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The power of the pen

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 I write mysteries; not political or social essays. On the other hand, the written word is mighty in any format. And I’m part of a powerful genre. Millions of people read mysteries every day. They read for entertainment, of course, but ‘simply entertainment’ isn’t an accurate descriptor of any activity. There is a consequence – the reader is more relaxed, or open to new ideas, or agitated, or looking at the world in a different manner (even if it’s a paranoia about why their neighbor’s curtains are closed). Recently, Writers Resist held over 90 events across the country (and world) to remind us of the ideals of democracy and free expression. Held in conjunction with the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., the events focused on readings, music, and performances celebrating these values. Anyone living in America must recognize that freedom of expression is a core value. It is the most fundamental aspect of society that is missed in, for example, North Korea. it is freedom to write at all, regardless of what you project onto the page. It is the right of people of all religions, races, genders, and social and political beliefs to express themselves. At a certain moment, it is about my right to pen mysteries. To protect themselves from the viewpoints of their political opponents, authoritarian societies take away the ability of all people to present their views (after all, plot points and clues could contain secret subversive symbols). With this in mind, I will say that all of us, any of us, as we express our views, as we write our mysteries and thrillers, are actively participating in the freedom of expression that makes democracy great. That said, I’ll go back to plotting my next mystery….

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Unwrapping a character’s emotions

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 Emotional reactions are at the heart of crime fiction. Why do people – myself included – love to read mysteries? I believe it is because the books often deal with the ultimate human experience. Death. They allow the reader to react to death. Reading is a way of processing, understanding and, perhaps in a tiny way, preparing. We want to read about the policeman or physician who deals with death daily and understand how their public and private reactions might differ. We want to experience – albeit vicariously – these moments from a variety of perspectives, including one that might be our own. In 1969, Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance as the stages of grief in her book On Death and Dying. Growing up, my father spoke about these stages in conjunction with his practice. He was an emergency room physician, and I remember him saying that no one should rush into a waiting room and be told that their loved one died in the car crash. There were important intermediate stages – a nurse or staff member telling the family that it was serious, perhaps the move to a private portion of the waiting room, medical personnel speaking to the family and explaining the critical situation, perhaps asking if they want a member of the clergy to join them, then, ultimately the final news. My father acknowledged that in the emergency room these stages might occur within a few minutes, but he felt that people needed at least a chance to touch upon the stages of grief before the jolt of finality. Contemporary mystery novels usually involve death and I try to think about these stages of grief when writing. The stages might move swiftly, or takes years (or forever) to achieve, but they do provide an emotional path. The emotional path can be in response to the action of the book, or can trigger the crime at the heart of the novel. Of course, the stages are not necessarily linear or universally experienced, but for a writer – or anyone – they provide a framework for understanding.      

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What's in a title?

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 A title is critical to convey the content of a novel. For me, this can be the hardest part of the process. I suppose there are ah ha moments when the perfect title jumps to the forefront of your mind. Often, it’s a matter of thinking of the themes or phrases in the book and elevating them to ‘title’ status. Since the title is the first thing someone will read it is critical. Some strategies to use in creating your title: – is the setting of the novel critical (my first mystery is titled Swiss Vendetta because of the location) -can you use the name of a character? (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Jane Eyre) -a catchy word or phrase (that’s where Gone with the Wind and Game of Thrones both got their titles) -a clever way to connect a series (Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich did this with letters and numbers) Titles aren’t copyrighted so it’s possible that there are multiples, check and see if there are others with the same name. Pick something memorable. One word can do the trick but a good phrase is equally suggestive (To Kill a Mockingbird). Remember is that a title should represent the book at a glance. It is a headline; the first call for attention. Make it memorable, but also make it honest. 

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Manuscript submittal aka euphoria

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 Twenty four hours of joy. That’s what happens when you turn your manuscript in to your editor. Or at least that’s what I experienced. It is possible that the joy is actually fatigue. I know for certain that for these few hours I am no longer worrying about it, wondering if I should have added/cut/modified/reworked or any of the other things that went through my head this past week. I expect this fragile euphoria will last about a day (during this day I have so many other things to catch up on that I won’t have time to worry, but that’s another story). Then what? Revisions!!! Even as I think about it, I’m a little bit gleeful. The as yet untitled ‘baby’ will have been out there in the big world and there will be a response. Reworking, refining, polishing (completely restructuring – slight shudder here)…. These are exciting times. Because next comes publication. I’m sure that over the course of today I will slump and start to question every bit of the manuscript from plot to characters to the font style (even though it’s the standard Times New Roman). The only thing that will keep me going is the fact that soon, hopefully very soon, I’ll get that much sought after feedback and can get back to work. How did you feel after you hit ‘send/submit’?

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Distraction or Inspiration?

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Years ago I met Dean Koontz at one of his book signings. He was and remains one of my literary heroes. As a fledgling thriller author I had a burning question for him. “Do you listen to music when you write?” He looked startled and fixed his darker-than-dark eyes on me. “Wow,” he said. “No one has ever asked me that.” The answer was yes. In fact, he chose a single album per manuscript and played it repeatedly as he wrote. It became the rhythm of the book. For example, when he wrote Sole Survivor, he told me, the accompanying soundtrack was Paul Simon’s “Graceland.” I listened to that album when I read Sole Survivor to see if I could match songs to passages. It doesn’t work that way, of course. Writing a book takes heck of lot longer than reading one. But I’ve listened to music while I write ever since. These days, it’s my iTunes library on shuffle unless I need an extra push to inspire a darker mood than my eclectic pop/jazz/dance/country/80’s/R&B/insert-genre-here tastes run. At such times, I listen to movie scores. Thrillers, of course.  So, my fellow Miss Demeanors, what do you listen to while you write? Cate: I try to listen to music the puts me in the mood of my characters at various points. For my third book, Lies She Told, this was my playlist: All That She Wants: Ace of BaseBack Door Man: The DoorsWhat Kind of Man: Florence and The MachineFire: Bruce SpringsteenEverybody’s Got The Right To Love: The SupremesWerewolf: Fiona AppleJanie’s Got A Gun: AerosmithYou Know I’m No Good: Amy WinehouseSamson: Regina SpektorI Told You I Was Mean: Elle KingFast as You Can: Fiona AppleYouth: DaughterStone Cold Crazy: QueenWith A Little Help From My Friends: Joe CockerPsycho Killer: Talking Heads Tracee: Great questions Robin! I definitely listen to music! I have a long playlist that is background music, often played so low it is barely audible. What I find interesting is that I usually don’t notice it, but if I accidentally hit shuffle and the songs are in the ‘wrong’ order then it’s a distraction. When I really need to focus I listen to the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos. Otherwise, my playlist is eclectic: Mumford and Sons, U2, Imagine Dragons, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Carrie Underwood, Eagles, Adele, Coldplay, and much more… including a recent addition. k.d. lang’s rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. That one I still turn up and listen to full throttle. Paula: I have my playlists organized by genre/emotion/audience: romance, country, dance, creativity, meditation, happiness, poignancy, sweet dreams, etc., and for my bad days, f–k you. Note: For whatever reason, this f–k you playlist is the one my fellow writers most often request that I share with them. Go figure.I play whichever playlist suits the scene I’m writing–and if it’s something special, I just create a new playlist. When I’m stuck, I play my OM playlist, which is a combination of kirtan, gregorian chants, and classical music. That always gets me either to the computer or to the yoga mat…and then to the computer. Susan: I can’t listen to anything. I need complete (musical) silence to write. It doesn’t bother me if my neighbors’ are doing construction, but put on Sibelius and my mind goes dead. Alexia: I can’t listen to music while I write. I end up enjoying the music too much and paying more attention to it than to my writing. Mendelssohn is the one exception. I can write with Mendelssohn playing quietly. Usually, I either write in silence or with a quiet buzz of human voices running in the background like white noise. Michele: Put me under the column of writers who don’t/can’t listen to music while I write. I find I am so deeply and sometimes unconsciously influenced emotionally by music that it affects my writing in unintended ways. I like either total silence or the sounds of nature (birds, waves, wind, etc.). I’ve learned I love to write outdoors. It’s not that I don’t love music. Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli can make me weep, even though I can’t understand the lyrics. Dave Matthews gets me out of my seat. Simon and Garfunkel have been favorites since I was a kid and bring up lots of memories. I walked down the aisle to Scarborough Fair. I love Irish music. Harps kill me. Piano and violin move me. But all of these reactions to music tend to muddle what I’m writing. I must say I am fascinated by how my fellow Miss Demeanors intentionally use music to set their moods. I may try it.I am writing this while my daughter’s two kittens are practically sitting on my keyboard, purring like a feline orchestra. My mood is definitely influenced. I want to read a cozy. How about you, dear reader? Do you listen to music while you write?  

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Throwback Thursday

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I love typewriters. My mother had one that she bought while she was in college. I found it in a closet when I was little and she let me play with it. It was a sexy, teal green Smith Corona number, complete with a tan leatherette carrying case. Tres moderne, for its time. It weighed about 10 pounds. I loved feel of the keys and the satisfying clackity-clack as the arms smacked the ribbon to stamp out letters. I even loved the smell of the ink-drenched ribbon. As a tiny girl, I mimicked what I saw my mother do when she typed out articles for the local newspaper. I climbed up in her chair and whacked random keys to fill up blank pages with combinations of letters that looked like words. When I learned to read, I graduated to the 2-3 finger hunt-and-peck method to write 1-3 page stories where ghosts haunted castles but nothing much happened. In junior high, I took a typing class and learned to unleash 100+ words a minute. My stories got a little livelier and a little longer. Computers came along and I never looked back. Over the years my keyboards have gotten smaller and sleeker while my stories got longer and “bigger” (thrillers = big stakes). But I still have a place in my heart for typewriters. On my desk is a 3-dimensional perpetual calendar. It’s a doghouse with Snoopy on top, hunched over a black typewriter. Friends give me postcards with noir-ish black & white photos of typewriters. And today, someone I hadn’t seen since early December gave me a little something he found during his holiday travels. He handed me a gift-wrapped bookmark that’s a cutout of a vintage typewriter, pictured here. I love it! How about you, have you ever used a typewriter?  

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Writing: It’s A Team Sport

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I mentioned people yesterday. Let’s talk more about that. We’ve all heard what a singular endeavor writing can be, shuttered away in a dark corner with just your imagination and your preferred implements for putting thoughts on paper. I bought into that image for a while. Then I asked a friend with an impressive list of non-fiction credits to her name for advice. What should I do once I had a completed manuscript that I thought was pretty good? “Test it out. Workshop it at writers’ conferences,” she said. That turned out to be darned good advice. Life-changing, in fact. Finding the right conferences introduced me to the difference between writing for myself and writing commercial fiction. Both are fine, of course. But the latter was my goal and there’s nothing lonely about it. Yes, it’s my butt in the chair creating characters and weaving their stories. However, I learned very quickly commercial writing is a team effort. Agents, editors, publishers, publicists, mentors, writing groups, and, the crown jewels: readers. At writers’ conferences, you get to meet and mingle with them all. Take a look at the photo in this post. I snapped it while attending a recent conference. It illustrates my point. Agents dance with writers they may or may not have previously known or represent. Aspiring authors chat with best sellers. My favorite part is the table in the foreground. An author pitches an editor over dessert. She’s a writer after my own heart. I know she got some great advice. This photo reveals the beauty of writers’ conferences. They’re what you make of them. Finding your tribe. Meeting your heroes. Being mentored by industry professionals. All opportunities of a lifetime. If you’re serious about writing for the commercial market, go. Period. This is the perfect time of year to start planning your conference schedule for 2017. Which ones are you most interested in attending?  

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Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself

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Don’t know why, but I’ve had the song “Sympathy for the Devil” stuck in my head for days. Hence the title to this post. It seemed fitting because this is my first blog as a Miss Demeanor. So, hi. You may wondering why someone with a non-fiction credit is on a crime fiction blog. Well, in addition to my day job of fighting electronic crime, I write cyber crime thrillers. You just haven’t read them yet. I’m currently revising what I hope will be my debut novel. Soon it goes off to my development editor for a sanity check before I hand it over to my agent. Then I’ll concentrate on another work-in-progress, a YA cyber crime thriller. Writers write, and I’m no exception. It makes me happy and I seem to be pretty good at it. Speaking of agents, I joined the lovely and talented Paula Munier’s stable of clients at Talcott Notch in 2016. That’s one big hurdle down and an accomplishment I celebrated like I’d just made the NYT best seller list. Did I get a rockstar literary agent by luck? Or because I knew someone who knew someone? Nope. Passion got me started, hard work, dedication to the craft, and persistence got me this far. I do know people now, and continue to meet people, which is a fun part of the process. And their friendship and mentoring helped/helps a lot. Among these people are my fellow Miss Demeanors. I’m grateful to my new sisters in crime fiction for inviting me to the party. I look forward to doing you all proud. So what brings you here? Feel free to introduce yourself in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!  

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Who are we?

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The Miss Demeanors have a new look on our web site.  I love it. It seems mysterious, glamorous and maybe a little dangerous. Sort of like Myrna Loy. None of those words actually describe me, but a person can dream! Anyway, thinking about that made me wonder how my fellow Miss Dismeanors would describe themselves and our group. We’re all mystery writers. We’re all represented by the fabulous Paula Munier. But we’re all quite different too. We write different types of mysteries, for example. We’re living different sorts of lives. So what one word describes us?Here are the answers I received: Alexia: Cool. Women writing crime. What’s cooler than that? Cate:Brave. There is an honesty in fiction, a need for the writer to lay bare her true impressions and observations about human nature from beneath the thin veil of character. Putting yourself out there demands a certain amount of chutzpah. Michele:Dynamic. I am amazed at how much living my fellow Miss Demeanors crowd into life. They are either scooting off to Switzerland, Ireland, or New Orleans, or they are launching new books, even while they raise kids, work as physicians, writing teachers, etc. There is an energy beaming within and radiating from my blog mates. I admit when I’m feeling a tad depleted, I’ll go back to some earlier posts to borrow a little of their energy.  Paula:Persistent. Not a very glamorous trait, but one of the most important if you want to succeed as a writer, or as anything else. Publishing can be a tough business, and the bar is high, and the road to success can be long, but all of us have endured. We’ve learned that the “write, revise, repeat” mantra is the only one that really works. We keep on writing and revising and repeating. We persist. And so we publish.  Robin:Paula beat me to the first word that came to mind. The hazard of being in the latest time zone of the team 🙂 So I’ll say diverse. While we’re all women who write crime fiction, each of us incorporate our unique views and life experiences across multiple subgenres in fun and different ways.  Tracee:Engaged. With everything… their writing, families, blog colleagues, and other members of the writing community. And they still have time for friends, church, teaching, politics….oh, and yes, day jobs. What I admire is how each part of their lives gets the full focus when on deck.  I’ll round if off by saying “friends,” because I think that’s what we’ve become along this journey.How about you? What word one describes yourself?       

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