Mik Mehrtens's Blog, page 2

The Story of The Two Old Twitchers

By Mik

Charles Perrin and Tom Worthington are to this day, two of my favourite characters of all time. Finding them in my brain was a revelation and one I am very proud of even though they didn't come about easily. 

It all started with an idea for a TV series I was writing which never really had a name other than a tentative one of Full Circle. That to me should have been the giveaway that this idea wouldn't fly, but in saying that, it was great practice. I wrote six episodes of it and very quickly came to the conclusion that while the premise was good something crucial was lacking. Full Circle consisted of a group of five mature women who, through their community contacts and years of life experience went about solving crimes. It was familiar and comfortable. What it wasn't was right. Then one day, doing housework I heard a word on television that stuck with me no matter what I did to shift it. Twitchers. A very odd word indeed but one that for me, worked. Suddenly I had the platform on which Full Circle would work. Full Circle would be cut up and absorbed into a whole new concept, a book about two older chaps, famous in their field and well respected, who through circumstances beyond their control, end up in a village in England's Newforest with four rather wonderful female friends. They were four of the five women characters I had loved so much from Full Circle. 

So, the hard yards of rewriting and creating began all over again but this time the idea was sound and best of all, complete. I adore Charles and Tom and their dynamic, and hope that the adventures they get up to, the people they are surrounded by and the way they handle life is as enjoyable to you as it was to me.

Mik Mehrtens

The Maudlin Wives Inn is almost out

It has been a long wait for Esther Quill. But worth it.

The Two Old Twitchers were consuming our attention when Esther invited herself into our lives and insisted we take notice.

Not only did we take notice, but even before the second Twitchers book will come out, Esther will have her first two books out and a bunch of animated trailers on You Tube.

Esther is the ultimate free spirit; a woman in her late 30s who has chosen to be free inside to the point where she transforms a whole little fishing village and the lives of the people she meets.

We look forward to giving you a sneak preview of the first three chapters sometime in the next few weeks and the book will be out in summer!

The Maudlin Wives Inn is almost out

It has been a long wait for Esther Quill. But worth it.

The Two Old Twitchers were consuming our attention when Esther invited herself into our lives and insisted we take notice.

Esther is the ultimate free spirit; a woman in her late 30s who has chosen to be free inside to the point where she transforms a whole little fishing village and the lives of the people she meets.

We look forward to giving you a sneak preview of the first three chapters sometime in the next few weeks and the book will be out in summer!

I looove the new cover of Two Old Twitchers: a cuckoo in the nest

Have you ever sent something out to the big wide world and wished you could pull it back and make it a little different?

I had that with the original cover of the first Twitchers book. We'd agreed on a stylistic typographical approach and Mik's a big fan of white space. But it always felt lacking in some way to me.

When I was designing the art for some of the web material you'll see popping up more and more soon (especially on the official Twitchers site) I came to love the green vector image style and finally Mik suggested I just bite the bullet and re-design the book cover in time for the print release this summer in the US/UK.


The new cover is full of colour and feels more alive than the first one. The version shown here is a smaller sample taken from the new iPad cover, re-designed for the new high resolution retina display. Compare that with the original version (left.)

One of the big differences is that the original didn't show the Two Old Twitchers, Tom and Charles. Instead, I used a stylized cuckoo. My idea was to theme each book cover with the bird used in each title.

I think the Two Old Twitchers are better.

Which do you prefer?

Regards,

Drew

Drew on Two Old Twitchers

Foul fowl mystery One of the mysteries in Two Old Twitchers: A Cuckoo In The Nest came from a real-life story I investigated when I was a radio journalist and news editor. 

It began with a panicked phone call put through to my studio. "Is that Drew?"

The female voice was charged with a combination of emotions I couldn't quite place.

"Yes. Drew here. How can I help?"
"Something hideous has happened under the bridge. Dead bodies and blood are littered everywhere!"

Now, as a news editor, you tend to imagine all kinds of things when presented with that information. But I would never have expected what came next.

"Someone has poisoned all the chickens and I think it's the Council!"

Chicken bodies. Not humans. Ahh. A mystery most fowl.

I took down the details, including the name and contact for the caller, and went to investigate, when the phone rang again. A similar story, only in a different location. This time, the site was a car pull-off bay next to a park, about 15 minutes' drive from the first location. Then the phone went again. And again. And again. Caller after caller with similar stories. 

All the calls were consistent: In two locations, the bridge and the park, fowl had been found convulsing and in one place (the park) some of the birds had been bludgeoned and cut to death, with blood all over the place.


Who would do this and why?

I tried the Council. They didn't know about the blood bit, but they did commission a reputable contractor to remove the birds from those locations. People had been illegally dumping chickens, and other members of the community, notably older ones, had taken to feeding the birds regularly, treating the locations like public petting zoos. I requested the contractor's contact number and gave him a call.

The blood bit had nothing to do with him. That had him puzzled and after our conversation (and his explanation) he rushed out to the sites to see what was going on with the blood.

Then I had another call from a woman who told me she had preserved some evidence to take to the vet. She heard my story on the morning news and said she found a dead sparrow at one of the sites the previous night. She'd wrapped it and put it in the freezer so she could take to the vet as soon as they opened. That way, there'd be evidence of the poison in its body.

But there was a twist. She was the one that probably killed the bird. (Read on for details...)

Later, when working with Mik on Two Old Twitchers: A Cuckoo In The Nest, we used this incident as one of the first storylines woven through the book. I won't tell you the answer; that will spoil that part of the book, but we put all the clues you need to know in the second chapter. (You can read that bit free using the "look inside" preview feature on Amazon or by downloading the first three chapters from the Two Old Twitchers free excerpt page.) 

I thought the real mystery was how a person that loves birds could do this to them and why? I think you'll love the answer when you get to it later in the book. One of our favorite lines is the four word answer given by the perpetrator when he is finally discovered. Mik came up with the line and I still adore it.

As for the sparrow in the freezer, we used that in the book too. 

If you're a birder, you'll probably have already guessed the answer. If not, we have Tom explain and confirm later in the book.

As for the blood - I can tell you that bit: While the birds were 'convulsing' a bunch of drunken teens with nothing better to do smashed their bottles and used the broken glass to massacre the birds that couldn't get away. The police dealt with that, thankfully. We didn't use that part in the book.

I hope you enjoyed that glimpse behind one of the storylines, and feel free to ask us about any of the others you'd like to know about.
Drew

Drew on writing

Drew on meeting one of your characters in real life Have you ever written an imaginary character, then moved to a new town and come face to face with your character in real life? We did. We being Mik (my wife and co-author) and I.

Just as well our character is delightful. In fact, she's one my favorite characters in the Two Old Twitchers series - and if you've read book one (the cuckoo in the nest), you'll love what happens with her in book two (the grouse that ate the eagle).

Here's how we me our character in real life.
We moved into a teeny tiny town where nothing goes unnoticed or unreported to the rest of the town. Seriously. Nothing. We had already written the first book of our Two Old Twitchers series (A Cuckoo In The Nest) and with it, the character of Gabriella (Gabby) Raines.

If you haven't read the book, here’s how Mik described Gabby when she first dreamed her up years before we moved here:

Only a few of the sold out stickers remained tucked under her arm and an out-of-control nest of dark curls bounced above her head as she walked, her brown sparkling eyes taking in every detail of her surroundings at breakneck speed. She fished a note pad out of her handbag and checked the next item on her list. Suddenly, her head sprung up, seemingly of its own accord, her legs stopping her dead in her tracks. She tilted her head slightly, like an animal sniffing the air, except her eyes were darting around trying to feed her conscious mind with the information it sought. Something was wrong. Out of place. Where? What was it? 

She became aware that she was standing next to the town Library’s big display window. A frown spread across her face and she gave her full attention to the display. The large cardboard cutout of Tom and Charles posing with camera and binoculars was surrounded by a collection of general bird watching books. 

Gabriella’s legs kicked into life, almost leaving her body behind, and marched her into the library. 

Jane Dawson, the younger of the two librarians, tried desperately to get out of Gabriella’s line of sight.

“Jane,” Gabriella called out with an alarmingly loud, hyper-cheery voice, “that display needs a darn good seeing to. I don’t know what you were thinking.” 

Jane took an involuntary step back, always having the feeling that at any moment, Gabriella’s high pitched voice would go super-sonic and cause her head to explode.

“This book here,” Gabriella continued, grabbing a book from the window display, “has no relevance to the two gentlemen in the big cutout.” Her free hand waved wildly at the cutout of Tom and Charles. “Jane you must help me to remedy this immediately. We will make this a proper feature. Worthy of Pigeonwood’s latest residents.”

No matter how invasive Gabriella could be, it was impossible to take real offence, with that super-happy voice emanating from that super-happy face. If it wasn’t for the fact that Gabriella had been that way since birth, one would almost think her manic nature was chemically induced. 

End of excerpt.

Now, we love Gabby as a character, but imagine the fright we got when we arrived and were introduced to Gabby in person! (Not by name, thank goodness, but, well, let me describe the woman who is now a friend of ours, and whom we adore, but whom I have also managed so far to avoid showing the book.)

She is a delightfully cheery woman, with a super cheery voice and a super cheery smile and a head of dark bouncy curls. And she’s even the same height we imagined Gabby to be.

Mik and I looked at each other, slightly alarmed. When our of earshot, Mik said, “she can never know about the book!”

We live in a small town. We should have known that was never going to happen.

Friends of ours have also long been friends of this wonderful lady. And yes, she certainly is a lady. She has taste. She has style. She also happens to be a mirror image of Gabby Raines.

One day, said friends read that bit I just gave you from the book and instantly whooped with delight in the light of recognition.

And promptly shared that delight with real Gabby. Who, one morning, marched up to me, gave me a megawatt smile, used my full name (soooo Gabby) and informed me that she had been informed that I had a most interesting book that she would be most interested in knowing more about.

I was caught in the headlights.

Mik abandoned me with speed. She didn’t even try to pretend she suddenly had something come up. I expected to hear a cock crow three times.

Gulping, then clearing my throat, I tried to speak.

“Now, before we continue,” I began, noting how incredibly dry my throat felt, “I must inform you that we wrote the book I think you’re asking about looong before we came here. Okay?”

Her smile remained on high beam.

Amazing how disconcerting that is when directed at you without so much as a flicker.

I then proceeded to confess all and say that I will show her one day. As long as she remembered how we had written this character waaaaaay before we met her. Ahem.

Mercifully, the Chairman of the meeting we were awaiting called the gathering to attention and I was off the hook.

Since then, I’ve managed to keep all conversations far, far away from the book.

Thankfully, she’s not a big internet user.

Could she be reading this right now?

Possibly.

So… if you are, our dear friend, I shall share an even more freaky conclusion to this tale:

Think back one night to a moment when you spotted the gangly young son of two of our mutual friends (who worked with one of your sons), standing at the back of a hall with slightly shaggy hair. You went up to him, cocked your head, then plainly told him he needed to improve his grooming.

Nothing much in that, but…I shall leave you to smile knowingly at this mini scene between Gabby and Maggie in the library, also written before we knew each other (and remember, we love you): 

Gabriella Raines had run out of books for her revamped Two Old Twitchers display and was looking for Jane. Her ever appraising eyes took in Maggie at a glance. Gabriella stopped and framed Maggie with her hands.

“You know Margaret, you’d be very pretty if you tried.”

Maggie took the new card. “I really need to go.”

Gabriella looked around. “Jane? Jaaaane?” 

Maggie gritted her teeth and made for the door.

Like a poodle on a hot scent, Gabriella set off toward the non-fiction section, located just past the westerns.


Drew

Drew on birding

I think Mik might turn me into a birder yet.
I photographed this dotterel in the Coromandel I had not even heard of birding when she presented me with the idea for what became our first solo series: Two Old Twitchers A Cuckoo In The Nest. But now...
Birds in Kaiaua on NZ's Firth of Thames Somewhere during the production of the first two Twitchers books, Mik became an amateur birder.

Even during the writing of the first two books of our second series: The Maudlin Wives Inn (an Esther Quill mystery series) Mik continued birding.

Somewhere along the way, she set herself The Little List challenge: to see all 395 New Zealand species of bird. From scratch. And began tweeting the process.


Soon, with me on driving and camera duties, the short person in the back with the bird identification books and Mik surgically attached to her bins, it began. The slow but remarkably painless secret agenda of turning me and the short one into birders.
The bird Mik affectionately named "No Feet." It was okay for the short one because she has an incredible memory for any bird she's ever seen in a picture and can identify any features an artist or photographer had managed to present on paper or screen.

When my enthusiasm waned, Mik discovered the remarkable power of suggesting to her former-audio-producer-husband that the sounds would be great to record.

Now, I find myself waking up at 2am at the softest sound of nocturnal bird and recording for 10 minutes before crawling back into bed happy for having archived yet another bird sound. 

I wake up and then it dawns on me: I had no known reason for recording the little morepork sitting on the edge of the bush near our hillside home. Seriously, what am I going to do with a recording of a morepork? Or a dawn chorus beneath the Pinnacles on the Coromandel Peninsula. Or the sounds of the seabirds on the (unhelpfully named) shorebird coast of the Hauraki Gulf?

Something weird's going on.

I think Mik is succeeding in turning me into a birder. Sort of.

Drew

Three reasons not to aim for mastery when competence will do

I know it sounds absurd to say “not to aim for mastery when competence will do,” but I have good reasons. After working in TV and radio for decades, I learned that you need three things to take you from competence to mastery, three things you better be sure you can give:

1 – Time

To be truly great at something, you need to say no to everything else.

It doesn’t take long to become competent at something, but to truly take that to mastery, it requires time to learn and then to practice, practice, practice.

When editing TV, I scraped by at the beginning, a little rough, but enough to make a story. But I was determined to master the craft. Let me give you an example of what I learned that you can verify with any real master:

Ask a competent editor and they’ll probably have enjoyed playing around with footage and made a few You-Tube videos. Maybe one or two long weekends or 48-hour film challenges.

Ask a master editor - someone that has fixed lame news footage seconds before it went to air, maybe even cutting the end while the beginning is playing out to a national audience, or someone that cuts trailers every day, trying to find a story in a film that frankly, has none - what it took to get as good as they are, and you’ll discover horror story after horror story, framed with overnighters, painful directors, useless reporters, even worse cameramen and bosses that have no clue just how hard this can get. And the truly great ones look so serene through the whole ting. Although, if they ever quietly order you out of the edit suite, you can tell your job is now hanging by a teeny tiny thread.

To get that good, though, the’ve had to sacrifice so much. Time, family, friends, sanity and other interesting things you might otherwise want to muck around with in that kind of environment.


2 – Work

Now, I’m one of those idiots that masters something and then feels it’s time to master some other thing I never had the time to master before. Beggar for punishment.

Radio Imaging (making the stuff that gives a radio station or brand it’s audio image - using beats, beds, voiceovers, stingers and the rest of the fun stuff) went from fun to an overdose of hard, hard work. Same as editing. 

Same went for writing. Only at school did I get the luxury of writing whatever I felt like and then stopping when I couldn’t be bothered any more. Except for one time when my teacher discussed my three sentence report (“We went for a three-hour walk to the top of the Pinnacles. We looked at the scenery for five minutes and walked down again. It was hideous,” or something like that) with my parents, who then made me write a thousand words over the weekend. (Even that didn’t go well, because all I did was take the same three sentences and surround them with verbs and adjectives. The reader learnt nothing more than they got from the first version.)

But after that, I gained mastery by writing and writing and writing. Almost like getting 30 years of punishment for the three sentence thing.

I wrote commercials, news stories, promos, documentaries, radio dramas, comedy, television series, reality shows, screenplays, government PR and marketing communications and now books. (Well, I still go government PR, and marcomms.)

But the point I have finally learned is that only choose mastery for the things you really can’t live without. The things that you will be happy to choose to live with for years and years and years at the hard work end of the craft.


3 – Focus

Being truly great at something requires sacrificing the things that are less important to your goal, mission or vision for life.

Think of it like looking at your life through a zoom lens. To make a truly great picture, you remove unnecessary clutter from the frame. Shoot only what you want the viewer to see. Same with your inner "eye." Keep it simple. In focus. Free of clutter or distraction.

That’s what mastery requires.

For the less important things - the things you don’t need to truly master - competence will do.

If you don’t know what you need to do, become competent at a bunch of things. Something will eventually consume you. That’s the one you pick to master.

Pick well,

Drew

Drew on writing

Three reasons not to aim for mastery when competence will do I know it sounds absurd to say “not to aim for mastery when competence will do,” but I have good reasons. After working in TV and radio for decades, I learned that you need three things to take you from competence to mastery:

Lots of time, lots of work and lots of focus.
Time

To be truly great at something, you need to say no to everything else.

It doesn’t take long to become competent at something, but to truly take that to mastery, it requires time to learn and then to practice, practice, practice.

When editing TV, I scraped by at the beginning, a little rough, but enough to make a story. But I was determined to master the craft. Let me give you an example of what I learned that you can verify with any real master:

Ask a competent editor and they’ll probably have enjoyed playing around with footage and made a few You-Tube videos. Maybe one or two long weekends or 48-hour film challenges.

Ask a master editor - someone that has fixed lame news footage seconds before it went to air, maybe even cutting the end while the beginning is playing out to a national audience, or someone that cuts trailers every day, trying to find a story in a film that frankly, has none - what it took to get as good as they are, and you’ll discover horror story after horror story, framed with overnighters, painful directors, useless reporters, even worse cameramen and bosses that have no clue just how hard this can get. And the truly great ones look so serene through the whole ting. Although, if they ever quietly order you out of the edit suite, you can tell your job is now hanging by a teeny tiny thread.

To get that good, though, the’ve had to sacrifice so much. Time, family, friends, sanity and other interesting things you might otherwise want to muck around with in that kind of environment.


Work

Now, I’m one of those idiots that masters something and then feels it’s time to master some other thing I never had the time to master before. Beggar for punishment.

Radio Imaging (making the stuff that gives a radio station or brand it’s audio image - using beats, beds, voiceovers, stingers and the rest of the fun stuff) went from fun to an overdose of hard, hard work. Same as editing. 

Same went for writing. Only at school did I get the luxury of writing whatever I felt like and then stopping when I couldn’t be bothered any more. Except for one time when my teacher discussed my three sentence report (“We went for a three-hour walk to the top of the Pinnacles. We looked at the scenery for five minutes and walked down again. It was hideous,” or something like that) with my parents, who then made me write a thousand words over the weekend. (Even that didn’t go well, because all I did was take the same three sentences and surround them with verbs and adjectives. The reader learnt nothing more than they got from the first version.)

But after that, I gained mastery by writing and writing and writing. Almost like getting 30 years of punishment for the three sentence thing.

I wrote commercials, news stories, promos, documentaries, radio dramas, comedy, television series, reality shows, screenplays, government PR and marketing communications and now books. (Well, I still go government PR, and marcomms.)

But the point I have finally learned is that only choose mastery for the things you really can’t live without. The things that you will be happy to choose to live with for years and years and years at the hard work end of the craft.


Focus

Being truly great at something requires sacrificing the things that are less important to your goal, mission or vision for life.

Think of it like looking at your life through a zoom lens. To make a truly great picture, you remove unnecessary clutter from the frame. Shoot only what you want the viewer to see. Same with your inner "eye." Keep it simple. In focus. Free of clutter or distraction.

That’s what mastery requires.

For the less important things - the things you don’t need to truly master - competence will do.

If you don’t know what you need to do, become competent at a bunch of things. Something will eventually consume you. That’s the one you pick to master.

Pick well,

Drew


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Drew on writing

Three tips to writing with a partner Writing with a partner is a lot like being married. Here are three tips to making a success of both. ‘The sum is greater than the parts’ is certainly true when talking about an idea with someone equally passionate about the subject at hand. 

It also reminds me of the kind of after-class chemistry experiment at school where one lab partner brings half the mix and the other adds theirs and next thing you know, you’re banned from going near the science resources for a term. Ahh, sweet memories.

Talking with a writing partner about your ideas is even more exciting.

Writing with a writing partner is not always as exciting at times.

It’s not surprising when you think about it. It’s much the same as the difference between the ease of talking about writing as compared to the act of writing.

Talking is free and undisciplined, often stream of consciousness, full of ‘what ifs’ and without consequences.

Writing, though, is very disciplined, precise, often playing catch-up with the mind, and loaded with consequences. 

But insanely addictive and once you’re bitten by it, your mind is unsettled - tortured even - until you write it out.

Writing with a partner is like that but worse.

When you’re new at writing with a partner, you are either still writing for fun and discovering what you can do - or you’ve been a writer on your own for ages and have to make a wonderful but weird transition to sharing a mind with another person.

When I first married Mik, I was just so thrilled to wake up and stare at my beautiful sleeping wife, amazed this scene was real. Then, I’d get up and, as usual, bang around the house causing said beautiful wife to become, er, the grump of grump kingdom.

It was my fault, true, for never having practiced moving doors, cutlery and other surprisingly loud objects in ways that don’t wake sleeping wives. Not something I’d had to think about before.

Music that massages the windows with wonderful waves of air pressure produced by big speaker cones also turns out to be a no-no.

Weird apparatus now fills bathroom shelves and other oddities like eggplant and peppers appear in abundance in your fridge.

It’s like that when you’ve been used to writing by yourself and find an awesome writing partner. It’s soooooo awesome when you talk out the ideas and sooooooo not awesome at the start when you find that you have such different approaches.

But it’s worth figuring out how to get it right. This too, I say wholeheartedly, with experience.

The keys to writing with a writing partner are, not surprisingly, similar to the keys to a good marriage. I’ve been married for over a decade and a half, and have a great marriage.

Now.

Once I got used to not blasting the windows from their panes with my ‘wake up the world’ must - and once my beautiful wife got used to the fact that it was impossible for me to move around the house without banging stuff.

There are more, but here are three tips to writing with a partner:

Tip one
Remember that your similarities make you compatible but your differences make it exciting.

That works for writing together as much as being together as a couple. 

You both have the same goal: make it awesome.

Really.

Think about it: neither of you want to end up with a rubbish story. So as long as you’re not brain-dead, no suggestion is designed to make the story worse.

Rather than getting frustrated at the different approaches, remember that your writing partner doesn’t want you to drive the car off the road and off the cliff. And whatever it is you’ve just written when they stiffen and yelp makes them think you’re about to do that.

Tip two

Shut up and listen.

Physically reeeeeeally easy to do. Almost never happens. When your new. Happens nearly all the time when you’re experienced.

While you’re listening, keep remembering the principle behind key number one: They just want it to be awesome.

It’s like the way said beautiful wife gives you ‘that look’ when you are about to cook sausages for breakfast. Now, you think she’s being a picky pain in the patootie. But she just wants you to look awesome and she’s trying desperately to stop you looking like one of those passengers on the spaceship in Pixar’s Wall-E.

Now getting all uppity might make her eventually leave you alone, but think about your supposed victory: You get to have another chin, wear maternity shirts or tents rebranded as big man clothing, push a wheelbarrow around to keep your overhanging gut from banging your knees, look less attractive and die early. Hoorah!

See? She just wanted you to stay ‘wantable.’ It’s a good thing.

Same with writing. Shut up and listen. Your writing partner wants your story to stay ‘wantable.’

Tip three

It’s not all about you.

One of the most common ‘problems’ I’ve heard from couples in trouble is: “I’m not getting what I wanted out of this relationship.”

Let me follow that my sharing one of the most common places that statement takes said statees. From unsuccessful relationship to unsuccessful relationship to unsuccessful relationship.

The best relationships are those made up of two givers.

Not one demander and one doormat. TWO givers. (Thankfully, you can tell BEFORE you end up together if you have your eyes open and your brain turned on… just listen to what comes out of their mouths the most (if it’s “I”, BZZZZZZZ, thank you for playing the game but you’re out) and watch them around others when they don’t think you’re watching.)

There’s always a cost to friendship. Even if it’s your time, or understanding or your willingness to forgive. As long as it’s a two-way street, it’s always worth the effort. But you just gotta know that a good one will still cost you.

So too with writing partnerships. You have to give up some freedoms. The freedom to write dead end ideas, for one. The freedom to write non-commercial work that satisfies your intellectual imaginings but that will have you out working another job because no one else wants to buy it. The freedom to load your book with double chins and beer guts that make it far less attractive to potential readers. The freedom to have your writing career die early.

But as with a good relationship, a writing partner brings differences and strengths that make you and your work more exciting.

So, deal with the “don’t read over my shoulder” and “stop pacing, it’s putting me off” moments and go make a coffee, sketch some new scenes out on paper and embrace the strengths of your writing partner.

Your characters will be more rich, people will want to spend time with them and your story lines, threads, arcs and possibilities will be far more engaging.

You’ll even learn to work together seamlessly and your results will always be better than the sum of your parts.

Dedicated to Mik, my wife and most excellent writing partner.

Drew