How to Stay the Course

 By J.T. Ellison

 

Only six years ago, I was a debut author. I remember the joy, the excitement, the sheer, unadulterated fear like it was yesterday. Now, with 13 books under my belt, I recognize how important it is to treasure the journey. Every moment of your writing career is precious – the good, and the bad. It’s what makes us better people, and stronger, happier, more capable writers.

You must treasure the journey to keep yourself on course to a long successful writing career.

Trust me, I know how easy it is to stray. I had it good way back when – I wrote in a vacuum, with only my own voice to derail me. Now there are so many negative, distracting voices clamoring for our attention -- Facebook, with its siren’s call. Goodreads and Amazon, where you can read your reviews and self-congratulate or self-flagellate at will. Twitter, where you can compare your number of followers and retweets and pithy witticisms with the masses. Blogs are a dime a dozen, and Instagram and Pinterest are a massive time suck.

And then there’s the doubly whammy of family and friends who can, with a well-placed, well-meaning word, create train wrecks of such magnificent proportion they’re hard to walk away from.

It’s all sound and fury signifying nothing. As such, you must find a way to retreat from the distractions, and chart your own course, so you can churn out books like kittens.

The Internet is your number one enemy. Whether you use apps to keep you away (Freedom, Self-Control) or you have the discipline of a general, you have to stay off the Internet. You have to live your life. See and feel and touch and taste. You must hear dialogue, not read it. You must experience all the world can offer – even if it’s taking a break to walk outside. Live, and your prose will be richer, your spirit more content. The only true satisfaction in the writer’s life in knowing it’s well lived.

Learn how to say no. No is your best friend. It is so tempting to agree to everything – guest blogging and touring and conferences and teaching engagements. They stroke the ego, and make us feel important and strong. And some of that is fine. Learn what fills your well socially, and stick to it. Half of us are introverts and half are extroverts. If going to a conference drains you, don’t do it. If it fires you up and you come home raring to tackle that manuscript, do. It’s that simple.

Lastly, respect your work. Respect your time. Get in a habit – find the best time for you to write and just do it already. You’ve already written one book. I know it can be scary tackling another. But here’s
a little secret: every book feels that way, whether it’s your 2^nd or your 14^th.  It gets worse, not better. All you can do is march those words onto the blank page, one by one, soldiers in your on-going war against writing entropy. Do that, every day, and believe in your work wholeheartedly, and I promise, success will follow.

BIO:

 
J.T. Ellison is the bestselling author of ten critically acclaimed novels, including Edge of Black and A Deeper Darkness, and her work has been published in over twenty countries. 

Her novel The Cold Room won the ITW Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original and Where All The Dead Lie was a RITA® Nominee for Best Romantic Suspense. She lives in Nashville with her husband. Visit JTEllison.com for more insight into her wicked imagination, or follow her on Twitter @Thrillerchick.

THE FINAL CUT

New Scotland Yard’s chief inspector Nicholas Drummond is on the first flight to New York when he learns his colleague, Elaine York, the “minder” of the Crown Jewels for the “Jewel of the Lion” exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was found murdered. Then the centerpiece of the exhibit, the infamous Koh-i-Noor Diamond, is stolen from the Queen Mother’s crown. Drummond, American-born but raised in the UK, is a dark, dangerous, fast-rising star in the Yard who never backs down. And this case is no exception. 

Special Agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich from Coulter’s bestselling FBI series don’t hesitate to help Drummond find the cunning international thief known as the Fox. Nonstop action and high stakes intensify as the chase gets deadly. The Fox will stop at nothing to deliver the Koh-i-Noor to the man who believes in its deadly prophecy.  Nicholas Drummond, along with his partner, FBI Special Agent Mike Caine, lay it on the line to retrieve the diamond for Queen and country.

Assuming an identity

I don’t belong here. 

Everywhere I go, there’s a little devil on my shoulder that says: you don’t belong here. It’s been there for as long as I can remember. It is gentle but firm. It says, you don’t quite fit in. Or, you’re not really welcome. At work it says: you’re not smart enough, how did you get this job? At the gym it says: you’re not man enough, and everyone is staring at you. At a party: you’re not cool enough, and what the hell are you wearing? At the beach: you look like a pale piece of spaghetti in swimming trunks. At family gatherings, who let you in? 

I’m actually thinking it wouldn’t be a bad idea to expressly stipulate in my will and testament that the phrase “I don’t belong here” be inscribed on my tombstone. The feeling is such an integral part of who I am that I can’t help but think it’s embedded in my genetic profile — innate and codified in every living cell in my body. 

I know that sounds a little crazy, but I do have proof: my mother.

My mother, Blaize Clement, was the well-loved author of the popular Dixie Hemingway Mystery Series published by St. Martin’s/Minotaur. Her first full-length mystery, Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter, appeared in bookstores in January of 2005. It was an instant favorite among readers and critics alike. Every year there followed another installment in the series, with more and more loyal readers, more rave reviews, and more glowing letters from fans. Everywhere Blaize went, she impressed people with her confidence and poise, but only her best friends knew that there was a side of her that felt like a perpetual outsider, always observing from a distance, never quite fitting in. It was this funny mix of characteristics that I think made her a keen observer of life and an excellent writer. She died of cancer in July of 2011, so we’ll never know to what literary heights she might have flown had she been given more time, but I’m pretty sure that no matter what, she would always have felt like the odd man out. Like a pretender. Like she didn’t belong. 

Which brings me to here and now. Shortly before my mother passed away, her friend and editor at St. Martin’s Press, Marcia Markland, called with a question: would I be interested in continuing the Dixie Hemingway mysteries? I was mortified. My mother was ecstatic. Dixie lives on. Now, a little more than a year later, here I am with an agent, a publishing contract, and a new book out in July of 2013, writing about what it’s been like to step blindly into the world of mystery-writing and pick up where my mother left off. It’s been an amazing, humbling, and life-changing ride, but do you see how I might feel like I don’t belong here? 

People most often want to know if it’s been hard to recreate my mother’s voice and style. Usually I say it’s been as easy as pie, but in all honesty that’s only partly true. I hear my mother’s voice all day long. I hear the cadence of her conversation, her mild southern accent, her slightly irreverent humor, her stubbornness, her wit, her laugh. She poured herself into her books and, most notably, into the character of Dixie Hemingway, and since the books are written entirely from Dixie’s point of view all I have to do is transcribe that voice down on paper and my work is mostly done. The difficulty has been that I feel like a trespasser in the world my mother created, a cat-burglar in the House of Dixie, snooping about and touching things that aren’t mine. I know how fiercely and passionately my mother loved Dixie and her family of characters, but I also know that I can’t do them justice if I don’t make them fully mine.

Last month, I was lucky enough to attend Bouchercon, the annual conference for fans, authors, agents, booksellers and publishers of mystery fiction. For most of the first day, I beat a straight path through the hallways. I brooked the crowds with purpose. I walked from ballroom to conference room and back again without lingering too long, lest anyone think I didn’t know what I was doing. I even wore my black-framed nerd glasses so I’d look like a real writer. Turns out, I was wasting my time. I can’t imagine a more generous and supportive group of people. Everyone I met went out of their way to make me feel welcome, from writers to fans, bloggers to bookstore owners, and publicists to librarians. I made friends I’m sure I’ll have for the rest of my life. And whenever I worked up enough courage to admit that I felt like I didn’t quite fit in, I always got the same response: “Oh yeah. Me too.”

John Clement spends his time between New York City and Sarasota, Florida. The next book in the Dixie Hemingway Series, The Cat Sitter's Cradle, will be out in July, 2013.

Don’t Write What You Know. Write Like You Know

by J. Mark Bertrand

It’s not enough to write what you know. You have to write like you know. All the research in the world won’t save you if you don’t master the art of writing with authority.

I should know. I write crime novels––police procedurals––and yet the closest I’ve come to wearing a badge is completing a private detective correspondence course as a teenager. And yet a real cop, reading one of my fight scenes, reported the action was authentic enough to make him reach for his back-up piece.

“Cool,” I thought. Then: “How did that happen?”

On my shelf is a novel written by a homicide detective. If the author bio is to be believed, the guy knows his stuff. Still, I couldn’t get through the story: it just rang so false. He was writing what he knew, but not writing like he knew it. You can tell the truth in such a way that nobody believes it, and that’s what this man did. He had authority, but he didn’t write with it.

So what’s the trick to writing with authority?

Tell the deeper truth.

Wear your knowledge lightly and focus on the visceral story realities, the emotional truth. Telling me if the rounds in the magazine are 115-grain or 124, hollow points or full metal jacket, isn’t nearly as important as making me feel what it’s like to have that muzzle shoved in my face. Get that wrong, and even if your facts are straight, I won’t buy it.

At the same time, don’t give yourself away. If you don’t know, don’t go there. My rule of thumb is, if I don’t know something without looking it up, I’m usually better off working around it. When you drop in undigested research morsels, the reader can feel it in his teeth.

Even if you do know, avoid the nitty gritty when you can. Castiglione preached the grace of sprezzatura, which amounts to never appearing to try too hard. Even when things don’t come easy, make them look easy. Learn that and you can write with authority when you’re not one.

Authors who spout facts come off like they’re trying to prove something, and authors trying to prove something rarely do.

Your story is like a painted backdrop. As long as the camera’s at the right distance and the action moves at a healthy pace, the illusion is convincing. Slow down, zoom too close, and the bubble bursts. So don’t take your foot off the pedal. Writing what you know requires research. Writing like you know requires narrative verve. While verve alone won’t make up for flat out ignorance, mere knowledge won’t imbue your story with a sense of reality. Ironically enough, the key to realism is a vivid imagination.

J. Mark Bertrand is the author of three crime novels featuring Houston homicide detective Roland March. The most recent, Nothing to Hide, was published in July 2012. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Houston and blogs about writing and the life of crime at CrimeGenre.com.

NOTHING TO HIDE: Spies and gun runners. The Divine Comedy meets the Mexican Cartels. The stakes have never been higher for Detective Roland March.

The head is missing, but what intrigues March is the victim’s skinned hand. The pointing finger must be a clue––but to what? According to the FBI, the dead man was an undercover asset tracking the flow of illegal arms to the Mexican cartels. To protect the operation, they want March to play along with the cover story. With a little digging, though, he discovers the Feds are lying. And they're not the only ones. In an upside-down world of paranoia and conspiracy, March finds himself dogged by injury and haunted by a tragic failure. Forced to take justice into his own hands, his twisting investigation leads him into the very heart of darkness, leaving March with nothing to lose––and nothing to hide.

How your First Readers Help Establish your Brand

 
When we debut authors finally see our books in print, on the shelves, and in readers' hands, we find out important things about our stories. They no longer belong to us. They belong to our readers.

Now that I’m into editing the third novel in my series, I have become quite careful about giving my readers what they have stated that they loved the most about my books. It helps me determine what content I should cut out and what type of content I should give more of, and most importantly what I need to do to keep them wanting more books.

Today on The Thrill Begins, multi-award winning suspense author Lynn Emery shares how the reaction from her first novel changed the direction of how she wrote. Her quick discovery and acknowledgment that her readers had tapped into something important about her books, something that neither she nor her publisher had realized, made her a success once she adjusted her stories to satisfy her readers.

Setting as Character for my Books

 by Lynn Emery

My first book, Night Magic, was published in 1995. The book grew out of a writing exercise we did at my local RWA chapter meeting. The topic was description. The objective was to write a scene showing a character arriving or leaving somewhere. Our assignment was to bring the setting alive. We were to set the mood by describing the surroundings and the character’s reaction to that setting. I wrote a short scene showing Karen, my main character returning to her small hometown. I described her driving past Louisiana bayous and the lush green growth of the countryside.

After the book was published more than a few readers wrote to me and mentioned Louisiana as though my home state was a major secondary character. As a new writer I realized they were right. From then on I made sure that Louisiana became a leading character in the next eleven books I sold. It paid off.

Here are a few things to consider if you plan to make setting a character in your next novel:

1. A distinctive setting becomes a character when the culture, landscape and even climate contribute to the story so strongly. In other words, the reader becomes just as interested in the setting as the people and the plot within it. 
2. A setting can be a culture, sub-culture, or a profession. It’s not just limited to geography.
3. Bring your setting alive so much so that your readers experience it as a living thing. Take the exercise I had to do in RWA. Describe where you are as if it was a person or a pet.
4. Use settings to deepen the characterization of the story people. When we think of character development the region where the main character lives helps to shape the way that person thinks, the choices that person makes, their dialogue, and the way they react.

BETWEEN DUSK and DAWN: LaShaun Rousselle is as famous, and infamous, as her ancestors for being a psychic and voodoo expert. After a bad girl life she’s finally settled down in her small hometown of Beau Chene, Louisiana. She’s content to have a few true friends, and a new love with Deputy Chase Broussard,the chief criminal investigator with the Vermillion Parish Sheriff Department.LaShaun is determined to live simply and quietly, no more trouble. But trouble arrives on her doorstep in the unlikely form of two middle-aged ladies bearing unsettling suspicions about weird happenings in the parish.. Are the legends about loup garou real? LaShaun and Chase are going to find out and stop a serial killer, human or not.

Lynn is the author of fifteen romantic suspense and mystery novels. A native of Louisiana, most of her books are set in her home state. NIGHT MAGIC was recognized for Excellence in Romance Fiction by Romantic Times Magazine. Her novel AFTER ALL was adapted for a television movie by Black Entertainment Television (BET) in 2000. Lynn has been nominated several times for awards, and in 2006 won three Emma Awards for Kiss Lonely Goodbye as part of the Romance Slam Jam conference. Her latest novels is BETWEEN DUSK and DAWN. For more information visit  www.lynnemery.com

Those Critical First Five Pages

by Jodie Renner

Congratulations! You’ve finished the first draft of your novel! Now it’s time to go back and polish up your first few pages. Then later you can do a third—or tenth—rewrite of that all-important first few paragraphs to create the most enticing hook possible. For today, we’ll talk about the essential ingredients of the first five pages, as most agents and acquiring editors—and readers—will stop reading by the fifth page, or sooner, if the story and characters don’t grab them by then.

In February 2011, I attended a workshop by literary agent Kristin Nelson at the San Miguel Writers’ Conference, in which she had attendees anonymously submit the first two pages of their novel. She started reading the submissions and stopped at the spot where she lost interest. In many instances it was after the first or second paragraph! Sometimes she made it almost to the end of the first page, and in one case, even halfway through the second page. Then she told us why that manuscript, as written, would be rejected. (Not a single one of those made it.)

In a follow-up article in Writer’s Digest (Oct. 2011), Kristen gives four examples of submissions and where and why she stopped reading three of them (all on the first page): “too much dialogue,” “overuse of description,” and “lack of tension.” In her workshop, “lack of clear protagonist,” “unsympathetic protagonist,” “boring” and “confusing” were other reasons given.

After Ms. Nelson's workshop, I heard a lot of “If she’d only read a little further, she would have seen that…” or “That wasn’t fair. She didn’t give me a chance. How can she judge a manuscript by only reading one page?” Unfortunately, agents get tens of thousands of submissions a year, and if you don’t grab them within the first page or two, the sad reality is that your book will probably be rejected. And of course, as readers, most of us will read the back cover and maybe the first page, then decide based on that whether to buy the book or not. And even when I’ve paid money for a book, if it doesn’t grab me by about page ten, I’ll discard it.

One of the main reasons agents, acquiring editors and readers will reject a book after reading the first few pages is that they’re confused. They need to get a picture right away about whose story it is, why we should care about that person, and roughly where and when the story is taking place. Once readers have a handle on the main character and the setting, they can relax and settle into the story world. Of course, you also have to spark their interest with a problem early on—put your protagonist in some hot water with an inciting incident, so the reader can sympathize with them and start rooting for them.

Whose story is it?

It’s important to start out the novel in the viewpoint of your protagonist, as the first person the readers read about is the person they start identifying with, and they’ll feel cheated if suddenly, after they’ve invested some time and effort into getting to know this person and bonding a bit with him, he suddenly turns out to be not someone they should be rooting for at all, but in fact the antagonist, whom they’re supposed to be hating, or worse yet, a minor character or someone who gets killed off a little while later.

As Steve Berry, bestselling author and sought-after writing workshop leader, told a packed room of eager aspiring writers at Craftfest, part of Thrillerfest 2011 in New York, “Always start your book in the point of view of your protagonist.” I think this is excellent advice, as the readers—not to mention agents and acquiring editors—want to know right away whose story it is, who to start bonding with and cheering for.

Here are the first questions your readers will be asking:

Why should I care about this character, anyway?

Readers aren’t going to invest time reading a story about a character they don’t like or can’t identify with, so make sure your protagonist is likeable and sympathetic, to draw the readers in to identify with him or her. And make them well-rounded and complex, with hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, and inner conflict. And of course have them confronted with a problem—an inciting incident—within the first few pages, as conflict is what drives fiction forward. A perfect character with an ideal life is both annoying and boring—not a formula for compelling fiction!

Where and when is the action taking place?

Without drowning us in long descriptive passages right at the beginning, give the readers a few hints very early on—definitely on the first page—of the setting of your story: Contemporary? Past? Future? Country/Culture? Urban/rural/wilderness? Which city or town? And so on. Don’t confuse and frustrate your readers by making them wonder where on earth all this is happening, and whether it’s in the present or some other time.

Why should I read this story?

Show your stuff in your first five pages or so. Draw the reader (or agent or editor) in with a great first scene, well-written, with interesting, complex characters, some intriguing action, and compelling, natural-sounding dialogue. Include your inciting incident and initial conflict, and hint at greater problems to come. Introduce or hint at a worthy adversary—a cunning villain or attractive but maddening/annoying possible love interest. And write your first pages in the same tone, style and voice you’ll be using for your novel, so the readers will have a good idea of what they’ll be getting into. And of course, continue in this same tone (suspenseful, humorous, serious, romantic, etc.) for the rest of the novel, so the reader won’t feel cheated or misled.

But don’t get bogged down trying to perfect your opening pages in the early stages – wait until you’ve got all or most of your first draft written. By then, you’ll be “in the groove” and you’ll know your character and his/her problems a lot better, as well as the resolution, so this part will flow so much more easily.

© Jodie Renner August 2011, revised February 2012

Jodie is a freelance editor specializing in thrillers, romantic suspense, mysteries and other crime fiction. For more info on Jodie’s editorial services, please visit her website at www.JodieRennerEditing.com.

Reversal Expectations

by D.L. Sparks

As a romantic suspense author and a lover of suspense, one of my favorite writing tools is the reversal of expectation (RoE.) It is a storytelling device whereby the author makes the reader believe one thing about a character, then flips the character into someone the reader does not expect. Stephen King did it in SECRET WINDOW, SECRET GARDEN. In the novella we are introduced to author Mort Rainey, who is accused of plagiarism. We learn at the end, at the reversal, that Mort has split personality disorder and has been accusing himself of not just plagiarism, but unexplained murders. Screenwriter Clark Gregg pulled off the reversal of expectation perfectly in the movie “What Lies Beneath”. Kindhearted, university researcher Norman Spencer is concerned for his wife, Claire. She suffered post traumatic shock after a car accident and was also experiencing empty nest syndrome. However, the RoE was that Norman actually murdered the young co-ed and was now trying to kill his wife. To me this movie was the epitome of reversal of expectation.

However RoE is something that many will try but only few will be able to pull off expertly. Here are two things to consider:

1. Using the reader’s expectations to your advantage

This tool in the craft of writing is definitely something that needs to be worked on and perfected. So many times you will hear someone say how they figured out an ending before they finished a book or movie. Mastering RoE would be one way of thwarting any similar storytelling disappointments. But the good thing is that because most stories are bred from the same formula, you can convince your reader that they are about to travel down a familiar road, then hook a quick left when they least expect it.

2. Timing the Reversal of Expectation for the big Aha!

RoE is best suited for the climax or peak of a novel. It usually adds to the intensity and gets your readers' attention and hooks them in so you can bring your story full circle. One of the things I love to hear as a writer is, "I did NOT see that coming!" But even with the "aha!" moment it still has to make sense to the reader or they will feel unsatisfied and duped. In "Secret Window" it was very believable that a writer could have shut himself off from the real world to the point of becoming a recluse, thus becoming a victim in his own mind. In "What Lies Beneath" Harrison Ford's character had everything to lose, so he had to stay true to his story. Viewers even sympathized with him, thinking his wife was losing her mind, never straying from the original plotline the writer intended. And not realizing they were being set up for the big "Aha!!" moment.

How do you use Reversal of Expectation to wow your readers?

Best selling Author D.L. Sparks’ fast paced suspense novel THE LIES THAT BIND(Urban Books, 2010) landed on the bestsellers list of Black Expressions Book Club magazine, embraced by readers as far away as London and France. Ms Sparks has been voted one of the Top 25 Most Influential Black Fiction Writers on Twitter and is also a contributing writer to Rag ‘N Riches Magazine‘s, where she runs a relationship column. Visit her at http://www.dlsparks.com/

How I write a thriller

Timothy Hallinan, author of the Poke Rafferty series, has an excellent blog, in which he often looks at the process of writing. A couple of months ago he sent out a request for submissions from novelists on how they planned their books: did they plot rigidly in advance, or did they wing it, or a mix of the two, and if so what mix? He has called the series ‘Plotting vs Pantsing’ and it has so far featured some very thought-provoking essays from, among others, Rachel Brady, Stephen Jay Schwarz, Bill Crider, Rebecca Cantrell and Jamie Freveletti. I also contributed a short essay, and you can read it at Tim's blog here, or below, where I've reproduced it.

Get there

I’ve written two novels and am now writing my third, and each time it’s been different, but generally speaking I’m a ‘pantser’, ie I write by the seat of my pants. I usually write a synopsis that takes me through each chapter, but I don’t go into too much detail and it changes a lot as I go along. Writing the novel is my outline. I wrote my first book in a more linear way, and got into problems as a result. Now I start by writing tons of notes, ideas, fragments of scenes, snatches of dialogue, and when I’ve built up a large body of words, 40,000 or so, the structure starts to solidify.

At this point I tend to lose a lot of material as I realize that some scenes weren’t as exciting plot developments as I thought they would be, or simply don’t fit with other developments that I prefer. That can be frustrating, but I console myself with the thought that if I had prepared a very detailed plot outline in advance I’d have made the same or similar mistakes, but with heavier consequences: I usually cut material that is still only partially formed, so it’s less of a sacrifice. One of the reasons I don’t writer very detailed outlines is because I’m worried I’ll change my mind later. Something might seem perfect right now but in three months I might wake up in the middle of the night with the realization that it’s completely wrong. Or perhaps not even wrong: perhaps I’ll just be bored of the idea by then.

I want to write the kind of books I like to read, and they involve suspense. I’m writing a trilogy in the first person, and my character is a secret agent in trouble: so to a certain extent I also have to be in trouble. I like twists, but I find they’re often most effective if, like my narrator, I don’t see them coming. I want to know my protagonist, inside and out, but then to throw him into impossible situations and see how he gets out of them. I find plotting out too much in advance can suck the spontaneity and intensity from my writing, and I value both of those features above most others.

That said, I usually have a few plot points or scenes I want to include going in. With my first novel, Free Agent, I knew before I started writing that it would be set in the Biafran War and told from the perspective of a double agent. I also knew roughly how it began and ended, and had an idea of what kind of novel I wanted it to be. I nearly wrote ‘clear idea’, but it wasn’t really clear. It was strong. Just as you can wake with a very vague or even no memory of the dream you just had, but nevertheless have a very powerful sense of the mood of it, I had known in my gut what I wanted to write. I can articulate it now as, roughly, something that had the following elements and tones:

Taut
Lean
Gripping
Spy thriller
Set in the late 60s
Cold War tensions to the fore
In Africa – feel the heat and the culture
Suspenseful action scenes that can match Bourne and Bond
But also character studies that are more like Greene or le Carré
So no silly gadgets or explosions
Dark, gritty and bleak
Conflicted and trapped first-person narrator
Laconic humour laced in
Real Cold War and espionage history integrated and revealed
Real history of this forgotten civil war
Unusual love story/obsession

Along with a few specific plot and character ideas and sense-memories from my childhood in Nigeria, I carried most of the above with me the whole time I wrote Free Agent – without ever writing them down as I just have. But when my drafts were nowhere near reaching the above, my instincts pushed me to make it happen. I felt that as long as I kept writing I would be able to fill in all the gaps and make the impression I had of the novel a reality.

With my second and third books, I wrote down a lot more about what kind of novels I wanted them to be before I started writing. But I still wanted to keep something of the feel I was looking for unarticulated, held back in my subconscious. With the second, Free Country, my thoughts about setting changed early on, which entailed a lot more research. But in each case I’ve had clear ideas about the beginning and end, some strong impressions of the tone of the books, of the mood of my protagonist and what’s at stake for him and those around him.

My methodology changed somewhat between writing my first and second novels: it became less structured. I wrote Free Agent in the evenings and weekends, handing in new chapters to a writing group as I went along. I wrote my second as a full-time author in a year. I was naturally worried that it wouldn’t be as good as my first, which took me seven years to write (albeit with a full-time job and no external deadline). So I attacked the second in a very different way: I thought a lot and researched a lot, then worked out a very rough synopsis and started writing, 1,000 words a day, throwing anything and everything down. It helped that I felt I had succeeded in my goals with Free Agent. Not only had it been accepted by a publisher, who had then shown faith in me by buying the next two books in the trilogy, but I felt that I had written the book I had wanted to. So I had a lot more faith in myself that I would get where I wanted, eventually. This helped when I became blocked or encountered problems.

Not having a very detailed outline means you will encounter problems, but I don’t think you can necessarily work your way out of them with outlines. At least, I don’t think I can. I think in drafting a novel it may be that there comes a point where structure, character and plot are almost irrelevant, or rather that they are no longer concrete or tangible to the writer. You can prepare very carefully and research and plot everything out, but at some point your instinct comes into play. For want of a better word, you feel the book. You realise what it needs, what it’s missing, and you set to work giving it that. You’re not really thinking about why a certain idea or scene or even line will make sense. You just feel that it will. Sometimes I can be blocked for weeks, and wish I had been more organized at the outset and had done a ‘proper’ outline of the book, scene by scene. But then I can make enormous strides in minutes, changing the book with very radical decisions that months earlier I would have been terrified of making, but which now, somehow, I now know will work. This isn’t something you can put on index cards. It’s about living the book, with all its problems and setbacks. Index cards and detailed outlining work fantastically well for some writers, but they’re not for me, and there’s no shame in it. All writers are working around a group of ideas until they manage to craft a piece they are proud of and prepared to send out into the world – it doesn’t really matter how we get there, as long as we do.

Dream Killers

by Jamie Freveletti

I’m a bit tired of people stepping on dreams. I have a lot of dreams. Some are pretty attainable, and others are off the charts so rare that even I have to admit the odds are long.

But I still don’t want you to step on them.

My view on dreams is that if I’m not bothering anyone, haven’t compromised my real life existence to attain them, and in other ways am a responsible person, then the best thing to do is leave me go on my merry way.

Which brings me to the moral dilemma I face when giving panels on writing. People ask me, will this be published? What are the odds? What do you thnk?

Here’s what I think: the odds are long, we know that. The time spent on writing may never pay off, either financially or in published format, we know this also. So what? Should you give up? Stop writing? Choose not to start? Only you know if that’s right for you.

Of course, this answer never satisfies. When I say, “if you continue, diligently, for many years, taking courses, staying in the writing world, going to conferences and panels to pick up tips, you will be published.”

The next question I get is: “How many years?”

Answer: Depends.

This answer is not acceptable to many, either, but it’s true. Last week I watched “Biography” present George Clooney. By most standards, he’s a success in his field. The backstory was interesting. He landed in Hollywood in his early twenties. Did bit parts and recurring roles until he hit with “ER.” Time from landing in LA to ER: ten years give or take. Ten years to get a role that really pushed his career to the next level. That’s a long time. If I said ten years to a new writer, they’d likely get angry. “Ten years! But I want this manuscript to sell now, not ten years down the road.”

I imagine Clooney wanted to hit ten years earlier, too, but that wasn’t in the cards for him. From ER he took roles in movies that generated roller coaster reviews and average box office. Then came “The Perfect Storm.” Big hit, great reviews. Time from landing in LA to big hit—eighteen years, give or take.

So should the unpublished writer give it ten years to get published, another eight to hit huge, and be prepared to wait eighteen altogether? I’m not a fan of delusion, but in this case absolute truth is harsh. Even I, the tortoise of the hare and tortoise race, wince at eighteen years.

But I write because I have to. I love it. A few days without writing and I’m definitely headed into a downer mode. Best I just hit the computer for a couple of hours. I always feel better after. The only other option is to quit. Now, that’s a great option if it doesn’t really matter to you, but if you like writing, like creating characters, and like the creativity that goes along with it, then don’t quit.

Just trudge onward. Your turn will come.

Jamie Freveletti
Author
Running from the Devil
Morrow: May 2009
www.jamiefreveletti.com

Shadows: Rich and Beautiful Writing

I’ve always enjoyed reading journalist Don Graves’ column CANADIAN MYSTERIES in The Hamilton Spectator. So I was thrilled when he gave LET THE SHADOWS FALL BEHIND YOU a nod last week. Here’s an excerpt:

Let the Shadows Fall Behind You by Kathy-Diane Leveille peels away the layers behind a murder, the need to deceive, to hide the past and cover it up with a pattern of respectability despite a trail of ruined lives and festering questions that could destroy the future.

A young woman returns to a small East Coast town to attend a reunion. Her instincts warn her against it as her lover has disappeared without a trace…

A gentle pace with compassionately descriptive writing is the right vehicle for author, Leveille, to tell a story of relationships that unravel as old, uncertain conflicts surface and begin to agonizingly make sense to the young woman.

A murder, a past still preying upon the souls of those involved, is always an unwelcome and intrusive guest. Let the Shadows Fall Behind You tells that chronicle with poignancy, wistful descriptions of small town life and punchy characterizations that expose hard truths.

Sadly rich and beautiful writing.

Kathy-Diane Leveille
Author of LET THE SHADOWS FALL BEHIND YOU (Kunati Books)
ISBN-978-1601641670