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On the Origin of Supernatural Species

by Toni L.P. Kelner

A friend recently asked how I come up with the supernatural creatures for my short stories, and I decided that I have two guidling principles:

1. Ring changes on the existing tropes.
2. Don't ring too many changes on the existing tropes.

Yeah, I know. There's a bit of a conflict there.

 

Ring changes on the existing tropes.

Supernatural fiction has been hot for a while now, and some really good writers have done such wonderful things. So when I first decided to dip my toe into the paranormal pool, I was a bit daunted. How could I think up a story idea that hadn't been done to death. Or to undeath... I came up with new takes just to get my creative juices charged up.

The vampires I introduce in "How Stella Got Her Grave Back" (in Many Bloody Returns) and "Taking the Long View" (in Crimes by Moonlight) are fairly traditional: blood sucking, daylight avoiding, and mind controlling. But I added the concept that a new vampire isn't quit so vampiric as one who's been dead a while. Newbie Mark still needs regular food to supplement his liquid diet, and he can go outside during the day if he wears sunscreen. And the mesmerizing gaze? He's still working on that. 

My formal justification is that if there were vampires, it would make sense for them to appear to be human at first to avoid detection. They would transition into the vampiric lifestyle. But the real reason is I wanted to do something different.

More importantly for the reader, I could then write about Mark learning about this strange new, paranormal world, and trying to fit in. He questions the assumptions that other vampires live with--well, not live, but exist with. That becomes a major part of his character, which then led to the mystery plots of the stories in which he appears.

One other change I made is a matter of interpretation. The adventurous, modern vampires are often shown as nearly fearless because they're really hard to kill and will live forever. But in my experience, it's the young who fear nothing. Vampires are really old. Plus there are the dangers of being exposed to the world, as well as to the sun. So my vampires drive like old fogies, and they keep their money in their mattresses instead of maintaining reasonable investment portfolios. That gives me more opportunities for story conflict--Mark is an investment banker and sneers at mattress savings plans.

As for werewolves, I base my big change on the studies that show that wolves and dogs are pretty much the same species. (Okay, I'm simplifying, but I'm writing about werewolves here. Obviously science isn't my biggest concern.) Therefore if a human could turn into a wolf, why couldn't she turn into a dog? Any species of dog, in fact? So when Joyce the werewolf is caged in "Pirate Dave's Haunted Amusement Park" (in Death's Excellent Vacation), she doesn't turn into a huge wolf to try to break down the bars. Instead she turns into a Chihuahua to slip right through, and ferociously attacks her captor. Well, his ankles, anyway.

This change really set the tone for the story. I couldn't go dark and gritty with a Chihuahua. It also provide characterization for Joyce. She's willing to change, to think outside the cage... I mean, the box. It helps with the plot, too, because dogs are more useful for undercover work than wolves. 

 

In other stories, I've tried to give witches more current abilities. After all, why wouldn't a modern witch have a special affinity with telephones? And why does a voodoo zombie raiser have to be from New Orleans? I bet Dunwoody, GA, has plenty of dead people who could use raising.

Playing with the tropes makes writing the stories a lot more fun for me, and I hope more fun for the readers.

 

Don't ring too many changes on the existing tropes.

This is based on something I read about Star Trek. In the episode "The Man Trap," an alien kills humans by sucking out the salt in their bodies, and there's one scene where the alien looks longingly at a salt shaker. SinceStar Trek was set in the future, naturally the props person provided a furturistic-looking salt shaker. Unfortunately, it was so futuristic-looking that it was completely unrecognizable as a salt shaker--they borrowed plain old salt shakers from the commissary to use instead. (The funky salt shaker did not go to waste, however. It and its companion pepper shaker were modified to be used as Dr. McCoy's medical scanners.)

The point is that it's possible to ring so many changes on vampires and werewolves that they are no longer recongizable. At that point, I may as well make up a name for a new kind of critter and write my story about him.

Another issue is that my forays into the paranormal world have all been in short stories. That means I don't have a lot of space for exposition, background, and backstory. And I really don't have a lot of space to explain why it is that my vampires drink nail polish remover, not blood. 

On a side note, this points out how remarkable Femme Dana's Fangborn short stories are. The Fangborn are extremely original takes on the vampire and werewolf myths, but every time Dana manages to describe the differences and tell a fabulous story. 

I'm lazier than Dana. So my vampires drink blood, and my werewolves change forms, and my witches do magic and not science. 

I said earlier that there's a conflict between my two guiding principles, but really,it's not so much of a conflict as it is a balancing act. On one side is my need to do something original and on the other side is the reader's need to know what the heck is going on. So when it's time for me to write a paranormal story, I'll be trying to find that balance--that's where my supernatural characters come from.

 

 

 

Stuck in My Ear

By Elaine Viets

"My Maserati does 185

"I lost my license now I don't drive."

For two days, that line from the Joe Walsh song, "Life's Been Good to Me So Far," rattled in my head like a clunker chugging down a gravel road. A dreaded earworm had burrowed into my brain. I couldn’t remember the rest of the song. That one line repeated itself in an endless loop.

I wanted to claw my hair off.

"I heard that if you sing all  the lyrics, the earworm will go away," Don said.

So I found the song on YouTube and sang along with Joe. http://tinyurl.com/7om3gke

My vocal stylings are no threat to Joe Walsh’s career. But when I finished the song all the way through, my husband was right. That earworm curled up and died.

And another one crawled in to take its place.

Now I was wandering around singing "I Can't Drive 55" by Sammy Hagar. Just that one line. Over and over and out of tune.

I’m a big fan of the Red Rocker, not to mention fast cars and driving over the speed limit. In fact, not too long after Sammy first sang about his driving frustration, I was arrested for speeding in Litchfield, Illinois. I’d been going 120 in a 55-mile-an-hour zone. I managed to slow down to 95 when the highway patrol pulled me over. Unlike Sammy, I didn’t go to jail, but Don had to post bail and I went to court.  I have since lived a slow, blameless and uncaught life.

I really had to quit singing that one line, so I watched the Sammy Hagar video   http://tinyurl.com/y9jdbgw until the ear worm was driven away.

Researchers say 98 percent of people are afflicted by ear worms "but earworms are more likely to last longer for women and to irritate them more than they irritate men."

Jean Harris, the headmistress of the fancy Madeira School for girls, killed her lover Dr. Herman Tarnower, author of  "The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet." Anyone who’s ever been on that diet would say Tarnower deserved killing. But not only was poor Jean in love with the scrawny diet doctor, she suffered from an earworm with the song, "Put the Blame on Mame."  I read this in Wikipedia, so I know it must be true.

Once I read that, I didn’t feel so bad about my other earworm, "We Will Rock You" by

Queen. http://tinyurl.com/yzo3qc At least my earworms are rock classics.

That song is high on the earworm list. Other common earworms are "Who Let the Dogs Out," "YMCA," "Mission Impossible" theme, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," and that insidious Disney ditty, "It’s a Small World After All."

One poor soul, driven to distraction by a (shudder) Barry Manilow earworm, pleaded for help on the Net. Someone called LunaClick posted The Manilow Cure. http://tinyurl.com/6ll932c

"It is Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens playing ‘A Study in Brown’ in the early 1940s, with crazy Frank DeNunzio Sr. on the double bass."

Take a listen – and tell me your worst earworm.

Characterization Wanted

by Dana

I'm taking my cue from earlier Femmes blogs by my E(vil) T(win) S. J. Rozan and by Carolyn Haines, and if you haven't read them—go do it now!  I'll wait until you're done.  I'm looking for writerly language to describe how I create characters.  Or maybe it's language about developing characterization.  I'm not sure; so far...I haven't the words.

Someone recently asked me how I come up with a character, and without stopping to think about it, I said, “I'm always shopping for characters.  I'll come across a phrase in a book or a scene on T.V. Or something in the real world, and it will suddenly strike me:  I need that energy for this or the other character.  And then I'm off to the keyboard.  Once I find that energy, no power in the 'verse can stop me.”

This was received with a confused look and a polite “Huh?”

I realized, rather helplessly, I couldn't explain it better than that.  And I didn't really understand it any better, myself.  Words like “energy,” when not applied to the physical or chemical worlds, make me nervous.  I like the concrete, the measurable, the identifiable.  So when I  get to “ineffable somethings,” I immediately try to break them down and make them...effable.  Hence my problem.

It goes something like this:  I see an interaction between two characters in, say, “Band of Brothers,” and it will immediately strike me—I need that for my characters in whatever story I'm working on.  It's not that I specifically need American soldiers, or two guys, or the actor, Damien Lewis—it's a head nod, or a sense of trust, or a kind of competence that will work well in a character I'm writing.  It's...a frisson, it's a feeling, it's...I don't know what it is.  A certain chemistry that I need fuel my character. 

Okay, so:  Energy.

Some characters come full-blown:  Anna Hoyt, I knew from the start, was an embattled blonde, self-contained and capable.  Everything else followed that.  But in my Emma Fielding books, I struggled with the character of Brian, Emma's husband, for ages.  Until I was waiting in line at the coffee shop and saw a cute guy blowing off his barista job to show a girl how to do her chemistry homework.  He was having fun, she was getting it, and the line at the coffee bar got longer and longer.  Then:  poof.  I suddenly knew all about Brian.  Ran with it, and never looked back.

Slowly, as I learn to identify just what it is I'm doing (and if you know, please tell me!), I'm also learning that it's okay to leave a character who isn't quite baked in place, until I find out what the story needs.  Then, while I'm out in the world, I usually manage to stumble over the right ingredient, something that will serve both the character and the story--maybe I'll realize I need to ditch that character altogether.  Take out the scaffolding, insert what one hopes is now a fully-formed character.  Turn the key and reveal worlds.  If only it were that easy.

I've now invoked physics, cooking, architecture, locksmithing, and chemistry, and I'm still no closer to being able to describe how we discover a character.

Writers, how do you describe how you get your characters to be what they need to be?  Readers, has a character ever haunted you, so you go plumbing every other book looking for a similar experience?

Special Guest - Carolyn Haines!

 

Today the Femmes welcome our dear friend and fellow author, Carolyn Haines!

She writes, she teaches, she takes in homeless animals!

Many of you know about her funny Bones mystery series starring Sarah Booth Delaney. You may not know that Carolyn's also well-respected in the literary fiction world. In 2009, she was awarded the Richard Wright Literary Excellence Award. Previous winners include Eudora Welty, Willie Morris, Elizabeth Spencer, Barry Hannah ... you get the picture. Can't beat that, right? Well, she did. In 2010, she received the Harper Lee Award, surely the ultimate honor for a Southern writer.

Would you believe she also writes dark scary thrillers? Amazing. In fact, this week, her publisher is offering one as a FREE e-book. But more about that later. Right now, let's see what she has on her mind ....

When Bad Characters Go Good—The Reversal

from Carolyn Haines

It happens to every writer at some point or another. A character you conceived goes awry. You have this magnificent creation of evil, and suddenly he does something noble and kind. It’s often called the redemptive moment in a character arc, and it is highly satisfying for the reader.

And frustrating for the writer of a series.

Imagine if Moriarty suddenly donated to a charity hospital. Sherlock Holmes would be stymied (and Holmes was NEVER stymied). Or what if Cruella de Vil insisted on volunteering to work in an animal shelter. Or Mrs. Danvers decorated a nursery for the new Mrs. deWinter.

Such acts of compassion would completely undo our understanding of these characters. And it would rob our protagonists of a truly vile enemy to thwart.

Much to my dismay, I’ve had character reversals occur when I least expected them. Sometimes, no matter how happily I’ve plotted my mystery, I discover that the person “who done it” really isn’t the killer. This is truly an unhappy turn of events.

The question I ask myself is: have I lost control of my story? OR, have my characters come to life to show me a better way of doing things? The problem is that I never know the answer, and so I have to go about writing the story to find out.

Writing is a peculiar joy and misery. I teach fiction writing at University of South Alabama, and I read a lot of student writing. Editing requires a lot of time, patience, and skill, but it is more analytical than magical (though I have had moments of inspiration while editing someone else’s work—where I see the whole picture clearly and can give good advice on improving the work).

With writing, there is never a “right” way to do it. Each story, each character, each scene needs a particular approach. I call it “listening to the story.” The art of “listening to the story” is an off-shoot of “reading with the gut.” All readers do this. We read fiction for emotion. But we read and process so quickly that we seldom think about the emotional impact. We follow the thoughts and actions of our favorite character with joy or dread or frustration. But we’re seldom alert to the ways that an author manipulates our emotions for deliberate effect. And it is the writer’s job to manipulate the reader.

When a character acts out of character—this can be a real problem for an author. Or it can be the most incredible piece of luck ever to fall in a writer’s lap.

The story of the Sarah Booth Delaney mysteries series involves a lot of happenstance, some luck, some determined characters, and my willingness to let the characters grow into the people they wanted to be.

I had just finished a two-book contract with Dutton for general fiction novels when I heard Sarah Booth and Jitty arguing. I clearly remember that Fall day. My anxiety was high—I was out of contract and wasn’t certain where to step next. As I watched my horses graze from my office window, I heard Jitty and Sarah Booth ragging on each other.

                                      

And I began to write.

The book became THEM BONES. And when I finished, I realized I’d written a mystery. I couldn’t believe it. I’d actually plotted a mystery! I was thrilled. And the book went to auction and was bought by Random House for a series.

For a child who’d wanted to be a cowgirl AND Nancy Drew, it doesn’t get any better. I found myself writing a mystery series with a tomboy protagonist. This was better than I ever dreamed.

The story of Tinkie is a bit more convoluted. In THEM BONES, Tinkie catapults Sarah Booth into the realm of the private detective when Tinkie hires her to check out Hamilton Garrett V. Tinkie is a hardcore sorority girl. She is vain and shallow and self-centered.

My intention was to conclude her story arc in the first book and be done with her.

Tinkie had other plans.

She popped up in BURIED BONES. And I began to realize that she is the balance for Sarah Booth. Beneath Tinkie’s glitzed and styled hair is a brain. In many ways, she is smarter than Sarah Booth, though she has been taught to hide her intelligence to be a successful Daddy’s Girl.

By book three, Tinkie becomes Sarah Booth’s partner. Tinkie gives Sarah Booth balance, and Sarah Booth gives Tinkie permission to grow into a multifaceted person (character).

I wish I could claim responsibility for this transition and arc—it has made both characters better and more enjoyable—but I can’t. I merely allowed the characters to follow their own destiny. I am not smart enough to have figured this all out in advance.

But I am smart enough to trust these willful, ornery, wonderful characters.

        
 
Tinkie has become such a force that we are now celebrating the second annual Daddy’s Girls Weekend, April 13-15, in Mobile. It is a writers/readers/mischief conference where folks come together to learn from each other and have fun. 

Now, I can’t imagine the Bones books without Tinkie. And maybe, one day, she’ll talk some sense into Sarah Booth. I’ll have to keep writing to see if that happens.

That's good news for us readers! Thanks so much for being with us, Carolyn.

As I mentioned earlier, Tyrus Books is offering one of Carolyn's darker books, FEVER MOON, as a FREE ebook this week only. For info on all her books and upcoming events, check out her website at  carolynhaines.com. And you can find out more about the upcoming Daddy's Girls weekend here - daddysgirlsweekend.com

　

　

Toys For Grown-Ups

 

from Mary

 

I loved Marcia's post. What fun! The electronic/digital boom just keeps on booming. We knew it would revolutionize the business world, educational systems, tax filing <cough>. And writing. Anybody want to go back to the old Underwood typewriter stashed in the garage? Not me!

Now we're going through another revolution. The digital engineers who worked and slaved over hot soldering irons for years have taken a quantam leap by creating - toys for grown-ups!! YYYY-Yes! Sure, old folks embraced desktops and laptops when they came out. Little did we know, those were just the carrots. Those inventors knew if they got us hooked, we'd graduate up to the hard stuff in no time, just like Marcia did. WORD, dude. 

I graduated at the Cracker Barrel. My friend Gail, who loves books like I do, knows about all the ebook readers. I didn't know which, if any, to get, so she helped me with the pros and cons of each. Still I couldn't make up my mind. About that time, she pulls out her iPad. And the heavens opened. Golden rays of light fell upon the screen and the songs of angels blocked out the latest redneck CD playing over the speakers.

It was too expensive. It wasn't practical.

I had to have it.

Now I don't know how I ever lived without one. What's funny is the iBook and Kindle apps get used the least. It has so many other toys on it. And it's as much fun to shop and download apps as it is to use them. I'm up to 83. Oooh yeah baby. I'm as hooked as a crappie on a jig.

Some of those apps are practical. The camera apps alone make it worth the price for me. This is because I can take a good picture, something I'm unable to do after a lifetime of trying on regular cameras. Being able to check email on the go is more a necessity now rather than a perk. I like the notepad app that looks like you're writing on a yellow legal pad. Very handy at workshops or lectures. For news, I like Flipboard for the latest international stories. I check out The Weather Channel app almost every day.

The rest are just plain fun. Star Walk lets me see which stars and constellations are overhead. Inspire Pro and Doodle Buddy turn the iPad into a paintbox for drawing. The language apps are cool. I've got basic ones of French, Italian, Irish, Chinese, Shan, and one called the Talking Scotsman that helps you understand crazy Scottish sayings and the accent. Lots of fun. 

Garageband is a nice little recording studio when you feel like being a rock star. It's easy, anybody can do it. I like to use the guitar amplifier apps. Much easier than real amps and a string of foot pedals. Some apps let you play an instrument by tapping on the screen - guitars, keyboards, lots of others. I love Indian music and like to play the bongo-ish drums when I listen using the iTablas app. 

All kinds of exercise apps are available. I just have one called Daily Yoga. It has a ten minute routine that's nice and simple. If you like nature sounds and gentle music, there's an app called Meditation which also has a timer to ease you back down to earth after meditating.

Okay, confession time. I don't have Word, but I do have two games, La Belle Lucie solitaire and the New York Times Crosswords. Not that I use them much. They do come in handy waiting at the doctor's office, you know, once every year or so.

<Bzzzzt!!>

Right. Okay, I LOVE them and play every chance I get. Everybody has a guilty pleasure. :)

 

 

Writing Avoidance? My Word, No!

By Marcia Talley

I’ve just been diagnosed with DeQuervain Syndrome.  Sounds serious, but hold off on the sympathy cards while I explain that DeQuervain’s is an inflammation of the tendons surrounding the thumb that make grasping my coffee pot, or unscrewing the lid of a pickle jar a mild form of torture.  Since it’s a repetitive stress injury, one might assume it’d been caused by the hours I spend hunched over the keyboard, pounding out Hannah’s latest adventure, but you’d be wrong.  I haven’t been able to twist the cork out of a wine bottle since a week after I started playing Word with Friends on my iPhone.

Word with Friends (or WWF, not to be confused with the World Wrestling Federation or the abbreviation WTF), is a Scrabble-inspired app so addictive that actor Alec Baldwin got booted off an American Airlines flight when he allegedly retreated to the toilet to finish a game, rather than turn off his iPhone when instructed to do so by the flight attendant.

It’s a more relaxed game than Scrabble, though, as long as you’re not playing in an airplane toilet during takeoff.  You have oodles of time to make a move – minutes, hours, days or even weeks – and you don’t lose a turn if you try out a non-word.  Sorry, it tells you politely, ZOOT is not a word, and you move on, try again.

Before my friend Dan introduced me to WWF, I might have been caught engaging in less productive writing-avoidance behavior--perming the cat, for example, or neutering the houseplants.  Since WWF, however, no more lame excuses for me! WWF uses words! Playing the game will keep my brain limber, I reason, like solving crossword puzzles or working Sudoku.

Besides, writing is a solitary business; authors don’t get out much. Yet WWF is interactive! The Zynga programmers cleverly integrated the iPhone’s chat function into the game, so when my son-in-law the dermatologist plays a word like pityriasis for 127 points, I can tell him he’s a smarty-pants, in real time, right from my office chair.

WWF is educational, too.  Yesterday when I seemed to be suffering from irritable vowel syndrome—my letter tray looked like a street map of Honolulu —I chuckled.  No problem! I know six vowel-only words by heart – EAU, AA, AE, AI, OE and OI – and if you toss in a consonant, I can play MIAOU, AIOLI or EERIE.  Other high-scoring faves I keep in mind are QI, XI, JO and ZA – although I can’t understand why ZA is a word and OK is not … okay, that is.  Have you ever called up Papa Johns and order a "za" with mushrooms and pepperoni?  I thought not.

WWF addicts are everywhere.  It’s the crack cocaine of word games. In crowded airports, we are betrayed by the bloop, bloop, bloop of the letters as we move them around on the board, by the ding that signals an opponent wants to chat.  I met Marcy in a coffee shop when her iPhone blooped.  We started talking and discovered we both graduated from Oberlin College, which might explain why our games are so evenly matched. 

While my thumb heals, I’ve switched to playing WWF on my iPad.  And I’m taking it easy, limiting games to the eight word-wranglers queued up on my iPad right now, including my best friend, my kids, author friends like Donna and Dan and even Dan’s seven-year-old son, Jack, who asked his dad the other day, "When can Marcia come over to play?"

DeQuervain’s was my wake-up call.  WWF was cutting into my Facebook time and people were starting to worry. "Are you all right?" a concerned sister emailed.  "You haven’t posted much lately." 

Don’t worry, I told her.  I’m fine.  In control.  WWF is only a game. I can take it or leave it.  I’m having a great time writing this blog . . . I’ve got a short story in the works . . . hold on, my iPad just dinged.  I hope it’s my daughter, the hotshot lawyer.  Give her a JOW and she’ll take a GUZ.* But I’m about to play ZOEAL** on a triple-word score.  That girl is going down!

 

*obsolete South Asian units of measurement, roughly equivalent to .25 inch and a yard, respectively

** crab larva

Marcia is the author of THE LAST REFUGE and ten previous Hannah Ives mysteries. A winner of the Malice Domestic grant and an Agatha nominee for Best First Novel, Marcia won an Agatha and an Anthony for her story "Too Many Cooks" and an Agatha for the story "Driven to Distraction." She edited two mystery collaborations, and has published more than a dozen short stories. She lives in Annapolis, Maryland, and winters on an antique sailboat in the Bahamas. www.marciatalley.com

        

 

 

The Fine Art of Reviewing
Charlaine Harris
In theory, I post a new Book & Blog on my website every week. Sometimes that actually happens, but often the time stretches to two weeks . . . sometimes even longer. I usually mention three to five books. I’ve encountered many people who find that my Book & Blog is a weird idea. They express surprise that one writer would commend the writing of others. Because I get astonished that they’re surprised, we end up as one big circle of incredulity.

I mention other writers’ books for several reasons. I wanted a feature I could renew as I had time, a feature that wouldn’t require my giving away my precious fiction! I also believe that NO ONE reads just one book every year, so I wasn’t losing sales by recommending other novels. And actually, I love to read and sharing that wealth was a positive good.

I hadn’t anticipated the consequences that have become apparent after years of writing my Book & Blog column (www.charlaineharris.com). First of all, thanks to the resolution that I’d only mention books I genuinely enjoyed, I haven’t made any enemies – that I know about, at least. Since I’m not a paid reviewer, I feel I have the right to only talk about books I like. Secondly, readers tell me every week that they’ve purchased or checked out one or another of my recommended reading choices, and they’ve enjoyed them, too. That was my goal, so it feels wonderful to achieve it. Third, every now and then editors I know will send me ARCs of books they think I may enjoy, which is totally fabulous.

This has been a win-win situation for me.

The touchy part? Well, sometimes I get books that don’t appeal to me at all, and I have to regretfully decline to mention them. That’s going to happen, and doesn’t mean I’ll dislike the next book by that particular writer. And sometimes I simply don’t have the time to undertake extra reading if I have novels stacked up from here to Sunday . . . and I do have a TBR pile that occupies an entire bookcase.

On occasion, I feel like the Ancient Mariner. I beard innocent passers-by, gripping them by the shoulders while I say, “You MUST read this book! You’ll LOVE IT!” And that’s what reviewing is all about, to me . . . discovering new books that spark your enthusiasm and excitement about the act of reading.

The Femmes Fatales welcome S.J. Rozan!

SJ Rozan, a life-long New Yorker, is the author of thirteen novels and three dozen short stories.  She's an Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero and Macavity winner, as well as a recipient of the Japanese Maltese Falcon award. SJ has been Guest of Honor at a number of fan conventions and in 2003 was an invited speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos.  She's served on the boards of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and as President of Private Eye Writers of America.  She leads writing workshops and lectures widely.  Her latest book is Ghost Hero.  S.J., take it away! 

Hi, there, Femmes fans.  I'll be guest blogging at you a couple of times over the next few weeks, and what I'm going to do is muse about the public side of the writing life.  Which is, as the Victorians used to say, a vexed question.

Many of us became writers precisely because we hoped to make our livings sitting in rooms alone.  The creatures of our imaginations, and their stories, retreat in the face of the demands of the physical world.  Even those of us who can and do write in cafés use the coming and going as comforting white noise.  Writers who work in the kitchen with their children running under the table and their nearest and dearest clattering the pots do exist, but they're the exceptions that prove the rule.

However, as with so much in life, the good news is the same as the bad news.  Solitude permits work, but it's lonely.  The reason I work in cafés at all is that sometimes I look up from my desk after a morning's writing in my quiet, sunny apartment and realize everyone else in the world could have been beamed up to the mothership and I would have no idea.  (I listen to classical music radio when I write, rather than playing CD's, for a subtler version of the same reason: to connect to a bunch of other people, unseen and unknown, but all listening to Bartok at the same time.)

In my case this is complicated by the fact that I live alone.  It's a choice that by and large I'm happy with, but it means that while I'm sitting here writing I don't have the comfort of knowing that a significant other will be walking in the door at six, bringing the world with him.  Besides which, unless he were also a writer, there'd still be an issue.  Some things, only other writers understand.  (Some things, no one understands, but that's another conversation.)  So I, like so many of us, seek out the company of my own kind.

Like the other night, when I did a NY Public Library gig.  Triss Stein moderated a panel where Peter Blauner, Reed Farrel Coleman, Stefanie Pintoff, and I discussed NYC in crime fiction.  The NYPL does a good event; about 75 people showed up.  Which, considering one of the great things about NYC is how many things there are to do at any given moment, is damned impressive.  The discussion was thoughtful, occasionally funny, and I learned some things about my fellow panelists and their approaches.  But mostly, I accept requests to do this kind of event for the reassurance of hearing my own language spoken.  Like when you're in a foreign country and you hear English on the street.  I think writers are always in a foreign country.  Or maybe I'm only speaking for myself; but I spend a lot of time trying to figure out why people do what they do.  Ultimately it's my subject, it's what I write about.  People interest me endlessly largely because I don't understand them.  Us.  The closest I come is when I'm talking to another writer.  No writer I know understands other people, either.  But every writer I've ever met understands, at least to some degree, the process of trying to understand.

Springing reluctantly forward

by Donna Andrews

Here we go again.  Daylight savings time.  Raise your hand if you’ve set your clocks forward.

Really?  ALL your clocks?  The one in the spare bedroom?  The one in the microwave?  The one on your car’s dashboard?  I just did a quick count of things in my house that are clocks or have clocks in them, and came up with fourteen.  And I've probably missed a few.

Fortunately the clocks I pay the most attention to--the computer clocks, the DVR clock, and the one in my iPhone--sync automatically.  But it could be days before I find and set all the rest.   Weeks.  Heck, I think I skipped a few this past fall.

Still, I'm a lot less stressed by the spring forward than I used to be.  That's partly because I no longer have a day job with a boss who will frown if I straggle in an hour late on the Monday after the time change.  It's not just the getting up earlier that's hard--in fact, the biggest problem for me used to be getting to bed earlier, since I'm a nightowl and an insomniac at the best of times.  I still remember those miserable nights when I'd toss and turn, muttering, "I have to go to sleep NOW!  I have to get up an hour earlier!"  Why does knowing you need to go the sleep make doing it so much harder?

But these days, no one's watching the clock to see when I arrive at my computer.  As long as I get my word count done so I can turn my books in on time, my publisher could care less whether I do my writing during the work day or in the wee small hours.  Which means I can make a much more gradual adjustment to the time change.

And I can stop being stressed about "losing" an hour.  Back when I had a day job, I struggled every day to carve out the time to write.  A crisis at work that forced me to stay overtime, a traffic jam on the way home, even a messy spill in the kitchen--there were times I begrudged anything that ate up my all-too-scarce writing time.  The spring forward ate up yet another hour, and the thought that I'd be getting that hour back in the fall didn't comfort me, because there was no guarantee something else wouldn't eat up that extra hour in the fall.

I'm happier now that I measure my writing time in days and weeks rather than hours.

Although I still do tend to make excuses for myself this time of year.  I didn't get that done today--I had a whole hour less!  In fact, for the next week or so, I'll blame the time shift any time I'm too late or dreadfully early; any time I have trouble sleeping or waking up; and any time I fail to complete everything on my over-crowded to do list.

But I'll only be half-joking when I do it.  At some time over the years, I learned that the hours lost here and there to traffic, to overtime, and to daylight savings time matter a lot less than the hours I myself waste or spend wisely. 

Or maybe I'm just more mellow than about the time shift because I know how much my sports-loving nephew will love having that extra hour of daylight in the evening.  More basket shooting!  More batting practice!

So are you giving yourself a rain check on something because of the time change? 

The Femmes Fatales welcome Dean (aka Miranda) James!

The Femmes Fatales are delighted to welcome Dean James.  Dean (aka Miranda James) grew up in north central Mississippi, the setting for the best-selling “Cat in the Stacks” mysteries, though he has been a resident of Houston, Texas for the past thirty years. Currently a librarian in the Texas Medical Center, Dean has published seventeen mystery novels, under his own name and the pseudonyms Jimmie Ruth Evans and Honor Hartman, as well as six works of mystery non-fiction and several short stories. His work has been nominated several times for the Edgar, Agatha, and Macavity Awards, and he has won an Agatha Award for Best Non-Fiction and two Macavity Awards in the same category. He has thousands of books and one cat (not a Maine Coon).  Take it away, Dean!

Readers are often curious about the source of a writer’s ideas, and the answer will vary from writer to writer. I have several different ways to answer that, because for me it depends on which book or character the reader is referring to when the question arises. For example, I created the character Simon Kirby-Jones because no one had ever written a cozy mystery series with a gay vampire sleuth, and I thought it would be fun to write. My agent sparked another series one day when she asked me “Why hasn’t someone written about a trailer park detective? Why are they always writing about rich people?” That’s how the character Wanda Nell Culpepper – single mother and trailer park dweller – popped into my head.

In the case of Charlie Harris, the widowed librarian who is the amateur sleuth in the “Cat in the Stacks” series, the basic idea came from my wonderful editor, Michelle Vega, and her boss, the amazing Natalee Rosenstein, at Berkley Prime Crime. They asked whether I’d consider writing a series about a librarian and a cat. Well, they both know I’m a librarian and a cat person, so it wasn’t hard for me to say yes to the idea.

Those words – librarian and cat – were the only spark I needed, and Charlie Harris and his Maine Coon cat Diesel walked into my imagination and my life. I know this may sound peculiar to some people, but once I knew the names of my two main characters, I knew a lot about them. I knew Charlie was a widower with two grown children, and I knew Diesel was a Maine Coon. I knew the books would be set in a small Mississippi town, and I knew who some of the secondary characters would be.
 
That’s what is so wonderful about imagination – or maybe it’s the subconscious. Maybe Charlie, Diesel, and the others were lurking in my subconscious the whole time, just waiting for the right moment to step out from the shadows into my conscious mind.

However it all came about, I’m thrilled, because I’m having a terrific time writing about these characters. Reader response has gratifyingly positive, making this series hit the best-seller list. My subconscious did me a huge favor with Charlie and Diesel, and if I knew how to thank it, I would.