Author: C. Michele Dorsey

  Writers need people. People are a necessary component to stories. Unlike artists who can capture oceans, mountains, pastures, and all of nature’s majesty on canvas without having to include human beings, writers require human beings for their work.            I have always worked in professions that have exposed me to the many faces of humanity, so I’ve developed some decent people watching skills. I’ve also learned to take advantage of the opportunities to people-watch that come to me without invitation.            Take today, for instance. I’m traveling back to Boston from St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  I arrived at the ferry in St. John at 5:30 a.m. this morning, where I was joined by a myriad of other sleepy travelers. I could tell that some of them make the journey to St. Thomas every morning to go to their jobs, but many were people like me, traveling home, or were they going to visit family?  Why, I wondered. I know my story. But what about the couple with the guitar? Or the gaunt gentleman who was escorted by a woman I imagined was a relative. Was he seeking treatment in St. Thomas where we were headed or going on up to the states for more advanced medical advice?             On the cab that took me from the ferry in St. Thomas to the airport, my traveling companions were silent, so I focused on the cab driver, who I guessed to be about sixty. He was more pleasant than most, but had little to say. He drove slower than any driver I’ve ever ridden with in St. Thomas, perhaps because his cab seemed older and more tired than he. It barely chugged up the steep hills while the radio blasted a deep zealous voice imploring us to “Give up cigarettes, give up alcohol, and embrace the Jesus who loves you.”  My husband was certain the cabbie’s choice of channel was an act of prayer that his vehicle make it to the airport. I took it a little deeper. How had our driver experienced the horrific two hurricanes that blasted his island less than a year before? Was his cab a casualty and barely coming back to life like the palm trees that had been striped of their finger-like leaves?            A three-hour layover in the airport in San Juan was filled with walking talking stories. We sat in rocking chairs in one of several newly constructed fake front porches within the Jet Blue terminal. A man I guessed was from Ireland turned out to be Mexican.  People watching is as good for disproving assumptions as it can be for the imagination. I was captivated by a beautiful couple, probably in their fifties. They were dressed as if they had money, and may have spent some of it on “work” as my friends call it. So maybe they were older. His paints were too tight, and his shirt and shoes too young. He was trying too hard. He strutted around the terminal while his tall blonde and painfully thin, but not sick-thin, wife sat guarding their Gucci luggage. From where I sat, I could see the bones in her shoulders.  I imagined all of the choices in restaurants and at dinner parties she had passed on, just to look like that. Why, I wondered.            On the plane, I sat next to a young pregnant mother and her toddler daughter. Where were they coming from and where were they going? Did they have family in Puerto Rico? Was she coming to Boston for her second baby’s birth? The woman in the row in front of us had long lavishly painted fingernails that were imbedded with faux jewels. I couldn’t stop looking at them as she waved her hands around. Why would you pay money to do that to your nails? What happens when she washes dishes, or was that it? “You do the dishes, honey. I don’t want to wreck my nails.”            The answers to my questions don’t really matter. What does matter that each of these people on my journey home piqued my curiosity and inspired me to imagine their stories, which then become mine. And my husband doesn’t understand why I can’t sleep on planes.            Where do you people-watch? What stories do you find? 

 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.            

  Michele: I once went to a mediation conference in San Francisco determined to find Barbary Lane from Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin. It wasn’t easy, especially with a foreign cab driver thinking he had a nut case for a passenger, but I did it. It felt like a religious experience when I finally came upon those long steps. Another time, a friend and I forced my husband to drive through a tiny Cape Cod village in search of the scene of the crime where the murder in a true crime book we both were reading occurred. I’m not sure whether these qualify as literary pilgrimages, but they were definitely pursuits of passion!I also seem to find myself touring writers’ homes wherever I travel. One of my favorites is the Mark Twain Home in Hartford, Connecticut where you can now write in the same room he did (for the price of a donation, of course)  So, the question of the week to my fellow Miss Demeanors is, what literary pilgrimages have you gone on, or if you’ve resisted the urge thus far, where would you venture?  Robin: That’s an easy one for me. I went to New York and stayed at the Algonquin Hotel to soak in the literary history and see the Round Table before the hotel remodeled and removed it. A year later I went to Pere Lachaise in Paris to pay homage to the cultural and literary luminaries buried there, like Oscar Wilde and Gertrude Stein. I planned the trip when I heard Jim Morrison’s grave was going to be moved to the States. It’s still there but the threat got me to Paris.Fun fact: after I rocked the New York Pitch conference and knew I’d be signed by a rock star agent in the next few days, I celebrated with a glass of champagne at the Blue Bar at the Algonquin.   Oh, and I’m fortunate that living in the San Francisco Bay Area, there are lots of local pilgrimages, too. Last summer I joined my local chapter of Sisters In Crime on a walking tour of Dashiell Hammett’s homes and haunts in San Francisco.  Paula: When we first moved to New England, my son and I took a literary pilgrimage to Concord, Massachusetts, and toured Walden Pond, Emerson’s house, and Louisa May Alcott’s house. It’s one of our favorite memories together. I try to find a literary pilgrimage wherever I go. My friend Susan Reynolds and I have been to Emily Dickinson’s house in Amherst, my daughter and I went together to the Dublin Writers Museum, I’ve been with my fellow writers to visit such places as Jack London’s house, the Algonquin Hotel, the House of Seven Gables, the Globe Theater, and all the haunts in the French Quarter where the likes of Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, and Anne Rice have written great work.I loved them all. But the most moving place I’ve ever visited was in Amsterdam, where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis. I was 12 years old and I still remember that terrible empty space vividly. I went home and read her diary for the first of many times.   Susan: Robin, I would love to go on a walking tour of Dashiell Hammett’s homes. How wonderful! I have a lovely book called Seeds by Richard Horan in which he goes to various writers’ homes and takes seeds from their trees and tries to plant them. I was so inspired that I resolved to get pine cones from various writers’ homes, but so far I’ve only made it to Mark Twain’s library in Redding, but I did get a pine cone! I did once spend a considerable amount of time tracking down the composer Alexander Scriabin’s home in Paris. It was very moving to see where he lived. I had used him as a character in one of my novels. Alison: I love this question, Michele, but I have no answer. The fact is, I’ve never made a specific literary pilgrimage. I don’t know why I haven’t. Reading about yours, Robin’s, and Paula’s journeys, I want to start. Count me in for the Dashiell Hammett tour!  Tracee: I’m with Alison! Maybe I should plan a few.  Cate: Ditto. Though I am going to Ireland In August and plan to visit some of Oscar Wilde, Yeats and James Joyce’s haunts.   Alexia: I haven’t been on any literary pilgrimages, probably because most of my favorite novels are set in fictional places, like Wonderland, Midsomer County, and St. Mary Mead. I do go to places where I’m thinking of setting stories, like Irish villages, English inns, and ancient churches. I rode the train from Chicago to West Virginia (the Greenbrier resort) because Nero Wolfe traveled by train to a fictional resort based on the Greenbrier. I seek out existing pieces of Route 66 to travel because of the song, Route 66. Writing this reminds me of one trip I took that might count as a literary pilgrimage. I went to Vassar College, which is in the Hudson Valley, Washington Irving country. So, one summer, when my parents came to pick me up to take me back home to Maryland for summer break, I made them drive through Sleepy Hollow and stop at all the places associated with Irving’s short story. I still think it’s hysterical that Sleepy Hollow High School’s team is named the Horsemen.          

 Most of the books I have loved best have evoked a strong emotional response from me. I have cried, felt triumphant or despondent, but never indifferent. Those are the books that stay with me. To Kill a Mockingbird, Mystic River, Angela’s Ashes and so many more. As a writer, I long to create that emotional connection with a reader. But how?            I’ve started a silly little experiment, which will require that I confess what an emotional SAP I am. I adore good romantic comedies and am fanatic about Cinderella stories. I’ve noticed since I stopped teaching evening classes and watch more television that I occasionally react emotionally to commercials. Yes, I know they’re contrived. I am the daughter of a man who worked in television advertising. I am still not immune to the ploys of Mad Men.            Take the Sebastian Gets Into College McDonald’s commercial. https://www.ispot.tv/ad/AX01/mcdonalds-committed-to-being-americas-best-first-job I’m smart enough to know how phony it is and have read the scathing criticism about McDonald’s corporate practices and horrible food, neither of which McDonald’s college scholarship program fully mitigates. I can understand why people may think it is a racial insult to see a young African American male bring his college acceptance letter to his white boss. But there is something very appealing to me in Sebastian’s expression when his boss reads the letter aloud to his burger-flipping colleagues who shout with joy for him. The look on Sebastian’s face vacillates between joy and apprehension. I may not be inspired to run out and buy a Big Mac, but the commercial reaches a level in me that wants to see underprivileged young people succeed and be encouraged by a community of workers. I want to live in a world where we have a sense of community and celebrate Sebastian on the brink of a new world that will also celebrate and welcome him. You go, Sebastian!            The TD Ameritrade commercials are harder to explain. They feature a man with a beard and glasses conversing with everyday folks about their lives and finances in a room with a very green couch and green walls.  In one ad, the bearded man learns his client would like to run with the bulls. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm2BGd1vcDo These ads have inspired some viewers to want to punch the guy-in-the beard. https://hauntedcoconut.com/2017/05/17/i-want-to-punch-the-td-ameritrade-commercial-guy-in-the-beard/ But I am as captivated as I am confounded by how they draw me in. I like that a professional trained to give financial advice cares about the lives of the people whose money he is trying to manage. I guess I’m looking for a world where someone can make a living without compromising principles. The guy-in-the-beard seems honest and earnest. I like that. I’ve become aware that his voice is soothing and that the room where he has these conversations is tranquil and green. It reminds the writer in me that you can’t underestimate the value of tone and the impact of setting.            I’m entertained by many of the Subaru ads, particularly the one where the dogs driving a Subaru have it washed by a team of other dogs. But the one that reaches me most on an emotional level is the one where Grandma tells Grandpa to have fun as he sets off in his ancient Subaru for a fishing trip, while his grandson is on a parallel road trip in his new Crosstrek. Their paths converge at the ocean as they head into the water with their surfboards and Grandson conspiratorially gets Grandpa to admit Grandma thinks he’s gone fishing. https://www.ispot.tv/ad/wBov/2018-subaru-crosstrek-ever-young-song-by-vetiver It’s a sweet moment that bridges generations and celebrates family. I already own a Subaru or I might go out and buy one.  I picture Grandma, who left home in her own Subaru shortly after she got rid of Grandpa. She’s heading for the mountains where she’s going rock climbing. Don’t worry, she’ll be back before Grandpa ever knows.            Inexplicably, each of these commercials seemed to have unlocked a longing in me. That’s what I’m looking to do for my readers.            Do ads ever reach you at an emotional level? What can you learn from those that do?