by J.T. Ellison

Happy Halloween!!! I’m eschewing a spooky post for the practical today, but wanted to wish everyone a safe and scary night!

It’s that time again.

November 1 signals the start of National Novel Writing Month, a fun, work-intensive exercise for novelists. The goal is simple and straightforward: write 50,000 words in thirty days. When you break it down, that’s a mere 1,666 words a day.

I heard that groan.

I can’t write that much a day, every day. I can’t handle the pressure of writing every day. I can’t put the time and effort into sitting at my computer, forsaking that hour on Facebook, and writing. Real words. Real stories. Real work. Can’t do it.

Be honest with yourself. Is the operative word in the above sentences can’t? Or should we replace every "can’t" with "I don’t want to?"

I love the principles behind NaNoWriMo. Write every day. Let’s repeat that. Write. Every. Day. This isn’t an unknown concept for professional writers. Truth be told, every month is NaNoWriMo when you’re a professional writer. Especially for those of us who write more than one book a year.

It’s become fashionable for some established authors to look down their nose at the NaNoWriMo exercise, labeling the participants wanna-bes, denigrating the experience. I sometimes think people forget where they come from. We all need to learn what works for us. We all need to understand what it’s like working on a deadline. Be it a real one or self-imposed, if you want to succeed as a writer, you need to know how to meet your deadlines.

So if you ask my opinion on NaNoWriMo, I’m going to say do it. Write like the ever-loving wind, and be proud of yourself for sticking with it. 1,666 words a day for a month. That is SO doable. I participated in 2005 (and hit my goal of 50K in 27 days, thank you
very much.) The output from that month became the second novel in the
Taylor Jackson series, 14. Yes, in the end I changed a lot of the
story. Yes, 50,000 words is only half of a real commercial novel. (Mine
come in at 100,000.) But those 50,000 words were a big part of the
framework of the book. I got a huge jump start on the title, which
helped me meet my crazy deadlines last year. So scoff if you want, but
I think it’s valuable.

My normal output when I’m puttering along is 1,000 words a day. When I’m really into it, I’m up to 2,000 a day. I have days I don’t write and then have crazy productive 6,000 or 7,000 word days to make up for it. But I do try to write everyday. I like the discipline it instills, like the feeling of accomplishment. I stuck to that for three books, and felt very productive.

I didn’t stick to that pattern for my latest, the bane of my existence book I just turned in. God, I hated writing that book. I was uncomfortable with the subject matter (necrophilia), unhappy with the characters, bored with my writing style (I think this is something that happens when you’re doing a series, but that’s a whole different post.) In general, every word onto the page was a tooth pulled, fewer strands of hair, dark circles under the eyes, bitching at the husband and a ten pound weight gain. I was miserable writing that book.

You know why? Because looking back, no matter what excuse I come up with, I knew I wasn’t being as serious about it as I should have been. It took me months to write, actually the longest it’s ever taken me to write a book. I wasn’t following the cardinal rule of professional writing.

ASS IN CHAIR

I was letting myself get distracted, allowing myself to be derailed, pushing the book from my mind to do anything BUT write. And when I finally typed ### at the end, I made myself a promise. Never. Again.

NaNoWriMo teaches new writers and aspiring authors the cardinal rule. It’s an invaluable lesson, both in discipline and in freedom. Because when you’re writing fast, you don’t have the luxury of introspection. Introspection, we all know, equals writer’s block. We allow ourselves to get caught up on a specific word, or phrase. We labor over the paragraphs, inch by measly inch. NaNoWriMo enables writers to discard their internal editor and just write. It’s exceptionally effective.

You can’t go in willy nilly though. You need a solid concept, an idea. Yes, you can write 50,000 words of gibberish, but that defeats the purpose. The idea is to write a novel. To tell a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You need characters, a true conflict, a build, a climax, and a proper denouement. It’s a practice novel for some, it’s the first half for others. Still more writers can take that 50K and distill it into a novella, or a couple of good short stories. You can play with point of view, find out where you’re comfortable writing – first or third – and experiment with genres. There are no rules except write everyday. Refreshing, eh?

Anyone who’s ever attempted to write a novel knows that it’s easy to get started, much more difficult to finish. So the most paramount goal of NaNo is to finish with work product that is usable. Yes, that makes it more challenging. The sponsors of the program encourage you to free think and free write, to pour the words on the page. While that is fun, you should keep in mind that your work product can become something real. A little forethought and planning can be a paycheck later on.

Here’s something else to think about. There is a community that exists at NaNoWriMo. The regions and the individual cities each have their own groups, who get together and have Write Ins. Yes, that sounds a little cheesy, but I can’t tell you how many emails I get from new writers who are looking for critique groups. This allows you a jump start on finding a group of like-minded individuals to work with. The usual rules apply – look out for people who criticize instead of offering constructive criticism, don’t get bullied, etcetera, etcetera.

I’d even suggest that if you do participate, you use your extensive knowledge of the publishing industry, gleaned here at Murderati and through your research, to help educate the writers around you. Knowledge, my friends, is power. The more we share our hard-won knowledge with other writers, the better our community is.

When you’re just starting out, it helps to make a public declaration of your intent to become a published author. Many millions of people say they want to be a writer. How many actually sit down and write that first sentence? And how many of those will write the second, much less finish a full-length piece of commercial fiction? Not so many. So participating in an exercise like NaNoWriMo may just be the action these aspiring writers need to push them over the edge into actual writing.

I just finished writing my 5th full-length novel. It’s still slightly surreal that come November 1, I’ll be starting my 6th. Why do I need NaNoWriMo?

Need isn’t the right term for me. I want to do it. No, I won’t be hanging around the coffee shops and write ins, but I enjoy the structure. I have a book due March 1 and another due September 1. I’m considering a non-fiction project that I’d have to sandwich in between the two fiction titles. I’d like to judge an awards category again. I want to read, expand my horizons. The research I’m doing for book 5, THE IMMORTALS, has been a blast, and I want to give myself enough leeway to adjust as needs be as I go because of new influences. I love to see the word count increase, to feel like I’m accomplishing something. Will I make it? Probably. If I don’t, it’s not the end of the world. I’ll keep plugging away regardless.

That’s the other point to take away today. If you don’t make the goal, it doesn’t mean you haven’t succeeded. Remember that. Don’t set unrealistic expectations for yourself, and don’t get down on yourself if life gets in the way. It is hard to do all this work with the holidays looming. (If you do 2,000 a day, you’ll be finished BEFORE Thanksgiving.)

Ultimately, I hope that some of the NaNoWriMo participants will see traditionally published authors in their midst and know that yes, it is possible. Maybe it will inspire them to try to hit that goal after all.

And just to make this fun, here’s a little pay it forward trick or treat for you:

Those of you who participate and win, ie: get certification from NaNoWriMo that you’ve completed the 50K in 30 days, can send me your name and proof of completion and I’ll enter you into a drawing for a critique of your first 25 pages. I’ll choose one at random and do the critique myself. How’s that sound?

So what about you? Are you going to participate? What do you do to get that daily word count in?

Wine of the Week: Vampire: The Blood of the Vine

by J.T. Ellison

Can you use real people, places and events in your fiction work without being sued?

This topic pops up from time to time, and it seems like there are too many people who don’t know the answers, so I thought we could try and sort it out.

The short answer is yes. You can use brand names and trademarked items in your books. You can use real people and real places.

What you can’t do is slander or libel.  In other words, any defamation of character isn’t allowed.

In law, defamation (also called calumny, libel, slander, and vilification)
is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressly
stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business,
product, group, government or nation a negative image. Slander refers
to a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report, while libel
refers to any other form of communication such as written words or
images. Most jurisdictions allow legal actions, civil and/or criminal,
to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless
criticism. Related to defamation is public disclosure of private facts
which arises where one person reveals information which is not of
public concern, and the release of which would offend a reasonable
person.^[1] "Unlike libel, truth is not a defence for invasion of privacy."^[2] **

Okay, so now that we know what we’re dealing with, why does this question keep coming up, again and again? It seems like common sense that you can talk about a real person but not talk badly about them. Right?

Well, maybe not so much. The media gets away with salacious tidbits that are utterly unfounded all the time. Any celebrity will tell you they don’t even look at the tabloids because of all the hurtful, hateful nonsense that makes up the headlines.The reason they get away with it is because these people have chosen to put themselves in the public eye, and somewhere along the way, they abdicated their right to privacy. There is a rule of law called the "Public Figure Doctrine" that applies to celebrities, politicians and the like:

Special rules apply in the case of statements made in the press
concerning public figures, which can be used as a defense. A series of
court rulings led by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) established that for a public official
(or other legitimate public figure) to win a libel case, the statement
must have been published knowing it to be false or with reckless
disregard to its truth, (also known as actual malice).^[13]

Under United States law, libel generally requires five key elements.
The plaintiff must prove that the information was published, the
plaintiff was directly or indirectly identified, the remarks were
defamatory towards the plaintiff’s reputation, the published
information is false, and that the defendant is at fault.

The Associated Press
estimates that 95% of libel cases involving news stories do not arise
from high-profile news stories, but "run of the mill" local stories
like news coverage of local criminal investigations or trials, or
business profiles. Media liability insurance is available to newspapers to cover potential damage awards from libel lawsuits. **

So it seems there is a certain amount of caveat emptor (buyer beware) to any person who proceeds into a public life.

Technical jargon aside, how do you, the fiction writer, decide how far to take things?

I again have to draw on my own experience, so bear with me. My character in a homicide lieutenant in the Metro Nashville Police department. It is a real position in a real environment. I set my series in Nashville, and use local landmarks, restaurants and streets to lend both authenticity and recognition to the books. I have real people — in ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS, there is a reporter named Laura McPherson, who worked for Channel 4 (NBC). Real person, who was thrilled to be included. I’ve continued using the actual names of real reporters in newer books for a train of continuity.

I especially like using Nashville’s landmarks and restaurants. We’re such an eclectic town, with a broad and diverse array of social and cultural highlights, so it helps me set the stage. In a city of wild dichotomies, people who subsist on fare from Radius 10 and Sambuca and attend the symphony at the Schermerhorn are vastly different from those who go to Captain Ds or Waffle House and spend their time at the Grand Ole Opry.

I use trademarked items as well. Kleenex. Diet Coke. Starbucks. BMW. Taylor drives a 4Runner. I always use the proper names of cars: it a great, subtle tool for character development. A man who drives a 2008 Prius and a man who drives a 1967 Mustang are going to be very different people, and in one swift brushstroke I’ve explained that. The same for someone who drinks Diet Coke instead of Coke. The same for someone who goes to Starbucks instead of making coffee in their own home.

Is it lazy for me to use these little daily details to flesh out my characters? I don’t think so. Sometimes it’s easier to describe a ’67 Stang instead of a flowery exposition on a muscle car.

But what I can’t do is use a real place, a real person, a trademarked item in any way that isn’t publicly verifiable. I have taken real figures and turned them into fictional ones, to protect the innocent, and myself. But I can’t write a real person into the book and have them do something illegal or out of character.

For example – I can’t take a newscaster, use their real name and give them a virulent coke addiction. I can’t use Diet Coke in the commission of a crime if it is something that isn’t manipulated by the character – meaning I can’t blame Diet Coke. I can use a can of Diet Coke to bash in a head, I can’t say Diet Coke is responsible for driving the villain crazy by removing a portion of the caffeine and thus driving them to commit the crime.

There are strict limitation to using real people and places, yes. But it’s not that hard to get around. In 14, I needed a bar that was next to a strip club. Yes, there’s plenty of places in Nashville that fit the description. But in this particular case, I cheated and moved the geographical location. I’m allowed. It’s creative license. Can I take the Parthenon and put it on Legislative Plaza? No. But I can use fictional locations and manipulate them into real locales.

A fantastic example of an author who has used a real character in her books  but fictionalized him is Charlaine Harris’s Bubba. We all know it’s Elvis. He’s not dead, he’s a vampire. But Charlaine never says it’s Elvis. She uses a beautifully subtle, wink, wink, nudge, nudge scenario to poke fun at the cultural phenomenon of people who believe Elvis is still with us.

Which leads us to the dead. Are they sacred? Can you not discuss people who have passed? Of course you can. Another example is Tess Gerritsen’s THE BONE GARDEN. Tess uses Oliver Wendall Holmes, a very real character, to shape a fictional world. She does is brilliantly, and it’s obvious how much effort and research went into Holmes’s character.

So take heart, writers. You can use real people, places and trademarks in your novels.

Do you have a favorite famous place or person who makes an appearance in a book? And does anyone from the legal community care to weigh in here?

Wine of the Week: 2005 Huarpe Lancatay Cabernet Sauvignon

** All citations from Wikipedia

PS: I must take a moment and give a huge, public thank you to everyone who signed my Get Well Card at Bouchercon this past weekend. I can’t tell you how much it meant to receive a card signed by all my favorite people, and I was literally in tears, of joy and thanks, of course, reading all of your inscriptions. I love you all, and am so sorry I missed you. And an especial thanks to Miss Zoë who arranged this incredibly lovely surprise. You are the greatest, babe. XOXO

by J.T. Ellison

Since so many of our compatriots are in Baltimore, having a blast at Bouchercon, indulge me while I feel sorry for myself for a few minutes. There really is nothing worse than having to pull out of a conference unexpectedly, which is what happened to me this week. I learned my lesson at Left Coast Crime in Denver – if you aren’t 100%, doing the conference right is very, very hard. I’d just come off emergency surgery, was weak as a kitten and still feeling horrid, and I went and tried my damnedest to be "on." It didn’t work. The pictures show a pale-faced wraith with a half smile, and all I could think about was getting back to my room to lay down.

For the authors, it’s a show, and you’re the star. You need to be able
to be on, to focus on the readers, to give them a slice of your
personality. You’re selling yourself as much as you’re selling your books. So, word to the wise. If you can’t be author boy or author girl, don’t go. Nothing’s worse than feeling poorly at a conference.

Okay. I’m done with the whining.

I thought we poor, wayward souls left behind could do some goal setting today.

Are you a listmaker who loves to cross items off your list, or are you a catch as catch can, try to remember, tie a string around your finger type? It’s a true assessment of your personality, I think. There are those of us who like to be hyper-organized, and those who let the chips fall where they may.

Though I’m a "pantser" when it comes to writing my novels, I like to be organized. I like to make lists, to tick off my actions. It gives me a sense that I’m getting something accomplished. I used to carry a day runner and have daily lists, weekly list, and monthly lists. Now I’m more electronic, and have a online notepad that I write my lists on. It’s not as satisfying, actually, so I’m looking at going back to the old way.

So aside from the day-to-day and week-to-week lists, I’ve been thinking about making myself a goals list – where will I be in One Year, Five Years, Ten Years? Why? I woke this morning wondering where I was going to be in ten years. I received the cover art for my 4th novel yesterday. (It’s BRILLIANT!) I’m revising that book now and will start my research for the 5th next week. Which in all actuality is my 6.5th, since my first didn’t sell and I wrote a novella prior to that. 6 full length novels. 6. That’s 600,000 words. I feels like an accomplishment. And it’s also going pretty damn fast, considering I started writing in 2004.

Yes, there’s a lot of writers with many more published books, but there’s also many people who never finish the first. So I had a little moment of triumph, all alone in my living room, with the cat staring at me like I was nuts. She likes it when I sit quietly and whistle occasionally, not smack my head and mutter incoherently.

And thus, I woke wondering where I was going to be in ten years. I spent last week in Omaha, with one of my favorite people and authors, Alex Kava. With her manager Deb at her side, they took me to bookstore after bookstore, and I got to watch a NYT bestseller in action. It was, to say the least, humbling. We did three audience based events, all of which went very well. Alex is a known commodity in Omaha the way I’d like to be a known commodity in Nashville. She has roots there: family, friends, but most of all, fans. Tons of them. Of every different stripe. It was so cool to sit beside her and meet all of these people, who I must say were incredibly gracious to the southern interloper.

Alex just published her 8th book, a fantastic title called EXPOSED. All of her titles have been in hardcover, which gives her a major leg up on me. But it’s more than that. She is accessible, sly and witty. The fans love her to pieces. They love Maggie O’Dell. They love having a chance to meet her. When we spoke to the "Detective Novels and Society" class at the College of St. Mary’s, Alex’s alma mater, I was struck by the respect she commanded from the students. She is something I aspire to be, a solid writer with a large fan base and a sense of humor about the whole process.

So I guess the first thing to consider when setting a goal is an act of emulation. Find your Alex. Find an author who you think embodies your career path, someone who you respect, whose writing you enjoy, whose publishing house does it right. Then look at where you are. Are you unpublished, writing in a vacuum, not a member of any organizations, never been to a conference? Are you with a small press and want to get into a major house? Are you a short story writer who wants to become a novelist? What is your next step?

Looking back to my own path to publication, I set small, attainable, intermediary goals for myself so I didn’t get discouraged. And that’s vital. You can’t set a goal like this: It is October 2008. I will write the great American novel by October 2009, sell it for a seven-figure advance, get coop in every store, be a Barnes and Noble pick and win the Edgar award. That’s setting yourself up for failure.

Set attainable goals. I will write 1,000 words a day. (You do that, you’ll have a rough draft in 3 months.) I will join my local chapter of Sisters in Crime and meet some new people. I will buy a subscription to Publisher’s Marketplace and put up a website. I will blog weekly. I will read at least two books a week. I will stop saying what if and start doing. My glass will be half full, and I will see others in a more sympathetic light. I will query my manuscript.

And follow through. I did all of the things I just mentioned, and found myself with a novel, an agent and a blog gig.

So we’ve set the small goals to get you started. When do you set the big goals? When do you start thinking about the possibility of becoming a bestseller? When do you lay out where you want to be in ten years?

Well, I don’t have the answer to that. I’m afraid to worry about the future. I feel much better setting my goals for the year, and not worrying about the what ifs. One of my favorite saying is:

"Control the things you can control."

You can control how many words you write. You can control your pace, your research and your quality. You can be open to new experiences and read out of the genre. You can. Remember that always.

YOU CAN.

So with that in mind, what are your short-term goals for your career? Have you set any long-term goals?

Wine of the Week: 2005 Pascual Toso Cabernet Sauvignon

by JT Ellison (with Neil Nyren)

(I’m thrilled and honored to have our dear friend and legendary editor Neil Nyren back on Murderati to talk about how our newfound connectivity alters the editorial process. For those of you just tuning in, "A Virtual Montparnasse" is an occasion series examining how the Internet has affected the art and literary communities. Part One is here, and Part Two here.Without further ado, I give you Neil Nyren!)

J.T.’s asked me
to comment on how the “Virtual Montparnasse” has affected the editorial
process, and I’m happy to contribute. It’s affected publishing in a lot more
ways than that, of course, but I’ll leave marketing and such for others – it’s
the editor/writer relationship we’re talking about here.

But first, a
confession:

Until the summer
of 1998, I’d barely even touched a computer. We had very few PCs in our
offices, and most of my communication was done by phone and by typewriter. I
shall pause while those of you who are under 25 try to wrap your heads around
that notion. Just a few weeks ago, my assistant was going through some older
files and announced to me, “Carbon copies! They were filled with carbon
copies!” as if announcing some mythological beast she’d thought existed only in
storybooks.

Yes, I told her,
but thanks to young Franklin’s
recent experiments with kite-flying, we did have electricity, however.

Anyway, about
that time, Putnam Berkley combined forces with Viking Penguin, and we all moved
in together. When I arrived at my new office early that Monday morning, there,
gleaming on my desk, was a new computer, and I said, “Well, guess I’ll have to
learn how to use the darn thing, then.”

The first real
test came pretty quickly. One of my authors was based in Brussels,
but his work took him everywhere – he was just as likely to be in Moscow or London on any given day. He was writing a book on the new Germany, and his deadlines were tight,
and so we started swapping chapters online. He’d email me a draft, I’d read it
and give him notes, and then no matter where he was or what time zone he was
in, he did the revisions according to whatever fit his daily schedule, and sent
them back. We did the whole book that way, and I very much doubt we could have brought
it off in time if we had done it any other way.

It was a
revelation. Even now, ten years later, it’s still a revelation, although by now
I’m sure it seems commonplace to all of you reading this on Murderati. I have
authors all around the country and in various spots around the globe, and they
are all instantly accessible. It’s not just editing. If I want someone to see a
jacket design, I no longer have to prepare a comp and overnight it to his house
– I just send him a jpeg. Jacket copy, catalogue copy, queries – off they go,
and back come answers. Photographs – I can eyeball them online, confer with the
author about what works best, and then download them for production. Some
queries I never even have to send to the author, because if I’m unsure of a
fact or a name as I go through the manuscript, a quick trip to Google or
Wikipedia is likely to give me the answer.

And it’s not just
the work relationship that’s improved, it’s the social one as well. We dash off
notes to each other all the time. With one author, I gossip about books and
music. With another, it’s politics. With a third, it’s our mutual obsession
with the Red Sox. J.T. wanted to know if spending so much time interacting
online rather than face to face helped or hurt the editor/author relationship,
and I can say for a fact that we communicate way more now than we ever did
before. After all, with most authors there’s not a lot of face to face anyway. Texas? California? Florida? Outside of occasional trips,
they’re there and we’re here.

I could go on
about other ways our lives have changed, too. Submissions? The vast majority of
them are emailed now, cutting time and expense all around. Some publishers are
experimenting with E-readers for their editors, so that instead of printing out
those attachments, they can simply download them and skip the mass of paper.
The same is being done for sales reps – every one of Putnam’s reps has an
E-reader now, which means that they don’t have to receive the mountains of
manuscripts which tottered in piles around their houses. Now, there’s a site
where everything’s posted and they can download whatever they want and read it
no matter where they might be. Writers’ conferences? The question I always hear
the most at conferences is about how to find the right agent, and I always say,
“Homework.” Now that homework is easier to do than ever. Besides such sites as
Publishers Marketplace, AgentQuery, and the like, every agent in creation has
his or her own website where you can find out about their preferences, authors,
deals, ways of doing business. Really, people, there’s no excuse for
cluelessness anymore.

I’m going to stop
there (though I haven’t even gotten to the subject of Electronic Workflow yet).
Suffice it to say that my life, the life of my assistant (“Carbon copies!”),
and, I suspect, the life of each one of my authors has gotten a lot easier
since that summer of 1998 — at least in that regard. You still have to write
the damn books, though. Sorry. Can’t do anything about that.

Neil S.
Nyren is senior vice president, publisher and editor in chief of G.P. Putnam’s
Sons. He came to Putnam in
1984 from Atheneum, where he was Executive Editor. Before that he held
editorial positions at Random House and Arbor House. Some of his authors
include Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Jack Higgins,
W.E.B. Griffin, John Sandford, Dave Barry, Daniel Silva, Ken Follett, Alex
Berenson, Randy Wayne White, Carol O’Connell, James O. Born, Patricia Cornwell
and Frederick Forsyth; nonfiction by Bob Schieffer, Maureen Dowd, John McEnroe,
Linda Ellerbee, Jeff Greenfield, Charles Kuralt, Secretary of State James Baker
III, Thomas P.M. Barnett, Sara Nelson, and Generals Fred Franks, Chuck Horner,
Carl Stiner, Tony Zinni and Wendy Merrill. 

Neil has also been interview on Murderati twice. Click here for his latest interview, and here for the first.

by J.T. Ellison

This is the second entry in an on-going occasional series I’ve dubbed "A Virtual Montparnasse." Click here to read the first installment.

The Internet is a devious little succubus, isn’t it?

By all accounts, it is a useful tool that enhances our daily lives. We have instant communication, instant access to our friends, co-workers and teachers. College courses are heavily Internet dependent now — hell, a lot of elementary schools have homework on the web.

And we writers know what an awesome tool the Internet is for research.

But it’s also a force of evil, a direct intravenous line into the procrastination vein.

Can’t write? Check your Facebook page and update your status. Be sure to spend at least ten minutes dealing with your notifications. Return good karma, play a move in WordScraper, read your other friend’s procrastination, I mean status, updates. Throw a sheep for good measure and get back to work.

Tappity Tappity Tap Tap. Tappity Tap. Tap. Tap… tap…

Still can’t write? Do it all again, only this time toss in a few emails, read the Wall Street Journal, run through Crimespot and RedRoom. Check your MySpace. See if Sarah Weinman has updated her blog.

I mean really, if you aren’t doing anything, millions of other people aren’t either. You can prove it to yourself in myriad ways. And there’s great comfort in that.

But is this particular aspect of our Virtual Montparnasse good for us? Is the Internet enhancing our creativity?

I’ll postulate the answer to that is a resounding NO! And I’m not the only one. There’s been a spate of writers addressing the issue lately. I read this article and smiled to myself — I NEED someone to trick me like this. And then my friend Jeff Abbott wrote about his own desire to be Internet free. I agree wholeheartedly with them both. We writers are over-utilizing our online time. It seems like something so simple, so easy. Just turn off your wireless and go. But it doesn’t ever seem to work that way, does it?

Do we need the Internet? Yes, it’s a brilliant research tool. Yes, we can keep up with our friends, blog, check our Amazon numbers. But do we really NEED the Internet?

If you answer yes, I can’t help you. If you answered no, but don’t know how to break free, keep reading.

There is an underlying problem here. It will take a bit of self examination to see why you’re using the Internet as a procrastination tool. And that WHY is going to vary wildly from author to author. 

I’ve come to realize that I have an Internet addiction. No, I’m not addicted to porn, or online gambling. I just find myself almost unconsciously surfing, going to bookmarked site to bookmarked site, checking things out. There are times that I realize I’ve reread the same blog entry multiple times, just because there isn’t anything new out there.

I decided to undertake a candid examination of my problem. I’m not kidding when I say I think it is a real addiction. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been sitting in my chair, utterly frustrated and stressed because I have a ton of writing to be done and a ton of reading to be done and thank you notes to write and, and, and… yet I’ll notice that I’ve left whatever I’m supposed to be working on and am on my laptop, surfing.

After some serious soul searching over the past few weeks, I’ve found my WHY.

Don’t laugh, but after a true and honest reflection I’ve realized that I’m substituting the Internet for cigarettes. I quit a couple of years ago, and still ache for the soothing, relaxing, take-a-break nature of cigarettes. I used to smoke a pack a day. Twenty cigarettes. Twenty little breaks. Twenty times a day when I consciously or unconsciously reached for that cigarette and used it to help me focus, to relax, to de-stress.

Twenty times a day… if I kept count, I daresay I’m probably on the Internet twenty times a day as well. I shared my great epiphany with a psychiatrist friend of mine. She laughed and said the Internet is much healthier than the cigarettes, and to give myself a break. Which I appreciated to no end, but I was left with a nagging feeling that there was something more that I could do. Something to lead me away from this. If I had the willpower to quit smoking after twenty years on the sticks, I can beat this too.

I don’t know about you, but I set millions of little intermediary goals for myself during the day. Finish this sentence and you can make a cup of tea. It’s been an hour, you can go ahead and check your email. No Internet after 5… 6… 7… 8… 9… No Internet when Randy is home. No Facebook before 4 in the afternoon, or after 10 in the morning. It’s the same way I quit smoking, in stages, little permissions here and there to make me think I had control over the situation.

None of that really works. It’s all well and good to say these things, but acting on them isn’t my strong suit. It’s like exercise or dieting for me. I can set all the goals I want, but I’ll quickly become bored with the "rules" and slip. I’ve stuck to some of my initiatives, like limiting my listserves (I’m down to two) and making sure I return email in a timely fashion. I stopped reading most of my blogs long ago – relying on Crimespot to alert me when something that might be of interest pops up.

It used to be we didn’t have wireless, so my laptop was a safe zone. I would work on business upstairs on the desktop, and when I was ready to be creative, shut that one off and come downstairs to work on the laptop. That system worked very well for me. But we’re tech geeks, so we got a wireless router, and my new laptop is built for it, so no matter what, I can plug in seamlessly from anywhere in the house. Great, right?

(Let me add, for the record, that all this shilly-shallying generally comes when I’m between books. When I’m working on a new manuscript, I have a much different focus level than when I’m in between. I made a decision that I needed to take a month off between books, and I’ll stick to that, but it’s these down times when I waste the most time. I could be really relaxing and refreshing my mind, catching up on reading, doing research, and instead I’m throwing sheep. Hmm.)

I don’t know how many of you clicked through on the link that Jeff Abbott had in his post, so let me put it here for you to look at. Kirk McElhearn has a wonderful idea for Mac users. There’s also a cool program for the Mac called Freedom. Just one problem. I’m on a PC, and I can’t find anything like this in PC land.

So I decided to use Kirk’s guidelines and figure out a way to make this happen on my laptop. It’s just as simple as setting up a new user account (in this case, Taylor Jackson) setting the parental controls so Firefox and IE aren’t allowed, and poof. Instant "Freedom." I took Kirk’s idea a step further as well — I don’t like moving files back and forth using a jump drive — I lost a major book synopsis that way. One of my many redundancies for my ongoing manuscripts is through email. So instead of moving files on the jump drive, in the new Taylor Jackson account, I opened an email for her with Windows Mail, and opened a gmail account in her name. I reset the parental controls to accept the gmail url, and activated the pop mail account dedicated to Taylor Jackson. Voila. When I’m done for the day, I email my file to my regular email address. Works like a charm.

I tried this new method on Tuesday. I was shocked to find myself working for three hours straight. No interruptions. No chimes to let me know a new email had come in (just a note, you have to log off your regular account to make that happen. And in the new user account, don’t get fancy trying to change icons around, etc — I nearly deleted my entire iTunes library accidentally.)

This may be second nature for some of you sophisticated techies, but I felt like I’d accomplished something major. I have freed myself from my Internet connection, albeit briefly. It’s such a pain to log off the new account, log in to the main account, etc., that I really did stay focused and productive.

I refuse to let the Internet compromise my creativity. I deleted my unused Twitter account Wednesday. I’ve unbookmarked Facebook so I recognize when I’m going there. I stopped accepted apps on Facebook ages ago, so that’s not a problem. If these steps aren’t enough, I’ll get more drastic. I hope that doesn’t happen though, cause we all know how much fun I have throwing sheep ; )

Will our Virtual Montparnasse be the death of us all? What’s your trick to avoid Internet procrastination?

And do you think there’s a way around the Internet sapping our creativity?

Wine of the Week: 2005 Chateau La Rame Bordeaux — simply delicious.

by J.T. Ellison (with Kaye Barley)

I’ve been talking for some time about our virtual Montparnasse, the various groupings of artists who coexist online: encouraging, sharing, bickering, feuding and cheering for one another. It’s a precious resource, this institutional knowledge, and with the ease of use of the interwebs, we can all interact. The playing field is level when you’re virtual. It’s a world where readers, writers, librarians, booksellers, editors, publishers, agents, screenwriters, movie producers, actors, playwrights, artists, photographers, bloggers, critics and reviewers all float around, bumping into each other like little dust motes in an abandoned room.

And while there are curses to the Internet, something I’ll discuss next week, there are bonuses. Friendships blossom out of these interactions. Strangers become friends, and sometimes become enemies. Relationships bloom and fade, deals are made, books sold. It’s a very, very powerful medium, and as such is open to great abuse as well as scintillating intellectual largesse.

This is the first part in what I hope will be a series of essays about
our Virtual Montparnasse. Some will be by me, some will be by guests
who I think have a unique perspective on the subject, or embody the spirit of the global collective, the artistic social consciousness that I believe has been created by the Internet.

With that in mind, I hope you’ll welcome a dear friend of Murderati, Kaye Barley, while she sits in for me this week and opens the discussion about the Virtual Water Cooler we call our online community.

Take it away, Kaye!

I am tickled and honored to have been asked to drop in here by JT while she’s off gallivanting.   I have no idea what the woman was thinking, do you?  I’m no writer and my resume includes exactly one blogging gig besides this one.  But, we all love her, and I for one don’t want to disappoint her so what the heck, let’s see where it takes us, and have some fun with it.  Being invited places is always nice.  But dang – being invited someplace to speak your opinion is just about as cool as it gets.

My one and only other blog gave me the opportunity to write about my experiences and feelings about smoking and quitting.  That I was invited by the delightful women at The Stiletto Gang was a kick and I had a lot of fun.   After reading what I had written, JT suggested I consider writing my impressions on how the internet compares to the figurative office water cooler.  Smoking and quitting was a fairly easy thing for me to write about since it was all direct experience.   After thinking about JT’s suggestion for this piece, and fretting about it a little, I realized how the two pieces are actually part of the whole.

The first thing that pops into my mind when I think about the office water cooler is probably the same image that pops into your heads as well.  It’s the cartoon we’ve all seen for years  –  a group of people clustered around the cooler, little paper cones of water in hand, engaged in conversation and looking thoroughly entertained with themselves.  We know, of course, they aren’t really there for the water.  Nope, this is where everyone knows to come to meet up with co-workers and buddies to exchange a bit of gossip, catch up on office news, talk about last night’s ball game and/or night on the town, and, in some cases, over time, form significant friendships.  It’s the place I might have gone for some words of encouragement while I was trying to walk away from my cigarettes. 

There’s just not a lot of hanging out around a water cooler these days.  Literally or figuratively.  Offices that once had plenty of staff to get the necessary work done are now making do with a lot fewer people, which means not nearly as much free time to hang around and visit with co-workers.   Not as many co-workers either.  With the economy the way it is, and jobs disappearing the way they are – who can afford to be seen goofing off and hanging around the water cooler?   Much easier to goof off and visit with friends over the internet.  Hooray email, discussion groups, Facebook and blogs!  The newest equivalent to that tired old water cooler.  And an answer to an introvert’s prayers.  Someone who may not have felt comfortable joining these water cooler groups may find their niche in an internet group.  (A fun topic for another day, don’t you think?)

Some of us have worked long enough that we can easily remember when the water cooler hangout was a reality.   And if, come Monday morning, you didn’t care about discussing football, you knew which office water cooler to avoid.   There were days you just didn’t want to listen to that guy tell you why your favorite team lost again.  Same deal with internet cruising, but better  –  no one can force you to listen to their opinion, ‘cause you’re in charge.   You can even walk away without hurting anyone’s feelings.  You are the master of your browser.  Don’t like what that person’s got to say?  Ta da – Hit that delete key!  Or your scroll key, or, by gum – just leave.  You can go anywhere you want to go, and meet a whole lot of people along the way.  You can collect a group of like-minded souls to hang out with, and you can leave behind those you don’t want to spend time with.  Leave one water cooler and find another.  We’ve all managed to find our own special on-line water cooler.  We’ve all met friends who may have started out as “virtual” friends, and who may in fact still be “virtual” in that we have not yet met face to face.  But their importance in our lives has, in many instances, become every bit as important as the friends we see on a regular basis.

Those of us who hang around the internet a lot have learned that you bump into the same people quite often while you’re cruising around, which makes sense, of course.  Those interested in books and reading are going to be hanging out at websites, blogs, and discussion groups that focus on books and reading.   Folks who are interested in building treehouses probably run into the same group of people wherever they tramp around on-line.  Bumping into the same people at different internet groups brings, at first, name recognition.  After awhile you’re able to remember certain little things that go with the name – if they’re smart and funny, or dreary and sarcastic, if they seem kind, or tend to be grumpy and cynical.  From this initial awareness, a casual acquaintance might blossom into a friendship.  The casual camaraderie we experience over the internet has become a daily part of our lives.

There is, of course, the dark side of this relatively new social networking in the cyber world we’re all a part of, but for today, let’s focus on the positive.
We’ve all met people who have become quite dear, and quite important to us.   I’m still a bit amazed and in awe of this phenomenon, and would enjoy hearing from some of you about your experiences with it and feelings regarding it all.

And to the Murderati group – Thanks so much for having me.  You’re the best!

(Thanks for being here today, Kaye!)

Wine of the Week: From a Texas winery, in honor of all our friends in Houston and Galveston who are suffering this week –  Pheasant Ridge Merlot

JT Ellison

I’m full of questions today.

I’m on the road promoting 14. I had a great launch party and a separate signing at my local independent, Davis Kidd, where I was shocked to find I only knew 1/3 of the crowd. Progress!

And then I left for Colorado. I did a signing at a Barnes & Noble in Lone Tree, Colorado and it went great. It was a meet and greet, not a signing with chairs, etc. I did a bunch of this style signing for ATPG, and found it was quite effective. Usually a minimal amount of effort is required to make a sale — a big smile, a welcoming attitude, and a simple "Do you like thrillers?" and in two hours I hooked twenty new readers who would have never known who I was otherwise, who bought BOTH books. A stellar afternoon, in my mind. Yes, there was the inevitable "Where’s the bathroom?" "I only read non-fiction," stuff, but you have to check your ego at the door when you do an event in this style. It works for me, I can talk to strangers with no problem. I have a couple more of those lined up back home.

I decided to try something different this time around — instead of setting up multiple signings and praying people show up, I flew out to Colorado, made plans to hit Phoenix and Houston. I’ve been doing drive bys, dropping in on stores, meeting booksellers, signing stock. My house set up two "official" drive bys for me this week, with Poisoned Pen and Murder by the Book, and I’ve scattered the rest across the two states. I signed in eight bookstores in Phoenix, five in Denver. Needless to say, I’m already exhausted. I was supposed to go from here to Houston today, but Hurricane Ike changed my plans. I’ll be in Houston the 24th now, but I can’t say the break from traveling isn’t welcome. I’ve got a lot more planned, including a whirlwind few days in one of my favorite towns, Omaha (the food is DIVINE) right before Bouchercon, so a few days of rest is a Good Thing.

I’ve been surprised to find that some independent stores don’t carry my books. (Careful, hubris.)  Perfect example, Tattered Cover in Denver chose not to stock 14. I have no idea why. The house has no idea why. Which was a bit of a shock to the system, considering they successfully carried the first book. The house tried to set up a signing, but they weren’t biting. It’s the first time I’ve gotten a flat out refusal, so it stung a bit. And then you try to balance it with, well, I’m in Walmart. But I want to support indies too. I have great events lined up at indies in Nebraska with
Alex Kava, and I’m on the docket because of her kindness in including me. I need to find
more ways to get myself in front of additional independent
booksellers.

Granted, this is only my second book. I have a limited backlist. My series is just beginning. This may all be a moot point in two years. But for now, I’m curious.

So here’s question number one. Outside of your publisher’s efforts, how do you get the independent stores to notice you? I’ve been a vocal supporter of BookSense, which has now morphed into a very cool organization called IndieBound.org. I have independents on my website, and we’ve always had links here at Murderati. I accept and seek out their Facebook and MySpace sites. Yet I’m nowhere on the radar for many of these folks? And please don’t misunderstand, this isn’t an indictment, but a serious question. What am I doing wrong? I want to support the independents, but I’d like to have some support in return. And I’m a little bit worried that I can be ordered online from their websites but they don’t have any books on the shelves. We’re supposed to be helping sustain the brick and mortar stores, right?

Here’s question number two. Does ANY of this really matter? I like meeting readers. I’ve enjoyed meeting the booksellers (aside from the one who accused me of bringing my books into the store. I had to prove to her that no, they came off her shelf. She was busy, I was trying to help. THAT backfired. So no more of me retrieving my own book. You learn…) Across the board, the chains have had plenty of my book in stock, on coop, etc. But does a signed paperback really entice a new reader? Will that green sticker make them jump and say — oh, must get this, the author SIGNED it. I simply don’t know. I won’t see any numbers for a couple of weeks so I have no idea if it’s making any kind of impact or not.

That’s one of the major problems with publishing, I think. There aren’t any quantifiable numbers unless you’re on the lists, and there’s a ton of super successful authors who aren’t. God knows following your Amazon ranking isn’t the way to judge your reach. Calling Ingram to get your sales figures doesn’t give you the whole picture; they’re a fraction of the actual number. So an author works in a vacuum for a few weeks, hoping what they do promotion wise makes a difference.

And the experience for a hardcover author is different than for a mmpb author. I’m assuming this is part of the problem with the indies. We don’t get the kind of attention hardcovers do. Which sometimes makes me feel like a spoiled child who’s stamping her foot and saying "LOOK AT ME," but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. It’s always lovely to have the attention of the community, to get reviewed, to get interviews. It’s a nice ego stroke to have that kind of affirmation, even if it’s not the most stellar review. But is it just that, an ego stroke, or does it raise awareness and sell more books???

With all of this in mind, I decided earlier this year that I was going to skip both touring for JUDAS KISS, coming out in January, and the conference circuit in 2009. I have one that I may do, because it happens to be an hour from my parents, but for the most part, I’m hitting a couple of regional literary festivals, and that’s it. I need a break. I have two books due next year, and I need to focus on making sure I’m writing the very best books I possibly can. So this 6 weeks of excursions is my last hurrah for a while.

I’ll tell you, I don’t know if I’m making a massive mistake or if it will prove to be the smartest thing I’ve done career-wise. We’ll find out soon enough, I suspect.

So tell me, what do you think really works? Signings? Drive bys? Traveling on your own dime? Sitting at home and working on your next book? Working the Internet, the social networking sites, the listserves? Conferences? Literary Festivals (I personally find the literary festivals exceedingly rewarding.)

I’d love to hear from all sides on this one. Booksellers, do you want us coming by? Readers, will a signed sticker make or break a buying decision for you? Writers, do you find one aspect of the mix works better than the other?

Wine of the Week: 2004 Bodegas Lan Rioja

Our prayers are with you, Texas.

by JT Ellison

Why do we write Southern?

When I chose to set my Taylor Jackson series in Nashville, I
had no idea what I was getting myself into. I love this town with an unmatched
passion. I love its dichotomies – the class structure, the allegiances, the
warped politics. I love the traditions and history of the city, the inside
jokes and very real sense of community. This is the kind of place where
strangers smile at one another when they are walking down the street, where
waitresses call you honey, where men still open doors and stand when a lady
enters the room. It’s old school southern, the real deal.

There’s just one problem.

I’m not southern.

I grew up in
Colorado, land of snowy winters and vast open skies. There was no such thing as
an ice storm, or kudzu, or pollen counts. “Y’all” wasn’t a part of the lexicon.
And then I moved to Washington, D.C., land of the transplant. So few
Washingtonians are actually natives, and outside of the political lingo, vernacular
doesn’t really exist.

But in Nashville, I was assaulted with a wide variety of
terms and phrases that left me agog with wonder. I picked up so much of the
phraseology that people can’t figure out where I’m from. I now have a tiny
little drawl, one that gets more pronounced after an adult beverage, to the
delight of my Nashville born husband. Strangely enough, he has no discernable
accent. He uses all the phrases, but has very little drawl to him. Most
Nashvillians have at least a slight twang, a way of emphasizing and drawing out
the vowels that screams “SOUTH” without being country.

The phrases were hard for me to master at first. Men call
you girl. Grocery carts are buggies. You don’t get in or out of bed, you get in
or out of “the” bed. You don’t take pictures, you “make” pictures. You don’t
plan to go somewhere, you’re “fixing” to go. You don’t want something, you’ve
been “wauntin that.” You don’t “try to,” get your work finished, you “try and.”
Oil is pronounced “ooll,” and people really do say “y’all” and “all y’all.”

Don’t even get me started on the cursing. One of my favorites is the ubiquitous "God BLESS!" the bless replacing damn. I can scream it in the garage when I smack my knee against the car door and not worry about offending my lovely neighbors. And when the University of Tennessee Volunteers start losing? The living room is filled with the strains of "Dad gum it!" Another great one is Dagnabit. Shoot, one of the all time best southerisms comes from Nascar. The commentator asked about the car, and the guy said, "Damn thing’s done tore slap up." Now THAT’S southern speak for you.

It’s utterly foreign and charming at the same time. But for
a non-southern speaker, it is an adjustment. After ten years, I almost have the
speech side of things down pat. I still have a few Midwestern Os that creep
into my speech, the flat, clipped vowels, but I’m getting better.

Translating the speech patterns to the page – well, that’s a
whole different story. You can imagine the inherent trouble of writing a book
that takes place in Nashville. For a writer, it’s vital to have the exact
inflection, the right wording, to make the characters come alive. That often
means using phrases in dialogue that aren’t remotely grammatically correct, but
are representative of how people talk.

I have to fight with the copyeditors every time, strangers
who’ve never heard our verbal communication. It’s distinct, and different. Yet
that’s how Nashvillians speak, and for me, altering their language is the worst
kind of sin.

If you’ve chosen to write about unfamiliar environs, it’s
that much more important to spend some time there. Or find someone who knows
the vernacular like the back of their hand, someone who can guide you through
the audio graphic mind fields. There’s just nothing better than truly
experiencing a setting in a novel through fully realized characters and their
authentic speech patterns.

Do you have a favorite author who writes in vernacular?

Wine of the week: 2005 Trapiche Broquel Bonarda

We had my book launch Wednesday night, a lovely evening with great friends, great music and great wine, plus lots of books. Acclaimed Nashville artist Anthony Billups created a one of a kind mixed media collage, a representation of 14, the book’s artwork and Nashville. We auctioned the piece off for Book ‘Em, my literacy charity. Here are a few pictures from the night, and from my signing at Davis Kidd Thursday. Thanks to everyone who came out!

Santa Tom, we’ll miss you!

by JT Ellison

We’ve talked about many aspect of the writing life, from what music we listen to to where our desk are in our homes to whether we’re desktop or laptop, Mac or Windows. Something we haven’t talked about in depth is your hometown writing community.

by JT Ellison

I really should have titled this "What I’ve Read on My Summer Vacation," but actively disengaged fits so well.

I’ve been at the beach this week, desperately trying to keep away from the Internet, from work, from the incessant deadlines that seem to plague me. And for the most part, I’ve done a good job. I have the beginnings of a wicked tan, have indulged in adult beverages in the middle of the day, have seen more flesh than is humanly possible, and have read four books. And of course I’m typing this blog, because I couldn’t get everything I needed to done before I left for vacation. I haven’t been able to stay away from the television, mostly because we were dealing with the remnants of Thunderstorm Kaye when we arrived, and are now fretfully watching Gustav, scared to death for our friends in New Orleans.

Since 14 came out this week, I’ve also been doing press — interviews and guest blogs, phone interviews, all the attendant public relations that goes hand in hand with a book’s release. I went to Barnes & Noble and Bookland to visit the book Tuesday, a heartening experience considering they asked me to sign all the stock. Every time I crossed out my printed name and slapped my signature on the book, I felt a little lighter. It’s utterly surreal to have published a book. To have two books on the shelves is a bit overwhelming.To be able to walk in a bookstore, a grocery store, a drugstore and see my name of the cover of a book is craziness.

I think I’m lucky that I use a pseudonym — like I’ve said before, I can separate J.T. Ellison from me, which lends this slightly warped perspective to my daily life. It’s hard trying to keep the two halves of my world separate. I don’t like JT bleeding into me, and I don’t like me bleeding into JT. It’s difficult to keep the two apart, especially when you’re working on vacation. Bah.

It can be especially hard for me to disengage the JT part of my brain when it comes to reading. Turning off the writer side off and letting my inner reader reign supreme can be tricky. But this week, the books I chose to take with me have let me to be a reader, to glory in the story, to read without analyzing writing style, without that little niggling voice that usually reads a line and say oh, I wouldn’t have said it quite that way.

I started with Zoë Sharp’s FIRST DROP — I’m telling you, Taylor and Charlie Fox would get along very, very well if they ever had a chance to meet in person. The story rolled along at a breakneck pace — I always love books where there’s a real chase on — and kept me up way to late the first day we were here. Add to that the setting, miles from my current environs, and I was totally hooked. I’m moving on to SECOND SHOT by the end of the week.

Next up was Kristy Kiernan’s MATTERS OF FAITH, a brilliantly nuanced story of love, loss and family relations. Kristy’s books are always lyrical and stunning, and I was so completely sucked into the story that the real world faded away. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

I finished Alex Berenson’s THE FAITHFUL SPY last night. I’ve been saving this book for months, knowing it wouldn’t disappoint. I was right, it was stunning. Scary as hell, too, considering our political climate and the war on terror. I have his new book, THE GHOST WAR, and will hopefully get it done in the next week.

I’ve also nearly finished Dave White’s THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, a wonderful followup to his debut Jackson Donne novel WHEN ONE MAN DIES. Dave writes with an assurance well beyond his years, and I can’t wait to see where this series goes.

So in addition to the second efforts of both Zoë and Alex Berenson, I’ve got CHASING HARRY WINSTON by Lauren Weisberger. Had to do it. Don’t apologize for a second. Can’t wait to dive in. So there.

At the bottom of the stack is the creme de la creme, the book I’ve been waiting to read for months. Lee Child’s NOTHING TO LOSE. I can’t wait.

This is only a tiny crack, a baby fissure in the stacks and stacks of books I need to catch up on. I’m taking September off from writing, will be doing research for book 5, THE IMMORTALS, reading for pleasure, and touring. Catching up on playtime. At least for a few weeks.

So let’s just have fun today. What are you reading?

Since I’m in the land of margaritas, daiquiris, crashing waves and soft sand, let’s skip the wine this week and do something called Chases’ By The Beach – raspberry liqueur, vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice and orange juice. Yum! And how about a glass of Prosecco to toast our 13th wedding anniversary  this past Tuesday. Nothing like have a book drop on your anniversary : )