Tag: writing

        A famous quote states a woman needs a room of her own if she’s to write fiction. But does she? Many authors have written in cafes, hotels, on buses, in cars, on trains and subways. My fellow Miss Demeanors and I share our writing places. Alexia: My favorite places to write are airplanes and hotel lobby lounges.Airplanes provide some background noise, which keeps my mind from wandering, but not so much noise that I can’t concentrate. The airplane seat provides a personal space, whose borders are defined by the armrests, that most people respect and don’t intrude upon. I occasionally encounter the overly-chatty seatmate who wants to be entertained or wants an audience for their monologue but I’ve gotten pretty good at mono-syllabic answers and body language that discourages unwanted conversation. And the flight’s duration provides a built-in time limit. I write from cruising altitude to preparation for landing.Hotel lobby lounges come with comfortable chairs, food service, and plenty of opportunities for people watching/gathering source material. Paula Munier: Oooh, I need to learn how to do that. I’m gonna try it, Alexia. Mostly I just sleep on planes and trains.As for the question: When I was a young reporter with small children at home, I could work in a crowded noisy news room or a crowded noisy kitchen, no problem.But now that my children are grown, and I work from home in an often empty house, I’ve grown spoiled. I like quiet, and require it, especially for my handwritten first drafts, which I find difficult in the best of times and places.In warm weather, what I need to wrestle with words is my lucky Waterman pen and my red leather-bound journal and a seat outside down by the lake.In the winter, I retreat to my sofa in front of the roaring fireplace and look out the windows to the now frozen lake for inspiration. Cate: With two young kids and a dog at home, I have learned to write amidst chaos. But I prefer quiet spaces. I like to write in my bedroom when the kids are in school, but have also found I can be pretty productive in the car while waiting to pick them up outside a dance or music class. I tend to edit on planes. Something about being thirty thousand feet in the air makes me ruthless. Any word or thought that doesn’t immediately interest me gets cut. Tracee: I’m with Paula…. I need a lesson in writing on airplanes. I can do it, but… I tend to binge read at 30,000 feet. in everyday life, I prefer writing in a quiet place, although I tend to move around. I like to work at a desk, in a favorite chair, or outdoors on a long table on our porch in the summer. I alternate between typing and writing, so that plays a role. Edits happen on an enormous screen (at a desk!) while the rest can occur anywhere. I do have a strange preference for working in hotels. A good hotel is peaceful, with many places to write – the room, quiet places in the lobby, a breakfast room, some still have writing rooms. Terraces, porches, by the pool… the list goes on. Susan: I love to work in my office, with my dogs snoring at my feet.  When I’m feeling peaceful, my mind feels freer to wander around. But sometimes it’s fun to be in a more frenetic location. I like sitting at one of the tables at Bryant Park and feeling all the energy from the city and scribbling in my notebook… I guess I am the pack rat in this group.  I write surrounded by treasured photos, treasured books, and post-its to remind me who I’m writing about. I’m sorry to say that my entire office looks like this, and there are two cockapoos lounging in a chair to the left of the photo Robin: Anywhere, any time. As an almost-debut author I’m hungry and motivated to write whenever I have stolen moments or can create big chunks of time. An example of a stolen moment is my day job commute. I take a train or subway a couple of times a week, which are great sources of inspiration for drawing characters based on what I see & hear. When I’m home, I alternate between my office and my kitchen. I move to the kitchen when I need to stretch my legs by standing at the counter. I’m standing there right now, in fact. One of these days I’ll invest in a pneumatic desk so I can raise and lower my home office workspace. Michele: For years, I wore so many hats, I had to squeeze writing in whenever I could find time. I wrote in courtrooms, on planes and trains, in classrooms, cars. and offices. Now that my primary focus is writing, I find I still write anywhere I can and choose. I’ve discovered I love writing outdoors (why not?) on a porch, a beach or at a picnic table. I have invested in a waterproof case for my laptop. While I love having a desk to organize me, I prefer to do the physical act of writing on my lap. Why I didn’t know until recently was that lovely lap top antique desks exist, I don’t know. But I’m sure I’m going to find one. Where do you write? 

 All writers are asked: What’s your favorite book? I dread this question because I know that my answer won’t be entirely truthful. I’ll either dive into my store of childhood favorites, or pick the one I’ve read recently. There are books I cherish for the memories they evoke, ones I think of as favorites because they were the first of a kind to me (first mystery, first nineteenth century novel). There are books I wish I’d written, books I wish I could read again for the first time (War and Peace – I wouldn’t know that Prince Andrei dies). MissDemeanors, what’s your favorite book?  Cate:My favorite book depends on when I am asked. At the moment, I would say The Catcher In The Rye because I read it when I was coming of age and I am currently feeling nostalgic. But the correct answer is it depends.  Susan:That is a little like asking me which is my favorite child. If I were stuck on an island with one book, I’d probably pick Jane Eyre, which has always so inspiring to me, even though I think she should have just moved in with Mr. Rochester. But when I think of the book I’ve probably read the most over the course of my life, it would probably be Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced.   Paula Munier (we’re delighted to have you here this week!):There are so many ways to define “favorite” books. If you mean my favorite books as a child, I’d say the Bobbsey Twins.  If you mean the books that rocked my world as a young woman, then I’d say The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris and The Diary of Anne Frank and Emerson’s essays and Nora Ephron’s Heartburn and The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving and The Color Purple by Alice Walker. If you mean the books I read over and over again, then I’d say  those by Alice Hoffman and Elizabeth Berg and Jane Austen and Louise Penny and Shakespeare and all my favorite poets (this is a long list, topped by Emily Dickinson and Pablo Neruda and Maya Angelou and Mary Oliver and on and on). If you mean the books that inspire me as an artist, then I’d say those written by Anne Lamott and Mark Nepo and Julia Cameron and Natalie Goldberg. if you mean my favorite books that I’m reading right now, then I’d say Louise Penny’s The Great Reckoning and Terry Tempest Williams’ When Women Were Birds and Mary Oliver’s Upstream. If you’re asking me my favorite book as an agent, then it’s the one I just sold.  But if you’re asking me my favorite book as a writer, then it’s  the one I’m writing. At least when the writing is going well.  Robin:That’s a tough one! Flowers For Algernon is a book I’ve read so many times that my first copy literally fell apart. I held it together with a rubber band until I started losing pages and finally bought a new copy. The the intimacy of the journal format with the use of character voice to heighten the tension just kills me every time. Murder On The Orient Express made me want to write mysteries. It’s the book that really drove home the lesson that characters drive the story, and that particular cast is so vividly drawn. It also showed me that an author can have fun with a theoretically gruesome subject. The first time I read it was right after I read The Exorcist so I responded to the light-hearted change of pace. If you can call murder light-hearted.
 Alexia:My favorite book is still Alice in Wonderland. Alice was the first independent female protagonist I encountered. She had adventures, she solved her own problems, she had smarts and wasn’t afraid to use them. She didn’t sit around like a helpless ninny waiting for some prince to come rescue her. Michele:If I have to choose one book, it would be Pride and Prejudice, which I resisted as a high school senior and felt hopelessly in love with. For years, I read it every spring in honor of Danny Dwyer, the teacher who insisted we read it and died tragically before the age of thirty in an auto accident not long after. I consider it a brilliant romantic comedy and Jane Austen most definitely a woman before her time, who also had to struggle with the woes of publishing.  What about the rest of you? Favorite books? Or too many to name? 

 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….

 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.