Writing the End - Mar Preston

Finishing: this subject is much with me as I labor towards the end of my sixth murder mystery, this one set in a tranquil village in the mountains of Central California.  A sequel to Payback, the debut of a second series that takes place in a village somewhat like where I live, it hasn’t come easily.  In fact it’s the most difficult of my six crime fiction novels. 

My editor returned my first draft with comments. I knew the draft had faults but I couldn’t figure out how to fix them. If I was ever going to write The End I needed to get past the gaping plot holes and somewhat peculiar motivations for the Killer. 

She pounced on all the faults, of course, because she’s a superb editor. We had a phone meeting and I did my best not to whimper. I know that critique is not criticism.  What lies ahead to fix the problems is a painstaking restructuring of the characters and plot.

What is keeping me going at this point? Certainly not the money.  I hear you all laughing. 

The fame?  I am famous on my block. They love me here. Not the fame then. 

The joy of writing?  Not hardly. I actually considered falling madly, foolishly in love with an unsuitable man just so I would have the excuse not to finish this wretched thing. 

But something must keep me going. I like my characters. That must be it. The setting, yes, that too. The novel features a murder in a well-funded cattery, that’s a sanctuary for cats of all sorts: kittens that get adopted the same day they come in; cats who are frisky and cute; and senior cats who have beautiful markings.  And it provides shelter for the sickly and  unadoptables. 

I have in mind Cat House on the Kings near Fresno, California, which I visited this summer when I got my American citizenship. I could not speak more highly of the work they do. That visit was a joy.

I do care about the subject matter of animal rescue. There are things I want to say. 

Writing a book is a marathon exercise. It will drain from you every scrap of inborn talent, memories, dreams, fantasies and life experience. You may have come to the point where there’s nothing left but heart. Raw guts. 

I suspect I’m at the 23- mile mark and can’t see the finish. That’s what I say to myself as I sit down every day to work on it. I will finish this and it will be good. 

 http://www.amazon.com/Private-School-Detective-Mason-Mystery-ebook/dp/B010YF49XO/

Wrong Again: Charlaine Harris

I thought I didn’t like cozies, especially those written by Charlaine Harris. To refresh your memory, cozies feature an amateur sleuth (who has some law enforcement connection.) Many sleuths are female: many own cats and like to cook or do some other domestic craft. The violence and sex happen off stage. Most of all, there’s a sweet, light tone to the books. Not my style.

I write police procedural mystery novels. Think cop shows where the action is seen through the eyes of some type of law enforcement. The murder(s) are unraveled with  methods available to law enforcement, be it FBI, coast guard investigators, the sheriff, or big city cops. In my case it’s Santa Monica, featuring a fictional SMPD homicide detective.

It means my tastes lean in the direction of reading other police procedural writers, such as John Stanford, Mike Markell, or Oliver Tidy. Why read something you don’t like?

Or so I thought. Recently the Los Angeles chapter of Sisters-in-Crime, put on a crime writers conference. Charlaine Harris was one of the keynote speakers. As it happened, I thumped down in a chair next to her at breakfast, not recognizing her. With a thick as honey Mississippi accent and southern good manners, she charmed me.

She charmed the entire audience of crime writers and fans that day. I paraphrase one remark. I don’t read how to books on writing. I might find out I’d been doing everything wrong.

One titled Midnight Crossroad was made available in our book bag at the conference. I started reading one night and was hooked. The cozy writer is allowed more leisure in starting off a novel. Police procedural readers want the murder in the first few pages. Harris charmed me again, setting me down in a twisty Texas hamlet filled with original characters and a riveting storyline.

The older I get the less certain I am about my hard and fast opinions. The nice thing about changing your mind about what you like is that it opens you up to a new dimension. I may not like all cozies from now on, but Charlaine Harris is a charmer and I’m a new fan.

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Mar Preston's latest book is A Very Private High School
 http://www.amazon.com/Private-School-Detective-Mason-Mystery-ebook/dp/B010YF49XO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439736991&sr=8-1&keywords=mar+preston+high

Looking Back At What I've Learned by Mar Preston

I took a break away from the hard work of writing another police procedural mystery when I’d finished the third in the series called On Behalf of the Family. At that point I was waiting for the proofreader to finish up.  I couldn’t look at the manuscript one more time. You may know the feeling.

My fictional detective, Dave Mason, is a composite of the homicide detectives I’ve known—and read about. I lived in Santa Monica for many years and love its glitzy mean streets as does my protagonist, Detective Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department.

But while I waited for the proofreader to finish up, a compulsion came over me to tell everything I’d learned about the genre. I didn’t do any of the sensible things I should have done, for example, research the market, think about marketing strategies—any of that.

I just started writing: I. Writing Your First Mystery; II. Plotting Your First Mystery; and, III. Creating Killer Characters. Short eBooks of about ten thousand words.

The writing was a joy because it flowed so easily. None of that head-scratching anxiety of write three sentences, delete two. I discovered how much I’d learned in the process of writing four unpublishable novels, then four fairly successful whodunits. I had taught myself how to write, how to plot, and how to motivate memorable characters on the printed page.

I decided to make them eBooks and only then did the hard work of figuring out how to bring them to the attention of someone with a burning idea who doesn’t know where to start.

We’ll see how they do in terms of selling. In the meantime I’ve got another Dave Mason of the Santa Monica Police Department with the proofreader. Sometimes it’s hard to measure where you came from. I can look through these craft books about writing mysteries and say yes, it’s been a helluva ride, but I’ve come a long way.

Hope you like them too. Stay tuned for a publication date. 

 http://marpreston.com/

Gee, That’s A Lot Of Typing

I don’t talk to my friends a lot about my writing life.  When I have a new book coming out, they’ll ask what it’s about and some even read it and tell me they like the book. But in the year or so between books, the life of a mystery writer isn’t that exciting.

One of my close friends asked me about how the new book was going, not something I get asked all that often because I do a lot of other things like animal rescue and good cause volunteering and that’s more exciting to talk about.

I was prepared to rattle on about my progress on a new book set in the village where I live, but her interest was short-lived.  I told her I had about 75 pages so far.

“Gee, that’s a lot of typing.” Her comment stopped me short.

Well, yes, it is a lot of typing.  I didn’t say that I would rewrite, and revise those pages three or four times before I sent it off to my editor. Perhaps it’s even more. You don’t just type a book.

I guess the excitement of the writing life happens between your own ears. I love that moment when you type the first sentence that comes to mind just to move the plot along. Suddenly the psyche provides a twist on a familiar phrase that makes your heart sing.

However, the magic only occurs when your fingers are holding the pen or dancing on the keyboard. You can’t think a book down on paper. You have to type it.

The excitement, it seems, can’t be shared. 

What do you share about the daily business of your writing life?

 

http://www.amazon.com/ ebook/dp/B00I82BFVK/