Along the River's Bend with Judi Rohrig

Hunger Games. Yum!

2011-09-30T06:37:00.003-05:00

"Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree."

That's verse three in a song Suzanne Collins' character Katniss Everdeen sings in Mockingjay, the third and final book in her Hunger Games trilogy. Though the series has clearly been aimed at the Young Adult reader, these books should be read by everyone. And, yes, you will need to read all three because they are really one bigfatbook. Really, I would wonder how anyone could read just one.

In a video interview at the B&N website, Collins squirms when faced with how to describe what The Hunger Games is about. That's always my favorite question to writers because I wonder how to describe some of my own novel-length works, so the answers help me. Collins finally suggests just reading the first chapter, contending it will answer that question. Ha! (Bet she hates writing a synopsis, too.)

Actually, before that, Collins compares The Hunger Games to the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland. I would describe it as having bits of those swirled with the edge-of-your-seat action of a Tom Clancy novel and peppered with a healthy dose of several seasons of Survivor.

Whatever Collins did, she did it gangbusters. The plot is compelling, the setting dynamic, the characters well-liked. The whole shebang moves with incredible speed.

But what's it about really? A possible future for the USA.

That statement alone should scare you. We live in times where the steamroller changes at Facebook appear to engender more rage than the fact our nation is re-experiencing taxation without representation. Those bubbleheads in Washington care more about what is good for their respective parties than about the people they claim to represent. Hello! People are struggling out here!

Our retirement savings have gone poof. Jobs? What jobs? Our young people aren't able to find many, and those they do secure are mostly part-time. Walk through the mall. Most of those employees are lucky to snag 20 hours a week. Health care? They don't have any.

People are being forced to retire, leaving some responsibilities in the hands of the unexperienced and poorly trained. And young people are giving a career in the military more than a passing glance.

So could there actually be a Panem?

Why not give The Hunger Games trilogy a look? Then get back to me.

Meanwhile, I'll be slaving away at the keyboard on book two of my own dystopian tale, more inspired than ever.

"May the odds be ever in your favor."

And the Truth Shall Set You Free... to write!

2011-09-07T10:07:00.006-05:00

"To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write." Gertrude Stein

As I was thumbing through old issues of the Hellnotes newsletter I used to edit and publish, I came upon this old editorial column of mine, written in 2006. It's still relevant, so I reprint it here, along with an added note at the bottom.

A Day in Hell

The things writers will do to avoid actually writing truly amazes me. It used to be that merely sitting down at a keyboard might afford that lightning strike of… well, writing.

I mean WRITING could happen IF… (circle one below)

… the music playing was (rain-tinkling piano/eardrum-puncturing guitars/manic-producing violins);

… the "special" cup from the (convention/writers' retreat/mom) was brimming with perfectly blended (coffee/cappuccino/tea);

… the reach of (darkness/moonlight/sunlight) was (slithering/stroking/slapping) its way through the (open/half-closed/nailed shut) blinds.

But wait! A writer should read first, right? Reading; writing; more reading; then writing are the stepping stones on the path toward being a better writer. But, read what? The latest bestseller? Something by a friend? Something classic? How about something about writing?

Of course!

The publishers of WRITERS DIGEST have made a bloody fortune off magazines and books about writing. Authors who have actual books under their belts blog and journal and forum and message about their particular methods and secrets to writing. Some -- Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, David Morrell, Richard Laymon, Tom Monteleone -- even write books about writing books.

Oops! Time to take a break and play a short game. (As is the New Age Writer's Method.) It'll get our writing juices up. Okay, less than a porn break, but indulge me. Would I lie? I'm a writer and an editor and even a publisher. I want YOU, the writer to get cracking, so when I say let's take a break and play, you should trust me. (I'm a Mom, too, did I mention that?)

Let's play a version of MAD LIBS®. Give me these words:

1. A word ending in –ing

2. Book title

3. Number

4. Book title

Place them in the following sentences.

"This is how I go about (1)." "This is where I went before I wrote (2.)" "I did (3.) years of research on (4.)"

Were your words "writing"; the name of one of your novels; actual years; another of your book titles?

Then you trusted that this piece wasn't about writing.

Sucker.

In writing and publishing, you should never trust anyone. Even your parents. Or children. I'm also a former writing teacher who once gave her class a hundred questions in class to which there were no correct answers. Boy, did that throw them!

Sitting down to a keyboard here in the 21^st Century means little. The writer jumps on the Internet, scours the message boards, spews whatever vitriol he cares to because who will hit him and make him stop? His mother? Ha!

A number of those helpful authors in the writing magazine laugh all the way to the bank. "Yeah, that's how I write," they say. The inference is that all you have to do is follow their tried and true method and you, too, can be a member of the Rock Bottom Remainders.

Sadly, it doesn't work that way.

Let me tell you right here and right now that they're holding back. What you read from famous authors in writing magazines and online writing sites is skewed. Yes, that's how THEY write. But THEY are not you. YOU are YOU.

Yes, it may prove enlightening to know how other writers write. On my bookshelf I see books on writing by Bradbury, King, Koontz, Morrell, Monteleone, Gene Wolfe, Joe R. Lansdale, Orson Scott Card, J.N. Williamson, William F. Nolan, Annie Lamott, Natalie Goldberg, Edo van Belkom, and the horror Bible, WRITING HORROR, edited by Mort Castle.

Yet, here is their biggest secret. I'm giving this to you today for free. You don't even have to click a link and read through a lengthy piece.

THEY WRITE!

Writing is hard work. Disciplined hard work. 1500 words a day of actual fiction work. A limit on the Internet. Few posts. Butt in the chair; fingers perched above that keyboard; mind engaged... writing. And when they hit a wall -- everybody does -- they figure out what works best for them and they do it. Then they get back to writing.

There is no magic.

The Roman philosopher Seneca said: "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

There's a huge difference between wanting to have written and actually writing. It's thrilling/mesmerizing/fulfilling. And a heck of a lot of work.

Find your own niche/methods/discipline, but do it: WRITE.

ADDED NOTE: I failed to mention writers' conferences in this piece, but must add them here. I've attended two and found each to have been worth the money and the time, but... Nothing is gospel. What works for one writer oftentimes does not work for another. It's important to consider and study and evaluate the styles of others, but it's more important and valuable to simply write.

Well, why are you still reading this? Ferris Bueller has already left the building. He's writing, and so should you.

Likin' De Nook-e

2011-09-04T15:43:00.003-05:00

"A book is magical; it transcends time and space." Daniel Boorstin

"Without an enthusiastic reader, a book would die." Henry Miller

Ah, books!

I have a small collection of small books. What is common among these cherished treasures, besides their size, is they are each bound in leather. The oldest is my American Ladies Pocket Book, published in 1825. The frontispiece features two ladies in fashionable gowns. Squeezed inside its few pages are a calendar, selected poetry and prose, songs, riddles, rebuses, enigmas, anagrams, marketing tables, and ruled pages for notations. Plus a pocket for money or perhaps rose petals or a love note. Some previous owner has penciled in several recipes.

The collection also includes four plays by Shakespeare, published in 1898, novels by Hermann Melville, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Sir Walter Scott; a collection of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne; two volumes of letters of Charles Lamb; a Book of Prayer; and Of the Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis.

Of course, I have more books I've collected: signed first editions of first novels of a number of authors whose works I love; Books given to me by author friends; Gold Medal paperbacks; random books I've enjoyed; some that showed up in the middle of the night. You know: Books! Lovely, lovely books!

And I don't know what I'd do without them even if I now own a Barnes & Noble Nook e-Reader.

My younger daughter decided since I was a writer and this was the 21st Century, I should ADD to my book reading proclivity the latest trend. She and her Dad gifted me with such this past June to celebrate my birthday.

I was polite and gleefully accepted. (What pushed me over the edge were the two gift cards!)

It's September now, and while I started off slow, and probably a bit hesitant if not resistant at first, I am now fully hooked. Reading seems faster, easier, and, dammit, just as fulfilling as reading a regular book.

Not that I have foresworn my leather-bound lovelies or my sweet-smelling pulpies, but Mama do be likin' de Nook-e!

My Nook library includes a variety of interesting works: novels and short story collections, and anthologies as well as books on writing. Plus, the jewel: the oeuvre of Guy de Maupassant!

(Oh, and several historical romance novels.)

WHAT?

They gave the first one to me free, they did, and, golly Molly, I'm finding Barbara Samuel and Miranda Neville can word-wrestle just fine and dandy, thank you very much. In short, I had a spankin' good time time reading, and isn't that what it's all about?

Or let me remind you:

"A book is magical; it transcends time and space." Daniel Boorstin

I said historical romances!

"Without an enthusiastic reader, a book would die." Henry Miller

Yup! I'm enthusiastic about... about... about those happy endings. And the manners. Yeah!

Truthfully, the women are strong women and the subjects have included breaking down sex, race, religious, and class barriers and prejudices. But with horses and swords and petticoats.

As for electronic reading, I've surrendered, but in a good way, I think. Words get to live on in this new form and the old form isn't dead at all.

Or as my dear Emily once wrote:

A Word is dead

When it is said
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.

And that's all we writers and readers should wish for: Readers reading.

Next up: An extra five minutes!

Women and the Word!

2011-08-29T12:54:00.004-05:00

"Life can't defeat a writer who is in love with writing, for life itself is a writer's lover until death." Edna Ferber

Occasionally someone will ask me how long I've been writing, and I tell them it all began because I was a chatty child who was cursed with vivid dreams. One day my mother, who cherished a bit of silence, gave me a sharpened pencil and a little blue notebook. "Don't tell me your dream," she said. "Write it down." I was seven.

But the truth is I was a bit younger when my mother decided my wild stories could be easily translated with fingerpaints to large sheets of white paper on an easel. I was four (and extremely verbal).

Luckily enough, my family moved to a small town from a big city when I was seven, and the local library was within walking distance. I spent a lot of hours haunting that place, searching out every nook and cranny for the best places to spend an afternoon. (And I learned to be quiet!)

While I read a number of authors (Ray Bradbury, Ian Fleming, Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Mark Twain, James Michener), my early favorites also included a number of women writers and their excellent works: Edna Ferber's So Big, Sue Grafton's Keziah Dane, Mary McCarthy's The Group, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and stories by Leigh Brackett, Flannery O'Connor, and Shirley Jackson.

It was Jackson's "The Lottery" that made me want to be a writer. Her story struck me with such emotion and stayed with me for days and days. I wanted to be able to do that: to strike a cord so strongly in another person that images and feelings would last and last.

Recently, after a run of rereading all of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee novels and enjoying a full dive into the previously unread writings of James W. Hall, Dennis Lehane, Joseph Finder, Jonathon King, and Michael Koryta, I wondered if I hadn't been short-changing my ink-slinging sisters. Of course, I'd read books by women authors: Margaret Atwood, Poppy Z. Brite, Chelsea Cain, Yvonne Navarro, P. D. Cacek, Laura Lippmann, Alafair Burke, Karen Slaughter, Tess Gerritsen, and Jean Rabe come quickly to mind, but...

Well, let me just put the blame on Hank Phillippi Ryan. Her name kept popping up all over. I finally caved and Googled her. Like me, she's a Hoosier. And she writes mysteries. Her Charley McNally series includes four books so far: Prime Time, Face Time, Air Time, and Drive Time. And each one is such a joy to read. Charley has spunk and attitude and deep doubts she'll mess up. Hank's style loosened me up and helped open my door wide to women writers I might never have considered. What a snob I've been. What an airhead.

In the past few weeks, I've consumed most of Barbara Samuel's backlist: Heart of a Knight, A Winter Ballad, A Bed of Spices, Lucien's Fall, In the Midnight Rain, The Black Angel, and Night of Fire. Who knew there were fantastic storytellers in Romance fiction? I didn't. And behind these titles are stories of hardscrabble survivors dealing with age, genre, class, religious, and race prejudices. Abuse. Abandonment. And of course, love. And what's the matter with that?

Writer Ferber said: "I think in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion. Dislike, displeasure, resentment, fault-finding, imagination, passionate remonstrance, a sense of injustice -- they all make fine fuel."

Indeed they do! All parts of that crazy, mixed-up lover of mine: writing.

Next up: I rip my heart out as I admit my feelings for my Nook e-reader.

Readin', Writin', and More Readin'!

2011-08-25T10:48:00.005-05:00

First, two quotes from Jorge Luis Borges:

"Besides, rereading, not reading, is what counts."

"Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I'd rather boast about the ones I've read."

Since yesterday, August 24, was Jorge Luis Borges' 112th birthday, I had occasion to refresh my memory a bit about his work. It has been a while since I'd read any of his poems, and it was his poems that I'd loved so much in college. In fact, I had the honor of being in the audience when he visited Indiana University many moons ago.

During that period I also wrote, but more fiction than poetry. But the poets I favored included D.H. Lawrence, W. H. Auden, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Stephen Crane. Fiction favorites ran the gamut from Ian Fleming to Harper Lee to Henry James. Hemingway. Faulkner. Bradbury.

I reread Twain's Huck Finn and Melville's Billy Budd over and over again because when I like a book, I tend to zip through it and need to read it again to appreciate the craft. The art.

Which brings me to this chunk of time post-Writers in Paradise Conference to now. Boy, I've read a lot! So much, I'm not sure where to start.

How about with Michael Koryta? He's a fellow Hoosier. I loved his Lincoln Perry mysteries, but The Ridge, Cypress House, and So Cold the River are wonderful reads, too. Then I found Joseph Finder. His new Nick Heller series (Vanished, Buried Secrets) is my kind of cake, and he has stand-alones that rocked my socks off. And speaking of socks... an extra couple of pair were needed to withstand the frigid Russian winter in David Benioff's City of Thieves. This was truly a spectacular story.

I read Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone before I saw the movie. Yes, the book was better. His Death of Sweet Mister is exceptional.

And I haven't even mentioned spending so much time with James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux. This was my favorite series read since John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series.

But then two things thing happened:

1. I discovered I was reading mostly male authors. Of course, I'd read novels by Jane Hamilton, Laura Lippman, and Ann Hood prior to attending WIP, but I really haven't given my sisters a fair shot. (Enter Hank Phillippi Ryan and her Charlie McNalley series, and, uhm, Romance writers.)

2. My family got me a Nook e-Reader for my birthday and two gift cards. Yikes!

Next time: Women and the Word, followed by Likin' de Nook-e

Listen to the Muse!

2011-03-31T09:37:00.004-05:00

So where have you been, Judi? Good question. Here's my good answer: writing, reading, and sharpening my writing tools. In fact, I've not only sharpened my tools, I picked up a few new ones.

In January, I was lucky enough to be accepted into the Writers in Paradise Conference, hosted by Eckerd College, in St. Petersburg, FL. In fact, they awarded me a scholarship, for which I am most thankful and honored.

WIP is the brainchild of two gifted authors, Sterling Watson (SWEET DREAM BABY) and Dennis Lehane (THE GIVEN DAY, GONE BABY GONE, MYSTIC RIVER). They dragged in other writers to assist them: Richard Russo, Jane Hamilton, Michael Koryta, Les Standiford, John Dusfresne, and a few others. And for eight days, these fine writers worked our asses off.

I met some wonderfully fine writers and expanded my to-be-read pile. But really what I took away of most value was to trust myself. I had applied initially because even though the manuscript for my first novel-length fiction was finished, I was uneasy about the beginning. After a rather massive rewrite (using those new tools and the resharpened ones), I now know my baby is ready to come out of the bath water, get towel-dried, dressed, and its butt patted as she goes out the door.

So stay tuned!

A Beginning or an End?

2010-12-12T15:18:00.003-06:00

Rather than begin with a quote, let me begin with a story about my younger daughter. Poor thing, like her older sister, has had to endure growing up with not one, but two book-junky parents. That has meant more visits to bookstores and libraries than most people probably. (Really. Does your trip planning involve Mapquesting the local library of your vacation destination?)

It was on one of our many weekend short trips that we found yet another hole-in-the-wall used bookstore. My husband and I perused the shelves as we usually did, allowing our then five-year-old to do her own exploring. She began with the children's books but wandered a bit to several stacks of dusty used books near the owner's office. Very carefully, she chose a rather thick book with no cover and no art, but lots and lots of words. Then she proceeded to lug the book around the store, clutching it closely to her chest.

We wound up buying her that old book. It joined the other old books she chosen on other trips.

I don't know whether she's ever read any of them, but I can't help but think of her collection whenever I consider the new eBooks.

Writer Pete Meisling, who offered these thoughts about electronic books on his blog in September: "We're forsaking the value of spontaneous discovery (When's the last time you found a digital file lying on the bench at the bus stop?). We're profoundly changing our notions of permanence and ownership (Will you leave behind a book collection for kith and kin to wallow in after you die, or will your Amazon account simply close? Will you really experience the same sense of gratitude at being lent an e-book for two weeks as you would at being handed a beloved paperback? If you're young enough, will you ever know the difference?)." http://www.petemesling.com/2010.09.01_arch.html

As I've said before, as I enter the world of novel-length fiction, I do wonder which path to take. Am I looking at placing my work with the maker of candles who stubbornly sees no merit in the newfangled light bulb or what?

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Reading: Finished the delightful MOONLIGHT MILE by Dennis Lehane. Have since read Richard Price's THE WANDERERS, Sterling Watson's SWEET DREAM BABY (which is really a horror novel!), Daid Corbett' sTHE DEVIL'S REDHEAD, and James Lee Burke's first three Dave Robicheaux adventures, THE NEON RAIN, HEAVEN'S PRISIONERS, and BLACK CHERRY BLUES. Also MIAMI NOIR and BOSTON NOIR (both with gut-punching stories by John Dufresne).

Writing: Working on UNDER STRANGE, STRANGE SKIES. Sold a short story! (More on that later.)

That Ole Writing Life

2010-11-22T16:02:00.003-06:00

I know I usually begin this with some appropriate quote, but my appropriate quote machine died. Well, the hard drive part did anyway. Was my writing backed up? Of course.

It did make me think that I never had this sort of problem when I was banging the keys on the Royal, and I used to be more accurate at landing "nothing but wastebasket" with my wadded paper shots.

And I do remember wrangling with the ribbons as I tried to squeeze the last bit of ink from them.

As the good old days. Actually, the Royal was a dream. It followed my first machine: a child's typewriter where each and every letter was accessible only after turning a metal wheel. A turn-turn B turn-turn... Welll, you get the idea. And I wrote 60-page teleplays with that machine and subbed them to an agent in Hollywood. Ah, innocence.

But now, here I am bemoaning the death of yet another hard drive.

The things we do to spin yarns, tell lies, and make up shit. Huh?

Back to the grind. I'm working on UNDER STRANGE, STRANGE SKIES, the second book in the HERITAGE series and reading Michael Koryta's SO COLD THE RIVER. I'm also wondering when the next James W. Hall novel will be available.

Egg on the Face of the Book Snob!

2010-11-08T16:33:00.005-06:00

This is what I posted on October 7: "OK, I'm that weirdo who hasn't seen any of the three films made from (Dennis) Lehane stories, so it was easy to tackle his stand-alone titles without prejudice. Having knocked off GONE, BABY, GONE, I looked at that film first. Ben Affleck had to be crazy to cast that very Irish-looking woman as Angie Gennaro, and where was her spunk? And Cheese became a Haitian? Sorry, but the best I could do was fast forward through the film. So call me Book Spoiled."

Now call me wrong. This past weekend, my husband and I sat down and watched Ben Affleck's version of GONE, BABY, GONE. We've both read (and now re-read) all the Kenzie-Genarro books as we prep ourselves to read MOONLIGHT MILE, the sixth book in the series and a follow-up to GONE, BABY, GONE. While a good bit of the story was left out or changed (a Haitian named Cheese?), I think Affleck quite beautifully captured the sensitive and complex nature of Lehane's original story. Casey Affleck nailed Patrick, as did Michelle Monaghan as Angela Genarro and Amy Ryan as Helene. One suggestion I have is to play the deleted extended opening and ending available in the bonus section. The extended opening particularly caught a better sense of Patrick and the relationship between Patrick and Ange.

Mr. Affleck, please forgive me.

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Reading: Jim Thompson's THE KILLER INSIDE ME, Jim Crumley's THE LAST GOOD KISS, and Ed Gorman's STRANGLEHOLD.

Writing: Nipping and tucking and wild with scissors with HERITAGE and working on the first draft of a short fiction piece called "Trading Cards."

Interview alert and other bits of news...

2010-10-23T19:02:00.004-05:00

Dave Silva at Hellnotes asked me a few questions, and I answered them as honestly as I could. You'll have to scroll down to find it.

http://www.hellnotes.com

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Several years ago, a lot of terrific people came together and formed PROTECT, a national pro-child, anti-crime membership association committed to building a powerful, nonpartisan force for the protection of children from abuse, exploitation and neglect. Children don't vote. The members of PROTECT believe they need a voice.

A number of writers have plugged into a fundraising effort, forgoing royalties on T-shirts designed around some of their works. They include Dennis Lehane, Andrew Vachss, Charles deLint, Nick Hornby, and Chuck Klosterman.

Now readers can support their favorite writers and help give a voice to abused children.

http://www.protect.org/

Writing is Scary and Other Halloween Thoughts

2010-10-21T14:00:00.003-05:00

"The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story." Ursula K. Le Guin

"You can't be afraid to deal with your demons. You've got to go there to be able to write." Lucinda Williams

All Hallow's Eve. Halloween. The night when the evil spirits roam the Earth looking for lost souls. At least that's how my mother explained it to me. My mother, the Irish gypsy. My mother who believed she saw dead people and not just on October 31.

But was this a scary night in our house. Nope. A lot of other nights may have been scary, but Halloween was festive night. Trick or treat! Dad with his cherry bombs left over from the Fourth of July on the front stoop. He didn't set them off, he peddled them to the neighborhood boys who promptly scared other neighborhood kids as they hurried from door to door collecting their treats. Candied apples and popcorn balls were very big when I was a kid.

My first published short story was semi-autobiographical. "Blind Mouths" was about a young girl dealing with her fears. That's pretty much what ALL horror stories are about: the writer's fears. But this young girl grappled with several: her fear of a local woman everyone imagined to be a witch; her fear of swimming under water; her fear of the person who was killing the neighborhood cats.

Horror and Halloween. The word fear fits nicely with each. It also becomes a cuddle-buddy with writing in both the sense of creating a story and then letting those "black marks on wood pulp" suck in life from whatever person reads it. For a writer (at least this one) the latter is far scarier. It's one thing to write a story and quite another to watch it boldly step out the door and walk down the street. And live.

I had an agent once who told me she was in awe of how brave writers are in sharing such private and personal parts of themselves so publicly. That made writing even scarier for me. But hardly enough to make me stop.

Of course, I have stopped several times, allowing real life to interrupt. When I was 19, I came very close to selling a teleplay through an agent in Hollywood. Me. A teenager from a small river town in Indiana who began with a pathetic kid's typewriter where a little metal wheel had to be turned for each letter. EACH LETTER. Yet I was that driven, that dedicated. That naive. And apparently, the Hollywood agency was that understanding.

Judging from the posts at writer and agent Anne Mini's blog, my hard work would be rejected these days. Heck, if my em-dashes aren't perfect, it's File 13 with a har-har-har. Yet in her (and all the other agents' and editors') defense, I think I can safely say, I probably was doing then what I'm doing now: my homework. What Mini has so graciously done on her blog deserves high praise. I hope she helps all us hardworking writers seeking to see our black marks on wood pulp become, like Pinocchio, a real boy.

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As some of you may have noticed, I've been reading Dennis Lehane's works. Now that he's about to see the release of MOONLIGHT MILE, the sixth Kenzie/Gennaro book and follow-up to GONE BABY GONE, I've found he's an excellent writer to study. For that study, I've looked at all his interviews for his last book, THE GIVEN DAY (my favorite Lehane book yet!). And time after time, I've watched the interviewer ask: "What's your book about?" And time after time I've watched Lehane nail his 702-page epic down to a sentence. ONE sentence. Such eloquence should stick a cork in all those who are moaning about writing a synopsis. Don't need a synopsis, kids? Don't think again: Think like a best-selling, award-winning, mucho talented author.

Writer to Writer: Look!

2010-10-07T10:53:00.006-05:00

"My friend, my teacher, James Hall [author of Under Cover of Daylight and Body Language] said that all books are about writing, and to some extent, when you're sitting there trying to create this plot, you, in a way, are the mastermind. So my books become books about masterminds creating plots. That's a little postmodern, but I think there is a lot to it."

Dennis Lehane
http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/lehane1999.html

I want to use that quote as I slide from my study of the fine writing of James W. Hall to the fine writing of Dennis Lehane. Seeing the end of Hall's oeuvre inching closer, I began looking for someone else to study. Both Hall and Lehane are grads of Eckerd University in St. Petersburg, FL, and Lehane was a student of Hall's at Florida International University in Miami.

Of course, I began with Lehane's detective series. Love mystery/thrillers. The Kenzie/Gennaro team is absolutely first-rate, but what won my heart forever was a foggy, midnight car chase on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge! And Bubba.

His writing is crisp and deep, with Lehane unafraid to tackle moral and ethical issues.

OK, I'm that weirdo who hasn't seen any of the three films made from Lehane stories, so it was easy to tackle his stand-alone titles without prejudice. Having knocked off GONE BABY GONE, I looked at that film first. Ben Affleck had to be crazy to cast that very Irish-looking woman as Angie Gennaro, and where was her spunk? And Cheese became a Haitian? Sorry, but the best I could do was fast forward through the film. So call me Book Spoiled.

Sitting on the TV now is Clint Eastwood's version of MYSTIC RIVER, one of the finest novels out there. The library has given me five days to watch it. Hmmm...

My Lehane bookmark (yes, I have markers for each book I read to make notes) is stuck in the middle of SHUTTER ISLAND right now. This is another difficult book to put down. I'm reminded of John D. MacDonald's NIGHTMARE IN PINK (Travis McGee series), both for the time period covered and the subject matter. And once again, I feel I am in safe hands with this writer. He will deliver more than a sound and entertaining tale, but one where the reader is allowed a self-examination of her own ethics and morals.

Which brings me to something Lehane said to the graduates at Eckerd University a few years ago:

"Since 9-11, something's happened to our empathy in this country. I don't know what exactly, but it ain't good. I wrote a novel in which all the characters have perfectly good and understandable reasons to be angry and they only commit acts of violence and vengeance once they're sure they're right. And yet…they're wrong. I think human beings are at their most dangerous when they lose their empathy, when they objectify other human beings, when they are so sure they are right they feel justified in a take-no-prisoners attitude. And I don't know when mercy and decency became signs of weakness in this country."

And then I have to remember each writer has something to teach. "All books are about writing." And reading.

I have to ask how far I've come since opening that first grade reader and staring in awe at the first real word I remember reading: "Look," it said on page one. Look.

I've finished HERITAGE and have submitted the first three chapters to an agent I'd like to represent me. If the answer is no, then I have another on my list. And an editor friend who has read HERITAGE has recommended I submit it to a particular editor, and I'm considering that if the agent passes on reading the entire manuscript.

Meanwhile, I'm hammering on EPIPHANY. As a writer friend reminds me: you can do only one one thing at a time. I do have a short story being considered for an anthology, so I have my fingers crossed for that.

And I'm awaiting the November 2 release of MOONLIGHT MILE, Dennis Lehane's follow-up to GONE BABY GONE, but the latest in the Kenzie/Gennaro series. I have a copy ordered from the bookstore my husband and elder daughter and I haunted when we visited Boston a few years ago. We stayed in Brookline and found a home at the Brookline Booksmith.

But back to what I love doing best: writing!

Rhythms and Methods

2010-09-20T07:09:00.002-05:00

"I'm a poet who also writes crime novels. One foot on the high road, one in the gutter. It makes for a lovely stride." James W. Hall "Poets Sinks to Crime," an essay in HOT DAMN!

Ah, yes, I'm still savoring the finely crafted writings of James W. Hall. Oh, I finished all his novels and his book of essays and even a few of his poems and short stories. Now, I'm rereading in what I call "Judi order": how the themes work best.

I did the same with John D. MacDonald. When I finished his final Travis McGee book, THE LONELY SILVER RAIN, I reopened THE DEEP BLUE GOODBYE. And I was stunned to find parallels. Things mentioned at the last that had been mentioned in the first. But most of all, I found Travis McGee a richer character because I knew who he had become all those years later.

The same is true of Hall's Thorn. When I finished reading his latest Thorn adventure, SILENCER, I pitched myself back inside the pages of his debut, UNDER COVER OF DAYLIGHT. Great trip. Happily, Hall is again traisping through an adventure with his best know character in his own writing process.

But the arc I'm enjoying is with his Alexandra Collins character: BODY LANGUAGE (a stand alone novel), BLACKWATER SOUND, OFF THE CHART, and MAGIC CITY (these are Thorn novels).

As for my own writing, I'm 25k into a story outside my four-part HERITAGE series, though my evening writing times are devoted strictly to what I call H2, the second book in the Daniel and Johanna epic. I find it's not easy shifting back and forth because my characters jostle too hard for center stage in my mind.

The Hall readings have made me understand how important it is to do works outside a series. As much as I love the Thorn adventures, I find Hall's stand alones to be so very rich. I can see how they stretch him creatively. That's what I'm after: growth as a writer.

Meanwhile I about to box up HERITAGE and post it to the appropriate party. Big step here as I gulp down my fears. Feedback has been very encouraging and strong from my reliable first readers. Heck, I'm no newbie. I have stories published in several respected anthologies. So, we'll see...

Writer L. McKenna Donovan notes at her fine site that writers often "self-sabotage." http://lmdonovan.wordpress.com/yin-yang-of-writing-fiction/#comment-75 I think she's absolutely right.

For me, I'm out of here, fitting my own feet in different places, setting my own stride. If it is odd, if I limp, then I like to imagine I'm in good company. Imagining is what I love doing.

From One Word Lover to Another

2010-09-04T20:01:00.007-05:00

I haven't decided if mingling with other writers is a good or bad thing. I also haven't decided whether playing a lone wolf is any good either. Writing is certainly a solitary endeavor. Yet, if a writer stays cloistered in her den then is it any surprise all her stories are about characters cloistered in a den/castle/spaceship/cabin/etc.? Kind of like all the country songs about lonely country boys picking up lonely country girls in bars where country singers sing.

But...

As I indicated in my last post while I'm hammering away on new words and scenes for TOUCHING LEAVES and EPIPHANY and working on the dreaded synopsis for HERITAGE for my leap into submissionville, I've been reading the works of James W. Hall.

Hall writes thrillers and essays and poems. His novels include those written with his continuing character Thorn, a minimalist who cherishes the environment and follows the simple rules where people should be kind to one another. He fashions fishing lures and lives with few possessions. But, boy, does trouble find that guy!

I'm only just now heading into his others fictional pieces. I have read BODY LANGUAGE, but I cheated because I knew Alex Collins and her dad Lawton Collins, who appear in three Thorn books, are the main characters. I've just begun ROUGH DRAFT.

Finding Hall's poems is a rich man's journey because I simply can't afford any of the four volumes he's published. But I did catch the four poems he had posted on his old website. Liked very much what I read.

Though I've read only a few of his short stories, I have found myself thoroughly enjoying the essays he collected in HOT DAMN!

Turns out Hall and I have lots in common. He's originally from Hopkinsville, KY, a place just a spit down HWY 41 from where I live in Indiana. Oddly, it's a place my family and I travel through on our way to one of our favorite places: Florida. That's where Hall felt driven to live. I fully understand. The only other place I'd like to live is North Carolina, which just happens to be where Hall and his wife have a second home.

One of his essays discusses going back to read books that had an impact on him in his formative years. I do that quite often, and have found myself being sorely disappointed. Melville's BILLY BUDD and Conrad's LORD JIM were two very important books for me along with James' THE TURN OF THE SCREW, Crane's RED BADGE OF COURAGE, Twain's HUCK FINN, and Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Plus, every Ian Fleming James Bond novel I could check out on my mom's library card.

It seems every essay of Hall's I read I can relate to. So though I'm merely sitting here in the corner of my Indiana kitchen, I'm connecting with another word wrestler. Hardly an equal. His prose hits harder than mine. He's been at it longer and is no doubt a lot smarter. But in a simple way that maybe his Thorn could understand and appreciate, we can at least sit at the same table.

My mornings begin with making the coffee and getting breakfast ready for my husband, but my day never begins well unless I get to read a bit. My matins or morning prayer comes with opening one of Billy Collins' books of poetry. I read at least two, letting his fine, sharp knife peel back the gristle and flick away the fat rendering the fine succulent meat.

But the other day, I had a few extra minutes and beyond those poems I read a few paragraphs of Hall's latest, SILENCER. And I was struck by how Hall had somehow snuck in and wielded a similar fine, sharp knife, peeling away gristle and fat.

Hall has said he doesn't write poetry any more. Pffff, Grammy Maevie, a character of mine would say. It's niggled its way into his prose and the dear can't help it.

Alas, all these years later, the words I feel so madly in love with, offered out to me by James and Twain and Melville and Crane and Fleming and Conrad and Lee and Bradbury and all the others may have a different meaning for me now than they did then, but they remain unchanged as each author intended. As each author carefully nipped and tucked and sweated and searched and peeled and cobbled. Teaching as they pass along to another silly person who hears the voices and sees the lush scenery in the mind. Prickled by too many thoughts not to write them down, not to toss out the characters and allow them to suck in the sweet air of life.

Funny. Maybe a writer's life is so much less lonely than we imagine or pretend. As Wavy Gravy at Woodstock said, "Chew a bit and pass it on."

So thank you, Storytellers who have been brave enough to pass their words my way: John D. MacDonald, Ray Bradbury, David Morrell, James Michener, Mary Shelley, Flannery O'Connor, Ed Gorman, Gene Wolfe, Joe R. Lansdale, Andrew Vachss, David B. Silva, Brian A. Hopkins, Jean Rabe. And most recently, James W. Hall.

Thank you for the gift of your words.

Summer's Still Hot!

2010-08-18T09:22:00.003-05:00

"Writers are just wingnuts with keyboards." James W. Hall

For those in the writing game, the announcement of Barnes & Noble seeking a buyer is yet another crack in the fissure called the publishing game. And game it is. The B&N "for sale" sign joins Borders who has been looking for a new sugar daddy for a bit.

And there are other growing fissures: Dorchester's announcement of the end of mass market paperbacks as we have come to know and love them; the addition to every writers' vocabulary of the new diety: Smashwords (on the road to Kindle and other ereaders); the Horror Writers Association's discussion of changes to admission requirements; author Brian Keene's dive into self-publishing.

See the highway? See the hitchhikers? Thumbs of editors and agents and publishers? Where do they go from here?

Are people reading? Ask THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Ask Stephen King. Maybe they know.

As I sit here in my local library, the computers are standing room only, but scattered in the cool are people comfortable in chairs reading. People searching the stacks for books. Not everyone is here for the web-time or the DVDs or the CDs or the magazines. Though nobody seems to be here for the newspapers.

What's a writer with a finished and yet unpublished novel to do? I guess what other writers are doing: write. And read. And then write some more. Mingle with people. Live life.

I've nestled down with the James W. Hall Thorn novels in the past few weeks. Being a John D. MacDonald junkie, it's been nice reading the finely crafted words of a fellow JDM junkie. I like Thorn. He's... Well, I'll save that until I've read more.

And in between Hall's words, I'll listen to my own and practice my own wingnuttiness at the keyboard. Got to please those voices in my head. Because like Mr. Hall, I feel life is amazing. So is writing.

Oh, Happy Day!

2010-07-18T15:39:00.004-05:00

I have finished my first novel and am happily pounding away on number two. Spring brought with it some gift for me to be able to work again after too many months of infertility.

So bang, bang, bang! I'm hitting on all cylinders again and it feels great.

On the reading front... I'm knee-deep with John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee novels. I wondered how they would be this second time around, and they're better than ever. I highly receommend anything written by John D., but this time around I started with A DEADLY SHADE OF GOLD first, read them in order until CRIMSON when I backtracked and read THE QUICK RED FOX. Character Lysa Dean returns in FREE FALL IN CRIMSON, so I thought I'd refresh my memory of their dealings. Worked great! Now I'm reading CINNAMON SKIN. Does that mean the end of Trav adventures? Pish tosh. I can always read any title I want.

Ding! That's all the time I've allotted for online activities. It's back to my own writing.

William Meacham

2009-12-01T07:09:00.005-06:00

I like to write about writing because the actual writing process for me has been an obsession since before I could actually form letters on page with a pencil. But when I could, my mother took full advange of paper and pencil to, well, frankly, shush my constant "prattling," as she called it.

Yet before I could actual employ pencil to paper, I had to learn to read. My first word was "Look."

I remember clearly that word on the first page of my First grade reader (the one with Dick and Jane and Sally and Puff, the cat).

Odd how we remember with such clarity some things while other moments never get burned into out memories. I mean life's simple moments whose complexities we come to understand only later.

My first memory: Large black chunks fall away from the sky, revealing the colors of the blue sky. I know I am in the back yard of the cottage where my family lived on my grandparents huge swatch of land on the southside of Indianapolis. Above my head, dangling from my cousin Tommy's muddy fingers is wriggling worm. "Eat it," he says. "Eat it." But then Tommy is brutally pushed aside, and I feel saved. "Get away from my sister," the brute/savior says.

It seems my older brother, Bill, was always saving me from one thing or another while we were growing up. Most of the time he didn't even need to be present. All I had to do was threaten to sic Bill -- who was quite tall for his age and looked much meaner than he was -- on the offender and that proved enough. "Billy Meacham is your brother?" Nuff said.

Through all these many years, he and I have stayed in touch, never forgetting each other's birthdays or Christmas, but we fell away from being as close as we were as children and teenagers. I often tell my girls not to blink because life sweeps away so quickly, but when it came to my big brother, I failed to heed my own advice.

Twenty years passed since we last actually saw each other. Twenty years.

Sadly, my big brother and I came together again in the same place because he was dying. The savior of my first memory had panceatic cancer, the same demon that took our father 25 years ago.

One of the last gifts my brother gave me was a copy of the book with "Look." (He and I had each been hungry readers while growing up. How well I remember his stack of westerns beside the bed in his room.)

Last month, my brother slipped away while he slept. He had been in much pain. He didn't want any sort of memorial, but I think he simply said that because he figured no one would give him one. The brute/savior was a simple and kind man with a terrific sense of humor. He held strong political opinions, yet carried his 6'6" frame with such gentleness.

There are things I will miss about my brother, and things I can never miss because I allowed 20 years to whiz past. But I have the sound of his voice in my brain: "Hello, Judy? This is Bill."

William Anderson Meacham III, born to William A. Jr., and Mary Ann (Gorman) Meacham, in Indianapolis, IN, June 20, 1945, died November 6, 2009, in Rantoul, IL, at his home. He was a mechanic and antique dealer. He leaves his wife, Norma; three step-daughters, Robin McNish, Tami Benniger, and Teri Bailey; sisters Judy Rohrig (Byron) and Kathy Meacham; four step-grandchildren, Nathan and Joshua Hayn, Cody Shinker, and Brad Bailey; two nieces, Kristin and Rebekah Rohrig; one nephew, Bart Meacham; three step-grandchildren, Austin Hayn, Gavin and Emma Nicole Shinker; Two great-nephews Aidan and Micah Owen; a great-niece Ona Meacham; numerous cousins; his life-long best friend Dennis Dailey (Denise); and his best buddy, Molly dog.

A memorial service is being planned for a later date where his ashes will be scattered in the Ohio River at Madison, IN.

No One Thing But the Other

2009-08-02T15:57:00.006-05:00

"The dirt under your boots tells a story"
from the November/December issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine editorial
Christopher Kimball

On those heat-soaked August afternoons of my childhood when nothing seemed to assuage my doldrums, my mother used to offer me a cup of crisply sliced green peppers. She always had something to say, too. "Sometimes people travel all over the place looking for happiness. 'If only I could this... or that... or have money... or...' Well, you've heard them. And you know what? More often that not, happiness is staring you right in the face."

I know this falls along the line of how the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, but with writers, the number one question asked by others is "Where do you get your ideas?"

"Grass is always greener..."

"Happiness is staring you right in the face."

"The dirt under your boots tells a story."

Wise words to writers from the editor and founder of Cook's Illustrated, a magazine for people into cooking? Actually, even though I love all that the magazine has to offer in recipes and tips, it's Kimball's monthly editorial that I relish first and devour with a passion. Any one of his columns provides a kicking-off for writing what Joe R. Lansdale referred to as a "hand on the shoulder."

In ON WRITING HORROR, a handbook published by Writers Digest Books and writing by members of the Horror Writers Association, Lansdale contends that most writer miss the gold mines they're in. "We stand there with our pick and shovel, we look about, and though the walls glow brightly with strains of gold, we squint our eyes against the light, reach down, and pick up iron pyrites instead of gold."

It takes no time at all to realize what Lansdale scrapes from his boots includes swamp muck and dry dirt from East Texas. In most of his works, his settings darn-near become additional characters.

I like to think his mother inspired him to look at what was staring him in face. I know my own stories all seem to at least touch a toe anywhere from Central Indiana to Northern Kentucky. Not that the fantasy writer in me doesn't dream of or appreciate distant worlds...

"Grass is always greener..."

It's just my characters must have been listening to my mother...

"Happiness is staring you right in the face."

And the writer in me can be inspired by a cooking magazine editor...

"The dirt under your boots tells a story."

Days of Future's Past

2008-10-22T09:17:00.002-05:00

"Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched."
Guy de Maupassant: French short story writer and novelist (1850-1893)

In my first novel in the HERITAGE series, BOTTOM'S DREAM, my story begins with the rebuilding of a once-great country from the ashes of tragedies. There are two tragedies actually: a pandemic and a civil war. The former preceeded the later, but respectively I tagged them the Green Fever and the Poor Wars.

With our economy sinking into this horrible abyss where 401k's (K nows stands for Knockout, huh?), pensions, and savings huddle in shivers, my husband now wonders how prophetic teh HERITAGE series could be. I hope not very.

If you missed either BOTTOM'S DREAM or SOME TOUCH FIRE, the first two in the four-part series, it's understandable. They haven't found a home with a publisher. Such is the life of a writer. There's always another story...

But anyway...

In my last blog, I waxed eloquent (OK, maybe just "waxed") about layaways. This morning's Wall Street Journal includes a story about the reappearance of such an antiquated device. According to a story by Miguel Bustillo, KMart, Burlington Coat Factory, TJ Maxx, and Marshall's are again offering layaways. Kmart even has Jon and Kate Plus Eight's mommy, Kate Gosselin as its layaway spokeswoman. Of course, there is a charge for taking the merchandise off the showroom floor. Additionally, ELayaway.com supposedly offers some fantastic merchandise for those who prefer online shopping.

Either way, when 2009 rolls around, there will be no hefty bills for all that fun shoved under your kids beds.

Okay, I'm off to my life now...

Best
Judi

Life Goes On or Denial May Be THE New Virtue!

2008-10-11T16:28:00.002-05:00

My brother used to call me "Quarter Judi" because, as he contended, give me a quarter and in a little while I'd own the world.

Of course, he was wrong, but way back then when I wanted something -- clothing, books, presents, etc. -- I wouldn't feel shy about plunking down a quarter to lay something away. Layaways were more than common then. Everybody did it, especially in the months just before Christmas.

I snatched up the very first copy of the Beatles' RUBBER SOUL album at the 5 & 10, securing it away with a whole 25cents. The album sold out before the next Monday at both of the dime stores and the record store. And even if it took me several weeks to earn the money to spring that album free of its bin, I knew it was there, waiting for me.

Back then credit was something rarely used and when it was, payments were made in a timely manner. The little old ladies in our neighborhood had some of their groceries "put on the books" at the corner grocery. Then when their Social Security or pension checks arrived, they'd clean the slate.

I know because besides being the princess of the layaway, I was also a demon on a Schwinn who brazenly dashed the extra "delievery charge" the corner market tacked on. I ran errands for a number of very sweet old ladies and charged nothing. On the other hand, these sweeties were rarely without a freshly baked cookie or two. That seemed more of even trade, and for an aspiring writer, the tales I heard in kitchens ripe with scents of powdered detergent and boiling kale.

Which brings me to the present. I didn't wind up owning the world, and all those quarters my husband and I tucked away for sunsets on a sugary beach have dwindled to a sad stack.

We're hardly alone, I know. There are far too many in our situation. We trusted that there were only two things to do with money: spend it or save it. We trusted the latter meant it would be there for us to do the former someday when jobs weren't as available to us.

But... well, life goes on. Possibly the world can still be had for a quarter. Maybe I can buy a share of Ford Motor Company now. :-)

Don't look for www.judirohrig.com. I couldn't afford the site just now. Maybe later.

+++

Please do vote during this presidential election. Look closely at the candidates for president and other offices. It doesn't cost a dime (or even a precious quarter) to cast your ballot. As an American, it is your right and responsibility to vote. Exercise that or it may up and disappear, too.

Meanwhile, hang in there for as Scarlett O'Hara declared: "Tomorrow is another day!"

Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away?

2008-08-19T13:00:00.002-05:00

"There are some things which practice does not enhance. Thunderstorms never practice. Surf does not take graduate lessons in hydraulics. Deer and rabbits do not measure how high they have jumped and go back and try again. Violinists must work at it and study. And ballerinas. And goalies and shortstops and wingbacks and acrobats. But that business of acquiring expertise in screwing turns it into something it wasn't meant to be." Travis McGee (DRESS HER IN INDIGO by John D. MacDonald)

By coincidence I found the time to sit down and visit my blog today, exactly one year to the day since I last posted. I guess that means my life has been busy. It has.

Q: So how's the writing going?
A: Not as well as I would like.

Q: Do you have excuses?
A: Of course! I'm a writer. Writers have more excuses than finished products. (Well, except if you're Gene Wolfe, Joe Lansdale, or Ed Gorman.)

Q: Then what did you want to blog about today? The economy? Politics? Child rearing? Celebrities? The Olympics?

A: I'd love to comment on any of those subjects. Economy: There's a plot among the rich to put the rest of us in our place. We've ruined designer clothes and handbags and shoes for them because WE'RE wearing them, too. My theory began when I found Crocs on sale by the boatload at the Rural King. Politics: I'd like to see Barak Obama and Evan Bayh paired against John McCain and Condolezza Rice. Yeah. Child Rearing: I'm glad I was a kid in the late 50s and early 60s. Boy, was it fun. And schools need to be smaller. We're driving kids to drugs (kids need to run and jump freely, not be tamed with drugs) and into gangs (smaller schools allow for more cheerleaders and sports teams and leaders which big schools limit). Celebrities: I am not interested, thank you. The Olympics: Boy, did we get ripped off in women's gymnastics! And having said that I would like for the NBC commentators to understand that the other countries have come to the Olympics to drag home metals, too. I doubt any one athlete came to deliberately dash the hopes of any other athlete. Better him/her? Of course. But honestly.

But, that's not really why I'm posting. As usual, I feel compelled to write about writing. Strange, huh?

Nobody I know seems to be reading much these days. Or if they are, they aren't BUYING books. This seems a sad time. But then again, a few of the books I've been struggling through are just that: a struggle. Did we writers kill the written word?

I'm gonna ponder that and try to get back here tomorrow. You see I've just gotten Joe Lansdale's LEATHER MAIDEN and I'm chomping at the bit for some good writin'.

Best
Judi

After the bite, there is no cure...

2007-08-19T14:21:00.001-05:00

"I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter." James Michener

Every writer has inside her the vast ocean of words she has gulped down during her descent into the deep. Which writers' words are yours?

The first writer whose words I truly fell in love with is James Michener. No, not his TALES FROM THE SOUTH PACIFIC, but THE FIRES OF SPRING and his enormous THE SOURCE. While the former offered an eloquent tale of one man's journey into adulthood, the latter pitched historical truths that let me wrap my head around the fact that real people have left their footprints in the dusts of the aging Earth and the rest of us who stumble along behind manage to mimic those footfalls.

Yet just as nothing really changes, it is at once altogether different. Michener had his own tales to tell just as every writer has.

One of the saddest interviews I ever did was with a man who followed the career of another of my favorite Storytellers: John D. MacDonald. This man related that he, too, had been a writer, but after reading so much of John D.'s stories, he knew he could never achieve that standard of storytelling, so he just quit writing. I'm certain John D. would never have wanted that.

The best writers I know are also some of the most supportive. Joe R. Lansdale, who is probably closest to being this generation's Mark Twain in storytelling, offered his congratulations to me when I had my very first story published. "Now take the next step," he wrote. "Write another story."

Ed Gorman, one of the most prolific and soul-seering writers I am honored to know, is also one of the most giving and encouraging booster to young (or even old) writers. But, like all the others named above, his written words teach more than he could ever tell. No one puts the slush and crunch into describing snow quite like Ed.

I might not have stumbled upon John D., Joe R., or Ed if it hadn't been for Dean Koontz. I was writing a story that involved brainwashing. Not having any first-hand experiences with brainwashing, I did research. Under "subject" came "fiction," listing a title by this Koontz guy, whose work I had never touched because he wrote -- spit, spit -- horror! (I was very into Melville, Conrad, James, Twain, and Crane.) I bit the nail and fell madly in love with his storytelling abilities. I had to know more which led to more of his books as well as his biography and a companion book. In his biography, he noted how he fell madly in love with the Travis McGee novels and especially the Gold Medal paperbacks of John D. MacDonald. Besides digging into the McGee books and the rest, I also found an Introduction Koontz had written for some Texas writer who could have been a Tator King if he hadn't decided he just had to write (Joe R. Lansdale) and a story of a visit to that companion Koontz volume editor who lived in Cedar Rapids, IA (Ed Gorman).

There's a pattern here, isn't there?

The next thing I knew I was knee-deep in the horror community, still writing what I write: dark fantasy. More writers came my way: Brian A. Hopkins (one of the most gifted storytellers I know), Jean Rabe (I sooooo would like to be in her mind for just a day just to see those amazing worlds of hers!), Dave Silva (write MORE, please!), and the master of all living storytellers: Gene Wolfe.

I'd be remiss to not mention Ray Bradbury. I've been reading this master's work since I was young. And Flannery O'Connor, Shirley Jackson, James Morrow, and...

My point is that to write one has to sit down on the chair and WRITE. But first, and most importantly, one has to read. And read. And read.

And then write and write and write.

Best
Judi

Pandora's Closet has been released!

2007-08-02T08:26:00.000-05:00

What author wouldn't be excited when her story finally appears in print? I know nothing gives me more incentive to get my butt on the chair to write more than to hold in my hot little hands one of my stories in big fat print.

PNADORA'S CLOSET, edited by Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg and published by Daw, has been released a tad early. Inside the covers of this fine anthology rests "Revolution: Number 9," my story.

Within the hour I will indeed clutch a copy, no doubt sharing my glee with all the librarians at the Oaklyn branch of the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Public Library.

The local bookstores don't have copies yet and my contributor's copy hasn't yet arrived, so I will settle for the temporary possession of the library's copy. In fact, I will place a wish on the copy that it may be read by many and enjoyed. Even the stories by Timothy Zahn, Nancy and Belle Holder, Elizabeth Vaughan, and others.

Just a note here: Authors do NOT receive tons a free copies. We buy extra copies (and rarely at any kind of discount). So if you have an author friend, please consider buying a copy from her or him. You'll no doubt get a free inscription and lots and lots of gratitude.

It's interesting that the Wall Street Journal has an article that ties into my story (in a way that you'll understand when you read "Revolution: Number 9"), and I invite you to take a look at it: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118601703096585591.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone

Off to Oaklyn now...

Happy writing!

Best
Judi

The Good and Lazy Days of Summer!

2007-07-21T11:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. The gift he wanted most was the arrival of Aerith Eden Owen, our first grandchild. Though our daughter looks ready to pop, L'il Socks didn't come. Poor Byron had to settle for music DVDs and a gift card from Home Depot.

The day brought good news for me though. My poem, "A Love Song from the Sea," which I read at the SUMMER CHILLS event at Willard Library a couple of weeks ago, has found a home in the upcoming anthology "POEtry: without apologies," edited by Stephen M. Wilson. Other poets whose works will appear are Joe Haldeman, Jane Yolen, Brian Aldiss, Michael Bishop, Bruce Boston, Marge Simon, Patrick O'Leary, Linda Addison, Elizabeth Hand, Michael A. Arnzen, Charlee Jacob, David Niall Wilson, Corine deWinter, Claire Cooney, and others. I'm humbled and thrilled. Though I have been writing poetry since I was 8 or 9, this is my first sale.

Finding homes for my writing is the best affirmation I know. It also provides the very best kick in the ass for writing more!

In fact, I'm going to write now...

Best
Judi

Research means RE Search

2007-07-17T12:29:00.000-05:00

On the sidebar, I've noted that PANDORA'S CLOSET, a new anthology coming from Daw next month, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Jean Rabe, will contain a story of mine. "Revolution: Number 9" was a convergence (like most stories) of a number of ideas, though most particularly from two stories I read in the WALL STREET JOURNAL.

When Jean Rabe invited me to sublit a story, she asked for a tale that elaborated in some way about someTHING that could pop out or be dragged of a closet, Pandora's closet, no less.

Those familiar with Pandora and her box might recall how all manner of horrible things were released when she lifted the lid. In this new anthology, 19 writers allow her to render additional damage from a closet.

What came to my mind first was Johnny Cash's black shirt. I mulled the implications of where that story could go. That's when two different stories from the WSJ struck me. One involved the military use of Brain Ports (C) while the other considered how history had been rewritten by artists through placing spectacles on famous people who lived before glasses had come into use.

That's when John Lennon entered the mix.

And just how does all this gel? Heh heh. You'll have to read my story. PANDORA'S CLOSET will be available at all the online booksellers and through their brick 'n mortar stores, too, though you may have to ask them to order you a copy. (Please ask!)

At any rate, Rabe was kind enough to send me a link to an MSNBC story about Lennon's glasses. I invite you to take a look: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19796465/from/ET/.

PANDORA'S CLOSET will be released on August 7. You can't wait, right? Neither can I.

Best
Judi

"Ain't it funny how time slips away?"

2007-07-16T08:05:00.000-05:00

Developing the discipline to blog is clearly something that has eluded me. Up to now.

"Hi, I'm Judi, and I've let being a disciplined writer slip."

Here's my excuse: I've been busy living life, or at least, trying desperately to keep up with everything.

My elder daughter is due to deliver my first grandchild any day now. She's officially due on July 27, but who knows. This very daughter was two weeks late herself and her younger sister was two months early. Maybe she'll be on time.

Said younger daughter just got her driver's license and a job at the mall.

The father of this pair (and my legal life partner) has just taken an early retirement from his reporter position at the local newspaper and is now doing freelance writing. He's also upped his guitar playing and performing appearances.

It's a busy place our house.

Here's another excuse: I'm working on something new.

Yes, yes, after struggling with my two novels (one in revision, one still being written) and my eclectic collection of short stories, I was hit with a totally new novel-length project. The fires are burning on that one, so...

Excuse #3: I've joined a local writers group and have been leading a writers' workshop at Willard Library.

Those who know me know I rarely take a backseat. (To those who don't know I served in several capacities with the Horror Writers Association: VP, Trustee, email newsletter editor, convention hostess, etc.) Anyway, the Midwest Writers' Guild of Evansville needed a treasurer, so...

The workshop at Willard will begin again in the fall. "Fall into Writing" will be the September/October offerings. On Monday, Sept. 10, we'll be exploring the writing process and developing plans. Then on Monday, October 15, the subject will be "More than you wanted to know about getting your words into print." We meet at 10 a.m. at the historic and very haunted library (21 First Avenue, Evansville, IN), but please do reserve a spot by calling the Willard (812-425-4309).

Those are my current excuses. I probably have more. In fact, I think there's now a website that offers excuses for writers, much like those quotes' pages. :-)

And how is your work coming along?

Best
Judi

Writing: The Game

2007-04-11T09:22:00.000-05:00

"I do not like to write - I like to have written." Gloria Steinem

Here is the fence. On each side are writers. On each side are paths worn to dirt from anxious contemplation of what it will take to leap to the other side. Sure there's the fear that on the other side dwells a big, bad monster who will consume the writers. Not "kill" them or "destroy" them, but "consume" them to a point where springing back across the fence will prove impossible. And, yet, every writer needs what lies on both sides of that fence.

On one side is actual writing: the toil of wrestling with a basic story along with all its posse: style, voice, character, setting, grammar, etc.

On the other side hunches the ugly ogre of marketing. Not merely finding the right "home" for the writer's story, but all its elements: finding an agent; dealing with editors, publishers, publicity departments, printers; developing a fan base; selling the finished product (constructing and maintaining websites; attending conventions and conferences; visiting bookstores, libraries, and schools).

"But all I want to do is write!" one writer says.

"But I love being on the road and meeting other writers!" another writer says.

Of course, any writer can straddle the fence. A lot of "writers" do that quite successfully. Some attribute their location to "writer's block." Or children. The day job. No inspiration. No money. No control. (Fill in the black.)

Still others pace back and forth on their side of the fence. It's a familiar place. Less scary.

Either could readily swing their arms around Gloria Steinem's words: "I do not like to write - I like to have written."

Yeah, less work. Less stress. "I just want success and a gazillion dollars!" more than one writer says.

Stephen King, who retired a couple of years ago after a very successful career as a writer, has announced the publication of yet another new novel. Is this his fourth or fifth since his "retirement"? I think Mr. King likes wrestling with the words more than he confesses. No fences for him.

Clue?

Ass on the chair and write!

Spring Sprung!

2007-04-06T10:42:00.000-05:00

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." Henry David Thoreau

We'll let my indulgence in "living life" serve as my excuse for the little break in posts on writing. Spring arrived with blasters on and the Earth bloomed and blossomed under the searing heat. But it's back to being a chilly spring, and here I am back at the keyboard where I should be.

So... how is your writing coming along? Have you been successful at penning those 1000 words every day? How about your reading?

It is important as a writer to get out and mingle with people, to live life. Otherwise you become stuck like the songwriter whose every tune seems to be about how lonely she is singing at some smoky bar to indifferent ears.

If writers are to be authentic in their tales, in the voices that they use, then they need to walk the walk and talk the talk and get out there and live. But more. Writers, more than others, need to reach out further for experiences. Don't be afraid to grab your helmet and lance and go charge at some windmills. Because if anybody questions your sanity, you can simply smile and own up to being a writer.

+++

Here is Evansville, the Midwest Writers' Guild will meet on Tuesday, April 10, at 6:30 p.m., upstairs at Barnes & Noble Bookstore on Green River Road. We'll be welcoming some more new members, so if you are considering rubbing elbows with others who write, please join us!

+++

The next gathering for Writers Write! is May 7, at 10:00 a.m., upstairs at Willard Library in Evansville. Our topic will be "It's Only Just Begun: Revisions." All writers are welcome!

Best
Judi

Spring Training 3: Do your homework!

2007-03-16T09:45:00.000-05:00

"The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies." Ray Bradbury

I like to tell the story about winning a book. Not a winning book, but winning a book. During the 2001 Horror Writers Convention in Seattle, WA, Cemetery Dance Publications was kind enough to give away a few books through the Horror Writers Association's hospitality suite. One of the books was Richard Laymon's THE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW. The book was honored that year with a Bram Stoker Award, a feat Laymon couldn't celebrate because of his sudden death just weeks before. The last day of the convention, following the drawing for the books, a group of young writers cornered me about just who had won. Since I had a couple of unclaimed books (including the Laymon), I gave them away.

"Wow! Is the author still here and can I get him to sign?" asked the young man with the Laymon book in his hot little hands.

"Well, no," I said. I was taken aback that any member of the convention wouldn't know about Dick's tragic heart attack. Besides being a popular author, he had also been a dynamic president of the HWA. "Mr. Laymon is dead."

The young man grinned as took off after the others. "Okay then. I didn't know. I don't read horror. I just write it."

I don't think I'll ever recover from those words: "I don't read horror. I just write it."

Quite plainly I can't comprehend how anyone could attempt to write in any genre without having first read what stories have already been written. Of course, it's impossible to read everything, but this man didn't say he'd never read Laymon. He said he didn't read what he supposedly was involved in writing.

So what are you writing and, more importantly, what are you reading? Reading helps a writer see how others are tackling a particular theme, character, style, voice, etc.

Here's the weekend assignment:

1. Read something and then write a brief (no more than 500 words) review of the book/poem/short story/article/play.

2. Do something: Take a walk; see a movie; watch the NCAA tournament; hold your spouse's hand. In other words, taste life. It's easier to write about what you know when you reach out to know more.

See you Monday!

Judi

Spring Training Continues...

2007-03-15T09:43:00.000-05:00

"It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write." Sinclair Lewis

Most of the successful writers I know write because they can't not.

There are stories inside of them, tugging at their fingers like anxious children yearning to splash into the inviting deep waters at the end of some warm, sandy beach. The children have no fear of posssible dangerous coral or fish lurking beneath the frothy foam. They just know to go.

No matter how much research has been done, how many mental plans, how long and intricate of an outline, no writer really knows where those characters tossed into the sea will swim. That's part of the thrill of being a writer.

And part of the drudge.

Writing, while certainly an entertaining adventure, is still hard work. A first draft is merely that: A beginning.

But it's those first steps that must be taken. As Nike (C) proclaims: "Just do it!"

Assignments:

1. Continue writing at least 15 minutes a day.

2. Continue reading at least 15 minutes a day.

3. Continue observing the world as a writer for at least 15 minutes a day.

4. Consider writing a story, poem, or song using one of the idea starters below:

* A storm is brewing outside...

* You have just been abruptly awakened in the middle of the night...

* While cleaning a closet, you find an old letter...

5. Writers love helping one another. Currently Orson Scott Card is offering tips on "Formatting Outlines and Manuscripts": http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/lessons/2006-03-07-1.shtml

Best,

Judi

Spring Training For Writers!

2007-03-14T09:59:00.000-05:00

Today's quote is from Sylvia Plath: "...everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."

Is there a more bitter or successful enemy than the self? I doubt it.

The only way to be successful at anything is to do it. Budding baseball players don't simply read about the game and sit in the bleachers and watch the major league players. Oh, they do study their area of interest, but they also practice, practice, practice. Too few of us are naturally gifted in where our passions lie. That's why there's Spring Training. Writers need to practice, practice, practice, too.

Here are your "Spring Training" assignments:

1. Write for at least 15 minutes TODAY! No excuses. Put a notebook in your bathroom if you need to. Carry a small folder piece of paper and pencil in your pocket or purse.

2. Take a few minutes and see what the late author Richard Laymon had to say about writing in this piece at the Horror Writers Association's website: http://www.horror.org/writetips-laymon.htm

3. Observe your surroundings for at least 15 minutes. Look at the world as a writer. Consider what you are observing from multiple viewpoints.

4. Read for AT LEAST 15 minutes and consider just how the author is constructing his/her work. Of course, you should read for enjoyment, but pay attention to style. You're a writer! Ask yourself what can you learn from this writer and this particular piece.

5. Come back here for more tips!

Thanks for visiting and keep writing.

Judi

Welcome!

2007-01-06T16:03:00.000-06:00

Today's quote:

"The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible." Vladimir Nabakov

Yes, the pages are blank, but each blank page offers promise and possibility. What is the story burning inside of you? Isn't it about time you began writing it down?

Go ahead... begin.

One word in front of another. It's that easy.

I recall the first word I learned to read. It is emblazoned in my mind: "Look."

Look.

And then write what you see, what you know, what you feel.

Go ahead. I dee-double dog dare you.

Judi