Never Put Off Until Tomorrow...

by Shannon Baker

I had a colonoscopy this week.

The only remarkable thing about it was how totally unremarkable it was. Sure, I got a little hungry. And I had a kind of queasy hour or so before I got into the flow, but in the grand scheme of things, it was much less painful than sitting through August in Osage County.

And yet, if you swept all the annoyance at being harassed by my health care providers, the dread of having to do it, the effort of putting it off, the bone-deep belief that the test would reveal nothing but the cutest colon, and the nagging of caring friends, you’d see a pile of negativeness far larger and lumpier than the mild inconvenience of the actual procedure.

Which brings me to marketing. As it would.

Much like my conviction that the colonoscopy would be torture, I’ve convinced myself that marketing is the Devil. It takes time. That’s time I could be writing. It’s mysterious and often times ineffective. Yet, everyone agrees you have to do something.

No one knows what magic cocktail of direct mail, personal appearances, blog tours, paid advertising, and giveaways will net that intoxicating high of sales. Unless, of course, you crack the BookBub code and then you can retire on royalties.

I’ve handled marketing in about the same dysfunctional manner as going in for the colonoscopy. I’ve denied the need to do it. I’ve avoided it at all costs. I’ve skirted around it and touched on it half-heartedly, sort of like going in for yearly checkups but not making the total commitment.

I made lists of books stores to contact or reviewers to query. And put off calling because *whine* cold calling is scary. So instead of doing, I procrastinated and worried, then I climbed on the I Suck Train for not doing what I should have done.

Well, kids, this is where I get off. A few months ago a friend, Master Marketer Julie Kazimer, convinced me I need to do it. Much like the impending retirement of my patron (husband) nudged me into getting the colonoscopy while it was still covered by insurance, I realized the time has come for me to jump into the marketing fray.

So I did. I started making lists and then forcing myself to make the calls and write the emails and follow up.  Here’s what I discovered:

Just as the unremarkableness of the colonoscopy, setting up book signings and arranging a blog tour is not that big of a deal. Sure, it takes some time. But it’s not like someone is bludgeoning me with a fence post.  There is surprisingly little physical pain involved in phone calls and emails.

 

Book signing that didn’t hurt. With William Kent Krueger and Sean Dolittle

I’ve even forced myself to teach a few workshops and do some public speaking. And there was absolutely no prescription pain medication involved. Although I might or might not have self-medicated after the fact, in a purely congratulatory fashion.

As Granddad used to say, (sure, someone else made it famous but Granddad did say it a lot so I’m going with possession being 9/10ths and all that)  “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”  

It might sell a book or two and it keeps you off that Crazy Train.

Getting Down to the Nitty Gritty

by Shannon Baker

I researched flights for Left Coast Crime. I checked my email and had an on-line conversation with my daughter. I wandered over to Facebook and blew an hour. After that, I messed around with some hot tub maintenance. 

Then it seemed like time for coffee so I brewed a pot and read a few articles in The Week.

I dug into the file cabinet looking for an obscure bill from last year to compare with this year. Checked my emails again and answered some questions. Then back to Facebook. And out to check on the hot tub….

All of this while carrying around a fifty-pound sandbag of guilt, knowing I have a big word count I set for today. I can’t seem to force myself to BICHOK this morning. (Butt In Chair, Hands on Keys) Now it’s nearly noon and I’m still in high-speed avoidance behavior. To break the seal (in a little bathroom reference) and get the words “flowing,” I’ve finally settled into writing this blog.

I’m galloping through the first draft of a novel in a genre I’ve never tried before. And I’m using a different writing method than I’m used to. This experiment coincided with NaNoWriMo, so I’m unofficially participating in that. Instead of a goal of 50,000 words in November, I’m shooting for a first draft of this book, more like 75-80K. I hit 40 thousand of those puppies yesterday. That’s not bad progress for 18 days.

And that’s my problem. I’m battling that “Hey, you rock” high with the “Don’t quit ‘til you’re done” attitude. I spent a lot of years as a Lutheran and I am from Nebraska, so you can see where the work ethic/guilt part might be pretty ingrained. Seriously, though, what would be so wrong with taking one day off? Sure, I know Stephen King never takes a day off, but I’m no Stephen King.

Then I happened along a TED Talk on something called grit. (Yes, I stumbled upon it while browsing in Facebook, why do you ask?) http://tinyurl.com/c2sxaay. According to Angela Lee Duckworth, grit is what causes success. It’s not how smart we are or how talented we are, but it’s the ability to dig in and keep working toward the goal.

I even took the quiz linked to the video. (Well, I had time I was murdering so why not?) If I answered the questions honestly—and I’m not above lying to myself—it turns out I have quite a bit of grit. I might go ahead and agree with that assessment, though. I’m not the most brilliant bulb in the chandelier, nor am I gifted with great heaps of writing talent. But I’ve been toiling away on writing books for a very long time.

I haven’t achieved success in terms of John Grisham or Nora Roberts but I’m continuing to make progress in my writing career. I’m becoming a better writer with each book I turn out and I’m learning more and more all the time. To stick with this crazy business and challenging career, it takes grit, not to mention a loose grasp on sanity.

So now, duly inspired and my fingers well oiled, I am shutting off Facebook, turning away from email and setting up in the blocks for today’s word count race.

When you hit a writing funk, what fires up your gritty nature and sends you back to the keyboard?

Engineering a Mystery

By Beth Groundwater

I've taught a number of workshops at many different writing conference, library programs, and to writing groups, and one of my favorites is "Engineering a Mystery." I apply my engineering background from my first career to help fledgling mystery writers build some scaffolding for their projects, or formulate recipes for their mystery novels.

The first essential ingredient in a mystery is the sleuth, who investigates the murder(s) and tries to deduce who the killer is. In my case, with two mystery series in the works, my sleuths are well-defined: whitewater river ranger and rafting guide Mandy Tanner for the RM Outdoor Adventures series or gift basket designer Claire Hanover. Both of these characters are old friends, but when I switch from one to the other, I usually need to go back and read at least the last few chapters of the last book starring that character, so I remember what emotional and physical state I left her in and move on from there.

The next essential ingredient in the recipe for a murder mystery is the victim. The dead body that falls on the floor in Act One. There may even be more than one victim to keep things interesting if the plot starts to drag in the middle. Without a victim, we wouldn’t have a mystery to solve and we could all go home! Along with defining a victim, I try to give him or her a family and/or friends who will sorely miss them, because we should never forget how truly horrible murder is.

Usually the victim is not well-liked, so there are many people who’d like to see him or her dead. And, I, like most mystery writers, try to use my creativity to find an interesting way for the victim to die—a mysterious poison, a unique weapon, something that might be construed as an accident or suicide and so on.

The third essential ingredient is suspects, those people who may have killed the victim(s). There are usually between 3 and 7 suspects in a murder mystery. Detectives or amateur sleuths look for means, motive, and opportunity for suspects. All three are needed to identify the killer. Means is the ability to commit the murder, such as access to the murder weapon. Motive is the reason why the suspect wanted the victim dead. Opportunity is the potential for the suspect to be at the right place at the right time to kill the victim. And an alibi is a story for why a suspect didn’t have the opportunity. That story can be true or false.

I try to make sure that all of my suspects have at least two if not all three of means, motive, and opportunity. And bringing in suspects often drives the addition of subplots (activities the victim was engaged in that may have led to his murder) and the addition of research topics I need to study.

The fourth essential ingredient in a murder mystery is clues, pieces of evidence that help the sleuth solve the crime. A good principle that detectives use is that the killer usually leaves something at the crime scene and takes something away. What the killer leaves may be fingerprints, shoe prints, a lipstick stain on a glass, or the murder weapon, say if the knife is stuck in the body. What the killer takes away may be hairs, carpet fibers or bloodstains, money or jewelry, or a special memento of the crime. I try to sprinkle the discovery of clues throughout the manuscript, as well as conversations with the suspects, to keep the reader stimulated with more information that she or he can use to try to solve the puzzle.

The last ingredient that spices up the recipe is red herrings. These are false clues that point to the wrong suspect, such as the gun in my first mystery, A Real Basket Case, that incriminated Claire’s husband. The term comes from a fish that’s been cured in brine and smoked, which turns it red and makes it very smelly. The smelly herring then is dragged across a trail to try to distract hunting dogs from their prey. A good hunting dog—or sleuth—is trained to not be distracted by the strong false scent but to stay on the trail of its prey. What makes things interesting in a murder mystery is when a piece of evidence points to more than one suspect, so it’s both a red herring for the innocent suspect and a clue for the killer.

I like to have at least half a dozen clues and red herrings, if not more. Once all the essential elements are defined, I work on putting scenes in order in an outline, figuring out what happens when and what gets discovered when. During this process, I shuffle scenes around until I come up with a flow of events that I think will most interest the reader. And, of course, there have got to be some surprises!

It's a complex process, and one that I always find daunting in the beginning, wondering how I'll ever come up with the final product--a scene by scene outline, a set of detailed character profiles, and thorough research notes from which I can start writing. But, I have to trust in the process and my abilities. I keep telling myself that I've done it many times before, so I should be able to do it again.

Oh, The Pain, The Pain

Thinking is hard work. Much too difficult for this dried legume I call my brain. And yet, I find myself painfully hashing out a new plot. I have a general story. I know how it’s going to end. I know the premise, the characters, and some of the twists. In fact, I thought I had enough basic information that plotting this one would be like drift diving along a scenic reef.

Not so much.

Instead of coming up with concrete, workable ideas, I get distracted. Which is not like me in regular life. I’m usually disciplined—work before pleasure and all that. Like the character on Friends. What was her name? The Courteney Cox character, not Rachel, who was Jennifer Aniston. You know, the one who got all bent because her friends wouldn’t click the caps on the marking pens and they’d dry out? I never liked her and really hate that I can be like her…. Um. What was I saying about distractions?

Then there’s the fact that I’m a lazy thinker. I can get out of working for new ideas by telling myself that it would do my shriveled up gray matter good to rest and take in a movie to absorb story telling by osmosis. Or, really, wouldn’t it be better to read that new book on craft to gain some inspiration? Or maybe that old book on craft.

It’s said the great ones like Hemmingway and Fitzgerald knocked back a few cocktails to loosen the creative juices. Many of my writing pals have play lists or use pictures tacked to their walls to inspire them and keep them focused.

Even as I write this The Man With Infinite Tolerance is scurrying around and he said, “You keep looking at me with a blank expression and I assume you’re thinking.” Just because he’s the only thing moving and my eyes can’t help but follow him might make it look like I’m thinking but really, I’m panicking. My brain is refusing to give me what I want.

There are two tricks I use to force myself to concentrate. They both involve physical things to make my mind forget it’s working. The first thing I do is get out my big, thick, yellow legal pad. It has to be a new one so I don’t fret (Courteney Cox character-esque. What the hell was her name?—Squirrel!) about running out of paper or wasting it. I write down questions: Why would Nora have to solve this murder? Why wouldn’t she call the cops? What happened to her cell phone? What is the first plot point? The midpoint? What is her character arc? You know how that list grows and grows.

Somehow, the act of moving my hand across the page can trigger thoughts and many times the answers flow. Often, the characters themselves answer in their own voice. (Oh, don’t pretend I’m the only one sick enough to do this. You KNOW you hear your characters, too.)

The other ploy is to strap on my running shoes or hiking boots and hit the trail or pavement. Walk, run, plod, trek, traipse. Whatever it takes. I pound myself into some kind of trance and my eyes turn around and start to look into my brain. Please, dog, someone tell me you do something like this, too. My brain becomes like a movie screen and the scenes play themselves out before my turned-around eyes.  They aren’t always brilliant scenes, mind you, but sometimes magic strikes and it works. I’ve also done this on cross-country drives but I don’t recommend it. It’s really hard to concentrate on driving if your eyes are turned around in your head.

If you are one of those geniuses who don’t writhe in pain when you plot, I don’t want to hear from you. But if you struggle and fight your brain to give you the shining nuggets, I’d love to hear how you make it cough up the goods.

No Need to Run, No Need to Hide

by Shannon Baker

Anyone else out there remember Chambawamba’s song Tubthumping? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5uWRjFsGc

Every now and then I need to pull that one out and listen to it, you know, when I get clubbed upside the head with life.

I’ve always been blessed with a certain shallowness that allows me to keep floating through life, even when unexpected setbacks arise. Or maybe it’s because, as the third and youngest child of an exhausted mother, I learned early to self-soothe. I have an overdeveloped denial muscle and experience has shown me that if I delay panic, often the crisis passes and I won’t have to deal with any bad feelings.

I think I took this coping mechanism to extremes standing in the hospital hallway eighteen years ago, when the doctor told us my father had a brain tumor and only days to live. I turned to my sobbing sister and said, “Don’t over-react; he’s not dead, yet.”

Sometimes people don’t understand me.  

And sometimes I’m just plain wrong.

In this political season, I prefer to avoid all the issues. It’s not a responsible reaction, of course. I call it Head-in-the-Sand syndrome and I’m pretty happy with it. I vote and this year, I’m swinging in the great state of Colorado so it’s super important. I’m not ignorant, thereby avoiding true bliss, but I refuse to join in the political fray.

Never-the-less, denial and avoidance can only go so far and occasionally I have to face the Truth. When that happens, I resort to a collection of music (old, because, well, I’m old). It’s my Disaster Playlist. It got really long during and after my divorce. These days, after several broken and lost computers and destroyed CD’s (yes, I collected them before iPods) and a relatively peaceful life, my play list is pretty small.

Today, though, I’ll be cranking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxLWFTIvRnM by Jem and remembering that It’s Just a Ride.

For anyone having a bad week, remember if you get knocked down, you’ll get up again, they’re never gonna keep you down.

What’s on your Disaster Playlist?

INKSPOT NEWS - August 18, 2012

Sale! Sale! Sale! Great news! Amazon has put the Kindle version of many Midnight Ink mystery books on sale from August 11 - 23 as part of its "August Big Deal" promotion. Move fast to take advantage of this special promotion, and please spread the word to all of your mystery reading friends!

Here are the titles available for a measly $1.99 during August 11 - 23:

C.S. Challinor's Murder of the Bride
Beth Groundwater's Deadly Currents and Wicked Eddies
J. B. Stanley's Stiffs and Swine
Terri Thayer's Old Maid's Puzzle

Here are the titles available for $1.99 only on August 24th, as part of Amazon's "Kindle Happy Anniversary Deal" promotion:

Sue Ann Jaffarian's Ghost in the Polka Dot Bikini
Karen MacInerney's Dead and Berried
G. M. Malliet's Death and the Chick Lit
Lynn Sholes and Joe Moore's The Grail Conspiracy and The Phoenix Apostles

Also, on Saturday, August 25, 2012, from 9 AM – 4:30 PM, Midnight Ink author Beth Groundwater will present an “Engineering a Mystery and The Art of Dialogue Writing” Workshop at the Chaffee County Writers Exchange in the Meeting Room of the Sangre de Cristo Electric Association, 29780 US Highway 24, Buena Vista, CO 81211. There's still time to sign up to attend! Beth will sell and sign copies of her books after the workshop ends.

Me and Julie Andrews

by Shannon Baker

It’s been a rough week here in Colorado. Not just here, everyone in the country feels the horror of random acts of violence and the tragedy of wasted of lives. The air itself feels heavy with grief.


The Nebraska Sandhills, a few miles from here where I lived for twenty years, has turned into Crematoria. It is bursting into flames. The drought has sucked the hills so dry the incredible waves of grass are now incendiary fodder waiting for lightning strikes to send surges of fire to devour pastures, buildings and critters.


Last week not one but two of my friends had the heart-shredding experience of ending long-term relationships. Yeow. Life will go on for them, of course. But before they experience the exhilaration of freedom and the relief of getting away from a bad situation, they will live through the agony of loss.

And also, I found out I can't just cut and paste pictures willy-nilly from Google images so I'm stuck with what I can find on my computer and I got some weird virus because my sister was visiting and exposed my computer to some awful things and the IT guy who set up my new computer after my old one got stolen forgot to put virus protection on it and I am having all manner of technical difficulties just getting this blog to post and I want to tear my hair out but will probably settle for another Moscow mule...

Even for a shallow person like me, this bad news and tragedy can feel like the end of the world. I’m not nearly as wise as Solomon (wise-ass, maybe) but I feel sort of like doing what he did, throwing my hands up in the air and declaring life is all vanity. Really, what’s the point?

I’m no spring chicken (as if a pullet is something we all aspire to). I’ve seen a bit of sadness from time and time and I know that as callous as it all seems, we don’t live in that dark place forever. There’s always going to be good times and bad. As The Dude says, “Strikes and gutters, man.”

So I’m going to go all Julie Andrews on your ass and give you a list of My Favorite Things that have been helping me cope with this particularly sad week:

• Fresh Colorado peaches from the farmer’s market.
• My bike to work commute that takes me by a farm with piglets snorting in the tall weeds along the road.
• A random glimpse of the Flatirons looking over Boulder.
• Dogs at the pond at the dog park—even though they aren’t my dogs. 
• Toddlers in the pop-up fountain at the Pearl Street Mall—especially since they aren’t my toddlers.
• The movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close that I watched with my sister on Saturday night.
• My sister, obviously. 
• An hour by the pool in the bright Colorado sunshine reading Defending Jacob, by William Landay.
• The cool breeze from my bedroom window in the deep night.
• A giggle or two during phone calls and emails from my daughters.

Even though it sounds trite, I’m hugging the Man With Endless Tolerance especially tight and feeling the MWET hold me even tighter. I’m sending out my best thoughts for the multitudes in sad places in their lives and I’m hoping they can just keep swimming. I don’t know much but I do know that it gets better. It always gets better.

PS. I hope you enjoyed the random picture of our old dog, Boomer, who's no longer with us. It always makes me smile and maybe it will make you smile, too.

Fart in a Skillet

 Fart in a Skillet

By Shannon Baker

This is the phrase my LG (Lucky Guy) uses to describe someone who has so many things going at once he/she can’t concentrate on anything for long. He might or might not ever use it to describe me.

I wouldn’t admit it to him, of course, but recently, I’ve felt a little like this. After five years living in Flagstaff, AZ and working for The Grand Canyon Trust, a non-profit environmental trust, I got a terrific opportunity to head back up to Colorado’s Front Range and get in on the ground floor of an exciting medical device start-up.

 I love the great outdoors and being part of an organization whose goal it is to protect and restore landscapes, but I’m a capitalist at heart. I also love Colorado and have been jonesing to get back up there.

You’d think doing the real estate dance of buying, selling and moving would be plenty for one couple. The excitement of starting a new business and launching a new mystery series might be enough thrill for one year, right?

Life being what life is and crazy being what we are, we accidently fell in love with Tucson. As a retirement place. Really. In a few years. But why not look at houses now, we asked ourselves. The housing market is as nuts as us and one inexpensive foreclosure on the edge of the desert later, here I am, sitting by my very own pool.

It’s true, there’s no kitchen (I mean none; no appliances, no counters, no cupboards, no sink) and no A/C (while I write this it’s 102 degrees) and the only furniture is a blow-up mattress and some patio chairs.  

Which brings me to the fart in a skillet issue. For the last month I’ve been a whirling dervish of real estate and logistical activity. I’ve been trying to wrap up my day job and tie all those lose ends. So much so, that the draft I need to write for my next book has been neglected.

But no more. I have one month from the end of my job at the Trust to the beginning of my new one. Between packing and moving and life, that affords me two weeks plus of nothing but writing. The only distractions here are the pool every so often, necessary to balance out the no A/C issue, and food scavenged from the cooler. Every two days I need to run into town for more ice.

Welcome to my personal ShaNoWriMo. (Shannon Novel Writing Month) I am cranking, piling up the word count and reveling in near total isolation. LG blows in every few days to make sure I haven’t lost my slippery grasp on sanity.

And I had this pesky blog to write to keep me sort of grounded in the calendar and connected to something real.

Signing off again. See you in a week. Until then, happy writing, dunking, sunning.

Another Damned List

By Shannon Baker

I love rules. It’s that ol’ check list thing that gives me piece of mind. It’s the same mentality that probably made me good at school. I know just how much I need to accomplish, check it off, and I win!  Unfortunately, writing, like life, is not confined to one set of rules or one giant to-do list. There is always more you can do. Every day is another opportunity to get better, damn it. Still, rules and lists, and especially lists of rules make me happy.

I came across this from Kurt Vonnegut and it made me very happy because he’s, well, he’s Kurt-Amazing-Vonnegut. (And by "amazing" I mean that word my mother told me I could never say.)  If you’re like me, it will make your day.

Eight rules for writing fiction:

1.     Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2.     Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3.     Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4.     Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.

5.     Start as close to the end as possible.

6.     Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7.     Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8.     Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

- Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons 1999), 9-10.

I’m not sure I agree with Rule #8, but everything else has my seal of approval, even though I’m just Shannon Baker, and not Shannon-Amazing-Baker. (And yes, I do aspire to being able to insert that word my mother told me I could never say.)  Do you have a favorite rule, on this list or not? Do you agree with all eight?

Getting Smart about the Muse

By Shannon Baker

I’ve seen lots of references to the muse lately. Writers talk about this tricky, willful and fickle instrument of inspiration who flits in and out of our minds as if he/she is the reason we create beautiful words or twisting plots. I’m often jabbed by an idea that seems to come out of nowhere and all I can do is shiver a little that some other-worldly creature took pity on my feeble wordly wranglings and threw me a bone.

“Some ditzy woman named Bambi just inserted herself into my book, "The Llama of Death." Now I've got to find out what the heck she's doing in there. Writing is so mysterious -- even to the author.”

This was a status update on Facebook from mystery writer, Betty Webb. No doubt Bambi will become a necessary component to the plot, even if Betty hasn’t figured it out, yet. Her comment let me know I’m not alone in these strange bursts of detail.

I had no idea why I added that tiny apartment with the closet under the stairs in the third chapter…until late in the book when I needed to hide a clue there. What about the certainty that the car burned too much oil and smelled bad, only to need the sense of smell later on?
Since I’m such a dogged plotter I used to resist these surprises but have learned to trust the weirdness and let them stay. They usually end up being essential. But how do I know this without knowing? Do I have a muse trying to help me out? Is it magic? For a long time I didn’t question it too much, just accepted that the Universe knew better than me.

Then I picked up Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. With my apologies to Mr. Gladwell, I believe he explained exactly why we unconsciously come up with these gems that seem like gifts from the Writing Gods. I say apologize, because this may not be the point he was trying to get to at all.

What I got out of the book is this: We all have a part of the brain that is hidden from our conscious, everyday existence. It stores all this experience and information behind a series of locked doors like the vault where Maxwell Smart’s headquarters at CONTROL are located. We can’t access it consciously. But this part of our brain works rapidly, sort of like the processer on my work computer doesn’t. We actually know a lot more than we know we know.

This super part of our brain is responsible for those instant decisions we make that seem so right. It’s the intuition part of us (though Gladwell hates the word intuition) that tells us immediately if we can trust someone, if that job is the right one, if the move to Colorado is a good decision. Within two minutes, our brain sorts through everything it knows and spits out the answer—maybe it sends out our own private Maxwell Smart to pass it along. I’m sure your messenger is more like Agent 99 than Max, but from the evidence of some of my decisions I’m pretty sure my contact at CONTROL is Agent 86. Either that, or I have an overactive KAOS factor in my life.

Galdwell doesn’t extrapolate to writing mysteries but I have no problem making that jump. I think this hidden brain knows way more about our stories than we do. Every now and then, it has to give us a little help and sends that perfect detail we don’t know we need until we need it. Good job, Max.

I don’t know about you, but I’m way more comfortable believing I hold all the answers in my secret vault than I am wishing and hoping the muse feels amiable toward me on any given day. Even if some days it feels like all the good ideas are locked in the Cone of Silence.

What's one of those nuggets you included in a story that you didn't know you'd need until later?