About ltownsdin

Author of the Spirit Lake Mystery Series

Mystery Writer Critique Group

Posted on March 13, 2012 by ltownsdin

Last Saturday, seven mystery writers from my Capitol Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime met at Temple Coffee on S St. in downtown Sacramento to figure out the who, why, what, where and how of beginning a mystery writer critique group.

On that breezy spring morning with the daffodils bobbing, I felt ready for something new. Several among our group had been in critique groups in the past and for others, like me, this was a first. Over coffee and Chai tea we got to know each other a little better and talked about the upcoming Left Coast Crime conference this month, our books, published and yet to be, and the critique group.

We didn’t want it to be rigid and rule-bound or too unstructured. Commitment was important. We passed out critique group guidelines.

We gave ourselves several tasks to complete for our next meeting to help us learn more about what we wanted from the group. That prompted me to do some ruminating.

Why do I want to belong to a critique group?

Writer friends. Until recently, I have worked in organizations as a writer/editor/communications person. My friends in that environment were wonderful people, but not aspiring fiction writers. Now, I’d like to enlarge my circle with friends who have my same interests. Being in a group that talks about writing for two or three hours at a stretch sounds like heaven to me.

You Rock and You Suck. I need to connect with the real world in my writing and not only my internal world. One inner voice tells me I’m great and its evil twin tells me everyone is writing mystery novels and they are all more likely to get published than mine, and so on.

What my rational self knows is that neither of these voices speaks the truth. I write because I love it. Even rewriting and editing. I also want others to like what I write and that’s why I’m joining a critique group. Otherwise, it’s just me and my inner twins: You Rock and You Suck. I need a reality check.

I’d like to hear from those of you who have been in critique groups. What worked for you? What didn’t?

Gearing up for Left Coast Crime

Posted on March 6, 2012 by ltownsdin

This is a big month for me. I’ll be attending my second conference for mystery writers and fans, Left Coast Crime March 29 – April 1 in Sacramento. http://www.leftcoastcrime.org/2012/

In 2009, I attended the California Crime Writers Conference in Pasadena, a wonderful first experience. I listened to presentations, filled notebooks with new information and talked with a few people at the banquet. Keynotes Robert Crais and Laurie King are two of my favorite mystery/thriller/suspense authors.

Among her many quotes, Laurie King said:

“My name is Laurie King and I write crap. Is this as good as I can make this crap? Don’t take yourself seriously, but do take the writing seriously.”
“I don’t really believe in New York.”

With my bookshelf full of how-to books, this was golden advice from Robert Crais:

“Only one way to write a novel. Your way.”

An admitted introvert, the scheduled networking cocktail party was event overload for me, so I didn’t attend. Although thrilled with everything I learned, I missed out by not diving into the roomful of strangers, and vowed to do it differently the next time.

This article about Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking on Brain Pickings was great preparation for the Left Coast Crime conference:

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/02/20/ted-2012-full-spectrum-reading-list/

Susan Cain says, “Introversion — along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness — is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women living in a man’s world, discounted because it goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality trait, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.”

Here’s her wonderful TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html?source=facebook#.T1YwqfLQ5X4.facebook

I’m paraphrasing but this advice stayed with me: When you attend a conference or networking event, make it your goal to make one real friend. You can’t really connect with all those people anyway.

This time, I’ve registered to participate in a day-long workshop, submitted pages for review and volunteered as a panel room monitor. But I’m also hoping to make one new friend to share my writing interests with, and maybe even connect with an agent!

Left Coast Crime is for mystery readers and writers. Check it out!

http://www.leftcoastcrime.org/2012/

Practicing Postcard Fiction

Posted on February 28, 2012 by ltownsdin

My post today is about practicing a new form of writing. New for me, that is. Postcard Fiction. Last week someone liked my post so I clicked on her icon. That led me to this wonderful blog:

http://postcardfiction.com/

I loved the combination of photos and fifty-word parameter for each story and wanted to try it. Hope you like it and if you have similar sites to recommend, please do!

Filling the Well

A crescent, an arc of landscape cradling an ocean, holds her. Waves entice her toes, grateful for the lick. A crescent, an arc of landscape, a lick, and what was empty overflows.

How NaNoWriMo Changed My Writing Habit

Posted on February 21, 2012 by ltownsdin

I read a fascinating article in the New York Times Sunday magazine about how Target goes to great lengths to pinpoint our buying habits.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

What really stayed with me was the research about how our habits develop. It made me wonder if I could apply that information to understand why my writing habit changed after the NaNoWriMo challenge last November. http://www.nanowrimo.org/

I wrote 2,000-plus words a day for a month during the nano challenge. Before that, I could be distracted by anything, even housework. It took me two years to write the 90,000-word mystery novel I’m finishing now, and about forty-five days to write 85,000 words of a new mystery using the nano schedule.

The Times article offered insight in the form of a three-step formula for creating a habit. Cue, Routine, Reward. And the author even put it in terms I could relate to by using an example of a chocolate-seeking rat.

I applied that formula to explain what happened to my writing output during nano. My cue: open my laptop; my routine: write until I hit the daily number; and my reward: watch the total number of words substantially increase each day. Deeply satisfying.

Beginner’s Mind

Beginner’s mind is what I loved about the NaNoWriMo process. It reminded me of my first mystery. I wrote it in a few months and had fun with it. I rarely stopped to edit, simply enjoying getting the story and characters on the page. But my novel didn’t attract any agents. This was before the self-publishing and eBook phenomenon. I put it in a drawer and tried again.

The next time I made sure all the parts fit before moving on to the next what if. I edited as I went. I agonized over every word, toggling between the creative mind and editor’s mind. No wonder it took so long. Now it’s being reviewed by colleagues. So far, I’ve had good feedback so the effort was worth it even though I did it the hard way.

I’m excited about digging back into my nano rough draft. Granted, writing the nano way is probably easier if you’re working with a series as I am. I already knew my core characters and setting.

How did the Nano cue, routine, reward process change my writing habit long-term?

Every day, I open my laptop, I get my writing done, and I feel good about it. Everything else is secondary. Keeping track of words might seem mechanical, but having a goal keeps me going and when I run out of ideas generated by my brain, my inner self speaks. That’s when my best writing happens.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on what influences your writing habit.

Believe

Posted on February 14, 2012 by ltownsdin

Last week I wrote about my Amherst Writers and Artists group. This week I’d like to write about another group I belong to—Sisters in Crime—an international organization that promotes the development and advancement of women writing crime fiction.

I have been a member of Sisters in Crime (SinC) International and both the Sacramento Chapter, Capitol Crimes and the Orange County Chapter for five years. This organization is made up of authors, readers, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians, and others who love mysteries.

It’s where I go once a month to learn from authors who write in the “mystery” genre: cozy, hardboiled, noir, historical, sci-fi, paranormal, romance, thrillers, suspense, literary, and so on. Most recently, an author who writes the steamier romance mysteries set her story in Pelican Bay prison. That was an eye opener.

Our speakers are not always authors. They are often experts in peripheral fields such as law enforcement, victim advocates, forensics, or the medical profession to name just a few.

We are a community

We all help each other along in this organization. Experienced authors advise new writers, and some of us meet in writing and critique groups. Yesterday morning I met for breakfast with one of my Sisters in Crime to exchange suggestions on our works in progress. I can’t wait to dive in today and use her invaluable insight on my mystery. Writing is solitary work, but groups like SinC and the friendships we make help us to feel connected.

Between meetings, I visit the SinC online community where I can learn about the changing publishing scene and navigating the latest advances in social media, in addition to the craft of writing. So far, I have been a lurker. I’ll write more about that another time.

But what most often stays with me, especially at our monthly meetings, are the inspirational words the speakers leave with us, what has helped them to survive doubt and rejection.

At our last meeting, the speaker offered this:

“Believe. You will never get anywhere in this business if you don’t start with that.”

One of the reasons I started this blog was in hopes that writers attracted to this site will find something useful that might help with their own journeys. I do know one thing for sure, when one of us thrives, we all benefit.

Capitol Crimes, The Sacramento Chapter of Sisters in Crime