Blending in with a Cult?

August 30, 2011

By Rebecca Cantrell
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Hannah Vogel does manage to infiltrate the cult of all cults: the Nazi party. Let’s run through the cult checklist: overbearing leader, fanatical devotion, mind control, serious consequences if you leave, questions or doubts strongly discouraged. Yes, on all counts.
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So, how did she do it? It helped that she looked like their ideal. She has the protective camouflage of blond hair and blue eyes. And, as a woman, she’s not taken seriously enough. Luckily.
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The second step was picking a strong ally within the group. She partnered with Lars Lang, a high ranking SS officer. He was already accepted by the group, so she got a de facto acceptance too. This got her past the initial hurdles, but not without a cost. Lars is not always the easiest guy to work with: his loyalties are complex, he runs the risk of being found out himself, and the stress of living a double life cause him to act unpredictably, sometimes dangerously.
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After that it was a matter of having strong nerves in difficult situations, learning to lie, and developing the ability to parrot back Nazi ideology with a straight face.
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All those things served her well in “A Trace of Smoke,” “A Night of Long Knives,” and “A Game of Lies.” But in next year’s book, “A City of Broken Glass,” all those factors work against her.
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Being Hannah is tough work.

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Guilty Pleasures

May 9, 2011

Guilty Pleasures
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By Rebecca Cantrell
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What’s the guiltiest pleasure on my bookshelf?
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I’m vaguely guilty about all the stacks of books I have that won’t even fit onto my shelves, but not enough to give them top billing. Because, really, they’re just a sign that I will never catch up and read them all and where’s the pleasure in that? (I know, the pleasure is in the journey of reading the ones I do get to. Thank you, Mr. Zen.)
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The guiltiest pleasure on my bookshelf is my collection of newspapers from the 1930s. Here’s how it looks all tucked away nicely. It seems nice and safe and non-guilt inducing. And yet…
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First off, it cost more than my Spartan soul can justify. I got them mostly on e-bay, for a song, and they are tax-deductible because I use them to write my books. But still, I probably could have found scanned in versions online for free. Version that did not have the delightful scent of old newspaper and ink. Versions that did not feel smooth under my caressing fingertips. Versions that you couldn’t leaf through, just as the original subscriber did, eighty long years ago. Yes, pleasures of the eye and nose and hand won out over common sense. Guilty.
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Secondly, I worry that those priceless artifacts will be destroyed while under my protection. Much like the dining room table that has needed to be refinished for ten years. And don’t even get me started on the sorry condition of the chairs. Back to the bookshelf. Those newspapers are made of lovely old paper. And Kona eats paper. It covers it with mildew. It sends silverfishes scurrying in. It dispatches geckoes to poop on it. And I have recklessly brought those newspapers here.
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I try to keep them safe. I store them in a blue archival box recommended by a friend who sets up museum exhibits (nice job at the California Academy of Sciences, BTW, Pixie!). It’s acid free and protects against gecko poop and maybe silverfish.

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I have a dehumidifying box in there that has magic crystals that suck the moisture out of the air to protect the paper from mildew. But when I took the box down for these pictures, the indicator crystal had changed from friendly blue to poisonous pink.

It’s in the oven now, having the moisture backed out of it, but how long was it pink? What evil befell the newspapers during the weeks it might have sat there, flashing out a pink beacon of despair?

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I don’t know. But I know it’s all my fault.

Still, I think I will go re-read those newspapers one more time before they succumb…
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What’s YOUR guilty bookshelf pleasure?

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What’s on my reference shelf? Not just dust!

March 15, 2011


Sorry for the lateness of today’s post. I just got back from the Tucson Festival of Books and collapsed in an exhausted, dried up husk instead of writing my blog post.

Today’s topic? What’s on my reference shelf? I have all the standard writing books on the writing shelf to the left of the dresser, the one that’s covered with necklaces that I forgot to put away and dust dunnies and a valentine from my son with a bug on it. Titles include: Elements of Style (Strunk and White), The Hero’s Journey (Christopher Vogler), Save the Cat (Blake Snyder, and yes I know it’s formulaic, but some of the advice is still damn good), Romancing the A-list (Christopher Kean), The Joy of Writing Sex (Elizabeth Benedict, but it’s still not joyful and I cannot write sex scenes at Starbucks because I’m that much of a prude).

Then I have all the titles that are specific to what I write: Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (William Shirer), Blood and Banquets (Bella Fromm), I Will Bear Witness (Victor Klemperer), Voluptuous Panic (Mel Gordon, and the pictures are so racy that I hide it under my archival box of newspapers), bound editions of Berlin Illlustrierte Zeitung from 1931 plus one from 1934, BZ anniversary edition to 1986, Lenya (Donald Spoto), What I Saw (Joseph Roth), Counterfeit Spy (Sefton Delmer, and yes it was expensive because it’s out of print so I didn’t let myself buy it until I sold my book), plus more.

My thesaurus fell apart, so I use thesaurus.com and dictionary.com (although they put a bunch of tracking cookies on your computer, and are, in fact the worst offender when it comes to building an online profile of you according to the Wall Street Journal). I also love Online Etymology Dictionary because they give great histories of words. They’re by no means complete, but what they do have is fascinating! I also spend a lot of time at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and YouTube has an amazing collection of videos of Berlin in the 1930s is you poke around a bit.

For my upcoming novel, A GAME OF LIES, I spent a lot of time reading the 1,500 page official report of the 1936 Olympics. It’s in two volumes. One is here. Volume Two is here.

Yes, I’m in touch with my inner research nerd.

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Dump the body

January 31, 2011

Your protagonist blows a tire on a deserted road. When she checks for the spare, she finds the body of a young girl (mid-teens.) What does she do?
Living in Berlin in the 1930s with a small income, Hannah doesn’t have a car. In “A Trace of Smoke,” she couldn’t even drive, but by “A Night of Long Knives,” she was a good enough driver to steal Ernst Röhm’s staff car and light out after Hitler. In the upcoming “A Game of Lies” a certain wine-red Opel Olympia plays a key role too. Read more

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Brainstorming

August 17, 2010

Brainstorming techniques?
I think I may be the only writer I know without a file of cool ideas
tucked away and I’m starting to feel worried about it. I could throw
one together, but I don’t think I’d ever look at it again. For me, each
novel exists only as I’m writing it. I never go back through old ideas.
My process isn’t that straightforward, sadly.



First place I look for ideas? History. When I read about a


historical event or find the perfect quote from a historical


character, I know that I have to put it into a book. I can


research for hours and claim it is all background and plot


ideas. And it is! See that great picture? Tamara de Lempicka


painted it. She's a Polish Art Deco painter and I managed to


sneak her work into "A Night of Long Knives." Research...










Second place? OK, this sounds odd, but I make myself make a


list of ten ways to solve whatever story problem I’m having.


Ten. No more, no fewer. Sometimes the best idea is number one


and sometimes it’s number ten, but usually it’s somewhere in the middle. But making myself


do ten lets me give myself permission to throw nine ideas away, which is very freeing.








Still not working? Then I write on paper instead of typing. After a couple of pages of


that kind of torture my subconscious usually throws something out in a desperate attempt


to save me from having to decipher my own handwriting.








If that doesn’t work, I draw diagrams on paper with big circles and arrows or stick


stuff on index cards and put it on a board in my room while muttering and trying not


to step on the pushpins that somehow always end up on the floor.






If all else fails: I go see a movie and eat popcorn and chocolate. Even


if that doesn’t solve the story problem, at least I got tasty snacks in


air conditioned splendor. Did I mention that I love this job?



		
		

			
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