If I Win the Lottery
May 25, 2010
“If you won the Lottery, would you quit writing? If not, would the guaranteed income change how and what you write?”
But I don’t write because of invisible dollar signs. I write because of invisible voices in my head. I write because I am a crazy obsessed person who can’t stop writing. I wrote for years before I even thought to send something out to be published. Being published was the lottery. And I won it and I love it. I think it’s easy to get caught up in worrying about the money and the numbers of books sold (things largely outside our control) and forget about the pure joy of writing.
Don’t get me wrong. If a big pile of money comes out of this whole writing thing, just like the next writer, I will install a pool in my basement full of gold coins and swim around in it like Scrooge McDuck. Although I might have the coins sanitized first because who know where they’ve been. 
The Joys of Social Networking?
May 18, 2010
“Do you like doing all the marketing, social networking and other obligations of modern book publishing? Or would you prefer to just sit in your room writing, with no business-side duties?”
by Rebecca Cantrell
Not counting being a mother, what I love most of all writing in a room all by myself without anyone bothering me. Since I am a mother, I only write during school hours and after bedtime. And now that my son is getting older bedtime is getting later. The social networking and promotional stuff drives me nuts. Every morning I read my email on my old personal account, my Rebecca Cantrell account, and my Bekka Black account. Then I check my messages on Facebook and Twitter. I’ve abandoned MySpace, so if you’re trying to contact me there go to another portal.
After I deal with all of those messages that are so urgent they can’t wait until just before bedtime, then I’m allowed to write. Except not really. There are a ton of other promotional details: book giveaways, blogging, mailing copies to bloggers and reviewers (I can go through that automatic mailer machine at the post office so quickly people have been known to line up to watch me), getting those book trailers in shape, booking a blog tour. And every one of those things that I don’t get to make me feel horribly guilty because I’m clearly not doing all I can to sell my books. And if they don’t sell, I don’t get to write more.
I have met some wonderful people online and at conferences and made friendships that I treasure so it’s not like I hate every minute of it. I am completely humbled every time I meet someone who chose to spend $25 hard-earned dollars and at least eight nonrefundable hours of their lives reading my book. As sappy as it sounds, every time someone says “I read your book and I loved it!” I actually get tears in my eyes. It is so amazing.
But I’ve discovered one thing since I sold A TRACE OF SMOKE a few years ago: it’s really all about what I do in that room all by myself with no interruptions. It’s all about words on the page, words that will turn into a book if I just give them the time and the care that they need. So, I’ve cut back everywhere that I dare so that I can do the part of the job that I love best, and the part that readers treasure most: listen to the characters tell me a story.
Finding Humor in Darkness
May 4, 2010
What was the most fun scene you ever wrote?
by Rebecca Cantrell
Most scenes—with the exception of those that are frightening or that reflect some horrible historical event—are fun to write. I love putting my characters in a tight spot and watching them get out of it. I relish describing a place that hasn’t existed for seventy years until I can feel it and see it and smell it and hear it. I enjoy tearing through complex action scenes and the questions I need to answer (how far off the ground is a zeppelin’s gondola windows when it docks?). But mostly I love witty dialogue and the unexpected. Since the Hannah Vogel books are set just before and during the Nazis’ rise to power, they are not filled with laugh a minute gags, but some of the characters continue to be funny even in the darkest of moments.
In A Trace of Smoke my favorite bits were when Hannah was thinking about her brother. He was a funny guy. When I took him out of the book, I gave some of his best lines to other characters just so readers could get a feel for a man who was brave enough to walk the late night streets of Berlin with nothing but a red silk dress, wit, and bravado. Hannah has some of that famous Berlin sarcasm herself, and she seems intent on getting funnier in each book.
In A Night of Long Knives some of the funniest lines went to British spy Sefton Delmer, who was based on a pretty darn witty historical character. He had unflappable British cool down pat, but Hannah holds her own. I just finished A Game of Lies and Hannah’s funniest moments are when I got her stoned on opium (it was prescribed as a painkiller, just to keep her reputation clear). In her normal state she would never dance around a restaurant to imaginary music, flirt with the croupier, hike up her dress to show off her bruise, or…well, I can’t say, but man was I surprised.
And surprises are good. Surprises and fun enrich reading, writing, and life.