Which are you: By-the-book? Or Goodbye-to-the-book?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: We were JUST talking about this! Quickly—I had plugged in my Kindle to an outlet on our second floor. I bought a few books. I wanted to sync the Kindle. The Kindle said: To sync, please connect to wireless. I connected to wireless.  Instantly, every fire alarm in our house went off.

What what what?  Is there a fire? I raced upstairs, then downstairs, then down to the basement. NO fire. The fire alarm is shrieking: fire fire FIRE. (It talks.)  No fire.

How do I turn off the fire alarm, I wondered. Where are the instructions?

 

What instructions?  There are no instructions. We never had instructions. Ah. Why aren’t there instructions?

Anyway, the wonderfully talented Claire Booth has the good news about that.  (Have you read her first book, THE BRANSON BEAUTY? It's terrific.)

 And, happily, she has a brand new book in her series--and she's giving a copy away to a lucky commenter! See below for how, um, instructions on how to  win  ANOTHER MAN'S GROUND.

CLAIRE BOOTH:  Life is more fun when you don’t read the instructions.

Sure, it’s resulted in some lopsided IKEA furniture and perhaps some sketchy-tasting cookies.

But it’s also results in hilarious card games that follow no rules at all and detours through fantastic neighborhoods I otherwise wouldn’t have seen. It means the quicker hookup of all manner of electronics (try a few outputs until one works and voilà! You’re all set without having to wade through pages of tiny-print manual).

Where my anti-instruction attitude serves me best, however, is with my writing. I don’t have a mapped-out plot, or a manual of character backgrounds. Now, I’m not knocking these at all. They make a lot of sense. Just not for me. I’m in awe of writers who plot out an entire book before they start it. It’s like watching an astronaut train for a year on the International Space Station. Dazzlingly impressive, but not something I’m interested in doing.

When I write, I prefer to just get started. I sit down at my computer with a beautiful blank document, and I just go for it. This definitely means that I’m not a fast writer – there’s a fair amount of staring into space and wondering what the heck happens next? This can lead to panic, but I’ve learned to live with that. Because the trade off is the surprise. Getting surprised by my characters or the sharp turns my plot takes is the best thing in the world.

And I admit, I take a great deal of satisfaction in the fact that this works for me. Take that, rigid high school English classes! Did anyone else have to “brainstorm” assignments before they were allowed to start? Remember clustering? Outlining? I remember always thinking, “What if your brain doesn’t work that way?” Now I don’t have to follow those rules. Or a lot of other instructions, either.

Now, I’m certainly not advocating for ignoring traffic signs, or the dosage directions on prescription medications, or a diagram illustrating how to hold a power saw. I’m just encouraging the selective disregard of a map during a road trip or the ten-page rule booklet that came with the new board game.

What about you? Do you read the instructions before starting something? In what kind of situation could you see yourself choosing to not read the directions?

HANK: Well, I will confess I never—EVER—read the instructions. If there are indeed instructions. I just try to figure whatever it is out. Besides, the instructions never answer the questions you really have, am I right?

(And easy answer on the power saw. Don’t use a power saw.)

What do you think, Reds and Readers?  Are you a go—by-the book? Or goodbye-the-book?

And a copy of Claire's brand new ANOTHER MAN'S GROUND to one lucky commenter!

Claire Booth spent more than a decade as a journalist, much of it covering crimes so strange and convoluted they seemed more like fiction than reality. Eventually, she had enough of the real world and decided to write novels instead. Her Sheriff Hank Worth mysteries take place in Branson, Missouri, where small-town politics and big-city country music tourism clash in – yes – strange and convoluted ways. www.clairebooth.com.

ANOTHER MAN'S GROUND

It starts out as an interesting little theft case. Branson, Missouri’s new Sheriff Hank Worth is called out to look at stands of trees that have been stripped of their bark, which the property owner had planned to harvest for the booming herbal supplement market. At first, Hank easily balances the demands of the investigation with his fledging political career. He was appointed several months earlier to the vacant sheriff position, but he needs to win the fast-approaching election in order to keep his job. He thinks the campaign will go well, as long as he’s able to keep secret the fact that a group of undocumented immigrants – hired to cut down the stripped trees – have fled into the forest and he’s deliberately not looking for them.

But then the discovery of a murder victim deep in the Ozark backwoods sets him in the middle of a generations-old feud that explodes into danger not only for him, but also for the immigrants, his deputies, and his family. He must rush to find a murderer before election day and protect the vulnerable in Branson County, where politicking is hell and trespassing can get you killed.