I used to have anger management issues. I say “used to” only because I’m writing this post a week before it goes live and have been told I need to think more positively about the future.
In addition to my chronic grumpiness, I also “used to” drink too much. The good news is I do some of my best thinking and writing while drinking, and always drink when I’m grumpy.
Point is, I could have just titled this post “22 Writing Rules I Created While Awake.” Actually, the real point is I recently created some writing rules. I think they could be useful for aspiring writers, or anyone who gets pleasure from the insanity of others.
Enjoy!
1) Never use an exclamation point unless the scene you’re writing is about a broken traffic signal or putting a child to bed.
2) Whenever you’re unsure of whether to end your novel with a line of dialogue or a line of narrative, just trash the whole manuscript and start writing an entirely different book.
3) Use semicolons like they’re going out of style. Forget what the writing “experts” say; what the hell do they know? Semicolons are cool. Just be sure you; know how to use them properly.
4) Whenever you sense the pace of a scene is too slow, introduce a rabid llama into the story, or, at the very least, switch the POV of the story to that of a rabid llama.
5) Use ADHD as an excuse for everything wrong with your writing process and career—whether it’s your struggle to meet daily word-count goals or to fill gaping plot holes, or … look, squirrels!
6) Whenever someone asks why you don’t write more like [name of famous author], ask them what’s with the brackets and make fun of them for not being able to come up with the name of a single famous author.
7) Having your novel stand out takes more than just writing a great story. It takes sneaking under police tape and placing a copy of the book next to a body. A good cover also helps. (Yes, I realize this isn’t exactly a rule—nor are some of the others—but keep in mind I’m grumpy and drunk and thus can’t be expected to clearly distinguish the difference between rules, guidelines and suggestions.)
8) Keep dialogue tags simple. Try to stick with ‘she/he said’—except when the person speaking is dead, in which case use ‘he/she groaned like the wailing wind.’ (But only italicize the dialogue tags on odd-numbered pages. Don’t ask why. Just do it.)
9) Once you find you’re totally satisfied with every scene and chapter of your manuscript during the editing process, you’ve had too much to drink.
10) To write truly effective vampire erotica, don’t.
11) If you want to become a bigger writer, stand on several boxes of your unsold paperbacks.
12) Do whatever it takes to write 3,000 words each day. Even if it means scrawling “What’s the use?” a thousand times on the wall of your writing nook and spending all night removing paint and drywall from under your fingernails.
13) In writing workshops, never let negative feedback get you down, unless you’re the one receiving it.
14) Don’t think of it as writer’s block. Think of it as mindfulness meditation in front of a laptop—only without the slow, calm breathing or any feelings of inner peace.
15) You needn’t be a shut-in with no friends and a fevered mind to write a compelling novel. But it helps.
16) Write drunk. Edit sober. Look at book sales on psilocybin.
17) You may not earn a great living as a writer, but at least you won’t live up to your parents’ expectations.
18) Whenever someone asks how you can write fiction considering what's happening in the real world, ask them how can they NOT.
19) Fight tooth and nail to protect your writing time. But just be aware your significant other will fight tooth and nail to protect their brunch plans—and might have much longer nails.
20) If you have trouble sleeping, feel out of touch with reality, and often hear voices in your head, congratulations! Most writers would kill for all that, so embrace your good fortune.
21) Whenever someone leaves a negative comment on one of your blog posts, just laugh because the joke’s on them—nobody reads your blog.
22) Never be mean to readers or fellow writers. Save that sh*t for your characters. (The only exception is if a reader or fellow writer upsets you.)
Thanks for reading, or for at least skipping to the end before leaving. Please note that all of the above writing “rules” make for great tweets. I ask only that you credit me with a tag—and that you delete that tag if the tweet doesn’t get at least ten likes/retweets within the first thirty seconds.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m feeling grumpy and have been drinking, so it’s time to work on my novel.
Back in January, I posted a list of my writing-related resolutions for this year. I’d provide a link to that piece right now, but giving you such easy access to it would increase the chances of you holding me to account on all the overzealous objectives I set for myself. So, nah. (In fact, I should probably hide that post.)
That said, there is one resolution I’ve already started making good on in 2019: “Supporting indie authors who are great writers and good people.” So far this has taken the form of tweets whenever a fellow writer launches a badass book, as well as quick mentions of (and links to) them via my blog. But I’d like to do more. Thus, starting today, I’ll be posting occasional interviews with some of my favorite fellow indie authors of crime thrillers—writers who really hustle and whom I feel deserve more than just a little exposure to awesome readers like you.
So without further ado, I’m super-excited to introduce you to my first guest—Elisabeth Elo! Elisabeth’s first suspense novel, North of Boston, was chosen by Booklist as the Best Crime Novel Debut of the Year in 2014. And her gripping new novel, Finding Katarina M., just launched yesterday!
Okay, let’s get to the interview:
First off, Elisabeth, huge congrats on the release and early success of Finding Katarina M. What sparked the idea for this novel? Was writing it a total joy, complete torture, or both?
The impulse for Finding Katarina M. came out my earlier novel, North of Boston, in which the main character’s parents have an interesting background. Her father is from Russia, her mother is from Estonia, and the marriage is about as conflicted as you’d expect. So years ago, well before I started writing Katarina, I was thinking about that Estonian family and wondering what happened to the grandmother.
Was the writing joy or torture? Both. The joy comes from getting lost in the work for hours and forgetting about my real problems. Being “in the flow” contributes to my psychological health, which is constantly in need of stabilization. The torture comes from two sources. First, the chronic uncertainty that attends large projects with no particular boundaries. Creative freedom is what we all want, but it’s also a terrible burden when literally every word is a choice you alone have to make. Second, you’re investing years of your life in a project that may never see the light of day. A person has to be crazy to do that, and I’m aware of the insanity of that choice every single day.
Russia factors largely into the plot of FKM. Was there a lot of research and/or travel involved in the making of the book? Did you drink a lot of vodka to help you capture Russia’s essence?
I was naturally concerned that my complete ignorance of Russia would hamper my writing a novel set in Russia. A saner person would have seen this yawning chasm as a clear warning not to proceed. As I am not a saner person (see above), I ventured forth. You can get a lot of information online, and I am a hungry reader of nonfiction, so I educated myself as best I could with what I could lay my hands on. But I knew I couldn’t write about Siberia without going there. Siberia is its own unique place—different from Russia, different from Asia. I was drawn to its utter vastness, its many ethnic groups, its frightening history, its possible future, and so on. The region is largely unknown to most westerners, and I thought of it as a sort of cultural and geographic frontier. I love novels that take me places I haven’t been and show me things I haven’t seen, and as I believe writers should write the books they want to read, the Siberian setting was a good fit for me.
Your first thriller, North of Boston, earned wide critical acclaim and was named “Best Crime Novel Debut of the Year” by Booklist in 2014. So my question is, can we be best friends? Also, while writing the new novel, were you affected by any fears of a “sophomore slump,” or did you refuse to view prior success as a burden and just write?
I would love to be best friends! Yay!
My problem writing a second novel was pretty simple. Everyone loved the main character of my first novel. They loved her comic, melancholic cynicism. The book had a lot going for it, but the main character was the main attraction. The publisher started advertising a sequel before notifying me. I didn’t really want to write a sequel. I think of each book as a world unto itself and when I’m done plumbing that world’s depths, I’m done.
However, I am not totally stupid. I do realize that a publisher who is ready and eager to publish your work is not someone to sneeze at. So, despite some misgivings, I set to work on a sequel. It was awful. Everything about it was forced and bad. I started disliking the main character because I could feel her inauthenticity. I had liked her a lot in the first book, so I felt like I was actually destroying something good I had made. I was cannibalizing myself.
Part of the reason it’s been five years between books—besides the time involved in writing a research-heavy second novel, and the time involved in having to find a new publisher, and the year it takes to actually publish a book—is that before any of those things could happen, I had to do a major systems reset. I had to completely clean the slate. The result, Finding Katarina M., is its own thing. It has its own reason for being. It’s darker than its predecessor. It’s also more grown-up in that it relies less on an appealing voice and more on plot and setting. What’s the same is its genre-bending nature, the sense of adventure, and its unusual plot twists.
I’ll keep this one short and simple: Why crime fiction?
I honestly don’t know. My first published novel was a humorous literary novel called Save Your Own, written under the name Elisabeth Brink. I didn’t make a conscious decision to switch genres. I just wrote the next book, North of Boston, and was a little surprised when it was categorized as crime. Now Katarina has come along, and it’s considered a thriller. My current work-in-progress could easily cross back into the general fiction category. Mostly what I care about is having a good story to tell.
I often wear an orange prison jumpsuit while working on my crime novels (no joke), but we’re not here to talk about me. Do you have any unique or peculiar writing habits you’d care to share? Do you have any you’d rather NOT share? (If so, tell us those.)
The need for total silence. The tendency to scribble on index cards, which I throw away without reading. Poor writing posture.
Prior to writing crime thrillers and suspense novels, you worked as a halfway house counselor. Did that job impact or inform your fiction in any profound way?
Absolutely. There was a period in my life when I was totally surrounded by people who had been through, or were going through, hard times. My own life had presented serious challenges as well. I learned a lot about the good and bad of human nature, and the very tenuous position that most people are in. Luck plays a far greater role in outward success and inner peace than the lucky are ever likely to admit.
If you could have a conversation with younger you about writing, what one piece of advice would you give her?
Here’s what I’d tell her: “Don’t do it. I’m serious. Don’t. But if you HAVE to, then take yourself much more seriously, honor your talent, make shrewd choices. DO consider the marketplace because you are not writing for yourself alone. If possible, choose a genre and stick with it. Give yourself a ten-year apprenticeship to figure out what writing really means to you and what you may have to offer. Ignore the insufferable prigs who say you must never give up. Writing is not a cross you must bear, and it is perfectly fine to take one year, five years, or the rest of your life off if you feel like it. Be careful who you hang out with. Talk mostly to people you truly admire and respect.”
Who are a few of your favorite authors? What are you currently reading?
I have two favorite authors. The first, Edna O’Brien, writes the most gorgeous prose about her childhood in rural Ireland and her grown-up life as an Irish ex-patriot in London. Her trilogy, The Country Girls, is a work I constantly recommend. My second favorite author, Edward St. Aubyn, writes fictionalized autobiography about growing up in the English aristocracy as an abused child and, later, trying to function in that same society as an adult drug addict. Both of these writers were badly damaged as children and, almost as a defensive strategy, became acute observers of their respective worlds. Their salvation is their gut honesty and their brilliant, startling books. They don’t shy away from any issues, least of all their own. Sometimes their work is too painful to read; other times it’s actually funny. I think we’ve all experienced times when things are so screwed up, the best you can do is laugh.
I’m reading two books at the moment. The first is The Riddle of the Labyrinth by Margalit Fox. It’s about Alice Kober, an archeology professor back in the 1940s who attempted to solve one of the most challenging linguistic riddles in history—the hieroglyphic symbols on a bunch of engraved tablets from the Aegean Bronze Age. She got almost all the way to the solution before her untimely death. In the end someone else took credit for cracking the code, but she had set the painstaking groundwork, all while more famous archeologists (men, of course) were getting her to do their copyediting and other grunt work.
The second book I’m reading is Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck. No explanation needed.
Is there anything you were hoping I’d ask but didn’t?
Not a thing. I usually don’t like to talk about myself. It’s not that I’m shy; I just crave novelty and, to the extent that I am not new to me, I don’t find myself to be that interesting. I couldn’t possibly write a memoir.
But I do want to thank you for inviting me to your blog. I appreciate the time you are taking out of your busy day to support fellow writers.
The pleasure was all mine, Elisabeth—though I think everyone who just read your candid, eloquent and witty responses would argue the pleasure was all theirs. Thank YOU for being such a captivating guest. And not that you need it, but best of luck with the new book!
Back in October I posted the first excerpt from my upcoming novel, and hopefully you were so dazzled by the gripping narrative and dialogue, you forgot the title of the book.
Because the title of the book has changed.
In that post I did mention I’d likely be changing the title, so nothing about this announcement should come as a huge surprise. Still, that shouldn’t stop you from exploding with anticipation right now as I prepare to reveal the official title of my next novel.
[insert pause here to allow for maximum build-up of anticipation, tension and excitement]
Ladies and gentlemen, the title of my upcoming novel—due out this summer—is…
[insert another pause, but shorter to avoid annoying everyone]
INTO A CORNER
Okay, now that that’s over with, below is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of the book. I’m having a blast writing it, by the way. And if you like crime fiction with plenty of grit, heart and dark humor, I think you'll have a blast reading it. (Note: In addition to changing the title, I changed the name of the main character. From Roxy Scott to Odessa Scott. Why? Because Odessa told me to, and she’s not somebody you want to upset.)
From Chapter 2 of INTO A CORNER
There isn’t a color or brushstroke in the world that can fix what’s about to burn.
My saliva slides down the canvas, bringing with it some of the blue and black paint I applied just before spitting. This isn’t a technique. It’s a termination. It’s another ten hours of work and eighty bucks of stretched Belgian linen down the drain. Scratch that. Up in smoke.
The concrete floor practically cracks as I stomp toward the welding torch hanging on the far wall of my studio. My studio is my garage. Especially today.
I snatch the torch from the wall, then grab the handle of the metal cart that holds everything else and rattle it back across the garage. En route, I stop to kick out of the way a cardboard box filled with who the hell cares and continue on toward my oil-based mishap, my abstract attempt at capturing the latest school shooting.
Worst part is, the worthless mess on the canvas is the only thing of value in the room. My garage that doubles as a studio triples as storage space for my dead husband, Wayne. Maybe after torching the painting I’ll torch Wayne’s broken Kawasaki and his socket wrenches. Torch his golf bag and his Astros cap. His flannel shirts and his wedding suit. And all the rest of the crap he didn’t and can’t come back for. All the junk that should be for sale on eBay or Craigslist but isn’t.
Of course, if I did torch Wayne’s stuff, there’d be nothing left in the studio to inspire me. Without all these reminders of abandonment and betrayal and tragedy around, I’d likely end up painting something bright and cheerful. Something light and hopeful. Something so awful it would sell.
Besides, all this clutter is good for my nerves.
Standing a few feet from the canvas, I take one last look at everything that went wrong. The reds and greens and blues that escaped my control. The black flashes I splattered last-minute out of spite. This is the third piece in a row that didn’t turn out as I’d pictured. Didn’t measure up. Can’t be saved.
Used to be my art career wasn’t such a fire hazard. Luckily my side job writing last words for dead people keeps me alive. Almost.
In loving memory of when things weren’t a total shit-show.
From the cart I grab the green gas hose that’s still attached to an oxygen cylinder from the last time I shot flames at my failure. I screw the other end of the green hose to the torch’s oxygen connection. Next comes the red hose. Red as in stop, but I don’t. I take the free end of the hose—the end that’s not attached to a cylinder of explosive fuel—and screw it into the torch’s acetylene connection. You’re supposed to check each hose for any debris before starting up. It’s a safety precaution, but safety has lost its luster of late.
So no protective goggles or respirator or dust mask for me as I open the various valves. And ah, there’s that hiss I love. And hate. The exhale of oxidization. The breath of destruction.
A white flame shoots from the tip of the torch, stopping just short of its target. The heat alone chars a goodbye kiss into the canvas. I take a step closer. Purple-black smoke plumes from the dead painting, summons tears from the corners of my sockets.
We have ignition. The smell, like a bomb’s been dropped on Fine Art 101. Like someone streaked through the Louvre leaking gasoline and lit a match. Like nothing and everything is under control.
Watching my work on fire reminds me of my potential.
I kill the oxygen and the acetylene, then set the torch on the concrete floor. There’s more smoke coming off the canvas than last time. Also bigger flames, but it’s too early to reach for the extinguisher. That would be quitting.
The side pocket of my paint-smeared smock buzzes and buzzes. Probably my neighbor Clark or my neighbor Lucia checking just to make sure the garage is on fire on purpose. Again. Clark and Lucia are good people, but I wish they’d learn to mind their own business whenever I’m cremating remains in the privacy of my own garage. You’d think they’d be used to this by now.
Part of me is tempted to just walk away and let this turn into a major insurance claim, but Mama’s napping inside. Besides, a major insurance claim would surely become a closed arson investigation faster than these here flames are devouring my talent.
Also, the painting is starting to look more like what I was originally going for. That’s the thing with abstract expressionism—sometimes all it takes is a little disfigurement to turn a massacre into a masterpiece.
From the metal cart I grab the extinguisher and blow its load all over what’s burning. My pursed lips keep out all the hot specks of cancer dancing in the air. But that doesn’t keep me from coughing through my nose as I blast my sanctuary with white foam. If someone were videoing any of this, it would go viral.
Here lies the last ounce of my patience and possibility.
My smock buzzes again. My overly concerned neighbors can go to hell.
I set the almost-empty extinguisher down next to the dormant welding torch, then stand up to take everything in. The corner of my garage looks like a studio again. The corner of my studio looks like a cumulus cloud threw up on a mill town. Smells nice, though. Campfires and chemistry sets.
The only thing better than the high you get from creating good art is the high you get from destroying bad art. Especially in an enclosed and poorly ventilated space.
What was a failed painting a week ago and a day ago and a minute ago is now the scorched surface of a strange new planet. A land of boiling blue streams snaking burnt red hills and black craters. A world too beautiful to have ever been inhabited by humans.
Looks like I may have found my new medium.
That’s it. I hope you enjoyed the excerpt and are itching to read more. (Oh, and don’t worry, the book does actually contain dialogue—just not the above clip.)
With Valentine’s Day coming up, most sane people would write a heartfelt letter to their spouse or significant other before writing one to their favorite hobby or activity. But as an author of dark fiction, I reject both sanity and Valentine’s Day purely on principle. Besides, I’ve already proven my tremendous devotion to my wife by agreeing to watch The Bachelor with her every week.
I guess you could say she and I have a sort of open relationship—she’s allowed to be in love with young, buff, reality TV stars, and I’m allowed to be in love with my own written words. So me spending Valentine’s week thus far doing nothing but working on this blog post really hasn’t bothered her at all.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find out what my wife's yelling about and why she’s packing a suitcase. But before I do, allow me to share with you—in the (sort of) spirit of Valentine’s Day—this, “My Open Love Letter to Writing.”
Dear Writing,
I love you more than words can describe, which, I realize, is more than just a little ironic.
I’ve loved you ever since I gave you a try and got a gold star from my kindergarten teacher and a “Good job!” from my parents.
I love you because you’re always there for me—even when I yell and scream at you about writer’s block like it’s your fault.
I love you because you’re always there for others, too. For anyone willing to give you a shot. Anyone dedicated enough to stick with you even when the words aren’t flowing. Anyone stupid enough to ignore their angry spouse just to spend a few extra sentences with you.
I love you because you allow me to get away with murder. I love you because the murders you allow me to get away with keep society safe from me.
I love you because I didn’t really know who I was until I met you—and because I continue to learn who I am because of you.
I love you because you connect me to the world and to others in a way surpassed only by the ingestion of very special mushrooms.
I love you because you’ve given me a voice my teenage daughter hears much more clearly than when I speak.
I love you because you are my escape hatch—one that drops me straight into a world where imagination trumps reality … and even has the potential to redefine it.
I love you because you allow me to explore the darkest parts of humanity and myself yet emerge full of light.
I love you because you’ve given me the power to endure the toughest of times: heartbreak; loneliness; depression; the deaths of friends and loved ones—particularly my oldest brother. I love you because you’ve taught me how to turn pain into art. Grief and anger into laughter and acceptance. Suffering into something so brutally beautiful, it almost ceases to hurt.
And I love you because you’ve given me the power to help others endure their own toughest times.
I guess what I’m saying is, Writing, my dear, I love you. You had me at hello.
We all know or have encountered people who feel the need to take cheap shots at authors and their books. You might even be of one of those people.
I was.
For years, and from a cowardly distance, I mocked and skewered a few famous authors who were much more successful than I and—in my arrogant and asinine opinion—much less talented and deserving. If you’re itching for me to name names here, I’m sorry to disappoint. The way I see it, Stephanie Meyer and E.L. James have already been targeted enough on my blog, and I’m now above such shameful virtual bullying.
It wasn’t just the cease-and-desist letters I received from attorneys or the threats from bodyguards that caused me to stop hating on authors I felt were over-read and overrated. One day it just dawned on me, hit me in the face like a burning box of Fifty Shades of Grey books, that such negativity and vitriol toward any author—even ones who write erotica that makes you want to choke yourself—is not only completely uncalled for, but also a tremendous waste of time, energy and creativity.
What it all comes down to is this: It takes a lot to write a novel. And it takes even more when you aren’t very good at it. That’s why I now respect and admire anyone who gives writing a go. And honestly, so long as your novel isn’t a hate-filled manifesto in disguise or a story about puppies getting murdered or another Fifty Shades book, I tip my hat to you and welcome you with open arms to the writers’ table. Despite what some readers and many established authors contend, there’s more than enough room.
I’m not saying I like every novel. What I’m saying is I understand and respect the effort that goes into each one. There are far worse things a human can do with their time than try to tell a tale. There are acts much more abominable than a person stretching and flexing their imagination to fill a ton of blank pages with a story that speaks to them. You merely need to see/listen to the daily news at any given moment to be convinced of this—and to get why so many ambitious if not talented souls wake up every day filled with the urge to create, escape and explore via the written word.
If you find yourself still tormented by the vast number of “bad” books out there and the many more on the way, here’s something that may ease your suffering: You don’t have to read them. Any of them. Unless you’re an editor and have already accepted payment, nobody’s going to force you to read even one single “bad” novel. So breathe easy.
There are people who refuse to read the work of indie authors (authors unsigned by any of the large, “respectable” publishing houses). These people will often say something along the lines of, “There are already too many books in the world.” Now—and perhaps I’m a tad biased here—but, um, I beg to differ. There can never be too many books. Just as there can never be too many paintings or songs or symphonies, too much creativity or dancing or laughter. You know what there CAN be too much of? Hatred, violence, racism, misogyny, discrimination, greed, pollution. Oh, and let’s not forget pretentiousness.
So I say keep the books coming—especially works of fiction. Nothing against nonfiction (I read plenty of it), it’s just I really dig it when a writer takes on the task of creating something from nothing, something from their own perfectly diseased and fevered mind, something extracted straight from their blood and bones and marrow. And not ruined by a crappy cover.
Yes, keep it all coming. It doesn’t matter if it’s great or good or mediocre or awful. Because the truth is, it’s always somewhere in between. Just ask everybody, then average out the responses.
For some, Fifty Shades of Grey or Twilight is the be-all and end-all of storytelling, and who the hell am I to mock those people or those books? Or the authors of those books? Yeah, I poked a little fun at said authors earlier in this post, and a lot of fun at them in years past, but that was just me trying to be cute and clever. When these authors wrote their books, they were trying to be something much more than cute or clever. They were trying to be creative. That's the opposite of being destructive, and thus nothing to scoff at. As a side benefit, they got filthy rich, which I imagine doesn’t suck.
If you, yourself, are working on a novel or want to and someone says you must be kidding or that your story’s ridiculous or that your writing’s bad or that nobody reads anymore or that it’s impossible to get published or make any money, or if they drop a “there are already too many books in the world” on you, do me and yourself a favor: Just smile and wave. Then continue typing.
There really are far worse things you could do with your time. And few better.
The people listed (and linked to) below would all agree with that last part. They are indie/small-press authors who write the same sort of stuff I do—crime fiction, transgressive fiction, noir, thrillers/suspense—and who each either have a new book out or one available for pre-order now. These folks write hard. Check them out!
