The Writing Life--and Life

 DEBORAH CROMBIE: Earlier this week I read an essay by John Zeratsky, former Google designer and author of Make Time and Sprint, on how to use your calendar to design your ideal day. Having never experienced an ideal day, but still optimistic enough to think it possible, I was interested. He talks about the writing life, and about how essential it is to make time in your day for creative work, and he quotes as his inspiration Annie Dillard. In her book The Writing Life, Dillard says, "A schedule... is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.” Zeratsky goes on to explain in detail how he schedules his own time, which was both useful (I hope) and interesting.

But what really struck me in his essay was his reference to Annie Dillard's book and its effect on him. Now, I'm sure I read The Writing Life, along with with Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, and Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, all in those years when I was first putting my toe in the writing waters, thinking that I might, just maybe, be a writer someday. It was none of those books, however, that pushed me off the diving board into the deep end.

 In 1986, a writer named Natalie Goldberg published a book, her first, called Writing Down the Bones.

Her premise was that we all have it in us to write, to tell meaningful stories, if we can just unlock what is latent in our minds and memories. Her method for doing this she called Writing Practice. You sit down with the least expectations of yourself, put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and write without stopping for a designated amount of time, say, fifteen minutes.You may have sessions where all you can find to say is, "I have nothing to say," but, eventually, if you keep at it, something will surface.Writing practice is the warm-up for anything else you might want to write--it allows you to find your voice, to unlock your neural pathways.

So, I took Natalie's advice to heart. I did writing practice, and I wrote, and eventually my scribbles turned into a book, and then into more books. 

All these years later, I still do sprints when I'm writing a novel. Often, it's the only way to get unstuck, to set a timer and just sit down and write something, anything, and see where it takes you. But I'd forgotten my original inspiration--and I discovered that somewhere over the years my original copy of Writing Down the Bones had disappeared as well. I ordered myself a new copy, the 30th Anniversary edition! And I'm determined to go back to the core, to set myself writing practice every day--even if I don't manage an entire Ideal Day! (I'll let you know how that thing works out!)

REDs, are there books that inspired you in the writing life? I don't mean how-tos, as in plot or structure, etc., but books about what it is to be a writer, to live a creative life. 

And Readers, what books have inspired you, perhaps not to write, but books that have given you a blueprint for a way to live your life?

Top 10 Reasons Writing Is the Best Job Ever

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: We are standing and cheering and applauding like mad! We love it when our dear friends have a mad success! Yay for Liz Milliron—who we know as Mary Sutton—whose second book, HEAVEN HAS NO RAGE,  is now on the shelves!

And she has, with her own special style of optimism, figured out the good news about being a writer. PERFECT for a Friday morning!  Welcome, darling Mary/Liz! And hurray!

Top 10 Reasons I Think Writing Is the Best Job Ever!

by Liz Milliron

Thanks so much Reds for having me back! I visit every morning for my JRW “fix” so being here is a true honor.

There are any number of memes out there that are variants on a theme. “Be a writer, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.” But now that my second book, Heaven Has No Rage, is out in the wild, I can say this with confidence.

Being a writer is the best job I’ve had (okay, aside from wife and mother).

Oh sure. There are days when I wonder, “Why did I do this?” Usually it’s those days when I’m pummeling my brain trying to come up with yet another character name that fits impossibly strict limits – must not start with J, S, A, T, B; be three-syllables; cannot end with Y; and cannot be a famous person. (Do it. I dare you.)

But other days, well, I truly believe sitting with a cup of tea, putting words on a screen, and getting paid to do it really should be illegal because no person should have this much fun.

So here are my Top 10 Reasons I Think Writing Is the Best Job Ever.

10. Staying in your pajamas and not showering until 10am is not “being lazy.” This is your new work uniform.

9. Chocolate, wine, and caffeine are major food groups.

8. Staring off into space is no longer “being lazy” or “tuning out.” You’re resolving plot problems.

7. Research is so much more fun than it was in college. (The downside is that my Google search history is sure to have put my name on some kind of watchlist. No, seriously, I’m a writer, see I have books and everything!)

6. You have a built-in excuse to avoid dreadfully dull social engagements. “I’d love to come watch your fourth-cousin-twice-removed’s slideshow of his root canal surgery, but I can’t. I’m on deadline.”

5. Similar to #6, you have a built-in excuse for memory lapses. “Oh, were we supposed to meet Great Aunt Mabel for her black-berry jam making marathon? It slipped my mind. Sorry, I’m on deadline.” (Note: Be careful with this one. Failure to be at your oldest child’s first violin solo concert will probably cost you valuable support when you really do need to be left alone. Exercise caution.)

4. Killing someone in fiction is just as therapeutic, and a whole lot less expensive, than psychotherapy.

3. Eavesdropping is no longer a social faux pas. It’s research!

2. Taking that trip to England (or France, or Italy, or Ireland) may now qualify as research if you plan to write a book set there.

1. And the best thing about being a writer – you get to hang out with some of the coolest people on the planet: other writers and readers!

HANK: Love this so much! Reds and readers, what are the real best reasons about why you love what YOU do?

About HEAVEN HAS NO RAGE

State Trooper Jim Duncan's quiet overnight shift turns deadly when fire destroys a ski lodge at a local resort and the first responders find a man's body inside. What starts as a suspicious accident quickly becomes sinister when the autopsy proves the victim is not the man who rented the cabin. Jim’s left with three questions. Who is John Doe? Why was he at the ski lodge? And who hated him enough to kill him?

Assistant Public Defender Sally Castle, still reeling after the events of several months ago, tries to bury her feelings of guilt and fear in her work. When an anonymous note from a secret admirer arrives at the courthouse, she brushes it off as an empty threat. As the missives, each one darker than the last, continue to arrive at her office as well as her home, Sally’s forced to review all the possibilities. Is the letter-writer a person from her legal past? Or is the threat closer to home?

As the questions multiply, Jim and Sally are thrown into a race to find a murderer as well as a stalker...before Sally ends up facing more than an unwanted pen pal.

Liz Milliron is the author of The Laurel Highlands Mysteries series about a Pennsylvania State Trooper and a Fayette County assistant public defender in the scenic Laurel Highlands. The first in the series, Root of All Evil, was released in August, 2018. Liz’s short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies, including Murder Most Historical and the Anthony-award-winning Blood on the Bayou. She is a past president of the Pittsburgh chapter of Sisters in Crime, as well as a member of Pennwriters and International Thriller Writers. She lives outside Pittsburgh with her husband, two teens, and a retired-racer greyhound.

Celebrating--and Mourning--a Book

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  Last week I wrote THE END on the book I have been working on much, much too long. (A BITTER FEAST, Kincaid/James #18, out October this year.) But while I was beyond thrilled-relieved-ecstatic-euphoric to have finally gotten to that place, I was also a little...sad.

You know how when you read a book you really love, in a way you hate for it to end? Well, imagine if you've lived with the story and the characters and the place for, ahem, a couple of  years, or however long the process has taken. And even though you know you will be revising and editing and doing page proofs, and that of course you can go back and read the finished book any time, it's somehow not the same. It's gone. You're not LIVING the story anymore as it develops and unfolds. So every finished book is a big birth, and a little loss.

Does that seem totally weird??

Reds, do you experience this, too? Do you have any little letting go rituals?

HALLIE EPHRON: I confess, more often what I experience is dread: fear that I'll never come up with another idea as good as that one. Each book feels like a small miracle. Also, I know I"m not "done." There will be a ton of revisions to make, so I try to make a list of what I want to change before I start getting notes from my agent or editor. Sometimes you can lose track, and it's a good idea to stay centered and focused on what you intended to say with the story. And then open a bottle of Prosecco and toast myself!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: ......

RHYS BOWEN:  I am always so relieved when I type THE END. Every book is the same process for me. Flat out panic for the first hundred pages, light at the end of the tunnel for the next hundred and then galloping along , can't write fast enough after that.  Any yes, I am sometimes a little sad, especially if I'm enjoying the setting ( like Tuscany) or the characters and I really want to see what happens next to them.  But with my crazy schedule if 2 books a year I don't have much time to mourn or contemplate. It's off to New adventures.

JULIA: .....

LUCY BURDETTE: It makes sense to me that you'd feel a bit mournful, but I think that happens to me more at launch time. That's when all the build-up crescendos, and the process I've been working on for months and years finally peaks. I think it must be harder when the book isn't part of a series, because then the story is really over...

JULIA: ......

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: SO fascinating to hear how different we are, and how much the same.  I blast through the beginning, then crawl, hand over hand, through the middle, the freak out when I begin the end. JUST KEEP GOING, I say to myself. If I can get through the first draft, my driving force  is the desire to start over, because the second big round is when the book will emerge. The best part, for me, is the moment in that edit when I say--OH! That's what this book is about. And then I am a machine, unstoppable, like doing a puzzle when you finally understand the theme. But I don't feel mournful when the book is over. If I am lucky, I know I am finished because it brings tear to my eyes--like a true story has been told. THE MURDER LIST is in final final edits, and I am getting more and more excited. (And I don't celebrate until the see the real book.)  But--YAY DEBS! xoox

JULIA: Just shoot me now.

DEBS: Julia, we are cheering you on! You WILL get there, and it will be fabulous!!!!


Readers, do you ever have trouble letting go of a book, or a project?

Another Tantalizing Question

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I am laughing too hard. I love Nancy Cole Silverman, she's a true soulmate. But after reading this, I am even more convinced. And yeah. My answer to her question--as benighted and misguided the answer--is yes.

Confessions of an Obsessive Compulsive Wordsmith

By Nancy Cole Silverman

I fear vacations. Oh, it’s not that I’m afraid of flying or strange places or meeting new people. I love all that.  No. My fear is based on something much more mundane. It’s the fear of closing my computer, leaving behind my work-in-progress and detaching from social media. Allow me to explain.

I recently completed Reason For Doubt, the fifth book in the Carol Childs Mysteries that debuted this week, November 6th.  While this is good news, those of us who write know that once we’ve kissed our final draft goodbye, it’s time to start and maybe even complete another project. In my case, I had started a new manuscript, pulling Misty Dawn, one of the reoccurring characters from the Carol Childs Mysteries, and – fingers crossed – submitted it for review to my publisher.

Caught between the marketing for the release for Reason For Doubt, and hoping to hear back from my publisher about the new prospective series, I was, I think, understandably anxious about being out of touch for an extended period of time.

However, my vacation beckoned. A Baltic Cruise. The trip of a lifetime. A much-needed escape for my husband and me, whose schedule is as crazy as mine, and who needed this vacation perhaps more than I did. Ordinarily I’m pretty good at balancing things, and with today’s modern internet connections, travel’s not usually too much of a problem. But, when it comes to cruising, internet connections at best can be iffy. Nevertheless, I determined to soldier on.

Which meant, I’d be doing a tap dance of sorts.  In the back of my obsessive/compulsive mind, I was plotting yet another murder mystery, while in person I was Nancy-tourist, shooting photos and chatting away with strangers about the various ports where our ship had docked.  I flittered from photo shoot to wine tastings and back to tour groups, all the while feeling guilty I wasn’t meeting my daily writing quota or able to maintain my author profile on my social pages or interacting with potential readers.  But, the longer we were away, the more I relaxed I became with the idea that time off might be a good thing.

Soon I found I was checking my email less and less, and my notepad that had been scribbled with notes to myself for some future project I was planning became full of notes about Viking ships, castles, and ports of entry. Ideas for future stories.

Including one about the people of Tallinn, a former part of the Soviet Union, where our ship had docked for the day. 

Tallinn

 Our tour guide explained that on August 20, 1991, the people of Estonia declared their independence from Russia with a bloodless coup.  While Soviet Tanks rolled through the countryside and surrounded the lone TV tower in Tallinn, volunteers from the city gathered beneath the tower and began to sing.  In what came to be known as the Singing Revolution, the country was ultimately granted its independence, and today its citizens maintain they sang their way out of the Soviet Union.  

And then there was a large rock in Denmark, a pink colored

boulder our tour guide pointed out to us.  The rock commemorated the Danes and a turn-coat Nazi who saved the Danish Jews from certain death.

It was these stories and more that I filled my notepad with, and at night after we returned shipboard, that I tapped into my Ipad, exercising my anxious fingers, while I lulled my creative spirit back into its happy place.  I don’t write historical fiction, and may not use any of what I saw or learned exactly as it happened.  But the theme for them will show up somewhere in a future work when I hope to show the power of the human spirit.

Curiously enough, just as we were about to board our flight from Amsterdam back to the US, I checked my email. Good news.  My publisher Henery Press loved my Misty Dawn manuscript.  And...surprise, surprise, I even had an email from Shawn Simmons regarding Malice Domestic's 14th Anthology, Mystery Most Edible.  My short story, “The Gourmand,” was selected to be included. Hmmm… Maybe instead of fearing travel, I should go away more often?

How about you? Are you an obsessive/compulsive wordsmith as well? Have you ever been hesitant to leave your computer, worried that if you looked away or allowed your attention to be diverted, you might return and find the magic had disappeared? 

 HANK: Right? No matter what we do--are we afraid to stop? Reds and readers, what do you think about this? (And readers, um, do you even notice when your favorite authors are on vacation?

Nancy Cole Silverman spent nearly twenty-five in Los Angeles Talk Radio, beginning her career on the talent side as one for the first female voices on the air, to the business side, where she retired as one of two female general managers in the nation’s second largest radio market. 

After a successful career in the radio industry, Silverman turned to writing fiction. Her crime-focused novels and short stories have attracted readers throughout America. Her Carol Childs Mysteries series (Henery Press) features a single-mom whose "day job" as a reporter at a busy Los Angeles radio station often leads to long nights as a crime-solver. Silverman lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a thoroughly pampered standard poodle.

Why Put Yourself Through It?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I just finished a big book project (yay! And more on that soon). But at the end of it I said to Jonathan, "Well, that’s that. I have no idea how to write a book, I don’t know how I did this one, and promise you, I will NEVER write another one. Done and Done."

The next day, I had a good idea. Hmm, I thought. Maybe.

Have you ever thought that? Have you ever wondered—not only for a book project, but for anything that you do—how the heck did I do that? And how can I do it again?

And equally important: Why am I doing this?

The wonderful Darden North, MD—as genuinely charmingly wonderful as anyone you’ll ever meet, says writing a book is kind of like giving birth to a baby.

And for him, that is not cliché.  That is reality.

DARDEN NORTH: A lot of people ask: “So what number novel is this for you? Your fourth? Your third?”

Sure, that’s awkward sentence structure. Unfortunately, most people express themselves that way, but we tortured souls who write true-to-life character dialogue are used to it. Those who like stereotypes would suggest that lack of eloquent diction is confined to my native South. However, I think not, and let’s leave the Mississippi stereotypes behind.

No matter how spoken, the interest in another Darden North novel is never ignored and always appreciated by me. That curiosity could not come at a better time with the June 2017 release of my fifth novel and thriller, The FiveManners of Death (WordCrafts Press). That’s the upside to the inquiry. 

The downside to the question is that the curious reader obviously missed one or two of my novels and has some catching up to do. The author and bookseller in me hopes that he or she will also pick up those missing volume.

Now, for the other side of the professional aisle. A companion question often asked of me is: “How many babies have you delivered?”

For a physician who has practiced obstetrics and gynecology for over 30 years and hopes he does not look like it, this is not an unusual query. My typical answer generally earns a chuckle or two: “Enough babies to populate a small town in Mississippi, but one with more than just a post office and gas station.”

By the way, despite the 30-plus years on the job, I can still run down the hall to a patient’s labor room when time is short and not appear at all short-winded when entering the room. (Remember, I’m a fiction writer.)

So, why plan the sixth novel after the release of number five? So, why plan to deliver another baby after 4000 or more? A better inquiry and one more recently asked of me by a journalist was: “Why put yourself through it?”    

Anyone who writes novels has faced that same question, no matter what life situation hangs in balance with being a published author. My other profession is full-time partnership in a large ob/gyn single-specialty group. “Why put yourself through it?” I have a standard answer for both sides of the coin.

For the literary facet: “I’ve got more stories to tell and they’re getting better and better!” and regarding my medical practice: “I’m on call this weekend and there’s no way to get out of it!” Seriously, practicing ob/gyn is fulfilling and rewarding. However, there are few professional fields more demanding, considering new procedures to master like robotic minimally invasive surgery and the increased pressures from government regulation and cost containment concerns. Yet, becoming a part of so many families by helping them to expand theirs is a lot of fun.  

Back to the writing thing …The truth is I do have a sixth story to tell and a seventh and an eighth and …well, you get it. There is a real internal drive to get better and better, to be a regular on the best seller lists.

My novels have been billed as murder mysteries and/or thrillers. I settled into the thriller genre with the last three including the newest, The 5 Manners of Death. Because of who I am, most describe my work as medical thrillers. Since I’m not always writing about a deadly virus on the rampage or an evil scientist bent on altering genomes and not for the common good, I describe my novels simply as thrillers, written with medical characters—flawed human beings like everyone else, chased by others, new mistakes and problems around every bend.

Maybe I do need to include more evil scientists in my novels. And, of course, if one is a thriller or mystery novelist, it doesn’t hurt to have a lot of patients who like to read them. 

Hank and Mom

HANK: And of course, all those babies are instant fans, right? So Reds, do you have any idea about the doctor who delivered you? Funny, I’ve seen my birth certificate a million times, but never noticed that. (And now I have another book idea.)

            Were you born in a hospital? Or where? 

         And if you write--WHY do you do it?

And if you have questions for Darden, he’ll be coming to visit—house call!—throughout the day. Unless, of course, a new baby needs him.

DARDEN NORTH    

     A native of the Mississippi Delta and a board-certified physician in obstetrics and gynecology, Darden North is the nationally awarded author of five novels in the mystery/thriller genre, including an IPPY for Points of Origin. He practices ob/gyn full-time at Jackson Healthcare for Women in Flowood, Mississippi, where he is a certified daVinci robotic surgeon and delivers babies. North also serves as Chairman of the Board of the Mississippi Public Broadcasting Foundation and on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of the Mississippi State Medical Association

     A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Mississippi, he begin his writing and publishing career as Editor-in-Chief of the 1978 Ole Miss yearbook and continued for the 1982 Medic while in medical school. He participated as an author panelist at “Murder in the Magic City,” “Killer Nashville,” “Murder on the Menu,” and “SIBA Thriller Author Panel.”   Darden North lives with his wife Sally in Jackson, Mississippi. In his spare time, he gardens, enjoys family, walks for exercise, and travels. Sally and Darden have two young adult children who also work in the medical field.

THE 5 MANNERS OF DEATH

           After a construction worker unearths a human skull on the campus of the University of Mississippi dating to the 1960s, an older woman’s desperate attempt to erase history counts down the five ways to die in the thriller, The Five Manners of Death. The woman is the niece of Dr. Diana Bratton, a surgeon surrounded by bodies after the discovery of her Aunt Phoebe’s 50-year-old note detailing the manners of death. Suicide, accident, natural causes, and one death classified undetermined are soon crossed off this list—leaving Diana to believe that only homicide remains. Yet the police prove her wrong. Diana believes that family trumps the truth but discovers that murder is her family secret.

 Website: www.dardennorth.com

www.facebook.com/DardenNorthAuthor         www.facebook.com/DardenNorth 

https://twitter.com/dardennorth 

https://instagram.com/dardennorth

Purchase Link for The 5 Manners of Death (Hardcover, trade paperback, eBook) https://www.amazon.com/5-Manners-Death-Darden-North/dp/0998395994/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1491621959&sr=8-3&keywords=darden+north 

    chapter one typewriter . Copyright: ragsac / 123RF Stock Photo