Month: August 2018

 When the well runs dry and the words won’t come, it’s time to get up out of your chair or wherever you perch while you write and go for a walk. I’m a big fan of what Julia Cameron calls an Artist’s Date, a little expedition aimed at refilling the creative well. I go on Artists Dates regularly and want to take you with me on my most recent one.             The annual Secret Garden Tour in Provincetown, Massachusetts is a testament to the bodies and souls of those who battle sandy soil, wild wind, and salty air. But beyond admiring the stamina and artistic abilities of these hardy gardeners, I accept their invitations into their secret gardens as an opportunity to reawaken my imagination.            Who lives in a house with a shrine to David?             Why does the person who lives here walk the beach and collect these stones? Is she heartbroken? Is she a hoarder? Does she know she’s breaking the law?             Who lives behind this purple door? Who paints a door purple? Is it to keep people off guard or to attract attention?             Who are the people who sit outdoors in this garden? Do they have wild parties slamming down margaritas while they talk politics and art? Or is it the garden of a lonely man who listens to the hum from his bee hives in the background while he waits, hoping someone will join him?             What about these wild flowers? Does the woman who is trying to contain them within her garden want to control the people in her life?             Take a look at these photos and see if they are whispering stories to you. Then get up from your chair, talk a walk, and refill your dry empty well.  

  I’ve noticed that a lot of novels use the premise that the protagonist is compelled to return home after years of absence. The reasons vary. A parent may be ill. Often, a distant relative has willed a dilapidated home, once magnificent, and our hero encounters resistance when she begins repairs or dares to move into the home. Some of these stories work brilliantly. Most, not so much. Because, as Thomas Wolfe reminded us, you can’t go home again.            I wasn’t sure about this until I decided my fiftieth high school reunion (please applaud while I break a multi-generation family tradition and do not lie about my age) might be the opportunity to explore writing a novel about just that. I dragged my husband away from the splendor of Cape Cod in June to the hellish heat and humidity of West Hartford, Connecticut, which sinks deep into the Connecticut River Valley suffocating its residents into a state of fugue.             I’d attended two previous reunions and had pledged that was enough. High school wasn’t the happiest time in my life. I was humbled after the first reunion I attended to realize the classmates I had been fortunate enough to be placed with in what they called “accelerated” classes then were not nerds, but bright decent human beings I would have done well to hang around with.            This time I decided to tour the nearly empty school with my husband after most of my classmates had headed off to cocktails. The first room I peered into was the gym, well the old gym, because now there were two in the private Catholic high school. I could smell sweat, hear the roar when Billy landed another basket, and the refrain, “Milady, Milady, he’s our man. If he can’t do it no one can.” I could feel my shoeless feet at the freshman sock hop on the shiny floor paralyzed while waiting to see if someone would ask me to dance. Lots of nostalgia, but no great inspiration for my story.             We moved past the cafeteria where I pointed out to my husband the table I had sat at with what I thought was the “in crowd” at the time. I can still remember the taste of a salty potato chip after a bite from a chocolate Ring-Ding. I was a foodie ahead of my time. I also remember being at the very least indifferent to the classmates I spent most of my day with. Sometimes even mean.            The music room was where I sat when I learned President Kennedy had been shot, when I suffered the first of a lifetime of political wounds. I felt empty looking at the idle instruments.             The dark corridor I marched my husband through was dark and empty, not filled with teens lugging books, so hopelessly awkward, not sure if they dared say hi to one another. I remembered my first experience with sexual misconduct when a troubled classmate crossed a line one day in that hallway and I had to decide whether to be silent. I was not.            The auditorium, silent and empty, reminded me not of endless, boring assemblies, but of the one time I felt I shone. Class Night, where I appeared in a skit I had pretty much written, and performed in. It was daringly edgy, but hilarious so we got away with it, and I was very good. “I wish we’d known about your theatrical talent sooner,” one nun swooned. Me too.  But I was heading to nursing school, not Hollywood. I never gave another thought about acting until I returned to the dark empty stage and told my husband about that magical night. End of story.  Definitely not a story.             As we headed out, we passed a long line of lockers. One had belonged to my first husband. Let’s call him, “Bad Boy.” He had stolen the textbooks from a student who had come from Cuba, who was smart enough to write his name on page 51 of each of them. When the nuns, immune to First Amendment concerns, discovered the books in his locker, Bad Boy insisted they were his. Until the good sisters turned to page 51.            How did a nice girl like me end up as Bad Boy’s girlfriend? Is it plausible I ended up marrying him and having two darling babies with him? Can you believe he ended up being a cop? I can barely believe that story.            I walked through the glass doors out of my high school knowing I would never go back. You can never go home again. Home becomes part of you and that’s where the story begins.             

 How lucky am I to be blogging the week that our own Miss Demeanor, D.A. Bartley’s Bless Be the Wicked, is launched. I got to hear her fascinating answers to these questions first. Your book releases today, what’s the day look like for you? Alison: I’m in Utah visiting my Dad, which makes the pub date particularly special because I get to share it with him. Tomorrow, I’ll be reading and signing at The King’s English. If you know Salt Lake, you know that TKE is one of the world’s most wonderful independent bookstores. It’s a place run by book lovers for book lovers. If you’re in the area, please stop by at 7:00 pm. I’d love to see you!  You live in New York City, but the Abish Taylor series is set in Utah. Why? Alison: My grandma loved to point out that I come from sturdy pioneer stock. I do. My ancestors arrived in Deseret—now Utah—in the late 1840s and 50s. Most pushed handcarts​​ from New York to the Salt Lake valley, although it’s rumored a few could afford covered wagons. Whenever I feel like complaining about walking a few extra blocks, I think of walking across the plains in winter. Suddenly, ten blocks in mid-town Manhattan isn’t so bad.  You’re an attorney with a Ph.D. in political science. How did you come to write a murder mystery?  Alison: The very first grown up book I ever read was an Agatha Christie. Both my mom and grandma were big readers, especially of murder mysteries. My mom passed away a few years ago after a ten-year struggle with Alzheimer’s. I was in Utah a lot during those years. On one visit, I went to a friend’s house north of Salt Lake. There was an enormous home at the end of her street with an amazing view of the mountains. It had been empty for a few years after the housing bubble burst. When I got back to New York, I couldn’t get that house out of my head. What could happen in a place like that? One morning, I just sat down and wrote. That might have been the end of it except for a week later my daughter suffered a moderate concussion and couldn’t read or look at screens. (She’s fine now and off to college next week!) She didn’t like the audio books I’d gotten her. She asked me to read what I was writing. When I finished the seventh chapter, she asked me what happened next. I didn’t know. She said, “Mom, go write more.” So I did. That’s how it went until she recovered. By then, I had written a good chunk of the story.  What can you tell us about your protagonist, Detective Abish Taylor? Alison: Abbie is trying to re-start her life. In Blessed be the Wicked, she’s still reeling from having lost her husband. She had been living in New York, having left her state, family, and religion behind. Suddenly alone, she decides to move back to Utah to be near family, but her relationship with them is strained.  Her father, a respected LDS historian, doesn’t understand why his daughter left the Church, and she doesn’t understand why he’s still a member. Family is just the first of Abbie’s problems. The death is a reminder of a dark history, a history powerful people would prefer stays forgotten.   I hear the first murder has some religious overtones, is that true? Alison: Yes. When Abbie sees the first body, she recognizes the hallmarks of a ritual discussed in the early days of the Mormon Church. LDS scholars and historians debated blood atonement as late as the 1970s, but there are no verifiable examples that anyone was ever killed this way. Of course, as a writer, it’s just too much fun to play around with a macabre doctrine from the 19th century in today’s world. It reminds me how important it is to be mindful about what we believe, and how we believe.  What is your schedule after this? Alison: Besides helping my daughter move into her dorm next week? I’ll be at Bouchercon in St. Petersburg, Florida where I’ll be on the panel discussing religion in mysteries on September 9th. On September 17th, I’ll be reading and signing books at The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City.   

 You can never go down
Can never go down  Can never go down the drain. 
You can never go down
Can never go down
Can never go down the drain. 
You’re bigger than the water,
You’re bigger than the soap,
You’re much bigger than all the bubbles
And bigger than your telescope, so you see…
You can never go down
Can never go down
Can never go down the drain.
You can never go down
Can never go down
Can never go down the drain. 
The rain my go down
But you can’t go down
You’re bigger than any bathroom drain.
You can never go down
Can never go down
Can never go down the drain.   This may seem like a silly song, but if you’re a writer and know what fear is, you might want to sing along with the newly rediscovered Fred Rogers. Considered a super hero in these dark times, albeit wearing a cardigan instead of a cape, people are flocking to see the hit documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” this summer featuring the unlikely superstar.            Fred Rogers has been a hero of mine for a long time. When my kids were little and hit the hungry horrors right before supper, I’d turn on the television and let Fred and his neighbors calm them down. I loved the lessons he taught them about being empathetic, inclusive, kind, and how to embrace the ordinary joys in life.            When I was finally able to admit to myself that I wanted to write, that it was too important for me to keep calling it a hobby, I was terrified. Once you declare to the world you are a writer, you are “out there,” meaning you have just invited a cargo ship packed with containers of pain into your life.  Sure, there is also joy, but who needs help dealing with joy?
            No one would argue that rejection feels good. Writers have been known to publish, post, and cover their walls with rejections. Even the mighty Stephen King. Writers expect rejection and are usually surprised if it doesn’t come. But rejection isn’t the worse pain for many writers. It’s fear. And it comes in as many genres as there are writers.            Yes, fear of rejection is a big one. But there are others. A huge fear is not writing “perfect.” (Author Brene Brown has written a library filled with books on how to deal with imperfection. The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, and Braving the Wilderness, just to name a few.)Then there’s fear of humiliation. Fear of failure. Fear you won’t get an agent. Fear your agent won’t sell your book. Fear no one will blurb you. Fear no one will show up for your appearances. Fear no one will review your book. Fear that if they do, they’ll trash it. Fear you won’t sell enough books to earn out your advance. Fear your publisher will drop you. Fear your second book wont’ be as good as the first.            Fear is flipping exhausting. It’s counterproductive, depleting, and often irrational. It can also be distracting, taking you away from the one thing you want to do, which is to write. It’s my biggest demon, much to the surprise of many who know me as the lawyer who can stand before a judge, advocating for a client passionately and articulately, seemingly fearless. Well, no one is immune from fear and I’m no longer afraid to admit it. I may be a tiger in a courtroom, but put a pen in my hand and I quiver. I’m dealing with it because the alternative would be not to write and that’s unthinkable to me.            I’ve been wearing a bracelet that sometimes is mistaken for a medical alert tag for about ten years. You guessed it. It says, “You can never go down the drain, Fred Rogers.” It reminds me that I’m bigger than my words, my publisher, my readers, and my critics. While they are all important to me as a writer, I can never go down the drain.