Mulling on Memory

What is a writer besides a packrat of memory? 

Writers have to be observers, interpreters, translators of experience.

Yet all of that relies on memory. 

Our brains streamline experiences into nice, neat packages. These make more sense than the raw material of life itself, the material that gave rise to the memory. What a writer does is streamline the material even more, so that another person can understand and follow the storyline.

What, then, happens to stories when memory falters? Or, as with Alzheimer's, becomes unreliable and spotty?

If human beings are hardwired to be storytellers, why do we also attempt to blot out memory with drugs or drink? 

Ninth Annual Write of Spring at Once Upon a Crime

Don't ask me how they do it, cramming a dozen mystery writers and fans and books galore per hour into a tiny space. Somehow Pat and Gary at Once Upon a Crime manage to do it every year. So much so, that they are this year receiving the Mystery Writers of America's Raven Award for service.
Independent bookstores like this, feed on an ongoing basis, the thirst of many a reader, and help maintain the fabric of our communities. The staff has read practically every mystery under the sun, they know what else you might enjoy, and they provide a warm atmosphere in which to explore your literary tastes. As a Publishers Weekly Shelftalk blogger just wrote, "We [bookstores] want to the store to be a place you come in when you’re sad and need to smell the books to feel better or get a hug from someone who is sad that you’re having a terrible day. We want to be the store you can call at closing and we’ll leave a book you need for a present on the doorknob for you to pick up after work .... We pay sales and property taxes that fund the schools, the roads, and the Little League field and we’re happy to do it. We bring authors to the schools and host wonderful, free events for the whole community.  We need you as much you need us."
Once Upon a Crime is just one of the many bookstores that fit this bill (and the Twin Cities is lucky to have many good bookstores of all stripes, including chains). They support authors, and we authors like to support them, in return, through events such as this.
This year, I'll be appearing with just a few of my mystery-writer buddies---forty-nine, to be exact--- Saturday, April 2, 2011, from 12–4 pm. Once Upon a Crime is located at 604 West 26th Street (near Lyndale Avenue South) in Minneapolis. Among some of the authors appearing: Monica Ferris, Laura Childs, Susan Runholt, Mary Logue, Steve Thayer, and many more. Here's the link to the store.
We'll be happy to see you!

Rebel in a Recliner?

Into the category of "if I wrote this in a novel, no one would believe it" stories goes this one.  A Duluth-area man souped up his La-Z-Boy recliner chair with a motor from a lawn mower and gussied it up with stereo speakers, headlights, and pinstriping. Catch is, he got picked up for a DWI after drinking too much and crashing into a car in the bar's parking lot. The Proctor, Minnesota Police Department is auctioning it off on Ebay. The bids are already over $37,000. How long before the man gets a book contract? (Read the NPR news story or the EBay bid page.)
 
Update: After a complaint from the La-Z-Boy company, the sale was withdrawn and then reposted as the DWI Chair. Final sale just over $10,000 proceeds to city of Proctor (11/8/09). 

Macbeth 101 for Writers

My model for fiction writing came from eighth-grade English class, when our three tormented student teachers acted out the famous witches' scene from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Double double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble .... eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog" and the other gory ingredients too repugnant to recall here. None of us ever forgot Macbeth or those three student teachers, nor the list of memorable ingredients that we delighted in reciting at lunch hour the rest of the year.
I imagine that the three student teachers were trying to teach us how to appreciate and read and analyze Shakespeare. For me, the lessons were more oblique, finding use decades later:
• don't turn your back for even a minute on twenty-five eighth-graders
• literature read aloud is has a different effect than when read silently
• if you're going to speak in public, be assertive, especially in front of dozens of kids
But the most important lesson to me as a writer was that you don't have to look far for ingredients; real life supplies an ample amount—people, things, ideas, coincidences. Then, you mix it all into a brew so well-blended that it becomes something new and original. There's the magic—all you need is the cauldron.

On Writing

Once Upon A Crime in Minneapolis recently hosted a fabulous panel discussion with writers Mary Logue, K J Erickson, and Ellen Hart. Presenting to a packed room, the three well-known authors covered topics from knowing one's characters, to writing a series. Here are some nuggets I jotted down (blending the voices of the three, who are old friends who often finish each other's thoughts):
On writing: When the writing is flowing, it's like being in a groove, and you know it's working so it feels great; the novel takes on a shape, becoming a living thing, growing organically, or like fractal. For the three, a writing group has been essential for their growth as writers, and as a balm for the solitary task of writing.
The great puzzle: If, as according to Malcolm Gladwell, it takes 10,000 hours to master any particular thing, how is it that an author's first book is often their best? Conversely, why does it take so long for some authors to become well known?
On characters: They take on their own lives. When writing a series, you get to know them over time, and you realize different things about them. Of course, you can always throw a little conflict in their paths to shake things up for them—and for you, as well.
On agents and editors: They should act as advocates for readers, understand the market, and are ideally there to help the writer do their best work.
The publishing industry: there are natural cycles to it, small presses will grow as bigger presses struggle, technological changes have to be embraced, that there's still—beyond the blockbusters that every publisher seeks—a need for diverse, interesting writing; the big presses will always need to seek out new, good books.
KJ closed the evening with a passionate plea for both readers and writers to understand the important role of independent bookstores, whose staff actually read and recommend books to customers, and sponsor author events.