The Rabbit Hole Seduction

                                     by Janis Patterson

No matter what we write, we’ve all been there. We’re writing along happily, the scene is working, the tension is building, our characters are behaving the way we want them to for once and - boom! - suddenly you need a tiny little fact without which nothing works.

Sometimes you can skip over it and finish the scene, vowing to go back and fact-check later (and sometimes you forget, for which fans will inevitably ding you) but often if the action is to proceed as you want it to you need an answer, as it might change the action.

In a way research was simpler before the internet. A trip to the library or the encyclopaedia if you were fortunate enough to own one, or a phone call to some authority, and you felt safe. You had done your due diligence and could feel fairly secure that you knew more about whatever it was than the majority of readers.

It’s different nowadays. Everyone has access to the internet, and let’s face it, a lot of information on the internet is confusing, contradictory and sometimes just plain not true. What’s a curious writer to do?

Research, research and more research. Some things are pretty immutable and easy to find out - the date of a battle, for example, or the reaction between two common chemicals. It gets a bit dicey, however, when you get into more esoteric stuff, for example, when did metal-spring hoop skirts become indispensable to ladies’ fashions? It’s fairly easy to find out the date of their first release (England, 1855 is the best date I can find) but when did they cross the pond to become available to Southern belles? What was a common recipe for home-made ink during the 1860s? And my own personal bête noir, did the 1916 Jordan Sport Marine automobile have a self-starter or were they only available with the old-fashioned and very dangerous crank? (Aeons of research have never yielded a definitive answer, so like my betters I have taken refuge in weasel words, saying that my heroine’s machine is an ‘experimental model.’ However, once the book is released I fatalistically await some reader to excoriate me for not having the correct answer. Sigh.)

I am beginning to appreciate why so many writers are now choosing to do urban fantasy, pure fantasy, science fiction, etc. Their world, their rules.

There are two main problems with research - one is that it takes time from writing, but this can be countered with the absolute necessity for at least believable accuracy. And yes, accuracy is important. I point to a Regency romance in a contest I once judged where the hero reaches into his pocket and pulls out a fountain pen, which although primitive ones were first patented in the 1830s were not commercially available until the 1850s, some thirty years after the Regency. When I counted this faux pas against the writer that absolutely furious young woman wrote me back, demanding to know why, especially since it was an old fashioned pen and who would know the difference anyway? Double sigh.

The second problem with research is its seductivity. You flip over to the internet to find out the date (say) whalebone was first used in corsets or the chemical formula for gunpowder and three hours later you are engrossed in reading the life cycle of the water nymph (dragonfly larvae) without really knowing how you got there, since neither dragonflies nor nymphs (insect or mythological) have anything to do with your story. Seductive, indeed!

Unfortunately, there is no cure that I know of for such a predilection to wander off into the arcane pathways of interlocking knowledge. After years of trying to discipline myself I have given up and allowed my mind to dive down the rabbit hole and follow the seductive lure of unknown fields. At least, for a while. You never know when you might find a nugget of knowledge that will enhance your story, or even give you a new one. (Yeah, like we really need new story ideas to add to the 200+ year stockpile we already have, right?) Besides, it’s inevitable. There is just too much fascinating information out there. We’re doomed.

(And I apologize for any weirdnesses in formatting - this new Blogger upload interface and I are not getting along well together! I don't see why companies insist on changing things for the worse!)

Procrastination as a Fine Art

by Janis Patterson

I spend waaaay too much time online. First, there's email to check, just to make sure there's nothing that has to be attended to, as everyone knows email is the best way to contact me. Then there's my twice-daily check of my sales stats - lately that has been a masochistic exercise in depression, to say the least! Of course, there's research to be done, for I simply have to know the depth of a stylish hem flounce in 1816 or the exact caliber of a Broomhandle Mauser... All legitimate reasons, all time-consuming, and if I would just stop there I would be all right.

Unfortunately, minutes spent online are far too much like potato chips or jelly beans - far too easy to overindulge in. I promise myself just one quick look on Facebook or Twitter, just long enough to do a little promo and do a fast check to see what my friends are doing... then sometimes at least an hour later I'll notice the clock and scream Noooo! It can't have been thaaat long!

Even more unfortunately (from a time sense only, as I am very happy), I have a husband and a home and an extended family to look after. Clothes must be washed, the kitchen cleaned, meals cooked, dust bunnies rearranged, errands run... the minutiae of daily living. Unlike the internet, each of these makes a perfect excuse not to write. I won't struggle with this chapter right now, especially since (insert household chore of choice here) has to be done.

Back when I was single my late mother used to swear she could tell how my writing was going by looking at my kitchen. If it was a disaster area almost fit for condemnation she knew the new book was going well. When she came over to find me cleaning the gasket of my dishwasher with a cotton swab and alcohol for the third day in a row, she would suggest that I start checking the want ads for a real job.

Make no mistake - I am a professional writer. Writing is my job. When I don't write I don't get paid. (Sometimes even when I do write I don't get paid, but that's another rant for another blog.) And I do my best to treat my writing just like I would an office job - dedication, responsibility, reasonable hours, decent output, respect for my craft.

Unexpected exigencies aside, I try to ration the lunches with girlfriends (though some still cannot understand why since I work at home - and therefore obviously don't have a 'real' job - I can't just drop everything and go run and play at any time) and other social/political necessities. I spend very little time at the store, meaning primarily the grocery store, as I dislike shopping and am known for wearing clothes until they are old enough to vote. There is one exception to this - when my dear friend from Peru comes up once or twice a year for a visit we spend a great deal of time shopping, as for her it is almost a religious experience. So much so that some clerks remember us from one excursion to the next!

Sometimes looking at my life I wonder that I get anything done, let alone why I put myself through such hard work and dedication and mental gymnastics for such a (recently, at least) insultingly paltry return. (Something really must be done about falling book sales!) It took me a long time, but I finally figured it out...

I can't do anything else. There are times I hate writing, there are times I vow never to write anything but a grocery list again, there are times I really wish the characters in my head would just SHUT UP... but there are more times I glory in the act of creation, feel delight that something works out swimmingly when I had feared it would take days of effort to make the situation work, joy that my characters have morphed into real, believable - albeit incorporeal - people with minds of their own...

In other words, I love writing. I can't imagine ever spending my life doing anything else. No matter how creative I can be in avoiding doing it!

There Are Those Nights....

by Janis Patterson

There are those nights. You know the kind I mean, the nights you just can’t sleep. Nothing’s wrong – the house is a comfortable temperature, the covers aren’t too heavy, you aren’t worried about anything, your spouse isn’t snoring any more than usual – but you just can’t sleep. You don’t have any of those nasty little aches and pains that don’t seem to appear anytime except when you go to bed, you haven’t had anything with caffeine since that Dr. Pepper with lunch many hours ago, you’ve done the nightly lock-and-alarm routine just like always – but you just can’t sleep. There isn’t even a noisy party in the neighborhood.

But you just can’t sleep.

The Husband is an ideal sleeper. After we go to bed it’s kiss-kiss, breathe-breathe, snore-snore and he’s out like the proverbial light. I have always had a much more difficult time going to sleep, perhaps because I have regarded sleep as a waste of time. My late mother always loved to sleep and said with much regret that after the age of three months I never took a nap. For years I took that as a point of pride, but as I get (much) older, I begin to sympathize with her. Naps can be wonderful, invigorating things. They can always refresh and revitalize – especially when you’re trying to work through a particularly knotty plot problem. However, I had not taken a nap that day, nor for several days previously.

So the writer-me took over. Sometimes when this happens I simply get up and get back to work, but not this night. I was too physically tired. So while I lay there in perfect Sleep-Number comfort, I decided to think, which is as we all know the hardest part of writing.

Except it didn’t work. My characters just wouldn’t behave. I guess I drifted close enough to sleep to shut down my brain-control, but not enough to really be asleep, and the darker side of my imagination got the upper hand. Oh, the things those characters did! They morphed into completely different creatures (and I use that word advisedly, as some were most definitely not human) and ran riot through my poor, sodden brain.

Sometimes that can be a good thing. You can get a fresh perspective, an idea of new plot twists or even completely new plots. Sometimes it is not a good thing. Sometimes I find it frightening what is lurking in the dark corners of my supposedly civilized brain. (And The Husband wonders why I find TV boring…)

Needless to say I didn’t get any work done last night. Neither did I get any sleep. Now I have to drag my protesting body down to the local internet café to get this scheduled for tomorrow, as for reasons too personal and too complicated to go into we have not had the internet in our home for the last month. (Never marry an overly-analytical man, ladies. It can get ugly.) It is terrifying, though, how quickly we can become dependent on technology. I wrote my first books on an ancient manual typewriter. When I needed information, I looked it up in a book, because that was the only way to find it.  Just the thought of that now is enough to give me nightmares, which might not be too bad a thing – at least then I would be asleep!

The Research Trip to End All Research Trips

by Janis Patterson

It has often been said that research is the bane of a writer’s life. Not only must it be done and done well unless the writer wants to appear as an ignoramus to his readers, but to most writers it is a delicious time sink. One fact leads to another one to another one and so on and before you know it you’re on an entirely different subject and a whole day is gone – enjoyably spent, but still spent.

I personally love research, and just not when it takes me all over the world. Yes, the world. If you know me at all you know I love Ancient Egypt. While writing THE EGYPTIAN FILE (a romantic adventure done by my Janis Susan May persona) I received lots of help from Egyptophiles all over the world, including an ex-pat Brit who rents flats in Luxor and the director of an archaeological dig. We became friends, to the extent that the dig director (Muddir in Arabic) invited The Husband and me to come stay at the dig house during the next season to research a new idea that was boiling in my brain.

Civilians are never invited to stay at dig houses, so of course we said yes, practically before the pixels were dry on his invitation. And, because it seemed foolish to go all the way to Egypt just for a few days, so we decided to tack on a couple of weeks and make a real holiday of it. We hadn’t been to Egypt since 2010 and had been planning to go again in 2016, so adjusting our plans was easy.

We didn’t know until just a couple of weeks before we were to leave if the dig house stay would come off – we had to be given written permissions from two separate branches of the Egyptian government (The Antiquities Commission in Cairo and the Aswan Governate) and had to coordinate our time at the dig between other visitors, such as other archaeologists coming to study and the BBC, who was shooting a documentary.

However, like all good fairy tales, everything fell together perfectly. Our permissions came through easily and we were off. Unfortunately, we flew Lufthansa, which is rapidly becoming my most hated airline, but everything else was a charm. We rented a West Bank flat from the fantastic Jane Akshar – who had so generously acted as my researcher-on-site for THE EGYPTIAN FILE when it had become obvious that we wouldn’t be able to make it to Egypt for that book. The flat was fantastic – 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, lounge, dining room, kitchen and balcony, and oh what a balcony! It overlooked the Gurnah hills. With the telephoto lens on the camera (forgot binoculars, darn it!) we could see Deir el Bahri, the temple of Hatshepsut. Every morning I woke just at dawn, made a cup of tea and sat on the balcony watching the sunlight dribble down the hills as the hot-air balloon flights went up.

We also got to go to our hostess’ birthday party, where we were entertained by a 14^th century Sufi dance, a fantastic display (most definitely not the everyday Whirling Dervishes) that none of the guests (all of whom were Luxor residents save us) had ever seen. I will remember that all my life. Since we were not on a tour (I hate the “on-the-bus-off-the-bus-you-have-30-minutes-to-see-whatever” kind of thing) we were free to do what we wanted. We spent two entire days at Karnak temple and didn’t cover all of it. We didn’t visit things that most tourists do – the Valley of the Kings, for example, or Medinet Habu. We’ve done those several times before. We preferred to see less well known things. Also, we remembered that this was a vacation as well as a holiday and spent a lot of time relaxing. I took my computer so we could both keep up with email – internet access came with the flat. And, believe it or not, the flat with all its space and luxuries, was roughly the same cost per day as a plain room in a mid-star hotel.

I even got the first few chapters of the new book roughed in. Want to know about it? It’s a cozy mystery, written by my Janis Patterson persona, and will be called A KILLING AT EL KAB in a unique mix of fiction and fact. If all goes as planned it should be in publication this fall. When I was roughing out the story at the dig house all the archaeologists were fascinated, wondering who would be killed and speculating with what. Actually, they had some pretty good suggestions, some of which will be incorporated into the book.

Now I have read incredible scholarly articles by these people. They all have practically an alphabet soup of degrees after their names. I was in total awe of all of them. The afternoon of the first day I had an idea on how to start the book, so I hauled out my computer, put it on the dining table and started to write. Suddenly I noticed that everyone was very active suddenly, walking behind me quite slowly, craning their necks so they could see what I was doing without really appearing to snoop. I even heard one whisper to the other in tones of awe, “She’s writing a novel while we watch!”

Wow. Just wow.

I even broke my cardinal rule of never letting anyone see anything of a work in progress and offered to let anyone who was interested read the first chapter – as long as they understood that it was raw copy just as it fell from my fingertips. About half of them did, and were most lavish in their praise. I’ve never been treated like a rock star before, and probably never will be again, but it was nice. Very nice.

Yes, research can be fun.

And there’s one thing more I must add. When I said that we were going to Egypt, some reactions just stunned me. The general consensus was fear, predicting that we would be hacked to death with scimitars the moment we stepped off the plane. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Egypt was just Egypt – lovely and calm and welcoming. The lack of tourism due to unwonted international hysteria is worrying, because those in the tourist industry are suffering, but there was no sense of danger or urgency or anything. The Egyptian people love Americans and are all warm and friendly.

Another thing that astonished me was I wrote a friend an email and almost instantly received back a surprised reply “I didn’t know they had the internet in Egypt.” It had never occurred to me that they wouldn’t! Live and learn, I suppose.

We’re already hoping to go back next year.

The Quicksand on Your Desk

by Janis Patterson

On my desk there is a dangerous sink of quicksand that can pull me down in a minute. I’ll bet there’s one of your desk, too.

It’s called the Internet.

Yes, the Internet is a great invention. It has made research a snap, giving writers access to information which would have been difficult if not impossible to obtain otherwise. It has created a community of writers from the heartland to the Antipodes, allowing a heretofore unparalleled exchange of information. (Much, I think, to the chagrin of the traditional publishers!) It has allowed writers to publish their own books and claim the well-deserved lion’s share of the income for their hard work. (Causing, I think, an ever-increasing malaise among the traditional publishers!) It makes it easier for readers to find, follow and befriend their favorite authors as well as discover authors they might not have found any other way.

But there is no rose without a thorn. While it has been intensely liberating for both writers and readers, the Internet is sort of like one of those carnivorous tropical plants – alluring but deadly.

Say it’s a bright new day, and I decide that this is the day I’ll finish that pesky midsection of my work in progress. There’s not that much to do, so it shouldn’t take too long… First I’ll just check my inbox. Three hundred and some-odd emails later, I’ve read a great deal, written a goodly number of replies, and a large chunk of the morning is gone without my having accomplished anything substantive.

Well, it’s not that late, so I’ll just take a minute to check out a few of my favorite blogs – after all, they’re writing blogs, so it’s not really taking time from work, it’s professional research.

How did it get to be lunchtime so quickly? Well, I’ll just have a quick sandwich here in front of the computer, and so I don’t waste time, I’ll research that little fact that’s been snagging my storyline to see what I can do about it.

I am startled to realize that lunchtime is long over, the plate of crumbs and curling crusts is balanced perilously on my printer and I’m reading something which has nothing to do with my work in progress, but where I’ve been lead by a tantalizing trail of links and curiosity.

Worse yet, suddenly it’s late afternoon and I haven’t done a lick of work.

See what I mean? Quicksand.

Now it’s not usually anywhere this bad – though this exact scenario has happened – but it is so easy to be seduced from work into Internet play. When faced with the siren allure of the Internet writers need concentration and discipline, two virtues which I most notably lack.

Unfortunately, unless we want to go back to the clumsy, time-consuming old days of handwritten letters and trips to the library, the Internet is now an integral part of our lives. We must make sure it doesn’t take over our lives.

Just be careful of the quicksand on your desk…

To 'Net or Not To 'Net

by Janis Patterson

I think everyone will agree the internet truly revised our world. The question is, is it a good change or a bad one?

Yes, it has given us the gift of instant communication, but it has taken away the graciousness of laid, embossed stationery and a note in actual handwriting. It has also taken away the ‘cooling down time’ necessary to actually write a letter and  allows us to hit the Send button more quickly than is often good for us.

The ‘net has opened up the world to us, but also shows us things we don’t wish to see. It is also not reliable – opinions and even downright lies are presented as facts, with little ability to check and balance. Too many people believe that what they see on the ‘net is automatically accurate.

The ‘net has given writers an unprecedented opportunity to market their work. No longer do they have to struggle their way through the strong grip and stronger prejudices of publishing’s gatekeepers. Writers are now in control. The downside of this is that there are writers (and I use the term loosely) who regard almost any kind of drivel they are able to put down as publishable, resulting in a horrible flood of unprecedented dreck that reflects badly on all writers.

Worse, the ease of publishing on the ‘net has translated into an ease of theft. Every day there is a new pirate, either giving our work away for free or – adding insult to injury – charging for our work without recompense to the writer. Grrrr….

I’m not popular enough (yet!) to be pirated, so at the moment my worst ‘net bugaboo is email. I love email and marvel at the ease with which I can chat and exchange ideas with people around the world. How easy now for writers to interact and counter what is essentially a lonely profession. You young whippersnappers have no idea of just how lonely writing was before the community of the ‘net. I had sold two novels before I ever talked or even exchanged letters with another writer.

On the other hand, email is a great time suck, especially when one must wade through a plethora of spam. One account is great at sifting it out – though I must check the spam filter regularly, as for some reason legitimate communications are occasionally routed there – but my other account doesn’t even know what spam is. I must admit I’m tired of endless advertisements for stuff that will enlarge body parts I don’t have, of apparently entire populations of nubile young women from foreign shores who are willing to do anything with those same unpossessed body parts, of cheap watches and bags guaranteed to look just like their expensive models, of medications for sale cheaper than anywhere else, of princes and bank managers begging me to share their fortunes… you know, you probably get the same rubbish in your email box.

It doesn’t take much time to flip through and delete the annoyances, but some have to be scrutinized. Once I almost automatically deleted a request to submit a proposal from a very legitimate publisher simply because from the subject line made it look like spam. The thought that I might have missed other legitimate offers made me cringe, which is why I now take time to check things more carefully.

So what does this have to do with writing? I’m griping because it takes precious time away from writing. My computer time is limited; I get sucked into research (more often than not simply surfing with a fancy name) for much too long; I get tons of emails; spam must be checked – or at least the subject lines glanced at; contacts much be kept active and much-needed information exchanged. It’s all necessary, but it all takes time away from writing.

Perhaps life was easier in the days when the postman came once a day and long distance telephone calls were too expensive to make save in the most important instances. Then there was just you and the typewriter and your story… Something lost, something gained. I would not take anything for my writing friends from around the world, nor for the ease of research or the exchange of information, but I do get nostalgic for the days when I didn’t have to deal with offers and promises about intimate body parts or shared fortunes from third world countries or having to take time to re-learn my email program after it has been ‘improved.’ 

The ‘net has given us all unbelievable freedom, but has failed to learn – as writers have always had to know - that freedom is not license, nor is change always progress.

The Importance of Titles by Christine Duncan

Anyone who ever wrote a fifth grade essay knows about the importance of titles. Authors take it as a matter of fact and usually spend some time thinking about them. In the world of the net and especially the blog, titles become….crazy important. This fact was brought home to me on my other blog. As I am the administrator there, I see what brings in our traffic. Over and over again, a few titles get hits consistently, every week: How to really scare someone. (It scares me that that gets so many hits.) How to make a really good bad guy. Senior sleuths. Make your Reader Cry. This has led me to more than a few thoughts about titles, over and above the idea that there are a bunch of people out there who want to be really,nasty,scary. First, the overused but really apt KISS principle applies here. Keep it simple. Tell us what you’re going to write about.. Practicing this may come in handy later if you ever meet an agent in a bar or an elevator at a conference. You’ll be able to tell them about your work in progress in one simple sentence and hopefully make some sense. Also, try to think about how a reader might search for your post on Google. If you were looking for information, how might you put it. Apparently from my admittedly limited experience, adding how to something is a good way to do it. For instance for this post, I thought about writing, how to write a great title. And if I had figured out a guaranteed way to do that, I would have. Some authors want to intrigue the reader, hoping to lead them on. But think about your own limited time and what you do on the web. Many a night, I get on Facebook to figure out what my family is doing, do a quick check of my blog, and then maybe do a quick search engine check of whatever it is I heard on the news and want to know more about, or some problem, like a water heater leak or the like that I want an answer for. I’m not here to be intrigued. I’m here for answers. And I don’t think I’m alone.

Internet - Prime Source for Research

The Internet is a great source for research on a mystery novel. When I started working on The Surest Poison, the first book in my Sid Chance series, I had the basic idea for a plot contributed by a friend who’s a PI in Nashville. She’d worked a case a few years back that involved the dumping of a large amount of the toxic chemical trichloroethylene, commonly known as TCE.

My first step was to Google the chemical compound to see what it was like, how it was used, and what effects it would have on public health. I found both government and non-profit organization sites devoted to information on various pollutants, including TCE. I copied pages of details on the chemical and its health effects. I also found it was used as a degreaser in cleaning things like auto parts. All vital information for use in the novel.

I decided to locate my fictional chemical dump behind a small plant in a mostly rural county on the west side of Nashville. The other adjoining counties all had large populations and at least one moderate-sized city.

Back I went to the Internet to gather all the information available on Cheatham County. I found enough to steer me in the right direction when I made my first on-scene visit.

Since I put my protagonist, Sid Chance, in my home area of Madison, a northeastern suburb, I didn’t need the Internet or anything else to handle that area. However, I gave him a female sidekick who had inherited controlling interest in a lucrative chain of truck stops from her father, a French Canadian import.

I wanted Jasmine (Jaz) LeMieux to live in a French Colonial mansion in an affluent section on the other side of Nashville. I did a search on French Colonial houses and came up with one I used as a model. I also did a Mapquest search, both street and aerial views, to check out the Franklin Road area for a likely spot.

I also used Mapquest to look into several other areas, including the small town of Centerville, where I had them make a helicopter landing. It was also useful to figure how long it would take to drive from Jaz’s house to the location of a climactic event. And when I did the helicopter flight, I looked on the Bell Helicopter website to pick out the Jetranger III for the ride.

I set a few scenes in the fictional town of Lewisville, where Sid worked as chief of police until false accusations of bribery ended his career. I named it after explorer Meriwether Lewis, who died on the Natchez Trace near where I placed the town. I checked the Internet to be sure I had my facts correct on the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s chief.

I used the Internet in countless other ways to check out minor points. The common advice is to be careful of the facts you get off the web, as there is plenty of misinformation out there. If it was something I needed to be sure of, I always chose a reliable source, and on occasion checked another to confirm what I found.

Another use I made of the Internet was to ask questions on listserves or through emails to people like Dr. Doug Lyle, the forensic guru, or in one case, ex-policewoman Robin Burcell.

The Internet has made researching for a book as easy as sitting down at your computer. It can save hours of time and miles of travel. I recommend it highly.

Chester Campbell
www.chstercampbell.com

When Other People Say It Better...

Part of writing is marketing and publicity. I know that. I spend a fair amount of time working the internet social networking sites(although not nearly as much time as I'm told I SHOULD spend), doing library panels and other author events, and reading other people's advice on how to further promote my works and writing career. Like everything else in life, it's a balancing act of time and energy spent in the right areas..and for this post, I've found a clever way to balance out my need to work on my latest WIP (due May 1st) and deliver my Make Mine Mystery Post.

It's LINK time!

Aside from my impending deadline, my excuse for referring you to other sites today is whenever I read well-thought out articles on publishing and marketing strategy, written so much better than I could ever write it, I feel like Ralph on the Simpsons, with nothing to add to the discussion beyond, "My cat's name is Mittens!" Which won't get anyone very far in terms of sensible marketing advice, will it?

Sia McKye has a fantastic post on the realities of getting published and POD publishers at her blog.

Pat Bertram of Book Marketing Floozy has a guest post by Edward Talbot about marketing, publicity and promotion, as well as some great links within this post.

Links within links within links, like a picture of a never-ending reflection. It's both the wonderful and addictive thing about the Internet - you can fall in and get lost in an endless scavenger hunt of information. And with that thought, I am now going to quit Firefox for the day (okay, the hour) and get back to work on my WIP!