Tag: Janis Susan May

Adventures in Anthology-Land

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by Janis Patterson


I like the anthology format – a short (ca 20K words) length which is appealing to today’s sound-bite sensibilities, several authors, which means several different stories, several different viewpoints, several different styles even if written around the same theme. This broadens the target audience and exposes every one of the contributors to readers they might not otherwise have reached.


On top of my standalone releases I do two Regency-set romance anthologies every year – one with a summer theme and one set at Christmas. Great experience, great publisher, good financial returns – everything needed to give me a totally overblown opinion of my own knowledge and powers.


At an informal gathering of some long-time (multiple decades) writer friends (all working professionals) we were talking about the market and what we could do to improve our sales. Suddenly struck with an attack of the stupids, I suggested “Why don’t we do an anthology ourselves? A mystery anthology?” (Yes, I have seen all the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland movies where someone always cries, “Hey! We’ve got a barn… why don’t we put on a show?”)


After a lot of chatter and very little good sense, we decided to peg our anthology to underserved holidays. I mean, who needs another Christmas or Valentine’s Day anthology? Who has even seen a Labor Day or Memorial Day or St. Swithin’s Day anthology? It’s practically a virgin field.


We decided to start with July Fourth, each of us writing a story about our choice of the various wars that have defended our freedoms. I – for some unknown and unfathomable reason – chose World War I, about which I knew next to nothing. Now I know a lot, much more than is needed for a 20,000 word novella, but that’s the way things go.


Fortunately, as all of us are long-time professionals, all skilled in the mystery genre, coming up with the ideas and actually writing the stories were not difficult at all. What drew us all up short was the non-writing stuff.
Who is going to do the formatting? We all have different formatters, or do it ourselves. What about covers? Same thing. But those were small problems, easily handled.


It was the business side that drew us up short. Now we have all self-published with varying degrees of success, so the mechanical part didn’t faze us, but the financial part did. The vendors only take one name and social security number, so whomever we used would get stuck with the tax bill. There are ways around that, with a portion of the buy-in to be set aside to recompense that person, but it seemed dreadfully complicated. None of us are particular mathematical geniuses (genii?) so through the kind generosity of several other writers we got names of a couple of companies that did fee-splitting, which relieved our minds immensely. The only sad thing is, by the time we got this far it is much too late to get the July Fourth book release on track for a proper pre-release. The only choices we had were to rush it through and sell a less-than-ideal product or put it off a year so we could give it the professional send off – and offer our readers a professional product.


So what did we do? Of course none of us could face putting out a less-than-professional product, so it should be ready for pre-order next June. You expected something different? Of course, that left the question of what to do between now and then… go back to our individual projects after making a release schedule for the July Fourth anthology? Take a much-needed break from writing at all?


Hey, people, we’re writers. What on earth would make you think we would do anything so sensible?
The new anthology is titled Bloody New Year! and is centered on New Year’s Eve/Day. It will be ready for pre-order 15 November. Don’t forget to get your copy!

Musing on the Moon and a Miracle

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by Janis Patterson

Today is Thursday. On Monday I experienced a miracle. A true miracle. I am fortunate enough to live in the path of totality of the Solar Eclipse. For several days thick clouds had been forecast (putting my husband into a fearsome temper – he had actually bought a special solar telescope for the event) and on Monday morning the sky was indeed thickly clouded. We had been invited to some friends’ house with an upper deck perfect for viewing; The Husband didn’t even want to go, saying it was a lost cause, but I insisted, so we did.


The whole group – about 10 people – was worried about the eclipse being invisible, but we went on and took our lunch up to the deck and had a lovely meal and good companionship and – Mirabile Dictu! – just about the time the event was supposed to start holes began to appear in the clouds. To make a long story short, we saw most of the eclipse. We did lose a little of the first part of it, but by about one-quarter of the first half there were only a few thin rags of clouds that really didn’t obscure the view. Seeing the dark circle that was the moon inexorably sliding across the face of the sun, nibbling away at the light, was incredible. Sometimes being seen through the thin scraps of cloud it was even more impressive.


The totality was perfectly visible – and perfectly magnificent. While it is both dangerous and extremely stupid to look at an eclipse without proper protective lenses (you can damage or lose your sight permanently), during the totality you can take a short – SHORT, like a couple of seconds – look because the visible corona is the gas, not the sun itself. Seeing that great dark circle, like a hole in the sky, surrounded by a sparkling halo of white is a sight like none other.
During the totality it is pure magic. The world darkens to a late evening hue, but it is not the same – there is a different quality to the light, an almost aqueous thickening unlike any moment in a regular day. One instantly thinks of fairyland or hidden realms – at least I did. The temperature drops perceptibly and there is a silence almost as if time itself has been suspended.


During the 2017 eclipse in Missouri we were set up in the parking lot of our hotel and there was a dog park for the guests. There were about a dozen dogs in residence and during the totality they went mad, barking and jumping and howling and almost knocking over the fence. I had always thought such a reaction was an old wives’ tale, but no – it happened. Perhaps the ‘old wives’ know a lot more than we give them credit for. There were no dogs where we were on Monday, so no chance of hearing any barking, but I did notice that there were no birds flying during the totality. Neither was there any wind, at least where we were, as if the entire world were caught in a gelatinous stasis.
The totality did not last long and the moon began a stately progression away from the face of the sun, inch by inch retreating and bringing back the light. Eclipse glasses went back on, movement resumed and the light became normal again.


I can see why primitive peoples went in such terror of eclipses. Even in our scientific era, when we know exactly why and how they happen and can predict its happening almost to the exact minute it is a wondrous and somewhat unnerving experience.


So what does all this have to do with writing? To be honest, not much. Oh, we can draw neat little moral aphorisms such as ‘expect a miracle’ or ‘never give up’ and they would be true, but really I just wanted to share the magic I felt. We can always use a little bit of magic, can’t we?

Hook, Line and Sinker – The Problem with First Lines

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by Janis Patterson

Unfortunately we live in a sound bite age – if you don’t get their attention in X amount of seconds you don’t get it. Time was when authors were advised that you had the first chapter to hook the reader (agent, editor or customer). Then it went down to the first five pages. Then the first page. Then the first paragraph. Now people are leaning toward the first line. Logic would dictate that it would stop there, but in this crazy publishing world I wouldn’t bet on it. With a sad fatalism I’m waiting for a list of sure-fire attention-getting first words. Where things will go after that I don’t even dare speculate.

So what do you do? You grab their attention from the first. Now I’m generous, so I personally work under the three sentence rule. You have three sentences to intrigue them enough to read on. Almost every classic novel violates this rule… some of them adhere to the old ‘first couple of chapters’ convention, which means many if not all would never make it to the shelf today. Of course, novels, conventions and writing styles have changed over the years; what was loved and lionized years – decades – centuries – ago is dead weight today. After all, how many modern people read really old books today for pleasure? (I know some do, and good on them, but we’re talking about modern, short-attentioned modern genre readers.)

So what is it about first lines? People say, you have your cover blurb – why won’t that make them read the book? Well, sometimes it will. It and the cover will usually get the reader to look and pick up the book, but the first sentence(s) will make them want to read the rest. (And like all other things in this more than slightly mad business, this is a generalization. Nothing is ever absolutely certain!)

How? is usually the first question. What do you do to hook the reader? What formula is there to make sure that first line makes them want to continue reading?

The first thing you do not do is start off boring. Don’t talk about the weather, or the pretty scenery, or how much you like your new red dress… unless of course, this is so strange or so much of a clue or whatever that it almost turns out to be the turning point/crux of the story. That’s an individual story call.

Some people just start writing and eventually go back to edit; others end up cutting the first thousand or so words to get a good beginning. Every writer at one time or another has been told “Your story starts in the middle of the second chapter – cut everything before that and lard the information into the story later on.” Other writers can craft a winning first line almost from the get-go. Still other writers come up with a sterling first sentence and then create a story to support it. Even other writers… well, you get the idea. Writing is a highly individualistic enterprise and everyone’s process is different. There are requirements about the finished product, but the process is up to the individual writer.

Back to first lines. Do start off in the middle of something exciting. The hero is caught in the middle of a wildfire or is being stalked by a hungry tiger or is hiding from a gunman – or is being made love to by the most beautiful woman in the world whom he has never seen before. Make his emotions your own. Make the reader wonder (1) how did he get into such a situation and (2) how is he going to get out so much that he has to keep reading.

Once the reader is engaged you can tell the rest of the story – either from that point on or going back to the beginning to tell how he got there or whatever timeline the story demands.

Let’s face it – it doesn’t matter how good and outstanding your story is, or how you present it, the reader is not going to read it unless you hook their interest, and one of the primary tools for that is the first line.

Noise Levels and Other Considerations

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by Janis Patterson

This is a noisy world. There are sirens and neighbors and families and appliances… and not even noise-cancelling headphones can guarantee total silence. At least, not at my home with a house reconstruction going on to the west and the neighbor to the east – though a wonderful man in many ways – owning every gasoline-powered piece of lawn equipment ever made. His lawn is beautiful, though.

Now all writers are different. Some like lots of noise, claiming it is a stimulant, while others like pure silence as they say it frees their creativity. Depending on the time and our mood of the moment I daresay most of us fall somewhere in between.

Some writers swear by writing in different places – cafes, car parks, just about any place you can think of. Now when we have to be someplace besides our office, a writer can work almost anywhere, especially a writer under deadline. Have to take your child to ballet practice? Need to get the car worked on? Have a lunch hour at work? You can take a laptop or one of those keyboards that feeds  into your phone (I keep meaning to get one of these, just as soon as I get a phone which can handle it), or even a humble pen and paper, then make use of the time to up your word count.

Other writers believe in total silence – or as total as one can achieve short of moving to an uninhabited mountaintop in some third world country. Noise-cancelling headphones help, as sometimes does a white noise machine, but nothing can truly drown out the noise of the modern world.

As I usually do, I stand firmly in both camps. There are times I write happily in front of the blaring television while listening to The Husband tell me about his day, and other times I have on my headphones, my office drapes drawn and a sign on the door threatening a dire fate to anyone who disturbs me.

So what is the best way to write? I can only speak for myself, but as always my practice varies. If I had to choose just one atmosphere, it would be classical music (either full orchestra or piano only – no screechy strings, please) playing softly in the background, preferably of an emotion and tempo appropriate to whatever I was working on at the moment. After that, as pure a silence as could be achieved. Of course, I would – and have – made do with whatever had to be undergone at the moment.

By contrast, I have a friend – an excellent writer – who is addicted to writing in cafés. Now I admit there are advantages to writing in a café, foremost of all being to command endless cappuccinos by the mere raising of a hand! On the other hand, there is a constant swirl of people and babble of conversation, to say nothing of being the object of curiosity by the customers (“They’re real writers? And they’re working on books?”) for all as if we were some sort of exhibit in a raree show. I am no shrinking violet when it comes to being in the public eye – far from it – but not while I’m trying to concentrate on work.

However – being a fair individual and willing to experiment, I have joined my friend on occasion, and yes, despite being interrupted by spectators telling me about how they have always wanted to write a book, or have a sure-fire idea for a best seller, both broadly implying that I should stop and either teach or co-write with them (grrr) I managed to get a fair amount of writing done. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really writing – just lots of typing that, on a cool-headed reading the next day, was barely one baby step away from garbage. I didn’t try to save any of it, but I did go put on some Chopin, close the drapes and the door and try to salvage the underlying idea.

By contrast, my friend actually wrote a short story that same afternoon, one when it was polished, she sold.

How boring life would be if we all worked exactly alike!

A New Year, A New Me?

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by Janis Patterson

Don’t worry – this isn’t going to be an evangelistic paean about how I’ve totally remade myself to claim a glorious and bounteous New Year and the rest of my life. That would be nice, though, but I’ve tried it before and it doesn’t work. For long, at least. I think my record is about two weeks.


No, I’m the same old curmudgeonly, opinionated, workaholic biddy I’ve always been. The only changes are that I am a year older and – for a blessed change – rested. From writing stuff, at least. I finished my 22 novel republishing blitz on 25 October. I was so tired (and cranky, I will admit) that The Husband insisted I take November and December off.
And that proved to be a good thing. I am indeed rested and the creative mind is starting to percolate again. I would like to say that my house is cleaner, but I don’t tell lies. Sadly, it probably never will be, as I totally lack the housekeeping gene… and I thought I’d never marry anyone who was as bad a housekeeper as I, but… A sterling man in every other way, but…


We spent the early part of December in Germany, redoing our favorite Christmas market tour, enjoying good German food and beer and a refreshingly enthusiastic attitude toward Christmas everywhere from the markets to the stores to the street decorations. And the people. Love the people.


It’s a good thing I had no other commitments, as since the third week of December I have been at war with Lufthansa airlines about their last-minute cancellation of the final leg of our inbound flight and the subsequent disappearance of our luggage. My bag was found – in the hands of a thief, no less – but The Husband’s is still among the missing. Not to go into details, Lufthansa has handled the thing very badly and withheld information we need if we are to go forward, information that none of the dozen or so of Lufthansa employees we talked to said we needed. Needless to say, it is going to get very ugly.


Back to writing. Aside from the Lufthansa unpleasantness it has been a lovely two months. Germany was – as always – beautiful and fun. My writing mind is unfolding and starting to bloom. I’ve contracted for two novellas – one a Regency romance for a ‘summer weddings’ anthology, the other a WWI mystery for an anthology centered on July 4th. The other novellas include the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WWII and Viet Nam.


And that doesn’t address the two nearly-finished books of my own done for my own publishing company and a major new release that has to be stage-managed. I’m even considering releasing a compilation of my blog posts from years past. Plus, we’re off to Egypt again in a short time. This will be my 8th trip and this time I get to see Abu Simbel for the very first time! I’m so excited!


Sounds like I won’t be rested for very long.


A writer’s work is never done. But – it is a lot easier when you are rested both mentally and physically, even if that desirable state only lasts a short time. You have to let the well refill. A happy new year to all of you –