My Pit

Photos of our workspace, huh? Be careful what you wish for. Just click on the thumbnails to see the full-sized photos.

MAN STYStealing blatantly from my hero, William Goldman (whose book you’ll see prominently displayed), this is what I refer to as my pit. And, believe me, it really is a pit. My wife calls it my Man Sty.

I’m not known as Rob the Slob for nothing.

This is where I sit every single day and most of the night. I must be spending twelve or more hours a day in this chair lately, including weekends.

My ass is sore.

As you can see, I write on an iMac. I’ve long been a PC guy, but I love my iMac. On the right is a screen that at the flip of a switch is a secondary Mac display or a Windows 7 monitor. Depends on my mood. I’ve got a PC under the desk.

The thing with all the knobs on the left is my newly acquired Mackie Oynx 1640i firewire mixer. I write and record music and this helps me do that.

THE LEFT SIDE OF HEAVENThis area is directly to my left as I sit at my desk. I like the bookshelf there so that I can reach over, grab a book at random and get inspiration from my favorite authors. When I’m low on writing energy, there’s nothing better than reading someone else’s work.

I probably could have cleaned up and made everything pretty, but let’s face it. Most writers are slobs. We’re right brainers, so what do you expect? I’m looking at some free time late in October and I plan to rip everything out of here and completely redesign this space into something resembling a real office—and recording studio.

MY BELOVED CHILDRENHere we have an old Fender Bullet Strat that’s worth about ten bucks, which I bought during the Fender CBS years (I worked for CBS at the time as a script typist). The black one is a Gibson Les Paul, which is on loan from my daughter. And to the right of that is my new Paul Reed Smith Tremonti, which I absolutely love.

You’ll note the piles of Gold Medal books in the b.g. My “collection.” Turns out I collect more dust than books.

I’d show you a wider shot of the room, but you’re already disgusted enough. You do not want to see any more than this. Trust me.

LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT HEAD!This is a reverse shot—and what I look like most of the time I’m writing. Spiffy glasses, eh?

And finally…

MY BRAIN ON DRUGSThis is my real pit. Where I keep all of my files, all of my notes, all of my ideas… It’s my portable office. I try to carry it with me wherever I go.

Sometimes I forget to bring it.

Hilarity ensues.

————————-

JT’s INSPIRATIONOkay, this shot is for JT, who insisted. If I got embarrassed easily, I’d be very red-faced right now. Because, let’s face it, I’m really baring my soul here.

Where I work

So now it’s my turn to talk about my workspace. I thought about cleaning up a bit before taking these photos, but then decided, what the heck. I’ll show you what it really looks like, clutter and all. My office is in a huge room above our garage. It has open beams and sloping walls, a really fun sort of space that made building bookcases a challenge. On the wall is a framed copy of 1996 New York Times Bestsellers List where I made my very first appearance, and draped on it are all the nametag lanyards from various book festivals and conferences I’ve attended over the years. You can also see two different desks.

One desk is an antique partner’s desk, where there’s way too much junk spread out across the surface. But this is the desk where I write my first drafts, in longhand. At the moment, it’s got maps of Boston, handwritten pages of my next novel, and a ton of other stuff I really should get rid of!

The other is my computer desk, which looks no neater!

And I’m embarrassed to show you what the other half of the room looks like. But here it is:

There are books, running shoes, a photocopy machine, and tons of boxes with various editions of my books that I’m not sure what to do with. Plus a futon couch where I sometimes stretch out and stare at the ceiling when I can’t figure out what the heck happens next in the story!

Finally, here’s the best part of my office. Or maybe I should call it the worst part, because it’s so darn distracting:

The view. My windows look out over Penobscot Bay, where I can spot seals and dolphins, seabirds and even the occasional bald eagle. On the window sill are various souvenirs I’ve brought back from my travels abroad, including interesting rocks from Turkey, Egypt, Libya, and England. And I always keep my globe nearby, just to remind myself that there’s a lot of the world I have yet to see.

Theme week(s) at the ’Rati: Work space & writing process

by Pari

Oh, man, this is embarrassing . . .
When we decided to take two weeks for the ’Rati to write about our workspaces and processes, I thought it’d be nifty. What better way to learn how my cohorts work and how their home environments reflect their personalities and literary brilliance?

That was before I looked at my own office.

Crap sticks.

Gahhhhhhhh.

As you can see, there’s a certain amount of chaos in my life. I won’t defend it. I always have several projects going on at once and my workspace reflects that . . . rather painfully. Up until July 1, I wrote my fiction in this chaos too. That’s why I still have posters and inspirational sayings on the wall behind my computer and to each side of it.

I managed to produce five manuscripts here along with several feature articles and short stories. So even if it seems horrific to the neater folks reading this post, it worked for me. But anyone who has been following Murderati for the last year knows I’ve been going through tremendous transformations in my career and self perception. The slapdash approach I had for the first decade — mas o menos — just stopped being effective for this new, improved Pari.

On July 1, when I made the vow to write fiction daily, I needed a workspace that mirrored that commitment. So I appropriated one wall in the mess of my office for free-rein creativity. No editing allowed. No self-criticism. No distractions (unless they feed my creativity). NO INTERNET. And I came up with this:

Isn’t that better?

I know it may seem cluttered to you, but to me it’s quiet — easy on the eyes and mind. I keep my little notebook computer here; it’s dedicated solely to fiction.

Every time I walk into my office, I consciously decide if I want my business or writing hat on. If it’s the former, I head to the desk with the clutter (though to be honest, it’s cleaner since I took those photos.) It’s where I’m sitting right now writing this blog. It’s where I write features, do my public relations work for clients, post anything on the internet and send emails.

It’s where I edit my fiction too.

I use Open Office to write all of my stories/manuscripts now. When they’re done, I put them on a flashdrive and bring them to the business computer. To make the distinction even more profound, I convert those docs to MS Word. The result is that my internal editor, and quite a few of my demons, now sit at the messy desk. They don’t interfere with productivity, though they’re causing a bit of a bottleneck in Heinlein’s Rule #4. (You can see that in the third picture in this post.)

While it might seem hokey, by making the division between my business space and fiction space so pronounced, I can more easily protect my creative process. Self-doubt isn’t permitted on the fiction side of my office. If it starts to creep in, I get up and move. Simple. And amazingly effective.

If I’m in need of positive inspiration while writing fiction, I look out the window. More often, I glance at the statue my friend sent me. It’s the Hindu god Ganesha — the god of success and remover of obstacles — with additional talismans that mean something to me.

For those wondering about my schedule or methods, I can’t say I have much of either — and that’s embarrassing too. I have the secret fear that ALL of my colleagues are far more together than I am in this regard. But the truth is that I’ve tried outlining, index cards, strips of paper, white boards . . . and none work well for me. Rather than tools, they seem like fetters.

So I just write my fiction every day. By doing so, I affirm the habit of creativity and put it in a place of honor in my life.

Well, that’s it.
I hope the following two weeks are interesting for all of you. I know I can’t wait to see and read what everyone else posts through Toni’s round-up entry on Sept. 19.

Bonus Pictures: I just had to share this. It’s a patty pan squash we grew that’s about the size of both of my hands. Yummmm.

a poll and a teaser

by Toni McGee Causey

I would really love it if you all would help resolve a bit of a mystery for a lot of us freaks/writers/authors/scribblers…

Lately, I’ve seen a tremendous amount of discussion on a couple of writers loops I’m on, and elsewhere on various blogs, about how important social media is to a writer’s career. We all pretty much agree that it’s important to have a website (she said, the person who has not updated her own in a long time, yikes)… but there is the assumption / pressure / voodoo guesswork that it’s critical for an author to also be present on Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites.

The assumption is that social media helps authors sell books. And the corollary is that a lack of presence means lost sales (bad author, bad author).

I think these are incorrect assumptions, but I could be wrong.

My theory is that most people who “follow” an author on Facebook or Twitter do so after they’ve already learned about the author–usually by buying their books or visiting them on blogs. I’m not sure that the exposure to the author on Facebook or Twitter actually compels a follower who hadn’t already been interested in buying the author’s books to then do so.

Does that make sense to you all?

Now, don’t get me wrong–I enjoy Facebook and Twitter and I think that it’s funt to build a relationship with readers, and I know in my case, many readers have become real friends, so that’s a lot of lagniappe, there. Subsequently, there have been times that these friends have talked about someone else’s books and I’ve gone to check that book out and then I bought it. But I bought it on word-of-mouth, not on the author having posted information. (In each case where this happened, the person had bought and read the book; they had not re-posted anything from the original author.)

I also know that there have been a few times when I’ve seen an author be so… repugnant… on their social media interactions, that I am no longer interested in their books, so the social media thing can definitely backfire.

So I’d like to know if the mandate to “get a FB and Twitter account” to “help sell books” is a fallacy… or if it helps… or if sales are just an occasional side benefit.

Would you mind telling me which of the following is true for you? Please feel free to pick more than one if you do some of one, some of the other. I’m looking more for overall trends here, so feel free to elaborate.

Now, this is not just aimed at readers, but I really hope you all will come out of lurkdom and post. To make it fun, one lucky commenter will receive a $25 gift certificate to the online bookstore of their choice.

POLL

a) I follow authors on FB/Twitter after I’ve read their books, not before.

b) I follow authors on FB/Twitter after I’ve heard about them from their blogs — this does not mean I have bought or will buy their books.

c) I follow authors on FB/Twitter after someone else has mentioned them / tweeted about them / shared a link, but that’s more out of curiosity, and does not mean I will be buying their books.

d)I follow authors on FB/Twitter, and in some cases (or all cases), have then subsequently bought their books.

e) I follow authors on FB/Twitter after I heard about them from their blogs, and I have then subsequently bought their books.

f) I follow authors on FB/Twitter after someone has mentioned them/tweeted, etc., and I often then buy their books.

g) I follow authors on FB/Twitter and ended up buying something they recommended. (Doesn’t mean I bought that author’s books, though.)

h) What the hell? Who the hell follows authors on FB/Twitter? I don’t “follow” authors online, and I still buy books.

i) WRITE IN YOUR TAKE ON THE USE / ABUSE / FALSE ASSUMPTIONS about Facebook and/or Twitter.

And now, for the teaser part of the post…

For the next two weeks, you will see all of our workspaces and hear about our writing processes. Well, everyone except moi… mine was posted a couple of weeks back here. I think this is a first for us–a concentrated two week look into the same aspect of each of our lives, and how similar–and different–we all are.

On my Sunday, two weeks from now, we have a round-up of photos from a bunch of cool writers friends, and we’re adding more through this week. (Seriously, you will love glimpses into these writer’s workspaces — Lee Child, David Morrell, Laura Lippman, MJ Rose, Anne Stuart, Lani Diane Rich, Karin Slaughter, Lisa Gardner, Cindy Gerard, Erica Spindler, T. Jefferson Parker, CJ Lyons, Jeff Abbott, James Born, Gayle Lynds, Jonathan Maberry… and YOU.)

I want YOU, yes, YOU to send me your photos of your workspaces, because you’re a part of us. So many of you have visited with us every day, and we’d love to include you in our pictorial. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE A WRITER. We LOVE READERS. There are a bunch of writer friends who post here for whom I do not have an email address, and yes, I want you on board. All of you. What a cool round-up that would be.

Here’s what you do — take a photo of your workspace. I don’t care if it’s a barn, a desk in a cubicle, an assembly line, a backhoe… take a photo of your workspace and email it to toni [at] tonimcgeecausey [dot] com. Any photo will do, and don’t worry if it’s dark or whatever–I have Lightroom, I can deal with it. Email it and tell me in a sentence or two something about your workspace and what you do there.

C’mon. Join the fun. I’ve got photos right now of everything from a Starbucks to a highrise apartment to a bed. (Yes. A bed. Which is so perfect.) So send me yours, dear ‘Rati. You belong here.

Now, on to your answers! And thank you.

Crest-Fest at Tiffany

By Cornelia Read

I dragged my daughter Grace all over Manhattan the other day, doing kind of groovy errands. We toured Barnard in the morning, which she loved so much she was on the verge of joyful tears throughout the entire information session, and I think was just about ready to chain herself to the gates in order to get accepted to the freshman class of year after next. Then we got to go to Belgian Shoes and exchange a gift pair from my Aunt Jean that were slightly too big for a really groovy mock-alligator black patent leather.

like this except NOT GREEN

The very nice salesman assured me that you can now wear patent leather BETWEEN Memorial Day and Labor Day, but I disagree totally. I mean, if John Waters thinks Kathleen Turner can fictionally want to kill off Patty Hearst for wearing white shoes after Labor Day, I’m pretty sure I’m still on safe ground here, right?

But the coolest thing we did was go to Tiffany to ask whether they still had a Read family crest on file. My cousin Eric had told me there were two in the files, an older one that has like a bear paw or something, IIRC, with a motto along the lines of “Angry When Roused” only in Latin. The newer one is what my Grandfather designed for himself, which is the crest Eric had made into a ring for himself.

My mother had said that she wanted to have my dad’s version of this ring copied for me and my sister, if we wanted them. I told her that sounded terrific, especially if she felt like doing it for my fiftieth birthday (still thankfully… ahem… three years away.) Mom thought my stepmother might have Dad’s ring, but I’d found out she didn’t, and promised to go check with Tiffany, etc.

After some confusion on the part of the very courteous staff as to where one might actually GO in the store to find this information out (we were sent to the second floor, which is engagement rings and diamonds and pearls, then back to the ground floor [REALLY big sparkly stuff],

and then finally to customer service on the sixth floor, which proved to be correct ding-ding-ding.)

The tremendously kind Mr. Mark Harty helped me out with all this, promised to contact the branch of the company that keeps these things on file, and then emailed me that same afternoon to ask whether I’d forgotten a shopping bag at his desk.

I wrote back that if the shopping bag were from Belgian Shoes, then it contained merely a pair of totally jankity ballet flats from Target, and that I’d be honored if he’d throw them away.

He emailed back later that same day and attached a jpeg of Grandaddy’s crest (and also said he’d successfully disposed of my “beloved” ballet flats, which was most excellent of him):

I don’t know a lot about heraldry, so just looked up a list of what the symbols mean this morning. Here are a few I thought were cool:

an ANT: great labour, wisdom, and providence in one’s affairs

an ASS: patience and humility

an AXE: execution of military duty

a BAT: Awareness of the powers of darkness and chaos

BAY LEAVES: poet or victor’s laurels

a BEAR: strength, cunning, ferocity in the protection of one’s kindred

a BEAVER: industry and perseverance

a BEE: efficient industry

BELLS: Power to disperse evil spirits; a hawk’s bells denotes one who was not afraid of signalling his approach in peace or war

a CENTAUR: eminence in the field of battle

a COCK: courage and perseverance; hero; able man in politics

a CRANE (stork): close parental bond; vigilance if holding a rock

a DOG: courage, vigilance, and loyalty

a DOLPHIN: swiftness, diligence, salvation, charity, and love

a DUCK: person of many resources

an EAGLE: Person of noble nature, strength, bravery, and alertness… if wings “displayed,” it signifies protection.

an ELEPHANT: great strength, wit, longevity, happiness, royalty, good luck, and ambition.

an ESCALLOP (scallop shell): traveller to far places…

It’s a long list, but kind of fun to check out. Here’s a link to the full thing.

If I were to design my own, it would definitely have an inkhorn or inkwell (art of writing) with a panther (fierce, but tender and loving to children and will defend her children with her life.)

Grandaddy picked a stump with a branch sprouting from it, which apparently means “new life sprouting from the old.” Not sure what the bird is. An eagle? A cock?

Cocks in heraldry can sometimes look like this, rather than totally roostery (this is apparently a “moorcock”):

As for his new motto, I’d definitely keep that.

Here’s another crest I found online this morning, which I think is really cool:

I presume it was designed for an African-American family, given the visual references to slavery and Africa. I like the sound of these people very much.

Okay ‘Ratis, your turn. If you’ve got a family crest, let us know what it is and whether or not you’re comfortable with it. What would be in your crest if you designed it yourself? What would you want as your motto?

Fortune-Telling

by JT Ellison

My husband and I just celebrated our 15/18^th anniversary. Why the two dates? We married on the 3^rd anniversary of our first kiss. Which was one day after we met. We didn’t waste a lot of time falling in love, we sort of did it immediately. Honestly, he could have suggested that we run off to Bora Bora and get married a week later, and I’d have said, “Just hang on a moment, dear, while I grab my favorite bikini.”

As it happens, my sweetly practical husband wanted to wait until we graduated from grad school to get married. A wise, sage man he is – the allure of knowing our lives were already intertwined, that we would work and love together for years to come, was a heady aphrodisiac. Not that I’m competitive or anything, but the desire to impress him drove me to new heights with my schoolwork—not to mention my full time job—and it was a good couple of years.

We were heavy into the political scene at the time—it looked like he was going to be the candidate and I would be the campaign manager. This was a shock to our professors, who thought I’d make a decent candidate myself, until they tried filming me giving a speech and the wheels came off the wagon. Me and Public Speaking were not a marriage made in heaven.

Me and Randy? We are.

So there’s a place we always go to celebrate, and a bartender who’s a friend, and when we all raised out glasses to toast, she said,” Did you ever imagine you’d be where you are today when you got married?”

Which was hysterical, because Randy and I had just had that talk a few hours before.

The short answer is: “No.” The long answer is, “Um, no way.”

Now, Randy runs his own market research firm. That wasn’t a huge surprise, because he’s damn good at public opinion polling, and a natural leader, so I always pushed for him to get out from under the man and run his own shop. He’s been at it for a couple of years now, and it’s a lot of fun. A lot of work, but he loves it.

Me, an international author? Now, that’s a surprise. If you’ve been here from the beginning at Murderati, you’ve been able to track my career from its inception, literally. So you know I’m not kidding when I say this has rather fallen in my lap, and I’m doing my best to manage the ramifications. Two books a year is fun, but stressful, and I’m so committed to making each book better than the last that I sometimes lose the forest for the trees. But things are good, and we’re both doing what we love.

If I’d had any inkling that all this was going to happen, would that change the way I feel about it? Absolutely. I’m a huge fan of letting life unfold, of climbing the mountain, not appearing at the pinnacle. I don’t want to know what’s going to happen tomorrow. We’re at a completely blissful moment in our lives. All is well work wise. We love and respect each other. We have our parents. We have a roof over our heads and money set aside for later and the freedom to travel. We are blessed.

So when I had an opportunity to have a reading done on my future, I balked.

You see, the new book involves the occult. And through the media promotion, I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting a V.I.P.—Very Important Pagan—in the Nashville community. I interviewed a few Wiccans for the book, and did a ridiculous amount of research into their ways, and the ways of the Pagans, the Stregheria, Goths… hell, even Buddhists. Through all of that, I’ve seen many ways of predicting the future, learning the future, and altering the future.

And that, more than anything, frightens me.

I don’t want to know the future. I love that sense of uncertainty that permeates my life. Will the book do well? I don’t know. Could I ask one of my friends to look into the matter and tell me, or give me a spell or a blessing to alter its course? Yes, I could, but I’d never do it. I’m such a firm believer in what happens, happens for a reason, that the idea of actually knowing what’s going to go down freaks me out of a bit. Good, bad or indifferent, my life is unfolding in ways I could never expect. I don’t want to mess with that.

Now, all that said, I do believe in signs. Like the crazy fortune cookie I had once that said “The best advice comes from a child,” just a few days before Lee Child became my ITW mentor. Or the fact that lately, I’ve been besieged by grasshoppers. They land on me when I’m outside, they show up on my deck, I even had one in my cart at Target the other day. If I were a practicing Pagan, I would assume (and be utterly delighted) that I’d been chosen by the Goddess and that she was speaking to me – in this case, the Goddess Aurora, who asked Zeus to grant immortality to her lover, but neglected to ask for youth as well, and since Zeus was a right old bastard with a sick sense of humor, he granted her wish. Her lover, Tithonus, Prince of Troy, was made immortal, but continued to age. She finally turned him into a grasshopper.

The Gods and Goddesses love to send signs. They may appear in person, or as something else. They carry a message, or a blessing, or simply want to check on things. I like that.

Then again, I’m also working on a story about a grasshopper, so the non-believers could say I’m just finding them more often because they’re foremost in my mind…

I think that I prefer the former, for the research I’ve done into Aurora shows her as the Goddess of rebirth. Considering the tattoo on my ankle is two Chinese figures, strength and rebirth (which combines to be the Phoenix Rising) and I’ve reinvented myself to become an author, it’s not such a stretch that she’d be calling to me, now is it?

So my question for you today, folks, is this: If you could see into the future, would you? Do you want to know what’s coming down the pike, or would you rather sit back and let things unfold as they will? Have you ever had a reading done? I know our Pari is handy with the Tarot cards, and our Alex certainly treads through the otherworld with her novels, and I assume, her research. What about you?

Wine of the Week: Sadly, one of the Australian vineyards that we frequent (namely, through a yummy wine called Marquis Philips McLaren Vale Shiraz ) is going out of buisness. They has a lot of wine that needs to be purchased. So here’s a link to the story, in the hopes that a benefactor may be found.

P.S. The wonderful folks at Exaclair, makers of Clairfontaine and Quo Vadis, the notebooks and planners I use (and will talk more about in 2 weeks) did me the honor of a feature in their Writer’s Project. Click here to take a look.

Right or Privilege?

Zoë Sharp

When I was a kid, one of my favourite places was the library. I lived on a boat from an early age, which was not exactly conducive to having a large collection of books. Condensation was a big problem, and the pages tended to mildew badly in the winter.

So, I got my reading kicks amid the old oak shelves and the parquet flooring of the nearest public library in Lancaster.

It was there I worked my way contentedly through the crime section, happy to take a chance on an author I hadn’t previously come across because it wasn’t costing me anything to give them a try. And, if I didn’t like the book I’d chosen, I had plenty more book to go at.

My first event as a published author was held at that same library. While I was writing my first book, the recently republished KILLER INSTINCT, I was part of a small local writing group who met every few weeks in another tiny local library in a nearby village, barely larger than an average living room. It’s gone now, more’s the pity, boarded up and abandoned – a victim of local authority cutbacks. The community is poorer for it.

And now the government is turning its attention to another aspect of the UK library system – PLR.

Public Lending Right came into being in 1979, when the Public Lending Right Act gave British authors a legal right to receive payment for the free lending of their books by public libraries, after a campaign that lasted thirty years and was vigorously opposed by a minority of determined MPs. The scheme itself was established three years later. Payment is just a few pence per lend, taken across a sample of UK libraries over the course of a year. And as it’s capped at £6600 (a little over $10,000) it’s the mid-list authors who tend to benefit most.

For authors whose books are produced in small numbers intended largely for the library market, often only in hardcover, PLR is a lifeline. It doesn’t matter if a book is out of print, so long as it’s still being circulated in the library system, and still being read. For the years when KILLER INSTINCT languished out of print, it was the only way I knew people were still reading and enjoying the book.

I feel very grateful to the libraries in general – and Lancaster Library in particular. In fact, the first ‘real’ character I included in one of my books was the librarian there, Andrew Till, who became an FBI agent in FIRST DROP. I was delighted to be able to include him as a thank you for all the hard work librarians do.

(a recent library event as part of Yorkshire FEVA – Festival of Entertainment and Visual Arts – with the staff of Knaresborough Library [from l to r] Karen Thornton, Wendy Kent, Deborah Thornton, with ZS, and fellow crime authors Richard Jay Parker and Matt Lynn.)

Whenever I’ve toured a new book in the States, I’ve always been more than happy to do library events, but got the impression – rightly or wrongly – that some authors are reluctant to promote the library system. Taken at face value, I can understand this. After all, if a library buys a book and then lends it to a hundred people, that (in theory) is a potential 99 sales lost.

I know whenever I’ve done library events that there’s often a very good take-up of sales alongside them. Many people who use libraries are also voracious book buyers, who borrow books as an extended version of browsing. Many others simply cannot afford to buy new books, particularly hardcovers. I’d rather they used the library, and kept that alive, than scoured second-hand stores and market stalls. Particularly as in the UK struggling authors have PLR as a small safety net.

But now, of course, the cash-strapped government is looking to cut public expenditure dramatically, and PLR is one of the things that’s coming under the microscope by the Department for Culture Media and Sport. The results of the Spending Review are due to be announced on October 20^th.

Meanwhile, there’s a petition you can put your name to, if you feel strongly enough about it. I know, if you’re not a UK author, you may think, why should I? But if you enjoy reading UK authors, please bear in mind that PLR is often the difference between an author being able to continue writing, and having to give it up in favour of more gainful employment.

So, ‘Rati, will you visit and sign the petition, or don’t you feel that authors should receive payment for library lends? What’s your view?

This week’s Word of the Week is quintessential, meaning something it its purest, most concentrated form, the most essential part, form or embodiment of anything. In medieval times, it was thought the world was made up of four corruptible elements: earth, air, fire and water. The heavens came to be regarded as a perfect incorruptible element. In Latin, the quinta essentia, literally, the fifth element.

I’m off on the road from this morning, so I’ll get to comments when I can, but please bear with me.

In Which I Get You Guys to Do All the Work

Monday night I typed those glorious words “The End” on the first draft of my WIP. Now, I’ll admit, this is a true first draft, meaning that, as it stands now, my new opus blows like a tranny hooker during Fleet Week. But I can already see ways to make it better. I can even see ways that it might even achieve awesomeness, if I can pull it off.

For the moment, however, I’m taking Our Alex’s advice to put it aside for at least a week, after which I’m going to print out her blog post on re-writing, tape it up above my desk, and get back to work.

In the meantime I see that it’s my Wednesday to blog here at Murderati. Only problem is, my brain is burned. All the bearings on the magnificent machine that is my mind are smoking and squealing like the brakes on an 18 wheeler headed down out of the Rockies. I’ve also been so buried in this book, not to mention life and the day job, that once I surfaced, I felt like I’d been asleep for the last month or so. I’m having a hard time even figuring out what’s been happening, much less commenting on it. So I’m asking our loyal readership to fill me in on what’s going on, discuss it, and, not to put too fine a point on it, write this post for me.

Ready? Let’s begin:

Why are people mad at Jonathan Franzen this time?
Apparently, the Wylie Agency and Random House have “struck a truce”. I didn’t even know they were at war. Can someone fill me in on this? Who should I have been pulling for?
So, this new Kindle. Why is it only 139 bucks? Is it because you can only download stuff if you’re in a WiFi hotspot? This wouldn’t really be a problem for me, even living in the sticks like I do, but is there some other feature that you give up for that price that I need to know about? In your opinion, is 139 dollars the tipping point that will make the Kindle 3 as ubiquitous as the Mp3 player?
A six year old got a multi-book contract? WTF?

Lay some wisdom on me, cats n’ kittens.

Bonus question: Was the movie version of WINTER’S BONE freakin’ awesome, or what? I mean, if Jennifer Stewart and John Hawke don’t get Oscar nominations, there is something seriously wrong with the process, am I right?

Warning!

By Louise Ure

I’ve long been a fan of unexpectedly funny warning labels. Like the one on the chainsaw, telling you which end of the saw to hold.

Or this one, for a set of small screwdrivers.

Euuwwww. Where do they get the idea they need to tell us something like this?

I’m even more appreciative of the sly warnings like this one from a U.S. clothing manufacturer in 2006.

A blogger in England recently decided that warning labels also needed to be applied to newspapers and magazines, lest the reader be taken in by a product that did not perform as expected. His suggestions included:

I’ve taken his idea of warning readers a step further: I think we need warning labels on books. Come on … you know the vast majority of Americans don’t read the depth and breadth of fiction we do. They only know the names of the books on the front table at Barnes & Noble, or the title of a book that’s been made into a movie.

We could provide a list of resources and suggestions for them, sure. But wouldn’t it be more fun to warn them away from a purchase they won’t be happy with?

In the spirit of providing this community service, I’ve prepared a set of templates you can print out in the privacy of your own home (Avery labels 5162 in the U.S. and L7651 in the U.K.) and take down to your local book palace for use.

Slap this one on any of my books, or on Karen Olson’s first series. Those half dozen readers who complained so vocally to us would have appreciated it.

Or how about this one on any of the Stieg Larsson books:

I’m personally going to stick this one on the remnant copy of a certain book when the Warner Brothers movie comes out.

And I know a small army of people who would like to print out pages of this one:

This warning label belongs on most “literary fiction”:

And I think Fran at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop might agree with me that either the Angst label or this one should be affixed to the newest James Ellroy oeuvre:

My personal favorite though, is this one: a warning to prevent heaving books across a room:

TSTL is, of course, “too stupid to live”: a character trait found all too often in amateur detective crime novels.

So go ahead. Let me know which pdfs you want. Take ‘em to the bookstore. Future readers will thank you for your work today. But I can’t promise that booksellers or librarians will.

So what about you guys? What warning labels would you like to slap across a book? I’m at the ready to make the labels for you.

Which of Your Books Should I Read First?

by Alafair Burke

I am a better writer today than I was in 1999 when I started my first book, Judgment Calls.

I make that observation neither to apologize for my debut novel nor to boast about my current abilities. In my humble and biased opinion, Judgment Calls is a good book. I’d say PW and Booklist were probably about right in describing it “a solid first effort” and a “promising debut,” respectively. (Proving that reviews can be scattered, The Rocky Mountain News may have been overly generous in comparing it to the “best of the genre,” while The UK’s Guardian was undoubtedly harsh in dubbing it their “Turkey of the Year.”) And though I say I’m a better writer now than I was when I wrote that book, I know I can still develop further in my craft.

But the objective fact remains that I am better today than I was then. So, therefore, are my books. In fact, after just finishing my seventh novel, I can say (and I think my readers would agree) that each novel — without exception — has improved upon its predecessors. I chalk the advancements up to hard work and confidence. I try to write every single day, challenging myself to be better with each session. And with each book, I have been more willing to trust my instincts, experiment with form, and follow my characters on their journey.

It turns out I am not the only writer who believes she has improved with age.

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending a Q&A with Lisa Unger at The Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan about her new book, Fragile. I asked her whether she viewed her earlier books, published before she was married under her maiden name Lisa Miscione, as part of the same body of work, or whether she preferred the later Lisa Unger novels to be treated as works by a different author.

I found her response to be such a wonderful description of how many of us might feel about our development as artists. She expressed a sincere pride in her early books and made clear that she was not one of those writers who seek to distance themselves from certain books through the use of another name. But she also noted that she started her first book, Angel Fire, when she was nineteen years old. She tries to become a better writer everyday (I obviously liked that part). And, interestingly, she said that readers who picked up Angel Fire and Fragile would not recognize them as having been written by the same person because she was not the same as she was as a nineteen-year-old.

Harlan Coben recently found a different way of expressing a similar observation about his own work. When his first novel, Play Dead, was re-released, he wrote the following note for the front of the book:

If you ever doubted Harlan’s ability to be humble and funny, you probably don’t anymore.

The writers I most admire aren’t the ones who shoot out of the gate with a shattering debut that subsequent books just never quite measure up to. They’re the ones — like Lisa and Harlan and Laura Lippman and Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane and Lee Child and Karin Slaughter– who keep rolling out bigger and better books, delving deeping into their own souls to find fresh material year after year after year.

But there’s one question that I’m asked multiple times a week that must give pause to any writer who believes she’s improved with every book: Which of your books should I read first?

In some ways, there’s really no better question to find waiting in your e-mail or on your Facebook page. It means a new reader has found you. Someone has heard about you from a friend or has finally seen your name enough times to be interested in your work. Woot!

The downside to the question is you’ve got to answer it. And what’s the right answer, particularly if you write a series? No matter how hard you’ve tried (as I do) to make each book work as a standalone, most genre readers like to proceed in order. On the other hand, if you’ve become a better writer with each book, you might know (as I do) that, as proud as you are of that first novel, it’s not as good as the last. So, for me at least, there is no short answer.

What I want to tell people is to read in order, but to expect each book to get better and better, and to stick with me through the end. But that sounds simultaneously boastful and apologetic. It also assumes a new reader is going to devote herself to your entire oeuvre. So instead I say each book can be read alone, referring readers to the chronological list on my website.

I have to admit that when asked that impossible question, I wonder whether it would be better to be one of those people who torpedoed out of the gate only to come to a slow limp in later books. And when I say “better,” obviously I don’t mean better. I guess I mean something like luckier. No, I mean easier.

To explain what I mean, let me invoke some television shows as examples, since I love me some TV. I absolutely loved Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty at the get-go. Great characters. Great hook. Pulled me right in. And then, you know, stuff happened. Silly stuff. Lame stuff. But I was already invested, so I didn’t stop watching. Other shows — shows like Friday Night Lights and, as I’ve been told at least, True Blood and Mad Men — had impressive enough starts but then blossomed into some of the best series on the tube.

Creatively, of course you’d rather be the creator of the higher quality material. But commercially? An early peak can be pretty sticky as far as an audience is concerned. If my first book had been my best, it would be so easy to tell new readers to start there. Start with that first, awesome book, fall in love with the characters, and then stick with me even as I phone it in. See how easy that would be?

But I don’t want writing to be easy. I don’t want to phone it in. I’m incredibly proud of the fact — yes, fact — that I’ve written seven books in about a decade, each being better than the previous. I hope to write twenty more in the next two decades and be able to say I’m still a better writer every day.

But, my God, that trajectory sure does make it difficult to answer that damn question: Which of your books should I read first?

So what do y’all think? If I writer’s early books are good but not as great as the later ones, how do you hook a new reader in? How do you talk about your body of work without apologizing for or distancing yourself from those early books?

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