Does writing change the writer?

Today's topic is so interesting. Does writing change the author? Do you think your writing has changed you in any significant way? 

I remember writing my first novel, way back when I had no idea of what I was doing.  One night I found myself at a Sisters In Crime meeting at the Boston Public Library.  The president of the New England Chapter was making a presentation on the organization.  Good grief, why was I so nervous?  I was venturing into new territory and being a cautious only child, this little step took all my courage. And so I joined the organization and in a few years I was an office holder.  I knew women who had actually had their books published. 

The next baby step as a writer was to sign up for William Holland's "Writing Your Novel" course at Harvard Extension.  I never thought I would sit in a real Harvard Classroom with so many interesting, talented people. Since I was the beginner, it was helpful to have my work critiqued by writers who knew so much more then I did.  

I missed a class becasue I accompanied my husband on a business trip to Singapore.  And I came back with characters and a plot for my second novel.  The first remained on computer, but every now and then I steal something from that first ill-conceived novel. 

At the end of the term we had a party and people brought real booze. In a classroom.  I almost freaked out.  This writing life was even exciting.

Months later, I found myself going to Mystery Writers of America meetings at Kate's Mystery Books in Cambridge.  The Christmas party was wonderful with so many big name authors in the room, everyone talking at once.  

So now to the topic. How has writing changed me?  I've bad so many opportunities to make new author friends. To attend conferences.  To be on panels at conferences and libraries. To travel to new cities to attend conferences.  Hello NOLA!  To participate in the friendship and collegiality of writer's groups and make more friends there.

 I never imagined I would hold offices.  Run a conference.  Buy Sue Grafton a drink. Meet Lee Child. But it's really the friendships that have developed over the years.  We writers sit at our desks and stare at their computers.  But like everyone else, we need to be around people, laughing, eating, drinking, and talking shop.  Especially talking shop.So it's the getting involved and the friendships and the help I've had to become a better writer that has changed me.  I jointed Toastmaster in order to do better at public speaking which used to terrify me.   

I convinced my husband to write a memoir about growing up in Hitlet's Germany. Now we talk writing and home and critique each other.  

I cannot imagine my life if I did not write.  It's  an occupation that is endlessly fascinating and very social.  Who knew?  

I'm sure my fellow writers have their own interesting thoughts on this topic:  take a look! 

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea

Anne Stenhouse http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com

Marci Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/

Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/

Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-2jz

Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/

Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog

Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/

Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

Are. You An Unpublished Writer in the Crime Fiction Genre?

E.A. Poe, the father of the mystery story 

Two. $500 Scholarships from MWA Organization 

Writers who have not been published in the mystery field are eligible to apply for the annual MWA-Helen McCloy Scholarship, which awards up to $500 to each of 2 writers to take a legitimate course of study or series of classes or workshops to improve writing skills. Writers may submit the first 3 chapters of a mystery novel, or 3 short stories, or a script (movie, tv, or play), or 3 short nonfiction pieces in any mystery or mystery subgenre.

Scholarship funds will cover actual tuition and fees, not travel or accommodations, and are usually awarded in April or May of every year in time for classes beginning in the summer, fall or winter of that year or early spring the following year. You can download the application form, learn the details, and send for a copy of current guidelines here:

Surprise, Reverse, Reveal!

The title of this post is novelist Joseph Finder's chief words of advice to writers.  Surprise, Reverse, Reveal. Finder was guest of honor at the eleventh annual New England Crimebake.  WTF, you ask is that?  It's a New England crime writing conference held every year in the Boston area over Veteran's Day weekend.  The fun starts Friday with six master classes taught by veteran New England crime writers.  Then there's some drinking (after all, we're writers!) and a pizza party followed by a couple of seminars and a movie, in this case, a film based on Finder's High Crimes.  More drinking.

Saturday a.m. comes breakfast, caloric energy for the panels on writing and forensics.  We cover a broad range of topics, such as female stereotypes in fiction, true crime,  traditional mysteries, the "dark side," agents and editors (on site and available for 5 minute pitches). We have parties sponsored by Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America.  BTW, when I booked tour of the Norfolk County Jail for Sisters in Crime, you should have seen the eyebrows shoot up and the quizzical faces. Sisters in Crime?  Ho. ho. ho.

Saturday afternoon wrapped up with panels about setting, esp. New England, and how to write short stories.  Then comes the cocktail party (more boozing) and the Banquet and Costume Party, Femmes Fatales and Lady Killers.

On Sunday, the revelers drag themselves to a big fortifying breakfast, and two forensics presentations and a final panels on plotting, whereby the panelists come up with a serviceable plot in a short time amid much laughter.

Oh yes, books!  Did I mention books? We have a bookseller and the panelists will sign them.  The books, not the bookseller!  I've barely touched on the good writing info and the fun.  And the drinking.  It's amazing how people who sit in front of a screen or a yellow pad and write all day can get out on the dance floor and boogie.

I'll post photos when Significant Other has a chance to remove the omnipresent "red eyes" and email them to me.  Yours truly made a pretty good pitch and got dynamite suggestions for improvements to her manuscript which she is busily making this week.  Manuscript critiques are available from established writers. We have it all.

At home, this morning,  there's a huge ugly mess of programs, papers, books and even bookmarks to sort through as well as two days of mail and nine newspapers.   As there was no food in the house, we had popped over to the Longhorn after watching the Pats win.  Nice leftovers of prime rib and barbecued ribs for lunch.  My own chicken parm for dinner.  O.K., the diet starts tomorrow.  After walking the length of the hotel about 50 times, this may not be as necessarily as one would imagine. The conference hotel, the Dedham Hilton has been the scene of the "Crimebake" for several years and they know the drill and do an excellent job.

I sold a couple copies of World of Mirrors out of the trunk of my car, metaphorically speaking, and reconnected with writers from past Bakes.

So people, no matter WHAT you are writing, remember:  surprise, reverse, reveal!

Grapeshot 

Mystery Writers of America Announces 2012 Edgar Award Winners

BEST NOVEL

Gone by Mo Hayder (Grove/Atlantic – Atlantic Monthly Press)


BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Bent Road by Lori Roy (Penguin Group USA - Dutton)


BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett (Hachette Book Group – Orbit Books)


BEST FACT CRIME

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
by Candice Millard (Random House - Doubleday)


BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

On Conan Doyle: Or, the Whole Art of Storytelling by Michael Dirda (Princeton University Press)


BEST SHORT STORY

 “The Man Who Took His Hat Off to the Driver of the Train” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Peter Turnbull (Dell Magazines)


BEST JUVENILE

Icefall by Matthew J. Kirby (Scholastic Press)


BEST YOUNG ADULT

 The Silence of Murder by Dandi Daley Mackall (Random House Children’s Books – Knopf BFYR)


BEST PLAY

The Game’s Afoot by Ken Ludwig (Cleveland Playhouse, Cleveland, OH)


BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

 “Pilot” – Homeland, Teleplay by Alex Gansa, Howard Gordon & Gideon Raff (Showtime)


ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

"A Good Man of Business" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
by David Ingram (Dell Magazines)


GRAND MASTER

Martha Grimes


RAVEN AWARDS

M is for Mystery Bookstore, San Mateo, CA
Molly Weston, Meritorious Mysteries

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD
                                                                                          
Joe Meyers of the Connecticut Post/Hearst Media News Group

**********************

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 25, 2012)

Learning to Swim by Sara J. Henry (Crown Publishing Group)

 

The Edgar Winners are Announced at the MWA Banquet

Congratulations to the winners and to all who were nominated. 

BEST NOVEL

The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton (Minotaur Books)


BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva (Tom Doherty Associates – Forge Books)


BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard (Random House - Bantam)


BEST FACT CRIME

Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity
by Ken Armstrong and Nick Perry (University of Nebraska Press – Bison Original)


BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and his
Rendezvouz with American History by Yunte Huang (W.W. Norton)


BEST SHORT STORY

"The Scent of Lilacs" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine by Doug Allyn (Dell Magazines)


BEST JUVENILE

The Buddy Files: The Case of the Lost Boy by Dori Hillestad Butler (Albert Whitman & Co.)


BEST YOUNG ADULT

Interrogation of Gabriel James by Charlie Price (Farrar, Straus, Giroux Books for Young Readers)


BEST PLAY

The Psychic by Sam Bobrick (Falcon Theatre – Burbank, CA)


BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

“Episode 1” - Luther, Teleplay by Neil Cross (BBC America)


ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

"Skyler Hobbs and the Rabbit Man" – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
by Evan Lewis (Dell Magazines)


GRAND MASTER

Sara Paretsky


RAVEN AWARDS

Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore, Forest Park, Illinois
Once Upon A Crime Bookstore, Minneapolis, Minnesota


THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 27, 2011)

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Sara Paretsky will be Edgars Grand Master

I  first encountered Sarah and started reading her series when we still lived in Chicago.  Great lady, great writer and she has an intellect.  Actually, most writers are very smart people.  So pleased that Sarah will be Grand Master.

MWA Edgars Grand Master

NEIBA

Yesterday we trekked from Boston to Hartford to help set up the Sisters in Crime/ Mystery Writer's of America booth for the New England Chapters at NEIBA.

Leaving Boston on the NYC route on a Friday afternoon is always frenzied, and once we turned off onto I-84 South, there were the truckers from hell and the lane darters from hell, making for a stressful ride. Instructions to the convention center were so-so, and we made one wrong turn.

NEIBA stands for New England Independent Booksellers Association, and they have a trade show in the fall every year. This must be m 8th or 9th year in attendance.

It's hard to beat a room full of books. Although the show looked small this year, and small wonder with the beating publishing and esp. independent bookstores are taking, many big publishers were on site with huge displays of books.

One starts to drool.

So we set up our booth and made it look nice, chatted up a few folks who stopped by early, and left for a dinner at Rein's Deli in Vernon. Well, you just can't go to Hartford from here without a stop at Rein's Deli.

Except there was a booksigning outside the main exhibition room, and hors d-oeuvres to die for, and we had to use extreme discretion so as not to trash appetites. Avoided the wine, but not the book signings and arrived home with three new books.

Rein's was the same as always. Lots of old folks eating there at 6:30 on a Friday. Lots of fat old folks. Everyone with a bit of heft doesn't die young. We had matzo ball/kreplach soup and potato pancakes, not exactly a pig out, but let me tell you the hot turkey sandwiches looked like they hung over both sides of a PLATTER. For some reason, served with fries not mashed, and everyone knows a hot sandwich with gravy screams for mashed potatoes.

Successfully avoided the bread pudding for dessert. Bought a loaf of rye bread for six dollars. Must weigh a pound and a half. I froze 2/3. It will be good with the saurkraut/sparerib soup later this week. We're still on our soup/salad routine and it's working well. Made a taco salad Thursday that was really yummy, with plenty of lettuce, tomato, onion, navy beans and avocado. Lean ground beef, but not too much. A mixture of two cheeses left over.
Dressing of green peppers, (canned Mexican), sour cream and mayo. Well, ya gotta go easy on the dressing.

I made cranberry squares for an "event" this week. I'll put the recipe in the blog when I get a chance. It's the easiest thing you'll ever make and mucho delicious. I had to find something with ingredients on hand. Challenge yourself.

Off to plan the weekly menus and make a shopping list. It's good to be semi-organized.

Grapeshot

Upmarket?

So now all (or some) of the literary agents are looking for "Upmarket" mysteries. Hard to know what this is. I think these are novels that used to be called "mainstream" mysteries. My take was that these books were a little longer, with a little more emphasis on character, and maybe even taught the reader something or took her to a place she had never been. Not exactly literary mysteries, but books with good writing that would interest someone who did not read the more "traditional" strictly who-done-it mysteries of 75,000 words.

One has to be careful because it is easy to step on toes and feelings in this business. God knows, I should understand that. And I think I have been writing upmarket books for years, but maybe I didn't know how to market them. The thing is, can the author call her own novel "upmarket?" I mean, what does that say? A whiff of snobbery? Some would say yes.

Oh yes, and these hoity-toity upmarket books may cross "genres," a no-no for the people the publisher hires to explain the book to the bookstore employees. You see, they have to know where to shelve it. But then why are agents looking for books that are hard to shelve? Hmmm. Inquiring minds want to know. Maybe they sell, even if the would-be reader has to look around the store. Word of mouth? Word of mouse?

Another weird thing is that the thrillers and suspense books are usually stuck with the "mainstream" books, and the mysteries get their own section. Why is that?

My current book is suspense. It's hard to keep the suspense going all the time, so I've resorted to cheap techniques like putting a kid and a cat in danger. Plotting is damn hard work, I say.

So far, my novel has grown to 55,000 words. If I were writing a "traditional" mystery, I could stop there. I personally think of these lite-on-words books as little chickenshit mysteries, but that's just my take, a book you can take up at 9:00 and put down at 11:00 and know who dunnit and it sure as hell wasn't the butler. Take Agatha Christie. But she understood how to tell the same story over and over and make it sound different. Well, lots of series authors do that. There is nothing the matter with chicken shit. As an adjective it means small or unimportant. The kind of thing Otto Penzler is always complaining about women writing, the cozies if you will, or traditional mysteries as the purists call them. Of course Penzler doesn't call them chicken shit. He's implied worse.

My take. One is always walking on bloody eggs. Ewww! Exactly. Or Eggsactly.

I think a lot about what I am writing because I suck as describing my own work. Bill Gates meets Moll Flanders. O.K. I hate these stupid-assed comparisons like that. They tell you nothing. All right, the co-mingling of such an incompatible-sounding duo tells you that there's loose morals and technology afoot. But I could just say that. Loose morals and technology. Maybe "Bill Gates meets Moll Flanders" just has that certain je-ne-sais-quoi. Actually, I've never had the nerve to say Bill Gates meets Moll Flanders in a query letter. Too stupid.

Next week we're off to Montreal, the Paris of Canada, and a week later I'm flying down to South Florida to finish the research on this book, In Flight, my suspense novel. Is this also upmarket? Don't think so. I do like my Colombian Drug Lord. It took forever to get into his head. Think I need another chapter from his POV. That's Point of View if you're not into literary acronyms. Fem jep is Woman in Jeopardy, which is what I'm writing now. Fem Jep, two POVs and I'm hoping it will come in around 90,000 + words, but let's keep this sucker under 100,000. Upmarket or not. Probably not. Who the hell knows?

What is upmarket, anyhow? If you know, please post a comment.

Grapeshot

MWA announces Edgar Nominees

BEST NOVEL
Missing by Karin Alvtegen (Felony & Mayhem Press)
Blue Heaven by C.J. Box (St. Martin's Minotaur)
Sins of the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno (Simon & Schuster - Scribner)
The Price of Blood by Declan Hughes (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
The Night Following by Morag Joss (Random House – Delacorte Press)
Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
The Kind One by Tom Epperson (Five Star, div of Cengage)
Sweetsmoke by David Fuller (Hyperion)
The Foreigner by Francie Lin (Picador)
Calumet City by Charlie Newton (Simon & Schuster - Touchstone)
A Cure for Night by Justin Peacock (Random House - Doubleday)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
The Prince of Bagram by Alex Carr (Random House Trade)
Money Shot by Christa Faust (Hard Case Crime)
Enemy Combatant by Ed Gaffney (Random House - Dell)
China Lake by Meg Gardiner (New American Library – Obsidian Mysteries)
The Cold Spot by Tom Piccirilli (Random House - Bantam)

BEST FACT CRIME
For The Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb and the Murder that Shocked Chicago by Simon Baatz (HarperCollins)
American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century by Howard Blum (Crown Publishers)
Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It To The Revolution by T.J. English (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Hans van Meegeren by Jonathan Lopez (Harcourt)
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale (Walker & Company)

Kate's Mystery Books

This evening, Kate of Kate's Mystery Bookstore in Cambridge, MA will throw her annual holiday party, a soiree not to be missed. The crime-writing literati of the Boston area will gather to chat with fans, autograph books, nosh, schmooze, and yes, imbibe.

Kate is Boston's best known promoter of the mystery genre. Her wide umbrella shelters thrillers, cozies, horror, true crime and of course the traditional mystery. Her collection of black cats (statuary) is totally awesome.

With the book business in crisis, this is an opportunity to buy personalized (signed by the author) holiday gifts the recipients will actually read and enjoy, support local authors and give a leg up to one of our local booksellers. Kate can always recommend books that you or your gift list will adore, a knack born of many years in the business. Her knowledge is encyclopediac and her inventory is vast.

The party is from 5:30 - 7:45 at Kates (2211 Mass Ave in Cambridge). Close to Porter and Davis Squares. Lots of eateries and drinkeries nearby. The party becomes a mob scene but is ever so much fun. You literally rub elbows.

I'm bringing my spicy empenadas, a riff on Paula Deen's recipe. The dough is resting in the fridge and the filling is waiting for the diced tomato. The party food is always toothsome. One year there was a meatloaf to die for.

Look for me. Ah, hell. You'll probably be gazing at Robert Parker or Dennis Lehane. So will I.

http://www.katesmysterybooks.com/events.html

Come "dressed to kill."

Cheers!

Grapeshot

NEIBA photos

The car is unpacked and the booth needs to be stashed on the garage shelves, a two-person job.

I'm drooling over all the books we picked up, including War and Peace, Christmas presents, and plenty of good airplane reading.

Toni Kelner and Dana Cameron are blogging NEIBA, as well as many other Sisters in Crime and MWA members. Isn't the blogosphere cool?

I'm going on one of my semi-annual pilgrimages to my tiny place Northern Nevada tomorrow, so postings may be scanty. On the other hand, I may write volumes. Photos will be fab. And the books come with. That's a Chicago expression that pains S.O., but I still like it.

Next post will be recipes, so come back soon.

Grapeshot

Surgery Without Anesthesia

For the last two weeks, I'm been excising extraneous words from Promiscuous Mode, cutting it from 109,000 words to 105,000. This was after a prior session which had already resulted in cutting 5,000 words.

I find it amazing that one can go back again and again making corrections. I also fixed a bunch of passive sentences, awkward phrasing (how did that get left in there?) and routed out unnecessary sentences, adverbs (especially) and adjectives.

It's hard work, this paring, but the novel is always stronger, better, more readable. A good editor could probably find a few thousand other words. After all, I cut 16,000 words out of World of Mirrors.

Next week, we're travelling to Sleuthfest, in Deerfield Beach, FL, sponsored by the Florida chapter of Mystery Writer's of America. I'm meeting with an editor or an agent and also reading the first pages of Festival Madness to an audience. Tonight I'm practicing on my writer's group and Thursday on my Toastmaster's chapter. Practice makes perfect, etc.

I'm also going to send out another half-dozen queries for PM. This is my last year of crime fiction writing unless something breaks. Then it's on to literary fiction, commercial fiction, women's fiction, whatever. And then to the young adult that is screaming, "write me! write me!"

It's hard to admit failure after pounding away at a project for almost 15 years. 5 books, endless rewrites, queries, groups, meetings and finally rejection. A lot of sucking up, believe me. On the plus side, I have become a decent writer--no one gainsays the competent writing. Seems to be the stories. They're good stories, but they're perhaps a little "thinky" as one instructor noted.

Heaven knows, anyone who programmed computers for as long as I did is bound to be "thinky." That's what computer people are--have to be. Thinky. What a word. What a concept. And mystery readers are people-people and like their stories "Feely."

I tried to make the transition from Thinky-thinky to thinky-feely, but I am not a touchy-feely person. Sorry, can't help it.

It's not that thinkers are unfeeling, but first and foremost, they're thinkers. Vivaldi was a thinker. So was Bach. Thinkers can write thrillers, but I have no interest, and probably less talent in that genre. No ideas, either. So it goes.

Listen, if you need 4,000 words, mostly redundant sentences, adverbs and a few adjectives, I have them for sale cheap.

Grapeshot