Nancy Lynn Jarvis's Blog, page 2
October 30, 2012
My Next Big Thing
Last Wednesday, I was tagged by my friend and talented author Sylvia Massara to answer questions about my next release Mags and the AARP Gang. To read about Sylvia’s Next Big Thing, The Soul Bearers, you can visit her blog which is very entertaining and worth reading, anyway!
Now here are some questions from Sylvia about my own "Next Big Thing" that I'd like to share with you:
What is the working title of your book?
It’s more than a working title. Mags and the AARP Gang will be released in mid November.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
I’ve written four mysteries in the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series and realized that my favorite characters in the books are Mrs. Rosemont, who is an eighty-six year old world traveler, and Olive, also an older woman. Both characters think about the world a bit differently from most people. They were fun for me to write. When I decided to take a break from mystery and third person, it seemed like a great idea to combine them and write from the newly formed character’s perspective.
What genre does your book fall under?
That’s a difficult thing for me to decide. Can a book where most characters are over eighty be called a coming of age book? There’s madcap comedy, but also danger and a complicated sting in the book. Is there a genre for old-chick lit? Wait, I know, perhaps feel-good action-adventure would work.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Now that’s an easy question. Eighty-year-old Harvey thinks he does a great Clint Eastwood imitation. The cover Mags is a real person, but unfortunately she’s not an actress or I’d suggest her. At least my cover girl and actress Helen Mirren share a first name, though, so I’d pick her. For Batty Betty, there’s no other choice: Betty White.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A group of renegade octogenarians rob the bank that holds the mortgage on their mobile home park to pay off the loan and forestall impending foreclosure, but things don’t go as planned. Scratch “things don’t go as planned” and substitute “nothing goes as planned.”
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
This book took more than a year to write. Family health issues kept making me have to put it aside, and though people say writing in first person is easier than writing in third person, it’s not for me. My natural style is to be a fly on the wall and write what I see. It’s hard for me to be the narrator from the inside out.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Can I get away with saying The Help …only with more comedy and on a smaller scale?
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
There’s a scene in the book where Mags causes a diversion to keep bank customers and most of the bank employee’s attention away from the robbery that’s happening at the teller windows. I’d like to think I wrote that part of the book, but I didn’t exactly. I was in my bank trying to figure out how Mags might pull focus toward her, when a woman walked in and did exactly what Mags does in the book. I watched people in the bank; I was the only one paying attention to anything but what the woman was doing. She manipulated the people in the bank so successfully that I half expected a robbery was about to happen. I went to my car and wrote a detailed outline of what I observed to use in the book. Who says art doesn’t imitate life?
Next Wednesday, November 7th, my fellow authors Yolanda Renee and Amy Corwin will tell you about their "Next Big Thing" - make sure to check out their fascinating next books.
Yolanda Renee http://yolandarenee.blogspot.com/
Amy Corwin http://amycorwin.blogspot
Now here are some questions from Sylvia about my own "Next Big Thing" that I'd like to share with you:
What is the working title of your book?
It’s more than a working title. Mags and the AARP Gang will be released in mid November.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
I’ve written four mysteries in the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series and realized that my favorite characters in the books are Mrs. Rosemont, who is an eighty-six year old world traveler, and Olive, also an older woman. Both characters think about the world a bit differently from most people. They were fun for me to write. When I decided to take a break from mystery and third person, it seemed like a great idea to combine them and write from the newly formed character’s perspective.
What genre does your book fall under?
That’s a difficult thing for me to decide. Can a book where most characters are over eighty be called a coming of age book? There’s madcap comedy, but also danger and a complicated sting in the book. Is there a genre for old-chick lit? Wait, I know, perhaps feel-good action-adventure would work.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Now that’s an easy question. Eighty-year-old Harvey thinks he does a great Clint Eastwood imitation. The cover Mags is a real person, but unfortunately she’s not an actress or I’d suggest her. At least my cover girl and actress Helen Mirren share a first name, though, so I’d pick her. For Batty Betty, there’s no other choice: Betty White.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A group of renegade octogenarians rob the bank that holds the mortgage on their mobile home park to pay off the loan and forestall impending foreclosure, but things don’t go as planned. Scratch “things don’t go as planned” and substitute “nothing goes as planned.”
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
This book took more than a year to write. Family health issues kept making me have to put it aside, and though people say writing in first person is easier than writing in third person, it’s not for me. My natural style is to be a fly on the wall and write what I see. It’s hard for me to be the narrator from the inside out.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Can I get away with saying The Help …only with more comedy and on a smaller scale?
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
There’s a scene in the book where Mags causes a diversion to keep bank customers and most of the bank employee’s attention away from the robbery that’s happening at the teller windows. I’d like to think I wrote that part of the book, but I didn’t exactly. I was in my bank trying to figure out how Mags might pull focus toward her, when a woman walked in and did exactly what Mags does in the book. I watched people in the bank; I was the only one paying attention to anything but what the woman was doing. She manipulated the people in the bank so successfully that I half expected a robbery was about to happen. I went to my car and wrote a detailed outline of what I observed to use in the book. Who says art doesn’t imitate life?
Next Wednesday, November 7th, my fellow authors Yolanda Renee and Amy Corwin will tell you about their "Next Big Thing" - make sure to check out their fascinating next books.
Yolanda Renee http://yolandarenee.blogspot.com/
Amy Corwin http://amycorwin.blogspot
September 6, 2011
Ahh, the life of a celebrity writer...
Congratulate me: last night I got a call from KION, our local CBS affiliate, saying that one of their reporters was impressed with how 9/11 affected me, their topic for the month, and wanted to do a story…today.
She liked that I planted climbing red roses on two supports in the days following 9/11 as a memorial to the victims of the twin towers, and she liked that I had planted rudbekia, plants whose meaning according to Victorian tradition stands for justice, at their base the day we found out Osama bin Laden would spend eternity in an unmarked watery grave.
She especially liked the idea that the first book I wrote, The Death Contingency had a 9/11 related motive for murder and, though it is only a cozy mystery, hardly the stuff of book club pondering, it could be considered from the perspective of some serious questions like: Is murder ever justified, what is the difference between evil deeds and Evil like what happened on 9/11, and is redemption truly possible.
By the time KION called back to confirm the interview time, it turned out both KION and FOX wanted to interview me. They wanted to know if it would be feasible for them to come by my house. Here, after three years of trying to get on TV to talk about my books, was my big chance.
I decided I better take a look at the garden from the perspective of a camera. Not only were no roses in bloom, but the plants, recently deadheaded and stripped of many of their leaves to control black spot, looked sparse, and that is a generous term. The rudbekia, in full sunflower-like splendor just last week, have gone to seed. I flirted with the idea of pinning fake roses to the plants but decided that would be cheesy (not to mention obvious) and settled on giving the roses a leaf implant with canes taken from their neighbors.(I’ll have to do that no more than 15 minutes before the cameras arrive or they’ll be limp.)
I’m trying to figure out where to have them tape me holding up a book. Since I write real estate mysteries, I think our house should look like a Realtor would approve of how it looks. My husband and I are normally tidy people but this year…well let’s just say our house suffers from a mousetrap game of disruptive repair projects which have created piles of out of place dirt, empty holes where the dirt should be, stripped sheetrock and curled back carpet, drain pipes that are lying in disarray everywhere, and scrapped eaves and uprights behind the downspouts which have not yet been repainted. Ladders and tools seem visible out every window and that’s not counting the ladders and tools we have to worry about tripping over as we walk down the hall.
My husband, the hardworking architect of all this repair work, has moved jeans and tee-shirts to a back room otherwise untouched by the process so he can make quick changes. His clothing is displayed on the banquet seating in broad piles of “clean, don’t touch,” “can wear again before needing laundering, don’t touch,” and “so filthy, touch at your own peril.”
I can’t forget to mention the cat. She’s 19, deaf, and shedding fur in clumps. Three years ago the day before Christmas the vet pronounced her dying. We decided to bring her home over the holiday, feed her a good last meal, and take her in to meet her fate the day after Christmas. Did I say it’s been three years and almost nine months since that fateful day? She now eats nothing but people tuna and laps milk, whole or half-and-half enriched, and is still very much with us. Having finished destroying the sofa in our bedroom, she has taken to sleeping on top of us and shredding our matelasse bedspread to better gain our attention when she is ready for fresh milk that we, in the still dark of night, are unwilling to get up and give her. Though the sofa needs recovering and the bedspread is now a mere hole-covered rag, we know it’s useless to replace either until she dies (which better be very soon!) Bottom line is even our bedroom has a well beyond shabby-chic look to it at the moment.
Then there’s my hair. You remember your school pictures and what happened to your hair the day those pictures were taken? Un-huh. As an added plus, my grey roots are beginning to grow out a bit, not so much as to really look grey, but enough to keep my dark hair from making it all the way to my scalp. On camera I’ll look like I have a bald-spot where my hair parts. Can I have my 15 minutes of fame with a tarp thrown over me? Please? There’s a big blue tarp just outside the front door ready to catch paint drips from the eaves that I can use.
There’s the knock on the front door. Oh good, I see that the huge scary spider who only comes out at night and disappears by the time I drag the vacuum out to get him is out today and he has two visiting friends with him.
I bet all of you wish you were living the glamorous life of a soon-to-be-local-celebrity writer, don’t you?
She liked that I planted climbing red roses on two supports in the days following 9/11 as a memorial to the victims of the twin towers, and she liked that I had planted rudbekia, plants whose meaning according to Victorian tradition stands for justice, at their base the day we found out Osama bin Laden would spend eternity in an unmarked watery grave.
She especially liked the idea that the first book I wrote, The Death Contingency had a 9/11 related motive for murder and, though it is only a cozy mystery, hardly the stuff of book club pondering, it could be considered from the perspective of some serious questions like: Is murder ever justified, what is the difference between evil deeds and Evil like what happened on 9/11, and is redemption truly possible.
By the time KION called back to confirm the interview time, it turned out both KION and FOX wanted to interview me. They wanted to know if it would be feasible for them to come by my house. Here, after three years of trying to get on TV to talk about my books, was my big chance.
I decided I better take a look at the garden from the perspective of a camera. Not only were no roses in bloom, but the plants, recently deadheaded and stripped of many of their leaves to control black spot, looked sparse, and that is a generous term. The rudbekia, in full sunflower-like splendor just last week, have gone to seed. I flirted with the idea of pinning fake roses to the plants but decided that would be cheesy (not to mention obvious) and settled on giving the roses a leaf implant with canes taken from their neighbors.(I’ll have to do that no more than 15 minutes before the cameras arrive or they’ll be limp.)
I’m trying to figure out where to have them tape me holding up a book. Since I write real estate mysteries, I think our house should look like a Realtor would approve of how it looks. My husband and I are normally tidy people but this year…well let’s just say our house suffers from a mousetrap game of disruptive repair projects which have created piles of out of place dirt, empty holes where the dirt should be, stripped sheetrock and curled back carpet, drain pipes that are lying in disarray everywhere, and scrapped eaves and uprights behind the downspouts which have not yet been repainted. Ladders and tools seem visible out every window and that’s not counting the ladders and tools we have to worry about tripping over as we walk down the hall.
My husband, the hardworking architect of all this repair work, has moved jeans and tee-shirts to a back room otherwise untouched by the process so he can make quick changes. His clothing is displayed on the banquet seating in broad piles of “clean, don’t touch,” “can wear again before needing laundering, don’t touch,” and “so filthy, touch at your own peril.”
I can’t forget to mention the cat. She’s 19, deaf, and shedding fur in clumps. Three years ago the day before Christmas the vet pronounced her dying. We decided to bring her home over the holiday, feed her a good last meal, and take her in to meet her fate the day after Christmas. Did I say it’s been three years and almost nine months since that fateful day? She now eats nothing but people tuna and laps milk, whole or half-and-half enriched, and is still very much with us. Having finished destroying the sofa in our bedroom, she has taken to sleeping on top of us and shredding our matelasse bedspread to better gain our attention when she is ready for fresh milk that we, in the still dark of night, are unwilling to get up and give her. Though the sofa needs recovering and the bedspread is now a mere hole-covered rag, we know it’s useless to replace either until she dies (which better be very soon!) Bottom line is even our bedroom has a well beyond shabby-chic look to it at the moment.
Then there’s my hair. You remember your school pictures and what happened to your hair the day those pictures were taken? Un-huh. As an added plus, my grey roots are beginning to grow out a bit, not so much as to really look grey, but enough to keep my dark hair from making it all the way to my scalp. On camera I’ll look like I have a bald-spot where my hair parts. Can I have my 15 minutes of fame with a tarp thrown over me? Please? There’s a big blue tarp just outside the front door ready to catch paint drips from the eaves that I can use.
There’s the knock on the front door. Oh good, I see that the huge scary spider who only comes out at night and disappears by the time I drag the vacuum out to get him is out today and he has two visiting friends with him.
I bet all of you wish you were living the glamorous life of a soon-to-be-local-celebrity writer, don’t you?
June 29, 2011
I hope I'm not psychic
The Widow’s Walk League, the fourth book in the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series I write is about to be released and I’m getting a little nervous. I have all the usual, “will people like it, more importantly, will they buy it,” jitters writers have with each of their books, but this is something else.
The book blurb reads: “Santa Cruz husbands are being murdered. The local news media is buzzing because a dark-clad figure witnesses describe as Death had been seen lurking nearby each time a murder is committed. Regan McHenry discovers all the murdered men have something in common: their wives belong to a walking group called The Widow’s Walk League…”
My protagonist is a real estate agent like I was. What happens to her at work is based on things that happened to me or to other Realtors I know. The real estate stories, strange as they may be, are true; the murders are not. At least they’re not supposed to be. And that’s what’s worrying me.
The first series book, The Death Contingency, began with a young surfer partying too much, getting swept out to sea, and dying of hypothermia. I got a couple of outraged emails telling me that would never happen to a fit, experienced young man…until local headlines proclaimed a young surfer died just as I described his death in my book. The real death occurred about a year after my book was released.
Buying Murder, book three in the series, opens with the discovery of a partially mummified body hidden in a wall anomaly. It only took three weeks after my book’s release for a headline like that to hit the local news.
In a double yikes, four months after the book came out, one of the members of the real family who inspired the villainous family in the book was arrested for being exceedingly bad.
I’m not a psychic —it’s not like I can really foretell community deaths and murders. I don’t believe in psychics or mediums who say they can communicate with the dead, and as Regan demonstrates during a séance in The Widow’s Walk League, neither does she. Still, Regan finds that what she believes and doesn’t believe gets a little confusing when another murder takes place.
I hope I’m not psychic.
Some of the murders in the new book take place at my favorite Santa Cruz events. I set one murder on Pacific Avenue on Halloween night and another at Woodies on the Wharf. (Yes, I know, I’m the one who wrote about murders happening where they did, but I was having too much fun writing the scenes to stop and think about what I might be unleashing.) Do you see why I’m worried? Should I warn anyone that the new book is being released?
(This post originally appeared on Buried Under Books in June 2011.)
The book blurb reads: “Santa Cruz husbands are being murdered. The local news media is buzzing because a dark-clad figure witnesses describe as Death had been seen lurking nearby each time a murder is committed. Regan McHenry discovers all the murdered men have something in common: their wives belong to a walking group called The Widow’s Walk League…”
My protagonist is a real estate agent like I was. What happens to her at work is based on things that happened to me or to other Realtors I know. The real estate stories, strange as they may be, are true; the murders are not. At least they’re not supposed to be. And that’s what’s worrying me.
The first series book, The Death Contingency, began with a young surfer partying too much, getting swept out to sea, and dying of hypothermia. I got a couple of outraged emails telling me that would never happen to a fit, experienced young man…until local headlines proclaimed a young surfer died just as I described his death in my book. The real death occurred about a year after my book was released.
Buying Murder, book three in the series, opens with the discovery of a partially mummified body hidden in a wall anomaly. It only took three weeks after my book’s release for a headline like that to hit the local news.
In a double yikes, four months after the book came out, one of the members of the real family who inspired the villainous family in the book was arrested for being exceedingly bad.
I’m not a psychic —it’s not like I can really foretell community deaths and murders. I don’t believe in psychics or mediums who say they can communicate with the dead, and as Regan demonstrates during a séance in The Widow’s Walk League, neither does she. Still, Regan finds that what she believes and doesn’t believe gets a little confusing when another murder takes place.
I hope I’m not psychic.
Some of the murders in the new book take place at my favorite Santa Cruz events. I set one murder on Pacific Avenue on Halloween night and another at Woodies on the Wharf. (Yes, I know, I’m the one who wrote about murders happening where they did, but I was having too much fun writing the scenes to stop and think about what I might be unleashing.) Do you see why I’m worried? Should I warn anyone that the new book is being released?
(This post originally appeared on Buried Under Books in June 2011.)
January 5, 2011
Mystee's interview questions were more fun than a blog
As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
I wanted to be an architect. When all the other little girls were drawing clothing for their paper dolls, I was drawing house plans.
What inspired you to write your first book?
Boredom. Well there was a bit more to it than that. Like my real estate agent protagonist Regan McHenry, I own a small real estate company with my husband. As the real estate market started to collapse in 2007, we decided to experiment with being semi-retired or at least taking a time out to avoid what I knew would be a vicious and painful place to work. That left me with too much time on my hands. I started writing as a game, to see if I could devise a plausible mystery---like playing Sudoku, only more challenging.
Do you have a specific writing style?
I’m a method writer. Before I start an outline I make up the characters’ life stories so I can understand how they think and understand their motivation. I read the outline I’ve created for a chapter and then, in my mind I become my characters. I either act out or mentally observe what they do and say and the way they do and say their lines. I write down what I’ve seen and heard.
Even with the prep I do, sometimes the characters tell me things about themselves that I didn’t know. Let me give you an example from Buying Murder. As I was typing some dialogue between Dave, a recurring character, and Regan, Dave told her he spoke a little German and said to Regan he bet she didn’t know that about him. Well neither did I. I stopped typing and said out loud, “Dave, I had no idea you spoke German.”
How has your environment/upbringing colored your writing?
I’m probably writing mysteries because my grandmother let me read her favorite mysteries and true crime books when I told her I was disappointed with Nancy Drew, my age-appropriate books.
How did you come up with the title for your book(s)?
Most of the time I have my title and book cover in mind before I start writing, often even before I start an outline or make up the characters’ life stories.
How much of your work is realistic?
The murders are made up. The real estate is mostly not, although the disclaimer says it’s all fiction. I find it highly entertaining when I get a comment from a reader that they don’t believe some of the real estate parts of the books because nothing like that would really happen. Invariably those are parts that are completely true.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Because I get so involved in watching what happens in my books, writing about finding bodies generally unnerves me. In The Death Contingency the morning I wrote about Regan finding her first body, my husband found me curled into a ball crying when he came into my office.
Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
That’s too hard a question to answer so I’ll make it my favorite mystery author, if I may. Agatha Christie is my hands-down favorite. I love the period settings and characters having tea. I especially like it that she’s honest: all the clues to solve the mystery are there if the reader pays attention. Also, you can reread her books as many times as you want without ever finding fault with her logic or conclusions. Like a band that has practiced until they get all the members playing together just right, her mysteries are tight. That’s the goal I have for my mysteries, too.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
No I wouldn’t. When I began writing Buying Murder, I had a couple of endings in mind. As I got closer to the point where I needed to make a decision about the last chapters of the book, it became apparent the ending I used was the right one – the only right one.
Where do you hope to take your writing in the future?
I’ve had a number of jobs/careers in my life: working in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury/News, working in a library, being the business manager of Shakespeare/Santa Cruz, and finally a twenty plus year career as a Realtor. I’ve enjoyed all my jobs, but I’ve never had more fun than I am now writing and publicizing books. I intend to continue until I can’t think logically or until it stops being fun, whichever comes first.
What advice would you give to writers just starting out?
I’d give them the same advice a writer once gave me: edit, edit, edit. I’m a terrible editor and can’t edit my own writing (if you find errors in this interview please know I have read it; I just don’t see my mistakes) so I get capable help with that part of the process.
Do you ever suffer from writer's block? If so, what do you do about it?
It’s never happened. I consider myself a storyteller, not a writer. I just tell my story; since I know it, I am always able to write it.
What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?
I need to have my own space and to be left alone. If I’m interrupted while writing, I have to leave the world where my characters live and I lose them for a time.
How long does it take you to write a book?
I tend to write at about the same pace as the book. I was eager to start Buying Murder in July, but the book takes place late in the year. Try as I might, I couldn’t write about a stormy December night when it was ninety degrees outside and we had smoke in our house from a wild land fire. I did manage to incorporate the smoke into the beginning of the book, though.
Editing probably takes as long or longer than writing.
What is your work schedule like when writing?
I usually get up early in the morning and write until I finish what I want to accomplish for the day.
What are your current projects?
I’m working on the fourth book which will be called Widow's Walk League. (In case you didn’t realize it, all the books, The Death Contingency, Backyard Bones, and Buying Murder, have something to do with real estate or houses in their title.) The title also has a strong relationship to what happens in the book.
Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Widows’ Walk begins on Halloween night in downtown Santa Cruz; Santa Cruz County is the setting for all the books. A figure of death walks up to random revelers and hands them a note with a future date on it. Death hands a note to a man who is very upset to read it and discover his note has, not only the day’s date on it, but a time, about an hour in the future, printed on it.
What is the last book you read?
American Lion by Jon Meacham.
If you could be any character in fiction, whom would you be?
I’d like to be Miss Marple. She seems to get involved in all sorts of fascinating things and she knows everyone.
If you were an animal what kind of animal would you be?
Sea animal: a killer whale. Land animal: an elephant. Animal that can fly: a bat. Do you see a theme here? I want to have friends and family around and, as much as possible, I don’t want to be prey.
What is your favorite color? Red
What would I find in your refrigerator right now?
You’d find lots of fresh veggies, a variety of hot sauces, chicken in some form, and a bit of leftover wine. I’d hope that you’d find cake, but I probably ate it all.
If you could trade places with any other person for a week, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional. with whom would it be?
Queen Elizabeth I. She had such a difficult life but survived so well that I find her fascinating. I’d pick a week in her life when she could have met Mary Queen of Scots and I’d see that she did it.
If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
I’d like to be invisible. Flying would be a nice bonus.
I wanted to be an architect. When all the other little girls were drawing clothing for their paper dolls, I was drawing house plans.
What inspired you to write your first book?
Boredom. Well there was a bit more to it than that. Like my real estate agent protagonist Regan McHenry, I own a small real estate company with my husband. As the real estate market started to collapse in 2007, we decided to experiment with being semi-retired or at least taking a time out to avoid what I knew would be a vicious and painful place to work. That left me with too much time on my hands. I started writing as a game, to see if I could devise a plausible mystery---like playing Sudoku, only more challenging.
Do you have a specific writing style?
I’m a method writer. Before I start an outline I make up the characters’ life stories so I can understand how they think and understand their motivation. I read the outline I’ve created for a chapter and then, in my mind I become my characters. I either act out or mentally observe what they do and say and the way they do and say their lines. I write down what I’ve seen and heard.
Even with the prep I do, sometimes the characters tell me things about themselves that I didn’t know. Let me give you an example from Buying Murder. As I was typing some dialogue between Dave, a recurring character, and Regan, Dave told her he spoke a little German and said to Regan he bet she didn’t know that about him. Well neither did I. I stopped typing and said out loud, “Dave, I had no idea you spoke German.”
How has your environment/upbringing colored your writing?
I’m probably writing mysteries because my grandmother let me read her favorite mysteries and true crime books when I told her I was disappointed with Nancy Drew, my age-appropriate books.
How did you come up with the title for your book(s)?
Most of the time I have my title and book cover in mind before I start writing, often even before I start an outline or make up the characters’ life stories.
How much of your work is realistic?
The murders are made up. The real estate is mostly not, although the disclaimer says it’s all fiction. I find it highly entertaining when I get a comment from a reader that they don’t believe some of the real estate parts of the books because nothing like that would really happen. Invariably those are parts that are completely true.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Because I get so involved in watching what happens in my books, writing about finding bodies generally unnerves me. In The Death Contingency the morning I wrote about Regan finding her first body, my husband found me curled into a ball crying when he came into my office.
Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
That’s too hard a question to answer so I’ll make it my favorite mystery author, if I may. Agatha Christie is my hands-down favorite. I love the period settings and characters having tea. I especially like it that she’s honest: all the clues to solve the mystery are there if the reader pays attention. Also, you can reread her books as many times as you want without ever finding fault with her logic or conclusions. Like a band that has practiced until they get all the members playing together just right, her mysteries are tight. That’s the goal I have for my mysteries, too.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book?
No I wouldn’t. When I began writing Buying Murder, I had a couple of endings in mind. As I got closer to the point where I needed to make a decision about the last chapters of the book, it became apparent the ending I used was the right one – the only right one.
Where do you hope to take your writing in the future?
I’ve had a number of jobs/careers in my life: working in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury/News, working in a library, being the business manager of Shakespeare/Santa Cruz, and finally a twenty plus year career as a Realtor. I’ve enjoyed all my jobs, but I’ve never had more fun than I am now writing and publicizing books. I intend to continue until I can’t think logically or until it stops being fun, whichever comes first.
What advice would you give to writers just starting out?
I’d give them the same advice a writer once gave me: edit, edit, edit. I’m a terrible editor and can’t edit my own writing (if you find errors in this interview please know I have read it; I just don’t see my mistakes) so I get capable help with that part of the process.
Do you ever suffer from writer's block? If so, what do you do about it?
It’s never happened. I consider myself a storyteller, not a writer. I just tell my story; since I know it, I am always able to write it.
What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?
I need to have my own space and to be left alone. If I’m interrupted while writing, I have to leave the world where my characters live and I lose them for a time.
How long does it take you to write a book?
I tend to write at about the same pace as the book. I was eager to start Buying Murder in July, but the book takes place late in the year. Try as I might, I couldn’t write about a stormy December night when it was ninety degrees outside and we had smoke in our house from a wild land fire. I did manage to incorporate the smoke into the beginning of the book, though.
Editing probably takes as long or longer than writing.
What is your work schedule like when writing?
I usually get up early in the morning and write until I finish what I want to accomplish for the day.
What are your current projects?
I’m working on the fourth book which will be called Widow's Walk League. (In case you didn’t realize it, all the books, The Death Contingency, Backyard Bones, and Buying Murder, have something to do with real estate or houses in their title.) The title also has a strong relationship to what happens in the book.
Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Widows’ Walk begins on Halloween night in downtown Santa Cruz; Santa Cruz County is the setting for all the books. A figure of death walks up to random revelers and hands them a note with a future date on it. Death hands a note to a man who is very upset to read it and discover his note has, not only the day’s date on it, but a time, about an hour in the future, printed on it.
What is the last book you read?
American Lion by Jon Meacham.
If you could be any character in fiction, whom would you be?
I’d like to be Miss Marple. She seems to get involved in all sorts of fascinating things and she knows everyone.
If you were an animal what kind of animal would you be?
Sea animal: a killer whale. Land animal: an elephant. Animal that can fly: a bat. Do you see a theme here? I want to have friends and family around and, as much as possible, I don’t want to be prey.
What is your favorite color? Red
What would I find in your refrigerator right now?
You’d find lots of fresh veggies, a variety of hot sauces, chicken in some form, and a bit of leftover wine. I’d hope that you’d find cake, but I probably ate it all.
If you could trade places with any other person for a week, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional. with whom would it be?
Queen Elizabeth I. She had such a difficult life but survived so well that I find her fascinating. I’d pick a week in her life when she could have met Mary Queen of Scots and I’d see that she did it.
If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
I’d like to be invisible. Flying would be a nice bonus.
August 13, 2010
So who is Nancy Lynn Jarvis, really?
I always thought of her as me when I write. Seems my credit union had a different idea. They decided I was a scary person who was trying to deposit checks in the real me's account to be used for some unnamed nefarious business to be done in the future.
I had been happily depositing the occasion check made out to Nancy Lynn Jarvis for the last two-and-a-half years, which coincides with how long it's been since my first book was published, but all that changed two weeks ago, and it wasn't even Friday the 13th. The manager caught me openly committing a serial crime far worse than murder as far as he was concerned and flagged my account. "You'll never, never be able to do that again," he announced triumphantly.
"But what do I do with the six or so checks I get every year?" I stammered.
"Go to the county, file 'doing business as' documents, run an ad in the local paper to that affect, and come back in about six weeks when that process is complete, and we'll open a separate checking account for Nancy Lynn Jarvis. You will, of course, need to keep at least two-hundred dollars in the account at all times."
With fallen crests, I retreated to Wells Fargo Bank, a scary big bank located nearby. I showed them Buying Murder, my latest book, and pointed out my pseudonym on the cover. Then I opened the book to my photo on the about the "about the author" page and directed them to the copyright information at the beginning of the book. They called for the branch manager.
She laughed, shook my hand, and congratulated me on producing such a clever way of producing proof of identity. So now I have and official A.K.A. attached to my real name. I love it. I feel very mysterious, like I could even become a spy.
I had been happily depositing the occasion check made out to Nancy Lynn Jarvis for the last two-and-a-half years, which coincides with how long it's been since my first book was published, but all that changed two weeks ago, and it wasn't even Friday the 13th. The manager caught me openly committing a serial crime far worse than murder as far as he was concerned and flagged my account. "You'll never, never be able to do that again," he announced triumphantly.
"But what do I do with the six or so checks I get every year?" I stammered.
"Go to the county, file 'doing business as' documents, run an ad in the local paper to that affect, and come back in about six weeks when that process is complete, and we'll open a separate checking account for Nancy Lynn Jarvis. You will, of course, need to keep at least two-hundred dollars in the account at all times."
With fallen crests, I retreated to Wells Fargo Bank, a scary big bank located nearby. I showed them Buying Murder, my latest book, and pointed out my pseudonym on the cover. Then I opened the book to my photo on the about the "about the author" page and directed them to the copyright information at the beginning of the book. They called for the branch manager.
She laughed, shook my hand, and congratulated me on producing such a clever way of producing proof of identity. So now I have and official A.K.A. attached to my real name. I love it. I feel very mysterious, like I could even become a spy.
July 12, 2010
You call yourself a writer – why don’t you blog regularly?
Actually, I call myself a storyteller, not a writer. Being a writer sounds serious and hard. Telling stories is much more fun. It’s just that sometimes I put stories down on paper. I just finished doing that again about Regan McHenry, her husband Tom Kiley, and their friend police ombudsman, Dave Everett. The third book in the series, “Buying Murder” is about to launch.
And I’m still in transition – mostly a storyteller – but still a licensed real estate agent. I’ve had people contact me after reading the first two books to ask how much exaggeration goes into some of the real estate stories that form the backdrop for the books. The answer is: not much. Being a real estate agent puts people in strange situations. Realtors do find bodies, some dead and some just naked. They do get robbed, beat up, attacked by the family pet, and occasionally killed on the job. They do have to become referees. They do fall into abandoned septic tanks. Not all Realtors learn to read people the way Regan does, though.
Maybe Dave should write a blog. In “Buying Murder,” he started making comments and telling me things I didn’t know. For example: did you know he speaks a little German? I surely didn’t know that. But I was typing away listening to Regan and Dave talk and writing down what they were saying, when he announced he spoke a little German. That registered with my fingers before it did with my head. I had to re-read what I just typed before I realized what he told me. He might have fun writing a blog.
If you have any questions or comments after you read the books, I’d love to hear from you. I'd rather talk to people than blog.
And I’m still in transition – mostly a storyteller – but still a licensed real estate agent. I’ve had people contact me after reading the first two books to ask how much exaggeration goes into some of the real estate stories that form the backdrop for the books. The answer is: not much. Being a real estate agent puts people in strange situations. Realtors do find bodies, some dead and some just naked. They do get robbed, beat up, attacked by the family pet, and occasionally killed on the job. They do have to become referees. They do fall into abandoned septic tanks. Not all Realtors learn to read people the way Regan does, though.
Maybe Dave should write a blog. In “Buying Murder,” he started making comments and telling me things I didn’t know. For example: did you know he speaks a little German? I surely didn’t know that. But I was typing away listening to Regan and Dave talk and writing down what they were saying, when he announced he spoke a little German. That registered with my fingers before it did with my head. I had to re-read what I just typed before I realized what he told me. He might have fun writing a blog.
If you have any questions or comments after you read the books, I’d love to hear from you. I'd rather talk to people than blog.
