Let's face it. When I look back over my life, I was destined to become a mystery writer. Shall I count the ways?
I prefer rain to sunshine.
I seek out gargoyles and other mysterious sights wherever I travel, and have done so as far back into my childhood as I can remember.
I played "The Bad Angel" in the play The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus.
I have my own custom fitted vampire fangs, which I acquired 12 years ago at Gargoyle Statuary in Seattle (a city I adored when I lived there, in part because of its near-constant cloud cover).
I prefer ruined castles to lavish ones, and preferably in winter when there's snow on the ground and hardly any people around.
I've never been "cute." I've been called sultry and sexy and even goth on rare occasions, but not cute. I can rock black or red attire, but look absurd in pink or pastels of any kind.
My photography is dark and mysterious instead of light and cheery. When I started a photography blog it was the natural thing to call it Gargoyle Girl.
I was obsessed with Scooby Doo as a child. Obsessed.
Shortly after that Scooby Doo obsession, I formed my own detective agency, which I named Snoopy Detectives.
It's been two years since I moved from an apartment into a house, which gave me my own study for the first time. Even so, the room is already bursting at the seams with mystery novels.
It's too late to fight it, so I'm going with it. So far it's been a fun ride.
I've always wanted to write, but I remember the exact moment I wanted to be a writer: my first viewing of the 1984 hit romantic comedy, Romancing The Stone (which Lisa mentioned yesterday!)
It's main character, brilliantly played by Kathleen Turner, is Joan Wilder - a romance novelist who is introduced as a lonely cat-owning, Manhattan-dwelling writer.
As a child, I didn't realize this image of the lone writer was a bad thing. That it was something the character was supposed to overcome on a journey with a good looking, adventurous con-man so she could actually live life.
To me that image - typing away with a cuddly cat in a Manhattan apartment and coming up with lines like, "That was the end of Grogan... the man who killed my father, raped and murdered my sister, burned my ranch, shot my dog, and stole my Bible!" - seemed more like the ride-off-into-the-sunset than the actual ride-off-into-the-sunset.
To some degree, I haven't shaken that image.
I write. I write almost every day. I query. I network. I social network. I write some more.
But I have never considered myself "a writer" because I still don't live in Manhattan with a cat and a typewriter - the kind that clickety-clacks.
But then I start thinking about all my friends who I consider writers -
- like Lynn whose days are filled with editing and cooking and caring for her family - like Lisa who, if she was paid a penny for every time she was fussing over one of her kids would be a millionaire - like Nicole who molds the minds of brilliant future writers
I can go through all the list of Pens and can even more onto non-Pens and none of them live alone in their Manhattan apartment with their cat.
So maybe it's time to rethink my image of a writer. Maybe a writer can be married with a house in San Francisco and a garden she obsesses over and a day job in Finance and more friends than she knows what to do with and an obsession with finding the perfect pizza...maybe, just maybe, I'm someone's image of a writer, too.
So from LGC's post, we all know about the ideal writer's life. So what about the fictional writer's life?
In the spirit of Joan Wilder, leaving post-it notes all over her house while she finishes her manuscript, weeping over the final reunion scene, I've been so busy with non-writing activities: traveling, volleyball tournaments, spring break, college orientation, that I completely forgot what day it was. So here's my post, just the tiniest bit late. :)
I love fictional writers as characters. Joan Wilder wasn't my first but she might just be my favorite. And in her life, you actually see her writing.
I also adore Castle. (Although honestly, I adore Nathan Fillion, so it stood to reason that I would adore the show) But in all the episodes I've watched, I don't think he's actually been sitting down at the computer more than once.
Jessica Fletcher spends her time solving real murders instead of writing about them. Someone once said Cabot Cove has the highest per-capita murder rate in the world. I sure wouldn't want to visit.
And while I loved the movie As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson's character, besides his irascibility really doesn't fit as a writer either.
So who is your favorite fictional writer and why? Comment for a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card. I'll pick a random winner on Sunday, April 15th.
And now I'm off to a place just slightly more mundane than Cartegena.
I asked my sister, the organic farmer, about her images of writers. She knows writing isn’t glamorous because she sees me every day. She frequently deals with celebrities so she isn’t impressed when I mention that I have met and spoken with dozens of NYT Bestselling authors, and at least three of them might actually know my name if I said hi at a conference. Nevertheless, she has a clear image of what she imagines a writing life should look like.
A writer, she says, should live Alone on a hill with a good view from her desk. She should be surrounded by nature and gardens where she can walk for inspiration and mild exercise in between scenes. She lives within walking distance of a small town or village (I’m guessing Stars Hollow would be about right). Everyone knows and respects her, and they are so darned impressed with how she comes up with all those exciting stories. They never ask rude questions about how she does the research for the parts with sex and/or violence.
This writer has dogs, cats, maybe a horse, and a housekeeper. She has someone to help out with the garden during those times she is immersed in her work and forgets to cut the grass and deadhead the roses. She spends most of her working time in her library/office, surrounded by thousands of her favorite books and the speediest Internet connection known to humankind. She works there Alone.
The part about being Alone is very important, she believes. She might not be as annoyed by Jonathan Franzen as some of us are.
This writer works diligently, but her life is not hectic. She is blessed with editors who are entirely sane and so well-organized they never throw the work plan for her entire year into chaos because they need “just a few minor revisions, you know, like the beginning, that middle bit there, and this little part of the ending” back by the end of this week. She has time for coffee with her friends and walks into the hills with her dogs.
This writer spends at least a month in Paris every year, two weeks in spring when the tulips are blooming, and two weeks in the winter to visit the museums. Other trips are fitted in as research needs dictate. Oh, and let’s not forget the December shopping trip to New York, which can be nicely combined with a bit of business (this writer is traditionally published, though she may dip a toe into indie publishing with some of her backlist titles).
And, the greatest felicity of all, this writer makes enough money writing to afford this grand house with extensive grounds, the people to care for it (and the gargantuan vet bills) without ever, ever, ever having to worry about money.
I snort ('cuz I'm elegant and glamorous that way) and ask if organic farmers eat granola and smoke weed in their overalls while celebrity chefs accompany them through the fields under the indulgent eyes of Food Network camera crews as Whole Foods helicopters drop bags of money from on high.
Yeah, we agreed. Not so much of either one, but enough to keep us dreaming.
Hi folks. I've been thinking about my image all week this week, as I've got a big con month this April. First Romantic Times in Chicago and then Malice Domestic in Bethesda. My parents are also flying in for the holiday this weekend, so I needed to get stuff done this week.
Monday, I got my toes and nails done. Shellac, my new godsend, means my nails will look good through to RT, at least. Thursday, I went to get my hair done--getting those roots touched up and giving the mop a trim to control it.
In between I thought about outfits for RT and when to do laundry so they'd be clean. I counted calories as I've been doing, and was super excited to see fewer numbers on the scale again and again.
I went to the gym. I shaved my legs. I admired how great my laser hair removal is working which reminded me I should probably go in for threading.
And then, last night, driving home from dropping my friend back at off at home after we'd had a long dinner kvetching about life and work, I got an email.
This email was about someone I used to know. Never well, to be honest, but a lot. We worked together in the same house for a year, and I lived in that house. So I'd wake up to Will and, sometimes, go to sleep to Will. Will and I had lunch, and we cooked dinners, and we would kvetch, as I'd just done, about life and work.
I respected Will and liked him, and he was the sort of solid presence in your life that you admittedly take a bit for granted. Will was Will: he knew who he was and he wasn't one of those people you had to fuss over or tap dance around. At 21 or 22, I didn't know who I was at all, and I definitely required some fussing. I think I liked Will best for refusing, ever, to fuss.
Will requires a lot of fuss, however, now. For Will has had a horrible, almost unimaginable thing happen to him. But he's coping, apparently, although I don't really think that word suffices in a situation such as this.
Since last night, I've been thinking non-stop about Will and remembering how he was and trying to think through his current situation. I'm a "thoughtful person," according to my therapist, but all thoughtfulness, all empathy, fails here. I can't begin to approach the subject of losing all four limbs to a random virus on any level--not emotionally, not physically, and certainly not rationally.
And so, inevitably, I'm brought back to thinking about myself. I'm not proud of that, but I think these situations lend themselves to reflection. I'm thinking about how we fill our time with Shellac, and hair appointments, and kvetching about things in our control simply because they help to distance ourselves from the fact that, in reality, we have no control. We strive for our image to be one of health and happiness, because image is the only thing really under our thumb.
But we also have the power to react to horrendous situations, as we see Will and his brother, Tom, do so beautifully in this video and write up. Along those lines, there's a Boston area fundraiser for Will, at Boston University. The information is here. If you're in the Boston area, please, please consider attending, even if it's just to drop a donation off at the door.
For those outside of Boston, Boston's Core Curriculum (a program Will and I were both in) is organizing a donation through them, as well. Please consider giving, and you can contact Zachary Bos in the Core office, by calling 617-353-5404 or emailing core@bu.edu. Tell them a Core alum sent you.
I am a shop girl. I have been ever since I took my first job at the Hallmark down in my local strip mall. Up until very recently, every paycheck I ever cashed has been earned by selling someone else's goods and services. These days I manage those shops, but the deal is still the same. Product comes in, and I sell it. As work goes, it's not bad, and I'm halfway decent at it. I imagine that nearly twenty years of retail has colored my perception of the writing business.
And writing is a business. Ok, maybe not the actual writing, the putting the words down on paper. If you want to call that the art, I won't disagree with you. Not out loud at least. But once that pen comes down or you hit save on that file, you are in Author Territory, and that is right smack dab in the middle of Business Country.
Chances are you already know all the conventional wisdom about how to create the right image for yourself as an author. Facebook. Twitter. Be a self promo god. Go to all the right places. Shake all the right hands. Be yourself, but don't get too personal. You've heard it all before.
Okay, so here's some seldom mentioned wisdom I've gleaned from two decades of the actual business of selling.
It's Not What You Say, It's How You Make People Feel
Our memories are terrible when it comes to words, but they are amazing when they come to emotions. So this should be simple. Say the right things, make people feel good, and they will eat out of your hand, right? But as everyone who has ever bought a car and come out of the experience feeling like they need a shower knows, it's not as easy as that.
What people really want is to feel respected, and the best way to make them feel that way is to actually respect them. Sure, sometimes that's easier said than done, but, ten times out of ten, it's the worth the effort.
Your Audience Is Much Bigger Than The Person That Is Right In Front Of You
Just like Tess reminds Terry in one of the final scenes of Ocean's 11, someone is always listening.
When you are wearing your author hat you are on stage. Anyone who can hear you is your audience. And just like the point above, they don't care as much about what you're saying as how you are making them feel.
Even on the internet. Can I get a bullhorn for this one? Even On The Internet.
The trouble here is that we are, for the most part, empathetic creatures. When we walk in on someone getting tore a new one, we rarely empathize with doing one the tearing.
Gossip and people will forget what you told them, but they will remember that you are a gossip. And if you did with me, you'll do it to me. Mock a book or an author on twitter, and someone might laugh in the moment, but months later when they are walking down the aisle of the bookstore and spot your name, it won't be your wit that they remember. It will be your cruelty.
Keeping positive doesn't mean that you have to spout nothing but sunshine and roses 24/7. Just remember the respect rule. If what you want to share with the world passes that test, then you're golden.
Beware The Neverwoods
This one's a little different. It has less to do with how you deal with the public and more to do with how you deal with yourself. We love to tell ourselves the things we would never do, the things that are beneath us.
I never would write in that genre.
I never would go to that conference.
I never would talk to that person.
I never would __________.
The Neverwoods are a dark place. It's easy to get lost in there. It's easy to trip and fall face first into the very thing you said you would never do. Of course, when this happens you usually find out that it wasn't half as bad as you made it out to be.
Inside the Neverwoods it can be hard to remember that there's a difference between pride and respecting yourself. But there is. Respect yourself and you'll never have to say never.
A long time ago, I thought writers worked late at night, the Muse singing in their ears, telling them fantastical tales. I thought they wore only expensive black clothes and thick glasses with interesting frames. I thought they attended fabulous soirees where they were the guests of honor, toasted and feted to within an inch of their lives, every night.
You know what the writer's image really is?
The writer's image includes pulling on the black sweatpants that your dad gave you for Christmas five years ago. You laughed then, holding them up, saying, "When am I ever going to wear something like this?" never believing they would become more beloved to you than your favorite pen. It doesn't matter if they're covered in cat hair, if they haven't been washed in a week, if they sag in the ass -- they are your WRITING pants and anyone who wants to take them from you can peel them from your cold, dead, well-written frame.
It includes the "With Love from Crotch Lake" coffee mug that your friend Alison mailed you from Canada after you protested that no lake could really be named that, let alone the lake where her family fly-fished every year. Coffee tastes better in that mug. Especially if you forgot to wash it yesterday.
It includes the felted slippers you knitted yourself six years ago, the ones with the holes in the heels. An added pair of Target-purchased acrylic black socks mean that you can get at least another two years out of these suckers.
It includes an unhealthy addiction to Twitter, so sick so that you dedicated your last book to Mac Freedom for tearing you away from the internet when you would have bargained with a man with a gun demanding the same thing.
It includes, instead of the Muse dropping by for a cup of inspiration, a cat throwing up on your keyboard while you're writing the hottest part of the sex scene. In includes your dog barking every time a person has the gall to breathe in front of your house. It includes computer failures, blown printers, and FedEx failing to deliver copyedits that were guaranteed to arrive before you left town.
The real writer's image isn't glamorous. It involves sweat and oily skin and insomnia and stress-related breakouts.
And every once in a while, you get to dress up and drink Scotch and rub elbows with other glamorous-looking people who've been greased into their Spanx just like you have, and you talk writing and laugh and pretend you always look this great, but tomorrow you'll all be grateful to be back in the sweats you laughed at when your dad gave them to you.
The writer's *image*, you say? Well, that's a perfect topic for my return from Left Coast Crime in Sacramento today. After all, when is an author's public face more on display than when at a conference that features scads of readers and colleagues? I must say, I was *surprisingly* well behaved this week - some might even say dignified. Or even staid. I'm not sure what came over me, but let me share my pictures (after admitting that I failed, as usual, to capture many delightful moments - apologies to all the friends not represented here!)
So let's start with all the friends I hung around with. I was LUCKY enough to have three entertaining roommates, plus one friend who might as well have been, since we made her run around with us the whole time. Add a couple of friends I don't get to see nearly enough due to geographic challenges - publicist Dana Kaye lives in Chicago, and Allison Brennan is a Sacramento gal - plus all my far-flung pals and I was never lonely.
In case you're wondering if we got any actual *conferencing* done, why, the answer is a resounding yes. Here's a roundup of the panels I attended and served on:
I remember once, in my confused twenties, heading out to a concert where I knew my crush was going to be. I took special care with my appearance that day; I spent all of 10 minutes applying some colored muck to my face, and adding a fancily-folded bandana to my head (yes, this was when fancy dress meant rockabilly to me). Then it was on to Thee Parkside, where I stood out like two-dollar hooker among the t-shirts and ripped jeans.
"Hey," the guy next to me at the bar (not my crush, he was off at the front of the crowd with a cute little girl in a Ramones t-shirt and a pixie haircut) said. "You look really good tonight. So, like, how long did that" - a muddled hand gesture in front of his face - "take you to do?"
Maybe it's just that the guys who try to pick me up don't have the best lines. I was also once complimented on my eyebrows.
"Really, they look great, all... natural. I admire a girl who doesn't mind letting things like that go."
Sometimes they are so bad that I actually wonder if the dude is trying to offend me. Which never works. It mostly just cracks me up.
"So I know your standards are usually higher, but, you know, it's been a while since (ex-boyfriend) left town, you must be, you know, and I just wanted to see if you wanted to hook up."
But these are depressing. So instead, I'll just share my favorite pick-up-line story, one that is not my own. This is borrowed from the husband of one of my best friends. When he was 10 or 11, his older brother took him out to the City to teach him how to pickup women. And you know what? When an adorable little kid yells at you from across the street, "Baby! Baby, you stepped on something! My HEART!" it sure as heck works.
(okay, works in that you're flattered and go, "awww," not works in that he actually succeeds in picking you up. I don't think pick-uplinesever work that way.)
Bethany Herron is an urban fantasy writer, freight-train conductor, and RWA Board Member living in the Bay Area. She has the blessed fortune to be connected to the Pens by blood, and blogs at http://jujuwiz.wordpress.com.
Since I had the same long, curly hair for 20 years, from 16 to 36, I took for granted the responses I'd get about my hair. Compliments and pick-up lines, sure, but also nicknames like "Poof" because of how frizzy my curls could get.
In the past eight months I've tried out many different hairstyles, and it's been fascinating to see how people respond differently to me when I have different hair.
The biggest eye opener? There's a big difference between the hairstyles men and women respond to.
The Pens picked out this wig with red highlights for me (shown on the left), and it quickly became my favorite wig during chemo. When I was up for leaving the house, I'd don this wig, and on most trips at least woman would make a comment about cool it was. I'm used to people commenting on my hair, but not quite that frequently.
When I was healthy enough to go back to working out of my office in San Francisco, I got myself a real hair wig (shown on the right). I picked out one that's pretty close to what my hair would look like if it wasn't curly, since I thought it would be fun to try out straight near-black hair. On my way home from the beauty store that day, I stopped at the market, and a guy hit on me.
The pattern has continued. Women love the streaks of color and often comment on it. Men don't approach me as often in that cool wig, but with the more natural hair, I get hit on at least as often as I used to. What's the deal?
I never selected any of my wigs for their potential for being hit on, but it was nevertheless interesting to see how it played out.
When I wanted more variety, I got myself an even shorter wig with purple streaks cut at a cute angle (shown on the left). The response was very similar to the wig with red highlights. Women agree with me that it's very cool. But guys? I have no idea.
It's been a few months since I finished chemotherapy, so pretty soon I'll be sporting a short cut of my own hair. It'll be interesting to see what happens then.
