A writer writes....when?

"A writer writes."

Except when she's doing her day job.

Thus begins the time of year when I struggle with feelings of inadequacy (a writer writes! Why aren't I writing?) as days pass and all I've accomplished is a few notes jotted regarding a scene I am thinking of revising in my next book, CHOICE.*

To be sure, it's not like I'm a stranger to the keyboard. I've spent the past month or so working on copy for our website -- we just launched a new and improved version, and we're very proud of it. It's marketing copy, the flow and purpose of which comes back to me from my previous life pre-A Butler's Manor. It's still crafting words, finding the feel. But it's not "writing." Or is it?

The issue is, as usual, me. The perfectionist in me that somehow thinks that I can accomplish two things at the same time, both at 100% of my energy. And of course I can't.

But the "shoulds" still hover in the back of my mind...and continue into my dreams, where characters visit and yet refuse to talk about anything except the present.

"Tell me where you've been," I beg.

They just smile complacently."Follow me, and you'll know."

When can I follow them? And being able to do little more than jot those notes, will I  lose the story they know I can tell?

A few years ago I told myself I would put aside my dreams of writing novels until I again had the regular time to devote to it. So for a couple of years, I didn't write, other than in my journal. But then the stories started coming back. In snatches. In dreams. In the odd quiet moment. Maybe I had time to draft a quick scene, or fill in details of an outline of a story line. But that's all, until the winter, when we take a hiatus from the bed and breakfast.

But...a writer writes, right? No excuses? How many stories have we all read about people who managed to eke out an extra hour in their day in order to get their story on paper? I recently read how Stephenie Meyers wrote the first of the Twilight series in three months when her children were small. If a young mother can write a book in between potty training and swim lessons, and do so in that short a period, why can't I summon the energy to carve out my own writing time?

I know, it isn't about comparisons; for every story like that of Stephenie Meyers, there is another about an author who took years to finish a novel. It took Jeffrey Eugenides nine years to complete Middlesex, a book I found phenomenal. And truthfully, it took me about three years to write, rewrite (and rewrite and rewrite) Blood Exposure until I had a draft polished enough to query agents with (and another year-plus to interest one). And that's pre-B&B, when in theory I had all the time in the world to write.

I need to stop comparing myself to others; stop allowing the "shoulds" to invade my psyche. I went searching for wisdom online today and this is what I found:

"A novel will take as long as it needs. Give it room and keep writing."

Whenever I can. I can only trust that the story will wait until I can tell it.


* CHOICE is the story of a woman who struggles with whether or not to fulfill a promise she made to reveal to her daughter her true parentage after her birth father dies unexpectedly. Staying silent allows her to keep her comfortable status quo, she thinks...until that status quo is turned on its end.

Discovery through writing, part 1

When I first began writing seriously (meaning, I took myself seriously and took writing courses and joined writing groups and forums in order to improve my craft), one of the things I learned was that much of the discovery of what your book was about -- the theme-- was rarely apparent in the first draft. Or even in the second. It wasn't until you'd been through a few extensive rewrites that you began to see the theme.

I noticed this when I wrote "A BUTLER'S LIFE," about Chris's experiences as a formally-trained English butler. (Oh boy, don't get him started on the reality of domestic service vs. Downton Abbey!) A Butler's Life is a memoir, not fiction, so I wasn't consciously seeking a theme.  But an unexpected epiphany occurred as we read through the drafts I was editing. A pattern emerged. While Chris had never consciously realized it as it was never a caregiver situation, every one of his major career choices was made in response to his relationship with, or responsibility towards his father...right up to and including his father's death. (And later, outside of the timeframe of the book, the impact of my father's death on him precipitated another major life change, which eventually led to our buying a bed and breakfast inn.) The pattern, an unexpected revelation of motivation, unintentionally shaped the story told in A BUTLER'S LIFE.

It made me think about how rarely we stop to consider the timeline of our lives...usually not until we face a terminal illness or old age do we take the time to look back and try to find the patterns in and meaning of our lives. Journal work is good for this, but how often do we actually read back through our journals and do the work?

Do you re-read your journals, to look for consistencies in thoughts and behaviors, or patterns over time?

Writing the graphic scenes

"I'd never guessed that little girl-next-door you could write such a book! Did that really happen to you?" 

Maybe it's because my background doesn't include law enforcement or medicine, two fields that tend to see too many variations of how pain, suffering and death can be inflicted on other human beings. Maybe even authors like Tess Gerritsen (a retired physician) or Linda Fairstein (a former prosecutor) get asked how sweet little women like them come up with some of their  more graphic scenes. (I'm positive that male authors never get asked this kind of question.) But probably it's because some of the first buyers of NET STALKER are, bless them, friends and family...who wonder what secret corner of depravity I conceal in order to write a story about a serial snuff killer.

Truthfully, even my husband Chris gave me the wide-eyed stare when he read BLOOD EXPOSURE, my first novel. Actually, he got his first inkling of where imagination can take me when he came home from work one evening to find me on the porch with a book in one hand, a glass of wine in the other, and a Cheshire Cat smile (or so he said) on my face.

"Good day?" he asked.

"The best. I just killed someone off."

"Is that right?" His eyebrows went up, and he veered a little farther than necessary to pass me. "What's that you're reading?"

I held up the paperback: DEADLY DOSES: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO POISONS, part of the Howdunit series published by Writer's Digest. (What a great book.)

"Hmmm...we'll just go out to dinner tonight, shall we?"

Where do you get your ideas? is the most common question asked of writers doing public events like book signings or author panels. There is no one answer. Not even within one book. In the case of NET STALKER, several factors that had touched my life over the years were amplified into much bigger "what if" scenarios to become plot lines in the book: self defense, date rape, a old boyfriend who wouldn't take "leave me alone" seriously, and the rise of Internet relationships into which too many people pour their hearts out to faceless individuals who may or may not be who they seem. Writers take stuff like this and think, What if it got really bad...? And then the story catches fire in your mind and it DOES get really bad.

Interestingly, I was very aware of the timeframe when the story caught fire for me. I was writing the first draft of NET STALKER, and I knew roughly where I was going with the book and what crimes would be committed. I had written one or two of the more graphic scenes found in the first part of the book, but I was unhappy with them.

Then my beloved father had a stroke and a heart attack. Chris and I caught the first plane back to Orange County to be with him in his final hours to say goodbye. I was executor of his estate, which as anyone who has ever done it knows is a tedious, frustrating, soul-draining experience fraught with far too many emotions. So grief and anger were uppermost in my psyche when, as an antidote, I went back to work on NET STALKER.

And suddenly, the hard scenes were there -- all of them. I pumped every shred of anger, pain, and passion into a horror totally unrelated to my own personal pain, but one that unstoppered my "nice girl" upbringing and allowed me to feel the hate necessary to portray the violence. Those scenes are graphic. Gory. Uncomfortable to read. But they are, somehow, true. Not in my personal life, thank God. But to the victims of these very real crimes out in the real world.

And as everyone who loves a good mystery or suspense novel knows, the most satisfying thing of all is getting to right a wrong, destroy that bad guy, give him or her what s/he deserves. Its doesn't happen often enough in real life. In fiction, writers can make the good guy win, no plea bargain or technicality involved. It's one of the biggest reasons we write in this genre. (This is why, though I tend to cringe at most gratuitous violence, I am Lee Child's protagonist Jack Reacher's biggest fan. You know none of those bad guys are going to survive Reacher's justice.)

Channelling strong emotion to write difficult scenes...just another lesson learned in the scheme of writing life.


It is the deepest desire of every writer, the one we never admit or even dare speak of: to write a book we can leave as a legacy. And although it is sometimes easy to forget, wanting to be a writer is not about reviews or advances or how many copies are printed or sold. It is much simpler than that, and much more passionate. If you do it right, and if they publish it, you may actually leave something behind that can last forever. -- Alice Hoffman

NET STALKER is now published!

The goal this winter has been to bring my second suspense novel NET STALKER to publication, which involves not only final editing, but details such as securing permission for the lyrics I've used in the book and acknowledging them correctly. This necessary administrative "stuff" has been balanced by the creative endeavor of working with a graphic designer to get the cover just right. I'm really pleased with it.

As I write, Chris is stretched out on the couch in our vacation rental in Laguna Beach, CA. Always my first reader, he is on the final chapters of the final draft of NET STALKER, which will go live on Kindle very shortly. Chris hasn't read the book since my first draft was finished lo, these many years (!!) ago, so I am on pins and needles to hear his response.

As I've said before, I live sort of a split life: Nine months of the year all my attention and creativity is focused on A Butler's Manor, our bed and breakfast, on welcoming and enjoying our guests and ensuring that their visit to the Hamptons is superlative. When we close for the season and I get my head back in the game, I can work on my writing. I beg my Muse to stay patient with me, as this is my reality and is likely to be so for some time going forward. Lately it's been easy to engage the Muse since NET STALKER takes place here in Southern California, and I can physically visit some of the actual locales where I've set scenes. This can be a luxury and a curse, because in the creation of a book your settings take on a life of their own in your imagination, and sometimes revisiting the spot that served as setting or inspiration gives you a curious sense of letdown.

I've written about setting before in ruminating about BLOOD EXPOSURE, where it was so key to the story. In NET STALKER, the greater challenge was to stay grounded in time, as it takes place just before the millenium, and the field of information technology has grown almost exponentially each year. Still, I feel fortunate to be inspired to write in (roughly) current time, as contrasted for example by one of my favorite authors, Sue Grafton, who set her Kinsey Millhone Alphabet series in the mid 1980's and must have to double check constantly to make sure that technology tools we've learned to take for granted--such as cell phones, which weren't in existence then--don't inadvertently creep into the narrative.

Ah, there is movement from the couch! A comment that the difficulty of an e-book is that when you're finished, you can't close them with a satisfying snap. Chris's response? For those of us of a certain age, I quote the old Life cereal commercial, "He likes it! Hey Mikey!"

--And Kindle just informed me that the book is live!!!  Check it out here: NET STALKER.

Off to pop a bottle of champers!! Yeah!

Getting back to work, and a preview of NET STALKER

Writers know well that there is what we do for love, and what we do for money, and the most frequent piece of advice to any writer is not to quit her day job (that is, until the sales of the first of your series about a boy wizard reach the stratosphere). I am blessed to be able to say that what I do for money is also a labor of love, for together with my husband Christopher, I own and run a bed and breakfast called A Butler's Manor. It does, however, absorb every fiber of my being during the summer months. While we're still busy either side of the summer high season, with the advent of fall, I can begin mentally to get back to the computer to pen stories, rather than reservations.

Up on the third floor of the bed and breakfast, I have a secret space that I call my aerie...my writing office, tucked under the eaves. Between the workload of high season and the fact that it's located above one of our most popular guest rooms and accessed by way of a pull-down staircase in the hall, I don't see it for months at a time. But after Labor Day, when the weather cools and the phones aren't quite so crazy, one of the first things I do is carve out some time to reclaim my space...give everything a good clean, reread my files, put Pandora radio on my headphones and settle back into my desk chair to find my muse again, who takes the summers off  but awaits me up under the eaves.

It does feel good to get back to writing. I have two projects underway: I'm noodling a brand new book on which I hope to make real progress this winter, and doing a final edit of my next psychological suspense book, which I hope to release on Kindle somewhere around Thanksgiving. Titled NET STALKER, it is the story of a woman whose search for her ancestry attracts a predator whose quest for revenge is also mired in the murky waters of her family history.

Here's the draft of the jacket copy:

In Orange County, California, Geordan Taylor’s shock and grief over her mother’s sudden death is great enough without discovering in the days that follow that everything she thought she knew about her mother is a lie. Bewildered and angry, she turns to the Internet in search of information about the only family she’s ever known. Much to the consternation of her roommate Jess, she soon finds a kindred spirit in a cyber buddy named Chase.  

She has no idea she’s attracted a stalker.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a killer dubbed the Bagman has claimed his fifth victim, and once again FBI Special Agent Sam Cathcart is frustrated by the lack of leads. His colleagues don’t know how personal the case is for Cathcart; eerily, the Bagman’s victims resemble his own long-ago murdered daughter. But time is running out for if he doesn’t crack the case soon, the FBI’s retirement mandates and his own health problems will force him to end his career in failure.  

When Jess is brutally attacked, similarities to the Bagman’s modus operandi draw Cathcart’s team. But it isn’t Jess who resembles the killer’s previous victims—it’s Geordan. And because Jess’s attack too conveniently followed a date Geordan broke to meet her cyber buddy in person, Cathcart soon believes that the key to apprehending the Bagman is to be found in the same family background that Geordan seeks.

At the FBI agent’s request, Geordan offers herself as online bait to draw the fiend who nearly murdered her best friend. Though masked in cyberspace, this stalker is circling ever closer…a killer who believes he will avenge a decades-old injustice only with Geordan’s death.

The hardest thing about writing Net Stalker is making clear the time frame: It's set at the turn of the millenium, late1999 - 2000, and of course many things to do with how we communicate have evolved since then (texting, Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Still, the dependence upon and addiction to the Internet was in place then and has grown exponentially since, making the threat which is the centerpiece of the story all the more relevant in today's world.

 

Beyond the proofing, there remains some non-writing work to finish, such as cover design and permissions to obtain for quoted material...the sort of stuff a traditional publisher would be responsible for were I choosing to publish through one.

 

What do you think?

Publish or perish?

Many bestselling authors, especially in the mystery and romance genres, seem to publish a new book about once a year, often timed to come out late in the year (for Christmas and holiday sales) or late spring (to read on vacation). Recently, there was an article in the New York Times about how many authors are under increasing pressure from their publishers to write not one, but two (or more!) books a year. Why the increased pressure? Say the publishers, audiences are increasingly used to the immediate gratification of being able to download an e-book, a movie, a game on demand, and if an author can't keep her name in the public eye, she's likely to be forgotten in the crush of options available to the online world.

Uh-huh. My read? Print publishers are increasingly afraid that their relevance is on the brink of extinction. I mean, suppose you just enjoyed a book from a new author (new to you, anyway), and then found out that omigod, she doesn't have a backlist of another twenty books you can read right now! So instead you're going to quit reading books altogether and stream the last season of Royal Pains, right?

To my mind, this sort of demand is reminiscent of hack writing, a term first used in the late 1800's to describe those who were paid to write low-quality articles or books to order on a short deadline. In the context of fiction, the term was used to describe writers who were paid to churn out sensational fiction such as true crime novels or "bodice rippers." (In the context of nonfiction, this brings to mind the slew of political books that are rushed to market in an election season. Do not EVEN get me started on those.)

The whole argument reminds me of "publish or perish," the phrase coined in the university world which relates the continual pressure to rapidly and continuously publish academic work to sustain or further one's career. And while it's true that some authors can actually produce a book a year, they are generally authors who have an established series, such as those of a couple of my favorite crime fiction writers, Michael Connelly (Harry Bosch/Mickey Haller), and John Sandford (Prey). But literary fiction? Not often. And to my mind, nor should it be. Was it a career-buster for Khaled Hosseini that his second book didn't come out for four whole years after his incredible debut book The Kite Runner? No. The reading world's supposed micro-attention span managed to remember him long enough to make a bestseller out of A Thousand Splendid Suns. And chances are, whenever Hosseini publishes something else, we'll happily grab a copy in whatever form appeals. No, the push from the publishing houses is because THEY need to have a lot of product to keep you coming back--immediately!--for more.

My belief is that the immediacy of the Internet and mobile world, with all its apps, streaming videos, downloads, and 24/7 information allows a reader to stay more connected with an author, rather than less, regardless of how fast they publish. Now you can find an author online, learn about him, follow his blog if he has one, be the first on your block to know when his next book is due, and even pre-order it and have it delivered on the first day of publication.

I'm not among the writers who can quit their day job to write full time. And my day job is about 180 degrees different from the solitary life of writing: for the last ten years, we've owned and run a bed and breakfast called A Butler's Manor in the Hamptons, a popular resort destination. I was asked recently by one of our B&B guests how long it had taken me to write A Butler's Life. The short answer is that once I sold it to my original publisher (on proposal, as non-fiction is commonly sold), I completed the final manuscript in six months. But the real answer is more complicated. One, I had the outline and first two chapters and the introduction already written (and rewritten, probably fifty times), which was part of the proposal package I sent out to prospective publishers. Two, I was writing a memoir, not creating a story with characters and plot I needed to invent whole cloth. Three, I was so very green to publishing that I believed that, contract or no, the publishers would lose their enthusiam for the book if I didn't get the full manuscript into their hands as fast as possible. Four, nothing galvanizes you more than a deadline. And finally, at the time I sold A Butler's Life, I had the luxury of writing full time.

Novels, though, are a whole different story. Blood Exposure, and Net Stalker (not yet published) probably took five years apiece to write, when you factor in multiple drafts before it is polished enough to send out to my trusted beta-readers...waiting for their feedback...letting that feedback percolate in the brain for awhile before attempting the next draft...more honing, etc. And unlike nonfiction, you sell a novel in its complete, uber-edited, fifteen-drafts-is-not-too-many perfect form, until you're established as a bestseller, anyway. Also, both Blood Exposure and Net Stalker run about 400 pages or so...almost twice as long as A Butler's Life.

Not since our first year in business have I been able to commit to a regular writing schedule. That was back in 2002, and at the time, I was finishing my first draft of Net Stalker. I had set myself a goal to finish the draft before our summer season began on Memorial Day, and I achieved that goal. But since then, any sort of regular writing schedule has gone to hell in a handbag. Generally, what I try to do is complete a draft in the winter and early spring and send it out for comment and/or market it to agents during the summer and fall. You can imagine this makes for some long delays between books. On the upside, it does allow me the necessary time and space to see the story with fresh eyes, which makes editing more productive.

So even were I to write full time, no way no how could I crank out a book in one year, every year. Probably not even if I were writing a series, where the major work of developing the characters has been started. And I feel more than a little inadequate about this, because I have read scads of anecdotes about writers who labor deep into each night or wake up at 4:00 AM to write for a couple of hours before they wake the spouse and kids, get them off to work or school, then dress and go off to their own full time day job.  Last year, I spoke with Julie Otsuka, who told me that it took her five years to write both The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine, so I don't feel so alone.  And one of the writers I most admire, Barbara Kingsolver, has said that a novel will percolate in her for months or years as she "earns the authority to write it." That's really what it's about: finding the arc of the story and the passion behind it, which often develops as I write, rather than before I begin. And there shouldn't be a time limit on that.

But I admit, the perfectionist in me still feels inadequate about literary output. And that will probably never change.

Quality over quantity? Does it depend on the genre? What do you think?

A certain kind of mother

Today is Mother's Day. This isn't my holiday, as my only children are comprised of words, rather than genes, and my own mother "changed addresses" long ago...in fact, I realized with a distant shock today that she has been gone more than half my life. But where these two intersect was a critical turning point for me.

My mother died of cancer at 51-- the precise age I am today. Though she was far from demonstrative, we were very close. She was diagnosed in late October four years after I graduated college.  Anyone who has lost someone to cancer knows the pain of witnessing the slow death that you can't stop, or often, even ease. I cried so much through the term of her short prognosis that when she passed away, I thought I had no more tears to shed. While I missed her dreadfully, mimicking her pragmatism, I boxed up my pain. I went back to work the day after her funeral and threw myself into practical matters like my then-career in advertising and marketing.I told myself I had done all my grieving; now it was time to get on with life.

Seven years later, when Chris and I moved to New York, I faced another type of grieving. I had moved far from everyone I knew, into a part of the country that had no work prospects for me. Without my familiar career, I didn't know who I was. I wrote long letters home to friends and family, and through this, I began to see my path. While I had journalled on and off since I was a teenager, until I made the paradigm shift of what our new life meant for my dreams, I'd never truly believed I might write seriously. Now I could. I took classes and signed onto the writer boards on AOL and began to work on A Butler's Life, the book I'd half joked I would write about Chris's life in service since we'd first met. I also wrote essays and a few articles, almost all unpublished, and began to rough out ideas for some novels. And I continued to write my long letters to those I viewed as my support team back home.

But where I wasn't writing...and hadn't since the day my mother had been diagnosed...was in my journal.

In September 1995, I sold A Butler's Life in hardcover. I delivered the manuscript the following March. While I waited for it to be published, I proposed Wedding Wonders to another publisher and sold that, too. As a small paperback, Wedding Wonders was published first, in 1996.

Writers often equate writing and, especially, the publishing of their works as akin to giving birth. (Many of us also admit to a form of post-partum depression following publishing.) I'm sure every writer remembers the feeling of opening that very first box from their publisher marked "Author's Copies." There, in full color (at least on the cover), is your baby. Your firstborn. Fruit of your heart, mind, soul. You crow. You coo. You show all your friends. And you employ all your marketing efforts to help that baby not only walk, but hopefully soar in the crowded world. Let's call it an extremely foreshortened parenthood.

I didn't cry fifteen months after my mother's death when my sister had no "mother of the bride" at her large traditional church ceremony. I shed a few tears two years later when, on my wedding eve, my father presented me with a figurine my mom had bought for that occasion on a European trip three years before she died. But when my only children -- my books -- were "born," a dam broke. The night that first box arrived,  I cried for the loss of my mom, for the accomplishment I longed to have her there to recognize and appreciate. For me, there would be no grandchildren in whom I might recognize her eyes, her mouth, her chin, or her sense of humor. But I had launched something into the world that would remain long after my death, if only in the Library of Congress archives. Something that would prove that I had existed. Something that would have made my mother proud of me. Something she wasn't there to see.

But when that dam broke, so, too, did another dam I hadn't recognized as being obstructive: I gained the ability to journal again. And truly, there was an ocean of unwritten words, uncried tears, unfinished grief of all kinds that poured out over that broken dam...and continue to do so, sometimes via journal, sometimes within my writing. It doesn't escape me that in the three novels I've penned so far, Blood Exposure being the first, all deal with mother-daughter issues. While none of the situations are autobiographical, there are commonalities and extrapolations that I just have to trust spring from a deep place. One that never goes away, and remains fascinating to me to plumb.

For those of us whose offspring receive their report cards on Amazon.com...wouldn't it be appropriate if royalty checks arrived on Mother's Day, like Hallmark cards?