The Croton Rejection

By Joe Moore
I wrote my first novel over 20 years ago. I would get up a 4 AM, sit in a dark corner of my living room and type on something called a Magnavox VideoWriter. While my family slept, I worked away until it was time to shower and be off to my day job. For over three years I put in every spare moment, taking away from my family, friends, everything. The day came when I finished my masterpiece, an action adventure novel that I felt would knock readers on their butts. I could easily see my name on the bestseller lists just above Clive Cussler, Dale Brown, Jack Higgins, Tom Clancy, and all my heroes. It was just a matter of time before the critics would call me the next Clive-Dale-Jack-Tom guy.

I picked the biggest NY publisher of action adventure blockbusters I could find and spent countless hours tweaking my query letter. Finally, off it went. And to my amazement, I got a reply back from one of their editors asking to see my entire manuscript. Man, this writing thing was way too easy!

I printed the manuscript, packaged it up and sent it overnight costing me more in shipping than I could afford. Then I sat back, basking in the glow that my plan was on track. I was about to be rocketed into the action adventure stratosphere and worshiped far and wide.

A week went by. Two weeks. Three, then a month. I theorized that they must be passing my baby around to all the editors, marketing guys, cover artists, and publicists to see who wanted to work on the next major bestseller.

Then one day, I was working in my yard. I had thick crotons growing up against the front of my house, and it was time to trim them back. As I clipped away with the hedge cutters, I noticed a stained, yellowed shipping envelope shoved back behind the crotons. It was addressed to me and was from that big NY publisher. The mail carrier must have put it there to protect it from the weather. Checking the postmark, it had been mailed back to me less than a week after I sent the manuscript out.

I went inside, opened the package and pulled out my weather-worn, damp, rumpled, moldy pages. Written across the front of the title page in red were three words: Not for us.

I had spent 3 years working on that book and over a month fantasizing what I would do with that 6-figure advance. But with just three short words, my dreams ignited like a piece of magician's flash paper. It hurt. Even thinking back on it today, it still hurts.

Somewhere out there is a guy who decided to write “not for us” on the front of my manuscript many years ago. I’d like to thank him. Looking back, that book was not for primetime. And anytime I need a reality check, all I have to do is walk out my door and look at those crotons. They’re still growing and, hopefully, so am I.

What was your first rejection like? How did you deal with it? How long did it take to get over it and back on track?

Forensic University of St. Louis

My writing has suffered because I've been busy co-chairing Sisters in Crime’s first ever Forensic University of St. Louis, this last Nov. 1 through 4. The conference began as a crazy idea my friend Michelle Becker and I hatched. The national board of Sisters in Crime thought it worthwhile and supported us--in ways too numerous to count.

ForU attracted 114 attendees and showcased 16 presenters. Fifty folks who came in early Thursday traveled to the Bull’s Eye Shooting Range to shoot indoors. The conference proper spanned two and a half days with 30 different “classes” being offered. We also raised about $4,000 for the Crime Lab Project Foundation.

On Sunday, after we pronounced the group officially “graduates of the Class of 2007,” a member from our local chapter came up and embraced me. Her own writing schedule had precluded her from helping out. But she whispered in my ear, “I had no idea of the scope of what you were trying to do. This...this is just fabulous.”

Which begs the question, “What exactly WERE Michelle and I trying to do?” Besides have twin nervous break-downs, spend all our waking hours on conference related “stuff,” drop all our own writing entirely by the wayside, rope other people into this…this madness, and run around like a couple of chickens with their heads cut off?

Well, we had a vision. We thought the writing world needed a different sort of conference. Michelle and I wanted access to more information about the crime portion of our craft. We figured other people might need the same. And we were just crazy enough to think that two meeting planning novices could pull this off.

And we did. People are saying it was the best conference they ever attended. Don’t take my word for it. Check out Libby Fischer Hellmann’s post http://www.theoutfitcollective.com/ Donna Andrews’ comments at http://femmesfatales.typepad.com/ and Meg Chittenden’s comment posted on DorothyL: “I've been attending conferences and conventions connected with writing and/or mystery for over 30 years, and I have to say that this one was way up there.”

Yeah, I’m still digging through paperwork, finishing reports and answering emails. So, it's true: This took up a lot of my available energy and writing time. But to have a dream and to see it come true, well, that’s incredibly empowering. Besides, there were other compensations. Turns out, the bigger the gun, the better my aim. My husband and son have new respect for me. (Or maybe that's FEAR in their eyes. Who can tell?)


I’m curious. What cuts into your writing or creative time? Is that interloper worthwhile? Do YOU think I wasted my time?

InkSpot News - 10 November 2007

Benetech Bookshare.org adds Bill Cameron's Lost Dog to its huge and growing library of online books for the community of visually impaired and otherwise print disabled individuals. As the Bookshare.org About Us page explains, "This online community enables book scans to be shared, thereby leveraging the collections of thousands of individuals who regularly scan books, eliminating significant duplication of effort. Bookshare.org takes advantage of a special exemption in the U.S. copyright law that permits the reproduction of publications into specialized formats for the disabled."
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Felicia Donovan will kickoff the Portsmouth, NH Public Library's Book Talk series on Monday, November 19th at noon. Please visit www.feliciadonovan.com for more details.

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Tom Schreck will be at Murder and Mayhem in Muskego, WI and moderating a panel on Minnesota Mysteries.

Going to the Cave, by Jess Lourey

I've begun writing a non-mystery. The research has consumed the last six months of my life, including field research, Internet research, and secondary source research. That last month of researching (October, to be specific), I realized that I was no longer truly researching. I was hiding from writing.

The novel will be about a Lakota (western South Dakota Sioux) girl captured from her home and forced into an Indian boarding school in the early 1920s. I didn't go looking for this story, and the last few weeks, I've spent a lot of time wishing it hadn't found me. It came to me in a dream, as a few of my story ideas do. I was visiting a friend in Wausau, Wisconsin, with my kids. In the middle of the night, I sat up in the futon bed, pushed her cats off of me, and looked down at my son and daughter, who were sleeping on the floor. They were safe. What had woken me up?

When my heartbeat slowed, the dream I had been having flooded back to me and played on the far wall of the bedroom like a movie. I was watching a girl with black hair and skin the color of sand. She was in a kitchen, hungry and looking for food. An older woman came in and argued with her. She sent her back to her room, which was really a dormitory with bed after bed after bed of dark-haired girls. The dream moved in real time, so the girls tossed in their sleep, some of them cried, all of them were lonely. With this movie still playing out of my head, I started writing down the details. And then I went back to sleep, and after a week or two, the vivid dream shuffled into the gray area in the back of my mind.

Several weeks later, I came across an article on the boarding school experience of a Lakota boy. I realized that was what I had seen in that dream in Wausau--an Indian boarding school, and judging by the furniture and nightclothes, it had been around 1900. My curiosity piqued, I started researching, and the more I found out, the clearer the story of the girl in the kitchen became, like a sculptor removing wood to find the shape that lies underneath.

Researching is enjoyable to me, and I immersed myself in it. My kids and I traveled to South Dakota to visit existing and closed boarding schools. I bought and read book after book on the subject. I visited websites created by Lakota individuals and groups. I learned bits of the language. Last month, however, it became clear to me that I had enough research and was just scared to start writing.

My biggest concern was what the Lakota people would think of me writing this story. Native Americans have had their culture appropriated in every way imaginable, and I would just be one more person stealing their history. Even if I could overcome that hurdle, what if I couldn't pull off a story of this scope? I write mysteries, which are challenging but also familiar. This would be historical, literary fiction, which is a whole other beast. If I could even get the blessings of the Lakota to write the novel, and if I could even pull off writing good literary fiction, what if I couldn't get a publisher and all that stress and time was for nothing?

And then finally, there is the simple act of writing, which is invigorating but is also emotional work. Isabel Allende, one of my favorite authors, calls this work "returning to the caves of dreams and human memory." It's thrilling, but it's also lonely and sometimes scary. It can be hard to make yourself go into the caves every night.

So that's where I am. I've written six pages, and I like what I've written, but that was a week ago, and I've been afraid to go back. I have a full-time job, I'm raising two kids, my house needs cleaning, I could volunteer more in my son's classroom, shouldn't I put the storm windows on? That's what I tell myself, but the truth is, I'm afraid.

A Little Help From Our Friends

By Sue Ann Jaffarian

For the most part, writing is a solitary venture. But this past week I was reminded how important it is for writers to bond with one another. I’m not talking about career networking or about having drinks with writers you only see at conferences. (Although that can be a hell of a lot of fun.) I’m talking about real bonding, becoming friends and mentors. Writers sharing quality time one-on-one with other writers, discussing dreams, hopes, and problems, and brainstorming together to get over the humps and bumps of the frustrating business of writing.

In the past week, I had dinner with three fellow mystery authors. Last Tuesday, it was promotional brainstorming with Morgan Hunt. Friday, Tim Maleeny and I swapped goals of writing full-time and plotted some joint marketing ideas. And this past Sunday, I spent a couple of hours over a chicken pot pie with short story author Kate Thornton, who is finally sitting down to write her novel. I came away from each dinner high on writing and filled with new ideas and a fresh outlook on some old ones, and I hope they did, too. And, then, there’s the laughter. When writers get together, there is always laughter.

We all have friends and family who lend us support in time of emotional need, but unless they are also writers, they cannot really understand our passion when hashing out plot glitches or publicity frustrations. I’ve seen the eyes of many a friend glaze over and can almost hear them say: “There she goes again.” Neither do they fully understand what drives us to sit hour after hour alone pounding a keyboard. And seldom do they appreciate the “other world” that exists and flourishes inside our heads without wondering if we should seek professional help. After all, isn’t what we do a bit psychotic? But in a nice way, of course.

But another writer, that’s a different story. Another writer understands when we discuss poisons and dismemberment, kidnapping and blood spatter patterns. Another writer understands when we curse the evil and chaotic business of publishing, yet cling to the desire to be a part of it. Another writer understands our particular type of psychosis, because they suffer from the same affliction.

So in the next week or so, make sure you get together at least once with another writer, even if it means taking time away from your writing. Think of it as psychotherapy for the price of a meal … and it’s a lot more fun.

Plug and Play

Last night I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much – such a classic, and with many of the elements that are touted within the “how to write a screenplay” texts (e.g. Robert McKee’s Story and Christopher Vogler’s Writer’s Journey). Reversals and gaps, plot pacing, character arc, conflict, etc. But this and a ton of other fabulous classic movies came out long before these “instruction manuals” graced a single shelf.

Gosh, how did they manage?

Well, there are older texts, certainly. Much of McKee’s story theory can be found similarly stated in Aristotle’s Poetics. Think Hitchcock read the Poetics? Maybe. But probably not.

And, of course, there are a ton of books that tell novelists in general and mystery writers specifically how to craft a [commercially] successful story. Should be easy, then. Just plug your idea in and you're good to go, right? What’s the big dang deal?

A couple of years ago when I was working on Lye in Wait, I took an intensive workshop on character development from Stewart Stern, who wrote many screenplays back in the day (and to the best of my knowledge continues to do so with verve and passion), including Rebel Without a Cause and the teleplay for Sybil. His take on the how-to books was crystal clear: good writers understand instinctively what a good story needs. The how-to folks find the commonalities among existing stories that really work, whether in movies or books, distill them and hand them back to aspiring writers as surefire formula.

Then I stumbled into story writing software online. Oh my. I would love to know of any published novels that were written using such software.

Now, I have nothing against books on writing. I have three shelves of the things. They provide both inspiration and information when I need it. And of course we have to understand the elements of storytelling, whether by instinct or by study (though I would argue without at least some of the instinct the study isn’t going to do much good), just as we have to know grammar, have an ear for dialog, and be able to get into the psychology of a variety of characters.

But surefire formula? No way. I say take the best and leave the rest.

How do you develop your own stories? Do you have a set structure? Write by the seat of your pants? Do you have any books on writing that you go back to again and again?

InkSpot News - 3 November 2007

Keith Raffel will be appearing at the following events this week:

Sunday, November 4, 2007
Noon to 3.00 PM
Book Signing
Kepler's
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park CA, 94025
650.324.4321

Wednesday, November 7, 2007
11.00 AM
Speaker at Jewish Book Fair Luncheon
Cypress Lake Country Club
6767 Winkler Road
Ft. Myers, FL 33919

Saturday, November 10, 2007
4.00 PM
Discussion with Rabbi Larry Raphael on Jewish Detective Fiction
Congregation Beth Am
26790 Arastradero Road
Los Altos, CA 94022
650-493-4661

Keith wishes everyone Happy Jewish Book Month!

A Venue to Die For

It appears that I'm tardy for this post, and I apologize but, frankly, I've been "on the road," jetting home from my camel-ride at the pyramids just in time to board another plane to a speaking appearance in Bellingham, Washington--the Washington State Emergency Nurses symposium, "Learning From Murder." I was the keynote speaker. And for me--an ER nurse for three long decades--this was a dream come true--a venue to die for!

Aside from the fact that these folks paid to jet me from (barbecue and Tex Mex) San Antonio, Texas to (Starbucks and seafood heaven) Seattle, and put me up at the fabulous waterfront Hotel Bellwether--I had the goosebumpy honor to address a roomfull of folks that I consider to be contemporary American heroes: nurses. Trust me, they are in scare supply these days. Plus, though I've spoken to countless groups assembled in libraries, book clubs, ladies clubs, and churches, it was SO COOL to be surrounded by people who truly speak my lanuage--just as I said at the opening of my speech: "

. . . a roomful of nurses; this is so great! It's like I've finally landed in a country that speaks my languge. You know know what I mean. Right now I could say something awful about, say . . . gallbladders, and not a single one of you would turn pale and drop your bagel!"

Plus, there's the very nifty fact that the heroine of my mystery series, Darcy Cavanaugh, is an emergency nurse herself. And because of that, I could tell these gathered nurses, in all sincerity, that they are the heart of Darcy Cavanaugh, that I write my books to honor them--a golden moment for this author, trust me. Not to mention that my just-released book, MAI TAI TO MURDER, is based on the premise that nurse Darcy Cavanaugh is teaching teaching a writers' workshop at sea, entitled "A Nurses Guide to Murder." A perfect match for the WA nurses' "Learning from Murder" theme--and a segue into the book excerpt that I shared:

" . . . We'd spent the last hour re-hashing the subject of strangulation and then reviewed diagrams of a human torso with the location of vital organs, and the estimated quantities of blood loss from wounds to the various sites. We fielded questions about how fast a victim would die, what it looked like when intestines protruded from the belly, how purple and puffy a face might get, and well . . . a smorgasbord of pre-lunch trauma. I was fairly certain there'd be a run on the vegetarian lasagne."

And my keynote welcome was followed by fascinating presentations from a nurse-turned-coroner, a pallilative care nurse, and an introduction to "club drugs 2007." Sort of CSI, House, Grey's Anatomy, ER, and Scrubs . . . with continuing education credits. There were laughs, life-saving camaraderie, and--for me--an impressive new glimpse into the dedication of these folks who hold our lives in their able hands.

I ended my keynote with one other book excerpt--Darcy's epiphany at the end of Mai Tai to Murder:

"And truths I didn't tell her, too, like the fact that I love being a nurse. Even if it means long hours and gritty realities--with no luxurious respite of afternoon tea. And that I'm going to do my damndest to bring as many new folks onboard this profession as I can, because we need them. And because nurses are heroes in my book . . . "

I meant it. Cross my heart. And I thank the Washington State ENA for allowing me the opportunity to be surrounded by my peers once more--and to applaud them for the heroes they are.
Oh, and just to prove these folks' heart: the crime scene murder tape (above) depicting a dog, was amended with a little note that said that the animal died "of natural causes."

So, who would your dream audience be--what is your "venue to die for?"