? Most likely. Because I can't seem to not include intrigue in my fiction these days. 

I'm really looking forward to getting into this. 

So why am I procrastinating?

The Procrastination Monster

That's always the question, isn't it? We've all been there. We have something we want to begin or finish, but tugging on our arm is The Distraction Monster, dragging us from our task, hanging on our hands like a cranky, demanding three-year old at the water park. 

"Go over there!"

"I'm hungry!" 

"I'm thirsty!" 

"I want to have fun!" 

"I don't wanna sit down quietly!"

"No! No! No!" 

Are you picturing a little red-haired hellion throwing herself to the ground and throwing a tantrum? Kicking her ratty, untied tennis sneakers, face screwed up, crocodile tears hiding the sneaky look in her eyes? That's the Distraction Monster. 

(Where's my Catherine Zeta Jones Reclining on a Fainting Couch and Smoking a Cigarette While Drinking a Martini Muse when I need her? She's reclining. And unconcerned. Unhelpful at this moment. She leaves ME to deal with the procrastination hellion. "I'll be here when you take care of that brat," she says, her voice a nonchalant and smoky purr.)

Procrastination is a brat. It's immature. It does not want to take responsibility. The key is to show it you're the adult in the room. Ignore its excuses. Send it to sit in the corner, face to the wall. Put it to bed with the shades pulled, a snuggy blanket around it. Whatever you have to do to move forward. 

Multiple Projects

Procrastination Monster with a sly smile, batting her eyelashes at me innocently while I give her a stern talking to and interrupting me: "But I need to finish this one first! You said so. Remember? Huh? Huh? You did!" 

I've never been good at juggling multiple writing projects. How about you? 

I prefer to finish one, start the next. However, I'm hoping to try a new strategy while we are abroad for the next several years, and there is no reason for me NOT to begin writing Steph's story. 

So if I have the internet, my trusty Chromebook, a good idea and notes, what's holding me back? Besides the usual procrastination, I really want to complete a half-typed short story about my female P.I. Olivia Lively. I did finish it, by hand, back in June. Those pages are somewhere on the Pacific Ocean with the rest of my stuff, and for the life of me I can't remember the middle part of the story. 

I know the beginning. I know the end. I can't remember what happened in the middle because I rewrote that thing three times before I got it right, sometime around 3:30 a.m. one night at my parents' house in Maine, where I was writing in a notebook because I had no internet service. After finally catching that wave, I rode that story all the way to THE END, but darned if I can remember how I got there. 

Was the cousin important? Did she go next door? How did she get to the [spoiler] at the end to uncover the truth? 

Have you ever had to recreate a story you finished? Because you lost the pages or the computer crashed or something similar? 

I just need to sit down at my computer and think up some new middle for the short story and start typing. Something will come to me, right? 

Meanwhile, I'm keeping an online journal about my Guam experiences and writing on ShelleyBurbank.com several days a week if you are interested in reading more often about my adventures overseas.

Gun Beach, Tumon Bay

[Of course, now I want to try to draw some illustrations of The Procrastination Monster and my Muse. Which is, of course, MORE procrastination. Sigh. I'll leave you with this drawing that represents my seeker self, looking for meaning and answers and creativity and joy in crazy times. Maybe next post I'll have the Procrastination Monster and the Muse to amuse you. And hopefully news on a completed short story.]

Happy reading and writing this week, my friends! 

Cheers, 

Shelley

On switching hats, or boats in mid-stream

Today I'm tempted to take Rick's approach from yesterday. See ya later, all! I'm off to the beach.

But before I go to the beach – AKA my cottage – I'll just make a few comments about another reality in a writer's life. Multi-tasking. Or multi-writing. If you write more than one book, or even worse, more than one series as I do, sooner or later you'll run up against it. You'll be doing final edits on one book, doing readings and talks about an earlier book, and beginning the creative process of imagining a third book.

In my case, I have just finished Book # 4 in the Amanda Doucette series, entitled THE ANCIENT DEAD. No sooner had I pressed "send" and emailed the manuscript to the publisher last week (exactly on its due date) when the mail carrier deposited the author copies of my fourth Cedric O'Toole on my doorstep. Time to promote BLOOD TIES and give Cedric his time at centre stage.

At the same time, however, having sent off THE ANCIENT DEAD, I am already turning my thoughts to the next book in my contract. The book that will be occupying my mind for the next year until its fall deadline. The book that has the provisional title (to appease the publisher) of DARKEST BEFORE DAWN, although that will probably change once I know what it's actually about. The book that has yet no shape or plot points and only the vaguest idea of a theme. The book that brings me from the badlands of Alberta, where I have been with Amanda for the last fifteen months, back to the the familiar streets of Ottawa.

The eleventh Inspector Green novel. After five years, he's back! It will feel very strange to step back into his life and surround myself with old friends I've known for years. Ottawa Police Inspector Michael Green is back but older, maybe wiser, and no longer in the thick of things in the police service.

This week, however, feels like a transition. I've never been able to write two books simultaneously. I can edit one book while writing the first draft of another; in fact, this is almost always required because the editor's critiques from the publishing house always arrive smack in the middle of the first draft efforts of the next book. But even so, I have to set the draft aside and re-immerse myself in the first book for however long the edits take. The setting, characters, mood, and even the styles feel different from one to another. Skipping between them would feel shallow and unauthentic. I don't think either would profit from the lack of full focus. I need time to get into the feel of each book and to get the creative muse humming.

So for the next couple of weeks, I am fiddling around doing nothing very profound but celebrating the arrival of BLOOD TIES. The book is due out on August 27, and received this very nice review from Booklist:

And then I'm off to enjoy the beach! Maybe give Inspector Green a quick call.

Forks and roundabouts; navigating multiple series

At the beginning of this new year, fresh and cold and full of possibilities, I find myself standing at a fork in the road. What choice to make? Which way to go? I have just submitted the third manuscript in my new Amanda Doucette series to my publisher, and although I have a few months of edits and such ahead, I have completed my three-book contract for this series. I do have one contractual obligation left to fulfill – the fourth book in my Rapid Reads Cedric O'Toole series, the deadline for which is in June – but beyond that, I have no major writing commitments on the horizon.

I began my published writing career in 1994 with a short story in a local anthology, and published quite a few short stories before publishing my first mystery novel, Do or Die, in 2000. In the subsequent fourteen years, I published ten novels in the Inspector Green series, which works out to more than a book every one and a half years. During that time I also wrote short stories and three Rapid Reads novellas. It was a busy pace.

During its ten-book run, the Inspector Green series garnered four Arthur Ellis Best Novel nominations, including two wins, and developed a loyal fan base. As with all long-running series, readers enjoyed spending time with the exasperating, hard-driving detective and his collection of regulars both on the police force and in his family. They followed his ups and downs and watched him grow as a character and a man, as did I.

Ten books seemed like a nice round number for me to give the series a rest and spread my wings with new characters, new settings, and new story styles. I'd spent fifteen years of my life with Inspector Green and as a writer, I didn't want the series or my writing to grow stale. So I proposed a new series to my publisher and was given a three-book contract to develop the Amanda Doucette series. New character – a woman for the first time – new cast of supporting characters, a different setting for each book, and a story style with far less inherent structure (police procedurals, no matter how you vary them, are essentially murder investigations).

At first I found it surprisingly difficult to switch gears. I couldn't hear Amanda's voice or get a handle on her reactions. After you've lived with a cast of characters for fifteen years, their voices come easily and you slip into their skins almost the moment you pick up your pen. Not so with Amanda. It's taken me three books to get to know her and to feel her from the inside as I write her scenes. I also found the looser story structure, with no clear forward momentum and a need to motivate Amanda's every move (why on earth would she do that instead of just calling 911?), much more of a challenge than I had expected. I am not a fan of thrillers, but found myself creating stories with thriller-like elements just to motivate Amanda's continued involvement. I still love traditional "unpeeling the onion" whodunits, but why on earth would Amanda unpeel the onion in the first place?

The Amanda Doucette series has received positive reaction from readers and reviewers, and I believe it has picked up some readers that Green did not. But some readers who love Inspector Green were upset by the change and wanted him back. Even now, although most are enjoying Amanda'a antics, they still hope I write another Green book. It's a dilemma that all writers of multiple series face. Each series has its fans, and often readers prefer one over the other. And now that I've written all three books in the Doucette contract, a new book in either series would probably be at least two years out. Six years after the last Inspector Green novel or two year after the last Doucette, Prisoners of Hope.

I love both my series, and would happily write either. Ideally I would like to alternate series, but there are practical questions to be asked. Can a series survive six years' absence? Does the Amanda Doucette series have a firm enough fan base that readers who love it will wait at least three years for the next installment? Do I know her well enough to put her on the shelf for a year or two and have her still come when called?

My instinct says that, after three books, Amanda may not be well enough established in readers' hearts and thoughts, especially if there is a three-year gap before the next. Four books may be enough, but that leaves an even longer gap before the next Green. I can't write more than one book a year and still retain my sanity. In fact, one book a year feels like a straitjacket sometimes, as other fun things like travel and grandchildren beckon.

So these are my thoughts as I stand on the threshold of the new year, facing a fork in the road. I'd be interested to hear what other writers have experienced, and what readers like. All this dithering may be moot, of course, if for some reason the publisher wants neither series, but that's a whole other fork in the road! Perhaps more like a roundabout.