Fond Typing Memories

I’ve been enjoying the recent posts on Type M about learning to type. It’s brought back a lot of fond memories for me.

My first experience with a typewriter was around fourth grade. For some reason, the powers that be decided we students would benefit from short courses on a number of topics outside of our usual curriculum. I don’t remember what the other options were because I pretty much didn’t look at anything else once I saw typing was one of them. So for 3 weeks or so a few of us spent some time with a manual typewriter. I don’t remember what I learned, but I do remember enjoying it and wanting to know more.

Fast forward to tenth grade when I took my first official typing class. I figured it would come in handy in college, but I also just really wanted to learn how to do it. I’m so glad I took all of those typing classes. It’s turned out to be the most useful skill I’ve ever learned. And I still find it very soothing.

In typing class, we started out with manual typewriters, but soon graduated to electric ones. How I loved the IBM Selectric keyboard. What a dream to type on! I’m still picky about keyboards. I find the ones on most laptops to be not to my liking, so I have an auxiliary keyboard I use instead.

Somewhere along the way I joined FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America). Not because I wanted to be a future business leader, but because it was fun. I enjoyed the people and the activities. One of those activities was an annual convention where chapters throughout the state got together and did stuff. What that stuff was I can’t really remember, except for the competitions in various business related subjects.

At my first convention, I entered the Junior Production Typewriting competition and, apparently, I came in second. I say apparently because I knew I did well, but didn’t remember where I placed until I found the certificate. The competition wasn’t only about how fast you could type, but also about typing up different kinds of documents – letters, manuscripts, etc. – in the proper manner. That meant having to center titles, get the margins right, etc. All the kinds of stuff that Word now does for you automatically.

By the end of high school I could type 80 wpm or so. Now it’s probably in the 60s or 70s, depending on the keyboard. I still occasionally check out my speed with a typing test online just for the fun of it. Hey, I’m easily amused.

You can check your typing speed out at https://www.typingtest.com/

My little writing rituals

by Rick Blechta

Again I find myself inspired by my Type M colleagues. This time it’s Tom.

I’m pretty sure that every writer has little rituals or quirks that help them find the place in their imaginations from where ideas and words emanate. Tapping that “happy spot” is important if anything meaningful is going to be the end result.

I know from speaking with writing colleagues that distraction can be a major issue. They have to be surrounded by silence or some sort of very specific sound, like music, or birdsong, or something of that calming nature.

I know that’s where I diverge from most writers. I really can’t put on music, because being a musician, I naturally start listening followed by analyzing what I’m hearing. I learned very early on that having music on is just not something that works for me.

I can certainly work in silence, or with low-level surrounding noise such as birdsong, wind in the trees, stuff like that, but it can’t be too regular or it drives me nuts.

Now here’s where it gets really odd. I don’t mind a lot of noise around me. I’ve done some of my best work in airports, train stations, and waiting rooms. This past weekend, one of the band’s in which I play did a wedding gig. The stage was at one end of the hall, separated from the wedding ceremony set-up by a long black curtain. Our instruments were set up and ready to go, and surrounding the stage were all the tables which were having the service laid.

So here I am, sitting on the stage, journal in hand, madly scribbling away at a scene in my work-in-progress. It was going rather well, too, I thought. On the other side of the curtain was the Jewish wedding ceremony which included singing and a lot of talking. Around me about a dozen servers were moving about. None of it bothered me. I don’t know any other writers who enjoy working that way.

I also find that working in different surroundings can be very stimulating to my muse (in a good way), so sometimes, I’ll go outside, visit a nearby park, go to the library. I’ve even ridden the subway back and forth for a few hours on two occasions. I’ve written here about my love of writing at the Osgoode Hall Law Library in downtown Toronto.

Some of this may be about getting away from distractions like the phone and the Internet, and if I find that I’m too “distractible” on a specific day and I have the mental fortitude to break away, leaving these things behind is a Good Thing.

If there’s a particular ritual in which I indulge it’s that I always begin by reading what I’ve written the day before (or the last time I was working if it’s on the same day). But I believe that’s more to allow me to get back into the same headspace than being an actual ritual.

Anyway, that’s what works for me.

Now for the writers out there in the audience, what do you like to do to stimulate your muse?

Writing Rituals

My blog this week will have been written shortly before I left to attend and speak at the Virginia Festival of the Book on Saturday, March 23. Some of the other authors speaking during the Crime Wave Programs were Don Winslow, Stephen Mack Jones, William Boyle, Kellye Garrett, and Erica Wright, among many others.

By the time you read this, the event will be over and done. However, I’m writing before it happens. So, should I be writing this in the future tense or the past tense? And by the time this blog is posted, I’ll be in Winchester, VA, getting ready for a book signing event at the Winchester Book Gallery. It feels a little like one of those paradoxes that happen in time travel stories.

I’ve been following the other Type M blogs about learning how to type. I was going to follow in their footsteps, except my story is pretty straight forward. I knew from an early age that a typewriter was going to be instrumental in whatever I did in life, so I took a course in high school, learning how to touch type. Thank goodness because the letters have pretty much worn off the beat-up laptop I use to write my books.

Should I get a new one? Probably, but this one is lucky. This is the one that found an agent for me. This is the one that helped get me published.

Writing on it has become a ritual, along with listening to ambient music that’s little more than a low hum.

Is it unusual for a writer to have rituals? I don’t think so.

Ernest Hemingway wrote while standing up. He’d get out of bed at dawn, write furiously while standing at his typewriter, and then wander down to the local tavern to get hammered. His ritual, other than standing while writing was “done my noon, drunk by three”.

On the other hand, Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, Edith Wharton, George Orwell, and Truman Capote all wrote while lying in bed. Capote had a few other quirks as well. He wrote everything in longhand and was superstitious. He avoided hotel rooms and anything having a number that ended in “13”. He also avoided starting or ending a piece of writing on a Friday.

Gertrude Stein did most of her writing in a moving Model T Ford driven by her partner Alice Toklas.

Dr. Suess liked to wear an unusual hat while he wrote. He owned several hundred headpieces that he would try on until he felt creatively charged.

Charles Dickens would only sleep facing north. He carried a compass with him at all times, preferring sleeping with his head pointed toward the north pole.

John Cheever wrote while only wearing his underwear.

Victor Hugo wrote in the nude. It was rumored that Hugo would strip down, hand his clothing to a servant, and lock the door. He wouldn’t have his clothing returned until he was satisfied that he’d written something substantial.

So, the fact that I prefer to write on my beat-up laptop…that’s not so unusual after all. At least I write with my clothes on.

On The Road Again

After a self-imposed hiatus from touring, I'm again loose from my cage. A couple of years back I was part of the WordFire Press road crew hefting books from convention to convention. That was a great experience not only hawking books shoulder-to-shoulder with other writers but it was also an amazing opportunity to meet fans. When I first got published I attended as many writer conventions as I could afford such as Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, and ThrillerFest. While these cons were a blast--suffice to say a LOT of booze was consumed--I decided they weren't worth the money. Flying out of town, plus hotel and meals, and the con fees would set me back a cool grand. Anything in New York was almost twice that. Truthfully, at these cons, the public was mainly interested in the hardback NYT bestsellers and most times, the vendors wouldn't bother stocking my vampire novels. I'd usually only get one panel, not surprisingly, first thing Sunday morning. We panelists were lucky if we didn't outnumber the audience!

This year I'm traveling with the Bard's Tower, the venture headed by Rabid FanBoy. They took over the operation from WordFire and streamlined the process. As before, our venues are the comic cons, actually known now by several other names, as Comic Con has been trademarked and reserved for use by those within the proper fold. Besides the format, the biggest differences between what we do and traditional writer cons are attendance and the workload. Attendance meaning greeting between fifty thousand and a hundred thousand people who file by our booth. Workload meaning unpacking hundreds of books, setting up the booth and tower, staffing the booth from 10AM to 8PM, then the final tear down. I bought new Dr. Martens with extra cushy soles, however even with them, at the end of each day, my dogs aren't just barking but howling.

Typically, those of us working the booth sell out at least one title. And it brings a big smile when in these distant burgs, a customer remarks, "Aren't you Mario Acevedo? I have your books!" Bless you, kind reader. I only wish I had a thousand more fans for each of you.

If you want to come by and browse the Bard's Tower, check out my 2019 schedule. See you there.

Walking the Line

Frankie here. I've been chuckling through my colleagues posts this week. In empathy, not superiority. I just left a comment apologizing for what was both a typo and a grammatical mistake in a guest post. I typed (on my computer keyboard). I meant to say that my "books are," but instead wrote my "series are." Are commas and periods in the right place in this paragraph? I have admitted to myself that even though I was both a Psychology and an English major, I have trouble remembering the rules. I go back to double-check before reading term papers.

I did learn to type in high school even though I was on the academic track. There was a simple reason for that. My cousin taught at the high school I attended during my senior year. I rode to school with her some days when I missed the bus. I took typing because I knew it was going to be useful. But I'm pretty sure I didn't get an "A" in the class. I was not a whiz on the keyboard. I jumped for joy when I realized that computers allowed one to erase and edit without ripping a hole in the paper. Without a computer, I might still be trying to type a book that could be submitted. My first two efforts are tucked away in my desk awaiting that mythical one day when I have the time to try revising them. The manuscripts can't be scanned because there are so many typos and whiteouts.

But getting to the intended topic of my post today. As I've mentioned, Speaking Volumes is re-issuing the five books in my Lizzie Stuart series. The first two books, Death's Favorite Child and A Dead Man's Honor, are available now in both print and Kindle.Old Murders, is with the publisher. The last two books will be out this year, too. And my publicist, PJ Nunn, is doing a marvelous job of helping me relaunch the series. All good, but this does present a challenge.

If you're writing a series, you know about the delicate balance that a writer faces when it comes to marketing. On one hand, we want to interest prospective readers enough to get them to go to our websites and learn more about us and our books. On the other hand, when talking about our books, there is the danger of saying too much. We can spoil a new book for a loyal reader by giving away an ending. We can spoil an entire series for a reader who have just discovered us and our books by revealing how the series evolves. Who lives, who dies, who gets away with murder. I've been finding this particularly challenging as I am relaunching a series five books in.

For example, I have revealed (although it was mentioned by readers and reviewers when the book was published) that Lizzie's mother, Becca, is a femme fatale. I commented on that in a guest blog that came out today. Again, on one hand, I was talking about a character that I love who has popped up in a series that is not cozy, but certainly not noir. On the other hand, I'm hoping that knowing Becca survives her first appearance won't spoil the book for readers who pick it up -- especially for  readers who prefer to begin with the first in the series and wouldn't have learned Becca's fate until Book 4.

Walking the line during a marketing campaign is a challenge. But it's lovely to work on the plot of a new book as new readers are discovering the series. I need to think before I blurt out any important plot twists and remember to say "the killer" rather than identifying by pronoun. But I'm having fun trying to find creative ways of saying enough and no more.

Typing Joys

Reading the previous entries, below, about how we acquired our typing skills,* made me (Donis) think of all the wonderful times I've had trying to catch all the typing mistakes I've made while proofreading a manuscript that I've already gone over at least a hundred times. Typos are creative and amusing. Years ago I wrote something about a man who saved dozens from a fire and called him a "true herp". Since that day I have a tendency to call anyone who rises to the occasion a "herp".

Typos may be funny, but grammatical errors are humiliating, and yet I still make plenty. I was an English major in college and later an English teacher, to boot. I even taught remedial English to freshmen when I was in graduate school, so I like to think of myself as well-versed in the rules of English grammar and punctuation. But by damn, with every book it seems I've either forgotten what I knew or the rules have changed (I'm looking at you, Oxford comma).

In one particular novel, I became hopelessly confused when trying to differentiate between “lay” and “lie” and all their permutations. In fact, my editor noted that I got it wrong nearly every time! She even wrote “Yay!” above the one time I got it right. I told her that at least I’m consistent. Now, how did this happen? I know that people lie down to sleep and that they lay their watches on the beside table. It was the tenses other than the present that threw me. I got lost in a miasma of “laids” and “lains”. The odd thing is that I never had that much trouble with it before. All I can suggest is that I had suddenly developed a metal block. In any event, no one in that novel either lays or lies. Everyone places, puts, reclines, or reposes. Except for that “Yay!” I left that one.

In another novel, my editor suggested that I refresh myself on the difference between “may” and “might”. Here’s the deal. When it comes to “may’ and “might”, I become ensnared in the net of my own ethnic dialect. Where I come from, “may” is for asking permission and “might” is synonymous with “perhaps”. However, this is not necessarily correct Standard English. I must remember that.

On a third occasion, my editor accused me of using too many commas. Okay, I admit it. But I have an excuse. Punctuation rules have changed since I learned them. (No cracks about runes, hieroglyphs, or cuneiform.) I was taught that in a list of three or more descriptors, there is no comma between the last two if there is an “and” between them. "He was tall, dark and handsome." It seems that the serial comma now reigns. (i.e. "We invited two strippers, a politician, and a minister," rather than "We invited two strippers, a politician and a minister.") Knowing that the preferred rule has changed, I apparently went on a rampage and put commas all over the place, whether the sentence needed them or not. My editor’s rebuke immediately reminded me of my late aunt, who literally put a comma after every other word she wrote. Perhaps I have inherited some genetic punctuation flaw. Whatever the reason, I’ve become hyper-aware of my commas. I must have removed 500 commas during that rewrite. It has occurred to me that I may now have a book full of run-on sentences.

And as for typos -- after a while you just don’t see them. You know how the sentence is supposed to read, and that’s what you see whether it is actually there or not. For example, during the last re-read of an advanced reading copy, I found a place where I had left the “g” out of the word “dog”. "The do began to bark." I had typed that sentence three months earlier and had read over it dozens of times. But I never saw that missing “g”. Neither did my husband Don. Neither did my editor. We all knew what it was supposed to be and that’s what we saw.

I think there may be a life lesson, there.
_____
*I acquired mine before the union of electricity and typewriters.

Tricks and old dogs

What a fun trip down memory lane we are having on Type M this week. Typing and typewriters. I can relate to so many of the stories! Back in the mists of time when I attended high school in the early '60s, students were streamed into academic or commercial (and within academic, into Latin or science, the former being more prestigious). There was flexibility to mix some science into Latin, which I did, but there was no room in the day to fit in typing. It was strictly for those heading to the work force after high school, rather than university.

Although I never took the classics in university and instead focussed primarily on science and psychology, I have never regretted those agonizing two years I spent learning Latin conjugations and struggling to translate Virgil under the fierce glare of Latin teacher Mr. Marcus (I kid you not). Not only is Latin the basis of so many languages, but knowing the Latin root and the connections between words is very helpful in enriching understanding and vocabulary.

I have often had occasion to regret that I never took typing, however. Like Aline, I learned to type haphazardly on my mother's very old typewriter that banged and clacked and regularly jammed into a tangle of keys if I typed too fast. The ribbons were two-toned - red on the top and black on the bottom - to allow for more interesting presentations. I became quite proficient at the hunt and peck technique and also at the liquid white-out that was supposed to correct mistakes. All the way through university I typed up papers on the noisy old machine, usually at 3 a.m.

When I first worked as a psychologist, I wrote my reports long-hand, and these were typed either by someone in the "typing pool" or by the secretary down the hall. Both approaches involved much back and forth to correct errors and edit text. At home, however, I was writing my first fictional masterpieces first on that old typewriter and later on an electric typewriter. I recall the sheer joy of typing my first manuscript on a computer word processing program. No more white-out or correct-o-tape. No more typing pages again and again to edit and re-edit material. Word Perfect was a dream.

Sometimes I long for the simplicity of that early word processing program. I told it exactly what to type and it did it. If it did something peculiar like double-indent a piece of text, I just selected "reveal codes" and I could see exactly what code I needed to delete. It did not attempt to anticipate my formatting or insert sneaky codes that I couldn't see and couldn't delete. It was not full of complicated  options that I would never figure out how to use and would never need anyway. It was a very sad day when Word Perfect was discontinued and I had to switch to MS Word.

I think we are products of our time and become comfortable with what has worked for us well for decades. I still write first drafts in long-hand, and I do not use any of the fancy writing and editing software available to writers to help them organize their ideas and keep track of story points. I just write and keep lists. Like hunt and peck, my technique is laborious and certainly not efficient, but it works for me.

However, I do wish I could touch-type, so maybe I will hunt down Mavis Beacon and give her system a try.

Mavis Beacon changed my life!

by Rick Blechta

This week’s post is in answer to Aline’s post yesterday. I, too, once suffered from a lack of typing skills, but fortunately for me, a new piece of computer software had just been released and was being used in the schools in which I taught. That program was Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.

But first, a digression…

Like Aline, I’d become an Advanced Hunt and Pecker on the typewriter. I could type pretty darn fast. My high school graduation present from my mother was a portable Olivetti. Funny thing was, my mom never suggested that I take a typing course (I used her typewriter all through high school).

In those days, “college-bound” students didn’t take “lowly” courses like typing. Why this was the case I have no idea. Did the educators think that we’d hand-write term papers and then pay someone to type them for us? Because when I got to university the professors made it pretty clear they didn’t want handwritten submissions.

So in the late ’80s when Mavis Beacon was released — the same time as the rise of the computer — it had finally been realized that all students should learn how to touch type. For me, it was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Listening to my students, I was hearing that they really liked learning how to touch type.

So in 1989 I plopped down $29.95 and bought this program. Never have I spent money more wisely.

Knowing what I did about learning from my musical studies, I realized the clearest way to success was to spend time every day using my new program. As in learning to play an instrument, you can’t expect good results if you only sit down and practise for an hour every four days. Fifteen minutes a day will work far better in the long run whether it’s learning to play a Mozart minuet or learning to touch type.

I made it my business to do my keyboarding practice between the time I got home and dinner. If I hadn’t gotten to it in time, I’d feed our two sons and do it while they ate. My goal was a minimum 10 minutes every day with 15 as my goal. Surely I could find that amount of time in every day.

Surprise, surprise, in a month I could touch type pretty well, maybe 40 words a minute which was more than sufficient for my burgeoning writing career. The Mavis Beacon program is geared towards kids (games and such as a learning tool) but I found it relatively fun and practising never seemed onerous.

I am thankful I took the plunge every time I sit down at the computer to work. So Aline, and anyone else out there who only hunts and pecks, take a few minutes out of your day for one month and you will be a much happier writer. I guarantee it.

Mavis* is my hero!

___________________

*While there are other software programs that will successfully teach you to touch type, I have a “relationship” with this program, so I’m recommending it.

And here’s an interesting factoid I just discovered courtesy of Wikipedia: “Mavis Beacon’s first name was taken from Mavis Staples, lead vocalist for the Staple Singers. The surname derives from beacon, as in a light to guide the way.”

No wonder I was drawn to this program. I love the way Mavis Staples sings!

The Qwerty Keyboard

As yet again, I realise I've written the word 'hosue' (a favourite mistake) and murmur grateful thanks as my spellcheck changes it to 'house', I regret the fact that I never learned to touch-type. When I was at school it was pretty much discouraged if you were on a academic syllabus since you'd only need it if you were going to be a typist.

Of course, when it became obvious that this was a serious, all but essential skill in the internet world, I could have taken time out to teach myself but by then I was really quite speedy in a slapdash sort of way and so I've gone on.

The typewriter that I was first allowed to try was an ancient model, the kind you see in old black and white movies, used my my minister uncle for his sermons. I was seven, I think, and I was enchanted. I already wrote stories, but how much more like real, proper stories they seemed when they were printed, even if the letters jumped sometimes. I got my own, very similar, sit-up-and-beg typewriter when I was eleven, and I loved it to bits. The much slicker one that eventually replaced it never had my heart in the same way and my computer keyboard is just a means to an end. I miss the triumphant ping! and slam back as you came to the end of each line.

I never gave much thought to the weird qwerty arrangement of letters, an arrangement that has been in place unchanged for well over a hundred years. If you'd put me on the spot, I suppose I'd have said it was probably based on the letters most frequently used in the English language and the quickest way of reproducing them.

Then I heard the theory that this was entirely wrong; they were actually arranged in such a way as to slow down typing speed, since if you typed so fast that one key had not gone back to its place before the next one was hit, the machine would jam - and yes, when I got ahead of myself I certainly remember that happening.

But apparently this isn't accepted as entirely true either. When Christopher Sholes, a newspaper editor and senator from small-town Pennsylvania became enamored of the idea of 'playing the literary piano' instead of using a pen in 1868, he first devised a machine that did indeed look like a piano, or organ, perhaps, with two rows of ivory and ebony keys. Over the years it was modified and altered as its uses became more defined in a rather haphazard way, but after Remington started producing the qwerty arrangement on their typewriters, somehow that was what stuck.

What it most definitely isn't is the most efficient arrangement. In 1936 August Dvorak designed a much more ergonomic keyboard. Using the qwerty keyboard to copy a test text a typist's fingers would travel twenty miles, compared to one mile on the Dvorak version.

And what happened? Nothing. We all just stuck with qwerty. There are new systems on offer now that can easily be installed on a computer. But I think the reluctance to take time away from our feverish typing, which stopped me learning to touch-type long ago, still operates and qwerty is still king.

I have to admit I now wonder exactly how many typing miles I do on an average working day. Anyone got a fitbit for fingers?

(BSP) Blatant Self Promotion

YOU’RE INVITED

BOOK SIGNING MARCH 23, 1:00 PM BARNES AND NOBLE LOVELAND

THE HEALER’S DAUGHTER

By

Charlotte Hinger

Starred Review in Library Journal

“Readers who appreciate historical accuracy in their fiction will find this a powerful read. The impressive degree of realism and Hinger’s skillful weaving of personalities and story lines make it a real page-turner.”

I know this is shameless. But it really makes me very happy. More along a proper writing post next time.

STARTING OVER by Guest Blogger Tom Savage

Hi, folks. I was delighted when John Corrigan invited me to submit a guest post here, and I wondered which aspect of the writing life I should address. I’ve chosen a subject that isn’t exactly pleasant, but it’s a reality for many of us.
I’m talking about starting over. I don’t mean abandoning or rewriting a story or a novel; I mean hitting the Restart button on your writing career. It may have happened to you, and it’s definitely happened to me. Twice. Here’s my cautionary tale:

I wrote my first novel, Precipice, in 1990-91, and went shopping for an agent. After 20+ rejections, I found one. He sent the manuscript around to all the big houses. There was an auction, and the highest bidder gave me a two-book deal. Precipice was published in 1994. My second novel, Valentine, was sold to the movies, and they actually made the movie! I wrote two books in a detective series for another big house, and I eventually wrote two more thrillers for a third big house. That’s six books for three big houses in six years, plus one movie.

Then, in 2000, I walked away from it all. Why? Your clue is in the three publishing houses. Every time I got momentum going somewhere, my editor either got fired or ran away to another house. Two of my novels had one editor at the beginning and a different one by the time they were published. The new editors weren’t interested in me. My books faded and fizzled. So, I stopped.

I didn’t stop writing, mind you, but I stopped publishing. I parted ways with the agent and went back to my day job as a bookseller at Murder Ink®. I wrote several manuscripts that stayed in my computer, unseen and unread, until 2008. That’s when my friend SJ Rozan asked me to join her writing group. I started reading those manuscripts aloud to a gang of fellow writers who convinced me to go out into the marketplace again.

I found a new agent, and she found me a publisher—a new, ebook-only imprint of Penguin Random House called Alibi. My first novel in fifteen years, A Penny for the Hangman, was published in 2015. I started a new series about an actress named Nora Baron who becomes a field agent for the CIA, and Alibi published three Nora Baron titles over the next three years. Of course, my acquiring editor was fired in 2017, so I ended up with a new editor who wasn’t interested in me. Sound familiar?

Two months ago, I didn’t just lose the new editor—I lost the whole publisher! Yep, Penguin Random House did a clean sweep, firing dozens of editors (including mine) and shutting down several imprints (including Alibi). They’ll publish the fourth Nora Baron thriller, The Devil and the Deep Blue Spy, next month, but that’s the end. I’m back to square one.

This time, I’m not walking away. I’ll have to write new books and find new publishers. I’ll have to start all over again, but I’ll do it—I’ve had practice. And that’s the moral of this tale: We can always start over. All we need is the need to tell our stories.

Tom Savage is the author of 12 novels and numerous short stories. He's served as a director on the national board of Mystery Writers of America and on the Best Novel committee for MWA’s Edgar awards (three times) and International Association of Crime Writers' Hammett Prize (two times). He's a founding member of MWA-NY’s Mentor Program, advising and encouraging new mystery writers. He lives in New York City, where he worked for many years at Murder Ink®, the world's first mystery bookstore.  You can learn more about him at his website and his Facebook page. 

Obsessions

“Where do you get your ideas?” This vague question is asked in two contexts: During Q@A sessions when audience members haven’t read your books; or by readers who know your work and are genuinely curious as to the mental swamp from which they emerge.

My answer is equally vague: Sometimes writers choose the topics about which they write; other times, topics choose writers.

For me, it’s much more enjoyable and engaging when the latter occurs. A topic jumps up and grabs you by the throat and says, Write me. I’m in that mode now.

I attended a boarding school in the 1980s, when my parents were searching for an academic community to help their “learning disabled” (we don’t call it that anymore) son, and a school was looking for hockey players. It was a match made in heaven. Sort of. Like many students who arrived with large athletic dreams, I had been a big fish in a small pond; at boarding school, with students from around the globe, I soon realized Maine wasn’t the hockey hotbed I thought it was.

One student didn’t have that problem. His name was Mark Green, and, simply put, he was in a different league than I (and just about every other teenage athlete in New England) was. I now teach and live at a boarding school. And after nearly 30 years of high school, I can say confidently that Mark was the best high school athlete I have come across. He was New England’s top lacrosse player, probably the best offensive hockey player, and could throw a football 70 yards. He was six-foot-four, 200 pounds, and recruited by Div. I colleges in all three sports. He was two years older than me when I was 16, and to say that I learned the difference between what it meant to be a good hockey player and a great hockey player skating alongside Mark would be an epic understatement.

This is when Jeremy Roenick and Tony Amonte were coming up, and Mark was exceptional, even skating against them. But Mark never made it to the NHL, which, always surprised me. I never knew why. When I played with him, the accomplishment of that goal for him –– no matter how lofty –– seemed a forgone conclusion.

For years, I wondered what happened to Mark Green. Like a lot of writers, I’m interested in human interest stories, and I read the news all the time. Then, when I returned to boarding school –– following stints covering the city desk at a daily and a weekly and teaching public school and community college –– I began coaching hockey. The memories of Mark and that team (four players were chosen in the 1987 NHL Draft) returned. And my curiosity led to some late-night Internet digging. One story led to another, and I stumbled upon this one.

It led to so many questions and hopefully to a story, not fully realized yet but one that’s tapping my shoulder and whispering scenes. It’s a story that’s complicated and has more questions than answers and won’t be told completely, but one that offers a starting point for a novel. And it’s one that is certainly worth telling.

Sometimes you choose your stories. But when you’re lucky, your stories choose you.

The Calm Between

I’m turned my book in, I’m back from Vegas and I’m enjoying a bit of calm before I receive comments from my publisher. Once I get those next week, I’ll be back at the writing biz.

For now, though I’m enjoying that bit of calm. I’m catching up on things like updating my website, taxes, cleaning and reading. The last month before my book was due, I didn’t get much reading done so I’ve been very happy to dig into several books that have been on my TBR pile for a while now. Here are the three I’m currently reading.

In the nonfiction realm, I’m reading The Library Book by Susan Orlean. It’s an account of the fire that destroyed a lot of the Los Angeles Central Library in 1986,

burning for seven hours and consuming 400,000 books and damaging 700,000 more. It’s a fascinating look not only at the fire, but also the history of the library itself.

I’ve lived in L.A. since I came down to go to college in 1977, but had never been to the Central Library until a few years ago. I admit also that I’d only briefly heard of the fire. I suspect that’s for two reasons: (1) it occurred the day after I got married in 1986 and we were more concerned about getting on a plane for Tahiti to go on our honeymoon cruise around the South Pacific than in the news and (2) Chernobyl happened at the same time so it got a lot more attention.

I’ve since taken a tour of the library, which now seems to be bigger and better than ever. If you get a chance to tour the library, do it. It’s really quite beautiful and interesting. While you’re there you can see if my first book, Fatal Brushstroke, is still on their shelves. It was there when I visited a few years ago.

In the historical fiction realm, I’m reading Tombland by C.J. Sansom. This is the latest offering in the Matthew Shardlake series set in Tudor England.

I’ve been interested in Tudor England since my sister introduced me to Henry VIII and his wives when I was a kid. This is a great series set during that period. Matthew Shardlake is a lawyer who crosses paths with Henry VIII, Catherine Parr and Lady Elizabeth over the course of the series. In this book, Henry VIII is gone and his son, Edward, is on the throne. Matthew has been hired by the Lady Elizabeth (you know, the one who becomes QE I) to look into a murder. I highly recommend the series.

The last book I’ll talk about is one meant for ages 8-12, The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone. It’s a charming book about two kids who discover a magic key that allows them to shrink down and enter the 68 Thorne Miniature Rooms in the Art Institute of Chicago. This is the first book in a series. It’s full of mystery, magic, history, exploration... Just a fun read even for an adult. I’ve never been to Chicago, but some day I’d like to see the gallery that inspired the book.

That’s it for me today. This is my birthday week so I’m enjoying the calm. I hope you’re doing the same.

Pungent Fish

Mystery writers love red herrings. We’re like magicians who distract the audience with a flourish of the right hand while we're deftly pulling a card out of our sleeve with the left.

The definition of a red herring is a piece of information in a story that distracts readers from an important truth, or leads them to mistakenly expect a particular outcome. The term “red herring” is often used to refer to a false clue—a piece of evidence readers to believe that a crime (or other action) was committed by someone other than the actual culprit.

Where did the term “red herring” originate? There are a number of theories.

One story is that dog trainers would create a trail of scent for a dog to follow in order to teach them how to hunt. To test the dogs’ ability to follow the trail of a single animal, without being distracted by other scents, the trainer would drag a smelly pickled fish across the trail in an attempt to mislead the dogs. Just like in a mystery, a red herring is a false clue to lead readers or characters in the book away from the truth.

Another origin story is that the term came from an English journalist named William Corbett around 1805. He claimed that when he was a boy he used a red herring (cured and salted herring) to mislead hounds following a fox’s trail. He used the term as a metaphor for the London press which had earned Corbett’s anger by publishing false news accounts regarding Napoleon. Fake news, if you will.

My favorite, however, is the theory that it originated in the 1800’s when British fugitives would rub a herring across their trail, diverting the bloodhounds close on their heels. Clever criminals.

The queen of the plot twist, Agatha Christie, even uses the term “red herring” in And Then There Were None. Ten murderers who had escaped conviction are invited to a deserted island by an unknown host (U.N. Owen). One by one, they’re murdered resembling the deaths of the characters in the nursery rhyme “Ten Little Soldiers”.

By the way, I’ll make mention that the rhyme, as well as Christie’s mystery, originally had a much more offensive name. For the sake of good taste, I will not tell you what it was. That’s a mystery you’ll have to solve on your own.

By the time their number has dropped to five, Vera, one of the characters trapped on the island, recalls a verse in the nursery rhyme: “Four little Indian boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.”

She realizes, to little avail, that they were being duped. They were looking in the wrong place for the person who was killing them one by one.

Red herrings are a staple in mysteries, as well as most literature that holds a plot twist. Without misleading evidence, it would be much too easy for clever readers to guess how the book will end. And isn’t that the magic trick…giving just enough clues, some of them false, to allow a reader to figure it all out…but not letting them figure it all out?

Another form of red herring is when one directs a discussion or argument to another issue to which the person doing the redirecting can better respond.

Don’t we see this nearly every day when a politician (no names) is being asked a question by a journalist and the politician never comes close to an answer? He or she blithely moves to some other talking point that may or may not have anything to do with the original question.

I dare you. The next time you see someone on television being interviewed and they blatantly change the subject, yell “Red Herring” as loudly as you can. Then nod knowingly and gaze about the room. You’ll see that all eyes are upon you. Point to the television and repeat is a sage voice, “Red herring.”

WRITERS RITUALS

By Vicki Delany

Next Saturday (March 16) I’ll be at Murderous March, a conference put on by The Upper Hudson Chapter of Sisters in Crime, In Albany, NY.  (For information and registration, click here)

I have been asked to say a few words. I thought I might talk about my writing routine. As I write three books a year, people are interested in how I can manage to do that.

One thing I’ve found over the years, is that no one approaches writing, or anything else, the same as anyone else. We all have our individual way of doing things, and the trick is to find what suits you.

But, here’s a bit of what I plan to say in Albany:

I was once asked if I had any rituals to spark my writing creativity.  Rituals? Pshaw! I don’t need no stinking rituals, thought I.

When I thought again, I realized that I did.  I get up every morning, seven days a week.  I go to my main computer in my office, and read e-mails, read the papers online, spend a bit of time on Facebook or Twitter. 

Then it’s time to start to write.  I walk into the dining room and stand at my Netbook computer which is on the half-wall between the kitchen and the dining room and boot it up.  As I pass through the kitchen, I put one egg on to boil.

I always write, standing up, on the Netbook.  I read over everything I did the previous day, doing a light edit as I go.  I then take my egg into the study and eat it while checking email. 

Then back to the small computer for several writing hours.

Who knew I was so regimented! Not me, until I stopped to think about it.  The problem, you see, is I don’t like writing, particularly not first drafts. So the egg is my reward. If I get started, I can have a treat.  I can be bribed by one medium-boiled egg.

Turns out I am not alone in needing this little routine to get me started.  I am reading a fascinating book titled Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. Currey describes the daily routines of hundreds of artists, not just writers but composers and artists too.

Philip Roth said, “Writing isn’t hard work, it’s a nightmare,” as he describes his schedule. Ten to six every day with an hour break for lunch and to read the newspaper.

William Styron said, “Let’s face it, writing it hell.” His routine: sleep until noon, read and think in bed for an hour. Lunch at 1:30, afternoon errands and mail.  And only then “ease into work mode” By 4:00 he would be ready to go to his study and write for four hours.

Before beginning his creative day, Beethoven counted out 60 coffee beans every morning to make his coffee.  

One fellow (whose name I forget) liked working in the morning so much, he had two mornings.  He got up at three to write for a couple of hours, then went back to bed and got up at a reasonable time for another morning of writing. 

Hemmingway was also a morning guy. (And a stand-up writing guy). No matter how much he’d had to drink the night before, Hemmingway was up and starting work at 5:30.

Vicki Writing (not exactly as shown)

By contrast, Thomas Wolfe began his writing day at midnight, and would write until dawn. Then have a drink and go to bed.  According to the book, he also masturbated extensively while writing.

Gertrude Stein confessed that she could never write for more than half-an-hour a day. “All day and every day, she said, you are waiting around to write that half hour a day.”

Jean Paul Sarte kept to a strict schedule.  He also figured his creative mind needed fuel. A lot of fuel. 

According to his biographer, “his diet over a period of twenty-four hours included two packs of cigarettes and several pipes stuffed with black tobacco, more than a quart of alcohol – wine, beer, vodka, whisky, and so on – two hundred milligrams of amphetamines, fifteen grams of aspirin, several grams of barbiturates, plus coffee, tea, rich meals.”

Makes one medium-boiled egg look mighty tame.

Time to tell me your little secret. What’s your writing ritual?

Book news: SOMETHING READ SOMETHING DEAD, the fifth Lighthouse Library mystery by me as Eva Gates, will be released on Wednesday. 

My First Conference

Frankie here. I don't have time to write a blog post today because I'd busy at school with our visiting student weekend. So I'd like to ask our readers and my Type M colleagues to share your individual and collective wisdom. .

Next weekend, the Upper Hudson chapter of Sisters in Crime (SinC) will be collaborating  with the East Greenbush Community Library to present our chapter's second annual "Murderous March" conference.  Our own Vicki Delany will be the Keynote Speaker (invited after another chapter member nominated her from the list of available speakers and we had done an anonymous chapter poll on Survey Monkey ranking our nominees -- how's that for transparent?). Vicki is coming to us courtesy of the SinC National speakers bureau that helps chapters to bring great writers to their communities.

Our Special Guest for the conference will be Edwin Hill, who works in academic publishing and is now a well-received mystery writer. Edwin and I were on a panel together at a conference, and I was delighted when he accepted the invitation from our chapter to join us. One of the highlights of the conference should be the conversation that he and Vicki will have about "Breaking and Entering . . .Into the Field."

Please go to our Mavens of Mayhem website if you're nearby and interested in attending:

 https://upperhudsonsinc.com/

Getting to the title of my post:  I'm moderating a panel on attending crime fiction conferences. We want to provide the audience (which will include both unpublished writers and readers) with information and tips about what is available and what they might find useful based on their interests. We also want to talk about how to navigate a conference when you have never been to one (not counting the one they're sitting in).

I would really appreciate input from anyone with thoughts to share. I will compile for our attendees. What is the one tip you would offer? Can be serious. Can be humorous. No names attached unless you'd comfortable being identified. In that case, just include your name after the tip.


 

My First Reader

 I have been fascinated with a thread that has been running on this blog for the past week, beginning with guest poster Annie Hogsett's entry of last weekend, concerning who we envision as our reader when we sit down to write. Do you have an audience in mind, or do you write to please yourself?

When I am writing, especially a first draft, I do have an audience of one - me. I write a story that I would like to read. I did not always do this. I used to try very hard to write for The General Reading Public. But I began to have some publishing success when I forgot that notion. I write about what interests me.

Then, when the editing and rewriting process begins, I listen to suggestions from my pre-publication readers (sometimes) and from my editor (always), and tweak the story as per instructions in order to broaden its appeal.

My audience, therefore, is probably people like me. Sadly for the scope of my appeal, I am not a teenage boy or a romance-starved young woman. I’m not judging hero tales or romance novels, here. I think they are great, but my interests run in other directions these days. I tried to write a romance novel once.I had a wonderful idea, and I really think it would have been a good story, but I couldn’t sustain my own interest, and the book petered out before it was finished. I’m sorry to say this, because a popular romance novel will sell ten times as many copies as a popular mystery.

Having made the statement that I strictly write what I like and to hell with the audience, I now have to admit that I’m lying. I do construct my current series to please myself, but there are many things I’d love to write about, yet am not brave enough to attempt.

Even that is not true. I do write them, but am not brave enough to try to have them published. I fear that if I did, someone would send men in white coats to chase me around with butterfly nets.

And so I haven’t thus far tried to sell Kafkaesque expositions on the nature of reality. Instead, for publication I write something else that entertains me - historical mysteries.

I wonder how much can we tell about an author from what he writes? I know that when I read book reviews, I can often tell more about the reviewer than the book. Does an author reveal himself in his novels? Are authors like the characters they write about? Do they have the same fears and anxieties? Are they as intrepid, grieving, hapless, innocent, weary, or clever?

I’m an Oklahoman who has, until recently, written about Oklahoma.Am I like my protagonist, Alafair? In some ways, I wish I were, but I don’t think so.I live a hundred years later, I’m twenty years older, and childless, to begin with. Neither am I brave, intuitive, or nearly so sure of myself. Am I like my upcoming protagonist, Bianca LaBelle. Hardly. She's a willful, 21 year old adventuress who is as lucky as she is beautiful. I create a being with the qualities I wish I had, and live vicariously through her. I also indulge some of my more evil inclinations when I write, and not always through the villains. Do you do the same, Dear Fellow Author?

P.S. I’m building up my courage, so never fear, someday you’ll be able to read my Kafkaesque exposition on the nature of reality. While I’m writing it, I’ll laugh, I’ll cry, I’ll break my heart. And if I’m good enough at it, maybe you will too.

Who's this story for anyway?

This week's post is of necessity very short because I am currently otherwise busy with the birth of a new grandchild and the joys of helping the new family usher him into this world, navigate his first days, and bring him home to their small apartment which has been turned upside down to accommodate crib, pack 'n play, baby bath, and enough clothes and supplies to fill an entire extra apartment.

For these two weeks at least, my mind is very far away from writing. But the posts about imaginary readers intrigued me and I thought I'd put in a few admittedly scattered thoughts. I try not to think of my readers while I'm writing, especially the first draft . I find that makes me doubt and second-guess myself. Writing a first draft is an intensely personal experience between myself and the characters participating in the story. If I am guided by anyone's opinion other than my own, it's my characters, who might argue with me about what they would or would not do. I often ask them how they are most likely to react and what they'ddo next. That, and my own sense of story, is what guides me. The moment I start thinking about what my readers want or what would upset them, I am drawn out of the story and into the judgment box. That's no place for my creative self.

That said, over the years I have heard from quite a few readers, through book clubs, emails, signings, conferences and other exchanges. I know when I have made them mad and I know what they love. I take their thoughts to heart, because without our readers, we writers would be nowhere. If I stray too far away from stories that engage them, I will lose them. And their feedback serves as a check on my storytelling. I may intend to say one thing but if the reader hears something different, then I am not doing my job right. So although I may try to keep my readers out of my head while I am writing a first draft, I suspect they perch on my shoulder only muttering the occasional word until I get to the second and subsequent drafts, when they might have more of a say.

Louise Penny was once asked what kind of people read her books. She replied "Intelligent women with colds." It's a generalization, but I think it captures the essence, and statistics bear this out. Crime fiction readers do tend to be women, although many men also enjoy my books. They tend to be intelligent, well educated, and curious to learn new things and consider issues. They tend to have enough time on their hands to read at some length and in some depth. This also means they are not likely to have screaming toddlers and busy family schedules.

In short, they tend to be very much like me.

And that brings me to the only reader that I do listen to during first draft madness. Myself. I have always written the kind of book that I wanted to read. Above all else, the book has to inspire me and make me feel alive as I write it. I have to enjoy the characters even if I don't like them all. I have to want to spend time with them and find out what's going to happen next. If I am feeling bored at any point in the story, I know it's not working. Slash, burn, and go in search of passion.

I suspect all writers write first for themselves. Why else spend a year in solitary confinement with only the faintest possibility of decent monetary compensation at the end? Once we have written the story we wanted to read, there will be time to consider who else would enjoy it too, and what we night need to tweak to make that better. But chances are, if we are excited about the story, we're already more than halfway there.

Know what makes a good book cover and why?

by Rick Blechta

Every author, whether your books come from a traditional publishing house or published by you from your own house, is going to be faced by dealing with a cover for your magnum opus.

If you have a publisher, you may not be allowed to give very much input into cover design, but having a bit of background in cover design will help because not every design is going to be a tremendous work of art. Even experienced designers can make bad choices (heaven knows I have!) and when the publicity, sales, and editorial departments get involved, the waters get even more muddy.

In some cases you may not even be consulted. Even if you are consulted and come up with some good reasons for not liking what they’re going to put on your book, your publisher still retains a “get-out-of-jail-free” card: “I’m sorry but this is a marketing decision.” But if you have a bit of knowledge you might at least talk them into listening to you, even if you’re ultimately ignored.

If you’re self-published, then every aspect of the book’s cover design is completely on your shoulders, and every bit of knowledge and good advice you can get your hands on will get you that much closer to a successful book cover.

The Reader Avatar

There is definitely something very spooky going on at Type M.  It is quite uncanny, the number of times I have had an idea for my blog only to find that the very same week someone else has thought of it too. Now it's even extending to our guests as well. 

Annie Hogsett's delightful description of her ' Partner Reader' chimed right in with my own thoughts this week.  Mine were provoked by a half-heard radio programme.

I was in the car and turned on the radio to hear someone talking about having a 'reader avatar'. Not only do I not have one; I had no idea there was such a thing.  (Is it a Thing?) This was someone who had been hugely successful with a series of books self-published on the internet and he attributed this success to knowing exactly who he was writing them for.  Her name is Darlene.  She lives in Los Angeles and has a husband in the entertainment business. Her kids have grown up and left the family home but she has a German Shepherd and enjoys quilting.

Darlene, if you're out there and are even at this moment pricking your ears up, just like the German Shepherd, since you didn't know about this guy who's writing all these books especially for you and you want to know who he is,  I'm afraid I have to disappoint you.  I only tuned in half-way through the programme and didn't hear his name.

But Darlene, I doubt if you'd enjoy them anyway.  It sounds a nasty, patronising, cynical way to go about writing and as a reader I can pick up insincerity from the first page and being manipulated  - like when the hooks at the end of the chapters are too obvious - irritates me as well.  You'd be much better off with Annie whose Partner Reader is a different thing altogether.  I love the sound of her - bright and kind and supportive . 

I've often said that the good thing about writing crime is that, unlike writing a novel which is a message to give the world, it's a sort of formal dance with the reader who is always at your shoulder - or perhaps in my case it's more like a battle of wits.

My reader is very bright and very demanding.  She -  or he - is determined to reach the solution to the crime before I tell her and I'm determined to stop her.  I'll play fair in that there should be a  way to work it out but I'll use every trick and red herring I can think of to set her off in the wrong direction.  I once rewrote a crucial scene six or seven times so that the clue I was honour bound to give her was obscured by another plausible, but totally false one.

Of course she's really on my side since she actually wants to be mystified.  We have a sort of mental high five at the end if I've succeeded.

But I don't have a particular idea of who that reader is. Male, female, British, American, Canadian, Australian - they're all out there and sometimes email to say hello.  There's even an Italian who is a regular correspondent when he comes across an English expression he doesn't understand. Wherever they are in the world, though, it's an extraordinary privilege to be able to have such a close relationship with all these thousands of people I will never actually meet.

Annie Hogsett, Guest Blogger

Type M is thrilled to welcome Annie Hogsett as our guest blogger this weekend. Annie has a master’s degree in English literature and spent her first career writing advertising copy—a combination which, in Annie’s opinion, qualifies her for making a bunch of stuff up. Her first published novel, the incredibly clever and entertaining Too Lucky to Live, #1 of her “Somebody’s Bound to Wind Up Dead Mysteries,” was released by Poisoned Pen Press in May 2017. Second in her series, Murder to the Metal, launched in June 2017. Third, The Devil’s Own Game, is set for this October. Annie lives ten yards from Lake Erie in the City of Cleveland with her husband, Bill, and their delinquent cat, Cujo. Unlike her protagonists, Allie Harper and Tom Bennington, she has never won a 550-million-dollar lottery jackpot.

My Partner Reader

My first mystery was published in June of 2017—Tom Kies and I share a “book birthday—and unless I misremember**—Donis Casey was present at the launch of both of our baby books at The Poisoned Pen. It’s all a blur. In spite of my longing for “real readers”—and although I was given to shouting out with no warning, “Hey! Somebody, somewhere, could be reading my book right now!”—I didn’t have a clue about the role readers were about to play in my writing life. I didn’t understand—until time passed and there was evidence actual human beings were reading my mysteries—my writing process had been incomplete.

In my first career, as an advertising copywriter, I thought of readers—or listeners or watchers—as the people I was addressing—a demographic based on age, gender, race, marital status, and so on, unto forever. I considered them to be people with needs or problems a product or service might fulfill or solve. I needed to understand them in order to sell them something. I thought, very tenderly sometimes, about what they wanted and needed, even their hopes and dreams, but at the end of the day it wasn’t a relationship. They were a target. I was writing “at them.”

When I wrote my first novel, a fantasy for young adults, those unfathomable alien beings were “my audience.” I was writing “for them.” I thought a good bit about what would woo and entertain them, but mostly I was in a warm, fuzzy relationship with my characters. One of whom was, in fact, warm and fuzzy. I followed my guys around, eavesdropped on them, admired how brave and funny they were. Their adventures unfolded in front of me and I wrote them down. Pantser? Yeah. Big time. No regrets. In truth, I was my reader then. I was writing for me. And she adored my story.

When Too Lucky To Live was published, I’d still had very little experience of what it means for a writer to be in partnership with a body of readers. To be sure, I’d been revising my story to meet the standards of an agent, a publisher, an editor. Master readers. Learning from them how to listen to seasoned advice and smart suggestions, I began to understand the meaning and the value of collaboration. To see weak spots, fix them, feel the work getting better.

The door was open to a new way for me to experience the process, but my Partner Reader didn’t really show up until I started the second book in my series. I’m guessing she was always there, but at last I could hear her, and, now into the third book, I hear her better every day. She’s there as I write. As I reread what I write. As I slash, burn, and fine tune. Her presence is unconscious a lot of the time, but she’s plenty conscious enough to be Sacagawea for my expedition and save me from at least some of the bears.

American essayist, Rebecca Solnit, in her book The Faraway Nearby says, “A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.” I get that now. I got it, like a lightning bolt, from an article, the much revered and honored author, George Saunders wrote for The Guardian.*

He pictures the writer as an optometrist, constantly asking his reader, “Is it better like this? Or like this?” He insists that you imagine your reader as being “as humane, bright, witty, experienced and well intentioned as you.” And says that “ to communicate intimately with her, you have to maintain the state, through revision, of generously imagining her.” The result is, he says, “in revising your reader up, you revise yourself up too.” I can bear witness to the soundness of this advice.

I can tell you, too, that the more I write, the louder and more insistent my Partner Reader is. She’s sitting next to me right here, now, as I write this for you. She’s bright and kind. She doesn’t want me to make a fool of myself. And regardless of whatever personal pronoun you choose, she is you.

*P.S. The most valuable part of this post is the link. You can thank me later.
 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/04/what-writers-really-do-when-they-write

________
**You do not misremember, Annie. I was indeed present at the Phoenix launch of both yours and Tom's books -- Donis

Uncomfortable Situations

Last Sunday a gave a talk to a book group in Denver. I knew the hostess and her husband well. They were old friends. I was not discussing my mysteries. Instead, since it's Black History Month, I talked about my academic book, Nicodemus: Post-Reconstruction Politics and Racial Justice in Western Kansas, and my just published book, The Healer's Daughter, which is a whale of a lot more fun. 

I was a nervous wreck. 

Normally I'm a fairly relaxed speaker. I knew my material backwards and forwards. African Americans in Western Kansas is my pet subject. 

However, the atmosphere regarding usage has become so loaded that I double think every other word and then I don't always get it right. Collective pronouns are a special taboo. Just try saying "they" or "them" regarding another ethnicity. Only "we" or "us" is acceptable. Even if we isn't "us," or "us" isn't "we" or me, for that matter. 

Some of the derogatory terms absolutely represent prejudice and I do mean prejudging on the basis of race. I hate nasty labels, but even more I hate the attitudes behind the words. 

However, I'm of the school that believes people can and do change their minds.

Recently a lovely older woman told me how biased she always was against gays. Adamantly! They were sinners. Period. Then a gay couple moved into her neighborhood. They bought a house and maintained their property just like heterosexual couples. They were courteous and helpful. She got to know them.

After a number of years, marriage laws changed and they decided on a joyful formal celebration of their relationship. They invited her to their wedding.

She shopped for a new dress. Her granddaughter was astonished.

"Grandma, you're going to a wedding of two gay men?"

"Yes" she said. "I've changed."

I'm uncomfortable with researching everything a person has done or said in their whole life from the cradle on. I certainly wouldn't stand up to this kind of scrutiny. I keep in mind that a person's attitudes might have changed through the years. 

Tolerance for innocent blunders is non-existent. It's desperately needed. Denying the possibility the humans can change for the better means we aren't paying attention. There are examples all around us.  

The Arc

I’ve been thinking about the arc of a character a lot lately. About the ways my characters will seek and find redemption. About how the storyline wraps up.

In short, about endings.

That’s because I’m getting ready to begin. Again.

My wonderful agents Julia Lord and Ginger Curwen are submitting a novel I finished a while ago, and my downtime is about over. (I’ve spent the past few months playing around with a TV pitch and pilot for the finished book; sort of like learning to drive by jumping onto the Autobahn.) But now the little voice is calling again . . . Where have you been? . . . And a character has appeared. So it’s time to start telling a new story.

But I’m also trying to be more efficient with my time. I’m not certain I can do it. My process –– from idea to finished manuscript –– is messy. And I don’t mean tracking-a-little-dirt-on-the-carpet messy. I mean a 7-year-old’s-playroom messy. SJ Rozan describes her writing process as driving at night: She sees the story only to the end of the headlights and writes that far each day. I usually feel like I’ve got one headlight out, and the other is covered in fog.

So now that a character has appeared, one that interests me, I’m thinking about the story arc and the ways my protagonists will change and grow. Because of my “process,” the word “outline” frightens me, although I try. I usually create detailed character sketches, fleshing out motivations. But this time, I’m thinking about endings before I consider beginnings. Where do I want the husband and wife team to end up? What do I want them to learn from this character? What struggles should they face?

Maybe I’m really talking about outlining here. After all, isn’t the character’s arc the backbone of the story? Doesn’t is constitute the plot. Hell, maybe I’m an outliner after all.

Cozies and the Death Penalty

I turned my fifth book, GHOSTS OF PAINTING PAST, in to my publisher last week actually on the day it was due. I wasn’t convinced I’d be able to finish it on time until the last few days. But I did it! This week I’m in Las Vegas attending the Creative Painting convention so the most serious thing I’m thinking about is where we should eat our next meal or who we should get tickets to see.

I wrote this last week when I was in a more serious mood.

I thought I’d continue the thought provoking discussion about the death penalty and stories from the last couple weeks.

In the U.S., the death penalty still exists. People can be executed by the federal or state governments. Not every state has the death penalty. Some have opted for life without the possibility of parole.

I write cozies and most of the mysteries I read are cozies. As a reader, I’m interested in the characters, the setting and the puzzle of figuring out whodunit. By the end of the book, the killer is always unmasked and brought to some kind of justice. What happens after that is never really talked about. And, as a reader, I don’t much care. I assume the person will be convicted and get some sort of punishment. No one ever mentions the death penalty. I think a discussion of that sort belongs in darker mysteries.

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of TV shows that explore the topic. The plot usually goes like this: (1) a man (it’s usually a man) claims he’s innocent, but is shortly to be executed, (2) a lawyer is brought in at the eleventh hour to stop the execution, (3) the lawyer meets his client and comes to believe in his innocence or, at minimum, said lawyer is opposed to the death penalty on principal, (4) the lawyer fails, the prisoner is executed and (5) after the execution, irrefutable evidence is found that the man is truly innocent. The lawyer feels awful because s/he couldn't help.

After watching a few of these, I started thinking, “Why can’t there be a happy ending?” Then it dawned on me why. If you’re trying to show that the death penalty is a bad thing, you need to show its consequences when it’s applied wrongly. Namely, you need to see an innocent man executed. That has much more power on the viewer than freeing said man.

So those are my thoughts on the death penalty and fiction.

Park your ego at the door

by Rick Blechta

Tom’s excellent post from yesterday got me thinking about something every author has to deal with and the importance of dealing with it correctly. A paraphrase of something Tom said should be on a sign mounted on the wall of every authors’ work area: Be Easy to Work With!

I doubt if you’d find any writer who enjoys having their work critiqued — assuming the reader doing the critiquing is looking at your finished product. The fact that someone is pointing out that you were wrong, or sloppy, or generally just messed up, is very hard to take. Someone is telling you your “baby” is ugly!

But to any writer who’s really serious about getting their work published, you have to be ready, willing, and able to listen and at least consider.

Yes, there are very successful authors who are notoriously difficult to work with, but they’re either certified geniuses or very, very successful, or probably both, so with big dollars on the line, publishers and agents are willing to put up with them.

For us mere mortals, we have to learn to roll with the punches.

I’m not saying that you have to listen to any criticism and take it as gospel, but you at least need to consider it. At the beginning, that can really be tough.

As a writer, I live by three rules:

1. I want to be good, not right.
2. Never dig in your heels right off the bat.
3. If two or more people have a problem with the same thing, you likely have something wrong with your deathless prose.

Let me explain each.

When someone critiques my writing, they are giving me their viewpoint. Whether it’s valid or justified is immaterial. I have to consider it thoughtfully. Even though I might consider what they don’t like the best thing I’ve ever crafted, that is beside the point. It might very well not belong in my story.

Number 2…this was a hard-won lesson. Twice I dug in my little heels, stomped up and down and said, “NO!!!” right off the bat. In both cases I eventually realized the person was absolutely correct in what they told me. Now I was left having to repair the damage my little tantrum created. A far better response would have been: “Hmmm… I’m going to have thing about this for a bit. I’ll get back to you.” Enter Rule #2.

The last rule should be a no-brainer, but for some people I’ve spoken to, heard about, or in one case, worked with, they just weren’t willing to deal with finding out their work was not as good as they believed. As I said above, criticism is a subjective thing. If multiple people are identifying the same problem, you almost certainly have something that needs fixing. Ignoring that advice puts your creation in peril — especially if the critic is your agent or editor. If you feel very strongly, then utilizing Rule #2 is probably your best bet. Buy yourself some breathing room to consider the criticism carefully. In my experience it’s probably valid.

I once handed my primary reader (my darling wife) a newly-finished ms for a novel. She dutifully put on her glasses, picked up the first page, read for about 20 seconds, and then said, “Do you really want to begin your novel like this?” I was aghast. I mean I didn’t even last a full minute!

I ignored all three rules and had a relatively “polite” temper tantrum. I didn’t sleep that night and knew I’d upset her when she was only doing what I always expect from her, ie: “Hit me with your best shot!” But it was just so upsetting to hear I’d blown it right from the start, and that caused me to throw all sense right out the window. For her to comment that quickly instead of just making a note and moving on really threw me into a tailspin. I also thought my opening was really terrific.

She was 100% correct.

As I said, it’s tough being a writer.

How I Found My Agent

Recently, I attended a Carteret County Writers Network luncheon and listened to a delightful author talk about her writing process and publishing. One of the questions she fielded was, “Is it true it’s impossible to get an agent unless you know someone?”

Obviously frustrated by agent rejections, he was implying that ‘the fix was in’ and that it was impossible to get an agent to represent you purely on the merits of your writing.

That wasn’t the case for me. Back in 2001, I found an agent in New York who, upon reading my second book, Pieces of Jake, signed me to a contract. I won’t tell you his name, but frankly, he was awful. He spent no time talking with me, had an editor suggest some minor edits to the manuscript, and shopped the book to only the top publishing houses in Manhattan. He never took my phone calls and never kept me informed about the publishers’ responses.

Nine months after we signed the initial contract, I got an email telling me he’d snail-mail the publishers’ rejections and that he was giving his notice that he was dropping me like a bad habit.

I was so depressed that I didn’t write another word for nearly a year. Ugh.

But a writer’s gotta’ write, so I went on and authored two more books garnering an impressive collection of agent rejections. Ugh.

But I knew Random Road was different. I loved the characters. I loved the story line. And I loved the first line of first chapter. “Last night Hieronymus Bosch met the rich and famous.”

Okay, that’s all well and good. How did I find my agent?

Confident that Random Road was ready (after untold number of edits and rewrites) I Googled: Literary agents, debut writers, mysteries. A fairly lengthy list popped up.

Now, my past efforts at writing queries were admittedly slapdash at best. Find the name of an agent, send an introductory email (a form letter I'd created that was the same for all submissions…just changing the name of the recipient), attach a synopsis and a few chapters. As I said, rejections. Or worse, no response at all.

But with Random Road, I painstakingly researched the agents and their clients. What were they looking for? What was their style? Were they REALLY looking for debut authors? What authors do they represent?

Then, when I queried, it was unique to each agent. I was meticulous in sending them what they specified in the ‘submissions’ page of their website. Some wanted sample pages, some wanted first chapters, some wanted the first fifty pages.

Four agents asked to see the complete manuscript. That had never happened before. I sent them the manuscript and then really did my research on them. What was it they were looking for in their clients? It wasn’t always just a good story (although I can’t stress how important that is), but some wanted their clients to be easy to work with. I understand, after all, if they take you on as a client, they’re taking a chance with their time and reputation.

Let me take a moment to talk about why I wanted to work with a good agent and not try to reach out to publishers on my own. Many publishers simply won’t look at unagented manuscripts. Agents act as the gatekeepers. Plus, they know the business. I don't.

They have the up-to-date contacts and the knowledge of what publishing houses are looking for.

The agent I signed with (I thank her in the acknowledgments of my published books if you’re curious about her name) gets over a hundred submissions a day. Every. Single. Day.

I attended a panel discussion she chaired at a mystery conference a few years ago and she talked about how important it is to grab a reader right from the very first sentence. Knowing I was in the audience, she asked me to stand and quote my first line. It was what had stopped her from moving on to the next submission.

I knew she was the right agent for me when she initially emailed me and told me to have a hard copy printed of Random Road and we’d talk about it over the phone. Then over the course of a few hours, we went over the book page by page, making revisions along the way.

She knew my book as well as I did. She was passionate about it.

Once we were both happy with the revisions, she began submitting the manuscript to publishing houses. As we received responses, she shared them with me. None were negative. Some were very positive. But publishing houses, just like agents, are nervous about working with a debut author.

She was always reassuring. "We'll find the right publisher for this," she said. "I have no doubt."

Then came the phone call. She’d gotten an offer from Poisoned Pen Press. Needless to say, I was elated. I have a terrific agent and a fantastic publisher. I’m also happy to say that my third mystery, Graveyard Bay, is scheduled to be released in July.

Yeah, it was worth all the effort.

These Kids Are Murder

Sometime back, Lighthouse Writers Workshop invited me to lead a class in their Young Writer's Program. Because of my background in writing mysteries I was specifically asked for this assignment since the kids would be tasked to craft a mystery story. My students were from 11 to 13 years old, with ten girls and two boys. My sons have long since matured past that age bracket and so I was curious about my students. We hear anecdotes about how out-of-control and undisciplined modern kids are, especially middle schoolers, however my charges were attentive and polite. I foresaw a lot of sneaking time on cell phones, but the only calls any of them got were from worried moms. One of the girls mentioned that the class fell between the custody handover between her parents, and I was glad this was something neither my sons or I had to go through. To prep for the class I read a couple of stories from Encyclopedia Brown and so from my students I expected something along the lines of the "Case of the Missing Bicycle" or the "Purloined Hershey Bar."

Our writing prompt was a photo of suburban house surrounded by crime-scene tape. Despite my expectation of a mundane "age-appropriate" crime, my students immediately launched into a tale of murder. I assigned them various aspects of the case. Some worked the crime-scene evidence. Others worked on motives. Reflecting these kids' modern family experiences, it was the wife of an estranged couple who was found dead. Naturally, suspicions pointed to the husband. However, living in the home was the late wife's boyfriend, who the girls in my class emphasized was a mooch with a record as a petty thief. Emails between the wife and her husband indicated that she accused him of stealing her savings and some jewelry. In the husband's car the police found a small caliber pistol, which one of my young detectives insisted was a .22 semi-auto. The crime-scene team was keen on the forensics and noted that the lack of gunshot residue around the puncture wounds in the wife's body meant that she had not been shot, even though spent .22 cartridges littered the area. Furthermore, the puncture wounds resembled those made by an ice pick, plus no bullets had been recovered from the tissue. The motive team discovered that the boyfriend had pawned jewelry the wife claimed had been stolen by the husband. Plus the husband had an alibi for the time in question as he had taken his girlfriend away for a romantic long weekend. An investigation of the pistol revealed the boyfriend's fingerprints but none from the husband, indicating it had probably been planted. Then the motive team discovered that the boyfriend had a girl on the side, and he had deposited lots of money in her account shortly after it went missing from the wife. The police never found the murder weapon but had enough to charge the boyfriend for murder and his girlfriend as an accessory as she had provide the pistol used as the red herring. Definitely not Encyclopedia Brown.