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The Writing Life: Basic Principles from Dear Abby

Posted on December 15, 2015 by

by Sherri Burr

In a “Dear Abby” column appearing in local newspapers on September 10, 2013, the famed advice columnist received this query:

…I’m wondering if there is a basic principle you abide by in order to help guide you when giving advice. ~ Curious Reader

She responded:

I hadn’t really thought about it, but I suppose it’s something like this: Show up for work ready to put forth my best effort. Be honest enough to admit that not everyone agrees with me or that I’m sometimes wrong. Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Don’t pull any punches, don’t preach and always try to be succinct.

Reading her response, it occurred to me this advice applies to the writing life.

First, writers need to work in a disciplined manner at a home office or designated area. Phil Jackson, a retired jockey who penned the memoir On a Fast Track, writes from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. during the week in his home office. Western author Melody Groves, a retired school teacher, writes Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. When Groves taught, she wrote between 4:45 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. She views writing as a job to be taken seriously, as if paid hourly.

Others who have full-time jobs may write in the mornings before the rest of their home crew awakes, or in the evening after their family sleeps. As a university professor, Kathy Kitts wrote nonfiction from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. and fiction from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Personally, I write in 90-minute blocks throughout the day. I read a New York Times article that praised the virtues of taking breaks after each 90-minute session.

Whenever you choose to write, show up, ready to put fingers to keyboard, pen to paper, or voice into a device of your choice.

Doing your best may vary from day to day. Sometimes, you arrive at your designated writing space with ideas flowing and ready to produce. Other times, your mental processes struggle. For those moments, consider playing Mozart, Vivaldi, or other music in the background or through your ear buds to stimulate your brain. In his book The Mozart Effect, Don Campbell extolled the ability of music to stimulate creativity. He subtitled his work “Tapping the power of music to heal the body, strengthen the mind, and unlock the creative spirit.”

Dear Abby’s next piece of advice admonishes to be honest enough to admit not everyone agrees with you or you’re sometimes wrong. This is important when seeking feedback from critique groups. Not everyone is going to consider that the words you put on paper proclaim you to be the next Shakespeare. It’s important for writers to be open to receiving criticism and admit editing is necessary.

When Dear Abby wrote, “Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” she was quoting the oath administered to witnesses in legal proceedings.

This oath applies whether writers pen nonfiction or fiction. With nonfiction, because the reader expects the words to be true, the author should so deliver. Memoirists who shade the truth to make their stories more dramatic have been immensely criticized, and publishers have sometimes pulled their work from the market. With fiction there must be truth in the emotions of the characters, even if the words are products of an author’s imagination.

Years ago, I took a Dramatic Writing course at the University of New Mexico with famed professor Digby Wolfe who had written for Laugh In. An important exercise called “Truth or Fiction” required each student to write and stage a short play for class. Then the audience had to guess whether it was truth or fiction. Wolfe urged his students to produce both their nonfiction and fiction with emotional richness.

Dear Abby’s final point is: don’t pull punches, don’t preach, and always try to be succinct. For writers, the first maxim relates to not softening the emotional blows of your words. Let the characters go for broke, no matter how hard the story may be for the reader to consume. If told effectively, the reader will obtain the moral without needing to be preached its ethical underpinnings. Being succinct requires not wasting words. For example, Melody Groves is fond of eliminating the word “that” from work she critiques. She finds “that” often unnecessary and once the writer thinks about it, he or she agrees.

To summarize, writers must show up to produce their best work. Be honest, be succinct, and don’t pull punches or preach.

Sherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, she has authored or co-authored 20 books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being (West Academic, 2014). Sherri is also a long-time member of SouthWest Writers and a regular contributor to the organization’s newsletter SouthWest Sage.

This article was originally published in the December 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

An Interview with Author Keith Pyeatt, Part 1

Posted on December 10, 2015 by

Keith Pyeatt is an engineer turned novelist who writes paranormal thrillers with a psychological twist that he calls “horror with heart.” Living for ten years in an isolated cabin in Vermont may have influenced his choice of genre, but his empathetic nature is what helps him create a variety of characters — “likeable, despicable, tortured, and those ‘gray’ characters you can’t quite decide whether to love or hate.” Keith has four published standalone novels including Struck, Dark Knowledge, and Above Haldis Notch, with Daeva (October, 2015) being his most recent. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and his website KeithPyeatt.com.

What is your elevator pitch for Daeva?
Daeva pits supernatural manipulation against human devotion when a powerful demon with a grudge against mankind stands ready to gain access to the world.

What sparked the initial story idea for the book?
My working title was Imagination, and my plan was to write a novel that showed how a strong paranormal influence would change different characters over the years. I decided a young boy would receive what appeared to be a great gift: a friendly entity who lived inside the boy’s mind and could grant him the power to make things happen. The boy accesses the power by using his imagination, which is fun and exhilarating at first, but the “gift” is actually a demon with his own agenda. The storyline expanded quickly as I wrote the first draft and developed the different characters’ motivations. The initial idea that sparked the novel is still there, but it became a launching point for a much more intricate plot.

Tell us about your main protagonist, his flaws and strengths, and the hurdles he tries to overcome.
Chris was raised to host a demon in his head, an upbringing which gave him some interesting personality defects. He’s inherently a good guy, and his sister Sharon helps pull out his best side, but he keeps many secrets and doesn’t allow anyone to get too close, partly out of need, partly out of habit. Unfortunately for Chris, even a lifelong commitment to being fair and strong can become a character flaw when a demon knows your every thought, desire, and need. And this particular demon has thousands of years of experience manipulating men, and he can dangle a mighty big carrot in front of his host to help lead him astray.

Why did you decide to use the particular setting(s) you chose?
For the macro-settings, Connecticut gave me elements I needed for a general location, and the time period seemed to take care of itself. I went into the past to set up a history for the daeva and moved forward from there. About three-quarters of the novel takes place in late 1992 and early 1993.

The micro-settings were really the key to creating atmosphere in Daeva. Minnie’s cabin in the woods gave me a combination of beauty and eeriness as well as the atmosphere of cold isolation and loneliness that I needed in Part 1. Rowena’s cluttered little house became the next important setting. It helped create the right atmosphere while characters frantically worked to piece together information and plot a course of action. A rural wooden bridge spanning a stream added an atmosphere of danger and mystery to the ending.

Of the four novels you’ve published, which one did you enjoy writing the most? Who is your favorite character?
I liked editing Daeva the most (good thing!), but I enjoyed writing the first draft of Dark Knowledge the most. It just poured out of me, and it showed me how fun it is to create complicated and engaging “gray characters,” the ones you can’t quite hate and can’t quite love. Lydia is my favorite character in that novel, and if there ever was a gray character, it’s her. She comes across as completely despicable initially, and she definitely enjoys her evil moments throughout, but there’s more to her than is shown in those early chapters. A great joy I have is when someone finishes reading the novel and tells me, almost reluctantly (as if they expect me to be disappointed) that they don’t hate Lydia. A little voice inside me yells WooHoo!

What is your writing routine like? What is your writing process like?
I write in long stretches. Ideally, I like to write every day, but sometimes reality interferes with creating fiction. My process is to start by creating some primary characters and a rough outline (with an ending). I write a first draft that’s loose and sloppy. It will wander. There will be repetition, inconsistencies, time frame problems, and gaping plot holes. There will be a huge number of typos, weak sentences, clichés, and vague notes like “fill in details” or “modify motive” or “fix time frame.” Sometimes I back up and change something to keep the first draft moving toward the ending (or revised ending) I have in my head, but I try to keep moving forward. I keep notes as I write so I’ll have an outline of what I actually wrote that’ll be more accurate than the outline of what I had planned to write.

I always edit novels start to finish, then I begin again. First edits are slow, with a lot of fresh writing and rewriting and deleting chunks of text. Successive edits tighten things up, and after several edits, they start going faster, which is important to get a good feel for the novel as a reader. I keep editing until I’m happy. Then I go away for a while, come back, and find myself shocked with the number of new things I find to fix and old problems that still need attention. When I can leave the novel alone for a while, come back, and still feel good about it, I’m getting near the end. Only a few dozen more edits to go. *smile*

If you suffer from writer’s block, how do you break through?
I’m of the mindset that you don’t wait for inspiration; you go after it…with a club. When writing a first draft, I generally muscle through a “block.” I’m not afraid to write something I’ll later delete or rewrite. It’s important to me to keep the process going, and I’ll usually stumble onto something that works if I keep hammering away. In editing, if I just can’t seem to make a paragraph or section flow and convey what I want, I’ll take a break for a few hours to workout, run, hike, play with the dogs, read, or do some project around the house.

What advice do you have for beginning or discouraged writers?
Write what you enjoy writing (which is probably what you enjoy reading), even if it’s not currently a hot-selling genre.

To learn more about Keith and his writing, including what he’s working on now, go to Part 2 of “An Interview with Author Keith Pyeatt” on klwagoner.com.

KLWagoner150_2 KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. She has a new speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.

Preparation, Poison and Pitfalls: A Follow Up to NaNoWriMo

Posted on December 8, 2015 by

by Bentley Clark

Since writing the article “Are You Ready to Write a Novel in November?” regarding National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), much—or, as you will read, little—has happened.

In October, I was overcome with enthusiasm for writing fiction: the planning, the wordsmithing, the self-congratulating. I even read all of my back issues of Writer’s Digest. Oh, October was a gloriously productive month!

As November 1 approached and the 50,000 word goal loomed on the horizon, I bolstered my courage—as I do every year—with the mantra, “I’ve done it before, I can do it again. After all, I am a novelist.”

But I never crossed the 50,000 word finish line. So, what exactly happened? In an attempt to uncover what went wrong, I examined my writing process. Surely it is no different from a million other writers’ and, in many circumstances, these very steps yield New York Times Bestsellers:

Step 1: Prepare
I hit the ground running with this year’s NaNo novel. A compelling main character marched out of the detritus of my brain and demanded to have her story written. Alexandra was flawed and passionate and went about the business of murder with determination and devotion.

In preparation for telling Alexandra’s peculiar story, I devoured books about edible poisons. Mealtime conversations began and ended with me regaling my husband with the innumerable ways I could kill him with carefully concocted culinary delicacies. I cataloged the poisons, made color-coded notecards and pinned them to my bulletin board with care and shiny, silver pushpins. Then, I drafted the outline: the victims, the motives, and the murders.

With my cohesive outline and new-found expertise in killing a man with roots, flowers and berries, I was convinced this would be my best NaNo novel yet. After my meticulous preparation, my magnum opus of obsession and retribution would well-nigh write itself.

Step 2: Acquire the Proper Tools
No magnum opus is self-written without the proper tools. This particular book demanded a package of blue BIC Triumph 537R Rollerball pens, a new Moleskine notebook, Scrivener writing software and a dark, gothic Pandora station. (The book also requested Red Vines and chocolate-orange Piroulines, but I had to draw the line somewhere.)

Step 3: Brag About Your Derring-Do
If you are going to do something as ridiculous as writing a novel in a month, you might as well invite those around you to gawk. To that end, I told my husband and my parents that I was participating in NaNoWriMo again this year. But, in light of my brilliant, self-writing novel-to-be, I also took my braggadocio a few steps further by telling my boss and my work colleague. And then I wrote an article about it.

Making these sorts of announcements holds a writer’s feet to the fire: write a novel or eat crow.

Step 4: Brew Many, Many Pots of Tea and Stare Off into the Middle Distance
PG Tips tea is absolutely essential for this step. And a well-chosen writing soundtrack can prove indispensable for world-class, award-winning middle-distance staring. (See Step 2.)

Step 5: Sit Down and Write
While Steps 1-4 are optional, Step 5 is not.

On November 1, I sat down with my pens, my Moleskine, my Scrivener and my Pandora station and began to write. I managed to knock out the requisite 1,667 words a day for the first week or so. Then life came knocking on my home office door. Illness and family crises forced my novel into the back seat. And my enthusiasm went with it. Copious pots of tea were consumed and the middle distance was masterfully stared off into, but the story stalled at 17,000 words.

Alas, in 2015, I was many things. A novelist was not one of them. However, in my 17,000 words, I set the scene for two murders, wrote the backstory of two unfortunate but likable victims and discovered the tragic reasons for Alexandra’s murderous predilections. The magnum opus was neither magnum nor opus. But it was, ultimately, a start. A fantastic 17,000 word start. And there’s something to be said for that.

Step 6: Bake a Crow Pie
Know any good recipes?

BentleyClark125 Bentley Clark hopes to one day make a career of drinking tea, staring into the middle distance, and using phrases such as “derring-do.”

This article was originally published in the January 2012 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

Image “Out Of One’s Head, Relax The Brain” courtesy of thaikrit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Making the Most of Writing Markets

Posted on December 3, 2015 by

by Chris Eboch

You’ve heard about the enormous slush piles at publishing houses. And no doubt you’ve heard what’s in those piles—90 percent inappropriate submissions. These can be outrageous mistakes, such as sending fiction to a publisher that only does nonfiction, or even erotica to a children’s book publisher.

You would never make such a beginner mistake. You understand the importance of market research. But are you doing the best possible job with it?

Many editors report “close but not quite” submissions. Marileta Robinson, Senior Editor at Highlights for Children, says, “The majority of submissions we see are in the ballpark of meeting our guidelines. That’s not to say that the majority are right for Highlights. Tone, length, writing quality, age appropriateness, and subject matter have a great deal to do with a manuscript’s chances of success.”

Digging Deeper
2016 market guides are coming out in time for the new year. These are a great place to start your research. They list hundreds of publishers, with details about what the editors want. Most include a category index, which can help you narrow your selections. The listings then give detailed writers’ guidelines.

Don’t stop there, though. Most publishers now post their catalogs online. These help you understand what the market guide listings mean, and identify differences between a publisher’s imprints. Websites may also offer more detailed and up-to-date writers’ guidelines. The final step is to read some of the publisher’s offerings.

Robinson suggests, “Reading the guidelines and current needs posted on our website and studying several issues of the magazine can help a writer learn what we are and are not looking for.”

Molly Blaisdell, author of the picture book, Rembrandt and the Boy Who Drew Dogs, starts market research with “a reader’s approach. I learn about books all over—networking at conferences, going to bookstores, chatting with folks online.” She keeps a journal that lists each book’s title, publisher and editor, plus notes about the editor, and any personal contact.

After gathering this information, Blaisdell keeps it organized with a submission spreadsheet. “I start a new line every time I learn the name of a new house or editor that I am interested in. After some research I will add the title of my book that I think best connects with that house. I gather hard concrete evidence about what these editors and agents like: books, genres, etc. That stuff goes in the comments.”

Once you have all the market information, you can use it in your queries to show the editor that you understand her needs. “My queries are always specific,” Blaisdell says. “I met you at the XYZ conference. I read about you on XYZ blog. You edited XYZ book. I love that book and feel a connection to my work because of XYZ. I’m sending to you because you like XYZ. If the editor or agent that you are interested in has a blog, you need to become a faithful reader and post on it sometimes.”

The payoff? Blaisdell says, “If I glance down my spreadsheet, my last 20 submissions all led to personal responses [such as] requested manuscripts or a wish to see more work.”

Time Well Spent
All this research sounds like a lot of work, but, Blaisdell says, “You have to be pretty lazy these days to not target houses. Just Google the editor’s name! Don’t know the editor? Google ‘editor’ and the book title and the author’s name.”

With all the information available, beware of getting carried away by market research. “The tricky thing is not wasting your time,” Blaisdell says. “You should be working toward creating a list of targeted editors. Do not collect any information about anyone that is not a real connection. Do not put a name in your spreadsheet without a reason!”

Writers’ conferences can also provide insight to an editor’s taste. A critique or pitch session can also help you jump over the slush pile, or reach editors who aren’t generally open to submissions. Make sure you have a suitable manuscript before submitting, though. At one conference, I met an editor and we got along well. But I was writing historical fiction and fantasy at the time, the two genres he dislikes. Later, I developed an original paperback series—just what he published. I sent him the proposal and first manuscript. A month later, he called to express his interest in the Haunted series, and we contracted for three books, The Ghost on the Stairs, The Riverboat Phantom and The Knight in the Shadows. Networking paid off—but only because I paid attention to my market research and waited until I had something he wanted.

Go ahead and grab a new market guide as a holiday present to yourself. But know that your marketing journey is just beginning. Researching markets and making connections is a year-round process—one that’s worthwhile when it leads to the gift of publication!

Chris Eboch writes fiction and nonfiction for all ages. In Bandits Peak, a teenage boy meets strangers hiding on the mountains and gets drawn into their crimes, until he risks his life to expose them. The Eyes of Pharaoh is an action-packed mystery set in ancient Egypt. The Genie’s Gift is an Arabian Nights-inspired fantasy adventure. In The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan girl in ninth-century Guatemala rebels against the High Priest who sacrifices anyone challenging his power. Her writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers and Advanced Plotting.

Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog. Sign up for her Workshop newsletter for classes and critique offers.

Chris also writes novels of suspense and romance for adults under the name Kris Bock; read excerpts at www.krisbock.com.

This article was originally published in the December 2010 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

What Writing Books Don’t Tell You

Posted on December 1, 2015 by

by Kirt Hickman

I do a lot of critiques, and I see similar mistakes in submission after submission. Eventually, I began to realize that the problems I see most often are those that I didn’t learn from writing books. For whatever reason, these key pieces of advice have managed to slip through the cracks. Writing books don’t discuss them, or the books contradict one another, leaving writers floundering for the correct answer.

Filter Words
I first learned about the damage filter words can do in a critique that David Corwell wrote for me. Later I found an article that called them “viewpoint intruders”—an apt name, because that’s what they do. These are words like saw, felt, heard, watched, etc., that take the reader out of the character’s point of view.

Consider this example from a critique submission, in which the filter words are shown in bold text.

Clara looked around at her fellow passengers. She overheard snatches of conversation in Italian. She saw parents feeding snacks to children, even a breast-feeding mother.

Here, the reader isn’t looking at passengers, overhearing conversations, or seeing parents feed children. The reader is standing at a distance, watching Clara as Clara looks at, overhears, and sees the action of the scene. These words have become a filter between Clara and the reader.

The author can eliminate the first sentence because Clara doesn’t see herself looking around. The rest of the passage can be written without filter words:

All around Clara, people spoke in Italian. Parents fed snacks to their children. One woman nursed her infant.

Notice that the original narrative focuses on Clara (Clara looked, she overheard, she saw), while the revised narrative focuses on the things Clara is focused on (people spoke, parents fed, one woman nursed). This is as much an issue of character viewpoint as it is an issue of narrative style. When you write, don’t focus on your viewpoint character. Rather, focus on what your viewpoint character is focused on.

Prepositional Phrases
Many books will tell you to omit any word that’s not absolutely necessary, and that’s good advice. What they don’t point out is that those unnecessary words often appear as prepositional phrases. Examine every prepositional phrase in your manuscript. Does it provide information that’s both new and necessary? Consider this example:

Chase stood among the clues in the cockpit and let them tell their story.

If the reader already knows Chase is in the cockpit, write this as:

Chase stood among the clues and let them tell their story.

Depending on the context, you may only need:

Chase let the clues tell their story.

Now you’re writing a tight narrative.

“That”
This one I learned from Larry Greenly at an SWW meeting years ago. The word that is often used unnecessarily. It becomes a speed bump that slows down the reader. Consider the following example, excerpted from a letter my hero wrote to his daughter in my own science fiction novel Worlds Asunder:

I’m writing to let you know that my homecoming will be delayed. I know that you and the girls were looking forward to seeing me, but a case has come up that will delay my departure.

Wherever you see the word that, delete it and read the sentence without it. If the sentence still makes sense, omit the word that. In this example, only the third occurrence of that is necessary.

I’m writing to let you know my homecoming will be delayed. I know you and the girls were looking forward to seeing me, but a case has come up that will delay my departure.

Direct Address
Direct address occurs when a character says the name of the person he’s addressing:

“What time is it, Jennifer?”

She consulted her watch. “Four o’clock, Tommy. Why?”

“Already?” He snatched up his backpack and bolted for the door. “Jennifer, my mom’s gonna kill me.” He didn’t even help clean up the toys they’d strewn across the living room.

Some books advise writers to use direct address as a way to avoid attributives. I disagree. Notice how much more natural the dialogue feels when I move the characters’ names from the spoken lines to the dialogue tags:

“What time is it?” Tommy asked suddenly.

Jennifer consulted her watch. “Four o’clock. Why?”

“Already?” Tommy snatched up his backpack and bolted for the door. “My mom’s gonna kill me.” He didn’t even help clean up the toys they’d strewn across the living room.

Widow/Orphan Control
Widow/Orphan control is a function in MS Word that tries to prevent a single line of a paragraph from appearing at the top or bottom of a page. When this function is turned on, it creates a variation in the number of lines from page to page. It looks sloppy. Turn this function off in the “Format Paragraph” menu, under the “Line and Page Breaks” tab.

Proofreading
Many books advise proofreading carefully. In my experience, that’s not enough. You must have somebody else—a qualified editor—proofread your work. Writing books do not sufficiently stress the importance of this. When I started paying a proofreader to go over my submissions, I began placing in contests and getting positive replies from editors and agents about 50 percent of the time. Prior to that, I received nothing but rejections. Don’t underestimate the power of proofreading.

Kirt Hickman is a technical writer turned fiction author. His books include three sci-fi thriller novels Worlds Asunder (2008), Venus Rain (2010) and Mercury Sun (2014), the high fantasy novel Fabler’s Legend (2011), and the writers’ how-to Revising Fiction: Making Sense of the Madness (2009).

This article was originally published in the May 2012 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

An Interview with Author Irene Blea

Posted on November 26, 2015 by

Dr. Irene Blea is a native New Mexican with a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado-Boulder and is the author of three novels, seven university text books, four poetry chapbooks, and over thirty academic articles. She developed and taught Mexican American Studies for twenty-seven years before retiring in 1998. In May 2009 she was recognized by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) of New Mexico for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement. Daughters of the West Mesa (ABQ Press, 2015) is her third novel. You can find Dr. Blea on LinkedIn, Facebook and her website IreneBlea.com.

What is your elevator pitch for Daughters of the West Mesa?
Daughters of the West Mesa is a work of fiction based on a true story of the discovery of 11 female remains, and an unborn fetus, west of Albuquerque. I fictionalized a single mother of two daughters; one of them has been missing for several months.

What do you hope readers will take away from it?
My goal is to humanize the impact of this serial killing on the families and the community from which the murdered women emerged.

Tell us about your main protagonist.
Dora is a single mother of two daughters who has struggled to negotiate out of poverty, while experiencing racism, sexism, family and religious resistance, and the embarrassment of having her daughter addicted and missing.

Did this work pose any unique challenges for you?
This work took me to some dark places in the lives of the murdered women, their families, the communities, and myself. At no time was I fearful, but I frequently was out of my comfort zone when I drove the dark streets were sex workers work at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., and when I attended biker functions in biker bars.

What was the most difficult aspect of writing this book? The most satisfying?
The most difficult aspect was the pain of the mothers, fathers, children, aunts, uncles, cousins, and community. It was widespread. The most satisfying is that these hurting people were able to vocalize their experiences to me.

What kind of research did you do for the book?
I conducted a literature review on serial killers, especially those committing matricide. I read newspapers and Internet accounts of America’s unsolved serial killer mysteries, and visited the 100-acre dumping site a few times. I also attended indigenous prayer rituals, victim’s funerals and public information sessions that became rallies and protest sessions, toured the crime laboratory and interviewed victim’s family members and talked with Spanish-speaking media persons from Univision. I’ve kept a journal since 1979 and documented my experience.

Tell us more about putting together Daughters of the West Mesa.
It took two years to complete from beginning to end. This was one of those novels that demanded to be written. I wanted to write my third Suzanna novel, but Daughters of the West Mesa kept gnawing at me. In the editing process, we struggled through which Spanish words to italicize. It is difficult to accept that no matter how many times I edit my material, how many times two or three other persons read and commented on it, there were still errors and minor inconsistencies that needed to be addressed.

Do you have a message or a theme that recurs in your writing?
Justice. The message in Daughters of the West Mesa is that the murdered women were not the only persons victimized. Those related to them suffered shame and disappointment, and felt victimized by legal and media representatives constantly referring to their loved one as drug addicted and prostitutes. This is a complex cultural issue that affected the community. I felt it needed a voice. In addition I did not want the case to go cold. It is important to keep it alive and find the perpetrator.

When did you know you were a writer?
I was born into a storytelling family, into a tradition that is Native American and northern New Mexico, mountain, Hispanic. At the age of seven I entered the public school system, learned to speak English, and fell in love with the magic of writing and reading. I did not like summer vacation from school. As a graduate student I wrote three different term papers for three graduate seminars. Thus, I am now aware of systematically, gradually, becoming a writer; there was no one pivotal moment.

Who are your favorite authors, and what do you admire most about their writing?
I enjoy the clarity and creativity of the magic realism of Central, South American and Spanish writers. Juan Rulfo and Pablo Neruda’s poetry is grounded and dynamic in such a forceful manner. Carlos Fuentes, Isabel Allende’s magical realism is intriguing and spiritual. Of course, what is not to love about the storytelling genius of the Nobel Prize winner, Miguel García Márquez. In addition, I admire the revolutionary nature of the highly influential work of Federico García Lorca.

How has your work as a poet influenced your fiction writing?
My love of language and code switching in ways that touch the heart and stir the soul is always there. I strive to be my most poetic self when I write about the land, the moon, the sun and the sky. I want the world to love and recognize all their relations: those that walk, crawl, swim, and fly.

What can fiction writers learn from nonfiction writers? From poets?
The truth is filtered through the storyteller’s lens, and that is their truth.

What is the greatest tool in your writer’s arsenal?
Being bilingual and tri-cultural, a Spanish-English speaking Native American that struggles to speak Italian.

Looking back to the beginning of your writing career, what do you know now that you wish you’d known then?
I wish I had known to write earlier in my life. I wish I had known to start young to write what I know as my truth with no concern about whether the work is commercial or not.

What is the best encouragement or advice you’ve received in your writing journey?
Write. Write what you know and research what you don’t.

What are you working on now?
I’m writing the third novel in the Suzanna series, untitled at this point (Suzanna was published in 2009, Poor People’s Flowers in 2014). The most difficult thing for me to write is titles. I cannot make up a title. It has to come from life; the life of my characters or my life. Thus, at this time I fail to have a title for the third Suzanna novel, but I have written five chapters.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
Yes, the person next to you has a story to tell, and it is most likely unlike yours.

Two-Minute Tax Warning

Posted on November 24, 2015 by

by Fred A. Aiken

The two-minute warning in football signals that the time to make the winning play is quickly running out. Consider this your Two-Minute Warning for tax purposes. If you want to deduct your writing expenses from your 2015 income, you must act now to ensure you have the necessary records to be able to take the deduction.

Writing is a business. To be considered as a writer, one simply declares oneself to be a writer by filling out Schedule C on their tax return. By self-declaration, a writer establishes herself/himself as a person operating a part-time, sole-proprietorship engaged in the business of writing for profit. A writer must materially participate in her/his business and all of the money invested in the business must be “at risk.” A writing business operates on the cash basis (income as received and expenses when paid) and carries no inventory.

According to Harlan Ellison, “Anybody can become a writer, but the trick is to STAY a writer.” The Internal Revenue Service could audit your return. When they do, they are looking to see whether there is more evidence that you are actively engaged in the business of writing than there is evidence that you are not (preponderance of evidence rule). If your income exceeds your expenses, then you have little to worry about; even hobbyists can deduct all expenses to the extent of their income. Only writers actively engaged in the business of writing are entitled to the privilege of deducting their excess business losses from their other income.

Most businesses have common characteristics. They keep detailed accounting records. The business owner has a good knowledge of the business sector in which the business operates. The business owner belongs to professional associations such as SouthWest Writers (SWW). And, the business owner has a written business plan on how her/his business will operate.

As a professional writer, use these final two months of 2015 to gather documentation to substantiate your writing income and expenses. Income is any money that is generated by your writing activity, including contest prizes. Common expenses include dues to professional organizations such as SWW, paper, pens/pencils, printer ink, telephone expenses for interviews, postage, professional development activities (including workshops, conferences, classes), reference books, mileage for business purposes, etc. If a business purpose can be established, then the expense may be deducted. The list is endless. It is up to you to establish the business purpose of the deduction. I personally avoid taking any deductions for a home office and will urge extreme caution in taking deductions for “research travel.”

A writer prepares manuscripts and sends those manuscripts to persons who are in a position to pay the writer for the right to publish the manuscript. Publishing is a different business from writing. If you self-publish, make sure that you separate your writing expenses from your publishing expenses and file separate Schedule C forms for each business.

Smile as you file your 2015 tax return. Many happy deductions to you in 2015 and future years.

Fred Aiken150 Fred A. Aiken has an MBA from Cleveland State University and has taken graduate level coursework on Federal Income Tax. A member of SouthWest Writers since 1996, he writes spiritual/inspirational and non-fiction articles as well as mystery and science fiction/fantasy stories and novels.

This article was originally published in the November 2009 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

Image “Tax Time” courtesy of hywards / PublicDomainPictures.net

Quite the Character

Posted on November 19, 2015 by

by Olive Balla

According to author, editor, and writing consultant Jeff Gerke there are two kinds of writers—I call them Plotters and Character-philes. No, this has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with how our brains are wired. Gerke says fiction writers will be good at either crafting a complex, multi-stranded plot, or building deep, multi-faceted and interesting characters, but not both. With that in mind, and in the interest of helping my fellow Plotters thicken the portion of their cerebral cortexes wherein their Character-philes lie dormant, I submit some tidbits I’ve picked up.

By the time we reach the age of twenty or so, all of us will have developed psychological, mental, spiritual, and even physical battle scars, along with the mechanisms for coping with them. And by the time we’ve put a few decades under our belt, we’re as bent and dented as any used vehicle on a second-rate car lot. Gerke’s message is to embrace your hard-earned dings. Exorcise your ghosts through your characters. For example, show your protagonist struggling to survive a tumultuous relationship with her mother, father, or even her boyfriend’s obnoxious cat. Or better yet, show your antagonist’s inner turmoil over an action he’s taken, or is about to take. Readers love delving into the dichotomy of good versus evil that apparently resides in every human being, so heap the internal conflict high.

Got any phobias? How about a couple of recalcitrant neuroses? Do you engage in obsessive compulsive rituals or carry a load of guilt over youthful—or even recent—indiscretions? Good. Confession time: One such incident from my past became the basis for my essay “The Four People I DON’T Want to See in Heaven.” Here’s an excerpt:

I don’t want to see David Brown in Heaven. David was in my third grade class. He lived just up the street from me, so we often walked home from school at about the same time. One afternoon, when we reached a particularly isolated spot, David offered to show me His Bits if I would show him Mine. Never having seen that particular part of the male anatomy before, I figured that sounded like a great idea. I told David to go first, and he did. However, being raised in an extremely conservative household, I had second thoughts about my end of the bargain. Modesty won out, and after completing my observations, I turned and ran home as fast as my nine year-old legs would carry me, leaving an undoubtedly wiser David with his pants around his ankles.Had any epiphanies along your self-discovery journey? Excellent. Draw on all of those life experiences to build colorful, deeply human characters. You don’t have to admit to a thing, and your readers will wonder how you grew to be so wise.

Then there’s the dynamic known in psychological circles as the Normalcy Bias. How many horror or suspense movies have we watched where a female character hears a noise from the basement and proceeds to check it out? We in the audience know it’s a bad idea, but the character is a victim of the too-human characteristic that whispers in her ear, “Nothing bad has ever happened before when you went into the basement, so nothing bad will happen now.” The ways to enhance your characters through use of this it-can’t-happen-here trait are endless. For example, does the mother watching her toddler play in the park realize that the handsome young gentleman who seems to turn up everywhere is actually stalking her? Of course not, it has to be a coincidence. Or do the villagers who live at the foot of an active volcano fear imminent destruction? Poppycock. The thing has been spewing smoke and cinders for decades. Go to sleep children, all is well.

And how about fear? We humans harbor fears-a-plenty. We’re born with the fear of abandonment, and then proceed to pile up more terrors over our lifetimes. We fear people, places, situations, the future, insects, certain animals, etc. Haul out your own fears. Hold them up to the light, and then bless your characters with a fistful. Someone said that readers look to writers to help them discover ways of dealing with their own life issues. So scare the bejeebers out of your readers, and then lead them to safety—or not. Either way, they’ll love you for it.

Then there’s the human ability to survive through adaptation. It’s the process by which the bizarre becomes the norm. If an action is repeated often enough and over a long enough period of time—even if it involves horrifying or twisted behavior—the people who witness it, or even those who are victims of it, adapt to it. They may not like it on some level, but they will eventually not only accept that behavior, but embrace and even mirror it. It’s part of our arsenal of survival strategies. Tough and resilient characters, anyone?

Ah, the human condition. Time to turn your lemons into lemonade.

Olive Balla, author of suspense novel An Arm and a Leg, is mother of 3, grandmother to 13, great-grandmother of 4, a retired educator, and part-time professional musician. Having been everything from secretary at a used car dealership, a university student, and a high school Spanish teacher, Balla states her characters are, in part, amalgamations of people she’s met. Living with her husband Victor in the Albuquerque area, she spends her spare time in a small woodworking shop designing and building everything from breadboxes and wine racks, to a porch bench. Visit her website at omballa.com.

This article was originally published in the December 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

The Writing Life: Building Strengths and Outsourcing Weaknesses

Posted on November 17, 2015 by

by Sherri Burr

What happens to you when you realize you aren’t good at something that would be helpful to you in your career? This question was recently posed by the website TransitioningYourLife.com in the article “How to Stop Your Weaknesses from Bringing You Down.”

“Most people,” the article said, “try to improve our weak areas” because “[w]e believe that our weaknesses matter more in holding us back than our strengths matter in advancing us.”

Wrong answer, according to authors Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton in their book Now, Discover Your Strengths. They suggest, “The better strategy is to play to your strengths, building upon your core talents and work around your weaknesses. You can add skills and knowledge to increase your performance in your area, but unless you are building on one of your innate talents (aka strengths), your efforts won’t produce exceptional results—some results, yes, but not dramatic improvement.”

As I read these words, I thought of how this advice might apply to the writing life. I remembered my friend Carolyn Wheelock once pitched and received an assignment to write an article about hats for a women’s magazine, but encountered a problem when the magazine wanted accompanying photos. Since Carolyn felt she was not good at photography, she called and asked me to photograph the hats for her. Outsourcing her weakness to yours truly worked well for both of us. She kept her commitment to the magazine, and I received a photography credit.

While this was a win-win, there might be weaknesses a writer could not delegate. What if a writer struggled with grammar or spelling? While software can correct some issues, auto correct may create even more problems. If you do not know the rules, you may not recognize that a word is used in the wrong context even though it’s spelled correctly. Without knowledge of grammar, you may miss the issue.

Dealing with your weaknesses may be fundamental to success in your chosen profession, and you may have no choice but to put in the time to improve them. While watching tennis matches during the Wimbledon fortnight, for example, it occurred to me that a player with a weak serve is in deep trouble. Not only does the player fail to obtain easy points by hitting aces, he or she increases the chances that other players will break their serve and win the match. A serve cannot be outsourced.

For writers, the serve is the equivalent of mastering the tools of grammar and spelling. They are the building blocks for the stories we tell. Hiring an editor could correct some problems, but beware. Since word choices are critical to story meaning, an editor could accidentally change the message just by replacing a word or two. Grammar and spelling are key ingredients for our written creations. They must be mastered to build strength in either fiction or nonfiction.

But what constitutes innate strength? In their book, authors Buckingham and Clifton define a strength as “consistent near perfect performance in an activity.” Some writers achieve “consistent near perfection” when producing fiction, others nonfiction. The excellence is evidenced by strong sales and important awards.

Once writers reach the stratosphere of their profession, expansion to other creative outlets is possible. For example, Janet Evanovich who created the highly successful fictional Stephanie Plum series also penned the book How I Write. She mentioned accumulating approximately ten years of rejection slips before she was first published. During that decade she perfected her craft.

Similarly, mystery writer Tony Hillerman mastered writing as a journalist before authoring mysteries. It was only after he became a New York Times best-selling author of dozens of books set on the Navajo reservation that he penned his memoir Seldom Disappointed. Hillerman’s memoir extended his “near perfect performance” as a mystery writer into another writing realm.

Evanovich and Hillerman prove that playing to writing strengths after mastering the core elements can lead to exceptional results, such as landing at the top of best-sellers’ lists. When they expanded into nonfiction, they did not stray too far from their innate talent of writing fiction.

For writers, our challenge is to master our core and play to our strengths. We can stop our weaknesses from bringing us down by delegating what we do not do well and what is not critical to learn. Go forth and let your strengths advance you up the writing ladder of success.

This article was originally published in the September 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.

An Interview with Author Robert D. Kidera

Posted on November 12, 2015 by

After a short stint in the film industry and a long (nearly forty-year) career as a teacher, Robert Kidera finally did what he’d always wanted to do—write fiction. He is an active member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, and SouthWest Writers. The first installment in the McKenna Mystery series, Red Gold (Suspense Books, 2015), is his debut novel. You can find him on Facebook and his website RobertKideraBooks.com. And check out his SWW Author Page.

What is your elevator pitch for Red Gold?
When the road leads through Hell, keep going…

What sparked the initial story idea?
I wanted to tell a story that blended history with mystery. I wanted a hero who was strong and smart, but vulnerable as well. It was from those criteria that Red Gold evolved.

Who is your favorite character in the book?
I like all my characters or they wouldn’t be in the book! Seriously, there is a core of characters upon which the story—and the series that follows—rests: Gabe McKenna, first of all, then C.J., Sam, and Rebecca Turner. My readers can expect to meet them in each of the stories.

Will your friends or family recognize any part of you in your main protagonist? What about your antagonist?
Of course. Gabe and I spend a lot of time together. As a nod to all my fellow history teachers and professors, I made Gabe one of us. I don’t drink nearly as much as he does, BTW. But we think alike and have some of the same Attitude. As for my antagonist, I sure hope not. He’s a real SOB!

Is there a scene in your book you’d like to see play out in a movie?
I tend to write visually, cinematically. Perhaps that’s because of my background in films. Every scene in the book is something I have watched unfold in my head. If I had to pick a single one, it would be the showdown scene in the cave at Baldera Volcano.

Why did you decide to use New Mexico as the main setting for Red Gold?
Two reasons: first, I live here and make it a point to visit every site I use in my books, to get my feet on that ground. The spirit and history of this area is something I feel very strongly. New Mexico is one of my main characters, you could say. Second, is there any better location for a story? New Mexico has history, romance, danger, beauty, people of all types, and absolutely anything can happen here.

What first inspired you to become a writer?
My father inspired me to write. He was a professor of journalism at Marquette University and one summer wrote a textbook called Fundamentals of Journalism that was widely adopted by colleges coast to coast. It put food on our table! I watched him write that book, and I thought it was pretty cool. So I decided then—as a six year-old—that one day I would become a writer too. My dream was realized on April 21, 2015 when Red Gold debuted.

What are your strengths as a writer, and what do you do to overcome your weaknesses?
At my current stage, I’m more aware of my weaknesses than my strengths. If I had to choose one thing, I’d say my greatest strength is I know how to tell a story, how to develop it and make it whole. The weakness I have worked hardest on is dialogue. I tended at first to write characters who were too verbose. I took courses on dialogue writing, eavesdropped on a lot of conversations, learned how to self-edit, and read some of the masters of dialogue to improve my style.

Who are your favorite authors, and what do you admire most about their writing?
In my genre, I have two favorites: Raymond Chandler and Donald Westlake. Chandler is quite simply a master. He has style, setting, dialogue and a great protagonist in Philip Marlowe. And he started writing late in his life, as I have. He is my inspiration. Donald Westlake’s books are so much fun to read; I imagine he had a ball writing them. His style is crisp, funny, brilliant. And his characters inhabit a completely whacked-out world. I love his work.

What part do beta readers or critique groups play in your writing process?
They have played an enormous role in my development. When I started out a few years ago, I really had no idea if what I was writing was any good. I was writing the best I could at the time, but would others find it worth reading? I dedicated Red Gold to all the members of my various critique groups and to SouthWest Writers, without whose support I could not have finished the book. I’m not afraid of constructive criticism, I need it.

What part of the writing process do you enjoy most: creating, editing/revising, or research?
I absolutely enjoy it all. Writing a novel is a thrilling and all-consuming endeavor. Except for all the pain.

If you had an unlimited budget, how would you spend your money for marketing and promotion of your book?
Wow. If I had a truly unlimited budget, I’d hire somebody else to do my marketing and promotion. Then I’d take the rest of the money, buy a mountain cabin where I could write undisturbed, do a lot of traveling and research all the locations of my stories.

Do you have a message or a theme that recurs in your writing?
There is one main recurring theme in my first three books: Life is a struggle to find the truth and there is an inevitable loss of innocence along the way.

Which point of view do you like writing the most (first person, third, etc.)?
For the McKenna mysteries, I chose to write in first-person. It was the best way for me to write my protagonist from the inside out and to really inhabit the scenes of the story. My fourth book will be written in the third person. It’s historical fiction.

How has your experience as a teacher affected your writing life? Do you ever get hung up on the rules?
I saw myself as a story-teller all the years I taught history. I presented a Grand Narrative, whether it was American History or Western Civilization. All the elements were there: great ideas, great characters, drama, triumph and tragedy. As a teacher, I never got hung up on the rules, which is why I got along better with my students than with administrators.

What advice do you have for discouraged writers?
People who write are called writers. People who wait are called waiters. I’d advise you write every day, if only for the sheer pleasure of it. Don’t worry about the Great American Novel, etc. Enjoy what you do! Or find something else to do, life is too short.

What writing projects are you working on now?
Get Lost, the second McKenna Mystery is coming out on March 8, 2016 from Suspense Books. I am working on the third novel, Cut.Print.Kill. and hope to have that out early in 2017, God-willing. My fourth book will be historical fiction, an elaboration on and extrapolation of several short stories from Black Range Tales, a fabulous depiction of 19th Century New Mexican mining days, written in 1936 by James A. McKenna.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
I’d like my readers to know how grateful I am for their faith in what I write. I will try to continue to spin some tales they will find uplifting, enjoyable and worth their valuable time. Thank you, one and all.

Blog Archives

The Writing Life: Basic Principles from Dear Abby

by Sherri Burr

An Interview with Author Keith Pyeatt, Part 1

Preparation, Poison and Pitfalls: A Follow Up to NaNoWriMo

by Bentley Clark

Making the Most of Writing Markets

by Chris Eboch

What Writing Books Don’t Tell You

by Kirt Hickman

An Interview with Author Irene Blea

Two-Minute Tax Warning

by Fred A. Aiken

Quite the Character

by Olive Balla

The Writing Life: Building Strengths and Outsourcing Weaknesses

by Sherri Burr

An Interview with Author Robert D. Kidera

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