My To-Be-Read list

Terry Shames here. This week I get to talk about one of my favorite subjects: what’s in my reading pile.

Since the pile is somewhere around 500 books deep, I’ll have to cherry-pick. To start with, I’ll mention the books I brought with me on my book tour. I had picked up a copy of a book that was popular a few years ago, Norwegian By Night, by Derek B. Miller, and am halfway through it. It’s a very different read: philosophical, at times funny, at times poignant, and occasionally thrilling. I’m hoping to finish it before I leave Texas, so I can pass it on to my sister. I also brought Jeffrey Siger’s Sons of Sparta, which has been on my TBR pile too long. And I violated my rule not to travel with hardcover books and brought News of the World, which every person I know who has read it says is a must read.

                                                     

I was at BookPeople in Austin and although my suitcase can’t handle any more books, and I’ll have to carry these on board by hand, I couldn’t resist getting a copy of Mark Pryor’s latest, Dominic, a sequel to his amazing The Hollow Man, which features one of the creepiest protagonists I’ve read in years. I also had to buy Daughters of Bad Men, a debut novel by Laura Oles, which is getting huge buzz, including an Agatha nomination for Best Debut Mystery. While I was there I also met a writer by the name of Billy Kring, and was assured that his Outlaw Road was fantastic. Boom. Another purchase.

 

While I was at BookPeople I sold a couple of books as well—one by Rachell Howzell Hall, whom I discovered last year, and whose book City of Saviors is on the top of my TBR pile back home. I also touted books by Timothy Hallinan, and stood by while a reader wrote down his name. Shannon Baker was in the mix. I haven’t read the second installment in her new Kate Fox Mystery series, Dark Signal, but I told a reader about the terrific opener, Stripped Bare.

                     

I have some catching up to do on a few series. Two C.J. Box books are on my shelves, and I fell behind on reading Robert Crais, whose books I always enjoy. The Wanted is not only on my TBR list, but is sitting on a table in my entry hall. Two different people have recommended Alafair Burke’s new book, The Wife, to me, so it’s now on my TBB list—to be bought. Sometimes I put off reading a book because I’m saving it for when I need a book I know I will love, and Catriona McPherson’s books are in that category. House.Tree.Person. is calling to me from the shelf. For the same reason, I’ve put off reading the latest Lady Georgie caper from Rhys Bowen, although I usually fall on those in a greedy frenzy as soon as they come out.

     

When I’m on panels at conferences, I try to read books from each of the panelists. Happily, I’ve read the latest from James Ziskin (Cast the First Stone) and Matt Coyle (Blood Truth).

  

Although I’ve read plenty of William Kent Krueger, I haven’t read Sulfur Springs. And on my Thursday panel I’m eager to read the latest from Cathy Ace, Ellen Kirschman, Pat Stoltey and Heather Young—all must-reads, since I’ll be moderating that panel.

So many books….too little time!

A Hard Day's Write

How do you set real life aside and connect with the imaginary worlds you create? And how long do you write each day/week?

by Paul D. Marks

I’ll answer the second question first: Not enough. Especially these days. And I have no idea where the time goes, but it does. I have the luxury of not having a day job and working at home and I still don’t know where the time goes. I’m pretty disciplined, but life happens and keeps me from doing as much writing as I might like to do or have done in the past. I spend a fair amount of time with the dogs, both hanging with them and walking them. Sometimes I find them more interesting than humans and they often have some pretty good ideas for the stories I’m working on, so at least I can count it as productive time 😊.

Now to the first question: Sometimes it is hard not to let real life intrude. But you have to find a way to get into that headspace – the Zone – for writing. There’s so many temptations to keep you from getting there, listening to music, reading, researching, the dogs. Watching movies. Facebooking. Friends. On the other hand, these things – real life – while, distracting me, also often give me ideas for stories so it’s a 50-50 proposition. Sometimes it’s hard to get in the Zone, but listening to music can get me into the mood for a certain type of story. For example, if I’m writing something set in the 1940s I’ll listen to swing. If I just want background music I often listen to baroque. Something dark, the Doors or Leonard Cohen. And sometimes silence is the best. I used to always (try to) write in silence. But sometimes you need something to block out the world. Music does that, and so much the better if it helps with the mood of the story.

And while researching can be a distraction ’cause I enjoy it so much I also get a lot of information for my stories. I recently finished a mystery set on the homefront during World War II. I love history, I love American history and I love World War II history. So I was a pig in you-know-what doing the research for that novel (for which I would very much like to get an agent…). I spent a lot of hours on various aspects of the research. I used the internet, books, maps. But my best go-to source for how Los Angeles was in the forties was my mom and her friends. They could tell me things that weren’t in books. So back to the point, the research kept me away from the writing, away from the Zone. But it also gave me things to put in the story when I did finally get back to the Zone. There are a lot of distractions, but some of them pay dividends.

I usually work in my home office where I have a nice view. But the office itself is a nightmare-mess. My desk is a mess – but you know what Einstein said about a messy desk: “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” There’s also lots of stuff all around, posters and lobby cards from everything from In a Lonely Place to Pulp Fiction to album covers of the Beatles and a poster of Siouxsie and the Banshees. My picture of Dennis Hopper flipping the bird. Boxes of things, books, papers, the kitchen sink. So I have be able to put on blinders, get tunnel vision and just see the computer screen. Sometimes that’s easier than other times. And the way for me to do it is just to sit in the chair and stare at the screen and start typing away.

When that doesn’t work, I can just stare at Edward Hopper prints for inspiration. If anyone can be considered a “noir” painter he’s the one. In the pilot movie for the old TV show Night Gallery, if I remember it correctly, someone would look at a picture and be transported into that scene and a story would develop from there. That’s how I feel about Hopper paintings. They just bring so many stories to mind.

I’ve probably said this before, but when I was younger I had these romantic visions of being a writer on the Left Bank sipping absinthe or drinking Tom Collinses at Joe Allen’s, and when I lived in West LA I would go there. But when I would drink I wouldn’t want to write, I wanted to play, to party – I never got in the Zone that way. So that phase didn’t last long.

There’s so many distractions these days, TV, internet, radio, streaming, walking the dogs. The net. Envy the bucolic writer of the 19th century who had peace and quiet, but also no running water or toilets. So you just have to shut it all out as best you can. Clear your head. Sometimes I’m better at it than other times. But always the key is just to sit down and do it, sooner or later you’re in the Zone without even knowing you crossed the line.

Changing the subject ever so slightly: Earlier in the week, RM gave a nod to the Beatles and their song Paperback Writer. And since today is the anniversary of their first appearance on Ed Sullivan (February 9, 1964), I thought I’d give them a nod too, apropos of nothing:

VIDEO REMOVED

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And now we turn you over to our usual BSP section:

Mind Blowing News: My story “Windward” from Coast to Coast: Privates Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea (edited by Andrew McAleer and Me, published by Down & Out Books) has been selected for The Best American Mystery Stories 2018 edited by Louise Penny & Otto Penzler. It will be out in the fall. To say I’m blown away is an understatement. – Also selected for Best American Mysteries from this collection is John Floyd’s “Gun Work,” and Art Taylor’s “A Necessary Ingredient” has been nominated for an Agatha. Not a bad batting average for one book 😁 .

Check out my website: www.PaulDMarks.com

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Take one vulture . . .

How do you set real life aside and connect with the imaginary worlds you create? And how long do you write each day/week?

by Catriona

I've been scraping round the dusty corners of my brain trying to work this out for the last ten minutes - gazing out the window at a bit of dead wood sticking up, that looks like a perching vulture. Or maybe a small hawk. But I'm a crimewriter, so vulture. Which would be a terrible way to find a corpse in your garden, wouldn't it? You're admiring a bird, wondering why it's sitting there so patiently . . . How many vultures would have to assemble before you went to see what had drawn them to that spot?

In short, that might be the wrong question. The puzzler is "How do you set aside the imaginary worlds you create and connect with real life?" And it's a problem teachers started suggesting I work on when I was five. "Dozy Daisy Dreamboat" what what Miss Shaughnessy called me. Fair comment.

But trying again to address the topic: I think a sharp division with no blurring is key for me. I need my emerging fictional world to be all mine, with no input from anyone in the real world. That way, no one outside my head uses the book title and/or character names, or chats about any of the events. So I can step from my real life to the rooms, streets and clifftops of my work in progress without having to pack anything. And I can step back again without bringing souvenirs. 

I'd hate to have to remember what someone (real) said over coffee about my character's motives, or report on progress in the fictional world when I was done with it for the day. Brrrrr. Gives me the willies just thinking about it.

The weird moment comes when the book's done and I do let other people in. Every time, I get a kind of vertigo when my agent says "What I loved about Gloria-" or "Why did Lowell-" as if she's read my mind. 

By the time the book's out, I'm over it and I'm happy for any reader to have any opinion on anything. I'm no longer the boss of that world. Most readers of The Day She Died disagree pretty fundamentally with me about a certain plot point and it's never bothered me. 

Oh wait, though: a recent reader of Come To Harm asked me for a detail I didn't put in the book and I didn't know. I asked her what she thought and she came up with such a perfect, elegant, lighter-than-air detail that I wished I'd known in time to write it in. 

I don't know if I've just re-invented beta-readers or if that incident supports my furtive control-freakery. I mean, maybe it's only because I protect the world so much while I'm making it that it feels this real once I've made it. It's a complete world, with an answer for every question whether I know the answer or not. 

And how long do you write each day/week?

Much easier question! No gazing at stump-vultures required. Officially* I work from nine-ish till six-ish Monday to Friday, with some Post Office runs and a bit of travel time, if I'm headed for a coffee-shop. Of that probably half is actual writing. "Actual writing" means everything that happens before someone else sees the book. (Blimey, that really is the continental divide for me - I didn't realise before today.) So producing the first draft, researching the stuff I made up to put in it, adding the research, editing it down, re-reading the second draft, adding corrections, producing a third draft . . . Everything that happens after I hit "send" for the first time - structural edits, copy edits, line edits, proofs - is not "actual writing". 

*Unofficially, once a first draft has got some thermals under it and is floating free, I usually end up writing every day and can get my 2K words down in about three hours. I'm not there with this book yet. Here comes five hours of plodding.

Murderous nocturnal activities by Cathy Ace

How do you set real life aside and connect with the imaginary worlds you create? And how long do you write each day/week?

Setting aside real life to be able to connect with the worlds I have created, and am creating, is something that I – like most other writers – grapple with, and manage, in several different ways. For example, if I have a deadline looming I seem to feel the urge to clean something in the house, IMMEDIATELY! I have no idea why I’m happy for the light fitting in the bathroom to gather fluff for a few months, then to find it in urgent need of attention just a few days before a manuscript is due to be turned in, but that's what happens. It’s a form of procrastination I have become familiar with over the years, and I still find it soothing to shift the stress I’m feeling about a book onto something else.

At present, I’m working on a first draft that has no deadline attached to it, something that’s totally new for me. I’m actively creating the people, places, and situations, which will (hopefully) engage readers…such fun! But, even though I’m not seeking out distractions from that activity, I still have to focus on other tasks, because life demands that I do. I’m no different than most other people…I have to do things like writing this blog post, for example, or supporting my dozen books in the marketplace, or doing my daily work as Chair of Crime Writers of Canada. My two lovely chocolate Labs, who are my constant companions, need attention, as do the normal things in life…like family time, shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, working in the garden etc. 

 

Gabby, Poppy, and the garden - need attention at all times of the year

The result is that my “true” writing hours run from about 9.30pm to around 1am or 2am…when everyone is in bed, it’s dark outside, and it’s just me and my keyboard. I – personally – need peace when I am writing…no music, nothing to disturb me. I cannot write in coffee shops etc., for example. Well, maybe I could if I had to, but I’m lucky that I live in a rural area, with no neighbors, so peace is available to me. The nearest street light is one mile away, so I have real darkness outside the house at night, and the only noise is the occasional lowing of the cattle on the next property – that suits me just fine. All of that allows me to focus on what I am creating, rather than the reality of my dining room table, which is where I am writing this book (and this blog post).

Pretty much what I see from my writing table at night!

As for "how long do I write each day or week?"…that depends on where I am in the writing process. If we’re talking about writing my books (as opposed to writing things like this blog) then I don’t write every day, unless I am actively working on a first draft, when I write for about five hours every day. I don’t do daily word counts, because sometimes I write faster, sometimes more slowly, and sometimes my self-editing means I write negative numbers of words, because I delete chunks as I go along. Nope, word counts would drive me crazy. For me it’s about allowing the story to flow, and trying to get it right as it does so – sometimes my fingers can’t keep up with my brain, other times it’s the other way around, but I try to not let that bother me. Then there will be weeks and weeks when I am researching, outlining, checking plot shapes, and – of course – editing, when I am not “writing” at all…though all those other activities are essential parts of the authorial process (oh, that sounds very grand!). 

Every author has a different writing process; as I read this blog to myself it sounds as though I sit in the dark and tap away to write my books, while my days are used for other purposes. I suspect that’s pretty close to the truth. Indeed, as I finish up writing this, and look at my “To Do” list for the rest of the day, I happily admit I’m looking forward to everyone going to sleep tonight so I can “get back to” my fictitious world and characters, and spend some quality time with them.

Cathy Ace is the Bony Blithe Award-winning author of The Cait Morgan Mysteries and The WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries.  You can find out more about Cathy, her work and her characters at her website, where you can also sign up for her newsletter with news, updates and special offers: http://cathyace.com/

When the Washing Machine Calls, Don't Answer

Q: How do you set real life aside and connect with the imaginary worlds you create? And how long do you write each day/week?

-from Susan

A: Depends.

If the writing is under contract with a deadline, it’s easy to stay focused. I have a due date and so I aim to write a set number of words a day and that motivator works for me. If it is 1,000 words, I might only get to 750 on Monday, but may be in the zone and do 2,500 Tuesday. I was once a newspaper reporter and then editor, and deadlines were what propelled a lot of the activity at the paper!

If I don’t have a contract for the work I’m doing, something not in an existing series, for example, it’s much harder. I have one eye on the contracted work, the marketing and promotion I need to do, and a launch date coming up. The new WIP is a struggle because I don’t know the characters as well, and may even be writing outside of my favored genre. The one right now also requires research and there’s no siren song more distracting than amassing vast quantities of information I’ll never use but which is important to understanding the time and place in which my story’s set.

So the research reading is important and combined with my political activity, social fun, the laundry, and the cats, can pretty much fill up a day. Not good.

It’s February. Whatever discipline I had disappeared around the holidays and I’m writing or researching three hours a day, but actual prose for the new book is probably only half of that. I am still not settled into this new story and I’m still figuring out who these characters are, going back to poke them a bit as something reveals itself. Once I hit my stride, I’ll be back at 1,000 words a day, I promise myself. I am just now setting a realistic goal to finish the first draft by a specific date. Then, I’ll count the number of days before that date, divide the estimated length of the draft by them, and that will tell me how many words per day I need to hit. As long as I can fool myself about the set-in-stone quality of the due date, I will get back in gear.

Fingers crossed!

Cover Story: A STONE’S THROW

From Jim

Since we’re freestyling this week, I’m writing about some recent news that made me very happy: the cover reveal of my sixth Ellie Stone mystery, A STONE’S THROW.

August 1962. A suspicious fire claims a tumbledown foaling barn on the grounds of the once-proud Tempesta Stud Farm, halfway between New Holland and Saratoga Springs, NY. The blaze, one of several in recent years at the abandoned farm, barely prompts a shrug from the local sheriff. That is until "girl reporter" Ellie Stone, first on the scene, uncovers a singed length of racing silk in the rubble of the barn. And it's wrapped around the neck of one of two charred bodies buried in the ashes. A bullet between the eyes of one of the victims confirms it's murder, and the police suspect gamblers. Ellie digs deeper. 

The double murder, committed on a ghostly stud farm in the dead of night, leads Ellie down a haunted path, just a stone's throw from the glamour of Saratoga Springs, to a place where dangerous men don't like to lose. Unraveling secrets from the past--crushing failure and heartless betrayal--she's learning that arson can be cold revenge.

Covers are, of course, important marketing tools. They’re the first thing prospective readers see. They can bewitch, beckon, bore, or bedevil. Some get the job done via huge letters spelling out the famous author’s name. Others rely on a shadowy man walking away. Or a shadowy woman, for that matter.

 

More covers than we can count include “girl” in the title, as if there’s some kind of bounty on the word.

There are fancy covers with raised lettering, gold foil, or cut-outs. Cozy mystery covers have evolved to appeal to their readers. And thrillers likewise. And who wouldn’t recognize a bodice ripper by the ripped bodice on the cover? So-called literary novels, too, have their own look. Usually a solid color background with an abstract graphical image of some kind and the title in a quivering font that approximates quirky handwriting.

Whatever the design, covers are meant to attract attention of an audience and—at the very least—inspire a window shopper to pick up the book and read the blurb, synopsis, and author bio. There’s no one way to accomplish that goal. People have different tastes. That’s what makes a horse race.

And that brings me to A STONE’S THROW. In her sixth mystery, Ellie Stone investigates a double murder on an abandoned stud farm. It’s about Thoroughbred racing, so the very first requirement in my mind was that there had to be a horse on the cover. Fortunately my publisher agreed with my assessment. It also needed to have a period look, or at least not appear too modern. But most horse racing photographs from the early sixties are in black and white, which isn’t ideal for a cover. It’s possible to create a compelling cover in black in white, of course, but it’s rare, like yellow covers. Here are a couple of exceptions that prove the rule. One is about adventures in a strange foreign land. The other is about a monkey.

Good thing there’s Photoshop. With it, a graphics designer can manipulate images, add filters, scratches, change colors, etc. to make a photo look older than it is.

Here are some of the ideas we toyed with for the cover of A STONE’S THROW.

1. (Photo removed)

It’s a watercolor, and apparently we don’t do that on covers. Plus, we have a view of the horse’s ass (the jockey’s, too), which might put off some of my more sensitive readers.















2.

(Photo removed)

I love this painting. For a long while, this was the image I wanted to use for the cover. It’s raw, dramatic, and compelling. The duel is intimate and almost violent. But it’s a painting, and—again—apparently we can’t do that. On the plus side, there’s no horse’s ass.















3.

(Photo removed)

This is an amazing photograph. It captures the beauty and power of two champions. Only one of the two horses’ eight hooves is actually touching the ground here. They’re almost flying. And these two Thoroughbreds—Jaipur and Ridan—make cameo appearances in A STONE’S THROW in this very race, the 1962 Travers Stakes. But, alas, it’s black and white (with some down-and-dirty colorization), and the sharpness just isn’t there.












4.

(Photo removed)

Right era, right location, but, again, there’s the horse’s ass. And it’s rather quiet. No energy or mystery.











5.

This is my cat Tinker. Not a horse, so no.











There were several serious contenders. Many of them were actually taken at the Saratoga Race Course. In the end, there was one remarkable photograph that took my breath away.

My cover designer, Jackie Cooke, has a great eye for what works. She focused on the most powerful elements of the image, created some mystery, and drew attention to the drama and energy of the horse itself. Then, carefully placing the text, which remains consistent with my other covers, she adjusted the colors somewhat and added some filters for mood and that old-timey look. Here’s the final result.

I love the nearness of the horse to the viewer. And note the incredibly delicate lacing of the jockey’s fingers through the reins; the beautiful musculature of the horse’s chest and neck, sinews straining, with the the light hitting so perfectly; and the stride—three hooves off the ground as the other pounds the track—propelling the horse and jockey forward to victory. The exploding dirt beneath the 1,000-pound animal tells a story of speed, courage, and passion better than I could ever hope to. The headless horse and rider only add to the mystery.

This is my favorite of all my covers, and it makes me VERY happy. I’m so proud that my name is on it.

A STONE’S THROW will bolt from the starting gate on June 5, 2018.