Teaching An Old Dog

by Shannon Baker

I’ve reached that curmudgeon stage when I find myself grumbling, “I don’t like change.” Some of you who know me will laugh at that because I’ve moved eight times in the last eleven years. But I’m talking about technology.

I haven’t always been so sluggish. Back in the day, I actually could program my VCR. I was an early adopter with computers, using one of the first Peachtree accounting programs. I wrote features for an online newspaper when it was a brand new phenomenon, and had a bag phone before the Big Lebowski made it look cool.

Still, as technology accelerates and especially since my last daughter left home, I seem to be falling further behind. I was just getting the hang of using the remote to DVR and create my own programing when we moved to rural Nebraska last fall, where we don’t get those handy options.

Last spring, a friend of mine published an audio book and wanted me to review it. Strictly because of this need-to-know, I entered in the world of audio books. That’s so freaking awesome! I can walk and listen to books on my phone. I’m getting so much more “reading” done now. I’m even really close to figuring out Overdrive and being able to borrow audio books from the library. As soon as the books I bought are finished, I’ll need-to-know how and I’ll do it.

Now, thanks to my good friend, Mark Stevens, (Allison Coil Mystery Series), I have to learn yet another new thing. He keeps telling me about these great podcasts for writers and readers. In fact, one of his suggestions—which he wrote about in the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers August newsletter—is called just that, Reading and Writing Podcast.

How hard can this be?

Ha. All I wanted to do was download these podcasts onto my phone so I can happily tromp around town, ear buds inserted and listen. But my phone is an Android and these are iTunes. Or something. At any rate, my silly phone refuses to download the app to make listening possible. I know there’s a way to do this and it frustrates me to no  end!

After way too much time, I finally resorted to kyping my husband’s iPod Shuffle. Then I had to figure out how to use that. Not impossible but a small learning curve was involved. All set and very happy, phone stuffed into my pocket--because who would leave the house without the ability to check email or take a call?—Shuffle clipped onto my T-shirt, earbuds firmly planted, I can wander around my small town for hours. I’m reading and being inspired and sinking deeply into the writer’s brain.

But now I have a very low-tech problem. Walking and running have always been my free-brain time. That’s when my mind wanders and weaves into my stories and characters. Whenever I have a particularly hairy story issue, I strap on my tennis shoes and off I go.

I love my new resources but I need my old untethered time, too. Guess I’ll just have to put in more miles.

How about you? How do you balance reading and learning with dreaming time?

Emphatically Embracing

 by Shannon Baker

Oh, that Gwyneth Paltrow. Bless  her heart. She’s been credited with some interesting quotes. Things like:

"Well, you know, beauty fades! I just turned 29, so I probably don't have that many good years left in me. So there will be a down side eventually."

And this:

"I'd rather smoke crack than eat cheese from a tin.”

And:

"I would rather die than let my kid eat Cup-a-Soup."

One of my favorites:

"I am who I am. I can't pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year."

If I wanted to be fair (and really, what fun is fair?) I’d have to say that if someone followed me around they’d catch some pretty self-absorbed and silly quotes. I think at aged 29, I probably thought my best years were behind me, too. And though I don’t eat squeezy cheese, it was always a staple in the finals week care packages I sent to my daughter. According to Gwyneth, that probably means I ought to kill myself and smoke crack.

However, she did come up with a phrase that resonates with me.

Consciously uncoupling.

Granted, she used this phrase to describe the end of her marriage and I didn’t so much consciously uncouple as I divorced my first husband. I have no intention of uncoupling from my guy now, consciously or subliminally. But there are a few things I’d do well to uncouple from.

I need to uncouple from Facebook. Maybe not entirely, but it would be good to back off from seeing which celebrities have twins or finding out what element I am. (Air, by the way.) I live in relative isolation so, as a writer, it’s good to hang out on FB from time to time to study contemporary culture and to catch up with friends. But I need to uncouple from spending too much time there at the detriment of getting my own words down.

I need to uncouple from comparing myself to others. For those of us who know what the term “flower child” means, you might remember the Desiderata being a very popular poem. I would do well to keep this gem in my head:

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

I’m not a NY Times Bestseller and I’m not the person who will write her novel as soon as she has the time. It does me no good to stress or gloat about where I am in comparison to others. Maybe this is what Gwyneth meant when she said she couldn’t pretend to be someone who makes $25K a year.

I need to uncouple from my negativity. Again, from the Desiderata (I like these quotes better than Gwyneth’s words of wisdom.)

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Instead of wasting my time worrying about the next book or the next series and what will happen if I never score another book contract or sell another copy, I need to feel good about what I’ve done. And get excited about what I’m writing now.

Even though consciously uncoupling is meant to be a positive thing, it’s couched in negative verbiage. So, with due respect to Gwyneth, I’m going to turn it around. Instead of consciously uncoupling, I’m going to Emphatically Embrace.

I’ll embrace focused writing time, embrace my own journey, embrace the feeling of accomplishment and working toward the next goal.

How about you? What do you Emphatically Embrace?

No Hesitation

By Shannon Baker

As writers, we often insert situations in our stories that illustrate principles. Of course, we try to be subtle as we layer in symbolism and analogy. But sometimes, real life gives us great stories to serve as life lessons.

I am not a risk-taker by nature. So when I’m afraid to try something new or I’m tempted to settle into the known and secure life, I remember an incident years ago.

My daughter, Erin, was eleven years-old and we were camping at Horseshoe Campground just outside of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills on Labor Day. Summer was dwindling to a close and school had already started so this was our last outing before the rampaging activities of fall at our feed store in Nebraska and school sports geared up.

A large rock guarded the corner of Horseshoe Lake. To my memory it seems like it rose straight up from the water about 50 feet. It was probably much shorter. I can tell you it was one high platform. Local teenagers jumped from the rock into the deep lake. They were having a blast, sailing in and climbing back up.

Erin watched this with interest the first afternoon we camped. On the second day, she decided she wanted to try it. I climbed the rock with her and peered over the ledge as she contemplated the jump. To give her courage, I scurried back down and swam out and treaded water not far from where she’d enter. She stood at the edge trying to get her nerve up and I treaded water until my legs felt weary. In the end, she retreated without jumping.

What she perceived as defeat stayed with her throughout the evening and the next day as we toured the Black Hills. The next morning, as we packed up camp, I caught her gazing longingly across the lake as the big kids once again gathered and threw themselves off the cliff. We finished loading the gear and piled into the pickup. She never took her eyes off the rock as we drove past and headed out of the campground.

We stopped before entering the highway that would take us back to our real lives. Suddenly she shouted, “Wait! I want to jump.”

To the grumbles of the other family members, I insisted we stop, dig for our suits and let her change. We drove back and I once again swam out into the cold lake as she climbed the rock. This time, she only hesitated a second, then hurled herself off the cliff.

She hit the water and sank deep. A second later, her head bobbed up and her face split in a grin of accomplishment. Her pride spilled over and lasted for days. I don’t know, maybe it was a brick in her character growth and helped make her the strong young woman she is today.

What I do know is how it affected me. If she hadn't pushed herself beyond her comfort zone, if she hadn’t wanted to experience the flight and splash, she’d have gone home to the status quo and wouldn't have lost anything.

But by pushing herself, overcoming her fear, she earned not only the experience, she gained confidence to jump higher next time, to live fuller and freer.

When I asked her why she finally decided to try again, she said, “I realized I might not ever have another chance.”

When I’m hesitant to try something new and take a big chance, I try to seize the courage my young daughter taught me that day. I make a decision, put aside the fear and…

JUMP!

Just Keep Writing!

by Kathleen Ernst

Last November I wrote a post I titled Gratitude about why I feel grateful to be a working writer, despite the inherent challenges.   Most comments were positive, but I did receive one message from an aspiring writer whose basic message was, “Easy for you to say, oh published one.”

I did try to stress that making my way along the writer’s path has not always easy.  Perhaps a few more examples will help:

*In the 11^th grade, I once received a zero on a writing assignment—“because the work was not good enough to earn an F.”

* I wrote at least a dozen novels before one was picked up for publication.  Probably more; I stopped counting at some point.

* The first time I entered a novel in a statewide contest, the judge for my category chose to not acknowledge any entry that year.

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

I’m celebrating the publication of my 25^th book, a children’s mystery called Traitor in the Shipyard, and I’m under contract for two more books. Does that mean I’ve passed some magic mark where everything I write gets published?  Not hardly. I have a handful of manuscripts that I love, that I worked on for years, but have never landed on the right desk at the right time.

My beloved agent of ten years recently returned to the editorial side of the business.  When we talked about our momentous decade together, she summarized what she saw as perhaps my greatest strength: “You just keep writing.”

To that I’d add always trying to improve my work and striving to understand the business end of writing.  Nonetheless, if there is a single strategy that got me where I am, it’s simply that. Despite frustrations, disappointments, and setbacks, I just kept—and keep—writing.

I wish  you aspiring writers all success!

No Need to Run, No Need to Hide

by Shannon Baker

Anyone else out there remember Chambawamba’s song Tubthumping? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGc

Every now and then I need to pull that one out and listen to it, you know, when I get clubbed upside the head with life.

I’ve always been blessed with a certain shallowness that allows me to keep floating through life, even when unexpected setbacks arise. Or maybe it’s because, as the third and youngest child of an exhausted mother, I learned early to self-soothe. I have an overdeveloped denial muscle and experience has shown me that if I delay panic, often the crisis passes and I won’t have to deal with any bad feelings.

I think I took this coping mechanism to extremes standing in the hospital hallway eighteen years ago, when the doctor told us my father had a brain tumor and only days to live. I turned to my sobbing sister and said, “Don’t over-react; he’s not dead, yet.”

Sometimes people don’t understand me.  

And sometimes I’m just plain wrong.

In this political season, I prefer to avoid all the issues. It’s not a responsible reaction, of course. I call it Head-in-the-Sand syndrome and I’m pretty happy with it. I vote and this year, I’m swinging in the great state of Colorado so it’s super important. I’m not ignorant, thereby avoiding true bliss, but I refuse to join in the political fray.

Never-the-less, denial and avoidance can only go so far and occasionally I have to face the Truth. When that happens, I resort to a collection of music (old, because, well, I’m old). It’s my Disaster Playlist. It got really long during and after my divorce. These days, after several broken and lost computers and destroyed CD’s (yes, I collected them before iPods) and a relatively peaceful life, my play list is pretty small.

Today, though, I’ll be cranking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxLWFTIvRnMby Jem and remembering that It’s Just a Ride.

For anyone having a bad week, remember if you get knocked down, you’ll get up again, they’re never gonna keep you down.

What’s on your Disaster Playlist?

You Can't Win If You Don't Play

by Shannon Baker

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky

 

My father was an optimist and a risk-taker, a meticulous planner with an analytical mind. He was a product of Zig Zigler and Norman Vincent Peale.

Now days, I think they call it The Secret or maybe See it, believe it, achieve it.

Me? Not so much. I learned early that if I visualized success in detail it wouldn’t come true.

At the end of my eighth grade year I tried out for the pom-pom squad. I don’t mind telling you, I was great. I learned the moves and had the smile. I saw myself in those cute uniforms, hanging out with the cool kids and having a boyfriend—because all the pom-pom girls had boyfriends.

When they announced the new squad I sat on the bleachers knowing the next name called would be mine. I believed in the very fiber of my being. They called name after name and none of them was mine. There had to be a mistake because I was destined to be on that team. Days later, when I had to admit they weren’t going to bring me from class and tell me about the terrible misunderstanding of my votes being tallied wrong (I visualized this scene in detail also) the pain of failure crushed my heart. Oh, it was okay, I told everyone. I was moving to another state anyway and it didn’t matter.

A few months later they had try-outs for freshmen cheerleaders at my new school. I was new and the student body voted so there was no way I’d get picked. I didn’t hope for it. Guess what? I got it.

Lesson learned. Don’t want it too badly. Don’t visualize too intricately. If you win it will be glorious. If you lose, no big deal.

The youngest of three kids, I have this idea the Universe functions sort of like my family. If the Universe finds out I want something really badly, it will tease me and thwart me and I’ll end up getting hurt.

Although I never really believe I’ll win the jackpot, it doesn’t keep me from putting in my chips. My life philosophy has always been: You can’t win if you don’t play.

Almost every good thing in my life happened not because I believed it would or even dreamed about it. Mostly, things happen because I think, “Why not try?”

I might as well put an effort into my day job. I’ve got to spend at least eight hours a day somewhere earning a living; I ought to make it enjoyable and challenging.

I never thought I’d get a novel published but why not keep writing and sending stuff out? What else was I going to do with my spare time since I’m really bad at crafts? While I was going to write I might as well study craft and become versed in the way the business works.

I know I should write goals and plan timelines. I’ve gone to enough inspirational speakers, read Covey’s advice, taken management courses that Lebowski’s Little Achievers would envy.

I don’t do any of that. I keep my future plans vague in case the Universe is plotting against giving me what I really want.

What I do is show up. Work hard. Be adaptable. Try not to take myself too seriously.

I’ll never know what it was like to be a pom-pom girl and it might always hurt just a little. But since then, I’ve had a really great ride.

Ira Sez

by Shannon Baker

I read something recently and just had to share it. It is a quote from Ira Glass. He’s the interesting and wildly successful guy who does “This American Life” on NPR. If you’ve ever listened to his show, you know he's got a unique voice, sort of high pitched and thoughtful, with a bit of staccato rhythm. I can hear him say these words:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative
work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you
make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has
potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you
into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work
disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they
quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work
went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have
this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through
this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this
phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing
you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so
that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going
through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and
your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone
I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way
through.”
IRA GLASS


Did I mention he’s wildly successful? And yet, he admits that he, like the rest of us, was riddled with doubts. He didn’t start off being great. He worked at it. Worked really hard.

I find this encouraging and inspirational and disappointing all at the same time. It means I can’t quit. I’m not as good as my hero-writers and suspect I’ll never rise to their level. I’d like to settle for “good enough.”

Mr. Glass’s quote tells me I can never stop trying to be a better writer. That’s daunting. But he also tells me that hard work will pay off. I will improve over time. And so, thank you, Mr. Glass for giving me the proverbial homework for the rest of my life.

How about you? Does Ira Glass’s quote inspire or exhaust you?

10+ Favorite Writing Books

Cricket McRae

You can’t learn how to write from a book. Wait, that’s only partially true. Because I think you can learn a lot about how to write from a combination of many books.

I cut my teeth on Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer and Barbara Ueland’s If You Want to Write as basics. Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, Vein of Gold, and The Sound of Paper are a lot about finding yourself as an artist, and still provide inspiration when I’m wondering why the heck I do this again? But if I had to choose just ten books to keep on my office shelf (not counting things like a Webster’s Dictionary, Roget’s Thesaurus and Strunk and White’s Elements of Style and Elements of Grammar), these are the volumes I’d choose.

On Writing by Stephen King. Well, duh. Not exactly like I’m alone in this one. Full of practical advice, inspiration, and autobiographical detail.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Sorry – another duh, but still one of my favorite books for keeping sane in the middle of a project, reminding me that I only have to fill a space the size of a picture frame right now, not write the whole book at once, and that shitty first drafts can be fixed up later.

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. A collection of essays that are not only examples of writing I want to emulate, but full of joy and passion for the craft. He wants you to love it, to do it every day, and to be true to your voice.

Starting from Scratch by Rita Mae Brown. I love her mysteries, I love her mainstream literary fiction, and I love her writing book. She includes practical writing advice (with an emphasis on the classics) but also practical living-as-a-writer advice. Things like writing with a day job, dealing with critics, editors, agents, and others in the industry, as well as emphasizing that you have to persist no matter what.

Anything by Eric Maisel. Yes, this is totally cheating because now there are more than ten books. But Maisel wears a lot of useful hats, because he’s a doctor of psychology with an MFA, as well as a professional, hands on, writer of fiction and nonfiction with a degree in philosophy. He’s a creativity coach, and understands some of the craziness writers and other artists are prone to. Of course, I’m not talking about anyone here, right? The following are a sampling of his titles:

• Fearless Creating: A Step-by-Step Guide to Starting and Completing Your Work of Art
• Brainstorm: Harnessing the Power of Productive Obsessions
• Mastering Creative Anxiety
• The Van Gogh’s Blues: The Creative Person’s Path Through Depression
• Deep Writing: 7 Principles That Bring Ideas to Life
• Ten Zen Seconds

The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler. I’ve heard this modern classic called a book on formula, but I think it’s more about the universal elements of storytelling that have appealed, well, forever. He breaks things down in terms of structure, archetypes, and the psychology of myth.

Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting by Robert McKee. Yeah, okay, I love the movie Adaptation and how Charlie Kaufman pokes fun at McKee, but I learned a lot about storytelling from this book – including why my instincts told me to go certain directions with plot or character. It’s a heavy tome, though, and if you want a short work with many of the same concepts, try The Poetics by Aristotle.

How to Write: Advice and Reflections by Richard Rhodes. From the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, this is another book with practical advice woven into personal essay. It’s part memoir and part psychological treatise on the emotional aspects of writing well. However, the best writing advice in it might be, “Apply ass to chair.”

No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells by Alice Orr. Though the subtitle on this book is small enough that I’m afraid people in the coffee shop will think I’m having relationship problems (like they give a hoot what I read, right?) this book is chock full of good, practical stuff that, to my great chagrin, I sometimes forget: How to deepen characters, how to write a good, useful sex scene, what you need to know before you start to write even if you end up leaving it out, etc. It’s geared for novel writers, especially genre writers.

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard. Yep, another Pulitzer Prize winner (for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek). Rather than a pep talk, she delves into how hard writing can be – she really hates it sometimes – and how utterly frightening, while at the same time it can be an almost spiritual experience. Her writing is real and human and accessible while being inspirational and raw as well. Of course, I love everything she’s written, even the rather obscure The Living.

What are your favorite writing books? As a reader, do you like reading about how writers like these think?

I Think I Can, I Think I Can

by Shannon Baker

I admit, sometimes I need a little inspiration. Once in a while (daily) I doubt myself and wonder just what makes me think I can do this thing called writing. Even though I know almost every writer has times of doubt, sometimes I think everyone else is confident and fearless. For those of us who don’t always feel like Super Man or Woman, here are a few tidbits to pump you up.




One of my favorite quotes is from Winston Churchill, a man famous for failure. He flunked 6th grade and lost a handful of elections, in fact, every race he attempted, until he was elected Prime Minister.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Among a myriad of failure to success stories I have collected, here are a couple of blubs I plagiarized from the InterWebs. (It’s not a sin if I confess, right?)

J. K. Rowling: Rowling may be rolling in a lot of Harry Potter dough today, but before she published the series of novels, she was nearly penniless, severely depressed, divorced, trying to raise a child on her own while attending school and writing a novel. Rowling went from depending on welfare to survive to being one of the richest women in the world in a span of only five years through her hard work and determination. Did you know that this author of the Harry Potter phenomenon (which has sold more than 400 million copies), was rejected by twelve publishers? In her own words: “So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable.”

Stephen King: The first book by this author, the iconic thriller Carrie, received 30 rejections, finally causing King to give up and throw it in the trash. His wife fished it out and encouraged him to resubmit it, and the rest is history, with King now having hundreds of books published and the distinction of being one of the best-selling authors of all time.

Jack London: This well-known American author wasn't always such a success. While he would go on to publish popular novels like White Fang and The Call of the Wild, his first story received six hundred rejection slips before finally being accepted.

One story close to my heart is that of Mari Sandoz. She was a famous Nebraska writer, publishing from the mid-thirties through the mid-sixties. She grew up in the same isolated and rugged region of the Sandhills where I spent twenty years. Her controlling and abusive father ridiculed writing; she married and divorced in the 1910’s, and pursued her writing through poverty and illness. By her own account, she received thousands of rejections over the course of sixteen years. Yet, she kept writing. Kept sending it out. In the end, she had a slew of award-winning books and I can tell you, they are amazing.

Sometimes I need to remind myself that I can't win if I don't play and for every great writer, there are hours of self-doubt, angst, and ultimately, seat in the chair. They did it. We can, too. I’m ready to climb back into the cab and fire up the old engine.

Creative Passion

Cricket McRae

Last Saturday a friend and I went to see an exhibit of Dale Chihuly glasswork. It was small, at least for a Chihuly exhibit, from a private collection. Still, with five of his famous chandeliers and dozens of pieces from the Venetian series, I can only imagine how much that collection is worth!

I have a particular love for Chihuly’s work, and was delighted to find the small theater showing a documentary that chronicled a week-long “blow” that brought together the primary players in each of the visionary’s different series. For an hour and a half, we watched as they created examples of what Chihuly refers to as Cylinders, Baskets, Seaforms, Macchia, Venetians, Putti, Persians, Niijima Floats, Ikebana, Fiori and Pilchuck Stumps.

As soon as the movie started I realized the blow had taken place in the hot shop of the Tacoma Glass Museum. Four years ago I sat in one of those red theater seats and watched another glassblower create amazing pieces.

And years earlier, one of the half-dozen times I’ve attended the summer open house at the Pilchuck Glass School outside of Stanwood, Washington, I was lucky enough to witness Chihuly actually working with glass. He was one of the founders of the school in 1971, but since he lost vision in one eye in 1976 he rarely works directly with glass. He’s the designer, the (big!) idea guy, and the work is carried out by other amazingly talented glassworkers.

Reading this I realize it sounds like I have a latent desire to learn glasswork. I don’t, but I do find the medium utterly fascinating. The molten liquid seems to be almost alive. It behaves organically in the hands of skilled artisans. When cooled it’s solid and fragile all at once. And Chihuly’s vision, implemented via precise teamwork, just blows me away.

So, no, I don’t want to blow glass. I am, however, incredibly inspired by it – by the beauty of the work itself and by the passion that is so evident in the faces and movements of the people I’ve seen working with glass. They are completely present to the process, to each movement, and to each other. Seeing passion like that in any creative endeavor fills my writing well and even primes the pump. It reminds me that art is intensely valuable in its own right.

I hate that I forget that sometimes. Do you? Or are you lucky enough to carry that awareness with you at all times? What acts or products of creativity particularly inspire you?

I’m not sure when I’ll be able to respond to comments, as today I’m flying south to be further inspired by snorkeling in blue-green water and whacking at a golf ball on a course that wends through an Audubon wildlife sanctuary.

Putter in one hand, camera in the other…

What Are You Lookin' At?

By Deborah Sharp

Does where you write make a difference? Well, it definitely would if you were plopped in close proximity to the 'gator hole pictured, left. Nothing like a little incentive to meet your deadline, right?

But, in general, are you picky about your surroundings when you sit down to write? I am. I envy authors who can shut themselves into a windowless room and hammer away at their masterpiece. I know I'm supposed to be creating a physical world for my characters. It shouldn't matter to my imagination where I am or what I see as I do that. But it does.

My Mace Bauer Mysteries are set in the outdoors in Florida. Hence the 'gators. Just a little toothy research. I don't necessarily need to be sitting in the swamp to write about the swamp, but I do like to write outdoors. I like to feel the warmth of the sun; hear the breeze rustling through the trees. I can usually accommodate this need to not be cooped up because of Florida's weather, and because I do my first drafts in longhand, then polish on the computer. Yep, I'm a proud Luddite. It's easy to pop my journal or a notebook into my backpack and leave the house for open spaces.

As I scribbled out version one of this post (Kids: ''Scribbling'' is what scribes did before laptops and netbooks), I absorbed the atmosphere of one of my favorite writing spots in Fort Lauderdale. It's a garden behind the Unity Church, where I park myself at an outdoor table under a shady gazebo. Leaves from a Seagrape, as big as salad plates, flutter to the ground. The afternoon sun dapples through the branches of a Gumbo Limbo. Florida natives call it the Tourist Tree, because its peeling bark is a sunburn-like red.

I'm not a member. Yet no one at the church has ever questioned this middle-aged woman who arrives on a bicycle, slides out her notebook, and gets lost in writing for a couple of hours. When I get stuck, I wander around the garden and look at wooden sculptures with colorful prisms and inspirational passages. I'm not particularly religious, but something always manages to strike me.

Like this one: Divine imagination is awakened in me

And indeed it is, outside.

So, how about you? Where do you like to write? What do you like to see when you write?

Let the Feds Enrich Your Fiction

by Nina Wright

I’m as big a fan of online auctions as the next compulsive shopper. Way bigger than I should be, given the depressed economy and my modest advances to date. So imagine my delight when I discovered a secondary use for auction sites. One that costs me nothing except my time and offers limitless fictional inspiration. Although you can play this game at virtually any online auction site, it’s especially fun at bid4assets.com.

Here’s why: The U.S. Marshals Service offers an amazing, if not bizarre, array of articles for public auction: residential, commercial and agricultural real estate; timeshares; sport fishing vessels, aircraft, high-end vehicles and collector cars; artwork, antiques and collectibles; fine jewelry and financial instruments. Federal courts ordered these assets to be either forfeited or sold, so let the novelist’s fun begin!

Surfing the categories is diverting enough. Consider these samples from vehicles, antiques, and jewelry:
· A low-mileage black 2001 Chevrolet Corvette two-door convertible (minimum bid $11,000)
· A handmade knotted all-silk Oriental runner rug in excellent condition (minimum bid $800)
· A 7-carat Burmese ruby and diamond tennis bracelet (minimum bid $300)

Fusing these elements into a single story premise, I imagined a young auburn-haired woman receiving the Burmese ruby and diamond tennis bracelet from an older man with a mysterious past and dubious taste in jewelry; he collects Corvettes and inherited his late mother’s Oriental rug. Now what kind of trouble is he in with the Feds? Or, in my tale, did he murder his mother? Does he plan to murder the young woman? What’s his game?

My most efficient use of Bid4Assets is shopping for quirky character details. Let’s say I need a hobby for my antagonist. Or an unusual vehicle. Or, more exciting yet, a “prop” to launch the mystery or provide a valuable clue.

A random surf through Bid4Assets consistently yields intriguing possibilities. Imagine the criminal who would . . .

Drive this “old school” ’63 Chevy truck with camper trailer.

Or collect a “fine antique” Wagner Turbidimeter, manufactured circa 1925, which according to the post writer would be a “welcome addition to any museum, tech school, or industrial office.” (I must confess I had no idea what a turbidimeter was. But it's fun to pronounce.)

Or purchase a Pete Rose Gold Signature Series autographed baseball. Not just a signed souvenir, please note, but a GOLD signature on a dramatic BLACK leather ball. The perfect symbol of the dubious career of a flawed baseball hero. A “must have” for sports fans likewise inclined to bend the law.

But my favorite Bid4Assets story-starter this week is a replica of Jackie Kennedy’s Minaudier purse, gift from French President Charles De Gaulle in June 1961. That’s right, folks! With its dark red velour lining, push-open catch, and detachable 24kt gold-plated shoulder chain, it comes in the original gift box accompanied by a Camrose & Kross certificate of authenticity. Best of all, it’s “approved by the Jacqueline Kennedy Foundation.” I’m having too much fun imagining the person who prizes that item.

Enough surfing amid someone else's mistakes. It’s time to put these details to work in my mysteries. Any plot suggestions? What are your favorite online sources for fiction fodder?

Rules of Engagement

by Nina Wright

A funny thing happened on the way to writing this blog post. I got engaged . . . to be married. Here I was, all set to blog about “unexpected guest” characters—you know, those fictional folks you don’t see coming who nonetheless show up on the page and change everything—when my significant other slipped a ring on my finger. A very nice ring, I might add.

The Unexpected Guest Character post will have to wait because my new status as fiancée has filled my head with entirely different notions. And I’m not talking about wedding plans although The Event will certainly require some forethought. Not to mention the fact that we're contemplating a move to another part of the country. No, what I’m thinking about now is the way my attitudes toward love and lust manifest in what I write.

During the years when my previous marriage—a long one gradually destroyed by his preference for booze over employment—was in decline, the women in my fiction were either leaving their husbands or coping with the death of their husbands. That includes my first teen novel and my first Whiskey Mattimoe mystery. In the years following my divorce, I wrote about women falling into passionate love with thrilling but inappropriate men. Let's just say I enjoyed the research.

My ex insisted he never saw the divorce coming. Being drunk most of the time made it hard for him to keep up. He might have got a clue if he had read Whiskey on the Rocks or Homefree, or even considered the titles. My whimsical play Cherchez Dave Robicheaux offered a big tip: the heartsick protagonist leaves her husband for a fictional character. My protagonist was more desperate than I was.

Enough about what came before. What’s happening now is that I’m engaged to a tender, funny, generous man who puts family and friends first. Although more into sports than literature, he used to be a professional speechwriter; thus, he respects my work. I met my fiancé when I wasn't looking for love, yet I knew almost immediately from our ease with each other that he was Mr. Right. Never mind that he wasn't my “type,” and I'd never written about loving a man like him.

In the movie Definitely, Maybe the hero concludes that finding the right partner may be more a matter of when than whom. Put another way, you have to be ready. I opened my heart and recognized a fine man when I met him. The rest was easy. But if I'd met my guy a couple years earlier, I doubt we would have clicked. Timing, as they say, is everything. And I'll go a step further: anything I've ever tried to force has failed, be it a relationship, a storyline, or a laugh.

Fiction is the realm where I play with my fears and fantasies. But life is where I live them, and it offers more surprises than I can make up.

Your turn. Tell us a little about the relationships, romantic or otherwise, you've built on the page . . . if you dare!

P.S. Happy Birthday, Inkspot! This blog was conceived one year ago today. Jess Lourey gets credit for thinking of it, Joe Moore for building it, Keith Raffel for scheduling it, and the rest of us for contributing essays once a month.

Toons to Tempt the Muse

by Nina Wright

That’s not a misspelling. Although music moves me as I write, so do visual images, including—yup—cartoons.

Now you know why I subscribe to the New Yorker magazine and have for almost 20 years. My office bulletin board is festooned with recent faves; I rotate them to suit moods and assignments. Current attractions include cartoons by Tom Cheney and P.C. Vey. Since I don't have permission to post them here, I'll (lamely) describe a couple that connect to my work. If you're curious, I'll email you the jpegs.

You may think I like cartoons because I write mainly humorous stuff. But there’s more to it. I'm in awe of art forms that are at once succinct and insightful. While I, the novelist, trudge through tens of thousands of words to deliver my point, other artists perform their jobs with stunning concision. In that camp I include cartoonists, poets, short-story writers, songwriters, musicians, potters, painters, and photographers, not to mention comedians, floral designers, and chefs. We can appreciate their work in a single sitting, a glance, a gulp. And when it thrills us, we replay it. We view it from various angles. We chew slowly.

A cartoon, like any good picture, is worth a thousand words, and may require as many to describe. You can recount a cartoon to someone who can’t see it, but there’s no way you’ll match the artist's punch. It’s like describing a hedonistically delicious dessert or a brilliant comedic monologue. (Or, for that matter, great sex, but that's for another blog.) In short, you gotta be there.

But cartoonists face some of the same challenges that we novelists do. For instance, they must create a viable world. A favorite Tom Cheney toon features a Realtor showing a property with a gaping hole in the floor through which the cosmos is visible. The Realtor says, "Of course, the real charm of the place is that hole in the space-time continuum."

I write about fantastical phenomena and Realtors, though not always at the same time. Drafting my novel Sensitive, I took pains to vividly render my characters astral-projecting and talking with the dead. Since I had never done either, I had a license to imagine the experiences as well as an obligation to do enough research to get the details mostly right. When we spin suspense fiction, our series protagonists regularly bump up against violent death. Thus we must build a universe on the page that makes heinous crime both shocking and inevitable. Whiskey Mattimoe is a Realtor whose clients have a high probability of turning up dead. I enhance that probability by making Magnet Springs a resort town that attracts the rich and greedy.

Like all true artists, cartoonists make connections where none typically exists. They twist clichés and thwart expectations. And yet they make sense. If they don’t, we don’t "get it," and the cartoon fails. The same is true of the stories we tell on our own broad canvases. Our characters must be recognizable but completely fresh. Our endings must satisfy and surprise as solidly as a single-frame cartoon.

In closing, allow me to describe a toon by P.C. Vey: Two women are having tea. Next to the hostess is a cat wearing a Zorro mask. The hostess says, "I know it's illegal, but quite frankly we couldn't get by without the cash and jewelry he brings home every night."

Yeah, yeah, you gotta see it, and I did. And it started me drafting a new mystery series starring a woman who trains her Devon rex cat to steal. If you think that's impossible, you haven't seen this video or met my Devon rex, Flannery, who as far as I know steals only hearts. Still, Flan gets into enough trouble to make a genuine cat burgler seem plausible. At least in the world of art I can make.
P.S. Happy birthday to fellow Midnight Ink author, G.M. (Gin) Malliet! My protagonist (Whiskey) and I raise a glass to you.