It’s that time of year again…the time when corporate America, half a year away from the Christmas bump, starts nudging you to spend some of your hard earned green on the father or graduate in your life. (Not that I’m complaining, mind you).
As we know, crime writers and dedicated crime readers sometimes have tastes that are, shall we say, a little different. So for that father or graduate in your life who’s also an aficionado of murder and mayhem, here are some gift ideas:
From SUCK UK comes Dead Fred: the pen holder. When those last few revisions or copyedits are made, take out your frustrations by plunging your favorte writing instrument into the heart (or other organs) of this little man made of “silicon rubber”. Pretend he’s that guy who wrote the nasty one-star Amazon review! From the people who brought you Splat Stan!
If your new graduate is moving out of the house (and ‘fess up, you’re praying that they are), they’re going to need some stuff for their new digs. For the kitchen, may I offer “The Ex” stainless steel knife set and holder from CSB:
A real conversation starter (or possibly stopper) for your next dinner party. Show the guests the cook is not to be trifled with!
“The perfect accessory to the crime,” promises the manufacturer. The blood, they also assure is, is “food safe.”
I’ve always said, nothing says “get out of my kitchen!” like a bloodstained knife.
With all those knives around, you know that, ah, accidents could happen. For the big “accidents,” I’d suggest good legal counsel. for the little ones, however, there are the Crime Scene Bandages:
1977. It was the coldest January in New York City for the last fifty years, averaging only twenty-two degrees for the entire month. Snowfalls were frequent and imposing. I had moved from the desert six months before and now searched out routes through Grand Central Station and two hotel lobbies to get from my fifth floor walk-up to the ad agency using only three blocks above ground. I dreamed of fur coats.
I was settling in to my new adventure. The grocer on the corner knew my face if not my name and saved me a bunch of white daisies every Friday. I’d found a good pizza place that delivered. I’d begun asking ad agency girlfriends for the name of a good dentist or doctor in the city.
Putting down roots, I thought. At least the kind of shallow, superficial roots that a single woman, a newcomer, a kid with her first job on the lowest rung of the ad agency ladder could claim in a big city.
Dr. M, the gynecologist my friend Nan recommended was brusque in a friendly “I’ve got a train to catch to the Hamptons” way.
“Congratulations,” he said. “Looks like you’re due early June.”
Four months pregnant? Not possible.
The only guy I’d slept with in the last four months was a co-worker at the ad agency named Steve Something after a particularly drunken office party, and he’d pulled out in time, hadn’t he?
A “splash pregnancy,” Dr. M called it, making it sound like a ride at a theme park.
How could I have been so oblivious to this new life inside me? It’s not so hard to do, I promise you. Years of binge dieting, strenuous sports and a dabbling with drugs had left me with a menstrual period that was less than predictable and there were no other symptoms that I would normally have associated with pregnancy.
Growing up in Tucson in the ‘70’s, everybody had a plan for what to do if your birth control failed. I’d heard about a curandera on the south side of town who combined her midwifery skills with witchcraft. I had the addresses of two clinics across the border in Nogales if it came to that. I knew myself well enough even then to know that – married or unmarried – I did not want children.
I hadn’t needed those abortionists’ numbers when I lived in Arizona, and by the time I got back from my years in France, Roe v. Wade had become the law of the land.
And that meant that right now – January 1977 — I didn’t have to spend the rest of my life with a man I hardly knew. I didn’t have to forsake my life’s dream of a career in order to carry a child to term as a single woman without any resources in the city. And I didn’t have to die in a pool of blood with a straightened clothes hanger inside me.
Others might have made a different decision, something that fit more neatly into their religious or moral worldview. But those same people would likely have considered my fornication or use of contraceptives a sin or a crime as well. I made the decision that was right for me.
Surgery was scheduled for eight a.m. When I woke afterwards, there was a deep dull ache inside me, but it had nothing to do with my heart. There were no recriminations. No second thoughts.
I chose to walk home from the hospital, shuffling through ankle-high snow on the sidewalk toward my apartment, five blocks away. Every breath in that sub-zero air felt like a new beginning.
An idling car at the curb honked when I walked past. It was another woman I’d seen upstairs. She lived upstate, she said, and her boyfriend had come to get her after the procedure. She invited me into the car.
I had a momentary pang of jealousy that her boyfriend was there for her, but promptly dismissed it. I had not even told Steve However-You-Spell-His-Last-Name about his impending fatherhood. His vote didn’t count in this. It was my body.
My new friend’s surgery hadn’t gone as easily as mine; she was pale and panting when her boyfriend swung the car to a parking space in front of my building.
“Come in,” I said. “We’ll rest.”
Upstairs, her boyfriend boiled water for tea while she and I spooned and slept in my small bed. She cried herself to sleep and there was a deep-red pool of blood on the sheets where she lay. I don’t know which direction they took when they left – upstate or back to the hospital – but I hope she’s stopped crying by now.
I did, years later, reconnect with Steve The Splasher and told him about our missed history together. He thanked me. Said he would have made the same decision, but would have hated to ask it of me at the time.
As a teenager, I did not join the fight for the right to decide what happens to my body. Others did it for me and I am grateful for that.
Then, last week, Dr. George Tiller was killed in the lobby of his Wichita, Kansas church for performing legal medical procedures for women in his clinic, and I fear that all that effort thirty-some years ago may have been for naught.
Many others have died before him, or been bombed, or maimed, or threatened. And this intimidation and violence is working. Legal abortions are NOT available today in 87% of the counties in the U.S. because of fear of retribution from extremists in the anti-abortion effort.
This is not the way America should work.
I do not mean this as a diatribe against those in the anti-choice movement who are willing to engage in rational and reasonable debate about the issue. We agree on many things, I imagine. We both want to decrease the number of abortions performed, and we want to support those women who choose to raise a child or offer it for adoption. And I wouldn’t mind seeing birth control costs covered by insurance, as well. They pay for Viagra? They can damn well pay for contraceptives.
This is, however, a plea for all of us to put a stop to the bullies who want to persuade with violence.
I was pretty sure we had ceded that “home of the brave” designation with all the fear mongering speech of the last several years. But if violence against those who are legally supporting reproductive rights goes unprosecuted and unpunished, we will also have lost “the land of the free.”
Try to change the law, if that’s what you want to do. But do not presume that a loaded gun replaces a vote.
Please join me in giving a warm Murderati welcome to Carolyn Haines, the author of the Sarah Booth Delaney Mississippi Delta Mysteries from St. Martin’s Minotaur. GREEDY BONES, her newest book, will be released July 7. See you next week, Pari
Readers frequently fall in love with a character and want to know more about him or her, and it’s the same for authors. Having written both standalone and series characters, I find great joy—and sometimes sorrow—in both types of books.
One of the real pleasures of writing a series is the ability to see the characters grow and change over a lengthy period of time. To get to know them in a multitude of situations. I’m now writing the tenth book in a series, and in that time, my protagonist, Sarah Booth Delaney, has grown up a lot. Not physically, but emotionally. Sarah Booth is an amateur sleuth, but over the past nine years, she’s developed some skills at the profession she fell into by stealing a friend’s dog and ransoming it back (in her defense, she was about to lose her family home, Dahlia House, and she suffers a lot for this betrayal). The dog’s owner, a woman Sarah Booth perceived as somewhat shallow, shows real heart and courage in the books and eventually becomes Sarah Booth’s partner. This isn’t necessarily the kind of change that can occur in the span of a single novel. But in a series, there’s room enough to let this happen naturally.
I’ve spent such a long time with the Zinnia, Mississippi, characters, that they’re like old friends to me. That familiarity is wonderful. Each year, the “friendship” with these characters deepens. They still do things that surprise me—just like real friends—but I know and understand their motivations.
The downside is that throughout the nine finished books, a lot of things have happened, and I am the “keeper” of all the facts about made-up characters and a fictional town. The geography of the town can be troublesome. In prior books I’ve established where the bank, the café, the beauty salon are all located. This “world building” affects every other book. It’s a lot to manage, and with each additional book written and published, it becomes harder and harder. Consider, too, that I do a lot of re-writing, so things are cut—but three years later, I’m not sure what was cut and what was left in. I’ve tried different tactics for handling this, but it’s just plain difficult any way I tackle it.
A writer still has to attend to these world-building details in a single-title book, but there is less to remember. And think of the time that’s passed since THEM BONES first came out—a decade. That’s a long time ago. My brain has only so much space. When new stuff is added, old stuff is pushed out.
Aging the characters is another consideration. Different authors handle this challenge in a variety of ways. In my world of Zinnia, Sarah Booth has aged only eighteen months. She was thirty-three when the series started, and she’s about to turn thirty-five. That creates some difficulties, as you can imagine. I’ve made the choice to include new technology as I learn how to use it (not at a very fast pace, I fear). But some authors keep their character in the same decade the first book took place in. Either choice has benefits and drawbacks.
When reading books, particularly mysteries, do you like growth in the character? Or do you prefer the character to remain somewhat unchanged? What are some of your favorite characters in either mode?
After reading Brett’s post on Thursday and Stephen’s post on Friday, I suddenly felt the urge to also talk about research.
While Brett and Stephen’s research trips sound wonderful, my approach to research is a bit different. Part of this is from necessity. As a mom of five, all of whom are still at home, overnight travel is difficult. Day trips are much easier. I toured the Sacramento County morgue (which you can read more about in July’s issue of RT Book Reviews) and I participated in the FBI’s Citizen’s Academy, an eight-week course (of sorts) that many jurisdictions around the country hold. In mine, I had a wonderfully eclectic group of fellow students—a prosecutor, a bank VP, a field rep for a US Senator, a labor lawyer, the children’s home director, and the guy who owned a vehicle light company specializing in undercover cars.
I stumbled into being invited to participate in a session while researching TEMPTING EVIL. I had a secondary character, fugitive apprehension specialist Mitch Bianchi, who was tracking an escaped convict. He followed him from San Quentin (after the big earthquake that destroyed it in KILLING FEAR) to Montana. I was working on revisions and had a few questions that my regular contacts couldn’t seem to answer, so I somehow made contact with the PIO of the Sac FBI. Once I was cleared by Washington, I sent him a bunch of questions.
Low and behold—my entire set-up was wrong. Mitch would never have tracked the fugitive through multiple jurisdictions. If he had information that the fugitive was in another state, he would contact that jurisdiction and they’d follow up.
This was not good news. I was on a tight deadline—I was working on editor revisions, the book was DONE, and I was just cleaning it up. I couldn’t change his character because that would change the whole book—and I’d introduced him in the first place because he was to be the hero of the next book and his obsession with tracking this fugitive was crucial to that story as well.
I asked the PIO a bunch of questions, trying to dig myself out of the hole I’d written (thank you television) and then hit on the right question.
“Well, if an agent disobeyed orders or broke the rules by following a fugitive into another jurisdiction without following established protocols, what would happen?”
The answer? Anything from a reprimand to termination.
I love shades of gray!
Now only did this work for the book (and saved me a major last minute rewrite) but it worked for my character. Mitch doesn’t play by the rules, he’s been reprimanded many times and gone before the Office of Professional Responsibility more than once. He’s also smart, dedicated, and decorated.
So at the beginning of the next book, Mitch is off the case because of his blatant disregard of direct orders in TEMPTING EVIL, and is confronted with another difficult choice. I had not only established his character, but his initial internal conflict in PLAYING DEAD. It worked so well you’d have thought I’d planned it.
Which of course I didn’t. Because, well, you know I don’t plan out such things. Dodged another bullet THAT time.
After eight weeks in the citizens academy, I met more than a dozen agents, many of them squad leaders. Some of them were a bit bureaucratic for my taste, some of them a bit too authoritarian in their approach to law enforcement. But the majority of them were simply dedicated cops who liked their job. The head of Violent Crimes and Major Offenders was fantastic. He had fun with his job. He acted the most like a street cop, someone who probably didn’t work well behind a desk—a lot like my hero, Mitch. (But in my books, the head of VCMO is a woman.) The SWAT team leader is probably tied with VCMO as my favorite. He’s a former Marine and was sent to Afghanistan as part of an ERT to work several bombings. (And he let me blow up a coffee can in the back lot. How cool is that?) The former Texas female cop who worked closely with the Sheriff’s Department to stop child prostitution was also hugely compelling in her down-to-earth presentation on how these girls get into soliciting themselves on Craigs List. (Or, I should say, how they are manipulated and used into having their pimps prostitute them on Craigs List.)
I got to dust for fingerprints, analyze blood spatter, and spent a day at the shooting range. (I won an award—“My Characters Shoot Better Than I Do.” I’m taking lessons from a retired cop this summer so I can, ahem, prove myself worthier than my characters. But I have excuses—after my kids were born, I stopped going to the gun range every week, and I did much better on the practice round, choking on the competitive round. And I shoot a .357, and they had me shooting 9mm. Where’s Toni when I need her, dammit?)
Anyway, being a graduate of the citizen’s academy has some perks—namely, I’m going on a trip to Quantico this fall. Perfect timing, too, since I’m launching a series in late 2010 staring Lucy Kincaid which will take place in part at Quantico. I am so excited about the trip I can hardly wait! (Sorry to rub it in, Stephen. LOL.)
Another fantastic thing about the academy is the ideas that started coming. The research I love the most is not about forensics, or shooting, or the rate of decomposition—though all that is fun and extremely interesting. But the research I love the most is people.
Why do people do what they do? What makes them tick? Why do they become cops or soldiers or FBI agents or doctors or lawyers or killers? I am hugely fascinated by human psychology. While my husband prefers to figure out how things work, I like to figure out how people work.
One young agent who specialized in domestic terrorism shared a case he’d worked where ELF (Earth Liberation Front) were claiming responsibility for setting construction sites on fire. He went through the entire investigation and how they caught them. The whole thing was fascinating largely because the agent really understood how these kids thought (and they were all older teens/early 20s.) He didn’t condone or condemn them, other than of course their illegal activities, but explained why they did things the way they did them—the psychology behind not only the crime itself, but the relations between the people involved.
He then shared a case that stuck with me. They were investigating an Anarchist terrorist conspiracy but had next to nothing. A young woman contacted the FBI and offered to be an informant. She was privy to inside information about the conspiracy that was planning on making a major political statement through bombings in Northern California. While the facts of the case were interesting, I was far more interested in why this young woman became an informant.
The way the FBI agent who worked with her talked about her, I thought he was a bit in love. (Ok, that’s the romance writer in me. So shoot me.) I started thinking about why she did what she did. What was her background? Who were her parents? How did she live? Where? I thought about writing a book very similar to the true story, but it just wasn’t working for me.
Fast forward a year.
I was writing CUTTING EDGE and my heroine is the heard of the domestic terrorism squad. I didn’t know anything about her. In fact, I thought she was a bitch and I was having a hard time dealing with her. I had a great premise and set-up, but my heroine was just not cooperating.
So I stop and thought: Who is she? Why is she a domestic terrorism agent? Why is she so confident? Why did she pick this particular focus? Who were her parents? How was she raised? What type of house does she live in? Had she ever married? If not, why? How were her past relationships with her boyfriends? What’s her relationship to her sister?
And it came to me. She’s that girl I’d heard about . . . twenty years later. I made up her backstory, imagining what type of person would become an FBI informant. Especially someone who’s raised in an environment that is naturally distrustful of law enforcement. As soon as I knew who she was in the past, I understood every action she took in the present. She was no longer a bitch–she was a bit icy, a bit callous on the surface, but with cause. And as long as I did a good job showing her motivation and goals to the reader, I believe they’ll forgive her the icy, reserved exterior.
I can’t travel a lot, or do a lot of ride-a-longs, though I long to. I live vicariously through others. I’m really good asking questions and listening to what they say . . . and don’t say. For example, my son’s former babysitter’s daughter (say that ten times fast) was in paramedic training. All I had to do was ask what she’d done that week and I had an hour long dissertation from someone who was 1) excited about what she was doing and 2) had all the information right there because she’d just gone through it. My favorite story was when she played a “hostage” during a mock high school shooting drill. As the hostage, she was actually in the room with the head hostage negotiator who was playing the bad guy, so she heard everything that was going on. (Okay, I hate to put this in writing, but boy oh boy do I wish I could have played the hostage!)
But the thing is, while I love hearing the stories, I’m not passionate about being a paramedic (or a hostage.) I’m not passionate about being an FBI Agent, or a coroner, or a private investigator. That’s why talking to people who are passionate about their jobs is so exciting. (Okay, okay, not everyone is—but my heroes and heroines need to want to be doing their job, otherwise I’m not interesting in writing their stories. Who wants to write a book about a cop who hates his job? Maybe he hates PARTS of his job, but he has to be passionate about SOMETHING otherwise he doesn’t interest me.)
It’s the human nuances that intrigue me. That’s my favorite part of research.
So in the name of research, I have a few questions if ya’ll want to share (I’ve been talking to Toni too much lately! Haha.)
What do you do for a living and is it something you love (for the most part) and why? If not, what would you rather be doing and why?
Is your passion more with your career or something you do outside your career? Why?
If you have a hobby that you spend time with on a regular basis, what about that hobby satisfies you?
Can I just first say that I’m writing this on Friday June 5 and NOBODY in New York is answering e mail or phone calls? All I get is “Out of Office” replies. Did something happen that I don’t know about? The Apocalypse, or a holiday, something?
(Somebody e mailed me: “It’s called The Hamptons.” Good grief. And they say California is laid back.)
Can I then just add that every muscle in my body is sore, and that’s just from driving? I mean, it’s not like I’ve been climbing mountains or river rafting or any of those other – things – that usually give me these industrial size bruises. How do you get bruised from driving?
Hmm, I have another marathon driving day today. This could get ugly.
All right, what was I going to talk about?
These days as far as blogging goes I’m a lot more comfortable tallking about craft, but no craft today, because I’ve been Out There for the last two weeks, promoting THE UNSEEN. As we all know, we authors drop everything to do with writing when the book is released and we have to go Out There and promote.
Call me a masochist (and you’d be about 20 percent right, maybe less, maybe more like 10 percent), but I kind of like the frenetic physicality of promotion.
I like Mapquesting all the bookstores on the way to whatever signing or con I’m on my way to and doing the hit and runs. Drivebys. Whatever. I like the adrenaline rush of running in and signing stock and being charming… more or less. I like the ever-changing scenery, I love being alone on the road and not having to think, or being able to sing intricate harmonies to any number of songs for ten hours at a stretch; I especially like being able to justify buying and drinking five or six frozen mochacchinos a day, which is, like, a week’s worth of calories I think; and I really, really like having a great excuse for not writing.
Although I am beginning to suspect that I may be doing myself more harm than good when I try to do bookstore loops at That Time of the Month. I don’t THINK I killed anyone on the drive from NY to Virginia, but I wouldn’t swear to it in court. It’s a little worrisome.
Anyway, desperately trying to get to my topic through this fog in my head – I was in NY signing THE UNSEEN at the Book Expo America, where it was very, very, very, VERY obvious that our industry is in a state of transition.
This would be my – God, this is pathetic, but – either third or fourth BEA – I just can’t keep track of these conventions any more. It was definitely the smallest BEA I’ve been to – far, far, fewer people on the floor, and alarmingly few galleys. Macmillan and Dorchester didn’t have booths at all. And I was told by sales people from several different houses that hardcopy galleys are done – it’s all going to be e galleys from now on. Some of the authors in the chutes had only 20 or 30 books or galleys to give away.
Which means we all have fortunes on our shelves, I guess!
Attendance at BEA was apparently down 33 percent. Well, 66 percent of humongous is still pretty damn big. And I think the smaller size helped those of us who were out there working it – the Mystery Writers of America booth was positively MOBBED because we had books when even the pub houses who had booths didn’t have the giveaways, and the Horror Writers of America booth got some great traffic as well, even though it was only our second year of participation.
It was thoroughly great to be there – just as always I felt I got a half a year’s worth of business done in a weekend.
However, I had one overwhelming impression of the show this year. It was pretty obvious to me that e books are the inevitable future. And I can be slow that way, let me tell you. But the future is now.
I talked with a lot of librarians who say e books are becoming more and more popular, and of course libraries can stock MANY more titles that way. And that is the whole point.
I have no particular insight about it, except that I can tell you that while I was drifting around BEA, it felt like the e book revolution had already happened, and people were just trying to get their bearings, and figuring out how to deal with it.
When I was on strike with the rest of the WGA, the screenwriters’ union, the central focus of the New Media issues was delivery systems. Well, this is what we’re talking about with the Kindle and the Sony reader. I’s a delivery system. The content is ours. It still has to be great, it still has to be vetted and edited, or good God, someone might take a chance on a download, but if it’s crap, no one’s ever going to download another book of yours again. But it’s possible that we are going to have more control over our content, and have to assume more responsibility for getting it out there, than we ever imagined when we were just going into this book thing… but at the same time we are going to get more of a percentage of it than ever before.
Which is kind of thrilling.
Other of the Rati have blogged much more intelligently on Kindles and Sony readers and all that than I am capable of at the moment, especially because, well, I don’t have either of them and don’t have much to say about them. But I did, instead of rambling on like this, want to link to what I think is a VERY interesting blog by Joe Konrath about his recent e book experiences.
I don’t myself have a “shelf book” – every book I’ve written so far has been published or is scheduled to be. And i strongly believe that every book you put out should be your best work. I would think that publishing “shelf books” – unless you are POSITIVE that that book is every bit as good as everything else you’ve published – carries the danger of diiluting the reputation we’re all trying to build for ourselves. Not a great idea, in my opinion. How does that saying go? “The secret of being a great photographer is you throw away the bad pictures.”
Same with writing.
But there is a book I’m thinking of going “e” with. It would be an interesting experiment.
Only – I guess that means I actually have to buy one of those things and figure out how to use it. Could be a problem.
Are these thoughts going through your heads, too, ‘Rati? What do you think? And are there any dedicated a book readers out there who will weigh in on this for us?
Now, on the road again!
– Alex
(In between driving I’m doing a non-type A, unKonrath kind of blog tour for THE UNSEEN. This week I have stops at Murder She Writes, where I talk about character archetypes: “Goddesses in Everywoman“, and my friend Diane Chamberlain’s blog, where I talk about location: the haunted house that I used in THE UNSEEN and how growing up in California influenced me as a writer.)
I don’t know exactly when it was that I fell in love with research. Perhaps it was in college, when I managed to convince five professors that the research I would do in the Navajo Reservation was important enough to excuse me from two weeks of classes, and that it would require the rescheduling of my mid-term exams. I can understand why my screenwriting professor went along with this, and maybe even the guy who taught Film as Literature. But how did I convince my American History, Astronomy and Sociology professors? Somehow I got them on board, and then I was off on a road trip that took me through California, Utah and Northern Arizona, taking the picaresque journey I was writing for my protagonist, a young half-Navajo, half-hick pig farmer on his way to the Salinas State Fair to show his nine hundred pound Dorac.
What the hell was I doing? I had a broken-down Toyota Corolla and a hundred bucks to my name. Was this a vision quest of some sort? Was I ducking my adult responsibilities, intent upon reenacting my own version of Kerouac’s “On the Road?”
Yes! Yes, and more! This was one-hundred-percent-university-stamped-and-approved road trip extraordinaire! Under the dubious title….RESEARCH.
And then a funny thing happened. I started learning about life. Things that would become the world of my story. I was alone in a strange land, lost first in a little hunting town called Kanab, Utah, then lost in a big desert called Monument Valley (almost lost to the flash floods that were flashing behind and in front of me), and then lost and found again in Window Rock, Arizona. And I met amazing people along the way – Native Americans and Anglos alike—and somehow I ended up sleeping with a .32 revolver under my pillow on New Years Eve, and somehow I ended up atop the wildest beast I ever know’d, hanging on for dear life, after I said the words “Sure, why not?” in answer to the question the little Indian boy had when he looked me in the eye and said, “Wanna ride my daddy’s rodeo horse?”
My God was it fun! And I ended up in the snowy desert around a little place called Rough Rock, or Round Rock, or a combination of the two, it didn’t really matter, they were one and the same with their lack of electricity and running water and plumbing and the hundreds of dogs and thousands of sheep that wandered the snowy hills looking for edible shrubs, some of which were medicinal, others hallucinogenic. And an ancient Navajo medicine man who duetted with me—his tribal flute to my soprano sax—gave me peyote for my ailing back and blessed it with cedar bark and a wave of his eagle feathers and soon I saw spirits in the linoleum on his kitchen floor.
Damn straight, this was research.
And I rode horseback through Canyon de Chelly to view the Anasazi Indian ruins first-hand, and I interviewed Navajo teachers and prophets and politicians and farmers. On my last day I was driven out to the boonies (it was all the boonies) to the home of a Navajo educator who had promised to drive me back to Gallup and it was late and cold when I arrived and he saw me and said, “It’s an old Navajo tradition to sleep in the same bed for warmth, you know,” and I realized that I had just met the first gay Navajo I’d ever known and I said, “Thank you, I’ll just stay over here in this bed…” and when I awoke I found him standing over me peering out the window saying, “Tsk, tsk, this doesn’t look good. We’ll be snowed in for days…” and he was right, the snow had descended on our little world and there I was.
Then at breakfast I met his parents who lived with him and spoke about me behind my back and he told me that they figured I was one of those hippies who used to hitchhike through in the Sixties and would stop in to stay and herd their sheep for a week or two. They asked me if I would like to herd their sheep and I declined. And during my stay I discovered that the gay Navajo (who was respecting my boundaries, by the way) was an amazing writer who had graduated from St. John’s School of Great Books and had, in his youth, danced professional ballet in New York City and had been a good friend to Andy Warhol.
By the time I returned to campus I had a glint in my eye and a taste for adventure. I took my delayed midterms and sat down to write. But I had friends who had heard where I’d been and one or two came to me and said, “You should’ve told me you were going to the Res, I could have hooked you up with a Navajo family and you would have stayed in their ceremonial Hogan…” I had no choice but to go back for more. And I did.
Research. Sometimes I think I’m a writer as an excuse to do research. I love it as much as the writing itself.
I once saw a greeting card that read, “We write so that we may experience life twice.”
I’ve learned that I do research so that I might experience life once, from as many perspectives as there are people to meet.
And when you call yourself a writer, people will talk. People will tell you the most amazing things. Everyone wants to be remembered, and everyone has a story to tell. And if you’re willing to listen…watch out!
When I start a project I like to do what I call “wallowing in research.” Sometimes I call it drowning, or sponging, or diving off the deep end. I go native. A life-long vegetarian, I recently went to Alabama to research the world of hunting in an effort to add some realism to the life experiences of the hero of one of my short stories. I thought it would just be an interview, and when I told the hunter I didn’t want to see an animal killed, he inched up close to my face and said, “Boy, this here’s a turkey hunt and if I see a turkey I’m gonna shoot it. If you get in the way you’re gonna end up with a chunk of birdshot in your ass.” Thank God we didn’t find any turkeys.
When I meet them I become them. Through research I’ve been an astronaut riding the space shuttle to the International Space Station. I’ve been a deep-sea submersible pilot. I’ve been a cosmonaut on Mir. I’ve been a Nobel Prize winning physicist. I’ve been the second man to step foot on the moon. I’ve been a medical examiner at the L.A. County Coroner’s Office. I’ve been the oldest policeman in the San Francisco Police Department (having first spent thirty years as a cable car brakeman). I’ve been the Executive Director of an organization that hides women from the perpetrators of human trafficking. I’ve been a Special Agent for the FBI.
For my novel, BOULEVARD, I researched sex addiction and LAPD procedures. As an unpublished writer I didn’t always get the access I wanted, and LAPD Media Relations didn’t want anything to do with novelists (whom they tended to call “journalists”). I do remember cold-calling the Chief Coroner Investigator at the LA Coroner’s Office and asking for a tour and interview, and I was astonished when he granted the request. In a half-hour tour I saw over two hundred bodies and six simultaneous autopsies, and every variant of death and decay you can imagine. It was strangely more serene than I had imagined and the experience reinvented my paradigm for writing scenes that take place in the Coroner’s Office.
My second novel, THE HOUSE OF WHISPERS, brings BOULEVARD’S protagonist, Hayden Glass, to San Francisco. I’ve spent many days over a period of many months “embedded” with members of the San Francisco Police Department. I’ve ridden with narcotics officers, sergeants and patrol officers, i
nterviewed captains and city councilmen, went on vice calls and foot patrol in the Tenderloin, interviewed everyone who has an opinion. I’ve been seen with so many officers in North Beach that I can’t convince the locals I’m not an undercover cop. And the restaurant owners won’t let me pay for a cup of coffee or a plate of linguini.
After six months of research I’m suddenly faced with the daunting realization that…I’ve got to WRITE something! I have to deliver a novel in three months! What was I thinking?
Research. I was thinking research. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
After I finished this post I read through Brett’s post and discovered that we’re blogging the same topic this week. Well, that’s serendipity for you. Sorry, Brett – at least you beat me to the punch. Here’s my question for the Ratis – what is your opinion on research? How has research influenced your own writing? Do you love it or hate it?
I’ve mentioned this before, but when it comes to research my favorite by far is the type that involves getting to know a new location. And since I write international thrillers, those locations are usually far from home.
In THE CLEANER, I used my experiences in both Berlin, Germany, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to guide my descriptions of the locations, making both characters within the story. In this case, these were two places I’d gone to prior to writing the book for reasons other than story research. Did I think at the time I could use them in my work? Yes, the thought did crossed my mind, but I had no idea in what context that would occur. So I just kind of soaked them in, noting things without actually realizing what I was doing…at least not until I recalled them later.
The first time I ever purposely traveled to a specific location for story research came when I was getting ready to write THE DECEIVED. I had a good friend who, at the time, was living in Singapore. I had always thought the island nation would be an interesting place to set a story, so off I went. I had a fantastic time, and my friend Rick was a wonderful guide. I was pretty happy, too, with how Singapore took shape on the pages of my book.
In SHADOW OF BETRAYAL (in the U.K. entitled THE UNWANTED), I once again used places I’ve visited in the past. For example, in the opening scene Quinn is at an abandoned church in the Irish countryside. I vividly remember this church for a visit I made many years ago with my friend Tom. In the years since that trip, I’ve often thought what a great location it would be for a scene. So when I needed something interesting for the opening of SHADOW, the church was the first thing that came to mind.
QUINN 4, due out summer 2010 and tentatively titled THE SILENCED, is already done…less some edits, of course. For this one, I took a planned trip. Last fall, I traveled to London and, via the Chunnel, to Paris. Both locations play large roles in the story. And even the trip on the train under the channel makes a small appearance. Though most people won’t get a chance to read it for another year, I can tell you I’m very excited how it all turned out. I even ended up using a house just outside of London where a friend of mine lives as the location of the climactic scene. I love when stuff like that works out.
I’m now starting to work on QUINN 5, which won’t hit stores until 2011. At this point it’s a lot of ruminating, and imagining. To help myself along, I’ve planned a new location research trip. In fact, that’s what I’m doing at this very moment. For the first two weeks of June I’m away getting to know the lay of the land of someplace unfamiliar to me, but a place that will play a major role in the new book. Though I’ve only been on the road a couple days when you’re reading this, I can guarantee you that I’m having a great time observing everything.
Because that’s how I like to do it…I like to walk around and watch. Sometimes I’ll sit at an outdoor café or bar and let the world go by. I take with me both a digital still camera and a palm-size video camera. I shoot tons of photos, and let the video run for minutes. You see, I never know exactly what I’m going to need when I sit down to actually write. When I find a particularly interesting location…say an intriguing alley or a backstreet restaurant…I’ll shoot images of EVERYTHING. The video will run and run, but it’s not just the images I’m interested in. It’s also the sounds – the sounds of the place, the voices, the vehicles, the city sounds itself…and sometimes the narration I through in so that I don’t forget something important.
In addition to the cameras, I also carry a little notebook. Inside I’ll jot down notes, maps, and rough (VERY rough) sketches. But in the end, it’s the pictures and video I rely on the most…those and my memories.
When I come home, I’ll download everything to my computer, creating folders of research photos…sometimes specific, sometimes just general. And then I don’t look at anything for several months. Not until I actually get to the point where I’m writing about the place.
Ideally, I’ll have a few months between the trip and when I need to use the research. During this time I’m back to that percolation of ideas time. Scenes start developing, taking on lives of their own. Often even the plot I had developed before the trip changes based on what I’ve come across. I love this time almost as much as I love the trip itself…Almost. For a travel lover, nothing beats the trip, though!
Oh…and where am I right now? Well, I’m just going to keep that secret for the time being, but I’m sure I’ll have a very nice tan when I get back!
Also, apologies if I don’t answer your comments in a timely fashion today…let’s just say our time zones aren’t exactly lining up, and I’m unsure of my computer access.
So…let’s talk research. What’s your favorite type? Why? What’s the most interesting thing (or thing that immediately comes to mind) that you’ve used in a story based on research you’ve done?
BONUS: The June Sweepstakes to win an advance copy of my new book SHADOW OF BETRAYAL is underway! Click here for details.
Not that I was afraid, mind you. Such things don’t really scare me a whole lot. But most of the people I spoke to who had been through it told me that the truly awful part was not even the event itself.
No, they said, it’s the preparation that will kill you.
After Tess’s post yesterday about old coots like me who continue to write and will likely do so until our dying day, I’m thinking that a true sign of old age is when you start talking about your health.
I remember as a teenager listening to my grandmothers talk about this or that ache, this or that procedure, this or that disease, this or that pill.
Now, here I am talking about it, too.
You see, I went for a check-up several months ago and was ordered by my doctor to get a blood test. But I put off the test for one simple reason: it was hugely inconvenient for me to go to the lab and get it done.
What happened to the days when they did that stuff right there in the doctor’s office? I mean, come on. How hard is it to draw some blood?
Anyway, just a little gripe of mine.
So flash forward several months and I finally go to the lab to get the blood test done. I walk into this place and I’m telling you, it’s a low rent, one room office with a desk, a few chairs, a cheerless receptionist making Xerox copies of my medical cards, and a “technician” who draws blood with the same enthusiasm as a kid handing out burgers at the drive-thru.
Maybe less.
The word skeezy comes to mind. Assuming that’s actually a word. Even if it isn’t, it fits, because I was seriously wondering about the needle they used to draw the blood. But I let them do it and hoped I wouldn’t come down with some rare blood disease that would render me blind. Or stupid.
So, a few days later, my doctor’s office calls and the nurse says, “Your tests were all fine, except you’re anemic. The doctor wants you to get a colonoscopy.”
Oh, joy.
But I was overdue. As I said, I’d been putting it off for several years.
A couple weeks later, I went in to see the gastroentronologist and he described the procedure to me, and for those who don’t know, a colonoscopy is basically when the doctor sticks a camera up your ass and takes movies of your colon. All of it. From top to bottom.
But no sweat, right? I’ve known people who have had one, and they all said they were put to sleep. Didn’t feel a thing.
“We won’t be putting you to sleep,” the doctor tells me.
“Say what?”
“You’ll be given a mild sedative that will calm you and make you a little drowsy, but I’d prefer you to be awake so we don’t have to worry that you’ll stop breathing.”
“Say what?”
“Oh, and don’t worry. I very, very rarely puncture the colon wall. My track record is quite good.”
“Say the fuck what?”
That isn’t the conversation verbatim, but that’s pretty much how it felt. But I merely shook off my initial trepidation and figured he must know what he’s doing. I smiled politely as he wrote me a prescription for the prep medicine — something called MoviPrep. It is, I was told, the least offensive of the choices.
Friends had told me that this prep is the worst part. You have to drink a whole boatload of this stuff, then you sit on the john for about six hours and — as Dave Barry pointed out a while back — it’s like the space shuttle taking off from the launch pad, only YOU’RE the space shuttle and the fire is coming out of your ass.
Dave may not have put it so crudely. But it’s early and I haven’t had my coffee yet.
Anyway, I was really not looking forward to prep night. The worst thing, I was told, is that the stuff you have to drink tastes so awful that it’s nearly impossible to choke it down. And you have no choice but to drink it. The doc needs you COMPLETELY cleaned out or he can’t go forward with the procedure.
Finally, prep night came and I dutifully mixed up a liter of MoviPrep and, as instructed, I downed a glass of it every fifteen minutes until it was gone.
And you know what? It wasn’t bad at all. I’ve tasted much worse, believe me. Hell, a gin and tonic tastes worse to me.
So I had no trouble at all downing the liquid other than the simple fact that I felt like a bloated buffalo. The last glass was chugged in one gynormous gulp and I gagged a little toward the end, but a quick mouth rinse and I was fine. It was certainly not even close to being as bad as everyone said it was.
And as nature (or the chemicals) took its course, I kept my little netbook close and actually did some work.
How’s that for a little slice of TMI?
Hehehe.
The next morning, at 4:30 am, I had to drink another liter of the stuff and spend more alone time. Then around noonish, feeling clean as a whistle, it was off to the clinic for my date with destiny.
I wasn’t really nervous. The nurse who took my blood pressure will attest to that. For some reason hospitals and clinics and the like don’t really scare me. I figure I’m there for something that could potentially save my life, so what’s to be nervous about?
They hooked me up to an IV to hydrate me a bit, then I waited for an hour. Largely because the doctor had some complications with the guy before me. Turns out they found a very large polyp and it took them awhile to excise it. From the way they spoke to the man’s wife, you’d think it was the size of a golf ball.
Who knows, maybe it was. It was, as the doctor told her, 30% likely to be cancerous — and that’s when I got scared. I do not like the word cancer.
In fact I fucking hate cancer. Two of my uncles died of it. My aunt had colon cancer. My cousin has brain cancer, my ex-brother-in-law has esophageal cancer, my wife’s family has had its share of cancer scares, I’ve had skin cancer, and my daughter’s boyfriend had a prolonged illness and finally died of it — one of the great heartbreaks of our family.
So the word cancer gets me going. And at the moment the doctor said 30%, I got a little panicked. But then I told myself, calm down, Rob, that’s an anomaly. You’ll be fine.
A few minutes later, they finally wheeled me into the operating room (or whatever the hell you call it) and hooked me up to a couple machines. Then the nurse gave me a couple shots of some stuff that was supposed to make me sleepy.
Which it didn’t. Not one bit. And as I turned, I saw this technician walk into the room carrying a coil of what, I swear to God, looked like about a hundred feet of black garden hose.
And that’s when I REALLY got scared. Holy shit, I thought. THAT’S what’s going up my ass.
It’s a miracle I didn’t faint. But what’s even more of a miracle is that, despite the fact that I was wide awake, I did not feel a thing.
Oh, a slight bit of cramping and discomfort when they had to turn a corner or two, but for the most part, it was the proverbial walk in the park and — get this — I watched it all on TV.
I don’t know what drug they gave me, but it was certainly made by someone who knew his stuff. And I can say, without hestitation, that I have one of the most handsome colons I’ve ever seen.
The whole thing was completely fascinating.
And, fortunately, I was given a clean bill of health.
So, what, you may ask, does any of this grossness have to do with writing? Well, I can guarantee that this material will, at some point, wind up in one of my books. I don’t know when or where, but it’s bound to work its way into a story somehow.
That night, I started thinking about possible scenarios. Imagine if they hadn’t given me any drugs before uncoiling that 100 feet of joy?
Anyone remember the dentist scene from Marathon Man?
What if, instead of a dentist, the interrogator was a gastroentronologist? I can just see him hovering over the hero, the nozzle of that hose poised and ready to make entry as he says:
I am no spring chicken. It doesn’t matter that I faithfully run 45 minutes on my treadmill and pop fish oil capsules every day. No matter how much I fight the inevitable, I won’t be seeing 30 again. Or 40. Or … well, stop me before I get depressed. Time marches on, and the body turns decrepit. But it’s nice to know that, as long as my brain keeps functioning, I can stay at my job until I keel over. When it comes to the writing profession, there’s no such thing as forced retirement.
I was reminded of this when I skimmed through my mom’s May issue of the AARP Bulletin. In a feature called “Power of 50,” the magazine featured eleven authors whose bestselling works were written while the authors were in their 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. You can take a look at them at the AARP online site. The list includes Katherine Ann Porter (who wrote Ship of Fools at age 72) and James Michener (who wrote The Covenant at age 73). Consider, too, all the authors who have written right up until their deaths. John Updike died in January, but a collection of his short stories will be published posthumously this month.
Most novelists get into the business because they love telling stories, and most of them don’t want to stop. As long as there’s a publisher willing to sign them up, writers will keep on writing until death or senility overtakes them. I can think of only one writer who retired while still healthy and at the top of her game: LaVyrle Spencer. The occasion was so unprecedented that it was announced at a press conference, where she told the audience that she had made enough money, and now she wanted to enjoy life and spend time with her grandchildren. I recall hearing one agent marveling that he’d never heard of any other writer quitting while at the peak of a career.
Granted, some writers won’t quit because they need the income right into their twilight years. But even those writers who don’t need the money seem to keep pecking away at those keyboards because they just. Can’t. Stop. They’re addicted to the act of storytelling. They’re addicted to the thrill of seeing their books on the stands. They’re addicted to hearing readers tell them how much they loved the last book. Their identity is so tied into being a writer that the thought of suddenly waking up one day as something else leaves them feeling empty and lost. So they keep on writing.
And publishers are happy to keep putting out their books. In fact, if a writer has a big enough audience, publishers will put out his books even after he’s dead. VC Andrews and Robert Ludlum are both long gone, but the franchises refuse to die.
The wonderful thing about the writing business is that your value is based on your talent and your stories, not on your youth or even your appearance. It doesn’t hurt to be young and photogenic, but you can still hit bestseller lists even if no one knows what you look like.
What’s truly amazing, though, is that you can break into this profession at any age. When I look at the list of debut authors on the International Thriller Writers site, I see a number of gray-haired first-time authors. I can also think of two women who managed to break into the writing business at astonishingly advanced ages, and with spectacular success.
A 93-year-old debut novelist has used the proceeds from her book to move her friends out of nursing homes and into her new country house.
When Lorna Page hit the jackpot with A Dangerous Weakness, a raunchy thriller set in the Alps, she traded in her flat for a five-bedroom house in picturesque Devon, south-west England, and invited her contemporaries to move in with her.
“Care homes can be such miserable places. You sit there all day staring out the window with no one to talk to,” she told The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph.
“I thought it would be lovely to give a home and family life to one or two people who would otherwise be sitting around there.”
Consider, also, Helen Hooven Santmeyer. She first hit the bestseller list at age 88 (!) with her novel, And Ladies of the Club, which she wrote while in a retirement home.
Hey, ‘Rati readers. Join me in welcoming this week’s guest, Stacey Cochran. Stacey is a go-getter suspense writer whose new book CLAWS was published last month. An avid proponent of self-publication, Stacey has been a frequent visitor to our blog and always has something interesting to say.
In his first post here, he’s decided to lighten things up a bit and have some fun . . .
Today I’d like to talk about a topic of eminent importance to us all . . .
Bad haircuts and worst fashion trends!
Seriously, I’m on tour for CLAWS and I’ve done, like, fifteen guest blogs in a row. So I thought I’d write about something other than my little-engine-that-couldn’t book.
Let’s talk about the worst fashion mistakes of our lives.
You remember those really bad redneck haircuts of the mid 80s where you would cut your hair in the back so that it hung down in a single line meant to resemble (like the name suggests) an actual rat’s tail. I recall my sixth-grade teacher very sincerely threatening to lop it off herself. In retrospect, maybe she should have.
That was probably the worst haircut of my life . . .
With the possible exception of the time I cut my hair in the seventh grade, by myself, with a pair of Mom’s orange-handled sewing scissors. That one was pretty bad, too, because I cut the front of my hair down to a nub while leaving the sides and back at varying lengths.
And then in high school, somehow I let my older brother at my hair with electric clippers. He started with a Mohawk, but it eventually led to a bald cut. This was, like, a month before prom and I was quite possibly the most awkward looking guy in my entire high school.
Rail thin (I think I weighed 135) and bald is a strange look for a seventeen-year-old. Talk about embarrassing.
Probably the worst fashion disaster of my life was my “camo” phase. Remember when camouflage was in? People would wear Army fatigues like they were jeans. I confess I had three pairs . . . and they went right alongside my parachute pants! (Those synthetic nylon pants that felt like you were wearing wax paper.) They always had zippers. Only my parents couldn’t really afford the trendier kind so I had to settle for the bargain bin version from K-Mart on Western Boulevard in Raleigh.
Oh . . . my . . . God! Picture a rail-thin kid with a bald head in a pair of camouflage pants and, usually, a football jersey that hung over my frame like a bed sheet. That was me!
And don’t forget the braces.
How do we ever make it out of that period in our lives? How did I not end up the Unibomber?
What about you? What was the worst fashion trend you’ll confess to? What was the worst hair mistake of your life?
Friends, Come back next week for guest blogger Carolyn Haines. See you then. Pari
