J.T. Ellison's Blog, page 10

Friday Reads 7.18.24

Sorry for the late post. The week has gotten away from me and yours truly forgot that today was Friday! And, of course, our news cycle has been 😳. And now there’s a massive worldwide IT issue to cap off the craziest week we’ve had in years. The hits just keep on coming.

Last week I was on a steamroller toward the end of the new book… and I am happy to report, the first draft is done! It’s always so darn exciting to be able to type ### and let out the breath I’ve been holding for months. The actual writing took 6 months. Not too bad. Then I caught up on the 22 Steps series with the 80K entry and wrote the 100k entry for Tuesday.

That means I’ve written a grand total of 30,000 words in 8 days, so this news is not going to come as a surprise. With the writing and the news and the fact that I’ve been with some friends on a retreat, I. Read. Nothing. It’s understandable but disconcerting. I’m in a bit of a reading slump, too, truth be told. I need to finish this revision, put my feet in the sand, get a cool drink, and open my Kindle.

But I did buy a few books to round out the summer reading list, ones that I’ve been waiting impatiently for.

Deborah Harkness's fifth book in her Discovery of Witches series, THE BLACKBIRD ORACLE, is out this week. I pre-ordered that one ages ago. I adore her books.

Daniel Silva’s new Gabriel Allon—A DEATH IN CORNWALL—is also waiting for me.

I have also been impatiently waiting for Lev Grossman’s King Arthur retelling, THE BRIGHT SWORD. I loved his Magicians series, so this should be amazing.

I gotta go edit a book. So tell me, how are you faring this wild Friday? I’d love to hear what you’re reading this weekend! Any recommendations?

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Step Seven: The Daily Grind (80K and Breaking the Back of the Book)

There’s a moment with every book where the months of work, thought, planning, gnashing of teeth, and other vagaries of the process culminate in a single lightning strike, and I can *see* the book. From beginning to end, it’s all there in my head, a living, breathing thing. Not just as a story or an amalgamation of characters or an elevator pitch or a fuzzy attempt to explain what it’s about, but as something you will eventually (hopefully!) read. I can see the whole of it in ways that were previously shrouded. The structure reveals itself. It gets a cadence, depth, it’s own sense of place in the creative universe.

Not only that, I can finally envision your reactions, what you might like and hate, and what will fix or enhance your interaction. And with that, I can see the path to the end. I realize the mistakes I’ve made in the story—where I’ve telegraphed the plot twists or a red herring is too much. When I can enjoy the lines of sublime beauty—the darlings some editors make you murder—and dread the choppy waters that desperately need smoothing so you don’t see what dark things lurk beneath the surface.

Photo by Chris Chan on Unsplash

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Friday Reads 7.12.24

Happy Friday to you, and you, and you!

It’s been such a week! I had a huge realization about something in the book, which gave me a 10,000-word leap forward. I’ve gotten a lot of vitamin D, broke out the bikes at last, and managed a few walks. Even got some reading done! It’s always nice when the gears are greased and things are running well.

I had an exchange with a favorite author this week, and it struck me as something interesting to share today. She is a stellar writer, and you know I am never stingy in my praise of good books. What really captures me about her work is her very refined, unique voice.

Since I wrote about voice a few weeks back, I thought I’d share her book again today, along with a few suspense books I’ve read over the past few years that really stand out in terms of voice. The writer in question is Sarah Pearse and her new book, THE WILDS, simply blew my socks off. It’s part of a series but can easily be read as a standalone (also a bonus). It’s just beautifully realized; the dread and intensity were spot on, and I was captivated.

Two more like hers come to immediate mind:

Stacy Willingham’s A FLICKER IN THE DARK is a brilliant debut that I literally read jaw open the whole time. When I finished, I had that utter frustration of a brilliant story ending as well as a bit of writer envy for the apparent ease with which she uses language and story. (Like writing at that level is easy. LOL)

Paula McLain’s WHEN THE STARS GO DARK (Paula’s first psychological thriller, one I couldn’t wait to read because she mined her own tragic background to bring it to life. Her openness and the forthright way she tackled her abuse in a fictional form gave me the courage to write IT’S ONE OF US—and go out into the world to speak of our losses. I spoke with her about it for AWOW too.

Suspense is hard to do without being completely derivative. Not that there’s anything wrong with derivative—there are only seven plots, after all—but while plots and stories can be redux, voice sets them apart.

The three above have something in common—they’re a more literary voice suspense. Maybe that’s why I’ve grouped them together as voice-y standouts; they are higher concept, or what the pros like to call upmarket. They had something else in common—from the very first line, I was completely transfixed, drawn into the story, so invested from the first page that I was hard-pressed to put the book down. So, all three are highly recommended if you’re looking to define what a solid voice looks like.

I started Mason Currey’s HOW ARTISTS WORK and have found it delightful.

And a book that I loved and happily blurbed came out this week. The divine Hannah Mary McKinnon has written a tour-de-force thriller about an all-female band called The Bittersweet who harbor some very dark secrets. Grab a copy of ONLY ONE SURVIVES—I think you’ll love it!

Leaving you here because, since I did have that big leap forward, I am nearly at the end of the first draft of my new book (HURRAH!). I have my Harvard T-shirt at the ready, and yes, I will be breaking my very strict keto diet to have (GF cauliflower crust) pizza and a glass of extra brut champagne. Streaks are important, and the wearing of my lucky shirt and the subsequent celebratory tradition is not one I’m willing to break, diet or no. Hopefully the fallout will be worth it!

That’s it from me. How about you? How has it been going? I’d love to hear what you’re reading this holiday weekend! Any recommendations?

Thank you for reading The Creative Edge. This post is public so feel free to share it.

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Friday Reads 7.5.24

Happy (Day After) Independence Day! 🇺🇸

I hope you had a good holiday, excellent fireworks, and are settling in for a nice long weekend full of fun times, good food, and a good book or two! It’s been quite a week, and we all could use some time off. They say may you live in interesting times… well, I have discovered that our times are a bit TOO interesting. Which means that I spent a lot of time looking at the news, and history, and polling, both here and abroad, wondering what in the world we’re up against in the weeks and months to come. I am not the only one, I assume.

Don’t worry, I won’t get political. But I am a reformed political science major, and this moment feels unprecedented and historical, so it’s worth educating and reminding ourselves of the basis for our laws, and digging into some war game scenarios. Hyperbole has no room here. This is deadly serious stuff and we all need to be smart and aware. Right? Right.

On the book front, I was halfway through a library book when it was sucked back into the Libby library, and I’m back on an 18-week hold (!), so I didn’t finish anything this week. I’ve continued the Chris Whitaker book, which is excellent but a challenging read. I did start a book for a blurb and realized I had an interesting dilemma. The book was awesome, with a really strong voice, and I can’t wait to read it. But I am finally, finally, wrestling my own book to the ground. Like…there’s hope in the land that a book is in here. I explained it to Randy this way: I’ve been fishing for a while now, and my line just got a nibble. The hook isn’t quite set yet, though, which means I’ve hit the point in the process where other suspense novels are off-limits until I finish.

This happens, and I admit, I’m rather excited that I’ve hit this stage. A LOT happened over the past week, both in the writing of the book and in its publishing journey, which I’ll go into more detail with the next 22 Steps entry. Surprising but inevitable, and now I’m looking at how to land the plane, that’s where we are. I would rather been staring at the manuscript than doing anything else, including sleeping, eating, and otherwise taking care of myself, so yeah… there is hope in the land!

Reading-wise, that means it’s time for fantasy or non-fiction. Maybe a romancey beach read, if I get frisky. I’ll be able to return to my own genre once this book is done.

So with the realization that I needed to change reading directions, I borrowed KNIFE by Sir Salman Rushdie from the library. I was halfway through writing A VERY BAD THING when he was attacked, and that event almost derailed the book entirely. I am grateful he made it and curious about his story.

I also have several articles about and by Joan Didion in the queue. Her writing makes mine better. I might rewatch the documentary, too. She’s a fascinating creature.

And this feels like exactly the right time to read DAILY RITUALS: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. I love seeing how other creatives approach the page.

Major congrats to my former co-writer Catherine Coulter on the release of her 27th and final Savich and Sherlock FBI thriller, FLASHPOINT.

Robyn Harding’s THE HATERS is out this week, too. I really like Robyn’s work, so I am looking forward to this one!

And ICYMI, I wrote a piece about a spider that caught my eye while I was on a retreat in Chicago.

That’s it from me. How about you? How has it been going? I’d love to hear what you’re reading this holiday weekend! Any recommendations?

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Spiders on the 39th Floor

I am on the thirty-ninth floor of a hotel overlooking Lake Michigan, and there is a spider in the window. She is outside, which was the very first thing I checked when I opened the curtains and saw her. I am…afraid of spiders. Always have been. I grew up with black widows, and when you regularly find venomous spiders in the bathtub/bed/closet/corners, it marks you. When I realized my two-day writing retreat was going to include a rather large daredevil clinging to a web thirty-nine stories up…I sighed. Not like I could do anything about it. And she was outside, so it’s not like she could hurt me, either. Detente, achieved.

I set up shop, dragging the comfy chair so it faced the lake. The side table is loaded with tea, water, notebooks and pens; my laptop is open and ready to go. But every few minutes, my eyes stray upward, to the occupant. My temporary roommate.

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Friday Reads 6.28.24

June is nearly in the books (how?) (WHY? 😭), which means my creative juices are about to shoot through the roof. July is almost always one of my biggest writing months, and this one is shaping up to be a doozy. I mentioned last week a small, controlled explosion on the new book, which I have to say, worked better than I could have imagined. I netted 9,000 words in 5 days and am almost done pulling the thread through. Clear sailing ahead starting next week! (She says, with fingers crossed.)

My garden is not doing as well as I’d hoped. The rosemary and basil are champs, and I’ve already harvested and replanted some onions and chives (oh, the chives…). But the Roma tomatoes drowned, and then the deer or birds took the rest. The peppers are malingering. My begonias just did not. The calla lily is doing well though. Randy replanted the one camilla that survived the freeze of last Christmas, and it seems to be healthy but lonely. It’s been a really hit or miss situation in the backyard. How about you? How’s your garden grow?

In the literary garden, my TBR continues to swell at a ridiculous rate. In addition to a couple of blurb books awaiting my attention, I started a fun book this week called THE NATURE OF WITCHES by Rachel Griffin. My dad read it and loved it. It’s an academy book with young elemental witches who have powers based on the seasons…and one witch who has all four seasons’ powers. Enjoying it so far!

We started watching DARK MATTER, an adaptation of Blake Crouch's older title of the same name. I loved that book, a true mind-bending sci-fi thriller, and the TV show on Apple TV is pretty cool. There are lots of Easter eggs from the crime fiction world in the late 2000s, too.

I also bought ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK by Chris Whitaker. The blurbs and reviews sold me on this, but I first saw the recommendation from , and she has excellent taste, so I grabbed it.

I have loaded up the Kindle with all sorts of beach reads in hopes of finding my toes in the sand sometime soon. One is Emily Henry’s HAPPY PLACE, which I saved from last year, and will segue directly into FUNNY STORY.

This brings me to this piece in the NYT on Emily Henry’s hard-earned success, which has the most unfortunate subhead of the week: The author of “Funny Story” churned out five consecutive No. 1 best-sellers without leaving her comfort zone. How did she pull it off?

Pfft. I take umbrage when professional writers who reliably publish a book a year are referred to as “churning it out.”

Here’s something silly instead to wrap up this week… the Bridgerton Season 3 soundtrack is stellar and has been really helping my focus. The only problem is it switches to other orchestral soundtracks when I’m finished, and I didn’t notice until I was deep into Pacific Rim. I was wondering why the typing was getting faster and the story more intense!

That’s it from me. How about you? How has it been going? I’d love to hear what you’re reading this weekend! Any recommendations?

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Friday Reads 6.21.24

Happy Friday, all! Blessed solstice! 🌅

I’m afraid I have very little to report in terms of reading progress this week because I went to Chicago with my honey for a writing retreat. Well, he had a conference, so I tagged along, knowing I’d have long swathes of time to work in solitude, with nothing but my laptop, my notebooks, a pot of tea, and a view.

And there was a spider, but that’s a future post.

I wrote a lot. And thought a lot. And ate a lot of shrimp.

I am at a crucial point in the book’s development—the time in the writing when I usually find a huge, glaring issue that necessitates blowing up the book. I don’t have a glaring error this time, but I do have a larger overall…situation that I am pondering. The change would necessitate blowing up the book, yes, but if I do it right, it would be a small, controlled explosion rather than some of my past nuclear detonations (see: HER DARK LIES.)

I worked on it at length yesterday, and I know in my gut it’s the right thing to do. So controlled explosion it is. It’s also sort of heartening to know that my process is alive and well. One of my friends predicted this was coming… and she was right. Almost to the day!

I’m still reading Mary Kubica’s SHE’S NOT SORRY, and I have a slew of books lined up, but for now, I’m deep into this new book. The only things I’m going to be able to read over the next few weeks are three older Taylor Jackson titles, which I am preparing to get back into print! After I finish this book. And after I finish editing Jayne #5.

Sigh. I’ve hit a weird point in the year where there’s a lot of work looming. It’s going to be a busy fall. But nothing happens until I finish the new book. Deadline, activated!

Congrats to the following awesome people on their new releases this week! Have you read any of these? They are ALL on my TBR…

Meg Gardiner - SHADOWHEART

Riley Sager - MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

Wanda Morris - WHAT YOU LEAVE BEHIND

Liv Constantine - THE NEXT MRS. PARRISH

That’s it from me. How about you? How has it been going? I’d love to hear what you’re reading this weekend! Any recommendations?

The Creative Edge is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Interim Step Four: Developing Your Voice

I choose to write crime fiction and psychological thrillers for a very specific reason. In my stories, books, and shorts, there’s not necessarily a Cinderella-type “Happy Ending,” but there is a modicum of justice. I think there is closure in justice, and when I started writing again twenty-plus years ago, I knew I wanted to do something to right the wrongs I see on a daily basis. So many victims of crime don’t see any justice; they have no resolution. And in my mind, resolution is the key to a crime novel. It’s part of the structure. It’s the payoff readers want, wait for, and get angry about when it’s not there.

There are various ways to end a story satisfactorily. The most common: the protagonist wins, and the villain goes down. Or, which is more fun sometimes, the villain wins, and the protagonist finds a new path. There’s nuance in this kind of resolution, but if you play your cards right, you can create something so compelling people will come back for more again and again.

If you look at the classic romance novel and the more modern rom-coms, they also have a predetermined structure with an expected resolution. So do horror, the gothic, science fiction, fantasy; even the literary novel has a set structure that identifies it as that particular genre. As we’re all drawn to telling stories in our own way, those natural inclinations tend to fall into standard storytelling “methods.” Once you know who you tell a story, your books become your calling card. Your readers know what to expect, though they still want to be surprised by the story. Surprising yet inevitable, that’s the way every story should wrap.

So, if all stories fall within an agreed-upon set of parameters with a satisfying conclusion that brings resolution to the story’s central question, and there are only seven plots, what makes them all so very different? What makes a book stand apart? How is it that you can give five writers an exercise—here is a picture, using it, tell me a story with man versus man as the central conflict—and end up with five WILDLY different tales? Imagination, individualism, quirks, prejudices? All of that. But something more. 

Voice.

Photo by Hans Isaacson on Unsplash

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Friday Reads 6.14.24

Happy Friday, all! It’s been a ridiculously busy book and writing week, with a ton of back-end work and movement on the new book. In between it all (and thanks to the UT Volunteers baseball team and the Dodgers-Yankees series), I managed to get some reading done!

I finished Holly Black’s THE STOLEN HEIR and immediately launched into the second book in the duology, THE PRISONER’S THRONE. I really love Oak, really love Wren, really love Elfhame. It’s a dynamic world and full of really fun fairy mythology.

Then I switched gears to Mary Kubica’s SHE’S NOT SORRY, and I am not sorry I did. It’s classic Kubica, with an everywoman character who is so relatable. Truly Mary’s writing strength is creating people we care for and root for.

I’m listening to Oliver Burkeman’s FOUR THOUSAND HOURS (I got it from the library, and I recognize the irony of listening to something, which takes longer than reading the book, when we’re discussing how little time we really have on this earth.) But I wanted to read it because I ran across his 3:3:3 concept last week and wanted to explore it further.

“Spend three hours on my most important current project*, having defined some kind of specific goal for the progress I aim to make on it that day.”

*This is clearly the new book I’m drafting. Three solid hours of writing time nets a LOT of words.

“Complete three shorter tasks*, usually urgent to-dos or 'sticky' tasks I've been avoiding, usually just a few minutes each (I count calls and meetings here too).”  

*Usually, my side gig work for Two Tales Press, newsletters, social media, or this Substack. Not work I avoid at all, it just piles up. I normally dedicate Fridays to this but it’s been leaking in throughout the week. Probably better to hit it every day.

“Dedicate time to three ‘maintenance activities,’* things that need my daily attention in order to keep life running smoothly.”

*PT, yoga, exercise, reading, housework, cooking, etc.

This is an eminently reasonable and doable approach to the workday. My biggest issue is my best creative time is in the afternoon. What I like about this is he’s not saying I have to do the three hours of most important work first, only that 3 hours need to be dedicated to that task. He also points out that almost all artists have a 3-4 hour creativity window, after which the quality and focus drops off. Very cool.

I also grabbed Christian Cooper’s BETTER LIVING THROUGH BIRDING that Brandee recommended last week, and because I was rooting for Dornoch to win the Belmont Stakes (because Scottish names) and found out Rosamund Pilcher’s last book, WINTER SOLSTICE, is set in Dornoch, I got that one too.

Meanwhile… it’s been a huge release week in bookland. Congrats to all these amazing writers on their books this week. My TBR is getting out of control…

Kimberley Belle - THE PARIS WIDOW

Meg Gardiner - SHADOW HEART

Melissa Collins - THE FALSE FLAT

Rachel Howzell Hall - WHAT FIRE BRINGS

Emily Ley - YOU’LL ALWAYS HAVE A FRIEND

Kerry Lonsdale - FIND ME IN CALIFORNIA

Ryan Steck - OUT FOR BLOOD

Elin Hilderbrand - SWAN SONG

That’s it from me. How about you? How has it been going? I’d love to hear what you’re reading this weekend! Any recommendations?

The Creative Edge is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Friday Reads 6.7.24

It’s Friday, and you know what that means. Grab a cuppa (or two), and let’s talk about what we’re reading!

Howdy! Happy first Friday of JUNE (I know. This is a terrifying prospect. June? When did that happen???) I want to start with a huge welcome to the new subscribers this month! Thank you for joining the party!

I did a huge wrap-up post for Thrillerfest this past weekend and realized…I need to use that for my monthly newsletter because I’ve got nothing else to talk about otherwise, so I’m going to jump ahead with this: It was a total blast, and I am glad to be home. I got some writing done, and cooked up a few cool ideas, and now I’m faced with the fact that I am officially on deadline. I have a lot of work on my plate right now, primarily on this new book, and on Jayne, and some backlist titles, and of course, PR for A Very Bad Thing, so…yeah. I’m going to be absenting myself from the socials for a while. Too much going on!

ROSEMARY’S BABY arrived Tuesday afternoon and I was done on Wednesday. And I don’t mean I finished the book. I got halfway through, had epically terrible nightmares, and got rid of the damn thing. My goodness. I am just not a good horror reader. I burned sage in my office and am being very careful this week. I hate tapping into that sort of fear. It really rocks me. My nightmares are more night terrors and there’s nothing worse.

In much nicer (and less nightmarish) reading… I snagged a galley of Sarah Pearse’s THE WILDS - holy cow, people. The dread builds until you’re literally biting your nails and looking over your shoulder. This is the kind of fear I can handle.

And I’m cruising toward the end of the Holly Black book THE STOLEN HEIR, which is such a great distraction. Her world-building is stupendous and one of my favorites to escape into. The great news is there’s another waiting in the wings!

It’s book birthday week for FOLLOW HER DOWN from Victoria Helen Stone! We didn’t get a chance to connect as long as I would have liked in NYC this weekend, but we at least got to hug hi and bye. I can’t wait to read this, though!

Also, fellow Nashville writer Erica Ivy Rodgers has a unique fantasy that dropped this week, LADY OF STEEL AND STRAW.

I read a superb essay from about the business of publishing—and why you, as a writer, have no excuse not to learn everything you can about your industry.

And I did an interview that hit both sides of my writer brain—thriller and fantasy.

That’s it from me. How about you? How has it been going? I'd love to hear what you're reading this weekend! Any recommendations?

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