HANK
PHILLIPPI RYAN: Usually when you call something “an airplane book” it means a book that’s perfect reading for an airplane—riveting
and distracting and compelling.
(Yes,
I know it could also be about airplanes,
or whatever. But go with me here.)
I
love airplane books. And I love seeing what everyone else is reading on
airplanes. (Lots of people still read book-books, my survey shows. Especially
when there are no plugs on the plane.)
But
this perfect airplane book, THE DEAD GIRL IN 2A, takes place on an airplane. Not completely, but the
opening premise is so chilling that it’ll make you take a second look at the person
sitting beside you.
Listen
to this:
Jack
Buchanan knows the woman sitting next to him on his business flight to
Denver―he just can't figure out how he knows her. Clara Stowe isn't in Jake's
line of work and didn't go to college with him. They have nearly nothing in
common apart from a deep and shared certainty that they've met before. As their
airplane conversation deepens, both struggle to figure out what circumstances
could have possibly brought them together. Then, in a revelation that sends
Jake reeling, Clara admits she's traveling to the Colorado mountains to kill
herself, and she disappears into the crowded airport immediately after landing.
AHHH! What would you do? Carter Wilson, the author, didn’t start out
to be a novelist. What got him there? Boredom.
And
then—something else. Something that applies to all of our lives.
"Not
Enough Time" Is a Myth!
As a bestselling author of six psychological suspense novels who also has a full-time job and family, I'm frequently asked, "how to you find the time to write?" I used to answer this vaguely, like I was some kind of superhuman who didn't know how to explain their innate powers. But it didn't take long to realize I wasn't special. I wasn't doing anything that anyone else isn't capable of. I was merely making choices that allowed me to do the things that made me happiest.
True,
there are only twenty-four hours in a day. But that only matters if you choose
to define your life as a series of days. But what if, rather than defining your
life through time, you defined it though passion? Through the things that
made you happy rather than the things you felt you had to do? What
would that look like?
I
have a formula for all this, and it doesn't factor in time as a variable at
all. It's this:
PASSION
+ COMMITMENT = HAPPINESS
I
didn't start writing until I was thirty-three, and, having no formal education
in in the field, had no idea what I was doing. My writing career began on a
single day when, in order to stave off boredom at a continuing-education class,
I began writing a story. I wrote that story for two hours in the class, went
home, then decided I had more to say. Three months later I had a 400-page
manuscript. I remember writing that last line, sitting back, and thinking, what
just happened? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing with my life? And,
the biggest question of them all: now what?
I
proceeded to learn the publishing industry, mostly through Google. What do I do
with a completed novel? Find an agent. How do I do that? Write query
letters. And so on. After seventy or so rejections I landed that agent. She
shipped my book around to all the publishing houses, where it took about a year
to be soundly rejected.
That
last rejection represented an inflection point in my life. Two years earlier, I
never would have conceived that I'd soon be writing a novel, landing an agent,
and having my book rejected by all the publishing houses. With that final
rejection, it was the time to define exactly what this life path was. Give it a
name. Was this a whim, or was this a passion? Did writing make me happy?
Yes,
I decided. It did.
So
I found the time around my already busy life to write a second novel, which
took a year to finish and another year to be rejected. As did books three and
four. Finally, roughly eight years after that day in the classroom where I
began my first story, I landed my first publishing deal with that fifth book.
Since then, I've had four other novels published, a sixth releasing this July,
have won numerous awards and have even hit the USA Today bestsellers
list. And yet, I still have that full-time job. I've still managed to raise two
wonderful if-slightly-deranged kids. I still spend cherished quality time with
Jessica, my partner. I still manage to log 250 workouts a year.
It's
not a miracle. It's not some secret time-management technique. I do all those
things because I have a passion for them all. I love writing, my job,
my kids, Jessica, and exercise. Make the things you are passionate for your
priority, and the rest will slip away. And there's this added benefit: focusing
on things that make you happy will naturally result in spending less time on
things that don't. For me, those things include obsessing over the news,
wasting hours on social media, and reading books or watching shows with which
I'm not fully engaged.
When
people say, "I don't have the time," it's usually just an excuse.
What they really mean is they don't want to prioritize something into their
life because it's less important to them than other things. Sure, sometimes
there's literally not enough time to do something even if you love it (like
writing a book in a week), but if you really wanted to do something, like
master the guitar, you could do it. It could take years, but that doesn't
matter. Define your life through passion, not time.
Yes,
my days are full. I get up at 5am, work out, write, get the kids to school, go
to work, come home, write some more, spend quality time with my family, and
then I'm in bed around 10pm. I can't write a novel in three months anymore; it
takes a year.
Which
leads me to the second part of the equation. Commitment. You can be passionate
all you want about something, but if you don't throw yourself fully into
something, the happiness you seek around that thing will never be fully
realized. Many instances when I sit down to write, there is no muse guiding me.
No sense of losing time as my fingers take control of my brain and the story
magically unfolds. Lots of times writing sucks, feeling more like a low-level
data-entry job than crafting a piece of creative fiction. But I have to sit in
that chair every day, seven days a week, because for all the times it's not
fun, I know I'm an overall happier person for it.
Next
time you actually use the phrase, "I don't have any time," catch
yourself and think about what it is you really mean. Do you not have the time,
or do you not have the passion? Asking yourself that simple question might
reshape how you view what it means to be happy.
Passion
plus commitment equals happiness. It can be that easy.
HANK
PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yup, I so agree! But I still wonder about the person sitting
next to me on the plane. And all the stories flying with me. Stories I’ll never
know.
Did
you ever meet someone life-changing on a plane?
And
a copy of THE DEAD GIRL IN 2A to one lucky commenter!
THE
DEAD GIRL IN 2A
coming July 2 from Sourcebooks
Jake Buchanan knows the woman
sitting next to him on his business flight to Denver—he just can’t figure out
how he knows her. Clara Stowe isn’t in Jake’s line of work and didn’t go to
college with him. They have nearly nothing in common apart from a deep and
shared certainty that they’ve met before. Despite their best efforts over a
probing conversation, both struggle to figure out what circumstances could
possibly have brought them together. Then, in a revelation that sends Jake
reeling, Clara admits she’s traveling to the Colorado mountains to kill
herself, and disappears into the crowded airport immediately after landing.
The
Dead Girl in 2A is the story of what happens to Jake and Clara after they get
off that plane, and the manipulative figure who has brought them together
decades after they first met. Intensely creepy, beautifully written, and full
of Carter Wilson’s signature whom-can-you-trust paranoia, this is a
psychological thriller unlike any you’ve read before.
ABOUT
CARTER WILSON
USA Today and #1 Denver Post
bestselling author Carter Wilson explores the depths of psychological tension
and paranoia in his dark, domestic thrillers. Carter is a two-time winner of
the Colorado Book Award and his novels have received multiple starred reviews
from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. Carter’s bestselling,
critically acclaimed standalone thrillers include MISTER TENDER’S GIRL;
REVELATION; THE COMFORT OF BLACK; THE BOY IN THE WOODS; and FINAL CROSSING. He
has also contributed short fiction to various publications, and most notably
was featured in the R.L. Stine young-adult anthology, Scream and Scream Again.
Born in New Mexico, Carter now lives outside of Boulder, Colorado in a
Victorian house that is spooky but isn’t haunted…yet.
