Do you Binge?

RHYS BOWEN: A couple of weeks ago we decided to watch the third season of The Crown. Actually we binge-watched it. Several episodes a night until I was falling asleep. In a way it was satisfying to see it one episode after another as one could follow the continuity of the story. But then I regretted it was over so quickly. I remember how much I enjoyed Downton Abbey when it first came out, waiting impatiently for the next Sunday night to find out what happened next and when Mary would finally get together with Matthew. And then the awful wait for another whole year and the next season of the story.

                Actually I loved the anticipation. It gave us something to talk about, to discuss with friends. Who would Mary pick? Did I think this suitor was a good choice? What would happen to Edith?  I’m not quite so invested in Queen Victoria as I know what happened to her in real life, but I’m still looking forward to the continuation of her story, unfolding week by week. (Anyone know when this might happen?)
                In England most series come out with a six week run, even the sit-coms, and then you have to wait until the next year to continue. This is annoying but…
                I love anticipation, don’t you? Do you remember counting off the days until your birthday or the end of school as a child? Even now I find myself saying “Three weeks until Christmas” or lying in bed planning our next vacation.
                So I’m interested to know what the rest of you think? Do you binge-watch? Binge-read? I get letters from fans who say “I’ve just discovered your series and I have read non-stop until I’m up to date.”  I suppose when you look at it, reading a series is just like one long extended novel so it might make sense to read it through without stopping. But as a reader I would love the tension of not knowing whether Georgie and Darcy would finally get together.
                So confession time: any binge-watchers/binge-readers out there?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I am so used to binge-watching now that I’m baffled when I have to wait for the next episode. We completely binged The Crown, and  Unbelievable, and The Jury, and all kinds of other things that I forget. So we started watching The Outsider, and it’s fabulous, but--oh! I have to wait? So I can see both methods of watching--I do love to be able to see it all, but then, as you say,  it’s so over.


And psychologically? I am not so hot on anticipation, I have to say. Just show me. Just tell me. Just do it. Let’s just--go. But that’s me.


Binge reading? Huh. I’d think I’ve ever done that. I think it would be--diminishing returns.


LUCY BURDETTE: this is a great question Rhys! We are just home from a fabulous trip to Africa--all was great fun except for the actual getting there and getting home part. Luckily on the way home (one of the flights was 16 hours!), the airline offered Season 2 of BIG LITTLE LIES. I had already watched this and loved it so much that I was happy to watch again. I made it through all 7 episodes and this helped the time go by so well! I was finishing the denouement as our wheels touched down. (By the way, Reese Witherspoon is an absolute genius. How can one woman be such a brilliant actor and writer and incredible supporter of books, authors, and reading??)


Usually with TV shows though, we like to spread things out. And this is true for book series for me too. I’ve been slowly making my way through VERA by Ann Cleeves, and I should finish the last installment, THE MOTH CATCHER, by the time her newest book comes out next fall.


JENN McKINLAY: Binge reader/watcher here. I am a binger. When I find an author I enjoy, I double back and read everything they’ve written, especially if it’s a series. I like to do a complete immersion into the author’s world. I read the first five Harry Potter books (I came late to the party) in three weeks. Usually, I generally only read for pleasure at night, so it takes me a while to finish a big series. I am the same with TV. I will gobble up a show (curse you, Netflix, for looping one episode after another) until I run out and am left bereft. Shows that have hooked me in lately are Dead To Me (so good) and Fleabag (fabulous).
     Weirdly, I do love a cliff hanger and if a show or a book ends on a wicked twist and I have to wait, I am thrilled with the anticipation.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I actually like a bit of both. It’s certainly nice to be able to stream a whole series, but when we were watching The Mandalorian, looking forward to Friday nights and a new episode was really fun.  Now we are doing that with the new Star Trek Picard (which I’m not sure I’m following at all…) When Rick and I are watching something together it’s usually just on weekends, so it can take us several weeks to get through a series. If it’s just me, however, I tend to get distracted. Too many choices!! I’m still trying to finish the third season of Broadchurch, and have watched Vera totally sporadically. (Lucy, did you know there is a new series out?)


Series books I do binge read, and I think that is one of the biggest treats of reading. But then you eventually get to the end and have to wait for a new book to come out!


JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Can I, like Debs, say both? The girls and I watched the entire run of The Mandalorian in one loooong evening, and I don’t think I could have survived seeing what happened next if I had to wait for a week. On the other hand, I love the painfully delicious sensation of waiting for the next book in a beloved series to come out, and like Jenn, I LOVE cliffhangers (this will not be a surprise to anyone who reads my own novels.)


Because we have a history of buying CD collections of or streaming older TV shows, I’ve noticed that the structure and pacing of the stories seem to have changed to fit the binging era. If I watch all however-many episodes of Russian Doll in one night, it doesn’t feel as if the story has been rushed. But, as an example, when I shared my beloved Babylon 5 with the kids, seeing one episode after another made it feel like all the events and character changes were on fast forward. I think B5 is a good example because it was the first TV show that I know of to have a genuinely novelistic approach to a season - unlike everything that came before, which was pretty much strictly episodic. But it was written for viewers who would have a week between chapters, as it were, and so the actual time passing helped fix the time unfolding in the show. We had to go back to watching it with a few days between episodes to make it feel right.

RHYS: So who out there likes to binge? Who likes the anticipation of waiting and spreading the satisfaction?

Groundhog’s Day: One Hundred Percent Chance of Metaphor

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I am thinking should begin this blog with a little snippet of Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe." If you haven't seen the movie Groundhog Day, that's A. Not gonna be funny and B. Why haven't you seen that movie?

If you are a Groundhog Day movie newbie--go, watch, and come back. And then read this post by the only person on the planet we could rely on to manage this critical moment in time.

Okay, or not. You don't really need to watch it first. But it's pretty funny. Still: how can you resist the fabulous Lori Rader-Day? Go ahead, Read this first.

Groundhog’s Day: One Hundred Percent Chance of Metaphor

By Lori Rader-Day

When I was invited to write today’s post for the Jungle Reds, Hank asked me if I could take on Groundhog’s Day. The unspoken question there, I suppose, was… Can we trust you with the sacred duty, the nationally—nay, internationally—critical topic, of Groundhog’s Day?

But any writer could handle Groundhog’s Day as metaphor, couldn’t they? Writing is nothing BUT Groundhog’s Day.

I mean, of course, Groundhog’s Day the movie.

Groundhog’s Day the holiday is too much optimism for me. I live in Chicago; we are always going to have six more weeks of winter. Until June. Perhaps for that reason, I like my February 2^nd with a whole lot more Bill Murray than I’ve come to expect from the holiday itself.

Groundhog’s Day the movie is about the long, cold, never-ending days of a man whose life restarts from scratch with the prospect of the same occurrences, the same interactions, over and over and over—every morning when his alarm clock goes off.

How is that not about writing?

Writing is about chipping away at the work, day after day, week after week, with progress incremental if not non-existent. The finish line is far away, and then our focus stretches and, wait, is it even farther away than we thought? 

In the film, Bill Murray’s character attempts to fight his fate, then wallows and allows it to ruin him, then finally decides to use the structure he’s been forced to accept to learn and grow. It gets pretty optimistic, as a matter of fact, but only after he decides to accept the time he has as a gift, working on himself instead of reaching for some far-off goal that may never be achieved.

I don’t need to stomp on this point, do I? You see it.

In the writing world we often talk about discipline. You should get some, we say to people who’ve assembled to hear us drop pearls of wisdom. Yeah, you should get some, we think to ourselves, when we’ve been away from the desk too long. As though discipline was a thing we could go get at the gettin’ store.

But of course discipline isn’t a thing you get; it’s a thing you build. All it is, when you strip it down, is doing the same thing as often as you can, creating some kind of consistency. 

It’s putting all the same markers and tools in place to guide you toward another day of the Exact Same: the same first-thing walk with the dog, the same great cup of hot beverage, the same cozy chair or business-like desk, the same notebook and pen or laptop. Different place or time works, too, but then you might be guided by another kind of structure: one hour, 1,000 words, whatever guidelines you need to get the work done.

Why have you given yourself guidelines? Because guidelines suggest that you can get it done and get back to the other things you have to do today. So many things! Without guidelines, are you supposed to write until you fall over and lose hope that you’ll ever finish? No, you’re building something, and construction is a steady-as-you-go kind of job. Steady as you go, clock in/clock out, but then, boom, something huge.

 

When I turned in the manuscript for my new novel, The Lucky One, to my editor, she wrote me back and called me out about a certain passage, where an online sleuth who tries to solve cold-case missing persons talks to another volunteer, Alice Fine, who works construction in her day-job. They’re discussing another volunteer’s successful track record of two cases closed:

      “Two matches in fifteen years.” Juby shook her head. “I don’t think I have it in me. But that’s how Lil does it. That’s how Don and Jenn do it. The people who caught the Golden State Killer, the guy who matched that body in Kentucky thirty years after she was found. Tent Girl. Do you think Todd Matthews woke up one day thirty years in and just matched Tent Girl out of the blue? This is a marathon.”

      “This reminds me of a story my dad tells about construction,” Alice said. “You know, how the little daily projects that don’t seem like much still add up to the cathedral. You’re putting down the stones or you’re building a cathedral, it’s all in your perspective. The skyscraper—or the six-story parking structure, I suppose. Either way, you have to put down the foundation.”

      Juby looked at Alice over the rim of her glass, then crunched on an ice cube. “And if the foundation is rotten?”

      “Oh, you’re totally f*@!ed.”

Is that about writing? my editor wanted to know.

Of course it’s about writing! In my experience, when you’re trying to write a 100K-word novel every year, everything is about writing! (By the way, I don’t consider my writing foundation to be an outline, if you were wondering.)

If the story about cathedral-building versus putting down stones sounds familiar to you, that’s because it’s a parable. It’s been trotted out by corporate CEOs everywhere, to “raise sights” and “line stakeholders’ wallets.” 

But it’s no less true for people like us, for whom everything is about writing. For whom 200 words, 500 words, 1,000 words is a day’s work on the cathedral, no matter how out of reach the spire seems. For whom tomorrow’s work looks much the same, for whom every day is Groundhog’s Day the movie—until the book is drafted and it’s time to come out of our burrow and sniff the air.

Did I just Inception my way back to the rodent?

Punxsutawney Phil, the Official National Groundhog, almost always calls for six more weeks of winter. Why? Because it’s February.

But aren’t we lucky that writing is an indoor sport? Bad weather, good discipline, bad discipline—none of that makes a bit of difference. Just make sure the stones get set down. Writing isn’t metaphor, in the end. It’s something concrete, a creation you made with your own hands. You made it, and it couldn’t have existed without you. Maybe it’s no cathedral, but it’s a nice warm little spot to warm your hands for tomorrow’s work, when the alarm clock turns over again.

HANK: How much do we love Lori?  And her newest book THE LUCKY ONE comes out February 18! 

What're your plans for Groundhog Day, Reds and readers? Football? :-(  French poetry?  (A little movie reference). Reading? Playing?  Or building a cathedral? 

Lori Rader-Day

Edgar Award-nominated and Anthony and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of The Black Hour, Little Pretty Things, The Day I Died, and Under a Dark Sky. Forthcoming February 2020: The Lucky One (Harper Collins William Morrow).

• National President, Sisters in Crime
• Co-chair, Murder and Mayhem in Chicago

www.LoriRaderDay.com

Twitter: @LoriRaderDay

THE LUCKY ONE

From the author of the Edgar Award®-nominated Under A Dark Sky comes an unforgettable, chilling novel about a young woman who recognizes the man who kidnapped her as a child, setting off a search for justice, and into danger.

Most people who go missing are never found. But Alice was the lucky one...

As a child, Alice was stolen from her backyard in a tiny Indiana community, but against the odds, her policeman father tracked her down within twenty-four hours and rescued her from harm. In the aftermath of the crime, her family decided to move to Chicago and close the door on that horrible day.

Yet Alice hasn’t forgotten. She devotes her spare time volunteering for a website called The Doe Pages scrolling through pages upon pages of unidentified people, searching for clues that could help reunite families with their missing loved ones. When a face appears on Alice’s screen that she recognizes, she’s stunned to realize it’s the same man who kidnapped her decades ago. The post is deleted as quickly as it appeared, leaving Alice with more questions than answers.

Embarking on a search for the truth, she enlists the help of friends from The Doe Pages to connect the dots and find her kidnapper before he hurts someone else. Then Alice crosses paths with Merrily Cruz, another woman who’s been hunting for answers of her own. Together, they begin to unravel a dark, painful web of lies that will change what they thought they knew—and could cost them everything.

Twisting and compulsively readable, The Lucky One explores the lies we tell ourselves to feel safe.

Funny You Should Ask!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Happy Saturday, dear Reds and readers! Whatta week, whatta week. But here, we have a special little world, and you never know, and we try to be happy and optimistic and trust the universe.  (And winner of Sulari Gentill’s book from yesterday below.)

But now: raise your hands: How many of you are readers? Writers? Curious about how the publishing world works?  

How many would love to have a superbly inside look at why which books get published and why other things happen and how the decision-makers become who they are?

How many of you would love to meet someone in the absolute midst of all of this—and not only that, an insider who is generous and enthusiastic and inspirational enough to share the whole darn thing with us—and, moreover, be hilarious doing it?

Well, of course. All of us. 
And so, here’s the brilliant agent—and now author of the absolutely indispensable  FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK--the wonderful Barbara Poelle.

HANK: Have you always loved books and writing? Where did you grow up--and what did you read? 

BARBARA POELLE: I have! I grew up in Minnesota. All of the women in my family are VORACIOUS readers- aunts, cousins, grandmothers- to the point where my Aunt Peg coined the phrase, “In this family you can never set down your drink or your book.” It’s true. Someone else will pick up both and vanish into the nearest recliner…hammock…lawn chair…

HANK:  Did you dream about being in book world?

BARBARA POELLE:  My husband, Travis, actually pushed me to seriously consider agenting when I was in my mid-20s. He got me thinking, “Wait, I love reading and my opinions are of course the right ones, is there a career for this?”

HANK: But--your path to the world of literature was not a straight line--straight line, get it? You were actually a stand-up comedian?

BARBARA POELLE:  I was! Stand-up, Sketch, and Improv in Los Angeles. I think everybody should have to do two things in life: wait tables and do stand-up. Both will simultaneously humble and exalt. And yes, when I stopped getting the buzz on stage and started looking for something else, I used my full skill set from both to start the foundation of how I approach agenting- anticipating needs and creating an atmosphere of congeniality.

HANK: What was your first moment in the world of publishing?

BARBARA POELLE:  I went in for my first interview with Irene (Goodman, the iconic agent whose name is on the agency) and it went well. 

She then gave me a stack of 20 queries with the five first pages attached and said “Go through these and tell me if you would request more and why. There are no right or wrong answers, just want to get a feel for your subjective taste.” She left me in the conference room, I went through them and pulled three out of the 20 that I had a solid case for pitching on WHY I felt they had merit. 

What I didn’t know is that she had secretly slipped three queries in there from actual clients that resulted in six figure deals.  I picked those three. She had a perfect poker face as I went through the reasons why I felt they had merit. Then after, she broke out into a huge grin and told me what she had done, and that I was the first person to pick out those three and only those three. It was pure adrenaline- for both of us, haha.

HANK: Wow wow wow. That is an amazing story. And that’s how you became an agent?

BARBARA POELLE:  Well yes. NAILED THE INTERVIEW. But actually, it is a larger story that speaks to the importance of Informational Interviews. I tapped every resource I had to find a path to both agents and editors, requested an informational interview, and came prepared to ask pointed questions. It became very clear very quickly that I was better suited to the agent side, and thus, I went after it, hard.

HANK: What are you most proud of in your career so far?

BARBARA POELLE:  Oh wow, just all of my authors. I am so so, so damn proud of them.

HANK: And you have some amazing clients—here’s your website, and it’s a joy.  We've been talking about commas and hyphens around here lately--how was it to work with authors? 

BARBARA POELLE:  I find authors to be some of the most brilliant, fascinating and delightful people to work with--a big part of what keeps me in this is the pure awe I feel regarding their talent. (See what I did there with all the hyphens and commas!)

HANK: Oh, you are too good. (no oxford comma, hmm…) But--what's one thing an author should never say to a copyeditor?

BARBARA POELLE:  “STET ALL.”

HANK: I wish you could see me—I just burst out laughing. Oh, rats. Off to fix my ms.  And now--you're on the other side—you’ve written a book. Yay! After your amazing column in Writers Digest--why did you decide to write FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK? And answer so many writers' questions? It's an amazing insight--and such an education. 

BARBARA POELLE:  Aw, thanks! It wasn’t so much a decision on my part, my editor suggested it and made the offer. I was both the worst agent and the worst client for myself, hahaha. I agented like, “Deliver Oct 29 for pub on Jan 14? Sure! She can crash it!” and I cliented like, “Oh yeah, totally, my husband is out of town for three months and I am single parenting and have my own client list; I’ll just wake up at 4:45 every morning and hammer this out.” Both of us either needed to put way less or way MORE vodka in our cornflakes. But we got it done.

HANK: I am still laughing so hard--we all do what we can, right? As we watch the deadlines click ever closer?  And I can picture you talking to yourself…but you KNEW it was a terrific idea. Funny, though, because of your other lives, you are so much more savvy and experienced than most authors. What are the biggest misconceptions authors (and aspiring authors) have?

BARBARA POELLE: That agents are gatekeepers. We want this for you just as badly as you want it for yourself. We want your experience to be like a greased pig in a laundry chute, smooth and happily whee wheeing all the way home.

Huh, that simile might have gotten away from me, but you know what? I stand by it.

HANK: Hmm. I have never felt like a pig in a laundry chute. Hmm. I am trying to picture that now. ::pausing:: Okay, even so, I’ll stand by the simile, too. So, okay. Just for a tease of the treasures inside your book: tell us…what’s one thing an author should never say to an agent?

BARBARA POELLE:  “I told you to tell them NO GREEN M&Ms!” [sound of chair through plate glass window]

HANK: How fabulous is Barbara? And how generous? So--who has a question? 

Like: after how many rejections should you give up? Why do some agents love a book--and others don't? What do you think about trends? And um, what's the biggest trend right now? And asking for a friend: how long can the domestic suspense trend last?

And a copy of FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK to one incredibly lucky commenter.

(And oh, yesterday’s winner of AFTER SHE WROTE HIM by Sulari Gentill is Cathy Akers-Jordan! YAY! Email me your address!

Barbara Poelle is Vice President at the Irene Goodman Literary Agency, representing a variety of genres but focusing on suspense, thriller, upmarket and young adult fiction. Her book Funny You Should Ask: Mostly Serious Answers to Mostly Serious Questions about the Book Publishing Industry (January 14, 2020; Writer’s Digest Books) is based on her Writer’s Digest column of the same name. You can visit her at funnyyoushouldaskbook.com or irenegoodman.com/barbara-poelle

FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK, which is based on Barbara’s popular Writer’s Digest advice column of the same name, features responses to more than 100 questions by aspiring and emerging writers (including many not covered in her column and expanded answers to topics that didn’t get the full treatment in a column), as well as writing exercises, submission checklists and a publishing BINGO scorecard for every milestone accomplished.

Some helpful topics covered in the book:

• The nuts and bolts of a query letter
• How to process the soul-searing envy of watching someone else’s career flourish
• How to talk to your editor

************************

HANK:  And breaking--very sad--news: we acknowledge, with much love and admiration and infinite gratitude for her generosity, and talent, and joy, and friendship and life-changing work, the death of Mary Higgins Clark, the queen of us all.She and her husband adored each other as I could see in every moment I saw them together.  I will never been the same for knowing her, and I will never forget her.