Oh! Canada!

 

Oh happy neighbors to the North.

 The Crime Writers of Canada treated the attendees of the recent Left Coast Crime conference to one of the loveliest receptions imaginable. It was well organized and generous and greatly appreciated by all.

One of the highlights of LCC was getting to visit with this talented group of writers. I'm especially interested in Canada right now due to our stressful presidential campaign. The sixties were this corrosive. The very air seemed charged with ill-will toward all. And frankly this election brings back memories. Yes, Canada, you should prepare for another flood of refuges like you had once before.

Not draft-dodgers this time, but a great many of your bewildered neighbors who want to think about fun things. Like writing.

This post is very short. I have serious unexpected medical allergies and when I got back I received a tetanus shot that played thunder with my health. We (by we I mean all the doctors involved) expect to have this resolved shortly. But in the meantime I'm getting in some serious junk TV and doing no writing.

I have many topics on my mind right now. Things I would love to write about. In fact, one of the subject I've never seen covered is the anxiety produced by looming deadlines teamed with illness. Books in particular are so treacherous. They seem to have all the time in the world and then up jumps the devil.

And oh to be through with this wretched presidential campaign.

How Much Fiction is Fiction?

This week, I'm on a family vacation in Florida (see photos). The timing has been good because I'm 40-ish pages into my 2017 novel, and I've hit a plot snag. So it's time to slow down and do some research.

The plot will remain in tact; after all, I outlined this one pretty thoroughly (yet, admittedly, I'm not an outliner, per se, so "pretty thoroughly" means a couple-page plot summary I worked on for a week). Last week, I printed out my pages, sat down with my pencil, edited what I have, and realized I have questions about the backstory of two characters that I need answered before I can continue writing the story. These questions are specific to the Syrian refugee crisis.

A family vacation means I refuse to work when everyone else is awake, which means rising early to write for a couple hours before the rest of the clan wakes. The "writing" I've done this week has been looking for and e-mailing (or Facebook messaging) experts on Syria and refugee smuggling. As of this writing, I've e-mailed questions to 1) a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, 2) a Boston College professor, 3) a University of Massachusetts professor, 4) an immigration attorney, 5) a Nova Scotia fisherman, and 6) a former deputy chief of the United States Border Patrol. That's more time networking than writing, which is the cost of doing business for a procedural writer.

I began my writing life as a newspaper reporter (two years after college), so I know how to find and cull information. (Often, I send multiple experts the same questions so I can cross-reference the answers.) And research is vital to writing fiction, especially considering today's information-savvy readers. In our genre, fact-based fiction is the primary difference between procedurals and other other sub-genres (amateur sleuth and private investigator crime fiction). For me and this project, most importantly, lots of people know something of the Syrian refugee crises; therefore, I flat out have to get these details right or the novel will collapse under the weight of failed reader-expectations.

All of which brings me to the question of how much fiction is fiction? And maybe even how much fiction should be fiction? Yes, I research. For some books more than I enjoy. (Robert B. Parker is a hero to me because he knew human nature and the human condition well enough to write clear, riveting novels that dealt with little else.) But today's readers, particularly those who favor procedurals, demand and deserve authentic portrayals of the professions writers explore, be it life as a homicide detective or the life of my US Border Patrol agent. Subsequently, research makes my books better.

And that's the bottom line.

Getting Unstuck

I’m back from Vegas and heavily into finishing my third book, which is due at the end of April. About now, I’m wishing for my own personal Groundhog Day, like in the movie, where the same day repeats over and over again. I’m not where I’d like to be and would welcome the extra time.

One difference I have noticed between writing book 2 and book 3 is that I haven’t gotten stuck as much. I prefer the term stuck to writer’s block. Stuck indicates it’s a temporary phase that can be gotten past while writer’s block seems far more permanent. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve figured out ways to jog my brain or if it’s just having more writing experience under my belt.

I read with interest Vicki’s recent post on the creative pause. How, in the past, those involved in a creative activity would pause when stuck, look out the window, get a drink of water, etc., to help kick start the process. Now, with the internet and constant access to the world, we no longer enter the world of the creative pause.

For book 3, I wrote the first draft longhand. Yes, using actual pen and paper. You remember those, right? The physical act of putting ink to paper dislodges something in my brain and my thoughts start flowing. I get those chapters done much faster, plus I’ve avoided the plethora of cute cat videos available on the internet.

Most people don’t take such a drastic approach. Instead, some writers, like Vicki mentioned in her post, have two computers, one used for writing and one used for email, research, etc. Looking at a computer screen can sometimes cause my mind to freeze up, so I prefer writing longhand for the first draft. (Pretty funny coming from someone who has two degrees in Computer Science, isn’t it?)

Here are some other things I do to help me get unstuck:

• Take a walk, clean a room, reorganize a cupboard. I’ve come up with solutions to problems and some of my best ideas while exercising, cleaning the bathroom or reorganizing a kitchen cupboard. Plus, I’ve done something good for myself or my home. I keep a pad of paper nearby to jot down the ideas so I don’t forget them. I also have a digital voice recorder and keep it handy.

• Work on some other part of the project. If I’m having a problem with a particular chapter or scene, I work on a different chapter or scene. Usually, there’s something that’s niggling on my brain, aching to be written. This is the first book I’ve not written in order. It’s been an interesting experience.

• Look at the writing from a different perspective. Try writing in a different room. Or get out of the house and try writing in a different location altogether. If I’m editing a draft on the computer, sometimes I’ll print out a chapter and look at it on paper instead of on the screen.

• Ask yourself what your characters are doing ‘behind the scenes’. If I’m stuck on what’s going to happen next, I ask myself what the antagonist or other characters are doing at this point in the story. This is the stuff that’s happening ‘behind the scenes’ that won’t make it to the page. The consequences of this activity will, however. e.g. in a mystery, the murderer feels your main character is getting too close to the truth so he sets fire to your character’s garage. Your character has to deal with the consequences of the action. That might delay her investigation or she might come up with evidence that will bring the murderer to light.

• Look over characters’ bios. I write bios of my major characters before I start writing so I get to know them better. Looking over those notes will often help me remember who they are and what they want. That helps me figure out what actions they would take under various circumstances.

• Interview the main character. This goes hand in hand with the previous suggestion. Ask the character questions and type out the responses. What were they thinking when X did Y? What do they want in a particular scene? How did they feel?

• Take a drive. I use a digital voice recorder set to voice activation mode to capture the ideas when they come to me.

• Start with the dialog. For me dialog often comes first. If I can’t visualize a scene, I write out the dialog and, as the characters are speaking, I can figure out what they’re doing. As I refine the dialog, the prose surrounding it slowly gets hammered out.

If none of the above works, I give up for the day. I know from experience, it doesn’t help to force the situation too much. But I’m right back at it the next day. What do you all do to get those creative juices flowing and get unstuck?

Why writers are their own worst enemies

by Rick Blechta

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been bouncing back and forth between my three jobs (graphic design, music, and of course, writing). It’s not as if I don’t do this a lot, it’s just that it’s been much more intense lately and therefore more noticeable to me.

First, I have a new novella being released by Orca next fall. I’ve had to focus my attention first on getting the copy-edited ms back to Orca, but second, on thinking about how I’m going to do my share of the promotion, organize signings and do a book launch.

My 9-member soul band, SOULidified also has a critical gig fast approaching. We’re expected to promote it (sound familiar?) and that’s a huge responsibility – and a time-consuming one. (In light of that, I encourage everyone to visit the band’s website (soulidifiedband.com) and to “like” the band on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SOULidifiedBand/.) We thank you!

Finally, I have an enormous graphic design job that I’m in the middle of. It has taken hours to get it to the mid-point and will take many hours more before it’s sent off to the printers and web people. The sad thing is: most of what I’ve written and designed will get chucked into the garbage since it has to do with renewals for a well-known Canadian magazine, and those renewal letters almost always get chucked out immediately. Sad but true.

So, you can see that my three endeavors are all creative and all artistic in nature. It’s what I do and that’s because it’s what I’m good at, and to a large extent I really enjoy doing it.

But to get back to today’s topic – and to explain why the introduction to this post is so long and detailed – most of what I do pays squat. I need three jobs to make ends meet, and even then, I’m certainly not on the road to easy street. Why? Because I’m not really that good at any of these things, so therefore my income is low? Au contraire, I’m pretty darn good. Understand, I’m not a boastful person by nature, but I also understand that one can devalue one’s talent by being modest. I don’t usually say this out loud. I’m a very good musician. I write well. And enough people value my copywriting and design skills to give me employment helping to promote their businesses.

So why is my income not big enough to allow me to concentrate on one endeavor and still survive? The answer is simple: income for all three of my jobs has been steadily declining. Since Type M is about writing, let’s concentrate on that.

It’s become clear to me by hanging around with a lot of writers that we do what we do because we have to. The need to tell stories is very akin to an addiction. I’m not alone when I feel withdrawal on those days when I don’t write.

But crafting a novel, novella or short story takes time. In order to justify that as much as the desire to have people read or stories drives writers to look for payment. Trust me, starving in a cold garret is no fun. There is also the possibility of not just getting paid, but getting paid very well if you “hit one out of the park” and that’s a very big incentive to keep working.

Trouble is, most of us don’t hit one out of the park. What happens then? Well, you can no longer expect much money when you sign a contract with any publisher these days. When the whole advance-against-royalties idea was inaugurated, its purpose was to allow a writer the financial support to complete their writing project. “We’ll make sure you don’t starve so you can complete the terms of your contract with us and deliver your ms.”

Most publishers have conveniently forgotten this of late. Economics has a large part to play in this. Most are hanging on by the skin of their teeth (or so they claim). But even so, publishers know one very important thing: writers will do nearly anything to get their work into print.

We now work for slave wages. I know a publisher that generally offers $1000 to complete an 80,000-word novel. I worked it out. For me it works out to $1.85 per hour start to finish (and that doesn’t include my time spent on promotional activities that are now “required” of all authors.

Why do we do it? Why don’t we just walk away? Some do. Maybe they’re the smart ones. The rest of us can’t. We have to tell stories.

So we put up with miserable financial return on our labour. We take large amounts of time to promote our work. We pay money for websites, publicity, and drive hours to readings and signings, all because it’s part of the game.

Is it too much to ask for reasonable compensation for creating product for the publishing industry?

Just ask the writers, painters, actors, sculptors, dancers and musicians. We’re all in the same boat. Those who sell our art realized a long time ago that artists are addicted to creating their art and are willing to put up with a lot in order to do it. It’s sad but true.

And don’t get me started on the music industry…

Creative Spaces

By Vicki Delany

I am in Vietnam right now, and no doubt having a marvellous time. So I searched for an old blog post that could use an update.  I wrote this back in 2009. I have solved the problem, and I tell you how at the bottom.

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CBC radio runs a programme called Spark which is all about the world of computing and the Internet and how it is changing our lives. Today I heard an interview which stuck with me. The guest was talking about creative spaces. Meaning spaces as in gaps, not physical places.

She said that in the past when people were engaged in a creative activity, which of course to me means writing, if they got to a point where they were stuck, they would take a break and look out the window perhaps, have a glass of water, let their mind move. This even works with something as minor as looking at the flowers on your desk or the picture you keep there of your loved ones. Then, once your mind was in the place of the creative gap, it would kickstart itself (I am now using completely my own interpretation of what she had to say), and you’d return to the creative task with a fresh idea.

In the age of the Internet, however, as soon as we have a momentary pause, we flip over to Outlook to send off an e-mail and read three others, or we check our Facebook account, or Tweet to #writing to say we how hard we are writing.

We are not entering a place of the creative pause.

I have absolutely noticed that with myself. Sometimes, I don’t even realize that I’m doing it.  The mind will hesitate over the next thing to happen in the book, and wham! my fingers have sought out the Inbox. I have tried closing down mail and all browsers. Works for about fifteen minutes and I have to check quickly to see if anyone thinks I’m important enough to send me an e-mail.

I have talked to writers who have two computers, one for writing and one for all other stuff. That sounds like a great idea, but I don’t want two computers, I don’t want to get into having to shift documents around between one and the other. I have a laptop and a wireless router because I like to carry the laptop around the house and take it outside.

You know where this is going, don’t you?  I’m going to have to switch the router off when I’m writing.

I started thinking about whether the constant access to the Internet has affected my own writing. I’ve written before about how invaluable it is for doing research, but I’m thinking now about the creative process itself.

I have always written fiction on a computer. Way back in the ‘80s I was one of the few people I knew to have a computer in the house – my company gave me one to take home. It was an IBM PS/2 as I recall. Of course we didn’t have the Internet, or not something totally all-encompassing then. When did it become such an integral part of our lives?  By 2000 at least, I guess.

At a guess, my first three books were written without the constant presence of the Internet. Are they different, most importantly are they better, than what I have written since? I can’t say. When I worked full time I wrote in the evening, usually with a glass of wine at hand. Now I write in the morning with a pot of coffee at elbow and that has probably had a strong effect on the quality of my prose also!

Tomorrow, I’ll switch the router off.

Coming April 5, 2016, now available for pre-order

Let’s hope my head doesn’t explode.  

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2016 Update:  My head didn’t explode, but I gave in and bought a dedicated writing computer, a small netbook. I have talked about how I now write standing up, but what’s important for this conversation is that what I use when standing up is totally dedicated to one thing only: writing a novel. I don’t even use it to write these blog posts.  I have never set up email and I have never even opened the browser. It seems to be working fine for me. 

I do have it connected to the internet, because I use Dropbox for backup and sharing.  And that's been a boon too.

Marketing for Fiction Writers

I wanted to follow the eloquent posts this week by Donis and Barbara with my own thoughts about Women's History Month. But I'm going to wait until next time and think a bit more. This post will be about marketing. I suspect I may be more susceptible to a sales pitch than my colleagues on Type M because I study mass media/popular culture. I am sometimes drawn in while I'm analyzing what is happening. A really good marketing strategy leaves me wanting to see if the product lives up to the hype. Yesterday morning, I watched a marketing master at work.

I tuned into a webinar conducted by publishing executive and life coach, Michael Hyatt. I discovered Hyatt because he was mentioned in a non-fiction author's blog post. She had a link to his website, and I found him interesting enough to read a few of his posts -- and ended up on his mailing list. I received an invitation to join his webinar, offered at several convenient times. He promised to tell me the three questions I needed to ask and answer to set my life priorities. Now, I should say here that he caught me at a vulnerable moment. Within the past couple of weeks, I'd almost said "yes" to something that I knew would be stressful and require a learning curve. I managed to step back and ask myself if I was the best person to do this and, more important, how would this affect all the others things I had committed to getting done within the next few years. But it was a close call, and it made me aware of those time management issues that I am always trying to balance. That made me an excellent prospect for Hyatt's webinar.

I tuned in -- but I almost logged out in the first ten minutes. Hyatt began his presentation by jarring his listeners to attention. In his conversational tone, he mentioned his friend who was an actuary. He had asked his friend how many of the thousands of people attending the webinar were likely to be dead in the next two years. He shared the statistics. Only a few, but not what you want to hear as you're sipping your morning coffee. Before his listeners could flee in horror, Hyatt followed up with the acknowledgment that he had delivered unsettling news. Knowing he was going to do that he had looked for humor in the situation and found it in the form of amusing last words on tombstones. As we were recovering from the "Boo!" we'd just gotten from the Grim Reaper and chuckling along, Hyatt moved into his presentation -- about having an opportunity to design the legacy we would leave behind. During the next 40 minutes or so, Hyatt provided a blueprint for identifying priorities and staying on track. When he was done, he offered his book for sale -- sharing the major league blurbs and early sales ranking. He also offered more giveaways to those who would make their purchase and enter the information from the sales receipt.

I was impressed by Hyatt's marketing, but I didn't buy -- until I was in a bookstore later in the day. I remembered his book, but didn't see it. I asked about it as I was checking out and was told the book was just out and not in stock. Asked if I wanted to order, I said yes. Even though I hadn't ordered his book after his webinar, Hyatt had found a way to influence my buying behavior. At the end of his presentation, he had quoted psychological research on failure to follow through. I had linked failing to buy his book with failing to set my priorities and being vulnerable to "opportunities" that were not right for me. The fascinating aspect of his strategy was that he had given me enough information during the webinar to be able to implement his blueprint. But I thought I would do it better with his book in hand.

Hyatt hooked me because he tapped into a universal fear. Then he offered  me a way to harness the anxiety he had induced. He convinced me that he had the solution to my problem. He could be confident that I and other members of his webinar audience would be receptive because we were the people who allowed him to reach out to us.

The challenge for fiction writers is to identify the readers who respond to us the way I did to Hyatt. We have to identify the readers who would be interested in our books and then get their attention in a crowded marketplace. We blog, we tweet, we do YouTube trailers. We sign in bookstores, do talks in libraries. Attend conferences and participate in panels. We Skype, send out newsletters, and do workshops. Most of us try not to shout "buy my book" or become spammers. But are there lessons we can learn from a master marketer like Hyatt about offering something of value and connecting with readers at a deeper level?

An Interesting Time for a Writer, and Women's History Month

Left Coast Crime is over and the Tucson Festival of Books is coming up this weekend. I’ll be teaching a class on writing historical mysteries while I'm in Tucson, as well as participating in a panel with other historical mystery authors.* It’s always a boost to be around other writers. This is such a solitary life that sometimes you wonder if you're not just a voice crying in the wilderness. It's a mystery to me how a book ever gets written, to tell the truth. I've written books in the midst of personal crises that went on for months, but then found myself paralyzed when nothing in particular was going on with the rest of my life. But  however lovely it is to get out in the world, I must say that I’m beginning to get tired. And poor. As authors continually point out, you can’t help but wonder if all this travel and outlay and acting as free entertainment just for the exposure is really worth it. Especially when you can hardly find the time to finish your novel.

Things are changing so fast in the publishing world that nobody can keep up. How can one plan for the future? You can’t predict which of the numberless trends is going to have legs and which is going to fizzle out. We begin to understand the true meaning of the Chinese curse that that you should live in interesting times.

I detect a lot of fear about what’s going to happen, and resentment, because it seems that in the publishing world the authors are way down on the food chain, and no matter what format or delivery system comes out on top, the producers of the primary product will be the last to profit. (Rather like farming. Or the music biz.)

When J.D. Salinger, the famously reclusive author of Catcher in the Rye, died, he left piles, stacks, boxes, rooms-full of manuscripts that he had written just for his own enjoyment, any one of which he could have sold for an astronomical advance. He made the conscious choice to create art strictly for art’s sake. He was able to maintain this philosophy because the first book he wrote made him a millionaire. The rest of us can’t afford the luxury of such high ideals.  Sometimes I wish for the days when artists were supported by wealthy patrons.

I do like to tell stories, though, and will do my best to keep telling them however I may.

On another note, March is Women’s History Month, but since I write a historical mystery series featuring a female protagonist, every month is Women’s History Month for me. According to the National Women’s History Project, “the history of women often seems to be written with invisible ink. Even when recognized in their own times, women are often not included in the history books.”

Women’s lives – and I mean the real, everyday, down and dirty business of women’s lives, past and present – aren’t included that often in fiction, either. A traditional woman’s life has historically not been seen as very glamorous, or held much interest for those who didn’t have to, or choose to, live it.

But considering the things a woman often had to cope with in the past, we ought to be incredibly interested in their lives, if for no other reason than to make sure we don’t slip backwards and lose the rights and respect we’ve earned. Case in point: read Barbara Frandkin’s post, below.
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Check out my TFoB schedule here

Women's Work

Tuesday was International Women's Day, and the news was filled with articles and stats on how far we have come (gender parity in Canada's federal cabinet) and how far we still have to go (spousal assault stats, gender wage gap). Having been born in the immediate post War years and come of age in the social revolution of the 60s, I have marched some distance along the long road towards equality. In those nearly seventy years, it's easy to forget–and indeed, some never knew– how far we have come. My now 97 year-old mother has been my inspiration and role model for a strong, independent woman. She was born to relative privilege and attended private school in Westmount followed by finishing school in Paris, in the days when young ladies went to finishing school to get ready for their debut into "society". But while her friends practiced their courtesies and schemed over their dance cards, she chose instead to take the McGill university entrance exams. While those fine young ladies paraded their pedigrees and assets in the hopes of securing a hefty diamond ring by the end of the season, my mother was studying philosophy and science and dreaming of her place in the world.

Yet she was trapped by her era, her dreams stifled by her time and by the men who held the power over her life. She came from a long line of physicians and surgeons who had helped build the McGill medical school and the affiliated Montreal teaching hospital into a force to be respected internationally. Like her grandfather, father, and older brother before her, she wanted to be a doctor, but was told it was no job for a woman, who had neither the health nor the stamina for it. At 97, she sure has proved them wrong! So she did graduate work in biology and bacteriology instead, and when the reality of family responsibilities encroached, she became a high school biology teacher. But what a teacher! Innovative and creative throughout her teaching years, she wrote text books, developed a new ecology curriculum decades before its time, acted as president of her teaching union, and inspired countless students. After she retired, she went on to settle refugees and participate in social action and social justice causes, earning at the age of eighty a Caring Canadian Award from the Governor General of Canada. At 87, she wrote a book.

As her daughter, I had it slightly easier. But when I wanted to go to graduate school, the universities still required a letter from my father proving he could support me. When I wanted to buy a car, the bank required my husband to co-sign the loan, even though I was a professional on an equal footing with him. When I enrolled in my doctoral psychology program, the class consisted of nine men and me. Many of those men had wives who cooked their meals and did their laundry, allowing them to stay all hours at the lab. I had a great but lonely husband who just looked sad when the meals were late and the laundry forgotten. When I first started working as a school psychologist, women dominated the classrooms in elementary schools and made up about half of high school teachers, but there was only one woman principal in the whole school board. The higher you got in the school board, the more men dominated.

I'm happy to say times have changed. Women are everywhere in psychology and teaching and school board administration. They are dominant in many fields of university study, including law and medicine. But there is still this niggling reality that the fields dominated by women are the "soft", "nurturing" fields, and that the pay in these fields is not equal to the power-broker fields of science, tech, finance, and business, where it's still a man's world. I vividly recall a comparative entry-level income survey done between psychologists (who require a PhD and roughly 25 years of study) and regular engineers (a B Eng and less than 20 years). The engineers started at about $20K more than psychologists. At the time, I thought it's a good thing I love my work!

What does this have to do with this blog, which is after all a blog about writing? Because in some ways, the underlying themes hold true. Since I started my second career as a writer, I have banged my head against the same glass ceiling, encountered the same biases against women's stories the same undervaluing of women's choices, and the same preconceptions about the worth of women's work. An unpublished author, in an effort to find out why agents and publishers were rejecting her submissions, changed her name (and nothing else) to a male pseudonym and received eight times as many expressions of interest. Male authors receive more reviews, more festival invitations, more offers from the big publishers. And when it comes to prestigious awards, men win hands down.

Since recent surveys of publishing and literary agents reveal an overwhelming majority are white women, our sisters seem to be perpetuating the same message; men's stories matter more. And here's a recent anecdote to illustrate this. At the conference I just attended,  our Canadian contingent of crime writers organized a reception to highlight Canadian Crime. Pictures of all of us were posted to Facebook, prompting several commenters to ask "Are there no male Canadian crime writers?" There was one, but he was lost in the sea of hard-working women toiling on behalf of all of us. It's just what we do. What we have to do.

So it seems it is not yet time to lay down the sword and declare the battle won. But every time I grumble grumble grumble, I just have to remember my mother– where she came from and how far she travelled, against far greater odds than me. And if if all else fails, there's always the plucky thought "It's a good thing I love my work!"

Stuff and blather

by Rick Blechta

Sorry I missed my spot last Tuesday. I was sick as a dog with a 24-hour bug of some sort. I’ll spare all and sundry the gory details, but to demonstrate how horrible I was feeling all that day, I’ll tell you this: I didn’t even turn on my computer. I can’t remember when that last happened. I also felt horribly guilty for abandoning my duties.

Today’s post will kind of bounce around to various things that I’ve been cogitating on but which don’t warrant a full post. Here goes…

The publishing industry continues to go through a pretty amazing period of upheaval. I won’t go into how authors are getting an even shorter end of the stick through all this. I sometimes wonder if we ink-stained wretches should form a union and start negotiating with the publishing industry as a united group. I’m sure the idea has been floated before. Knowing how writers operate, I can imagine the chaos putting together an organization like this would create, and there would always be those who prefer to travel their own path — making the whole exercise even more difficult. Like everything else in the arts these days, authors are preyed on by others to do more and more things for free. If we could go back as recently as 50 years, we would realize how radically the writer’s plight has changed — and we’re expected to do it for even less.

I’m continually amazed at how book cover design seems to be going downhill. A lot of it can be explained by the rise of self-publishing. As much as it irks me at times, there is a good reason publishers try to keep authors at a distance when it comes to creating a “face” for their works. From speaking to authors, both mainstream and self-published, it’s pretty clear that the relative simplicity of cover art (only three main ingredients: title, author and image) causes them to think that book covers are simple things when the direct opposite is true. But I’m also finding the art departments of mainstream publishers taking an increasingly cavalier approach to book cover design. With few exceptions, cover art is chosen by cost, rather than commissioned. This means that those images are becoming generic and disconnected. If you’re a big-name author, your works’ covers might not even get an image, just huge type with your name and the book’s title. And that’s a cover? It’s a disturbing trend.

Lastly, I notice that Barnes & Noble is abandoning the Nook reader. I love it when an industry gets everyone to buy into some new technology only to have it chucked because some other competing technology beat it out. Remember the short-lived HD DVDs? Blu-Ray smoked that in not much more than a year. Sure, we can always expect technology to move on and improve, but it’s the idea of one knocking out another competing platform that gets my goat. Will Kindle go on to destroy Kobo? Amazon sure hopes so. But in the end, it’s always the consumer who suffers – in their pocketbook. This sort of thing gets tedious after awhile.

Do you have anything that bugs you like this?

Addiction

I was so interested in Vicki's post last week about why it is that she writes. I felt really envious when she said that she doesn't have to write. Because I do.

I think I've shared with you before my little fantasy that at my christening party the Good Fairy was invited but the Bad Fairy wasn't. The Good Fairy wanted to give me a wonderful gift, the Bad Fairy wanted to put on a horrible curse: they both spoke together and said, 'She shall be a writer.'

What is it that drives me? I don't know, I only know that when I'm not writing, I'm miserable. Sometimes I'm miserable when I am writing – when the story sticks, when the characters won't do what I want them to, when the inspiration doesn't seem to be there – but I know it would be much, much worse if I didn't.

But when it's working well, when I feel as if all I'm doing is taking down dictation from somewhere and my fingers can't keep up – ah, that's the hit that feeds my addiction.  I can't give up.

I wonder sometimes what people think about when half of their mind isn't on the story they're currently working on. For me it's a bit like living with a split screen; I'm quite adept at providing an answer to questions I haven't really heard, a talent I think I developed at school to cope with the teacher who would ask, 'What did I just say?' when she noticed I was daydreaming.

So I can't claim to write for anyone except me. I'm thrilled when other people join me for the ride - readers' emails are the very nicest part of being an author – but if they didn't, I'd still be there at the desk telling myself the story I'm writing because I want to know how it ends.

Presenting Erika Chase ...and Linda Wiken

This weekend, our guest blogger is my good friend and fellow Canadian author, Erika Chase. In a parallel life Erika, AKA Linda Wiken, is a former mystery bookstore owner.
The fifth book in the Ashton Corners Book Club Mysteries, Law and Author, came out last Sept. A new series, the Dinner Club Mysteries is due in July under her real identity (Linda Wiken). Toasting Up Trouble introduces the Culinary Capers gang. She’s a member of those deadly dames, the Ladies’ Killing Circle. She's been nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel for A Killer Read and for an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story from Crime Writers of Canada. Her website is www.erikachase.com. Please welcome Erika, and Linda!

_____________

A couple of weeks ago, one Type M blogger wrote about mystery conferences. Now I’d like to present you with a cozy view of the conference world. And believe me, it’s a different one.
Of course, rule number one, is choose your conference. For those of us who write cozies, Malice Domestic, held the last weekend in April or first in May every year, in Bethesda, MD is the place to be. There’s a good mix of writers and readers which provides a great opportunity to renew friendships, share ideas and grab some tips, and to foster new readers all the while having a fun time schmoozing.

The secret is this – cozy readers love cozy mysteries and that means, they love meeting the authors. If you don’t think you’re a cozy reader, beware – you might be. Cozy refers to a gentler mystery, one where excesses in sex, language and violence seldom if ever grace the page. Of course, there are murders! But there’s not the detailed descriptions nor the accompanying forensics to taint the reader’s gentle reading experience.

More often these days, cozies are alternatively referred to as traditional mysteries. You know, like Agatha Christie used to pen. We have a puzzle, a full cast of characters, and a setting that plays a large role. In fact, most cozy mysteries come in series, because the readers want to meet their characters in more than one book and see how their lives evolve.

Do not make the mistake of thinking cozies are fluff. Of course, some may be, but by and large they deal with important social issues, they highlight strong heroines in the roles of amateur sleuths, and justice prevails. Some are decidedly edgier than others; some are more humorous; some appeal to pet lovers; some to handicrafters…cozies run the gamut of reading tastes.

Another conference that fits that bill is Left Coast Crime which appeals to a wider audience but where cozy writers and readers also feel welcome. Having just come back from LCC 2016 in Phoenix, AZ (another advantage of this conference set in the dead of winter – the hot left coast locations!), I’m still pumped and have jumped back into my rewrites with renewed vigour.

There are also numerous regional mystery conferences across the country such a Killer Nashville, Magna Cum Murder, and Sleuthfest. In fact, you probably don’t have to travel too far to find one that fits your reading and writing tendencies.

Promotion is such an important part of being an author these days and being visible is a key factor in this. It’s all well and good to use social media but nothing can beat face-to-face and word-of-mouth.

So, my advice is to save your pennies, choose wisely, and to go out and enjoy!

I’d like to end with a special thank you to my good friend Barbara Fradkin for inviting me to Type M for Mystery!

A Tinkerer's Process

One week. Two books.

It happens every year: I get deep into next year's book – into that space where the little voices inside my head won't leave me alone, and I'm thinking of the characters and the plot when I walk, eat, even wake from sleep thinking about the book I'm writing.

Then the package arrives containing the proof pages of this year's book. I push the voices aside, take up my pencil, and make any final, final edits. It's stressful and time consuming, and when I'm done and have emailed any necessary changes to my editor always leaves me having to reread the entire work-in-progress again, starting from page one.

Rereading is always a good thing. Partially because I'm a tinkerer. I'm the kind of writer who is "never finished." I can tweak and cut and tweak and cut until the final manuscript looks like this:

,

Yes, a single comma.

One thing I've found over the years is that I edit best on paper, not on the computer screen – an odd admission for a teacher who only collects papers electronically and who corrects them on an iPad. But, for me, there's something to be said for editing in longhand.

Here's the work-in-progress:

It's ugly. Not a line escaped revision. And this is third draft.

I've written on Type M that I listen to my work using text to speech as part of my editing process. That's extremely helpful. But, for me, during the early stages especially, nothing beats sitting down with pencil and pages in the quiet of an early-morning house and slashing away.

I'd love to start a thread and hear about others' editing process.

An Oasis in the Desert

Sybil here. As you read this, I’m on my annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the Creative Painting convention. Right now I’m probably prowling the trade show floor in search of the latest designs and supplies to spend money on.

I’ve loved Vegas ever since my first visit in the late 70s when I was in college. Something about it fascinates me. Normally, I dislike crowds and excess noise but I make an exception for two places: Sin City and Disneyland.

Vegas is a city of constant change. There’s always something new to see. The casinos on the Strip reinvent themselves on almost a yearly basis. They add rooms, change themes and attractions, refurbish their look... Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of those changes myself. Most of the really old casinos on the Strip are long gone. Circus Circus remains but across the street the Riviera is now closed, waiting to be imploded to make way for convention and meeting facilities for the nearby convention center.

It should come as no surprise that I like fiction set in Vegas as well as non-fiction accounts of its history. The most recent mystery I read that was set there is Ghost of a Gamble by Sue Ann Jaffarian, book 4 in the Ghost of Granny Apples mystery series.

In it, spiritual medium Emma Whitecastle with the help of the ghost of her great-great, etc., grandmother, Granny Apples, solves a mystery “involving a casino heist gone bad, a hidden stash of stolen loot, and a missing wise guy who’s not letting death come between him and setting things straight.” If you like a little paranormal in your mystery, check it out. It’s a fun read.

On the non-fiction end, I’ve been reading Sharks in the Desert by John L. Smith, a history of Las Vegas from its mob beginnings to around 2005 when the book was published. A lot has changed in the past ten years, but it’s still an interesting read. Super Casino: Inside the “New” Las Vegas by Pete Earley is also worth reading.

The Las Vegas Sun Times maintains a history section of its website with all kinds of interesting information on the city from maps to videos to a timeline of its history. I particularly like the interactive map of the Strip where you can see how it’s changed decade by decade.

That’s it for me for now. Hope you’re all having a good week. I’ll see you after I get back from Vegas.

For the Sake of Humanity

By Vicki Delany

It can be hard, sometimes, to come up with something new and interesting to say every two weeks here at Type M. My colleagues often have insightful comments and thought-provoking essays about the state of the world or the creative drive. Me, not so much.

SO, when I was trying to find inspiration for this weeks' attempt, I went back to the archives. I found something I wrote seven years ago. I'd say it still holds true.

**

Why Do I write?

I do it for the sake of humanity.

I have to admit that I have no overwhelming need to write. No particular drive. I don’t go gaga if denied the opportunity to write. If I can’t write... I don’t.

I guess I do it because it’s fun and I like it. Sorry. Not even the overwhelming desire for fame and fortune forces me to put fingers to keyboard (and if that had been my motivation I would have given up a long time ago).

As I was preparing this confessional missive, to prove, once and for all, that I am a frivolous writer, I happened upon a discussion about a book titled The Origin of Stories by Brian Boyd. (http://www.salon.com/books/review/2009/05/18/evocriticism/index.html)

Boyd argues that we write because it is an evolutionary imperative.

“when we create and share stories with each other, we build and reinforce the cooperative bonds within groups of people (families, tribes, towns, nations), making those groups more cohesive and in time allowing human beings to lord it over the rest of creation.”

Stories, even made up stories, help us to negotiate the social world in which we, the most social of all species, live. The book argues that “Fiction also fosters a part of cognition known as the ‘theory of mind,’ one person's understanding that another person has feelings, desires, intentions and beliefs, the latter of which may or may not be correct.”

Which happens to be a point that I have often made about the vital importance of reading versus other leisure activities such as watching TV or going to the movies or listening to music on your iPad. Only by reading do we actually get to step into another person’s head. We can watch a movie, and identify with the character, understand his/her motivations, root for the hero, but we are still outsiders, as we are in real life. We are observing that person, we are not that person.

I’m reading Hard Rain by Barry Eisler at the moment. As I read that book, written in the first person POV of a hired assassin, I AM the assassin. I am watching over my shoulder constantly, checking every step I make, contently planning an escape route, trusting no one. I can break a man’s neck with a twist of my hand.

Will I ever have to know those skills here in Prince Edward County, Ontario?

Probably not. And if I had to, I’d forget them all in an instant. But my point is, and I think the point of Boyd’s book, is that I have an insight into a portion of humanity that I would not otherwise ever be able to have.And that insight helps to forge the social bonds that are essential for the survival of humanity.

I now know why I write: I do it for the good of the human race.

You can thank me later.

The Con Game

When I first I got published, I couldn't wait to attend the various mystery cons like Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, and Men of Mystery. What I soon discovered was that the audience seemed to be mostly other mystery writers and those fans in attendance were there for the big name headliners. Typical of any fan response was when I hosted a Men of Mystery table and I could tell the people were disappointed in being assigned to a writer of vampire novels. At mystery cons, fans are interested in the authors of traditional hardback mysteries and fantasy stories are usually ignored. Of course, if my name was Charlaine Harris or Joe Hill, then it would've been a different ball game. As it was, I'd be lucky to sign five copies of my books. I tried a couple of ThrillerFests. Each long weekend would set me back close to two grand for airfare, hotel, conference fee, meals, and the bar tab. For my money and trouble I'd get one panel, usually at 9 AM, and maybe ten people in the audience.

On the other hand, science-fiction/fantasy cons proved worth attending. A literary event like MileHiCon will attract over 1,200 attendees, while the various Comic Cons will bring in tens of thousands, numbers that rival the L.A. Times Festival of Books. (For the record, I've sold plenty of books there.) Last weekend I was at PensaCon--one of the smaller Comic Cons--and it tallied over 38,000 visitors. So you can see how the numbers at science-fiction/fantasy cons stack in my favor. Typically, I might sit on five-six panels and I can expect anywhere from thirty to fifty in the audience, sometimes over a hundred. Fans seek me out to sign my books or to meet me in the dealer's booth.

Lately, I've gotten connected with WordFire Press. What impressed me about their operation is that they hustle and sell books. Take a look at that booth--the Tower of Nerd--and compare that to what Barnes & Noble might offer. WordFire also cranks up the publicity machine to get the word out. But setting up and staffing that booth is work.

Don't get me wrong, Bouchercon and Left Coast Crime are a blast. Mystery writers are a great bunch to hang out with and toss back drinks. But publishing is a business and I have to follow the money.

Crime and Consequences

February is a "sweeps month" (a period during which data are collected from television viewers). Ratings are important, and on soap operas ("day-time dramas"), the writers lure their audience with hints of new plot twists and long-awaited "reveals" (when life-changing secrets known by the audience are revealed to the characters who have been going along in ignorance). These reveals are of personal and/or business betrayals – adultery and affairs, baby stealing (of an infant thought to have died and/or switched paternity tests), corporate conspiracies and dirty tricks, crime cover-ups (hit-and-run, is a favorite), drug and alcohol addiction/relapses…you get the idea. I could run through the alphabet. And the thing is, those of us who have watched a soap opera for years can predict weeks or even months in advance what is likely to happen when a reveal comes. In fact, soap operas writers often foreshadow the change-partners-and-hope-to-live-happily-ever-after romantic consequences that will follow the reveals.

This week on The Young and the Restless, a powerful thunderstorm roared through Genoa City, Wisconsin (home of three major corporations). As viewers knew they would, the lights went out and after some shuffling about and going out in this fierce storm for various reasons, two former couples (who are now married to other people) were sharing memories and concerns. Another pair, a younger brother and his somewhat older sister-in-law, were discussing their efforts to bring down the evil businessman, Victor Newman, and the consequences for their respective marriages if their spouses should find out. Did I mention that younger brother, Billy Abbott, is about to marry Victor Newman's daughter for the third (fourth?) time. A perpetually star-crossed union because Billy can't get his act together and the Abbotts own a family corporation that Victor Newman is forever trying to destroy, and Victoria is devoted to her father and works for him. Billy has promised – after almost dying, but making a miraculous recovery after life-support was turned off (and providing an opportunity for a new actor to step into the role – "now played by" ) – what was I saying? Oh, yes, we had foreshadowing…

And, if you are wondering why I'm recapping this week on The Young and the Restless, it's because Victor Newman has a gun in his office.

Just this week, he threatened the son of the Mafia family that he borrowed money from with that gun. Victor wants to pay back the money, but the son won't let him out of the deal and has forced his way into Victor's company. Victor has tried dirty tricks, now he is trying threats of bodily harm. The son is in hiding with Victor's granddaughter (who saw the threat with the gun on a hidden feed from Victor's office that Natalie, the computer nerd with the cyber-security invention that Victor wants, had put there). Natalie is afraid of Victor, too, because she is working with his competitors. Summer, the granddaughter, was so freaked out that she went down to tell Paul, the police chief, and his son, Dylan, a detective, that she thought her grandfather was going to have his son (who Victor is blackmailing about the paternity of a "dead" baby) kill the Mafia mobster (who is young and charming). And Nikki, Victor's long-suffering wife, a former stripper and alcoholic who is occasionally driven to drink, who has left and returned to him too many times to count, has learned that Victor brought about the rape of his rival's wife by kidnapping the real Jack Abbott on his honeymoon and substituting a double (a drug lord he found in a South American prison) for Jack. Jack's wife, Phyllis, a red-headed firebrand, spent months with fake Jack, gradually realizing something was wrong, but not able to figure out what (remember "willing suspension of disbelief"). When Jack returned, Victor threatened to reveal Jack had killed people (including his psychotic ex-lover) to escape. But Jack kept quiet for Phyllis's sake. She couldn't bear to have anyone know. But she wants revenge. She has been plotting with Jack's younger brother, Billy (who is about to find out what Victor did and has his own reasons for hating him). Nikki, the long-suffering wife overheard a conversation and she knows, too. She has decided she has to save Victor from himself, save his soul, by bringing him down. She is plotting with the son he is blackmailing.

And Victor has a gun.

I like to think that the writers might have cut their teeth on Dallas and are about to treat us to the Genoa City version of "Who Shot J.R.?" For months, viewers have been complaining on one of the discussion boards about how Victor gets away with all of his dastardly deeds. Many are convinced the writers read the discussion boards and respond eventually. Victor and his gun – who shot Victor? Who will undoubtedly not die and live to be dastardly again. But for a moment, his crimes will have consequences.

I've been thinking about The Young and The Restless because I'm writing an academic article about crime fiction for a digital encyclopedia. I have 8,000-10,000 words for my topic. I've been thinking about how pervasive stories about crime are in other popular culture genres. Even on soap operas – especially on soap operas – there must be a police department and attorneys and judges. These characters are a part of the cast and have their own secrets and woes. Arrests are made. But, on soap operas, justice is rarely done. Innocent people are put on trial; guilty people are saved from punishment because their crimes are covered-up or officials are blackmailed. But, even knowing, that in the fictional world of Genoa City, Victor, the villain, will find a way to protect his family and his company, viewers long for justice. They want to see Victor punished (not necessarily dead, but brought low). In fact, Victor has on occasion been temporarily defeated, but the people who love him always hope he can be brought to realize that what he does harms both them and himself. They hope they can save his soul.

So Victor has a gun. And on this soap opera, if the writers know their Chekhov, someone will use it. Will Victor be the victim? Will one of the people he has hurt pick up his own gun and shoot him? Tune in tomorrow, same time, same place. I'll be there trying to figure out why decades after I watched this soap opera as a child, with my mother (who was on maternity leave) that I am still tuning in. I'm pretty sure it is because of this weaving of mystery and romance and the characters (played by terrific actors) about whom the audience care and feel they know well. Yes, the writers sometimes seem to forget who the characters are (literally re-writing the back story longtime viewers remember) and yes, characters sometimes act "out of character" for the sake of plot. But then there are those moments, when the actors make the characters ring true and the plot takes a "didn't see that coming" twist.

As you might have gathered, this post is my thinking through crime in this genre. I won't treat my academic audience to this detailed account of what's been happening on The Young and the Restless. But I will discuss how crime and consequences turns up in other genres – soap operas, situation comedies, musicals. And audiences watch because they hope that justice will triumph. In soaps, it won't last, but there is that brief moment…an incredibly melodramatic moment that is morally questionable. We have those moments in our books. Except readers of traditional mysteries would expect a Victor Newman to die and set the investigation in motion. Then the secrets would be revealed.

Got to go, time to tune in.

Writer's Conferences I Have Known And Loved

I (Donis) am not actually here today, Dear Reader. I am attending the Left Coast Crime conference in Phoenix. I thought it would be interesting to post photos from the conference, but I am new to my phone/camera and don't yet know how to post pictures without being in physical contact with my computer. Perhaps if someone will lend me their ten-year-old to teach me, I'll learn how before my next picture-taking event.

So, in the interim, I am posting for your enjoyment photos from some of the many writer's/fan conferences I have attended over the past ten years. There are too many to cover every one, so I just picked out some highlights, especially if they are photos in which I look pretty good. Join me on my virtual trip down conference memory lane.

With Larry Karp, Bouchercon, Anchorage, AK

Women Writing the West, Colorado Springs, CO

Hmm. I'm wearing the same wrap, though these photos were taken some years apart. I like that durn wrap. I still wear it a lot.

Tucson, AZ

I like the red sunglasses. I do the Tucson Festival of Books every year. It is huge. Hundreds of authors and tens of thousands of readers attend.

Tucson, AZ

Of course the one thing an author almost always does at a conference is sign books. This signing is at Tucson with Elizabeth Gunn and Hilary Davidson

Malice Domestic, Bethesda, MD

My first Malice Domestic, With Charlotte Hinger and Clea Simon

OWFI Annual Conference, Oklahoma City, OK

Oklahoma Writer's Federation International. I'm standing on a mezzanine landing in the conference hotel. I taught three workshops here that year.

Murder Mysteries and the West, Tempe, AZ

That's me in the blue talking to a reader after the panel discussion. Barbara Peters, my editor and owner of Poisoned Pen Bookstore, is in the white, and the cowboy-hatted Reavis Wortham is next to her. Susan Slater is trying to hide behind the pillar.

Cozy Con, Phoenix, AZ

This event had so many well-known writers that I don't have room to list them all. (Besides the fact that this was a few years ago and I don't remember who a couple of these people are) How many can you name?

Cozy Con, Phoenix, AZ

Though I do have to mention these three, sitting on the left side, next to me on the end, because they are three of my favorite people: left to right, Carolyn Hart, Hannah Dennison, and Earlene Fowler.










(All photos taken by Donis Casey, Donald Koozer, or an obliging waiter.)

Juggling schedules and other silly things

Barbara here. Well, here it is, Tuesday evening just hours before my Type M post is due. Yikes! I am flying out to Left Coast Crime tomorrow morning at 7 a.m., I have ironing and packing to do, and because 5 a.m. is too early to even think of blow-drying my hair, I have to shower and do my hair tonight. Left Coast Crime is my favourite mystery conference, being held in Phoenix this year, a city about which I know almost nothing, except that it's in the desert and it's hot. Right now in Ottawa, the temperatures range from -25C on a bad day to 0 if you're lucky. My typical winter wardrobe consists of fleeces, wool long johns, fleeces, parkas, toques... Well, you get the idea.

In Phoenix, the temperature is apparently in the 25-30 C range. Tank tops, capri pants, and flip flops weather. So yesterday, I had to dig out my summer wardrobe, see whether any of it fit (winter, as we all know, is the time to add extra fat cells for insulation), wash and iron those articles of clothing that passed not only the "does it still fit" test but also the "can I wear this anywhere fancier than cleaning the oven" test. It's amazing the number of stains and holes that have appeared since I last wore those clothes.

But I now have a suitable wardrobe selected, washed, and piled on the ironing board. The suitcase lies open on the bed, half packed, waiting for those freshly ironed clothes. And I remember. Toenails! That's part of the summer fashion statement. All winter long the toenails are rarely seen, buried beneath socks and fur-lined moccasins, or stuffed into giant, clunky boots. Now they will be on full display! I love the freedom of sandals and flip flops. I love the sexy, flirty feeling of red-tipped toes. But I have a lot of work before these sorry-looking specimens are going to flirt with anyone!

Ta-dah!

I was just figuring out my timeline for the evening. Ironing, packing, showering, blow-drying, painting toenails... And then I remembered this blog. My schedule is shot to hell. So I apologize for this frivolous, fashionista-style rant. It will have to do for tonight. I promise that the serious writer will return next time, and report on all the important and profound things I learned at the mystery conference. But for now, red toenails await!

And if you're in Phoenix for Left Coast Crime, look me up to say hi, and I will show you the shallower, sillier side of being a writer! But what's a ying without a yang?

Keeping your “writing brain” in shape

by Rick Blechta

I haven’t been able to work on my novel for the past three+ weeks. It’s not that I don’t want to or can’t be bothered. It’s just that I have a huge graphic design job (that also includes writing the copy) on the go, something that would probably be more wisely accomplished by two people. But since my studio only has one lazy stupid employee (namely, me), the job has to fall onto that one person. So, for the moment, writing crime fiction had completely gone out the window.

But hey! I’m still writing, aren’t I? Only it’s advertising copy, but that’s still writing writing. Right? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

I found out that cold hard fact when I got home from a rehearsal last night feeling low and miserable (mostly due to the horrendous cold I currently have) and wanted to do something I wanted to do (other than practising, which wouldn’t fly after a two-hour rehearsal). I sat down to work on my current in-progress novel, read the chapter where I’d stopped back in January and stared at a blank page for the next chapter for at least five minutes. I knew what I wanted to write, but I just could not make it come out. Probing deeper, it was as if there was a screen between me and what I had planned to write.

Huh? Perhaps it was just that I was tired (I was, exhausted, actually). Because of the stimulus of rehearsal, my brain was nowhere near ready for sleep. What to do? I didn’t want to read; I really wanted to write!

My fail-safe dodge in these cases is to write something for the ms — maybe just not what I was planning on writing. I started down that pathway, but the blockage remained. Next tactic was going back and doing a bit of editing on previously written stuff. Problem was, I’d already done most of what I could — at least at this point in the process.

Now I was getting frustrated. What the heck was going on? I tried outlining what was supposed to happen in the new chapter: character X would realize this, while character Y, in a different location, would stumble onto new information, then there would be a phone call between the two characters. That’s not much to ask for, is it? How hard can that be?

I spread out each of the points on my page to allow space to actually write these three little scenes. I probed into my imagination for scene one. I couldn’t figure out how to begin. Scene two...not much. Scene three, however, did at least yield an opening sentence about character Y taking out her mobile to call character X. How would character X answer? (He’s a bit of an irascible bastard at times) Would he be in a good mood or a bad one? (Flipped a mental coin) Good mood. He tends to give out more personal information when he’s in a good mood, so I could work in a passing reference to something I’ve been looking to add about him for a couple of chapters.

Eureka, I was finally plugged in and going. I only got down about a page-worth of usable stuff before my tired brain pooped out, but at least I could go to bed feeling as if I’d accomplished something.

It wasn’t until this morning that I realized a good part of the issue last night was the fact that I hadn’t done anything with my novel over the past several weeks. Sure, I’ve been thinking about it. I’d even made a few notes. But I haven’t been exercising that creative part of my brain where the story is residing and it had atrophied to the point where I couldn’t easily connect with it.

The course ahead is clear: I have to make time to at least write something for the novel every day. Thinking about it won’t cut it, and making notes, while helpful, doesn’t do enough, either. I’ve got to be getting down actual prose every day or risk hitting that blank wall again.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Now you’ll have to excuse me, I’ve got until noon to help out my poor stalled ms.

Questions, questions

Like Vicki last week, I too have been enjoying my hibernation. We've even had a whole week with nothing at all in the diary and time to catch up on all sorts of stuff. But now the gales and rain we've had over the winter have given way to wonderful clear cold days with very blue skies, the snowdrops and crocuses are coming out and there is even a shy clump of primroses under a bush.

So the events are starting up again too. There are two in the next month, one a festival a hundred miles north, not far from Aberdeen and one closer to home here where I'll be speaking to a book club. Very considerately, they've primed me: they've told me they want me to think what are the three most common things I'm asked as a writer, and how I reply – much easier than having to um and er while I think about it.

The first one's easy – where do you get your ideas from? It's usually asked with a sort of 'Bet you never thought of this one!' expression. I always have to fight the temptation to say, 'Oh, didn't you know? There's this little shop in London. If you want an original idea, it's very expensive but second-hand ones are remarkably cheap,' but of course I don't.

The image I sometimes use is of the representation of the primordial soup that you can see in a museum in Edinburgh, Dynamic Earth; a sort of sludge swilling round and round and every so often a bubble rises to the top and bursts – that's my brain, coming up with an idea..

But of course the truth is that you get your ideas from everything, all the time – a snatch of conversation, a story in a newspaper, something you notice in passing – and then the idea works in your mind and the story emerges, if you're lucky. It's not a very neat answer, though – if anyone can suggest a better one, I will use it shamelessly.

Second question: what do you write with? It seems a bit irrelevant, particularly since nowadays I guess there are very few people who write on anything other than a computer, but  for me it is quite an interesting one, having cut my writing teeth in the days when you wrote longhand, then typed it up, in duplicate using a carbon, with a pot of Typex beside you that within days of opening would deposit sticky white blobs everywhere. And of course if you made ms changes, it meant not only retyping the page with those changes, but the subsequent pages as well if you wanted the finished document to look professional.

So moving on to a computer transformed my life, but the switchover took some time. I would write longhand, then get it up on the screen for revision. After that, I got to the stage where I could whizz along until I got to a point where something wasn't working and I'd go back to longhand – I always felt I could then 'hear'  my characters better. The day I realised I really  had transferred to computer completely was when I realised I was making 'hearing' spelling mistakes – 'your' for 'you're', 'there' for 'their'. (And thanks to Beelzebub – see previous posts – I had to return to longhand for a bit and I didn't like it at all.)

The third one, 'Do you put real people in your books?' is often followed by, 'You won't go putting me in one, will you?' with an arch look. The honest response would be, 'Not if I want anyone to read it, no,' but I usually say that I don't, in general, since characters in books can't be as inconsistent and unpredictable as real people are. But if pushed, I sometimes confess that there was one murder that gave me a therapeutic outlet and stopped me saying things to the person in question that I would have deeply regretted later – and of course I made sure she would never have recognised herself!

I'm looking forward to this book club meeting – they sound an interesting bunch. The only problem is I shall have to take time to re-read the book they've been reading since they will almost certainly remember more about it than I do!