Travel and the Novelist

by Janis Patterson

Travel is wonderful. Travel is broadening. Travel is fun. Travel is enlightening. Travel can be used as research for an upcoming book - and therefore be made tax-deductible!

Travel can also be very problematic for the professional novelist.

I try to adhere to a writing schedule - a rough and occasionally flexible schedule, admittedly, and have been known to be somewhat slip-shod about keeping it (hey, I’m only human!) but schedules do work best when you’re at home and settled into a routine. Travel can knock all that into a cocked hat.

The Husband would rather fly everywhere we go; as I have an intense dislike of being treated as not-too-bright self-ambulatory cargo, I prefer to drive if at all feasible. The results turn out to be pretty much equal. Whichever way we travel, though, I refuse to go without a computer. (Yes, I am spoiled. And semi-obsessed.) That way I can make notes, keep a trip diary if the trip justifies such, and at least appear to be holding to my schedule. 

The Husband calls it my security object. I loftily reply that I haven’t yet started carrying it with me to the grocery store - though I haven’t yet admitted that sometimes it can be a near thing.

While the stated idea of taking a computer with me is so I can get at least some work done on the work in process (which does have a fast-approaching deadline), perhaps the greatest danger traveling poses to a novelist is the storm of ideas which attack you. I have a projected writing schedule for approximately the next two years. Then I go on a trip and everything goes wonky, as it is a very rare trip when I don’t get at least five or six workable plots, plots which call to me with the seductive whispers of excitement and creativity.

So, like a good little magpie snatching at something shiny, I make notes and jot down ideas, create a file for them on the computer and tuck them away in a remote corner of my hard drive. And, I’ll be honest, sometimes I forget them... but sometimes I don’t. Some of my best and best-selling books have come from these ‘vacation attack’ ideas. 

Anyway, as we are leaving in the morning, I have to go finish packing. All those ideas are lying in wait.

(P.S. - for those of you who are following my republishing blitz, I am happy to report that it is going perfectly according to schedule - a book, freshly edited, freshly edited and as often as not with a new cover - released every other Wednesday since the middle of January! THE EARL AND THE BLUESTOCKING (#15) will go live on 19 July, and INHERITANCE OF SHADOWS (#16 and a multi-award winner) on 2 August. Plus - drum roll here - my second audio book A KILLING AT EL KAB and my third CURSE OF THE EXILE are now available at Amazon and Audible!

Series Surrender

by Janis Patterson

As I’ve said many times before, it never ceases to astonish me how many – and how many times – people ask me where I get ideas for my books. Where DON’T you get ideas? They’re as thick, persistent and unavoidable as a mosquito storm in a swamp.

For example, I am in the final throes of finishing my Egyptian murder mystery A KILLING AT EL KAB. I tried to get it done before The Husband and I took off for Boston to attend the wedding of his battle buddy from his first Iraq deployment. (It was a beautiful and fantastic formal affair, by the way.) Well, I didn’t, and I didn’t even try while we were up North. We took a few days to sightsee, and of course my mind was far and away from murder and mayhem on an Egyptian archaeological dig.

Instead my mind latched onto murder and mayhem at a Massachusetts archaeological dig. (Yes, I know my mind tends to run in certain ways.) I had been teasing with the idea of doing a series with a globe-trotting anthropologist who finds murder and mayhem wherever she goes. (My kind of girl!) For those of you who don’t know, traditionally Old World excavators are called archaeologists and New World ones are called anthropologists, though in many cases they have almost the exact same training. At least, that’s the way I was taught it was, and if it has changed in the interim I apologize.

Now you’re probably saying, Wait a minute! This writer hates series. What’s she doing planning on writing one?

All I can do is plead habitual inconsistency.

However, in my defense I will say that the only constant in the series will be the heroine herself. Each setting will be different. Already I’ve started making notes on books to be set in Massachusetts, Peru, Midland Texas and England. Other characters from other books may make small cameo appearances through letters or phone calls, but the main cast of characters will be different each time. That, I hope, will keep me from getting bored, which is my main beef with series.

And there is a second inducement – money. As The Husband does some work as my assistant (for which I pay him, just to keep the I(nfernal) R S happy) he is a vital part of my writing business. That means whenever we travel to someplace where I am setting a novel, it becomes a deductible business expense. The more books, the more places we get to go. Sweet!

Unfortunately, my desk is stacked to the skies with stuff that must be finished before I can really progress beyond the notes stage. There’s A KILLING AT EL KAB, of course, and the idea of finishing that breaks my heart. It is a world I love, one which I have actually visited (sans murders, of course, darn it) and when I leave I’ll never really be able to go back again. After that, I must finish the final re-write of THE MASTER OF MORECAMBE HALL, a tasty modern Gothic set in a stately home in England, then get it edited, formatted and a cover made. And I must do a final read-through of MURDER AND MISS WRIGHT, a contemporary cozy mystery set at a scholarly Egyptological conference in Chicago. This has been superbly edited by my wonderful editor Laree Bryant and has a marvelous cover by the inimitable Dawn Charles of Bookgraphics and all it lacks is formatting and the back cover copy finalized. It should have been out for sale at the beginning of summer – I am the one falling down on the job.

A writer, however, can usually tell when an idea has legs or when it is just a flash in the pan that tempts and bedazzles for a week or so. My anthropologist/excavator/sleuth has been hanging around at the fringes of my consciousness for long enough now that I believe she has legs. I hope so. I’m ready to travel.

Late for a Very Important Date

by Kaye George

I’m late writing my blog for today (I usually do it a few days in advance), but for a very important reason.

Our move from Texas to Tennessee is completed in the sense that a lot of furniture and boxes (4000 pounds of books, the mover told me) are in the house. Several of the boxes have been unpacked and some of the furniture has been arranged. My car hasn’t arrived yet, so Hubby and I are sharing. We’ve seen a good bit of the three grandkids who live here, including a soccer practice for four-year-olds. That’s a hoot, if you haven’t witnessed one.

However, another grandkid is pulling me away already! I’m flying to DC today to help out our daughter, who has been put on bed rest pending the birth of their second child. So I’ll be dealing with the two-year-old who, by recent accounts, has become Terrible.

I took a hiatus of nearly two weeks from writing for our move, but can’t afford to do that again. So wish me luck while I try to squeeze words out of my head, through fingers, and into my netbook or my Alphasmart during naps, if they happen, or in the evening, if reasonable bedtime happens. Maybe my grandkid (the two year old or the one on the way) can give me lots of inspiration and help me stay on schedule!

White Rabbit photo from Photobucket

A Week on the Road

A Week on the Road

                                               By Randy Rawls

 

        Sometimes I have to remind myself how tiring travel is. I left South Florida last Thursday morning, heading for Cape Fear Crime Festival in Wilmington, NC. I should have known not to trust that small map I had. It's a lot farther than it looked. Anyway, made it to Santee, S.C. before deciding to employ common sense and find a place for the night. With that accomplished, I looked at gas prices. Wow, so much cheaper in S.C.--at least 30 cents a gallon--than in South Florida.

        On Friday morning, I pushed on and landed in Wilmington in the early afternoon. Met with some of the CFCF gang on Friday evening for a pizza party. Joyce Lavene and Judy Nichols provided pizza and colas. Several other authors supplied stories about our crazy world of writing. I won't mention the jokes that peppered the evening. Judy regaled us with stories of her adventures on Jeopardy. If you missed it, she won big.

        Saturday morning, too early and too cold for this old South Florida body—temperature dropped to 22 degrees overnight—I had the first session. Did my BOOT CAMP FOR WRITERS, which seemed to be well-received. One person assured me she was heading into rewrite after listening to my list of evils. As I do at any appearance with writers, I offered to critique the first 10 pages of anyone's manuscript—if that same anyone wants to hear the brutal truth. A couple of folks stepped up and said they'd take a chance. I'm looking forward to receiving their work.

        The conference continued through the day, and although attendance was small, it was a fun day. Judy and Joyce came up with a gimmick I haven't seen at any other conference. They set up a Skype connection with the Guests of Honor. First up was William Bernhardt. It was a no holds barred interview and Bernhardt hung tough and answered every question. In the afternoon, the Skype session was repeated with Alexandra Sokoloff. She, too, was totally candid and fielded some tough ones.  I may have witnessed the future of conferences. No expensive Guests of Honor on site, just Skype sessions. Having run SleuthFest a few times, I can hear the cash register kajinging with savings.

        When the day wrapped up, we hugged our goodbyes to those who had other places to be, then the rest of us met for dinner. A fun day at a fun conference with fun people.

        On Sunday morning, I was on the road again, heading for my hometown of Williamston. After a couple of days there, I was en route again. Arrived home this afternoon (Wednesday) and now sit here reporting to you, looking forward to an early bed tonight and a late rising tomorrow morning.

        If you live within commuting distance—and who doesn't since airplanes took over the skies—consider Cape Fear Crime Festival for next year. I am.