Twittering, the Crime Sistahs' Way
By Persia Walker

I call it being stylishly late to the party. Everyone knows that Twitters' been all the rage for some time now, but we CrimeSistahs took our sweet time getting there. No rush for us. Well, I'm happy to say that we are there now.

We. Have. Arrived.

I signed up for a personal Twitter account, oh, back in November, December? It was late last year. Then I did nothing, nada, nix. While the world partied, I kept thinking, what's so special about Twitter. I remember reading a New York Times article on something called ambient intimacy -- all about people connecting online. That article is what sent me to Twitter in the first place. The author of the article said that first he didn't "get it." It just seemed like a stream of meaningless jabber (which, quite honestly, it can be). But at some point, his mental lens focused, and out of this stream of nonsense formed information of import. He got it. A real ah-hah! moment.

Well, I had that moment a few weeks ago, and I've been working on tweeting ever since. No, I haven't totally changed my habits. I don't tweet as much as I should, but I try. I found a way to rapidly increase followers. Over the last few days I've gone from what, a couple of hundred to more than 700. I've been primarily trying to reach other writers and avid readers of mysteries. Yes, some other folks manage to get in -- but why not? If they love books and mysteries then I'm happy to tweet with them!

Someone likened tweeting to hanging out in your favorite neighborhood bar, some place to go where everyone knows your name. Twitter can certainly be like that. You have to carve out your little space. Get to know your folks and exchange silly jokes, advice, inspiration, and news.

News. Now that's important. Everyone I tweet with might one day become a reader, introduced to me and wyourork on the rather microscopic basis of my tweets. Some of them have already proven very helpful -- offering advice on optimizing my website, books to read, newspaper articles to catch, etc.

Back to promotion. I admit that my initial interest in Twitter had to do with promoting my work. But I've come to enjoy it for the moment to moment events, and that, oddly enough is why I believe that I'll be successful with it. I'm not trying to sell anything. I am, however, trying to build relationships -- small ties that don't bind, but do let folks know that I'm out here.

John Kremer, the guru of book promotion, has released a Twitter Manual for Writers and Booksellers. If you're an author and you're interested, then please download it. It's a good place to start. There's tons more to say about how to navigate Twitterdom, but his manual has more than enough to get you started. I can't find the original URL, but here's another one that's just as good (as it lists several sources from Kremer).

Best wishes for a happy Twitter Friday! :-)

On the Road
By Persia Walker

So last week this time, I was on my way to the airport to catch a plane to Houston for the National Black Book Fair. It was my first time taking part in such an event and my, my, my was it an eye-opener!

To put it in a nutshell, it was the first time I worked as a vendor, selling my own books, as opposed to serving on a panel or speaking at a bookstore. At the fair, I joined a hundred or so other authors in hawking our wares, so to speak.

What did I learn? Well, I've always had respect for booksellers, admiration, too. Now, let's just say I double it. Booksellers work hard, folks. We authors owe them a whole lot of support and gratitude. (Hint, hint: Shop at your local independent bookstores, folks!)

Most of the authors were quite experienced at this fair business and were generous with their wisdom and advice. First thing I learned was to compile a list of ready-to-go items:

1. Signage (a poster for your titles)
2. Table drape (not a table cloth. Often the fair provides this. A table drape, however, can help you stand out further.)
3. Gift baskets
4. Tickets to raffle off said gift baskets
5. Candies and candy jars to lure readers who have an appetite for sweets (or just a quick need for some energizing sugar)
   
6. A booklet, list or pad whereon one can have folks sign their names and email addresses to join your mailing list
7. Promotional material (business cards, magnets, sample chapters, chapstick, scratch pads, etc.)
8. A credit card machine
9. A small marking board where you can write (and sometimes amend) your prices
10. A SOLD OUT! sign
11. Book holders (to display your books)
12. Maybe bags to give your buyers to carry away goodies in

I also learned to take a number of things into consideration when choosing venues: Biggest consideration (beyond the registration fee) is distance, time to get there, cost of travel and accommodations. How much will this investment be offset by the potential sales? How much will tit be offset by the (sometimes hard to measure) value of exposure to new readers? Potential for developing invitations to speaking engagements? Sometimes, the value of a trip isn't obvious. Sometimes, it doesn't emerge until much, much later.

Whatever you decide, venues such as local or regional book fairs can be a lot of fun. They're hard work, but they can provide you with valuable new contacts among other authors and face time with new readers. You just have to count your numbers correctly.

What's On My Desk
By Persia Walker

So, after having debated say, oh, fifty seconds about what to write about today, I decided to follow Gammy's lead and try a bit of sharing. She's picked a large subject. I'm going to stick with a smaller one: What's on my desk today?

Actually that's not accurate. What I really intend to write about is what's on my hard drive, writing-wise, that is.

At last count, I had at least five incomplete crime novels in various stages of gestation (ahem, progressive perfection). When I say novels, I do mean novels, not slightly lengthy short stories. We're talking manuscripts ranging from as "little" as 50,000 to 75,000 that are still not done yet.

Then there are indeed the short stories, some as short at one line -- heck, some consisting of no more than a mere title -- others, fairly well-developed, but far, far, exasperatingly far from being polished.

Last, but not least, are all my ideas. Oh, yes! Let's not forget them! At a party recently, an agent asked me, "So do you have any ideas for a new book?"

Duh. Yeah. Way too many of them. To write them all out, I'd have to sit at my desk twelve hours a day, seven days a week, week after week, month after month, year after year -- which by the way, some writers do. (They're the ones we call prolific.) Obviously, I'm not one of them.

Me, I'd be content to finish one book a year. So ... according to that schedule, I have about five years worth of work on my hard drive already. Do I think I'll ever write all those stories? Who knows? Have I stopped thinking of new ones? Uh, no. Do I feel guilty about sitting down to work on the "new" stories instead of finishing up/polishing up the "older" ones? Yeah. But am I going to change? No.

And do I think I'm that different from most writers? Nope. Am I worried about it? Nope.

So what about you? Do you have a stack of stories, both big and small, that you've yet to finish? Are they like friends who keep winking at you out of the corner of one eye? Do you work on more than one story at a time? Or do you stick with one story and battle it through, until it's done and you can lay it aside?

Play on Emmett Till Wins Edgar Award
By Persia Walker

Chicago playwright Ifa Bayeza won the prestigious Edgar Award during yesterday's ceremony in New York for her work The Ballad of Emmett Till.

Bayeza, already a prize-winning author, said she was "thrilled" at receiving the Edgar, which is awarded by the Mystery Writers of America.

Her play stems from the August 1955 murder of Till, a 14-year-old Chicago youth who was brutalized during a trip to Mississippi. He had whistled at a white woman at a grocery store where he and some friends had purchased sweets. His mother's decision to hold an open-casket funeral for her son drew international attention to the horrors of lynching in the South.

The men who were accused of having killed Till were found innocent in court. Feeling safe from further legal prosecution by virtue of double-jeopardy, they later admitted to the killing. They said they originally didn't intend to kill Till, but after beating and torturing him, finally shot him because he didn't show fear.

Unlike other writings that have focused on the barbarity of the boy's death, Bayeza's work is a celebration of his all-too-brief life. The website of the Goodman Theatre in Chicago describes The Ballad of Emmett Till as a "soaring work of music, brilliant poetry and theatricality."

It was wonderful to be in the audience at the Grand Hyatt and see Bayeza accept her Edgar. Her other stage works include Amistad Voices, Club Harlem and Homer G & the Rhapsodies. Bayeza is known for authoring works that inspire dialogue among a diverse audience. She collaborated with her sister Ntozake Shange on Shange's landmark production of for colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, directed by Oz Scott, at New Federal Theater and The Public Theater. The two also collaborated on a new novel, Some Sing, Some Cry, to be published by St. Martin's Press.

Book Deals for Bloggers With Catchy Ideas
By Persia Walker

So what's the latest trend in publishing?

Blog-to-book deals for folks who think up funny subjects, put up a blog, invite user content -- and then sell the whole package for a fat check.

The New York Times is writing about the success of comedy screenwriter Duncan Birmingham who decided to set up a blog featuring pictures of the funny, and sometimes undignified ways, in which people dress their pets. He called the blog Pets Who Want to Kill Themselves. The site went up in January. Visitors immediately started uploading pictures of dogs in underwear, cats dangling in socks, and other photos of that ilk. Not only did the general public think it was a good idea, so did the publishing world. According to the Times, editors and literary agents were contacting Birmingham within a week.

Then, there's the case of the ladies who created a blog that amalgamated funny e-mail exchanges between moms and their grown kids. For Doree Shafrir and Jessica Grose, the result wasn't just a well-visited site, but a book called Love, Mom.

Ka-ching!

The folks behind This Is Why You're Fat enjoyed similarly-attained success.

Ka-ching! Ka-ching!

The sole downside for the blog-owners? They have to track down the people who submitted the materials to begin with and get permission to use them. That, the Times writes, can become a "nightmarish task."

Somehow, I feel no sympathy. I mean, sheesh, these folks should do some work. After all, they're essentially making money off of other people's content. (Which also leads me to ask, why would anyone agree to let someone else make money off of their photos?)

As a writer who, like many writers, labors countless hours over a manuscript, fretting about plotting, characterization, and story arcs, I guess I should be angry over how these non-writers are getting over.

I should be angry, but I'm not. As a matter-of-fact, my little heart of crass commercialism feels only a touch of envy. At the most, I find myself wondering, "Why didn't I think of that?"

Does this lack of resentment stem from my odd, but firm, belief that there really is enough for everyone to go around, or is it disguised despair, or do I genuinely believe that these folks, with their witty ideas, are contributing something?

Perhaps it's a bit of all of that. Humor is something we're in dire need of. Reminders to laugh at ourselves, they're to be valued.

I do think I'm just a bit cynical, too. We all know that American publishers race from one fad to another. They're producing book versions of farcical blogs now, too? Why would that surprise me? Furthermore, I would never assume that money not spent on fad books would be spent on serious ones instead.

I could let this instance of industry foolishness get my dander up, but I refuse to. I choose to leave the anger to others. I choose to believe that eventually real writers will have their day. I choose to believe that the decision-makers in publishing will soon be forced to seriously reconsider their priorities.

Until that day comes, I'll keep writing and I'll keep believing that there's enough to go around.

Writing By Numbers
By Persia Walker

A few weeks ago, I decided that I needed to bring a sense or organization to my writing. The work would flow faster and be done quicker if I simply did more preparation. My usual way of writing was simply to get a story idea, jot down the high points, then sit down and go for it. The result was always a self-contradictory manuscript that got soft in the middle and the required multiple rewrites. Well, I was going to reform my ways. I was going to be organized.

I went to Amazon.com and bought that book by James N. Frey, How to Write a Damn Good Mystery: A Practical Step-by-Step Guide from Inspiration to Finished Manuscript. I'm sure that most writers have heard of Frey and his how-to books. I haven't read the How to Write a Damn Good Novel version, but I'm glad I read the one concerning mysteries.

It was an eye-opener. Oh, my. I saw everything I'd been doing wrong -- and everything I'd been doing right. Now, it was just a matter of moving from the instinctive to the intellectual, from guessing to knowing, from trial-and-error to figuring things out properly.

Frey recommends what he calls a stepsheet. It what the rest of us call a scene outline, or simply outline. His stepsheet, however, calls for you to list every scene with a description of what happens and how it leads to the next one. Simple, basic and essentially quite helpful. I'd usually written such things after I'd written my first draft. But now I was going to be a good girl and do it beforehand.

As usual, I have ideas for several stories in mind -- all of which I can't wait to start on. I decided that I would use organized approach for one of them, the least complicated story. I sat down to write this stepsheet -- and hit a wall.

All of the joy and sense of surprise that accompanies the writing of the first draft evaporated. I froze at the keyboard. Always a procrastinator, I suddenly found myself addicted to hours of Hulu. Nothing writerly got done. I couldn't even bring myself to work on the rewrite of my second Lanie Price book.

Finally, I sat down for lunch with a good friend, Catherine Maiorisi. She was very pointed and very direct. "Put the stepsheet aside and go back to what works best for you."

"But I want to be organized," I said. "I want to write like grown-ups do, get it done and get it right. How I write right now ... it's so ... so messy."

She shrugged. "But it works. When you're messy, you're creative. When you're neat, you sink."

I thought about it, came home and picked up the Frey book. It's such a wonderful book. Having read it, I now see the framework he outlines in just about every commercially successful mystery I read. It seems so obvious, you know? But if it's all that obvious, why can't I do it?

Grrrr ...

But Catherine was right. I'm not an organized person and my attempt to force my mind to work in a way that's absolutely antipathetic was actually blocking my process.

I put the Frey book aside and turned on my laptop. I opened Scrivener, my favorite writing program, and started a new document. A blank white digital page is every bit as intimidating as a blank physical one. Trust me.

So I did what one can't do with a typewriter. I turned off the lights.

That's right. I turned down the screen lighting to the point where everything disappeared. Then I closed my eyes just to make sure, put my fingers to the keyboard and began to type.

Oh my, what a relief! No outlines, no rules, no bright blank page. Just me and my imagination.

I'm averaging a thousand words a day now. As usual, I only know the beginning. I have only the vaguest idea of the ending. Will the story amount to anything? I haven't the faintest idea. I only know how much fun it is to love writing again, instead of viewing it as a task.

How to Write a Damn Good Mystery, meanwhile, has an honored place on my bookshelf. The lessons it contains will reside in my subconscious, where they belong. They will inform all of my writing from now on, but as a collaborating, but not dominant voice.

Yes, it feels good to be messy again.

The Case for the Virtuous Villain
By Persia Walker

It can take a few books before a writer understands the importance of having a fully developed "villain," someone who is not only strong, but believable and also sometimes sympathetic. This character is the one who drives the story. He or she is the one who upsets the apple cart, derails the train, rips the carpet out from under our feet and essentially gets the story going. If it weren't for this individual, we wouldn't have anything to write about. Isn't it time that the villain had his due?

I could also call this post "The Case for the Vulnerable Villain," since many a "villain" sees him- or herself as both virtuous and vulnerable. Every now and then, you might actually come across one who says, "Yes, I'm evil and happy about it," but most feel sorry for themselves. Each feels that he has been ignored, downtrodden. He has worked hard, been taken advantage of and deserves the money he stole. She was a faithful wife, bore his kids and put him through school. She's the one who deserves his gifts, his loyalty and admiration -- not that b*tch of a mistress she shot before his very eyes.

All of us know that crooks, criminals and their assorted bedfellows have their own point of view, a very strong point of view, a sense that they had a right to do what they did. Their world was so threatened that they had no choice but to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting community. We know this, but do we reflect it in our writing? Too often, we don't. A villain is a villain is a villain. (Oh, I know that in writing schools and creative fiction classes these days, they teach us not to label anyone as a villain, but to call them antagonists. But let's be honest: deep down, most of us do still think of the person causing all the trouble in our stories as the bad one, the villain.)

We pay a price for being so cut-and-dry when it comes to characterization. Our stories are much, much richer when we take the time to see the world through our villain's eyes. Most of us have been told that motivation for crime boils down to love or money. Almost all crime, we've read, falls into one or both of those categories. Fair enough. But I think we should take a look at what can happen within those categories when explaining our lawbreaker's behavior. Below is a shortlist of explanations just to get you going. You might want to add to the list and/or review which explanation(s) apply to your "villain."

Explanation 1 is a sympathetic one. It is so sympathetic that Dear Reader finds himself wondering if he wouldn't have done the same thing if he'd been standing in the perp's shoes. It's a question that good criminal defense attorneys successfully get juries to reflect on all the time. And it's one that a good writer of mystery and mayhem also gets his or her readers to ask.

One obvious example would be the person who commits a criminal act with the intention of saving another. Remember the movie John Q? A desperate father takes a hospital waiting room hostage to force authorities to find a heart for his dying child, who needs a transplant. This was a good, but desperate man who was driven to commit a very real crime.

Explanation 2 is a trivial one. The reason for the crime seems so trivial that Dear Reader just shakes his head in absolute, profound and existential puzzlement. Why would anyone kill someone over a chicken bone? Or because they refused to turn down the television volume? I mean yes, she might have been annoying, but did you have to kill her over it? Your killer will answer yes. If this perp is a major figure in your story, who has killed again and again, then it behooves you to make the world understand that apparently trivial answer. Just remember: To the perp's mind, whether his act was planned or impulsive, the reason was not trivial at all, but key to his happiness, ambition, peace of mind.

Explanation 3: ... is that there is no explanation. We're talking the sociopath here, or a person who is simply evil. This person enjoys hurting and maiming others. The goal is not retribution or revenge, protecting anyone, or the acquisition of anything material, such as money, a house or a job. The goal, if you can call it that, is simply the experience itself. But even these people will tell you that they are victims. They are victims of the pressure within, a pressure that progressively worsened until they had to act.

Let your villain be multifaceted. Give her an admirable talent. Show him performing an act of kindness. Give insight into her private hell. It will give your story dimension, depth ... resonance.

Your villain inhabits his or her own world. The most forceful writing drags Dear Reader, sometimes kicking and screaming, into that world -- or at least to the very edges of it. It doesn't matter whether you write suburban cozies or gritty urban noir. Your stories revolve around characters who have warped views of their world and their place in it. Lend insight into these views. Make them real. Give Dear Reader a ride for her money and she'll thank you for it by buying your books again and again.

Until next week then,

Persia Walker