Icons of Cool

As so often happens, I actually had another topic planned for this post. But yesterday I found something out that absolutely redlined my bullshit meter. Acording to Lee Goldberg’s excellent blog A Writer’s Life, there’s a movie version in the works of John D. MacDonald’s first Travis McGee book, THE DEEP BLUE GOODBYE.

 

McGee is to be played by…brace yourselves:

Leonardo DiCaprio.

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Okay, after seeing BLOOD DIAMOND and THE DEPAHTED, I’ll grant that DiCaprio can play a tough guy. He’s turned in some great performances.  But damn it, he’s just wrong for McGee. He’s too short. He’s too blond. He’s too goddamn pretty.

I know I shouldn’t get this upset. It’s just a movie. And McGee’s just a fictional character in some old paperbacks.

Except to me, Travis McGee is a lot more than that. As I’ve mentioned here  before, I discovered the Travis McGee books at a formative time in my life. In my mid teens, I was a lonely kid with a tendency to wax philosophical. I could, and occasionally did, get all tragic and self-pitying, what the kids today  call “emo.” But then John D, MacDonald’s series about a loner with a philosophical bent who lived on a boat, righted wrongs, AND got a lot of hot women, hooked me and hooked me hard.  My parents had a couple of the books on their shelves, and after devouring those,  I went out and hunted down every other  one I could find. I’ve probably read all of them at least twice, and some I’ve read so many times the old paperbacks are coming apart.

McGee had a lifestyle most people would envy. In addition to the aforementioned boat and hot women, he had a fantastic , if entirely unconventional car: a Rolls Royce some maniac had painted electric blue and chopped up to make a pickup truck. He called it Miss Agnes after an old teacher who’d had hair the exact same shade of blue. He had an awesome best friend: a genius economist named Meyer who lived on a nearby boat and provided  him with a foil for his musings (and a mouthpiece for  some of John D. MacDonald’s observations as well). Most importantly, though, McGee had life figured out. He had life flat knocked. McGee had decided that life was too short to wait for the good times, so he’d take his retirement in installments and only work when he needed money. To make this happen,   McGee crafted for himself the ingenious profession of “salvage expert,”   a  euphemism for what he really did: Recover things for people who’d had those things stolen from them. Often, the thievery was legal; McGee’s methods of recovery,  not so much. His fee was half of whatever he recovered. On the surface, this sounds pretty mercenary, but McGee had a romantic streak that often caused him to take on apparently lost causes. He once expressed his philosophy of life in a way that almost makes him sound like a hippie:

Up with life. Stamp out all small and large indignities. Leave everyone alone to make it without pressure. Down with hurting. Lower the standard of living. Do without plastics. Smash the servo-mechanisms. Stop grabbing. Snuff the breeze and hug the kids. Love all love. Hate all hate.

And yet, McGee could go out and kick asses if he needed to. THis was fortunate, becuase he needed to, a lot. Further, he didn’t take himself too seriously. He referred to himself  on more than one occasion as a  “knight with rusty armor, a bent lance and a swaybacked steed.” This cynical/romantic dichotomy is pretty much a staple of private eye fiction; McGee, however, took it and made it seem even cooler than usual.

And that, more than anything else, is why Travis McGee is so special to me. There are a lot of real-life people who influenced my idea of what it was to be cool. But I can’t deny the influence of some cultural icons as well, and one of the first was Travis McGee.

Granted, he had some flaws. His attitudes towards women could be a bit paternalistic, although it’s unfair to call it Hugh Hefner-like,  as George Pelecanos once did (McGee would probably bridle at anyone referring to a woman as a “Playmate”).

All that said, though, McGee was the type of guy who a lonely kid could aspire to be. He was a tough guy with soul. An undeniable bad-ass, but with a soft spot for the wounded and downtrodden and a willingness to fight for them. A guy who lives by his own strict code, but who doesn’t take himself too seriously. A guy who doesn’t give a damn what the world thinks of him or the way he lives. A guy who is, in a word, an icon of cool.

And I’m sorry, Leonard DiCaprio can never be that.

So tell me, ‘Rati: what fictional character most influenced your concept of cool? Has any movie casting of one of your favorite characters pissed you off as bad as this has me?

Story Time

 

 

By Louise Ure

 

A writer friend sent me a present this week that I initially thought might possibly be the finest gift (short of a lifetime publishing contract) that any writer could get.

 

It’s called “Deal a Story.”  Or Plot in a Box. Or Writers Unblocked. Or How to Waste an Afternoon and Call it Work.

 

It’s the size of a canasta game, a box with two decks of cards in it.

 

  • ·      16 Hero cards
  • ·      16 Heroine cards
  • ·      16 Villain Cards
  • ·      16 Flaw cards
  • ·      16 Plot cards
  • ·      16 Genre cards
  • ·        5 Wild cards, for when you get stuck.

 

Just deal yourself a hand and all your troubles are over!

 

Let’s start with the genre cards.

 

I’m not writing “Inspirational Novels” or “Fantasy,” so I can put a couple of these aside. (Cornelia, there’s not one card here for “Literary Fiction” so I guess I can’t help you with the plotting in that non-genre category.) Inexplicably, they have five separate cards for “Thriller,” “Action,” “Crime,” “Mystery,” and “Suspense.” I could argue for a little consolidation there, but I understand their desire to offer sixteen separate cards so they used a little literary license. “Patriot Games” is a Thriller according to them, but “Ice Station Zebra” is an Action book. “Mildred Pierce” is a “Crime Novel,” but “Along Came a Spider” is a Mystery. Go figure.

 

The Hero cards are defined as:

 

  • ·      The Outcast
  • ·      Mr. Nice Guy
  • ·      Mr. Organized
  • ·      The Knight
  • ·      The Explorer
  • ·      The Daredevil
  • ·      The Conquerer
  • ·      The Confidant
  • ·      The Boy From the Wrong Side of the Tracks
  • ·      The Born Leader
  • ·      The Avenger
  • ·      The Absent-Minded Professor
  • ·      The Wanderer
  • ·      The Rogue
  • ·      The Rebel
  • ·      The Playboy

 

They’d probably consider Jack Reacher and “Avenger” or a “Knight,” but I prefer the notion of a Palladin. (He’s definitely not a “Wanderer,” as they describe that character as: “Lonely, he is easily hurt emotionally by criticism and censure, is unsure of his own abilities and feelings and is discontented with life. A vulnerable soul looking for acceptance.”) Not Jack Reacher at all.

 

I don’t want to write about Wanderers or Mr. Organized. Blech. What kind of hero would they be?

 

Heroines are equally pigeon-holed:

 

  • ·      The Innocent
  • ·      The Girl Next Door
  • ·      The Darling
  • ·      The Dark Lady
  • ·      The Comedian
  • ·      The Caregiver
  • ·      The Bookworm
  • ·      The Zealot
  • ·      The Working Girl
  • ·      The Wise Woman
  • ·      The Trail Blazer
  • ·      The Siren
  • ·      The Rescuer
  • ·      The Princess
  • ·      The Orphan
  • ·      The Know-It-All

 

I know I’ve written about a “Rescuer” before, but I hope never to create a “Darling” heroine, as their description reads: “The Darling grew up loved and adored by everyone around her and tends to make decisions with her emotions. Self-assured but impulsive, she often finds herself in a ‘pickle’ and needs help getting out. However, most of the time her ‘crazy’ logic will save the day. See Elli Woods in ‘Legally Blonde.’” God help us all.

 

The Villain cards run the gamut you’d expect: Evil Genius, the Devil, Corrupt Leaders, Assassins, Aliens, Psychopaths, Monsters, Machines, Tyrants, Terrorists and Traitors. I think they’ve forgotten that some of the most vile behavior is carried out by those closer to home: the Selfish, the Cruel, the Zealots.

 

I thought the Flaw cards might be the answer to all my problems. Deal a Story separates their suggestions onto cards labeled Challenges, Secrets and Attitudes among other flaw categories. On the Flaw/Challenges card, you’re encouraged to create a character that has “lost a limb, or is wheelchair bound, or has a speech impediment, or is unattractive, or is hearing impaired, or is awkward or is blind.” WTF? Being unattractive is now a flaw that a hero has to overcome? Sheesh.

 

I won’t bother much with the plot cards as I guarantee that they won’t be descriptive enough for you to say, “Eureka! Now I know what my next book is going to be about!” (Unless of course, you’re bowled over by headings like Puzzle, Pursuit, Relationships, Rescue, Rivalry, Conversion, Coming of Age. Hell, I could have gotten better ideas by reading the dictionary, let alone the TV Guide listings.)

 

In short, my afternoon of dealing myself a story was a bust. I could write a “(Genre Card)Suspense Novel” where the “(Heroine)Working Girl” who is a “(Flaw card) Nosy Parker/Blackmailer” takes “(Plot Card)Revenge” on “(Villain Card) Tyrant”  who fired her father.

Hell, it’s probably better than what I’m working on right now.

 

So tell me, ‘Rati. What tricks, games and self-deception do you use when you’re stuck in a story. How do you deal yourself a story?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I don’t usually like mysteries, but…”

by Alafair Burke

It’s that time of year – about six months out from the next publication date – when the conversations around Team Burke become dominated by marketing talk.  Some authors thrive on marketing, speaking openly about the “brand” they are trying to create, the value they place in their “product,” the placement of their product in the “market.”

I’m not one of those writers.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m no precious, anti-commerce, purist hippie.  I like four-star dining and fancy shoes way too much to try to pull off any kind of starving artist persona.  I’m all for the selling of the books.

My only complaint is that the rest of Team Burke – editor, publicist, marketing people, special online marketing people, the whole lot of them – look across the table at me as if I might be of some use.  As if I might actually know how to get my books into the hands of the people who might enjoy them.  As if I might know how to get those same people to then carry the book to a cash register.  As if I have the remotest clue about why anyone likes what she likes, or buys what she buys.

If I knew any of that, I’d be the genius who came up with this:

Or perhaps this:

Plenty of sales there to support a woman’s restaurant and shoe preferences, without having to type out all those pesky words.

I do try, though.  I make suggestions.  Some of them actually go into the plan.  Luckily, I enjoy some of the biggest parts of the plan – the touring, the facebooking, the blogging.  In my academic life, I’m lucky if ten other academics read my writing, so talking with people who read my books is heaven as far as I’m concerned.

But, this time around, Team Burke has added a new layer to the usual plan: “We want to get 212 to people who don’t usually read crime fiction.”

Say what?

“So many people here love your books even though they don’t usually like mysteries or thrillers.”

Read that previous sentence again.  There are so many things wrong with that sentence, I don’t know where to start.

Okay, I’ll start here.

1.    Who the heck doesn’t like mysteries and thrillers?

Given that you’re reading this particular website, my guess is you’re not one of these people.   Well, whoever they are, I don’t know whether to loathe or pity them.  I guess it depends on whether they think they’re too good for the genre or just don’t know what they’re missing.

There’s no question, though, that these people exist.  My pilates trainer just told me that she loved The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, even though she didn’t “usually like mysteries.” 

“You don’t usually like what?”

I’m sorry.  I don’t understand.

Which brings me to…

2.    WHY would anyone not like mysteries and thrillers?

To get some insight into this phenomenon, I did what anyone seeking to conduct serious empirical research would do: I Googled.  

An initial observation: The quantitative data support the claim that there are actually people who claim they don’t like crime fiction, as evidenced by the number of results for the following searches:

23,100 “don’t like thrillers”
667 “don’t like mysteries”
22,400 “don’t read mysteries”
6,190 “don’t read thrillers”

On the qualitative side, I did find some explanations for these dislikes in my casual perusal of the search results (okay, not very scientific – whatevs):

Too much violence and death
Too suspenseful
Too improbable
Too predictable
Not enough character development
Bad writing

Now, that first reason is defensible, I suppose.  If someone doesn’t like to think about the bad things that happen to people, well – first of all, they should never spend time with me.  And they might justifiably stay away from the mystery shelves.  

The second one?  I won’t even pretend to understand.

“The suspense is making my eyes wide!”

And the rest?  They strike me as complaints that there’s too many bad books in the genre.  But there are bad books in all genres.  There are bad books pawned off as so-called “literary” fiction.  There are bad books.  Don’t read them.  Read good ones instead.

3.    Now here’s where it gets interesting: Why does a person who doesn’t usually read mysteries or thrillers suddenly decide to like a mystery or thriller?

Back to the Google data:
12,300 “don’t usually like mysteries”
38,500 “don’t usually read mysteries”
22,700 “don’t usually read thrillers”
2,040 “don’t usually like thrillers”

And almost always, these phrases are followed by the word “but:”

“but this one kept me on the edge of my seat.”  I’m sorry, but if you want your books to put you on the edge of your seat, we’re your people. 

“but this book was so warped, convoluted, I just couldn’t help but be entranced.”  Um…warped and convoluted?  We are totally your people.  (P.S. Kudos, Christopher Rice. That’s a review to be proud of!)  

Here are some more typical buts (shame on you if you just snickered): but this one was very entertaining, but this book is awesome, but this one is killer, but I absolutely love this one. 

Do you see a trend?  Basically, people don’t usually like crime fiction, but then sometimes they suddenly like crime fiction.  And if you think all these “buts” are for Michael Chabon and Stieg Larsson, you’ve got another thing coming.  People who think they don’t like crime fiction like Jonathon Kellerman, Michael Connelly, Alexander McCall Smith, and James Patterson.  That’s some pretty genre-y genre fiction (and I mean that in the very best way as a person who loves the genre).

4.    And, on the more personal side, why does a person who doesn’t usually like mysteries or thrillers like my books?  

As I understand it, my new fans at the publishing house are young people living their lives in Manhattan, just like the characters in my Ellie Hatcher series.  The books reflect their reality.  The characters sound like them, watch the same TV shows, and share the same worries.  

That’s all well and good, but these new readers of mine got the book for free from their employer.  If they saw it on the mystery table at Barnes & Noble, would they even pick it up, let alone buy it?   

5.  Now, my fellow ‘Ratis, here’s the question for group discussion: 

How do you get a person who thinks he or she “doesn’t like” mysteries and thrillers to give a book a try?  Must it be a personal recommendation from a friend: “Trust me, it’s good”?  Does it have to be the water-cooler book of the season?  Must it appeal to some other interest?

Why does the non-genre reader read a book in the genre?   

Travel Nice

By Allison Brennan

It’s been a hectic week in the Brennan household as I prepare (ha! It’s 7:20 Saturday night and I’m not even packed–in fact, my suitcase is not down from the high shelf in the garage) for my trip to Washington DC where I get to tour FBI Headquarters and the FBI Training Academy at Quantico. (Eat your heart out Stephen. And Toni. And Alex–but I know Alex just wants to go because Quantico is also a Marine base, not for research. Or writing-type research, anyway.)

Thinking about the trip reminded me about what I love–and hate–about travel.

I try to live my life by the 11th commandment. You know the one . . . love your neighbor as yourself. Basically, be nice to people. Cut them some slack. Don’t blare your horn because someone is going too slow or ticks you off. (To me, the car horn is reserved for three things. 1- a gentle tap-tap when the car in front of you doesn’t notice the light has turned green. 2- a firm hoooonnnnnkkkkk to avoid a collison, such as when an idiot is backing up and doesn’t see you. And 3- a constant honk-honk-honk-honk until your teen-age daughter–who said she was ready but is not in the car–runs out of the house to avoid being embarrassed by the neighbors. Amazing, it really works to get their ass in gear!)

Everyone has to go through security. Yeah, it’s not always fun, but it’s not like we are giving up major liberties to secure a bit of safety here (though I can’t help but think up all the ways I could get around security at airports–I think it’s an occupational hazard.) I don’t dramatically sigh because the nervous little old lady in front of me is having a difficult time removing her shoes, for example. 

On the plane, we’re all cramped. It’s often hot. There’s sometimes a crying baby. (Get earbuds and an iPod–loud rock-n-roll pretty much drowns out anything.) Be patient getting off the plane–we’re all going to get off. If someone has a tight connection, let them go first–no skin off your nose if you don’t have a tight connection, right? 

I’m a nice traveler 🙂 . . . 

except . . . 

(Yes, you knew there was an exception.)

If you’re traveling during the day, why do you need to recline your seat? For your comfort? For your enjoyment of the flight? What about the person behind you? What if the person behind you is an author with a really tight deadline and they really, really, really need the five hour flight to write the next chapter of their book? Do you realize that there is no way in hell that said author can write if you recline your seat?

Believe me, I have tried. And had major shoulder and neck pain to accomplish a small number of words. 

The seat in front of you tilts back. That puts the tray closer to you. It’s already cramped trying to type on the tray anyway, but when it’s three-four inches closer? Try typing with your elbows pressed against the back of your seat, your screen tilted at a 80-degree angle toward you so you can’t even really see what you’re writing, so you hunch over a bit and your shoulders are now touching the bottom of your ears. Because sometimes, if you aren’t watching you can find yourself typing a whole page that looks something like this:

Bretvsuid dp,eyo,rd upi vsm gomf upitdr;g yu[]pomv s ejp;r [shr yjsy ;ppld ;olr yjod/

Just because your fingers shifted over one letter.

So consider the writer behind you when you travel. You’ll make all of us–well, at least me–a lot happier. And our editors, who really want the book in their inbox when you tell them it’ll be there.

Aside from the inconsiderate book haters who recline their seats, I generally like traveling. Especially alone. I can write for hours, thanks to my newish MacBook Pro with a 7+ hour battery life (it rocks. I LOVE my new laptop.) I have flash drives, a me.com account to archive daily (in case some low-life criminal steals my  laptop) and for this trip, I used my frequent flyer miles to upgrade free to First Class on the leg out east, and got a really cheap Economy Plus seat coming back west. Yeah! No more seat recliners! (In Economy Plus, it’s annoying, but not hugely cramped to write when the person in front of you wants to relax at your expense.)

I hope to have lots of stories for you when I return from Quantico!

Oh, by the way, it’s really not nice to confuse tired moms on deadline. I had to go from soccer game to football game to a birthday party to a volleyball tournament an hour away . . . and when I finally got home I log in to Murderati and . . .  saw Cornelia’s blog. I became extremely confused. Because I ALWAYS follow Alex. But I KNOW it’s my day, so I’m posting anyway. If there’s any complaints, go talk to Alex and Cornelia.

Great blog, BTW, C. My two cents? You have to write what you’re passionate writing, whether genre or something else. You have to love it, with all the pain that comes in penning the damn thing. But the one thing you shouldn’t do is not attempt it because you’re scared. If you don’t do it, it should be because you don’t have the passion for it, not because you don’t think you could do it. If that makes any sense.

So gang, I’m traveling all day. I’ll try to log-in at the airport to check in, but I’ll be on a plane from 11 am Pacific to 9:30 pm Eastern. Have fun while I’m gone!

 

Weasel Vomit and the Whole Genre v. Literary Debate Thing

 By Cornelia Read

I’ve been thinking an awful lot about genre lately.

Here’s a definition of the word from The American Heritage Dictionary:

Genre

NOUN:

  • A type or class: “Emaciated famine victims … on television focused a new genre of attention on the continent” (Helen Kitchen).
  • A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, marked by a distinctive style, form, or content: “his six String Quartets … the most important works in the genre since Beethoven’s” (Time).
  • A realistic style of painting that depicts scenes from everyday life.

ETYMOLOGY:
French, from Old French, kind, from Latin genus , gener-; see gen- in Indo-European roots

I’ve been thinking a lot about it for the past month or so because my editor is urging me to write my fourth novel as a non-mystery, which is difficult for me to get my head around. Especially since he would like it to be a novel containing my established series characters.

Now, my editor is a very smart guy who’s been in the business a long time, and it’s amazingly wonderful that he’s taking this much interest in my future as a writer, and also too I don’t take anything he suggests lightly, but this is tricky for me on a lot of levels. I’m kind of going through Kubler-Ross-esque emotional stages about it–i.e. fear, confusion, swearing, and belligerence–not necessarily in that order and indeed often simultaneously.

His arguments in favor of me taking this tack are as follows:

  • He thinks my strengths are description, dialogue, and voice.
  • He thinks I pretty much suck at the “procedural stuff” (though he worded it much more kindly) and is concerned because he has to keep pushing me to get more action into my stories and raise the stakes all the time and stuff.
  • He thinks he could position me differently if I wrote a non-genre novel, which would be more likely to be a commercial success.

My first response during our phone call about this was to say, “yeah, but, um… I think my plots actually suck because I suck at plotting… and somehow I don’t think moving AWAY from genre is going to make that better…”

And that is a big part of it for me–I like having a known structure to mess around with. I compare it to writing a sonnet or something: there are rules, and you can stick with them or rebel against them as you so desire, but it’s mostly helpful to know that they’re there whether or not you want to follow them strictly.

But there’s also my feeling that the best writing today is happening in crime fiction–mysteries and thrillers. I’ve often said on panels and stuff that literary fiction lost me in the Eighties. I just couldn’t get behind minimalist New Yorker stories, the whole juiceless scraped-dry-bones minimalist Gordon Lish thing. I want detail, I want passion, I want big fat zaftig stuff about things that actually matter. Most of all, I want resolution. I can’t stand novels that just kind of drift around about vaporous bullshit and then wander out of the room at the end without a point. I am not much of a Proust fan, and Thomas Mann gives me hives.

In fact, I think the closest thing to summing up my idea of what makes great literature is a quote from D.H. Lawrence, even though I think his fiction is kind of dopy, too. He wrote, in his Studies in Classic American Literature:

The essential function of art is moral. Not aesthetic, not decorative, not pastime and recreation. But moral. The essential function of art is moral.

But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic. A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind. Changes the blood first. The mind follows later, in the wake.

Now that isn’t to say that I think all crime fiction is superior to all “literary” fiction–in fact I agree with Sarah Weinman that the most important distinction we can make among books is to say that there are good ones and bad ones, and everything else really doesn’t matter in the end. But for me what is most essential about writing as an art is happening a lot more these days in genre fiction than outside it.

I do tend to blame that a bit on the MFA model of writing, though some of my best friends have done MFA programs, so it doesn’t all suck. But it just seems as though this rather artificial division between genre and non-genre has sprung up over the last couple of decades, and that the champions of contemporary standards of what has come to define “literature” have done a good deal to squeeze the life out of narrative in general.

When Sarah posted a great piece on her blog about Lev Grossman’s dismissal of Michael Chabon’s The Final Solution as “highbrow fiction being assaulted by low-brow genre,” Laura Lippman wondered:

Who benefits from the debate, that’s what I want to know? Not genre writers. Not readers. So it must be the literary writers who keep beating this dead horse. Such pieces always make me feel as if I’m an ill-behaved dog running amok in the great marble temple of literature….

“Stop her! She’s peeing on the floor! She’s drinking out of the toilet! She won’t play by the rules — except those tired genre conventions that mark her work as second-rate. Ohmigod — she’s humping Nadine Gordimer’s leg. Get her out!

Which prompted me to codify my own feelings on the subject for the first time, as follows:

 

I think they’re all just pissed off because they’ve turned “literature” into the kind of Filboid-Studge Latin whose precise declensions can only be enforced with Joycean pandy-bats viciously applied to the reader’s tender palms and footsoles,

and meanwhile we’re all having so much goddamn fun over here in Vibrant Street-Italian Vernacular Land it should be illegal.

Okay, I guess that covers the “belligerence” phase of my response to the idea of writing a book in which no murder takes place. Besides which I am loyal to the genre, and the people who write in it, and I’m sick of all of us getting dissed by a bunch of whiny-ass bitches who couldn’t, in my opinion, write their collective way out of a wet house of cheap cards.

(And I should probably also throw in that I can’t stand literary cocktail parties unless they are peopled with crime writers. This just feels like my tribe–as opposed to the last time I was drinking with a roomful of academician poets, back in Syracuse,

 

who were so humorless I ended up swilling beer in the kitchen with the insurance salesman who lived next door and was actually a pretty interesting dude.)

Also, I just have a perverse fascination with crime generally, and murder in particular. I don’t think there’s any human conundrum more morbidly intriguing than the question of why we kill each other. I want to know what that part of us is, I want to see if there’s any way to keep it from happening. I care deeply about justice, and morality, and what it all means in the end.

I was intending to base the central plot of my fourth book on the murder of a friend of my mother’s about twenty years ago. She went out to get the morning paper at the end of her driveway–in view of about eight other houses on her cul-de-sac–and was beaten to death with a baseball bat. Probably by her ex-husband or her son.

My editor asked why I want to write about baseball bats.

I ran all this by Tana French in an email soon after, because she’s a writer whose work I think is exquisite and extremely literary in the best possible way.

She wrote back:

How the hell do you plot a book without ‘Someone gets killed, someone else finds out whodunit’ to give you a structure? I’m as fond of character and dialogue and all that fancy stuff as the next girl, but without the murder mystery to bookend things, all my books would go on for thousands of pages and never get anywhere much… What does your editor have against the baseball bat?

 

 

Amen.

And that’s where the “fear and confusion” Kubler-Rossity comes into this for me. I mean, I’m not saying I hate all novels in which a murder does not take place (I love Joshilyn Jackson’s work, for instance. Which does tend to be rather dark and have death here and there, but is otherwise not genre). But I don’t know if *I* could come up with a plot that actually went anywhere without the genre form to guide me. I mean, I spent twenty years (off and on) futzing around with a memoir that never gelled into a narrative, despite several hundred pages of typing and thousands of hours of agita on my part.

Plus which, to quote the late, great Brenda Ueland: “There is absolutely no evidence that I could write a good book. It might very well be the most awful weasel vomit.”

And also too, I just think it’s weird to write three books in a series that revolve around murders and then have all the same people just bop hither and yon in the fourth book without any blood spatter whatsoever, you know?

So I don’t actually have any sort of good thumping conclusion to this post, because I haven’t figured this stuff out yet. All of the above is twirling around in my head like those proverbial visions of sugar plums.

 

Maybe the thing to do is come up with a better mystery plot than I’ve so far managed to do, so that my editor feels more comfortable with my actually *earning* the genre pigeonhole? But everything I’m coming up with so far seems to be brimming with weasel vomit.

Oy. Feh. Vey ist mir.

What say you, ‘Ratis?



 



WHIRLWIND

 

By Stephen Jay Schwartz

BOULEVARD launched from Book Soup in West Los Angeles on September 16.  It’s been a whirlwind ride.  We had about fifty people in attendance, which included college friends I hadn’t seen in twenty years.  Brett Battles was there, too, as was the man (a good friend now) who employed both of us when we worked for Sir Speedy more than two decades ago.

It was great having my family at the event.  My mom flew in from Mexico to be with us, and my wife and two boys were at my side. 

I found it both intimidating and strangely comforting to sit behind a desk signing fifty copies of my book.  It was a feeling of quiet serenity, of friendly, honest smiles and handshakes and words of gratitude written and personalized on my title page.  My boys leaning against me as I signed, playing Nintendos.  Me catching glimpses of my wife in the crowd staring at me with that otherworldly, proud smile on her face.  It was a night of bliss.

Many in attendance had heard about my tattoo, so I rolled up my sleeve to show them the bloody, scabbing thing. 

I explained that the tattoo is a Polynesian version of the Tor-Forge logos on one side, and an old-fashioned Underwood typewriter on the other side.  It was a rite of passage for me—a defining moment that marked my transition from unpublished to published.  Something to remind me that I am as I define myself. 

 

The very next day was a punch in the face as I was forced to endure the eight hours of my day job.  As we know from Rob’s last blog (congratulations, Rob!), it’s impossible to be truly realized as an artist when forty hours a week or more is spent being someone you’re not.  I got through that Thursday and Friday by thinking of the launch and answering e:mails from friends who had attended, and by making nightly trips to the many Borders and Barnes & Nobles in the greater Los Angeles area, doing drop-in signings.

The first drop-in signing I did was the day before the event at Book Soup—the day the book was actually released.  We went to our local Borders, which had about ten copies BOULEVARD.  It was fun to see my boys running through the aisles, searching for, then finding my book stacked face-out in the shelves.  Of course, we took pictures.  We looked like the giddy, debut author family.

This week began the book tour, which took us to San Francisco where I did a reading and signing at the Beat Museum in North Beach. 

It’s a very special place for me because it honors the memories of the Beat Generation writers.  Jack Kerouac has been an influence on my life and my writing for over twenty years.  If you’ve never heard Kerouac read his work you’re missing out.  He was an amazing spirit and the fact that he lived in the “conservative” 1950’s makes his writings and life-journey that much more remarkable.  So, to be reading passages from BOULEVARD that were inspired by Kerouac, at the Beat Museum, in North Beach, across from the fabled City Lights Bookstore, was another defining moment in my life.

Before the event I took my family to the San Francisco Police Department’s Central Station, where I’ve been doing all my research for the book’s sequel.  I’m now friends with all the cops and they happily gave my wife and kids a tour of the armory and holding cells.  My boys were just a little freaked out to be standing in a room filled with almost a hundred automatic and semi-automatic weapons.

I also did something I’ve been wanting to do for a year—I presented a copy of BOULEVARD to the officers and placed it in their “library” where dozens of dog-eared police thrillers sat.  San Francisco is a city of readers, and the SFPD officers do their share to keep the thriller writers of America employed.

Our own lovely Louise Ure and her husband Bruce joined us at the Beat Museum, and it was a joy to finally meet her in person.  The next day my family and I had brunch with her in her city and we sealed a relationship that will last a lifetime.

We finished off the week at M is for Mystery Bookstore in San Mateo, California, where I discovered that the owner, Ed Kaufman, had already pre-sold almost thirty copies of my book.  What an amazing bookstore!  I saw books on the shelves written by ALL of the Murderati authors, as well as many other Murderati guest bloggers.  Ed is an avid reader and he’s extremely supportive of all the writers in our genre.

Listen, I’m a happy camper.  I’m having the time of my life.  I’ve got another month and a half of touring and panels, ending the whole thing with a trip to Indianapolis for Bouchercon, where I hope to see many of the people I’ve met on-line through Murderati.

I’ll check back in two weeks with further updates.  Being the Newcomer has been great fun, and I love the fact that Murderati has offered this forum for me to share the experiences of my debut year!  (I’ll be on the road when this posts, but I’ll try to check in with comments at stops along the way.  And sorry I’ve been absent for the past week…it’s been a whirlwind)

(Polynesian Underwood typewriter)

 

AT PLAY IN THE FIELD OF THE WRITTEN WORD Part 1

Thought I’d take you all on a little journey with me. Next week my proposal is due for my new book. So the idea is to let you see how it all goes.

This week I want to talk about the preparation, i.e. the proposal.

In the past, my proposals have consisted of the first twenty or thirty pages of the book and a page or two of an incredibly generic synopsis. That gave me a lot of room to work. I’ve said it before, I’m the kind of author who enjoys writing without a net (read outline.) I love how stories organically come together. I like being surprised and entertained.

But this time is different. In the past, the books I was proposing were further episodes of my Jonathan Quinn series. My next book, though, is a stand alone.

(Now before any of you who enjoy the series get worried that there won’t be any more Quinn books, fear not. The fourth in the series is actually already written and done. And, if I may say so, is my favorite Quinn book so far. But first we’re going to bring out a stand alone, so THE SILENCED – tentative title – will be out after that.)

So while I am still providing the first twenty to thirty pages as part of the proposal, I realized my outline/synopsis can’t just be a page or two. In fact, I’ve decided to make it more detailed than I ever have in the past. The hope is, based on what I’ve heard from others, that this will help me stay on track and write faster. I sure hope so. But I’ve got to say writing the synopsis is excruciating.

In the time I can usually write five to six pages of prose, I’m lucky to get a page or a page and a half of an outline. I also find myself getting up from my chair more often, watching episode of DEXTER season 3 or going for a walk or playing Mindsweeper on my iPhone. Anything to avoid the pain of actually thinking out the details of the story.

But all that said, I can see how this actually is going to help me focus more when I get down to writing the book. I’m excited about it (again, not about writing the synopsis – something I’m avoiding at this very second – but in how it will help me), and am anxious to put it to the test.

If this works, I may be a reluctant convert. I know Rob blogged about a similar thing several weeks ago. (I don’t know for sure, but from what I understand the outline for his next one is in the dozens and dozens of pages…mine is not. I’m not THAT crazy.)

I’m also doing something else with this proposal. Something neither my editor nor my agent is expecting. But that I’m going to have to save until next time, so I don’t blow the surprise in case one of them reads this. I’ll let you know in part 2, as by then they’ll have proposal in hand. Hopefully I’ll even be able to tell you how it was received.

Question time (and no, I’m not going to ask the Outline vs. No Outline question as we’ve argued that more than enough): I know some readers like series and some don’t…for those of you who do like series, does it bother you when the author writes a stand alone? Do you read it? For those of you who prefer stand alones, why do you think you avoid series?

Look forward to reading your answers!

 

Full Time

I very rarely talk about my day job.  I talk so little about it that few of you even know I HAVE a day job, and that’s just fine with me.

You see, when I think of my favorite authors sitting at their desks hunched over their word processors, I see that typical romantic portrait of writers and have a hard time imagining them punching a time clock in some factory, or typing up a deposition for their boss or sliding a plate of sausage and eggs in front of a truck driver at Moe’s Highway Diner.

So I figure that when readers read a Robert Gregory Browne thriller, they don’t really want to think about him filling out a time card every month.   Knowing that he has a day job kind of kills things.  I mean, after all, how good can the guy be if he needs another job to get by?

But like most writers, I lead a dual life.  By day, I produce and edit videos for an educational institution, and by night I write thrillers with a supernatural twist.

At least some writers have cool day jobs.  Lawyers, newspaper reporters, doctors, private investigators, television producers. Editing educational videos, however, is not a cool job.  I’ve been doing double duty for almost five years now and, frankly, it is finally taking its toll.  

But I’ve been very fortunate on the writing front lately, and I’m happy to announce that, starting in December, I’m joining the ranks of my fulltime writer friends.  From then on my days will be fully dedicated to writing.

What a concept.  A writer who writes full time.

There have been times I’ve wondered if it would ever happen.  Now I realize that I wouldn’t be able to survive mentally and physically if it didn’t.

After almost five years of working two time-consuming jobs, I’ll finally get my life back.  I’ll be able to watch some movies.  Catch up on some TV shows.  Maybe even talk to my wife once in awhile.  And sleep?  Oh, Lord, I can’t wait.

When my buddy Brett went full time, he talked about it here.  I was glad to hear he was making the leap, but I was also envious as hell.  At the time I probably COULD have joined him, but I stayed prisoner to the psychological pull of that steady paycheck and that nice health insurance plan.

Going full time is still a scary proposition, but I really have no choice at this point.  I’m too goddamn busy not to.

So I hope you’ll help me celebrate this change in my life.  I’m finally at a point where I can do what I really love to do and make a comfortable living at it.

Here’s hoping it lasts.

And here’s hoping that all of you writers out there who dream of joining me will see that dream come true very soon.

You deserve it.

 

Book-selling and the Sufi master

by Tess Gerritsen

I’ve just returned from a three-week trip to Turkey.  One thing I love about foreign travel are the lively and impromptu conversations I have with people abroad, and during my ramblings in Istanbul, Cappadocia, and the Aegean coast, I chatted with Turks about a wide range of topics.  A coffee shop employee and I bemoaned the difficulties of successful cross-cultural romances.  A jewelry store owner told me in great detail about his sick niece and sang the praises of Turkey’s socialized health-care system for keeping her alive. Several times, I heard about the deep and enduring affection that many Turkish men feel for their mothers.  “You always remember your own mother’s scent,” one man said wistfully.  “And all your life, you miss it.” It was a touching reminder of the universality of love, and how alike we humans really are.

While I was crossing a public square in Istanbul, I encountered another startling reminder that some experiences are universal.  It was a book signing booth promoting a Turkish author named Serdar Ozkan, whose Istanbul-set novel THE MISSING ROSE, was available for sale in numerous foreign languages.  Naturally, I stopped to buy a signed copy of the English edition, but the author had left to take a break.  Manning the booth in his absence were a man and two women (posing with me below) who were passing out flyers to passers-by, encouraging everyone within earshot to take a look.  I assumed they were bookstore employees.

Until I started chatting with them. 

 

It turned out they weren’t bookstore employees at all.  Two of them (the man and the woman standing beside him) are physicians at the American Hospital in Istanbul, and they’d taken the day off to help their friend — the author — sell his books.  To their dismay, passersby were pretty much ignoring them, or waving off the flyers, and these three were getting a humiliating taste of what it’s like to be a salesman. 

“You must be really good friends of the author,” I said. “If you’re going through all this for him.”

The man smiled serenely and asked me, “Do you know anything about Sufism?”

Baffled by his question, I admitted that I knew very little. 

“Then let me tell you a story about a Sufi master,” he said.

Once long ago, there was a wealthy, well-respected judge who decided he wanted to be schooled in Sufi mystical traditions.  He went in search of a famous Sufi master and found him wearing rags and living in an impoverished village.  “I want to be your student,” the judge announced.

The Sufi master looked the judge up and down, and said: “You are not ready to be my student.”

The judge was outraged that this beggarly man would reject him. “What do I have to do to be your student?” he asked.

“You must sell meat in the market,” the master replied.  

The judge was appalled that anyone would see him, a respected judge, working like a common butcher.  So he lurked in the shadows, rolling his meat cart through side streets where he wouldn’t be noticed.  

But again, the Sufi master rejected him.  “You must sell your meat where everyone can see you,” he said.  “And you must wear your judge’s robes, so everyone will know who you are.”

So the judge rolled his meat cart into the full glare of the public eye.  No one bought his meat. Instead he was jeered at and humiliated until every ounce of his pride was destroyed.

And the Sufi master finally said, “Now you are ready to be my student.”

“That’s why I’m here today, helping my friend sell his books,” the doctor told me. “I wanted the full Sufi experience.”

“You wanted to experience humiliation?” I said.

He gave me a sly wink.  “It’s working, isn’t it?”

That’s when we both laughed at just how right he was.  Here was this medical doctor, shilling in a busy public square, facing rejection from passers-by who rudely waved away his flyers.  As I watched him cheerfully persevere, I remembered all the booksignings I’d endured over the years, all the bookstores where I would feel humiliated, begging for customers’ attention, pleading with someone, anyone, to come and take a look at my latest novel.  Whether you’re in Istanbul or Indiana, book-selling is a humbling experience. Perhaps it would be easier to stomach if we all adopt a bit of Sufi wisdom.  Perhaps we should embrace the ordeal as the path to enlightenment.

Later that evening, on my way to dinner, I walked across that same Istanbul square and saw that the author was now back in the booth.

 

 I stopped to say hello and told him that I’d bought his book earlier that day. Serdar Ozkan was gorgeous and charming, and he had a long line of customers waiting to buy his book.  He was definitely not having the Sufi experience.

I guess he’ll have to wait for enlightenment another day.  

 

If not now . . . when?

by Pari

 

How many of us zip through our lives without pausing to think about what we’re doing? I know there are periods in my own hectic existence when all that matters is getting through the day, week, month. Lately, though, I’ve been looking at what’s most important in my life. There are the obvious themes: family, love, the health and happiness of those I love, friendships, my creativity, feeling productive and like I’m contributing something to the world.

 

There are also wishes, dreams as yet unfulfilled. Through neglect, I’ve let some of them slip into the realm of impossibility. I doubt I’ll feel free enough, while still young enough, to join the Peace Corps or go to Carnival in Rio and dance from afternoon until dawn.

 

Others might still be possible, if I push. I might actually go on that walking tour of pubs in Ireland and drink a frothy stout at every one. I might write that book that hits the market just right and propels me to a new level in my career . . .

 

I might take up yoga; dedicate real time daily to meditation; learn T’ai Chi and Pilates. I’d better see the Aurora Borealis in full color, go whale watching, swim with dolphins.

 

And then there’s the cello.

 

When I was a kid, I wanted to play that noble instrument with all of my heart.

My mother said, “You can’t. It’s unladylike. If you’re going to play anything, it’ll be the violin.”

 

End of argument.

 

So I played violin for four years and hated every single minute of it. Mom finally let me stop taking lessons when she caught me holding the violin like a guitar on my lap—playing it full pizzicato—while composing my 60th or 70th macabre folk song.

 

For years, playing the cello was a fantasy of mine. I wanted to feel those incredible low notes reverberate from my toe tips to my fingers and throughout my body right to the outer edges of my scalp. But I’ve always put it off. I was too busy; I’d never find the time to practice. It was too expensive. It was frivolous, too self-indulgent.

 

Well, screw that.

 

Two months ago, I rented a cello and started taking lessons.

 

The wonderful thing about doing this, beyond the life-affirming qualities of it, is that I’m putting absolutely NO pressure on myself to “succeed.” Playing the cello is utterly for my own pleasure. I don’t give a damn if anyone else ever hears me or likes what they hear if they do. I don’t have to accomplish anything beyond enjoyment.

 

As a result, I’m doing really well and already have a repetoire of about twelve nice little pieces. My Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star would make you weep for all the right reasons. I love to practice. I adore the effort and struggle of trying to get the bowing just right and making sure I’m actually in tune.

 

I’m having such a blast with this that I want everyone else I know to find something equally baggage-free and satisfying.

 

So what about you? Have you taken a similar plunge to do something you’ve always wanted to do? If not, do you have a dream that you could really do?

Why aren’t you doing it yet?

 

——————————- A note about my next two posts —————————————

In early October, I’m going to attend an intensive writing workshop and probably won’t be online at all for two full weeks. As a result, the wonderful L.J. Sellers will guest on the ‘Rati on October 5. I’m considering doing my let’s-write a story-together experiment again on the 19th. By then, I’ll be back though my sanity might still be in question.