Plotting or Pantsing? Or both? by Guest Author Michael Stanley (aka Michael Sears and Stan Trollip)

Michael Sears

Stanley Trollip

Please welcome authors Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, who write under the name Michael Stanley. Their award-winning mystery series, featuring Detective Kubu, is set in Botswana, a fascinating country with magnificent conservation areas and varied peoples. The latest book in the series is a prequel, titled Facets of Death. It starts the first day Kubu joins the Botswana CID, and he’s immediately thrown into solving a violent heist of rough diamonds from Jwaneng—the world’s richest diamond mine. Their latest thriller Shoot the Bastards introduces Minnesotan environmental journalist Crystal Nguyen. Set mainly in South Africa, it has as backstory the vicious trade in rhino horn.

Michael has lived in South Africa, Kenya, Australia, and the US. He now lives in Knysna on the Cape south coast of South Africa. Stanley splits his time between Minneapolis and Cape Town. For more information, check out their website or their Amazon author page. You can also find them on Facebook, Twitter, and at the blog Murder Is Everywhere.
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When we started our first book, A Carrion Death, we didn’t have much idea about how to write a mystery. We’d written lots of non-fiction, but we’d never tried our hands at fiction. What we had was a premise. The premise had come to us in Botswana’s Chobe National Park after watching hyenas devour a young wildebeest. They ate everything except the horns and hooves. We speculated on what they would do to a human corpse. Nothing would be left. Nothing at all. What a wonderful way of getting rid of a body, we thought! Especially if you had a particular reason that the body should not under any circumstances be recognized.

Michael wrote the first chapter and sent it to Stanley. He was as intrigued and puzzled about the half eaten corpse found in the desert as were the ranger and scientist who found it. What happens next? he asked. Michael didn’t have the faintest idea...

What happens next??

When Detective Kubu went out to the area to investigate, we still didn’t know. We had lots of ideas, but we were coming to grips with all the issues around writing fiction. We’d been told to write about what we knew, so our plan was to have the scientist as hero. But Kubu ignored us and took over, shouldered the academic out of the limelight, and started investigating. He made one discovery after another, leaving a trail of dead plots in his wake.

We can’t imagine a more seat-of-the-pants (pantsing) approach than this. Kubu pulled us up by his bootstraps. Or is that our bootstraps? It was great fun! Maybe there was a freshness and excitement that came from the plot twisting and turning around us as it coalesced. It was also scary, but we weren’t working to a deadline. In the end, after three years, we were left with a plot that we were comfortable with, but also with a strong feeling that this was a very inefficient way to write a book.

When we started the second book, we were convinced that all this chaos was a spinoff of the fact that we knew nothing about writing fiction. It was only much later that we discovered that many

Mind maps!

mystery writers do it that way—pantsing to enjoy the discovery of what’s going on as much as the reader. By the second book, we thought we were experts. We knew better. We spent a lot of time plotting and arguing, rejecting ideas, following twists, taking turns. We had mind maps that couldn’t fit on the dining room table. And eventually we had a plot that we felt held up and that would lead to none of the dead ends that had cost us tens of thousands of discarded words in the first book. We sent our publisher an outline of The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu and while a few extra embellishments occurred during writing as the characters developed and insisted on doing things their way, the final manuscript followed it pretty closely. We felt that now we understood how to write mystery novels. This, we decided, must be how all the professionals do it!

Our third book was a compromise between the two approaches. The first book was chaos, enjoyable chaos, and ultimately successful chaos—a true example of writing by the seat of your pants. Our second was planned and manicured. Successful too, we believe. An example of plotting and careful execution. Our third was somewhere in between. Our careful plot didn’t work, and we had to pants it out in the end.

Since then, we’ve become committed pantsers.

One result of this rather unstructured writing style, and the fact that Kubu took over as our protagonist without asking us, is that Kubu was quite unplanned. As we went along, we learned more about him, his school, his parents and his wife, but we had no idea how he’d developed into the Criminal Investigation Department’s star detective. Did he make mistakes? How did he learn? We felt that we needed to know the answers, so we decided to write a prequel that starts on the day Kubu joins the police as a new detective in 1998 (Facets of Death).

We also had the idea of a huge diamond heist from the Jwaneng mine in Botswana—the world’s richest diamond mine. If that had happened at the height of the diamond boom, could it have led to a collapse in the Botswana economy? That was a premise we could explore in a pantsing style. We started with the heist and let it play out, feeling the familiar panic when we neared the end of the book and realized that we had no way of catching the kingpin behind the crime.

The book had a plotting aspect as well, forced on us by it being a prequel. We wanted to explore Kubu as a young detective, but we knew where he would end up. He had to become a successful detective. He had to find his wife. His boss had to become director of the Criminal Investigation Department. In short, he had to develop into the present-day character our readers know and enjoy.

What we’ve learned over eight books is that there is no right or wrong way to develop a story. The majority of mystery writers seem to be pantsers, but there are plenty of big names who are plotters. For example, Jeffrey Deaver writes an extensive outline of each book, and then fleshes it out over a few months to get the complete novel.

Writing is a very personal process. Probably each writer (or writing team) has to find the style that works best for them. And it may change from book to book… 

Blog Hop Part 3: Getting "into the mood"

Continuing the blog hop on "the writer's process" from yesterday (exploring the question: How does my writing/work differ from others in the genre?) and the day before (What am I working on/writing?), today I'm tackling the question: How does my writing process work?

How does my writing process work?

How does my writing process work?

How does my writing process work?

How does my writing process work?

This is actually the fourth/last question in this particular blog hop questionnaire, but I feel like doing this one today, and who's to stop me? Answer: No one, because I'm sitting here at my home computer and there's no one peering over my shoulder as I pound out the words...

Basically, my writing process is pretty straightforward:

• Sit down at "my station" (my home office, if I'm working from home, or a client office, if I'm stationed there)
• Rev up the computer
• Slide on computer glasses (effectively throwing everything but the screen, keyboard, and papers in the immediate vicinity "out of focus" ... which cuts down on visual distractions)
• Check emails to be sure the world hasn't ended since my last session
• Put my cell phone aside (but nearby, for any text/check-in needs)
• Make sure that cuppa Joe is at hand
• Plug in the noise reduction earphones and slide 'em on
• Call up my Pandora stations (or, if for some reason, I can't access/use Pandora, I attach the earphones to my cell and call up my iTunes library)
• Put hands on keyboard
• Type

At  my home battle station, ready for action. Note fuzzy companion, snoozing off her "food coma," by window to left.

Of course, before all this happens, there is some requisite dithering around. For instance, this morning, I fed the cat (so she's sated and won't sit on my keyboard and glare at me accusingly for starving her), read the front section the newspaper, opened some windows downstairs for fresh air before the heat sets in.

Me? Sit on your keyboard? When have I ever done that?

All the time, I was thinking about this post (well, off and on, anyway), and how I might get started. I made a short list of things I need/want to do today, so as not to "get lost" and find myself at day's end, gnashing teeth over what I didn't do.

 For fiction writing, or any kind of writing, this overall process is pretty much the same.

For me, music is a key component. Sometimes, Pandora shuts off/leaves in a huff (with that plaintive "Are you still listening?" bubble floating on the screen). If I'm deep into writing, I don't even notice the music is gone. But, at least at the start, it helps me enter the process and "the zone." I created a variety of stations to choose from, depending on my mood and what kind of writing I'm doing, mostly (but not entirely) leaning toward classical and Celtic ("New Age") music. That said, I'll confess to a certain fondness for P!nk (who channels what I think of as the sort of "in your face" attitude that my protagonist, Inez Stannert, occasionally takes on). I captured the lineup of stations on that are on my list, just FYI, if you're interested. (DISCLAIMER: Not all of these are "mine." I have stations that I listen to with my spouse--Pink Floyd and Gabby Pahanui, anyone?--and my daughter--that's the Autechre station--etc.)

My list of Pandora stations... apologies for the raster effect!

Once I'm in the zone, I write, with inner editor off, if possible. (For fiction, this comes pretty easily. If I'm working on a piece for a client, I often have the political/technical parameters rumbling around in my brain at the same time, so it's not quite the headlong dash.)

Well, time to wrap this up and proceed to the next project. I can now tick "finish blog post" off my list of the day! Progress!

Tomorrow, I'll tackle the final blog hop question: Why do I write what I do?

Some of the necessities for "getting in the mood."

How does my writing process work?

How does my writing process work?

A Story Forms: Point-to-Point or Dot-to-Dot

Being somewhat at loose ends for a post this week, I turned to the Historic Colorado Newspapers online to see what was up with Leadville in February 1880. Here's what the Colorado Miner (Georgetown, Colorado) had for Saturday, February 21, 1880, in a little column titled "Colorado. Points Pertaining to People and Places":

• Leadville reports for one week arrivals by the various stage lines at 832, and the departures at 501.
• D.W. Fuller, a Boston capitalist, fell from a bucket as he was ascending from a mine at Leadville, and was instantly killed.
• The State Bank of Colorado filed articles of incorporation yesterday.  The bank will do a general banking business in Leadville. The capital stock is $100,000 divided 1,000 shares at $100 each.
• At a ball of the Union Veterans Association in Leadville, a vote was taken to decide who was the handsomest lady in the room. The decision was rendered in favor of Mrs. Judge W.R. Kennedy, formerly Miss Lou. De La Mar, of this city.
• A man named W.E. McIvor was found dead in his bed in a cabin near Leadville, with his face badly torn and eaten by mountain rats. It was thought he was from Georgetown, but this is probably a mistake.
• An installment of 32 bunko-steerers, among whom were several noted highwaymen, reached Leadville on Monday last. Another hanging bee would be in order and do good.

Fairest of them all? - At the Ball, by Berthe Morisot

While typing these random bits into the post, I felt a story forming... completely fictional, of course. This is how it unwound in my mind:

 What if the Boston capitalist's fatal plunge down the shaft was not an accident? Maybe he came to Leadville because of the incorporation of the State Bank. Maybe he goes to the Union Veterans ball, and recognizes the judge's wife when she is named "fairest of them all." Maybe there is something dark in her past, something her husband knows nothing about, but the Boston capitalist does. He uses that knowledge for a little leverage. (Question to self: Leverage for what? Something to do with the bank incorporation, perhaps? Or something completely different, perhaps to do with the mine?)

Maybe the judge's wife, who is not the "shrinking violet" she appears to be, hires one of the "noted highwaymen" to neutralize said capitalist, so her secret remains hidden.

But what about McIvor, dead in the cabin? And, is it really McIvor or could it be someone else? In which case, where is McIvor? And are mountain rats really to blame for the lack of an identifiable face on the corpse?

I do believe there's a story here, built out of imaginary connections, from dot-to-dot until the picture is clear. Perhaps morning (and some caffiene!) will provide further insight.

A title would be nice as well!

Words to write by... #4

Two quotes today, taken from a letter that George Elder wrote from Leadville on September 24, 1879, to his mother in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the time, George had recently moved to Leadville, hoping to make his way as a lawyer. (Aside: There were many many lawyers in Leadville... about 150 in 1880, according to the census. Lawyers were outnumbered only by miners [3204], laborers [1021], carpenters [487], salesmen [370], hostlers/teamsters/livery stable folk [255], saloon keepers/bartenders [228], restaurant workers [192], and engineers [163].)

These two quotes actually form the foundation for my fictional explorations of Leadville during the Silver Rush period:

"... it seems to me that a man cannot help becoming like the country out here."

and

"A murderer is safer in Leadville than a Horsethief."

Taking the latter quote first ... I figure that since murder didn't rate as high on the scale of importance as thievin' a horse, my protagonist, Inez Stannert, has a fair bit of latitude in investigating matters of "life and death." Provided the death doesn't involve a horse.

As to the first quote, I just love exploring how individuals responded to and became like "the country," as George puts it. To me, "country" includes not just the extreme physical conditions, but also the extreme "social climate." People came to get rich, to escape the past, to reinvent themselves, to save souls, to raise families, to make a living, and so on. Wonder what G.E. would've thought had he known that, 130 years after he penned his personal missives, someone completely unrelated to him would take creative inspiration from his observations and his words ...

Words to write by... #3

Here's another one I've had hanging in my writing office for a very long time:

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.—F. Scott Fitzgerald

I'm still bemused that this quote came from a writer, not a general. But goodness knows, persistence in the face of adversity is absolutely necessary in the world of writing. If you give up after the first few rejections, for instance, you'll never find the agent/publisher who wants your work. If you give up and crawl away after a scathing critique, you won't learn to "soldier through," revise (if necessary) or ignore (if not), and keep moving forward.

I need this sort of self-talk more often than not, because sometimes it feels like a major victory just getting up in the morning and placing one foot in front of the other...

Words to write by... #2

Well, having descended to Hell with my previous words, I'll now travel the other direction with a quote that is taped on my (home) office door:

Cleanliness is next to godliness. I'm working on godliness.

This was actually a "gift of words" from an author-acquaintance who bunked down at our home while on a book tour through the Bay Area. I apologized for the sad and sorry state of the housekeeping and she replied with the above. I felt better after that, and plastered the saying above my door, just to keep my perspectives straight.

Words to write by... #1

... Well, I didn't get to all the blogs I wanted to highlight last week, but that's okay. Leaves me a few in my hip pocket for another time.

This week, I thought I'd throw out some quotes that I like. Words to live by, words to write by, words to mull over and maybe re-use in some fashion or other.

This first quote is just something that I've been turning over in my mind for quite a while now. I came across it in a book called Evil in Modern Thought by Susan Neiman, in a discussion about evil and intent:

What counts is not what your road is paved with, but whether it leads to hell.

I love this comment on the old saying: "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." I think it's the perfect thing for Reverend Sands (one of my characters from the Silver Rush series) to say at some point. And, it's got me thinking about villains in general and the villain for book #4 in particular. So, don't be surprised if, in the future, the good Reverend has something insightful to say about intentions and the road to hell ...

From dusk to dawn

I started my day today with a discussion of words and word use (fun! really!). It came about because we were discussing the word "dusk," as in "I ran until dusk." (No, I didn't say this ... It was said by someone else much more young and fit.)

Anyhow, the conversation evolved (or devolved, depending your frame of reference) into a discussion of antonyms and synonyms. We agreed: synonyms of dusk include "twilight" and (this was my contribution) "gloaming" (love that word!). Antonyms for dusk are "dawn" and . . .??

At this point, I was a bit stumped. Maybe it's because whereas I experience dusk frequently (every day, essentially), dawn is ... something I experience only under protest or in light of early flight schedules. So, I turned to the internet while everyone else returned to work. But hey, I charge by the hour, so I figured I could put in a couple free minutes to satisfy the itch for symmetry.

What I found:
Dusk vs Dawn
Twilight vs First light
Sundown vs Sunrise (or Sunup)
Nightfall vs Daybreak

Dawn or dusk? Who knows? But look at those lovely lenticular clouds!

But then, I ran into trouble:
Gloaming vs ... what?? Gleaming? (I rather like that, but don't think it's the case.)
Eventide vs ... uh ...

And what about crepuscular light? Does that only apply to evening/dusk? If so, then what do you call the "light before the dawn?"

At that point, I had to stop and get to work, because the itch to find the right words was beginning to feel more like a rash. But I've been turning those terms over in my mind all day... and now it's long past dusk.

Must there be romance?

... Continuing with my intent to post Malice Domestic tidbits this week, here's an interesting one from author Kate Collins from the panel "Wine, Flowers and Murder: The Role Romance Plays in Mysteries" (paraphrased ... so I hope I've got the essence of it here):
"You can't build a normal well-rounded character without romance."

At first, I thought, hold on there ... you can't? But then, I started thinking about it. Perhaps the operative words here are normal and well-rounded. There are certainly plenty of damaged, loner-type characters wandering through crime fiction that seem unable to form romantic attachments.

In most mystery series that I can think of (cozy series in particular), romance creeps in sooner or later, to add tension, interest, character development.

So, what do you think? Can you have a normal, well-rounded character without romance? Do you like romance in the mysteries you read?

Zeroing in on "the bad guy"

I'm very much enjoying the Malice Domestic convention here in Washington D.C. One of the things I love about this convention and others is that I always pick up writing tidbits and "food for thought." Today's tidbit has to do with writing/creating villians, i.e., the antagonists or "bad guys" in mysteries ... a tidbit that I'm going to share with you.

Author Anne Perry, who is receiving the Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement, had this bit of advice about getting to know the bad guy in your story:

"Write your story from the antagonist's point of view."

What a great way to see if the actions and the motivations of the "villain of the piece" make sense and ring true.

Something I'm going to try in the future!

PW covers Leaden Skies

Yes, Leaden Skies sighted again, this time in Publishers Weekly, March 30 issue. Hope you don't mind if I quote the whole thing, right down to the ISBN, because how often does this happen in a lifetime anyway?

Leaden Skies Ann Parker. Poisoned Pen, $24.95 (298p) ISBN 978-1-59058-577-1

The July 1880 visit of former president Ulysses S. Grant to the mining community of Leadville, Colo., sparks Parker's third mystery (after 2006's Iron Ties), a twisty tale of murder and ambition. Saloon co-owner Inez Stannert is preoccupied with divorcing her missing husband, her affair with the local minister and her secret business partnership with the local madam when one of the madam's prostitutes is first attacked and later killed. Eager to protect her investment, Inez begins to look into the case, confronting mine owners with personal agendas; local politicians; zealous journalists; a mapmaker with a past; a determined mother with aspirations for her wastrel son; a prostitute with family obligations and hopes for a better life; and a ruthless city tax collector, appropriately nicknamed the Hatchet. Parker is proficient in showing the crossroads between civilization and the frontier, including emerging new roles for women. A cliffhanger ending sets a promising stage for the next installment. (July)

I feel like I can now breathe again. I've received some early individual reader/reviewer comments (see previous post), and Publishers Weekly has weighed in, all to the good.

I've heard some authors say they never read reviews of their books, and I wonder ... how do they do it? I could no more ignore/not read a review than I could not sleep. Not sneeze. Not eat chocolate. Doesn't mean I take everything as gospel (because I know that each and every reader approaches a book differently), but to ignore or not pay attention to what they say? A major joy of writing (for me) is telling stories, weaving a tale. And the telling requires a listener, a reader. Otherwise, why not just spin stories for myself. So, to not listen to what readers have to say seems odd. In my day job, I always have the audience in mind. Why should fiction be different?

Writers, readers, what do you think?

Leaden Skies sighted on the horizon . . .

I always hold my breath until I get the first review on a new book—a review, that is, from someone unrelated to me and not obligated in any way to "like" it (i.e., unbiased data).

So far, three reviews of Leaden Skies have emerged, all written by early readers of the ARC version of the book. LJ Roberts was first out the gate with a review, now posted on Goodreads, closely followed by Diane (both can be viewed here). C.K. Crigger also posted a review on her blog.

I love hearing from readers on what worked and what didn't. I always take the "this didn't work for me" comments under advisement. And, if I see a "pattern" of comments regarding something in particular, I tuck that into my thinking for the future.

Now, in the time-honored tradition of picking out "favorite bits" from reviews to broadcast:

... Parker’s wonderful characters and excellent dialogue enhance the qualities of this book. What really sets it apart, however, is that indefinable voice which makes a particular author such a pleasure to read...I highly recommend starting at the beginning of this wonderful series. —LJ Roberts

This book is the 3rd in a series of historical myteries set in Leadville's boom days. I enjoyed this one (as well as the prior two) and think that Parker does a very good job of transporting the reader back in time.—Diane

...Filled with history, action, and emotional realism, it’s a story that will leave you feeling you’ve made contact with the folks who live in Leadville. There’s never a dull moment; somebody is always trying to take advantage of someone else. Some folks are moral, some not. All are interesting. And the book ends with a darn good cliffhanger, making sure to leave you wanting more. —C.K. Crigger

Where Do Your Ideas Come From?

A guest post today from author Marilyn Meredith! Under the name of F.M. Meredith, Marilyn writes the Rocky Bluff P.D. series. The latest is No Sanctuary from Oak Tree Press. She is also the author of award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series as well as over twenty published novels. The latest entry in the Deputy Crabtree series is Kindred Spirits from Mundania Press. You can visit her here and find out more about her and her series. So, Marilyn, tell us, where do you get your ideas?
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. . . That’s a question I often am asked, along with the one “Are you writing about yourself?”

For the first question, the ideas for my Rocky Bluff crime series come from many places. In the beginning, it was my police officer son-in-law who first piqued my interest in law enforcement. After his shift, he’d come to my house for coffee and tell me about his exciting adventures.

Once he took me on a ride-along, after making me promise to not tell anyone I was his mother-in-law. I admired the way he was able to calmly talk down volatile situations.

When we moved into the first home we could afford to buy, we found that the neighborhood was populated with police officers and their families. After becoming friends with them, I soon realized how the job affected their family life and what happened in the family affected the job. That is a theme I’ve focused on throughout the Rocky Bluff series.

Since then, I’ve been on other ride-alongs with a small department including one with the only female officer. From 3 a.m. until 6 a.m. she didn’t receive a single call. We drove around and she told me all about how difficult it was to be the only woman in such a male oriented job, and the trials of being a single mother. Some of what she told me has been a part of the main character, Officer Stacey Wilbur, in the latest book, No Sanctuary.

I’ve been a member of Sisters in Crime for years, and in fact was one of the founding members of the San Joaquin chapter. In No Sanctuary there is an incident about a pedophile that I borrowed from a case described by a female vice-officer at one of our Sisters in Crime meetings.

In fact, I’ve used a lot of information I’ve learned from other law enforcement officers, coroners, profilers and other experts who’ve spoken at the chapter’s meetings.

Fortunately, I’m also a member of the Public Safety Writers Association, which was organized by police officers who were also authors. They welcome any writers who are writing fiction or non-fiction about any area of public safety. Over the years I’ve become good friends with many of the members who are very generous about giving me information.

Onto the second question as to whether I’m writing about myself—or is there any resemblance to my main character and me. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a great-grandmother and look it. Except for being female and a mother, I have nothing in common with Stacey Wilbur or any of the other women who populate my books.

However, when I’m writing about one of my characters, whether it be Stacey or someone else, I get inside that person and look out through their eyes—experience what is going on as they are experiencing it so I can describe the scene and the action as the characters see and feel it. For me, it’s the only way to get the emotion and action right.

No Sanctuary is also about two churches, two ministers and their wives. Since I was child, I’ve been a regular church goer. Churches, like their leaders and the people who attend, seem to have their own unique personalities. I’ve never attended churches exactly like the two in the story, though there are similarities. And fortunately, never have the ministers of the churches I’ve gone to acted quite like those in this novel.

A reviewer for the previous offering in the Rocky Bluff series, Smell of Death, said, “The cops of fictional Rocky Bluff PD have lives that extend beyond the chase and the crime scene. There are no CSI magical antics to be found here, there are no courtroom theatrics, and no hyper-intuitive detectives, just hard working cops doing the sort of methodical spadework that probably solves most real life crimes.” That pretty much sums up what I’ve tried to do with this series.

As an added note, as a great believer that there should be a touch of romance in every book of fiction, whether it be a mystery, science-fiction, or fantasy, the romance between Officer Stacey Wilbur, despite her vow to never date anyone on the Rocky Bluff PD, and Detective Doug Milligan does heat up a bit—though there are obstacles.

Thank you, Marilyn!


No Sanctuary is available as a Dark Oak Mystery from http://www.oaktreebooks and from Amazon, and autographed copies from the author at http://fictionforyou.com

Death and Taxes

Certainty? In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.
—Benjamin Franklin

In the modern mystery, death is usually a critical element, a certainty. If there isn't a body somewhere pretty early on in the story, most mystery readers get a little itchy and twitchy and wonder what's up. And, truthfully, I love exploring death (fictionally speaking). I can spend endless hours researching sneaky ways to kill people circa 1880 and thereabouts, and I love setting up and (ahem) executing the murder scene(s) in my books.

However, regarding the second half of Benjamin Franklin's observation, all I have to say is Bah!

I have a technical/scientific background, so you'd think that taxes would be a snap, right? It's only numbers. It's math. It's logic. For heaven's sake, we're talking basic arithmetic here—add, subtract, multiply, divide—not calculus or complex number theory. The financials of my writing/editing consultancy business (which includes my fiction efforts) should theoretically be neatly bound, gagged, and overdosed with Quicken and Excel. All those little numbers showing profit and loss, income and expenses, should be subdued and ready for delivery well before mid-April.

Unfortunately, my financial process is akin to my process for researching methods of death and destruction. Usually, when researching for fiction, I'm bouncing from book to book, website to website, landing on random facts, thinking "hmmm, that's interesting, and perhaps useful," stashing it away mentally (or on a random sticky note) before zipping off in another, tangential direction. In the financial realm, my approach is similarly random. Receipts are crammed willy-nilly into my wallet until the wallet is too full to close, whereupon the crumpled bits of paper are regurgitated into a paper bag (yes, that's what I said, a paper bag). Now, the wallet is free to feed again, and the process repeats. As for statements, consulting contracts, and so on, they alight on whatever surface is at hand upon my entering the house. There they linger, to become buried beneath equally important papers, until I can corral them into the all-consuming paper bag.

When the time comes to "deal with it," the paper bag is emptied onto the dining table, which cannot be used for dining until taxes are done.

In fiction writing, it's fun to toss motives, method, characters, location and era all into a big jumble, shake 'em up, and see what comes of it.

Unfortunately, the same process when applied to taxes does not yield a very satisfying result.

And that, dear Benjamin, is a certainty.

Letters: Windows to the past (Part 2)

In my last post, I quoted a bit from the letters of George Elder, a young man who ventured to the silver boomtown of Leadville in 1879 to make a future as a lawyer.

Regarding money and crime (two topics of endless fascination to me in the pursuit of veracity in fiction), George had some interesting comments in his November 16, 1879, letter to his mother:

. . . Last night two-foot-pads held up the hands of a man who had a long Navy self-cocker in one of them and they were both killed. Every-body says "serves them right" and I do not think the man who killed them will be hung as foot-pads are the most dangerous enemies of our people here. I am glad some of them are meeting with their desserts. Most men here carry sums about them varying from $50 up to the hundreds of dollars so that the field is a very lucrative one for the highwaymen. . . .

Okay, what treasures we can glean from this little gem? First things first: Money. Today, $50 hardly buys you groceries. First thing I wondered in reading this passage: How much was $50 back in 1879?

Thanks to the very neat-o little website Measuring Worth, which includes a little calculator that computes the relative value of U.S. dollars from 1774 to 2007, I was able to figure this out. So, hold on to your seat for this:
$50 in 1879 had the same "purchase power" as $1072.09 in 2007.

Now, think of those "several hundred dollars." Let's pick, oh say, $300 and see what we get. Back in 1879, that $300 stuffed into pockets or satchels equates to $6432.53.

Yes, I can see where robbery would be a lucrative business in old-time Leadville.

What else can I harvest from this letter? How about terms and slang? "foot-pad," "highwaymen," "serves them right," "just desserts." I can, without qualms, now use these words and terms in my fictional exploits with the knowledge that they are current to the times.

What else? How about the fact that "Navy self-cockers" were being carried and employed, the fact that the criminals were stupid enough to shout "raise your hands high" to someone who was actually carrying a gun in one of them, and that the person shot them and will probably receive no punishment?

And, I could go on.

Not the least question that occurred to me: He wrote this to his mother?? If I were young George's mother and had received this letter, I'd be sending him a ticket on the first stage home! But, back then, a 22-year-old son was considered a man, ready to take up the challenges and rewards, fully capable of making his own way, far from home. An attitude not quite as common today, where many 22-year-olds are viewed and treated as just slightly older teenagers. Authors of historical fiction, myself included, have to be conscious of our own suppositions, expectations, and beliefs, and do a little "mind-travel" when creating our worlds of the past.

So, perhaps this will give you some insight into my thinking and why I value these letters and the folks who so generously shared them with me, so very highly.

What about you? Do you see some other things in this passage that shed light on the past?

Letters: Windows to the past

When it comes to researching the past, I can't leave the topic without mentioning letters as a treasure trove of material, shedding light onto life in the past.

I am particularly indebted to a long-ago fellow named George Elder, who, as a very young man, ventured to Leadville in January 1879, hoping to make his fortune as a lawyer. Young George—who possessed a perceptive eye and a well-versed pen—wrote home regularly. Thanks to George's grandson and his wife, who I acknowledge in every single Leadville book I write, I have typed transcriptions of those letters.

I could probably spend the rest of the month January quoting bits of George's letters here on my blog (hmmm, not a bad idea, that) and discussing where I went from there. For now, I'll start with a couple quotes.


This is from George's January 29, 1879 letter:

My dear Parents,
I wrote you a day or so ago but I am now in possession of more facts concerning the place. I find things are even higher in price than I thoughts . . . I shall be compelled to pay $25 for a office per month. The one I have selected is 13 ft by 10 ft and the floor very roughly made as also the walk. . . . The Tontine where I now stop charges $4 per day for all parties though my meals have cost me on the average 45 cents. I guess I pay about $2 per day. . . . A man without money here might as well give up at once if he is a professional man. Laborers are well paid $3.50 to $4.50 being the wages in the mines and at the smelters. The streets are very much crowded and rival some of the busy streets of the Eastern cities. . . .

A couple of things strike me about this passage: Note the costs. A miner, making $3.50 a day, could no way no how afford staying at the Tontine. And three meals would cost more than a third of his daily wages. Think about that. Second, the streets were crowded—think New York, Philadelphia—but this is 10,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains. And more were coming in daily. In this letter, George continues,

The excitement about the mines is booming along and people are coming in at the rate of 60 to 100 per day.

These people came by stage, by foot, by horse, in the dead of winter. No trains to Leadville, yet. Can you imagine the shock of some folks when they finally got to town only to discover that rooms were scarce and prices high? What would they do? Try to leave? Turn to crime?

More tomorrow from George's letters. And then, we'll see where my random blog-walks take me from there.

All the potential of the day . . .

Well, folks, the potential energy I started with in the early part of the day has long since been converted to kinetic energy. At this point in the evening, I haven't much energy left for words. Happens sometimes. Heck, happens often, actually.

In any case, I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes by physicist/engineer Werner von Braun:

Basic research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing.

So true, whether it's science or writing. A lot of wonderful "a-ha" moments occur during the thrashing around that one can call basic research/the creative process/etc.


Hmmmm. I like this quote. I sense there's much more to say about the subject (!... it has potential ...!).

I shall return to it when I have more energy.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this lovely photograph of both potential and kinetic energy to contemplate.

(courtesy of travelblog.org)

The acceleration of words . . .

. . . As someone with a wee bit of science in my background, I love to see where the worlds of science and literature intersect. And not just in the subject matter (although I've read my share or more of science fiction/science fact over the years).

It has occurred to me (she pontificated) that the "motion," "act," "process" of writing involves a lot of physics. There's inertia: the tendency of an object in motion to remain in motion, or when at rest to remain at rest. Well, I've certainly experienced that moment when first sitting down to write, the moment of stillness. The moment of, "Where am I in this process? Where am I going? How do I do this? Am I crazy?" Sometimes, that "writing inertia" lasts a whole lot longer than a moment, even as I engage in a bit of mental chaos/random walk action as I, instead of writing, fold laundry, eat cookies, brew coffee, pay bills, and otherwise avoid the process of putting my rear in the chair and writing.

And who hasn't experienced the flip side of inertia? That wonderful process when the writing flows almost faster than one can type and, indeed, accelerates from mind to fingers to page, and all else disappears except the world one is creating.

But then, in the real world, there is always friction—the force that resists motion when the surfaces of two objects come into contact. Friction acting against the writing process can be that enormous pile of dirty clothes that have to be washed (else no one will have clean socks), the kids throwing blocks at each other in the family room, the dentist appointment that you must go to. Even more serious forces can come into play to work against writing: Loss of a job. The death of a loved one. Serious illness. . . . You get the picture.

Well, I won't get into quantum mechanics this time around, but will save that for another post.

I'll just finish by saying that when things are working well in the writing world, it can feel somewhat like hydrodynamics (the study of fluids in motion): At first it can seem uncertain and random, but given time, it develops, a structure or pattern grows, and it all begins to make sense in a most complex, magnificent dance.