Keeping the Doors Open

Q: How do you keep the balance between that little world in your head and the real one?

-from Susan

A: What? You mean the one in my head isn’t real?

Once a story gets into my head and I start telling it, it’s as real as the life off the page most of the time. Exceptions: dental work, grandkids’ birthdays, and bill-paying. I don’t seem to have much of a problem going through the door into either world and I rarely have to slam the door behind me. In recent months, political anguish has, I admit, distracted me as never before, but when that happens, going back to tiny Reigny-sur-Canne, where the biggest problem is likely to be no fresh baguettes or a dead body, is a relief.

The big problem, the real one, is opening the door into the writing on a daily basis, giving the work the respect and complete attention it deserves. I’m nowhere near as disciplined as Minds’ own Catriona McPherson, who amazes me, or Rhys Bowen. They both manage to be writing, editing, and proofing multiple manuscripts while charming people in their award speeches and supporting other writers. They exist in another plane from me. My own efforts are spasmodic, only settling into daily routine when I have made space for that in my life. I’m no role model.

Last week, I had the best excuse, the West Coast launch of my latest book, the first in a new series, Love & Death in Burgundy. Coming down from that high, I’ll be back to balancing my time, dealing with copy edits and checks of my French expressions for the second book, and going back to Reigny in my head to see how the new story will take shape.

Onward!

Whatever works

by Dietrich Kalteis

Agatha Christie fueled the muse by munching apples in the bathtub, Jack Kerouac typed On the Road on an endless scroll. James Joyce laid on his stomach in bed, wearing a white coat, holding a blue pencil. Are there tricks you use to get yourself into that space where everything just flows onto the page?

I start writing between four and five every morning, with music playing through the headphones. Maybe that’s a little strange, but it’s something I started doing years ago when I sought a quiet corner to write. Away from kids, cats and dogs, and phones. At first the music just cut out any noise that distracted me. Then I found it kind of worked with the rhythm of whatever I was writing. Now, it’s a habit and I never write without music; and I play tunes to suit the mood and go with the rhythm of the scene I’m working on. For Zero Avenue which is set during the early days of the West Coast punk scene, I got my hands on as much of that sound as I could find and played punk rock for nine months until the novel was done. 

And I felt less strange about it after I found out that some of the greats had some writing quirks of their own to get themselves into that space: Zora Neale Hurston hired a guy to plug her ears while she typed to give her the silence she needed. Thomas Wolf wrote leaning on his fridge. Hemingway, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Wolfe, Lewis Carroll, Philip Roth wrote standing. Mark Twain, George Orwell, Marcel Proust, Robert Louis Stevenson, Truman Capote did it lying down. Edith Sitwell wrote lying down in an open coffin. 

Rudyard Kipling smoked cigars while he wrote, so did Amy Lowell, George Sand and H.L. Mencken. Maya Angelou’s fuel of choice was sherry. John Cheever and Victor Hugo wrote in their underwear. Agatha Christie, Benjamin Franklin, D.H. Lawrence, Edmond Rostand and Victor Hugo wrote in the bath. Carl Sandburg, Henry David Thoreau, Wallace Stevens and William Wordsworth took long walks before they sat down to write. William Burroughs and Hunter S Thompson did it stoned. Stephen King said in On Writing he writes with the door closed, and rewrites with the door open. 

Another habit, I carry a little notepad with me to jot down ideas that come to mind when I’m away from my desk, that way I won’t forget them, and my desk is usually littered with these little bits of paper. And I like to write first drafts and scenes in longhand before typing them into my computer. It feels somehow more organic. I also found some of the greats were particular what they wrote on: Vladimir Nabokov wrote his novels on 3X5 index cards, Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road on a 120 foot scroll, and Eudora Welty pasted her stories together in long strips. 

Okay, maybe getting up early, playing music and writing little notes to myself aren’t so strange, but they help get me in that space where everything flows on the page, and in the end, it just boils down to whatever works for each of us, right?

New York, New York

by Paul D. Marks

Double Header today:

Game 1: New York, New York, it’s a wonderful town. The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. Or is it the other way around? We just spent a week in New York City and I’m still not sure.  (Well, I am, but it plays better the other way.) And in Game 2 (later in this piece) I’ll talk a little about place and location in my writing as we’ve been doing this week on the blog.

Amy (the wife) and I spent last week in New York City (New York City!). It came up very unexpectedly when I got an e-mail from Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, telling me that my story Ghosts of Bunker Hill had won the 2016 Ellery Queen Readers Poll and inviting us to come to the Ellery Queen cocktail party and awards ceremony, as well as to be their guests at the Edgar Awards. I think I was in disbelief for several days, so we made no plans to head to New York…until the wonderful reality actually sunk in. But eventually it did and we headed off to The Big Apple from The Sour, I mean, Big Orange.

We booked out on Jet Blue because we heard about their great on-time record. We got lucky—they were late both coming and going. I guess someone has to be the exception to the rule.

The week was a whirlwind of adventures and some sightseeing, much of it filled up with literary events. We arrived Monday night and since the hotel is next door to Grand Central Terminal we decided to check it out and have dinner at the famous Oyster Bar. Talk about a cool place. Then we walked around the neighborhood near the hotel late into the night.

On Tuesday we went to the Ellery Queen offices for tea with Janet and Linda Landrigan of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and Jackie Sherbow, senior assistant editor for both EQMM and AHMM. Also there were Doug Allyn and his wife, Eve. Doug’s stories came in #2 and 3 in this year’s poll. But he’s been #1 11 times. I think it will be a long time before anyone can top that!

From L to R: Jackie Sherbow, Doug Allyn, Linda Landrigan, Janet Hutchings and me.

Amy and me at the Mysterious Bookshop Party

Everyone was very gracious. And it was good to talk with Janet again and Linda, who I’d met briefly before. And to meet Jackie for the first time in person, but who I’ve had a lot of correspondence with. After the afternoon tea, Jackie very graciously offered to be our guide on the subway, something I really wanted to do. So we subwayed to Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop for a gathering of
Edgar nominees, authors, publishers and more (I think we fell into the “more” category, though now that I think about it I guess I am an author too). It was crowded, it was fun. It was great to see the famous bookstore. And to meet Otto Penzler himself. And to see some people I know, including Edgar nominee Jim Ziskin. And many others. And Doug Allyn was kind enough to introduce me to several people.

Me and Jackie at the Mysterious Bookshop Party

Jackie takes us on the NY subway!

After the party at the Mysterious Bookshop, Jackie was once again our subway guide, taking us to a real New York pizza place that she likes. So she, Doug and Eve, and Amy and I, braved the rain to get to the subway and then the pizza place. And in a scene that could have been out of a Woody Allen movie, we stepped just inside a local market to get out of the rain for a few minutes. I was waiting for the “nasty” New Yorkers to kick us out, but nobody was nasty and nobody kicked us out. Eve grabbed some plastic bags from the produce section to cover our heads and we ventured back out into the rain. We still got soaked by the time we made it to the pizza place. But the pizza was good and it was all worth it. After dinner, Jackie headed home. Doug and Eve, Amy and I took a cab back to the hotel. And this was the one loquacious cabby we had the whole time we were in New York and he was a riot. When we were just about at the hotel he nudged through a crosswalk and some guy in the walk started yelling at him, challenging him to a fight. Now we felt like we were in New York.

In the subway (from L to R): me, Eve Allyn, Doug Allyn and Amy 

Wednesday we had a free day, so we played tourists (which we were). Lots of other tourists all around us. We did a tour of Grand Central Terminal, which was right next to the Grand Hyatt Hotel where we were staying and where the Edgars would be held the following evening. (On the other side of the hotel was the Chrysler Building, which we had a view of from our window. Now that’s pretty cool to be sandwiched between the Chrysler Building and Grand Central. During our tour we had another “New York” experience when some jerk called the tour guide a “dirty scumbag” and neither she nor any of us on the tour could figure out why or what she’d done. But despite that, most everyone was really friendly and nice and we had no problems with anyone.

Our hotel, sandwiched between Grand Central and the Chrysler Building

After our tour of Grand Central we followed Clint Eastwood’s “Speed Zoo” example from the movie True Crime, where he jams his kid through the zoo at the speed of sound, and did “Speed New York.” We bought tickets for the hop on-hop off buses – buses where you can get on at one location and off at the next, hang out, then get back on at the next location. This way we saw a lot of the city in one day. Everything from the Empire State Building to the Flat Iron and various neighborhoods. We also hopped onto the Staten Island Ferry. From there we could see the Statue of Liberty. We ended the day in Rockefeller Center and then Times Square and dinner in a pretty good Italian restaurant off Times Square. Our meal was served family style—and being only 2 people we ended up with enough left over to feed everyone in Times Square.

Amy on the Staten Island Fairy

The next day was the Ellery Queen cocktail party and awards, held at a specialized library not too far from the hotel. And it was a truly terrific experience. But the best part (besides picking up the award of course 😉) was being able to meet people in person that I know online but hadn’t met for one reason or another. David Dean. Tom Savage. Dave Zeltserman, who published some of my stories early on in his HardLuck Stories magazine, and whose Small Crimes was just made into a movie on Netflix that released this week, so check it out. Besides hanging with Janet, Linda and Jackie, we also got to hang with Doug and Eve Allyn again, both of whom were great to hang with.

Me and Doug at the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine cocktail party.

And, of course, it was more than a thrill to win the award!

Me accepting the Ellery Queen Reader's Poll Award.

And then it was off to the Edgars that evening. Very exciting. And all was going well, I even liked the food (and who likes the food at these things?), until the Master of Ceremonies, Jeffrey Deaver,

Amy and Jackie at the Edgar Awards

stumbled and then fainted on the stage while doing some introductions. That was scary. Luckily he was okay, though whisked off to the hospital to make sure it was nothing serious. I believe tests showed that it wasn’t—hope so.

That’s the litany, now for the real deal: While we loved New York and all of the events, the best part of anything like this, Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, etc., is the people. The community of mystery writers is a very warm, very supportive group. And, as I’ve mentioned, it was great to see old friends and also meet new people. We saw Jim Ziskin and Catriona McPherson from this blog, and had a nice chat with both of them. Met Otto Penzler. And it was good to meet Sam Reaves, Dave Zeltserman and too many others to name here. And great to spend time with Janet, Linda and Jackie.

New York has a bad rep in some ways and people who know me thought I’d hate it (as I haven’t been there in years…decades). I loved it. I loved the crowds. I loved the energy. I loved the writing community. I loved this whole unexpected trip. And I’m more than appreciative to Janet Hutchings for publishing Ghosts of Bunker Hill and taking a chance on my first story for Ellery Queen, Howling at the Moon (which, by the way, made it to #7 in the Ellery Queen Readers Poll). And to Linda Landrigan for publishing my story Twelve Angry Days in the current (May/June 2017) issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. And to Jackie for everything she does to keep the wheels turning. And last but certainly not least to the people who voted for Ghosts of Bunker Hill and made it #1.

***

Game 2: This week’s topic: “What role does setting play in the books you read or write?”

So, since I’ve rambled on enough already, I’m going to be brief on this and refer to a link to another piece I’ve done that relates to the topic. But I will say that setting plays a major role in most of what I write. Author S.W. Lauden has said about my work, “I just read your next novel Vortex. I loved how the action bounced around Southern California, almost as if the region was one of the main characters.”

To me, location can sometimes be the driving force for the characters. Of course, they have inner motivations, but where they live, the zeitgeist, ambience and flavor of the city or desert or whatever locations the stories take place in adds to their motivations. And being in New York this past week really made me notice the different energies and vibe of different cities. They really do have personalities of their own and those personalities influence and affect the characters. There are some stories that could only take place in New York and some that could only take place in LA and not just by mentioning a street name or a location, it’s more than that. It’s the spirit of the place that comes through.  For me that location is often, though not always (see my story Deserted Cities of the Heart in Akashic’s St. Louis Noir and set there, of course) Los Angeles. And even though LA’s been done to death you might say…you haven’t seen my LA.

For more on my relationship with the City of Angels, please check out this link:

https://7criminalminds.blogspot.com/2015/11/adventures-in-la-la-land-redux.html 

***

And now for the usual BSP:

My story Twelve Angry Days is in the May/June issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magaine, on sale at newsstands. Or click here to buy online.

And I ask myself: how did I get here?

Q: Do you or your favourite authors use setting as character?

A: I never know what it means when people say "setting as character".  But I can say that my favourite authors use setting brilliantly and make fictional places real.

I've never been to Minnesota but when I get there I'll happily leave the Twin Cities behind to visit Lake Wobegon. I must have read a hundred of Garrison Keillor's stories before I realised that might be a problem. 

And when we got lost in Maine a few years back, trying to find LL Bean (and nearly ended up in Canada), it would have been fine but for the hovering spectre of suddenly finding ourselves in Stephen King's Derry, and seeing that clown's face in the storm drain. 

Kilburn High Rd

I adore the way Robert Galbraith writes about London, with such on-the-ground knowledge. I can smell those City pubs where the bankers hang out. I can feel the frustration of Strike being unable to cross the road to get to his flat because of the endless endless roadworks.

And I never get fed up driving down Kilburn in the rain (after six hours on the road from Scotland) because of Ruth Rendell.

My very favourite writer about London, though, is Margery Allingham, who could always find the oddest little corners and plop a strange building or two there. I went to meet a TV producer for lunch once and her instructions on how to get into the club garden (round the back of a chapel) had a familiar ring. "I feel like I'm in a Margery Allingham book," I said, once I'd tracked her down and immediately felt foolish. But when she said "Yes!" loud enough to make a waiter jump I knew we'd get on. 

Edinburgh (my home city) has many faces and many writers look upon them. The Edinburgh of Irvine Welsh, immortalised in Trainspotting, is absolutely real.  The Edinburgh of Alexander McCall Smith, familiar from The Sunday Philosophy Club is equally real. And somewhere in between them are Ian Rankin and Kate Atkinson. 

Modern Art Gallery, Edinburgh

So, even though I've never been to Baltimore, I trust that the Baltimores of Anne Tyler, David Simon and John Waters are all real too.  Maybe not John Waters, but I hope so.

Location, Location, Location….by Cathy Ace

So it’s time to turn to the question of place and setting in writing…which is great! For me, the setting is critical. It shapes the entire tale. It is, for me, usually one of my critical starting points.

Niçoise book, Niçoise tablecoth!

 

For those of you familiar with my Cait Morgan Mysteries, you’ll know each one is set in a different country, and I honestly believe the story I tell in each book couldn’t happen the way it does anywhere else in the world. Each book is completely immersed in, and in many cases springs from, the history, art, architecture, culture, people, food and drink of its setting. The critical framing elements of each story are specifically tied to the location. 

This has been the case since the first in the series, THE CORPSE WITH THE SILVER TONGUE is set in Nice, in the South of France. The mixture of incomers (wealthy non-French inhabitants of a swank apartment block that has a murky past as Gestapo HQ), with those whose entire lives have been spent in the area (a man whose tending of the grounds and gardens has an unexpected reason, and a woman who did what she had to do to survive the war years) leads to tensions and, yes, murder. The nearby Roman ruins play their role, too, as does the fact that the city is one the border between France and Italy. It’s all VERY Niçoise…and this tale could only take place here. It’s the same for the entire series – the last book, The Corpse with the Ruby Lips, being set in Budapest, where a bloody history and an engrained need for secrecy within a population too used to being overseen, and overheard, by authoritarian dictatorships leads to a web of deceit that has tragic consequences…so Hungarian. 

I have always traveled extensively, and every Cait book is set in a city I know well – having either lived or worked there – so that I can smell the place and hear its sounds as I write; even now I’m sitting here with hints of garlic and paprika haunting me as I write about Nice and Budapest, while accordions and zithers battle for my inner aural attention. It’s great fun to “be” in a place when I write – and I hope the feeling of the setting for my work comes off the page for my readers. 

Travels with Cait are great fun, and I have tried to avoid “Cabot Cove Syndrome” (you know, where Jessica Fletcher’s beloved seaside township is blighted with a body-count higher than anywhere else in the world!) by having Cait move from place to place. 

For my other series, I have thrown those worries to the winds, and have set all the WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries in one small locale – Chellingworth Hall and the nearby village of Anwen-by-Wye in the rolling countryside of Powys, Wales. Why did I take such a chance? Well, a couple of reasons: first of all, because these are stories about professional private investigators, there might not always be a corpse involved and, secondly, I wanted to place a series in Wales because I think my homeland deserves showcasing. Think about it – I expect you have a pretty good visual image of what Ireland, Scotland and England are like, but what about Wales? There really aren’t too many books set there, and I wanted to rectify that. 

I’ve invented Chellingworth Hall, the entire Chellingworth Estate and even the village of Anwen-by-Wye that sits upon the land owned by the Twyst family – but I have been able to use the very real local towns and cities of Hay-on-Wye, Builth Wells, Brecon, Swansea, Cardiff and other areas like the Gower Peninsular (all of which are places I know well, having only left the UK after I turned forty) as well. I want to take readers to haunts I love in my bones, and have them at least see them “fictionally” in my work. Maybe some readers will want to, and be able to, visit them in reality, and, for others, I hope that visiting in the pages of my work proves satisfying, and illuminating. 

Happy reading, and happy armchair travels! 

Cathy Ace is the Bony Blithe Award-winning author of The Cait Morgan Mysteries (#8 The Corpse with the Ruby Lips was released on November 1st) and The WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries (#3, The Case of the Curious Cook, was released in hardcover in the UK on November 30th and in the USA & Canada on March 1st).  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/