A little bit of musing as I try to ignore the holidays barreling down on us…

People ask me how I got started writing. This is a hard question for me. I’ve always been a reader, and I think I always had a secret dream to write. I just never thought I was good enough. The answer is, I think, there came a point where I gave myself permission to do what I needed to do—write.

Then they ask me how I persevered through eight years of rejection. That one is easy. I Could Not Stop. Seriously, I’ve burned myself on the stove and stopped touching it. It only took three children for me to figure out childbirth hurts. I learned that if you do it and it hurts, stop. Really—I usually try to avoid pain.

Rejections in my mails box were an open sore and I just kept jabbing that sore with hot pokers.

So I tried to stop writing.

But I kept writing. I cannot explain it. It’s a deep compulsion that I feel in my gut. And it’s voices in my head. Whispers of ideas…

What if a woman’s husband is not who she thinks he is? What if she’s is so desperate to be married and have a real family, that she clings to the “story” in her head rather than facing the truth? Until the truth threatens her and her two sons? Samantha Shaw is that woman. And me, being me, I had to throw in humor and sex it up.

That’s my style. That’s who I am as a writer. And I can’t stop. Even if I no longer showed up at the computer to type—the stories keep running in my head. I don’t know why, but it’s always been like that. I thought everyone had ongoing storylines in my head.

This weekend my husband said, “I’m going to be like you and just go to my happy place in my head.” He meant it. I do it all the time. Say there are commercials on TV and I’m bored? I disappear inside my head, weaving stories and characters and murders and love scenes…whatever.

I suppose it goes back to my childhood. I was the youngest of four siblings, born late in my parents’ life. Can you say, Surprise! My parents loved me; my mom went out of her way to assure me of how much she wanted me, etc. But the result was that my brothers and sisters all had busy lives by the time I came along. So I spent a lot of time alone, playing by myself or with my dog Duke. Duke and I had grand adventures. I didn’t play much with dolls, and frankly, Barbies freak me out, but I invented entire worlds for Duke and me to play in. We had a terrific time.

Then I learned to read, and Whoa! Other people invented entire worlds too and I got sucked right in! I loved reading.

Naturally, I used to get in trouble at school for daydreaming. Eventually I learned how to control it and pay attention when I needed to. Actually, my 7th grade science teacher once pointed out in exasperation, I was the only child he had met that could look him straight in the eye and not hear a word he said. He was smart, but he was boring so I went to my happy place.

The point is that I cannot stop writing. And I can’t stop now.

What really brought this home to me was having my palm read at a party for fun. People starting gathering around to see what the palm reader would say, and I laughed. I said, “I’m really boring, guys. She’s not going to say anything stunning.”

And they she did say something stunning. “Jen, I see why you think you’re life is boring to talk about.”

Me—”Uh, ’cause it is?”

Her—” No. Because you are so clear. But you also have a duel life. You have your ‘real’ life that you live, and then you have an incredible internal life.”

Me—”Oh, Right. So, uh, that’s not normal?”

She, and the entire group watching, stared at me oddly, and she answered,—”I’ve never seen it so clear on anyone’s palm.”

All righty then. I’ll just keep my palms to myself and keep writing books

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Jen

Hi all, I’m late posting this as I’m feeling a bit under the weather. Since I’m a little fuzzy today, I’m going to do a Random Thoughts Blog. Come on in, and I’ll tell you what is on my mind—in a random way.

Last week in Cambridge, Mass., a radio talk show host was charged in his wife’s murder, allegedly spiking her Gatorade with anti-freeze. The motive is thought to possibly be the fact that the talk show host was broke and his wife had a $250,000.00 life insurance policy. If this is true…Dude, what were you thinking? Don’t you watch Law and Order? CSI? Court TV? Sheesh.

And speaking of CSI, I saw a real Crime Scene Technician at a workshop recently (the kind who wears comfortable clothes, flat shoes and no gun), and she talked about how juries are influenced by the TV show CSI. Which is troubling since the TV show is FICTION. But juries are now expecting bombshell type of evidence to prove the guilt of the defendant. In many cases, it’s either not possible because the TV show CSI is FICTION, takes too long or is too expensive when they already have a solid case against the defendant.

Which brings me to another thought—do people who plan and kill really think they are going to get away with it? What kind of thought process makes them believe that? Scott Peterson is an interesting example. We don’t really know if he planned it, or did it in the heat of the moment then covered it up. But he seemed so convinced he’d get away with it. Again, Dude, what were you thinking? If I wrote that scene, I wouldn’t have established the killer’s alibi in the same place the killer dumped the body. Duh.

Now let’s switch gears and talk about me I finished the first draft of my book last week. I met my goal. Which gave me about three minutes of relief before something really weird happened. In my head the goal shifted. Suddenly, I’m thinking, but the book is really weak, needs at least three more scenes, a stronger black moment, and I haven’t written the wrap up yet .The mystery has problems, the clues aren’t consistent and I’ve dropped a couple threads. Then I’m bashing myself for not doing the first draft well enough….

Hello! I never meant for the first draft to be good. All I wanted to do is lay down the story. I am better at rewriting than blank-page writing. So what has happened here? It’s a subtle sabotage that I do to myself. I let the goal shift in my head so that before I realize it, I’m not quite measuring up. I’m not good enough. It’s probably a form of fear at work. I am teaching myself to recognize it and stop it. Writing is hard enough without indulging in self-sabotage.

I’m gong to end my random thoughts here and leave you with these closing thoughts:
Don’t try murder in real life, you probably won’t get away with it.
Stomp out all forms of self-sabotage.
Celebrate your successes.
Don’t try to write a blog while sick

Hope you all have a happy and healthy Monday!

The Monday-Murder-Chick (that’s me!) has donned her cape and is here to save you from all the talk of psycho killers and grisly murder plots. Because frankly, um, Allison, Natalie and Deb, are starting to scare me!

Karin would probably scare me if she’d stop tormenting us with her vacation stories. And just where has Karin hidden her Hot Cop List? Why isn’t she sharing that with us? We should know where all these hot cops are so we can do a little speeding…

Where was I? Hot Cops…ah! Heroes! Allison’s talk about how she comes up with plots for her books got me thinking about how I start a book. While there is murder and mayhem running around in the back of my mind, the place I start is with the hero (or heroine, we are not sexist here at Murder She Writes, unless of course, it will get us out of a speeding ticket.). I approach an idea from the view point the hero. What will drive this character to rise to heroism? What is in their past to make them vulnerable? What is the hero or heroine afraid of? What do they long for?

What is the worst thing that can happen to them? Why? And how can I make it worse? And when I do make it worse—will the character come through with a heroism streak they didn’t really know they had? Why? Because whatever the hero is going to do, whatever action he or she takes that is heroic, it has to cost them.

In my view, a hero is someone who rises to the occasion despite being afraid and knowing they will pay a painful price. Although the news is full of anti-heroes who get a sickening amount of face time, I’ll pick someone recently in the news to demonstrate what I mean: Rosa Parks. By all accounts that I have seen, Rosa Parks was an average, hardworking young black woman all those years ago when she chose to take a stand. I can well imagine that refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man was scary. She knew she’d be arrested, and any reasonable person would be afraid of that. But she believed being forced to do so was an injustice, and one day, she made a stand. There is no way she could have foreseen that she would become a touchstone for an entire civil rights movement. All she knew was that despite her fear and the price, she took a stand.

Now I’m not black and fighting for civil rights and my characters are fictional, but that kind of bravery that I’m looking for in my heroes… He or she is as flawed and human as any of us, but at some point, they make a choice. They come to the fork in the road and choose the right, but often harder, path. I have an innate curiosity about people who do that. The firefighter that runs into the burning building to save a life. The cop who puts his body between the shooter and the civilian. They are in the moment of high action, faced with a split second decision, a choice, and how they choose fascinates me.

I am more invested in the heroes of the books than the villains. As a writer, that forces me to develop the villain to make him a match for the hero. And that brings me to something a college creative writing teacher once told me—that I have romance in my soul. And I do. For once, I’m not talking about sexual/love romance, but a bigger romance. I believe in justice, in balance, in good winning out over evil, even though I know darn well people can be unfair, cruel and even murderous. That deep basic belief drives my need to create heroes, and read about heroes, who score one for the good guys, no matter the price. Although my dad died when I was 13 and I found out too quickly the world has too many anti-heroes—I still choose to believe in heroes.

Which might also explain why I’m wearing a cape

So what about you all? Do you believe in heroes?

Bonus Question: Does this cape make me look fat?

Happy Halloween! I’m going to be your Monday-Murder-Chick, at least for a while. I promise to try and get my posts up earlier in the coming weeks.

Let’s talk scary. Snakes—ugh! I hate snakes. We had a snake on the driveway last summer. Just a little guy probably trying to find him mommy—but I don’t care! I wanted him GONE. So while the men in the family went out to deal with the snake, I ran upstairs and yelled out the front window, “Make it go away!” Do you think I was helpful? By the way, the men all stood around and debated how to get rid of the snake for long that the snake got bored he left on his own

Enough about snakes—let’s talk about the scary books. I read Stephen King’s THE SHINNING and SALEM’S LOT in high school. When I read SALEM’S LOT, my bedroom was upstairs with a balcony that had a sliding glass door. For several nights, I swore I heard vampires tapping on the sliding glass door. I get shudders now just remembering it!

In later years, I read Stephen King’s MISERY. Yikes! Talk about psycho-fan-kidnappers! I tried to stop reading the book, I even tried hiding the book from myself, but as it turned out, I knew where I hid it. (Don’t ask—I have to live with my thought process every day and still don’t understand it.)

Mr. King’s books can scare the daylights out of me. Sort of a thrill-chill type of scary. The kind I associate with Halloween. I half expect a “BOO” when I’m reading those kinds of scary books. I laugh at myself when I jump at the phone ringing.

For movies, I’d say THE SIXTH SENSE is about as scary as I like. Lots of suspense and mystery, but not an excessive amount of fluid dripping corpses littering the screen.

To recap on movies: Fast paced, tension filled, thrill rides are good. Blood, gore and chain saws are bad.

So what about you? What’s the scariest book you’ve ever read? Scariest movie? How do you take your “scary” on Halloween? Thrill chills, or blood, gore and chain saws?

Bonus Question: My husband asked me to dress up as a nurse on Halloween—do you think he’s sick?

Have a Safe and Happy Halloween!

Jen

Hi there!

Come on in and we’ll all chat about murder, writing, sex, books, how Natalie and I had the blinding realization that stalking is not our forte, or any hot topic that catches our interest.

Allison, Natalie and Deb have all said hello, Karin will once she is finished with her in-depth research on hot cops (she CLAIMS to be on vacation but I’m thinking she’s traveling the country, undercover, looking for hot cops to use in her books )

I’m delighted to be here with my fellow murder-chicks. Between the five of us, we have quite a variety of experience and backgrounds…

I’m the boring one. Seriously. Just a soccer mom who quickly realized writing about murder was much more fun than, well, anything else. Okay, truthfully, I’m a little slow. I actually tried writing historical romances for seven or eight years. After several books were rejected all over NY, I began to wonder if the dead bodies in the manuscripts were the problem.

Maybe dead bodies aren’t romantic? Sheesh, who knew? Out of frustration, I wrote a mystery and let me tell you, when it sold, I thought for sure they were kidding. For months afterward, every time the phone rang, I was sure NY was calling to tell me they’d made a mistake.

But here I am, four books and a novella later. Another book comes next year. These days, I’m sticking with the theory that as long as I don’t kill off a character and call it romance, I’m okay.

A big welcome to Murder She Writes!