The problem with creativity

Today I sat at my computer for a full eight hours, attempting to write on The Koala of Death before anything really happened. Eight hours of zilch! But when things finally did begin to happen, the ideas were pure gold. The eight hours before that, however, were ghastly. Clumsy sentences that went nowhere. Hackneyed ideas that had been used time and time again by other writers. Cardboard characters that refused to come to life. Nothing but junk, junk, junk.

Poor Koala!

Non-writers often believe that creativity is easy, that it's something we were "born with", that we just sit down and ideas automatically come to us as easy as switching on a light. But we writers don't have built-in light switches. We're just human beings -- complex people who have lives outside of our writing. We have relatives who are in trouble, friends who are ailing, spouses with whom we are quarreling. Heck, we may even be going quietly nuts all by ourselves!

The mistake so many beginning writers make is that they think they need to work out their problems and "get clarity" before starting to write.

Experienced writers know that when we approach the stories we're working on, we approach them with a load of personal baggage that would break an elephant's back. Yet still we write. Three-quarters of what we turn out during those difficult times may turn out to be crap, but it's that one-quarter of gold that keeps us writing.

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"You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

JACK LONDON

"This stretch of the river is named Hell’s Half-Mile."

JOHN WESLEY POWELL

"The only certainty about writing and trying to be a writer is that it has to be done, not dreamed of or planned and never written, or talked about (the ego eventually falls apart like a soaked sponge), but simply written; it’s a dreadful, awful fact that writing is like any other work."

From Walking on Alligators: A Book of Meditations for Writers,

by Susan Shaughnessy

Inspiration for Writers

Writing is hard. The more we write, the more we realize that.

In recognition of the special challenges we writers must face every day -- fear of rejection, fear of not being understood, and most of all, fear that the words and ideas simply won’t come -- I’ve decided to weekly post words of encouragement both from me and from others. Enjoy, and take heart.


"Writing is a path as full of darkness as it is of light, and so the way ahead is hard to see. There are so many ominous shadows, unpredictable gusts of wind, unexpected blinding shafts of sunlight. It’s easy to get lost, to trip over our own hidden roots, or plunge unaware into unexplored caverns in our psyche. As writers, we hardly ever know exactly where we’re going. The only thing that most of us know how to do is deep putting one foot after the other in the darkness and trust that eventually we’ll get there." From Walking on Alligators: A Book of Meditations for Writers, by Susan Shaughnessy

"When the well’s dry, we know the worth of the writer." Benjamin Franklin

"How do I work? I grope." Albert Einstein


Three years ago, exhausted from the horrific research that went into my 2008 Lena Jones novel, Desert Cut, I decided to take a time out and write something considerably lighter. Thus emerged The Anteater of Death, a humorous mystery set in a zoo that featured Lucy, a giant anteater from Belize, and her keeper, poor-little-rich-girl, Theodora "Teddy" Iona Esmeralda Bentley. I didn’t really expect much from the book other than the fun of writing it, but Anteater has taken on a life of its own.

Anteater was released in November 2008, and since then, I’ve toured the Southwest and given talks on both the writing life and -- yes -- giant anteaters and other zoo animals. The reading public seems to have taken Lucy to heart, so much so that this past weekend The Anteater of Death was awarded Best Mystery Novel of 2008 by the Arizona Book Publishing Association.

At first I was shocked. Anteater wasn't about anything important, other than "Be kind to animals," and "Support your local zoo; feeding all those animals doesn't come cheap." But then, after I thought about it for a while, I found the answer.

In these financially scary times, people want a little relaxation. When we don’t know if our paycheck will arrive with a pink slip, we need something that lets us escape from our anxieties. And while I’m not decrying the heavy subjects my Lena Jones books explore (polygamy, mental illness, child abuse, the destruction of the Southwestern desert, etc.), I understand that books often dismissed as mere "cozies" serve an important place in this world.

Maybe more now than ever before.

For information on Anteater,check www.bettywebb-zoomystery.com

For information on the Lena Jones mysteries, check www.bettywebb-mystery.com

The Detective Novel -- Making the Tradition Your Own

By Vicki Delany

I’ve recently finished reading a very interesting book, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale. It’s a true story about a sensational murder in the town of Road, in England in 1860. Mr. Whicher is Jack Whicher, one of the very first detectives on the London police. One night in July of 1860, a three-year-old boy was removed from his bed, taken outside, had his throat cut, and was stuffed into an outdoor privy (aka outhouse). As the house was tightly locked that night, and there was no sign of break and enter, suspicion immediately fell on inhabitants of the house, family and servants. After an initial incompetent investigation by the local police (which refused, for matters of delicacy, to question the family) a detective from the brand-new Scotland Yard was called.

And, not incidentally, the detective novel was born.

Summerscale explains that Wilkie Collins’s great book The Moonstone was influenced by the Road House case, and Collins’ detective, Sergeant Cuff, is considered to be a fictional version of Inspector Whicher. The Road case contains the staples of mystery fiction as we know it today: the large family with hidden passions and secrets, the nosy villagers, the incompetent (or just outwitted) local police, the big-city detective.

The Moonstone is, arguably, the prototype for all detective fiction being written today.
Including my own, the Constable Molly Smith Series, of which the second, Valley of the Lost, was released by Poisoned Pen Press in February.

I am a great lover of British Police Procedurals (Ian Rankin, Susan Hill, Peter Robinson, Aline Templeton, Stuart Pawson are among my favourites). When I decided to switch from writing standalones to a series, I wanted to write the sort of book I love to read so much: the traditional police procedural.

One problem – I have no law enforcement experience whatsoever. None. Zip. Nada. I used to be a computer programmer and then a systems analyst with a big bank, not much police work there. (Although I am qualified to identify potential money laundering and terrorist banking activity!) And as a Canadian, writing a Canadian series, I’m in a somewhat difficult position regarding policing, as most of what I read is either British or American. And Canadian policing can be very different.

Here’s an example. Canadian police are not allowed to carry their guns when off duty. Most Americans, I believe, are required to do so. The British police don’t carry guns normally, and have to take special steps if they need one. At the end of In the Shadow of the Glacier (the first book in the series), when Constable Smith isn’t in uniform she has only her cell phone and stiletto heels with which to defend herself.

As Camille said in her essay below: Don't write what you know. Write what you want to learn. Where could I go to find out about Canadian policing?

I wrote to the police force of the town that is the inspiration for the fictional village of Trafalgar B.C., explained who I was and what I was trying to do. To my considerable surprise, and delight, they wrote back and said they’d be happy to help. It was as easy as that.

Over the next months, my contact answered all my questions - he even went around the station taking pictures to send me - and when I arrived in town he gave me a tour of the station (including the cells complete with prisoner), introduced me to everyone, and arranged for me to go on a couple of walk-alongs with the beat constable. I met a female officer who was happy to answer all my questions about the special difficulties women face on the job. Later, I met a police officer for the town near where I live at a book signing and she arranged for me to accompany one of their officers on a ride-along. Nice, eh? On the other hand, I wrote to the police in the town where I used to live asking for help and got a very terse note back, basically telling me to get lost.

When I told one of my crime-writing friends about that, he suggested that in my book I have a character transfer in from said town because he couldn’t stand the incompetence and corruption. I resisted the urge to do so.

I wonder where Wilkie Collins got help for his books.
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To learn more about Vicki Delany, check out VALLEY OF THE LOST and other novels from Poisoned Pen Presssee the exciting trailer at You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOJ4m391LZQComing May 2009 - GOLD DIGGER: A KLONDIKE MSYTERYwww.vickidelany.comhttp://typem4murder.blogspot.com

And for more information about mystery novels and writing, be sure and read the other posts below.

"Malice in Miniature"

Author Camille Minichino explains her approach to Malice in Miniature

I love a good argument. Ask anyone. Not a fight, mind you, but an argument or true debate— a set of statements in which one follows logically as a conclusion from the others. The best distinction I've heard came from a fifth-grader in a kids' logic class that I taught: when you argue it's about one thing; when you fight, it's about everything.

The problem is that too often I have a preferred outcome in an argument. I'm rooting for a team or a political candidate or for my friend's daughter who's standing at the debating club podium. It's nerve-wracking and I'm inevitably emotionally distressed over the process and the results.

What could be better then, than reading about a debate that's been over for one hundred and fifty years? The result is part of history; it does me no good to whine, "if only … !" I can immerse myself in long passages of beautiful, persuasive discourse based on reason, with no stake in who wins. Heaven!

So, what's not to love about the Lincoln-Douglas debates?

In Malice in Miniature, the third book in my new miniature mysteries series, the citizens of my fictional town of Lincoln Point, California, reenact one of the seven famous debates preceding the 1858 senatorial election in Illinois. In fact, Lincoln lost that election, but it's too late for me to care.

As I've created it, Lincoln Point is obsessed with our sixteenth president. There are quotes from Honest Abe on the city buildings; the main thoroughfares are Gettysburg Boulevard, Springfield Boulevard, and Hanks Road; the town is bordered by Joshua Speed Woods on one side and Nolin Creek Pines on the other; the indie coffee shop is called Seward's Folly. You get the picture.

It seemed natural that the citizens would have a debate reenactment, where actors auditioned for the coveted roles of Lincoln and Douglas. This was one of my favorite books to write. My protagonist, Gerry Porter, visits the city hall often in the book, and hears would-be actors reciting lines from the debate. It was a chance to pull quotes from the texts of the debates and feel I was part of their history.

It did come as a surprise to me that I ended up reading so many Lincoln books for this series, especially for Malice in Miniature. How did that happen? Didn't I choose to create a fictional town so I wouldn't have to do research?

My first series, the periodic table mysteries are set in the real city of Revere, Massachusetts, where I grew up. I got tired of having to call my relatives and childhood friends every time I needed information. Is Tuttle Street still one way? How many trees are in front of the high school? Is there a mailbox anywhere on Malden Street? One of the books, The Boric Acid Murder, is set at the Revere Public Library. I was forever calling the staff, who were most cooperative. "Please go to the window in the reading room and look north," I'd say. "What do you see?"

I wonder why I always set myself up for the same kind of challenge: doing research, as well as creating characters and structuring a mystery?

I think it's because I like to learn while I'm writing.

There's a common myth: write what you know. But what fun is that? Sure, you have to be interested in what you're writing. I know physics and wrote a physics-based series. Making miniatures is my hobby, and I love writing about them.

But if you write only the parts you already know, it could come out flat and pedantic.

There wasn't a lot of research involved in the elements themselves in the periodic table mysteries; I already knew enough about hydrogen, helium, and so on. So, in each book, I chose another theme or setting that I could learn about. In The Carbon Murder, it was horses and the equestrian world; in The Oxygen Murder it was documentary filmmaking. In other books, I've taken on racing cars, EMTs, a television crew, and the business of (human) coyotes.

I'm on my thirteenth novel, the fifth in the miniature mysteries. I'm still learning.

I think the best advice to aspiring writers should be: Don't write what you know. Write what you want to learn.

Anyone want to argue with that?

Dual authors write DEATH ROLL

As readers of this blog know, recently there have been three -- three, count 'em -- three new series set in zoos. The first to appear was Death Roll, a dual effort by Marilyn Victor and Michael Allan Mallory. Their experience brings up a question: How do friends write a book together and remain friends?

About the authors

Michael Allan Mallory works with computers in the information technology field, which allows him to support his cats in the lavish lifestyle to which they’ve grown accustomed. Writing exercises the other part of his brain and allows him to make use of his degree in English literature. An avid animal lover, he’s interested in the welfare of wildlife and the conservation of animals. Michael is a member of Mystery Writers of America and the American Association of Zookeepers.

An animal lover since she could walk, Marilyn Victor is a zoo volunteer and fosters everything from dogs to rats for an animal rescue group located in the Twin Cities. At the moment she shares her home with an over-indulged Bichon Frise and is hoping to soon add a pair of cockatiels to the family. She is currently serving as president of the Minneapolis/St. Paul chapter of Sisters in Crime. Visit them at http://www.blogger.com/www.snakejones.com

Marilyn: Although we’d been friends for over fifteen years when we began writing Death Roll, we’d never written together. It was new territory. At the time there were no other zoo mysteries on the shelves and we were excited to leverage my experience as a docent at the Minnesota Zoo.

Michael: In fact, our only previous collaboration had been disastrous: tennis. We stunk. When most people play tennis they try to best the other player with some out of reach shot. Not us. We were so bad we could barely get the ball back and forth across the net. Our one goal was to volley as many times as we could without missing, so we wouldn’t have to keep starting over. This meant hitting the ball so the other player actually had a decent chance of sending it back over the net, keeping the game alive.

Marilyn: Which pretty much describes the way we write together. With Death Roll we worked out the premise, major characters and created a general outline. Then one of us took the lead, wrote a few chapters and lobbed—er, e-mailed them to the other, who added some spin, put in more body English and sent it back across the net. We moved on to the next chapters until we reached the end. After the novel was completed, we went over it again to smooth out the rough edges and fill in any holes.

Michael: A big advantage of a writing partner is having that second person who can suggest things you might not see. One of our favorite examples of this occurs in the last half of Death Roll when our protagonist, zookeeper Snake Jones, is at the local police station trying to view the evidence against a friend who has been arrested for murder. We didn’t know quite how this scene was going to play out or how we were going to resolve an issue regarding the murder. However, in the second draft, Marilyn added photographs of the crime scene in the evidence folder, realizing there would be some. It then occurred to me that we could use those photos to provide key information about the crime, as well as illustrate Snake’s knowledge of wildlife behavior, further establishing her character. Two in one!

Marilyn: Another advantage of a collaborator comes when one partner runs out of gas. Both of us at one time or other have tossed up our hands and said, “Here, you take it! See what you can do with this mess.” A fresh set of eyes can make a difference.

Michael: Ah, difference. Yes, there are differences. The biggest challenge of a writing partner comes when your ideas don’t mesh together, and one person wants to go one way with the story and the other wants to go somewhere else. We’ve both mounted spirited defenses for our version of the story or how a certain character ought to behave, sometimes winning, sometimes compromising. Flexibility is the key to a successful and harmonious collaboration. In our case, though we both cared deeply about Death Roll, our friendship mattered to us more, which meant egos had to be put on a leash.

Marilyn: Even when our beautiful words were mercilessly slashed by the other, we knew it was for the good of the project. And that’s what makes the collaboration successful, that both of us care more about the quality of the end product rather than whose words made it so. Take this blog entry. After writing and re-writing, I couldn’t tell you who wrote what.

Michael: Haven’t got a clue.

Zoo mysteries. Why now?

By Ann Littlewood, guest blogger, author of Night Kill, published by Poisoned Pen Press

Betty Webb’s The Anteater of Death; Death Roll by Marilyn Victor and Michael Allan Mallory; and my own Night Kill—what’s up with three zoo mysteries in two years?

Jacqueline Fiedler set Tiger’s Palette in a zoo ten years ago, but few mysteries have used this setting since then. Animals in mysteries are common enough—Donna Andrews writes a series featuring exotic animals, and multitudes of mysteries have domestic feline and canine characters. But lately we have this spate of zoo mysteries, all different, all chock full of wild animals.

I can’t tell you why now because I’ve always wondered why not. It’s puzzled me that zoos haven’t been standard fare in the mystery world. Just think of all the ways you can kill someone off! I have the advantage of working twelve years as a zookeeper, but, really, anyone can see the potential. If being chomped by lions, tigers, or crocodiles doesn’t do it for you, there’s always poisoning from snake or spider bite, trampling via zebra stampede, evisceration by sloth bear or cassowary, and the many creative ways elephants have found to vent their frustrations on uppity upright primates. If all that gore is too dismaying, how about veterinary injections gone wrong, zoonoses (diseases from animals), or garden-variety work accidents?

As for characters, any zoo will have keepers, management (already with the conflict!), volunteers, grounds keepers, maintenance staff, a board or a city council or both. Take note that people work with animals because they love them and, sometimes, in addition, because they are…how to put this…not necessarily gifted at interaction with their own species. Hang out at a zoo and it won’t be hard to develop characters with an abundance of passions, opinions, and convictions who are a bit odd around the edges. Don’t overlook the unpredictable and unfathomable General Public, and that reliable source of stress, animal rights activists.

Zoos have all this to offer the mystery writer, but wait—there’s more! Humor? Mix visitors—adults or children—and animals, and humor happens. (Ask me about the raccoon eggs.) Animals reveal personality and character to those who take the time to watch, and they can be way more ornery and quirky than any bunch of office workers. As just one tiny example, not to go into X-rated detail, but we had this domestic bunny hopping around loose on the grounds, see, and this jungle fowl rooster, and, they had this, um, relationship… Or would you believe a weasel with a (live) pet mouse? Probably not, but I have witnesses.

What about the potential to develop story lines around serious issues? Conservation and animal care both offer boatloads, but there’s also… No, I’m stopping there. Better to save a few great ideas for my next zoo mystery.

Ann Littlewood was a zookeeper at the Oregon Zoo in Portland, Oregon, for 12 years, working with a wide variety of mammals and birds. After a stint in corporate America, she is delighted to be back in the zoo world, at least mentally, writing the Iris Oakley mystery series. To learn more about Ann, visit her web site at www.annlittlewood.com

The story behind "The Anteater of Death"

Sometimes you just need a laugh.

While I was immersed in the research for Desert Cut, the darkest of all my Lena Jones novels, I grew so gloomy that I stepped up my volunteer work at the Phoenix Zoo. At least the monkeys always made me smile. One day, while watching several irate female monkeys gang up on the misbehaving Alpha male, I remarked to a fellow volunteer, “Somebody should write a book about this.”

“But isn’t that the kind of thing you do?” she answered.

“Hmmm.”

Later, while eating lunch by the Giant Anteater enclosure, I began toying with the idea. A mystery centered around monkeys? Maybe. But at that point, Jezebel, the zoo’s star Giant Anteater gave a squeak and began chasing Zeke, her baby. After she caught him, the two wrestled in the dirt until the exhausted tot climbed up on his mother’s back, dug his talons into her dense fur, and dozed off.

Hmmm, I thought, as I munched my quesidilla.

People who’ve read the writing tips on my blog know that I write from 4 a.m. to whenever, so in the case of Desert Cut, that meant starting the day with a whopping dose of noir. After several hours of writing dark-and-gloomy, I’m usually so emotionally exhausted that all I’m capable of doing is collapsing on the sofa to watch Jerry Springer reruns.

The afternoon after my multiple hmmms, I began fiddling around with a humorous short story titled, The Anteater of Death, my reward for sticking to the gruesome research that fueled Desert Cut. In that first inception, Anteater was meant to be nothing more than a diversion, a giggly little trifle to entertain myself with after I’d done my real work. But writers write. And sometimes they don’t know when to stop. In the following weeks, the short story became a novella and eventually evolved into a full-length novel about an innocent anteater named Jezebel who gets framed for murder. How can an anteater commit murder, you ask? Easily. When attacked, Giant Anteaters rise up on their hind legs to their full five-foot height, unfurl four-inch talons, and disembowel their unfortunate assailants.

Lovely.

My writing day shifted to accommodate two books. Mornings, I worked on Desert Cut, which details the human rights abuses inflicted on millions of women and girls throughout the world. In the afternoons I deserted Jerry Springer to tickle my funny bone with The Anteater of Death. This unplanned novel starred a spunky Phoenix zookeeper named Theodora “Teddy” Iona Esmeralda Bentley and her friend Jezebel, a possibly homicidal Giant Anteater. In the morning, tears; in the afternoon, chuckles.

One day at the zoo, while telling Jezebel how inspirational she’d been, I realized I was producing a possible series, and at that point, I saw a problem looming because of Anteater’s real-life location; call it the Jessica Fletcher/Cabot Cove Effect. After so many murders in Cabot Cove, who would be crazy enough to visit? Fearing that all the fictional dead bodies I was piling up at the Phoenix Zoo might scare away our own prospective visitors, I created a fictional zoo outside a fictional California coastal town and moved Teddy from her hot Phoenix apartment to the houseboat where I’d once spent an idyllic summer. Thus the tiny village of Gunn Landing was born, and with it, the Gunn Zoo and a Giant Anteater named Lucy. In contrast to the orphaned Lena Jones, I burdened Teddy with an embezzling father and socialite mother. I also gave her a three-legged dog and a one-eyed cat, let her houseboat develop a few leaks, and for spice, introduced her to handsome Sheriff Joe Rejas, of whom Teddy’s snobbish, ex-beauty queen mother mightily disapproved.

My Anteater problems weren’t over, though.

Aware of my reputation as a noir writer, I asked Poisoned Pen Press – which wanted to publish the series – if I should use a pen name. After batting the problem around for a while, editor Barbara Peters decided it was time to show readers my “softer side” and emerge (albeit only temporarily) from the noir closet.

“In person you’re a pretty amusing gal,” Barbara said. “Why hide it?”

So I won’t. Throughout the Gunn Zoo series, I promise to amuse. But that doesn’t mean Lena Jones and her many problems will disappear. Lena returns in Fall ’09 with Desert Lost, where she runs into more problems with Arizona polygamists (first covered in 2002’s best-selling Desert Wives). But because I am now free to be amusing, Lena will start sharing the bookshelves with the much less complicated Teddy Bentley.

Does Lena mind?

I doubt it. Last night, out there in the dark and gloomy Arizona desert, I’m pretty sure I heard Lena chuckling.

Seems Lena needed a laugh, too.