by Nancy Martin
Do you have a memory you'd like to erase? Researchers at Montreal's Harvard and McGill University have come up with a drug that helps people forget.
No, it's not for helping you forget your first husband. Or your mother-in-law's phone number. Or the time my--er--your friend tied your brassiere to the antenna of her car and drove all over town including the pizza shop with your 36-B waving in the wind. No, Proplanonol is actually being tested on rape victims and people who suffer from serious post-traumatic stress. And it significantly reduces the stress these people experience daily.
Sounds to me as if it's the kind of shortcut our government will be eager to take when treating returning soldiers who have combat-related stress disorder. But that's another kind of blog, isn't it?
The article about this drug got me thinking. Did I have any memories I'd like to forget?
I guess I've lived a sheltered life, because I couldn't think of one. Neither could my husband. (But then, he was raised a Christian Scientist, which I think is the definition of sheltered life.) For a writer, of course, bad memories are actually a good thing.--They help us better decide how our characters act and feel. If we came upon a gruesome crime scene, we might be horrified for ten seconds, but then we'd reach for the notebook and pen to record how we feel. We want to digest every nuance for later use on the page.
Just because I don't have memories I want to be rid of doesn't mean I can't imagine how someone else might feel about a truly terrible experience, though. "I feel your pain," is a motto for a lot of writers.
Here's a website that makes me think about people and their emotional experiences. I think some of them could use this new drug. But I like the site because it reminds me what books need to be full of--emotions in turmoil.
I once had a conversation with an editor who had just become an agent. We were talking about the elements most lacking in the books she rejected. Her number one pick? The lack of drama.
I think she meant both the drama of a moment that a writer can build as well as the emotional drama the writer must first embrace, then articulate.
So the richer my emotional life as a writer, the better. But it's a fine line sometimes between turmoil you can sublimate into your work and turmoil you can't handle. I've taken anti-depressants now and then, and I've spent time in therapy, too. Neither of those experiences was a picnic in the park. But all my experiences have become useful additions to my writerly toy box.
What about you? Would you erase a memory, if you could? Because it sounds as if it could actually happen now.
Showing posts with label Nancy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nancy. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Monday, February 19, 2007
Time Zone
by Nancy Martin
The thing I hated most about teaching was the bells. My whole day was regimented by clanging bells, and I'm not sure which was worse--the infernal noise or the frustrating knowledge that every minute of my day was ruled by someone else.
So when I took my maternity leave, I was highly motivated to find another career--one that didn't make such rigid demands on my time.
Turns out, though, a successful career as a writer depended upon honing my language skills and managing my time just as carefully as it had been done for me by the school district.
When I first started writing, I snatched moments whenever I could. I scribbled on a notepad while my husband bathed the baby. I crafted sentences while I nursed our daughter. I treasured the long drives to visit Grandpa and Grandma because I could let my imagination run free and jot notes in the car. I wrote everything in longhand--a laborious, yet detail-oriented method--then re-wrote as I typed up the finished pages. (Yes, these were the days before computers, if you can imagine!) The process made me focus on making my language very clear. Every word counted.
But it took a while to learn how to get myself in The Zone--that mental state I find ideal for writing long fiction.
I happened into The Zone by accident at first. As a young mother, I put my daughter down for a daily afternoon nap and rushed to the desk to start composing the three pages I hoped to finish every day. With my writing time limited to the duration of her nap, I used every minute to immerse myself in the story and pound the typewriter. I came to dread the first sounds of my daughter waking from her snooze. Her crib was located in the room just over my head, and I could hear her kick her toys when she first stirred. I forced myself to focus on my work as she began to sing to herself. Eventually, though, she got bored or wet and called for me, but until she did, I kept my head in the story. After a few months, I gained another precious hour of work time when she learned how to climb out of that crib and manipulate her record player. (I can still hear Mr. Rogers singing to both of us!) For me, the key to writing my quota of pages every day was not allowing anything to break the spell.
Oddly enough, I did the most writing when my children were pre-schoolers. I took them to a neighborhood daycare center at 9am and returned for them at 1pm, after they'd eaten lunch (healthy food, prepared by somebody else!) During those four precious hours alone, I wrote more pages than I had before (or since!) I relished those regular hours. I didn't waste a minute. Even the drive home from the daycare gave me valuable minutes to plan what I was going to write. One year, I wrote six romance novels using every second of those four-hour writing sessions. That era was a good lesson for me: Keeping a regular schedule, I realized, kept me in The Zone.
But when my kids started attending school and my work day lengthened, I didn't necessarily use my time as wisely as before. Suddenly I had time to read! To talk to friends on the phone. To study the market. To have a hobby. To have a life, with all the demands that come with it. Sure, I continued to write and sell a lot of books, but the fire wasn't in my belly anymore. For one thing, I didn't care for the genre I felt stuck in, and I wanted to break out, but it seemed to hard. So I wrote in fits and starts--often drafting whole books in as little as a week and then going back to flesh out the pages later. Sure, that binge-like method of writing worked, too, but it was more stressful. Gradually, I slipped into a depression. I slept for hours every afternoon, had mood swings and eventually went on Prozac.
It took a real upheaval in my family life to make the change I needed most. We moved--not once, but twice in the same year so my husband could change jobs. Our daughters went off to college. My father died. And suddenly writing books that I didn't enjoy seemed like a huge waste of precious time. I started writing mysteries.
So I'm back to the lesson I learned in the beginning. I make the time and keep it holy. I stick to a schedule. I give myself long stretches of work time so I keep myself in The Zone. My head hardly ever leaves the story. If you see me wandering around the grocery store in a daze, you'll know I'm thinking about imaginary people in imaginary places.
If I stop writing---even for a day--I can fall out of The Zone. I try to figure out why I've stalled and strategize ways to start again. (Often, it means making a date with my ruthless critique partner. I'll clean up the pages I have and send them to her as quickly as possible to avoid killing more precious time by "polishing" pages that may get chucked anyway. Her response often kick-starts me.) But sometimes the reasons for stopping are more complex. In those situations, I sometimes pay a therapist to help me find the answers. (That's the quick way!) Or I take a class. Or I give a class. Sometimes I'll take two weeks and read a book a day and journal about the experience to see what I can learn.
But it usually comes back to one thing: Making the time to write and sticking to it.
Strange, but after all those years of having my day structured by someone else, I find myself the most structured person I know. Except I can't use bells. For a long time, I couldn't even use the timer on my stove. Sure, it made for a few burned meals, but I'm a lot more aware of the passage of time without a noise to tell me. My career depends on it.
My new book comes out March 6. Look for A CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED DEATH in bookstores near you.
The thing I hated most about teaching was the bells. My whole day was regimented by clanging bells, and I'm not sure which was worse--the infernal noise or the frustrating knowledge that every minute of my day was ruled by someone else.
So when I took my maternity leave, I was highly motivated to find another career--one that didn't make such rigid demands on my time.
Turns out, though, a successful career as a writer depended upon honing my language skills and managing my time just as carefully as it had been done for me by the school district.
When I first started writing, I snatched moments whenever I could. I scribbled on a notepad while my husband bathed the baby. I crafted sentences while I nursed our daughter. I treasured the long drives to visit Grandpa and Grandma because I could let my imagination run free and jot notes in the car. I wrote everything in longhand--a laborious, yet detail-oriented method--then re-wrote as I typed up the finished pages. (Yes, these were the days before computers, if you can imagine!) The process made me focus on making my language very clear. Every word counted.
But it took a while to learn how to get myself in The Zone--that mental state I find ideal for writing long fiction.
I happened into The Zone by accident at first. As a young mother, I put my daughter down for a daily afternoon nap and rushed to the desk to start composing the three pages I hoped to finish every day. With my writing time limited to the duration of her nap, I used every minute to immerse myself in the story and pound the typewriter. I came to dread the first sounds of my daughter waking from her snooze. Her crib was located in the room just over my head, and I could hear her kick her toys when she first stirred. I forced myself to focus on my work as she began to sing to herself. Eventually, though, she got bored or wet and called for me, but until she did, I kept my head in the story. After a few months, I gained another precious hour of work time when she learned how to climb out of that crib and manipulate her record player. (I can still hear Mr. Rogers singing to both of us!) For me, the key to writing my quota of pages every day was not allowing anything to break the spell.
Oddly enough, I did the most writing when my children were pre-schoolers. I took them to a neighborhood daycare center at 9am and returned for them at 1pm, after they'd eaten lunch (healthy food, prepared by somebody else!) During those four precious hours alone, I wrote more pages than I had before (or since!) I relished those regular hours. I didn't waste a minute. Even the drive home from the daycare gave me valuable minutes to plan what I was going to write. One year, I wrote six romance novels using every second of those four-hour writing sessions. That era was a good lesson for me: Keeping a regular schedule, I realized, kept me in The Zone.
But when my kids started attending school and my work day lengthened, I didn't necessarily use my time as wisely as before. Suddenly I had time to read! To talk to friends on the phone. To study the market. To have a hobby. To have a life, with all the demands that come with it. Sure, I continued to write and sell a lot of books, but the fire wasn't in my belly anymore. For one thing, I didn't care for the genre I felt stuck in, and I wanted to break out, but it seemed to hard. So I wrote in fits and starts--often drafting whole books in as little as a week and then going back to flesh out the pages later. Sure, that binge-like method of writing worked, too, but it was more stressful. Gradually, I slipped into a depression. I slept for hours every afternoon, had mood swings and eventually went on Prozac.
It took a real upheaval in my family life to make the change I needed most. We moved--not once, but twice in the same year so my husband could change jobs. Our daughters went off to college. My father died. And suddenly writing books that I didn't enjoy seemed like a huge waste of precious time. I started writing mysteries.
So I'm back to the lesson I learned in the beginning. I make the time and keep it holy. I stick to a schedule. I give myself long stretches of work time so I keep myself in The Zone. My head hardly ever leaves the story. If you see me wandering around the grocery store in a daze, you'll know I'm thinking about imaginary people in imaginary places.
If I stop writing---even for a day--I can fall out of The Zone. I try to figure out why I've stalled and strategize ways to start again. (Often, it means making a date with my ruthless critique partner. I'll clean up the pages I have and send them to her as quickly as possible to avoid killing more precious time by "polishing" pages that may get chucked anyway. Her response often kick-starts me.) But sometimes the reasons for stopping are more complex. In those situations, I sometimes pay a therapist to help me find the answers. (That's the quick way!) Or I take a class. Or I give a class. Sometimes I'll take two weeks and read a book a day and journal about the experience to see what I can learn.
But it usually comes back to one thing: Making the time to write and sticking to it.
Strange, but after all those years of having my day structured by someone else, I find myself the most structured person I know. Except I can't use bells. For a long time, I couldn't even use the timer on my stove. Sure, it made for a few burned meals, but I'm a lot more aware of the passage of time without a noise to tell me. My career depends on it.
My new book comes out March 6. Look for A CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED DEATH in bookstores near you.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Edgar Nominations
The Edgar nominations came out today! How many have you read? Or what have you read this year that you believe deserves recognition?
BEST NOVEL
The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard (HarperCollins)
The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Gentleman and Players by Joanne Harris (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
The Dead Hour by Denise Mina (Hachette Book Group - Little, Brown and Company)
The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard (Random House – Ballantine Books)The Liberation Movements by Olen Steinhauer (St. Martin's Minotaur)
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson (Random House)
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (Crown - Shaye Areheart Books)
King of Lies by John Hart (St. Martin's Minotaur – Thomas Dunne Books)
Holmes on the Range by Steve Hockensmith (St. Martin's Minotaur)A
Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read (Warner Books – Mysterious Press)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
The Goodbye Kiss by Massimo Carlotto (Europa Editions)
The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)
Snakeskin Shamisen by Naomi Hirahara (Bantam Dell Publishing – Delta Books)
The Deep Blue Alibi by Paul Levine (Bantam Dell Publishing – Bantam Books)
City of Tiny Lights by Patrick Neate (Penguin Group – Riverhead Books)
BEST FACT CRIME
Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger (W.W. Norton and Co.)
Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine by Capt. Joseph K. Loughlin & Kate Clark Flora (University Press of New England)
Ripperology: A Study of the World's First Serial Killer by Robin Odell (The Kent State University Press)
The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers,
Edgar Allan Poe and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower (Dutton)
Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
Unless the Threat of Death is Behind Them: Hard-Boiled Fiction and Film Noir by John T. Irwin (Johns Hopkins University Press)
The Science of Sherlock Holmes: From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear by E.J. Wagner (John Wiley & Sons)
BEST SHORT STORY
"The Home Front" – Death Do Us Part by Charles Ardai (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company)
"Rain" – Manhattan Noir by Thomas H. Cook (Akashic Books)
"Cranked" – Damn Near Dead by Bill Crider (Busted Flush Press)
"White Trash Noir" – Murder at the Foul Line by Michael Malone (Hachette Book Group – Mysterious Press)
"Building" – Manhattan Noir by S.J. Rozan (Akashic Books)
BEST JUVENILE
Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake by Jennifer Allison (Penguin Young Readers – Sleuth/Dutton)
The Stolen Sapphire: A Samantha Mystery by Sarah Masters Buckey (American Girl Publishing)
Room One: A Mystery or Two by Andrew Clements (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
The Bloodwater Mysteries: Snatched by Pete Hautman & Mary Logue (Penguin Young Readers – Sleuth/Putnam)
The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery by Nancy Springer (Penguin Young Readers – Philomel/Sleuth)
BEST YOUNG ADULT
The Road of the Dead by Kevin Brooks (Scholastic – The Chicken House)
The Christopher Killer by Alane Ferguson (Penguin YR – Sleuth/Viking)
Crunch Time by Mariah Fredericks (Simon & Schuster – Richard Jackson Books/Atheneum)
Buried by Robin Merrow MacCready (Penguin YR – Dutton Children's Books)
The Night My Sister Went Missing by Carol Plum-Ucci (Harcourt Children's Books)
BEST PLAYSherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure by Steven Dietz (Arizona Theatre Company)
Curtains by Rupert Holmes (Ahmanson Theatre)
Ghosts of Ocean House by Michael Kimball (The Players' Ring)
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
The Closer – "Blue Blood", Teleplay by James Duff & Mike Berchem (Turner Network Television)
Dexter – "Crocodile", Teleplay by Clyde Phillips (Showtime)House –
"Clueless", Teleplay by Thomas L. Moran (Fox/NBC Universal)
Life on Mars – Episode 1, Teleplay by Matthew Graham (BBC America)
Monk – "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink", Teleplay by Hy Conrad (USA Network/NBC Universal)
BEST TELEVISION FEATURE/MINI-SERIES TELEPLAY
Conviction, Teleplay by Bill Gallagher (BBC America)
Cracker: A New Terror, Teleplay by Jimmy McGovern (BBC America)
Messiah: The Harrowing, Teleplay by Terry Cafolla (BBC America)
Secret Smile, Teleplay by Kate Brooke, based on the book by Nicci French (BBC America)
The Wire, Season 4, Teleplays by Ed Burns, Kia Corthron, Dennis Lehane, David Mills, Eric Overmyer, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, David Simon & William F. Zorzi (Home Box Office)
BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY
Casino Royale, Screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & Paul Haggis, based on novel by Ian Fleming (MGM)
Children of Men, Screenplay by Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby, based on a novel by P.D. James (Universal Pictures
The Departed, Screenplay by William Monahan (Warner Bros. Pictures)
The Good Shepherd, Teleplay by Eric Roth (Universal Pictures)
Notes on a Scandal, Screenplay by Patrick Marber (Scott Rudin Productions)
ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
William Dylan Powell"Evening Gold" – EQMM November 2006 (Dell Magazines)
GRAND MASTER
Stephen King
RAVEN AWARDS
Books & Books (Mitchell Kaplan, owner)
Mystery Loves Company Bookstore (Kathy & Tom Harig, owners)
THE SIMON & SCHUSTER-MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
Bloodline by Fiona Mountain (St. Martin's Minotaur)
BEST NOVEL
The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard (HarperCollins)
The Janissary Tree by Jason Goodwin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Gentleman and Players by Joanne Harris (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
The Dead Hour by Denise Mina (Hachette Book Group - Little, Brown and Company)
The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard (Random House – Ballantine Books)The Liberation Movements by Olen Steinhauer (St. Martin's Minotaur)
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson (Random House)
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (Crown - Shaye Areheart Books)
King of Lies by John Hart (St. Martin's Minotaur – Thomas Dunne Books)
Holmes on the Range by Steve Hockensmith (St. Martin's Minotaur)A
Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read (Warner Books – Mysterious Press)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
The Goodbye Kiss by Massimo Carlotto (Europa Editions)
The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)
Snakeskin Shamisen by Naomi Hirahara (Bantam Dell Publishing – Delta Books)
The Deep Blue Alibi by Paul Levine (Bantam Dell Publishing – Bantam Books)
City of Tiny Lights by Patrick Neate (Penguin Group – Riverhead Books)
BEST FACT CRIME
Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger (W.W. Norton and Co.)
Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine by Capt. Joseph K. Loughlin & Kate Clark Flora (University Press of New England)
Ripperology: A Study of the World's First Serial Killer by Robin Odell (The Kent State University Press)
The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers,
Edgar Allan Poe and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower (Dutton)
Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
Unless the Threat of Death is Behind Them: Hard-Boiled Fiction and Film Noir by John T. Irwin (Johns Hopkins University Press)
The Science of Sherlock Holmes: From Baskerville Hall to the Valley of Fear by E.J. Wagner (John Wiley & Sons)
BEST SHORT STORY
"The Home Front" – Death Do Us Part by Charles Ardai (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company)
"Rain" – Manhattan Noir by Thomas H. Cook (Akashic Books)
"Cranked" – Damn Near Dead by Bill Crider (Busted Flush Press)
"White Trash Noir" – Murder at the Foul Line by Michael Malone (Hachette Book Group – Mysterious Press)
"Building" – Manhattan Noir by S.J. Rozan (Akashic Books)
BEST JUVENILE
Gilda Joyce: The Ladies of the Lake by Jennifer Allison (Penguin Young Readers – Sleuth/Dutton)
The Stolen Sapphire: A Samantha Mystery by Sarah Masters Buckey (American Girl Publishing)
Room One: A Mystery or Two by Andrew Clements (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
The Bloodwater Mysteries: Snatched by Pete Hautman & Mary Logue (Penguin Young Readers – Sleuth/Putnam)
The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery by Nancy Springer (Penguin Young Readers – Philomel/Sleuth)
BEST YOUNG ADULT
The Road of the Dead by Kevin Brooks (Scholastic – The Chicken House)
The Christopher Killer by Alane Ferguson (Penguin YR – Sleuth/Viking)
Crunch Time by Mariah Fredericks (Simon & Schuster – Richard Jackson Books/Atheneum)
Buried by Robin Merrow MacCready (Penguin YR – Dutton Children's Books)
The Night My Sister Went Missing by Carol Plum-Ucci (Harcourt Children's Books)
BEST PLAYSherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure by Steven Dietz (Arizona Theatre Company)
Curtains by Rupert Holmes (Ahmanson Theatre)
Ghosts of Ocean House by Michael Kimball (The Players' Ring)
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
The Closer – "Blue Blood", Teleplay by James Duff & Mike Berchem (Turner Network Television)
Dexter – "Crocodile", Teleplay by Clyde Phillips (Showtime)House –
"Clueless", Teleplay by Thomas L. Moran (Fox/NBC Universal)
Life on Mars – Episode 1, Teleplay by Matthew Graham (BBC America)
Monk – "Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink", Teleplay by Hy Conrad (USA Network/NBC Universal)
BEST TELEVISION FEATURE/MINI-SERIES TELEPLAY
Conviction, Teleplay by Bill Gallagher (BBC America)
Cracker: A New Terror, Teleplay by Jimmy McGovern (BBC America)
Messiah: The Harrowing, Teleplay by Terry Cafolla (BBC America)
Secret Smile, Teleplay by Kate Brooke, based on the book by Nicci French (BBC America)
The Wire, Season 4, Teleplays by Ed Burns, Kia Corthron, Dennis Lehane, David Mills, Eric Overmyer, George Pelecanos, Richard Price, David Simon & William F. Zorzi (Home Box Office)
BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY
Casino Royale, Screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade & Paul Haggis, based on novel by Ian Fleming (MGM)
Children of Men, Screenplay by Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby, based on a novel by P.D. James (Universal Pictures
The Departed, Screenplay by William Monahan (Warner Bros. Pictures)
The Good Shepherd, Teleplay by Eric Roth (Universal Pictures)
Notes on a Scandal, Screenplay by Patrick Marber (Scott Rudin Productions)
ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
William Dylan Powell"Evening Gold" – EQMM November 2006 (Dell Magazines)
GRAND MASTER
Stephen King
RAVEN AWARDS
Books & Books (Mitchell Kaplan, owner)
Mystery Loves Company Bookstore (Kathy & Tom Harig, owners)
THE SIMON & SCHUSTER-MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
Bloodline by Fiona Mountain (St. Martin's Minotaur)
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Christmas at the Holiday Inn
by Nancy Martin
One of my first jobs was waiting tables at the Holiday Inn, located along the interstate in my rural, Pennsylvania home town. Because I was a collge student, I tended to work on the weekends and holidays so the career waitresses could be at home with their families. At that time of my life, hanging around the house with my own family on Christmas Eve was less appealing than making some big tips or schmoozing with the kitchen guys who provided recreational substances along with the occasional plate of deep-fried scampi.
After the kitchen closed for all food except steaks and burgers, I'd change out of my orange dirndl skirt (and into something tighter) and move over to the bar to wait tables there. I was underage, but the bartender was usually busy and appreciated the help. I have a lot of memories of that bar. I was standing there, for example, when Richard Nixon came on television to resign.
The big tippers always came out on Christmas Eve--kindly, elderly couples who asked about my education, or single, middle-aged men looking for a nice steak and a few drinks served by a blissed-out college co-ed.
One regular was a big, gruff man who always wore a pale gray suit and a tie. The way he dressed, his crew cut and ruddy complexion (surely acquired on a golf course) heightened my impression that he was an executive, maybe divorced, probably an alcoholic. Beyond that, I didn't know his story and didn't care either. He came every Saturday night and fired back a few bourbons before ordering a strip steak with extra potatoes. He was usually too drunk to make his way to the salad bar while the steak broiled, so I loaded up his plate with cole slaw for him. We got along fine, and he usually left $20 on the table--big money to me.
But on Christmas Eve, he came weaving into the bar and fell over a chair--drunk, it appeared, long before he arrived at the Holiday Inn. The bartender and I helped him into a banquette, and he asked for a double. In those days, we didn't blink over serving an inebriated customer. His condition was none of our business. I brought him his drink, then went to the kitchen to place his dinner order.
By the time I got back with his salad, he was asking for another drink, which I brought. When my kitchen signal light came on, I went to pick up his dinner and happened to pass his table. He was nodding over his cole slaw, which finally made me nervous. What if he passed out?
It was much worse than that. By the time I got back with his dinner, he'd upchucked into his salad and passed out, face down in the mess. The bartender, cursing under his breath, helped me stretch him out on the banquette, and I dashed for help--in the form of the restaurant manager.
Ernie, the owner of the hotel as well as the restaurant, was a tough-talking Italian guy who'd operated restaurants in Philly before washing up in our little community. I never asked about Ernie's past, but I'd heard rumors of back-alley beatings and cheating suppliers. He wore a black shirt, open at the throat to show his gold necklace. (Yes, in that Italian horn shape. Hey, it was the 70's.) He also kept his hair dyed very black.
Ernie frowned over my unconscious customer and snapped, "How much is his tab?"
I pulled the chits from my pocket and calculated the drunk owed us about $25.
Ernie didn't hesitate. He rolled the guy over--which caused his pants to hike up, revealing skinny white legs above his black dres socks. I suddenly noticed the heels of those socks had been darned by somebody. His mother? A wife? Himself, maybe?
Ernie pulled the man's wallet from his hip pocket and found a wad of cash inside. He took $100 and stuffed it into his own pocket. And he gave the second $100 to me.
Ernie looked me sternly in the eye and said, "Keep the change, kid. And Merry Christmas."
I took the money.
I must still feel guilty about it, though, if I remember so many details of that night. Not exactly a storybook Christmas memory, huh?
One of my first jobs was waiting tables at the Holiday Inn, located along the interstate in my rural, Pennsylvania home town. Because I was a collge student, I tended to work on the weekends and holidays so the career waitresses could be at home with their families. At that time of my life, hanging around the house with my own family on Christmas Eve was less appealing than making some big tips or schmoozing with the kitchen guys who provided recreational substances along with the occasional plate of deep-fried scampi.
After the kitchen closed for all food except steaks and burgers, I'd change out of my orange dirndl skirt (and into something tighter) and move over to the bar to wait tables there. I was underage, but the bartender was usually busy and appreciated the help. I have a lot of memories of that bar. I was standing there, for example, when Richard Nixon came on television to resign.
The big tippers always came out on Christmas Eve--kindly, elderly couples who asked about my education, or single, middle-aged men looking for a nice steak and a few drinks served by a blissed-out college co-ed.
One regular was a big, gruff man who always wore a pale gray suit and a tie. The way he dressed, his crew cut and ruddy complexion (surely acquired on a golf course) heightened my impression that he was an executive, maybe divorced, probably an alcoholic. Beyond that, I didn't know his story and didn't care either. He came every Saturday night and fired back a few bourbons before ordering a strip steak with extra potatoes. He was usually too drunk to make his way to the salad bar while the steak broiled, so I loaded up his plate with cole slaw for him. We got along fine, and he usually left $20 on the table--big money to me.
But on Christmas Eve, he came weaving into the bar and fell over a chair--drunk, it appeared, long before he arrived at the Holiday Inn. The bartender and I helped him into a banquette, and he asked for a double. In those days, we didn't blink over serving an inebriated customer. His condition was none of our business. I brought him his drink, then went to the kitchen to place his dinner order.
By the time I got back with his salad, he was asking for another drink, which I brought. When my kitchen signal light came on, I went to pick up his dinner and happened to pass his table. He was nodding over his cole slaw, which finally made me nervous. What if he passed out?
It was much worse than that. By the time I got back with his dinner, he'd upchucked into his salad and passed out, face down in the mess. The bartender, cursing under his breath, helped me stretch him out on the banquette, and I dashed for help--in the form of the restaurant manager.
Ernie, the owner of the hotel as well as the restaurant, was a tough-talking Italian guy who'd operated restaurants in Philly before washing up in our little community. I never asked about Ernie's past, but I'd heard rumors of back-alley beatings and cheating suppliers. He wore a black shirt, open at the throat to show his gold necklace. (Yes, in that Italian horn shape. Hey, it was the 70's.) He also kept his hair dyed very black.
Ernie frowned over my unconscious customer and snapped, "How much is his tab?"
I pulled the chits from my pocket and calculated the drunk owed us about $25.
Ernie didn't hesitate. He rolled the guy over--which caused his pants to hike up, revealing skinny white legs above his black dres socks. I suddenly noticed the heels of those socks had been darned by somebody. His mother? A wife? Himself, maybe?
Ernie pulled the man's wallet from his hip pocket and found a wad of cash inside. He took $100 and stuffed it into his own pocket. And he gave the second $100 to me.
Ernie looked me sternly in the eye and said, "Keep the change, kid. And Merry Christmas."
I took the money.
I must still feel guilty about it, though, if I remember so many details of that night. Not exactly a storybook Christmas memory, huh?
Monday, November 27, 2006
Frittering
by Nancy Martin
Elizabeth George calls is "bum glue." To be a writer, you must have the will to keep your butt in the chair for long, long periods of time to generate pages.
These days, I have plenty of bum glue. (And I have the bum to prove it!) I can stare at my computer screen for hours. But lately I tend to be reading blogs, cruising the internet, shopping online, checking stats, catching up on news in the publishing industry--and let's not even discuss the many hours I can spend e-mailing. The PR work I do is never enough: Build a mailing list. Keep a listserve going. Create a MySpace page, my editor urges. Sure--but it takes hours every day to build a sufficient network of "friends." It's easy to start it all, but maintaining it requires . . . you guessed it--time.
Some days I look up and discover I've spent the whole morning on this junk and haven't written a word of my book.
I'm frittering away my precious keyboard hours.
If I don't have a book to show every year, though, I'm in big trouble. In the end, it's the finished book that matters. (Okay, maybe my marriage and my children factor into the equation somewhere, but you know what I mean.) If writing is my career, I need to spend the time required.
Every now and then, I need a wake-up call. That moment has arrived. I need to re-assess my time management.
Many years ago, I trained myself to stop watching television. (Yeah, I still watch a little. Mostly on the treadmill in the mornings or one or two evening hours a week to watch the one or two shows my husband and I limit ourselves to every season. Over the summer, it was Weeds. This fall, it's Dexter. Both shows provide something new for a writer to think about--a troubled protagonist who could be bad or just struggling to be good.)
A couple of years ago, I went cold turkey to quit Free Cell, another huge time drain. (I must be an addictive personality. The Free Cell got so bad I discovered I was writing one sentence, then clicking over to the Free Cell screen again.)
I've pretty much given up on the telephone, too. Better to email a friend than spend an hour chit-chatting. Of course, my mother is the exception to that rule. (She was in labor for 30 hours, so I guess I owe her.)
My children grew up learning when to leave me alone and when it was safe to venture into my office without getting their heads bitten off. I trained them--and myself--to value my writing time except during emergencies like the dog upchucking on the living room rug. The kids learned to do their own laundry in junior high, to clean up the mess themselves if they spilled a glass of milk. (It seemed cruel and unusal to make them clean up after the dog, though. See? I'm not a monster.) They seem to have survived, and in fact have grown up independent and fondly amused by their mother's eccentricities.
But I found myelf slipping again lately. Frittering. It's easy to do. Especially around the holidays. This is the only time of year when doing laundry seems to take precedence over just about everything else. Except doing dishes.
This morning I vowed to get myself back on schedule. I've got a book due in the spring, and I need to focus. A moratorium on blog reading! I must remember what's important. Make the time to write. Honor the commitment that's actually spelled out in a legal contract that I signed. I need to strip away the activities that waste time. So I'm saying it in public here and now: I need to have 150 clean pages by Christmas. Goals are important, but that's another blog. (Is anyone doing that NaNoNooNooWhatchacallit challenge? What a great way to stay on task!)
Perhaps most of all, I need to quiet my brain so I can concentrate for long periods of time . . . and allow my characters to inhabit my constant thoughts again. That's when the magic happens.
But only if I can stop frittering.
And if anyone has some ideas for getting rid of all those hours I seem to spend running to the grocery every week, I'd be very grateful.
Elizabeth George calls is "bum glue." To be a writer, you must have the will to keep your butt in the chair for long, long periods of time to generate pages.
These days, I have plenty of bum glue. (And I have the bum to prove it!) I can stare at my computer screen for hours. But lately I tend to be reading blogs, cruising the internet, shopping online, checking stats, catching up on news in the publishing industry--and let's not even discuss the many hours I can spend e-mailing. The PR work I do is never enough: Build a mailing list. Keep a listserve going. Create a MySpace page, my editor urges. Sure--but it takes hours every day to build a sufficient network of "friends." It's easy to start it all, but maintaining it requires . . . you guessed it--time.
Some days I look up and discover I've spent the whole morning on this junk and haven't written a word of my book.
I'm frittering away my precious keyboard hours.
If I don't have a book to show every year, though, I'm in big trouble. In the end, it's the finished book that matters. (Okay, maybe my marriage and my children factor into the equation somewhere, but you know what I mean.) If writing is my career, I need to spend the time required.
Every now and then, I need a wake-up call. That moment has arrived. I need to re-assess my time management.
Many years ago, I trained myself to stop watching television. (Yeah, I still watch a little. Mostly on the treadmill in the mornings or one or two evening hours a week to watch the one or two shows my husband and I limit ourselves to every season. Over the summer, it was Weeds. This fall, it's Dexter. Both shows provide something new for a writer to think about--a troubled protagonist who could be bad or just struggling to be good.)
A couple of years ago, I went cold turkey to quit Free Cell, another huge time drain. (I must be an addictive personality. The Free Cell got so bad I discovered I was writing one sentence, then clicking over to the Free Cell screen again.)
I've pretty much given up on the telephone, too. Better to email a friend than spend an hour chit-chatting. Of course, my mother is the exception to that rule. (She was in labor for 30 hours, so I guess I owe her.)
My children grew up learning when to leave me alone and when it was safe to venture into my office without getting their heads bitten off. I trained them--and myself--to value my writing time except during emergencies like the dog upchucking on the living room rug. The kids learned to do their own laundry in junior high, to clean up the mess themselves if they spilled a glass of milk. (It seemed cruel and unusal to make them clean up after the dog, though. See? I'm not a monster.) They seem to have survived, and in fact have grown up independent and fondly amused by their mother's eccentricities.
But I found myelf slipping again lately. Frittering. It's easy to do. Especially around the holidays. This is the only time of year when doing laundry seems to take precedence over just about everything else. Except doing dishes.
This morning I vowed to get myself back on schedule. I've got a book due in the spring, and I need to focus. A moratorium on blog reading! I must remember what's important. Make the time to write. Honor the commitment that's actually spelled out in a legal contract that I signed. I need to strip away the activities that waste time. So I'm saying it in public here and now: I need to have 150 clean pages by Christmas. Goals are important, but that's another blog. (Is anyone doing that NaNoNooNooWhatchacallit challenge? What a great way to stay on task!)
Perhaps most of all, I need to quiet my brain so I can concentrate for long periods of time . . . and allow my characters to inhabit my constant thoughts again. That's when the magic happens.
But only if I can stop frittering.
And if anyone has some ideas for getting rid of all those hours I seem to spend running to the grocery every week, I'd be very grateful.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Scared to Death
By Nancy Martin
Every summer, my parents took my brother and sister and me to our summer house on a Canadian lake that is so far from civilization that some weeks we never saw another human being. It was--and still is--a beautiful place. The large "cottage" had been built my our logging relatives over 100 years ago, and it is located in a forest of fragrant pines only a few steps from a lake that is very clear and very, very deep. (Did you know that one measure of the purity of water in a lake is the size of the leeches?) Due to logging in the area, the bottom of the lake is crowded with trees that had been submerged when whole rafts sank in bad weather, became lodged and turned--essentially--to stone. It makes ideal habitat for fish.
The decomposing logs have also turned the lake black.
One year after my grandmother died, my grandfather came with us to vacation. He was a gentle soul and really more of a berry picker than a fisherman, but he decided to try his skill at trolling for bass. For several mornings in a row, he got up before dawn, climbed into a leaky boat and puttered out into the deepest channel of the lake to drop his line. As the sun came up, he was a small, solitary figure shrouded in morning mist.
My mother and I were in the habit of getting into the old canoe for a pre-breakfast paddle around the lake to look for birds, bob cats and (for me, anyway) the occasional Boy Scout troop that might be camping in our wilderness. Later, I realized our morning canoe excursions were a way for my mother to stay within rescue distance of my grandfather without embarrassing him.
One morning, as we padded around "the point," a tree-studded penninsula of land (where--according to family lore---our great-great grandfather had sat in a sauna every afternoon drinking whisky and avoiding his Bible-reading wife) we heard my grandfather's wavering voice in the distance, calling to my mother.
"Baaarrr-bra! Baaaar-bra!"
We skimmed across the lake to reach my grandfather, who was so shaken he could barely hold onto his fishing rod. He had hooked something and tried to reel it in, only to discover a hideous black monster coated in slime had clamped onto his lure.
I took one look at the hulking thing and choked down a scream. It was a primordial throwback--some kind of mutated sea creature--stinking of putrefaction and surely evil. My grandfather was nearly fainting with fear.
My mother ordered me into the boat with him in case he collapsed.
And she set about disentangling his fishing line from . . . well, what turned out to be an ancient trea limb he'd managed to drag up from the bottom of the lake, encrusted with black goo and bubbling with decay.
It wasn't anything to be afraid of. And yet, I'm sure my grandfather never recovered from the fright. He died within a year, of a heart attack.
Researchers believe that some people can be so terrified by an experience that they are literally frightened to death. (Which is a feeble effort to turn this post into a Halloween blog!) In the fight-or-flight syndrome, a bad scare can send so much adrenaline coursing through a person's veins that he can die.
Later that summer, my mother took my siblings and me across the lake to the "diving rocks"--huge granite cliffs that we climbed and dove from. When we'd had enough diving, she told us we were old enough to swim back to the cottage---across that deep, black channel of water where my grandfather had been so terrified. We were strong swimmers, so the distance (about a mile and a half) didn't worry us, or the speed of the current or the cold temperature of the water.
But I reached the middle of that channel, and my imagination began to conjure up the denizens that might lurk in the depths below me. I imagined demonic creatures with fangs and fins with claws. Surely at any moment, one of them was going to surge up from the blackness and devour me.
It's the first time I remember being truly frightened for my life. Yes, it was all in my childish imagination, but the physical response was the same as if I'd been menaced by a monster alligator in the Amazon river. My heart felt as if it might burst. My hands and feet froze like blocks of ice. I couldn't suck any air into my lungs. Stars exploded before my eyes until I nearly blacked out.
As a writer, I've used that memory dozens of times. Trying to transplant our feelings into the minds of characters is work we do every day.
I'm betting this group of writers can remember the first truly terrifying experience of your lives. How about sharing?
Every summer, my parents took my brother and sister and me to our summer house on a Canadian lake that is so far from civilization that some weeks we never saw another human being. It was--and still is--a beautiful place. The large "cottage" had been built my our logging relatives over 100 years ago, and it is located in a forest of fragrant pines only a few steps from a lake that is very clear and very, very deep. (Did you know that one measure of the purity of water in a lake is the size of the leeches?) Due to logging in the area, the bottom of the lake is crowded with trees that had been submerged when whole rafts sank in bad weather, became lodged and turned--essentially--to stone. It makes ideal habitat for fish.
The decomposing logs have also turned the lake black.
One year after my grandmother died, my grandfather came with us to vacation. He was a gentle soul and really more of a berry picker than a fisherman, but he decided to try his skill at trolling for bass. For several mornings in a row, he got up before dawn, climbed into a leaky boat and puttered out into the deepest channel of the lake to drop his line. As the sun came up, he was a small, solitary figure shrouded in morning mist.
My mother and I were in the habit of getting into the old canoe for a pre-breakfast paddle around the lake to look for birds, bob cats and (for me, anyway) the occasional Boy Scout troop that might be camping in our wilderness. Later, I realized our morning canoe excursions were a way for my mother to stay within rescue distance of my grandfather without embarrassing him.
One morning, as we padded around "the point," a tree-studded penninsula of land (where--according to family lore---our great-great grandfather had sat in a sauna every afternoon drinking whisky and avoiding his Bible-reading wife) we heard my grandfather's wavering voice in the distance, calling to my mother.
"Baaarrr-bra! Baaaar-bra!"
We skimmed across the lake to reach my grandfather, who was so shaken he could barely hold onto his fishing rod. He had hooked something and tried to reel it in, only to discover a hideous black monster coated in slime had clamped onto his lure.
I took one look at the hulking thing and choked down a scream. It was a primordial throwback--some kind of mutated sea creature--stinking of putrefaction and surely evil. My grandfather was nearly fainting with fear.
My mother ordered me into the boat with him in case he collapsed.
And she set about disentangling his fishing line from . . . well, what turned out to be an ancient trea limb he'd managed to drag up from the bottom of the lake, encrusted with black goo and bubbling with decay.
It wasn't anything to be afraid of. And yet, I'm sure my grandfather never recovered from the fright. He died within a year, of a heart attack.
Researchers believe that some people can be so terrified by an experience that they are literally frightened to death. (Which is a feeble effort to turn this post into a Halloween blog!) In the fight-or-flight syndrome, a bad scare can send so much adrenaline coursing through a person's veins that he can die.
Later that summer, my mother took my siblings and me across the lake to the "diving rocks"--huge granite cliffs that we climbed and dove from. When we'd had enough diving, she told us we were old enough to swim back to the cottage---across that deep, black channel of water where my grandfather had been so terrified. We were strong swimmers, so the distance (about a mile and a half) didn't worry us, or the speed of the current or the cold temperature of the water.
But I reached the middle of that channel, and my imagination began to conjure up the denizens that might lurk in the depths below me. I imagined demonic creatures with fangs and fins with claws. Surely at any moment, one of them was going to surge up from the blackness and devour me.
It's the first time I remember being truly frightened for my life. Yes, it was all in my childish imagination, but the physical response was the same as if I'd been menaced by a monster alligator in the Amazon river. My heart felt as if it might burst. My hands and feet froze like blocks of ice. I couldn't suck any air into my lungs. Stars exploded before my eyes until I nearly blacked out.
As a writer, I've used that memory dozens of times. Trying to transplant our feelings into the minds of characters is work we do every day.
I'm betting this group of writers can remember the first truly terrifying experience of your lives. How about sharing?
Monday, October 02, 2006
Surprise and Delight Me
by Nancy Martin
Working Stiffs is a blog about day jobs. Sure, we're all mystery writers, but some of us must pay the bills and/or get our healthcare coverage from work that--what's the best euphemism here?--takes place more than 3 feet from the keyboard.
But me--well, writing is my full-time job, and have been for over 25 years. Which means I've applied a lot of what Elizabeth George calls bum glue. I have placed my bottom into a chair and kept it there until I have written pages. Can't get started?-I haven't collected enough ideas. Writer's block?--Chances are I haven't thought through to the end of my plot. Daydreaming about bestseller lists?--That's a primo way to stymie my muse. But focusing on entertaining my reader, playing the "what if?" game, grinding hard work, lousy first drafts, obsessive re-writing and lots of bum glue.--That's how to write a book.
Well, that and about 600 other things. I only know about 300. I've still got a lot to learn.
So when I'm not writing, I'm probably reading.
Like every successful writer I know, I read anything and everything. (There's a squabble taking place on a popular listserve these days in which a lot of writers claim not to see the difference between chick lit and literary novels. They're. Just. Not. Reading. Enough.) A wide variety of reading material is crucial to my way of working. I read mainstream, yes, but the weirder the better, too. Genre stuff?--I eat it for breakfast. There's no other way to stay in the game. Plus I consume at least 4 magazines a week (my latest find was Bust, but I also bought Bitch and I'm a big, big fan of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and--okay, guilty pleasure--Vogue) and 2 newspapers a day. Not to mention websites and blogs, a daily search of which canbecome major procrastination if I let it.
My personal goal is to read a book a week--2 if possible. This week: Charlaine Harris's GRAVE SIGHT. Charlaine is always full of surprises and delights--my personal definition of entertaining. I'm also reading the new Carla Neggers suspense novel, THE WIDOW, in which Carla avoids the dreaded prologue with a device I found truly innovative. I'm also savoring some Alice Munro short stories.
Reading is still the best way for me to find inspiration. And language that stimulates the wordsmith in me, too. As well as an answer to the inevitable question: "Where do you get your ideas?"
Take Bust. In the issue I bought, there's a throwaway piece about a group of women in Houston who knit. Except they dart around deserted streets at night to "tag" things the way graffiti artists do. In other words, they pin little knitted hats on trees, buildings and fire hydrants. "We felt knitting needed to evolve into something more edgy and streetwise," one knitter explained. They, "...mix hip-hop street art with warm, fuzzy grandma craftivism." Edgy, huh? Well, whatever, but this is definitely something I can use in a book.
Does all this reading make me smarter? Uh, no. I tend to remember only the quirky stuff I can use in my own work. My brain is full of completely useless--and often inaccurate--trivia.
For a writer like me, it's just not possible to read everything that's reviewed in the NYTimes Book Review, but it's a good goal to at least familiarize myself with all those books every week. Plus what's on the bestseller lists, what books PW stars, what titles booksellers are buzzing about. (A savvy bookseller can save a writer like me a hell of a lot of time.) Genre-related magazines and bookstore newsletters are also a huge help to a writer--one trying to stay on top of the biz, that is. If you are in the coffee business, you keep current on whatever coffee innovations are happrning, right? And what coffee sells best? Which coffees are failures? What coffee shops are trying new things? Setting trends? Building on the past? Breaking out of the pack of competitors? And I bet you drink enough coffee to float the proverbial battleship.
I must admit I read a lot of first 10 or 25 or 50 pages. If the book doesn't have something new in the first act, I often toss it aside. (No, that doesn't make the book count in my book-a-week rule. But reading the opening pages of a bad book can remind me of what I don't want to do in my own writing--which can be equally valuable.) An author must surprise and delight me. A writer who's fresh, or has new ideas, a unique technique for telling a story, a bright voice, a clever way with words or maybe blends genres in a way nobody else is doing--those are the books I read until the end. They hold my interest. They entertain me.
I have a writer friend who only reads one book by each author friend she has. It's a good policy, because a writer with prolific friends can spend every waking minute trying to keep up. But reading your friends is a part of the biz, too.
Yes, I'm a professional writer. I started out as a rabid reader, though, eager to be surprised and delighted by every page I turn. To the outside eye, I might look like a lady curled up on the sofa reading a trendy magazine. But that's a big part of a writer's life.
What are you reading these days? Anything good?
Working Stiffs is a blog about day jobs. Sure, we're all mystery writers, but some of us must pay the bills and/or get our healthcare coverage from work that--what's the best euphemism here?--takes place more than 3 feet from the keyboard.
But me--well, writing is my full-time job, and have been for over 25 years. Which means I've applied a lot of what Elizabeth George calls bum glue. I have placed my bottom into a chair and kept it there until I have written pages. Can't get started?-I haven't collected enough ideas. Writer's block?--Chances are I haven't thought through to the end of my plot. Daydreaming about bestseller lists?--That's a primo way to stymie my muse. But focusing on entertaining my reader, playing the "what if?" game, grinding hard work, lousy first drafts, obsessive re-writing and lots of bum glue.--That's how to write a book.
Well, that and about 600 other things. I only know about 300. I've still got a lot to learn.
So when I'm not writing, I'm probably reading.
Like every successful writer I know, I read anything and everything. (There's a squabble taking place on a popular listserve these days in which a lot of writers claim not to see the difference between chick lit and literary novels. They're. Just. Not. Reading. Enough.) A wide variety of reading material is crucial to my way of working. I read mainstream, yes, but the weirder the better, too. Genre stuff?--I eat it for breakfast. There's no other way to stay in the game. Plus I consume at least 4 magazines a week (my latest find was Bust, but I also bought Bitch and I'm a big, big fan of Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and--okay, guilty pleasure--Vogue) and 2 newspapers a day. Not to mention websites and blogs, a daily search of which canbecome major procrastination if I let it.
My personal goal is to read a book a week--2 if possible. This week: Charlaine Harris's GRAVE SIGHT. Charlaine is always full of surprises and delights--my personal definition of entertaining. I'm also reading the new Carla Neggers suspense novel, THE WIDOW, in which Carla avoids the dreaded prologue with a device I found truly innovative. I'm also savoring some Alice Munro short stories.
Reading is still the best way for me to find inspiration. And language that stimulates the wordsmith in me, too. As well as an answer to the inevitable question: "Where do you get your ideas?"
Take Bust. In the issue I bought, there's a throwaway piece about a group of women in Houston who knit. Except they dart around deserted streets at night to "tag" things the way graffiti artists do. In other words, they pin little knitted hats on trees, buildings and fire hydrants. "We felt knitting needed to evolve into something more edgy and streetwise," one knitter explained. They, "...mix hip-hop street art with warm, fuzzy grandma craftivism." Edgy, huh? Well, whatever, but this is definitely something I can use in a book.
Does all this reading make me smarter? Uh, no. I tend to remember only the quirky stuff I can use in my own work. My brain is full of completely useless--and often inaccurate--trivia.
For a writer like me, it's just not possible to read everything that's reviewed in the NYTimes Book Review, but it's a good goal to at least familiarize myself with all those books every week. Plus what's on the bestseller lists, what books PW stars, what titles booksellers are buzzing about. (A savvy bookseller can save a writer like me a hell of a lot of time.) Genre-related magazines and bookstore newsletters are also a huge help to a writer--one trying to stay on top of the biz, that is. If you are in the coffee business, you keep current on whatever coffee innovations are happrning, right? And what coffee sells best? Which coffees are failures? What coffee shops are trying new things? Setting trends? Building on the past? Breaking out of the pack of competitors? And I bet you drink enough coffee to float the proverbial battleship.
I must admit I read a lot of first 10 or 25 or 50 pages. If the book doesn't have something new in the first act, I often toss it aside. (No, that doesn't make the book count in my book-a-week rule. But reading the opening pages of a bad book can remind me of what I don't want to do in my own writing--which can be equally valuable.) An author must surprise and delight me. A writer who's fresh, or has new ideas, a unique technique for telling a story, a bright voice, a clever way with words or maybe blends genres in a way nobody else is doing--those are the books I read until the end. They hold my interest. They entertain me.
I have a writer friend who only reads one book by each author friend she has. It's a good policy, because a writer with prolific friends can spend every waking minute trying to keep up. But reading your friends is a part of the biz, too.
Yes, I'm a professional writer. I started out as a rabid reader, though, eager to be surprised and delighted by every page I turn. To the outside eye, I might look like a lady curled up on the sofa reading a trendy magazine. But that's a big part of a writer's life.
What are you reading these days? Anything good?
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Meet the Working Stiffs
by Nancy Martin
When a fiesty band of mystery writers decided to create a blog together, our first challenge was coming up with something that hasn't been done by a zillion other bloggers.
We think we've done it.
Working Stiffs is about our day jobs. Sure, we write mysteries, but we also have other work to do, and some of us have really interesting jobs. In the weeks to come, we'll be writing about the psychology of murder, the mysteries of the legal mind, and some careers we think you'll find even more intriguing. We have a massage therapist in our midst, a creative mind from the world of advertising, and a handbag designer. Not to mention some technical writers, a connection to the police department, a yoga instructor and a psycho-therapist to make sure we all get along. Some of us are full-time writers, too. And---oh, yeah, we have our very own lifestyle guru to make things even more interesting.
You won't be bored.
We're located in Pittsburgh, which means we've got an attitude you won't find in other cities. Here in The Burgh, we like pierogies and hard work and football. (Have I mentioned the Super Bowl yet?) And we like the occasional juicy murder, too.
Check back. You'll see what I mean.
When a fiesty band of mystery writers decided to create a blog together, our first challenge was coming up with something that hasn't been done by a zillion other bloggers.
We think we've done it.
Working Stiffs is about our day jobs. Sure, we write mysteries, but we also have other work to do, and some of us have really interesting jobs. In the weeks to come, we'll be writing about the psychology of murder, the mysteries of the legal mind, and some careers we think you'll find even more intriguing. We have a massage therapist in our midst, a creative mind from the world of advertising, and a handbag designer. Not to mention some technical writers, a connection to the police department, a yoga instructor and a psycho-therapist to make sure we all get along. Some of us are full-time writers, too. And---oh, yeah, we have our very own lifestyle guru to make things even more interesting.
You won't be bored.
We're located in Pittsburgh, which means we've got an attitude you won't find in other cities. Here in The Burgh, we like pierogies and hard work and football. (Have I mentioned the Super Bowl yet?) And we like the occasional juicy murder, too.
Check back. You'll see what I mean.
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