Crawl Inside an Author's Mind

Are you the sort of reader who "psyches out" the author as you read? (Sorry about the '60s verbiage, but GO HOME AND DIE is weighing on my mind!)



I find myself noting elements of character, plot, and theme and attributing them to the author and his/her mood. We know that Mark Twain's work became darker as he aged, due perhaps to the deaths of those he loved but also to day-by-day butting heads with ignorant people.



Characters often say something that rings with the author's sincerity, and while an author should not peer through the curtains of the play, it can happen. At the end of THE JUNGLE, Upton Sinclair's views on government practically bash the reader over the head, ruining (for me) the pathos of the story he has told. Other authors are more subtle, but a reader who's paying attention discerns little gleams of opinion, little gems of individual wisdom.



The book's ending is very telling in terms of author attitude. Someone once commented to me that my characters usually move toward a fulfilling relationship as the book progresses. I can't help it; I like happy (or semi-happy) endings. There will be loss, because life is loss, but there will be the comfort of love, too. In GO HOME AND DIE, the reader should feel satisfied that Carrie has grown as a person and be optimistic about her future. (And as today's author knows, the reader should also hope for a sequel.)

What Was It Like in the '60s?

My new release, GO HOME AND DIE, takes place in 1969, a time that seems to many people younger than I to have been tumultuous, shocking, and downright odd. My students used to ask if I burned my bra (with snickering) and if I went to Woodstock, apparently believing that anyone under the magic age of thirty was a rebel, an anti-war activist, and, if female, a women's libber.

For the people living through it, however, the 60s were was like all other times. People do what they do. Activists speak out, and other people listen, vote, and act as if the rest of it is none of their business. No one knows what changes will come in the long run and what will remain the same.

For people living day-to-day lives, there was the stuff on TV and then there was reality. I was in college, but I never saw any policemen beating students. There was an anti-war rally on campus once, but no one I knew even noticed it. We had tests to study for.

In my hometown there was angst over who would have to go to Vietnam, but there wasn't a lot of discussion of whether it was "right" or not. Men might not relish going to war, but they understand that if there is one, they can be called upon to fight in it.

In the book, Jack represents what I saw at the time: men who did as they were asked, trusting that someone wiser than they had made a right decision. Carrie represents the average citizen, who recognizes what the war cost the men who fought, no matter who was wrong and who was right.

Carrie and Jack have lives to lead and a murder to solve. Vietnam is a reality to them, but it is not
an "issue". Their main issues are staying alive and dealing with the feelings they have for each other, and that's why GO HOME AND DIE is a Vietnam-era book but not a book about the Vietnam era.
Buy GO HOME AND DIE at http://redrosepublishing.com/bookstore/index.php?manufacturers_id=299

GO HOME AND DIE

My "vintage" mystery concerns a prim young woman of the '60s, Carrie, who meets a recently-returned Vietnam vet, Jack. Their first meeting is a bit rocky, but they soon learn to appreciate each other's good points. Carrie admires Jack's courage in facing the problems life has thrown at him. Jack admires Carrie's ability to see the good in the world and help him see it as well.



I chose not to dwell on the politics of the Vietnam war. If you're looking for a commentary on why we were there or how people dealt with PTSD, this is not your book. It's simply a mystery that draws some of its plot from the fact that Jack was in Vietnam.



Of course, the pathway in a mystery is filled with bombs and booby traps. Jack has secrets

that Carrie has to deal with. Carrie has hang-ups that Jack can't understand. Their romance seems unlikely at first, then on, then off, permanently. Despite that, they come to trust each other and depend on each other's strengths.



I like characters with obstacles to overcome. While the mystery part of the story demands careful attention, and while the 1960's setting requires detail to recall and/or recreate for readers, it is the characters we care about. Will they survive? Will they grow? Will they find some sort of peace? And, of course, will they somehow, some way, end up together?



Buy GO HOME AND DIE here: http://redrosepublishing.com/bookstore/index.php?manufacturers_id=299

Where Does a Book Idea Come From?

Short answer: I don't know.



Longer answer: GO HOME AND DIE is, I will admit, "a little bit me, a little bit you". I lived in Flint, Michigan in 1969. I was out of the women's lib loop, skinny, and unsure of what I wanted to make of myself. I wore glasses that I hated. So Carrie started with some of my hang-ups. But she became her own person so quickly that soon I hardly recognized her.



Jack Porter, Vietnam vet, is an amalgam of several people I knew back then. A friend at college had stepped on a land mine and was struggling to rebuild his life with a ruined leg. My husband (then boyfriend) returned in January of 1969. He and other friends told me little anecdotes about daily life that made their way into the book. They would talk about the food, the weather, the card games; they didn't talk about the war.



Somehow, forty years later, my brain concocted a mystery in which a prim young woman meets an embittered but decent (and hunky) vet. She learns from him about the way the world operates. He gets from her a reconnection with the goodness in life.



Of course, I had to throw in some problems along the way: a few murders and a very beautiful woman whose hold on Jack threatens everything: their budding relationship, their business partnership, and even their lives.



Comment on this blog and you'll be entered in a drawing for a free copy of this e-book, GO HOME AND DIE.

GO HOME AND DIE

"Sounds kind of mean," someone said of my April 1, 2010, release title, but it fits. Jack Porter's friend and business partner is only home from Vietnam a short while before he's stabbed to death in an alley. Other vets suffer the same fate: they "go home" from the war "and die" soon afterward. Jack wants to know who killed his only friend, and why.

Enter Carrie Walsh, a prim young woman who knows that her life is in need of change. She hates her job, her mother suffocates her with criticism, and she feels she's missing the liberation that other women in the late 1960s have demanded. To the dismay of her mother and her former bosses, she decides to help Jack open the private detection firm he and his fellow vet had planned.

Carrie and Jack sense a chemistry between them, but events intervene. Jack has secrets that shock and hurt Carrie, and soon those same secrets put her in danger. She has taken a step toward a more exciting life, but that step could be one too far. Carrie, too, may go home and die.

Tomorrow, I'll explain the inspiration for GO HOME AND DIE. Leave a blog comment any day between now and April 1 and get a chance at a free copy of this e-book!

Explaining the Concept of Laundry to Geniuses

I suppose this is going to sound like an old-person rant, but it really isn't. I wonder why things that we use every day have become so complicated to operate. I don't mean difficult; I can do what needs to be done. I mean complicated, as in taking ten steps to do what once took two.



My new washing machine has an array of buttons worthy of a space capsule, so I can choose dozens of combinations for optimal results. Guess what. I want to put my clothes in the washer and have them come out clean. Nine times out of ten, I want the same water temperature, like the same spin speed, have the same clothing type. On my old machine, I set those things and left them, changing only when something special was being washed. With this machine, I have to set them every time, pushing little buttons multiple times to reach the same settings. Here's the sequence: Push ON button. Turn dial three clicks, so light indicates NORMAL wash load (nothing else works until I do that). Push WATER TEMP button four times to get the setting I use. Push RINSE SPEED button three times to get my usual choice. Push START button. That's 13 clicks and pushes to get going, where I once simply turned a dial and pushed a button.



My new microwave is much the same. Old one: two dials and a button. We left the POWER button the same for most things. To heat something, we turned the timer to our estimated cook time and pushed the START button. Voila. New one: Push POWER LEVEL button 3 or 4 times to lower the power to a level that doesn't result in charred ash. Push the little NUMBER pad to set the timer. Push START. Score: old appliance two; new appliance 7, minimum.



I fear that engineers (the geniuses in the title) are so enamored of what they can do, how cool the "dashboard" can look, that they forget that people just want the stupid thing to do what it does. I wrote to the washer manufacturer, suggesting a simpler operating procedure. I got back a form-type email that said they're sorry I'm unhappy but they have a multitude of models to choose from.

That missed my point: ALL the models have gone techno, except the stripped down, mini-models designed for dormitories, laundromats, and skin-flints. I asked for (and supposedly got) the simplest washer in the upper-mid-price range. Why not quality AND functionality?



And don't even get me started on cell phones.

What Are You Reading?

I'm usually reading three books at a time. It's just how I do it.

First is Terry Pratchett's EQUAL RITES,which is a delight. His casual allusions slay me.

Second is TO PERISH IN PENZANCE by Jeanne Dams, an old-fashioned husband and wife mystery that's fun and relaxing.

And I just finished Barbara Kingsolver's THE LACUNA. The woman is a witch, I swear, because her writing casts a spell on me. I tell myself it's not the type of thing I'm interested in (being used to a dead body every few chapters) but I keep reading, keep going back, because I HAVE to know what's going to happen to the protag. Toward the end I knew it couldn't be good, but I STILL had to know. And I have to admit, she pulled it off: if not a happy ending, at least a very satisfying one.

A Challenge for Your Brain

1. Start a song. Any song.

2. Sing it until you either finish or can't remember the next word.

3. Now find another song that starts with the last word you sang. (You can skip a, an, and the to start the next song)

4. Continue, to infinity and beyond.

Guest Blogger: Gerrie Finger, THE END GAME

Thanks, Peg, for inviting me to talk about my book, The End Game.

Whenever I meet a book lover, his or her first question is: what's your book about? The second question is: where did you come up with the idea?

The End Game is a mystery about two young Atlanta girls who are kidnapped for the overseas sex trade. Heroine Moriah Dru established Child Trace, Inc. after leaving the Atlanta Police Department. She'll find lost children for anyone, but most of her work originates with the juvenile court system. With the help of Detective Lieutenant Richard Lake, Dru sets out to find the Rose girls after their house burns down. and their foster parents are dead inside.

Robin Agnew, of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, reviewed my novel. I'll let her tell a little about the book. "Ferris’ ethos isn’t cozy, it’s fairly hard boiled, and so is the topic she’s chosen to write about: missing children. Her spare prose and unsentimental writing style get you through some of the hard stuff in the story. … Like a runaway freight train, this novel is all about narrative drive."

Robin says other good stuff about my novel – although there are certain aspects I didn't realize I'd accomplished. As I intended, Robin nails the style and purpose of the narrative. I believe the spare prose and unsentimental writing style come from my journalism background. I worked for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for nearly twenty years.

In those first years, I edited the columns of nationally-syndicated newspaper columnist Lewis Grizzard. As his popularity grew, he compiled his writings – which exemplified his beloved South – into books that landed on the New York Times Best Seller List year after year. Lewis became my mentor, and I learned to edit as sparsely as he did. One caveat though, writing novels isn't like writing for a newspaper. You've got to put a little more flesh on the skeleton.

That brings me to the second question asked about my book: where did you come up with the story idea? Lewis died in 1994, and I joined the National Desk, where I traveled and wrote for a section of the newspaper called, Around the South. My last assignment was on the City Desk, and then I retired.

A sensational case in Atlanta became the genesis of my novel. A child went missing. He was four or five years old, and they couldn't find him in the foster care system. He'd been passed from family to family and then lost. How can you lose a child in the system? As far as I know, he was never found.

About that time, the APD was busting massage parlors and finding ten-to-twelve-year-old foreign girls working in the back rooms, giving more than a traditional massage.

The lost child and the young girls imported by real slavers inspired The End Game. There is a third question I'm asked: what does the title mean? Overseas slave rings have names; one of the most infamous is called Snakehead. I named my fictional human traffickers after chess pieces. Dru and Lake will do anything to keep the Rose girls from becoming part of The End Game.

How Dare You?

Heard on the news about a guy who was texting, crossed the centerline, and hit a truck head-on. He's dead. Okay. He did a dumb thing and died for it.



But what about the poor truck driver? Imagine what he's going through today, what he will live with from now on. Somebody died because he was on that road, that day.



Sure, he'll tell himself, and others will reiterate, that there was nothing he could have done. Big trucks don't manuever nimbly out of the way, don't stop on a dime. But he will always have those images: the moment of knowing a crash is inevitable, the impact, the realization that the other driver is dead.



Next time you're thinking of doing something stupid while you're driving, remind yourself that you might die. And if you won't think of your own life, think about the people who might live on, knowing they were part of it, even if they were doing everything right.

Spring

Ain't it wonderful?

What I Love About Books

They end.



Where else in life do you get the satisfaction of completion that you get with a book? Housework is infinitely renewable. You can clean the sink today, but it will need it again tomorrow. Our jobs seldom allow everything to be sewn up tightly at the end of a day, a week, or even a year. And relationships are notoriously messy. They never all get combed neatly into place.



But a book! When you're done, you're done. Everything is known. The author has told all, and you have absorbed it, savored it, finished with it. In addition, everything is left in place. If for some reason you should return to reread that book later, it will not have changed one iota. No new smudges, no starting over to learn the ropes, no irrational switches in character since last time.



Each new book is an adventure in itself. Some allow us to have similar adventures if we enjoy the first one: same characters, different day. But when you close that book at "The End", it is something you've accomplished complete. Done. What a feeling!

What It Takes To Be an Author Once You Are an Author

Sorry. There isn't enough time in a day to tell you that. But what I find as I speak to wanna-be writers is a total misunderstanding of the "life" of an author. People can accept that they have to work hard initially to create that wonderful, sellable piece of writing. Some can even accept that it won't be perfect the first time they come to "The End", and they'll have to do some editing. But the Jessica Fletcher mystique lives on, the idea that once a book is accepted, the work is done and the author's only job is to attend parties and sip champagne.



Recently a listener stopped me mid-sentence to ask, "But aren't there people who put your books in stores for you?" The question revealed her belief that once a book "makes it", i.e. gets published, the author's work is done. The grinds at the publisher will make the calls, set up signings, track figures, and schlepp books. Reality dictates that the author will do a large share of that, at least if she wants to publish more books.



Another question I got that same night was when I mentioned the time I spend formatting a MS for the distinct and diverse demands of different publishers. Again the question: "Don't they have people who fix all that?" Answer: Yeah, they do. Me. Publishers can't afford to pay editors to "fix" things for an author that she can fix herself. They give you guidelines; you format.



What it boils down to is a misunderstanding of the (admittedly lower level) author's duties. I am the one who cares if my books succeed. I am the one my publishers expect to see that it does. Yes, they'll do what they can to help, but I am not their job. It really is up to me to "be" the author now that I are one.

Music Can Make You Crazy...and Bring You Back

Cool piece on "60 Minues" last night about a profoundly developmentally disabled pianist who can play any song he's heard, in any key, in any style. And he's very, very good.



I read somewhere that one of the oddities of women's brains is that we recall the words to songs much better than men can.



A song playing in your head can make you nuts. Someone advised me to "sing" it to the end, and my brain would know it was done and move on. Doesn't work for me; it just starts over.



I can't imagine my life without music. I actively participate in its creation, and I constantly have a song running through the back of my mind.



Oddly, I prefer not to "play" music. In the car or in my office, the musical devices are silent most of the time. I guess the CD player would interfere with the song my brain is already singing.

The Craziness of It All

What if aging happened overnight? If at, let's say twenty-two, you were told, "Okay, tomorrow you're going to wake up old. Your joints will hurt: not all at the same time, but on a rotating basis, some worse than others, some one day, some the next. You won't be able to hurry. You'll walk kind of stooped over, and your sense of balance will be off, so don't climb on anything or reach too far. Your body will sag and put on weight in the most inconvenient areas, so clothing yourself will become more a function of trying to find things that don't bind rather than things that flatter.



"Oh, and you'll lose color. Your hair and skin will sort of blend together. And don't be surprised if your face scares small children, or if you see your mother when you pass a mirror.



"Your organs will work sluggishly, but we'll find you some pills that might help. We should plan some surgery dates to fix what we can.



"What? You say you don't want to live that way?"



That's why it's done gradually. You notice, but you get used to it.

What's Your Name?

There are societies where a person chooses his/her own name at the age of maturity, and I vote for that. Parents just aren't the best people to be slapping a moniker on a person, and how do they know how you're going to turn out? Luckily I wasn't a large or one-legged child, but I still got "Piggy" and "Peg-leg" thrown at me by kids (and some weird adults) who thought it was funny. We've never figured out what my mother was thinking when she spelled my sister's name totally differently from the traditional way, but my sister has spent her life dealing with it. And don't get my husband started on being called "Johnny" until he was almost forty.



Every name has its possible pitfalls, so why not let a person choose his own poison? That would prevent being stuck with "Moon" or "Placenta" or "Corinthian" for life. At graduation ceremonies each student could, after serious and ponderous thought, proclaim his new appelation. Of course, a few would proclaim themselves "Bacardi Jones" or "Hottie Smith", but at least they'd have to accept that they did it to themselves. And whatever you chose, you'd have to recognize that your family would still call you what they call you, "Jughead" or "Junior"...or "Johnny".

It's the Plot--No, It's the Characters--No, It's...

I can never decide what I love about the books I love. Yes, I want to know what happened, and when it gets to a certain point, I have to read to the end to find out. But there's also, in the back of my mind, the fact that I know what will happen, sort of. The mystery will be solved, the characters, at least most of them, will go on. So is it the plot that's most important, or is it the characters?



Aside from noir, where I don't like anybody and therefore usually don't read, I look for characters that I like or at least sympathize with. The book I just finished, NO GOOD DEEDS by Laura Lippman, has a kid I wanted to slap for his attitude, his language, and his actions. But he's sympathetic. I knew kids like him when I taught school: self-destructive but not on purpose. Mixed up about what life is and what it could be. This kid drives the plot with his contrariness, and that's what makes a book worthwhile to me, characters who can't possibly act other than their personalities demand and the resulting events. Although things somehow end up at a logical place, not everyone will be perfect at the end. Not every wrinkle in life's fabric will be smoothed. But because the characters somehow focused their strengths and overcame their weaknesses, there is closure. That's what I want as a mystery reader.

Writer's Prescription: Butt in Chair

You have an idea. Maybe you have the first three chapters done. But somehow, the rest isn't coming. Is it writer's block? Is it bad plotting? Will it ever become a novel?



Experts everywhere have one answer: butt in chair. You have to write. You have to sit there. You have to keep at it. Will it be good? Maybe, maybe not. But you can't fix it if it isn't there.



Write a whole story. Once you're written "The End", then you can worry about whether it's good or not and begin the process of making it better. What keeps wanna-be writers from becoming writers is Not Writing. An idea in your head is safe and promising, but you'll never know if you've got what it takes until you write it down.



So put your butt in a chair and write. Now. Every day. Until it's done.

Songwriters or Stalkers: You Be the Judge

Ever notice how many songs have lyrics that, while ariose and catchy, sound kinda scary when you actually think about them?



The Beatles "Little Girl" is a prime example. "I'd rather see you dead, Little Girl/ Than see you with another man"...etc. How many times does a song say "I'll never let you go" or "You can't hide from me" or other words to that effect? Fun to sing, but in the real world, you'd be slapping a PPO on that guy in a heartbeat. Think of your favorite love song lyrics and see if they aren't a little over the line, a little obsessive, a little creepy.



Or maybe just being a mystery writer makes me think of things like that.

Attending Cons

Conferences, conventions, whatever. You need to go.

As a reader, you will be thrilled to meet your favorite writers, chat with them, get their autographs, and return home geeked to have rubbed elbows. I still can't help adding, "Oh, she's so nice when you meet her in person," to conversations that arise about authors.

As a writer, you network, you learn, and you pay your dues. I didn't feel like a "real" writer until I went to my first con and discovered that -- Well, you know: the whole putting your pants on one leg at a time thing. They write. I write. They publish. Maybe I could, too. And I did.

Add to that the atmosphere of a bunch of people who love the written word and could talk about it for days. The panels where writers spill their secrets, where agents reveal how they pick winners (just kidding - nobody really knows how to do that), and editors explained the complicated and perilous journey a manuscript makes.

Throw in some unusual stuff, like experts in crime-solving who tell you how it's really done. A few cocktails. Some eating fo fancy food. It all adds up to fun, so when the next con comes anywhere near you, you should go. Just leave lots of room in your suitcase for all the books you're going to buy.

Attitude

I'm in New Orleans, and I've seen the gamut of attitudes. The friendly trolley drivers who answer the same questions over and over with humor and patience. The bored, tattooed, pierced and ill-mannered clerk who lets the old man in line ahead of me know what a pain he is for not knowing what she knows in all her eighteen years of wisdom. The tourists who represent every attitude from "Oh my goodness" to "How cool" to "Get me out of here".

I saw a poster that said something like "The difference between a catastrophe and an adventure is all in your attitude." That's not quite true: New Orleans faced a real catastrophe that hasn't faded from memory. Everywhere you hear references to "before Katrina" or "when Katrina hit..." But as far as their attitude goes, I have to say, these people haven't lost their sense of adventure.

All You Book Hoarders Out There

I know who you are. Your TBR pile extends to TBR rooms. You know you've got a certain book, but it may take you a day or two to lay your hands on it. You periodically find that you already had a copy of a book you just bought, but you don't mind. It's always good to have a spare in case the gremlins steal one of them.

Some people love books that much. I love them, too, but in a much different way. As soon as I finish a book, I give it away. I love sharing reading with others, and I don't mind a bit if they pass it on to someone else when they're finished.

Despite my ravenous reading habits, therefore, my home is not filled with books. My head? Now, that's a different story!

Writing Real People

It's an ongoing controversy: Is it good/fair/popular/ to include real people in a novel? Those who know my work have no doubt of my opinion. Not only do I think it's good and fair, I love it.

As a fan of history, I have long believed that the novel is a great way to learn it. Not that the reader should accept everything in a novel as truth, but then, we can't accept everything in a nonfiction book as truth, either. It's a matter of the writer's motivation. The past is gone, and we cannot recapture it. What we do as novelists is attempt to recreate the feel of what it might have been like.

In order to make the past feel real, I like to include people who actually lived: Elizabeth Tudor, Macbeth, even Butch Cassidy. I read what is known about them, get a sense of the type of people they were, and then put them into a situation that, while not real, allows the reader to see them in action.

It's a popular trend in writing. I try to be fair. And I work really hard to make it good. If you ask for more than that as a reader, maybe you should stick with the encyclopedia.

Do We Need an E-book Review Site?

E-books are growing in popularity; we all know that. Romances have led the way (as usual), but mysteries are starting to pop up.



I'm finding there aren't many sites for readers of mystery e-books to find out what's out there. My publisher for GO HOME AND DIE, Red Rose Publishing, has just a few mystery listings, and very few reviewers seem to be offering opinions on e-books in this genre.



Wouldn't it be nice, as a reader, to have a list of recommended titles? And it WOULD be nice, as a writer, to have a place to send my work for review and maybe a little publicity.