I’m a binge writer. I can write a lot of pages really fast, or nothing. With The Kill, for example, I wrote the first 140 pages in 2 weeks . . . then nothing for months. True, I had other things to do like revisions on The Hunt, but the beginning just rolled out, and then I was stuck in the coroner’s office, not knowing if my heroine should watch the autopsy or not. Seriously.

You’d think I could just skip that part, right? That I could just write the scene that comes next and get back to it. Not! It was an important turning point and whether she observed the autopsy or not would mean different things to both her and the hero.

Ultimately, I had to re-read the 140 pages I’d written and get back into the story before the solution was SOOOOO obvious you’d think I was plain stupid not to see it before. My heroine was telling me all along exactly what she would do, but I wasn’t listening. I was trying to force her to do what I THOUGHT she should do, not what she would do in “real” life.

When I’m in the zone, the characters take over. I merely dictate what happens.

For example, when I worked on the revisions for The Hunt, I made far more changes than my editor asked for. I started working on the book logically–I read the revision letter a dozen times, a made notes, I had the manuscript with her comments in the margins right there in front of me. I worked on the book slowly, reviewing the comments, thinking about the scene, reworking it, layering in, whatever.

Then they–the characters–took over.

About a third of the way through the book I wasn’t even looking at my editor’s notes anymore. I knew what the problems were, I’d absorbed them for lack of a better word. The story just rolled out–nearly 300 pages, most of them brand-spanking-new–in less than three weeks. I was in the zone. It was fabulous, the ultimate high.

I can feel the zone circling around me again. I’m itching to get back to my next book. I’ve written about forty pages, but I wasn’t happy with all of it. I started re-reading it, and then I talked to myself last night while driving to the mall to shop. I talked out a lot of the little problems I’d had with the first chapter (thank God it was dark and no one could see me talking to myself!) and now I can move forward. The muse is calling, and I can’t wait to lose myself in the story.

If you’re a writer, do you ever find yourself in the zone? How does it feel? Is what you write unusually good or not?

If you’re not a writer, do you ever engage in any activities–cooking, video games, exercize–where you lose track of time because you are so absorbed in the task at hand? You don’t know where the time goes?

Last night I celebrated the release of THE PREY with a launch party. I invited family and friends and was humbled by the incredible turnout. Many of my friends that showed up were people I’d worked with for a long time, or a long time ago, before I quit my job in the California Legislature. They came to wish me well and support me, and I’ll never forget it.

One long-time friend commented to my husband that he was 98% thrilled for me and 2% envious. He said, “Everyone wants to write a book, but Allison actually did it.”

Whether it’s true or not that everyone wants to write, one thing that separates those who want to and those who do is sacrifice. My friend readily admitted he wasn’t willing to make the sacrifices necessary to actually write a book, even though the desire was there.

Everyone who has ever typed The End knows exactly what I mean . . . it takes a little blood, a lot of sweat, and some creative cussing, to actually cross the finish line. Everyone who gets to The End can call themselves a writer because the first hurdle is often the toughest. It doesn’t matter if you’ve sold yet or not — pat yourselves on the back, break open the champagne, because you’ve accomplished something everyone says they “can” do but few sit down and actually do it.

If you really want to write a book, but haven’t been able to finish, here’s my story and advice:

For years, writing was a hobby. A way to relax and play. I never finished anything I started. When I got serious about it, in early 2002, I looked at my files and realized that I’d started well over one hundred stories that I never finished. Some were only five or six pages. Many were 30-50 pages. More than ten far exceeded 200 pages. I was shocked . . . and this was only since I had my new computer, about 1999. Wow. Three years and nothing to show for it. I felt like a failure.

When I decided to commit myself to finishing a book, I looked through all my unfinished manuscripts. They were almost all garbage. The few good beginnings, I didn’t know how to move forward. So I started with a fresh idea.

One of my problems had been getting new ideas in the middle of a story, then starting on that new idea and dumping the old story. I forced myself to continue writing the story I’d chosen. I had to prove to myself that I could finish what I started.

When I got to The End you’d have thought I’d sold already. I was proud of myself, because I did something for my dream. I had always wanted to be a writer; now I could say I’d written a book.

(As an aside, this was in 2002 and I thought the hardest part of publication would be finishing a book. . . . Okay, okay, stop laughing, please. Please. Okay, ha ha ha.)

Once I finished one book, it was much easier to finish a second book. Each book became better. My writing improved, my story telling ability improved. I finished five books in less than two years. I didn’t discover my voice until my fifth book. That’s the book I sold.

Writing without a contract, without an agent, is difficult. YOU are the only person in the world who cares whether you finish that book. YOU are the person you are writing for first and foremost. You must love what you are doing, through the struggles and the fits and the writers block and the characters who won’t shut up. Families can be supportive, but in the end, your spouse or child isn’t the one writing the book, you are.

If you really want to write that book, but feel like you don’t have the time or you can’t focus or you don’t have support, here are some ideas that might help:

* Dream. Remember that this is your dream. When you’re struggling, remember the things you love about writing and storytelling. Maybe your dream isn’t about becoming published, maybe it’s just writing that one story that burns in your heart. That’s okay. Not all writers need to be published. But all writers do write.

* Sacrifice. Anything worth having is worth making sacrifices to achieve. Decide what you are willing to sacrifice to pursue your dream, the stick to it. Nothing lasts forever. Sort of like the terrible twos of childhood, there IS an end in sight even if you can’t see it. Set your goal and sacrifice to realize it.

* Persevere. If rejection is depressing you and stifling that stubborn muse, remember that Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark were rejected over 100 times. I had over 40 rejections on each of my first two books, and even rejections on the book I ultimately sold. Rejection is part of life, and it’s part of this business.

But first and foremost, write. One page a day or twenty, the only way to get to The End is to write.

I’ve often quoted Nora Roberts as saying, “I can fix a written page; I can’t fix a blank one” but I’d never seen it “officially.” I found a real comment from her on a chat that I actually like quite a bit:

I’m really disciplined. I have a pretty straight schedule. Six to eight hours a day. More if it’s really cooking. If I have to fiddle, finesse, hack, I’ve got something to fiddle with, etc. If I hadn’t kept writing, all I’d have would be the same blank page.
— Nora Roberts

I am not as disciplined as Nora Roberts is, but I’m working on it. And so should you.

. . . I have a column posted called Why Murder? It talks about my drive to understand why people turn into monsters, and how that’s portrayed in my books.

In The Kill, there’s a scene where Zack and Olivia are reviewing official records that relate to the villain. As they begin to understand the killer’s background, Zack says:

“I heard a phrase once, can’t remember where, that monsters are created. [He] is a product of his upbringing. Doesn’t make him any less guilty, but dammit, I hate that the cycle continues.”

Zack couldn’t remember where he heard the phrase because I couldn’t remember where I heard it. I thought I might have read it in a Thomas Harris book or in a Keith Ablow book, but after skimming my copies I couldn’t find the reference.

Keith Ablow is a forensic psychiatrist and I picked up his book Denial a couple years ago. Ablow is not for the faint of heart–his books are very real slices of tragic life, and while there is hope and compassion within the pages, there’s also death and destruction.

I couldn’t put the book down.

So I picked up his other books when they came out. Psychopath is particularly strong and compelling because I felt that while I despised and feared the villain on one level because he committed atrocious, evil crimes against innocent people; on another, I found that I understood him because he was a product of his upbringing. I could see how he developed into a monster.

Ablow is a practicing forensic psychiatrist and expert witness, just like the protagonist in his novels. Because of his background, he writes authentic and convincing books that are now on my auto-buy list.

So, when Ablow wrote a true crime novel titled Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson, I had to read it.

Ablow has thoughtful insights into what goes into the making of people we call monsters. And he said something in the book that really, really resonated with me because I believe it, too.

People are born good, and then life circumstances conspire to destroy their inborn capacity for empathy–their humanity.

This got me thinking a lot more about my villain and what made him (or her) capable of evil acts. This is a topic I explore in my current trilogy because I do think there is a reason for everything.

Some people are grossly abused, physically and emotionally, as children and never turn into killers. They might commit other crimes, or be incapable of love, or be unsympathetic to the plight of others–or they may grow into loving, caring people in spite of their upbringing.

What makes men like Scott Peterson different?

Ablow argues that three generations of death and abandonment created a man who has no empathy for human beings, no humanity in his soul. Ablow’s gift is to clearly demonstrate his case, to show why Scott Peterson killed. And I think I now understand.

It doesn’t make Peterson’s crime any less horrific. It doesn’t make him any less guilty. But it does answer the question that plagues all of us, to one degree or another: what makes someone kill. How are monsters created. Why?

Ablow has far more compassion for Peterson than I do, but now I understand why Peterson grew into a man capable of killing without remorse or emotion.

Ablow argues that Scott Peterson is already dead.

Scott Peterson had already been spiritually dead a very long time. He had walked among us as an emotional vampire feasting day-to-day on the life force of others, particularly women.

Neither handcuffs nor chains can restrain a man whose soul has no core, no center. His thoughts and feelings can travel anywhere, carried on the black wings of his imagination.

Such a man will not be frightened by the specter of lethal injection. For he has already left us.

You cannot kill a man who is already dead.

Ablow goes on to use several other “death” metaphors to illustrate his point. In the end, though, his conclusion is that Scott Peterson is incapable of feeling empathy or emotions that connect us to each other. He asserts that when Scott Peterson killed his wife, Laci, he felt almost nothing.

He didn’t kill in rage, in anger, in jealousy, in lust, in hate . . . he killed for convenience. Having a wife and child was inconvenient for him and the life he had created for himself. He killed because he had no emotional attachment to Laci or their son.

It’s more complex that my one paragraph summary, and the book is definitely worth reading. I’ll admit I initially read the book in order to understand a killer so my writing would be more vivid and real. But I finished the book with a deeper understanding of human nature, of humanity and empathy and emotions, that will make my life, and my relationships, healthier.

While I’m not a psychiatrist, I find myself driven by the same questions Dr. Ablow is. In the first chapter, he explains why he does what he does:

Without exception, my task has been to find the story that explains not what happened to victims but why it happened–why some people destroy others. In order to do so, I have had to journey deep into the psyches of men and women without empathy, capable of brutal acts. And I have become a relentless burrower for the truth about such people. My mind does not rest until I find it. Because once I do, I have my reward: I realize again that nothing and no one is beyond human understanding–not even those we call monsters.

I had my son pull a number from a hat, and the winner is . . .

Alphabeter!

So please email murdershewrites5@yahoo.com with your address and I’ll send you an early copy of THE HUNT!

I’m sorry I didn’t get my post up on the answers to the questions, life caught up to me this weekend . . . birthday parties, board meetings, cleaning, grocery shopping (the kids think I need to feed them), and I actually went to bed relatively early last night (10:30; early for me!)

BUT I’ll post them on Thursday and maybe something these serial killer experts don’t know . . . if I can find something!

Congratulations, Alphabeter!