Sister to Sister

 

                                          

I recently joined a fabulous organization, Sisters in Crime, that supports the professional development and recognition of women crime writers. I've known of the group since my bookstore days—it was founded in 1986—but never felt worthy of joining, even though you don't have to be a published author. A truly supportive community of siblings (yes, men can belong too) you can join as an aspiring author, editor, bookselling professional, librarian, or fan of mysteries. So, what took me so long? Not sure I have an answer to that, except to say that this year has ignited an "if not now, when?" passion I've not felt before. I joined as an aspiring author, a designation I hope to change soon.

One of the many benefits of being an active sibling is access to the webinars hosted each month. Yesterday's event, "SinC into Great Writing: Creating Authentic Characters," featured K. Tempest Bradford, who spoke about representing characters whose gender, sexual orientation, racial heritage, or other aspect of identity may be very different from your own. Lou Berney and Walter Mosley discussed character, making the very valid point that character must come first, even if you have the idea for the plot first. Without a believable, realistic protagonist, your readers won't care how great you think the plot is. How do you begin to reveal character? Think about what your protagonist is doing when the readers first meet her. It should be a situation that makes them wonder what's going to happen next.

Their conversation was full of insights into their process. Berney starts each book with an outline and loves to set his characters up so they reveal to him what they're going to do. Mosley reads his dialog aloud to fine tune the voices for his characters, and said, "A single word can unlock a character." He also reads his prose aloud, because it needs to be "beautiful," and suggests that fiction writers read poetry. One of the most encouraging parts of the conversation was about how many drafts they write and how they both feel like the last draft is never done. Yep, the pros struggle too, at times.

When asked about how much time they put into research, Mosley cautioned going overboard and said, "I'm a fiction writer so I can make stuff up." Berney agreed with a smile and said when he's asked about writing techniques or how to solve a particular problem, "Whatever works" is almost always the answer. It's an interesting dichotomy, because writing is work, and it does equal butt in chair, but what Berney said is also true, "Writing should be fun. No one is forcing us to do this."

Splendid Isolation

                                          

                                           Photo credit: Vlada Karpovich via Pexels

Writing is a solitary craft, as are many artistic pursuits, so it's a good fit for an introvert. And 2020 has certainly turned out to be a banner year for solitude, no? As if a global pandemic weren't enough, nearly the entire west coast is on fire, creating unhealthy to toxic air quality. What better time to stay indoors and be creative? So here I sit, drafting, writing, rewriting. And then...it's time to go public and put whatever I've written "out there."

That's something I've struggled with over the years, for a few reasons. Besides constantly wondering if my writing is "good enough" (whatever that means. Good enough for what?), it sometimes feels counter-intuitive to go public with that which is created in solitude. I struggled with the decision to launch this blog, ultimately deciding that while there was certainly no shortage, I needed a place to point potential freelance clients.

Blog aside, what about other types of writing? I attempted to write a novel several years ago, revising and polishing until I felt it was ready to pitch. I spent a few months being rejected by agents, finally deciding it wasn't meant to be (and no, I didn't want to put it on Amazon), but the process was invaluable. The exercise of developing plot and characters and creating a story with a beginning, middle, and end led to a second, much better novel. So, what's next? Time will tell.

Darkness on the Edge of...Everything

After finishing a lengthy and involved project—-more on that later—-I took a mental break. Said break happened to coincide with a break from social media and a news fast. And then 2020 began to unfold... W.T.A.F??

Between getting used to working from home, being reluctant to leave my house, wiping down groceries and mail, peaceful protests being met with violence, and the dangerous ridiculousness of the current administration...I've had NOTHING to say. I don't want to write, and I'm sure no one wants to read, posts full of angst-ridden whininess and gallows humor. And then the entire west coast burst into flame. It's just TOO FREAKING MUCH.

A friend shared this, much of which resonates with me, especially the concept of "surge capacity," and how people fall prey to magical thinking. We're all anxious, frightened, irritated-to-furious on a daily sliding scale, and completely mind-numbingly exhausted. Is there hope? I believe there can be, but the time to wait for others to act to make things better has passed. It's up to every damned one of us to take action to affect real change.

One bright spot: art tends to flourish in trying times. Many creatives I know are hanging onto their sanity the only way they know how: making music, taking photographs, drawing and painting, and writing. Will 2021 be a banner year for art? I believe it will. And I'll have something to share in the spring. Stay tuned...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the Winner Is...

Anyone who works with clients, be they external or internal, is bound to have moments of frustration, when you think, "Did you really just say that?" Or, "Which meeting are you in? Because it's clearly not this one."

Over the past few years, I've had to learn new ways to express (read: not express) frustration, as well as mind my mouth. (You can take the girl out of Tower...) I can only walk around the building so many times, and have yet to figure out how to do so during a meeting or a webex, so indulging my innate snarkiness, is once again the chosen path. I give you the current list of the top five annoying things my clients do:

5. Schedule meetings to talk about upcoming meetings. Seriously. This happens far more often than you'd think possible.

4. Invite me to meetings I know nothing about for projects I'm not involved with out of the blue. The usual culprit in this case is someone forgetting to inform me that I have a new project.

3. Ask for constant status updates but consistently fail to get me approvals or information on time. Um...you know how this works. Right?

2. Ask me to move meetings to times they aren't available. The old "find time on my calendar" trick—psyche!

And the number one annoying client behavior is...contacting multiple people in my department in an attempt to get the answer they want. If Mom says, "no," go ask Dad. Yeah, this happens.

I do realize the above is pretty mild compared to what many people deal with on a weekly basis, and humans are humans. Hang around each other long enough and we'll likely get on each other's nerves at some point. I'm very grateful to be employed, and that I had the good fortune to land at a great agency led by a team that truly cares about the workforce. For the most part, my clients are very easy to deal with, and we do good work together. It might be more fun to be  snarky, but I'm smart enough to realize how lucky I was to land this job. And that's winning no matter how I look at it.

It’s Just a Matter of Time

When I started my current job, I showed up with a few pre-conceived notions. As I set about learning the language of workers' comp insurance and state-speak, and trying to acclimate to an entirely new workplace vibe, I felt like a retail bum who was likely in over my head. Retail jobs were the sum total of my work experience, and I was suddenly working with people who’d been in government their entire careers.

Then I began to notice some stark differences in those vastly different worlds, the most surprising of which is how fluid deadlines seem to be. Coming from a world of seasonal campaigns, newspaper and radio ads, and you know, holiday promotions, I thought "deadline" was a pretty universal concept. As in the due date of a given project is agreed upon at the beginning, and that's that. (Fun fact, the historical meaning of the word is "a line drawn around a prison beyond which prisoners were liable to be shot.")

On more than one occasion, I've found myself nearing the end of a project only to be informed of a major shift in direction. When I calmly point out that if we do that, the project timeline will need complete revamping, and the agreed-upon deadline will be impossible to meet, I'm told, "okay." Um...What?? And there I sit, searching for a reasonable response and biting my lip so as not to blurt out, "Oh, let me just move Christmas because you people changed your minds!"

It's taken a while, but I've come to realize that my humble retail beginnings actually did plenty to prepare me for the real world, including teaching me how to stay calm when someone is ranting about things that are completely out of my control, how to multi-task, and how to get. Things. Done. I suppose that really shouldn't surprise me, given how hard my former colleagues and I worked, especially to set up and execute holiday campaigns. And it's not news that government timing is...different...

I've often thought a mandatory two years in retail would do wonders for this society, especially when I see customers going off on minimum wage clerks. Maybe we'd all be kinder and more understanding, but maybe not. In any case, I can be proud of my retail roots and thankful for the collective experience that brought me this far. Will I ever get used to deadlines as mere suggestions? Time will tell...

It Was More than Music…So Much More

What do you say when a genuine legend passes? Tower Records founder Russ Solomon died at home Sunday night, sipping whiskey and watching the Academy Awards, an original to the end. He was 92. His passing triggered the expected nods, from NPR to Rolling Stone, and my Facebook feed is full of posts from my Tower tribe tonight, expressing sorrow and condolences to Russ's family.

But the recurring theme that stands out above all is one of gratitude. Truly the stuff of legends, Russ built a billion dollar international company from a card table in his father's drugstore, and we got to be a part of it. At one time or another, every single one of us thought, "This is my job—I get paid to do this." We got to come to work in jeans and t-shirts, listen to music, be surrounded by books, magazines, movies, and music, and most importantly, we met each other. We formed our tribe. We were proud of being a band of misfits, joked about being unemployable anywhere else, and collectively knew more about music, books, movies, and pop culture than anyone on the planet.

It all came to an end 11 years ago, which on any given day can feel like a lifetime or a week. But the passing years only strengthen our bond. I've given up trying to explain what it is that holds us together to people who've never experienced a job that was anything more than just a job.

Russ had his quirks, and didn’t worry about speaking his mind. He told me on more than one occasion that a book ad I'd helped design was "absolute shit." Then he followed up with, "But what do I know, kiddo? I'm just an old man," said with a sparkle in his eye. At one time, my office in the advertising suite shared a common wall with his office. And I always heard music playing. The man dearly loved all kinds of music.

The last time I saw Russ was in October of 2015, during our giant three-day reunion that coincided with the release of the Colin Hanks movie, All Things Must Pass. He was pleased with the movie and touched by the crowd of former employees who came to Sacramento to relive our glory days, still insisting that it was us, "the kids in the stores," who made Tower the success that it was. I thanked him for an amazing 22 years, and he said, "Twenty-two? Were you twelve when you started?!" That charm and humor plus a passion for making his stores more than just places to buy CDs and books built an empire. Tower was more than music...it was an experience, a lifestyle, and it was a family. Thank you for everything. Rest in peace, Russ.

Once, Therefore Always...

Bookseller (book-sel-er) n. 1. A person whose occupation or business is selling books. 2. A person who previously sold books, whose heart and soul still belong to the printed word, regardless of their career path.

Sometimes you just have to reconnect with your roots. As I'll tell anyone willing to listen, bookseller isn't just an occupation—it isn't just something we do, it's something we are. While it's true that I haven't made my living in the book biz in eleven years, I'm no less emotionally connected to the industry and my bookselling identity. I still buy physical books, prefer to buy them from real, independent bookstores, and feel compelled to support those stores whenever possible. 

Case in point: Last Tuesday, I jumped into the car after work and drove to one of my favorite indie stores, to go to my favorite author's book signing. Win-win. Robert Crais hadn't been to Northern California on tour in nine years, so I was thrilled to see that Book Passage was hosting a reading and signing of his latest novel, The Wanted. I had no intention of missing the event, late night be damned.

Why would I undertake a nearly 200-mile round trip in the middle of the week to get a signed book?

1. See "bookseller" above.
2. I'll always go out of my way to support indies that host author events.
3. I fell in love with Bob's recurring characters, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike in the late 80s.
4. As illustrated elsewhere in this space, I can be a bit of a fangirl at times.

There's nothing quite like hearing someone whose work you admire talk about the writing process and the amount of research and hard work that go into creating his bestsellers. Bob talked about how attached he's become to Elvis and Joe over the past 30 years, answered audience questions, and made wise cracks Elvis would be proud of.

I chatted with a woman sitting nearby before the event began. She'd only read one book, and wanted to know what it is that keeps me interested in the series. I told her I've long wished Joe and Elvis were real people, because I would want to know them. They're good, honorable men trying to stay true to themselves and navigate life's challenges with grace. Joe Pike's signature shades hide the pain in his ice-blue eyes, and his red arrow tattoos remind him there is no going backward. Elvis Cole looks for bits of magic where he can find them, not giving a damn that the Pinocchio clock and Jiminy Cricket figurines in his office are a disconnect from what most people expect to see when they hire a PI. The strength of their bond is a beautiful definition of friendship.

Elvis Cole and Joe Pike have been real to me for more than 25 years, the sign of a truly gifted author. Did I pay for the late night the next day? Yep. But I'll do it again without a moment's hesitation.