Blog Tour--My Writing Process

Thanks to my friend Jane Wilson, I am participating in the Blog Tour, in which authors write about their writing process, and their writing, by answering the same four questions. Jane posted hers last week, March 3rd, at http://redroom.com/member/jane-wilson. Go check it out. And thanks, Jane, for asking me to blog my two cents' worth.

So, if you're silly curious enough to read four questions and answers about my writing process and my writing, here you go:

1. What am I working on?

My goodness, what am I not working on? I'm always working on multiple projects, which I used to think meant that I was super-creative. But now I think it means I'm not as focused and organized with my time and with my projects as I should be. I'd get more writing finished if I did one thing at a time. For the record, I do not encourage the multiple-project method, unless you are much more organized than I am, and you tend to finish a piece after a decent length of time.

Anyway, I'm finishing a thriller / mystery, titled (maybe), Mattress Girl, though I may stick with its (too) old title, Cursing the Darkness. (I'm sort of sick of that title now, but it fits the work very, very well. And Mattress Girl is not the main character.) Feel free to comment on which title you think sounds more interesting. This is maybe 80% done. A sequel (or prequel) is in minor stages as well. 

I'm also writing a short story, "Cribbage," about a father / son bonding memory, considered by the narrator after his father has passed. This has proven to be a little too close to home, and difficult to finish. 

I'm also working on a historical horror novel about a nasty, evil creature that took part in the plague in Rome and the Great Fire; in The Black Plague that killed a third of Europe (though I focus on the village of Eyam, England, which quarantined itself during the Plague and lost about 80% of its people); in the TB epidemic in New England from 1880-1895; and possibly in the Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 and, if I'm really gutsy, in the AIDS Epidemic, circa early-to-mid 1980s. (Because that's what it was, and is, and I'm not sure, even 34 years later, that we've totally realized that as a society.) I'm actually about a third through this one, though it's in fragments. I speak of Book 1 of this project, which I expect to be a trilogy, at least. 

And did I mention I was drafting a novel told from the POV of the maid (who really existed) or of a servant (who really didn't) of Lizzie Borden, in 1892? And two memoirs?

I also write book reviews for an online mystery magazine. You can see why I do not suggest this juggling-writing method.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I try to turn each genre on its head, or to at least introduce something new to it. I'm writing Cursing the Darkness because I've been reading mystery, and noir, and detective novels, and combinations of those, since my early teens. The darkness, the loneliness, the lone man standing on his own (but not being as alone as he thinks he is) against the evils and ills of his society, of his world--all of that resonates with me. I feel I often do much the same thing, though I'm not a detective. I suspect, though, that I could be a good one, but I wouldn't be able to work in a constrictive environment, like a police force. I wouldn't be able to stand the politics, the red tape, looking in the faces of murderers and abusers and rapists and not being able to beat the hell out of them, the frustration of having to let go of an unsolved case because of the next case...

The memoirs I write because I have something very specific to say in them; to be honest, they're in such an infancy that I don't know how they'll be different yet. Except for its main subject, of course...

The short story in general is a form I like a lot. It's immediately gratifying for the author, in the sense that they're finished faster than a novel, and the editor's Yes or No comes back quicker than an agent's or publisher's does. Mine are different, I think, because I focus on an aspect of the story's genre, or themes, that are not as tread upon as are others. "Hide the Weird," for example, differed because it focused on the minute details of one potential death, one incident, and it ended with a "knowing" detail that was a little different, a little quirky. I like that about short stories, that you can focus on one thing, and turn it around, or amplify it...

The historical horror novel will be different because it takes a bit of the vampire trope (though it's not exactly a vampire, per se) and focuses more on the European vampire myths rather than the American neck-biter. (There's no neck-biting, for example.) These bad dudes are quite nasty because they're more life-drainers and spirit-suckers, like the original European and Asian ones were. They are not Victorian blood-sucking stand-ins for repressed sexual urges--if I can be so bold. And these are not things you'd want to have a romance with! No one gets lovey-dovey about these guys. It's not even an option. These are things you want to run away from, fast--if you can. That's difficult because they tend to hide in the footsteps of bigger catastrophes--like fires, and plagues, and viruses. But they also hide in the biases of the society's reaction towards these catastrophes--and that's another way this trilogy is different. How can you run from such a thing in Eyam, England, during the Plague, when the town's already quarantined? While people in New England in the 1880s and 1890s, for example, were dropping from consumption, a few unfortunate folks were succumbing to this demonic thing--which hid in the footsteps of the TB, and its way to kill even mirrored TB's symptoms. So that's different, too.

3. Why do I write what I do?

Whoops--I kind of answered that in the paragraph above. Though, actually, the real answer for this is because it interests me. A lot. I've got something to say, something to show, and I know I can do so in a different way than what's already been done--at all, or recently, or both. My characters tend to surprise me, which is always good, and I tend to surprise myself. I write some things and I think--Wow! I didn't know I was going to go there! I'm rarely in love with what I write, but it's a blessing when something comes out just right, and a little bit different. "So Many Reasons to Celebrate the Season" worked like that. Didn't even know it was going to come out that way, and say what it said, until it did. "Hide the Weird" was a little more planned in my head, but the ending was still a nice little twist / surprise for me. And so that's why I write what I do as well--to surprise myself, to complete something of my own unique creation that really works. It's like a mechanic making his own engine and liking how it purrs. It's rare for me, but it's blissful when it happens.

4. How does your writing process work?

Oh, Lord. Well, here's the nasty, evil truth, and I'm very ashamed to admit this, but...I don't have a writing process. At all. I don't write the same thing every day, or even consistently. I don't write at the same time every day, or even (what I feel is) consistently. I don't outline. I do listen to music, and I do draft. A lot. When I can. Whenever my job doesn't consume me; whenever I conquer my own fear, or frustration, or lack of focus, or whatever it is (Steven Pressfield calls it Resistance, which is as good a name for it as any) that prohibits me from sitting my butt down and working on one project consistently, at the same time every day, until it's done. This is maddening beyond belief; I would literally tear my hair out if I thought I could afford to lose any more of it. I do not advise my working method, if I can even call it that, for anybody. Sit your butt down and work on one thing (or one big thing and one smaller thing) at one time. Otherwise it'll all paralyze you like it often does me. It is a minor miracle that I've gotten as many projects done as I have, and that I've been published as often as I have. Every finished piece is a miracle baby--even the ones that don't sell. I'm proud of them all, in some way. They're all a piece of me, and they all came out hard.

Well, that's it. Thanks for stopping by! Next week, please check out the writing processes of these three good writers:

A History of Vampires in New England--Thomas D'Agostino

photo: Book cover from Goodreads.

I'm only the third person to rate this book on all of Goodreads...Just sayin'.  For more of my book reviews, my book list, and other nerdy book-related things, please visit my Goodreads site here.

The previous two reviewers gave this book an average of two stars.  I don't see how, as it never pertains to be something it isn't.  It's a book that reviews, summarizes and, frankly, rehashes information that's already out there, but puts it all in one place, and does so with a website's writing feel to it.  (If anything, the real complaint is the $17 tag Borders had put on it.)

Of particular interest to me were the stories of the vampires I'm incorporating into my novel--or trilogy, or whatever--tentatively titled THE GRAVEDIGGERS.  These, mostly, are the stories of Sarah Tillinghast, Nellie Vaughn and Mercy Brown, all woven into one.  (Nellie Vaughn being more or less a mistaken Mercy Brown, but with the now infamous epitaph on her gravestone; and I focus more on Stukeley Tillinghast, Sarah's father.)  And there's a lot to say about them, specifically because the author comes from my neck of the woods, and so is able to write about his visits to some of the places in his narratives.  I've been to some of these places myself, so it was interesting to see pictures of places I have already been to, and to compare our impressions and thoughts.  Essentially, this book was useful to me as a sort of place to gather all my notes--notes I didn't even have to write.  Not that I don't have a whole three-subject notebook of them anyway, as well as many journals and emails to myself.

A criticism would be that this book mostly cites just two others, one of which--Michael Bell's FOOD FOR THE DEAD--is vastly superior.  This one gives just the facts, ma'am, while Bell's gives that, and extensive first-person investigation, more thorough research, and even some slightly comical interviews.  Unless you're writing a novel--or trilogy, or whatever--about this sort of thing, and you only want one book, get Bell's.  But if you have the coin, spring for this one, too.  It's thinner and different and not as well-written or extensive as Bell's, but I think it useful, anyway.  Particularly good were the Introduction, the history of TB, and the description of "Life, Death and Superstition in Early New England," especially for my work.

Check out The Keep near Mercy Brown's grave, but do so at dusk, on a cold February day, like I did--and heed all due respect at this and other such places.  The crypt (or The Keep, as it's called) is really, really, creepy, even more so than the stories, or graves, or anything else.  D'Agostino's book has pics of inside of it, which are invaluable for my work because you can't get inside The Keep anymore--it's bolted shut.

Plague Tidbits

Photo: A boundary stone marking the border of the village of Eyam, England.  The high sheriff would leave food at this rock for the entire village, since the village itself voted to not let anyone in or out until the plague passed.  For a bit of this remarkable story, see my blog entry here.


A few things I thought were interesting as I continue to write and research my WIP (trilogy?) re: the same in our time--and through all time.  You'll see.  Some of the info. culled from Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders and Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Years.  They're both fiction, though the former is infamously researched and realistic and the latter is fact masquerading as fiction, masquerading as fact.  Check it out to see what I mean.  They are both well-written and highly recommended.

--Two watchmen had to guard a plague house, so that nobody went in and nobody went out.  In many areas, they did this in eight-hour shifts, per house.  Roughly, from 10 pm to 6 am; from 6 am to 2 pm; from 2 pm to 10 pm.

--Stories abound about attempted escapes from such houses.  One I see frequently is that the trapped would lower a noose from a window, somehow get it around a guard's neck, and either strangle him, or otherwise keep him occupied until someone successfully escaped. 

--As is the usual about stories like these, you wonder about a few things, like: What about the other guard?  How would you get the rope around his neck?  How would you keep it there while he struggled?  And why wouldn't the guards confiscate things, like rope, before they guard the place?  And where would they get, and sustain, enough men so that six of them could guard each and every plague house?

--At first, you went to the wakes and funerals of the deceased.  But, after the plague hit and so many people died so quickly, it was impossible to do this.  By then, open pits were dug and bodies just thrown in, like you see in the movies about wars, the Holocaust, etc.

--The sick and despondent would at times throw themselves in these pits, and die there.  Some would lay there as dirt got thrown over them, and die suffocating.

--Until the plague hit, the depth of graves was not uniform.  But the authorities insisted on six feet separating the dead from the living; that is, there had to be at least six feet separating the body from the people walking over it.  The grave wasn't six feet deep, as is the common misconception; it must've been a little deeper than that.  There's six feet between the top of the body and the dirt that marks the grave.  Hence the phrase "six feet under" today.  And the practice still continues.

--The authorities would openly lie about the death count, vastly underestimating it to avoid panic (or for whatever reason).  The real numbers came from the gravediggers at the chapel, at the church's graveyard, or at the massive pits.  And so these people were the ones you went to for accurate information.  (Hence the title of my MS.)

--Speaking of graveyards, it was common practice in England and New England (and probably Europe) to bury most of the dead in their church's graveyard.  When this became impossible, because either they ran out of room, or because nobody from the parish was left alive to bury them, they were buried wherever, often in a family plot next to the house.  This then became a common practice, whether the dead died from the plague or not.  (This is especially true with the TB outbreak in New England, esp. RI and NH, from my research.) 

--In Boston and parts of RI, some took the separation of Church and State seriously enough that the dead were buried in the Common Ground, not near the churches.  (Some of the very rich and famous early New Englanders are buried in Boston's Commons.)  The practice of burying the dead in one large community graveyard didn't hit America until the later 1800s.

Well, there's much more, but that's it for now.

One-Sentence Summaries

To further become focused on my writing, it made sense to me this morning (after reading an article in Writer's Digest's "Write Your Novel in Thirty Days issue) to type up one-sentence summaries of the novel I'm currently working on.  Then, while I was at it, I wrote one-sentence summaries for a few other novels currently gestating in the ole noggin as well.  This is more challenging than you might think, but ultimately it's necessary.  Think of it as a thesis statement for an essay or paper: If you don't know what you're writing toward--or even what you're writing about--how can you expect yourself to write it?  You have to know what you're doing; to an extent, you have to also know where you're going.

So, though they may not be perfectly formed yet, here are my one-sentence summaries for a few novels.  Brief notes or explanations may follow each one.  Please feel free to post a comment or send me an email about any thoughts you may have about any of these.  I look forward to your ideas!  And while you're at it, why not do the same for your own writing?  (This would work for any type of writing, and for any length.)

One sentence summary:

The Gravediggers

Fears and bias surrounding an outbreak of TB in 1890s Exeter, Rhode Island, hide the scourge of a true vampire in the town and surrounding area.  [May be combined with the Plague in 1665-6 Eyam, England and AIDS in early 1980s America, and a small RI town today.]  This could be a series, as each of those ideas could be separate novels.

One sentence summary:

Untitled Concentration Camp Novel

A young boy with no artistic talent must either learn one or successfully fake it in order to survive his internment in a Nazi concentration camp whose purpose is to show the world how “well” Germany treats its Jews.

One sentence summary:

Apocalypse

Small groups of people in Kansas City, MO, Warwick, RI, and other major cities throughout the world must survive wars and natural disasters as they attempt to completely revamp what they thought was their “society.”  This includes attitudes about patriotism, religion, and the Bible itself.  This could be a series as well, as each of the last three things could constitute its own novel.

One sentence summary:

The Observer

After a breakdown nobody knew he had, one man must suppress the beliefs of his existence that held him together in order to re-establish himself in the mundane process of everyday American living.