Quote

"If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you."

Dorothy Parker

Here I Don't Go Again

Yes, I'm giving up writing the book I started last week. I'm grateful that I didn't write more than 8 pages.

All along I've been questioning whether I could sustain reader interest in this one. I realized that I couldn't. If it's anything it's a short story. Maybe.

I can't make this work as a novel and I don't think I want to. Yes, I'm a little depressed because I don't have another idea. It's hard to adjust to not having as fertile an imagination as I once had.

I think I so wanted to start the "school year" with a new book that I pushed myself into writing something that really wasn't for me.

I'm going back to reading and thinking and hoping something will hit me that I can't wait to write. The truth is that even though I may complain while writing a book, I'm the happiest when I'm doing so.

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Three Day Week

I only worked three days this week and didn't get a lot done. Tomorrow I'm going to the movies. Those of you who've been reading my blog for awhile know that this is what I do during the first draft. I go to movies on Fridays. Well, maybe not through the whole first draft but a lot of it.

I look forward to having three days off. I need to think more about this novel before I go on and I'll do that over the weekend. So that's not having time off, is it?

At least I've made a start even though I'm not totally comfortable with the idea I've chosen.

Haven't I been here before?

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Quote

"If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you."

Dorothy Parker

What A Difference A Day Makes

I thought about my protagonist a lot yesterday and last night.  Couldn’t fall asleep. Sounds good, but it wasn’t because I’m very tired today.

But aside from that I can’t stop myself from wondering why anyone would stay with this…keep reading about this character.  Wondering if I can sustain this voice.  Sustain interest.

So it didn’t go as well today.

Over A Thousand Words

Yes.  Four pages and a half.  It was hard to start and by the 2nd page I thought, I can’t do this.  By the end of the 2nd page, and some caffeine, I let myself go with it and it felt good.  Not that what I wrote is necessarily good.  I don’t know about that yet.

Don’t like writing without a title. 

For Real

I’m extremely anxious about this coming Monday.  I feel it’s actually going to happen this time.  Or at least I’m going to try to make it happen.  By that I mean I’m going to sit down here and bring up Word and hit the keys.

Ohmigod!

Up and Almost Running

No, I didn’t start writing on the 10th.  I couldn’t.  I was still knocked out from the procedure I had on Friday. Actually, the anathesia.  It was dumb of me not to realize that this would be so.  Sometimes I amaze myself that I live in such denial.

Today is the first day I feel well enough to be doing this.  Or much of anything other than reading and sleeping.

So my new target is Monday September 17th.  I honestly felt sad about not being well enough to start on the 10th. 

Now that’s what I call progress.

Very Good Essay

Jim Huang has written a wonderful essay about book publishing.  I think it’s essential reading.

http://mysterycompany.typepad.com/

Thanks to Jess for this heads up.

 

The Last Excuse (I hope)

About a month ago I told myself that after Labor Day I’d try to start a new novel.  But that’s not going to happen.

A week from today I have to have minor surgery.  I know that leaves me Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but I can’t concentrate because I’m nervous about the surgery.  Maybe others wouldn’t be, but I am and that’s that.

So I’ll start on September 10th.  How do I feel about that?  Anxious.

I also hate to give up all the reading time I’ve had these last months and months.  Despise having to get on a schedule.  I know I posted awhile back that I wouldn’t have to be on one, but I know me.  I need that structure.

I’m not going to be able to take my laptop down to the new Starbucks and sip coffee and write.  That’s a fantasy.  I’m going to be right here, staring at a blank page in Word on my nice flat Xerox screen.  During my writing hours I’m not going to peek at email or log on to Sarah Weinman's Blog to see what I should read next.  And I can’t check Ed Gorman's Blog for interesting reflections or pop over to A Writer's Life to see if Lee Goldberg is writing about me again.  I kid my Lee. 

Nope can’t do any of that stuff.  I have to sit here from nine to noon, or a little later, and tap out what I can.  Yes, I have an idea.  I still don’t know if it’s viable, but I have give it a try.

If it ends up like my last attempt, 200 pages or so and not being able to finish, I don’t know what I’ll do.  I won’t swear that I’ll hang up my computer, but I might.

The lure of writing that 20th novel is still with me.  I’m going to give it my best shot.

Eye of the Beholder

Lee Goldberg has posted his response to my blog of the last few months.  He’s upset that my posts have been down.  He writes: “I find her posts disturbing and sad”.

I tried to tell him that my blog is about the ups and downs of this writer’s life.  I’m not going to write positive posts when there’s nothing positive to say at the moment.

Lee also writes, “It's unpleasant to see her in such a self-defeating, bitter retreat.”  Unpleasant?  Where does it say that I have to be pleasant? Self-defeating?  I don’t see it that way.  Should I get some positive mantra?  Should I lie on this blog and write only good thoughts?  Bitter?  Well, perhaps some are bitter.  The ones about publishing probably are.  On the other hand I don’t see them that way.  I see them as telling it like it is.

I state at the top of my blog that the blog is about writing and not writing, good and bad days.  It’s true that my bad days have lasted for quite a long time now, but I think that’s important for other writers to read.  To see that they’re not alone.  Because if Lee thinks I’m the only writer who feels this way he’s living in a dream world.

He goes on to write, “And I'm not so sure it's healthy for her career to be posting about it on her blog...then again, that's probably exactly why she's doing it.”

Healthy for my career? At this stage of my life I don’t think this way.  Lee is a completely different kind of writer than I am and probably it wouldn’t be good for his career to post some of the feelings I have, if he had them. Lee is in the middle of his career, and it doesn’t have a lot to do with the publishing world that I deal with.  This is not to put Lee down but merely to explain that our careers live in two different worlds.

“then again that’s probably why she’s doing it”?  What does that mean?  I’m writing these posts to make my career healthy?  I don’t get that.

I think Lee entirely misses the humor in these posts.  Many people don’t.  That’s not to say that the humor mitigates what I feel.  I recognize the humor in my thoughts as well as the plain ordinary truth of what I’m feeling.

In his response to my comment he writes, “Read your posts. They are bleak and depressing.”  So what?  I don’t see them that way, but even if that’s true, so what?  Does Lee want me to put on a happy face?

He writes that even when the posts aren’t about myself I express, “dark views about the state of publishing.”  Don’t we published writers know that the state of publishing is dreadful?  Why shouldn’t I write about that?  That might be helpful to a new writer who is getting rejection after rejection.

Lee writes, “Surely there are some "ups" in your writing life (or in your thoughts)

Well, no, Lee.  If there were, I’d post about these ups as I have in the past. And if any come along (as I hope they will) I’ll post them immediately.

To be fair to Lee he says some very nice things about me as a writer.  And I thank him for that.

Lee, you’ll be the first to know when I start a new novel.  And I hope that’s soon.

Baker's Blog

What phases are involved in the creation of a text?  This is the question John Baker asked a number of writers to answer.

He’s been posting them since July. There are a lot of interesting answers, descriptions of the way a writer works.   Many have things in common, some are different, all are worth reading.

Well, sure … I’m there, too.

Why?

Why am thinking about writing this book that I’ve had in the back of my mind for a few months?  What do I know about the things I’d have to include?  Who would be interested in this? 

I’ve said to myself and maybe here that I would probably start after Labor Day.  That’s 21 days away.  On Labor Day I’d be facing writing the next day. When I think of that it makes me sick.

If I start in September and don’t have interuptions (this has never happened) it’ll take me four to six months to complete a first draft.  And another one or two to rewrite.

And then what?  Give it to my agent?  She’ll hate it.  So maybe I’ll have to find another agent.  Not easy.  Or maybe my agent will decide to try and sell it.

Nobody will buy it.  Or even if somebody does it will fall through the cracks and three people will read it.

Why bother?

I’m going back to bed.

Another Surprise

I now hate the title.

Surprise For Me

The title for the book I might write just came to me.

Quote

"The novel remains for me one of the few forms where we can record man's complexity and the strength and decency of his longings."

John Cheever

Vin Packer

Remember the non-fiction piece I was writing and whining about in May? It’s out now in Crimespree Magazine. The piece is about Vin Packer (Marijane Meaker).

She loved it.  The article was a surprise to her because I hadn’t let her know I was writing it.  I’m so glad she was pleased.

Marijane said I should write more non-fiction. I said, no.  She said, it was so much fun doing the research.  I said, I liked to make up stories.

I wish I did like writing non-fiction but it doesn’t speak to me.  You have to stick to facts and you know where you’re going and none of the people can be invented.  That is, if you’re doing it honestly.

No, it’s fiction or nothing for me.  And speaking of that, I had about two minutes yesterday of being bored by NOT writing.  Only a few minutes.  Still….

No Thoughts

A writer friend of mine emailed me yesterday wondering why I wasn’t posting my thoughts here.  My first reaction was, how nice that she cares, and my second was, what thoughts?

I’ve been reading a lot and I have thoughts about the books I read, but this blog was meant to be about writing thoughts, as it says above.  The problem is I have no writing thoughts.

About once or twice a week I get an email from a fan who is waiting for the next book in the Faye Quick series.  That makes me think about writing for as long as it takes me to answer the writer and tell him/her that there won’t be anymore Faye novels because my contract wasn’t picked up.  And then I don’t think about writing after that.

Actually, I just realized that I’m lying.  Occasionally I think of what I might write if I start writing.  These are fleeting thoughts and certainly not worth posting.

I have thoughts about politics (who doesn’t?) but that’s not what this blog is about.  I also think abouth movies I’ve seen.  Not about that either.

But thoughts about me writing?  Nope. We’re halfway through the summer and I guess I had a secret thought that I might start a new book after Labor Day.  And I might.

Here’s the thing: I don’t miss writing at all.  I have no idea how long that will last.  Maybe forever.  Maybe until Labor Day.

Sometimes I think about other writers.  I read about their deals and hope that huge sums of money won’t ruin their careers.  Or I notice that a very good writer has disappeared from the scene.  In fact I could probably do a whole post about Whatever happened to…?

Still, that’s not about my writing thoughts.  Maybe I should branch out and write about some of the things I mentioned above.  But a lot of people write about those things and better than I would.

I know I’ve posted about publishing before.  So what more is there to say?  We all know it’s only going to get worse.

This doesn’t mean I won’t post again until I know what I’m going to write.  Something will rile me up or spin me around and I’ll put my two cents in.

So, stay tuned.

No Place At The Table

A friend of mine, who has published at least 10 novels in the crime genre, has written a new one.

She was unable to get an agent, (some didn’t even bother to call her back or return her email) despite having been published, so she decided to send it to editors herself.  Not cold.  Editors she’d met at various conventions, etc.

Here, from an editor at a major house, is the last paragraph of a rejection letter that praised her novel.

“This is a fine piece of work, as you no doubt are painfully aware, but I’m not sure that we could convince the big stores to buy thousands and thousands of copies.  And that is my mandate these days.”

It just makes me feel all warm and cozy.  And it definitely makes me want to sit down in front of my computer and hit those keys.  Not that I intend to write a book that will make those big fat stores buy thousands and thousands of copies.  And that’s just the point.

Who is going to publish the books I write…the books that you write?  I know the mid-list category for fiction is nonexistent but I didn’t think it was happening in the crime genre.

The editor’s mandate.  Discouraging and depressing.  I’ve never sold thousands and thousands of copies to the chains.  Most of us don’t.  We all know who does.  Ten, twenty at most.  And they’re the people who get major reviews and big time ads.  Over and over again.

I know there are quite a few independent publishers and I certainly wouldn’t mind being published by one of them.  I’d like it.  Still, the idea that unless you can be sure you’ve written a BIG book that will have the BIG stores buying thousands and thousands of copies is, in a word, disgusting.

The stores run publishing now.  Not news, I know.  And the sales people at the publishing houses help decide who will be published. 

Where does a new writer go?  How does he/she get an agent?  Agents also think about those thousands and thousands of copies. And on and on.

I’ve always believed that a good book would eventually be published.  I’ve changed my mind.  That won’t happen unless you fulfill an editor’s mandate.  And trust me, this isn’t an isolated approach to publishing.

So, what to do? I think there are three choices.  Write what you want, anyway, get a job if you don’t have one or retire from the whole thing.

It’s up to you.

Another Country Heard From

Maybe I’ve been wrong during this fallow period.  I’m always saying that writers don’t retire.  Annie Dillard doesn’t agree.

What I Know

Before I begin writing what I want to say today, I’d like to ask you not to comment that I’m lucky with the career I have (I know) or it can still happen (it can’t) or I should be grateful, or accepting or any of those things.  I am.  I do.

Many people have written me to say they like my honesty.  So that’s what I’m doing here.  I’m being honest.

On Amazon they let you have a wish list.  This is my writing life wish list.

I wish I had Ed’s productivity.  Janet’s energy.  Sue’s popularity.  Mary’s name recognition.  Dan’s money. And most of all I wish I had Laura’s career. 

There was a time when it looked like I was going to have some of those things but it never happened.  I believe it was because of the choices I made.  And a little bad advice.

I believe I’m a good writer.  Not great. But Good.  And that should be enough to have some of the things I’ve enumerated. In fact we all know of bad writers who have some or all of those things. Timing and luck are a big part in this hellish game we play.

I hear about the new upcoming writers and I read them.  Some are damn good.  I wish I could be part of them, in their grade, their class, so to speak.  But it’s no longer my time.

Twenty years ago I was in the class with a bunch of new writers.  Some became household names others are like me and still others can’t get published anymore.  They’ve disappeared.  Some should’ve disappeared, others not.

I know the breakthrough book isn’t going to happen for me.  That’s okay.  I had my chance.  Now, despite my wishes, which, by the way, are for the forty year old me, I don’t have any idea if I’ll publish again.  Or write again.  I’m inclined to think I’ll write, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be published. That’s not okay.  But there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

I hope the next book I write is good.  Still, it won’t be the kind of book that’ll make me a household name or bring in loads of money.  That’s okay, too.  I want whatever I write to see the light of day and make back the money I was paid. At this point in my writing life that’s all that’s important. 

Am I committing publishing suicide by writing this?  Maybe.  But I’m still naive enough to believe that if I write a good book whatever I say here won’t matter.

And one more time:  I’m grateful for the career I have.

Still Crazy After How Long?

How long has it been? I don’t know. It seems like months. It is months? Huh. Actually it seems more like a day. That’s how much I’m enjoying it. It being not writing.

We all know that if I write again it won’t be this summer. That girl is still around and occasionally whispering in my ear. And sometimes I hear other things on TV or radio or even from the women I go to Curves with. And sometimes I write them down. But spending my time reading and watching movies seems to satisfy me right now.

Of course when I read reviews of books on blogs or in print it gives me a pinch. Notice, pinch not punch. I think, oh, sit down and write. And then I forget about it.

I’m beginning to suspect that the lack of discipline idea I wrote about a few posts ago isn’t going to fly. My schedule is too ingrained. I’m not going to be able to start at 11 or 1. That’s not me. If I start writing I’m sure I’ll go back to the schedule I’ve been on for 50 years.

And should I write this book that’s now and then in my mind it shouldn’t take me very long. It’s that kind of book, unlike my last fiasco. The 200 pages I abandoned. This one should be fairly easy. Of course none of them is easy. It’s all comparative. The one I’m vaguely entertaining should be easy in comparison to some others I’ve written. Maybe I’ll find out, maybe I won’t.

Anyway, I thought you should know I’m here and not writing. And crazy.

Quote

"To write it, it took three months; to conceive it - three minutes; to collect the data in it - all my life."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Acceptance

Yesterday I heard from the people at the magazine I wrote the non-fiction piece for and they liked it a lot. I guess it will be in their next issue. It’s Crimespree. It made me feel good that they liked it. Of course it did. Why wouldn’t it?

Yesterday I had coffee with a writer who’s waiting to see if she is going to be accepted into a writing group. This is an important group. Many people in it get published.

I feel for her. If she gets rejected she’ll lose confidence about her work. She’s written a novel that needs a rewrite. She has an agent, but I think it means a lot to her to be accepted into this group. Of course it does. Why wouldn’t it?

So is that the other part of being a writer? We want acceptance. Your first reader is the start. If he or she doesn’t like what you’ve done depression can set in for days.

Then comes your agent, if you’re lucky enough to have one. If he/she doesn’t like it where the hell does that leave you? You’re not accepted. You have to go back and make the book right so the agent will accept it.

It’s not only the non-acceptance of the work, it’s you. They say you’re not what you do, but I don’t buy that. Of course we’re many things, but a writer or an artist is different. I’m so closely connected to my work that if someone doesn’t like it I know I translate it into that person doesn’t like me. I’m better about this than I was when I started years ago, but I know that’s still in there.

Then comes the editor should you get one. Acceptance but with changes. The book is published and you’re out there. No control. Reviewers. More acceptance or not.

Readers. They write you. Friends. They lie to you and you know it. Some genuinely like it. But this is all about acceptance again. It’s a bitch.

Why do we do it?

Quote

"A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is."

Flannery O'Connor

Have Got a Clue

I realized yesterday as the holiday was coming to an end, that if I knew I had to get up the next morning and write I’d be depressed.

I’m a disciplined person and have been writing in a disciplined fashion for 50 years.  By disciplined I mean being at my desk by 9, writing for 3 or 4 hours 5 days a week unless I was sick.  Year after year.  That schedule has served me well.  But I think I’m tired of it.

I know that there are other writers out there who’ve been doing it longer and for more hours a day and more days a week.  I salute them.  But I’m not in a contest.

It’s not the writing I’m tired of it’s the method.  The trouble is I don’t know how else to do it.  This schedule works for me.  Can this old dog learn new tricks? 

I can’t imagine sitting down to write whenever I feel like it.  Maybe for an hour.  Ten minutes.  No.  These aren’t the rules.  The rules I made for myself.  If I made them I can break them.  Easily said.  But can a willy-nilly writing method work for me?

I’m not a night person so that wouldn’t be viable for me.  I’m best in the morning.  So what if I sat down at my computer at 10 or 11?  What would happen?  Or what if I gave some time in the afternoon a tumble?  I know there’s only one way to find out. 

This is still in the thinking stage and I’m not ready to test it yet.  Maybe next week.  Maybe not.

Thought Drops Falling In My Brain

As you can see below I’ve been relaxing and reading among other easy pursuits.  And I’ve been enjoying it.  Until yesterday.

Thoughts have been interfering. Book idea thoughts.  Opening lines.  This when I’m trying to read.  I don’t care for that.  But I can’t stop it.

There’s this girl.  There’s this girl who keeps talking to me. I’m not sure I know what she looks like.  I know how old she is.  I know where she lives.

I have to admit I did write down a few things she said.  But now she’s saying something else.  Something that makes what she said before irrelevant.  I’ll be damned if I’m going to listen or change what she said before.  I don’t have time for this.  I have the new Elmore Leonard to read.

I want her to shut up.

So far she won’t. 

Dick Cavett's Article

Below are portions of the article no one could get to.

_______________________________________

“You should sue your publisher.”

Those attention-getting words were uttered by a man who was invariably referred to as “the grand old man of Chicago book dealers.” That, rather than “hello,” was his greeting when my co-author and I once entered his shop.

“I ordered 50 copies of ‘Cavett,’ H.B.J. sent me nine copies, and I sold them all that morning,” he said. He was referring to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, our publisher. “It’s three weeks now that I can’t get any more copies out of your publisher. People come in for it every day. Do you have a good lawyer?”

How could this be? How could they not send the books?

How could the book not be in a popular bookstore? Any comfort from thinking maybe this was an isolated case quickly dissolved. “And the Kroch-Brentano chain of stores,” he said, emphasizing the word “chain,” “can’t get it either.”

__________________________________________

It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it?

Link

Sorry about the link below.  I didn’t realize people couldn’t get to it.  I’ll try to copy some the article and put it here tomorrow.

Publishing Hell

You’re not alone.  This is well worth reading An Author's Nightmare . See for youself what you’re probably in for.

Finished

I finally finished the non-fiction piece and sent it off today. No response but I wouldn’t expect one yet.

First I sent it with the pages unnumbered. Then I said I was sorry I’d done that and here’s the right one. Accept I forgot the attachment. I made it on the third try.

So now what? I have no interest in writing. Although I noticed my mind noting some news articles. Not sure what that means.

When I think I’ll never write again I don’t feel panicky as I have in the past. It feels okay. I’m enjoying hanging around. I read a lot. I answer email, visit sites on the Internet. I talk to friends. And a Starbucks has opened in my town.

That may seem like nothing to many people, but out here it’s something. It’s set back from the street and is tastefully done inside. This is one with easy chairs. The big difference is that you can’t sit and people watch. What I mean is, there aren’t a lot of people walking by. So it’s a good place to bring a book and have a coffee. Or meet a friend.

The summer people will be here in another few weeks and things will change. I won’t leave my house on the weekends. But that’s okay with me. I have a lovely house and comfortable places to read. A hammock outside.

I don’t want to write and I’m not going to unless I want to. Yes, money matters, but my track record won’t bring me lots of money. Or even okay money. So I’ll have to really want to write something to do it again. And that could happen any time. Meanwhile I’ll wait for the brass ring in my hammock.

Nonfiction

I don’t know how anyone writes nonfiction. Or why they’d want to. I finished the first draft of a piece for a magazine yesterday. It’s true that I don’t feel like writing anything now, but this had to be done as I had agreed.

I don’t think writing nonfiction is fun. I also don’t think writing fiction is fun, although it has its moments. It doesn’t feel like there is anything creative about nonfiction. Things are pulled from here and there and, in this case, from my memory.

It’s much more like filling in a puzzle to me. I suppose I should like puzzles considering what I usually write. But I knew the end of this puzzle and I didn’t have to invent characters. I didn’t have to invent anything and I think that’s why writing nonfiction leaves me cold.

This is a first for me. I hope the editors will be happy with my effort. I can’t help worrying that they’re going to reject it.

I have to believe that if they do reject it it’s because the piece is lousy. And then I should be grateful that it won’t be read by anyone else. Shouldn’t I? Will my ego allow me to view it this way?

I doubt it.

Another Nonevent

“On the first of May, it is moving day.” It’s also the publication day of my paperback of TOO DARN HOT. Does anyone care? Certainly not my publisher. To be fair no publisher of a paperback (unless by a high profile author) ever cares about the release of a paperback.

But as I sit here at my desk, in my new chair, I wonder if this is the last time I’ll experience this nonevent. This isn’t a whiny thought. It’s perfectly possible that this might be the last time.

Of course, I don’t have a chance if I don’t write another book. And as the days go by I don’t seem to be doing that. Yes, I have that idea I mentioned awhile ago, but you can’t just have an idea. You have to apply seat of pants to chair (new or not) and hit those keys. In other words, write.

Someone asked me yesterday if I was writing. When I said no, she said well I guess you have to take a break. A break? I don’t think this is what I’m doing. I think what I’m doing is not writing. There’s a difference.

Taking a break is planned. And vacations are involved. Sleeping late. Going to bed late.

Not writing is not writing. There are parts of this state that I like. No deadlines loom. No jumping out of bed to be sure that I get to my desk by nine. No thinking. On the down side there’s brain boredom. Don’t get me wrong, I’m never bored. I’ve always said that anyone who reads can’t ever be bored and I still think that’s true. Brain boredom to me is when I’m not creating. Not writing.

I have no impulse to start. Even the research part doesn’t get a rise out of me.

I know that this book will be quite dark and the reader won’t love the protagonist. And there’ll be no redemption. At least I think that now. And if that’s true it’ll be hard to get it published. So it all seems futile.

No, that’s not it. I’m a writer and a writer writes. So what’s going on? I’ll be damned if I know.

Edgars

The results are in. Some of us are thrilled, others aren’t. And I don’t mean the winners and losers. I’m talking about the readers and some of those are writers. At least I hope the writers read.

It’s great to win prizes. Or to be nominated. I know, I’ve had both things happen to me, although the book that won was under the name Jack Early. A Shamus award.

And I hope I get nominated and/or win something again. I’m not sure what it does for sales, but it does a lot for ego. Nothing wrong with that.

But the real deal is writing. Finishing a book is the first reward, the first prize. The second one is getting it published. Let’s face it, none of us wants to put that 400 page manuscript into a drawer.

Still, I have to focus on the work. Because that’s the important part.

Up and Running

My computer is working but I’m not. Writing, that is. How can I write when I have to get all my programs working? What a pain this is. I think I’d rather be writing. Well…..

A few thoughts. Why do people write novels with nameless characters? Or nameless narrators. Or nameless places. I don’t get this. Am I not understanding something? And I don’t want to hear the Everyman answer.

I dislike nameless anything. Names are very important to me. I find a nameless protagonist irritating. Half their personality is missing. And why a nameless city or state? What’s gained from this?

Another thought. Why do people think you want to hear something like this: “I liked your book so much I loaned it to a friend.” I’m glad you liked it so much, but I wish you’d told your friend so and encouraged him/her to go out and buy it.

Once my computer is exactly like I want it I’ll be able to continue my research. Still not ready to take the plunge. I wonder how much this has to do with how little is being done for my paperback which gets published on May 1st? Did I say how little? How about nothing.

I didn’t expect anything. After giving me a purple cover because five others that were being published that month had red covers, I knew where I stood.

And I don’t care who reads the above. Sue me.

Crashing

I have no idea if this will work because my Windows program crashed and I've been dealing with reinstalling and frustrating attempts to get on the Internet. Seems I can't get onto my home page which also means I can't get mail. So if anyone has sent me mail and I haven't answered it's because I can't. Same goes for Crimespace. I feel like I'm in Internet hell...or is it simply computer hell? Not writing, of course. Even if I wanted to write I couldn't because of this mess. Lost all my mail, but saved my addresses and bookmarks. But what good is that if I can't get on.

Well, let's see.

Still Here

I’m continuing research for the new idea.  Worried that this novel will be too dark.  I know, I know…no novel in this field can be too dark.  Crime field, that is.  But I think it’ll be too dark for my agent.  What am I talking about?  I haven’t written one word.

And speaking of writing one word, here I am on Sunday so happy that I don’t have to actually write tomorrow.

I’ve been thinking that even though my disciplined schedule has worked for me through 19 books maybe that’s enough discipline.  Maybe I can do something different this time.  The thing is I’ll have to write to find out.  But I’m not ready yet. 

Will I ever be ready?

A Little Different

I know the video below doesn’t fit the purpose of my blog but I thought it might be fun.  And interesting.  Bruen has become very successful in the last four or five years.  He’s not a household name, but writers love him.  See what you think.

Ken Bruen Reading Cross

Quote

"I have written a great many stories and I still don't know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances."

John Steinbeck

Light Bulb

If I had a picture of a light bulb I’d put it here.  Yes, I have an idea.  Or the beginning of an idea.  Actually, that’s not true.  I have the whole idea, but not the middle.  Strange for me but I have the end.  Or what I now think is the end.  I have ideas about my protagonist.  And the title came to me this minute while writing this.  It’s a title I’ve used before.  A long time ago and in another medium.  I always wanted to use it again.

This idea requires research.  Research that might be great fun if it doesn’t eventually drive me insane.  I think it’ll be both hard and easy to write.  I know that’s confusing but I can’t explain or I’d be telling too much.  I never talk about a book I’m thinking of or writing.  I believe if you talk about it you don’t write it.  Talking it away, is what I call it. I may be telling too much now.

  I know that this could all crash and burn.  I’ll be disappointed if that happens, but after putting 200 pages in a drawer this year I think I’ll survive.

How did this come about?  After reading Laura Lippman’s new book it made me want to write.  That’s happened to me before after reading a good novel. This isn’t about competition. It’s the kick in the pants I needed.  That, coupled with all the reading I’ve been doing, relaxing, and not uselessly grasping for an idea.  Suddenly there  it was.  But it wasn’t anymore sudden than noticing your hair’s turned gray. 

Here’s the rub.  I don’t feel like writing.  Or giving myself a start date.  For now it’s enough to think about it….not talk about it.  I know I’ll hit the keys one of these days.

Congratulations are not in order. 

Laura Lippman

I’ve never written this kind of post and perhaps will never write one again, but I decided it fit here because it’s really about the growth of a writer.

This is not a book review, but I must say something about  Lippman's new book, WHAT THE DEAD KNOW.

I have not always been a fan of Lippman's writing. I read her first book and I think the second and dismissed her. She will tell you herself that her first five books aren't her best.

I kept reading the raves about her. The winning of all the prizes. I'd see special sections devoted to her in bookstores. I couldn't understand it and I began to hate her. I didn't know her, we'd never met. I hated her because I was jealous.

Then last summer we were on a panel together. I found her charming and bright and funny. I immediately got a copy of NO GOOD DEEDS, which I liked a great deal. It's a good book.

I was looking forward to WHAT THE DEAD KNOW and now I've read it. The novel is wonderful. Thinking back to that first book I'm astonished at how much this writer has grown. We all want to get better as we go on, but not everyone does. Some get worse.

WHAT THE DEAD KNOW is a great accomplishment. I almost felt that I was reading a different writer, but that's because she's written a novel that's taken her eleven books to get to this place. Practice, practice, practice. And I'd guess she's learned a lot from reading.

So, run, don't walk, to your nearest bookstore and get a copy of WHAT THE DEAD KNOW.

If Laura Lippman doesn't get a bunch of prizes for this I'll be astonished. And mad. I'm not jealous anymore. I'm delighted for her.

Quote

“The writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master- something that at time strangely wills and works for itself."

Charlotte Bronte

Building Blocks

I haven’t posted in awhile because I don’t have much to say.  Still, since this is a blog about writing I guess it’s important to say I’m still not writing.

A friend suggested the other night that I have a block.  That would be a writer’s block.  I don’t think that’s what it is.  I’ve had them in my life and they were very different.  They were “I want so much to write but I can’t.”  One time, when I’d sit at my desk I’d feel faint.  This time I simply don’t WANT to write.  Not now.  I hope it’s only for now.  But how long is now?

That’s the only thing that worries me.  How long?  That’s scary. What if it goes on for years?  What if I die before I write my 20th book?  Well, so what?  If I do, I do. In the grander scheme of things it won’t make a bit of difference.

Now and then a half-formed idea squiggles through my brain only to die young.  Maybe I kill it because I don’t WANT to write.

I’m enjoying reading and not being on a schedule.  Still, every time a writer I like publishes I feel a little ping.

But it’s not a block.  I don’t have the desire or the will right now.  And for the moment I feel all right with that.  But how long will a moment last?

 

Quote

"The human brain is the laziest apparatus in the world. If you start to revise before you’ve reached the end, you’re likely to begin dawdling with the revisions and putting off the difficult task of writing. Unless I find I’ve made some drastic mistake in characterization or basic structure, I never go back until I’ve written the last page."

Pearl S. Buck

Yes, We've Got No Ideas Today

I found this comment on my blog today:

“You haven't posted in awhile. I trust you've wrapped your mind around an idea and you're flying with it. :) “

She put a smiley there so I guess she must know that had I an idea I would’ve posted.  I do have a few snippets..little pests.  But no full grown animal.

Since Friday I’ve been helping two friends who have been very sick.  One in the hospital, the other at home.  So I keep saying to myself it’s a good thing I’m not writing.  That’s true, in a way.  I’d be a bit resentful if I was in the middle of a book. But I’m not.

Tomorrow will be the 1st of March.  I blew January and February, my favorite months to write.  Maybe it’s all over for me.  Maybe there won’t be a 20th book.  We know I’m not a Gorman or a Randisi so this might be the end.  Nineteen books isn’t a bad record.  Still, I’m not ancient and have all my marbles.  So why would it be over for me?

Think of Harper Lee.  One book and out.  I’m not comparing myself as a writer with her, but who says one has to write book after book?  I made this 20 book goal for myself so I can break it if I want to.

But I’m a writer and writers write.  I know you’re not supposed to define yourself by what you do.  Actually, who said that?  I do define myself that way.  So I’ll keep reading and thinking and hoping.  That’s all I can do right now.

Quote

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows, that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention."

George Orwell

I'm Not Alone

Yesterday I got a call from a writer friend who told me she was very depressed.  Why?  She’s about my age, has published 13 books and cannot find an agent.  She has a book she finished and is ready to go.  But none of the agents she wrote to wrote her back.  This is someone in the crime field who has had two series and a stand alone.  This isn’t an unknown. No agent even had the decency to say they weren’t interested.

So now she’s going to try writing to editors she’s met, but doesn’t know.  Her hopes are not up.  And she said to me, “I feel like I’m starting all over again.”  Didn’t I just write that very sentence in a post?

It’s not as though we’re baseball players and can’t cut it anymore.  And she has an actual finished novel.  Unlike me.  So you’d think someone would take a look at her novel, wouldn’t you?  We’ll see.

Meanwhile I’m in the pits.  A blank brain.  Nothing to write after I bought an new expensive chair for my office.  It’s not here yet, so maybe by the time it comes….nah.  Unlikely.

I feel terrible I have nothing to write and I also don’t want to write.  So what if I don’t publish twenty novels.  Who’s counting except for me?  The thing is, I feel I must write, I should write, I have to write.  WTF.

False Start

Thank you to everyone who wished me good luck and who were happy for me that I’d made a decision and started something new.

After that first chapter I realized that the form I’d set was leading me to write about myself (fictionally) and my family.  I can’t write about myself.  Just can’t do it.  Not unless I’m totally disguised.  I wasn’t disguised at all.  I might find another way to do this, but for now it’s going in the recycle bin.  At least Chapter 2 is.

Am I depressed?  Not exactly.  I’m worried.  Time is passing and I’m not sure how much time I have left.  Yes, I know, nobody is.  But I’ve reached a certain age where time is very important.  I’m so much closer to the end than the beginning.  Or even the middle. I feel pressured.  I’m pressuring myself, of course.  No one else is knocking down my door, or phoning me. It’s as if I’ve just begun on this journey and have no connections. 

And for me the ideas don’t come fast and furious as they once did.

Back to reading and thinking.

My advice? Carpe diem!

Chapter One

I started a new novel today.  Two and a half pages.  Here I go again.

Decision

I’ve finally decided to give up the novel that I’ve been working on for over a year.  I’ve never spent so much time on something and then quit.  But I know in my gut that it’s the right thing to do.

I’m going to start something new.  I have a glimmer of an idea and I hope to get a first chapter done this week.  That may be all I do for awhile as I’m unsure of this and have to think more.  Or, writing the first chapter may give me the spark I need to go on right away.

You never know, do you?  Ain’t we got fun!

The Days Dwindle Down

I approach the start of another work week knowing I won’t be working.  I’m getting a bit tired of this now.  This week holds some medical stuff for me so I’d be interrupted anyway.  Still, I have to get a handle on what it is I’m going to do.  Nothing isn’t an option.  I’m still not sure which path to take: continue or start something new.  By next week at this time I hope to have that answer.

January and February are such good months to write, especially if you’re in the East.  It’s cold here, finally.  And I like writing during these months.  I’ve pretty much lost January and February is slipping away.  Okay, March is good, too.  But I don’t want to start up in April. I can pretty much tell that this summer will be a working one, unlike last summer.  Hate that.

As it is if I finish and sell a novel it won’t be published until 2008 or ‘09 and that’s not good.  Too long out of people’s thoughts.

But I’m reading and thinking.  It’s not a total loss.  Or is it?

More Will Be Revealed

Still not writing.  Reading.  Thinking.  Don’t know what I’m going to do.

Seesaw

I’m not writing.  I’m thinking.  I keep vacillating between trying to find a way to finish this book I’ve been working on and starting a new one.  I seem to have an idea for a new one, but who knows?

I’m also reading.

 

Having a Terrible Time, Wish You Were Here

Anyone, that is, who could save me.  I’ve hit the wall.  Really. I decided I was going to toss the book.  First Reader said not before I read it.

 

So FR read it.  She didn't give me the reaction I wanted which was, "You can't toss this.  It has the makings of a good book.  You have to do X,Y,Z and then this is how you'll get them down that slope to the conclusion."

 

Nope.

 

She liked a lot of it and said I had hard work to do.  Way too many characters, which I knew.  And she had no idea how to get to and write the 2nd act.  She had some ideas on what I should do with what I have.  But I had to coax the words "Don't toss it" out of her.  And they weren't quite those words.  I've blocked what they actually were but they meant the same thing. Grudgingly.

 

I've often had false starts and given up, but I've never had over 200 pages and quit.  I've always said this was the kind of crime novel I couldn't write and it seems that it's true.  But I don't want it to be true. I'm so depressed about it.  I know I could take the things FR told me and rework everything but then I'll eventually get to the same place.  I think.  FR doesn't think so.  She thinks if do some of the stuff she suggested it'll give me ideas on how to go on and resolve the sucker.  Maybe so.

 

Why not?  I don't have an idea for another book and can't imagine starting something else even if I did.  I don't have that secret novel I've always wanted to write. 

 

I guess there's an option to stop all together.  But that's a false option.  I might be able to do that for a week or two, but then I'd want to write something and I still might not have an idea and blah, blah, blah.

 

All the options are lousy.  Tomorrow looms.  What will I do?  I have to take some action.  I guess I'll get out those 4x5 cards that Martha O'Connor suggested awhile back and start putting the names and alliances on them, then tack them to my bulletin board.  I haven't had to do this for 30 years.  And that was with Some Unknown Person.  Come to think of it that had a cast of thousands.  But I always knew where that was going and didn't have trouble getting there.

 

I think I have to give it one more try. 

 

And please don’t tell me I should’ve outlined.

Why Can't I Be More Like a Gorman?

Or a Randisi?  Or a McBain?  A Westlake?  Ohmigod I can’t think of a woman.  Oh, well, the point is they’ve written hundreds of books.  Each one of them.  Especially Randisi and Gorman.  And while they’re writing novels they’re compiling anthologies.  And editing magazines and all kinds of stuff.  And they’re not writing in one genre either.  Gorman and Randisi write westerns as well as crime novels.  And horror novels.

I’m struggling to write my 20th novel but nothing stops them.  McBain is dead so I can only look back.  But the others are very much alive.  And very much writing.  And publishing.

Okay, after my day off last Wednesday I did write on Thursday.  Not much.  But I wrote.  Then I went to the movies on Friday.  I bet Randisi and Gorman don’t go to the movies on a possible work day.  I’m sure they don’t.

And will they take off tomorrow because it’s a holiday.  Of course not.  Will I?  Of course. There’s one last movie I have to catch before the Golden Globes tomorrow night.  You have to have priorities in this writing life, afterall.

Yes, I know.  Mine suck.  On Tuesday I’ll try again to be disciplined.  I do want to finish this 20th even if no one publishes it.  And I’ll probably want to do a 21st.  But I can’t get ahead of myself this way.

How do Randisi and Gorman and Westlake and the ones I’m forgetting do it?  Even if I worked seven days a week I could never write as many books as they.  And please don’t start thinking they’re hacks because they most definitely aren’t.  That’s not to say that every book they publish is wonderful.  But a lot are very good.  So it’s a mystery to me how they do it.

But I wish I could.

I Didn't Want To

That’s right.  I came into my office, turned on the computer, clicked on Word.  I finished a chapter yesterday so I had to set up a new chapter.  I did that.  And put the page number in.  And then I stared at it for a few seconds, minimized it.  I remembered I’d d/l a program yesterday that I hadn’t set up.  So I did that.  And that was the end of writing for the day.

Not because I distracted myself with a toy.  But because I didn’t want to write so I distracted myself.  I know from experience that if I go to email or launch my browser or do anything but bring up Word I will be done for.  So it wasn’t that I was an innocent in any way.

I didn’t want to write today.

Yesterday and the day before went well.  I liked what I wrote.  Didn’t read it again, but I felt it was good.

I didn’t want to write today.

Yes, I feel guilty.  But only a little.  Still, it isn’t what I said I was going to do when I started writing again after my hiatus.  I thought I’d get in at least a four day week.  I still could if I don’t go to the movies on Friday.

Oh, hell.  I didn’t want to write today and I didn’t.

Pulling Teeth

That’s what it was like.  Even so I got a chapter done.  But these people are not cooperating with me.  They change what they’re doing from one paragraph to the next.  And they’re still talking and talking.

A plan has been made by one person, but I’ll believe he follows through when I see it on the page.

I have no idea why I’ve started talking about my characters like this.  Am I trying to get distance?  Do I want to relinquish responsibility?  What the hell is going on?  Has anyone else ever had this attitude toward characters.  I never have before.  Maybe it’s because I’m NOT in control.  I mean by that that the characters are getting away from me.  I hope that’s not the case. 

It’s true that if I’d outlined this probably wouldn’t be happening.  But then I wouldn’t care.  So I’d rather be in this quandry.  I have to admit some of it has to do with my memory. A lot does.  It’s a little scary.  I’m not sure how to solve this problem.  If anyone has a suggestion, a tip, or a trick other than outlining I’d like to hear it.

Tomorrow I’m going to a movie…exactly as I said I would.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Tomorrow is almost here.  Why do I care?  I have to go back to writing my novel. I both dread and look forward to it.  I know what’s waiting for me, of course.  I have to get these people moving.  They have to make plans. Get schemes in place. Strategize.

They’ve put things off for too long.  All the duos or trios are made up of the right people.  Now I need to see some action.  Talk, talk, talk. They have to take matters into their own hands and get that money.  At least go after it.

This will start the second year (with lots of breaks) on this book.  And it’s only halfway done and is a first draft.  If I’m ever going to get it finished I can’t take so many vacations.  From now until about June I have to keep going.  Stick to my schedule.  I’ll still take Fridays off if there’s a good movie around.  But that’s it.  By June I’d like to have it done.  Final version.

Okay.  Tomorrow.  Barring acts of God I’m going to hit those keys. For sure.  

Tomorrow.

Hand Lang Syne

Changes

Those of you who have been long time readers of this blog might remember that last summer I had a few gigs and the publicity woman, Lindsey Benoit, was/is a favorite of mine.  Well, she’s left Ballantine. 

 At the time she was handling my publicity I said that if anyone ever got her they would be lucky indeed.  For the moment no one is going to get her…no book authors.  Although she’s staying in publishing it’s not book publishing.

I still have the paperback of Too Darn Hot coming out in May and although I don’t think they’ll want me to do anything you never know.  And if I have to, Lindsey won’t be there.

I’m happy for her because she’s continuing to do something she loves.  But she’ll be missed by me and those of you who won’t get a chance to work with her.

Good luck, Lindsey.

Quote

"(Writing novels is) like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

E. L. Doctorow

Why Not?

The publishing business takes a holiday from Thanksgiving through January 1.  At least that’s what every agent I’ve had has told me.  So what if I only had two?  I’ve heard it from others and I believe it.  So why not me?

Yes, I know it seems like I’ve had nothing but vacations.  Maybe it’s true.  Still, I’ve had one interruption after another and am going to next week. So why not take off the time?

 I started this book last January and when I get back to it (this January….why not?) I’ll have written less than 200 pages.  I’ve never had such a puny output in a year.  But this is the way it’s worked out and since I don’t have a deadline I don’t have to be hysterical about it.  There’s something to be said for not having a contract.

I think by this time we all know Ballantine isn’t going to ask me for anymore Faye Quick books.  I’ve known this ever since they said they had to wait and see how the second book did.

And if I needed confirmation about that I got it when the pb cover arrived and though it had the same artwork the overall color was purple.  The hc of Too Darn Hot had a red background denoting … hot.  What does purple say?  When I asked (and this was the BIG clue) why they changed it, I was told they had four other books coming out in red and they wanted to distinguish mine.  Thank you.  But why not change one of the other covers to purple since there was a real reason for mine to be red?  I think I know why not. So no surprises here.

Some worry that when I write things like the above, publishers/editors will think of me as a “nightmare author”.  I don’t think so.  First of all I accepted what Ballantine told me like a docile little writer because I knew it didn’t matter.  So what’s nightmarish about that?  And if I write a really good book I don’t think it’ll be turned down by an editor because I found the cover of my last book…well…not quite right.  If you want to see it go here.  But be sure to look at the hc jacket, too.  I mean, why not?

So back to the non-writing I’m doing.  Not doing?  I always take the week between Christmas and New Year's off anyway.  So that would leave me with 6 more days to write this year. Two of those 6 days would be interrupted with appointments. I don’t see much point in trying to write for 4 days. So I’d rather wait, get myself together and start fresh in a fresh new year.

2007 here I come.

Why not?

 

The Play'sThe Thing

Not writing.

Going to NYC tomorrow to see a play. 

Almost as good as writing.

 

One More Time

My last post prompted the To Outline  or Not to Outline debate again.  You can see it over at Lee Goldberg's blog.

Yes, I did make a mistake in my manuscript as I said below.  But, for me, outlining wouldn’t have prevented this.  BTW it’s all fixed and it wasn’t as big a deal as I thought it would be.  It never is, is it?

I’ve said it here before and I’ll say it here again.  If I had to outline a book I’d be so depressed I’d never write it.  I can’t imagine that it would be interesting to do.  I’d know far too much.

And this particular book couldn’t have been outlined even if I’d wanted to do that.  I think I explained way back how I approached this one.  I picked titles of movies out of a box. This gave me a jump start for each chapter and I established characters that way.  Also story.  I stopped doing this about chapter nine or ten.  I know it sounds crazy but it worked for me and that’s the point.  Outlining obviously works for some people and not for others.  So why should there be a debate about it?

Should I say that the only way to write a novel is to pick titles or sayings out of a box?  I don’t think so.  But it’s one way.  I never did this before and most likely will never do it again. 

Now, can we give the outline thing a rest?

How Did This Happen?

In the course of writing today (yes, I did) I inadvertently discovered that I have two different men involved with the same two women who are trying to get the money everyone is after.  It has to be one man or the other.  Pages and pages must be rewritten.  Whole chapters.  Nightmare.

Did this happen because I took off so much time?  Or am I losing it?  I understand forgetting the color of a character’s eyes, but this is crazy.  And with one man I’m not sure I even did the set-up with the women.  I think these three just happen.  The reason I don’t know this is because I couldn’t go on with this today.

Tomorrow I’m going to have to trace backwards and find out.  And then I’ll have to write new scenes, rewrite others completely.

What ever made me think I could handle all these characters?  Thirty years ago in a novel called Some Unknown Person I didn’t have any trouble.  That novel has tons of characters.  And I even wrote it out of sequence the way a movie might be filmed.  There are two different stories in that book and I’d write whatever scene I wanted to each day. In other words in A story or B story.  In the end there was only one chapter out of sequence.  All this on a TYPEWRITER.  That manuscript was 800 pages long.  I had to cut 300, but that’s a whole other post.

Now I can’t keep track of characters within less than 200 pages.  It’s depressing.  Still, I have to fix this before I go on.  It isn’t the kind of mistake that you can wait to fix in the next draft.

So that’s my work tomorrow.  Bert or Andy? 

Quote

"Story is far older than the art of science and psychology, and will always be the elder in the equation no matter how much time passes."

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Terrible Week

Of course it didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.  I wrote half a page on Monday.  Half a page on Tues.  Then I gave up.

I know this will sound like an excuse, and it is, of course, but there was another death in my life. I’m not going to write about it here as I have some others because this person was not a writer. 

Her death colored my whole week.  I am left as the keeper of the secret.

Tomorrow I’m going to the movies as I do on many Fridays.  Monday I’ll try again to make some headway on this novel.  TRY.

A Year Later

It was at this time last year that my editor at Ballantine called me and told me he was leaving. I wrote that here and it created a tempest in a teapot.  Still, it seemed awful at the time.  I, without knowing it because he didn’t tell me it was a secret, revealed his plans and in so doing betrayed him.

I also discovered that my blog was read by many people who were in the publishing world.  I had no idea.  I was naive about the blogosphere at that point.  And suddenly people were saying awful things about me and leaving provocative comments on my blog.  I didn’t know then that one could block Anonymous people.  I even made Nitwit of the day (or was it week?) on Miss Snark’s blog where people I didn’t know threw barbs at me.

Anyway, I’m still here and having expressed my concerns with who would be my editor and if he/she would be twelve years old, it didn’t do anything to my career as some had predicted.

I don’t regret it, except for hurting my editor.  I hope he knows I never meant to hurt him. Most likely he never thinks of me or that time.

Tomorrow I’ll go back to working on my book.  I’m not looking forward to it.  It scares me a little.  In fact, I don’t want to do it at all. 

Quote

"I think I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense, but it's questionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter, or recovering from flu."

Georgette Heyer

Back In Business

I’m not sure what business I mean here.  I guess the business of seeing.  Operation successful, patient lived to see another day.

Thanks to everyone who wished me luck.

This week I have more doctor appointments and then there’s Thanksgiving, so settling down to continue to write my book isn’t an option.  But it is an option next Monday.  I hate to give myself a starting date in case I don’t make it.  Still, Monday the 27th is what I’m shooting for.

Meanwhile, I won’t be reading Thomas Pynchon’s new book.  I wouldn’t be reading anyone’s book that is 1,088 pages long.  I’m from the school of less is more.  What could any novelist have to say that needs over 1000 pages to say it in?  I sniff narcissism.

I also don’t want to spend my time decoding whatever is in those 1000 pages.  I want to read books that tell me a story in robust prose.  I don’t mean that everything has to be linear but I do like a beginning, middle and end.  Most of all I like to understand what I’m reading. And I admit that I don’t understand Pynchon.  Yes, I tried once.  I was young and naive and I thought I had to read everything that was touted as literary.  Some I enjoyed.  Pynchon I did not.  I have no idea what V is about.  I tried more than once.  I had the time then.

Call me a philistine, I don’t care.

Quote

"I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoy than be a success at something I hate."

George Burns

The Eyes Have It and Other Things

I don’t write things here that are personal unless it has to do with writing.  But I think the fact that I’m having eye surgery on Tuesday qualifies.  This past week it has been impossible to write except for Monday as I’ve had one appointment after another.  I’ve never been able to write when I’m constanly interrupted.

The week before I did get two chapters done. And I liked them.  I still don’t know how I’m going to get where I want to go but maybe it’ll come to me after the surgery.  I have no idea how soon I’ll be able to see the computer screen again but I’m sure it won’t be more than a week or two.  Maybe not even that.  When I asked my doctor he said he didn’t know.  Very reassuring, as they always are.

Am I nervous about this?  Yes.  But I’m told it’s not a big deal.  Still, my niece, who is a nurse, says any surgery is a big deal.  I tend to believe her.  You never know.  Fortunately I won’t be under a general anesthetic so that cuts the risk way down.  But it’s my eye.  The doctor, to CHA I’m sure, told me that I could go blind, but that it happens in very, very rare cases.  Oh, good.

Meanwhile it’s been brought to my attention that Lee Goldberg sees my posts about writing as me being in agony.  I know I sometimes go over the top in writing about my troubles with writing so I guess I’d better make it clear.  I love writing probably as much as Lee does.  There’s nothing else I’d rather do except be able to sing like Barbra Streisand.  I’m not sure I find it fun…except on those rare occasions when it all clicks. And I certainly find it more fun than taking tolls on the thruway.  Any thruway.  Writing is more fun than working at a fast food place.  Or waiting on tables.  Or taking movie tickets.  Or being a stockbroker, or being in real estate.  Writing is more fun than being an electrician, or a plumber.  Or being in politics.  This is how it is for me.

But it’s hard.  I’m not a writer who hates it because it’s lonely.  I don’t find it lonely.  I like being alone.  In fact, having worked in the theatre and on a few movies that never got made, I know I’d rather be a novelist than a playwright or screenwriter.  I don’t like to collaborate.  But as Lee says, ( and I’m paraphrasing) I’ve been fairly successful and it’s never enough.

Some of you are at the very beginning of your careers, some in the middle.  I’m guessing Lee’s in the middle.  I’m coming down the homestretch.  Not that I’ll ever retire. But where once I wrote ten pages a day I now write maybe five.  And at the beginning and the middle I always had an idea I’d rather be working on than the one I was doing.  That doesn’t seem to be true anymore.  It’s harder to get ideas.  Harder to sit in my chair for three or four hours a day.  Still, I always made my deadlines right up to the last one I had.   Now I don’t have one.  After publishing 19 books I’m writing my 20th on spec.

Mark Terry on Lee’s blog says in a comment about all this “Sure. It's easy. Just like brain surgery. “  I love that.  Diana says “I suffer these insecurities about my writing every single day. At least she has been published!”  But that’s just the point.  It doesn’t matter that I’ve been published.  Of course it matters, I mean I’d rather have these troubles as a published writer than one who never has been published.  But the feelings don’t change.  And the idea that I or any other published writer should be through with these feelings doesn’t fly.  I’m sure when Diana gets published she’ll still suffer insecurities.  And Keith Snyder says, “Creative hell beats boredom. I've never been bored writing a book.”  Neither have I.  I don’t think anyone would find an allusion to boredom while writing, anywhere in my blog.  There are lots of other interesting responses to Lee’s post.  Take a look.

Now that I approach a possible time period when I can’t write I, of course, want to do it more than ever.  In a rational state I know I’ll get back to writing this 20th novel (20 was always my goal) and deep down I’ll love doing it, but I’ll still have problems and insecurities.  And I  know that’s okay.  That’s the way it goes for me.

I’ll be seeing you.

 

Where Am I?

Last week I was in NYC.  I don’t get to go to big bookstores where I live so I went into a B&N.  Of course I headed to the mystery section which was fairly large.  I always look for myself first.  I didn’t expect to find any of my books except for the paperback of  This Dame For Hire.  Nope.  Nothing.  Nada.  I tried to tell myself it was because they’d sold out.  It didn’t work.  I knew that wasn’t true.  If they’d sold out why didn’t they reorder?

TDFH was my 18th published novel.  But where was I?  Not among all the other writers, some I’d never heard of, some self-published I was surprised to see.  I wasn’t the only working writer who wasn’t there.  Others were missing, too.  I’m not naming names.  But there were plenty of name brands, and why wouldn’t there be?

It was depressing.  Demoralizing.

I went back to work yesterday and did pretty well.  Today was a mess.  I feel like throwing the manuscript into the water and deleting all copies on my computer and back ups.  I know I won’t.  But I wonder how much of my discouragement is laced with my bookstore blues.

Still, I’m on page 178 and I feel I don’t know what I’m doing, where I’m going or who these people are.  My closest friend just told me she wishes she had a tape to playback to me because I always say these things. 

But this time it’s real.

 

Authors Earning Back Advances

Westvillageidiot left a comment the other day that a publisher was taking a risk on publishing Donna Leon and Fred Vargas in this country.  I countered by saying I didn’t think it was a risk to publish authors who had written 26 books between them.  Westvillageidiot wrote that Neither author has earned back her respective advances from previous English-language publishers.

Perhaps that was because the authors had been paid too much to start with.  Or none of those publishers had done anything to help the books along.  I say this with first hand knowledge.  Some part of that has happened to me three times.

In 1977 I published a book called Some Unknown Person. It was the first adult novel I wrote.  Putnam published it in hardcover and Bantam bought it for paper back.  They paid me an almost mid six figures.  That’s a lot of money now but it was an incredible amount of money then.

Putnam took out a full page ad (opposite the table of contents) in  the NYTBR.  What a thrill that was. Between that and the Bantam sale I was riding high.  But guess what?  Nothing happened.  When Bantam brought out the book they made the cover look like a modern slut novel.  It was all in pink and it had a young girl with long blonde hair doing what?  Nothing. This was a book that was set between 1901 and 1931.* 

No one knew the book existed.  I had already made back my five figure advance from Putnam so that was not a problem.  But there was no way that the money from Bantam was ever going to be made back.  First, of all, it was way too much money to pay me for that novel.  And secondly, the comany abandoned the book.  You’d think having paid that much money they’d want to get behind it.  You’d think.  But you’d be wrong.

And then it happened again with other publishing houses.  When you’re offered a lot of money (the next two times the amount was nothing like the first) you’re not going to say “No thanks.  I’d prefer you to give me less so I can be sure to earn it back and then you’ll want to continue to publish me.”  At least, I would never say that and I doubt that any author would. 

Of course I didn’t earn back either time. And the third time nothing was done to let anybody know that the books existed.   Was I dropped.  Naturally.   

I’m not suggesting that publishers offer authors impossibly low advances but doesn’t there have to be something in between?  Most writers I know are happy to be published.  They want a decent advance but don’t expect an insane amount.  Giving authors, who aren’t stars, six figure advances is destructive for both parties.

But if they do they should be willing to back it up.  How?  At least a small ad somewhere to let the public know the book exists.  I know that publishers say ads don’t help but I don’t believe that.  One small ad, I say.

I’m sure anyone reading this in the business is thinking that I’ve cut my throat.  Once again.  What do you think, Miss Snark?  Do I qualify for Nitwit of the day?

 *The second time the paperback of Some Unkown Person was published by Carroll & Graf the cover was much, much better.  And the cover of the HC from Putnam was wonderful.

Best Laid Plans

I was planning to start writing yesterday but I got sick over the weekend.  No, I don’t think it’s psychosomatic.  I think it’s annoying.

I’d like to write about a comment that westvillageidiot left yesterday but I don’t have the energy.  It’s about authors earning back advances.  A subject close to my heart.  I’ll do it as soon as I can.

Yes, I know, you’ll be waiting with bated breath.

A Good Example That's Bad

I received an email from an old Bouchercon writer friend the other day. When I wrote back I asked her if she’d been writing as I hadn’t seen anything by her for a long time and I always thought she was very good.  This was her answer.

   I've been writing all along, but I haven't been published since 1995 (a non-fiction book) and  I haven't published any novels since 1992. Not that I wasn't writing them--no one was buying. I was at (name of pub. house) and then one day in 1993 my editor left to go to (name of pub house) swearing that I'd be in very good hands with my next editor. I never heard from him, and after five months I found out that he had just taken a job with (name of magazine) by reading one of the trade papers. The novel I was under contract for just disappeared into the void. And anything I wrote after that (about seven novels, I forget how much non-fiction) got a cold shoulder. I think my favorite rejection was "this book is too well-written to be commercially viable."  It's been pretty hard for me emotionally and psychologically--I was/am one of those people for whom writing was/is the be-all and end-all.

   The agent I had long ago retired from the business, and anyone I've contacted since has been willing to consider me as a client, but with one big codicil. I swear, every single one of them has said to me, "Write me the new Da Vinci Code!"  In the first place, I wouldn't know how to go about writing something like that, and in the second place, I can't write that badly. It's a knack, you know.

 

This breaks my heart.  Not just for her.  I know there are lots of good writers that were making it in the 80’s and the early 90’s who haven’t published a thing for years.  And I’m sure the reasons are exactly like the ones in the email above.

 

There was a period within that time frame when too many people were being published.  That may sound odd, but I believe it’s true.  This is what publishers do.  They get on to a good thing and then they do it to death.  I think it’s the same in all the arts. 

 

A lot of mystery writers who weren’t good got published during that second Golden Age. Some were unreadable.  Some were terrific and made it big.  They are, of course, still being published.  And some were good, very good, and there’s no room for them now.

 

I don’t know how many keep on writing.  I suspect the real writers do.  I hope so.  One day it may all turn around again. 

 

I do pray that The Da Vinci Code clones will disappear.  They aren’t real writers.  In my opinion they’re opportunists.  I don’t know what to call the agents who want/expect writers to imitate Dan Brown.  Maybe stupid is the word.

Death and Denial

Since my last post I haven’t felt too great.  The first week after Jerry’s death I managed to write a chapter.  But this past week was awful.

On Saturday I had a computer disaster and had to reinstall.  I backup so none of my writing was lost.  But if you’ve ever had to do this you know how long it takes.  Because I have backup drives I was able to reinstall  and recover programs I use.  Somehow this took me all week.

Now I know it was because of Jerry.  I couldn’t have written anyway.  I was far too sad.  I was able to deny this until the computer was back in shape.  The computer horror kept me busy and my feelings at bay.

I probably won’t be writing this coming week either.  I have other things I’m going to do. So when I get back to work I will have been away from the novel for two weeks.  It’s okay.  I don’t feel ready yet anyway.

Death sucks.

 

Jerry DeBono R.I.P.

His is not a name a lot of people know.  He wrote mostly for television in the 60’s and 70’s, although he started in the late 40’s.  Episodes of Dr. Kildare, Marcus Welby M.D., Police Woman, Quincey M.E., Hunter and others were written by him.

Marijane Meaker (Vin Packer, M.E. Kerr) was the first working writer I ever met, and Jerry was the second.  The moment we met we were instant friends.  The thing was we made each other laugh like crazy.

At that time I wanted to write plays.  He convinced me I should try television.  So once a week he gave me and Megan Terry (Viet Rock) lessons.  I don’t remember a lot about it except that he had us do scripts for Lamp Unto My Feet.  It was a Sunday program for children, I think.

Neither Megan nor I became TV writers.  But not because Jerry wasn’t a good teacher, he was.  I think it was because we neither of us wanted to write for TV at that time.  I did later on.

After awhile he moved back to California where he was from.  We saw each other over the years…he would come east and I would go west.  In the 80’s he stopped writing and became a teacher of English in a high school. 

We lost touch for awhile. Then one day there was an email from Jerry in my In box.  I was so excited.  He’d gotten his first computer and had found my address. From then on we never stopped writing each other. He was retired and was occasionally directing college musicals.  But he wasn’t writing. 

During that first year of our email life we learned all about each other in a way we never had before.  Childhoods, teens, early adults.  Mothers, fathers, friends.

He told me he was so proud of me, of what I’d accomplished.  And he read all my books.  He didn’t like all of them, naturally.  But he really got a kick out of my latest two.

Our email correspondence got him thinking about his life in a way he never had before and he thought he’d like to write a novel.  But he wasn’t sure of the form and wondered who the hell would want to read a novel about his life. I told him I and many others would. So he started.  I tried to buoy him up when he got discouraged. I don’t know how much that helped but Jerry kept on writing.

When we reconnected I learned fairly soon from a mutual friend that he had non Hodgkin's lymphoma and things could go south at any time.

A few weeks ago they did.  He ended up in the hospital.  I knew nothing of this until I got a call from him.  He told me where he was and that all he wanted was two more months because he thought he could finish his novel in that period.

The next time we spoke he didn’t seem to know we’d spoken before and he didn’t make much sense.  It was the pain medication.  In the hospital he had a course of chemo to see if they could give him the time he wanted.  But it didn’t do anything except make him sick.

So last Sunday he went home.  Two friends kept me informed of what was going on.  Yesterday when I came home from the movies I found out that he’d died.  It went very fast and I’m glad for that.

Needless to say he never finished his novel, but he wrote a lot of it and most of all he wanted to finish it.  Once a writer always a writer.

l miss him terribly.

Good Words

What the editor said about the cuts I made in my story.

“Perfect!! I'll make the change in your original document.”

Okay.

Started

I read the book yesterday and I liked a lot of it.  Today I wrote 4 pages.  It seemed okay.  But I’m not sure how to achieve what I need to achieve.  I’m hoping for a lightening strike, I guess.  Don’t know if it’s going to happen.

Getting ready to write a romantic scene.  Not a sex scene.  Hate them.  But I don’t mind a flirting scene…that should be interesting since I can’t flirt in my own life.

Sent the editor the change she asked for.  Haven’t heard yet.

Two more days of writing and then Friday to the movies.  Hooray!

Not Perfect

I don’t want anyone to think my short story experience was totally perfect.  I got an email from the editor today, and after saying that she liked the story even more on her second reading, she asked if a certain conversation could be abbreviated.  Or not.  It was up to me. 

I feel fine about the request and I have to take a look at the story to see if I agree with her.

Tomorrow I start reading my novel in progress.

Quote

"Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself."

Truman Capote

Sent It In

Yeah, I did.  Sent it to the editor of the anthology when I said I was going to.  The next day I heard from her.  She said, “I love it.”  And other things.  I was amazed and very pleased.

From start to finish … being asked to do this to handing it in … was about three weeks.  I call this instant gratification.  And for anyone who likes instant gratification as much as I do, short stories are looking pretty good these days.

Whoever said I wasn’t flexible?

Short Story Day Five

I finished it today. I guess that’s fast, I don’t know.  It’s about 3500 words.

The strange thing about this story is that it came to me all of a piece.  What I mean is, I knew the protagonist and I knew the end before I began.  And then it pretty much wrote itself.  I never know the end when I start something.  The something is usually a novel.  So what do I know about writing a short story and how it develops?

Still, it was odd for me.  I’m not sure what to make of it.  The process, that is.

I like the story.  And I had to write it exactly as I did.  It had to go the way it went as if it had a life of its own.  I guess it did have a life of its own.

I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen in the middle and I had to go back and add specific material as I wrote.  Yesterday, after a weekend of letting it sit, I made some changes and printed it out.  Then I went out.

Today I made changes on the hard copy put those changes into the computer, printed it out and gave it to First Reader.  FR liked it but had some nits to pick.  That’s what FR’s are for, aren’t they?  Hate it when it’s a big section FR doesn’t like.  But this is a short story so my feeling is either you like it or you don’t and then you can pick.

Took some of FR’s suggestions and ignored others.  Put changes back in the computer.  Read it again on the screen.  Made more changes. Read it again.  Printed it out.  Put it in a drawer.

I’ll send the doc tonight…no …. now.

Third Day

I actually finished the first draft of the story.  I know I said I might, but I didn’t believe it.  I have no idea if this fulfills the requirements I was given.  This draft has enough words to be accepted.  But when I rewrite I usually get rid of words.

Monday I’ll start the rewrite.  Tomorrow I’m going to the movies.

First Reader asked me if I enjoyed writing it.  FR should know better.  I don’t enjoy the whole act of writing.  I enjoy writing when I come up with a wonderful line, or put something together that had eluded me for days or weeks.

What I do like about this short story thing is that it can be over so quickly.  Even if it takes me two more weeks to finish this story it’s a helluva lot faster than writing a novel.  Of course I knew this in the abstract, but now I actually know it.

Still, the novel form is my ticket.  And if the word enjoy can be used here then I’d say I enjoy writing a novel much more than a short story.

I do understand now why Kay Sexton urges people to learn to write the short story before writing a novel.  I still don’t think that’s necessary, but I can see why it would help.  You have limited space and you have to get important information in the piece early.  And the pacing cannot be liesurely.  One can be somewhat liesurely in a novel, but not in a crime novel, I don’t think.  Maybe in any novel because no matter what you’re writing you want the reader to turn the pages.

I’m looking forward to the rewrite.  Not that I’ll enjoy it or find it fun.  But it’ll be interesting.

Some might ask, if you don’t find it fun or enjoyable, why do you do it?  Because I can’t not do it.  I’d be unhappy if I didn’t write.

Maybe I do enjoy it.

 

First Day

I got up early so I started writing early.  I don’t have a title for the story yet, but I managed to bang out over 1000 words.  I always let it rip and go back later.  I feel very good about this.  I don’t mean the story because I don’t know yet.  I feel good that I was able to do what I set out to do.  No excuses. 

Last Day

Like many, this is the last day of my vacation.  Mine was a whole summer. Loved it. Part of me feels like I could keep on going this way.  On the other hand, I doubt that I would be happy never writing again.  And since I don’t have years and years to go, it wouldn’t be wise to keep vacationing.

So tomorrow I’ll get up to the sound of an alarm clock and get back into my daily groove.  Yes, I know, it’s not that daily.  I take my days off.  If Friday brings a movie for an adult I’ll probably go.  Which will make it a 3 day week.  We all know how much I love my 3 day weeks.

I’ll start my short story.  I’m nervous about it because it’s not my preferred form.  I’ve only had three shots at stories.  Yes, I sold them all.  John Baker says his always took him longer than he anticipated.  I hope that’s not true for me because I do want to get back to my novel.

I’m sure I won’t be able to write it in three days, but maybe I’ll get a first draft.  I don’t look forward to it but I don’t dread it either.

I have my opening line.  How hard could it be?

Short Story

I’ve read a lot of short stories in the past five days.  I’m surprised by them.  Crime stories aren’t anything like I thought they’d be.  I thought you’d have to solve a crime and I haven’t come across one that does that.  They seem to be more O’Henry type endings.

Now I’m sorry I said no to all those other offers to be in an anthology.  See what comes from not reading the manual.

Anyway, I have my opening line.