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The Chick in the Nest

Dana's previous blog (with which I thoroughly agree) made me think of everyday movies. Do you ever supply yourself with theme music when you're in the grocery store? Ever hear -- in your head -- Sting's "Roxanne" while you're getting dressed for the day?

My personal movie stars our daughter. She's my only remaining chick in the nest, since our sons are grown and gone . . . or at least gone. As anyone who knows me for more than ten minutes can testify, with a long-suffering sigh, by default Julia is pretty much the center of my universe now. And Julia, besides being intelligent, compassionate, and sensible, is a jock.

There are songs without number that play in my head when I watch her on the softball diamond or the volleyball court. There was a hip-hop song last summer . . . the chorus went something like, "Twenty percent luck . . . forty percent skill . . . blahblahblah the force of my will." The punch line was, "Remember my name!" That completely summed up my daughter and her attitude toward sports. When her school volleyball varsity team runs onto the court under the arched arms of the junior varsity team, I hear "Wild Thing."

The relevance of this to my writing? Yes, there is a tie-in, and I'm getting to it now. I didn't realize for a couple of years how much my character Sookie Stackhouse was based on my daughter; though Julia wouldn't ever want to read anyone's mind, and she wouldn't date a vampire or even speak to one. But Sookie and Julia have a lot remaining in common. Sookie is Unbeatable, at least so far, and that's my daughter's on-line signature. Sookie works hard for her successes, and Julia does too. Sookie has friends, and she knows everyone in town. Ditto. People from miles around know Sookie's name; that, too, they have in common. They share a few less charming characteristics, too, that I won't go into; after all, she may one day read this blog!

Now that I know I'm extracting character from a near-to-hand source, here's what I hope: I hope Julia also remembers what her mother told her the way Sookie's grandmother's words ring in Sookie's head. I hope Julia remembers that though friends can let you down, true friends are there forever. And I hope most of all that she's learned that perseverance pays off, some where down the line. Somehow, as I watched her team come back from ten points down to win the volleyball match, I think that's sunk in.

Though I never consciously base my characters on one specific person, I wonder if there are more of the people around me in my characters than I ever realized. I'm almost scared to re-examine them. Is my mom Sookie's grandmother? Is my husband Sam? When Julia gets off the court or the field long enough to read one of my books, will she see her brothers in some of my people? I look forward to the day when she tells me what she thinks.   

The New Gritty

by Dana

Okay, the finicky movie-maven stuff first, the “Dana-who-would-be-director” rant…

I finally saw The Bourne Ultimatum and it was the kind of fun movie where you drive home with the Moby theme going on in your head, and you’re all jazzed for hours after, and even the cat seems to take evasive maneuvers as she goes to make a dead drop in the litter box.  While I didn’t like it as much as The Bourne Identity (directed by Doug Liman), I found more enjoyable than The Bourne Supremacy.  The latest two installments in the franchise were directed by Paul Greengrass, and I gotta say his camera shots are so shaky I get motion sickness.  While I understand using this in the action scenes, he does it all the time.  Five minutes in, and I’m begging for a Steadicam shot.

Anyhow…  The Bourne Ultimatum seems to be following the trend of action movies lately (think Casino Royale), where, if there are high-tech weapons involved, there are also very visceral, technical fight scenes where guns are secondary to hand to hand.  In these newer movies, the heroes are super-duper, but they get hurt, they suffer, they question their missions.  This feels different from earlier action heroes who are nearly impervious, single-minded, and never feel the after-effects of having thrown a punch.  The washing-the-blood-off-the knuckles scene is practically required in these movies, the ones I think of as The New Gritty.  For my part, I like the trend.  It adds humanity to characters who otherwise would be robots (hello, Terminator?) and that brand of movie realism (realism?  in a spy movie?) is more convincing, I think. 

In all three Bourne films, there are two fine actresses (Julia Styles and Joan Allen) and two potentially cool characters (Nicky Parsons and Pam Landy, respectively), and yet the women don’t get in on the action.  They make decisions, they take chances, they rock the phones and computers, but they don’t drive, shoot, or fight.  Even if they’re administrators and not field agents, you’d think that such strategic intelligence employees would be trained in the basics, if only to fend off misguided muggers and burglars.  I miss Marie (Franka Potente, who was so amazing in Run, Lola, Run) from the first movie; even if she was a civilian, it felt like she had something more going on.  Yeah, Nicky jumps on the guy in Tangier, and Pam pulls out a gun in each movie, but…that’s it. 

This is a definite step up from the female character being the hapless victim, make no mistake.  And I’m beyond over the character you can tell is there only to be kidnapped and attractively trussed up, or who is dressed so her clothing can be shredded artistically over the course of the movie.  And in some ways, I guess Pam and Nicky are better than the other end of the spectrum, the evil female super-agent who is somehow more dangerous and unpredictable than her male counterparts, the weapon of last resort.  This character is usually broken, and if she’s cured, it’s through the love of a good man (or a kid), not self-realization.  This character is never just part of a workaday team of superagents, and there’s seldom more than one.  She’s always something special.  Singular.   More than usually threatening. 

I know these are secondary characters:  it’s not The Parsons Conflagration or The Landy Annihilation.  But maybe in the next movie, Nicky could throw a couple of elbows or find her pepper spray.  Maybe next time, Pam could throw someone using judo.  As long as we’re going for the gritty.

Between Books

by Donna

I'm between books now.  You'll have to imagine the tone of voice I say that in, a combination of celebrating and sighing with relief.  Okay, maybe there's also a small bit of gloating in there, too.  I've turned in the ninth Meg Langslow book--working title: Cockatiels at Seven--and I don't need to start the next one just yet.  I have a breathing space.

In fact, more of a breathing space than usual, because I managed to turn Cockatiels in on the eve of beginning my book tour for The Penguin Who Knew Too Much.  It's a feat of brinkmanship I hope not to repeat, but now that I've survived, I'm glad.  I've finished my main book tour.  No major travel planned until I head out for Bouchercon in late September.  No deadlines looming.  There's always the chance that my editor will want some revisions on Cockatiels, but for now, I'm between books. 

I have time.  I could do . . . anything I want!

The trick, of course, is to keep in mind that I can't possibly do everything I want.

I remember all too well the weekly ritual I followed when I still had a day job.  A demanding job that didn't usually end at five, and didn't always leave me much energy when I finally went home.  So each week, I'd save up a long list of things to be done on the weekend.  Things I had to do and things I wanted to do.  Part of me knew that there was no way I could finish a tenth of my list, but somehow I never really gave up the habit of making and revising those long weekend lists.  And in a way, it was okay that I didn't finish the lists. Finishing them wasn't the point.  Making those lists of things to do was my way of anticipating the weekend while still keeping most of my attention focused on the work at hand.  When the weekend came, I'd do a triage. Pick the most urgent things that had to get done, the most compelling things I wanted to do.

It takes a lot longer than a week to write a book. I can usually build up a pretty long list of things to do after I turn the book in.  Household chores, like tidying and reorganizing the office and the basement.  Yard chores, like pulling up some of the weeds before they get as tall as I am.  Tasks I need to get done for volunteer organizations I belong to.  Things I want to do for family and friends.

And fun things.  Stacks and stacks of books to read.  DVDs to watch.  A new computer game to play, and old ones to rediscover.  And maybe some concentrated goofing off.

Maybe some writing projects.  I have a couple of non-series ideas I could start shaping.  I could do some short stories.  Maybe a little research for the upcoming book.

Actually, what I think I am going to do over the next week or so, if no emergencies intervene, is focus on what David Allen of Getting Things Done fame would call a really thorough collection.  Fellow GTD adherents will nod their heads knowingly; for anyone who hasn't read Allen's book, Wikipedia's article on Getting Things Done gives a pretty good overview, with links back to the guru himself.  The basic premise is that a main reason we feel stressed and are less productive than we can be is that we're trying to keep all the stuff we have to do in memory.  If we can put all those things we must or want to do in a "trusted system" and work that system, we can be more productive while feeling less stressed.

When I first read Allen's book, it bowled me over.  Partly because it told me why some things I did--like those lists of weekend tasks--worked and what I could do to make them work better.  It explained why sometimes, when I have insomnia, I can ease it by grabbing a notepad and a pen and making a list of everything that is bothering me.  Emptying my brain onto the paper.  When I find my pen starts slowing down, I put the list aside to work on in the morning--because I've learned that just making the list won't help; I'll be tossing and turning again the next night--or maybe later the same night--unless I know that in the morning I'll start to tackle those list items, one by one.

Getting Things Done also hit home because I had given Meg, my heroine, her own version of Allen's trusted system--her "notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe."  Everything she has to do or remember goes into that notebook.  It appears on page one of Murder with Peacocks and pops up at least once in every book since.

Since I'm more computer-oriented than Meg, my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe is a giant Word document in which I capture all those plans and schemes and parse that portion of them I think I can handle into my daily and weekly schedule.  As the deadline for Cockatiels loomed closer, I realized that one reason I was feeling stressed was that I had fallen from organizational grace.  I was no longer in control of my paperwork, my calendar, my to do lists. 

So I'm making some time to fix that.  I've started to sit down with all those stacks of paper, megabytes of computer files, and heaps of whatever else is in my office, my house, my mind, and the rest of my life.  Not the most fun way to spend the first few days of that space between books--but probably the best way to make sure, when I do settle into the normal book routine again, I can look back on the break with satisfaction, rather than thinking, "Where did the time go?"

Because being between books, like a kid's summer vacation, goes all too fast. 

Nice while it lasts, thought!

Waiting and Celebrating

by Toni L.P. Kelner

Today was an aggravating day. I had a computer problem that meant dealing with technical support, and as everybody who deals with technical support knows, that meant waiting. Waiting to get an answer, waiting while for tech support to research the problem, waiting to reboot, waiting for my tech support person to research some more, waiting for something that was supposed to take twenty minutes but which we finally gave up on after two hours. It was frustrating, it was annoying, and it was excellent practice for a writer.

The fact is, the writing business is the waitingest business I've ever come across.

When I first started hunting for an agent, I'd send off my query letters and then wait weeks or even months for replies. (One rejection didn't reach me until I'd signed with a different agent and sold my first novel.) Then there's waiting for replies from editors, which is faster with an agent in your corner, but generally not exactly fast. (One editor told me he wanted to see my proposal right away, but took months to tell me that marketing wouldn't accept anything from me because of my track records.) Then you sell the book, but have to wait for revision requests, and copy edits, and cover designs. Finally you make it into galleys, and you wait for reviews to come out. And the longest wait of all is that period when the book is done, and the publication date approaches like an ancient snail on Valium.

That last one is, in fact, the stage I'm at now, waiting for the publication of Many Bloody Returns, the anthology I co-edited with Femme Charlaine Harris. It's really not long now. On September 4, it will hit the bookstore shelves. Just a few more weeks... Of waiting.

But come September 4, I get to enjoy the flip side of the writer's inevitable waits: I get to celebrate. Because the only thing being a writer gives you more chances on than waiting is the endless reasons to celebrate.

In celebrations ranging from nights on the town to dinner with friends to a bag of M&Ms savored all by myself, I've celebrated more since I started writing than I think I had the whole rest of my life. I celebrated my first handwritten rejection, my first "good" rejection, getting an agent, selling the first contract, getting the first cover, my first review... Come to think of it, my first review was lousy. My first good review--that one I celebrated. My first book, my first hardcover, my first recorded book, my first large print edition, my first translation into another language, my first short story sale, my first sale to this market or that, my first award nomination, my first win. And not just the firsts! I get excited with every sale, every cover design or galley, every publication, every honor, every time. And yes, I celebrated in a small way when technical support and I vanquished my dreaded computer glitch.

So while there are many different ways of describing the life of a writer, to me it will always be a yin and yang of waiting and celebrating.

Dream Totem

by Kris

In Sedona, and other spots around the world that some people regard as sacred, people build little stone totems, by stacking stones. Here’s a photo of an interesting one. The totems honor a place that touched them and allow them to leave a bit of themselves behind when they have to move on.

I came across a really special one a couple of months ago, on a trail near the airport vortex. You might have heard about our energy vortices, and you may or may not believe in them. But vortex energy only factors into this story peripherally. As I was saying…I don’t like the airport vortex too much. It’s the most easily accessible of all the vortices — doesn’t require any serious hiking from the trailhead — and that might explain why it seems to attract the most ill-behaved of all of Sedona’s tourists. And that it does, impacts the enjoyment, or lack thereof, that I find on the nearby hiking trails.

Most of the visitors to Sedona are respectful of the landscape. But too many of the people who flock to this site don’t seem to realize that other people hike to find peace and solitude. Instead, they sit on the knoll where they’ve been told they should feel some unusual energy flow, and their screams and laughter and cell phone conversations echo for miles.

I don’t know why I went there that day. And my hike didn’t start out well. A family of three males — a father and two burly preteen boys — along with a simpering mother, had cornered a lizard in the brush and were shirking in glee. I don’t usually say anything, but the sight of the family Cro-Magnon on their lizard safari annoyed me. I snapped for them to leave the wildlife alone. One of the boys spat at me, in a tone of fierce anger, that wildlife was supposed to be hunted down. His parents looked so proud.

So I wasn’t in the best of moods when I walked on. But then I came upon it, one of the most magnificent totems I’ve ever seen. It was huge — probably more than two feet high and three feet wide, and clearly took quite some time to construct. Its spectacular design was not a matter of stacking rocks on other rocks — this person had build an edifice with actual chambers.

The totem builder had also sprinkled money on all the crossbeams. Not a lot, just pocket change. I spotted one quarter, lots of dimes and nickels and a whole mess of pennies that glistened in the sunlight. While I doubt it totaled much more than $1, the sprinkling of coins struck me as such an extravagant, grand gesture

I was so moved by it that, I came back every week to connect with that totem. And despite wind and rain and countless people passing that way, the totem remained there for a couple of months.

Then this week, I discovered it gone. Someone just dismantled it, stacked the stones, and with a marker and a girlish hand, wrote on the rocks about who loved whom, and decorated them with hearts. And, yes, she took the change.

As a hiker who loved that totem, I grieved for its loss. But as a writer, I felt a need to explore the mentality that had to dismantle it. What makes some people feel a need to tear down, rather than building up?

As desecrations go, it was minor. Those rocks have endured for eons, and will remain when we are just specks of dust. Even the early amateur archeologists who explored this area used to carve their names onto the rocks near their discoveries, and they stole the treasures early tribal peoples had left as offerings in those areas. So maybe whatever impulse the heart-drawer felt is more a part of the human condition than I’d like to believe. Maybe she thought that money was wasted there, and she considered it only right to put it to use.

Maybe I’m the one who’s too sentimental, but I don’t think I’ll be going back there anytime soon.

Fastest Blog in the West

I think my fellow femmes have said it all and have decided to make this short. Possibly because I threw something out in my neck, back, and shoulder at the gym the other day, before any exercise started, while standing in a row of people while our lady of torture explained what each of us would do.

I threw everything out by standing still! I’ve made several records at that gym, one was kicking a padded punch/kick stand and bouncing off it and up against a refrigerator–that was a first. But this time I was standing freaking still! Watching our leader and noticing in the mirror behind her (the place is all mirrors–they want you to notice your mistakes big time) that my posture would enfuriate her so I straightened. And there was a sharp pain up the side of my head and down one shoulder to the elbow. This is mainly a gym for wounded or worn-out athletes and stresses weight lifting as a cure. Every sport known to man is injuring athletes, with which Boulder literally crawls (sorry) and it’s big business here. People who crouch over computer keyboards are aliens asking for computer-crouchitis. An emergency visit to a chiropractor and I get cracked and whacked and walk out with a thick padded ring around my neck.

I’m trying to be negative–but you won’t believe the glorious humming birds lined up at the feeders–and buzzing my hair, computer, cat, souring, diving . . . sorry.

I expected to be forever crippled but the bone cruncher fixed me fast. Just have to take that collar when I travel. I’ve almost mastered my wayward computer and software. And starting over on the lost short story, "The Seep".

"No, I won’t borrow money against my house! You freaking greedy creeps should be sliced, diced, mashed, and poured down a sink hole. Leave us alone, damn you! God, now they can get to us on our Lollypups even. More crooks in this town." The woman’s voice seemed to come from the puffing hole in the street.

Wild donkeys fled the scene. Two men and a boy turned in circles looking for her. People do not speak from seep holes. A stray cat hissed and vomited. The humans pulled out their shirttails to wipe away excess drainage of facial orifices--honked, snorted, spit. They stood at the edge of a sinkhole. At the edge of Boulder’s red-light district. In the year 1898.

But down the sinkhole a screeching followed by smashing metal and a wailing horn sounded. A man’s voice shouted over the noise. "Emergency! Collision on Canyon. One man thrown out. Can’t resusc. Can’t find his face."

The cat and the boy took off into the darkness. They could see. The reverend and the sheriff could not. Two whores from Miss Cora’s giggled on the other side of the railroad bridge.

Marlys Millhiser

Interviewing Me

If the title seems narcissistic, I'm sorry. I cast around in my mind to find out what was on it, and what was on it was the many interviews I've done lately because of the excitement surrounding the shooting of the pilot for "True Blood." I've probably had more interviews in the past two or three months than I schedule in some years.

Of course, I keep repeating the same stories: my husband giving me the electric typewriter for a wedding present, how my first book got published, why I don't have more say about so many things pertaining to my career. I only have so much life to go around. And all too often the questions are the same old questions. I could list them by now.

When did you start writing? When did you write your first book? How many books have you written? Do you get to pick the cover? What book of yours is your favorite? Which series character is closest to matching your character? Do you base your characters on real people? Do you have the whole series planned out? Do you have an agent? Where does he live? Do you have friends who are writers? Do you have a writers' group to critque your work?

Most of these questions could be answered by glancing at my website (Hey, people! FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS), but I guess the interviewers want to hear everything fresh for themselves. Some of them haven't even glanced at my website. Some of them haven't even read a word I've written. Some of them think I write children's books. Some of them think I write romance. It's refreshing to find a prepared reporter.

I know some of these people have no interest in me or my work. I'm an assignment to them, and they have lots of assignments. But the difference between the process of being interviewed by an unprepared reporter and a prepared one is really incredible. It's possible to get new insight, or at least have a good time, when you're talking with someone who has some slight knowledge and understanding about what you do and the business you're in. The time certainly goes faster and more pleasurably for me when I don't have to reinvent the wheel with every answer.

I'm afraid it's occurred to me to start lying. Maybe if I made up a new life, interviews would be more fun. I might tell the next young reporter that I lived in Katmandu as a teenager, or that I also write under another name . . . Mary Higgins Clark. Maybe I'll say my dad was a secret agent, and I'm just now revealing this fact. Or maybe I'll claim my hobby is carpentry.

Interviewers, you'd better start checking. Or be prepared.