What Obligation do Series Writers Owe their Readers?

It’s funny how my perspective changed on book series when I started writing two different ones. As a reader, I was very impatient to see the next book in a series be released. Really, I was about as bad as my son with the Harry Potter books. When was the next Elizabeth George book coming out? What do you mean she’s not writing an Inspector Lynley novel? A book of short stories, instead? Oh no…

You get the idea. I was just as bad when the incredibly productive M.C. Beaton would turn out an Agatha Raisin instead of a Hamish Macbeth. Although I enjoy both, Hamish is my favorite.

Then I started writing series.

I thought it was very interesting to read a post by author Neil Gaiman on this same issue. Because, if you think about it, we now have a real window into the world of our favorite authors. We can follow them during the day on Twitter, we can read their blog posts, we can see that they’re messing around on Facebook. So what if you do have a dedicated reader who’s put out that you blogged about spending the day doing yard work instead of churning out his eagerly awaited book? What obligation do writers owe their readers?

The Care and Feeding of Writers

blog45 Writing can be a very isolating activity.  Actually, it’s the perfect activity for an introvert (which most writers are by nature.)

But most writers don’t just define themselves by their writing.  They’re also sons and daughters who may have a role in the care of their parents, employees, caregivers of small or older children, and volunteers.

And yet we still have to spend time wracking our brains, delving into our emotions, and creating something exciting on a blank word processing screen. So we’re just a wee bit busy. 

Usually, I put myself at the bottom of the list of things I need to take care of for the day.  This isn’t something I do on purpose, but it’s just sort of how the chips fall.  This is what I’m looking at for today:  Sheets need to be changed, upstairs badly needs dusting, cat fur everywhere that needs vacuuming, oh gosh—we’re out of eggs, the car needs an oil change, the garage is a wreck, the children need to rest up for the EOG testing, blogs and writing goals need to be met, oh…and I need to maybe look decent and possibly even wear makeup today.  Because I might be going to an ice cream party for Brownie scout leaders, if I can get there.

I think my husband and son are classic enablers.  My husband says things every day like: “You always look nice” or “That color looks great on you” or “Wow, you’re aging well.”  My middle school son says “You’re the prettiest mom I know.”

But then there’s my daughter—the truth-teller.  She squints as she looks at me and winces.   “Did you wear that shirt two days ago?”  “But it’s clean,” I say.  “But you have a pretty dress in the closet.  Why don’t you put it on?”  Hmm.  And “Mama.  Don’t you ever wear lipstick anymore?”  And “Mama.  You’re not going out in that?”  

That may sound awful, but really, she’s looking out for me.  It’s a reminder that I need to show myself a little respect and TLC or what can I expect from everybody else?

This isn’t limited to personal appearance, although that’s probably the most obvious indicator of where we’ve put ourselves on our to-do list for the day. We also should eat well, exercise, drink water, and get plenty of sleep.  (The sleep thing probably won’t happen for me—major insomniac—but I can try to rack up a few more minutes at least.)

I wrote yesterday on Poe.  There’s an extreme example of someone who didn’t look out for himself.  But I think most of us could do a little better.  Maybe if we take better care of ourselves, our work will improve.  I think it’s worth a try.

On Poe

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What would Edgar Allan Poe have thought about the observations this year of the 200th anniversary of his birth? I can’t help but think he would be stunned.

This is a man who was found delirious, wandering the streets of Baltimore in clothing that wasn’t his own. He called out repeatedly for “Reynolds” in the hospital, though no one knew to whom he was referring. He died in the hospital days later. It was a mysterious end for a man recognized for spawning detective stories.

He had an unusual and unhappy life. He married his thirteen year old cousin who died of tuberculosis only two years after they wed. He never made much money on his stories, or drank away much of the money he did make. He was the first well-known American author not to pursue a day-job, but to attempt to make a living from his writing alone. A letter Poe wrote to his publishers, apologizing for his drinking and asking for more money, was purchased by the University of Virginia for an exhibit marking his 200th birthday. In the letter, Poe asks his New York publishers, J. and Henry G. Langley:

“Will you be so kind enough to put the best possible interpretation upon my behaviour while in N-York? You must have conceived a queer idea of me — but the simple truth is that Wallace would insist upon the juleps, and I knew not what I was either doing or saying.”

Wallace was his friend and poet William Ross Wallace.

Despite his struggle with alcoholism and personal tragedies, Poe was extremely productive as a writer and poet. He’s not only credited with introducing the detective story genre with his detective, C. Auguste Dupin, in The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841); but also with increasing the popularity of the gothic and horror fiction genres.

Poe’s detective used logic and keen observation to solve the case. But he also had rudimentary forensic analysis in The Mystery of Marie Roget.

I wonder how Poe would have handled his success and recognition in the year 2009. Would it have inspired him to get some help? Or would he have followed the same path? Was his troubled life the source of all his inspiration and would success have given him writers block? He died at the age of 40….I can’t help but wonder what other literary gems he could have created if his life hadn’t been cut so short.

Summer Reading—What’s on Your List?

blog46 Most writers are avid readers, even when we can’t find enough time to do the reading we’d like to.  Since it’s a hot and summery Saturday (here in North Carolina, anyway), it seems like a great time to exchange book lists.  I, for one, can definitely use some new reading material.  Currently I’m enjoying Lisa Miscione’s Smoke. Right now it’s a missing person’s case, but I’ve got a feeling a body will be popping up on the scene soon.

Stephen King gave his summer reading recommendations recently to Entertainment Weekly.  There were a couple of surprises: King reads Jodi Picoult and Charles Dickens. Who’d have guessed? I like Picoult myself, but guess her new book must be more on the thriller end of things than her usual.  Dickens I’ve admired for years, but I don’t usually wade through his novels during my all-too-brief summers (there was a period of time—can we say Bleak House?—where Dickens was being paid by the word.  He must have been trying to send someone to college at the time.)

My list here will be pitifully short (this is why I need help pulling a longer list together.) Right now I’ve got Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (because I didn’t get around to reading it last year) and the follow up The Girl Who Played with Fire (Coming out July 28.)  I also want to read M.C. Beaton’s next in the Agatha Raisin series, A Spoonful of Poison. P.D. James has Original Sin coming out on July 14, so I want to catch that, of course. My beach read will probably be Dorothea Benton Franks’s Return to Sullivan’s Island.

Any good recommendations—for any genre?

Dreams

blog43 There are lots of great stories out there about artists, inventors, and entertainers who got their best ideas through dreams.  How can I get in on this process? 

Rolling Stone Magazine has an entire article about the impact of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” on rock and roll.  The famous riff for the song?  It came to Keith Richards in a dream one night in a motel room in Florida:

He woke up, grabbed a guitar nearby and taped the music racing through his head on a handy cassette machine. Richards played the run of notes once, then fell back to sleep. “On the tape,” he said later, “you can hear me drop the pick, and the rest of the tape is snoring.”

And then, of course, we have Coleridge’s Kubla Khan.  The full title is Kubla Khan or A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment. Coleridge stated that he’d written the poem while waking from an opium-enriched dream. A visitor came unexpectedly to his door, shattering his dream and the images he was hurrying to commit to paper.

Salvador Dali called his surrealistic masterpieces (above) ‘hand-painted dream photographs.’ They were inspired by his dreams and hallucinations.

Elias Howe invented a better sewing machine after a particularly bizarre dream involving cannibals waving spears with holes in them. Apparently the movement of the spears indicated to him a way to make his machine work.

Some of the people on this list may have had particularly vivid dreams induced by certain mind-bending substances.  But I wonder—are there any writers out there who get bits of ideas or dialogue or story ideas directly from their dreams?

Because, frankly, my dreams are remarkably unremarkable.  Most of them can be categorized this way: 1) I’m back in middle school/high school/college and can’t understand my schedule, forgot my locker combination, or am not fully dressed.  2) I’ve forgotten to feed a neighbor’s dog and cat while they’re out of town and the poor beasts are ravenous in the neighbor’s house.  And pooping everywhere.  And I can’t find my neighbor’s key.  3) I’m back at some dearly-departed relative’s house.  They’re alive.  I’m not a child, though.  And their house has REALLY changed—it’s sort of like my house as an adult, it’s sort of like their house…and I’m totally lost.

You get the picture.  Random insecurity dreams.

Are there others out there cursed by pedestrian dreams?  How do we get out of our dream rut?  :)  It would be nice to explore my subconscious a little….

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