Reflections on the promo game

Barbara here. Several of the recent Type M postings have dealt in some way with all the things we authors have to do AFTER our brilliant piece of prose is released. There have been posts about the adventures of touring, the death of bookstores, the illusion of social media promotion, the art of reading in public, and the way we twist ourselves into pretzels trying to do all these things while writing the next book.

Who knew? I remember walking into my local Chapters when my first book had just come out. This was in 2000, before social media, before the demise of bookstores, before the store's take-over by candles and cards. I stood in the entranceway gazing in awe at the bookcases and bookcases and bookcases of books. I walked past the displays at the front of the store – shelves clamouring 'Hot new fiction', 'Best Picks', 'New releases' – past the seasonal displays and remaindered tables, past the general fiction section, all the way to the huddle of mystery shelves at the back of the store. And there I was, tucked into the middle of the middle row of the middle bookcase, dwarfed by an entire shelf of Dick Francis and Karin Fossum.

Who was ever going to find this book, I thought, let alone choose to buy it over the other tens of thousands of books in this store?

Therein lies the author's conundrum. And I believe it is amplified several-fold nowadays because of the sheer number of books being published. For the self-published author and even those published by smaller presses without the massive promotional and advertising budgets of the big guns,  spreading awareness of their book is a huge challenge. Bombarding social media with blatant and irritating pleas or brags doesn't sell books, and indeed may be counter-productive, but if no one's heard of the book, they won't buy it either. Hence the tightrope that we all try to walk on social media between self-promotion and personal connection, so that we nurture friendships and networks and balance self-promotion with sharing each others' achievements. It takes patience, luck, and above all, a damn good book. Your first book sells your second. Or not.

It's an ever-evolving marketplace, and what worked before may not work tomorrow, but I think the same principles will be at play. Write the best book you possibly can, listen to the advice of editors and beta readers, rewrite it even better, and then once it's published, start reaching out to booksellers, librarians, readers, and fellow authors. As Sybil said, this is challenging and unnatural for writers, who are often shy, but it actually does get easier, and I'd say you're well on your way, Sybil. I found my first panel (also at Bouchercon) terrifying, but eventually I got used to them. My first reading was no doubt abysmal, but I kept doing them. I attended conferences where I barely knew a soul. I did bookstore signings where I felt more like a Walmart greeter showing the way to the restrooms, library readings that two people came to, radio and TV interviews that I suspected no one watched. Over the past fifteen years I have probably attended dozens of book clubs. Love them! A great way to make new friends as well as readers.

I started off this post intending to talk about the secrets to a successful book tour, but as usual I am wandering around in the maze of ideas, in the process discovering that the secrets to book tours apply equally well to all promotional efforts. Here they are:

1. Travel with another author. Not only do two authors make for a more entertaining event, but it's great to have company and someone to share expenses (and that glass of wine) at the end of the day.
2. Always be prepared to laugh. It may be all you get out of an event. Look for the adventure, be prepared for the unexpected, and see the humour (and the story possibilities) in all that happens. This is easier if your companion knows how to laugh too.
3. Never count the money. Promotional efforts are about forging relationships, building trust and readers. If you're thinking about what this trip is costing you, or about how many books you've sold, you'll sink into a deep funk. But if the book is good, the word will be spread.
4. Be gracious, respectful, and appreciative not only of the librarians and booksellers who have organized the event but also of the readers who came. They owe you nothing; they put themselves out for you, and they all have horror stories of the divas who will never be invited again.

I know other authors who are much better at all this than I am. They keep track of readers who come to events, they use Mail Chimp to generate mailing lists for newsletters, Goodreads to get connected to new readers, and multiple blogs with various authors to spread the word. But I have not yet figured out Mail Chimp or Goodreads, and in the end, I need time to write. That's why I got into this in the first place. And although being friendly and accessible might help sell that first book, the first book sells the second.

Thoughts on doing an effective reading

This is a post aimed at all the authors in the audience. But even if you aren’t yet a published writer or never intend to become one, you might find what I have to say interesting and illuminating.

Like many of the promotional things authors are expected to do, one of the most time-honoured is readings. I’ve done many. I’ve also heard other authors do many. Some of us enjoy doing them. Some loathe them. To be honest, most are not very good.

I’ve discussed readings here on Type M before, as have others, but I feel it’s time to hit on it once again. Why? I have to do a reading in two days for the Arthurs Ellis Shortlist Announcement here in Toronto. The participating authors have been given three minutes each. That makes the assignment doubly tough. What can you read in 180 seconds that will make an audience feel compelled to buy your book?

Here are some of my thoughts (in point form) on doing an effective reading:

• Pick an effective passage. Remember: you’re selling your book here! Action scenes with dialogue are most effective. It helps if you can give some individualization to your characters by changing your voice. Even a little bit can make a difference.
• You don’t have to read every word you wrote. Leave out long descriptive passages unless they’re really gripping. Sell the sizzle, not the steak! That’s why action scenes are best.
• Don’t read from your book. Print out the passage in large, easy-to-read type, complete with any edits needed (see above point).
• Practise your selection beforehand. Very few of us are trained actors, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get better with practice. Recording yourself is unbelievably helpful here! If you tend to get nervous, do a dry run before an audience of family or friends.
• Before you read, take a deep breath and gather yourself. Speak to the audience, not to the air. Practising beforehand will make it possible to look up from your material and engage your listeners more effectively. Speaking more slowly will make you more understandable. Again, think about actors and speak strongly and confidently. Even if you aren’t, look as if you’re enjoying this. I guarantee that the better you get at reading, the more you will enjoy it!

Remember: when you’re doing a reading, you are an actor more than an author. Making a positive impression with your reading makes it far easier to sell your book.

___________

As a public service to some very good friends, I’m including in my post this week, the announcement for the 2015 Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award shortlist announcement.

Murder Is Nothing to Have Fun With...Or Is It?

Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award Announces Finalists

(Toronto, ON) April 15, 2015 – The Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award, an annual Canadian award that celebrates traditional, feel-good mysteries is pleased to announce this year’s finalists. The award is for a “mystery book that makes us smile” and includes everything from laugh-out-loud to gentle humour to good old-fashioned stories with little violence or gore.

Congratulations to the five finalists for the 2015 Bony Blithe Award:

Cathy Ace, The Corpse with the Platinum Hair (Touchwood Editions)
Judith Alguire, Many Unpleasant Returns (Signature Editions)
E.C. Bell, Seeing the Light (Tyche Books)
Janet Bolin, Night of the Living Thread (Berkley Prime Crime)
Allan Stratton, The Resurrection of Mary Mabel McTavish (Dundurn Press)

The award will be presented at the Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award Bash on Friday, May 29, at The Hot House Restaurant & Bar, 35 Church St., Toronto (Church at Front). The festivities start at 6:30 p.m. in the Library Room. For more information, contact us at bw-award@bloodywords.com.

The winner will receive a cheque for $1,000 plus a colourful plaque.

Thank you to all the publishers and authors who submitted their books for this year’s contest. May there be many smiles in your future.

Website: www.bonyblithe.com
Facebook: Bony Blithe Light Mystery Award
Twitter: @bonyblithe

The Perfect Murder

I have just discovered how to commit the perfect murder. In a spirit of generosity I am now prepared to share the inspiration with any fellow authors who may be looking for just this, or anyone who is merely thinking of bumping off the person who posted that bad review on Amazon.

Recently I went to a hygiene course in connection with some charity work I'm going to be doing. I had thought it would basically be about food handling – hand washing, paper towels, separate boards for raw meat – all the basic things we do anyway.

But it was much wider than that and I have to say the general reaction, having been told how death lurks in every kitchen, no further away than that less than pristine cloth you just wiped the surfaces with, was to consider that giving up eating altogether was the only safe thing to do. One of our number, a young girl who hadn't much kitchen experience, got paler and paler and when the instructor said that leaving meat out to defrost instead of in the fridge could be lethal, wailed, 'But that's what I've done today!'

What got my criminal mind working was having it explained that whenever meat is cut, it acquires a film of bacteria on the surface, which thorough cooking destroys. A rare steak isn't cooked right through but the searing on all cooked surfaces does the job. A rare hamburger, however...

That film of bacteria, once the meat is minced, gets mixed in and spreads right though. Put on the barbecue, the outside is safely seared but the bacteria inside, all cosy and warm from the gentle heat around them, multiply like crazy. My instructor's view was that Russian roulette is safer. It's a question of, 'Maybe not today, but sometime, and for the rest of your – probably very short – life.'

So there we have the plot. The victim: a guy, probably rich, who loves his hamburger rare. The villain, his young, gold-digging wife. The motive: obvious. The weapon: a pound of minced fillet of steak, set by the range in the kitchen for the day. The place: a sunny garden, the fragrance of roasting meat in the air. The time: very shortly afterwards.

A tragic case of food poisoning, a weeping, suddenly very rich widow safe in the knowledge that there will be no forensic evidence to prove she poisoned him. Sure, it could be traced to her kitchen but no one could show that she'd done it deliberately and (at least in Britain) you can't even be prosecuted for low hygiene standards provided it is food that has been prepared and eaten in your own home.

So that's why I'm being uncharacteristically generous with my idea for an ingenious method of poisoning. Normally when I've got a good idea I keep it to myself like a child with a secret stash of candy, but I can't for the life of me think how even the powers of DI 'Big Marge' Fleming could bring that one to justice.

But perhaps you can?

Sunday Guest Blogger: Clyde Phillips

It is an honor to bring you Clyde Phillips this week. Clyde is a bestselling crime novelist, the former executive producer of the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated Showtime series Dexter, for which he won the prestigious Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting; and he currently serves as executive producer for the network's acclaimed Nurse Jackie. He also created the television series Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Suddenly Susan, and Get Real (starring Anne Hathaway). In his spare time, he is the author of the Jane Candiotti novels, Fall From Grace, Blindsided, Sacrifice and, most recently, Unthinkable.

I met Clyde via happenstance: his daughter, Claire, a very talented writer in her own right, was in the AP English class I taught. I had no idea who or what he was. One day after class, Claire approached my desk and said, "My dad writes stuff you'd like." She was right. He does. And I do – I like his stuff a lot. Below are Clyde's thoughts on his approach to writing.

________________

by Clyde Phillips

Whenever someone asks me what I do for a living and I get to respond “I’m a writer,” I always feel an immense sense of pride. The follow-up question is usually “What kind of stuff do you write?” Well, the answer to that is: everything.

I’m a television writer in both half hour comedy and one hour drama. I’ve written several feature screenplays. And I’ve published four best-selling crime novels. So, then the question inevitably comes, “what’s the difference in your approach to writing in each of these media?”

The answer is simple: there is no difference.

I’m a storyteller; and it’s my responsibility to tell that story in the most authentic and entertaining way possible.

Each time I start to write a script or a book, my initial task is always the same. Outline, outline, outline. That’s the real heavy lifting. I’ll often sit with a writing assistant (an aspiring writer who gets the benefit of my experience while I get the benefit of someone taking notes) for weeks or months and bounce ideas around. Snippets of dialogue. Character traits (especially flaws). Action. Plot. When the outline is done – and an outline certainly isn’t a binding contract. I often stray from it if and when a better idea comes along – then the fun begins. The actual writing of the piece.

An outline for a half-hour comedy is usually about seven pages. For a one-hour drama, it’s ten to fifteen pages. And for a novel (at least for me) it can be up to one hundred pages. Seriously.

But that hard outlining is like intense training for game day.

Once the outline is ready (or nearly so), I let it sit and percolate for a few days (if I don’t have a deadline); waiting for some internal magic to bubble up. It invariably does. And then I grab that magic (a character’s secret, a crucial and unexpected plot twist) and weave it into the outline.

And then the anxiety floats away and a sense of calm washes over me.

And then I write.

Catch 22

I caught a psychological break this week and I needed it. One of my Poisoned Pen pals, the charming Tina Whittle, introduced a stunning topic to our newsgroup. She offered a post from Delilah S. Dawson's blog, whimsydark, entitled, "Please Shut Up: Why Self-Promotion as an Author Doesn't Work."

In it, Dawson discusses the oversaturated state of the book market and the futility of book promotion. She pretty well covers all the social media outlets. I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because I have an academic book coming out next spring. This book is important to me and it took an awfully long time to write. I don't intend to write another one. The research was mind-boggling and I want to do right by my publisher, University Press of Oklahoma.

The main point Dawson makes is that we are just sick of folks begging us to buy their books. I have made the point in a couple of blogs that once we read a book, we either love the author, or are not interested. In the first case, we read everything they have ever written. In the second case, we never read one again. All the promotion in the world can't persuade a reader to read that second book.

Even before self-promotion was regarded as a matter of life or death I was aware of how obnoxious a lot of it was. Dawson reinforced what I had already suspected: some of the best writers rarely promote and the most fiercely aggressive promoters offend nearly everyone.

But there's a problem. A classic catch 22. I believe we owe it to our publishers to do our best to get the word out. That being a very simple message: we have written a book, we hope you will read it and here's where you can buy it.

I am humbled and deeply appreciative of the opportunity to be published by a press held in such high esteem. It has an reputation for excellence in producing books about the American West. I have a point to make about 19th century blacks on the Kansas Frontier. I'm giving a lot of thought to making people aware of this book.

But thanks to Dawson's timely post, I won't drive myself crazy thinking up new approaches. And I won't drive readers crazy either. But just for kicks, I would love to hear from all of you.

What was the most obnoxious promotion by an author?

Here's the link to Dawson's post: http://www.whimsydark.com/blog/2015/4/13/please-shut-up-why-self-promotion-as-an-author-doesnt-work

Boats Against The Current: More Bookstore Tales

With Amazon owning 22 percent of the bookselling industry and indie stores claiming a mere 6 percent of the market share, it comes as no surprise that bookstores as we know (or knew) them are going by the wayside.

You remember them. Some weren't fancy: preferably scuffed hardwood floors, tilted shelves, and (gasp) physical books to leaf through. But a recent loss — particularly in one region — has me reeling.

First things first: Admittedly, I have an Amazon account. And, admittedly, I use it. But recently, the declining number of physical bookstores hit me. Full force. In the face. The second book in my Peyton Cote series, Fallen Sparrow, hits shelves June 8 everywhere. But not exactly everywhere.

It won't hit any shelves in the region where the novel is set.

Yes, that's right. In the region — the entire county, in fact — where it's set. And this isn't just any county. It's the largest county east of the Mississippi. Aroostook County, Maine, has a land mass the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined but has fewer than 80,000 people. Therefore, its longtime bookstores — all three, including a chain store — have gone the way of the dinosaur.

Hard to believe? It is for me. I lived in the area for a decade, did many signings (and buyings) at the three area bookstores — two indies and a B. Dalton. Perhaps the scariest fact of all is that the area is dominated by an aged population. Therefore, I can't attribute the make-the-bookstore-disappear trick to a rising number of young people reading e-books rather than physical texts. What's that say about the role books play in people's lives?

Let's not think about that. That thought is scarier than Stephen King's fright-filled Salem's Lot.

So what's a writer to do? There are, of course, a few libraries. And I can certainly hit those, but the lack of stores in the region where the series takes place is a major blow. I'm relying on newspaper ads and (hopefully) reviews and features.

So, as F. Scott wrote so elegantly, we beat on, boats against the current. And self-promote like hell.

Book Signings

I read Barbara’s recent post on her adventures in book signings with some envy. Looks like she's had some great adventures touring in her writing career. I'm sure there'll be many more to come.

I’m just starting my own career so I don’t have much experience in book touring. (I have one, count it, one book out—Fatal Brushstroke. That’s it so far.) I did a short tour of Los Angeles area bookstores with the lovely Diane Vallere showing me the ropes. And I’ve done one library event, been on a panel at one convention (Bouchercon last year). So I don’t really have many stories to tell...yet.

This weekend, I’ll be signing for the first time at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on the University of Southern California campus. (My alma mater. Always happy to get a chance to check out the campus and see what’s changed. A lot, believe me!)



I worked the Sisters in Crime/LA booth for many years, but this is the first time I’ll be there as an author. I’m looking forward to it, but am also a bit nervous. I’m not the most outgoing person, so it’s a little daunting.

My signing times, in case you’re in the area:

• Sisters in Crime/LA booth—Saturday, April 18, 2015, noon – 2 p.m.
• Mysterious Galaxy booth—Sunday, April 19, 2015, 10 a.m.

 Then a couple weeks from now I’ll be at Malice Domestic, on my first panel there. And I have a library event coming up in May at the Wiseburn Library in Hawthorne, California so I’m starting to get myself out there.

I know I should probably do more events, but, I have to admit, I’m struggling with juggling writing and publicity events these days. So I've been very select on how many events I do. If anyone has any suggestions or tips on how to keep all those balls in the air, let me know. I could use them. In the meantime, I will be keep on trucking...

Brought up short!

That’s me playing piano.

I enjoy listening to the radio. Sometimes I’ll even go out and sit in the car and listen to a favourite show or a ball game (if it’s the right time of year). I nearly always have the radio on when I’m driving anywhere. Interesting thing is, I’m generally not listening to music — an odd thing when one is a musician.

But this musician is also a writer, so it should come as no surprise that I enjoy listening to interview shows and documentaries, stuff like that. Talk shows drive me crazy.

Fortunately, I live in Canada where we still have the CBC and a lot of their radio programming, especially in the evenings is excellent.

This morning, I was driving home from an appointment, and listening to an interview on Q with a Scottish singer/songwriter, Stuart Murdoch, and a lot of the talk was around   his composing. I always find that sort of thing interesting since I’ve written some of my own, including a complete musical in my last year of university. (Sidebar: It had 8 performances and I even got paid for my troubles!)

Anyway, I’m driving along listening intently to what Stuart had to say (he’s very erudite), but then he uttered something that really caught my attention. I don’t remember his exact words, but it was something about walking around with a whole bunch of characters in his head. These were the people he made up whose stories he then told through the lyrics of his songs.

Whoa! Believe it or not, I'd never thought that the little “stories” making up songs had something like characters in it. You may be slapping your forehead into your palm and this point since it’s a pretty obvious thing and I’m a complete dunce for not coming to this enlightenment a heck of a lot earlier, but there it is: song writers make up characters in much the same way prose writers do and for the same reasons.

Perhaps this whole point was lost on me since most of the songs I’ve written had lyrics supplied by someone else. My job generally involved melody, harmonic structure and much of the musical treatment of each particular song.

Now, I’m forced to think of every song I’ve ever heard and will hear with a completely different mindset. It’s a heady idea: making up a character, giving them some sort of back story and then tell a small, concise portion of their life. Maybe the structure that most resonates is this: a good song is a musical short story.

Funny, but I’d never considered that, and to say that I’m gobsmacked by this very late revelation is putting it mildly.

Does it make me want to write a song? Not really. I learned a long time ago that this is something that I don’t do well innately, and since I have so many other things in my life that need my attention (see last week’s post), it’s best that I don’t add any more to my to-do list.

But I know I’m going to be closely listening to the lyrical content of any song I run across from here on in – except for songs by the progressive rock band Yes whose lyrics make no sense to anyone – with a new sense of engagement, and try to reconstruct the character the lyricist conjured when writing the song.

How about you?

What am I working on?

By Vicki Delany

A heck of a lot.

I am juggling a lot of writing balls these days, so I thought this would be a good time to let you know what I’m up to.

Other than a couple of day trips over the spring and summer, I have no book tours planned until the Suffolk Mystery Festival in August.  I am hoping to squeeze in a vacation to London in the fall. I love to travel, both for book events and for holiday, but I have to stay at home sometime and work!

The weather here in Southern Ontario has been nothing but gloomy for the past week. Which is a pretty good thing for the productivity.

As I write this, I have just finished four days of solid writing and managed to do 14,000 words. Which is pretty mind-boggling, as most authors will tell you. That’s about 14,000 good words. Very few of it will be discarded when I do edits.

A lot of people have written to ask me if there will be another Molly Smith, and I am happy to say 

I’m working on the eighth book in that series now. The nice people at Poisoned Pen also asked me for another. How can I say no?

Here’s what on my plate:

Constable Molly Smith #8 – half finished first draft.

Lighthouse Library. #2 – Booked for Trouble.  Completely finished and waiting for copy edits back. Publication date September 2015.

Lighthouse Library #3 – Reading up a Storm. Finished and now with my editor. She may, or may not, want changes major or minor.

Lighthouse Library #4. No contract as of yet. That will depend on how books 1 and 2 do. It’s all up to the readers now (Hint, Hint).

Christmas Town #1 – Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen. Completely finished, edited and waiting for copy edits back. Publication date November 2015.

Christmas Town #2 – We Wish You a Murderous Christmas.  Ready for me to give it one last polish before going to the editor.

Christmas Town #3. Nothing done yet. (But heck, it’s not due until April. That’s April 2016)

Ray Robertson #2 (A Rapid Reads Novella) – Haitian Graves. Completely finished and in production. Publication date August 2015

Ray Robertson #3 – outline and opening chapters sent to editor for her approval.

Oh, and one last thing.  Proposal for a new cozy series. Three chapters and series outline are now with my agent.  No hints until (if) I have a contract! So stay tuned. 

Working Intuitively

Rick's post earlier this week came at a time when I, too, was wondering how I was going to get everything done. I'm still wondering that, but I stumbled on something this week. I could be wrong, so I'm not offering this as a strategy. I'm just saying that I happened to do this and it worked well enough for me to experiment.

I have been focusing for the past week on a project that I need to get done. My co-editor on the project has finished his part and now I need to wrap up mine by next week. So I've been doing nothing else -- other than what is necessary to teach my two classes. I have been keeping up with obligations like guest posts, but other than that I have put my marketing plan for What the Fly Saw on hold until after next week. I've also not finished making some tweaks to my nonfiction book proposal that I intended to do quickly and send back to my agent. I've been focusing and getting work done. But in the back of mind all my undone tasks have been nagging away and stressing me out.

Then something unexpected happened. I was working on the project that I need to finish, and suddenly the solution to the problem I had been having with the nonfiction book proposal popped into my head. Normally, I would have stopped what I was doing and rushed to the proposal to catch the idea before it was gone. But this time, I had established a rhythm for what I was doing. I was "in flow" and I had made a bet with myself that I could finish the section that I was working on before I stopped.

Today I had planned to plunge right into the next section of the project. Except the day didn't go as I had intended. I had an appointment with a consultant about a cooling system for my house. And then I went to pick up prescription cat food from the vet, stopped at the supermarket -- been trying to get there for three days -- filled my nearly empty gas tank, dropped cat food and groceries at home, and went in to work. By the time I'd finishing sending a librarian the handout I needed copied and my power point for an author's talk on Saturday and checked in with a curator about media for a local history talk next week, it was almost three o'clock.

I was feeling guilty about not working on the project all day. But I found myself opening the file for my book proposal. I started writing and it was effortless. I zipped through several pages of the proposal, revising based on the idea that I thought was only half-formed. I even started revising one of the sample chapters. I was on a major roll. I stopped when I began to slow down. It was getting late anyway.

I drove home, put a frozen lasagna into the oven (takes 50 minutes that way but leaves more writing time than a microwave) and pulled out my project. But my head still wasn't there yet. So, with all the work I had to do, I watched today's episode of "The Young and the Restless". And then I played "bird" with my cat because he needed the exercise. Finally, at around 9:30, I settled down with the project again.

Technically, I had lost most of the day's work on the project. But I'm not feeling as stressed out as I would expect. In fact, I think that I might do better if I work intuitively. That would mean going with what is flowing at the moment. That would mean not allowing myself to be drawn away to something else because I've had an idea. Instead, give that idea time to germinate, assume that I need a break away from that (whatever it is) and that my subconscious will be working away until I get back to it.

Whether this is true or not, I'm going to let myself believe it for the next week. At least, I'll go to bed and get some sleep. I know that five hours or less of sleep a night is not making me more efficient. So to bed, to sleep, and wake up tomorrow and see if I zip through the next section of my big project.

Anyone else tried working intuitively? I'll report back on my own experiment. And I think I'll pick up this book. According to the blurb, the author has some thoughts about intuition and creativity.

A Book is Born

Spring in Arizona

It is spring, the time of new beginnings. Barbara Fradkin has completed her latest manuscript, Vicki Delany’s latest has just been released, and John Corrigan has the end of his WIP in sight. Authors are traveling all over the Western world. And I am happy to say that I just finished the first draft of my eighth book, which is a good thing since it’s due to my editor at the end of this month. Besides, I am now brain dead.

The last few weeks of writing before a manuscript is due in to the publisher is intense and hair-raising. You finish. You send it off. It’s out of your hands. You are like a cork that has been anchored under the water for weeks and months, and now the string is cut and you pop to the surface. You’re floating. The sun is shining, the air is fresh. You are drifting. Aimless. You are disoriented. You’re blinking at the light. You don’t know what to do next. This has happened to me every time I finish a novel. I despair of ever being able to write another word.

This book, All Men Fear Me, which is scheduled for publication in November, was particularly hard for me to finish. It’s long. I have a lot going on. Too much? I don’t know. It seemed to me that everything I put in was necessary to the story. For every book I must come up with a compelling reason for a farm wife and mother of ten to get involved in a murder investigation. I also have to figure out a convincing way for her to either solve the murder or at least contribute to the solution, which as you might guess, isn’t that easy.

I have found over the course of eight books in the same series that I have begun to depart from the usual mystery novel format. The murders take place later and later in the story with each book I write. The later books are constructed more like thrillers than puzzles. In book seven, Hell With the Lid Blown Off, I told the reader who was going to die in the first sentence, but didn’t actually kill him for a hundred pages. In this book…well, I’ll let you see for yourself.

Or it could be that they’re all hard for me to finish and I just don’t remember from book to book, rather like childbirth. It’s a pain, but you’re always so pleased with the result that you forget how you suffered.

Anyway, my beta reader has the MS right now. I have no idea whether the book holds together or makes sense or is any good. I like the way it turned out, but mothers love their ugly babies as much as their pretty ones.

Fun on the road

Barbara here. Today marks one of those milestones in a writer's life, when we press the send button and email our editor the completed manuscript of the book we have spent the last year creating– living the scenes, hearing the characters, wrestling with plot tangles and clunky relationships, imagining the drama.

The timing of this milestone is fitting. It's a new spring. The snow is vanishing, new flowers are poking up, the air is full of birdsong, and my thoughts are already turning to new projects. What to do next? The world feels full of promise and possibilities. Even the next writing project is still only a promise, barely conceived and awaiting its year's gestation.

It's fifteen years since my first novel was published, and I want to do a little reminiscing about the journeys I have taken with my books along the way. Contrary to popular belief, we authors generally pay for our own tours and travels. We may get some financial support from our publishers or from small grants, but the author is almost always out of pocket in the end. From the purely financial point of view, tours are a terrible idea.

But money isn't the only currency. There is the networking and bridge-building, the forging of friendships with new readers, book sellers, librarians, and other fellow book lovers. And there is the pure fun of taking trips, seeing new parts of the world, meeting new people, and having unique adventures. Much of that is, in a word, priceless.

I have lost track of some of the shorter trips, but some highlights stand out. In fifteen years, I have been to every Bloody Words Mystery Conference ever held - I think there were fourteen. The friendships I made with Canadian authors and book people will last forever. I have been to Left Coast Crime conferences in Monterey, El Paso, Bristol, UK, Santa Fe, and Portland– all adventures to unique and interesting places. Highlights I remember include imagining myself in the Roman hot baths in Bath, driving a rental Chevy Suburban up to Santa Fe from Albuquerque in the dead of night because my flight had been delayed (the Suburban was the only vehicle left in the only rental agency still open), and walking across the Rio Grande bridge from Texas to Mexico to have dinner in Juarez with a bunch of crazy Canuck friends. The best part? The dinner was fabulous.

I have been to Bouchercon Mystery Conferences in Austen, Madison, Toronto, and Indianapolis. Besides making unexpected friendships in bars, my favourite moment was Tony Bidulka treating me and Robin Harlick to a champagne limousine ride and special dinner in celebration of his Saskatchewan Book Award. Tony always has the best memorable moments!

I have been on numerous short book tours, usually those that can be managed by throwing a couple of  outfits into the trunk of the car and visiting libraries and bookstores within a day or two drive from home. But a few book tours took me farther afield, usually with another author or two, and the shared experiences still make me laugh. There was the east coast book tour in 2005 with Mary Jane Maffini, where we piled into her small two-door Mazda (a mistake) and covered about two thousand miles and twelve events in less than two weeks. I remember fondly the day we were rocketing through moose country in New Brunswick and realized we were going to be late for our event in Miramichi, so we leaped out of the car in the middle of the forest and changed into our event finery– dress pants, Chico jackets, high heels– behind the largest tree. And the night we encountered Hurricane Wilma on our drive out to a library event on a tiny island off Cape Breton and arrived late and windblown, expecting the place to be deserted, only to find every single person in the town waiting for us with hot tea and cookies.

There was the 2007 Southern Ontario tour I took with Robin Harlick and Rick Blechta, where we covered so many bookstores over four weekends that I ended up at the wrong Chapters at the wrong time in London. Miraculously we were all still friends at the end of it! There was the terrific conference in Calgary, When Words Collide, at which I was the mystery guest of honour in 2013 (this one was paid!), and where I made friends with the dynamic group of western writers. Three highlights of that week stand out - the inspiring speeches by the other guests of honour on opening night, which made me realize regardless of the genre, we are all writers and storytellers; the scotch-tasting party that introduced me to Abelour; and the trip to Drumheller to see the badlands and the dinosaurs.

Also among my most memorable trips (to date, hopefully more to come!) was the sixteen-day tour I took with Vicki Delany to the Northwest Territories and Yukon in 2013. I met so many interesting people and had so many fine adventures that I am hard-pressed to highlight only a couple. Perhaps the "erotica open mike" evening at the NorthWords Literary Festival in Yellowknife, where many of the authors, including Vicki and I, tried our hand at racy writing. Writing hot scenes is easy; reading them with a straight face is not. A second highlight was getting a flat tire in the middle of nowhere at 11:30 at night. A third highlight was arriving to do a library reading in a small village between Whitehorse and Dawson City and discovering our audience was a group of First Nations school children. I learned far more from the discussion we had than they did, I think!

This coming summer, I am going far afield again, as an invited author at the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts, on the beautiful BC coast. I have never been to Sechelt, and I am looking forward to the adventures and the people I will meet. This event is paid, but even if it weren't, there are experiences that go beyond money. I feel so privileged that my writing gives me the chance to enjoy them.

Keeping all the balls in the air

It never ceases to amaze me how busy things can get around here. Granted, I do take a lot of extraneous things on which is probably not the smartest of ideas, but there are days where I think of just how many things I have to do and I’m instantly anxious, almost to the point of despair. I don’t know about you, but when I’m faced with that hopelessness, I tend to just shut down. Since I can’t accomplish it all, I wind up doing even less.

Yesterday, I wanted to write (and I did) but any number of things kept getting in the way. Emails had to be sent and answered, I worked on two design projects, I had to sort music for a gig I had last night, some kitchen work had to be done, and then I was out from 6:00 until 11:30 playing. The issue is not what I managed to do, but what I didn’t manage to do.

Eventually getting into bed after a small amount of post-gig winding down, it hit me that I’d managed to fall even farther behind, even though I was on the go from 6:45 a.m. to midnight. That job jar had just as much in it and more would be going in as soon as I got up.

What to do?

Well, my motto these days seems to have become “keep on keeping on”, but truthfully? That isn’t going to get me out of this. There simply is too much to do. Chipping away at a mountain is fine — unless the mountain is growing faster than you’re able to chip.

One thing I can do is to maximize my time. Part of that will come from increasing the time I’m working. For the foreseeable future, my days will have to be longer. And no goofing off in the evenings watching something on Netflix, or reading, no matter how brain dead I feel.

The second thing is to not take anything new on. (Work doesn’t count here because that money is needed!) If someone asks for something, whether it be help, advice, or a new project, I’ll just have to learn to say no. That’s always been an issue for me. I’m naturally one of those people who wants to help whenever asked.

The reason for this post topic is I’m looking for any stratagems loyal readers of Type M might have to combat extreme “busy-ness”. Believe me, I need all the help I can get keeping those balls in the air!

Real Life Detection

I am just back from the Crime Writers Association's annual conference which is solely for members. It's always a particular pleasure because this is the only time when authors get together and don't have to perform or try to sell their books.

It's usually held in an attractive place and the venue this time, Lincoln, was no exception. It is a medieval city set on a hill, with cobbled streets descending steeply (and ascending even more steeply, or so it seems) to the town below.  Sung Evensong in the glorious cathedral was a highlight of the weekend, with wonderful music and even the classic small choirboy in his frilled white ruff with spectacles just slightly askew.

It's great to see old friends and the bars do brisk business for the two nights. But the other great thing about the conferences is the lectures that give us those professional insights from insiders into the topics we write about, which are often very difficult to come by in other ways.

We were well-placed this time. The member who organised it was a former policeman and judging by the amazing goodie bag gifted by local businesses he must have known where all the bodies were buried and didn't hesitate to use the information when it came to extortion. He was also able to persuade local coppers, lawyers, a forensic expert and even a High Court Judge to come and talk to us as well.

The talks were all absorbing and often very funny – as when the young lawyer told us about her nervous, early faux pas: 'Is that the same nose you broke when you were young?' 'How close were the two cars when they collided?' – and hugely informative as well.

For me the most fascinating one was a horrific case of torture and murder. The Detective Superintendent who pursued it for over two years was quietly-spoken and undramatic, and he told us his watchword was Attention to Detail. But when he said, 'I'm not obliged to take the first answer I'm given – nor the second one either,' I did feel glad that I wasn't the criminal he had in his sights.

His job, of course, is not down and dirty on the crime scene. He directs the operation and in this case, with no forensic evidence at all in the house where the murder took place, it was a question of slowly and remorselessly piecing together the circumstantial evidence until the jigsaw made a picture and he got his men.

There is a tendency to dismiss this, particularly among defence lawyers, as 'merely' circumstantial' evidence.  Forensic evidence is certainly the gold standard but after that eyewitness accounts are highly-valued – despite the fact that numerous studies have proved how totally unreliable these can be. But in collecting circumstantial evidence there are no shortcuts and the Detective Superintendent's painstaking investigation was a masterclass in how you could build a plot.

'If you find out how he lived you'll find out how he died,' he said. He had expensively-gathered evidence he didn't use because it was a complicating factor and wasn't rock solid and could weaken the case. He said that every so often he would step back from involvement and take the long view – 'What are the strengths and the vulnerabilities?' There is a jury at the end of every investigation.

I scribbled pages of notes and I'm putting in a lot of work this week in applying some of his principles, clearing less than effective scenes and assessing the strength of the plot, in the hope of a favourable verdict when it comes before my jury – the readers

Pirates Ahoy and Closing Fast

I have my email program set to alert me anytime someone writes something about my mysteries. It's a handy little gizmo. Whenever Deadly Descent, Lethal Linage, or Hidden Heritage comes up, I get an email.

The past week I've received a number of messages offering my books for free. It burns me up! Someone has pirated my books. Again. This is so unfair. I don't earn a cent from this kind of operation. I'm going to paste in the contents of the email:

If you want to get Lethal Lineage pdf eBook copy write by good author ... The Lethal Lineage we think have quite excellent writing style that make it

Lethal Lineage PDF eBooks Free Download | Page 1 Lethal Lineage (Lottie Albright Mystery #2) by Charlotte ... Lethal Lineage has 35 ... Carol said: LETHAL LINEAGE Poisoned Pen Press 2011ISBN. Flag as irrelevant

Some English, huh? And please note that it's really my book. Not some other book by the same name. It's clearly labeled as part of the Lottie Albright Series. I would be willing to bet that this company is not based here in the USA.

All of the large publishing houses attached to the giant conglomerates (the Big Five) and large independents such as my publisher, Poisoned Pen Press, send Advance Reader's Copies (ARCs) to reviewers associated with magazines and newspapers well in advance of a book's publication date. Librarians also get their share of goodies. Publishers hope that libraries will order the books for their patron’s enjoyment, and that bookstores will stock the book. ARCs are in paperback and they are surprisingly expensive to produce.

It's well worth the expense and effort to have a book reviewed in one of the big four magazines that are especially influential in the trade. They are Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist. A good review in Mystery Scene sends us over the moon. Needless to say making the New York Times is almost too much to hope for. That's here in America. I imagine our Canadian friends could contribute a lot more venues.

Imagine the disappointment when three months before a book is published and available for sale to readers, a paperback version of this book is offered on Amazon by a third party vendor at a low price. How does this happen? Well, some reviewers offer their ARCs for sale perhaps even before they have read it. They have a little side business. But the bottom line is that there is no bottom line. The author doesn't make a cent from the transaction.

Pirates are an entirely different matter, although the outcome is the same: no money for the writer. Since my books will be downloaded for free, I'm a bit bewildered as to who makes money on this kind of a deal. There were more links I could have clicked on. I suspected that would be a mistake so I didn't do it. The free books could have been a ploy to collect information and numbers they had no business using.

If you are reluctant to spend the money for a book, please support your local library. This gives an enormous boost to authors. Librarians only stock books the patrons want to read. If no one ever checks out our books, eventually they stop stocking them.

Finishing Strong

The end is in sight. My work-in-progress, Fallen Sparrow, is (fingers crossed) three-fourths completed. I've read and re-read and re-read again, making sure I haven't missed any plot threads, and even outlined the final hundred pages. Now I have to write them and hope to deliver the manuscript by June.

It's a good feeling to be close to the end. It's an even better feeling to know the ending.

Don't chuckle. I say this because you know as well as I do that the ending is the most important part of the novel. I can hook you in the first twenty pages and get you to read to the end, but if you're not satisfied by my conclusion I've wasted your time and mine. We've all finished reading books, sat back, and shook our heads at the (in the reader's opinion) wrong ending. Take The Great Gatsby. What other possible ending could that book have? The conclusion is entirely fitting, albeit sad for many of my students.

I love endings that turn and twist, offering the unexpected. I just finished Chandler's classic The Long Goodbye. The climax occurs a hundred pages before the book's ending. This novel, though, never lets you go, and the final page stuns you. (I had to reread it.) Same with The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley and SJ Rozan's Winter and Night. I'm hoping (as I always do) that readers will be left guessing until the end of my work-in-progress.

I don't usually start a book with a scene-by-scene outline, but, rather, with five to ten pages of detailed notes. Mostly, these are character sketches that serve to make sure I understand each character's motivation. Motivation, after all, is the driving force behind any plot twist. But as I near the end, I usually stop to reread the entire book. And then I outline the plot from there to the conclusion. Often this outline forces me to go back and add or delete scenes. (This time I added three.) I spent three days (4 to 6 a.m.) on this. It seemed like a long time when I was working on the outline. But, three mornings or not, it will (I hope) prove to be time well spent.

If, that is, I can keep you guessing until the final page.

An Unexpected Gift

Even before I became a writer, I was a big-time reader. Fiction, nonfiction, mystery, thriller, historical. You know the drill. I pretty much still am, though I have less time to read these days.

When I do get the chance to pick up a book, I notice things about stories that I never used to. How they're constructed. How the choice of a word makes a difference in how I feel as a reader. And, when I find a novel or short story particularly satisfying, I'll go back and reread parts or all of it, trying to figure out what makes it tick. Why I liked it so much. How the author managed to make me feel sad, happy, angry, etc. at a particular point.

The same goes for television shows or movies though, with them, it's less about the words used and more about the construction of the story. The other day, I watched an episode of a crime drama that involved the kidnapping of a baby. At the end, the child was found. The man who had him was driving a car along a road and the police gave chase. The writers could have just had the police stop the vehicle (after whatever is deemed the appropriate amount of chase time for television) but, instead, they added a further complication. The vehicle ended up in a lake, completely submerged. Don't worry, the baby was rescued after someone dove in, broke a window and grabbed the infant out of the backseat. I don't remember if the kidnapper was rescued. I'm not sure I cared.

I appreciated that plot twist. It reminded me that you can't ever make it too easy for your characters. Just when they seem to be reaching their goal, add a complication. In this case, the car going into the lake and the possibility the baby won't be rescued after all.

This change in mindset is similar to what happened to me when I studied Hebrew in college. When I'd leave class, I started looking at the world from right to left instead of left to right. Things looked just a bit different. And when I did some script supervising on student films I started noticing continuity errors in movies I saw that I would never have noticed before. Though those two abilities both faded away as soon as I stopped studying Hebrew and doing continuity for films.

Some people might consider it an annoyance. You've lost the ability to simply enjoy a story instead of analyzing it. For me, it’s a gift, giving me the opportunity to appreciate an author's work even more.

More on minions — and other minor characters

I loved Mario’s post this weekend. The word “minion” conjures up so many wonderful images, but it was also a very thoughtful piece that caused me to begin thinking about minor characters and even those little walk-ons that happen when one is writing fiction.

We often talk about “colour” and “place” in novels and they are crucial important background items that help a great deal in bringing a story to vivid life – especially if the reader lives there or has visited. That visceral “I’ve seen that building!” or “I know that place”, can certainly add to a novel’s success. For those who haven’t been to that location, the writer must provide clear images to fire the imagination and inner eye of the reader. It really can be the kiss of death when a novelist can’t manage to portray these things believably (or at all).

But maybe there’s a third very important background piece that is too often taken for granted in novel writing: the perfect background character.

I know I’ve been guilty of not giving these important people their due. You know what I mean. If you had to visually represent them, most would be cardboard cutouts. It’s quick and easy to populate a story with the “extras” you need, but I, for one, need to do it with more care.

There is something else that must be considered here, though, before you start to flesh out those walk-ons: how much is too much?

Everyone in a novel can’t be a “character”, those people who are quirky, often memorable, and when used judiciously, can lift the writing directly into the readers’ imagination. I can’t remember now whose novel it was (but it was a well-known, dare I say, famous author who was well thought of), but I do remember not finishing the book. The problem was that every character seemed to have an interesting background, or something quirky about their personality to the point that the main characters seemed overwhelmed by the background and the story rather bogged down. I remember thinking, Too hard to wade through, and set the book aside.

So that’s the back side of this coin. The front side reveals books that are so plot- and/or character- driven that unimportant characters are herded on and off the stage to the point where they seem more like cattle.

Where is the happy medium and how do you know when you’ve found it? And what are the secrets to being in that “sweet spot”?

I’ll have more thoughts on this next week, but first, I want to hear from Type M readers, and not just those of you who are authors. For the readers: how much do you want/need to know about those with whom the main characters in a book interact? What authors do you think handle this particularly well – and why? For the authors: how do you handle this aspect when crafting your novels?

Home again, home again

By Vicki Delany

Here I am relaxing at home. (Not actually relaxing, mind because I have three books still to be released in 2015 and more to write for 2016, but you get the point). Over the months of February and March I visited Arizona, North Carolina, Florida, Oregon, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.  Oh, and my home province of Ontario also.

All in the service of promoting my newest book, By Book or By Crook, the first in the Lighthouse Library series, written under the pen name of Eva Gates.

Its been an exhausting schedule, but as has been said many times before, the best part of being a writer is the friends you make.  I travelled and did appearances with Kate Carlisle, Jenn McKinley, Donis Casey, Erika Chase, and Barbara Fradkin. I talked books with Molly Weston and Barbara Peters. At Left Coast Crime in Portland, I hung around with the great Canadian contingent of Robin Harlick, Cathy Ace, Sam Wiebe, Linda Wiken, Barbara Fradkin, Eric Brown and Madeleine Harris-Callway (some of whom are pictured below).
















And there I met readers galore. Below is the table that Linda Wiken and I hosted at the LCC banquet. 

I am often asked if I find this sort of tour worthwhile, and I say yes.  With some reservations. It`s always difficult to tell what lasting effect (if any) your appearance will have.  I didn’t sell anywhere near enough books to pay for the flights and hotels, nor did I expect to, but I hope it will pay back over time.  I signed at Mystery on the Beach in Del Ray Beach Florida and By Book or By Crook was the number five bestselling paperback (trade and mass market) in the store for February. 

Booksellers who might not have read my new book otherwise, read it because I was coming, and loved it and so they promoted it to their customers. Certainly being on a panel with bestselling cozy authors like Jenn McKinlay and Kate Carlisle is invaluable for introducing Eva Gates as a new cozy author.

Cave Creek AZ with Kate Carlisle and Jenn McKinlay

Wherever I was I managed to find the time to drop into Barnes and Nobel to sign copies of the store stock of By Book or By Crook and slip my bookmarks into them.  Hopefully, browsing readers will come across them.

Next up: Malice Domestic in Bethesda, May 1 – 3, and the Mechanicsburg Mystery bookstore in Mechanicsburg PA on May 3rd. And, best of all, ROAD TRIP! with Mary Jane Maffini and Linda Wiken.

Until then, I had better get some writing done. 

Respect Your Minions

I'm close to priming the BSP pump and start spraying news about my forthcoming Felix Gomez detective-vampire book, Rescue From Planet Pleasure. Early in that story I had a battle between the good vampires and the enemy bloodsuckers. My heroes were cutting down the bad guys by the dozens. Then during the writing of that manuscript I saw the James Bond thriller, Skyfall, and that made me reconsider the body count. Near the climax of the movie, a horde of bad guys close upon Bond and company trapped in the mansion. Our intrepid champions cut through the ranks of the evil doers who kept attacking and attacking like mindless zombies. Then it hit me.

Why are minions so willingly expendable? Why are the bad guy pawns so relentless in their attack despite being slaughtered? These guys are criminals, which means they have only two possible motives. Either they are cultish slaves or they're in the business of murder and mayhem for profit. Even if they are devoted slaves to the master criminal, wouldn't they--as they're being mowed down--ask the boss to reconsider their strategy? What's the point of them dying like vermin? And if they're in it for the money, I think that after one or two bite the dust, the rest would pull back and regroup. Money is only good if you can spend it, something that's hard to do from the grave.

In Skyfall the bad guys arrive in a gigantic helicopter, worth tens of millions of dollars. Flying that machine ain't easy, so it would have to be piloted by an experienced and rather level-headed crew, and despite their competency, the copter is easily destroyed. At what point would the crew hit "minion-override" and decide to quit acting stupid? A band of murderous criminals is like a pack of wolves, and like wolves, once the alpha threatens the pack, then they turn on him.

That realization made me reconsider the slaughter of the minions in my story, and I cut back on the body count. I even had some of the minions rebel against the villain because of their useless loss. As we writers like to say, everyone is the hero of their own story, so it would make sense for the minions to act in their own self-interest. Which actually makes for a more layered and deeper story. Lesson learned.

Until Death Do Us Part

This is going to be a short post because today is a busy one.

Whenever Chicago The Musical, is touring in the Albany area, I always have too much going on to attend a performance. But I was thinking of the musical and the story behind it a few days ago. I showed the students in my crime and mass media class a clip from the movie. As many of you know, the 1926 play was written by Maurine Dallas Watkins, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, inspired by two high-profile murder cases in which women accused
of murder of a lover of husband had been acquitted. She wrote the play as a satire on crime and celebrity while attending Yale Drama School.

I always think of Watkins' play in conjunction with Susan Glaspell's play "Trifles" (1916) about the murder of John Hossack. Glaspell adapted the play as a short story, "A Jury of Her Peers" (1917).

Glaspell was a reporter for the Des Moines Daily News when she covered the trial of Margaret Hossack. Hossack was accused of killing her husband, a wealthy farmer, with an axe while he slept. Hossack was first convicted and sentenced to prison. But she was freed after a second trial resulted in a hung jury. No one was ever convicted of the crime, but the case affected Glaspell deeply. If Watkins's play is about a garish, brightly-lit world, Glaspell's is about the isolation of Midwestern farm life. I'd be interested in hearing what you think of her story.

The Seasons of an Artist’s Life, or Been There, Done That

As he was ringing us up, the very good looking, very young and studly clerk asked us, "So, are you celebrating tonight? Going to a party? Having some green beer?" It was St. Patrick's Day and my husband Don and I were standing at the check-out counter at Trader Joe's.

"No," I said. "Been there, done that."

"Don't worry," he told us, "I'll take up where you left off."

I thought of this when I read Rick's entry on this blog yesterday. He noted that he no longer has the same energy he had in his youth, and though still creative and infinitely more experienced, one's "fire burns nowhere as hot as it once did."

I know what you mean, Rick. When I was a kid, I started writing stories as a distraction from family trauma. I created worlds and escaped into them. I remember with fond nostalgia the days I would write for hours on end, lost in my stories, feeling an actual love for my characters as though they were my real friends or family or lovers. (Sometimes I loved my characters more than certain friends or family or lovers.) I have a much more business-like relationship with my fiction these days. I don't have the passion I once had. Just more skill.

Well, to everything there is a season, so the Bible says. The body and the brain sputter and fade out eventually. Of course, I never really thought that talent or genius originates in the brain, anyway. Years ago it occurred to me like a flash of lightning that your brain is just like a radio transmitter that picks up inspiration from the Big Mysterious Place and allows you to transform that inspiration into action in the physical world. It's just that as your receptors fray you have a little more trouble picking up the signal.
In other news, I am so close to finishing this new book. Every day for the past two weeks, I've gotten out of bed and thought, "Today's the day!" Thus far it hasn't been.

I had a rather painful writing day today. I sat in front of my computer and did my duty with gritted teeth. I typed a lot of words, most of which I’ll either have to take out later or move to a different scene. 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.

I never know why one day is better than another when it comes to writing. Each book seems to be a whole new order of creation for me, and demands its own unique method of coming into being. I’ve been known to outline before I begin when I think that would help me clarify the direction of the plot in my own mind. I have also simply started writing, usually at the beginning, but I’ve started in the middle and the end, as well. More than once I’ve begun a novel on the fly, and then gone back and created an outline because I’ve gotten myself into a muddle and can’t quite figure the way out.he middle of a novel, there may come a moment when you wonder if you're ever going to be able to get it done. You know where you want to end up, but you're not entirely sure how you're going to get there. Sometimes I feel frightened, and wonder if I still have it in me. Will I find my way out of this maze, and do it in such a way that I bring the reader along with me?

It’s not like this has never happened to me before, and I must remember that miraculously it always works out. As I write the first draft, my beginnings never do match the end, for somewhere in the middle of the story, I changed my mind about this character, or this action, or this story line. I try not to waste time by going back to the beginning and fixing it to fit my new vision. No, no, that way lies madness. I can get (and have gotten) caught up in an endless merry-go-round of fixes and never reach the end. I just have to keep going until the book is done. I love writing, but I hate the pressure of trying to get the manuscript done by a deadline. Sometimes I ask myself, do I have to do this? Really, would the world fall apart if I turned it in a couple of weeks late?

Would it?*
_________________
*I'll never know. I'm too neurotic not to do whatever it takes to get the thing done in time.

Is really special creativity only the provenance of youth?

by Rick Blechta

I was away last week and totally oblivious to what day it happened to be, hence one of my rare non-appearances on Type M. My apologies for that. Quite frankly, it’s embarrassing when that happens, but, well, it happens. The world continued to turn. Life as we know it didn’t suffer. And I’m back again this week.

While away, I began reading an account of something that’s always interested me intensely: the soul music of the 1960s that came out of Memphis, Tennessee on the Stax Record label. Yeah, it’s an arcane subject, and most of you reading this have no idea what I am referring to, but that’s okay. It’s not what this weeks post is truly about. It just provides the jumping off point. If you are interested, the book is called Soulsville, U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records by Rob Bowman.

Stax Records was an anomaly in its time. First and foremost, it was integrated. Its studio musicians, the ones who cranked out all those classic soul tunes by Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd, Carla Thomas, etc. got their jobs because of their musicianship. Skin colour didn’t enter into it and that was very rare, especially in the South. This was during a time when the racial turmoil that griped the US was at its height. Once through the doors of Stax, racial differences didn’t matter. Musicianship did.

What amazes me, though, is the incredible musical creativity that existed when those band members got together. Day after day, they crafted astonishing arrangements and recorded literally hundreds of songs. With no written out musical arrangements, just feeling their way through until they were satisfied, this group of young men (mostly) cranked out more era-defining music than nearly anyone else. They’d just cut one song and move on to the next one. Their output is nothing short of brilliant. Yes, it all had a definite “Stax sound”, but the songs never sounded as if they’d come out of a cookie cutter. Each one was its own entity and in the amount that was produced, it’s truly astonishing. (I can provide a listening guide if anyone is interested.)

At roughly the same time, The Beatles were assembling their awesome catalog of era-defining songs. Their output is even more astonishing in the too brief time they flourished as a group.

Now to the crux of the matter. In what way are these two musical ensembles most similar? They all did their best work while rather young and finding their way as musicians. All were playing well “over their heads”.

In much the same way as athletes, pop musicians generally do their best work in their early years. It’s not the same in jazz or classical music, but these artists did do their best “learning” when in their teens and twenties. After that, it’s polish and experience that provides the finishing touches to what they do best and it comes mostly with years and experience.

This is not to say that pop musicians don’t continue to improve in mastering their instrumental ability. But in terms of creativity in making original music, nothing seems to beat those early years for output. None of the members of the Stax house band, as they grew older, created anything near the volume of superb and astonishing music. To be fair, they didn’t have the same chance once things began falling apart at Stax, where they worked five days a week. They weren’t recording at anywhere near the same frenetic pace. So too with The Beatles. Once they split up, their individual shortcomings were exposed simply by the fact they were working alone. Both ensembles were highly collaborative/synergistic. Everyone threw ideas into the creative pot. Solutions were tried and either worked or were found wanting. When the latter was the case, someone else would generally step forward with a different idea. The total was indeed proven to be greater than sum of its parts.

Writers, by definition, work alone. Though there are exceptions, it’s rare to find more than one person crafting the words. Yes, we can join critiquing groups or show our work to trusted allies while we’re still in the “development stages” of our writing, but that’s not really the same thing. In my own small way, I have experienced the (almost) rapture of creating something within a group. It is indeed a heady feeling. Often, it can be a harsh crucible as ideas are thrown out, reshaped, discussed and discarded by the group as a whole, but when the dust clears and you can clearly see the fruits of your labours, it is quite wonderful.

Even though I now write with words rather than sounds most of the time, something is lost. My youth is long since behind me, and with that went youthful energy levels. If I stayed up and worked all night simply because I couldn’t bear turning off the creative tap (as I often did in my youth), I would suffer physically for days, regardless of artistic elation. So that’s no longer on the cards. But I’m also working alone, there’s no one else’s creative energy to feed off of.

I believe I’m still creative in my dotage, but the fire burns nowhere as hot as it once did when I was in my teens and twenties. Shall I say that it appears to be more “rationed” than in the past? And it is nowhere near as fecund. Seldom now do ideas pour out faster than I can hope to catch and write everything down.

The saying is, “Youth is wasted on the young.” We older farts often add, “I wish I knew then what I know now.” Both are sad statements at their hearts, but no less true for being somewhat flippant.

I completely believe in both thing – but can’t do a thing about it.

Tell Me All About Your Book - No, Don't

The other day I came across this quote from British writer Hilary Bailey: 'There are only three statements you can make when writing without being a bore: "I'm writing a book,""I've finished my book," "I've sold my book – break out the champagne!" '

She's right, I thought. The book that so fascinates us that we are willing to spend a year of our lives totally absorbed in it may be of remarkably little interest to anyone else.

I had a spectacular demonstration of this just the other day, when I was away on a research trip. Ian, my husband went up to the hotel bar to order drinks and fell into conversation with a man who told him he was writing a book so Ian mentioned that I was an author.

The man immediately came over to join me and without preamble launched into the story of the book he was writing, the one he'd already self-published, and the one he would be planning to write next, as well outlining his life story which had been their source, in minute detail. When the waitress arrived to say his meal was waiting we greeted her like the US cavalry.

He left without knowing my name or what I wrote - not that I minded. I very seldom talk about a book even once it's published and certainly never, ever, about one that's in progress. Even Ian doesn't read the book until I give him the advance copy.

I often hear friends mention talking through a book with their agent, or reading parts out to friends or doing brain-storming when they're stuck and I feel rather envious – it sounds such a cosy thing to do. But once, very early on, I had what I thought was a brilliant plot and started telling Ian all about it. Next morning when I sat down to write, it had died. My lovely idea was a stone-cold corpse and nothing I could do would revive it.

I don't know why that should have been. The only rationale I can come up with is that for me writing is like telling myself a story and what drives me on is wanting to find out what happens. Once there are no more surprises, the life is gone.

So I am pathologically private about what I'm writing. I almost can't write if someone else is in the room. I loathe having to write synopses in case the worst happens, so I have to hope that my editor will take a lot on trust.

So you're in no danger if you sit down next to me; I promise I won't start boring you about my current book. My grandchildren, now...

Evildoers

I'm not a total wimp. Not spectacularly brave either. My tastes in mysteries are decidedly on the side of physiological literary mysteries. I hate books with no plot. Even if the writing is exquisite, if there is no story I feel cheated. I also lean toward "mean streets" in mysteries rather than cozies.

So I was surprised at my reaction to the beginning of a book a couple of days ago. A rape was so obviously going to take place and I simply could not stomach it. I laid the book aside. I was reading it in bed. Bedtime reading is a well-established habit and I've learned that certain kinds of books keep me awake. If a book is too upsetting it interferes with a good night's sleep. Which means I will be sluggish and unhappy the next day.

The next afternoon I resumed reading the book. It's terrific! I'm not going to identify it right now because I haven't finished it and will review it when I'm done. Here's what impressed me about the dreaded rape scene; it was not described after all. Yes, it took place, but the focus of the book was on the downfall of a young man who was a non-participating bystander who is bribed by the wealthy family the men involved to keep information to himself. The details of the crime emerge slowly as does the consequences of his disastrous choices.

It's a tale of intricate vengeance wrought by the father of the damaged young woman who committed suicide because of the rape.

Part of my reluctance to continue the book that first night was because this book is so well-written, which means literary, I suppose, which I'm beginning to equate with sad unsatisfying tales. I'm fed up with powerful, wealthy people getting away with anything and everything in literature as well as in real life. I'm disheartened by the number of books where such people are never brought to justice. It's a class issue and it's becoming more obvious all the time in our society.

The book has great characterization and I have hopes that the protagonist who is slowly growing in courage and a thirst for justice will decide to do the right thing. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Evildoers used to be identified as such. I want those days back.