Erika Mitchell's Blog, page 2

Honest

Very little lasts these days. Media is created to be binged and then forgotten, and I’ve often struggled with this. When the marketplace (and books are certainly no exception) is hurtling along at lightning pace, what place can thoughtfully constructed stories occupy?

Think of it like a meme. You can spend hours crafting a witty, insightful, and meaningful meme, but odds are it’ll get buried because hundreds of other people were quicker and what they came up with was good enough.

Where am I going with this?

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what kind of writer I want to be. I’ve been writing novels for ten years (!) and I finally feel like I’m starting to get good at it. Writing is a craft, and if you’re not learning and improving with every novel then you’ve either been doing this a lot longer than I have or else you’re just that good and you can probably stop reading this now.

During those ten years, I’ve self-published (PWNED, my first novel, released at the urging of an acquaintance who assured me it definitely didn’t need to be professionally edited {HA!}). My most recent books (Blood Money {2013}, Bai Tide {2015}, and Take the Bai Road {2017}) were published by an indie press. That, too, has been a learning opportunity and come with its own set of challenges.

So here I am, ten years and four published novels in. I have a name that, when I first started writing was unique enough but over the course of years has become the maiden name of an incredibly famous erotica author. I have my first spy thrillers, of which I’m still quite proud. And I have a new project I’m ecstatic about that’s different than anything I’ve ever written.

What to do?

Well, what I’m going to do is pivot. My writing is going in a new direction anyway, and my books haven’t exactly been bestsellers, so what I’m going to do is pull them from the marketplace for the time being. I’m going to focus on pitching this new project in the hopes of securing an agent who’s as passionate about what it is and what it could mean to other people as I am. Last but not least, I’m going to try really hard to think up a cool pen name (Is Stephanie Queen too on the nose? It is, isn’t it? Drat.)

Things are going to be changing soon, in what I hope is a good way. It’s taken me a third of my life to figure out what kind of writer I want to be, and that’s okay.

As for what I’ve decided, I’ll leave you with this advice I once got from Anne Rice (yes, she said it right to me. I asked her a question in a Q&A). She told me, “Go where the pain is.” To write stories that mean something to people, you have to be willing to be vulnerable. You have to bleed a little, and be comfortable with other people seeing you do it.

Those are the kinds of stories I’m going to focus on writing for now. There has to be a place in fiction for damaged people who have put themselves back together, and if I can provide this that will be fine work indeed. My writing up until this point has skirted this, because it’s easier for me to make people laugh than it is to be vulnerable with strangers.

I’ve decided it’s time to be honest. Wish me luck.

I Spy Valentine’s Day

As Valentine’s Day sidles up close enough to air-kiss you against your will, I just wanted to wish all of you a happy February 14th. Depending on who you ask, Valentine’s Day is either a fun excuse to be sappy and romantic, an annoying schlock-fest that is to be endured, or the WORST THING TO HAPPEN ALL YEAR.

I made the above valentine to share with all of you, regardless of how you feel about tomorrow. Always remember, my books are here for you whenever you’re looking for either excitement or you feel like shooting something.

Want to know more? Click here for Take the Bai Road, and here for Bai Tide.

 

Superbowl Redux

Wes left for another business trip yesterday morning, so for the third year in a row I was left to my own devices for the Superbowl. The previous two years, I’ve caught up on the best commercials the day after. This year, I decided to take a stab at being relevant by ignoring the game itself and turning the volume back on for the commercials and halftime show.

First of all, can I just say that the Tide commercials with David Harbour killed me? Those were so funny, and if possible made me like him even more. I thought his Twitter antics were endearing, but then I saw him riding tandem on a unicorn with the Old Spice guy and my fondness intensified.

The Dodge Ram commercial with Dr. Martin Luther King’s voice imposed over it nauseated me. I was scowling so much that my son actually asked me if I was okay, and it wasn’t until he said that that I realized how much my irritation was showing on my face. For shame, Dodge. Have you learned nothing from Pepsi’s ill-fated ad from last year with the girl who’s pregnant and was on that show with a bunch of people whose names inexplicably begin with the letter K?

The Verizon first responder appreciation ad made me cry, as did the Budweiser water one. I’m a sucker, what can I say?

Many of this year’s commercials were good, in my opinion. I do, however, have to single out Diet Coke for a minute.

Last week, Wes took me out for a movie and there was a Diet Coke ad that ran with the previews. It was of Gillian Jacobs, who was fun in Community, and she gave us her unasked-for permission to drink Diet Coke or run a marathon or live in a yurt if we wanted to.

Um, thanks? And also, why is Diet Coke equating its beverage with these behaviors?

Unimpressed with this ad already, the mango Diet Coke (ewww) came on and somehow my regard for whoever is doing the advertising for Diet Coke sank even lower. In this commercial, a wan young woman takes a sip of Diet Coke Mango and starts awkwardly dancing, without music, all the while saying she’s not sure why it’s happening.

It’s awkward to watch, utterly uncompelling, and actually made me not want to drink Diet Coke ever again. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what the pitch meeting for these commercials must have been, but I can only imagine it involved a lot of Xanax and shrugging because these commercials are the advertising equivalent of, “Meh. I guess?”

As for the halftime show, I don’t really know what to say. Lots of people have been unkind to Justin Timberlake, but I thought his dancing was quite good and the show was fine. He was operating at a disadvantage, I think, because he hasn’t been relevant as a pop musician in a long time. None of his hits are current, so he was kind of an odd choice to begin with.

I was half hoping Janet Jackson would make a surprise appearance and he would publicly apologize for his role in the ill-fated show they did years and years ago, but it didn’t happen. I also kind of hoped Andy Samberg would come out and the two of them could recreate some of their SNL Digital Short songs together. That would have been awesome.

Oh, well. All in all, the Superbowl happened. The game itself was exciting, the commercials were mostly good, and David Harbour remains charming and funny.

What was your most or least favorite moment of the game?

Advanced Germ Warfare

My husband travels a lot for work. I’d say, if pressed for an average frequency, that he’s gone for about one week out of every month. That’s a lot of restaurant food, a lot of time in airplanes, a lot of time in hospitals meeting with nurses and doctors (read: a whole hell of a lot of exposure to germs).

That he hasn’t brought something infectious home yet after almost two years of running this company is nothing short of remarkable now that I think about it.

Unfortunately, his lucky streak ran out last week. While on his way to Florida last Monday, a nasty pack of viruses found its way into his body, liked it there, and set up camp. Those viruses got busy and proliferated until poor Wes was as sick as I’ve ever seen him.

By the time he was flying home from Florida on Wednesday night, he was miserable and on his way to violently ill. When he got home, he was dehydrated, exhausted, and shaking from a decent fever.

Thursday is when things really got bad, though. His fever kept climbing, and he was visibly dehydrated, so he and I took a little trip to the emergency room where they plumped him up until his fingers were fat little sausages. Three bags of fluids and no small number of tests later, he was discharged with the vague diagnosis of, “Probably something viral.”

Now, I want you to remember that we have two small children at home. With the viruses Wes could have ranging from the dreaded Norovirus to the never-ending Rotavirus to the pernicious and difficult-to-kill C. Diff. (which isn’t a virus, but was mentioned as a possible diagnosis), you can imagine my frustration at not knowing exactly how to keep myself and my kids safe from this virulent pestilence.

I’m useless against some of the nastier viruses! 

For example, did you know that alcohol-based hand sanitizers (e.g. Purell) don’t kill Norovirus, but do work against Rotavirus? Or that Clorox and Lysol wipes will not kill either C. Diff. or Norovirus? Or that you’re contagious for three days after symptoms stop with Norovirus, but for WEEKS with C. Diff.?

After I got Wes home and comfortable from the hospital, I cleaned everything he’d touched with Lysol wipes, my standard go-to whenever anyone gets sick with something that causes a fever. When I finally sat down and put my aching leg up, I started some research into the various viruses and realized I needed to get some bleach spray and re-do everything I’d just done. Otherwise, my kids or myself might catch what Wes had and then we’d all end up in the emergency room.

(You know what’s fun? Reading that several of the possible viruses Wes might have are occasionally fatal to children because of how quickly and severely little kids can become dehydrated.)

So, despite the pain in my tired leg and the late hour, I ventured out to the store, procured bleach spray, and spent another hour sanitizing every surface of my house. Even the ones Wes never touched. I didn’t want anyone getting sick for two weeks because I forgot to wipe down the sides of the trash cans, you know?

I crawled to bed at midnight that night, and have continued my vigilance ever since. We’ve bleached and shelved all the hand towels and we’re going through paper towels like crazy. Wes is quarantined in our room, which gets bleached and wiped down every night before I go to bed. The kids are only allowed to talk to him from the door of our room, and he wears a clean pair of latex gloves every time he touches anything.

The three of us remain unscathed thanks to these efforts, but Wes is still waiting patiently for his immune system to finally give those viral squatters the boot. Pale from a week indoors, tired of drinking electrolyte solution, and longing for the life that’s waiting for him on the other side of this illness, he bides his time in his pillow prison and looks forward to the day he’s free to pass slowpokes in his Mustang again.

Let this be a lesson to you: Other human beings are gross. Wash your hands before you eat anything, and beware any food that’s been touched by bare hands. Trust ye not solely in Purell, because some viruses treat alcohol-based hand sanitizers like fun little pre-funks before they storm your proverbial castle.

Traditional New Year Post – 2018 Version

It’s been my tradition for many years to sum up the old year with a blog post and share my hopes for the new year. I’ve never been a resolutions person, but I love me some goals. It’s always a lot of fun to see how those goals have worked out at the end of the year. Some make it through to completion, others die on the vine. Life is one hell of a humbler.

As Wes and I hoisted flutes of champagne last night, we spent some time discussing 2017. In many ways, it was a challenging year. As far as we can tell, challenging years are hallmark of adulthood. That doesn’t make them bad, per se. Far from it! Rather, I think if you’re the kind of person who’s always striving toward something, challenges are what drive you. If there’s no windmill to tilt against, how are any of us supposed to pretend we’re quixotic?

In that vein, our biggest victories in 2017 were professional: I completed Bai Treason and the first draft of Tranquility Land. I attended ThrillerFest, and was offered several jobs due to my unusual tenacity in getting my cutting-edge surgery covered by my health insurance. Wesley defied the odds and kept his startup going, and he’s optimistic about the momentum they’ve built.

Our hopes for the new year are simple: That the work we put into building things in 2017 will come to fruition in 2018.

That’s it. Simple, but don’t let this statement fool you. 2018 is going to be a BIG year for us. My goal is to have a literary agent who believes in both me and my work by the end of the year. Wes’s goal is for his company to be going strong, which requires an unbelievable amount of hustle and determination. We’re going to start looking for a house to buy soon (we’ve been renting for seven years), and will hopefully find the perfect home for our family by the end of the summer. We want to adopt a puppy, we want to plant a garden, we want to take a great vacation to somewhere sunny.

We have goals for our children, of course, and they have goals of their own, but what it all boils down to is that we hope all the saving and waiting and sacrifices we’ve made to get here will pay off this year.

We’re dreaming big. We’re hoping for good things. We’re believing that when you work hard enough for something, the journey is worthwhile.

In that spirit, a very Happy New Year to you. Please feel free to share your hopes and goals so that I can join you in rooting for them!

Christmas Excuses

Oops. It’s been awhile since I posted. I have a legit excuse, I swear. You see, I was having major surgery on my knee. If you’ve never had major surgery (lucky you!), take my word for it that both preparing for it and then recovering from it takes a tremendous amount of both time and energy.

The surgery went well, though, and I’m healing well. I’m ordering ALL THE THINGS online for Christmas, and enjoying plenty of couch time with my family. Having kicked my hard narcotic painkillers, I’m clearheaded again and look forward to returning to writing soon.

If I don’t have a chance to blog again before the holidays begin in earnest, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Joyous Festivus, and Happy Holidays to you all. May your egg be nogged, your yule be logged, and your favorite holiday treats hogged (by you)!

Tranquility Now

This looks tranquil, yes?

A couple years ago, I came up with a story idea I really liked. It was a marked departure from anything I’d ever written and, I felt, would be a fun challenge to write. Bai books got in the way, however, with their shiny chase scenes and explosions, and I put this story idea in the vault for a future day.

Usually, story ideas lose their shine in the vault. You take them out months or years later and they’re plainer, less appealing, than they were when you sent them there. You wonder what you saw in them in the first place and either put them back or throw them out.

Not this one. This one waited for me. It was ready. I was ready. I sent Bai Treason, the last book of my Bai series, off to my publisher and started sketching out ideas for the story.

Wes and I spent almost the entire drive home from the Oregon coast hashing out possibilities. He’s one of the greatest sounding boards of all time and my favorite person to brainstorm with. I came home with a wad of napkins all covered in scrawled notes, then spent the rest of the summer organizing those notes onto index cards so that when the time came I could keep the details near at hand.

I began the novel in August of this year. It slow, as both its format (a split perspective, the story told by the daughter in the present and by the mother before the daughter was even born) and it’s style (heroine’s POV, third person past tense) were unfamiliar to me. Over time, I settled into it and by the end I was clocking 3,000+-word writing sessions as the word poured out of my fingertips.

And now, on a rainy afternoon in November, I’ve finished it. The first draft is complete, and I feel oddly bereft without it. This project is the most honest thing I’ve written to date, and I’m both anxious for people to read it and nervous about the prospect.

My goal, way back at the beginning of the summer, was to have Bai Treason sent to my publisher and have a first draft of this new project ready by Christmas. Done and done, with time to spare.

Now all I have to do is have surgery on my knee after Thanksgiving, re-learn how to walk, and fix the new project up and I’ll be ready to pitch it in Manhattan in July!

Oh, and move to a new house next year and release Bai Treason. All easy stuff, right? Ha! As always, writing the book may well have been the easy part.

Framers Hate Her!

Not many people know this, but for three years in high school I worked at Aaron Brothers. I took classes and seminars and actually had a lot of fun helping people custom frame the pictures, artwork, and memorabilia that were important to them. To this day, I’m still the weirdo who inspects the artwork on her friends’ walls and occasionally admires a reverse-beveled mat or float-mounted piece of artwork.

As you can imagine, I’m pretty finicky about my own framing projects when I get a chance.

Today, I took this beautiful photograph my good friend Aaron James (you may remember my glowing endorsement of his photography work from this post) printed out for me down to Aaron Brothers. My goal was to get it custom matted and framed in an off-the-shelf frame (also known as a Quick Frame in Aaron Brother terms).

I unrolled it onto the familiar counter top and announced my intentions with the frame, specifically that I wanted a top mat the same color white as the moon, and a 1/4″ gray mat that matched the tone of the moonlight on the waves. What did the framer pull out?

A black top mat (the tone of which was wrong) and a double white mat (which is twice as expensive) to go on the bottom.

Having lost my faith in his eye for color, a crucial skill for a framer, I corrected him and picked out the correct colors. When he rang it up, he told me the grand total would come to $225 not including frame. As I looked at the cost breakdown, I laughed and told him he could skip the Preservation Mount (something expensive you only need to do if something is rare, one-of-a-kind, or signed/numbered and worth money), the UV glass (preserves the colors in your artwork longer, but not necessary if you’re hanging the piece out of direct sunlight, and that pesky double mat again (hi, I’m not new, here).

As I turned down the unnecessary services, one of his coworkers tried to convince me of the necessity of the Preservation Mount, to which I held up one hand and said, “I’m aware of what it is, I worked here for three years. It’s not necessary.”

She shut up, he took the extra charge off with a sheepish look, and I left having secured the correct price for the services I was requesting.

This might all sound like gibberish, but what it boils down to is this: Either through incompetence or greed, people will try to upsell you if you don’t know better. If you need something framed, ask me to go with you. I’m really good at it, and I’ll make sure you’re not charged for something stupid.

Also? How awesome is this photograph? I love it so much I want to stare at it while brooding and drinking Scotch. Aaron is crazy-talented. Go buy a bunch of his work and then let me come with you to frame it.

Me, too

On Facebook right now, there’s a movement wherein women post Me, too to spread awareness of how widespread the issue of sexual assault is. I’ve been thinking about these disclosures a lot, and posted this on Facebook in response. I’ve copied it here because I feel strongly about what it says.

The Me, Too disclosures have been on my mind a lot. For every female acquaintance or friend of mine who speaks up, my heart breaks a little. That these women, these strong, articulate, educated women have been violated and humiliated by men who by and large escape the encounters unscathed is wrong in every way.

The reason the disclosures have been bothering me is that very few of the women I know well can say they’ve never been harassed, molested, or raped. I can’t tell you how many women I’ve talked to about this. It’s something almost all of us have done our best to put behind us.

What this tells me is that this isn’t the kind of thing WOMEN need to be more aware of.

In short, what I’d like to see all over Facebook is men speaking up and owning up to the times they pushed things too far, did something they weren’t supposed to, or made a woman feel uncomfortable. What I’d like to see is men holding EACH OTHER accountable.

I’ve been sexually assaulted three times in my life. Two of those times I was underage and my assailant was more than twice as old as me. I promise you, those guys didn’t bother themselves a bit about their actions, because we were all taught that men can’t be held accountable for their libidos.

It’s time for men to hold themselves accountable. It’s time for the perpetrators to feel shame, not the victims. The women I know who’ve been assaulted have all found strength in each other and found ways to move on. We, by and large, have each other’s backs on this.

It’s the men’s turn. Speak up. Own up to it if you’ve messed up and do better in the future. Call other men out on their predatory behavior. Raise a future generation of men who will respect the women in their lives because YOU demonstrate respect for the women in your life.

It’s time. Past time, really. We’re 3D printing body parts, for crying out loud. I think being respectful of women isn’t too much to ask.

Are You Ready for Bai Treason?

Have you finished reading Take the Bai Road and wondered, What’s next for Bai after this? Well, I have good news! Bai Treason, the third and final book of the Bai Hsu trilogy has a release date! June 4, 2018, baby!

Bai Treason is very special to me. One, it’s my longest and most ambitious story to date.  It has a plot so twisty that so far no one’s been able to guess what’s going on until they’re almost to the end. To be honest, I wrote it way back in 2014 and, when I dusted it off for revisions in early 2017, even I couldn’t remember the twists. If that’s not the mark of a good story, I don’t know what is (pay no attention to the fact that I have the memory span of a goldfish).

Two, it’s the last Bai Hsu novel. I’ve been writing about my favorite Chinese-American CIA case officer for five years. Even though it’s time for me to move on to new projects, Bai will always be special to me because of his unique qualities. I’ve put him in some awful situations, but he’s always managed to extricate himself with good humor and self-deprecation. I feel pretty maudlin about saying goodbye to him.

Three, I had a chance to do some of the research for this novel in real life, which is pretty cool. Like all my books, this one moves from place to place, so you’ll have to read it to guess which setting I researched in person (hint: It’s the place in the picture. Can you guess where it is?). As a result of this IRL research, this story is personal to me. It’s my favorite book so far, and I can’t wait for all of you who have been reading Bai’s adventures to go with him one last time.

June 4, 2018. Mark your calendars. This one’s the big one.