Author: Elizabeth Spann Craig

I love reading mysteries.  That’s the whole reason I chose the genre to write for.  But when I’m writing a book, I try not to read books that are similar to my own.  In other words, I try to avoid humorous cozy mysteries. 

The reasons I do this are two-fold.  First,  on some level, I’m worried about getting too much influence from a book similar to my own.  But mostly, I’m worried that reading another author’s published book will make me more frustrated with my own.  What I’m reading is a well-polished, darned-near-perfect finished product, but I can’t help but compare it to my own, imperfect, scratched-up and scribbled over Work in Progress. 

So lately I’ve read some wonderful mysteries, but they’ve been nothing like my own.  I read Deborah Crombie’s latest police procedural (Where Memories Lie) and a couple of books with mysterious elements to them that weren’t traditional mysteries (House at Riverton and The Secret History). These books were so different from mine in every way that I was able to read them for relaxation and pure enjoyment instead of comparing my manuscript to them and feeling like I’m falling short. 

Is it tough for you to stay focused?  Ever find that, despite your best intentions, you start flirting with another project?  It’s the lure of the forbidden:  you’re actually supposed to be working on your mystery series.  But then you get this great idea for a children’s book.  In the middle of the night, no less.  You even sketch out some dialogue and the tone of the book, and…

Just say no! This happened to me a couple of nights ago and it was soooo tempting to start working on something new and different.  It always seems like the new love will be easier to work with, more fun-loving, cuter.  Isn’t the grass always greener on the other side of the fence?

I decided to type out my sketchy idea on a Word doc and save it to the file “New Book Ideas.” That way I haven’t forgotten the idea and I can explore it later.  Because starting another project is just as much a form of distraction as messing around on the computer or watching TV is. 

Sometimes when you’re a mom, your life just gets incredibly busy and crazy.  Occasionally you can guess when this madness will descend, and others it just bites you in the rear end.  This week was a little of both.

I had kids over for end-of-summer playdates several days.  My own children were unexpectedly attention-craving, we had my daughter’s birthday party to plan and execute, Brownie Scouts had a pool party….argh!  Basically, any plans I made were quickly morphed into something else.  Did I mention that both my dryer and my air conditioner needed repairman?

I did manage to write during this craziness, but I was catching my moments when I could: in the middle of the night, waking up with insomnia; while my kids were in the pool and I was at poolside; in the car at stoplights.  Was it exactly the quality writing time I wanted?  No.  But I felt better when I did it and it quickly added up, too. 

School starts back next week and with any luck I can get back into more of a rhythm.

While I’m writing my daily pages (I’m starting at the beginning of the book, but might hop around later), I’m also working at the same time on fleshing out my characters. Since I’m writing mysteries, I’m thinking in terms of suspects, killer, and victim(s).

A lot of these characters have traits of people I know or have met, even for a few minutes, in the grocery store or Target. Sometimes I meet people that really strike me the wrong way and they become victims in my books. :) The idea here is that you’re writing what you know. Obviously you’re not going to want to call your characters by the same name or make them exactly like the person you have in mind. That’s called libel. But there’s lots of good baby naming links for names. Or you could drag out your old high school yearbook and come across a bunch of name ideas. I’ve had fun with this site: http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-name.php . It has a lot of fantasy name ideas, but it can really get your creative juices flowing.

It’s been said a lot, but it really helps to know your characters well. It helps even more to know your characters a little TOO well. If you make a simple list of your character’s personality traits and background, it helps you to know what motivates them and what internal conflicts they might be facing. You don’t need to put all your information about the characters in your book–it would end up bloated with unnecessary information. But by knowing your character well, you can make your book stronger.

Here are some links to some character trait charts that have helped me nail down my characters: http://users.wirefire.com/tritt/tip8.html and http://www.charlottedillon.com/CharacterChart.html

There are days when churning out my 1-2 pages is a major chore. Today started out that way. I had a flurry of emails, phone calls, and a meeting yesterday which all dealt with event sign-ups for Scouts and school, 2 special occasions to find a babysitter for, college reunion activities to plan out and make hotel reservations for, and the launch of a major fundraiser for Boy Scouts. STRESS. I knew before I went to bed that I was feeling stressed out, but just decided to turn in and hope for the best (the best= wake up refreshed the next morning.)

Anyway, I woke up worried at 3:15 A.M. How was everything going to get done? Could I carry it off or would I drop the ball? Could I even remember all the stuff I needed to do? And so I decided to get up for the day. Because, let’s face it, we all know when sleep just isn’t going to happen that night. Getting up sure beats tossing and turning. I sat down with my calendar, worked out my worries the best I could, and then started writing. There sure as heck aren’t a lot of distractions in the middle of the night. Despite being tired, I wrote my couple of pages and surprised myself at their humor. Okay, maybe it was sarcasm. But that was a tone I was going for so maybe being exhausted helped me to channel it.

As long as I write at least one or two pages a day, I’m on target. The most important thing is getting the words down on the page. I’m as much of a perfectionist as anyone else, but you can’t revise and edit until you’ve got something substantial to read-through. When I’m too hung up in corrections and reading over the text, then I don’t move forward on the project at all.