Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 225

Left Coast Crime

Off to LCC
Left Coast Crime is my favorite conference. Sure I like Bouchercon. It’s the biggest and most exciting. Malice is elegant and friendly. Thrillerfest is …well, it’s New York. I hope to get to Killer Nashville one day. I hear that I will love it. And there are plenty of other small conferences that appeal in various ways.
So why is LCC my fave? First, it’s in my backyard. So to speak. That means it’s west of the Rockies—including Hawaii. The second is related to the first. Because it’s on the west coast, it includes a lot of people I know—not just Facebook friends, but face to face friends.
So tomorrow I’ll be on the plane to Phoenix and looking forward to seeing writing friends who are something like family—friends I may only see once a year, but who know what my daily world is like.
I also have a personal warm feeling about LCC because it sponsored the first award I was ever nominated for. The fact that my co-nominees were Sue Grafton, Tim Hallinan, Darryl James, and William Kent Krueger made it ultra-special. I’ll always have that memory. And it will always be associated with LCC.
Here are a few photos:







Tomorrow morning! I can hardly wait.

Authenticity

I get lots of nice emails and social media shout-outs for my books, for which I am profoundly grateful. I also frequently find my books on “Best of (fill in the year)” posts. And I have been thrilled with good reviews and the occasional award nomination alongside some of my heroes. I cherish the photos I have with Tim Hallinan, Sue Grafton, William Kent Kruger, and a few other writers I admire. All these things astonish me, because I figured I would be satisfied with just being published and finding a few readers who liked my books.
Here's a photo with two fans who drove four hours to my reading in Austin:


No, this isn’t a bragfest, nor is it a plea for reassurance. It’s an honest attempt to examine the feeling I sometimes have that it’s all pure luck, and that the next book I write is going to unmask me as a fraud who just lucked into some good reviews and some good friends who were generous enough to support me.
I know I’m not alone, and that almost every writer has those moments. But when I’m in that frame of mind it’s hard to convince myself that it isn’t true.  What usually sets me off is reading someone whose writing is so good that it makes me want to clear my desk and take up tatting. There are writers who consistently make me feel that way. It presents a problem: I can’t wait to read their next book, while at the same time knowing that it will make me feel like a hack.
Here’s what I try to remember:
1)   Not everyone likes everything I like to read, and vice versa. There was a book out last year that every, single person I know who read it, raved about it. I didn’t hate it, but I also wasn’t wild about it. And I’ve had the opposite experience of gushing over “the best book I read all year,” only to have someone tell me they couldn’t get into it. I try to remember that the book that is making me feel talentless will most likely also have its detractors, too.2)   That I go through this with every book I write, feeling like “this time” the magic isn’t going to happen, and my editor will send it back with a curt note telling me to never sully his desk with my prose again. 3)   That my goal was to write books that people like, and that I have accomplished that, so shut up and enjoy it. 4)   That somewhere at this very moment the next Louise Penny or Michael Connelly is reading something that makes them despair of ever being anything more than a pedestrian writer. That every writer has moments of feeling inauthentic.
Here’s this week’s recommendation with a couple of caveats: Remo Went Rogue, by Mike McCrary, is not for everyone. It’s dark and gritty, with a cast of nothing but bad people. But it made me laugh and made me savor McCrary’s use of language. His descriptions are priceless. The second caveat: if a badly-published book makes you crazy, better pass on this. There are missing words, misspelled words, huge formatting errors, punctuation errors, and word misusage. The fact that I persevered is a tribute to the astonishing plot, spot-on characters and clever language.

Is Enough Ever Enough?

The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake came out January 12, and I’ve just had my eighth book event. I’ve traveled to southern California three times for bookstore and library readings, to two Texas cities, and of course the Bay Area. Next I’m off to the far north of California and Ashland, Oregon. When I return there are two more Bay Area events. Add to that writing visiting blog posts, radio chats, magazine articles, and a guest talk to the Sacramento Capitol Crimes Sisters in Crime chapter. Is that enough?



Quite frankly there’s never enough to feed the hunger of the promo machine.  I could spend much more time and energy on it and it still wouldn’t be enough. The idea of promotion is to introduce yourself to prospective readers, booksellers, and those who might be willing to write reviews. It can be a lot of fun and very invigorating. It can also eat up time that could be spent writing.
There’s no one to tell you when you’ve reached an optimum amount of time and energy expenditure. So it’s up to me to decide where to draw the line. I’m not sure I’ve figured out where that line is just yet, but I’m gathering info. I spoke with a seasoned author who told me she isn’t doing any events this year. She’s tired and her budget is shot. She has decided to put her time and energy into writing her next book.
 I’m not ready to give up the travel yet. First, I’m not well-known enough. Every time I read at a bookstore or library event, there is promotion that gets my name out there. I still need that exposure to let people know about my books. Plus, I like it. I like speaking in front of people who love books, answering their questions, and hearing their perspectives. I enjoy meeting the booksellers and exploring their bookstores to see what kind of books they stock. I like meeting other authors that I’m paired with. For now that makes it worth the time it takes to go to these places.
But is it worth the expenditure of energy and money? It’s expensive to travel—flights, hotels, and meals. Is it worth the exhaustion that accompanies so much activity? Is it worth the disorganization that you feel when you get home and have to struggle get back your writing mojo?
As long as I am having fun, I’ll keep doing it, but if it ever feels like I’m doing this to the detriment of my writing, then it will be time to figure out other ways to promote my books. I know every writer faces this frustration, and I’ll keep my ears open for other ways of promoting. Until then, wish me bon voyage!

Thinking up a (short) story

I was asked to contribute a short story for an anthology, and I agreed with great enthusiasm. That was last night after a couple of margaritas. I would most likely have said yes anyway, but the margaritas didn’t help my impulse control. In the cold light of dawn, I woke up and thought, “Idiot! You have no idea how to write a short story.“
I suspect that plenty of people think that because I write novels, writing a short story should be a snap. Hey, it’s just a short novel, right?. And instead of weaving together lots of ideas, you only have one central idea. What’s the big deal?
The big deal is that I think in novel length stories. My plot ideas spin out in big loops that come back to include another idea, and before I know it, I’m embroiled in a mass of story lines. Sticking to one story feels to me like trying to sit on a cat. It scoots out from under you before you can pin it down.
Also, the best short stories I’ve read have a clever twist. That means I pretty much have to know what the twist is when I start the story—exactly the opposite of the way I usually work. In a novel I get to meander around and get to know the characters, one of whom eventually reveal himself to be capable of some kind of mayhem. No meandering allowed in a short story.
The one thing I do have going for me is that I like to be concise in my word usage. You can’t waste words when you write a short story. Every word has to count.
Questions I’m asking myself: Should I start with a plot idea or a character? Or should I first determine what kind of story I’m going to write—humorous or dark; amateur or professional; historical or modern? Should I outline it or just write? Should I use a character from my series, or a fresh new one? Most crime novels have murder at the core. Is that true of short stories as well?
I’ve written short stories, but they have usually come to me in bursts of inspiration. The idea of sitting down to “think up” a short story flummoxes me. One technique I’ve used when I start looking for a novel plot is to write down ten ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem, and then start thinking about them. That’s what I’ll probably do, unless…hmmm. I think of someone like Pat Morin who churns out one clever short story after another. Maybe I need to follow her around for a few days and hope she discards a stray idea.
Book Recommendation:  At BookPeople l I had the privilege of reading with two fine writers. One was Josh Stallings, whose book Young Americans I read and blurbed in the fall and recommended in an earlier post. The other writer was Scott Frank, a long-time screenwriter of note (Dead Again, Marley and Me, A Walk Among the Tombstones among many, many others), whose first novel has just come out. Shaker is a dynamite novel. It’s a bit Elmore Leonard and a bit Raymond Chandler. It’s a novel with heart and humor sprinkled into a fine noir sensibility. Read it!

On the Road Again

I’m on book tour! I’ll be hopping from place to place until the end of February talking in bookstores and libraries about my latest book, The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake, which came out January 12.




Here are some questions people ask me about touring:
Do you arrange your own events? Yes, I do. My publicist helps if I need her to, but I enjoy the direct interaction with booksellers and librarians. If I get an offer to read in one bookstore, I make the trip pay off by arranging something in a nearby town. My publicist would do that, but she’s back east and I get the feeling that everyone in New York thinks that everyplace in California and Texas is close to everyplace else. If you’re doing events in Los Angeles, you have to realize that “Los Angeles” is a loose term, meaning it can easily take three hours to get from one part of the LA area to another. .
Does your publisher pay for your tour? In my dreams! You have to be in a rarefied atmosphere for this to happen. You have to have name recognition. This explains why I generally stick to the Bay Area where I live; the LA area, where my son lives; and Texas, where I have a pack of relatives. Even then, I am a hotel rat. I like to stay in hotels. Every now and then I stay with friends or family, but being away so much for a couple of months, I can’t afford time away from my computer. In a hotel room I can spend time writing and not feel guilty being anti-social.
How do you decide whom you are going to read with?  Often it’s the bookseller who puts authors together. It’s a great way to meet other authors to cross-pollinate you readers. I’ve done events alone, but I really like sharing. I will be doing several events with Susan Shea, an author friend who has a book coming out in early February. In the past two weeks I’ve done four bookstore events with fellow authors of my Seventh Street Books publisher. I love their books and have had a great time being with them.
Next week I’ll be at BookPeople in Austin—my home away from home--appearing with two authors who write books completely different from mine. Josh Stallings has written a terrific caper set in 1970’s California called Young Americans. And Scott Frank’s Shaker is a hard-boiled novel set in LA, featuring a New York hit man who is a fish out of water in LA. I can’t wait to find out how mystery bookseller extraordinaire Scott Montgomery is going to interview three such different authors.
Do I get tired of touring? No. I’m a relaxed traveler. I don’t worry about lines or delayed flights or the people seated around me. I figure it’s a short time and then it’s over. I usually try to get some work done on the plane. If I can’t concentrate on writing, I’ll go through old emails and clean out my inbox. I don’t obsess about food. A hamburger is fine. I don’t get lonely. And I’m a good sleeper. Most importantly, I trust people. I know if things go really wrong, someone will help. Yes, there are times when suddenly I’m grumpy or disappointed or nervous. A bath, a glass of wine, and junk TV solves a lot of problems.
Book Recommendation: I had been saving Glen Erik Hamilton’s Past Crimes, and when I found out it was nominated for an Edgar for Best First Mystery, I thought it was time to dive in. It’s a good, solid thriller, with believable characters and action that is just the right amount of over-the-top. As a bonus, the writing is sharp and I found no typos, which is unusual these days.

Take a Deep Breath

Three times this week I’ve gotten the same advice from writer friends. I was complaining that the thriller I’m working on—and have been working on for 18 months—was taking forever. I had just been at a reading where someone asked me how long it took me to write a Samuel Craddock book. I breezily said it takes anywhere from two to four months.
            Hearing my complaint, my friends said that I had to realize that the Craddock novels were extremely rare. They reminded me that most people take a long time to write a book. I sulked. I want to be done with it! Tough, they said. Some books take longer than others. Take a deep breath and relax. 
            Since they are both fine writers who produce great books, I had to listen to them. Then the coup de grace happened .The next day one of my all-time favorite writers, Nancy Pickard, pasted this on Facebook: “Sometimes writing feels like waiting for a slowly dripping faucet to fill up a glass. The good part is that if I actually do wait, what comes out is clear and satisfying to me…If I try to force the tap, I get swamp water.” I commented that she was the third person to give me that message. And she said it was a powerful message from the universe. And she also said that waiting was hard for an author. She’s got that right!
            Partly because it took me so long to get published, I always feel like I’m playing catch-up. There are so many stories I want to write that I always feel like I’m behind. At least I’ve learned not to stop in the middle of something and start something new, unless the something new is under contract.
            I started book six of my Samuel Craddock series last week and the contrast couldn’t be greater. I’m pouring words onto the page. I’m already 12,000 words into it, and the only thing that stops me every day is physical exhaustion. I can’t type another sentence. If only I knew my thriller protagonist as well as I know Samuel. I continually ask myself why I don’t. The thriller is set in California, where I’ve lived a lot longer than I ever lived in Texas. Why should the man at the center of it be such a cipher?
            I worry that I’m a one note Jennie, that I don’t have the ability to imagine a fresh new character. But then I remember that in every Craddock book new characters show up all the time, and I never seem to have any problem seeing and understanding them.
            I think about advice I have given and received about how to develop characters and nothing feels workable. So I have decided to keep plugging away and try to trust the process. I keep thinking that somehow in this delicious story that I’ve come up with, I able to locate the essence of the character.

Book recommendation: Adrian McKinty is up for an Edgar. I discovered him this year and read the first three books in his series about the Irish “troubles,” set in the 1980’s, in rapid succession. If you haven’t read him, you’re missing a powerful writer.

Launch Day

There’s nothing like Launch Day to get the blood moving. A good thing because I’m in Los Angeles doing some readings at bookstores, and it’s freezing! (And who said, “I’m not taking a coat to LA—it’s never cold there!”?)


Yesterday was my fifth launch day and I still feel like a beginner. I wonder what it’s like to be somebody like Rhys Bowen who has written at least 100 books and who brought out three last year alone. Ho hum, another launch day.
Here are some things I wonder about old hands:
Do they ever really learn Mailchimp? Or, like me, do they face the Mailchimp template knowing they’ve done it before, but not remembering how? Or do they do what I keep promising myself to do and hire a tech-savvy assistant?
Do they have a promo routine down pat? Or, like me, do they frantically search for the “to do” list that they made the last time…and the time before that?
Do they ever refuse bookstore or library talks for any other reason than time conflict? Or do they say, “sure, I can do that,” knowing that it means racing to the airport at some ungodly hour and taking a flight that has a five-hour layover because that’s the only flight all day?
Do they eventually not care if they are on panels at conferences, or do they jealously guard every opportunity to show their faces?
Do people ever stop asking them how their “little writing hobby” is going?
Do they ever stop being terrified that the next book will prove that their good books were a fluke? And that their editor will tell them not to let the door hit them on the way out?
But for one week all that gets pushed away. Reviews have been good, lots of congratulations, and I’m actually 10,000 words into #6. Not bad.
On another note, I thought I would never put an animal in a prominent position in one of my books. But when I was writing The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake, a dog named Frazier bullied his way in. I hope my readers like the result.
Which brings me to the book recommendation of the week.
A little background: When I was a debut author, I was invited to the Tucson Festival of Books. It was my lot to be paired in my first signing with Spencer Quinn. He was really nice—or, rather, as nice as he could be while being swamped by readers wanting him to sign books. “He writes books about a dog!” I thought bitterly, as his happy readers eyed my non-existent line of fans.
Fast forward to a few months ago when someone gave me a copy of “Dog On It,” by Spencer Quinn. The friend said she loved it. I just got around to reading it and now I know why all those people stand in line for Mr. Quinn’s books. It’s a great read!

Part 2--Setbacks

Repairing the damage

Last week I talked about discovering that the book I had been working on for months was unacceptable, both to the friend I asked to read the first few chapters, and to me. This week I will talk about my approach to repairing the damage.
The first step to repairing a broken book is to acknowledge that it isn’t working. Whatever fantasy you had about how wonderful the idea was, it hasn’t translated to the page.
The second step? Decide whether you are going to fix it or junk it. I was tempted to do the latter. I had worked diligently for months. Did I really want to start at the beginning? I had 100,00 words. Were any of the sentences, scenes, and chapters worth saving? Were any of the characters interesting enough to work with? I decided that the answer to these questions was yes.  There were two characters that every time they showed up, I perked up. And there was something that still intrigued me about the plot. So the decision was that I thought there was enough to the story to tackle a major rewrite.



The third step was to analyze where I ran off the rails. In previous books when I realized that things weren’t going well, I could usually find a scene that wasn’t true to the story. But in this case it was something different—I started the story too late. Usually a story that doesn’t work has too much lead-in in the beginning. What I realized was that I in my zeal to avoid that error, I had robbed it of suspense. I thought about why some scenes came alive while others just lay there and I realized that I didn’t know enough about the villain.
Finally I started replotting. I thought carefully about not only what the antagonist was up to, but how he had approached his villainy. I realized the protagonist was reactive rather than proactive—and thought about how to change that. I constructed a new timeline a timeline. And rewrote it. And rewrote it again. And with all that, something started to emerge that excited me.
I copied the whole manuscript and then started stripping out whole chapters and rearranging others—bringing some from the end to the beginning. And something magical happened. The characters started to speak up and take their place as if now they had a place in the book. And by some miracle, I realized that there were whole chunks of the book that actually worked.
I’m now feeling something I haven’t felt for a while. I want the world to go away so that I can get the book rewritten. I feel rejuvenated and excited.
 I Like what is happening. In the end, I don’t mind so much if no one else likes the book—but I have to like it. I have to hand over a book that satisfies me. And I think I’m getting there.

Setbacks—Part I The Tail Wagging the Dog

I asked one of the members of my writing group to read the first 50 pages of my completed (or so I thought) manuscript. I knew he understood the way drama works--the repeated suspense/payoff kind of drama that makes for a thriller. I had been talking about the thriller I’m writing for months, and was beginning to think it was time to put up or shut up.
He agreed to read it, and our subsequent discussion was every writer’s nightmare. He’s a seasoned editor and knows all the right diplomatic phrases to make his verdict palatable. But I’m a seasoned member of critique groups who knows how to cut through to the reality. The verdict: what I had written was crap. Back to th drawing board. The word “authentic” was tossed around.



I have readers who will say, “What does he know? You can’t possibly write crap.” But there’s a reason I asked his opinion. I knew in my heart this book was failing. If it didn’t engage me, how could it engage readers? “Oh, you’re just tired of looking at it. It’s better than you think, “ say my loyal readers. I wish I could believe that, but there were too many scenes in the manuscript when I would think, “That makes no sense.” And then I would fluff it up to try to make it look like it made sense.
Thrillers are rarely “believable.” They put the reader in a parallel world where ordinary people experience extraordinary challenges and somehow rise to the occasion. But even if they are unbelievable they have to make internal sense. And this one did not. The premise is a good one, but I had not honored it.
So what to do? Scrap the whole thing? Bull my way through with more fluffing? Pretend my reader didn’t know what he was talking about? No, I was determined to find how and why I had run off the rails.
From the beginning I had decided to let this book be a “fly by the seat of my pants” book rather than plot it out. Which was okay, but it meant I had to have a good, solid platform from which to take off. And that’s where I went wrong.
I started from a scene taken from an article I read in the newspaper, and I began building the book around it. I liked the scene a lot. When I finished the first draft, I realized it didn’t hang together, so I built a little structure around the scene to prop it up and make it seem more integrated. I had struggled to fit my protagonist into that scene. He did not want to fit there, and therefore he became inaccessible to me. He became a stick figure that I was moving around to fit the increasingly disassociated plot.
I took a hard look and realized that the original scene was not only irrelevant, but it was toxic. It was a tail wagging the dog of the book.
Next week I’ll talk about my approach to repairing the damage.
Book recommendation this week: Flame Out, by M.P. the second in the June Lyons series set in Hopewell Falls, New York, the book is proof that Cooley’s debut wasn’t a fluke. Well-plotted with great characters, this is one of those series where I’m impatient for the next book to come out. If you haven’t read Cooley, you are in for a treat.
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An Assessment

An Assessment
Recently my good friend said, “I have to go to Paris in January. Why don’t you come with me?”
Paris. Any time of year beckons. She tried to persuade me: In winter the fares would be cheap. We have somewhere we could stay. It will be cold, but the crowds will be lighter. Yes, yes, yes….uh, no I can’t. I have a book coming out January 12, and for the following month or two I’ll be in a frenzy of promotion. I’ll be doing library and bookstore readings, and interviews, guest blogs and social media events. I’ll be hosting giveaways, publishing a newsletter, etc, etc. All designed to say in as nice a way as possible, “buy my book.”


The promotion will involve car travel and plane travel and hotel bills. Oh yes, and drinking too much wine and eating too much. In addition to the expense (no, small publishing houses do not pay for your travel expenses—they grudgingly have bookmarks made),  it takes time and energy—time and energy that could be spent writing. Or going to Paris.
Here’s the problem: I don’t have a clue whether it actually does any good. I know that at present the money I spend on promotion isn’t worth it in terms of book sales. It gets me out of the house, allows me to have some fun, and gives me a break from writing, but it doesn’t sell books on-the-spot. Does it sell in the long run by getting my name out there? No idea.
There are some indicators that make me suspect that it doesn’t do much good in terms of book sales. Despite never having gotten anything but great reviews from professional reviewers, and having received many, many complimentary emails about my book, my Amazon reviews stay stubbornly low. Meanwhile, I see the reviews pile up for authors who don’t do any travel and readings. Do they have batter and more friends than I do? Are they better at social media?
Possibly. But I suspect the real answer is that no one knows what promotion works and what doesn’t. I get bombarded with emails from people who tell me that they have the keys to success, that they can guarantee me a huge audience—for just a few thousand dollars.
This sounds like whining, but I’m just taking stock. I’m trying to do a risk/reward ratio to determine what makes sense. At my worst moments, when I contemplate another round of flinging myself into the fray, I despair of getting anything out of it but a few extra pounds. But then I remember that except for a very tiny percentage of writers, writing as a business makes no sense at all. It only makes sense as a passionate undertaking. And I am passionate. I write because I want people to read my books. And the only way I’ll get the books read is if people know about them. And the only way people will find out about them is if I promote them.
So, no Paris for me. Hmmm…Maybe in the spring, right after I turn in my next manuscript and before I hop back on the promo treadmill.