The LadyKillers

From Mary Anna - A dabbler, dilletante, call me what you will...

We're talking about hobbies this week, and I can definitely contribute to this thread.  I'm all about wasting time doing fun things that have no purpose.  (There are those who would say that writing mystery stories falls under this category, but let's not listen to them.)

I have a 7-plus-foot piano in my living room, which I play most days.  I played yesterday afternoon, in fact, and I intent to sit down and enjoy it again today.  Am I any good?  Not really.  I've been mired in the early advanced repertoire since I was 16, and I don't expect to live long enough to progress out of it.

I have a garden plot in my back yard that gets bigger every year.  Am I a master gardener?  Um...ask the crookneck squash I slaughtered last summer.  But don't ask my collection of antique roses when they were last pruned and watered, please...

I have a stack of books yet to be read beside my bed.  I have a baby quilt half-made, though I'll give myself credit for finishing a crocheted baby blanket last week.  Eventually, most of my projects come to fruition.  And it's a good thing, because as of Saturday, I have a new grandbaby, so I need to finish the current quilt-in-progress and begin a new one.

I like my hobbies.  They keep me busy.  They keep me humble.  (There are certain people who are never allowed to see my baby quilts, because they will recognize poor workmanship when they see it.)  They keep me occupied, and that's a good thing.  When one's mind is tied up with entertaining details, the demons remain at bay.

As I raised my children, I made sure they were exposed to various artistic and creative pursuits.  Everyone, I think, needs an outlet for self-expression.  I'm not sure what my sloppy but lovingly crafted baby quilts say about me, other than that I wanted to give a piece of myself to my grandchildren, but children don't care very much about the quality of my workmanship.  I hope they'll remember the astronauts and stars and cowboys on those blankets when the fabric has frayed away and I have lots of wrinkles and they have children of their own.

Mary Anna

From Mary Anna--The same old routine...

We're talking about our writing routines this week, and I'm afraid I can't offer you tales of late nights, feverishly typing under the influence of my muse and assorted mind-altering chemicals.  I also can't proclaim artistically that I must wait until inspiration strikes to produce quality fiction.

No, I simply take my daughter to school every weekday, then I come home and fire up my computer.  This is my job, and I'm serious about it, so I put in a fairly structured workweek.  It is true, I am an artist and I cannot guarantee inspiration every time I sit down.  I have, however, found that inspiration is a learned response.  There are always stories bouncing around in my head, and I wake up every morning with a subconscious mind that has been refreshed by a night of sleep.  (And so do you.)  If I sit down with my computer and a caffeine source and spend a few minutes reading through what I wrote yesterday, that's about all I need to get started again.

This is the beautiful side of that ugly word "routine."  Psychologists tell us that a tiny bit of repetition or ceremony or ritual can provoke a learned response.  I haven't consciously pursued that response, but I've instinctively gravitated toward a routine that has generated seven mysteries, a short story collection, a thriller, an educational book, and a how-to-write tome--eleven books in sixteen years.  So I guess it works for me...

Mary Anna

FROM MARY ANNA--Are gizmos and gadgets really necessary?

This week, we're talking about technology in stories.  What better topic could there be for an engineer-turned-mystery-writer?

Do I use much gadgetry in my mysteries?  Not really.  My series protagonist, Faye Longchamp, is an archaeologist, and they tend to use Iron Age tools like shovels.  

But perhaps I'm being too hasty in saying that my Faye stories don't involve much technology.  Since Merriam-Webster tells me that technology is a "practical application of knowledge," our notion that the word "technology" can be represented by the latest gee-whiz, up-to-the-minute invention is a bit limited.  A shovel is a combination of the two of the six classic simple machines defined by Renaissance scientists as tools which use mechanical advantage to do work by changing the direction or magnitude of a force.  

(And now I've probably lost some of you artsy, touchy-feely people.  Let me try again: A machine is a tool used to make work easier.)

The six classic simple machines are the lever, wheel-and-axle, pulley, inclined plane,  wedge, and screw.  If you give a little thought to how a shovel is used, then you can see that the cutting edge is a wedge, and the handle that helps you lift the load is a lever.   Voila!  When Faye shovels a big pile of dirt out of the ground, she is using technology.  Simple technology, but technology, nonetheless.

When Larabeth McLeod, the protagonist of my thriller, Wounded Earth, goes to work at the environmental consulting firm that she owns, she uses cutting-edge biotechnology to clean up polluted soil, water, and air.  When her adversary, the raving lunatic Babykiller, blows up holding basins full of water that has been polluted with radiation-making nastiness since the dawn of the nuclear age, he is making use of technology that is 70 years old, but it is still just as deadly as it can be.

What does this tell me, as a writer of fiction?  It tells me that I use technology every instant of the day, from the moment I use a fork to shovel breakfast into my mouth until the moment that I screw the water valve shut at night after I brush my teeth.  Since I spent more than five years of my life studying physics and engineering, I might give a little more thought to how these things work than most people, but it doesn't change how they affect my life.

So it is with Larabeth and Faye and all my imaginary friends.  If I let them do things that violate nature, like maybe having tiny little Faye lift a humongous boulder without the aid of a lever, then you, my reader, will notice.  I will have lost you.  But if I stop the story and do the math, so that I can prove to you in numbers that a six-foot lever is sufficient to allow Faye to accomplish this feat, then I will have lost you in a different way.

For me, the bottom line regarding science and technology in fiction is this:  I must make sure that my fictional world makes sense in every way--physical, intellectual, and emotional.  If the events in my story unfold in a way that is logical and true, then my readers will feel at home in my world.

From Mary Anna--But you seem so nice to be a professional murderer...

Any mystery author gets the occasional question from somebody who wants to know why we write about killing people.  A slightly more discerning question comes when someone wants to know if it's possible to write a mystery that doesn't involve murder.  The two questions are related, I think.

To me, murder works as a starting place for a story because it is inherently dramatic.  It demands that the reader care.  If I wrote a mystery about a jewel theft, I would need to presume that you cared whether the victim ever got her jewels back.  How can a human being not care when another human being is deprived of life?

This doesn't mean that there's only one story to be told about a murder.  The murder of a desperately evil person who has spent a lifetime torturing puppies and stealing from old ladies wouldn't be the same story as the murder of an old lady who has devoted the last fifteen years of her life to raising a child who isn't even related to her.  (This second scenario is the plot of my work-in-progress, Plunder, in fact.)  Still, though you may be glad that the evil person has died, you do care.

I think of crime fiction as the literature of justice.  A crime, usually murder, sets the world askew, and the writer has about 300 pages to examine what that means.  Sometimes, as a writer, I find that I'm far more interested in the repercussions for the people left behind than I am in the irredeemable piece of humanity who did the killing.  Then I ask myself if anyone is ever truly irredeemable, and that question drives another plot twist or three.  Sometimes being a mystery writer is philosophically interesting.

And it also gives me a chance to dream up interesting ways to kill people.  (Metaphorically.)   I have thrown them off cell towers, beaten them, shot them, knifed them, and I'm waiting for a chance to kill someone with candy, because I know how.

Now you're afraid to eat in my presence, aren't you?  And maybe you should be...

Mary Anna

FROM MARY ANNA--Hoo-boy...a blog topic after my own heart. Music.

It's always scary when somebody else picks the topic you're blogging about.  What if you have nothing whatsoever to say?

For example, the local university's homecoming game was last night.  The whole town was abuzz and agog.  (Don't you love those two words?)  I, however, was happy to locate a party at a house where no TV exists.  People were checking their cell phones for the scores, but we were in an essentially sports-free zone, and I was blissfully happy.  If The LadyKillers ever chooses "Sports" for a topic, I'll  have to resign my commission for that week, because I'll have nothing intelligent to say.

But music...wow.  I've taken about 90,000 piano lessons in my day.  In school, I was in the band from fifth grade onward.  I've sung in church choirs and a Dixieland band and acoustic bands and a rock band.  I've directed children's choirs and high school choirs.  I play violin and electric bass badly.  One day, my guitar playing will rise to the level of "bad."

The most visible sign of my love of music is my 7-plus-foot monster of a piano, a Yamaha C7.  I intend to own this piano until I die.  Here's its picture:

 

For me, making music is making sanity.  When thoughts or emotions tangle my brain, an hour at the piano will unravel them.

To tie this subject to our blog topic, mystery writing, I'll say that I write in utter silence.  This may sound strange for a lifelong musician, but I find that music interferes with my writing process.  I hear the words and sentences in my head before I type them, and they have their own melody and rhythm.  Music coming from outside my head interferes with those words and sentences.

For one project, however, music and mystery writing worked together very well, an anthology called A MERRY BAND OF MURDERERS.  For this book, each of a group of mystery writers, including Val McDermid, Jeffery Deaver, Rupert Holmes, and me, wrote a story and a song.  The songs and stories were released in a book/CD combination, and it was one of my favorite writing projects ever.  It actually gave me an excuse to go into a professional recording studio and exercise my inner musical control freak.  The resulting song is here.

Music has only played a peripheral role in my Faye Longchamp mysteries, but there was a moment when I was writing the closing chapters of FLOODGATES when I realized that I had set up the best possible use for song lyrics.  The lyrics to "Basin Street Blues" tied in to the exact location of the climactic scenes, they alluded to the racial conflicts that impact my biracial character, and they echoed the emotional pace of the action.  Several letters and fifty bucks later, I had permission to use those lyrics, which I'd sung many, many times as a Dixieland jazz singer.  Weaving them into my story was one of the most fun things I've ever done as a writer.

Mary Anna

From Mary Anna--A series of fortunate events

Today's topic is "Series."  Since we LadyKillers aren't into mind-control and we're not a particularly obedient lot, I don't think there has been any instruction on how we must interpret this topic. 

Do I write about my own series?  Do I write about other people's series that I enjoy reading?  Do I write about the World Series?  (If so, I will have to do some serious googling, since I'm not sure I've ever watched a World Series game.)  Do I write about infinite series?  (If so, I will need to dig out my calculus book, because it's been a long, long time.)

Since my new book, Strangers, is hitting the shelves right...about...now...I think I'll talk about the experience of writing a series.

I started writing Artifacts in 2001.  It was published in 2003.  Strangers is the sixth book in the Faye Longchamp mysteries, and I'm working on the seventh.  This is a long time to be immersed in the same viewpoint character's mind.  Faye is almost like my invisible friend now.  She whispers her stories in my ear and I write them down.  No, it's not really quite like that, but I know it's time to stop researching and start a new book when I start imagining conversations between Faye and Joe.

I elected to age them in approximate real time, so it's 2010 in their world, as well as ours.  Faye and Joe were born in December, 1969, and December, 1978, respectively, so they are 40 and 31 in Strangers.  Their lives continue on in real time, as well, and complications ensue for fictional characters as well as real people.  Faye is very pregnant in Strangers, and I really enjoyed the chance to portray something meaningful like motherhood, which has been an important part of my own life. 

There were other viable options.  Kinsey Milhone ages about two months per book, which keeps her in the 1980s.  This works for Sue Grafton and Kinsey, but I wanted Faye to have a bit of time to breathe between stumbling over dead bodies.  A private detective deals with death on a regular basis.  An archaeologist needs some time between corpses, if the audience is to believe the stories.  Or so it seems to me.

I've now published about 1800 pages of Faye's and Joe's stories.  That's more than 2000 manuscript pages.  Faye and Joe are very real to me.

Now, I'm not schizophrenic...I know they're not real.  But I think of them as three-dimensional and well-developed people.  I enjoy telling their stories.  And I already have several more in mind, so the series is still young.   There will be plenty more stories.

Mary Anna

From Mary Anna--Chaos...how appropriate...

Our theme this week here at The LadyKillers is Chaos.  So I can talk about anything I want, as long as it's chaotic.  Yay!  This really shouldn't be hard for me, considering the disarray in my general vicinity.

Let me see.  My youngest just turned fifteen, which means that I'm going to spend the next year in the car with an inexperienced drive behind the wheel.  Color me terrified.  Fortunately, I've been through this stage twice before.  I didn't sleep much for about two years, but they both survived and so did I.  I guess I'll survive this time.

My mother has been ill, but she's doing better, so I'm just going to thank God for miracles and hope this continues.

And I've got three long, productive, and pleasant trips planned over the next six weeks.  First up...Key West.  (Yay, again!)  I was recently awarded an artist's residency by The Studios of Key West and I leave soon for a protracted period of focusing on my writing.  (Read the last two paragraphs for a hint as to how much time and focus I've had for my work recently...)  I can't tell you how excited I am to have this opportunity.

Shortly after I get back, my new book, Strangers, will be officially released.  My copies have already arrived and they are gorgeous.  Perfect cover art, pretty matte finish on the dustjacket, nice little ego strokes like award mentions and review excerpts on the cover--it's just a really pretty book.  Here's the cover, without the added ego strokes:

Check my website-- http://www.maryannaevans.com --for details, but the current list of cities where I'll be appearing during my mid-October tour of the South includes Wetumpka, Alabama; Hattiesburg, Oak Grove, Purvis, Laurel, and Columbus, Mississippi; Calhoun, Georgia; and Orange Park, The Villages, Leesburg, and Niceville, Florida.  And I'm sure that list will grow longer.  Drop me an email at maryannaevans@yahoo.com if you have any questions.

And my third trip?  That one will be in late October to the Phoenix area, where I'll see my older daughter graduate from pastry chef school.  While there, I'll be on AM Arizona, before speaking at The Poisoned Pen.  I'll also get to spend my son's birthday with him for the first time in many years.  It doesn't get much better than that, folks.  :)

After that, the chaos should subside...no.  I really don't think so.  I'm sure the universe has more entropy in store for me.  But who wants life to be boring???

Mary Anna

 

Don't murder your darlings!!!

When I first heard this topic, I presumed that it meant killing off a favorite character.   I didn't think that would fly.  I once had a character lose a hand trying to stop a murder and you would have thought I'd held the sword myself, from the mail I received.  Fans don't like anything bad to happen to people they care about.

But, when I understood that this meant getting rid of good writing, I felt much better.  I don't believe in deleting paragraphs or whole chapters that don't belong in the book.  However, I don't think they should be left in, either.  Instead, I have a whole file of snippets.  And it's amazing how often they come in handy.

Once upon a time I was trying to work on my third book.  I had come to a dead stop in chapter five.  I had this great scene that seemed to exactly reflect the inner depths of the character and yet there was nothing going on afterward.   The deadline was looming and I had no idea how to get around the problem.  That year, I happened to go to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference.  While sitting in one of the workshops, half listening to someone read their work, it finally hit me.  The blasted scene didn't belong in that book.  The character didn't need to bare his soul or explain his motivation.  I took out the pages, put them in a file (this was in the misty past before computers) and stuck them in a drawer.

The next year, I started on another book in that series and, a miracle!, that nasty scene fit right in. 

You can delete if you like, but I don't get enough good scenes, chapters, sentences, to toss them.  Anyway, I'm very big on recycling.

And, this being Rosh Hashonah, may everyone have a sweet and healthy New Year.  Shana Tovah!!

Sharan

News Flashes and Coming Up: NAMES

News Flashes!!

• The LadyKillers is rated one of the top 45 mystery blogs for 2010 by AwardingTheWeb! You can see the list of the top 45 here. We are, as they say in England, chuffed.

• LadyKillers will have a special guest blogger on this coming Friday: Historical mystery author Kelli Stanley, who writes two historical series (one set in San Francisco in the 1940s, the other in first century Roman Britain) will be talking about character names! Be sure to drop in and see what she has to say.
• A goodly contingent of LadyKillers—Camille Minichino (aka Margaret Grace), Diana Orgain, Ann Parker, Penny Warner, and Simon Wood—will be speaking and signing on Saturday, July 31, at the Northern California Storybook & Literature Festival in Roseville, CA.
• Mary Anna Evans has been invited to do an artist's residency at The Studios of Key West from September 19-25.  Picture her sitting under a mango tree with a laptop, trying to beat her January deadline for PLUNDER...then dashing off to promote the October release of STRANGERS. 

Next Theme: Character Names...

"What's in a name?"

Good question, Mr. Shakespeare.

Juliet Capulet mused over that very question, and so will we, here at The LadyKillers, over the next couple of weeks.

 

From Mary Anna--Food...and by food, I mean chocolate...

Do you ever wonder how we decided certain foods were...well...food?

Jonathan Swift observed that it was a brave man who ate the first oyster.  Oysters are among my favorite foods, but I do not know that I would have ever put one in my mouth if someone else hadn't gone first and assured me that I would really love this weird-looking lump of wet gray stuff encased in a concrete-like shell. 

Who decided that it would be a good idea to throw a handful of tea leaves in some boiling water? 

As for coffee, who figured out that you had to wait till the fruit turned red, then pick it, then strip the flesh from the seeds, then dry the seeds, then roast the seeds, then grind them up, then brew them in hot water before throwing the bean particles away and drinking the leachate?

Chocolate is an even bigger tour-de-force.  The cacao pods are harvested and sliced open so that the beans can be retrieved.  The beans are fermented, and they germinate as part of that process.  Ungerminated cacao beans lack flavor.  (Did you know that?  I didn't.)  The heat of fermentation kills the germinated baby plant, which is very good for the chocoholic waiting for the bean to be made into chocolate.  Then the beans are roasted, ground, refined, conched, tempered, and molded into the chocolate I love to eat.

If I had been required to figure all this out, we would now be living without tea, coffee, or chocolate, and there would be a lot less happiness in the world.

I, for one, enjoy a daily Hershey bar fix.  Those marvelous brain-altering chemicals in chocolate put me in the right frame of mind for telling stories.  My books would be different without the benefit of chocolate.  Besides, chocolate is good for you.  It is made of beans, and beans are vegetables.  A single bar of milk chocolate, my preferred poison, has enough milk in it to provide 8% of your daily requirement of calcium.  One day, I may see if I can eat twelve of them, thus fulfilling 100% of my recommended daily allowance.

Chocolate is proof that God loves us and he wants us to be happy.  Do not try to convince me otherwise.