Critique Groups, Workshops, etc.

Most of the writers (published and unpublished) I've spoken to over the years have tried a variety of tricks and techniques to help them overcome obstacles in the way of their success. Among the recommendations I hear most commonly are "find a critique group" and "take a workshop."

I've done both. Actually, I've done both more than once. And my experiences have been about as wide-ranging as you can possibly imagine. Just as there are good, bad, and ugly agents, and good, bad, and ugly editors, so there are good, bad, and ugly critique groups and workshops.

Workshops are a bigger investment because they can be quite expensive, so you want to do considerable research before you take one. For example, when I was looking for a workshop the first thing I did was Google "writing workshop New York City." (I don't live in the city, but I knew I wasn't going to find one near me -- chances are, you will need to look at the closest large city to find a workshop.) The first link was to the Gotham Writers' Workshop. They proudly say that Forbes lists them as "best of the web" for writing classes. Actually, they're the only writing classes Forbes lists. The section is "continuing education" and the article refers solely to the online branch of Gotham, but the recommendation is impressive nonetheless.

Since I didn't want to take online classes, I asked around about the offline classes and got very varied responses. The short version is that everything depends on the teacher. Unfortunately, you don't know who your teacher will be until you pay your fee and show up at the class. Given the price of the courses, that scared me off.

Eventually I found a workshop by a published author who had been reviewed many times in both her writing life and her workshop life. She offered everything from 3 hour workshops to 10-week classes, so I started with the 3-hour one. Although at the end of the class I was uncertain how useful it had been, by the end of the following week I found myself completely revitalized. So recently, when my writing was becoming more a chore than a joy, I signed up for the full-day workshop. To say it was useless would be an understatement.

Naturally, I found this experiencing extremely frustrating. But I learned an important lesson: ask, ask, ask. Before I took the short class, I asked around. Having taken that one, I assumed the longer class would be just as useful. But when I asked around after the longer class, I could tell from how people described the format that I would not enjoy it. So if you're interested in a workshop and don't know anyone who's taken it, ask the teacher for the emails of students who've taken the workshop and don't ask them "was it good," ask "what did you do?" (The teacher may or may not be able to describe what the exercises are, but the students will be able to fill you in.)

Critique groups usually don't have fees associated with them, so trying out several is easier. But in some ways, finding one that's a good fit is even more difficult than it is with workshops. There are several factors involved in finding the right group for you, and I've quit groups because of all of them.

• Do you all have the same goals?
  - if you want to be published, you don't want a group where others just want motivation to keep writing
  
• Do you all have similar levels of expertise?
  - you don't want to be the "teacher", who always ends up helping other members without getting useful feedback, but you also don't want to feel as if you're dragging the group down or being a burden to the other members
  
• Do you want to critique only others in your genre, or do you want multiple types of writing represented in your group?
  - I feel competent to critique mysteries, romances, chick lit, thrillers, and possibly young adult. I don't, however, feel as if I can be useful to anyone who writes "literary" fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, non-fiction or poetry. And I don't enjoy reading those genres, so I don't want to have to do so every couple of weeks.
  
• Do you have the same critique style as others in the group?
  - I am a fairly straightforward critic. I don't like making notes on someone's work "gently," nor do I take offense when other people are harsh in their statements about my work. I don't say "look, you idiot...," but I do circle grammatical mistakes, write "awk" in margins, write things like "why would she say something like that? It makes no sense." I don't want to make anyone cry.
  

I'm planning on leaving the critique group I am currently in, mostly because a third of the group writes sci-fi. The one sci-fi author I've critiqued said he found my comments useful, but I've decided I just don't want to read it anymore. I'm also too busy these days to participate in any meaningful fashion.

All this is not to say that you shouldn't join a critique group or take a workshop--both can be exceedingly useful and insipring. But most of us have limited time and limited funds so we need to be very careful how we use them.

Best News – New Competition

Those who spill too much juice on stage - and are thus ineligible to enter the St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic competition for which the work must be cozy - will be pleased to note that a new competition was announced at Wednesday’s Edgar Symposium. Jointly sponsored by St. Martin's Minotaur and Mystery Writers of America (MWA), the new competition is for unpublished novelists writing in any mystery sub-genre. St. Martin’s Minotaur publishes the winning novel, just as they do for both the Malice Domestic and PI contests. Check out all three at http://www.minotaurbooks.com/competitions.html.

Knock ‘em dead!
Lois

Edgars Week, Interrupted

I have had a lovely houseguest for Edgars Week, an out-of-town book-buyer-and-seller for Powell's. With her, I'll be heading out today to NJ to visit another writer, so I haven't yet had time to write up my trivial blather on the MWA Symposium et al. And by yesterday, plenty of other talented people had, so you can read the nifty items at great blogs here and here.

(Bonus: Each one of these blogs mentions one of our Women of Mystery, so look for them and feel extra bedaubed with the greatness as I do)

But this is my fangirl picture of Stephen King with Charles Ardai, Thursday's short-story Edgar-winner who assisted with the Q&A and book signing, taken after I got my 2 Dark Tower comic books signed. (Awesome!) And thanks cannot be delayed to the fabulous Margery Flax, who helped the organizers and chairs put on a fantastic event this year. I got to sit very close to the dais with the other banquet volunteers- peaches, all- and at the table next to not only Stephen King but Donald Westlake, for whom I'm an even a gigglier fangirl. My picture of DW stealing a Poe bobble-head from our table is too dear to share. The short form: great event. The long form I save for later. A teaser? No, I couldn't seem to resist making an ass of myself. Conference hazard, but if humiliation hasn't killed me yet, I believe I'll survive this.

Good and Bad Agents

Given that people are pitching and the conference season is in full swing, I thought it might be useful to put some ideas out there on how to tell if the agent offering you a contract is someone you actually want to work with. There are the obvious scammers, of course, and if you are curious about whether an agent or editor is one, you can use the sources in this post to find out about them, but what about the merely incompetent ones? Frankly, I've met a couple at the last few conferences I attended, and I recognized what they were after brief conversations and a tiny bit of research. But identification is almost instinctual for me, so I didn't know quite how to begin explaining it to others.

Luckily, Agent Rachel Vater has answered the question. I urge you to read her post before whooping for joy when you are offered a contract.

Also on point is this post from Jessica Faust at BookEnds with a list of questions to ask a prospective agent.

The Pitch – High Concept or Low

To one who ducked out of gym class and who chatted her way through softball season, it seems hardly fair that as writers we’re asked to 'pitch' our novels. The baseball analogies wear pretty thin. Couldn’t we call the process by which we court agents something more literary?

In an effort to find an alternative – le lancement? – I discovered a number of enchanting synonyms provided by Roget. Both heave and hurl nicely convey the angst-ridden experience. Stagger, plunge, and yall evoke the manner in which some of us stammer through our spiel.

Because I’m about to face the ordeal at the Edgar's Symposium cocktail hour - and snappy phrases don’t come so easy to this particular Woman of Mystery - I turned to the experts for wise council. Take Rob Tobin’s How to Write High Structure, High Concept Movies.

Although I’m pitching a novel, not a script, ‘high concept’ seemed a desirable trait, so I was eager – much like Cindarella’s big-footed sisters – to wrestle my magnum opus into the prescribed one-sentence logline. Tobin’s book starts out with what appears to be a recipe for success: Take one hero, her major flaw, a circumstance that conspires to keep her clinging to that blemish, an opponent, an ally, one life-changing event, and a dash of jeopardy. Describe each element in a word or two and roll it into a run-on sentence.

I was proud of my results until I happened to glance at chapter twenty-eight. Turns out that high-concept is more than a logline. My character's profession must be grist for the story mill and her flaw disturbingly undesirable for the job...like the nasty psychologist who pokes fun at her patients or the priest having a crisis of faith. Her life-changing event must force her to confront her imperfection in some unique and fresh manner, like that psychologist who begins – most embarrassingly - to exhibit all the neuroses that her patients suffer. All this and irony too!

Although I’ve memorized my logline, I’m no longer so certain I can sell the novel as high-concept. Never mind, it's my first.

My favorite synonym for pitch is ‘thump the tub for,’ which says it all. Like a bunch of us, I’ll be thumping the tub for my mystery this evening. Wish us luck. Break a leg?

Knock 'em dead!
Lois

Things I Learned at Sleuthfest, part 2

Quoth Lois: " I'd be curious to know what specifics they mentioned regarding the market..."

OK, let me preface this by saying everything is subjective. Every agent on the agents panel said the same thing: what is selling is not only house-dependent, but even editor-dependent within a house.

That said, what I heard from all three people I spoke to was that the market for cozy mysteries, except within very specific channels, is saturated. The market wants darker, more edgy. The term I heard used on panels and in meetings was "push the limits."

Suspense/thrillers and romantic suspense are hot, as are paranormal (not vampires/werewolves) and erotica.

Erotica's popularity means I am out of luck as a both author and consumer; not only can't I write it, I can't even read it. In fact, although I read romantic suspense, I skip the sex scenes. On the other hand, one of my very good friends writes erotica, so I suppose if I chose to write romantic suspense, she could write the occasional sex scene for me. Unfortunately, my bent is toward traditional mysteries/cozies. So I will be squeezing myself into that little babbling brook still available to those of us who prefer that field. (Though, the romantic suspense partnership is a tempting one...an excuse to get together with a friend and talk about sex while writing off our lunch? Does it get better than that?)

Book Tour, Sleuthfest and more

Larry (my husband and co-author) and I just returned from a 1-week book tour in Florida. Started in Sarasota, then 2 events in Tampa, and on to Orlando, Merritt Island, and more. We ended the week at Sleuthfest in Miami.

We had a ball! It was hard work, since we also stopped at 20 plus bookstores in between signings to meet the staff and sign all the copies of LADYKILLER on the shelf. Sometimes, we drove for hours only to sign one or two books. Sometimes the staff was cordial, even excited, sometimes fairly blase.

Once, in Cocoa Beach, several members of a book club (I had met one of the members on DorothyL) came and we gave a talk. They were fantastic. Book clubs are definitely the bomb!

Once, a store manager decided we were his favorite authors and shared a ton of valuable info about bookselling and things that authors can do to help.

Once, a store address defeated our rental car's GPS and as we pulled in to the parking lot of a topless bar called Cowboy's, it insisted that we were at the bookstore! I can still hear the sweet female voice saying over and over, 'You have arrived at your destination!' as Larry and I contemplated the t&a bar in astonishment. We're still imagining our reception if we had gone in offering to sign something for the dubious patrons.

Sleuthfest was wonderful. We caught up with old friends, met many new ones, and (the sweetest words in the English language) had dinner with our publishers! Have I mentioned how lucky we are to be published by Oceanview? The entire team is terrific! We had dinner in South Beach with two of their other authors, Don Bruns and Martha Powers, and we had a great time!

I was on two panels. The one on Team Writing was a blast. Everyone wanted to know how our marriage survived writing a fairly dark thriller. The one on humor in mysteries was fun, too. Although LADYKILLER is nearly noir, we do have some fun with our minor characters and our setting.

Now we're home just in time for the Edgars festivities -- a cocktail party at The Black Orchid, the banquet on Thursday.

The major takeaways (as we say in advertising) are (1) the people in this industry -- authors, booksellers, publishers, agents, etc. -- are amazing. They are largely generous and kind and, above all, fun! (2) conferences are great for networking and many new authors hooked up with agents and/or editors in Miami (3) book clubs are the BEST! They are knowledgeable, interesting, and they are tastemakers. If you can sell a dozen of books to a club, you can count on selling a bunch more to their friends and contacts! (4) road trips are great for brainstorming your next project.

Now if I just have time to write it!

Coming Full Circle

A couple of mornings ago, I turned on my laptop and downloaded my e-mail to find a message from an author whose manuscript I had just copyedited for a publisher. After my heart stopped thumping and I crawled back out from under my desk, I highlighted the item in my in-box with a shaky mouse click and read the note through the loose stitches of a crocheted afghan I had pulled over my head.

It was good! He liked my work! He even thanked me for my work. And his day job was being an English teacher.

I felt good. No, I felt great! I forwarded the e-mail to my older son in San Francisco, intercepted my younger son on the way to the bathroom and forced him to read it, and unplugged the laptop and carried it to my husband for him to read the note. Needless to say, I sported a dopey grin on my face the whole rest of the day.

I enjoy editing. I love helping people get their manuscripts into shape. As a newspaper reporter and magazine writer, I had thousands of articles published, and I know the joy of seeing your words in print. As the co-author of a travel guide and a couple of occupational therapy manuals, I know the feeling of accomplishment and pride generated by holding an advance copy of a book with your name on the cover. Until I can see the words of my own first novel in print, until I can cradle an advance copy of my own novel in my sweaty hands, feel its heft, see my smile reflected in its glossy cover, read my name on its spine, smell the ink as I rifle through its pristine pages, I will continue to live vicariously through the authors I help. But as much as I love “my authors” and as much as I enjoy helping them, my goal is to one day very soon be too busy writing my own next book to even consider taking on a freelance project.

Writing has always been my first love. When I was four, I spent an afternoon on my stomach on the cold linoleum by the back door of my mom’s house trying to write a poem. I finally gave up because I just couldn’t figure out how to form letters. When I was ten, I discovered James Bond and tried to write a spy novel, but alas, a ten-year-old girl from the suburbs of Long Island just doesn’t know that much about spies and political intrigue and high-tech weapons and martinis either shaken or stirred.

I eventually did have enough to write about. In seventh grade, I loved the Monkees and published my own weekly fanzine, writing articles about them that I illustrated with trading cards and photos cut out of teen magazines. In high school, I turned to short stories, which my creative writing teacher deemed good enough to send off to a never-ending list of contests. My guidance counselor encouraged me to stick with writing in college by majoring in journalism, which I did, and my career goal eventually became to work for Cosmopolitan magazine during the day and to write bestselling novels in the evenings and on weekends.

In college, however, I also picked up a husband (we got married a year after graduating), and instead of joining Cosmo, I followed Gary around the country as he moved up the market ladder as a radio and TV sportscaster. Of course, I needed to re-invent myself every time we moved, working sometimes for a small-town newspaper, sometimes for a regional magazine, and sometimes for a nonprofit organization. Editing slowly became mixed in with writing, and in Minnesota, whose Twin Cities were the fourth largest publishing center in the country at the time, I took my first job as a full-time editor. I freelance wrote and edited for five years when my two boys were born, but once I was back home on Long Island, I became a full-time editor again, this time for a trade book publisher.

That was seventeen years ago. My “boys” are now twenty-three and nineteen. And I’m ready to come full circle. I enjoy editing, but I want to focus on writing once more. And I am—in my spare time. I still have bills to pay, so until my writing becomes lucrative, I need to continue editing. Meanwhile, I’ve begun combining the two again, sharing with other writers what I’ve learned about publishing and editing. I belong to several writing-related e-mail discussion groups, and when I can answer someone’s question about editing or publishing, I try to. A couple of months ago, I contributed my first article to First Draft, the bimonthly newsletter of the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime, and my second article will be appearing in the issue coming out in May. With this blog, while my sister Women of Mystery focus on the various aspects of writing and the writing life, perhaps I can throw in an observation or two about editing-related matters.

I’m not being totally altruistic. The more I can teach other writers about editing, the easier I can make my job as an editor and the more time I can devote to writing my own book. Then, hopefully, one day soon, I can e-mail my own freelance copyeditor, hired by my publisher, and say, “Great job! Thanks for all the work you did on my manuscript!”

Things I Learned at Sleuthfest, part 1

Over the weekend, I went to Sleuthfest in Florida. It was not the first time I've been to a conference, but it was the best experience I've had at one to date. With that in mind, I'd like to post some of the things I learned.

The first one may be the most surprising to some of you:

::drumroll::
Agents and Editors are People, Too

I met two of each at this conference. Names withheld to protect these people from getting a million query letters. (I mean, seriously--who wouldn't write to an agent or editor they knew for certain was a nice person?)

One agent I met at the cocktail party. No, I didn't pitch to her. We discussed the difference between thick 3-inch heels and stilletto 3-inch heels. We discussed how hard it is to say "no" to someone when they come up to you with a pitch. I know several other people who did pitch to this woman and said she was fabulous: asked good questions, had a good sense of humor, was friendly...all the good things you want in an agent.

One agent I met because I'd paid for a 10-page critique. Yes, the very one I had been so panicked about. (I followed Miss Snark's advice and didn't say anything about our past interaction.) Although she didn't think my work was sellable in its current form, she did offer extremely useful advice on how to make it more marketable. She was very friendly and I had no problem at all asking her advice on another project I have been working on. She said it would be an easier sell.

One editor I met because I was pitching to him. This man's publishing house doesn't accept unagented manuscripts, so when I met him I said I wasn't sure why I was pitching to him. He laughed. He asked me for my one-sentence pitch, then told me what the market situation was like with regard to my type of mystery. I asked him about the work-in-progress and he enlightened me on that market. The whole thing was fun and pleasant.

The other editor I also pitched to. Because his house also doesn't accept unagented submissions, we spent the first half of our ten minutes talking about baseball. He asked to hear my pitch, made several suggestions, then told me that if I made the revisions, he'd be happy to look at it. That doesn't mean he'd want it --his house doesn't really publish the kind of thing I write, but I'd love to get comments from someone who really knew what was out there. I told him the revision was so major that it might be quite a while before he heard from me. He said that was fine...if it was interesting enough to ask about now, it would be interesting enough to read later.

You may have noticed that all three I talked to about my work said the same thing. And they all said it in such a way that it was positive, constructive and hope-inspiring, not negative, destructive or devastating. The revision all three wanted me to make may not be possible for me -- it would be a major restructuring and I cannot, currently, get my brain around it. But I may be able to in the future.

So...yes, Virginia, agents and editors are people, too.

Dripping With Envy

Let’s roll back the calendar. February 2006. I finish the first draft of my enchanting (no bias here) cozy mystery and need a breather before I start revisions. I wonder what other writers do when they finish a first draft, so I surf the web. I discover Sleuthfest 2006, a mystery conference designed to educate writers in both the craft and business of writing, being held in Fort Lauderdale two weeks in the future. It was scheduled for a time that I would be staying in Delray Beach. Sent the e-mail. Reserved a spot. Then I obsessed. What was I thinking? How could I go to a conference for real mystery writers, when all (all!!!) I’d done was written a first draft?

Sleuthfest 2006 was a turning point for me.

During a talk at breakfast one morning, Michael Connelly said, “We’re all writers at different places in the process.” He wasn’t alone in his ability to give encouragement. Every author at the conference gave mountains of support and advice to each other and to the newbies. (And no one was newer than I was.) Jeremiah Healy took time in the parking lot to chat one on one and to advise. “Keep up with what’s going on in the industry. Join Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.” Libby Fischer Hellmann invited me to a Sisters in Crime dinner. “See, we’re a great bunch. Now join.” Cathy Pickens (The newest book in her very entertaining Avery Andrews mystery series, Hog Wild, was just released a few weeks ago.) and her terrific husband, Bob, adopted me as a mealtime companion.

Agents and editors actually talked to me. “So, where are you?” “Just finished my first draft.” “Congratulations, lots of people never get that far. Keep going.”

I came home revved! Full of confidence. Full of determination. I write. Every day. I revise. Relentlessly. I have recently begun to submit my work. Would I have gotten this far without Sleuthfest? I’d like to think so, but I’m not really sure.

This weekend several of my fellow women of mystery (oxymoron there?) are at Sleuthfest 2007 in Miami Beach. They are basking in the sun and in the wisdom and friendship of the wonderful community of people who write mysteries. I’m not there. I’m here. Dripping With Envy.

Views You Can Use at Conferences

I have not been to every notable crime writing conference. Malice Domestic is yet a blank spot on my dance card. However, I've been to at least a couple of each of the biggies, middles, and smalls, and enjoyed them each for different reasons.

Recently, I was scheduled for an NYC event for podcasting with around 700 attendees (podcasting is internet posting or blogging of audio and/or video). I couldn't make it, so thank goodness the tech geeks Wiki'd the schedule and podcasted some of the sessions! Anyway, after the dust and discarded name badges settled, the Podcamp NYC organizer posted what I thought was great advice to remember for any mass event of this type. His hot tips for getting the most out of the experience are these:

1) If there are people you MUST meet/talk with at a conference, find them first.
2) Realize you can't control your environment.
*I'd add the caveat that if a polite mention can get something easily fixed, it's worth trying for everyone's benefit. But if it's a "design flaw" in the set-up or program materials, etc. try to ignore it as well as you can.
3) Know how not to interrupt a conversation.
4) Know how to get enough of a conversation going that you can continue it after the conference.
5) Realize you're going to end up in situations/conversations you didn't plan for and that's okay.

Follow this link for more detail and John Havens' sensible elaborations. And to Meredith A. and Laura K., hope you're having a wonderful time!

Tiny, but Topical

I'll post a more fun one later about writing conference etiquette in honor of our members at Sleuthfest this weekend. But here's a timely, if dour, consideration. Novelist Lionel Shriver previously published her own addition to fiction's "school shooting" genre, if such a term applies. She now wonders about the exposure, and therefore, tacit glorification and promulgation of these awful acts in the media, even her own.

The Guardian article is titled These are all copycat crimes

I would far prefer that this new killer remained anonymous. Were all such culprits to remain utterly and eternally unknown, the chips on their shoulders interred with their bones, their grudges for ever private, surely the frequency of these grotesquely gratuitous sprees would plummet. One of the driving forces for most of these killers is not just to be noticed, but, however perversely, to be understood.

Politically Correct and Tongue Tied

Ever bite your tongue so much that you ended up stammering, searching for a politically correct way to say something that needs to be said? I'm stammering right now. I can't keep up with what's acceptable to the American public and what's not in terms of the English language. One minute anything goes and the next it's Miss Manners on deck with a bar of soap aimed at your potty mouth. Shock jocks and angry rappers are suddenly (finally?) out, but we can still accept the idea that homosexuality can be "cured" in the matter of a few hours? That women can show off their naked nether region to the paparazzi and still make big bucks? What is entertainment? What is politically acceptable entertainment? Are they one and the same? I think not.

Yes, I'm bugged about Don Imus being hung out to dry so soon after OJ Simpson was offered big money to tell how he would have killed, if he had killed. Imus uses words to make his living and so do I, so perhaps my senses are a bit skewed on this. In mysteries, shady characters need to sound shady. Cruel killers don't mince words. Where do the language police draw the line? How is this going to impact on the next patch of dialogue I write? Do I need to tell it like it is, or should I delete all my expletives like Nixon's published tapes did?

Will Elmore Leonard have to scrub his dialogue?

The English language is lush with options. Multisyllabic words compete with four lettered words every day. If you want to make a point, you go for the gut punch, the Anglo Saxon brute force words. If you want to make a point and make it seem brilliant, you elucidate in the Latin base, and that ends up obfuscating the point, but that's the point, after all.

Mark Twain once said that literature was like wine. His books, he explained, were like water. Then he added, "Everyone drinks water." Smart man, Mr. Twain. He, too, took the words of his own culture and of the slave culture and annoyed the reading public with his honesty. "The vernacular" is what it's called: the language of the people. Like it or not, words define us, and we define the words. It's up to us to proceed with care.

I've spent most of my recent years reengineering my language arts because of what Twain said, and because of what his ear saved for us to ponder. Early on I was addicted to the multisyllabic words - they distanced me from my rural roots, made me a woman of the world, put me in an upper crust and made me feel superior. Not any more. When my characters play in the mud, I intend to get muddy, too.

If my characters all become politically correct speakers, my books will be doomed. So, where' s the line? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Write On!
Nan

I Got a Book in Me Too!

I’m gonna live to 100. I’ve got to. I started writing fiction latish in life, and the odds being what they are, it’s bound to take a few years to get published.

If you’ve been feeling similarly panicked, not to worry. Apparently, there’s plenty of time.

Recently I came across TALES FROM RHAPSODY HOME, the ninety-two year old John Gould’s engaging glimpse at how, abruptly, he arrived at “old.” It’s his 29^th book.

Look at P.D. James. Norman Mailer. Agatha Christie. I’ll bet you didn’t know that when Sophocles wrote OEDIPUS AT COLONUS, he was ninety-two years old.

In Successful At 96, Writer Has More to Say, Motoko Rich of the New York Times interviews Harry Bernstein about his recently-published THE INVISIBLE WALL, a memoir about anti-Semitism in pre-WWI England:

“If I had not lived until I was 90, I would not have been able to write this book,'' Mr. Bernstein said. ''It just could not have been done even when I was 10 years younger. I wasn't ready.'' And he suggested that he might not be an anomaly: ''God knows what other potentials lurk in other people, if we could only keep them alive well into their 90s.''

Hear what he’s saying? That book wasn’t in him at eighty-six! He wasn’t ready to write it!

But what’s this about keeping people alive into their 90s? What’s the use of that if our minds are shot! I don’t know about you, but it’s not my sagging skin or even my heart that worries me. It’s my wilting brain. The one that, in my current - still-youthful! – middle decade, will no longer slide fluidly between the technical phrasing required for my day job and the imaginative leaps vital for creative writing.

I hope that each one of us, at the age of ninety, will be starting a brand new series. But how will we write them if the ability to make connections – let alone recall nouns – continues to deteriorate at the rate of a free-fall?

Never before have I had any interest in either natural or synthetic brain boosters. Nor fountain-of-youth hormones. Now I’m paying attention. Bring them on! I’ve got a few books in me. And the way things are going, the next few decades are likely to inspire a few more.

Knock 'em dead!
Lois

You Know You Need Some Good News

There's always another news cycle. Yesterday's focus is replaced by some new tragic horror, blathered about and then abandoned for something fresher or more awful. However, there are glimmers of good news, too, tidings possible to miss if you forget a story after the first headlines. For example, if you read here about Elaine Viets's stroke last week, you'll be delighted to hear about her amazing resilience and progress. She's already returned home from the hospital! And from there went, in her own words, to "I-HOP." From Lee Goldberg's blog, who quotes friends Kris Montee and Barbara Parker:

[...] She'll need home nurses for a while, but Elaine Viets is definitely on her way back. Elaine is very tired, but there are no signs of paralysis, and physical therapy is scheduled to begin Monday.

[...] Elaine's her main concern -- and she has expressed this herself -- hooray! -- is that her new Dead End Job mystery, pub. date May 1, will fall flat without her being available to promote it. (She was scheduled to tour for it, but that's out of course). So, instead of buying food or sending flowers, we'd recommend that everyone contact his or her local independent bookseller and order two copies of MURDER WITH RESERVATIONS, and encourage everyone they know to do the same. The best present in the world for Elaine would be a spot on the NYTimes bestseller list.

Unexpectedly wonderful. May you receive good news today, too.

Update: Not sure why comments, tags disappeared. Should be fixed.

Weird Thing Update

This probably doesn't deserve a post of its own, but not everyone reads comments. So for all who so kindly provided virtual Prozac™ while I was losing my mind, I submit the following:

The estimable Miss Snark has replied to the email I sent her about this situation on her blog.

And, in an interesting coincidence, Jessica Faust of BookEnds has posted today about the relationship between agents and authors when it comes to revisions. I don't, obviously, fall into the same category as the authors Jessica represents, but it's still worthwhile to take note of the many ways in which a work can--and should--change and grow its original conception.

Weird Things That Happen

The first agent I ever queried was my ideal agent. I mean, I'd give the woman every penny I made to represent me. (Not that that's that much, given what a genre mystery writer gets these days. That is, after all, what day jobs are for.) My manuscript...well...sucked. It went through a revision or two and then came the Sleuthfest application, which asked anyone who wanted an agent or editor critique to send in 10 pages. So I did. Since then, the manuscript has been substantially re-written. (Now it--as they said about Mac OSX--sucks less.) Today I got the notification that the person they'd sent those 10 pages to (the ten pages, remember, from two revisions ago) was the same poor woman who had to read it the first time.

I dread meeting her. I mean, really, what do you say when your ideal agent has had to read the same piece of ghastly writing from you not once, but twice?

Superstitions About Reading Redux

I know many writers. (Far more than I should, probably, since writers love to tell stories and other writers love to listen to stories and we'd all probably get more work done if we weren't so busy with each other.) Within the last few weeks, I have had conversations with several of them that revealed an interesting dichotomy: one set of writers cannot read anything in their genre while writing for fear their voices will be "contaminated" by the voices of others; another set can't read anything outside their genre, for fear their narratives will become "contaminated" by other generic (and I mean that as genre-related, not boring) conventions.

I found both of these views rather odd. I am an omnivorous reader. If there's nothing else around, I'll read ingredient labels. It's virtually impossible for me to sit down to a meal without something to read in hand (or in lap, if the computer is on) unless someone else is eating with me.

At a recent meeting of my Sisters in Crime chapter, one of our multi-talented authors, Shelley Freydont, who had just finished her latest book, The Sudoku Murder, spoke a bit about how difficult she found it to switch from a "romance mindset" to a "mystery mindset" and back. I can't quote her exactly, especially since she is far funnier than I am, but it went something like this:

In a romance, there's a lot of interior dialogue. You know what the characters are thinking all the time. And a lot of it is "oh, he's so hot!"

Now this, I understand! When I was an academic, shifting between speaking to colleagues and speaking to students required effort on my part, so I can only imagine what she faces trying to write two separate types of books at virtually the same time.

But as I slipped the collected works of John Donne into my purse (and I use that word lightly--some people have unkindly referred to my purses as "suitcases"), I realized that I have some superstitions of my own. I don't read Donne when I am feeling secure about my own work. I read him when I need inspiration, when I need someone to kick-start my imagination, when I feel that my writing is becoming dull. Not that I write (or could write) the way he does. Stretching my mind in an attempt to connect to his work, however, gives me a mental makeover.

And today, I really need one.

P.S. If anyone can tell my what's wrong with my code that is causing everthing after the block quote to appear squished up, I'll give you a prize. It's making me nuts.

A Writer's Superstition about Reading?

On this least auspicious of days, as legend has it, what about book-related superstitions? I'm not talking about all those little rituals that lead into and out of a writing session or through creating a manuscript. Of course, if you have examples of some really weird ones, I'm all ears here, so to speak. No, I mean the tormenting wickedness- like stepping on a crack and hobbling one's poor mother- that delivers me real anxiety and guilt: Not finishing a book I've begun reading.

I'm not talking principally about those erudite books (Joyce's Ulysses perhaps?) that we're all supposed to appreciate for their quality, but which few muddle through and fewer still really love. There are a few of those goldbricks gathering dust on every bookshelf, and if their presence nags at you persistently, by all means, confess here, dear friend. However, though I used to take great pride in struggling through every book I began to read, my later lapses before THE END have occurred even with classics I found substantive and enjoyable. I still don't know if Dante's Inferno has a happy ending.

The books that seriously agitate my serenity are like the ones I begin reading for review then dislike so thoroughly I won't be able to write anything thoughtful and constructive. Therefore, I stop reading and put them aside. Into oblivion. I feel bad that the author won't get an extra review and exposure, as I feel convinced it's usually taken as much dedication to write an awful book as a good one, but I know I can't honestly recommend it to anyone else. And if life's too short to read bad books, it's certainly too short to bash fellow writers in public without a good reason.

Another deep, deep twinge comes from the occasionally abysmal book by an author I actually know. (Happily for me, I know scads of the ink-stained wretches, so you'll never guess who I mean, you troublemakers.) I'm depressed when I don't enjoy the writing of a fine person, and I appreciate fiction across an extremely wide range, but whether it's the phase of the moon or some metaphysical allergy, sometimes I just hate the thing and can't finish. I've talked with writer friends who've struggled with providing requested blurbs for work they found sub-par. As I'm not among the lofty, I just wonder whether I'll be quizzed about the book later, and hope I can avoid disclosing that I cut bait on the thing. I worry about how to provide feedback that's both kind and candid. I know, candor's overrated, and the sales and reviews by strangers can demonstrate something's lousy well enough. Writers don't need any more discouragement. But what about my word, my words even? How do those remain worthy of value when I'm a flim flammer, and where can I get rid of crappy ARCs?

Are there books you haven't finished reading that haunt you?

The Cat’s Meow?

This just in: Grand Central Publishing will pay $1.25 million for the biography of Dewey — a 19-year-old cat who lives at the Spencer, Iowa library.

How did that happen? It's a mystery to me! Did Dewey get more than nine lives? Does Dewey have a blog site yet? More importantly, will Dewey write a note to his/her agent saying that my mysteries deserve to be purchased, too?

$1.25 MILLION? Is it just me, or is America a little too fixated on pets? Is there something special about the Spencer Library? Certainly, I appreciate stories about cute pigs and talented spiders. I’ll give you that. And how about the high school reading requisite: ANIMAL FARM? Doesn’t mean I’ll never eat pork again, or skip the crispy bacon, but I’m more likely to see the animal lurking inside a person than to see the person lurking inside an animal.

I’ve heard that Walt Disney is largely responsible for our cultural shift from viewing deer as dinner to seeing them as Bambi’s mommy. Think of it: Disney made a rodent appealing! Now, that’s what I call MAGIC. Since his cartoons arrived on the scene, it’s been open season on hunters. Should I admit that I have a thing for Mickey the Mouse and the ancient Rin Tin Tin shows, not to mention Lassie, the wonder Nanny? And what about the latest penguin infusion!?! That suits me just fine. Snow makes me wanna dance, too!

Sadly, I heard of this impressive sale on the same day that I read Kurt Vonnegut’s obituary. Did he die after hearing about the $1.25 million price tag on the cat’s biography? Was that enough to kill a rational man? Or, did he find it so absurd that he laughed himself to death?

Perhaps I had better start taking animals seriously. They have always been good companions in stories, creating a foil for the protag, a way of seeing the size and shape of our protagonist’s heart. And, heck, a precocious puppy or a psychic pachyderm carefully tucked into my manuscript might even increase the size of my bank account!

Write On!

Nan

The Book Party and the Back Story

Last night LADYKILLER was launched at a party at New York's legendary mystery bookstore, The Black Orchid. Champagne flowed, dozens of friends came, flowers arrived, books were signed. The publisher, Susan Greger, President of Oceanview, and publicist came to town for the occasion. A bunch of us went out to dinner after the party including Bonnie and Joe, the wonderful owners of the Black Orchid. They nearly sold out of books! Everyone was happy.

The evening passed in a blur of good wishes, old friends and fun. I signed so many books that I started misspelling my name.

Ironically, it's been a long time coming. This particular book began as a short film years ago that I wrote to give all my filmmaker friends in New York Women In Film a showcase. The 13-minute murder mystery played at festivals and on HBO. It won prizes and we all used it as a calling card. But a short film, however successful, isn't much unless it leads to bigger things.

I realized the short film was actually the beginning of a larger story and wrote a feature script. A producer worked on the project, raising money for an independent production, but it never actually got made.

Then my fabulous husband (yes, they're rare but they do exist) suggested we write a thriller based on the story. We co-authored it. It was fun and we liked the result. Still, it didn't sell right away. One publisher said it was too dark -- too unlike Larry's charming Karen Glick series. Another said it wasn't dark enough -- not quite noir.

Finally, at last year's Bouchercon, we met a publisher who thought it was just right! Now, the fantastic folks at Oceanview, a relatively new press, are launching it with great fanfare. I hope their faith in us is justified and that the book performs well.

If the story has a moral -- and how many of them do? -- it's try everything and keep trying. The party last night had a kind of glow. It was worth the wait.

Next steps: a 1-week book tour of 6 Florida cities ending at Sleuthfest in Miami.

What is a Post for if not Support?

If you haven't read about this yet, well-beloved author of the Dead End Job series, Elaine Viets, suffered a major stroke last night. Her subsequent surgery has improved her prognosis, but she has a tough road ahead. Though I expect our blogroll will expand tremendously, Lipstick Chronicles (breaking the news here) was one of our earliest listed favorites among group blogs, so cross your fingers and send your best wishes towards a wonderful and generous woman of mystery.

House of Cards

Ever find that a great new idea for plot or a detail about a character’s backstory - once enthusiastically integrated - backfires because it requires the rewriting of a bunch of previous scenes?

Once I told a fellow writer that I was stuck three-quarters of the way through revising my manuscript. When I explained what brought me to a screeching halt - the paralysis of too many &!^%$#@ ideas! - she responded, “You’re not stuck if you’re full of ideas. You just need to get organized.” Easy, right? But switching from the creative part of my brain to the part that organizes…not so much.

I took a look at what I was doing wrong. I was plugging changes immediately into the relevant scene, only to find they wrought havoc with earlier scenes, felling my house of cards time after time. To set my novel back on its foundation, I’d fallen into the trap of rewriting earlier scenes to support all my new brainstorms. Again and again. The process was overwhelming.

I’ll bet I’m not alone in having to learn the hard way that it’s better to just make a note of where changes will be needed, and later plug them in when I’m ready to rework an entire act or step into a new draft. It’s either that, or start taking a pill to shut my brain down when it starts to fizz at three in the morning.

Hallie Ephron, in Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel, suggests maintaining a “scene-by-scene outline”…a list tracking the main plot points, time lapsed from last scene, and so forth. She recommends keeping it spare, and would probably frown on my additions. (I confess, they do require a bit of scotch tape once I print.) But I find the scene list a useful means to also keep tabs on each scene’s goal, obstacle, and surprise; questions raised that will need answering; as well as word count, research required, and subplots forwarded by the scene. But most important, I use my scene list to keep track of changes.

A digital approach makes it easier. So I maintain my list in spreadsheet form, in rows and columns. One row for each scene, a different column for each element I want to track. I can move an entire row to a different location, or merge two scenes when necessary. In the midst of a brainstorm, I type notes at the bottom of the worksheet without regard to which scenes they’ll affect. When my synapses stop firing, I copy the note into each applicable scenes’ “Changes” column. When I’m ready for the next revision, I refer to my list, make all necessary changes, and write any required new scenes in a single pass.

I use Microsoft Excel worksheets, but a table in MS Word or a shareware spreadsheet application would work. Excel’s handy because I can open a second worksheet whenever I feel the urge to start fresh or add structural elements, then copy and paste from the original as needed. Once done I can switch back and forth between worksheets.

I'm on track again, sanity more or less intact. Relieved that I can allow those brain cells to keep right on sizzling. I may finish this manuscript yet!

Knock 'em dead!
Lois

Half In Love With Death

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--
To thy high requiem become a sod.

-- John Keats

Life provides fodder for fiction. If you are sitting in Starbucks having coffee with three friends and there is a writer sitting behind you, you may find yourself--and your friends--in a novel someday. Authors observe life to turn it into fiction. Mystery writers, however, don't just write about life; they write about death. Death is, quite literally, only the beginning. The victim dies and the rest of the book--including any subsequent deaths--are the result of characters' reactions to that death. For our books to be interesting, our characters have to react in ways that are at least believable if not entirely realistic.

The question of realism is a difficult one. How realistic do our readers want us to be? I write traditional mysteries, not thrillers, which means I don't have to do much in the way of describing in (very) gory detail the specifics of a murder. But I do have to relate, with less gore but more detail, how people respond to that murder.

And that's complicated. Because most of us don't have models for such situations. Thank goodness, not too many of us have been touched by violent death, not too many of us have looked at the faces of our friends and relatives in the aftermath of such a tragedy.

This has been on my mind of late because I read a couple of mysteries recently wherein I found the reactions of the victims' friends outside the bounds of belief. They were too casual. People are not casual about death. In fact, if someone appears unaffected, my first instinct is to suspect them of something. So I immediately went back to look at my manuscript to be sure I had not made such a mistake myself.

And what did I find? While my errors were not as gross as those in the books that had driven me to re-examine my own work, I had not been sensitive enough to the emotions of my characters. Too enthralled by the puzzle, I hadn't considered how devastating the death--let alone the murder--of even an enemy can be. Foolishly, I had imagined that the death of someone I disliked would not affect me and therefore I didn't spend time worrying about how it would affect my characters.

So now I have to re-write some scenes, to re-think the development of the mystery. I don't want to write a sob story, but I need to examine more closely the multitude of ways in which my characters might be influenced by a death in their midst.

As anyone who reads my personal blog knows, I saw a man die last week. It was not a violent death, and he was a complete stranger, but even so it made me think about emotions. Not the obvious ones of the people left behind, but those of the bystanders like myself and of the policeman who had to take the man's wife to the hospital. How must he have felt, knowing he was driving a woman to hear the worst news she could imagine? How did the employees who had been working at the Staples where the man died get through the rest of the day? There was a teenager there. Was it her first experience with death?

Obviously a writer cannot go off on too many tangents, describing the emotions of every person touched by an event. Readers would lose interest. But what I've learned is that I need to think a little less linearly--there's more to murder than death. Or more to death than murder.

Derringer Nominees

The Short Mystery Fiction Society has announced the Derringer Award Nominees. Congratulations to all!

Flash Fiction
Jan Christensen, “Matched Set“ (Long Story Short, Winter, 2006)
Barry Ergang, “Vigilante” (Mysterical-E, Summer 2006)
Michelle Mach, “Snowflake Therapy” (Thereby Hangs a Tale, June 2006)
Jill Maser, “Flight School” (Flashshots. August 28, 2006)
Sandra Seamans, “Home Entertainment” (A Cruel World, July/August 2006)

Short-Short Stories
Gail Farrelly, “Even Steven” (Mouth Full of Bullets, Winter 2006)
John M. Floyd, “Four For Dinner” (Seven by Seven)
Justin Gustainis, “Interview” (Cape Fear Crime Festival, October, 2006)
Steven Torres, “Elena Speaks of the City, Under Siege” (CrimespreeMagazine September/October 2006)
Frank Zafiro, “The Worst Door” (Dispatch, January 2006)

Mid-length Short Stories
David Bareford, “Eden’s Bodyguard” (Thuglit, September 2006)
Rex Burns, “Shadow People” (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, June 2006)
Bill Crider, “Cranked” (Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir)
Robert S. Levinson, “Uncle Blinky’s Corner of the World” (ElleryQueen Mystery Magazine, March/April 2006)
Robert Lopresti, “Shanks on the Prowl” (Alfred Hitchcock MysteryMagazine, May 2006)

Longer Short Stories
Annette Dashofy, “Signature in Blood” (Mysterical-E, Winter 2006)
Julie Hyzy, “Strictly Business” (These Guns for Hire)
Stuart MacBride, “Daphne MacAndrews and the Smack-Head Junkies” (DamnNear Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir)
Larry Sweazy, “See Also Murder” (Amazon Shorts, December 11, 2006)
Steven Torres, “The Valley of Angustias” (Alfred Hitchcock’s MysteryMagazine, October 2006)