Worse Than Sex Scenes
August 25, 2009
This is the post I’ve been dreading writing. I’d sooner admit to my criminal past (OK, I actually finessed that one), than write about my favorite book.
It’s not that I don’t read. I do. I read constantly. I’m currently reading:
• HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISON OF AZKABAN (aloud. All the Harry Potters are much funnier that way. I’m sure they’d be even better if I could do accents).
• FIVE QUARTS (a great collection of essays on blood. Wonderful historical background and a sweet love story too.)
• THE NAZI OLYMPICS (a museum exhibition catalog I picked up at the Holocaust Museum in D.C. Lots of pictures. Grim ending, I know, even though I’m not there yet)
• THE XIth OLYMPIC GAMES BERLIN, 1936 OFFICIAL REPORT VOLUME I (646 page summary of the games written by the German government for the Olympic committee shortly after the games ended. I’m kind of skimming this as it’s pretty dense stuff, including a list of all the extra subway trains added, number of policemen added to various beats, etc.)
• THE DOOMSDAY KEY by James Rollins (a rollicking fun read and I always want to get some popcorn while I’m reading it)
• THE PAPERCLIP CONSIPIRARY by Tom Bower (a nonfiction book that details the rush after World War II to capture German scientists, whitewash their pasts, and bring them to the United States, Britain, and Russia to work).
• TRAIL SINISTER by Sefton Delmer (a lively and charming autobiography about a British journalist’s adventures in Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s).
Do you see a pattern? Well, except for the research stuff, me neither. And that’s my problem. I read constantly, shamelessly, and indiscriminately. And I always have. There, I admitted that on the Internet. Why do I still feel much more embarrassed than relieved?
I don’t have one favorite book. I have a thousand. And I can’t write intelligently about any of them. I get all bollixed up. I have tons of friends, heck everyone else on this freakin’ blog, I bet, who write beautifully about books. I can’t. For me, that’s as hard as writing sex scenes (and don’t get me started there).
Anyone want to analyze that? What can’t you write about that you feel you should be able to write about?
Herding Cats
August 18, 2009
Do I control my characters or do they control me?
By Rebecca Cantrell
I control most of my characters as much as I control my housecat. The cat and the characters usually come when I call. I can pick them up and move them around, but they don’t stay where I put them unless they really wanted to go there. I have things that I want them to do, and if I’m very clever, they do those things.
I also have memories of cats and characters gone by. They’ve done what they’ve done and I have to make peace with it. My dead characters are based on people who actually existed. They did what they did, said what they said, and all I can do is accommodate that if I want to use them. They have all the control, and I have all the poetic license. If I want to make them deviate from their actual lives, I can sneak that into my author’s note.
But I also have a feral cat. I have limited control over her. She does what she wants and leaves for days at a time. She never comes when I call unless she’s hungry, and then probably only half of the time. I work hard to please her, and she doesn’t appreciate it one bit. Yet, I never stop trying.
I have feral characters. They go where they’re not supposed to go and do things I’d rather they wouldn’t. I currently have one whom I think is mentally ill. In spite of all my therapy on her, she’s not getting better either. But I’m not giving up on her.
Ferals are hard work, but the moments when they jump in your lap and purr are the most rewarding of all.
So, which do you prefer? Housecats? Memories of cats gone by? Or feral cats?
Where I Like to Write
August 11, 2009
Ah, this one’s more complicated than it looks. I grew up with four siblings and it seems like we constantly have house guests or extras around. So, I like to write anywhere that no one is poking me, talking to me, waving their arms, sitting on my hands while I type (you know how you are), talking loudly on the phone, asking for food, handing me papers to sign, standing around with bandaids or pressing medical issues, crying, or just in general expecting me to interact with them. This means I usually need to leave the house.
The good news: I can write any place I’m not being actively bothered. I’ve written outside at my blue desk staring at the ocean, at cafes, in airplanes, in airports, on friends’ couches, at the beach, in the closet, in a snow cave (that one’s hard to do for very long), on the subway, and in the bathroom at night (hotel room with roommates).
Right now I write at Starbucks. I put on my headphones, sip my chai, and drink up the air conditioning. I like to write where it’s chilly enough to need a light jacket or a long-sleeved shirt. In Hawaii, that’s not easy. I like to write in the corner with my back against the wall so no Nazis can sneak up on me. I like to go out into the bright, warm sunshine when I’m finished so that I can remember that, as real as it seemed while I was writing it, I actually made it all up and the real world is much warmer and fuzzier and gentler (yes, I know that’s not really true, but it’s what I like to think, so don’t burst my bubble).
My favorite place to write: from deep inside my head, from that place where you can’t hear any noises no matter how loud they are, where you don’t notice people walking by, where you don’t even realize that time is passing. As long as no one pokes me, I can get there almost any where. On good days.
How about you? How do you get to the magic place?
Rebecca Cantrell, A Trace of Smoke
Criminal Writerly Habits
August 4, 2009
Do I have criminal habits?
I have some habits that would be considered criminal in writer’s court, punishable by not getting as much writing done as I think I should. Here are the top 5, in reverse order. Try not to be too shocked.
5. Bitching about promotion. I hate it. We all hate it (except for Kelli, but I forgive her because she
’s so darn nice when I complain about it). So, maybe I could just shut up about it. Enough said.
4. Remembering only the bad reviews. I got almost uniformly great reviews for A TRACE OF SMOKE, including starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publisher’s Weekly, and Library Journal. Do I remember quotes from them? No. But I can recite all the damning bits from the ‘mixed’ New York Times review. Obviously, this is a trend that must be reversed. I must set about memorizing the good reviews and blurbs and become positively insufferable.
3. Not backing things up. I do back up my work daily. But not my iPhone. Not when I’m traveling. This one ranks so high because a couple of gallons of the Chesapeake Bay killed my iPhone with all my pictures from my
2. Over-researching. I write historical mysteries, so I 
have to do a lot of research. But I overdo it because it’s just plain fascinating. I find out tons of things I don’t really need to know to finish the book. For example, I have a scene with Hitler in it in A NIGHT OF LONG KNIVES. I read tons of diary entries of people who were at that event, bits from the Nuremberg trial, historical analyses, etc. I compiled them all and picked out what I needed for my scene. That should have been enough. But I kept going. I call it the “what would Hitler smoke?” syndrome. He’s not smoking in the scene, so I don’t need to know it. But I do. In fact, that’s a trick question. Hitler was a nonsmoker. (hey, I did get to use that bit of research somewhere!)
1. Spending too much time on the Internet. Sure, I can pretend that some of it’s promotion and some of it even is, but I think I’d get a lot more done if I moved to a remote island with no Internet connectivity. Wait, I do live on a remote island. If I just disabled my wireless connection…
What are your writer’s crimes? Reader’s crimes?