Rhys on Writing when Life is Difficult

 RHYS BOWEN:  The last weeks have been a time of extreme ups and downs for me. Not condusive to the serenity of a writer's life. On Valentine's Day my eldest grandson got married. It was a big event with loads of people coming into Phoenix. We had a rehearsal dinner the evening before, then ceremony and fabulous reception, then brunch and barbecue the next day. Everyone happy, everything going without a hitch. Just perfect, in fact, except that my husband John was not well enough to join in most of it.

Then a few days later John had a spectacular fall. He hit his head on the stone floor. The amount of blood looked like a crime scene. We spent six hours in emergency and now have so many follow up doctor visits that its hard to keep track of them all. It's hard to accept that he is gradually failing... he is 92 after all.  He's sleeping a lot and in constant back pain.

All of this makes writing hard. Not just because I'm now housekeeper and care giver but because it's hard to keep worry at bay. I know that Hallie, Julia and Hank have all been through this with their husbands. I am trying to be positive and caring and frankly it's exhausting!

I have a March 1 deadline on my next Royal Spyness book, called TO CROWN IT ALL and luckily I had finished apart from one final read through. I was about to send it off when I realized I hadn't mentioned the dogs throughout the book. Georgie and Darcy have two labs... naughty teenager labs. But I had failed to include them anywhere in the story. Dog loving readers would notice! And I'm sure that Georgie wouldn't be able to ignore them for a couple of weeks. So now I have to go back and see where they can make an appearance without slowing down the story.

This is one of my most plot-driven books so the writing is tight. It takes place around the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937. Various people come to stay with Georgie at her lovely house. Georgie finds herself part of the coronation itself and Darcy is more than occupied trying to prevent hostile elements from spoiling the big day. Then there is Mummy who needs help. Lots going on and quite a lot of danger. 

I don't want to give away the most dramatic elements in the plot so I'll include a snippet that isn't too much of a spoiler:

My mother was standing in the middle of the foyer, looking around her with obvious satisfaction, while behind her stood a tall young man, his arms full of bags and cases. As I arrived Phipps staggered in with a large trunk.

                “Mummy!” I called.

                She opened her arms and rushed toward me. “My darling child. How wonderful to hold you in my arms again. You don’t know how much I’ve longed for this moment. Dreamed of it.”

                I found myself wondering if in fact my mother had changed her personality and had turned into a warm, effusive and motherly person.

                “it’s so lovely to see you too,” I said.

                “I’m so glad they let me come ahead of the rest of the delegation,” she said in a breathy voice.  “I pleaded that I had to see you and of course they agreed. And they very kindly sent Herr Grossauer to take care of me and make sure I got here safely.”

                My gaze turned to the man standing there. His expression was so cold, so arrogant, that it was quite clear he wasn’t any kind of servant or assistant.  He had been sent to keep an eye on my mother. She had a minder with her from the German government again, most probably from the secret police.

                “Oh, how nice,” I said. I went over to him and extended my hand. “Welcome, Herr Grossauer. I am Lady Georgiana.”

He put down the various encumberments, clicked his heels and gave a curt little bow. “How do you do,” he said in clipped English.

“It was very kind of you to accompany my mother,’ I went on, hearing myself sounding a little too enthusiastic. “I’m so glad you speak English?  My German is not too good.  If you’d like to say for a meal before you get back to London, you’d be most welcome.”

“Nein. I do not go back to London,” he said. “I am commanded to stay wiz your muzzer. This lady is a special friend of our Fuhrer and a very important person. She deserves to be escorted. I am sure when she was a duchess in your country she went everywhere with servants, nicht?”

I gave a merry little laugh. “But we have servants here and she will be well looked after until we bring her back to London. We don’t need to trouble you. I’m sure you’d be more comfortable at your embassy.’

“I stay wiz her,” he said firmly. “I am commanded to do zis and I obey.”

“Of course. Very commendable,” I replied. “I’m afraid we have rather a large number of visitors ready for the coronation so I don’t quite know where we are going to put you, but I’m sure there’s an extra bedroom in Sir Hubert’s own wing. I have the servants make up a bed for you.”   

He didn’t look exactly thrilled. He clicked his heels again. “I would prefer that my room is close to that of the duchess,” he said. ‘In case she needs me during the night. I am assigned to keep her from harm.”

I frowned at him. “In England we have a wing in the house for unmarried gentlemen, as is only right and proper. I can assure you that no harm will come to my mother in my own house in the middle of the English countryside.”

I turned back to Mummy, taking her hand. “I’ve got your favorite room ready for you. Would you like to come up to see it or would you prefer to come and say hello to everybody?”

“Oh, perhaps see my room first,” she said. “One does need to powder one’s nose after a long and tiresome journey.”

“You go on up,” I said. “You know which room you like.”

As she started up the stairs Herr Grossauer went to follow her. I stopped him. “Please wait here. I’ll ring for my housekeeper.” 

He stood there glaring at me, or to be honest I couldn’t tell if he was glaring because his haughty expression didn’t change. Mrs. Holbrook came hurrying up. “Your ladyship?” she asked, eyeing the strange man in the foyer.

“My mother has arrived, Mrs. Holbrook. Please make sure she is well looked after.” “With pleasure, my lady.” Mrs. Holbrook beamed at my mother and dropped her alittle curtsey.

“And this gentleman has accompanied her from Germany. Can you find a spare

room for him?”

“On the servant’s floor, my lady?” she asked, eyeing him nervously.

“Oh no. Herr Grossauer represents the German government. We should treat him according to his rank. I think the only suitable bedrooms still available are in Sir Hubert’s wing, with the other bachelor?”

“Of course, my lady. I’ll have a room prepared.” Her expression didn’t waver but I could tell she got my meaning. Keep him as far away as possible.

“I’m sure Herr Grossauer would also like to freshen up after his journey. Please take him up and show him a bathroom he can use.”

“Follow me, mein herr,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously.

He glanced back at me. I couldn’t tell if the glance was angry or not, but he went after her.  I ran straight up after Mummy and found her sitting on the bed in her room. “Oh darling.” She held out her arms to me and I hugged her, something we had not done very often in our lives.  “Has he gone?” she whispered.

What We're Writing? Hank is Juggling and Revealing

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:   What am I doing? Juggling. Juggling juggling juggling. First, as I write this on Sunday afternoon, I have just scoured the house for batteries, plugged in every computer and phone in the house to charge, and made sure we have a selection of fully charged flashlights. They are predicting a blizzard, yes, a blizzard, and I am always terrified that the power will go out. Which, they are predicting, it will. I only like suspense in my novels, please, not in life.

In other news, Hooray! Look look look, the gorgeous and fabulous cover of MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER  was revealed in People magazine! I still can't get over it, and I have to admit that I look at the article again and again.

Isn't this great? You can read the whole thing here, but here's the header:

 

They asked me where the idea for the book came from, and I told them it was from my childhood. When my mom used to read me stories, and finally say "the end." And I would never accept that. "What happened after that?" I would prod her to tell me. "They lived happily ever after," mom would say. And I would say Ever ever after? But what happened after that?"

I am also fascinated by the stories families tell about their histories and past. And the pictures we see in albums. Those snapshots have stories behind them too, and how will we ever know what really happened? What those people's lives were really like? Even if they themselves told us, who knows they were protecting or concocting. Anyway, that's MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER.

Here's another picture of the cover.

 

Isn't it fascinating? I love how the Back Bay brownstone is provocatively blue. And the positioning of it is strange, you have to keep looking at it to figure it out. (Very sticky!) I love the figure in the window. I love the unexpected pink and yellow against that stark black. And I love the slashes through the words. Is that a list that someone is crossing off? Is that a description that someone is giving of themselves?  And of course I adore that cover quote from the brilliant Lisa Scottoline. 

And every one of us who is a woman is or has been every single one of those nouns. Mother daughter sister stranger.

Here’s the back cover copy:  

What if your own family history turns out to be a terrifying lie?

Every family has its story, and this one’s deadly. Two sisters. One secret. And a race against time to find the explosive truth in this twisty and captivating thriller by “master of domestic suspense” and instant USA Today bestselling author Hank Phillippi Ryan.

The sole survivors of the fiery plane crash that killed their parents, Eliza Ramsey and her sister Bea share an unbreakable bond. But now, on the eleventh anniversary of the tragedy, Bea fails to retrieve her pre-teen daughter from a sleepover at Eliza’s.

Eliza knows her sister would never leave her precious Piper behind, and fears the worst. But did Bea plan her own disappearance?

The Ramsey’s lives have already crashed and burned once. Now, Eliza discovers she's the only one who can protect her niece from the horrifying legacy of her family’s sinister history. Together, the two must prevent their lives from going up in in flames once again.

A missing mother. Her frightened daughter. And a sister on a desperate search for a happy ending. But someone knows the deadly key to their shared past, and won’t stop until they’ve written a devastating final chapter.  Mother, daughter, sister—stranger. 

 

Also! I am so thrilled that  ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS is a nominee for the Mary Higgins Clark award! I am completely floating about that. I adored Mary Higgins Clark, she was such a role model, and she was the one who taught me to make sure that every one of my signatures in books is readable.

She once said: "A person spent time and money to buy your book, and to come see you. The least you can do is give them a legible signature." So Mary, I try my best. The other nominees in the category are spectacularly talented, but I am floating my way to New York to the award ceremony at the Edgar banquet.

And finally, in this crazy week, what I am doing is waiting. 

I sent three book proposals to my agent, and we will see what happens next. 

You know that Tom Petty/Linda Ronstadt song The Waiting? I am singing that now, top of my lungs: “the waiting is the hardest part.”

So on this pivotal morning, Reds and readers, answer any question you want:  What do you think of the cover? The title?  Do you ever read People magazine?  What do you think of the back cover copy, does it sound intriguing? Or how is the weather in your neck of the woods?

And PS: Happy Pub Day, dear Jenn!

Hallie, and what she's re-writing

 HALLIE EPHRON: Last week, it was my great pleasure to teach a three-day class on "Writing from Experience" for the Studios of Key West.

As always, I'm intrigued by the many reasons we humans seem to need to revisit our pasts.

Preparing to teach the class took me down the worm hole of my earliest writing. Not the fiction I write now, though surely my memories infuse my fiction. Or the how-to essays that channel me as a teacher. 

But this early essay, written back when I was starting to write thirty years ago, is a painful examination of growing up in a family of writers and the ugly truth about my mother.

At that turning point in my life, my mother was very much on my mind. Because she was a writer. And I was only starting to recover from the belief that I was nothing like her, therefore I COULD NOT be a writer.

Preparing for my Key West class got me diving back into that early piece of writing. Looking at it now, it has me thinking about WHY do people like me write essays like this. Is it for others to read and understand? Or for me to examine what I think? Or is it to excise trauma by putting it on the page and examining it in the cold light of day and with the benefit of hindsight.

Eventually (decades later) I revised this essay and parts of it ended up in an essay I sold O Magazine. But I rather fancy an earlier version that this excerpt is from. 

Here's how it starts...

MIRROR, MIRROR

Since I was a teenager, I have carefully contrived my life so that nothing reminds me of my mother. I have no pictures of her on my piano alongside my children. No letters. The few good pieces of jewelry of hers that I have are stashed in a safe deposit box. I erased her from my mind, from my space, and from my identify. She was a writer by profession. I was not. She lived in Beverly Hills. I lived in a New England suburb.

She had live-in help. I helped myself. She was an alcoholic.

I thought, if I can just outlive her, then I can stop worrying about becoming her. But now, as I approach the age at which she died, having for decades denied that even the smallest part of me resembles her, I find myself recognizing her in my body parts. Her stubby feet, red from the hot baths that I, too, love to take; her flat chest and thickening middle; her slim ankles and well turned calves. And her hands -- short, efficient fingers, the nails cut short for typing. To her, long painted nails were the stigmata women who didn't work. When I'd ask her what the wife of one of their friends did, she'd snort and quip, "Her nails."

When I think of my mother, it's not the carefully coiffed and suited screenwriter who, with my father, scripted dozens movies. It's certainly not the tall, slim, stylish young woman who was living the Bohemian lifestyle in the 1930's when my father met her and immediately proposed -- she told him she'd have to read one of his plays before she'd give him her answer.

The person I see is the much diminished matriarch who presided over Thanksgiving dinner in 1970, the year before she died.

That afternoon, my husband and I took the subway and then the cross-town bus to get to the modern East Side apartment building where they'd moved since quitting Los Angeles three years earlier. Even though it was Thanksgiving and we’d been invited, I was apprehensive walking the sixth floor hallway, never sure what we'd find. The door was ajar and the smell of roast turkey wafted from the opening. A good sign.

I knocked. I could hear the sound of a TV from somewhere inside. I knocked again, a little louder. My father’s once brisk, now shuffling footsteps approached. He opened the door, grinning his snaggle-toothed, slightly lopsided grin.

“You’re here!” he said, hugging us both. His jet-black hair was greased into place and he wore a jaunty red cravat at the neck. I caught a flash of matching red socks as he hitched up his trousers and tucked in an escaping shirttail.

“Phoebe, they’re here,” he bellowed.

“How is she,” I whispered.

“Fine, fine. Come in,” he said.

We stepped into the brightly-lit foyer that led to the living room.

“Mom,” I said tentatively. She cleared her throat and coughed.

She was lying on the sofa, almost lost in a billowing gold caftan. One arm, a twig, extended from the wide sleeve. A cigarette trembled from yellow-stained fingertips. Her head wobbled slightly on her long, slim and still proud neck. Gold clip earrings, flowers with a diamond at the center, anchored her jaw in place.

Her hair was cut short and, now thinning, stood out like the puff of a ripe dandelion. She took her free hand and pushed the hair straight up and back from her ear.

Her cheeks, flushed with broken blood vessels, gave the cruel illusion of robust health. Her eyes, once gray and sharp, seemed filled with warm brackish seawater. I leaned over to kiss her and inhaled Palmolive soap, Elizabeth Arden skin cream and Kent cigarettes. And beneath that, scotch whisky.

My mother was disappearing and she knew it. All but her belly which was an enormous hard mound beneath the golden caftan. It was growing while the rest of her was shriveling away to nothing. Water was building up in her abdomen, the doctors told us -- one of the symptoms of liver disease brought on by years of alcohol abuse. I had visions, not of impending death, but of a golden beach ball marooned on the white couch when the rest of her had finished becoming invisible.

I went on from there to talk about her increasing isolation due to hearing loss, compounded by the way women were relegated to observers in the movie making business. Her daytime perfection and nighttime rages.

How determined I was to never be anything like her.

And yet there I was, writing this essay. And here I am thirty years later, reading and revising it and discovering it's not half bad, taken in with the benefit of some distance.

I'm sure I'm not alone, finding that memories that were once too painful to write about and then reread, have become important enough that I want to write about then, and then read what I've written.

Does anyone else find that act of putting pen to paper is a way of exorcising demons?