A Different Kind of Launch Party

 No you didn’t miss the evite. And yes, thank you for asking about whether there would be a launch party for Permanent Sunset, the second book in the Sabrina Salter series published today by Crooked Lane Books. More than anything, my gratitude to readers’ who bought and enjoyed No Virgin Island and eagerly anticipated and pre-ordered Permanent Sunset. I had no idea how gratifying it would be to hear from people who read and supported my first book. I hope Permanent Sunset brings you even more pleasure.            So it would seem logical perhaps to celebrate the second in the series with another launch party. After all, the first was a great party held at the James Library in Norwell, Massachusetts, which was attended by more than 100 people, including friends, relatives, clients, fellow-writers, and former classmates. The very generous, effervescent, and talented Hank Phillippi Ryan interviewed me with her usual charm and wit. Later, she wrote, “Now that was a launch party.” As I looked out at the crowd of people who had so kindly supported me, I thought, this is like being at your own wake. The final honor came when relatives of a murder victim in St. John whom I had mentioned in the acknowledgements of No Virgin Island came to honor me and to buy my books.            But somehow, a second launch was feeling a little off to me, or as in the wisdom of the great Barbara Ross, kind of like a baby shower for a second baby. It isn’t that we don’t love and welcome that second baby as much as the first. It’s more that the joy is more subtle and relished. A little less like, “Whew, you finally published one of those suckers,” and more like, “Good for you, daring to put yourself and your creation out there again.” And then there is geography. With readers from all over the country and especially those in the Virgin Islands and Caribbean, an inclusive launch would have to be online. Unfortunately, a glass of virtual prosecco falls a little flat.            Still, I wanted to honor those who have supported me, propping me up when the doubt and dismay weigh me down. The people who have generously shared with me the joy my writing has brought them. And especially those who have made me laugh when I was taking this writing gig way too seriously.            When Hurricane Matthew fell upon Haiti last week, I finally figured how I could do this. In a time when we are divided politically, few can argue that lightning has indeed struck twice on this tiny Caribbean nation where children have suffered unimaginably and cholera is a way of life.            So today, I have created a fundraising page (https://www.classy.org/fundraiser/794775) on Sow A Seed, an organization, whose mission is to bring hope, reduce hardship and promote sustainable change in the lives of impoverished children, placing a special focus on orphans in the Caribbean. And yes I sent the prosecco and appetizer money to them (it won’t show for a bit) in honor of you and with the hope there will be a new sunrise for the children of Haiti.                            Save

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The Ultimate Artist's Date

 Anyone who has ever read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way knows that she is a strong proponent of certain tools to nurture the artist’s spirit. I’d love to write about her first tool, Morning Pages, but will wait for another time because I’ve just returned from the Ultimate Artist’s Date, a two-week trip to Italy.            An Artist’s Date is an excursion, preferably solo, to a destination intended to expand your creative resources. They are intentional and sometimes self-indulgent, but never to be suffered with guilt. You might meander through a yarn shop, even if you have never picked up a knitting needle in your life, just to ingest the colors and textures around you. Or you could visit an old church you’ve always been curious about and sit in the quiet letting the atmosphere surround you, perhaps bringing you to a different time.Playing with finger paints was one of my first artist dates. I was able to return to my childhood and recall the feel of the cool paint on my fingers traveling across the smooth paper. A stationery store near me is the perfect spot for an occasional artist’s date. I can pick up journals of all sizes and styles, feeling the difference in the paper, contemplating whether it is better to write on lines or without them.My trip to Italy was one artist date after another. Certainly, seeing Michelangelo’s David in Florence made for a spectacular one. The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Pompeii, the Sistine Chapel, and the Coliseum all were occasions where I was not only enchanted by art and history, but also able to fill my artist’s well (another Julia term).            Yet, it wasn’t just the extraordinary sites that filled my creative pores. I found the chanting in Assisi soulfully quieting, making me think of how many centuries human ears have been soothed by those same sounds.In Venice, I found myself looking up into open windows where curtains fluttered in the breeze over canals wondering who exactly lived there and what was their story.            On the rides from one location to another, I would observe the laundry hung out on clotheslines and try to figure out how the people whose clothes I was watching lived. I was surrounded by scents and smells from garlic cooking to sophisticated cologne to rosemary the size of hedges to exhaust from too many cars in Rome.            So many stories rose within me during my two-week Artist Date. My senses were continuously pampered and spoiled. I was reminded that good writing comes from indulging the senses and filling the soul with images, sounds, and tastes.            It may be a while before I am able to experience another Ultimate Artist’s Date, but I will not forget that once a week, even a scaled down one fills the artist’s well and soothes the writer’s sorry soul.            Have you been on an Artist’s Date lately, dear reader?

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Life in the cheap seats

 I’m fighting the battle of the middle arm rest. The man next to me, a very big man who doesn’t quite fit in his economy class airplane seat, is spilling over into my space. We’re shoulder to shoulder, actually touching, but I refuse to yield. I won’t sit folded up like a pretzel for three and a half hours.  Air travel fascinates me. A group of people who don’t know each other are crammed (for those of us denied the luxuries of first or business class) together in a box  suspended 38,000 feet in the air and forced to get along with each other for hours. You sort of have privacy. You stake out your territory with your invisible walls, your bag under your half of the under seat space, your laptop or e-reader or book (yes, people still take these on planes) in front of you like armor. You may wear headphones or earbuds to signal you want to tune out everything around you and be left alone. Some people sleep (or try to in those horrid little coach seats). Some jerks use their electronic devices to listen to music without using headphones. (Yes, you are a jerk if you do this. The entire plane does not want to hear your tunes. Use headphones or earbuds.) Some people chat with their traveling companions. Some people chat, or try to, with the stranger sitting next to them, even when it’s obvious (or should be from the book/headphones/lack of eye contact/snoring) the stranger next to them isn’t feeling talkative. I write. (True confession, tonight I slept. It was 11 pm, I’d been up since 5 am, and I had to be back at work the next morning at 6:30 am.) I get a lot of writing done on airplanes. I have an uninterrupted block of time. Excluding mister music-with-no-headphones, there are few distractions. Just enough going on around me to act as white noise. I’m surrounded by inspiration if I’m stuck for a character: her nose, his ear, his hair, her outfit. Maybe even my next literary murder victim. Hint, hint, Mr. Music. And, yes, I won the armrest battle. What do you do on airplanes?

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The Sophomore Slump: the Fear is Real

“Give someone a book and they’ll read for a day. Teach someone to write a book and they’ll experience a lifetime of paralyzing self-doubt.”
Writing my second novel is, apart from going to medical school, the hardest thing I’ve ever done. My first novel was challenging. I had to learn the art of story craft, of how to create characters readers want to stick with for almost three hundred pages, of writing scenes that turned pages. But my first novel came with lower expectations. There was no precedent to live up to. These were brand new characters having new adventures. They carried no baggage.
Book two is different. The characters already exist. They have a history. They behave in certain ways. I find myself saying, “Gethsemane wouldn’t do that” or “O’Reilly would never say such a thing.” The characters have taken on lives of their own and I’m afraid to write more about them because I might mess up, get it wrong. They’ve become canonized  (at least in my head) and woe be to she who violates canon.
Luckily, I have an editor who is patient and holds my hand through my meltdowns. She reassures me I haven’t lost my mind, other writers struggle with the same things, and at the end of the day the characters are mine. I can make them do what I need them to do for the story. I just need to get out of my own way and write.  Has anything you created ever taken on a life of its own?
 

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Where it all comes from

    My love of reading books came from my parents, especially my mother. My parents’ house is filled with bookshelves crammed with books, some two layers deep, some stacked on top of each other. Mom is never without a book. She joked she got a job volunteering at the library so she’d have a chance to check out the new releases before anyone else. When I was growing up she and Dad worked in the same place. Dad did the driving to and from work and Mom either worked on her needlepoint or read. Now she checks out books on tape so she can listen to books while she sews. My parents let me have an unrestricted library card as soon as I was old enough to have a library card which allowed me to check out books from both the children’s and the adult sections. I grew up reading Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, and Edgar Allan Poe right alongside Lucy Maud Montgomery, Frances Hodgson Burnett, and Lewis Carroll. My parents never told me no in a bookstore and a box filled with the latest Nancy Drews always appeared under the Christmas tree.
     I’ve been writing for almost as long as I can remember, at least since the first or second grade. I’m an introvert and I’ve always found expressing myself in writing easier than expressing myself orally. One of my earliest elementary school class projects was bookmaking—writing and illustrating the story, making the covers, assembling the books. When we finished our books the school librarian added them to the library shelves. I won my first (and, so far, only) writing prize in the sixth grade for a (rather dreadful when I re-read it as an adult) poetic saga about a superhero named XY. I still have the prize—a copy of Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends. In high school I was on the staff of the yearbook and the literary magazine (lots of bad poems about talking cows). As an undergraduate at Vassar College I enrolled in every creative writing class I could find. I even passed up spending junior year abroad so I could take playwriting and screenwriting with Professor James Steerman. I also had the good luck and the pleasure to study children’s literature with Newberry Medal winner, Nancy Willard. Writing took a backseat to medicine while I finished medical school and my family medicine residency (although some of my patient histories did take on a storyteller-like flare as I wrote my chart notes). Once I started working as a full-fledged physician I enrolled in writing classes and workshops whenever I could. Creative writing helped refill my spiritual and mental wells as I dealt with illness, trauma, and drama day in and day out. Eventually, work led to Dallas, Texas where I found SMU’s creative writing program, The Writer’s Path. That program led to a finished manuscript which led me to where I am now, a debut author with a published mystery, Murder in G Major.
 

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ALONE TOGETHER

 Today’s guest post is courtesy of Roger Johns, the author of DARK RIVER RISING, a crime thriller forthcoming from Minotaur Books-St. Martin’s Press in August 2017. Thanks, Roger!Reach Roger atRoger.johns@rogerjohnsbooks.comeWww.rogerjohnsbooks.comeRogerjohns.wordpress.com
            One of the most delightful discoveries I’ve made since taking up the writing life is that while writing is a solitary endeavor, it need not be a solitary life. During the last few years, as I’ve traveled the road from aspiring writer to soon-to-be published writer, I’ve spent quite a bit of time at book signings and launch parties, the New York Pitch Fest, several iterations of the Atlanta Writers Conference, a few book festivals, many meetings of writers’ associations such as the Atlanta Writers Club and the Georgia Romance Writers, and many, many meetings with critique groups and critique partners. And, a few weeks ago, I attended my first Bouchercon–a nationwide convention devoted to writers and readers of mysteries and thrillers.
                Every one of these events serves a very specific and valuable function, in terms of building a writing career–agents and editors are met, ideas are pitched, one’s skin is thickened to the professional grade of toughness required to survive in the book business, the craft of writing is learned and learned and learned some more, and at some point, if the stars line up just right, all of this going and doing creates a bridge you can cross into the realm of the published author. All of these things are good and necessary and, without a doubt, some of the finest moments one can experience along the trail. But, wait, wait, there’s more . . .
                That ‘more’ is the opportunity to make so many wonderful personal connections along the way. One can never have too many real friends and, as I’ve discovered, the writing world is a fruitful place to find them. Everyone in the writing community is struggling toward the same goals, running into the same challenges, suffering the same worries, and riding high on the same joys. Plus, we’re all motivated and captivated by the same obsession–the desire to read and write good stories.
                Maybe it’s just me, but of all the hundreds and hundreds of people I’ve met through my involvement in the writing community, the iconic solitary, curmudgeonly writer has rarely been one of them. In fact, as I sit here, writing this, I can’t think of a single one. The open-arms welcome seems to be standard operating procedure.
                As one of the big-name writers on the program at Bouchercon explained to an auditorium packed to the walls with readers and writers that success in the writing business is not a zero-sum game–in fact, it’s just the opposite. When the number of good mysteries and thrillers increases, the number of opportunities for people to become readers of such books increases, and the number of readers and fellow authors to connect with grows, as well. Amen, to that. And it was impossible not to notice that the writers who sat together on the panel presentations frequently seemed to be long-time friends with each other. During the book-signings and the meet-and-greet sessions that followed the panels, it was evident that there were a great many writer-reader friendships on display, as well.
                So, while for some, the solitary act of writing may lead down that shadowy corridor into a cloistered life, I’ll take a pass on that. Yes, I do like long, uninterrupted stretches of time to get the writing done, but I also like long, uninterrupted stretches of time with the people that make the writing so worthwhile to begin with. And what a great bunch of folks, it is. As if the chance to tell stories for a living weren’t an attractive enough proposition already.

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How creative are you?

 Most writers claim some modicum of creativity. Any writer of fiction does, after all, we are creating people, places (or at least the specific description of a real place), dialogue, sometimes even entire worlds.  But I believe extra credit should be given to those among us who create not only books, but words, and indeed, entire genres. Horace Walpole was such a man. What do I envy most about him? The creation of the word serendipity. Today it is defined as ‘luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for.’ He first used the word in a letter, calling the word ‘very expressive’. It was not a word created out of thin air: Serendip was the old name for Sri Lanka. However, it was not the exotic geography that led to his word serendipity. There was a very early detective story titled ‘The Three Princes of Serendip’ that told the story of three princes who track down a missing camel through luck and good fortune. Walpole was inspired by their tale and, voilà, serendipity was born. If that weren’t enough, Walpole created the Gothic genre with the novel The Castle of Otranto. Technically he probably deserves some credit for modern marketing since he pretended the novel was a sixteenth century manuscript discovered among the possessions of an ‘ancient Catholic family.’ It was published to great acclaim and popularity and it was only with subsequent printings that Walpole added a note to the effect that it was an original, modern work of fiction. Since I began my professional career as an architect I also have to admire the fact that Walpole created an architectural style. His London residence, Strawberry Hill House, pre-figured the nineteenth-century Gothic revival, lending its name to ‘Strawberry Hill Gothic’ architecture. Gloom was the watchword. I can’t help but wonder if he was the eighteenth century equivalent of JK Rowling. She elevated the stature of young adult books in the marketplace, creating a series that led to blockbuster movies and a theme park. Walpole created a genre and an architectural style. Not bad for a pair of storytellers. Dare I say aspirational? 

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The accoutrements of writing. Part 3. The Place.

 I agree with PD James that all she needed was a pad of paper and a chair in order to write. That said, I like variety. I’m a peripatetic writer. I move from the front porch (it’s an old Victorian house so the porch is 38 feet long, a marvel that should be enjoyed and appreciated!) to the studio (where I have a big monitor, all the better to read the manuscript in fine detail) to various chairs around the house (where I constantly whine that what I really need is a footstool). Stephen King has said that a writer should face a wall in order to focus. The length of my front lawn is a type of wall. It’s walnut and maple trees and grass, peaceful and not distracting. I don’t think much about what’s around me when I’m writing. Music helps me focus and I am well trained to keep my eyes on the screen. Steve Berry once placed a sign on his writing studio that read something along the lines of “Writer at work, please do not disturb.” He eventually realized that he wasn’t keeping his family out as much as he was trying to keep himself in. That’s the hard part. Where do you work so you won’t think that mowing the lawn or doing laundry is a better alternative? That’s the blank wall. The place where you don’t pick a usually avoided chore as a way to avoid the real problem: a blank page. To stay focused I’ve created a distraction that makes me get back to work. If I’m drifting and thinking that for once in my life I should do the dishes, I first visit the large piece of butcher paper taped in my upstairs corridor. It is lined with marks indicating ten page increments and I update where my story is. The story shifts down as detail is added and I reflect on the arc of the action. If I’m really thinking about doing the dishes I compare it to earlier story boards with other books outlined on them. Somewhere on this paper I find an entry to the story – maybe it’s not the next scene or chapter. Perhaps it is earlier and a detail that I recognize should be added. Maybe I jump beyond and write a scene I know will have to be written. The outline on paper reminds me of how much is left to be down and that I have done it before. Anyone done once can be done again. Right? Then it’s back to one of my places… it really doesn’t matter which one because in the end the only space I need is the one in my mind.  

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The accoutrements of writing. Part 2. Tools.

 Not the grammar and vocabulary. Not those tools. The other ones. Are you a typewriter person (still) or a pen and paper person? Most of us are keyboarding. I am on a keyboard for a few reasons, including the obvious ones: ease of correction and the need to have a digital manuscript at some point. However, I have a collection of typewriters ranging from Underwood to IBM and a serious obstacle to using many of them is how hard it is to punch those keys. The newer electric ones are even a bit of a pound compared to the lightest of touches required on my Mac. I want to see the hands of the newspapermen and women who pounded out story after story on these marvels of iron. The oldest in my collection is the Underwood and the keyboard is at such a steep angle and the keys are so stiff it is no wonder the hunt and peck method was used. It takes all the force of my hand directed at one finger to make that key strike hard enough. Bruised fingertips anyone? The ink pen hits a similar roadblock. The first thing to consider is the type of pen. As much as I hate to admit it, the modern roller ball is a marvel of invention. It is light weight and the ink flows. If you take this for granted – after all, why shouldn’t ink simply flow – then you haven’t had the pleasure of using a fine fountain pen much less an old quill. I love my Mont Blanc, it is a thing of beauty and elegance but it’s not exactly light weight and… well, the ink. Once you open that cap you had better write and keep writing otherwise the nib goes dry. On the other end you need to allow enough time for the ink to dry on the page. Generations of fountain pen writers must have had a cadence to their work that reflected this. Slow and steady to keep the ink flowing and at the same allow time for the ink to dry. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is one reason penmanship was so elegant. You needed to allow time and that allowed for the perfect construction of letters. My handwriting is a mere scribble – it looks like I took the medical school class where doctors learn to write unintelligibly – and can be useless even to me. What was that word? That note? It needs to come with a translation dictionary. I also have a collection of inkwells. They run the gambit from heavy bronze to cut glass and silver to a hollowed out seashell. Their forms are endlessly creative. They are formal and playful. They are crafted in the shape of wild animals and solemn squares. I won’t bother to detail the problems with a quill pen (I use the word pen loosely here). Scratch scratch sums it up. Think inks blots. Dry ink. Spilled ink. It’s enough to make you dash off a quick email to the folks who created the modern keyboard and the delete button and undo and save and save as and so many other conveniences that we take for granted. While I celebrate – and use – the most modern of writing tools I realize that they aren’t necessary. That’s part of the beauty of writing. Scratch words in the dirt, use the end of a borrowed broken pencil on a paper napkin. The meaning of the words is what matters. That is the constant that connects all writers from the first moment someone wrote the story of Ulysses’ journey until today and this very moment. So pick a writing tool and just get on with it. 

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The accoutrements of writing. Part 1. The music.

There’s a bit of debate among writers: which is better, the sound of silence or a perfect play list? I vote playlist. Perhaps because silence is too distracting. After all, there is always some noise and while writing I don’t want to think about anything other than what is going on in my mind. This is not a time to admire the twittering of birds, or the thump of a hammer as the house renovation continues across the street. It is certainly not a time to wonder how the walnuts got to be so big this year. (Even the thought of this is distracting. There must be an answer. These nuts are – and I am serous – louder than any other walnuts, ever. It is possible that the clever squirrels have filled them with lead. We live in a late Victorian house and the sound of the crash of the nuts on the metal roofs of the porches is enough to make you think an army is walking around up there.) You get the point. I want to control the environment. Because of this I have several playlists, each for a different situation. The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos are my ‘silence’ track. The songs flow seamlessly one to the next, the voices are instruments, subtle and harmonious. Why play them at all if they are ‘silence’ or background? They set a pace…. Steady, measured, and consistent. They are my concentrate and write partners. They mask the background of my neighborhood and help me focus. A notch up from this is any Indian music I can stream. (Thank you YouTube.) It likely helps that I don’t understand Hindi, so the words are music without the distraction of a story line. The rhythm varies between brisk, romantic and adventurous.  It is evocative without being overpowering. And it is enough to keep my mind off the walnuts. Sometimes I need a little more pep – they say Stephen King writes to mind blowing loud rock music (he lives in Maine… is it possible that he needs to drown out even louder falling walnuts?). For my level of pep I have a playlist of – even to me –  random songs. The range includes Carrie Underwood, U2, The Eagles, Adele, One Republic, and Coldplay among many others. It bounces all over the place and quite frankly some of the songs are loud and in-your-face. How does this help keep me in my mental zone? No shuffling, that’s the rule. It is amazing how the mind filters when it knows what to expect. I can listen to this list and when it stops after an hour and fifty five minutes it’s time for a break. Have I ‘heard’ any of the songs? Not really. It is possible that I don’t even like some of them, but they keep me motivated in some inexplicable way. They pass in one ear and out the other, literally. Hit shuffle and my subconscious knows something is off. With each new song there is a tiny pause to acknowledge it. Not good. I’m curious to know what others do. Silence? Music? I’ve just checked and I’ve played my ‘pep’ list 183 times. There must be something about it that I like. I just paused for a listen and the Charlie Daniels Band was playing the Devil Goes Down to Georgia. It was a surprise, even to me.

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Miss Demeanors

A Blog for Readers and Writers of Mystery, Crime, and Suspense Fiction

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