Miss Demeanors

 I admit it. I love New York … for a lot of reasons. There are the little things. The first crisp morning in the fall, a bag of still-warm bagels, early morning walks in Central Park, getting lost in the Met, ogling cheeses at Agata & Valentina, ogling shoes at Diane B, noodles in Korea Town, chopped chicken Cobb salad from my local diner. Then there are the big things. The names that get capitalized and are spoken of with reverence: The Whitney, The U.S. Open, Eleven Madison Park, Fashion Week, Broadway, The Empire State Building. You know, all those things that get described as world class? That list is long. Then, there are the New Yorkers. I’ve lived in several small towns, a suburb or two, and a few big cities. New Yorkers are some of the most helpful, quirky, friendly, and fabulous people you’ll ever meet, which is why I’m dedicating this week to loving New Yorkers. I’m playing journalist for the next few days as I track down some of New York’s very own book people, starting with a woman who needs no introduction, Dru Ann Love. As anyone who has had the pleasure of meeting Dru, you know she absolutely radiates positivity and kindness. Not only is she a 2017 MWA Raven Award Recipient and blogger extraordinaire, she’s also a native New Yorker. While she’s usually the one doing the asking, I pinned her down and asked her a few questions of my own.  Alison: First of all, congratulations on being nominated for the 2018 Anthony Award Best Online Content! I’m not alone in knowing that Dru’s Book Musings is one of the best on-line resources for both mystery readers and mystery writers. None of us who check out your blog regularly would want to live without out it. Thank you. What amazes me constantly is how much and how quickly you read. How many books do you get through in an average week? Dru: Thank you. On average, I read 2-3 books per week. If I read short stories or a story featured in an anthology, that may bring the number of books read up to four. Alison: Your “day in the life” is genius. It’s such a fun way for readers to get to know characters from their favorite books. How did you come up with the idea? Dru: I told this story multiple times, but I’ll put a different spin to this question. You know how sometimes you finish a book that captured your attention and you felt part of all the action? So, after the killer is caught, don’t you think, what else is the protagonist going to do next in their normal life? And that’s how I came up with this feature. What is a typical day when the protagonist is not chasing down clues and solving a murder. Alison: As someone who has read as much as you have–and with an analytical eye–can you tell us what makes you fall in love with a novel? Dru: Sometimes it’s that first page or the first chapter or it can also be the characters. A book, again, that pulls you in where you wish you had 24 solid hours to enjoy the story being told. Sometimes I can judge a good book when I missed my subway stop because I got immersed in all that I was reading. Alison: Do you consider yourself a New Yorker?  Dru: I was born and raised and still live in the borough of Brooklyn. A true New Yorker born and bred, can tell you the exact borough, neighborhood and street where they grew up. The right of passage for a New Yorker is taking that first solo subway ride or bus ride.  Alison: What New York writers do you love?  Dru: Too many to count and do you mean New York City writers? If so, there is you, Susan Elia MacNeal, Cathi Soler, Triss Stein, Annamaria Alfieri, Hilary Davidson, Jane K. Cleland, Elizabeth Zelvin, Carrie Smith to name a few. Alison: What about New York could you not live without?  Dru: The subway, since I don’t drive.  That may be the most New Yorker answer one could get. Thank you, Dru!           

    Michele:   My blog post on Wednesday focused on people watching, one of my favorite things to do as a writer. I’ve written about how years of people watching in courthouses has filled me with stories. I’ve written about people watching on planes, boats, and cabs. So my question for my fellow Miss Demeanors was, do you people-watch? Where do you do your best people watching? Do you incorporate what you see into the stories that you write?  Cate:   I constantly people watch. One of my favorite things is to pay attention to other people’s tables at restaurants 🙂 slyly, of course, so as not to creep anyone out.  Paula:    I travel a lot, and so my people watching happens mostly at airports and train stations. Fortunately for me, they are great places to watch people. Although in truth I’m always watching the people around me. I spent much of my childhood in new places, including other countries, and so I’m used to being the outsider observing the locals. I suspect it’s very good training for a writer.  Alison:   Of course! I probably first started people watching at church when I was little and had to sit for hours and not fidget. By the time I got to college, one of my favorite airport activities was “guess the country of origin.” When I’m lucky, I overhear a snippet of conversation to see if I guess correctly. It’s the most interesting when I’m wrong. I think someone will be speaking Russian and it turns out he or she is speaking Italian. It forces me to rethink all the little clues that make up how I perceive other human beings. My daughter made an observation when we were people watching in Berlin a few years ago. She said I didn’t look like an American tourist because American women tend to wear their hair long. I hadn’t noticed until she said something, but when I started paying attention to that detail, she was right. Of course, I was an American tourist, so my short hair would have been a misdirect. (Okay, okay, I did live in Germany as a kid and still speak German, so maybe that’s not an entirely fair example.)   Paula:   I really think American women should get over that long hair thing LOL   Alexia:   Do I people watch? Have you seen my Facebook dispatches live from the Deerpath Inn?I people watch at restaurants, public transportation, hotel lobbies, the Symphony Center, church, pretty much anywhere people gather. To paraphrase Matthew 18:20, for where two or three gather, there I am with them watching and listening.             I don’t generally use exact quotes from what I overhear or exact descriptions of what I see in my writing but I do create characters and dialogue that were inspired by real life people and conversations. Michele:   I have seen your posts about the Deerpath Inn, Alexia. Don’t be surprised if you spot me there someday when you’re people watching. What’s a little plane ride? Alexia: Michele, I’ll show you where the best people watching seats are.    Robin:   Me too, Paula. I’ve had short hair since high school. Once I figured out it’s flattering to my features, I haven’t gone back except a couple of occasions that only served to remind me why I keep my hair short.As for people watching, heck yeah. Commuter trains, restaurants, museums, conferences, walking around cities, it’s all fair game. Airports are interesting because so many people are so stressed out and it manifests in all kinds of ways, some subtle, some not so subtle. I may or may not also occasionally take pictures while pretending to text. Tracee:   Uh oh, what do I do with the long wig I just bought? It’s waves of black hair to my knees… you’re saying that’s probably not my best look? And the matching blond one. Sad. People watching? That sounds much better than eavesdropping, which is what I feel like people watching often turns into. Big cities are the best, and New York in particular. Everyone on their cell phone, often talking very loudly, striding by or sitting down without a care for the people around them. Like Alexia, I have never used sentences poached from this real life, but it has certainly been inspiring. Occasionally I wonder if they are making up their end of the conversation to amuse the crowd around them!  Paula:   When I first started going to NYC on a regular basis when I became an agent, I would post random lines of dialogue heard on the city streets….so funny!  Robin:   I always listen to strangers around me to catch snippets of conversations. They sometimes make great writing prompts. Once in a while, it’s helped me with character enrichment. Michele:   I will confess to eavesdropping too. Occasionally my husband I will be almost completely silent when out to dinner we are so enraptured by a conversation at a nearby table. Afterward we will talk endlessly about what we heard, what each of us thought the people meant, what kind of lives they live… We are such an exciting couple.  Alexia:   I’m so glad I’m not the only sneaky picture taker.Tracee,*Almost* never used.Paula, I will post overheard lines on FB. Some of what I hear is so wild that if I put it in a book it would be edited out as too unrealistic.   Paula: ha! indeed! Robin: I may or may not have snapped this pic while people watching as I waited for takeout Thai food.      

 Like any writer, I need an occasional reminder that I can do this thing we call on Twitter “#amwriting.” It sounds so simple. You pick up a pen or pencil and apply it to paper, or you tap on a keyboard. Bingo, you’re a writer.            Not so easy, as most writers know. Somewhere in the brain, between the creation of what you plan to write and when you actually put it into words, an assortment of messages can appear. Once in a while, the message may be, “Damn, this is sweet. Get it down on paper.” More often, the message is apt to be, “No one wants to read your crap. Go watch TV.” Or “You don’t have anything to say worth reading.” Often it can be, “Remember your last rejection? That agent/editor knew what she was saying. Give it up.”            It takes resilience to be a writer, to overcome the criticisms, rejections, and self-recrimination that outnumber the tiny slivers of success by far. I’m always looking for inspiration and advice about how to buoy the human spirit after a plummeting defeat. Yesterday, I found an unexpected one.            I spend more than half the year living in Outer Cape Cod in a town bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Cape Cod Bay on the other. Life is supposed to be easy here. Cape Cod is blessed with endless breathtaking beaches for swimming and surfing, lobsters, clams and oysters for eating, and bike paths and hiking trails inspired by Thoreau.            I’m not particularly adventurous when it comes to outdoor sports, having grown up under an odd admonition about what activities are “lady-like” and constant warnings about what is not safe. I’m working on that, but while I do, I frequently watch and admire others who know no fear. Brave the elements. Fall down and get up.             Surfers on Cape Cod are my go-to inspirations. All year long, young and old, surfers brave the relentless surf. Age and gender are irrelevant. Each summer, surfers compete in the Cape Cod Oldtimers Longboard Classic.              I am as fascinated by these human creatures of the sea as I am the whales, seals and yes, sharks. I go from beach to beach, usually later in the day, to watch surfers in their wet suits tote their boards down steep sand embankments into the frothy sea. I silently send messages out to them when I think a good wave is coming, as if I were their partner, but they have minds of their own and pick their own wave. They climb up, sometimes gracefully, more often clumsily. The moment they capture that wave, ride it triumphantly, even if it is only for a few seconds, I feel their elation.             More often they fall before rising, or never even climb up. No matter, falling is irrelevant. There is always another wave, another chance. You need only to get up and try again.            Yesterday, I rode to Newcomb Hollow Beach where a young surfer died from a shark attack several weeks ago. Much has been written about the tragedy. There I photographed a memorial for twenty-six year-old, Arthur Medici, with messages of love and support. If you look in the distance beyond the memorial, you will see two specks of black in the ocean. Surfers. While you may question the wisdom of taking to the sea, you cannot question the power of resilience.

  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?