Where Am I?

Our question this week is: How often do you step back and take stock of where you are in your writing life and where you want to go?

                                                       

Terry here.

I frequently “take stock” if that means agonizing over what I’m working on now and wondering if it’s good enough to keep going or if I would be better served turning  to one of the ideas waiting in the wings. My inner dialogue goes something like this: “Should I stop what I’m doing, or persevere? Am I beating a dead horse, or if I stop now is it because I don’t have the ability to stick to it? Is the book I’m working on actually the book I intended to write? Do I need to stop and start over? Is that stupid? Where am I ?” If that’s what is meant by taking stock, then I do it all the time. More likely, though, it’s just.

Publishing my first book was the fulfillment of a long-time dream. Having the series be popular, with good reviews and award nominations was more than I ever hoped for. But reaching and even exceeding my originals goal didn’t mean sitting back and congratulating myself. It meant more goals—and working harder and faster to achieve them. Which means constantly taking stock of how far I have come and where I might go. Coming to publishing at an (ahem) older age, I feel a particular push to produce more, more, more.

                                                

I want to be the best author I can be, so put a lot of effort into it. I edit my work carefully, send it to my writers groups and beta readers, then edit some more. All of that work would be useless if no one reads the books. So that means working at promoting my books. Which in turn means more goals and more taking stock:  Am I present enough on social media? Am I producing a newsletter often enough? How do I get more subscribers? How do I entertain my readers in between books? Should I give them a contest? Should I give them some swag? A short story? Do I do enough events? Or am I doing too many? Are people sick of hearing my name? Again, this is a constant battle. Taking stock, or obsessing? Which is it?

                                        

I think mostly I’m obsessing. To take stock of where I am and where I want to go, I have to take a wider view. With my eighth Samuel Craddock book coming out next week, it’s a particularly good time to think about where I want to go. I have written down ideas for eight more Craddock books, but I also have ideas for standalones. And yesterday, to my annoyance, I thought of an idea for a new series that I thought would be great fun. Oh, to be forty again, with the energy that came with those years, as well as seeing long years stretch out in front of me. Yes, I still have a lot of energy, but I also am realistic about the time I have left.

I am also painfully aware of the time and effort it takes to be a published author, beyond the writing itself. One of the things I think about is possibly just writing, and giving up the burden of promotion and marketing. My publisher, Seventh Street Books, has contracted with a terrific book promotion professional, and the group has done a great job of getting me guest posts, guest articles, and reviews. But guest posts and articles don’t write themselves. They also don’t organize book tours, which I have to do for myself (happily! But still it takes time).

I admit I would love to be picked up by a big publisher that would do a lot of the promo work for me so I could spend more time writing. But it’s a long-shot, and from what I hear it’s rare for even the big publishers to put much money and effort into promotion.

In this mode of taking stock I realized I’m actually pretty happy where I am. For years I hung out with writers, trying to soak up the magic that made them published authors, going to panels and classes, learning, reading writers I admire, writing crap sometimes, and occasionally writing something that seemed okay. I thought that at some point “made it” would mean less of that. But in fact, I still do all of it. I have long conversations with other writers about where the magic comes from (and I’ve found that for most writer’s it’s a baffling process that is sometimes magic and sometimes slogging.) More than ever I read with an eye toward “how did she do that??” I go to classes and panels, and write things that turn out to be worthless as well as a few lines here and there that seem okay. It’s not a bad gig, and I’m along for the ride for the long haul.

And with all that said, here is blatant self-promotion for my next Samuel Craddock book, A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary. It comes out April 23! I hope you’ll give it a try.

Booklist says: “As often happens in Shames’ work, the evil is found to originate in the bitterness of blighted lives, and here the finale is as touching as it is violent. Craddock is a slightly more cerebral version of the late Bill Crider’s rural sheriff Dan Rhodes, but they share a bloodline.”

Dreaming the Next Thing

Q: How often do you step back and take stock of where you are in your writing life and where you want to go? Is this a New Year’s only thing, or do you do it more often? 

-from Susan

Good question. I do it fairly often, usually because I’ve just submitted a manuscript and I’m in a bit of a fallow stage, or because I realize I need to go in a new direction to keep editors interested, or because I realize that time is passing and there’s more I want to say through my writing. 

Comparing myself to other authors who are more successful isn’t much of a motivator. If I like their work, I admire them and keep moving along my path. If I don’t care for their work, I shrug and mind my own business. Authors find their own way to their own success. The biggest spur to me is my own ambition to see my passion for storytelling translated into books and audio because it validates my efforts. 

When I was working in the non-profit world (not that publishing books isn’t a not-for-profit business in its own way!), I did the taking stock thing more formally. About very four years, I would consciously set aside time to dream and inhabit a new potential type of job as specifically as possible: not just what I’d be doing, but where, for whom, for what financial return, and with what resulting lifestyle. Since I was an external officer at these jobs, the lifestyle issue was important – lots of black tie events? Cultural activities? Being on call for crisis communication moments? Weekend work? It was uncanny. I found that if I could see my goal clearly and viscerally, it tended to come to fruition. No woo woo, but I think having that take hold in my head made me more open to opportunities. 

The same can happen with writing to some extent. After all, I have five books in print right now and I think more to come – more than I dreamed of when I started writing seriously a decade ago. I have author friends who are far more energetic and entrepreneurial than I am and whose dreams include awards and major financial success. For some reason, that dream hasn’t grabbed me with as much fervor as it has them.  Maybe I need a week on the beach with no distractions to let my next ‘taking stock’ bloom!

A brief bit of promotion is allowed on Criminal Minds. All of my books are in print and available in hard copy, e-book format. And several are also available as audiobooks. Come on, try one!

Still Paddling in the Shallow End

By Abir

"Has your approach to writing changed during the time you’ve been published? What was the change in response to? Or, if not, have you considered other approaches and rejected them? What were they, and why?"

I was asking myself a related question about a week ago. Not so much, has my writing changed, but rather should it change?

What prompted it? Possibly that I’ve just put the finishing touches to the fourth novel in the Wyndham and Banerjee series and am about to commence on the fifth. I started on my first book in 2013. It took me two years to write and was published in 2016. Since then I’ve been on the literary treadmill, contracted to writing a book a year.

I’ve learned a lot over the course of that time: about how to write and also about my protagonists, Sam Wyndham and Surrender-not Banerjee. I feel I've begun to get under their skins, I now understand their distinct personalities and their voices. I also feel I’ve developed as a writer (though believe me, there’s still an awful long way to go).

Nevertheless, I still approach writing the novels in the same way. I’ve never been confident enough in myself to risk pantsing it. (I’m an accountant during daylight hours, so that might help explain matters).

My books are historical crime fiction set in India during the British Raj, and I tend to start by spending a few months researching the specific year or period the book is to be set in. I’ll try and pick one or two key events from that year to weave into the background of my story. For example my third novel, Smoke an Ashes, is set in the winter of 1921, against the backdrop of Gandhi’s freedom movement and the arrival of Prince Edward (later King Edward the Eighth who married Wallace Simpson and abdicated) on a tour of India. There’s a killer on the loose and Wyndham and Banerjee need to stop him before things spiral out of control. 

Once I have an idea of the setting and the backdrop, I’ll try and plot out the arc of my story – generally only a few pages – the barest of skeletons, but which, like a compass, is something I can use to show me the rough direction I should be heading in when things get choppy.

And they do get choppy. As my colleagues have pointed out, characters have minds of their own. Quite often they simply stick two fingers up at me (my characters, not my colleagues) and decide to do their own thing, heading left when I want them to go right. It’s exhilarating but also scary, and when they’ve gone off to do whatever it is they’ve decided on, I find it useful to have that overall skeleton to try and get them gradually back towards the destination I had in mind for them.

So why do I want to change, and what would I like to do differently? 

I’d like to change things before they start to get stale. If I start to get bored with my writing, I’ve no doubt my readers will too. For me, as I’d imagine for many other authors, writing is as much about the challenge as it is about the pleasure of the story. I try to push myself forward with each novel, hoping to become a better writer. My first three novels were all told in one linear timeline. For my fourth, I’ve set the action in two places and two times, India in 1922 and the East End of London in 1905. It proved a tougher book to write, but I hope it’s better for the duality and I feel I’ve grown as a writer.

I’m also experimenting with the narrative voice. My books are narrated in the first person by Sam Wyndham, and his voice is part of the overall experience. I don’t feel I can change that for this series. Nevertheless, I’ve set myself the challenge this year of writing a number of short stories in the third person and from alternate viewpoints, and when I get round to writing a novel which is not part of the series, I’d like to write it in the third person.

Finally, my dream would be to pants a novel one day. To just sit down and write without that safety net of my research. I imagine how liberating it must be. But for now, I’m still paddling in the shallow end, with my plotting and my skeleton plan.

Confessions of a laid-back control-freak

"Has your approach to writing changed during the time you’ve been published? What was the change in response to? Or, if not, have you considered other approaches and rejected them? What were they, and why?"

By Catriona. 

Not Jim. 

Because I'm blogging my buns off for publication week:

available now at Indiebound, B&N, Amazon or Avid Reader
(where I can sign it for you at the party on Friday night)

Scot and Soda is my twenty-fourth published novel (twenty-five to twenty-seven are written and are currently at various bends in the publishing pipeline). But the answer to the first bit of this question is almost no. The answer to the second bit is ohhhhhhhhh yes indeedy.

When I first started, in 2001, I sat down in my brand-new writing room, at my brand-new computer - one of those mushroom-coloured ones with a monitor the size of a washing machine - and typed "Chapter 1". Then I kept typing for 100K words, finding out what happened. On the last page, I changed my mind about whodunit. When I was finished I researched all the stuff I'd made up and went over the draft changing the things I'd got wrong - trains, dates, fashions, etc. But I didn't have to change any clues to account for the new perp. They were all in there already. It felt like magic.

I did the same for the second book. I've got a clear memory of writing a detailed description of a castle interior, thinking "I'll have to ditch all this; it's completely extraneous". Then, while I writing the last chapter, chasing the characters through a woodland, trying to keep up, the baddie swerved into the castle and all the stuff I'd written - arrow-slits, oubliette, murder hole - dove-tailed into the chase perfectly. It felt like magic and magic, it turned out, felt like fun.

When I was halfway through the third book, though, I went to a workshop. It was organised by the Society of Authors (i.e. it was legit) and at it I met two women who're still pals - Aline Templeton (a crime fiction writer) and Jane Hill (now a stand-up comic). For that reason, I'll never be sorry. BUT I also met a bossy writer who informed me that I was doing it all wrong. (I can't remember her name and I've never seen her face staring out at me from huge posters in bookshops. Just sayin'.) 

Apparently, according to Miss Bossy Knickers, I had to write character bibles, chapter outlines, scene skeletons and beat maps. (I might have made some of that up.) And I certainly had to do a wet ton of research well in advance of any actual writing.

I tried it. Because I'm an idiot.  Because I'm the youngest of four sisters and big girls telling me what to do has a strong hold over me. Well. The first four chapters of my third book were pure stodge. It was like trying to shovel concrete while it sets. After a month, I ripped up all the notes, added a witch and an undercover artist and went back to seeing what happened. 

And here's the thing: when I looked over that draft, the only bits I had to change were in those first four "properly-written" chapters. Pah!

At this stage, my plan was to keep my grubby little secret to myself, nod and smile when other writers talked about outlines and go my own sweet way. But it was at that moment that I was fortunate enough to read Stephen King's On Writing. In it, King talks about his research method, and guess what - he does it afterwards, same as me.

It was quite the confidence booster, to discover that a way of working you dreamed up for yourself is shared by one of your favourite writers (who also happens to be a global best-seller and prolific with it). It spurred me on to stick to my other way of working - following characters through woodlands and into castles etc.

It still feels like magic, but turns out it's not always fun. I only worked out what my last book was about on page 280 of the first draft. It's 287 pages long. That was a bit of a squeaker. But when I go back to read it over, I bet the sense I couldn't see is in there already. If not . . . well, I've had a good run, eh?

On a Roll

Has your approach to writing changed during the time you’ve been published? What was the change in response to? Or, if not, have you considered other approaches and rejected them? What were they, and why?

by Dietrich

There are times I think it’s best to stick to what works, and then there are times I want to try something new. 

Since I started writing the process has become easier. Confidence came along, and I generally know when I’ve got it right. I’ve also learned to recognize when it’s time to stop. But, I don’t want to become so comfortable that the writing becomes routine. So, it’s good to take a new approach or a chance now and then. I’ve tried different genres, different points of view and perspectives and explored various settings and eras.

My first three novels were unrelated modern-day crime stories written in third person, all set on Canada’s west coast where I live. Then I tried a historical novel, House of Blazes, set in San Francisco during the great quake and fire of 1906. It was interesting and involved a lot of research and fact checking. Then it was back to Vancouver for the onset of the punk rock era during the late seventies. It was an intriguing period in music and that one, Zero Avenue, was seen through the eyes of a female protagonist. I followed it with the current one, Poughkeepsie Shuffle, written in first person and set in the mid-eighties in Toronto where I used to live, and alternating between upstate New York. The one coming out in October is Call Down the Thunder, and it’s set in Kansas during the dustbowl days of the late 1930s. Again, there was a lot of research. And I followed that with a story that starts in Vancouver and takes readers up to Alaska. It’s due out next year. Right now I’m focused on a true story about a couple of lesser-known bank robbers who were at large in the Plains during the late thirties.

I wrote my third and fourth novels simultaneously, alternating between drafts. I thought that taking a long break from the first draft of one while getting started on the next one could be a good way to go. Then I alternated back and forth until they were both complete. It did work out in the end, and they were both finished in about a year and a half, but I doubt that I’ll try it again.

My first drafts are usually penned in longhand. There’s something organic about it. Then I type the second draft into my computer. It’s so much easier to deal with the amount of changes I make at that stage. Plus, I can only imagine my publisher’s reaction if I sent them a manuscript written in longhand.

I generally do my best writing early in the day, and I often go from the time I get up until about noon. Sometimes I write again in the early evening. I just have more energy and a clearer head at those times.

One thing that remains the same for me, it’s a creative expression, one that needs a high level of belief and enthusiasm in what I’m doing. And that level needs to carry me through from beginning to end. I think if I couldn’t maintain that, then I doubt a reader would want to stick with the story either.

For inspiration I read a lot, and I like anything from crime novels to science fiction to autobiographies, as long as I feel the writing is good. I’ve recently revisited a couple of old favorites: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, published in 1962, and Deliverance by James Dickey, published in 1970. I also just finished George Pelecanos’ The Man Who Came Uptown, The Good German by Joseph Kanon, and House of Earth by Woody Guthrie. All very good and all very inspiring.

Zeroing In by Brenda Chapman

Question: Has your approach to writing changed during the time you’ve been published? What was the change in response to? Or, if not, have you considered other approaches and rejected them? What were they, and why?

The major change in my approach to writing since I've been published has been to  focus on a specific market. I began writing books to satisfy my desire to create and this hasn't changed. I also wanted to experiment and to push myself artistically and I continue to do both. However, after writing for both young adults and adults in alternating projects, I settled on writing for the adult market alone. 

My first attempts at creative writing after university were short stories and I was fortunate to have them published in various formats. My first official contract was with Canadian Living -- a story about my daughters growing up in a city as opposed to the small town where I was raised, and my worry that they were missing out. I followed this with a few mystery short stories before I ventured into mystery novels for the young adult audience.

I spent those early writing years visiting schools, teaching workshops, judging public library writing contests, all for  kids. I joined groups that focused on the children's market and went to conferences with the same target market. However, I continued to write short stories for adults and when the YA series ended, I tried my hand at a full-length adult mystery entitled In WInter's Grip. This was followed by another YA coming of age standalone (for older teens) called Second Chances. Add in some adult literacy mystery novellas, and I had all my friends completely confused. I was amusing myself with all this variety, but as an agent once told me, "You have to pick one market or you will not develop a reader following."

I somewhat reluctantly stopped writing for the YA market because I came to believe the truth of what the agent had advised. The YA market is a separate industry with its own reviewers, writing organizations, and festivals. It is difficult to stay on top of latest writing trends in this genre and to keep abreast of the adult mystery genre at the same time. I made a conscious decision to focus on adult novels although this didn't stop me from keeping two series going - the Stonechild and Rouleau police procedurals and the Anna Sweet adult literacy novellas. I was still experimenting, however, since I'd never written a police procedural before. Plus, Anna Sweet is a P.I. so this was another variation on the theme. In addition, I tried my hand at third person, alternating viewpoint in the Stonechild books and kept writing in first person for the Anna Sweets. Enough variety to keep me amused :-)

This year, I've completed the contracts for both series and the path forward is wide open once again. I've had a couple of ideas percolating in my brain and am currently knee deep in a new manuscript - this time, a standalone thriller. Still for the adult audience and under the mystery/suspense umbrella but certainly a new challenge. I'm thinking about getting back into short story writing but not until I have a solid idea.

My advice to writers starting out would be to choose an audience and genre and to settle in for several projects. There can be lots of variety within a chosen area, but readers will follow you more easily if they aren't wondering who your latest publication is for. An option is to use a pseudonym to keep audiences separate, but it can be difficult enough to gain a readership with one name. Once you've acquired a following, hopefully your readers will follow you if you decide to write in another genre or for another age level. 

website: brendachapman.ca
Facebook: BrendaChapmanAuthor
Twitter brendaAchapman

Separating the Art from the Artist

Regarding AJ Finn (Dan Mallory) and his blatant lies, how important is an author’s personal ethics in your regard for his or her work? Knowing about Mallory’s public lies, would you still read his book?

by Paul D. Marks

Well, the point in this particular instance is moot since I read the book well before the controversy broke. So I can’t say 100% for sure if I would have read it had I known about all of Mallory’s shenanigans. I might still have wanted to read it, though maybe I wouldn’t have wanted to pay for it. Maybe get it from the library or some other source.

Mallory/AJ Finn’s book The Woman in the Window was a huge best seller and is being made into a movie. For those unfamiliar with Dan Mallory’s/Finn’s transgressions here’s just a sampling: He claimed his mother and brother had died, mom of cancer, brother of suicide. Both are alive and well. He claimed he had cancer and surgery for a brain tumor. Apparently he even sent e-mails under his brother’s name with updates on his condition. He claimed to be British and went around speaking in a British accent, using British phrases, like going to the loo. And there’s more.

That said, lots of artists (fine artists, painters, wall painters, wallpaper hangers, musicians, writers, actors, etc.) are schmucks of one kind or another. Wagner was a major anti-Semite, Hitler liked him and his music was played in concentration camps. Picasso is said to have been one nasty s.o.b. Celine was an anti-Semite. And many celebs today are not nice or even decent people, some of which I can attest to personally. I don’t listen to Wagner, unless I’m watching Apocalypse Now, but not because of his views. His music just isn’t my cup of tea, and I do like some classical music and especially baroque. But I still look at Picasso paintings. I still read Celine. – Check out this piece at the New York Times, “He’s a Creep, but Wow, What an Artist!”: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/opinion/artists-assault-fans.html

Generally speaking, I’d say you have to separate the art from the artist, which is easier in some cases than in others. I suppose someone could do something so egregious that I wouldn’t listen to their music, read their books, go to their movies, etc. And I’m not saying there isn’t a little twinge sometimes when I see/hear/read these people and their work. But I think there’s way too much nitpicking people apart these days.

I wouldn’t want someone to not read my books because they don’t like the fact that I like the Beatles as much as I do and that’s about how silly it’s getting. We’ve all said and done things we shouldn’t have, things we regret, but that’s not the whole of our beings. And certainly not our writings, our art.

On a similar note, people are defriending others simply because they disagree with them. Around Christmas time I usually put up a satirical video by the Dropkick Murphys. I think it’s funny. I guess some people don’t because a Facebook friend defriended me for putting up that video. (Judge for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTx-sdR6Yzk ) She was offended by it. She raked me over the coals, both in the comments section and in private e-mails. She was also angry about another video that another friend posted in the comments. I didn’t even post that one and she tore into me for it. I apologized for offending her three times, but I wouldn’t remove the video that I’d put up. I did a piece about this for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, which you can find here: https://somethingisgoingtohappen.net/2018/08/01/flame-wars-more-by-paul-d-marks/

None of us – none (not even Mother Teresa, I’m sure) – could stand up to the scrutiny of every minute of our lives. We all have things in our pasts, things that may even have seemed innocent at the time, but in retrospect maybe aren’t. An off-color joke, an unwanted advance, an angry outburst like Liam Neeson admitted to recently (https://www.nme.com/news/film/liam-neeson-removed-from-queens-university-belfast-prospectus-after-controversial-race-comments-2468159 ). Will you avoid his movies, past, present and future, forever? Is he persona non grata now?

I’m not excusing anything anyone’s done, I’m just saying we’ve all done things we regret, but that they aren’t the totality of our being.

I see things that annoy me or bother me or piss me off one way or another all the time, on Facebook, in the media, in real life. About people whose works I like. And mostly I just let it go, as I hope people will let go my transgressions because we are all only human.

Semi-Spoiler Alert re: The Woman in the Window:

And now to bring it full circle, back to Mallory and The Woman in the Window (also the name of a terrific film noir from 1944, which Mallory took his title from, and starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea, and directed by Fritz Lang – check it out). I liked the book okay, but thought the ending was a bit of a letdown.

What about you? How do you react to artists who are less than stellar in their private lives?

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

The Anthonys. Well, from the BSP Department and since Anthony voting is still in progress, I hope you'll consider voting for Broken Windows in the Best Paperback Original Department.

The third story in my Ghosts of Bunker Hill series, Fade Out on Bunker Hill, appears in the March/April 2019 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. If you like the movie Sunset Boulevard, I think you'll enjoy this story. In bookstores and on newstands now:

Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website www.PaulDMarks.com

Click here to: Subscribe to my Newsletter