Two Heads
A warm welcome to Clea Simon who is filling in for us today. Clea Simon is the author of three nonfiction books, Mad House: Growing Up in the Shadow of Mentally Ill Siblings (Penguin), Fatherless Women: How We Change After We Lose Our Dads (Wiley), The Feline Mystique: On the Mysterious Connection Between Women and Cats (St. Martin’s), and the Theda Krakow mysteries, Mew is for Murder, Cattery Row, Cries and Whiskers, and the upcoming Probable Claws (all Poisoned Pen Press). She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband Jon Garelick (who is also a writer) and their cat, Musetta.
Are two heads better than one? Some days, I think I’m finding out. After all, at least until my agent catches me or reality smacks me upside the head, I seem to be writing two books at once.
Well, no, not simultaneously. But just yesterday I revisited a novel I’d started and been head over heels in love with about six months ago. It was dark, it was serious. It jumped back and forth over 20 years in the gritty rock club scene of my current hometown of Boston. And I was a good 100 pages in when my publisher contacted me asking for revisions on my theoretically already-finished series mystery. So, yes, you guessed it. I put down Project A (for “atmospheric”?) and returned to the series mystery, the fourth in this run. It not only needed serious work, but it was already contracted, so it took priority. I’d thought I needed a break from those characters, but going back into it was a lot of fun and, I think, useful (“Probable Claws” now pubs. in April). But because you can’t just work work work on one project, somewhere in there, I also wrote a short story on a very different theme. Maybe it was because I’d been reading a lot of the new women noir writers (Megan Abbott, Linda L. Richards, etc.). Maybe it was because so many people ask me why the cats in my series mystery don’t talk, but I’d had the thought: What if I had a grumpy pet psychic? A kind of hardboiled pet detective? Project B (for “batty”?) was born.
Which has brought me to my current dilemma. Which project to work on? On one hand, my books have always been light. Traditional, rather than overly cozy, but still - the blood is dry before it hits the page. So Project B, for all its attitude, has been a lot easier to get into. But after seven books, I also want to invest in my long-term career. These days, darker sells better. And simply in terms of my writing chops, shouldn’t I be tackling the more difficult challenge first?
Yeah, you guessed it. Some days, I crank away at the heavier Project A and think I’m in love. I’ll pause for breath when I have a complete draft. Maybe go back to the other book while I’m waiting to revise. On other days, the fun and sparkle of Project B seduces me, and I think, “if it feels this good, it must be right.”
For the record, in my private life I am – and have pretty much always been – serial monogamous. One man, one cat. One book project at a time. This is all new for me. Is this my midlife crisis? Will either of these books get finished? Or will a third idea come along and sweep me off my feet, before either even gets to my agent’s desk?
It’s a complicated approach and I keep waiting for some subconscious editor to weigh in – and rule one project out. Until then, I’m working on both book projects and trying to give them both the attention and care they deserve.
Which is why, when Jeff put out a call for guest bloggers, I emailed that I’d love to chime in. What else do I have going on?
Baker Street Irregulars
Next Friday, I get to live a dream. I’ll be talking to our local scion of the Baker Street Irregulars about Anthony Boucher and his connections to BSI. Of course, Boucher was involved. He was linked to virtually everything mystery. He founded a scion in San Fran. He wrote for the Sherlock Holmes radio show, and he wrote a mystery called The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars. The case involved the movie version of a Holmes story (much like Guy Ritchie’s proposed Holmes abomination) where BSI members came to Hollywood to make it more palatable.
Because of this, I’ll have the chance to speak to them about Boucher’s experiences with BSI, and be with like minded mystery fans. To a guy who owns not 1, but 2, sets of Annotated Sherlock Holmes and all the Jeremy Brett DVDs, it’s a dream. And don’t get me started on seeing Brett in London on stage as Holmes. Is it any wonder that I’m thrilled? I introduced 81 students to the work of Holmes last week, when we all watched The Speckled Band and talked about mysteries and math.
It’s always a pleasant surprise to me to find that mystery writers are huge fans as well. Fred Dannay (of Ellery Queen fame) grew up reading Holmes as did Boucher and many other authors. Tell me who you read as a child……
The things we get to do…
One of the best things about being a writer is the research. Now, I’m not talking library research, although that can be interesting. I’m talking the gritty down-to-earth research in which we get to talk to people about their jobs, their hobbies, and their life experiences. This kind of research is the spark that makes a book come alive, with details and anecdotes I would have no idea to include if I hadn’t talked to the expert.
Many people have (voluntarily) had their lives and stories used in my books. For Stella it was the farmers, the bikers, the cops, and the Mennonites. For Lost Sons it was naval officers, and Mennonite Central Committee workers, and cops. Now, for Embrace the Grim Reaper, the first in a new series beginning next year, it is something completely different, and oh, so cool.
Martial arts.
You know how sometimes things just seem to happen because, well, they seem meant to? Well, perhaps some of you remember my friend Jenny whom I’ve written about before. She’s the one with the pool and the one who knows how to get the best deals around when it comes to couponing. (In fact, if you live in NW Ohio, you should check out her NW Ohio coupon web site to save money!) Hold your breath, because she is about to get even cooler — she is a black belt in hapkido.
Now, I didn’t know this when I first got to know her. All I knew was that she was the mom of one of my daughter’s best friends. But I began talking with her about writing (she also is a writer — can this woman get any more awesome?), and told her the protagonist in my new book needed to know martial arts. You could’ve knocked me over with a pencil (or a roundhouse punch) when she told me what she can do.
Last week she took me up to observe her hapkido class and meet her instructor, fifth-degree black belt hapkido master, Doug Custer. Can we say awesome? Not only did I get to watch the class, but Mr. Custer told one of his black belts to take the class while he sat in a corner with me and told me all the juicy details. After a while he sent them off into pairs and pulled one of the students over to my corner, where he proceeded to jab and throw this poor guy in answer to my questions. (Thank you, sir, may I have another?)
Once he was done with him, he offered to teach me a move I’d admired. So here’s me, complete novice, learning to throw this man whose been in this art for years. I had him down on the ground (with his instruction and prodding, of course) and he told me I could’ve easily broken his arm, had I continued in the direction I was going.
Wow.
The next day Jenny helped me choreograph a fight scene for my book. There we were in her living room, figuring out just how my character was going to defend herself and deal with some pretty nasty people. Can we say exact opposite of Judy the pacifist?
Mr. Custer has taken a look at what I’ve done, and has offered to help any time I need help with a book. I have a feeling I’ll be calling on him often!
So you know how people are always saying write what you know? Well, there’s something to be said for that, but for the most part I write about what I want to know.
It’s much, much more fun.
Touring the Town, Trolley Style!
Another successful trolley tour is in the books! This one was sponsored by the fine folks at the Westlake Porter Library in Westlake, Ohio.
If you haven’t heard me go on and on about the tours before, they’re based on my Pepper Martin mystery series. Pepper’s a Clevelander, born and bred, and that’s where the first three books of the series are set. Our trolley of 38 riders joined me to check out some of the places Pepper visits in the books.
We started at Lake View Cemetery (it’s called Garden View in the books), final resting place of such luminaries as President James A. Garfield, John D. Rockefeller and Eliot Ness. The trolley riders were especially impressed with the Wade Chapel (designed and built by Louis Comfort Tiffany and featuring a window that knocks visitors’ socks off). We also paid tribute to Garfield, who was assassinated just three months into his presidency.
After that, a stop in Cleveland’s Little Italy neighborhood where riders got to take time for lunch and sample the wonderful cuisine. More than a few of them returned to the trolley with shopping bags in hand. There are some wonderful galleries in the area, too.
We drove by a number of other places mentioned in the books, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the Great Lake Science Center and the Hope Memorial Bridge where in book #2 (“The Chick and the Dead”) Pepper almost meets an untimely end. Our last stop was the West Side Market where riders got to take time, stroll and buy fresh produce, meats, cheeses and vegetables.
It was a great afternoon, and it’s always fun to spend time with readers.
(If you live in the northeast Ohio area and would like to schedule a trolley tour, email me:
casey@caseydaniels.com.)
Riders get on Lolly the Trolley at the Garfield Memorial.
Just one of the many interesting and architecturally incredible mausoleums at Lake View. Is it any wonder that Pepper can find so much to do at a cemetery that’s very much like this?
There is a memorial market to Eliot Ness (of Untouchables fame) nearby. His ashes were spread on this pond a few years ago by a Cleveland Police helicopter.
Indie Next Pick
There’s this list that goes out to all the independent book stores…and there’s a boat-load of them! It used to be called Book Sense, but now its new name is Indie Next Pick. And in October, people like Ian Rankin, Dennis Lehane ( Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone) and Kent Krueger are listed. The small collection of books are recommended as ‘must carry’ books for the month. If you carry these books, you’ll be all set the fall and winter.
Stuff Dreams Are Made Of made the list. Pretty cool, eh?
And, SDAMO made the Poisoned Pen catalog of books for October. ( PP is Judy’s publisher.)
I tell you gentle readers this, not to softly boast….no. To loudly boast. I mean, if I can’t get excited on my own blog day…you know?
Six, seven, eight months we write and have no idea if anyone is ever going to read the finished piece. We wonder if we’re ever going to finish the piece. We wonder if anyone will like it, dislike it, or even care. We wonder if we’ll care. It’s terrible. It doesn’t make any sense and then we have to go back and fix it and re-fix it again and again…and then the publisher says “STOP”. If you don’t turn it in we’ll take your advance away.
So we turn in the finished manuscript. And another year goes by. Yes…a year. And your publisher likes it, and a couple of proof readers, and your agent…but you still don’t know. And finally the book is released.
And you make the Indie Next Pick List. Is it the NY Times? No. Is it USA Today? No. But it’s the Indie Next Pick list, and that helps sell a lot of books. So I’ll take it. I’ll take it. I’ll take it!
Doggies on Drugs
My, this sounds like one of those 1950s teens gone bad novels, but unfortunately it’s not. It appears that I’m not the only one in my house with uncontrolled allergies. Nope, Scooter has them too.
Poor dog, we’ve been going through a dry patch here. Now there’s nothing to make a nose twitch (unless you’re on Bewitched!) like a month of tree pollen falling and no rain to wash it away. My car has a thin dusting of yellow pollen on it at all times. I’ve been sneezing and wheezing something terrible. I’ve upped my medication and my shots. I think next will be daily shots, and not the good kind.
But now Scooter has it too. His comes in the way of feeling itchy. He’s been scratching a lot lately, and he licks his paws constantly. So off to the vet we go. I get told to give him Benadryl, which helped, but not much. So we got dog steroids to give him. So he’s started those, and we’re keeping an eye on him.
Fortunately, rain is in the forecast, so perhaps the end is in sight (or it would be except for red, itching eyes!)
Of course, this gives me time to read Edgar books: 265 books read! Currently reading, The Broken Window, by Jeffrey Deaver.
Mixing it up
I’ve spent the last couple of television seasons watching House, M.D. I’m sure a lot of you have, too. I’ve watched the first two shows this season, and I have to say, I don’t really mind if I miss the next few.
Hugh Laurie is, of course, fantastic, and I still laugh out loud a few times each episode, but the show has become a formula:
A) Sick person/people with undiagnosed illness are admitted to the hospital.
B) House and his interns misdiagnose the illness several times, each time giving the patient a treatment they don’t need or which won’t work
C) Eventually, they discover the real medical culprit and most of the time the patient lives.
End of story.
They’ve tried to mix it up with deaths of friends, House’s drug addiction, and new interns, but it really all comes down to the same plot. And I have to say, I’m getting a bit bored with it all.
Don and I were talking the other day about how this happens with books. Some series begin to seem all the same as the books drag on (and on), or sometimes an author will write a few different series, but they’re basically the same story and characters with a different wrapping.
The final Stella Crown book, Different Paths, just came out this month. One of the reasons I’m stopping the series at five is that I don’t want the books to become all the same — I mean, how many times can a dairy farmer get into trouble that involves dead people and it still can be even slightly believable? No too many, I don’t think.
I’m now working on a new series, which will begin in 2009. I find myself double-checking a lot — is this or that something my new protagonist would say or do, or is this a remnant of Stella? This new woman is very clear in my mind, and is very different from Stella. She exercises on purpose, doesn’t swear, and hasn’t stepped foot in her own home for months, nor has she hung out with friends. But it’s the attitude I need to be aware of, her inner life, and make sure Stella’s not seeping into this new person.
Writing a new series is a lot of fun. I enjoyed Stella, but it was time for her — and for me — to move on. Now I get to write about a new setting, a new set of issues, and experiment with a bit of a different style. It feels good.
But I guess I’ll have to let the readers be the judge next year!
Love ‘em or Hate ‘em: the Deadline Blues
“A perfect method for adding drama to life is to wait until
the deadline looms large.”
Alyce P. Cornyn Selby
OK, I’ll admit it right up front: I have no idea who Alyce P. Cornyn Selby is (or was). But I do know she knows (or knew) what she was talking about. I have an October 15 deadline looming large and like with every deadline, the drama is mounting.
The house really needs a good cleaning.
There’s tons of laundry that needs to be washed.
Friends are suddenly asking about lunch/dinner/drinks. When can we schedule?
I’ve got a pile of German contracts to sign, and a trolley tour coming up this weekend, and an idea for a new series that would be brilliant if I just had time to sit down and think it through.
So how am I handling all this? Well, the first thing I decided to do is sit down and take a deep breath. And then I thought it would be interesting to see what the famous and not-so famous have to say about deadlines.
Just like Alyce, I don’t know who some of these people are, but here’s what they had to say:
“Deadlines are meant to be broken.”
Sarah McLachlan
“I am one of those people who thrive on deadlines, nothing brings on inspiration more readily than desperation.”
Harry Schearer
“This is the earliest I’ve ever been late.”
Yogi Berra
“A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it’s better than no inspiration at all.”
Rita Mae Brown
“The ultimate inspiration is the deadline.”
Nolan Bushnell
“Success is 10% inspiration, 90% last-minute changes.”
From a billboard ad
And my very favorite . . .
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
Douglas Adams
Sounds like the next couple weeks will be dramatic and full of inspiration. I guess a writer can’t ask for more!
If it’s in the National Enquirer, it must be true!
So I was on my way home from Judy’s book launch Sunday, and talking to my attorney/good friend/book collector/avid reader, Don Witter, and for some reason he starts on a story about Bob Feller. Now Cleveland people know Bob Feller. I know C.R. was well aware of him and I’m certain Casey and Zorro have a spot in their heart for the man. Apparently Bob, former…( long time ago former) star pitcher for the Indians, is still alive and kicking in Cleveland at the age of 86.
It reminded me of my stint with the National Enquirer. In one twelve month period back in the late seventies, I covered five different stories for the tabloid. I’ll get into them at some later date, but the Bob Feller story made me a believer in the NE. They called me and said that Feller had stolen an airplane. Pretty big claim. You can see that headline on their front page, right?
CLEVELAND INDIANS SUPER STAR STEALS AIRPLANE
Could sell some papers. They asked me if I would drive to Cleveland and do some research. No Google back then. No computers at all. So I jumped in the car and drove to Cleveland. I went to the Plain Dealer ( newspaper) and they allowed me to do a complete search on all of their stories regarding the ace pitcher. (Morgue Mamma) Feller had a checkered past, dealing with all sorts of problems. Then I did a library search. Then a search at yet another paper. When I had all the facts, I called the Enquirer. ( Fax machines were not up to speed yet, so I overnighted the information). The NE called me the next day and said they needed two more sources. TWO MORE?
My editor said “We can’t afford to make mistakes!”
So, I found two people I could interview. Bottom line was, I can not remember the outcome. It seems to me that there was a question whether Feller had partial ownership in the plane…but I can remember visiting five, count ‘em five different sources to back up the story.
The National Enquirer doesn’t run a story unless they are 99% sure they’ve got the facts. The John Edwards story is a good example. So many people thought they’d gotten that one wrong, but they’d done the homework. While I don’t defend tabloid journalism and I understand that headlines can be somewhat misleading, the meat of the story is almost always factual. And the facts are checked again and again and again. And again and again.
And as a finale Bob Feller story…in 1948 The Indians played the Yankees in New York. The stadium was 25 years old, and they honored Babe Ruth who was dying of throat cancer. Ruth was to walk out to the field and whisper a few words, and he was unsteady as he came out of the dugout. He grabbed Bob Feller’s bat and used it as a cane to get to the pitcher’s mound. And now the last game has been played in the House That Ruth Built. Everything must come to an end.
Missing C.R.
Well, as I sat down to write my blog for the week, I realized that C.R. won’t be here this week to respond. For the past many years, C.R. always had a humorous comment on whatever I wrote about. I could always count on his comments to be fast and witty. I’ll miss him terribly. I had recently finished his latest book, and I had meant to email him to say how much I enjoyed it, but I’m sad to say that I put that off, and now I can’t.
This week has been a horrible week for Cincinnati. We lost power on Sunday afternoon due to a windstorm, the remnants of Hurricane Ike. Now of all the things I can think of, a hurricane in Ohio is about at the bottom of possibles. The storm brought 50+ mph winds and days of life without power. We lost our power (and part of our garage roof) around 2pm on Sunday. We sat outside until it got dark and then went inside and played cards by candlelight. For the record, I stink at Gin Rummy.
By Monday, we knew things were bad. No school, no work. No lights. I fortunately have 50-some books to read for the Edgar awards at the moment, so I could keep busy. I read almost all day and took care of 30-some books. (Of course, I got another 30 when UPS started running again.) By night we decided to cook out. We had chicken and potatos, in what we called an indoor camping experience.
At 4am Tuesday, the lights returned. Of course, we hadn’t bothered to turn them all out when the electricity went off, so we were immediately aware of the change. We got up and turned on all the lights in the house, just to enjoy. I have to say that running the dishwasher has never been so fun.
For the record, I’ve now read 255 books for the Edgars this year. I have another 50 to be read at this point. Phew…
