My Weblog

The World Around Me

by Kris

I recently appeared on a writing panel to discuss setting. My prep on the subject reminded me that when I was a new writer, having published just a couple of short stories, I didn’t handle setting well. Actually, it wasn’t that I was bad at capturing a sense of place, it was more that I ignored it. I wrote, as I now often see my students writing, dialogue scenes set in a vacuum, action passages that take place in a fog. It just wasn’t a factor in my writing.

Nobody is equally adept at every aspect of the craft of writing, and our abilities don’t grow at identical rates. Most of us find we excel at some aspects of writing — maybe our dialogue sparkles, or a strong voice emerges pretty much on its own. And our abilities in those areas grow in leaps. We might not soar quite so fast with other aspects, but our improvement is steady and we gradually build more competence and confidence in those areas. But there are also other disciplines that just seem to elude us. We see our classmates, critique group members or other writing contemporaries sailing past us. And we wonder why we’re dragging behind when it comes to that skill.

Setting was my weakness. Unlike many new writers, however, it didn’t bother me that I didn’t relate to setting. I told myself that it was because all my fiction writing was limited to short stories then, and setting sometimes doesn’t play a significant role in stories.

But the root of my issue with setting went deeper than that. The truth was I didn’t consider my real life setting as significant, either. At some level, I think I saw myself as a gypsy, not tied to any one place. Where I got that idea, I couldn’t say. While I didn’t live in the place where I grew up, and we did move a bit too often in those early years — I’m a classic Cancer, a natural nester with a strong need for my home space. How I came up with my totally erroneous self-image I can’t imagine. But because I didn’t see myself as tied to place, I saw no point in writing it. When editors required a bit of setting as a condition of accepting a story, I put it in — and while those editors seemed happy with the result, the outcome always felt hollow to me.

One day something clicked, and I saw how ridiculous my assumptions were. My home was my sanctuary from the world, a world that sometimes leaned heavier on me than I would have liked. Would it have been able to touch me if I didn’t notice it there? I began to see how the place where I lived reflected my choices, and how I interacted with the things around me showed as much about me as it did about those objects.

The gypsy idea? Well, once the writing habit took hold, I limited my imaginings to the page, and saw my real life in its true colors.

Once I got it — the point of setting — I never again had trouble writing it. I simply opened myself personally to background, and it moseyed into my writing. My work, and my own life, became richer as a result.

Now I see too many students struggling with the same lack of setting. I see such naked dialogue, their books more closely resemble screenplays. I see characters who will use props if they must, but they insist on pulling them from the air, like magicians. I see settings so generic, they could be transferred from Anytown to Anytown and nobody would notice.

I keep reminding my students to work in setting. I keep telling them how necessary it is. Yet I can’t help wondering whether they simply don’t know how write it and resist learning, or if like me, there’s something in their thinking that blinds them to its value. I wonder if they’d regard me as crazy if I shared my gypsy story. Who has that little self-awareness? Instead, I limit myself to nudging, reminding and showing them once again how to write it, while I wait for something to click for them as it did for me. I know their books will be better, once they begin to allow setting into their writings. And maybe, once they open themselves to it, their lives, like mine, will be richer, too. 

My Job

Here's the thing, as TV characters are always saying   . . .

What I do is a job.

When people ask me how the muse strikes me, or what my inspiration is, I try not to laugh. My inspiration is a royalty check, and I am miles ahead of the muse. People also ask me what I do when I have writer's block, as though it was a frequent and communicable disease like the flu. I'll tell you what I do: I write anyway. I write a blog to use in the future, I write a long chatty email to my family, I review what I've already written to see if it jumpstarts my brain . . . but I write. And somehow the pump is primed again in this process, and the words start flowing again.

I have to write. It's my job.

Admittedly, there are elements that aren't present in most other eight to five jobs. There's no one looking over my shoulder (at least literally). There's no time clock. No one's going to tell the boss on me if I take an extra fifteen minutes for lunch. But at the end of the day, I won't get paid if I don't work, and no one will hire me again if I don't produce.

If you're looking for the romance of writing, you won't find it in my office. Here, there aren't any readers, my agent is thousands of miles away, my editor is just as far and busily editing another of her umpty-ump authors. They aren't phoning me with admiring comments to keep my ego boosted. They're doing their own jobs. There's just me in this office, and I'm not looking around at the framed reminders of the bigger world: my children, awards and certificates, cartoons, Jane Austen, New Orleans tomb art. I'm looking at the computer screen, and my fingers are flying, and I'm thinking, "What happens next?"

The work moments I enjoy the most are when, say, Sookie is about to get grabbed from behind . . . and I'm trying to decide who's grabbing her. If it's Bill, they'll have a long, tense, conversation about their past. If it's Eric, they'll have a lusty and nervewracking exchange. If it's Patrick Furnan, he'll threaten her. If it's Mr. Cataliades, something terrible will have happened. If it's Pam, she'll have important news. Or it could be someone completely new. Who to pick? And my choice will determine what happens next. And then, what happens after that. If I change my choice, the entire course of the book may become different.

Is this not fun on a cosmic-in-miniature scale? Am I not changing a world in a microscopic way? Well, I'm changing a microscopic world in a huge way. I may not be able to beat up the teacher that upsets my child, but I can manage this universe, by golly.

I may be all  alone in this office, but while I'm here, I'm the Queen.

And that's why I love this job.

Switch off the reflexes

By Dana

The electricity went off last weekend.  It wasn’t even during the recent cold snaps and it was before the crappy ice and snow storm we had.  It wasn’t a big deal.  We’d been shopping, we have the usual supplies for this kind of thing.  We were lucky; lots of other people across the country had it far worse.

After we ascertained that the house would stay warm for a while and the pipes wouldn’t freeze and all that good stuff, I was sitting in the dark and recalled a visit to Old Sturbridge Village about twenty years ago.  OSV is a living history museum devoted to demonstrating how people did things in rural Massachusetts from about 1790-1840. 

We were in the general store full of chamber pots and calicos and tools.  The day was  gloomy and my first thought was to get someone to turn on the lights. 

No electricity.  Duh.  It wasn’t even dark enough to bring out lamps or candles. 

Suddenly, my eyes ached with the thought of doing all my reading by candlelight.  Suddenly, I thought about writing with a feather or steel nib on a wooden desk, on paper that wasn’t perfectly flat or smooth.  Suddenly, I thought, back then, I wouldn’t be doing all that reading and writing.  I’d be milking cows and weaving and cooking over a fireplace, and a whole lot of others stuff that wouldn’t probably be very fulfilling, but would be absolutely necessary. 

Having studied archaeology, I’d spent a lot of time learning how things were done before electricity.  Wanting the light switch that day was a reflex.  And considering the context, it was dumb.

Reflex, to a writer, is dangerous.  Writers can’t afford to make assumptions about their characters.  I’m not just talking about historical fiction, I’m talking about any fiction.  (That urge to assume something can get in your way with nonfiction, and real life, too, when you get right down to it.)  In the book I’m working on now, there are two intelligent women.  These protagonists are both intelligent (though not in the same ways), they’re both strong (certainly not in the same ways), and they are so violently opposed philosophically that it’s hard to imagine them being on the same side—and ultimately cooperating to beat the bad guys.  I admit I had it easier writing Emma, who was an archaeologist and shared a lot of my experiences and points of view.  These women are making me work for it.  It’s good for me as a writer.  It’s good for me as a person.

So turn off the lights, pick up that magazine that you’d think you’d have no reason to be interested in, or go to another town where you don’t know how to use the public transit system.  Walk at night, or in the rain, or in the early morning snow, or in the woods, when the light and sounds are different, muting out the expectations you carry around with you.  Switch off those reflexes.

Discovery

Marlys Millhiser

I’m back from Costa Rica and it was everything promised and a little more–birds of every glorious color, monkeys of four different kinds–some small who live in the mangrove swamps and seem able to fly–all as curious about people as we are about them. But that’s not what this is about. This is about a wonderful phenom I discovered while flying. We flew from Denver to Houston and Houston to San Jose and back the opposite way. There were many types of people on these four flights--differing in age, language, skin color--everything. The incessant television type entertainment on the tiny screens that lowered from the overhead consoles two rows ahead was playing the exact same fare coming and going two weeks apart. Even the daily news and the movie! Two weeks apart! Exactly the same. New news it was not. And the constant reruns of old sitcom characters in new and unfortunate roles as older people. I stand in awe of those who plan these things. And they give you the earphones yet–you can keep them! The word chutzpah doesn’t begin to cut it here. But that’s not the point.

The exciting discovery was how many people rejected the proffered headsets and pulled out books, hardcover and paperback, how many more accepted the headsets and watched the stale entertainment as long as ten or fifteen minutes and then took them off, pulled out books. And me? I’d planned to snooze, but found myself studying what was being read, traversed the aisles between drink and meal carts. (Continental actually offers meals at mealtime.) Many of the books were fiction and at least a quarter of them hardbacks.

I remember flights I’d made for years to join other Femmes at signings and conventions all over the country–happy to sit alone and write in peace before arriving. Something about being on my own high above the world helped solve plotting problems–made me free somehow.

I guess I hear so much about people no longer reading because of the entertainment options of TV, video, Internet. I-Pods, Blackberries, handheld type games–whatever. On my tour mini-bus, there were fourteen of us including the driver and the guide. And three read incessantly between stops and another read in the hotel lobbies and dining rooms. This does not count those who had their noses in books that identified birds. And in this small group there was some discussion of books being read or recommended, much of it fiction. Yes, the younger guide and driver played games of some kind on hand-held devises. Lets face it, reading has never been a favorite national pass time in any country like spectator sports and shopping, but people still read. And yes, conglomerates are thinning the choices we have by restraining novelty, but there’s always the renegade presses and the sudden surprising themes that sneak in around the edges and become successes.

When they allow people to talk on cell phones during flights, as I hear will happen soon, it should be mandatory for airlines to offer ear plugs for those wishing to opt out of the chatter by ever-present, self-important, incredibly boring "executives" (read salesmen.)

Doomsday has always lurked. With global warming changing our world if not our habits–I cannot remember a time when there was no threat to the world as we know it–truly a miracle it’s lasted this long. So enjoy it while ye may–it just may last longer than predicted. If so, someone will be writing and reading stories about it, rest assured. Now, if you ever get a chance to go to Costa Rica, grab it. The people are welcoming and understanding when a gringo slaughters words in Spanish. Somehow we got along fine. I may still be talked about in a string of tiny towns on a dusty, rutted road as the lady who asked the guide why every town was named the same. Imperial. Were they the same town divided by miles of empty roadside? When he could stop laughing and entertaining every local in sight by the fact that the "tourista" thought Imperial was the name of a town, he explained it was actually the label of the dominant beer in Costa Rica. And he announced the next quite a few by, "And we are now approaching . . . Imperial!"

The writing life revisited

When I went to visit my brother and his family over Thanksgiving, I took a few books with me, expecting to supplement them as needed with books from my hosts' shelves.  To my dismay, when I first ambled into their office to peruse the shelves for new reading fodder, I discovered that there were only about half a dozen novels on the shelves, and I'd written all of them. In their defense, I should add that they probably have plenty of novels in the unpacked boxes in their basement, but when they moved in September, they only got around to unpacking the psychology books my brother needed for his recently finished doctoral dissertation, the similar books my sister-in-law will be using for her upcoming dissertation, and the children's books they read to my three-year-old nephews.  I did find a few nonfiction books on subjects other than therapy, though, including a copy of A.N. Wilson's biography of Tolstoy.  A nice, thick book that occupied those moments not taken up with the nephews, and indeed, I have a chunk waiting to be read next time I return.

But at one point, I came across a quote so completely at odds with my own experience that it pulled me out of the book in astonishment.  Speaking of Tolstoy's life when he was serving in the Russian army in Crimea, a time when the young writer was dividing his time between "tarts, remorse, and reading," Wilson comments:

Tolstoy, like all true writers, carried his life about with him, created the very cocoon of observant detachment, indolence and sensuality in which a creative mind flourishes.

Observant detachment, yeah.  Sensuality, maybe.  But indolence?  Doesn't really fit most of the writers I know.  Not the ones with enough gumption to stick to it and get published, anyway.  Some of the hardest working people I know are writers, and I don't just mean because so many writers, even published ones, start their writing work at the end of a long day working some other job (or if, unlike me, they're early risers, get up at 4 or 5 a.m. to get in a few hours of writing before their day jobs).  Most of us avoid calculating how long it takes us to write a book, because we're afraid we'll find out we might not be earning minimum wage.  It may be desk work, mind work, but it's one of the toughest kinds of mind work there is.

But there's a public view of writers (and artists in general) as leading turbulent, troubled, dissipated lives.  Look at the public images of Hemingway, Faulker, and Fitzgerald.  At some point, between safaris, parties, and drinks, all three of them must have spent a good deal of time applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair and the pen or typewriter to paper, but that's not how we remember them.

So at first, I thought perhaps Wilson was buying into an overly romanticized view of the writer's life--the hard-working biographer ant sighing in envy at the exciting life of the grasshopper novelist.  Only in addition to the sixteen non-fiction books, mostly biographies and histories, that Wilson has written over the last thirty years, he has also produced eighteen novels.  No, Wilson is probably tolerably familiar with the novelist's life by now. 

I found myself wondering if the key lies in the word "true."  Does he consider Tolkien a true writer and himself, along with most of the rest of us worker bees in the book world, somehow falling short of true writerhood?  If so, it's not a point of view I feel much sympathy with. Like many of us who write what the literary world calls genre fiction, I'm touchy about the subject.  To my mind, literary fiction is just as much a genre as mystery, science fiction, or fantasy; and I suspect that as many of the books that live on past our time will come from the ghettoized genres as from the critically favored ones.  Books that will, in another phrase many of us hate, "transcend the genre."  Nonsense.  There's nothing wrong with the genre that it needs to be transcended.  You can write a damn fine book that also happens to be mystery, science, fiction, or fantasy.  And a piece of literary fiction that's tripe.  Quality is genre-blind as well as gender-blind.

I recall when Laura Lippman pointed out to some of us an article she'd read that talked about a writer of so-called literary fiction writing a book in a white heat of creativity, in only a year. A mystery writer does a book in a year and she's "churning them out;" but you're allowed to be prolific if you're doing "literature."  A little bias, anyone?

But getting back to Wilson: I could understand it if he'd said that Tolstoy was, at that time in his life, living in the cocoon of observant detachment, indolence, and sensuality that the creative mind sometimes needs as a balance to the periods of hard work and discipline in which the real work is done. Many of us have periods like that, between projects, when we try to live and experience and store up mental fuel for the writing ahead. Witness Wordsworth's definition of poetry as "an emotion remembered in tranquility."

But finally, I'm forced to admit that I have no idea what Wilson means by that quote.  It just doesn't relate to any of my experiences as a writer, not when I was studying writing under some pretty literary professors at the University of Virginia, not when I was earning my living for several decades as a non-fiction writer, and not now during my mystery writing career.  For me, the creative mind flourishes best when supported with order, structure, discipline. I'm find it fascinating to wonder if for Wilson, it works differently.

All of which reminds me of one of my favorite Stephen Crane poems:

"Truth," said a traveller,
"Is a rock, a mighty fortress;
Often have I been to it,
Even to its highest tower,
From whence the world looks black."

"Truth," said a traveller,
"Is a breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom;
Long have I pursued it,
But never have I touched
The hem of its garment."

And I believed the second traveller;
For truth was to me
A breath, a wind,
A shadow, a phantom,
And never had I touched
The hem of its garment.

Solitaire

by Toni L.P. Kelner

Have you ever played solitaire? You know, the one-player card games? If you have, I bet that at least once, you've been staring at a spread of cards with nowhere to go. And just as you've decided you've played the spread out, and you're ready to gather up the cards and start a new game, somebody looks over your shoulder and says, "Red eight on the black nine." Damned if they aren't right! You play the card, the rest of the moves are obvious, and you win the game.

Now it's not that you didn't know the red eight belonged on the black nine. It's more a matter of a fresh eye looking at the cards, a new perspective on the game.

Writing is like that. I wish I had a royalty check for every time I've heard somebody say, "Writing is a solitary occupation." Or even for every time I've said it myself. Of course, there is truth in it. Sitting down at the keyboard to write is essentially a one-person job. But sometimes I really need somebody looking over my shoulder.

This week, I was working on a short story. It wasn't my first, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was something new for me: the first with this protagonist, my first epistolary story, and my first real venture into history mystery. I finished a draft, and went through it pretty carefully, but I really wanted an outside perspective. I needed somebody looking over my shoulder.

In fact, I got four of them: my husband Steve, who is also a writer; fellow Femmes Charlaine and Dana; and my agent. All four of them looked it over with their fresh eyes and different perspectives. They made suggestions, asked questions, and corrected mistakes. (Dana, with that whole archeology thing going for her, was particularly helpful in make sure I fixed the worst of my historical anachronisms. Who knew they didn't have e-mail in 1680?)

Once I'd read their comments, and implemented the vast majority of them, I went through the story more time and finished it on my own, just like I'd have continued the solitaire game on my own. But it's a much better story because those people pointed out that I needed to put that red eight on the black nine.

(Note: Toni's husband Steve read this piece a before it was posted.)

Left Just Right

by Mary

I'm just back from the west coast and Left Coast Crime, a mystery convention that moves to a different western city each year, this time held in sunny Seattle, Washington. That's right, the famous Seattle rain made only a small appearance as drizzle on Saturday and actually made for nice walking weather. It was as if the convention organizers, who planned everything else so beautifully, found a way to order up perfect weather as well. Andi Shechter and crew worked for the last few years to ensure fans would have a great experience and they certainly succeeded.

The best part of any book convention is seeing old friends and meeting new ones who share your addiction. About fifty of my favorite addicts from 4MA, an online mystery discussion group, were everywhere, scampering about the hallways, book dealers' room and panel suites, and then settled down each night in the hotel bar to recount, and perhaps exaggerate, the day's adventures. Talking with complete strangers is just as much fun. Some of the best conversations I had were with new acquaintances, either in the elevator or restaurant or while perusing books for sale. Mystery cons attract the very nicest people, so you never have to feel like an outsider.

A few highlights from the weekend:

On Thursday, a couple of friends and I took a cab to Archie McPhee's store in the Ballard area of Seattle. Kim Schaeffer and Maggie Mason apparently share my enthusiasm for the weird and funny, so we had a great time laughing at all the McPhee specialties. They carry things like wind-up Nunzillas and Jung, Freud and (my favorite) Nancy Pearl The Librarian action figures.

On Friday, I met lots of new folks at the Mystery Writers of America booth, strategically located between the book dealers and the author signing area. That night at the St. Martin's party, it was such a treat to chat with Louise Penny and her husband Michael who were both delightful. Louise's book, Still Life, won the Dilys Award at LCC, given by mystery booksellers for the book that was most fun to sell in 2006.

Saturday, I was on a panel with a group of terrific writers - Aileen Baron, John Maddox Ford, David Hewson and Rob Kresge, all of whom told wonderful stories on how they use setting in their works. That afternoon, I walked down to Seattle Mystery Bookstore. The staff there, very friendly and obviously hardcore mystery fanatics, hosted an open house for fans to come by and meet authors. The Saturday evening banquet surpassed all other con banquets due to three important things. Only a handful of people got up to the microphone and, hallelujah, none gave long speeches. The food was served quickly and was fabulous. The musical entertainment neither bored the audience nor made them feel embarassed for the musician. Parnell Hall sang a medley of mystery-related songs he'd written, performed with fervor and his trademark wit. I'm pretty sure these were the first to immortalize Kirkus Reviews and Harriet Klausner.

Left Coast Crime attendees nominate and vote on the Lefty Award for the most humorous mystery of the year. Congratulations to two of our illustrious Femmes who were nominees, Donna Andrews for No Nest For The Wicket, and Elaine Viets for Murder Unleashed. Also nominated were Troy Cook for 47 Rules of Highly Effective Bank Robbers, Steve Brewer for Monkey Man, and the lovely and dementedly talented Donna Moore who won the Lefty for Go To Helena Handbasket, a hilarious send-up of noir and private-eye novel cliches. Congratulations and many thanks to all nominees and their publishers who work to provide books that make us laugh.

Now I think I'll have a nice long rest, maybe sit back with a cup of tea and the stack of upcoming convention registration information to plan the next trip ...

Feel LIke a Woman

I was going through some old files and stumbled across this and thought I'd share it here.

Julie

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.

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Brian arrived wearing his boiler suit, looking like a mechanic from another age. My neighbor’s blue eyes crinkled at the corners.

“Right, then,” he said. His clipped British accent made it seem like this would be a piece of cake. “You just have to lift the old battery out and slide in the new. You got the same size didn’t you?”

I looked down at the new car battery in my hands. I nodded. I wasn’t about to tell him I’d let the man at the auto store pick it out for me.

“Pop that hood and we’ll see what we see.”

I put the battery down and pulled the hood release lever.

“Engine’s a bit dirty.”

Yes, I could see that it was. I’ve never considered it my job to wash the insides of the car. It's hard enough keeping the animals and the children clean.

Brian looked down at me. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “First we’ll just disconnect the old one.” He picked up a wrench.

“I’ll do it,” I said quickly. “Remember, I asked you to teach me how to do this, not do it for me.”

His dark eyebrows rose. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened. “Sure,” he said, handing me the wrench.

With frequent ‘Be Carefuls’ from Brian, I applied myself and got the electrical connections between car and battery unhooked. I wasn’t sure what to do next, and I looked at my auto mentor. He stood off to one side, hip against the fender of the car, still looking amused.

“Can you lift it out, or is it bolted in?” he asked.

I gave the grimy black box a tug. Fastened tight. He handed me a rag from the tool bench to wipe off some of the grease to find the screws that held it in place.

No matter how I tried to bend my screwdriver, I couldn’t get at them.

“Hang on a sec,” Brian said and strolled down the drive. He came back a few minutes later with a larger toolbox in his hand, a cigarette hanging from his mouth and his wife in tow.

“Brian would do this for you, you know,” Sue whispered to me. “We could go in and have a cup of coffee.” Brian smiled again as he stubbed his cigarette out on the pavement.

“I want to do this myself,” I said, sounding remarkably like my three year old daughter had that morning when I had offered to help her get dressed.

Brian had heard. He looked up, caught my eye, and winked. He fumbled in the box and brought out a contraption that looked like it could do brain surgery on its own. It turned out to be a rachet set that worked in tight places. I finally had to let Brian loosen them, but I got the screws out. I lifted the old battery out and set it on the concrete floor of the garage.

Brian handed me the new battery. I lowered it into the brackets and screwed it in place.

“Now the leads,” he said.

“And I’ll be careful only to touch one part at a time,” I repeated his most frequent earlier instruction.

“Good girl.”

I grinned back at him. Sue looked at me like I was nuts. I pushed my hair back out of my eyes and connected the battery. Brian plugged in his battery charger and I attached it to the battery.

“Thank you.” I couldn’t believe we had done this in less than half an hour.

“You did the work,” he said. He picked up the boxes and walked down the driveway whistling. Sue trotted beside him, talking all the way. He looked back at me when they got to the foot of the driveway and I could see the smile in his eyes.

I went inside to wash my hands. Meeting my own gaze in the mirror over the sink, I grinned. Hair tousled, face filthy with grease, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much like a woman.