Lea Wait's Blog, page 59

Is It “That” Time Yet?

I was listening to NPR the other day, an interview with Judy Blume, who is much in the news lately for several reasons. A movie has been made of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. In conjunction with that, a documentary of her life, Judy Blume Forever, is forthcoming, as well as adaptations of a couple of her other novels. But the most notable bit of the interview for me was when she confessed that, at 84, she was unlikely to write another novel. ”I’m an extrovert,” she said. “I like people. I don’t want to coop myself up any more.”

At the same time, I’ve been reading Don Winslow’s gangster trilogy, the first two of which, City on Fire and City of Dreams, are out now, with the third and final book due next year. He, too, has publicly announced he’s not writing any more novels. If you’re active on Twitter, you’ve seen him become more and more politically minded, to the extent that he is putting all his energies into activism and political commentary.

And, more worrisome to me, I heard Dennis Lehane say in an interview that he didn’t know if he was going to write more novels, though his new release Small Mercies, is by all accounts an example of him at his best. He did say he would write another if something grabbed him the way this book did, but the notion of quitting?

I spent most of my working life shoehorning my writing in and around a challenging career and family. I write every day and have done for forty-some years. Before I’d heard these people talk about it, I would have said you’d have to pry my pen (keyboard) from my cold dead fingers to make me quit. I didn’t know you could do that.

And yet—age brings a growing awareness of the limited nature of time—my time. All the things I planned to do and haven’t done, the people I’ve sworn to spend time with and haven’t, the other modes of building and creating that attract me. And trout fishing . . .

So maybe at one level I can understand the impulse to step away from a work that is difficult, unheralded for the most part, a work that no one much cares whether you’re doing it, a work without much in the way of tangible recompense. Very few of us are going to make even a small fortune at this, very few of us are going to see much acclaim. It is a temptation, I think, to throw up one’s hands and say Fuck It.

On the other hand—all three of the writers I mentioned have had their work heard, have tasted success in the way the world defines it. Is it easier to give up what you’ve had? In most of our cases, it would be more of a discard of hope.

Then I think of Robert Parker, who literally died at his desk, John Updike revising poems while he was dying of lung cancer. Maybe there is a spark there that cannot give up the ghost.

It’s a conundrum. I love my chicken-scratching, ticky-tacky keyboard tapping too much at the moment to give it up. And I’ve gone without much acclamation for long enough it doesn’t bother me particularly to know I’m unlikely to see the success a Winslow or a Parker saw.

It is the work. Still and now. A former teacher, afflicted with lung cancer, used his limited time to write a memoir of his dying. I have no answers, other than to know that it’s not time to quit yet. Like the urge to write, the urge to quit is personal. And I hope that if I ever do give it up, I’ll be able to do that with the grace of a Judy Blume. It is all any of us wants, I think. The grace to know our own minds.

Advice from ‘Butt In The Chair’ Experts

Sandra Neily Here;

I needed someone wise in my ear this month and a few words of inspiration. Found some!

From Joe Fassler’s interviewing 150 writers:

First Sentence

“The first line must convince me that it somehow embodies the entire unwritten text,” William Gibson said. Stephen King described spending “weeks and months and even years” working on first sentences, each one an incantation with the power to unlock the finished book. And Michael Chabon said that, once he stumbled on the first sentence of Wonder Boys, the rest of the novel was almost like taking dictation. “The seed of the novel—who would tell the story and what it would be about—was in that first sentence, and it just arrived,” he said.

Sound It Out .

“Plot can be overrated. What I strive for more is rhythm,” the late Jim Harrison said. “It’s like taking dictation, when you’re really attuned to the rhythm of that voice.” George Saunders described a similar process, explaining that sound shows him where the energy is, revealing which aspects of the story are important, which lines to follow. It can help with revision, too. “Sound gives us clues about what is necessary and real,” he said. “When you read [your work] aloud, there are parts you might skip over—you find yourself not wanting to speak them. Those are the weak parts. It’s hard to find them otherwise, just reading along.”

Stubborn Gladness

Elizabeth Gilbert’s concept of “stubborn gladness,” a term she borrows from the poet Jack Gilbert. It’s a promise to take things in stride, to remain cheerfully engaged no matter how difficult things get. “My path as a writer became much more smooth,” she said, “when I learned, when things aren’t going well, to regard my struggles as curious, not tragic.”

******

From tips from Nobel Prize winners:

“The Canadian author Alice Munro, who was given the Nobel for Literature in 2013: ‘Usually, I have a lot of acquaintance with the story before I start writing it. When I didn’t have regular time to give to writing, stories would just be working in my head for so long that when I started to write I was deep into them … add to this, you could keep a voice recorder or use the voice note function on a smartphone to record ideas or sentences for your novel as they occur to you. This will help you keep creating even when you have fewer moments to sit down and write.’

The Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982. The celebrated author of novels such as Cien años de soledad (translated as A Hundred Years of Solitude) was also a journalist.  ‘In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work. A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it.’

The Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, who published over 30 novels, plays and essays, received the Nobel in 2010. ‘If I started to wait for moments of inspiration, I would never finish a book. Inspiration for me comes from a regular effort.’

The great Canadian-American author Saul Bellow, who published 14 novels and novellas and won the Nobel for writing in 1976, beautifully described the intimacy between the writer and the reader: ‘When you open a novel — and I mean of course the real thing — you enter into a state of intimacy with its writer. You hear a voice or, more significantly, an individual tone under the words … It is more musical than verbal, and it is the characteristic signature of a person, of a soul. Such a writer has power over distraction and fragmentation, and out of distressing unrest, even from the edge of chaos, he [or she] can bring unity and carry us into a state of intransitive attention. People hunger for this.’ ”

******

More Wisdom….

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”—Joan Didion

“Instructions for living a life:

pay attention
be astonished
tell about it”    —Mary Oliver

“Your day’s work might turn out to have been a mess. So what? Vonnegut said, ‘When I write I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth.’ So go ahead and make big scrawls and mistakes. Use lots of paper. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friends.” —Anne Lamott

“Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” —Annie Dillard

And From Stephen King:

“2nd draft = 1st draft – 10%” Every story and novel is collapsible to some degree. If you can’t get out ten per cent of it while retaining the basic story and flavor, you’re not trying very hard.”

“Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”

“There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers . . . two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.”

“The adverb is not your friend. . . . I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

“When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest…[I]t seems to me that every book — at least every one worth reading — is about something. Your job during or just after the first draft is to decide what something or somethings yours is about. Your job in the second draft — one of them, anyway — is to make that something even more clear. This may necessitate some big changes and revisions. The benefits to you and your reader will be clearer focus and a more unified story. It hardly ever fails.”

 

And finally:  “The joy of being an author is the joy of feeling I can do anything,” says Neil Gaiman in Light the Dark. “There are no rules. Only: can you do this with confidence? Can you do it with aplomb? Can you do it with style? Can you do it with joy?”

The second Mystery in Maine, Deadly Turn, was published in 2021. Her debut novel, “Deadly Trespass, A Mystery in Maine,” won a national Mystery Writers of America award, was a finalist in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association “Rising Star” contest, and was a finalist for a Maine Literary Award. Find her novels at all Shermans Books (Maine) and on Amazon. Find more info on Sandy’s website.

The Exploding Colors of Spring

Kate Flora: We are all seeing it, aren’t we, the way the natural world changes every day now. One gray and gloomy day, it will seem like the buds on trees that line the highway will never become leaves and a few days later, the landscape has exploded into a zillion shades of green interspersed with bits of red. It is the gardening season. It is the bug season. It is the season when the days are suddenly long and we still cannot get enough done.

I am a hereditary gardener. My paternal grandmother had three long swaths of perennial beds in her lawn, with a white garden seat in the center whose lattice supported climbing roses. My father had a degree from the Stockbridge School of Agriculture. He along with my little sister Sara, had the kind of gardening touch where it seemed as though they could stretch out their hands and the plants would leap to them like animals wanting to be petted.

My parents were very competitive about gardening. For years, she kept her yearning to garden under wraps so as not to threaten him. Eventually, though, she couldn’t keep her desire for a garden of her own in check and established a garden outside the back door. He grew more traditional things in a more conventional way—though I do remember the truck being filled with softball-sized watermelons one year, and an abundance of cantaloupe. She practiced raised beds with heavily mulched paths and the beds were encircled with marigolds to deter pests. She grew bright purple beans that, disappointingly, turned green when they were cooked. The purple made them easy to harvest.

Dr. Who presides over my gardening efforts. Maybe he helps?

In the hilltop farm, spring meant all the counters, desktops, windowsills, and part of the floor would be covered with plants being raised from seed. Summer meant long evenings spent at the table after dinner, processing produce for canning and freezing, an activity that connected us to earlier times, when processing food was the only way people ate in the winter. Fall meant that pails of squash, potatoes, and onions were stored in the cement or dirt-floored cellar for the winter. The floor of the summer kitchen would hold squash and any tomatoes that could be rescued from the frost. Come January it would all begin again.

I inherited their passion though not, alas, their ability. I like to joke that I have a brown thumb and a credit card. It doesn’t mean that I don’t try, though. Right now, although I have a lot of writing and organizing on my plate, I cannot stay inside at the computer. In my earlier, more disciplined (or compulsive) years, I used to make a bargain with myself: an hour of gardening in the cool of early morning, and then back to work. Lately, I’ve been allowing myself more time in the garden. Partly, because I’m slower now. Partly because I want to be out there in the midst of the plant explosion.

This week, we were away for a few days and it seems like everything doubled in size. Those “empty” spaces in the garden I was wondering how to fill? They’re gone. The Japanese maple has grown huge. The golden spirea is a bold splash of yellow. The ligularia are threatening to take over the world. My painter’s palette persicaria are jumping out from the sea of green. I know I should be inside doing my homework, but as I embrace my 74th spring, the voice in my head asks: What Matters? What are you waiting for? And What will you regret? These messages say: Be outside now, when the world is impossibly alive. And I listen.

 

Your Heirs Will Thank You

Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson here. I’ve just read one of the scariest books I’ve come across in a long time. The title is The Author Estate Handbook by M. L. Ronn and it lays out all the ways a professional novelist can screw up when it comes to the copyrights and other literary assets he or she leaves behind.

I thought I had this whole legacy thing pretty well in hand. I keep good records. During Covid, I organized even more and self-published all the unsold manuscripts traditional publishers didn’t want to buy. My will, although it was written quite a few years ago, specifies who gets what and deals with the issue of a literary executor.

It turns out that I haven’t even scratched the surface of what needs to be done before I croak.

For one thing I need to find an attorney who not only specializes in estate planning but also in intellectual property and copyright law. First, though, I appear to have a lot more organizing to do.

I already have electronic files (and printouts) of what I call manuscript histories, and I have lists of my publications with descriptions of the plots. Those files include a lot of information, but apparently not enough. Without me to translate and tell my future literary executor where to look for more details, there could be problems. So, I need to sit down and add, at least for the books I’ve self published or reissued, things like ISBN numbers, production information—cover designer, editor, and the like—and format-specific metadata like paperback trim sizes. I also need to include links to each book at all retailers (or in my case, to the two companies I use, Belgrave House and Draft2Digital, to handle distribution to retailers).

My book manuscript files need to be better organized so that it is easy to find the version of each book that is actually current, especially since it may not be the one that originally appeared in print. I can’t forget short stories and other writing, either. I think I’m glad I never made any videos to post on the Internet. They would apparently be part of my estate, too, and would be likely to disappear after my death, as the wonderful “Signing in the Waldenbooks” with the late Parnell Hall already has.

I have a ton of reversion letters as well as current contracts. I need to make sure my literary executor knows where to find them and what to do with them in the future. More important still, I need to find out what each and every entity I receive income from (agent, publisher, conduit to retailers, etc.) has in place as a policy when the recipient kicks the bucket. Assuring that income goes where I want it to after I’m gone isn’t just a matter of making a will and it would be even more complicated if I dealt directly with a retailer like, say, Amazon. If you do, beware!

I’ve been consolidating my domains into just one, which still makes sense to me, but I need to be darn sure my literary executor knows to keep renewing that domain name and paying for hosting. If future readers can’t find me, there goes my legacy. Same goes for any social media. I don’t do much, but keeping my presence on Facebook, or creating a new one after I’m gone, couldn’t hurt.

Don’t even get me started on the importance of recording passwords so there will be access to what I leave behind. According to The Author Estate Handbook, it is possible that if there is no way to get at an account, money can keep going in and never come out. If your heirs can’t access it, they lose it. Ouch! The author singles out several other “silver bullets of doom” that can really screw up an inheritance. Fortunately, he also suggests the best ways to avoid them.

There are many helpful tips in this 210 page book. I fully intend to follow all those that apply to me, although I have to admit that knowing how much work that will involve has given me a bad case of procrastination. Nevertheless, I strongly advise every published writer to buy a copy of The Author Estate Handbook for themselves. If our literary legacies aren’t preserved after we die, what was the point of writing all those books in the first place?

P.S. As backup, you might also want to buy M. L. Ronn’s The Author Heir Handbook.

 

Kathy Lynn Emerson/Kaitlyn Dunnett has had sixty-four books traditionally published and has self published others, including several children’s books. 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. Her most recent publications are The Valentine Veilleux Mysteries (a collection of three short stories and a novella, written as Kaitlyn) and I Kill People for a Living: A Collection of Essays by a Writer of Cozy Mysteries (written as Kathy). She maintains websites at www.KaitlynDunnett.com and www.KathyLynnEmerson.com.

 

Weekend Update: May 13-14, 2023

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Kaitlyn Dunnett/Kathy Lynn Emerson (Monday), Kate Flora (Tuesday), Sandra Neily (Thursday), and Dick Cass (Friday).

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

 

Coming soon (June 9-10): Maine Crime Wave! Lots of Maine Crime Writers will be there. Registration is now open. For more information, click here:

https://www.mainewriters.org/maine-crime-wave

 

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, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

Endeavouring

Confession: I am a commitment-phobe. While it is true that I’ve been married for 52 years (Yes! With no murder in sight. Yet.), I am unable to “tune in next week.” It’s almost impossible for me to pledge my time on a regular basis. Watch Mystery! every single Sunday night on PBS for several weeks straight? Sorry, no can do.

Consequently, I have missed many worthy programs when they first aired. For example, I have never seen one episode (or read one book) featuring Inspector Morse. But I can now catch up if I want to, as they’re streaming on BritBox. After bingeing eight seasons of the young Morse, Endeavour on Amazon, I will finally commit myself to watch Season 9, one week at a time, beginning in June on PBS. It’s the end of the series, and mourning will ensue.

How could I have been so stupidly resistant all these years? I’m now fully invested in Constable/Sergeant Morse and the Swinging Sixties and early 70s. This series is absolutely brilliant, immersing the viewer in Oxford’s Town/Gown conflicts, ongoing recovery from WWII, the “Irish troubles”, racial and sexual discrimination (which do not seem to be resolved in 2023), and blossoming Flower Power. A seismic shift is happening throughout Britain, and within Endeavor Morse, too. Shaun Evans is a thoroughly appealing actor, whose expressive face reflects his character’s every shy and wry thought. The supporting cast is exceptional, the carefully curated costumes remind me of my old closet, and Oxford’s spires beckon me from my desk chair. In fact, I feel like I’m time-traveling, without the bother of a DeLorean and its flux capacitor.

It’s a little hard to swallow that designated “historical” mysteries now include events in my lifetime, however. I suppose I’m officially ancient enough to qualify, and I prefer books and films set in the past as a sort of buffer against the Real World, anyway. It’s easier for me to escape into sepia than Technicolor.

Are you a fan of contemporary or historical mysteries, or do you like to mix it up? Do you have a favorite time period that always attracts your attention? I’m very fond of “Between the Wars,” the Golden Age of Mysteries. The Crime Thru Time crimethrutime@groups.io group mailing list is an excellent source of free or cheap books that span all millennia.

I haven’t yet decided whether my next project will stay in the past or the present. Still waffling, but I so appreciate your input last month!

For more information about Maggie and her books, please visit www.maggierobinson.net

 

 

 

SCBWI at 50

When Hardscrabble Kids came out last summer, I decided it might be helpful to join the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I’d seen the organization mentioned numerous times in blog posts and author acknowledgments. My first activity was an online mingle with other members of the New England chapter. It was enlightening to see how welcoming experienced and many-times published members were to those much earlier in the writing process were. Jane Yolen was part of the small group I was placed in virtually and I liked her wit immensely. It was also a great learning experience because there were a couple illustrators who discussed their creative processes in detail.

Fast forward to February of 2023 when it was announced that the annual New England conference was back after a four year hiatus just in time to celebrate 50 years of the new England chapter (second only to the one in California.) I decided to register and go.

Between the time I registered in early March and the weekend it was held in late April, I sort of put it out of my mind thanks to other aspects of life. I’m here to tell you that while the World Health Organization may have declared COVID is no longer a major health issue, the aftereffects of stress and social isolation, particularly those of a psychological nature, still linger. I hadn’t traveled out of Maine save for our week in the western national parks, since 2019, so driving to Springfield was a bit stressful. So too, was finding the hotel I was staying at which was different from the one where the conference was being held. Of course, I left everything I’d printed out lying on my computer desk in Waterville, but still managed to find both.

The conference itself was quite something. I’ve been to numerous national library and software conferences, as well as the New England Crime Bake and the Maine Crime Wave. Each has a distinct personality. This one did as well. On Friday afternoon, following registration, I looked at the giveaway table, and the book store before moving to the ballroom for opening remarks.

The New England chapter was founded by Jane Yolen in part because it was expensive and time consuming for her (and other authors) to fly to California every year. It has flourished. There was a sense of eagerness and joy among those sitting there on Friday night, more so in people who had been coming for many years. One statistic that jumped out (and sadly, I neglected to write it down) was how many books members of the New England chapter had published since the last conference. The number 135 comes to mind, but it could have been much higher.

Meeting people is always a pleasant activity at conferences. I chose to sit at empty tables to see who joined me. The first people I met were a mother and daughter, the mom from Indiana, the daughter from Massachusetts who were working on turning the daughter’s grandfathers stories into a book. We were joined by three other people, all from Maine who were writing children’s picture books.

I was struck by the overwhelming support and encouragement offered by established authors to those who were very new to the process. I was also struck by what, for lack of a better description, was the vast range of opinions on how/when a book is ready to be published. I went to one workshop on the subject that made the process sound like creating a Star Wars movie.

Like any conference, there were some workshops that I couldn’t relate to and others that had me listening to every word. I was impressed by Alexandra Hinrichs (Library Media Specialist from Old Town) and Julie Bilven (senior editor at Charlesbridge) who talked about the process of an editor and author working together. Alexandra also impressed me with her opening speech where she talked about the efforts in Maine to ban books at a time when some students are living in cars because of their families’ economic situations.

Among other workshops that impressed me were Sam Taylor’s Track to Overcome: Persevering through Personal and Professional Setbacks. I bought the book she was talking about immediately afterward and am passing it on to the Waterville Public Library. Then there was a great YA panel at the end of Sunday called Writing Authentic YA Characters When You’re No Longer a “Young” Adult. It was funny and very insightful.

Oddly enough, the most valuable insight came from a casual conversation with author Jo Knowles when she asked me what were my character’s motivations. I’ve been processing that question for the week since returning home. It was such a simple thing to ponder on the surface, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve started to play with that question in the scene I’m writing next in Thor’s Wingman. How does a teen protagonist figure that out when they’re already in a situation where they have no choice but to keep going. Stay tuned for the answer.

Here’s a link to all the workshops offered at the conference. https://newengland.scbwi.org/files/2023/01/Workshop_Descriptions_23.pdf

Writing Success, Gratitude & Process

Success: it means something different to everyone. As writers, we have concrete markers to measure traditional definitions of success: sales, reviews, awards, money and publishing status. But is that how we really view ourselves as authors?

We authors view ourselves differently then readers and non-writers see us. Despite my own insecurities and hang ups, I’m always startled when people are impressed that I’m a novelist, or shower praise on one of my books. Why don’t I view myself the way outsiders view me? Because success is a relative concept? Do New York Times bestselling authors feel like failures if they haven’t published a bestselling novel in years? Or if they haven’t won a Pulitzer or Nobel? An Edgar or Agatha?

I remember when I was unpublished and struggling with my manuscripts. I would have given my left arm to have a novel published. To me, just having that happen would have been the culmination of all my hopes and dreams. Then it happened and it was an amazing experience. It’s like your first kiss: you never forget it. So what happened in the ensuing years and the other ten books?

I’ve been traditionally published by a big NYC publisher. I’ve self-published and published under fantastic indie publishers. I’ve made good money and won some big awards. And yet I’m still hungry and unfulfilled. It’s a bit like making money. If you make one million dollars, you want two. If you earn ten million, you want twenty. And so on and so on. I think this is natural human behavior for someone who strives to achieve so much in life. It’s also a self-defeating and harmful way of thinking if taken to the extreme.

Are there second acts for us seasoned writers who have been at this for awhile? Am I delusional for feeling like every book I write has the potential to be a New York Times bestselling book? I don’t think so. As writers, we need to feel optimistic and empowered if we are to write the best novel we can. We need to feel like what we have penned is on par with Shakespeare and Dickens. We just need to keep bringing the positive vibes if we’re to keep getting published.

For me, what it comes down to is gratitude. We need to constantly remind ourselves how far we’ve come and what we’ve accomplished, whether we’ve written ten novels or one short story. Any writing is a great accomplishment, and we need to be thankful for bringing forth art. Get yourself off social media and stop looking at what other people are posting and doing. While I’m happy for the great success of my fellow authors, one cannot compare themself to others.

And this is where process comes in. What I’m most grateful for is my love of the writing process. The act of turning inward and burying myself in the most beautiful and mystical of life’s activities: creation. I believe it’s spiritual in a lot of ways. This is what I’m most thankful for as a writer. Despite my frustrations and constant bitching and moaning about my status as a writer, I still love writing. When I’m writing, I don’t care about all that. I’m in the moment and feeling the juice of life’s most wonderful gift. Honestly, I feel like a god.

Be grateful for your success, whatever level you’ve attained. And when the idea of success starts to make you queasy, lose yourself in the writing process and let it carry you away. Writing catapults us into the moment, where we (through our characters) experience love, death and every emotion in between. For most writers, this is where it all started.

Weekend Update: May 6-7, 2023

Next week at Maine Crime Writers there will be posts by Joe Souza (Monday), John Clark (Tuesday), Vaughn Hardacker (Thursday), and Maggie Robinson (Friday).

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

 

Coming soon (June 9-10): Maine Crime Wave! Lots of Maine Crime Writers will be there. Registration is now open. For more information, click here:

https://www.mainewriters.org/maine-crime-wave

 Matt Cost will be celebrating the launch of his twelfth book, Velma Gone Awry, at the Brunswick Golf Club from 3-5 p.m. on Saturday, May 6th. Come hoist a drink and consecrate the birth of this historical PI mystery with me. On May 12th, Cost will be at the Centerville Public Library doing a Mystery Making panel with fellow authors Connie Hambley, Kat Fast, and Arlene Kay from 1-2:30 pm.

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, along with the very popular “Making a Mystery” with audience participation, and “Casting Call: How We Staff Our Mysteries.” We also do programs on Zoom. Contact Kate Flora

MAYBE TOMORROW

post by Jule Selbo

I thought I was going to finish the latest book in my Dee Rommel series (8 DAYS, A Dee Rommel Mystery) last week. Last Friday.

Didn’t happen.

Saturday it didn’t happen.

Or Sunday April 30. I thought for sure I’d write “the end” by the last days of April.

Didn’t happen.

Now it’s Thursday, May 4.  And I am still tweaking pages 163-180. I have one (maybe two) chapters to go – including parts of the hellzapopping climax.  Story elements are outlined, scenes have been rolling around in my head for weeks, but something (what the heck is it?) is not letting me get there because I still have too many “FIX THIS” and “SHOULD THIS BE MOVED?” notes to myself on pages 163 to 180.

Some writer friends notice my sloping shoulders and less than cheery countenance and advise: Just write. Get it out. Move forward to the end, then you can address those “FIX THIS-es”.  They advise me to avoid paralysis.

I’m not paralyzed. From 5 am to noon, I’m actually having a good time going over and over and over and over pages 163 -180. With each pass, I feel the characters deepening, the themes I’m playing around with strengthening. I notice the need to tighten the noose more, to ratchet the tension more and it’s fun trying to do that. The morning writing hours are okay. But then it gets to be noon and I see I haven’t moved onto page 181 and I feel that “you are useless” self-analysis settle in.

I really do want to move on. Sometimes I look for inspiration that will allow me to do so. I’ll look up (on Brainy Quote or somewhere) some old adage that will do two things: #1 – Remind me I’m not the first person who has ever struggled with the “get to the end” problem and #2 – Rewrite the quote, epitaph, proverb, axiom or poem so it is absolutely speaking just to me.

Like:

“Winners never quit and quitters never win.” 

I’ll rewrite it:

“Writers never let words make them quitters,

and the inability to find words will never win.”

(Makes no sense, but it works for me in a pinch.)

Or Churchill’s:

“Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.”

I’ll rewrite it:

“Never give up on writing a book that you know will work,

just because you’re tired of thinking about it.”

Today I decided to rewrite the late, great Leonard Cohen. He wrote:

I’m slowing down the tune,

I’ve never liked it fast.

Well, Leonard, I think to myself. Personally, I do like to do things quickly. We are at odds there. He also wrote:

You wanna get there soon

I wanna get there last.

Leonard, I get what you saying and it surely worked for you, but we would’ve been a mismatched pair. I like getting there “sooner”, rather than later. Patience is not one of my strongest virtues.

So, of course, I had to rewrite Cohen (shame on me):

I’m lacing up my shoes

‘Cause I do want to run

I’ll get there when I do

I’ve heard the starting gun

It’s not because I’m weak

And it’s not what lack of trying does

I’ve never liked it slow

Slow’s not in my blood

One of my good friends is a tarot card reader – she goes around the world practicing/doing her skill, hanging with other well-thought-of-readers, and is now working on her “medium” talents. It sounds a bit illusive and a lot of people don’t “believe” in channeling – but I’ve known her for years (could it be twenty years?). We met long before she explored her talents in cartomancy.  She was a successful real estate developer in LA, she was a successful actor in television and movies, she started a clothing business, she raised a child, she acted on Broadway and off-Broadway in NYC and she was in a group of writers that all became my close friends. Totally grounded lady and loves to cook. But, looking back, I realized it wasn’t until she started studying the art of tarot card reading and then went to Belize to study with “a master” that she really became “happy” and pleased and committed to doing one main thing in her life. Anyway, every month or so we get together on Zoom and she reads my cards, and just the other day, I told her of my angst.  She laughed, said all her clients are whining and frustrated right now – something about some planets being in retrograde and some dissolution of old patterns and constructs in the universe that are making people particularly snarky and/or unhappy.

I asked “the question” that I wanted her and the cards to focus in on – about feeling “stuck” in one section of the book and so desperately wanting to move on. She concentrated on the question and chose (at random) tarot cards from the huge deck. She studied them, did notice that the “worry” card (something with six coins) dominated, but was surrounded by “heart” cards. Basically, as she interpreted the cards, the message was to stop worrying about the structure, that the base of this particular case for my main character (Dee Rommel) lay in the heart. That Dee’s diligence and work ethic and desire to solve things fast – (and me, as writer, trying to follow that path) – was sure to stall because I wanted structure to carry me through. That I needed to go back to why this case touches Dee – and be willing to let her fail in order to grow as a person.

Okay. Everything my friend had read in the cards had been roiling in a back back back portion of my brain. And I had been pushing against it.  Sometimes, being agreed with by a deck of over-sized cards with weird pictures on them (even if it was an idea that you tried to bury) can release an energy. Anyway – I felt better.

And I moved on to page 181, telling myself I didn’t have to follow the outline/denouement I had set up.

Just to conclude, I’ll share my rewrite of a poem by novelist, poet, hymn writer Henry Van Dyke.

Time is too slow for those who wait,

too swift for those who fear,

too long for those who grieve,

too short for those who rejoice,

but for those who WRITE, time is eternity.

I suppose you can spot my rewrite.