Of Pirates and Poets, Pawns and Kings

Paul here...

What’s the best background for a writer?” asked a young woman at a book signing.

“Everything,” I replied.

I wasn’t being flippant. At least, no more than usual.

Arthur Conan Doyle (above) practiced medicine before creating Sherlock Holmes. Dashiell Hammett worked as a Pinkerton before inventing Sam Spade. William Faulkner famously toiled in a post office, creating some sound and fury by losing much of the mail. Elmore Leonard (above, right) was an advertising copywriter who longed to write western novels. Joseph Wambaugh was a Los Angeles cop before he started making up stories about them. And in her first career, Danielle Steele was a plumber.

Okay, I made the last one up. But my point is that writers come from incredibly diverse backgrounds. ALL jobs, ALL studies, ALL travel, ALL relationships (even bad ones) are lethal ammo for the writer.

Here at Naked Authors, we have all worked at REAL jobs before sitting down to sweat blood onto blank pages. I’ve been a newspaper reporter, a trial lawyer, a law school instructor, and a television writer, as well as a novelist. Yes, I know. I can’t hold a job. (I have it on good authority that James Grippando has been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king).

So what do we have in common? The love of the written word. An innate desire to tell stories. An aversion to offices, meetings, and power-point presentations with flow charts and profit projections.

One difference between novelists and screenwriters – and sure I’m generalizing here – is that a lot of the latter go directly from college to film school to spewing out spec scripts at Starbucks on Sunset Boulevard. In other words...no real life experiences.

I admire people who’ve actually done things, who take risks and switch careers. People who follow their bliss, to borrow Joseph Campbell’s expression.

I was thinking these thoughts the other day at a book signing at The Mystery Bookstore in Westwood. (One of the great independently owned stores in the country). A law school classmate of mine stopped by. Tom Derek (below) was born in Czechoslovakia shortly after World War II, his parents having survived German concentration camps. In his late 40's, Tom quit a cushy job as general counsel of the Miami International Free Trade Zone to come to Hollywood to act. For the past 10 years, he’s worked at his craft, pounded the pavement and has built his resúme. Like all the creative arts, acting is hard and filled with frustration, disappointment, and seemingly impossible odds.

I asked Tom why he does it.

“I have this passion to create unique characters that jump off the page,” he said, “that move people to a deeper understanding of their humanity and connection to others. Somehow, because of my background, surely I’d also like to make the world just a little bit better for having been here.”

Tom has a part as a P.I. in an upcoming independent feature. With his lived-in face and lifetime of experience, I’ll bet he knocks ‘em dead.

By Paul

A Shill for Love

Patty here…

My mother is proud of me for writing three novels. I know this because everybody tells me so. Normally soft-spoken and reserved, she nonetheless regales all who will listen about what she sees as my extraordinary talent. This surprises me because she has always taught me that boasting is unseemly. Apparently a mother bragging about her child is not covered under that rule.

My mother hasn’t read any of my books. She has macular degeneration and can’t read much of anything these days. Poor vision is the bane of her existence, because she’s always been an avid reader. She listens to audio books, but somehow that’s not the same as resting a hardback on her lap and feeling the rough edges of the paper as she turns another page.

She is tiny and frail. She navigates the halls of her assisted living facility with the aid of a walker, which she calls “my three wheeler.” When I hear her use that term it always makes me think of an aging motorcycle mama, cruising the highways and byways wearing a jaunty gray beret. In the basket attached to the walker’s handlebars you’ll usually find items related to my books: reviews, newspaper ads, or the latest cover art. Whenever she enters the dining room, her friends prepare for a pitch.

She was recently released from a rehab center after a six-week stay that included two weeks in the hospital. She had suffered a bout of dizziness and had fallen several times. During one of my visits, I found her in the gym working with a physical therapist. The conversation went something like this:

My Mother
“This is my daughter the author. Did you look her up on the Internet?”

Physical Therapist
“Yes. I checked out her Web site just like you told me to do.”

My Mother
“Have you bought her book yet?”

Physical Therapist
(laughing nervously)
“No. Not yet.”

My Mother
“When, then?”

Physical Therapist
(looking sheepish)
“Soon.”

Even I was squirming during that interrogation.

My mother is so good at hawking my books that I took her to the Northwest on my first book tour. Here we are at the airport waiting for our flight to Seattle. She looks cool and collected in her wheelchair, while I look as though I just stumbled out of a three-martini lunch.



While we were waiting to board the airplane, we cruised through some shops and came upon a neck pillow that made us snort with laughter. We had to have it. She was wearing the pillow on the flight home when a man approached her in apparent distress. “Excuse me, madam,” he said, “but did you know that you have a large bug on your neck?” Very corny, but we had another huge laugh. Two guffaws for only $14.95. Life is sweet.



Seattle welcomed us with a monsoon. Here we are in the parking lot near the Seattle Mystery Bookshop. Undaunted by the rain, I threw a poncho over my mother and her wheelchair and off we went, we two intrepid hucksters.



Publishing can be a tough business, so it’s comforting to know I have a few people in my posse that I can count on no matter what happens. And one of those people is that tiny, frail woman with the bug on her neck.

The Book That Changed My Life - and why you should buy it!

from Jacqueline

I can’t imagine growing up without books, can you? Every writer has a story about books, how they came to love the written word. Sometimes there’s a background of a highly literate family to initiate, encourage and support that love, and sometimes not. Money sometimes has something to do with it, sometimes not. My dad left school at the age of twelve and never went back – he was plucked (“requisitioned” might be a better word) from the classroom at the outset of the Second World War because he was the fastest runner in the school, and boys with that sort of talent were needed by the Air Raid Patrol to carry messages between different posts while bombs were dropping. Dad ran his way through the London Blitz before sprinting off to the country to work on a farm. He’s a voracious reader, loves westerns, books on astronomy and thinks his lifetime subscription to National Geographic is the best gift I ever gave him. He is a self-educated man and he loves books.

My mother was one of ten kids, left school at fourteen, but her mother insisted that each of her children obtain a library membership as soon as they were old enough (she read a book a day, despite being partially blind and having those ten kids) and if they didn’t have a job to do around the house, then they had better have their nose in a book. They’re all big readers – and they don’t hold back with their comments either, let me tell you from personal experience. I think my cousins and I all had library cards almost as soon as we could walk. As my Dad knew already, you can escape from hell in a book, and you can open up the world, whether that world is another country, an emotion, a new perspective, or simply a place to while away the time.

But what if you can’t read? Or if you don’t have access to books, or didn’t ever learn to love them? I can accept – just (sort of ... maybe) – the latter, but not the two in the middle.

One more story, then I’ll get to the point.

At the end of 1999, Peter Jennings, together with his co-author, Todd Brewster, came to Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera, CA – one of the best bookstores in the world – to talk about their new book, The Century. They could have gone to many bookstores in the area, but what drew them to Book Passage was the fact that the store has a program of philanthropy to support literacy, and a percentage of the profits were going directly to local efforts to bring reading to those who would not otherwise have such an opportunity. Peter Jennings began his talk by asking us to imagine a parent, perhaps a recent immigrant to the country, perhaps someone who dropped out of school, who has taken a sick child to the doctor. The doctor gives a prescription, the parent collects the medication. But the parent can’t read the instructions. (Forget that in recent years pharmacies have provided bi-lingual staff). How does it feel not to know what to do because you cannot read or make sense of the instructions? And what if you have been intimidated because you cannot speak the language, or you cannot afford a doctor, so you just go to the pharmacy to buy something over the counter – what do you do if you cannot read? Never mind War & Peace, that's life and death, sickness and health - and it's all down to literacy.

For my part, I have always wondered about the frustration if you cannot distinguish thoughts, feelings and ideas without distinction. “Sad” just becomes, well, “sad” instead of, say, “bereft”, “wretched” or "melancholy." The way kids are losing vocabulary at the moment, everything will be whittled down to “stuff” – as in (and I’m quoting two recently overhead adult conversations):

What did you do at the weekend?
Oh, you know, stuff

What do you think?
Lots of stuff, you know, coming up.

And as for that broader understanding of the world – heck, you’ve got to start somewhere, and a book provides that starting place. Which is why I was delighted and honored to be asked to contribute to The Book That Changed My Life, edited by Roxanne Coady and Joy Johannessen. You may know of Roxanne, owner of another great bookstore, RJ Julia of Madison, Connecticut. As Roxanne has said of the book, which is garnering starred reviews all over the place (and that sort of stuff ...), “Not only does this wonderful book remind readers of all the ways books can change lives, not only does it give readers a new and exciting reading list, but it also gives us the opportunity to give a portion of the proceeds to the Read To Grow Foundation ... an organization dedicated to providing the books and resources that every child and their family needs to become literate and learn to love reading – because everyone should have the opportunity to find the books that will change their life.”

I’m telling everyone I can about the book, because even though this program is essentially for one state, it will hopefully draw attention to similar programs in other regions, and to the challenges of illiteracy. As writers and readers, we owe it to ourselves and our future to facilitate reading. Reading opens the mind, and we all know what happens to a country when minds begin to close, don’t we?

Here’s the link. Now go to an independent bookstore, preferably one that supports local literacy programs, and buy this book.

http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781592402106,00.html


Have a lovely weekend, sink into your favorite armchair with a beverage of your choice at your side, and find out about the book that changed the life of Dorothy Allison, or Dominic Dunne, perhaps Kate Atkinson, or Amy Bloom. Sebastian Junger remembers a book that changed his life, so does Anne Lamott. Frank McCourt, Ian Rankin, Anne Perry – every single one of them can point to a book that changed their life. Me too – I’m right at the end, being a “W.”


PS: And thank you all for your congratulatory messages about the Macavity Award. Amazing what can happen, eventually, down the line a few decades, when you let a kid into a library and get them excited about words and letters, phrases and even whole books ....

The McDonald's Awards

From James

First, at the risk of piling on, congratulations to Jackie on her McCavity award. This is a huge achievement and a distinguished award. Now we have at least two award-winning authors in our naked lot. Some years ago, Paul’s Florida-based fiction earned the John D. MacDonald Award—not to be confused with the McDonald’s Award, which is given only to franchise authors who keep churning out novels even after they are dead. Yay, team!

But wait. Maybe I’m on to something with this McDonald’s thing. Lest the world think we writers take ourselves too seriously, I think Jackie and Paul would (perhaps) agree that every serious and prestigious award should be matched by at least one silly and not so prestigious award. So, here’s a proposal. Naked Authors should start the annual “McDonald’s Award in Fiction,” the prize going to the best new work published under the name of a dead franchise author. Any nominees? Harold Robbins' "Heat of Passion" comes to mind. Any suggestions on the prize?

In other news . . .

This week is homecoming at my alma mater, the University of Florida in Gainesville. I’m not going. My wife is a graduate of rival Florida State, and she couldn’t care less that the Gator football team is battling for a national championship. It means nothing to her that this homecoming opponent is not the usual serving of East New Mexico State School for Retired Nuns, which UF usually trounces 72-0. It is ninth-ranked LSU against fourth-ranked Florida, which should be a great game. Oh well. I have my memories. See, a million years ago (1980), I was the “General Chairman” of UF’s homecoming celebration, which is a big deal at UF. Gator Growl, a spectacular pep rally in Florida Field the night before the game, has always featured a big name entertainer, such as Bob Hope, Robin Williams, or Bill Cosby. My year, it was George Burns. (Years later, I discovered that my agent got his start in the entertainment industry doing publicity work for George Burns—coincidence?)

I haven’t gotten back to UF much over the years, but I’m starting to reconnect. Part of that is because the alumni affairs office seems to think that I’m rich and famous enough to pay for a new auditorium, or maybe even a football stadium. I assure them that I’m not, and they assure me that they won’t stop asking. If only they knew how much private middle school tuition was these days. (You’d die if I told you).

Some day I do hope to repay the university in some way. Part of the reason ties directly to my writing, in the person of Sid Homan, an English professor at the University of Florida. For two years I was one of six students in a university of over 30,000 students who was lucky enough to participate in Sid's honors program for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. We wrote at least two papers each week, and Sid would select one to read to the class. It was the first time I'd ever heard anyone read my work aloud. It's amazing how embarrassing a bad sentence can be when you actually have to hear someone else trip over it. To this day, I never publish a sentence I've written without reading it first—aloud.

Except for my naked author blogs. I don’t read them aloud. In fact, I don’t read them at all. I do this with my eyes closed. Damn, I’m good. Thanks, Sid.

When Bouchercon Starts in Your Driveway...

By Cornelia

So I wake up at three a.m. last Thursday morning, Bouchercon bound. The Bayporter van is due between four and four-fifteen. I am groggy. I am exhausted. I am hoping I have remembered to pack things like shoes and maybe a pen.

I take a quick shower, then throw on a pair of jeans and my lucky "Lefty's Tattoo and Piercing" t-shirt (from the Palm Springs Goodwill) and hope for the best. It's 3:59, time to drag my Intrepid Spouse's INCREDIBLY ugly black plastic suitcase down our steep weird driveway, so I can wait out on Euclid Avenue in the pitch dark.

Yea verily, I am off to Madison, Wisconsin, the Land o' the Cheesehead:



and the Home of the Bucky Badger:

City between two lakes, yea even more verily:


Now, you might think that Madison, Wisconsin,--and hence, Bouchercon 2006--is some three or four hours by plane from Berkeley, California.

In my case, however, Bouchercon started at the end of my driveway. I had no sooner climbed into the emerald green Bayporter Express mobile than I found myself seated next to my very first fellow Bcon attendee of the year, a really cool lady named Avis Worthington, who writes historicals.

I tell you, you could've slapped my haunches and called me Ballerina Munchkin Cow, right then and there:

Ballerina Munchkin Cow, by Mike Dowdell

Avis and I talked shop all the way to SFO and then split up to go find our seats on the plane.

So then we had a stopover in St. Louis or Minneapolis or something. I do not remember because I had three hours of sleep and had become extremely stupid. Like pretty much exactly as if I had been riding in a bumper cow for too long:

Bumper Cow, by Mark and Kim Rae Nugent

Or like, as James Taylor once so pithily described just such a mental fog, "my wiring was misfiring due to cigarettes and booze":

Cow Chip, by C. Murphy

--despite the fact that you can't smoke in airports and I was not actually drinking anything but guava juice that morning.

But ANYWAY, Avis and I managed to find Concourse F after much flailing and soul-searching in whatever city that was, so that we could get on our NEXT plane, and it was aboard Plane Numero Deux that I met my second fellow Bconner, the I-am-sure-soon-to-be-totally-famous "Medieval Noir" writer Jeri Westerson.

I had the window seat and she had the aisle, so we talked across this poor guy in the middle who had promised to drive his dad to a sixty-ninth high school reunion somewhere around Madison.

Jeri told me the line which won the ginormously buckled Heavyweight Champion Snack o’ Wit Title Belt of my entire Bcon experience this year:

Noir is the new black

Which is, hello, so funny I think she should trademark it or whatever and I want to buy the t-shirt.

So then we landed and the shuttle didn't come for like FOREVER, but when I actually finally got to the hotel, I literally didn't have both feet out of the revolving door before I met up with Bev Irwin and Liz Lytle.

We all first met at the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference a couple of summers ago, and THEY ROCK, Bev and Liz.

And then I saw Andi Shechter, my Bcon roomie and secret twin--because how many people can you talk about figure skating AND mysteries AND country music AND Black Power Salute raised fists with, in the same conversation--so huge hugs all around and I knew this was going to be a most excellent time from the get-go.

This was Andi's and my favorite cow in Madison, by the way:

Miss Moolah, by Deborah Gerling

This one is pretty good too, though, only I didn't see it in person:

Moo Choo - All Aboard, by Brad Nellis, Distillery Design Studio

Well, okay, and this one cracks me up. Not that I saw actually ever saw it in person either:

Star Fleet Battle Cow, by Richard Springer

But enough about cows. I need to talk about Sandra Ruttan. Who is so NOT a cow.

She is in fact my International Thriller Writers "mentee," if such is a word.

(Sandra is the way more conscious-looking person on the right)

This was taken of the two of us around noon on Sunday when, a la Clockwork Orange, I was "feeling a bit shagged and fagged and fashed, it being a night of no small expenditure."

I'd had about four hours of sleep and had just done my first ever Bcon panel, "Ken Bruen and Four Kickass Writers," with Ken Bruen (duh), Alafair Burke, Laura Lippman, and Zoe Sharp--all of whom are funny and erudite and cool people.

And in general I got to meet so many cool great new persons, and catch up with so many other cool great persons whom I'd already met at previous Bcons and Left Coast Crimes and stuff, that my mind is still reeling.

Like for instance Denise Mina, who was at the Hachette cocktail party on Friday night and whom I would never have had the nerve to go up and talk to except that I was standing with Laura Lippman when we spotted her across the room and thank God Laura kind of squeaked and said, "Check it out, there's Denise Mina, and I think I have to walk over and go all fan-girl on her," so I tagged along and swooned and babbled on the poor woman, who was tremendously gracious about it.

Also I got to meet Tribe, who totally cracks me up IRL as much as online, it turns out:

That would be Tribe on the left, Sandra on the right

Plus which he has crazy family stories redlining right up there with mine on the WTF?-meter, which is always a nice thing to bond over, especially in a bar. And DOUBLE especially in a bar where the eminently amazing Jordans are hosting their Crimespree party, where I also got to hang out with Our Patty and Madeleine Butler and Bill Cameron and Karen Olson and Tim Maleeny and Sandra and Rae Helmsworth and Maggie Griffin and Lee Child and Brett Battles and Steven Sidor and a mind-bogglingly huge assortment of excellent people, not least the Jordans themselves, while quaffing Spotted Cow beer to one's heart's content.

And then on Saturday Sandra did this group interview deal with Denise Mina and Laura Lippman and Anne Frasier and Julia Buckley and Sandra Parshall in the hotel back bar, part of which was videotaped by the tremendously patient Bill Cameron, until the music got too loud and weird so we all (except for Laura and Denise, who had a bowling date) kind of bagged the official part and just rambled on for another hour or so like we were hanging out on the Group W bench, avoiding the draft with Arlo or what have you. And the totally weirdest thing about THAT was looking across the table and seeing Julia wearing a button with my book cover on it, right under her pin with HER book cover on it, which still just totally makes me feel faint and want to hug her all at the same time.

Okay, so I am totally babbling like I'm back trying to say something intelligent to Denise Mina, and it seems appropriate to try to wrap this up, so I would like to close with my best thing and the worst thing that happened during this year's Bcon.

Here is the best thing:

Louise Ure won the
Best First Novel Shamus
for Forcing Amaryllis

Here is the worst thing:

The publisher's cocktail party
that was not accessible

Which still pisses me off hugely because they invited Andi to attend (I was merely her date for this one), and then when I tried to find someone official who could tell me how to help get "my friend who's using a scooter" up to the thing, the guest-list/gatekeeper woman was not only totally unapologetic about the utter lack of access, but also claimed that Andi (whom I hadn't named) had told her she wasn't coming, which I suppose was a dopy euphemism for "I'm a snippy bitch and it's not my problem."

In light of that, I would like to end this post on a serious note.

I've gone to offsite events with Andi at Bcons and LCCs over the last couple of years. We get the underground tour, more often than not--back entrances and basement hallways and service elevators behind the kitchen. It is a goddamn exhausting way to navigate life, even for a couple of days once or twice a year. I cannot imagine having to do it all the time, as so very many people must. It makes a huge difference when someone working at the restaurant or bar or event room takes the time to show you the way.

I saw a lot of people at Bcon who must rely on scooters and canes and wheelchairs in order to get around. I read in a blog post after coming home that at least one panel held in the building across the street from the main hotel was inaccessible to those people.

I am lucky enough that I don't often have to worry about how I'm going to get to a party or a panel or an airport on my own. It would be a fine thing if no one attending Bouchercon had to worry about it.

We can make that happen for each other. It takes a little extra effort, sometimes. But if you ever doubt that's worthwhile, just think about Zoe Sharp auctioning off breakfast followed by target practice at a shooting range during this year's Bcon.

The winning bid was placed by a woman who happens to be blind. Zoe was stoked about it.

I love that.

The Love-Hate of Critics

By Paul...

How do you explain it when intelligent, well-read critics violently disagree over the literary value of a book. Today’s case in point, “Thirteen Moons,” by Charles Frazier, author of the mega-seller “Cold Mountain.”

In Sunday’s Washington Post, distinguished reviewer Jonathan Yardley describes Frazier’s writing as “incredibly long-winded, sentimental [and] soporific.”

In today’s Los Angeles times, Michael Blake (“Dances with Wolves”) proclaims: “‘Thirteen Moons' is rare in many ways and occupies a literary plane of such height that reviewing it is not really salient.”

So why bother? But wait, it gets better...

Yardley: “Reading Frazier is like sitting by the cracker barrel for hour after hour and listening to an amiable but impossibly gassy guy who talks real slow, says ‘I reckon’ a whole lot and never shuts up. His novels have little structure and not much in the way of plot.”

Blake: “‘Thirteen Moons’ will provide the immense satisfaction of talking a literary journey of magnitude. Whether on a plane, in an office or curled in a window seat, readers who absorb Will’s story will find their own lives enriched.”

Wow. I’m happy when a reviewer says one of my books will kill some time when you’re stuck at the Denver airport in a snowstorm.

Yardley: “‘Thirteen Moons’ is going to be putting a whole bunch of people to sleep.”

Blake: ‘Thirteen Moons’ has the power to inspire great performances from succeeding generations of writers.”

At least you know where these guys stand. I once had meeting with a Hollywood producer to discuss a spec script I’d written. “Like it, don’t love it,” the producer said. Which, now that I think about it, means he hated it.

Jackie Rocks, Connelly Redux

All the Naked Authors share Jacqueline’s joy in winning the historical fiction Macavity Award for “Pardonable Lies.”


Congrats to Michael Connelly who won best novel category with “The Lincoln Lawyer.” As the losers always say at the Academy Awards, it was an honor just to be nominated. (Then they go home and kick the valet). “The Lincoln Lawyer” is my favorite of Connelly’s books, but then I’m a sucker for a shady mouthpiece who needs redemption. Mike also took home the Shamus award.

A big hand clap, too, for Louise Ure, whose “Forcing Amaryllis”
won the Shamus for best first P.I. novel. I seldom use the word “shamus” in conversation because I don’t know if it’s pronounced “shay-mus” or “shah-mus.” I asked Lee Goldberg, who was nominated for “The Man with the Iron-On Badge,” and also bested by the lawyer who works out of his Lincoln. Lee thinks the word rhymes with Shabbos. On the other hand, if you’ve seen the musical, “City of Angels,” you might remember the song, “You’re Nothing without me, when the fictional P.I. sings to his creator: “Hey, I’m a famous shay-mus, And most people don’t know your name.”


LARGE PRINT!

My mother, Sally Levine, age 89, would like to personally thank Thorndike Press, which just purchased rights to publish a hardcover, LARGE PRINT edition of “Kill All the Lawyers.”

By Paul, son of Sally & Stan

In Conversation with Elizabeth George

Patty here...

Elizabeth George is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels featuring aristocratic Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley and his working class partner Barbara Havers. Her books have been nominated for the Macavity and the Edgar and have won the Anthony, the Agatha, France’s Le Grand Prix de Literature Policiere, and Germany’s MIMI award. Her books have been filmed for television by the BBC and can be seen in the United States on PBS’s “Mystery.”

Ms. George agreed to speak with NakedAuthors about her new novel, What Came Before He Shot Her, which was released on October 1, 2006.

Q: In your novel With No One As Witness you did something that few authors have the courage to do. You killed off one of your series characters. What led to your decision? Did you stop in the middle of a chapter and say Helen must die or have you been plotting her demise for a long time?

EG: I had known for quite some time that Helen was going to die, but I wasn't sure what novel it would take place in because I wanted her death to be thematically unified with the rest of the book. As I was writing With No One As Witness I saw that the death would fit into the story well. This plan—to kill off a major character—was an artistic decision. Writing a series instead of writing stand-alone novels requires the author to keep opening up the story of the lives of the continuing characters, not closing down the story of their lives. Killing off Helen Lynley effectively dropped a hand grenade into the characters' lives in that it created a situation in which I can now pick up any one of a number of threads to use in an ongoing story. With Helen alive, I would have been reduced to recounting the story of their growing family, which did not interest me. Helen dead allows me to examine Lynley in extremis and in recovery, which does interest me.

Q: When fans read of Helen’s death many went through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and now, hopefully, acceptance. How does it feel when the prose you write touches readers so deeply?

EG: I've long believed that it's the responsibility of the writer to make the reader feel something. I'm trying to do this with every novel I write. John Steinbeck describes novel-writing as a trinity, which only exists when the writer, the work, and the reader are present together. I subscribe to this philosophy in that I wish to engage the reader's emotions. I wish the reader to care deeply about all of the characters. So the fact that people reacted as they did told me I was successful.

Q: Your books are considered works of psychological suspense. What in your background and/or training compels you to delve so deeply into the human psyche?

EG: I've always been interested in the human psyche and in why people do what they do. I also have a master's degree in counseling, grounded in psychology.

Q: The settings in your novels are as evocative and deeply rendered as your human characters. What is your process for researching the locales in your novels and do you ever use the settings as a metaphor for the crimes committed there?

EG: Getting the setting right is a huge endeavor for me, and I frequently feel as if I haven't done the job I would like to do, especially when I compare what I'm doing with what Martin Cruz Smith does so consistently well in his books. I love novels with evocative settings. I may, however, have to resign myself to being a character writer instead of a setting writer. That said, I appreciate it when someone thinks I've done a good job with setting. My process of researching a setting is to go there and be there: taking photos, walking, taking notes, writing descriptions when I can, speaking into my tape recorder. I try to discover the telling details of a setting and I also try to discover what makes that setting different from other settings. In Cornwall, it's all about the mining industry and the fascinating geology.

Q: How far in advance do you plot your novels? Book to book? Or have you looked into the future and seen where they might end?

EG: When I'm working on an individual novel, I plot out ten scenes at a time, which is generally as far as I can go. I know who the killer is, but I don't always know how my detectives are going to figure it out. I also don't know how the subplots are going to work out until I get into the rough draft. Sometimes I know what the next book is going to be (I was in the lucky position of knowing what the next two novels were going to be when I was writing With No One As Witness) but often I haven't the slightest idea.

Q: Many book titles these days are based on clichés. What is the process you use to come up with your unique titles?

EG: I usually start with a single word that has something to do with the plot, like deception. Then I play around with it in different phrases until I come up with one that makes a statement about the novel and also has a metric flow to it. In my latest book that I'm working on, Careless in Red, I actually used that phrase to describe a character in the character analysis and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was the title of the novel.

Q: You have outlined your unique writing process in the book, Write Away: One Novelist’s Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life. At the beginning of each chapter you include excerpts from your daily journal. In one entry you state: “I received such an outstanding review for Deception on His Mind yesterday that it made me really nervous. Several reviewers have talked about the fact that they can’t wait to read my novels and that they’re a little scared before they read them that I won’t be able to maintain the quality I’ve had in them so far. Gee. They should be on this end of things if they’re feeling scared.” So after writing fourteen Lynley novels, numerous short stories, and a nonfiction book, is the fear still there?

EG: Absolutely. I expect that for any honest writer, the fear is always there. If someone isn't just churning out the same novel over and over again (changing the names to protect the innocent, as it were), then this has to be a scary process. As PD James once said, "When I finish one of these novels, I don't know how I did it and I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it again."

Q: You have long ago passed the stage in your career where you have to do anything but write novels. Why do you continue to teach aspiring authors?

EG: I see that as part of the great tradition of writing in the US. Here we have always passed knowledge of the craft along, which is why writing is alive and well in the US and moribund in some other countries.

Q: I once heard you challenge the notion that authors should write what they know by stating that if you had taken that advice you would be writing about a high school English teacher in Orange County. What is your advice today? What should writers write?

EG: I still adhere to the same philosophy. I believe writers should write about that which excites them. If they're just writing to get published or if they're writing in order to fulfill a reader's expectation, then so frequently their writing lies there inertly, neither engaging nor challenging the reader. People who are writing about something that interests them deeply or that they care about deeply usually turn out wonderful novels. The Constant Gardener is a good example of this. Wonderful book, big passion on the part of the writer, the incomparable John LeCarre.

Q: It’s becoming more and more difficult these days to get published and stay published. What are the qualities that turn a writer into a published author? And what must they then do to sustain a career over the long haul?

EG: At one time I would have said that the qualities of a writer that will get that writer published are talent, passion and discipline. But that was in the days when publishers were interested in sponsoring the career of a writer, which they knew would take some time to get off the ground. Now, however, there seem to be a lot of one-time wonders out there who get published because they have a groovy high concept that has Hollywood written all over it and Massive Sales written all over it as well. The writing is at best sophomoric and at worst ghastly but who cares because the pages keep turning and the pace is fast and people are buying the book like hotcakes because they don't have to think when they're reading it; they just have to go along for the ride. Thus for so many writers, what's required for a onetime publishing experience is a bang-up story that can be reduced to a single sentence, fast pace, and a motion-picture style.

However, this is not to say excellent writing, passion about the process, commitment to stay the course, and discipline do not get a person published because they do. Excellent writing will find a publisher eventually.

Staying the course and making a career out of it...I think this requires an enormous commitment on the part of the artist. The writer has to be willing to suit up and show up at the computer or the typewriter or the legal pad every working day and to stay there until the work gets done. It involves being willing to engage in publicity tours (which are exhausting, let me tell you), listen to criticism from editors, write and rewrite, and continue to challenge yourself and grow.

Q: It seems as if the trend these days for many authors is to take a break between series books and write a stand-alone novel. Have you any plans to do that as well?

EG: I suppose many people will consider What Came Before He Shot Her a stand-alone novel. Right now I have no plans to do another because I have so much else going on.

Q: What is the title of your next Lynley novel and what if anything can you tell your fans about it?

EG: The book I'm working on right now is called Careless in Red and it takes place in Cornwall, in a surfing community. Lynley is featured in it, as is Havers. It takes place several months after Helen's death.

Q: What is the question you've always wanted to be asked in an interview but never have been?

EG: Why is the dachshund your choice of dog? Well, every human companion to a dachshund knows the answer to that!