Favorite Superhero?
March 9, 2010
My favorite superhero?
The Tick. Hands down. For those of you who aren’t familiar with him, The Tick was a cartoon that ran on Saturday mornings on Fox in the 90s. Even though I was a grownup by then (I owned my own car, house, and cat), I still got up at the ungodly hour of nine (or maybe it was ten) to watch it. Later, I would have a child and never sleep in past seven for ten years and counting. But back then getting up at nine (or ten) on a weekend was a big deal.
Du-dwee-du-du-du-dwee-dou. The theme song still plays in my head.
The Tick is nigh invulnerable. He wears a giant blue suit with antenna on his head that cannot be chainsawed off. And his sidekick is a former accountant named Arthur who found a supersuit at a garage sale and flies around like a moth (but everyone calls him a bunny). Arthur worries about their damage deposit when the Molemen tunnel in through the basement and trash the apartment. He does complex math problems in his head. And he does his own taxes.
Together they battle evildoers. Nobody is ever killed, although Thrackazog does get sent back to Dimension X via a process that sounds fairly unpleasant. But that’s what you get if you try to conquer earth by cloning The Tick from his mucus.
Why do I love The Tick? Because he’s gentle. Nobody is killed or even hurt. The Tick protects puppies (OK, it was a capybara, but how was he to know?), babies (OK, it was the evil Mr. Mental), and citizens everywhere. Why else? Because he’s funny. Where else can you get a line like this one from The Terror to his son (who is doing evil deeds to spend time with his father): “I want you to do something bad. Not badly.”
I just don’t think we hear enough adverb jokes in superhero shows…
Hope to see you all at Left Coast Crime!
Writing Beverage of Choice?
February 8, 2010
What is your writing beverage of choice?
My beverage of choice: Iced Soy Chai. My favorite chais are Tazo and Stash, plus whatever they use for the vanilla chai up at the Aloha Theater in Kainaliu. Sadly, they’re not open all morning or I’d be up there sucking down vanilla chais with foam all day long. None of these come in chocolate caramel versions, CJ, but maybe they’re better than nothing.
I used to swear by Earl Grey. I even had the London Fog, with vanilla syrup and foamy milk from time to time. But as I descend into the darker and colder years of Nazi-ism, I’ve found I like to be a little cold when I write. Earl Grey doesn’t taste right iced. It’s drinkable, but not the same. And I can’t hear Patrick Stewart’s voice saying “Earl Grey, cold” somehow.
Living in Hawaii it’s not that easy to find some place where you can bundle yourself up in a long sleeved shirt and write without overheating, especially when drinking hot tea (how did the British do it in India?). I know, I know, that’s just my cross to bear and no one scraping ice off their car right now has a lick of sympathy. I’m not expecting any.
This is where I must confess that I write in Starbucks. I know I should feel guilty about this, and I do. In my defense, I have tried to go to every single independent coffee shop within a half hour of my house and none of them but the one Starbucks lets me sit undisturbed and write for hours and hours and hours. Most want me out within thirty minutes, and my pocketbook and bladder can’t afford to buy a new cup of tea every thirty minutes. I’d spend more time in the bathroom than writing.
So, what’s YOUR favorite beverage? And is it seasonal, for those of you with seasons?
The Death I Never Got to Finish
January 5, 2010
What’s your favorite scene your editor asked you to cut?
OK, who of us has NOT been looking forward this question? We finally get to pull out that stuff we always wanted to show. I tend to write in a skeletal form and add layers, so my edits are more of “add more” than the “delete more” variety.
But in the first version of A Trace of Smoke I wanted the murder victim to have a voice. I wanted us to know him and love him on his own terms so we could understand what Hannah lost when she lost her brother. So, I had him talking from beyond the grave. Sadly, I could never make it work. My writing group never got it, and the first question my future agent asked was, “If I agree to represent you, would you be willing to consider removing the dead brother’s voice from the manuscript?”
I said I was and I did and by and large I managed to work all the facts and feelings into the novel. I had, however, let him narrate his own death and there was no way I could do that the same way from anyone else’s point of view.
Here it is, slightly edited so it doesn’t have any spoilers:
It happened here. I feel it. He came from shadows. My murderer.
At first I felt no fear. We walked toward the factory through cold night air. Two hours later there would have been workers, but not yet that day. Light glinted off wet cobblestones. Reflected off his set and angry face.
I was still glowing. I told him about love. That it comes once a lifetime. We can’t escape it when it does. It transfigures the world. I hadn’t expected to find it, hadn’t believed in it, but it had found me. Love was suddenly simple and true. R loved me like that. And that is how I loved W.
Walking with the murderer, I knew. It wasn’t about getting old and weak. It was about trust and openness. I never opened up to a man before. I had never trusted the way that R trusted me. But I did trust W like that. And it made all the difference. I held out my hands to him, beseeching him to understand.
He only said, “I heard you.”
He hit me once, right in the chest. I almost laughed. Such a crazy place to hit someone. Metal clattered against stone. The knife, dropped.
I fell. Muddy water seeped into my dress. Could I scrub it out? Not water. Blood. Puddling around me. Nothing would ever be clean again.
The bastard stared at me. He folded his arms across his chest. He squatted down to watch me die. How could he hate me so?
I stared into his eyes while gray lightened the sky. I got colder and colder. I shivered, too proud to speak. I thought of W and our one night. How I screwed around too long before figuring out that I loved him. I did not want to lose him so soon after finding him. I thought of you and Anton. Your lives going on just the same. And I felt alone on the wet ground.
He just watched. The last sound I heard was my chattering teeth.
He never made a sound.
Writing or directing?
December 22, 2009
If you couldn’t write, what would your creative outlet be?
As a writer, I love telling stories with words. Taking that away would be very difficult for me. Assuming I had to do something else, I would tell stories with pictures and sounds. I would be a film director. I haven’t the skills or training, so no one in the Director’s Guild needs to worry, but if I’m dreaming, I might as well dream big.
Writers, by and large, labor alone. Directors have to assemble a team and call on the strengths of others. I love hiding in my little cave and writing (I know, Kelli, I probably love it too much), but back in my Silicon Valley days I also enjoyed working with a team of talented people who had a shared vision. Software development is not that different from directing: get the best people you can on board, motivate with the story you want to tell, and then help each team member to excel. Maybe I could even hire that famous film editor, CJ Lyons.
I envy the control that directors have over viewers. They control your gaze in a way that writers don’t. Readers can always skim over words, turn the page if they don’t like. But in a theater, the director can make you look. Viewers can walk out of the theater, but I’ll wager that many more readers skim than movie goers leave in the middle. Director control the pace at which the story unfolds. They can make you look at a muddy shoe until they’re sure you’ve seen it or cut to an eye and then away so quickly that you’re not even sure what you saw. For the duration of the film, they own your eyes.
Directors can also delegate things that writers can’t. If I have Hannah walk into a 1931 gay bar in Berlin, I have to research that bar, find pictures, maybe some eyewitness accounts. As a director, I can just hire a set designer and trust that they will get it right (I only hire the best, remember?).
But in the end, I love the research I do for my books too much to want to let it go. I love building the entire world of the story all by myself, knowing that each word, for better or worse, is the word that I chose. I love imagining that every reader is seeing a slightly different vision of my book. All in all, I’d better hope that I get to keep writing. But I sure wouldn’t mind having a personal assistant!
Why I Go to Conferences
November 24, 2009
What big name author is enough to get you to a conference?
By Rebecca Cantrell
I thought I was going to be the first curmudgeon of the week, but CJ beat me to it. She’s right though. I don’t go to conferences hoping to meet big name authors. Not that I’m not thrilled when I do. It was wonderful finding out that Lee Child is as charming as everyone says, the James Rollins is very funny, and when I met R.L. Stine it took all my self control not to go all fan-girl on him.
But the people I spend most of my time with are other writers whom I know and don’t get a chance to see enough of, such as our very own Kelli Stanley and Sophie Littlefield, both of whom are pee-in-the-pants funny. Or wise and funny CJ Lyons. Or the ever charming Tim Maleeny and Shane Gericke. I’ve never met Gabi, but I want to, even if I won’t eat anything she gives me after reading her questions to Lisa Black, whom I also met in Indianapolis.
And then there are the wonderful wild cards. This year I finally got to meet Jen Forbus. I didn’t spend as much time with her as I would have liked because I got cornered by a guy who wanted to talk about Prague in 1589, which was likewise fascinating.
I also met a former world champion fencer and writer, Mitchell Graham, who actually met Helene Mayer (she won the silver medal for Germany in the 1936 Berlin Olympics and was the only Jewish athlete competing on the German team). She shows up in my next novel, A GAME OF LIES, as do references to fencing that are now much more accurate.
I once sat next to a very shy woman at a technical translation conference who turned out to have written her PhD thesis on Weimar Germany and had translated novels and autobiographies from some its major players. This was a few months after I decided to set my book in 1931 (the end of Weimar-era Germany).
You could never get away with this in a movie, as the coincidences are just too great. But for me, conferences are always like that. I just happen to stand next to someone who has the most amazing story to tell. It’s not always a big name, although it sometimes is (I don’t think I can ever look in Joseph Finder’s freezer without cracking a smile). Sometimes it’s another early career writer like me, or a writer who isn’t yet published, or a reader, a historian.
It’s not the big names that get me to a conference, it’s everyone.
The Biography I Want to Read
November 17, 2009
If you were to write a nonfiction book, what would your topic be?
As a technical writer I wrote literally thousands of nonfiction pages. I mean, I thought they were nonfiction while I was writing them, or that they would one day be nonfiction. Because I wrote about products long before the products were completely finished, this wasn’t always true, but I tried very, very hard.
But they weren’t about topics I would have picked on my own. Who exactly would spend their spare time writing the Hyperion Essbase Database Administrator’s Guide? The Sun Java Studio Creator online help? The Sybase APT/GUI Installation Guide for all seven Unix platforms? No, for those I was paid real cash money and my employer got to pick the topics (Data load? Dimension build? Attributes that look like dimensions? You betcha).
If I had an infinite amount of time (that is, enough to be a happy wife and mother and write and promote all the fiction books I want to, plus extra time left over) I would write a biography of Ernst Röhm. 
I almost didn’t want to say it because it sounds so nerdy, but I figured if you slogged through the Essbase references, you are toughened up.
Ernst Röhm was Hitler’s best friend. His right hand man. Hitler once said “When they write the history of the Nazi party, he will be second in importance only to me.” Röhm built up the storm troopers. He was in charge of the secret cache of German weapons after the first World War, and he gave some to the Nazis for the failed Beer Hall Putsch. He was the only who actually accomplished his objective, take the barracks and wait for Hitler. Decorated war hero that he was, the judge let him off easy.
Röhm shows up in my first book, A TRACE OF SMOKE, because he came back to Germany to save Hitler’s butt after the storm troopers rebelled. He’s an interesting guy, for a variety of reasons, one of which is that he was gay and out. And everybody knew it.
But there is no published biography of him that I could unearth. To find out about him, I had to read the bits where he’s mentioned in huge history books (like RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH), plus a few passages in Sefton Delmer’s autobiography, THE COUNTERFEIT SPY, but mostly I read Röhm’s autobiography, published in 1928, then mostly destroyed later by the Nazis, but snagged from some school in Dresden and dragged back to UC Berkeley where it was bound in a bright orange cover. And it’s all written using the old fashioned Fraktur font.
He’s not a good guy or anything, but all the other Nazi figures have been profiled, from the important ones all the way down to the secretary who typed Hitler’s personal letters. But not Röhm. Why not? I think because he’s so gay that Nazi scholars are afraid to claim him, and he’s so Nazi that gay scholars don’t want him either. But somebody should. He was a fascinating guy, albeit a dangerous and scary brute.
How did he die? Hitler ordered his best friend shot in 1934 (yes, that’s in the second book, A NIGHT OF LONG KNIVES). It seems to have been one murder he actually felt guilty about too.
So, would some poor history PhD student somewhere write that book, so I don’t have to?
Dream Team, Perry Mason or Paul Drake?
November 2, 2009
What fictional attorney would you hire to represent you if you ever get caught?
I’d go straight for Perry Mason. He’s never lost a case, and I like that track record. He’s definitely gotten defendants out of tighter pinches than the one I’d be in.
It’ll be stressful as I sit in jail waiting. My nerves will be shot when the trial has its share of missteps as Perry tries and fails to break the wrong witnesses. But when Paul strides in and whispers in Perry’s ear, I’ll know he’s found that bit of evidence that exonerates me. And I know he worked hard to do it too, bless his heart.
The witness on the stand will crack like dry spaghetti. That self righteous smirk will peel off Hamilton Burger’s face. In your face, I’ll say once the gavel comes down to acquit me. Sure, it’ll be spiteful, but after what he put me through, can you blame me?
And then I can spend a little quality time with Paul Drake. There was something intriguing about that big blond guy. He was a thorough investigator, looked sharp in a suit, but could beat up the meanest thugs. Unlike Perry, Paul knew the score. Plus he liked chocolate ice cream, and pretty much ate anything you put in front of him, a trait that I appreciate more now that I have a picky eater in the house.
What did Della see in Perry anyway? Paul was cuter, taller, and a lot more fun. Although both clearly had massive commitment issues, Paul did eventually get married and have little Paul Jr. at some point. Perry just got portly.
So, if I were to get caught, I’d want Perry on my side. But I won’t need him, because I’ll never get caught. Because I’m innocent. Innocent. Innocent.
I didn’t get to answer last week’s question about ways to dispatch murder victims, but my good friend, and fellow mystery writer, Hal Glatzer sent me a link to a video on just this topic.
Mothering Fiction: How Being a Mother Made Me a Better Writer
October 24, 2009
Here’s my blog post on it on the New York Times parenting blog:
Somebody had to say it: parenting is a lot of fun!
Spinning off Characters
October 6, 2009
Which character would I spin off from my series?
by Rebecca Cantrell
Finally a question that gives historical writers an unfair advantage! I can jump forward in time, so I can spin off even the children. And that’s just whom I would pick.
In A TRACE OF SMOKE, Hannah comes across an orphan 5 year old boy named Anton. Anton’s been raised by a prostitute. The identity of his father is in dispute. And he talks like he’s an Apache brave. I’ve received more fan mail about him than any other character in the book.
I actually did submit a proposal to write a book with a 22 year old Anton as the main character set in Berlin in 1948. The book was to be called IN MY FATHER’S SHADOW.
In 1948 Berlin is in a state of transition. World War II has ended and American, British, French, and Russian troops occupy the city now stranded deep in the Russian zone. Refugees stream in from the Eastern Zone of Germany, Eastern Europe, and concentration camps. Those returning home often find their houses destroyed or usurped by those who stayed behind. On June 24, 1948 the Russians blockade all train and automobile traffic into the city, hoping to force the other allied troops out of Berlin so that they can occupy it.
The Cold War has begun.
A few weeks before, Nazi doctors were hung in Nuremberg. Attacks on American troops and military bases still occur, although with far less frequency than in the first two years after the war. Fluent in the German language, Anton is still unprepared for the cultural changes wrought by the Nazis, the war, and the Occupation. He works in the Berlin Airlift, where American forces will fly in all the supplies for a city of two million people for almost a year.
Anton’s mother spent her life trying to rescue Jews from Hitler, but the man Anton thinks might be his father helped put Hitler in power and set up the first concentration camps. Nothing is as he expected as he struggles to understand what it means to be German at heart but American in loyalty.
When I sold A TRACE OF SMOKE, they requested a two book deal and both had to have Hannah Vogel as the main character, so I went back to the drawing board and came up with A NIGHT OF LONG KNIVES (June 2010), set during the purge of the same name (because who doesn’t want to write a book that starts with a zeppelin jacking?). I still think someday I might write the book of Anton’s coming of age, but now that I’ve sold books 3 & 4 with Hannah (A GAME OF LIES (June 2011), set during the Berlin Olympics, and A NIGHT OF BROKEN GLASS (June 2012), set during Kristallnacht), I don’t know when I’ll find time.
If you ever read it, you’ll know why I had to make that disclaimer.
I did use a similar character, a young American soldier coming back into Berlin during the airlift, in my short story COFFEE in the anthology MISSING from Echelon Press. But let me say right here that he is NOT Anton and his mother is NOT Hannah. If you read it, you’ll know why I need the disclaimer.
I’d also like to tell Dracula from Mina’s point of view, not quite a spinoff, but a new tale nevertheless…more details on that very, very soon…
Why All Series Should Be Trilogies
September 28, 2009
A series should always be a trilogy. Who has ever heard of a du-ology? And bi-ology is something quite different. What about a quadrology? Pentology? Nope. Clearly if there is no word for it, it just can’t be.
And trilogy is a versatile term. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is a four book trilogy. So is “Lord of the Rings,” if you count “The Hobbit.” Those are some successful quadrologies. The “Harry Potter” books are a septology, which doesn’t quite sound as naughty as a sextology, but after all those books are for kids.
Titles matter too. If you start with “A is for Alibi” you know you only have 24 more titles until you reach “Z is for Zero.” (What’s the word for a 26 part series? Kelli, you’re the Latin buff. Lend us a hand.) But if you start with “One for the Money,” you can keep writing until “Google Me Grandma Mazur.”
In all seriousness, a series should run exactly as long as the writer can tell rewarding stories in that world. Or until the publishers and readers stop buying them. As a writer, I hope for the first. Especially as I’m on the third book in my trilogy.
I’ll close by paraphrasing a junior high English teacher who, when I asked how long an essay should be, said “As long as a piece of rope.”
Drove me crazy then too.