The Effects of Weather

We have just seen American friends off on a tour of the Highlands. It's always a nervous business when visitors to your country for the first time arrive, particularly when it's here in Scotland.

I want them to get a good impression but being Scots in this situation is a bit like being the mother of a difficult child who can be quite amazingly charming when it wants to but which may equally sulk, brood, or even throw a spectacular tantrum. I have studied the weather forecast for weeks with fingers crossed and muttering ancient Celtic spells for sunshine.

It worked. Today it is the absolutely perfect autumn (fall) day, sharp first thing  with just the sort of hint of frost in the air so that it tingles as if you were inhaling champagne, and the sky is clear and eggshell blue. The leaves are showing orange and flame and red in windless sunshine and I know the lochs they pass with be mirror-smooth and making perfect reflections of the hills and dark pine forests round about.

We are promised the same for the rest of the week, when our guests will return by way of the west coast, which has scenery to rival the best in the world. Looking out to the Summer Isles, a string of tiny islands that on a calm sea look as if they are floating is, on a sunny day, almost unreal in its perfection.

Phew! Relief. Because, as every Scot knows, it can be quite different. Rain can come down in steady torrents, mist can obscure the majesty of the scenery for days on end; the first time I visited mountainous Skye, it could have been a flat plain for all the evidence I saw of anything above sea level.

And then there is the darkness. Already the nights are lengthening and until the winter solstice it's a journey into shorter and shorter days, less and less light. Perhaps it's no suprise that the novels written in the northern countries tend to have a very dark side – Tartan Noir, Nordic Noir.

I've just been reading one of Andrea Camilleri's brilliant Inspector Montalbano series where you feel you're basking in Sicilian sunshine. Perhaps it is our environment that makes up the sort of writers we are.

Still, it looks as if our American friends will go home wondering why on earth people moan about Scottish weather.

Geese and Graves and Other Writerly Concerns

The husband and wife team of Mary Reed and Eric Mayer published several short John, Lord Chamberlain detections in mystery anthologies and in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine prior to 1999's One For Sorrow, the first full-length novel about their protagonist. The eleventh in the series, Murder in Megara, will be published in October 2015. The Guardian Stones, set in rural Shropshire during World War Two and written as by Eric Reed, will appear in January 2016. Both novels are from Poisoned Pen Press.

When writing I occasionally find sudden doubts about possible anachronisms creep into the room on nasty little kitty feet. Almost always this distressing development relates to the content of informal conversations.

The OED and various slang dictionaries are, I do agree, most useful tools and furthermore available in the clock-round library the internet represents but, being a fool to myself, I feel more comfortable seeking confirmation that whatever the phrase in question might be has been used in novels contemporary to or before the era in which the work in progress is set. Perhaps it is because this method gives a better idea of the context than the necessarily telegraphic notes found in the works I mention? In any event, when such circumstances arise I hie myself off to the Gutenberg and Bartleby sites and run a search for the relevant phrase or word through them.

Let me give a working example from The Guardian Stones, our January 2016 title. Set during World War Two in rural Shropshire, a retired schoolteacher residing in the village recalls the description of one of those familiar sudden shivers we all get now and then as having been caused by a goose walking over the person's grave. Not having heard this particular saying before it was mentioned by my co-writer Eric (although I wot of the common variant "someone walked over my grave") I was not certain if it was known in the UK at the time. A quick shufti in my two go-to sites established it was indeed known before 1941, the year in which the book is set, and therefore appropriate to use for our purposes.

What I discovered was Rudyard Kipling refers to the grave-crossing goose in his rather nasty short story “At The Pit's Mouth” in his collection Under The Deodars (1888). A couple rendezvous in a Simla cemetery where, as Kipling puts it, they "enjoyed each other's society among the graves of men and women whom they had known and danced with aforetime." One day they see a grave being dug and the man remarks to his companion, a married woman whose husband is away, "I have got a chill down my back just as if a goose had walked over my grave."

Even better in terms of proposed inclusion in a mystery, I was particularly happy to see Agatha Christie used essentially the same phrase in The Mysterious Affair At Styles (1924). In her novel it crops up in a conversation when the daughter in law of the matriarch of the family residing in Styles mentions she had been told that, due to the medical profession's general ignorance of uncommon poisons, it was thought countless cases of poisonings had gone unsuspected. To which her mother in law declares the conversation "...makes me feel as if a goose were walking over my grave."

Needless to say in due course Poirot solves the titular affair and cooks the goose of...but no, I must not reveal anything further. Those who perchance have not read the novel can take a gander at it on the Bartleby site at http://www.bartleby.com/112/1.html.

Judging a book by its cover

What's in a book's cover design?

Lots, according to 15-year-old Alyssa. "I think that's cool," she said, looking at the cover art for Destiny's Pawns.

I'd just received the jacket (see left-side column), loved it, and was showing it to nearly everyone. Alyssa was my latest viewer.

"They say not to judge a book by it's cover," she continued, "but everyone does. If the cover is brown, or something, it makes me thinks it's sort of old."

Old?

Maybe it's because I'm 45, but I've liked my some of my green and brown covers over the years. (After all, when you start your career writing golf novels and move to books set in northern Maine, you get lots of greens and browns.) And although 45 is only 20 in athlete years (but that's for another post), I see her point. In fact, Alyssa's comments produced a watershed moment for me. She is, I'd say, a pretty typical reader: she wanders through a (physical or virtual) bookstore and buys a book that literally catches her eye. Then she sees if she likes it and wants to read more by that author or in that series. So her comments made me sit up and take notice.

I've written nine novels and haven't been jazzed about all of my covers, believe me. "Something bright," I e-mailed my editor last spring. "Maybe teal or green or even orange." I don't usually get all that involved in my cover designs. (Rick Blechta, given his design expertise, is probably cringing at that statement.) However, this time, at the end of a three-book contract, I had time to engage in the design process and made some thoughtful recommendations.

I've spent my writing career with independent houses, so I can take care of some promotional items. I set up signings and usually an annual tour. But I'm no expert in the area of self-promotion. Truth be told, I enjoy the process of starting a book, seeing its characters and conflicts evolve, and finding the resolution far more than I do the business side of the venture. By the time I get the cover art for a book, I'm usually knee deep in the next project.

How important is a cover art in terms of sales? There's a lot that goes into why a book sells well and why it doesn't. And I hope writing has something to do with it. There's no comprehensive quantitative data (that I could find) to prove one way or the other that a cover can make or break a book's sales record. But I do think Alyssa speaks for many book buyers. And I'd love to hear the opinions of my Type M colleagues on the subject of cover art. Has anyone noticed sales spikes or dips from book to book based on the perceived correlation to a cover design?

Eat Dessert First

Today is National Dessert Day. So here are some pumpkin spice blondie bars made from the recipe on the back of the Toll House pumpkin morsels package. I added a little cinnamon to the mix just for fun.

Thinking about desserts reminds me of that saying, “Life’s short, eat dessert first.”And that reminds me of the project I’m currently working on. I usually write a story, whether a short story or a novel, from beginning to end. I know who the killer is before I start writing, but I generally don’t know what that confrontation scene between my sleuth and the murderer is going to look like, where it’s going to take place or what’s actually going to happen until I’ve written at least half of the book.

But this time around I’m working differently. I’ve found myself visualizing scenes and writing the story completely out of order. That confrontation scene popped into my head one day when I’d barely written the first couple chapters of the book so I wrote the first draft as soon as it entered my mind. I’ve done that with several other scenes since then. I’m gradually building up the story this way, hopping around as things come to me. This is very out of character for me.

This reminds me of a post fellow Type-Mer, Frankie Bailey, wrote awhile back about working intuitively, going with what is flowing at the moment. http://www.typem4murder.blogspot.com/2015/04/working-intuitively.html.

I think there’s something to it, this working intuitively. I'm gradually building up this story with less angst than usual. At some point, probably after I’ve finished some other pressing tasks for my second book, Paint the Town Dead, that’s coming out December 8, I’ll go back to writing scenes from start to finish but, for now, I’m content with working this way. At least I feel like I’m making progress instead of staring at a blank document with no idea what to type.

Now I’m curious. How many people write a book or short story from beginning to end or do you “eat dessert first”, writing scenes out of order? For those who’ve written several books, do you change the way you write from project to project?

Finally! A chance to be positive.

By Rick Blechta

In searching around for a topic to write on this week (and the lateness of publishing this post will demonstrate how long my search took), I finally ran across something that is truly breathtaking – if you’re a bibliophile.

Here it is: Paper is back: Why ‘real’ books are on the rebound

I’ll wait while you read it.

I have heard it said that every new technological advance has to find its “place” among humanity. When television came along at the end of the 1930s everyone predicted the end of radio and cinema. Well, while they did take a hit initially, you can still use your radio and go to the movies, can’t you?

It appears that e-readers have begun to slip into their proper place. Many have tried them and found where they work and where they don’t, and it appears that paper books will still have a place among us, as will electronic books.

And that, to me, is a very Good Thing.

A long aside:

I was rather astonished when I came to the final section of this article where the author talks about studies that found people don’t view ownership of e-books as anywhere near as permanent as paper books.

The perception is true.

What many people are not aware of is that software (and that includes e-book files) are often not “bought”, merely licensed. For instance, I don’t actually own any of the software on my computer. It is all “on loan” for lack of a better term from the producers. This way of doing business has been extended into e-book publishing, maybe not completely, but near enough. The books themselves might not have a license applied by the publisher, but many re-sellers (say, Amazon) are using this approach. It’s another way of controlling what they sell you. (If there was fine print added to the sale of anything you buy on the internet, there’s a good chance you’re merely licensing the product. In no way shape or form do you own it. Read the fine print if you don’t believe me.)

Fortunately, with older technologies (like paper books), they haven’t been able to figure out a way to do this.

But I also assume that somewhere a person is working in a room trying to figure out a way to license that paperback you picked up at the airport today…

Leave me Alone, she cries in despair!

By Vicki Delany

Rick’s post last week about the decreasing complexity of our language, reminded me of something else that’s been bugging me.

Speaking of bugging me… Has anyone noticed that you can’t have a peaceful meal in a restaurant any more?

When Linda Wiken and I were travelling down to Virginia over the summer for the mystery authors’ festival, we stopped for dinner at a moderately upscale restaurant. We were interrupted twice by the waiter asking if everything was okay, once by the hostess, and once by the manager.

It was so annoying that we talked about it. And since then, I’ve been counting.

On my own later trip to the Outer Banks I was seated in an Applebee’s, iPad open in front of me. I order my meal, it arrives. She comes back to ask if it’s okay. Yes, thank you. Back she comes again, how’s everything? Fine, I said, instead of saying, “it’s exactly the same as it was last time you were here.”

Then AGAIN she comes while I’m still eating to say, “Can I put a dessert order in for you?” Okay, I lost it. I said, “You’ve interrupted me three times now.” I must say, she looked shocked.

Yes, I know they’re told they have to do this, but the question I have is why.

This isn’t customer service; it’s the opposite of customer service. They will only deal with you on their terms at a time convenient to them.

Try to actually need something from a waiter in one of these places and they rush past with eyes averted or whirl like an elf warrior in battle in a LOTR movie to change direction.

Customer service is helping the customer when they need it, not forcing yourself on them at a time that happens to be convenient.

Imagine Carson the butler leaning over the Dowager Duchess the moment she put her soup spoon into her mouth and asking if everything is okay.

I blame Wal Mart. In Canada we used to be able to walk into a store and we’d be left alone to mind our own business. No one rushed to ‘greet’ us and ask us if we’re having a nice day, and tell us to be sure and ask if we need anything. Then came Wal Mart and their cursed greeters and it was all downhill from there.
My day is none of your business, and I get that the point of having a clerk is to help if the customer needs it.

Bad enough, but nothing is as bad as this constant interruption by wait staff who don’t know how to subtly pay attention to what’s going on in their restaurant and intervene if the customer needs anything.

I’ll accept one interruption as the new normal. I think I’m going to start pointing out at two or more that I don’t like it.

Who's with me?

Using Boredom

I want to speak in praise of boredom. Not the kind of sitting around the house with nothing to do boredom -- or looking at me and meowing his complaint about having nothing to do as my cat Harry sometimes does -- but, instead, the sitting in an event and being bored silly kind of boredom. The "I can't get up and leave" but I really wish I could kind of boredom. For a writer those moments and that kind of boredom can be incredibly productive.

Of course, good manners requires that one try to look interested -- not yawn, not squirm, not glance at watch or check text messages. But I am of the opinion that it is acceptable to think about something else if you look like you're paying attention (please, don't tell my students I said that). I think it is much better to have an active, but distracted mind, then to nod off.

And then there is what I think of as passive listening. This is when you don't think of something else but instead allow what is going on to flow over and around you. In this state, you are hearing if not processing. Recently, I did this while attending an event. A few days later, I reaped the rewards of relaxing into boredom. My subconscious used what I had heard to provide the solution to a plot problem.

Right now, I'm attending Bouchercon 2015 in Raleigh. I'm not at all bored. I'm happily running into people I see only once or twice a year. Tomorrow, I intend to attend some panels. But I suspect that even though I am not bored my mind will drift. I will engage in active listening, and something someone says will have me reaching for a pad and pen because I have an idea. And I may miss some of what is said after that. But I will try to jot down just enough so that I can come back to it later.

It seems to me that whether I'm bored or invigorated, what works best is to let my subconscious do its thing. I'm depending on that for a problem I'm trying to solve. I'm working on a plot outline for a book and in spite of using my usual multiple pronged approach -- name generators, baby name websites, sites with surnames by nationality -- I am having a more difficult time than usual finding the right names for my characters.

I've named my protagonist but several characters have only a first name, and others are identified only by occupation. I am one of those writers who needs names for my characters before I can move forward. But I'm assuming that whatever the block I'm experiencing is, it must be a part of the process. There must be something important I need to consider about these characters' names. And if I wait for it, my subconscious will make the connections.

How do you tap into your subconscious? Does boredom work for you?

How Writing a Novel is Like Finding a Woolly Mammoth in Your Back Yard, or The Writer as Archeologist.

A few weeks ago a soybean farmer in Michigan was digging around on his property when he found something that he thought was a buried fence post.* He tried to dig it out, but discovered it was much bigger than a fence post, and attached to something. He kept digging, and lo and behold, after much toil he discovered that his fence post was actually a tusk attached to a skull. He called in the archeologists, who discovered that the skull was part of the skeleton of a huge woolly mammoth that had been butchered and stored in a pond some one hundred and fifty thousand years earlier by prehistoric hunters. Now, that is quite a discovery, to go from a hole in the ground, to a fence post, to the tale of early American mammoth hunters, butchering their prey after a successful and thrilling hunt and then sinking the carcass into a pond to keep it fresh for a while longer. Why did they not retrieve it later? Did they move on? Millennia later, a scientist holds a bone in his hand and wonders.

In related news, I’ve been working on the first draft of a new novel. Every time I begin a new book, I survey the landscape until I find a likely place to hunt for a tale worth telling. Then I haul out my tools and I start digging, trying to find the gist of the story. At first I tend to slog around, flinging shovels full of mud out of the way, occasionally coming up with promising bits and pieces of bone, but nothing that excites me. Until I just happen to hit upon something that is different from all the mud I have been digging into. Often I think I’ve just found a fence post, but as I continue to dig, my author eye tells me that I have stumbled upon something that is going to be interesting. Then my heart rate picks up because I realize that what I’ve found is made of gold, and if I keep carefully digging, then scooping, then delicately brushing away the detritus around the story, I will have discovered a tale worth telling.

__________
*read the story here.

Edits and markets and bloggers, oh my!

Barbara here. This week I am well on my way to the publication of my next novel, the first in the Amanda Doucette series, entitled FIRE IN THE STARS.  Monday I sent the proofs back to my editor after spending a week combing through them trying to third-guess my second-guessing brain. Research has shown that when you read, you see what you expect to see–what makes grammatical sense or what you think is there. Once you've written and rewritten/ reread your precious work-in-progress a dozen times, you can practically recite it from memory, and in a sense, your brain does. It jumps ahead from word to word, barely noticing the transposed letters, the missing word, and the wrong character's name. Quite simply, the brain puts it to rights for you.

Authors try to outwit the second-guessing brain by reading aloud or reading backwards, but I find the former too tedious and the latter too arduous when the manuscript is over ninety-thousand words long. Other authors rely on their rushed, distracted copyeditor to catch it all. An ill-advised approach, trust me. Still others get their spouse or friends to read it. Every fresh eye helps. I tend to read as slowly as I can without falling asleep, and hope for the best.

This time around, I made a few content changes in the proofs, which my editor will no doubt wince at, because at this stage, the book is already laid out and any changes mess up the layout. I found very few actual copy errors in the proofs, but whether my second-guessing brain outwitted me or not, only time will tell, when readers begin to send in their comments. "Loved your book, but just so you know, for second printing, on page..."

So now the manuscript is in the production line, the cover is finalized, and the cover copy all set up. In a month or two, the advanced reader copies will begin rolling off the printing press. And that brings me to the job on my plate for yesterday. Back to writing, you might think. You'd be wrong. The first few chapters in the second Amanda Doucette novel, entitled THE TRICKSTER'S LULLABY, are sitting in a scribbled heap on the coffee table beside my feet, but I haven't been able to get to them for over a week. First, those proofs, and yesterday, the publisher's marketing document. My publisher calls this the Author's Grid, and it's an Excel document (I have a headache already) containing all the marketing information that might be relevant to the novel. Media contacts I've made, bookstore and reviewer contacts, conferences and events I plan to attend, suggested search keywords for the novel, even the names of my federal and provincial members of parliament! Do you think they can help?

This grid serves as a partial stepping stone for the publisher's marketing plan. They have their own grid, I assume, and there is likely overlap, but in this brave new book biz world, increasingly it is the author's individual connections and networking that help to spread the word. The publisher will send out numerous ARCs to the major review sites both in Canada and the US, but  the number of reviews in major print newspapers is shrinking daily. Papers devote entire sections to the latest trends in automobiles and real estate, but reviews of the arts manage at best a page or two, much of it syndicated rather than local. But that's a rant for another time.

Nowadays, publishers, authors, and readers rely increasingly on online reviews, whether on Goodreads and Amazon or on dedicated book review blogs.  Although in theory, anyone can design a wordpress page, claim to be a book reviewer, and request review copies, there are some well respected book reviewers who provide informed and objective reviews and whose opinions carry great weight in the book world. This is where the author's connections become invaluable. Word of mouth, networking with other authors, and attendance at conferences all help us learn who might be interested in our work.

Media and bookstore contacts are another area where the author's personal experience is important. Every time I do an event in a store, I make a personal connection with that bookseller which helps when my next book appears in their catalogue, or even better, when my publisher sends them an ARC.

Some authors are wonderfully organized about keeping track. Names and addresses of contacts, websites, blogs, and so on–all in a neat little file. I am not. I tend to rely on my increasingly fuzzy memory, and hence there I was yesterday, staring at the blank Excel spreadsheet of my Author Grid, trying to remember what bloggers I've met, who might be interested in hearing about my new book, who have I talked to in radio or TV. It's a job that took much of the day, while my dogs waited with increasing impatience for their walk. But it's done now, and sent off. Back to the grand, creative life of a writer!

Except that now I have remembered two radio interviewers whom I forgot to put on the list. And there are surely other book people inadvertently missed or as yet unknown. So if you are a mystery blogger or a bookseller interested in an ARC, please drop me a note and I'll add you to the grid.

Mulling over the sorry state of the English language

by Rick Blechta

I caught myself once again apologizing to someone by nearly saying, “My bad.” Darn! There goes some more slipping on one of my New Year’s resolutions. There’s nothing wrong about trying to be hip, but there is something so grating to my ears (and mind) by using terms that I’m convinced spilled out of some 16-year-old’s pen because they couldn’t remember how to spell “fault”.

Think about it. We had a perfectly good phrase and it’s been turned into something that sounds awkward and puerile at the same time. Why? Because it’s been repeated over and over to the point where it’s an acceptable part of our language. Hell! It’s not even clever. It sounds like something a toddler would say.

I’ve written before here about how the average English speaker’s vocabulary is shrinking. I’ll admit I also find our language fascinating and I’ve discussed with polyglots (of which my wife is one) about how flexible English is in comparison to many other languages. I’ll have to take their word for it.

What I find alarming and sad in equal measure is that the English lexicon should be expanding if anything. Instead we would be talked under the table by our forebears of even 100 years ago. Think that’s not true? Read any E.M. Forster novel. If you don’t have a dictionary at the ready, you’re not going to make it through. A person reading it at the time it was printed would have no such issue.

I’m going to end my rant now, but I would really like some input on this topic from Type M readers. There are a lot of other “new” phrases and terms that are coming into common use that are not really adding anything to the language. You certainly all have your “favourites”, you know, the ones that make you grind your teeth.

What are they? And please share them with all of us.

Crime Writing Observed.

 I've blogged for years now about being a crime writer - my experiences, my habits, my problems.  Today I thought it would be rather refreshing to see the writer's life from a different perspective, so here are my  husband's observations on crime writers, as seen from the outside!

Ian writes:

I have never written a blog before, perhaps because I am not a writer. I am however, married to one and I have observed one at work for many years and also been lucky enough to meet a large number of others. So perhaps I am qualified to make a few observations – crime writers are my speciality!

The first striking fact is that many, perhaps most, writers don’t do it because they want to; they do it because they must. My own particular writer has been writing in one way or another since she was six and quite simply could not chose not to write and be happy (choosing to be published is a whole other discussion); it is perhaps like being a creative musician or artist, it is quite simply an integral part of their being.

I am by now an experienced hanger-on at conferences and literary events and have therefore met and talked to many crime writers who are almost, but not quite, always interesting and extremely nice.

They clearly work in all sorts of different ways, some, like my author, will say almost nothing about a book while it is being written, partly for fear of having a line of thought interrupted or, worse still, corrupted. At the other extreme, I know of one well known crime writer who reads his books aloud to his wife whilst they are in the process of being written and takes on board suggestions.

Although crime writers really are a nice lot, they all have a capacity to talk of death, corpses and the human tragedy that goes with it in the most clinical and dispassionate terms. And writing is a tough and demanding business; without exception, authors will tell you how much they enjoy the research they do and will usually admit that they are inclined to prolong it unnecessarily just to delay the time when they actually have to start writing.

The other thing authors all have in common is that they inhabit two quite distinct worlds. There is the everyday one where they relate to other people but there is another one altogether peopled by their characters who talk to them and come up with twists in what they thought was going to be the plot. In our case, many a long car journey has been spent in companionable silence while I drove and my wife was somewhere else entirely!

Finally, take it from me from first hand observation, it is very, very hard work.

Oh For Life-Changing Magic

A huge non-fiction best-seller, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up had the distinction of being featured in a recent New Yorker cartoon. I tried to copy the cartoon to display in this post but was defeated by electronics. So I will just include the caption:

The Life-Changing Magic of Shoving Everything into a Huge Hefty Bag and Leaving It For Somebody Else to Deal With.

I wanted to read this book and tried to get it through the library. Believe it or not, there were already 147 holds on the copy. I wasn't willing to be the 148th in line and ordered it through Amazon. Not only was I willing to pay good money for the Japanese author's slender little instruction manual, I had already listened to it on an audiobook. I even started folding underwear and my socks vertically and started sorting items for Goodwill by category.

My life is basically the same. I do some things well and some things poorly. I have good days and bad days, but mostly my days are pretty satisfying and on the whole I'm a happy person. I have a lot to be thankful for. The book had some great hints, but the "life-changing magic" seemed to bypass me.

So what in the world happened to make such a simple little book zoom to top of best-seller lists? I think that the author was Japanese lent credibility. We associate Japanese décor with uncluttered simplicity. Simplicity is appealing to those of us who are overburdened with the demands of our stressful societies and our plethora of electronic gadgets.

The book has a serene cover with a blue sky. It promises happiness. Serenity. A perfectly ordered house with everything in its place. There is a compelling narrative. The author, Marie Kondo, started down this decluttering path when she was in kindergarten. At the age of five, she could not wait to get home after school and begin organizing her things. It's her passion. She built a business out of organizing stuff.

She's the ultimate authority and very opinionated. No one else could have written from the same point of view.

But making a fortune from tidying up! Who would have thought?

This is a simple book. There is a lesson here for beginning novelists who complain that they are stuck in ordinary towns with ordinary uninspiring people. The greatest writers see the stuff of stories right in front of them. It doesn't take great adventures to come up with great fiction. And the same could be said of non-fiction.

The Arc: The View From Thirty Thousand Feet

My three-book contract with Midnight Ink is up: I sent the June 2016 book, Destiny's Pawns, to my editor and now await feedback and cover art. I was thrilled last week when my agent called to say Midnight Ink's publisher wants to continue the series.

I'm hoping for another multi-book contract, so I'm writing synopses for a would-be three-book continuation. It's a process that has me thinking a lot about story arc.

I'm not much of a plotter: I'm a drive-to-the-end-of-your-headlights writer. I get jazzed by compelling characters and ensuing dialogue (as reader and a writer). My "outlines" are usually five-page character sketches – lengthy, detailed backstories and motivations for each of my books' major players. Then I put those players on the stage, give them a conflict (or several), and see what they do.

This process is different. And harder. Writing the arc for three novels means there is one or more over-arching storylines on top of the individual plot of each novel. This is a delicate balance, a secondary mystery that may not be answered at the completion of an individual book.

I was forced to think about this and to incorporate a secondary plot this summer when I wrote a screenplay. (Les Standiford, author and professor, once told me screenwriting taught him the art of plotting; I concur wholeheartedly.) I wrote a pilot episode, and in it I planted a question to be carried out through one entire novel: Peyton Cote has a photograph she's never shown anyone, a picture of a little girl. Who is the girl? What's her connection to Peyton? A teaser? Certainly. A larger part of who Peyton is and how Peyton came to be who she is? Yes. Additionally, I want a recurring villain, a foil to Peyton, a Moriarty of sorts, someone who could appear and leave, someone who enters – always unexpectedly – and makes the reader cringe before Peyton sees her.

Story arc – the view from thirty thousand feet – is a new way of thinking and writing for me, a lot more work upfront. I'm betting on plotting here. Creating the primary plot and overarching arc of several books should make for better stories for this author and (hopefully) his readers.

Calm Down and Write

I don’t know about you, but I can’t write when I’m too stressed out. Right now I’m a bundle of nerves with all of the tasks to be done in preparation for the launch of my second book while trying to write book 3. Yes, I know, every writer goes through this. Yes, I knew it would be a challenge going into it, but I didn’t realize just how stressful it would be until I signed that contract and the roller coaster ride of writing truly began.

So I’m always looking for activities that will calm me down enough so I can focus on writing the story that’s rolling around in my brain, trying to get out. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far: 

Exercise. That’s my number one calming activity. I’m not a huge exercise fanatic, but I do try to ride my stationary bike, do step aerobics or walk to one of the many Leslie Sansone DVDs I own five days a week. Walking down to the beach and watching the waves roll in is nice, too, as long as there aren’t too many people around. 

Adult coloring books. They seem to be all the rage these days. (No, not that kind of adult coloring book!) I see them everywhere, marketed as a de-stresser. I’m not sure why we can’t just color in kids’ coloring books, but I suppose we adults want fancier patterns or something. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try one out. There are a lot of coloring books filled with geometric patterns, but I opted for one with lots of ugly holiday sweaters. That’s one of the pages I started coloring in the photo. 

Going barefoot. Woman’s World magazine often has stress-buster tips. In a recent issue, an article claimed that rubbing bare feet against something soft like carpet or grass for four minutes will cut your tension 33% for 90 minutes. I don’t know if that means pacing said soft object or if sitting in a chair and rubbing your feet against the carpet would do. Haven’t tried this one yet, but we do have some nice soft carpet, so it’s been added to my list. 

Tai chi. I have a tai chi tape that I do occasionally, which calms me down quite a bit. 

Music. Certain kinds of music calm me down: Baroque, some Celtic instrumental music, Gregorian chants, and the music of Hawaiian singer, Keali’i Reichel.

A lot of people I know swear by massage and meditation, but those activities just stress me out even more.

So, Type M readers, what about you? What are your favorite calming activities? How do you de-stress your life?

And in the same vein…

I read Vicki’s post yesterday and shouted, “Hallelujah!” You can find it just below this one — and if you haven’t already read it, you really should.

The new “cheap” is now “free”. We’ve seen it in the music business for a long, long time. We’re seeing it in the book biz now. Even in the workplace. It is self-serving garbage foisted on the public (and the content producers) by those who are greedy to the point of absurdity. They should instead be ashamed and embarrassed. They know they’re taking advantage of people, but they do it because they can get away with it.

Case in point
The head of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, started a firestorm last year when he suggested that jobless university graduates take unpaid jobs to bolster their resumes.

Huh? Why is this a good thing? They’ve gone through university, likely racked up big debts for that, and now they’re expected to work for nothing? Of course, it’s not as simple as that, but this is the basis of what the man said. I’d like to ask Mr Poloz this: would you work for nothing? There is a point to volunteering for a charity or something similar in order to build up your resumé, but working for a company whose goal is to make a profit and you’re doing it for nothing? And that’s supposed to be a good thing? Unpaid internships are happening more and more — and not connected to school programs, either. Young people are desperate enough to take a chance on these simply in the hope that they might get a job. Surely the businesses could afford even a token salary. Some do; most don’t.

As most of you probably know, I’m also a working musician. The two bands I play in often get asked to play charity gigs. In the band that I actually run, we won’t do a charity gig for nothing. Just to get onto a stage costs us money (parking, car costs, travel time, etc). My musicians are professionals who are relying on what they make. If I take a booking for a charity gig and don’t charge anything, they also can’t take a paying gig for that evening. We musicians don’t make a lot of money playing and every little bit helps. I can’t ask my guys to play for free — although I never ask for a huge amount. (What I do offer organizers is that some might give their pay back in order to support the event. I leave it up to each musician to decide what to do. I usually donate my pay back, but that’s me.)

Here’s the rub: we have had charity organizers move on when told we can’t play for free. These are the people who always use the phrase “great exposure for your band!” Sure. It might be. I counter with an explanation that the band is made up of professional musicians and we at least need a small honorarium to cover expenses. “We don’t have the budget!” I tell them that we’d really love to play, but I have to hold firm on that. Some move on, some try to help out, but it can be damned uncomfortable.

Even club owners get in on the act. “I’d like to see how you do. Play at my club (for nothing), and if you do well, I’ll book you in for a paying gig.” Some clubs actually charge the band to play there because the club is a happening place and it will be “good exposure”. Heaven help us! And there are bands that are actually dumb enough to do this.

And now I hear that organizers of conferences are getting in on the act. That is really depressing — and they should know better. Free books? Hundreds of them? All so a company can promote their business? Don’t you folks see what is happening? Vicki is damned right. And it is an insult to all of us who write.

The thing with writers, especially those who haven’t been published yet, is that they’re often desperate to get published, to have their work read. Many do it in their spare time. I don’t think those writers value their work as much as writers whose income depends — at least in part — on their writing. The carrot, of course, is as Vicki said, the hope that they’ll be discovered and they fall for the “good exposure” canard.

I’ve already been through this in the music biz back in my youth, and I know many other youthful musicians who have been in the same boat. Let me tell you this: getting “discovered” doesn’t happen very often. It’s more a matter of luck than anything. Think of it as winning a lottery where they odds are stacked astronomically against you. Sure, it can happen, but let me ask you this additional question: how much have you won on your lottery ticket purchases? There’s an old song by Billy Preston, “Nothin’ from Nothin’ Means Nothin’. That’s what I’m talking about here.

The sad thing is there is no real solution. I’m sure some published authors will contribute books to the Smashwords promotion for Bouchercon. That’s their right, but they should also be aware of this: they’re hurting all of us by not respecting our craft enough. Writers who are unpublished are desperate enough to welcome this dodge with open arms. It’s tough to get a book out. We all understand that. But giving your work away will not really do you much good. I’ll bet Smashwords wouldn’t take a healthy chunk of a book offered as a teaser. That would help everyone — but it wouldn’t be good for their business. Complete books are better for them. And if they come free, well, that’s icing on the cake. It would be stupid of them not to try something like this.

But if all of us told them “No free books but we’ll help with a teaser or two,” I’ll bet they’d take it.

Sad thing is, throughout society, many are so desperate to get noticed that they’ll work for free — to the detriment of all.

Sad, that…

What’s the Value of a Book?

By Vicki Delany

What’s the value of a book? I don’t mean the price, but the value.

What is it worth to you that you have good, well-written stories to read, maybe stories that reflect the history or the present of who you are or where you came from, or offer insight into the lives of people and times very different from you? Or just books that give you pleasure and a break from this hectic, troubling world. Do you have children? What is it worth to you that your kids are exposed to other ideas, cultures, and lives beyond their own. And beyond the little square of their iPhone or iPad.

For me, the value is immeasurable.

So, let’s then talk about price. Say an author spends a year working on a book (some write faster, some slower, but that’s a good estimate.) A year of what by every measurement is work. Sometimes they get an advance to help out a little bit, but sometimes they don’t. What price do we attach to a year of labour?

What then, should the price of a book be?

$0.00 seems fair these days, would you agree?

Well, I wouldn’t.

A latte at Starbucks cost $4 -$6. An hour-and-a-half movie at a theatre is around $10. Just one entrée at a mid-priced restaurant can be in the $20 range these days, never mind wine, appetizers, dessert, coffee.

All together we spend a lot of money. But somehow when it comes to the work that artists such as writers and musicians do, some people don’t think they should have to pay.

That’s not the fault of readers. If something’s offered for free, why not take advantage of it?

(Before I continue, you may say what about libraries. Books from libraries are not really ‘free’. The books are purchased at a fair price from money that comes out of the public purse. Plus, in Canada anyway, authors are compensated to some degree by PLR.)

Sure publishers and authors sometimes give away books as loss leaders, to entice new customers, as contests to reward faithful readers. Same as any industry. Enter a contest and you might win a car! Doesn’t mean you can pop down to your local used car lot any time you want and drive away with a FREE CAR!

There has been a trend lately to give books away free willy-nilly. You can find entire lists on Amazon of free books. Many of these books are being put up for free by desperate authors hoping that the right agent or publisher will happen upon it and it will become THE NEXT BIG THING. (Aside, do you really think good agents are looking for another slush pile?)

In 2014 Romantic Times worked with Smashwords to give every conference attendee a thumb drive containing – wait for it – 342 free books. This year, they are going to do the same at Boucheron. Smashwords sent emails to authors attending the conference to tell them they can send in up to three of their books. Sisters in Crime sent the same email to all of its members, whether attending the conference or not. Potentially, this thumb drive will contain hundreds of FREE BOOKS! A years worth of reading!

Smashwords, of course, is promoting their brand by offering other people’s work for free. How kind of them. But, I hear you shout, the authors get exposure.

In my opinion, all this sort of thing does is devalue the worth of a book. Why pay for something if it’s being offered for free?

Turning that argument around, why spend a year of your life writing something if it’s worth nothing? Monetarily, speaking worth nothing to you, nothing to your readers. In non-monetary terms it may be worth a lot to the author, but not many people can live on satisfaction alone.

It’s no secret that author’s incomes have decreased dramatically over the last twenty years. By some estimates 50%.

Do we really want a world where books are written by those who can afford not to have paying work, consider it a hobby, or drive themselves deep into debt?

If you are an author, ask yourself, what is the VALUE of this work I do.

If you are a reader, ask yourself, what is the VALUE of literature.

And then pay, or charge, accordingly.

Note: I've discussed this before,when I was asked to be the unpaid guest speaker at a ticketed event by a for-profit company, and GIVE everyone of the attendees one of my books. Same principal. Here's the link: http://typem4murder.blogspot.ca/2015/02/a-visit-to-north-carolina-and-head.html.

Don't mind Big Brother's wiretap.

I have a problem with some thrillers, especially those of the steely-jawed hero triumphing over evil doers and meddling do-gooders in defense of truth, justice, and the American way. At the heart of my objection is that in these stories, said hero usually belongs to a secretive government organization, which if allowed to shake off the pesky constraints of the law and bleeding-heart whistle blowers, it could smite the villainous foe. It's not that the earth lacks for assholes who deserve such a smiting, it's that in reality those shadowy government entities have a poor record keeping us safe or acting for the greater good. For example, Admiral Michael Rogers, argues that the NSA needs unfettered access to the American public's telephones and can't be bothered with legal trivialities like search warrants. As usual, the boogy-man terrorist is hauled out and made to go boo! What Rogers fails to include in his argument is that the NSA, and the CIA, in fact the entire national security apparatus, has done an abysmal job keeping us safe. People should've been imprisoned for falling asleep at the switch before 9/11. The father of Umar Farouk Adbulmutallab (the Underwear Bomber) warned the US State Department that Umar had come under the sway of terrorists and should be considered a threat. That warning passed across a bureaucrat's desk and was ignored. Years later, the Russians warned the FBI about Tamerlan Tsarnaev (the older brother of the Boston Marathon bombers) and his terrorists leanings. The FBI claims it interviewed Tamerlan and afterwards decided he was no threat, even though the CIA put him on their terrorist database. So we have two instances where the government had credible evidence about terrorist activities and they fumbled the ball. You'd think the feds would have instituted thorough measures to tighten its security protocol. Instead we get excuses that the security agencies can't deal with the volume of leads they get, but that doesn't stop them from turning around and amassing even more data on the American public. So far, despite it's carte blanche, the NSA hasn't done much aside from lying about what it does or doesn't do. Other than the expensive incompetence, a big worry is the government using its surveillance to thwart domestic law. In fact, there is an official program called "parallel reconstruction" where federal agencies like the ATF teach local law enforcement how to disguise the NSA's (or CIA's) discovery of suspected criminal activity. "Parallel reconstruction" means inventing probable cause and excising any mention of domestic surveillance by agencies prohibited to do so. So you ask, "Who's getting busted? Drug dealers? Gangsters? Good riddance." The problem is that if the government, with its limitless resources, can't prosecute its law by its own rules, what chance do we have should we find ourselves under its heel? Dovetailed with this is the "Stingray," a cellular tower emulator the police use to eavesdrop on cell phones. Again, besides the warrantless surveillance, law enforcement agencies sign under-the-table contracts with the Harris Corporation to prohibit the disclosure of the Stingray. These contracts circumvent the legalities that law enforcement cannot enter such contracts without state legislative approval. So who's watching the watchers? Who's keeping the law?

Time and Space

I'm back home from my Alaska adventures. But – the reason I'm late today – I'm experiencing a slow transition back to every day life. It's rather odd because my body and mind seemed to be lagging behind – back in place, but not quite there yet.

It began when I opened the front door to my house late last Thursday afternoon. The quality of the light seemed off. Even when I raised the blinds, the light seemed not quite right. The rooms seemed to have shrank a bit in my absence – except for the bathroom which now seemed larger, but I automatically stepped up as I had been doing for a week in my cruise ship cabin.

I put this distortion of light and space down to the fact that I'd been up at three a.m. that morning to catch a flight from Vancouver, Canada to Albany. And over the course of the past two weeks, I had changed time zones a couple of times. And I'd come from jacket weather, including hat and scarf to Albany, in the midst of a September hot spell.

But here it is a week later, and I am still a little sleepier than usual. Still trying to catch up with the world that went along without me for two weeks – although I did occasionally check my email. Undoubtedly, over the weekend, I will make the transition and by next week I will be back in the rhythm of my life. But I wonder if this isn't a bit of psychological resistance – the need to hold on to what I loved about the wilderness of Alaska. To remember white-water rafting and riding horseback in a rain forest.

I think there is a story here about stepping out of one’s daily life and then coming back – about a character who is gone for a longer period of time, who does resist settling in again. I'll have to give it a bit of thought. Meanwhile, here are photos taken as I was standing on a glacier. I was a bit hesitant about getting into a helicopter for this ride, but the friend I was traveling with convinced me. It was awe-inspiring.

This photo doesn't capture the awesomeness of a glacier. Here's a crevice in the glacier that was quite deep and a little scary. There is a name for it, but I had on my gloves and no pen at hand to write it down.

A New Beginning—Times Four

Yesterday I wrote a new beginning for my work in progress.* This is the fourth beginning. I like it. Of course, I liked the three previous beginnings as well.

Beginning #1: In the middle of that cold, cold winter of 1917-1918, somewhere in the far reaches of western Kansas, Earnest Clinton received letter from the President of the United States. He had been called by his country do his bit and help defeat the Hun. So Earnest packed a change of underwear, and caught the train to Camp Funston, just outside of Junction City, Kansas, and took his place in the ranks of the U.S. Army.

I’d congratulate myself on my cleverness and merrily write on. Then, thirty or forty or one hundred pages on, I’d start to brood. Is my opening good enough?

Beginning #2: Men are sorry creatures. Oh, some are useful to have around. Loyal, protective, competent providers, like well-trained hunting dogs. But generally, men are a disputatious lot, prideful and easily roused to mischief. If a woman wants to avoid heartache, it will serve her well to stay far away from the world of men and tend to her own affairs.

I read an article by an editor who said that she gives a manuscript three pages before she decides whether or not it’s worth her time. I’ve heard this before. Conventional wisdom is that three pages all you have to capture a prospective reader.

Beginning #3: On the fine soft morning of September 1,1918, the congregation of the First Christian Church of Boynton, Oklahoma, prayed for a speedy end to the Great War in Europe. The new preacher, Mr. Huster, didn’t ask that the enemy be annihilated and crushed into dust, as did many of his flock in their private prayers, but that the better angels of human nature would prevail and peace and good will be restored between nations.

I think that if you are as popular an author as Steven King, the reader will give you the benefit of the doubt, because he knows that eventually you’re going to deliver.  But if nobody ever heard of you, you’d better be as interesting and exciting as you can as fast as you can.

Beginning #4: Wesley M. Cotton, prosecuting attorney for the District Court of Muskogee County, Oklahoma, looked up from the deposition to study the couple seated in the chairs in front of his desk. Mr. and Mrs. Shaw Tucker, currently residing on a farm located outside of Boynton, in the western part of the county.
“My wife has come into possession of some new information that we think you should hear.”
Shaw Tucker was doing the talking, but Cotton had no illusions that the reason was because Alafair Tucker was shy or demure. Ever since she had set foot in his office, Cotton was aware that she had been evaluating his every move, judging his every word. He resisted an urge to straighten his tie and adjust his waist coat. Instead he folded his hands on his desktop and leaned forward. “If that is the case, I would appreciate it if you could relate this new evidence to me in your own words, Mrs.Tucker.”
Her sharp, dark eyes gave him a final once-over. Cotton decided that he had passed inspection when she relaxed back into her chair and said, “Mr. Cotton, you have the wrong man, and I aim to tell you how I know.”

Readers used to be more patient, I think. One of my favorite books when I was young was Beau Geste, by Percival Wren, that swashbuckling tale of the French Foreign Legion.  I must have read that book half-a-dozen times.  And yet, I defy any modern to slog through the first 70 pages of set up before the action begins.

A proven technique for beginning a novel is to start in the middle of the action, off and running. The protagonist finds a body. Our hero is sitting in the middle of the road with a gunshot wound and doesn’t know how he got there. The heroine comes home from a trip to find her children are missing. Something intriguing and mysterious has happened before the reader comes in to the story, and now she desperately wants to find out what it is and how it happened.

That’s the idea, anyway.

What do you want to do with beginning? Catch the readers interest, make her wonder what is going to happen next.One may have written the most fabulous novel ever conceived of by any human being, but if you don’t get them by the first three pages, they will ever know how heartbreakingly beautiful your work is.

________
*I'll probably use some variation of all these beginnings somewhere in the book. But don't bet the farm that I use any of them as the actual beginning.

Betwixt and Between

Barbara here, with apologies that this blog is a little late. Blame it on technology, or rather on my rather conflicted relationship with technology.

I grew up in the dark ages, before computers and iCloud and Internet, and I am of that generation that has to be hauled, squirming and bewildered, into each new technological era, usually coached by the ten-year-old in handy reach. Our family didn't get a TV until I was twelve, and for most of my youth, we fiddled with rabbit ears, colour balance, and vertical control to keep Ed Sullivan from being green and spinning dizzyingly on the screen. We had one phone in the house, which was firmly anchored by a cord to the wall in the hall. Imagine my sister's and my teenage delight when the 25-foot cord was invented, allowing us to drag the phone into the bathroom to talk to our friends.

I did quick mathematical calculations on a slide rule, and the statistical analysis for my M.A. thesis on a Monroe calculator, which looked rather like a glorified cash register. I typed my papers on a manual typewriter, using white-out to correct mistakes. Needless to say, one tried not to make too many mistakes.

I had a tattered little address book with every contact I'd ever made in forty years. Old phone numbers were scratched out and new ones squeezed beneath, sometimes a long succession of them. Knowing which one was the latest phone number was a game akin to reading hieroglyphics. I looked up research books from card catalogues in the library and then tried to find the books in the obscure back shelves of the library.

Today I have a 'contacts' list on my computer, a landline which is used primarily to screen out telemarketers and political robocalls, and a computer that allows me to write twenty-five pristine drafts of my latest novel without a single misstep. I don't even have to know how to spell, although that's an advantage. I can find out just about anything I need to know by clicking through links on the Internet. It's amazing, and I often wonder how on earth we did anything before the computer age.

Some things elude me, of course. I have not figured out what possible use Twitter is, and have not even attempted Instagram and Google Circles. I update my website with trepidation, and I resist downloading each new suggested software until I've been harassed to do so for months. I know from bitter experience that it will screw up some other perfectly functioning program, and I will have to call in the ten-year-old. And I admit, the notion of self-driving cars and even self-parking cars gives me the willies. Computers may control things better, until they don't. And we all know, sometimes they don't. I like to be in control, knowing the car will respond to my foot on the brake and the twist of the steering wheel. I use cruise control mainly to avoid getting speeding tickets.

What does this have to do with forgetting my blog? Throughout my years as a travelling consultant, I carried a day planner in my purse, held together with an elastic so the thousands of pink phone messages wouldn't fall out. It was easy and efficient. I wrote everything in it– all my appointments, phone numbers, to do lists, and so on. I could flip through it at a glance to check this week's appointments or next month's. None of this clicking through interminable links, squinting at tiny font on my phone, and waiting for the next page to load. I still use a day planner today, and about half my appointments go in it. But I have also discovered the Apple calendar on my devices, and have even managed to sync my phone to my laptop so it doesn't matter which device I'm on. This calendar has these handy little alert functions, reminding me to change my furnace filter and give my dogs their heartworm medication. So now, some things go on my paper planner, and some on my electronic one.

And regrettably, some things go on neither. Thus I forgot today was my Wednesday blog day until this morning. Next time, with any luck, a handy little alert will notify me the day before, just as soon as I have time to click through all the links and set it up.