Tag: Janis Susan May

You Want to Know What???

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by Janis Patterson

Am I weird? (Wait – don’t ask my husband that – we all know what he’ll say!) But regarding writing, I think I really am totally out of step.

Got an ad this morning from yet another one of those proliferating ‘publicity’ sites offering a new site/protocol/scheme for publicizing my books and ‘helping me to personally interact with my readers.’ I don’t get that. Yes, I know the lifeblood of a book is publicity, and I’m willing to pay for that, but interacting with my readers on a personal level? Really?

I don’t want to interact with my readers and turn them into friends. I have a lovely bunch of friends, some of many decades’ standing, and don’t need nor particularly want to make loads of new friends ‘with whom I can share things’ – especially not through the mechanical grist mill of the internet. I don’t see why my readers would want to talk about – or even be particularly interested in – my private life. My biography is on my website, and it covers everything, if not a little more, about me than any reader should want to know.

What difference is it to the readers how I take my coffee or what color my kitchen curtains are (or if I have curtains in my kitchen at all!) or what I name my pets? How does knowing that affect their enjoyment of my books? Or, more to the point, what business is it of theirs? They are buying my books, but should that also give them access to my private life?

One thing that these ‘I really want to know the real you’ type readers never seem to accept is that the time spent with them discussing pets, kitchen curtains, coffee or any other personal thing is time taken from my writing the next book. ‘Oh, but I’ll only take a little bit of time,’ they croon, ‘I don’t want to bother you…’ without realizing that if I spend ‘a little bit of time’ with everyone who wants a piece of my life all my writing time will be gone and there will be no more books, as I refuse to sacrifice a moment of my family/home time for anything on this earth.

Why is being privy to another’s life – another whom you will probably never meet in person or have a real relationship with – considered so important? Isn’t it my stories that caught their attention to begin with? Why can’t they be satisfied with them? It’s none of their business how I drink my coffee or decorate my house or anything else.

I write the books. They buy and read the books. That is the basic equation, and is all both writers and readers should need.

And although the holiday is over, my new anthology THE FOURTH OF JULY MURDERS is still available on Amazon… Four authors. Four murders. Four wars. It’s great fun!

Following Through

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by Janis Patterson

There is not much about writing in this post. Actually, not much about anything. Remember last month when I posted about the necessity and occasional dangers of researching? Well, I put my money (and lots of it this time!) where my mouth is.

As you read this I am – if our somewhat fluid itinerary is accurate – bouncing along in a jeep somewhere in the desert between St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai and Petra in Jordan. Am I researching a new book? Probably, though that was not the intent of the trip. However, I can do research on a book with a trip to the grocery store, so that’s not surprising.

No, my husband and I have decided to spend as much time as we can traveling – while we can afford it and are still physically able. I know it’s a luxury, but we’ve both worked hard all our lives and it’s something we want. And we don’t want to miss a chance to fulfill our dreams just because we got lazy.

We started a few days early in Cairo, to visit both a few of our favorite spots and to see old friends, then joined the small group of pilgrims to go on to the Dead Sea. I’ve been there before, and it is still as much of a moonscape as I remember. Then to the fabled St. Catherine’s… ah, but I’m telling too much. Next month I’ll talk a little about my trip and show a few pix. There will be more of both on my website, though, if you want to see more!

And – just a bit of writing news. I’m part of a new anthology called July 4th Murders – where every story takes place on July 4th, but each in a different time period. It’s a fascinating concept and one of which I am proud to be a part. I’ll let you know the exact date it goes up for pre-order.

After we get back from Petra, though. That’s been on my bucket list for years, and I intend to enjoy every second of it!

Research, or the Lure of the Rabbit Hole

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by Janis Patterson

There’s nothing more frustrating than a novel which mangles history. Unless, of course, it is alternative history (at best a bastard genre) and clearly labeled as such. What raises my ire is when someone writes what is purported to be historical fiction but has such factual clangers in it as to stop the reader cold. My favorite example of this is from a contest I judged when a Regency hero – handsome, wealthy, arrogant as all of them are – pulls a fountain pen from his pocket to sign some important document.


Really? A fountain pen?


The bladder fountain pen that we all know wasn’t invented for at least fifty years after the Regency. Even the steel-tipped dip pen wasn’t invented until after the end of the Regency. Before that, writing was done with feather quills, usually goose.


Of course I dinged the writer severely for not doing proper research, and sent a rather kindly note of explanation of her low score, hoping to raise her consciousness about the necessity of research. Instead she attacked me viciously, not only in a private letter but on social media, ranting that it was an old-fashioned pen and who would know the difference anyway.


And there is the crux of the matter. Far too many people get their ideas of history from novels (and movies, and TV) and therefore as writers we owe them the honesty of real facts.


Such a high-minded ideal is not without its dangers to us, though. I was working on a fairly early Victorian Gothic where my librarian heroine had to make some ink. Now I knew she couldn’t just pop off to the allsorts shop in the village for a bottle, so I went online and looked up how to make ink.


Who knew there were so many ways to make ink? And there are so many people making it today? Well, it was a plethora of information and I started reading happily. Only thing was, I realized that some of the recipes used items to which my early-Victorian-working-in-remote-Scotland heroine would have no access. But I had to make sure of what was available, which took me to botanical sites and shopping sites and each of them led to other sites, most of which had little to nothing to do with Scotland, libraries or ink, and before I knew it hours later I was deep into the intricacies of making Scottish country cheese. Still don’t know quite how I got there, but it was fascinating.


Now I don’t know if I’ll ever need any minutiae about the making of country cheese in Victorian Scotland, but it did give me a deeper insight into the Scottish rural people of the time, their lives, their chores, their way of living. Besides, I believe that everything is useful in some way, some time, some how. Who knows when some snippet of rural Victorian Scottish life/mores/cheesemaking – or something influenced by them – will show up in a totally unrelated story? It’s one of the dangers and the magic of writing!


Doubtless by now you have figured out that I like research. And, having an inquiring (some say nosy) mind, I must admit I do. It’s one of the most fascinating things in the world. And one of the most dangerous. It can take hold of a story, turn it every way from up, then hand it back to you in a form totally different from the way you originally envisioned it. Or, if you are strongminded enough to corral your story to its original form, those little snippets of research are still there, adding depth and shading – and an occasional surprise – to your story.


A prime rule of good writing is Do Your Research. Another rule of good writing is Do Not Let Your Research Take Over. Usually I manage both, but it’s most definitely a delicate balancing act.

Happy New Year! or Bah, Humbug!

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by Janis Patterson

Somewhere it seems to have been written that the first post of a new year is supposed to be a joyous burst of ambition, resolve and anticipation about all the wonderful things the new year brings.


Humbug!


If you’re like me, the new year is startlingly if not exactly like the old year, but with the added stress of having to remember to change from 2024 to 2025 every time you have to write a date. The house is still messy, laundry has to be done, my daily word count has been ignored, meals have to be planned, cooked and cleaned up after… Plus, I’m tired. And fat. Between the gustatory excesses of Thanksgiving, assorted parties (including a family wedding), and the several days of Christmas gatherings and the pure physicality of extra cooking, shopping and gift wrapping – naturally all done with appropriate snacks and meals – I find myself wishing that the lovely clothes I received were all a size or two larger.


Of course, this too will pass. I will return to what I was before the holidays (and hopefully lose a little more!) and wear my new garments with pride, the house will get clean (okay, cleaner) and life will return to the occasionally bizarre standard we regard as normal.


After the final excesses of New Year’s Eve.


There was a time I went out on New Year’s Eve. Friends would have parties – I even gave a couple myself – or on rare occasions my escort of the minute and I would go clubbing, where at the stroke of midnight we would scream, kiss and hug anyone within reach, dodge a flood of balloons and sip champagne. Where did we get the energy?


This New Year’s Eve The Husband and I did what we usually do on New Year’s Eve – stay home in our jammies, eat a good meal (usually leftovers from December’s overwhelming bounty), sip either a good bottle of Veuve Clicquot (the best champagne ever!) or a mug or two of egg nog (usually virgin) and make a concentrated effort to stay awake until midnight, when we kiss and express our hopes for a better new year for us and for everyone. It doesn’t get better than that, folks. This year we actually stayed up after midnight – not because of any resolution or desire to see the New Year in or a result of our libations… You see, one of our local TV stations was running a Twilight Zone marathon…


Anyway, that is why this is a most untraditional post. I am not going to wax eloquent of the delights inherent in a fresh start, or how you really can keep a resolution to write X number of words every single day, or that you now are free to really work towards making the NYT list, or any such nonsense. That would be as ridiculous as telling you to buy a gym membership and actually keep your promise to go Every Single Day… (Does anyone ever really fulfill that resolution? Anywhere?)


Truth is, you can do any of that or any other kind of beginning any day of the year. Back in my youth there was a popular poster proclaiming Today Is The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life. Kind of cheesy, but also very true. Every day is a new beginning.


Today is your new beginning. So will be tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Enjoy each and every one of them, but use them wisely.


Happy New Year.

Jobs, Responsibilities and Big Girl Panties

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by Janis Patterson

Hope all of you had a wonderful and calorie-filled Thanksgiving! Ours was quiet and simply splendid. I even took a week off from writing… from the computer itself. No email, no games… and my kitchen has never been so clean! We had a lovely and incredibly delicious dinner at my sister-in-law’s with my mother-in-law and aunt-in-law and a lazy afternoon of conversation and multiple desserts. God did indeed bless me with my in-law family, and I am intensely grateful because mine is pretty much all gone. (Now if He could just make holiday calories not stick to my ribs and other portions of my anatomy…)

Anyway, back to the business of writing! During my computer hiatus I did a lot of thinking and enjoying old memories and a long holiday phone conversation (normally I loathe telephones, much prefer email) with a friend of many years. She is a gifted and somewhat well-known actress in regional theatre, now semi-retired, and as we talked for some reason my memory dredged up another conversation from a number of years ago. I had just submitted a book right on deadline (I always prefer to be early) which had probably been the hardest, most miserable writing experience I had ever had. The book just didn’t gel, I could not deal with the characters, the plot that had seemed so perfect (and which worked well on paper but not in execution) just didn’t work… and I had a deadline. Deadlines are great motivators, and I got the book done.

How, my friend asked in wonder, had I managed to do that? How could I create without an overwhelming inspiration?

It was my turn to wonder. After all the performances she had done, the plays she had appeared in, the various roles she had created, I asked, had she never done one on technique alone?

She said no… not, at least, the entire part. Some performances she had started on technique alone, but she swore that once it had gotten running it the inspiration had clicked in. Some times, she confessed, she had let her understudy play the part because she simply could not summon the involvement she had to have.

I don’t understand that kind of thinking. If one is a professional one gets the job done. One doesn’t have to wait for a mental green light or an overwhelming ‘feeling’.

She did not appreciate that sentiment when I expressed it to her by simply saying I was a professional. Writing is a job. While it is wonderful when it happens, one does not need inspiration to do a job. You just sit down, put on your big girl panties and start writing. Put one word after another. It doesn’t make any difference if you have to change them later, you are writing. You are doing your job.

The best piece of writing advice I ever heard was said by the wildly successful Nora Roberts. “Write the book, even if it’s garbage. You can fix garbage. You can’t fix a blank page.”

In other words, be a professional. If you’re a writer, you write. You don’t wait for inspiration or magical insight or anything else. You do your job and you write.