Lea Wait's Blog, page 168

Advice for Professional Writers: Proofread Your Posts

[image error]Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, today on a mini-rant about a pet peeve that’s bothered me for some time now. I know it’s the accepted thing not to worry about accurate typing when it comes to emails and social media posts. For one thing, it’s so easy to blame mistakes on autocorrect. But what professional writers send out into cyberspace has the potential to stay there forever, warts and all. Do you really want an infinite number of people, most of them total strangers, even if they are your “friends” on Facebook, reading posts with your name on them and wondering if the books you write are just as slipshod when it comes to spelling, grammar, and usage? And that’s not even taking into account the impression readers may get if you’ve accidentally left out a key word. A missing not can make it seem as if you’re saying exactly the opposite of what you intended.

Word choice is important, too. Even smaller mini-rant: I refer to myself and others who write books and short stories as writers rather than authors. Yes, I am the author of many books, but I didn’t “auth” them. I wrote them.

[image error]I also write emails, blog posts, and Facebook posts and comments. I proofread all of them before I send or post, and I read them again after they are published and make corrections if it turns out I missed a typo. Sometimes mistakes still sneak in, but I try very hard to catch them all before anyone else sees them. I think of that as part of my job as a writer, just as it’s my job to try to catch and correct all errors in a manuscript before I submit it to my editor. I may not find them all, but if I’m going to call myself a professional, I’m obliged to do my best, just as I do my best to invent interesting characters, create a gripping plot, and put it all together in a way that will keep readers turning the pages.

[image error]I don’t know what’s being taught in schools these days, but there was a time when “English” class included learning how sentences are constructed, the rules of punctuation, grammar, usage, and spelling, and how to write essays (even if nowadays it’s called blogging). I have no problem with casually breaking rules in spoken English, but once I put something in writing, especially in a public forum where it can be easily misinterpreted and could well go viral, then I believe I have an obligation to do my best. If I’m going to list “writer” as my profession, then whatever I write, no matter when, no matter where, should be as accurate as I can make it. Yes, even private email. To my fellow professional writers, I have this to say: it’s not all that hard or time consuming to proofread, revise if necessary, and make sure you end up saying exactly what you intended. If nothing else, think about the legacy you’re leaving for posterity. One careless covfefe could live on long after every book you’ve ever written has faded from memory.

 

[image error]

With the June 2019 publication of Clause & Effect, Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett will have had sixty books traditionally published. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries and the “Deadly Edits” series as Kaitlyn. As Kathy, her most recent book is a collection of short stories, Different Times, Different Crimes. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com and she maintains a website about women who lived in England between 1485 and 1603 at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women.

 

Book Launch For PRAY FOR THE GIRL, Tuesday, April 30th at Longfellow Books.

I’m excited to announce that my new thriller, PRAY FOR THE GIRL, will be launched at Longfellow Books, Tuesday, April 30th at 7:00 pm. I hope you can stop by and pick up a signed copy, and say hello. I’ll be speaking, reading an excerpt, and signing books afterward. There might be cake too.

The reviews for PRAY FOR THE GIRL have been fantastic thus far. Here’s an excerpt from the review by Booklist. “ . . .a solid read that poses tough questions about how to help downtrodden towns undergoing social upheaval, a close look at tough personal transformations, and a mystery with a surprising solution.”

The Schleichler Spin says, “In Lucy Abbott, Souza has created an unforgettable character who is tortured, complex, and tough as nails. Her PTSD only scratches the surface of what she’s been through and amplifies the conflicts she’s had with her own identity all her life. . .Through the unforgettable character of Lucy Abbott, Souza is able to turn many of the genre’s clichés on their heads and explore issues of modern warfare, identity politics, and small-town decay while weaving a smoldering commentary on the American Dream.”

”Souza’s new domestic thriller is genre-defining tour-de-force.” Steve Konkoly, internationally bestselling author of THE RESCUE.

“A must-read.” Julia Specner-Fleming, New York Times bestselling author of THROUGH THE EVIL DAYS

”In Lucy Abbott, Jose Souza has created a character like no other.” John Greco, author of BITTER ENDS

In addition, I’ll be conducting an interview on the radio show The Law Business Insider where I’ll be talking about PRAY FOR THE GIRL and my life as a writer. Hope you can check it out. https://lbishow.com

More exciting news. I’ll be a panelist at the crime writing convention, Crimebake, which takes place in Woburn, MA this November. Hope to see you there.http://crimebake.org

It plans on being an exciting month with the latest nuclear of my new novel. All those lonely months of writing leads up to a fevered pitch of activity around publication date. I hope all of you get a chance to read my new thriller, PRAY FOR THE GIRl. I thank readers and writers alike for helping me get here.

Best,

Joe

 

 

 

On Writing: Learning the Craft

[image error]Today, Maine Crime Writers welcome author Charlene D’Avanzo. She’s author of the Oceanographer Mara Tusconi mysteries, marine ecologist, and emerita professor at Hampshire College, has received awards both as an author and environmental educator. Her environmental mysteries help readers learn about climate change and other issues in the context of a fast-paced, exciting story. Cold Blood, Hot Seaand Secrets Haunt the Lobsters’ Seaare both Foreward Indies finalist and Demon Spirit, Devil Seais an IPPY award winner. A long-time sea kayaker, a sport featured in her stories, D’Avanzo lives on Little John Island in Yarmouth, Maine.

I’m still pretty new at this mystery writing business. The first book in my series was published in 2016, and I had zero experience writing fiction before then. To be sure, I’d written lots of scientific proposals and research papers, and the discipline that required has served me well.

But the transition to fiction was understandably a major one. I had to shed the writing practice of a scientist-precise, concise, exact-and assume a literary style that would bring to life Oceanographer Mara Tusconi, everyone around her, and the natural world she studies and relishes.

But what, exactly, does that mean? To address that here, I’ll focus on “the natural world”, specifically what comprises ninety percent of Living Earth-the ocean. When readers turn the pages of my books I want them to experience that domain-to know what it’s like to be on, in, and under seawater.

How does a rookie writer of nature fiction learn how to bring the outdoors alive? Stephen King’s advice for hopeful writers made a lot of sense to me. “You become a writer simply by reading and writing,” he has said. King is right. How prominent writers captured the ocean’s essence has instructed and inspired me. Here are a few examples:

“The sea is everything … It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides.” Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.

“There is, one knows not what, sweet mystery about the sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.” Herman Melville, Moby Dick.

“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except [image error]that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realize that you’ve been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.” Dave Barry

“Many church steeples piled on upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects.” Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

Each of these quite different excerpts has something in common. The style and choice of words evoke deep emotion or vivid images and the phrasing is clever. “Gently awful stirring”, “church steeples piled on one another”, “an immense desert where man is never lonely”, “staring at the outside of the tent”. It’s brilliant, which is why, of course, everyone knows these writers.

I’m fuzzy on how, in practice, these and other examples of writing excellence impact my own wordsmith skills. Since we don’t copy words and phrases, I guess something rubs off. I’m still working on that.

Practicing the craft

I’m now working on the next book in my series, “Glass Eels, Shattered Sea”. This time of year Maine fishermen are netting these tiny, transparent creatures (they are fish) from rivers all along the coast. Glass eels net these fishermen a whole lot of cash-upwards of two thousand dollars a pound. Big money begets crime and the occasional dead body, good fodder for a mystery.

In the story, Mara and her buddies from “The Maine Oceanographic Institution” travel on a research vessel to the Sargasso Sea. They are studying the one place in the Atlantic where all eels swim thousands of miles to mate and die. Also the only sea in the world with no land boundaries, the Sargasso is reputed to be a dangerous place were planes disappear and ships are hopelessly tangled in floating mats of seaweed. More inspiration for a mystery!

I’ll end with a paragraph from the book. In this scene, Mara sits on the fantail of the research vessel, pulls on her dive mask, and jumps into the Sargasso to collect seaweed for a study. I’ve been to the Sargasso Sea but didn’t jump off the back of the ship into the water. It was terrific to imagine what that’s like.

I can’t think of an experience more extraordinary, and liberating, than to leap- hundreds of miles from any land and thousands from the seabed- from the safety of a boat. As land creatures we literally loose our footing and come face-to-face with extraordinary creatures we barely understand who live in a fluid, amorphous domain.

Looking down, the first thing that struck me was the mind-boggling clarity of the water. The upper, well-lit layer of the Sargasso Sea is at least three-hundred feet. While that’s a thin slice in an ocean thousands of feet deep, to a human floating around on the surface, three-hundred looks like quite a lot.

A Deadly, Dark, Twisty, Chilling Story

Kate Flora: At a seminar on marketing this past weekend, sponsored by Sisters in Crime, presenter Jess Lourey emphasized the importance of that back cover copy or descriptive blurb, including the startling information that on Amazon, we authors can edit or update it. Wow. Then she gave us the “in class” assignment of writing a short, medium, and long synopsis for one of our books.

I confess, right up front, that I hate writing a synopsis, long or short. I would rather write an entire book than struggle with trying to get that story into a few pithy sentences. I almost raised my hand and asked if there was someone we could hire to do the job. But I’m supposed to be a grownup, professional writer, so I bent to the task. The instructions were to build it around the 3C’s–character, conflict, and a cliffhanger.

(An authorial aside here–every day I read the descriptions of books offered on BookBub[image error] and they sound like they came out of a can. The hero/heroine’s investigation reveals surprises from the past that threaten to overwhelm. The words like dark, twisty, and chilling appear like clockwork. Now I understand that they’ve studied the blurbs/synosis for twenty top bestsellers and picked up the essential words that seem to draw a reader’s eye.

The book is titled: A Child Shall Lead Them. In ten minutes, this is what I produced.

Short:

Portland, Maine detective Joe Burgess has sworn he’ll work no more cases involving child victims. The discovery of a young girl’s mutilated body changes that, sending him on a quest that will will turn up four more trafficking victims the search for fifth child who is still missing.

Medium:

After a series of horrific cases involving children, Portland, Maine detective Joe Burgess has said “No more brutalized children.” The discovery of a young girl’s body in a city park changes that. As he tries to identify the headless, handless victim using her unique tattoo, the search leads to an empty house and four helpless girls chained in a basement. Then the girls tell him that a fifth girl–a child name Isabella–is still missing.

Long:

[image error]After a series of horrific cases involving children, Portland, Maine detective Joe Burgess has said “No more.” Then his Fourth of July picnic is spoiled by a body in a local park. His challenge? To identify the brutalized young girl when the body is missing both head and hands.

When a man purporting to be looking for his missing foster daughter contacts the police, suspicious officers follow him to an abandoned hour, where they discover four young girls chained in the basement. A fifth girl, their little sister, is still missing.

Burgess and his team must race against time to identify their victim, find the men who trafficked the girls, and locate the still missing Isabella. Then Burgess’s young niece, Cherry, who wants to be a cop someday, decides to “help out” by doing some sleuthing on her own, and delivers herself into the hands of men who sell young girls for sex.

So now, a chance to see whether my first attempt will draw a reader’s eye. And if not, you, dear reader, are free to offer edits and suggestions. Your suggestions are also welcome on these possible cover photos.[image error]

Weekend Update: April 6-7, 2019

[image error]Next week at Maine Crime Writers, there will be posts by Kate Flora (Monday), Charlene D’Avazo (Tuesday) Joe Sousa (Wednesday) Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Thursday), and Vaughn Hardacker (Friday).

In the news department, here’s what’s happening with some of us who blog regularly at Maine Crime Writers:

 

 

An invitation to readers of this blog: Do you have news relating to Maine, Crime, or Writing? We’d love to hear from you. Just comment below to share.

And a reminder: If your library, school, or organization is looking for a speaker, we are often available to talk about the writing process, research, where we get our ideas, and other mysteries of the business. Contact Kate Flora

A Write Of Passage Revisited

Bruce Robert Coffin here, wishing all of you a happy month of April. Several years ago, following a rather formidable winter, I wrote a blog about the joy of the seasons first mowing. I thought sharing it with you again might hasten the cold weather’s departure. Fingers crossed.

On a mild clear day in April I mowed my lawn for the first time this season. As I suspect it is for others, this is always a day I look forward to. An annual marker as profound as New Year’s Day, a birthday, or an anniversary. A major event signaling that winter has finally passed, mercifully releasing us from her frigid grasp.

[image error]

Now don’t get me wrong, mowing is a bit of a chore, especially with the three acres of grass I have to mow, and by season’s end I’ll be over it. But at this early moment in the spring, following another daylight-shortened, snowy Maine winter, I relish the task and the chance to circle the lawn while my mind wanders freely and the sun warms my face. For me, mowing the lawn is always a bit of a trip down memory lane to seasons past. Returning are sights and smells, nearly forgotten, once buried beneath January’s blanket. I spy a red breasted robin bobbing along, monitoring my progress and stopping occasionally to unearth a tasty treat. Swallows and finches dart back and forth between the trees like excited shoppers scouting new locations for homes. And a wary band of turkeys watch my progress with interest from a nearby field, their necks swiveling like periscopes above the undergrowth.

Budding birches, maples, and oaks portend the coming of summer’s green. While carried upon a cool nearly imperceptible breeze are the scents of freshly cut grass, lake water, and the earthy decomposition of last year’s fallen leaves.

Years of country living have taught me to abandoned my fruitless attempts at preventing nature’s botanical interlopers from inhabiting my lawn. Inevitably, the coming months will signal the arrival of all manner of color and aromas. Wild strawberries will come creeping, filling the air with their sweet smell. My lawn will be spotted white with clumps of flowering clover, the lavender of violets, the orange and yellows of the Castilleja, and a bounty of dandelions. And as the infamous yellow blossoms turn, becoming no more than seed balls on a stem, I’ll mow through them amidst a blizzard of white fluff.

I’m constantly on the hunt for the occasional rogue thistle, too. A weed infamous for wreaking havoc on bare feet, in spite of those glorious purple blossoms. Ever vigilant, I’ll do battle, refusing to allow this spiny flora safe passage.

But there’s so much more to this seemingly mindless chore than simply manicuring blades of grass. There’s a symbolism to the act. This first mowing signals the coming of cookouts, family gatherings, and bocce. Leisurely afternoons spent lounging outside with a tall frosty, as clouds pass overhead and Joe Castiglione transports me away to Fenway Park. Evenings on the deck as brilliant crimson sunsets transform into night and fireflies appear above the field, flickering like wandering stars.

As I turn a corner, overlapping my previous row, it occurs to me how very similar tending the lawn is to the act of writing a novel. Editing the first draft is akin to cutting the grass. There may be thin spots in need of watering or a sprinkle of seed to thicken, or a few thistles to remove. Alternating shades of green reflect the directional pass of the blades like the continuous thread of a well told tale. Wild and unkempt at the start, becoming an unbroken expanse of something wonderful once finished. Which reminds me, I’ve got another book to write.

Happy mowing!

Happiest Days

All of us have phases in our lives … periods of our lives we remember for what we were doing (School? Jobs?) or where we were living, or what was happening in our family or who was important (for good or for bad) in our lives at different moments.

Some phases blend into each other, and can be separated only in retrospect. Others are distinct. (A graduation. The end of a job or relationship. An illness or death.) We can think through the good parts, the bad parts, the things we wish we could change … and the things we’re grateful for, or are just glad we survived.

One of those times for thinking back is the end of life. I’ve cared for two people who were dying (my mother and my husband,) and both of them went through that process.  Some of their thoughts and memoires they shared with me. Others they preferred to keep private.

My life can be easily divided. K-12 school, undergraduate college, living in Greenwich Village while attending graduate school and working full-time, my first marriage, my jobs at AT&T, being transferred to the Jersey suburbs, adopting my four children and helping others who also wanted to adopt, moving to Maine, writing fiction, and marrying the man I’d always loved. Those divisions are facts.

Emotional divisions would be different.

Because, of course, each of those phases had its highs and its lows. So, focusing on the positives, I decided to think back and isolate what days, what moments, of my life I was most happy. That doesn’t mean I was unhappy on all the other days. But a few days stand out as high points. Some of mine were ….

As a senior in high school, being editor of my high school newspaper and having that newspaper, which had been hated by many in my town, being named the best high school newspaper in New Jersey by the Scholastic Press Association.
As a senior in college, having two of my poems win the national Story Magazine competition and be praised by judge Marianne Moore.
Moving to New York City.
Flying to Indianapolis representing my company’s headquarters on my first business trip – and being the first woman in that role.
The days I first heard about each of my four daughters … and the days I met them.
 Passing my doctoral comprehensives.
The day I stepped in at the last minute to replace someone, spoke to a large audience … and got a standing ovation. (I was speaking about adopting older children.)
The day an editor in New York contacted me out of the blue and asked me to write an autobiography. (I chose not to.)
 The day I finished writing my first full book — a mystery.
Days in both adolescence and as an adult when I rowed my skiff on the Sheepscot River in Maine, getting close to herons and other birds.
The day I was offered a contract for my first book to be published.
The day – a year after it was submitted – that the first book I’d written sold. And, a year later, that book’s being nominated for a “best first mystery” Agatha Award.(Note: my first book written and first book published were not the same book!)
After ten years apart, the day Bob and I reconnected. (We married 18 months later.)
 Bob and I dancing together in a Paris park. A band was playing, but no one else was dancing.
Taking trips to Italy, India, Scotland, and Charleston, South Carolina by myself. (Two trips re: my children and two re: research for my books.)

As I look at that list I realized one major thing. Although other people were involved in many of those days, most of the things on my list were personal accomplishments or events.

Most of my life I was single, and, although there were times when I was lonely, most of the time I didn’t mind being alone, having moments I wasn’t always supporting or caring for the people I loved, and putting their needs first. That doesn’t negate the joy I found in parenting, or the incredible love, emotional support and happiness I was given for the first time during the fifteen years Bob and I were married. It meant caring for myself brought its own rewards.

That insight was a realization that helped me put my whole life in perspective.

If I could, would I change any part of my life? No. I made decisions that were right for me at the time, even when others questioned them. Yes, there were things I would have liked to have done that I haven’t done. But no one can do everything.

I’ve accomplished most of my major goals. It’s been a good life.

And, bottom line, I have no regrets.

I hope you can say the same about your life.

Does That Which Doesn’t Kill Us, Truly Make Us Stronger?

John Clark on something I discovered while campaigning last summer. I was on a back road in St. Albans when I met a gentleman who told me he had worked more than 30 years for a nearby school department, but was unable to continue because of what he believed to be chronic Lyme Disease. Since I knew at least two Mainers who had died as a result of this disease, I was interested to continue our conversation. His frustration (and that’s a pretty mild word for what he was feeling), centered around his lack of affordable health care, a complaint I was hearing multiple times a day. But his bigger issue was the difficulty in getting a satisfactory diagnosis. He said that getting a medical professional to admit that chronic Lyme Disease was real, was nearly impossible.

[image error]

Before I left, he encouraged me to find and view a movie he felt summed up the frustration and lack of receptiveness he and many others similarly afflicted, had experienced. He gave me the name of the film and when I returned home, I looked it up. The accolades surprised me. They included best documentary at the Houston, Sonoma, Camden, Okamagen and Fargo film festivals, as well as best documentary in the health and media awards, among others.

[image error]

The accolades from print and online reviewers, stretched way down the movie web page. Here are some I copied: “Like a well-made thriller, gets under your skin…more deeply terrifying than any slasher film you’ll ever see.” – Michael O’Sullivan, The Washington Post. “Scary enough to make the faint of heart decide never to venture into the woods.”- Stephen Holden, New York Times. “Fascinating…artful and compelling.” – Frank DiGiacomo, Vanity Fair. “Eye-opening…frightening, powerful stuff.” – Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times. “Head-spinning…riveting…a rigorously researched and highly thorough piece of investigative reporting.” – Lauren Wissot, Slant Magazine. “Stirs the deepest emotions and reveals the most unsettling truth.” – Justin Berton, San Francisco Chronicle. “Very timely, as well as quite infuriating….takes what seems to be a straightforward subject…and turns it into a detective story, a romance, an inspirational drama, a conspiracy thriller and a science lesson, all in one.” – David Bianculli, TV Critic, TVWorthWatching.com.

[image error]

“Enlightening and alarming…Wilson takes us on a journey of discovery.” – Leonard Maltin, Film Critic.

[image error]

I immediately ordered both Under Our Skin and the sequel, done seven years later, Emergence which tracks what happened following the first film. I made certain to purchase educational performance licensing copies so I could show them in public forums.

The first film is not for the faint of heart, nor for the complacent. You will meet people whose lives were essentially destroyed by ticks and who were then brutalized by healthcare professionals, the insurance industry and pharmaceutical companies who paid for studies that were skewed. You’ll meet dedicated people who spent a huge amount of their own time trying to find out why the bacteria that caused Lyme Disease was able to hide for considerable periods of time before re-emerging to cause further destruction. You will meet at least one compassionate physician who lost his license to practice because he refused to stop treating his patients.

[image error]

The second film might restore some hope that the first one killed. I was impressed and awed by the resolve many in both films demonstrated in the face of greed, arrogance and intransigence. Both films are available to borrow on interlibrary loan from several libraries in Mainecat (http://mainecat.maine.edu/). We’re showing the first film at the Hartland Public Library (16 Mill Street, Hartland, ME 04943) on April 11th at 5 pm if you’re interested and able to join us. The sequel will be shown next month. If you’re interested in more about these films and relevant resources. here’s the link. https://underourskin.com/

[image error]

Fall Down Nine Times, Get Up Ten

Or, if as happened earlier this month on my second outdoor walk of the spring, fall down once on an icy patch in the shade on Charles Jordan Road, [image error]get up, and don’t fall down again. But falling down—failing—is so much a part of writing, both the practice and the publication, I usually feel that in my coccyx, too.

There’s plenty of salutary advice about failing, most of it true, but I don’t know any  human activity that I care about that’s more prone to failure than writing. You start with an idea in your head, perfectly formed and beautiful, and by the time you have it out on the page it is a weak and pale simulacrum of what you planned. No matter how hard you try, how good your chops, the realization never meets the expectation, as my old boss at Lodgen’s Market used to say.

Once you’ve accepted that failure is integral, though, you are freed completely. You can try new techniques, understanding that they’re not likely to work anyway. You can take on topics you never thought you would, free yourself from your own preconceptions about the only things you care about. The freeing also keeps you from developing anything like writer’s block.

William Stafford, the great Oregon poet, had the ultimate solution to writer’s block: “Lower your expectations.” Or in earthier terms, write the crap. Dump out the words and the story without regard to beauty or truth. You can’t revise what isn’t on the page.

I am a fan of Beckett’s quote, however, which adds a key element to the notion of failing.

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

[image error]

Two key points here. First is “No matter.” It doesn’t matter that you’ve failed. What you have done, what is past, what failures you’ve already endured, are nothing. You can’t let them infect your present and your future work.

Second? “Fail better.” Which requires you not to shy away from your failures but to inspect them, diagnose them for the flaw or flaws that made them fail. So that when you fail again—as you inevitably will—you will fail in a way that means you’ve learned something. You’ve moved forward.

And if failing as a writer to get exactly what you want to convey on the page isn’t enough for you, you could always try writing for publication, where the failure rate is high enough to deter all but the brave hearted (or terminally stubborn). I think of writing for publication as a step you take when you aren’t satisfied with talking to yourself on the page any more, when you believe what you have to say is entertaining, useful, or both. You calculate the exponentially higher failure rate and measure it against the possibility of reaching readers and decided it’s worth it.

But with all the extra failures lurking in the attempt to publish, the risk of developing imposter’s syndrome is dire. You publish something once, and because success is so rare you believe it’s a fluke, that it can never happen again. And because it can take so long for success to come around and kiss you on the cheek again, your daily sense of yourself is as a failure, an imposter. [image error]It is useful, however, to remember that the only people who don’t feel imposter’s syndrome are the actual imposters.

Conclusion? How do you live with constant failure? Embrace the process, not the product, take your pleasure in the daily work and effort, enjoy (!) the falling down and getting up again. Because what’s even more perverse than all the failure you’ll experience, the occasional sign of success you receive will often come to you for the wrong piece of writing and the wrong reason altogether. Which I suppose is just another way of falling up . . .

Why Writers Stop Writing

[image error]Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here, pondering a question I’ve heard more than once. Readers often ask “whatever became of . . . ?” and name a writer whose books they loved. There’s no one answer, of course, but since many writers I know say they can’t not write, even if they have no hope of being published, and claim they will only stop writing when you pry their cold dead fingers from the keyboard, it’s a puzzle worth examining.

That “cold dead fingers” is one answer. Writers aren’t immortal, although their books do live on after them. Poor health can also end a writer’s career. Those reasons aside, why do some writers simply disappear?

For the purposes of this post, my focus is on writers of popular fiction in the romance and mystery genres. I’m ignoring one-book wonders, authors of blockbuster novels, and literary fiction. That said, let’s start by going back a couple of decades.

[image error]LaVyrle Spencer, a former teacher turned best-selling romance novelist had twenty-three titles in print between 1979 and 1997. Then she just quit writing. She told Publisher’s Weekly that she’d always intended to write until she reached a set financial goal and then retire, which is what she did. This decision shocked fellow writers at the time, not only because many of us couldn’t imagine not writing, but also because reaching a financial goal that would allow for a comfortable retirement wasn’t likely to happen for most writers of genre fiction in the 1990s. It’s even less likely to happen for working writers today.

[image error]In the mystery field, the most famous example of someone who quit writing novels while she was ahead is probably Caroline Graham, a British author whose first published novel, a romance, came out in 1982 but who is best known for creating Inspector Barnaby, featured in seven novels published between 1988 and 2004. In 1997, they became the basis for the long-running (and still going) television series, Midsomer Murders. Ms. Graham stopped writing novels to focus on plays and screenplays instead.

[image error]Much more recently, in 2017, the incomparable Margaret Maron announced that she would not be writing any more mystery novels. After the publication of nine books in the Sigrid Harald series and twenty in the Deborah Knott series, she explained in a guest post at Mystery Fanfare, saying “I don’t want to start repeating myself and I’m more than ready to be done with deadlines.” Margaret hasn’t entirely stopped writing, but she has switched to short stories.

I’m not going to name my next two examples of writers who’ve stopped writing, although I will tell you that I know their reasons through my personal acquaintance with them. The first individual is one of those lucky few who can compose prose in her head so that the first draft has little need of revision. Her first ten novels, all historical romances, were published in a three-year period starting in 1995. She had fourteen novels published in all, along with seven novellas in collections. Then she got bored with writing and just stopped. As far as I know, she hasn’t written anything since her last book, published in 2006.

The second not-to-be-named writer was also prolific, although over a longer period of time. She wrote thirteen novels, both historical and romance, under three different names but was best known, under another pseudonym, as a writer of cozy mysteries. Between 1989 and 2007, sixteen novels were published in one series. A second series saw six books published between 1999 and 2005. The seventh book was turned in but rejected. Let’s just say that things got ugly. Eventually, this writer took down her webpages and pretty much disappeared. Her last book was never published.

Many writers stop writing when publishers stop buying their books. That’s probably the most common reason for giving up a career that doesn’t have much job security in the best of times. From economic necessity, some have to go back to “real” jobs that leave little or no time to write. Especially for single moms with children to support, life has to take precedence over art. I know of one or two cases where writers have made a comeback after the kids were grown, but that doesn’t happen often.

Since the so-called e-book revolution, there has been another option. Instead of disappearing because they couldn’t find a publisher, some writers became “indie” or “hybrid” authors, taking books directly to readers as e-book originals. Those writers, obviously, haven’t disappeared. They’ve reinvented themselves.

[image error]That brings me to another explanation for vanishing authors—reinvention that involves taking a new name. Many writers survive dropped series and rejection by beginning anew with a pseudonym. I’m very familiar with this survival technique. I started writing as Kathy Lynn Emerson, my real name, using it for nonfiction, children’s books, romances, and mysteries. For the three category romances I wrote for Silhouette, I took the name Kaitlyn Gorton because my Mom wanted me to have something published under my maiden name. Kaitlyn, by the way, is the first name I wished I’d been given instead of Kathy. The two other pseudonyms I’ve used, however, were chosen in a calculated attempt to take advantage of the extra push publishers give to a “new” author. Titles written as Kathy Lynn Emerson hadn’t exactly topped the charts. A fresh start as Kaitlyn Dunnett made economic sense, especially since I was also going to be writing in a slightly different subgenre—cozy mysteries rather than historical mysteries. Kate Emerson wrote six historical novels based on the lives of real sixteenth-century women—again, a different subgenre. I used my own name again when I wrote three historical mysteries a few years ago. Right now Kathy is on another hiatus, although all her backlist titles are still available in ebook format. I can’t say for certain what I’ll do next . . . or who I will be, but I think I can guarantee I won’t stop writing anytime soon.

[image error]

With the June 2019 publication of Clause & Effect, Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett will have had sixty books traditionally published. She won the Agatha Award and was an Anthony and Macavity finalist for best mystery nonfiction of 2008 for How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries and was an Agatha Award finalist in 2015 in the best mystery short story category. She was the Malice Domestic Guest of Honor in 2014. Currently she writes the contemporary Liss MacCrimmon Mysteries and the “Deadly Edits” series as Kaitlyn. As Kathy, her most recent book is a collection of short stories, Different Times, Different Crimes. Her websites are www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com and she maintains a website about women who lived in England between 1485 and 1603 at A Who’s Who of Tudor Women.