The long journey

 This week, I decided to take up Charlotte's question about managing time and juggling the various aspects of a writer's career. My system has changed immensely over the years. My first novel, DO OR DIE was published 24 years ago, before social media, websites,  goodreads, etc. Many of the readers I was hoping to reach didn't even have email. It's difficult to imagine how we coped, but we did! I developed a database (using D-Base) of all my friends and family who might be remotely interested in reading my books, and I added each new contact and reader to this database. I could generate mailing lists and print address labels from that database. When I released a new book, I printed postcards and mailed them out, announcing the book and, if they were local, inviting them to my book launch. The book launch was a huge way to get the word out. I also connected with bookstores within a reasonable driving distance from Ottawa and tried to arrange signings. Signings had two purposes - to sell books and to make a connection with booksellers. Sybil's advice to treat editors with respect applies equally to booksellers and librarians. They are your biggest ally.

At the beginning I was still working full time and had to find time to write as well as do all this promotional stuff in the evenings and weekends. Exhausting! Once I went down to part-time (and even more when I retired from practice entirely) I could use my off days to write and to travel around to stores, attend book clubs, and slowly learn about the internet. Email was a game-changer. As I accumulated the emails of readers, friends and families, I began to transition to emailing launch invitations and sending out announcements about signings and new books. Many of my colleagues, more savvy than me, developed newsletters and reader contact lists through platforms like mailchimp. I didn't. With my latest books, I did use Eventbrite and Facebook event invites to spread the word as well, but I still relied on group emails. I have come a long way into this technological age, but it's hard to make an old dog like new tricks!

My Facebook author page and my website are two other avenues through which I try to engage people and keep them up to date on my writing career. I cross-post info on Facebook and Instagram about book signings, launches, etc. When I look back, what a long way we've come in twenty-five years.

But the other aspect of my writing career - the actual writing - has barely changed at all. I write my first draft longhand using pen and pads of lined yellow paper. I began by squeezing writing time into the evenings once the family was settled, but since I've retired, I write every morning for three to four hours when I'm writing the first draft, saving the afternoon for the social media and promotional stuff. First I warm up my brain with coffee, social media browsing, and various internet fiddling, and then I get down to work. My goal is a scene a day, usually five to six handwritten pages. At that rate the first draft usually takes about four to six months. I do no editing until I have written "the end", and then my first task is to transcribe the illegible mess onto the computer. Initial editing occurs during this process, as well as creating a fat file of things that need to be fixed, added, changed, or deleted. Then comes all the rewrites to fix those. That process can take two to three months. I find the whole process from the first research to sending it in to the publisher takes about a year. 

Of course, I was usually contracted to one book a year, so this schedule was born out of necessity! Now that my most recent books are spread farther apart, I am enjoying a more leisurely pace, with time for other interests and fun while still getting the book done on time.

Inspiration

I love to read the recent posts of my fellow Type Mers, especially when I'm searching for a topic to write about. The perspectives and interests of other writers are a great source of inspiration. I have been doing this blog for a long, long time, and sometimes I feel as if I have nothing new to say under the sun.

The same thing can be said of writing itself. I've written dozens of short stories– although none recently due to lack of time (so I say)– as well as four short novels and sixteen full-length crime novels. I am not a fast writer, nor do I have an easy system for coming up with new ideas for plots and themes. Each book takes a lot of thought, research, and stumbling, bumbling drafts. I read about prolific writers who have fifty or more books under their belts and I am astonished. I don't know how a writer can create twenty original and powerful books about Detective X or Miss Y the librarian. After ten Inspector Green novels, I really want a change. I was afraid I would start creating the same book wearing different clothes, and frankly, I wanted to spread my wings. Hence Amanda Doucette. She gave me a refreshing change and a new writing style, settings, and characters to explore. After five books living with her, I was ready to go back to Inspector Green. With a new, updated twist.

Charlotte Hinger's post about the Masterclasses intrigued me. I'd seen them advertised but, like her, I had always dismissed them. But the four authors she described are all prolific writers with dozens of books to their credit. I was struck by the drive, professionalism, and passion they seemed to convey. I decided that I would try to track down their classes and listen. You don't get to be a successful writer by writing a book or two, and then dusting off your hands and sitting back to savour the results. You write the next book, and the next, because the stories are clamouring to come out. Most of us writers don't write for the money - you're better off being a plumber. We write because words and stories are our way of connecting. With others and with ourselves. 

I've never been a fan of "how to write" books. There are many different ways to write and to tell a story, and each of us has to find the way that works for us. Maybe outlining would make my life easier, maybe I should know where I'm going before I start, but that's not how my creative mind works. But over the years I've learned a lot about the craft of writing from other writers and from various workshops, panels, and discussions, as well as from my own bumbling. I like hearing what works for other writers, because most of the time, I find more similarities than differences, and I feel a kindred connection. I pay particular attention to writers whom I regard as exceptional. I look at their use of language, structure, character development, etc. How they weave the story together. 

Most writers always want to be improving the quality of our prose and the power of our stories. Inspiration is not just one ahah! idea that galvanizes a story; it's a hundred little ahah ideas along the way that lift an ordinary character or theme into an extraordinary one. Ideas that make the story sparkle and infuse it with passion. 

Which is something I'm not sure a robot can do.

Now I am curious enough that I am going to check out some of these masterclasses, starting with the ones Charlotte mentioned. To see where their passion comes from and how they capture it.

My Process

 By Thomas Kies

I’m going to riff off of Donis Casey’s excellent blog this week about her writing process.  

Mine is best described as chaotic.  As a rule, I have a general idea what the book will be about and the location.  Sometimes I even have thoughts on what the plot will be and who the villain or villains are.

But not always.

The book I’m currently working on I’ve started six times already.  Not unusual for me.  At some point, about thirty or forty pages in, I either like what I’ve written, or I don’t.  Six times now, I haven’t liked what I’ve created.

Initially, when I started this project, I had an idea for an opening scene but wasn’t sure how it might work so I mentally filed it away.  Plus, it was a murder scene that felt a little gruesome to me.

But I recalled what Barbara Peters, my first publisher and owner of the Poisoned Pen Bookstore, had told me during a live interview online.  “All of your books open with a murder, each one a little more gruesome than the last.” 

After six false starts and a long walk around the neighborhood, I decided to scrap everything I’d done up until then and start over…using that scene I had originally envisioned. 

I love it.

Now I’m about thirty pages into the project and I’ve completely changed the direction I’m taking the book.  Do I know where I’m going with it?  Kind of.

Stephen King said in a Wall Street Journal interview, “The thing is, I don’t outline, I don’t have whole plots in my head in advance. So, I’m really happy if I know what’s going to happen tomorrow, which I do, as a matter of fact, I know what’s going to happen in the novel I’m working on. And that’s enough.”

Now, so I don’t start out with an outline.  That being said, at some point during the writing of the book, I know where it will end up and who the baddies are.  I just have to find a way to get there.

That’s when I start outlining what has to happen to move me to that final scene. 

Then at a certain point, I know I have to lay clues.  You can’t have a mystery if the reader doesn’t at least have some kind of chance to solve the crime. But the clues have to be subtle and that’s where I have the advantage.  

I can go back into what’s been written, like going back in time, and alter what I’ve created.  

The same goes with dialogue. Haven’t you had a conversation with someone and wish you could have said something differently?  I can do that. 

Back to laying the clues out.  You don’t want them to be too obvious or the reader will figure out who the baddies are about halfway through the story. What you want is to have them reach the end of the book, and slap their forehead and say, “I should have seen that coming.”

So, now, I’m going to take a walk down to the beach and then come back, sit down at my keyboard, and knock out another chapter.

Cheers and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

The Process

 I, Donis, am working on a new Alafair Tucker mystery right now, and am very interested to see how it's going to turn out. I never know what the entire story will be before I begin. I learned early on that you may think you have it all figured out, but you don't. However, in all my previous mysteries, I at least had a murderer in mind before I actually began writing. I knew who was going to meet his or her doom and how, where the body was going to be discovered and by whom. I usually knew who did the deed, though I'm flexible about that. Before I start, I always think I know why the killer did it, but by the time I reach the end I often discover I was wrong. The motive seems get modified every time.

Thus far I have written about 50 pages for the nascent Alafair Eleven. I know which characters will be involved, I know where the story will be set, what the season will be, what historic events will unfold, what the side stories will be. But I haven't yet discovered a who killed the victim!

A murder mystery isn't really about the murder, of course. It's about the mystery. But without a murder, or some other incredibly compelling reason for your protagonist to get involved, it's mighty hard to create the mystery. Not long ago, I told someone she should "trust the process" with her writing. Even if you don't know where the story is going to go, just start writing and trust that all will become clear as you go along. Have faith that the answer will reveal itself in time.

I should pay attention to myself.

I've taken a few years off from my Alafair Tucker series to work on three Bianca Dangereuse Hollywood Mysteries set in the 1920s, so working on another Alafair feels a bit like coming home. This series started in 1912 and moved forward years or months with each book. Book Eleven has finally reached the spring of 1921, a period fraught with racial tension after the end of WWI, especially in eastern Oklahoma. I've done tremendous amounts of research. For each of my books, I keep a notebook and file full of information that I read up on as I need it, and just before I sat down to write this entry, I was perusing the file, and was interested to see how much information I’ve collected about post-WWI Oklahoma history.  Much of my research won't be used, for as a book advances, some of the ideas I started out with fall by the wayside.   

As I write on, brilliant new ideas for advancing the story will occur to me, and I’ll find myself looking up things I never would have thought of, otherwise.

Is this a "writing process"? I don’t know. Ideas come to me from the oddest places–from something I’ve read, or some off-hand comment someone says within earshot of me (be careful what you say around a writer). Once or twice from a dream I’ve had. In any event, the idea gets in my head one way or another and wiggles around in there for a while. Eventually it begins to take shape and I think, “That might make a good story.” I choose a narrow time period, such as March of 1921, and start reading the March 1921 newspapers from anywhere in eastern Oklahoma to see what was going on in the world and what Oklahomans were thinking about it. This usually adds layers of story to my basic idea. Then I ponder some more, make a few notes, and then start writing. Where the story ends up is as big a surprise to me as to anyone. It usually turns out better than I had planned, so thus far I have no reason to complain.

Mickey Spillane, when asked how much research he does in the interest of authenticity:  “None. My job is not to tell the truth.  My job is to make you believe.”(Note:  I’ve used that quote for years, but when I looked it up for this entry, I see that it’s actually “I don’t research anything.  When I need something, I make it up.” However, I like my version, so there it is. D.)

Schroedinger's Book

(Author's note - just noticed this falls into line with Thomas's post last week!)

The last time we were all together I mentioned that I had completed the final draft of my latest.

Obviously this is not the one coming out in the UK next month (which is called A RATTLE OF BONES, by the way, in case anyone from dear old blighty is reading this). No, that one was completed so long ago I've forgotten what it was about.

I joke, of course. I know there's a murder in there somewhere.

Here's a pic of the cover, just because I can and the site admin is off enjoying the July 4 celebrations as I write this:

Anyway, the one to which I have only recently appended the legend THE END won't hit shelves until some time next year and, as the authors among us will know, there is an entire process to go through before then. I may have typed those two little words but, sure as God made those little green things that grow on trees, it really ain't.

This is a nervous time for the traditionally published. As you read this, the manuscript will be with my publisher and sooner or later someone there will read it.

Will they like it?

Will they (gulp) hate it?

Will they contact their legal representative to begin proceedings to have the advance returned forthwith, henceforth and to wit the aforesaid?

(Fat chance - I've spent it.)

It is only the first point in the journey from imagination to printed page during which the author's undergarments begin to bunch as the imposter syndrome takes hold.

There's the reviewing portion of the process and then when it finally heads out into the wide world to the strains of Born Free. It will make its own way in the jungle of books. Survive or die. Sink or swim. 

Of course, between where the book is now - that strange netherworld between acceptance and publishers sending the boys round to have a word - and where it will be  comes the editing stage.

My approach to this is simple - we're all trying to make the create the best book we possibly can so it's best to get along. That doesn't mean I accept everything my various editors have suggested, sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully, only once drawing an edged weapon and threatening me with physical harm. (I made that last bit up, by the way. I have never enraged an editor so much that they go all Rambo on me. Well, not yet anyway.)

I will accept and compromise where I believe it is in the best interests of my book and my artistic integrity. Yes, even I burst out laughing at that last bit. However, I will also stand my ground if I believe something is necessary.

But that is a good way in my future. For now and for a short time, to paraphrase bestselling author Ian Rankin on his own work, I have written the best book in the world.

But my opinion matters little.

In reality, it is like Schroedinger's Book - neither good nor bad until that figurative box is opened.

I'm rooting for the former, though. 

A writer's mind

 I really enjoyed Type M newcomer Douglas's post on Monday. I'm fascinated by the way the creative process works and the way we writers, each in our own silos, mostly self-taught through trial, error, and sheer pig-headedness, discover common ground. Like me, he is a "by the seat of the pants" writer, with all the thrill, anxiety and frustration that entails. 

Three points in particular resonate with me. First is that drafting an outline is a colossal waste of time, because I never follow it. Sometimes by Chapter Two, I get a better idea that lures me off the planned route and into the brambles, and by halfway through the book, my story bears almost no resemblance to the one I had outlined (nor the proposal sitting on the editor's desk). Other times it is a subtler, inconsequential detail that draws me slowly off course, altering the shape and meaning of the story completely by the end. 

For example, in the very first scene of my recent work in progress, THE DEVIL TO PAY, I introduced a dog. It was a whim; my intention was to liven up the scene and shed light on the characters. Those of you who know me and my work, know I love dogs. So before long the dog was popping up in various scenes, and suffice to say, it took on in central role in the mystery. And in the underlying theme.

The second point I identify with in Douglas's post is the curse of the blinking cursor. Writing without an outline means you don't know where you're going and what comes next, and frequently the mind goes blank. Which way to go in the brambles and how to get to the end of the story? Indeed, is there a story at the end at all? In my case, the cursor doesn't blink because I write my first draft long-hand, but you get the idea. The page, not blank but scribbled over with multiple false starts, stares up at me in stubborn, empty silence. Long walks, arguments with the characters, lots of "what ifs?" as I unload the dishwasher, until finally some little idea breaks through the logjam and I see a way forward, at least for a short distance.

I confess I have learned to do some short-term outlining once I find this break-through, because usually a few plot ideas tumble into place, which I have to jot down before I forget them.

But the point I liked most in Douglas's post was the idea what despite all this hair-tearing and self-doubt, there's something thrilling about not knowing where the story is leading me. It's like being on an adventure. I think if I knew where I was going and how it would end, I would be bored. What's the point of writing the story? There would be no sense of exploring the unknown, no tingle of excitement, no ahah! moment when I realize who the killer has to be and how they'll be caught. And at the end of it all, finally, the delight when I realize what the story is about. 

Depressed

I (Donis) am feeling low today.* I'm tired and headachy and just plain tired. I've been fighting with depression a bit over the past couple of weeks, like so many people. I'm bothered by the news. I'm bothered by the fact that it's been over 110ºF for three weeks and not only can I not go out to eat because of the pandemic, I can't even sit outside on my porch. I want to work on my new book but I'm uninspired.

I typed a lot of words on my work-in-progress today, most of which I’ll either have to take out later or totally rework. But I did it, by damn, and I’m hoping I dug out a lot of slag that has a piece or two of gold in it that I can use later.

When I’m on a roll, I can produce several usable pages in a day, but today there were only one or two paragraphs that I feel confident about.

Some days I can slog along quite handily, but there are days like today when everything I write feels like pure schlock. When that happens, it causes me great agony and despair that I can’t whip up the will to do what needs to be done. I have a bad attitude.

On such days I sit at my desk for an hour staring at a pad of paper, or at the computer with my fingers poised over the keyboard, and … nothing. It’s not even that I can’t think of anything to write. I am always writing in my head, and have done for as far back as I can remember.

All I wanted to do today is clean something, or garden or dust or cook. Brawny tasks which take only muscle and no brilliant turns of phrase. But I have to persevere. So much of writing is just grunt work. Sit and type it out, choose the best way to say this or that, watch the repetition, find the right word, the right sentence.

Even when the world is not as messed up as it is these days, I never know why one day is better than another when it comes to writing. Why are some days so unsatisfactory? 

I can always blame a bad writing day on my sensitive nature. Earlier this evening I spent half an hour reading the news online and now I want to lie upon the couch and press the back of my hand to my forehead until my soul is soothed. People are capable of such awful things, and there is no sense to be made of it. Just the titles of the articles gave me the vapors.

Yes, that must be why I had such am unsuccessful day — the news, or the weather, or the stars. It certainly can't be my fault, because I did everything required of me, and yet I couldn't produce anything brilliant, or excellent, or particularly adequate.

But I can see that there is something good going on here. There's a story here that I want to tell, so what else is to be done but try and tell it? Tomorrow morning I’ll get up, invoke the gods and pray for intervention, sit myself down at the computer, and try, try again.

______

*On top of everything, I feel guilty for feeling low. So many people have it so much worse than I do.

Ahah! moments

After the last echoes of New Years parties, family visits, and southern get-aways have faded away, the beginning of January feels like turning the page. A time to say "All right, then, what's next? Where was I?" In my case, this is often accompanied by considerable panic as I realize the hard work that lies ahead. The work I've been neglecting. The commitments and deadlines that seemed far away in December but are suddenly looming. I'm behind schedule on my novel, and I've forgotten where I was going in it. Time is wasted while I find all my notes and read over the draft to figure out what to do. And in the not-so-distant future, I can hear the ominous whisper of taxes, which entails long days of hunting down receipts, tabulating, and organizing so that my accountant can make sense of the mess.

My usual writing routine went out the window during the holidays. For one thing, there was a one-year old in the house, along with out-of-town adult children, and for another, there was this constant thing with food. Buying it, preparing and cooking it, washing up after it, and thinking about what's next. But when January 2 arrived, it was back to just me, my dogs, and my to-do list. I've knocked off most of the easier tasks on the list, so now it's just me, the dogs, and my shitty first draft. It feels like standing at the foot of a mountain, looking up, and thinking, "Oh God, I want to go to the beach."

I am nearly halfway through the shitty first draft of THE ANCIENT DEAD, my fourth Amanda Doucette novel. First drafts are always shitty, so I'm not worried about that part. But after refreshing my memory about the story, I suddenly realized "I'm bored." Translated, this means that the story lacks energy and that the reader will almost certainly be bored as well. Bored readers are not good for business.

The halfway mark is usually the point at which most – dare I say all? – authors experience this malaise. It's been called the floppy middle or mushy middle, the point when you've breezed through all the high points and major twists that you had planned and realize you still have at least 100 pages to fill before you can start to wind the sucker down. Some writers have it all planned out, so perhaps this crisis doesn't occur, but for a modified pantser like myself, I don't even know how the story will end, let alone how I'm going to get there. I need something more to happen here!

The conventional wisdom is that you add an unexpected twist to add more complications or conflict. "When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand" (Chandler's Law)  or "Drop a body down the chimney" (which I believe comes from Christie although I can't find the reference). But sometimes all that does is give the reader whiplash. Too many twists and turns, too many explosions, shootings, car chases, and dead bodies merely dilute the effect. I will need more moments of peril, and probably at least one more body, in the next 150 pages, but I know that's not the issue here. The issue is passion. The story needs to be energized by greater passion, and what this almost always means is that the protagonist needs to be more personally committed to the hunt. I thought I had her motivation figured out, but at some point in the re-reading, I thought "Why should she care?" She was going to a lot of trouble to solve something, including putting off her real work, for a motivation that didn't seem to warrant it.

As I tried to answer that question - why should she care? - a thought drifted across my mind. What if...? Is it possible that...? I rejected the thought. It was not actually a major change but it would have a ripple effect. It would mean changing the parts already written and alter the course of the backstory quite a bit. It would seriously mess up timelines too. But as I toyed with alternatives, the thought kept circling back through my mind, until I finally decided to at least give it a shot. To see what happened if I altered the backstory and rewrote the parts in question. I have not yet tackled that, but instead have been thinking ahead with that alteration in mind. So I'm not sure whether the whole thing will work, if indeed it is enough of an answer to why she should care. But it's always an exciting moment when an idea drifts in from left field to potentially shift the course of a story. It usually means the story will be deeper, richer, and hopefully better.

Stay tuned!

Weekend Guest Tracy Clark

I'm delighted to welcome Tracy Clark, this weekend's guest blogger.
Tracy's novel Broken Places, featuring former Chicago Police detective turned PI Cass Raines, was released in May 2018.  Borrowed Time, book two in the Raines series, will be published next year. Tracy can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and on her website tracyclarkbooks.com.

Take it away, Tracy!





The Writer's Mountain

I’m neck-deep in rewrites for the third novel in my Cass Raines PI series. It’s going well. Today. Tomorrow? Who knows? That’s what I want to talk about. The writing process. That mercurial, quicksilver-ish, sometimey thing that blooms like a hothouse orchid one day and withers on the vine like a desiccated strawberry the next.

Maybe you guys are used to the ebb and flow, the ups and downs, but I’m only two and a half books in, so I’m constantly amazed that this writing thing isn’t getting any easier. I mean, you’d think it’d get easier. You’ve written two books, you got it done, so why is book three just as hair-pullingly impossible? Where’s my bell lap? The end of the rainbow? At what point can a writer say with confidence, “I got this, people. You need another book? No problemo. I know how to do this. Bam. There you go. Another book. You’re welcome, world!”

I’ve been thinking about the writing game a lot lately while muddling my way through book three, wondering where I took a wrong turn, knowing I’ll need to go back and save myself from embarrassment. Writing, I have decided, is a lot like mountain-climbing. Stick with me here.

The valiant climber of mountains starts off with the vigor of Sir Edmund Hillary—new rope, strong enough to suspend an elephant, at least for a time, new climbing shoes, those fancy little fingerless gloves that look so cool on Tom Cruise in those Mission Impossible films. The brave, dauntless climber is fresh, committed, intrepid, determined eyes fixed on the mountain in front of her. The summit is the goal, and she means to get there by hook or by crook. She starts up. All’s good. Then the mountain gets steep, the footholds iffy. Too late to turn back now, you’re up too high. The rope begins to fray. You call on Jesus. Those kickass climbing shoes get worn down and the gloves, cool on the car ride up, don’t do a thing for your bleeding, blistered fingers. You climb. You struggle. You retrace your steps when you can’t find a way through. Where is Tenzing Norgay, you ask. But don’t look down, don’t think about your trembling knees.

Somehow, sweat drenched and spent, you reach the top. You’ve made it. You did not give up. You did not falter, well, maybe you faltered a little bit, but though the effort was not graceful, you clawed your way to the end. You can now stand there at the summit, arms held high in victory, and breathe in the smell of sweet success. Surely nothing will ever be more difficult than this climb. You have arrived. You conquered the mountain!

Then you turn around and behold a vast mountain range—mountain after mountain after mountain. Your arms fall to your side. The smile of victory melts away and reality sets in and sinks to the pit of your stomach like a paving stone. You’ve climbed this mountain. There are dozens more. You will have to blister your fingers again, scrape your knees on jagged rock, fray the rope. Again.

That’s writing.

When you conquer one mountain (one book), the victory lap is short, because the next mountain looms. I’m new to the climbing thing, but I’ve already been asked more than once how I do it. How do you write a book? My answer is simple. I have no idea. I just climb, and I keep climbing till I run out of rock. The fact that I waltz knowingly up to the next mountain and do it all again, knowing what I know, is either a true testament to my mental instability or a confirmation that I was born to be a writer, just like Michael Phelps was born to swim or Muhammad Ali was born to knock a guy’s lights out in twelve rounds, or less. I write because I can’t not write.

Some days I write like the wind, scampering up that mountain like a freaking ibex, some days I waste paper and time and shave years off my life expectancy. That’s writing too.

I’ll eventually get to the top of the mountain I’m climbing now, but it won’t be seamless. I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when I’m done, though, and, hopefully, the story will be a good one. I just wish that reaching the top of Writer Mountain worked like a video game where you beat the challenge and then are powered-up with magic apples that make you a writing god, an expert, Superman. Maybe for some it does? Hope springs eternal. For me, I’m still writing myself into corners and getting myself out. I procrastinate. I write five pages, and then tear up two. Mountains are treacherous.

I’m sitting here now writing this blog post, eyeing Judge Judy on television. Some woman bought her new boyfriend of less than three weeks a car, and then he promptly broke up with her and now she wants her money back. I have pages to get to, but I’m not going anywhere until I find out what Judge Judy has to say about the whole thing. That’s writing too. It doesn’t take much to derail a work in progress. I’m also wondering about Tenzing Norgay. Wouldn’t it be great if every writer had a Tenzing Norgay?

Anyway, wish me luck. I wish the same for all of my fellow writers. Up the mountain we go!

Waiting for It

I don't have a long post today because I need to get back to writing. I'm moving back and forth between two first drafts. The nonfiction book about dress and appearance is almost done. The 1939 historical finally feels do-able.

This comes after days, months, years of struggle with both books. Books that simply refused to be written. This breakthrough on both fronts seems to suggest that some books can't be written until we believe they should exist. I started out with two ideas that I thought were good, that I thought would be great books. I wanted -- really, really, really wanted -- to write both books. I did research. I wrote. I edited and revised and tried again. I tried to pin down the elusive themes in each book. I kept telling myself and other people that both were coming along.

And I kept pulling my hair out. Then this summer both came together. That happened when I looked at the world and realized what it was that I needed to say. Once I knew that -- once I stopped playing it safe and making it pretty -- I could see both books as if they already exist. It isn't about outlining. It's about tuning in. I'm finally in flow.

For example, on Wednesday, I was at the ATM. Directly across the street, a blind man was walking into a restaurant on the arm of a younger man. That evening, I had a twist for the 1939 novel that fell into place because I had happened to re-watch a 6-minute documentary the day before. And then I saw the blind man going into the restaurant. I don't know if I will use the scene that I wrote and that now opens the book. But I now have the twist that will get me through the middle of the book.

With the nonfiction book about dress and appearance, I kept telling myself there was no reason I couldn't finish the last three chapters and the conclusions. Both were outlined. I had done the research. Why couldn't I write? And then I was watching the news. And I realized that I couldn't finish the book -- as much as I had struggled -- because I needed that moment when my theme fell into place. If I had finished a year or two ago, I wouldn't have understood what I needed to say with such clarity.

I'm sure I'm not the only writer who has had this experience. Anyone else have a story of struggling even more than usual with a first draft. Then finally having a moment of clarity when it all fell into place?

Back to work.

Maybe how to write a novel?

Aline's posts usher in the week at Type M and they always get me thinking. This week's post about Muriel Spark's writing process was no different. Writing a novel is damn hard work, and lonely as well. Novels are not written by committee, or in brain-storming sessions, or in support groups. They are written by one lonely soul sitting down in front of a blank page, taking a deep breath, beating back the doubts, shoving aside the distractions, and getting down to work. This will be repeated day after day, at times with ease and at other times with hair-pulling frustration, until the story is finished.

For most of us, it's an imperfect process. Some of us outline, some prefer to wing it. Some plunge ahead to the end, leaving a trail of loose ends, plot holes, and non-sequiturs in our wake to be fixed once the story figures itself out. Others tidy up as we go along, re-reading and editing the work from yesterday before moving on to today. Many of us do a little of this and a little of that, depending on our mood and on the flow of ideas at the time. Writing a novel sometimes feels like travelling down a river. Ever-changing, full of surprises, and scary and exhilarating at different times. Waterfalls, rapids, eddies, whirlpools, lazy meanders, logjams... And and always the inexorable tugging of the current that is the story in our head.

Along this journey, most of us run aground or get swept off course many times, and end up spinning around until some idea catches us and pulls us forward again. It's a rare writer who sits down and writes a story from beginning to end with barely a hesitation or false step. So I was astonished to learn Muriel Spark's technique. She spent a year thinking about the story, and presumably when she's got it all thought out, she opened her notebooks and wrote the whole story in about six weeks. With barely any need for revision.

The only think she and I have in common is that in the end, we both take just a little over a year to write a book. I could not imagine delaying the start of writing for a whole year while I thought up the whole story. Once I get the initial idea for a story and can picture the opening few scenes, I'm itching to dive in. Furthermore, I don't think I could visualize the whole story while standing on the riverbank far upstream. Ideas come to me as I am writing, and as I get closer to each scene, the ideas sharpen and often change shape. The unexpected happens. Characters change and grow richer. A element of setting which I had thought was minor suddenly changes the outcome of a scene.

For this reason, I can't imagine finishing the story with no loose ends to tidy up and no characters to reshape. Rewrites all enrich the book. They deepen the story, cut out the extraneous, and bring the story into clearer focus. A book without rewrites would be incomplete. It's certainly easier for us to do revisions in the age of computers than in the days of notebooks, and perhaps now we writers are guilty of too much editorial fiddling and fussing. But rarely do the words flow so cleanly and smoothly as to require no improvement. I write my first draft longhand on yellow pads of paper, and each page is a nearly indecipherable mess of crossed out words, arrows, "insert next page", scribbled additions in the margins, and so on. I rewrite on the fly.

Muriel's method sounds much calmer and easier on the nerves. But we all find the method that works best for us. It's likely much messier and more torturous than hers, but in the end, it's the only way we know. 

Finding my muse

Aline's post about chattering monkeys and accessing our subconscious connected with me on so many levels. I've always believed writing - the creative process of it - was part magic, and I never wanted to analyze it too closely for fear of losing that magic. I love that my mind goes to unexpected places, and that ideas pop randomly into it while I'm in the middle of a scene. It's one of the reasons I am primarily a "pantser" rather than a plotter. My creative juices only start to flow once I am immersed in the story, fully engaged and racing with it, and if I had an outline telling me what was supposed to come next, I would feel frustrated and straitjacketed. Knowing me, I would toss out the outline and go with the new idea.

That's not to say there's no discipline or no just plain slogging in my writing process. Brilliant ideas and leaps in the story do not come all the time, and in between those leaps, I still have to create coherent scenes, make the characters consistent and vivid, fashion the setting, etc. But that magic of the imagination is the centrepiece of the process.

I think everyone's access to magic is unique, which is one reason why I've never been a fan of "how to" books. A writer can learn a lot about creating character, dialogue, setting, vivid language, etc. - all the mechanics of our craft - from books and workshops, but I'm deeply suspicious of "experts" who try to tell you how to craft a novel. Seven steps to the perfect novel, etc. Useful guidelines if you're stuck or self-editing afterwards, but the first draft needs freedom from rules. At least my first drafts do.

In that vein, what helps that freedom? What encourages that magic? We all have our favourite writing places and our favourite rituals – those places that nurture inspiration and bring us a sense of transcendence. Aline alluded to the view of trees and hills that brought peace and connectedness, that sets the mind free to float. Nature does that for me too, but not just any nature. I think it's nature that hints at infinity, like the vista from the top of a mountain, or the shores of an ocean, or a glorious sky at sunset, or, strangely, a fire.

Nature transports, but not always to peace and tranquillity. Sometimes it is awe-inspiring, fierce, or wild, and all these feelings can find their way onto the page. So sometimes I choose my location depending on the emotion I need to write the scene.

Most of my favourite writing places are close to nature, either on a chaise long on my deck or on the dock overlooking the lake. Or if it's wintertime, curled up by the fire. There's something primal about fire and water that seems to stir the subconscious.

Honoring Your Process

Frankie here. Regular readers of Type M know by now that I'm not a pantser. As much as I often envy writers who can write a novel by plunging into the deep end, I can't do it. Not only do I write at a snail's pace until I'm well into the book, sometimes I fear I am channeling Adrian Monk. I can't begin writing until I have a title, and I keep coming back to the title, frequently and obsessively, until I have the right title. I do the same with character names and their backstories. I keep researching even as I'm writing. And, every blessed time I sit down to write, I read and tinker with the first chapter before going on. I do that at least until I'm halfway through the book.

I have the title of my 1939 historical thriller -- A Penny Struck by Lightning. As you may recall the title was inspired by a conversation Opie Taylor was having with his pa, Andy Griffith. The television was playing in the background, unnoticed, until the words "penny" and "lightning" caught my attention. The perfect metaphor for that year of 1939, and the New York World's Fair.

But having a title has not helped me move along. Yesterday, I switched the first-person POV of the protagonist -- who is attending Marian Anderson's concert at the Lincoln Memorial -- back to third person. And still it wasn't right. I had photos of the the crowd. I could imagine where my character was standing. I knew there was a brisk wind. But had the sun really come out as Anderson was about to perform. There were no mention of that in the second source I had looked at.

Being obsessive -- unable to pull myself away from Chapter One and get back to writing -- I stopped to find the answer to the weather question.

And that was when the Writing Gods showered me with gifts. During the next hour, I said "Wow!" three times. With the last "Wow" I was jumping up and down and dancing around the room. Harry, my cat, was looking at me like he was about to hide under the bed.

Here's what happened -- as Adrian would say -- while looking for a third description of the weather, I found the NBC radio broadcast of the concert. I had listened to portions of it before, but this website included the concert program and mention of the intermission during the concert when the announcer reviewed Anderson's career. The broadcast was almost 30 minutes long, and while I was listening, I started to go through some photos of the platform guests. It had occurred to me that maybe I really should take a page from Dennis Lehane. I love his novel, The Given Day, set in 1918, in the months leading up to the real-life Boston Police Strike. But the book opens with Babe Ruth, traveling on a team bus, coming upon a baseball game being played in a field . . .

So my idea was that I would have someone on the platform, looking out over the crowd. I thought of Harold Ickes, the Secretary of the Interior, who introduced Marian Anderson. When I searched for Ickes and the concert, a photograph I had never seen before popped up. Ickes and Anderson shaking hands and off to the right, a group of news cameramen and among them one black photographer. That was my first "Wow." The photographer reminded me of what the NBC announcer had mentioned about the concert being under "the auspices" of Howard University, the famed historically black university in D.C. I already knew that. My protagonist even mentioned seeing a group of Howard students in the crowd and wanting to go over and speak to them, wanting to tell them that he planned  to attend the law school.

I hadn't made too much of that, but now I was wondering how he would have known they were from Howard. So I Googled Howard University and the concert. I already had the telegram that Eleanor Roosevelt had sent to a professor there when the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) refused to allow Anderson to use their hall. Now I was looking for information about the students at the concert. That was when I went "Wow!" again. Ossie Davis. I had stumbled across what Ossie Davis -- yes, the actor, writer, civil rights activist -- had said about that day. That day when he was in the crowd as a student from Howard University.

So now my chapter opens from the POV of Ickes looking out over the crowd  -- or maybe Anderson herself -- and down in the crowd, my character standing near a group of students . . . and one of them is named "Ossie" . . . and they are both moved and inspired and there is a brief exchange between the two of them. . .

And that was when I went "Wow! Wow!" and jumped to my feet. I knew Anderson was wearing a mink coat and a mink hat. My protagonist mentions that. But I had only seen black and white photos and barely noticed her outfit. Yesterday, as I was thinking about Ossie Davis, the Writing Gods dropped more gold coins into my lap. A photo of the donation that Anderson's family had made to the Smithsonian. The ensemble she was wearing under that mink coat. The kind of "telling detail" that I love as a researcher. The kind of detail that I might have missed if I weren't an obsessive plodder, but that no one who attended that concert and was close enough to see Ms. Anderson would have missed.

Writing lesson:  Honor your process even when you hate your process. 
 

Going gentle, or not

In my last post about forks and roundabouts, I talked about having an open vista ahead now that I'd completed my existing book contracts, and I mused about what writing project to tackle next. Thanks to all the readers who wrote in to ask for one series or the other, I've suggested a three-book contract for two Doucette novels and one Green. At my current publication rate, this would bring me to the early 2020's.

When I did the math, it gave me pause and forced me to consider the question of how long I want to continue writing. And the more important and more ominous question of how long I should continue. Writing a mystery novel is a complex task. It demands not just verbal fluency and sophistication but also stamina, determination, novel thinking and creative, unusual mental leaps. And perhaps most importantly - memory. Keeping track of all the characters, their stories, actions and motivations, the subplots and twists inherent in a mystery is a tremendous feat of memory, particularly for a mostly pantser writer like me who pulls things together on the fly.

I've been writing since I was six years old. Even though I had school, a busy career, and children along the way, I've always been a writer. An inventor of stories. I can't imagine my life without a story percolating in my brain. And now that I have retired from other things to become a full-time writer, it shapes my every day. Apart from the activity and the purpose it brings to my life, it also brings me a community of friends, opportunities to travel, and constant interaction with new people.

That is a lot to give up.

I've always said that I would continue writing as long as I had the brains to do it. But who knows when that will be, and whether I will know? In a recent interview with the New York Times, Philip Roth was asked about his decision to retire from writing when he was in his late seventies. He replied: "By 2010 I had a strong suspicion that I’d done my best work and anything more would be inferior. I was by this time no longer in possession of the mental vitality or the verbal energy or the physical fitness needed to mount and sustain a large creative attack of any duration on a complex structure as demanding as a novel."

Powerfully honest. How does a writer recognize that their time is up? This decline in mental vitality and verbal energy sneaks up on you. All of us, as we age, find we have to work harder to remember that perfect word that dances just out of reach in our mental storehouse. To compensate, we develop tricks, one of the most useful being the thesaurus. I love that "Ahah, that's it!" moment. We find it more difficult to keep track of details, but can use notes, lists, and outlines to jog our memory. When we forget where we are in a story, or where we left off, we can reread the last chapter as a way to relaunch ourselves.

As I've grown older, I've changed my writing process too. As I wrap up my writing for the day, I jot down a sentence or two about what comes next in order to have a place to start the next day. Like all writers, some of my most brilliant ideas come to me during the "off-writing" hours such as driving down the highway or walking the dog. I now use my iPhone to record those ideas before I forget them.

There will likely come a time when all these tricks are not enough, but I hope it's still a few years off. My mother lived to 97 and wrote a book when she was 86. Some people maintain their mental acuity well into their nineties whereas an alarming number start cognitive decline in their late sixties. In many ways, life is a roll of the dice and who knows what the next roll brings. All we can do, to fight that dying of the light, is stay active and engaged, eat well, and keep challenging our brains. Luckily, what better challenge than trying to write a novel?

Year of the Rooster

2017 is the Year of the Rooster according to the Chinese zodiac. There is something about this that appeals to me. My sign is the Dragon and this year the prediction is very optimistic. So much so that I ran right out and bought this glorious gaudy ceramic rooster to set on the windowsill in my kitchen.

2016 was a very tumultuous year. Good and bad and good and bad and all of it wildly unpredictable.

I worried about my editor's reception of Fractured Families. As it turned out she liked it more than any book I've written. To her (and my) relief, it received excellent reviews from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly, and Library Journal. It's way my darkest mystery so I'm still surprised. It will be released March 17th.

The horoscope warned me that my success would depend on hard work. When does it not? Luck counts, but not for much.

Here's what's true (at least for me)

There is no substitute for writing everyday. Even if it's only one page. That practice starts a mental process like setting yeast a-working. Plots, people, bubble away in the background even when you're tending to other matters.

No one really understands the writing process. Don't try. Just do it. Writing is best learned by writing and by going to other writer's books for instruction. Study how they get people in and out of a room. Why have you remembered a book for years? Why are these characters memorable? What makes you stop reading half-way through?

Write a manuscript twice before you show it to anyone. You know darn good and well what's wrong with your book when you've finished. Go through it again and fix it. Fix the plot, the characters, the grammar, and then, and only then, throw it to the wolves. Then pay attention to what they say.

This is short list. I'll save more for another blog. But it all boils down to the same thing. There is no substitute for self-discipline and putting your shoulder to the wheel.

I'm going to stop admiring my rooster and head for my not-so-lovely computer.