Category Archives: Kathryn Lilley

Stomping out your writer’s tics

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“Every writer has a writer’s tic,” a famous author once told me.

As a writer, you challenge is to identify your own writer’s tic, and stomp it out of your manuscript.

In my own case, when I’m writing my first draft, I give free rein to my writing tics. But in the second draft, I hunt them down and stomp them out.

Here are a few of my own writer’s tics that I have to wipe out in the second draft:

  • Worthless words.
    My first draft is always studded with superfluous words such as very, apparently, obviously, suddenly, and surely. In the second draft, I do a global search for these serial offenders. Out they go!

  • Ding-dong, the dash is dead. Also the ellipses.
    I have a bad habit of “dramatizing” the rhythm of sentences with dashes and ellipses, which have to be removed.In fact, you could me the Queen of Dashes—or the Empress of Ellipses…

  • Lazy-man’s time reference: “By the time.”By the time I get to Phoenix, I realize I need to delete all my instances of “By the time.”

How about you? What are your “writer’s tics” that you have to stomp out before you submit your manuscript to the editor?

Oprah blesses the Kindle

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The word sent a jolt through the author community:

“Oprah endorses Kindle.”

The Kindle, in case you’ve been marooned on another planet, is Amazon’s much-ballyhooed e-book reader. Oprah’s nod is likely to give the gadget a boost in sales. To quote one industry insider, a blessing by the Queen of Talk TV means that “the sale of Kindles will increase sales by approximately one bazillion percent.”

I’m a bit of a Luddite when it comes to gadgetry, so I haven’t tried the Kindle yet. But I was gratified recently to learn that my latest book, A KILLER WORKOUT, has been published in a Kindle edition. Now that my book has made its debut in the e-reader world, it feels like my baby has grown up and left home. And forgotten to send a postcard.

I’ve been a “slow adopter” when it comes to e-reader technology. Basically, this is because, 1) my daughter convinced me to buy a very expensive e-book reader years ago, and it broke within a month; and 2) I find it tiring to read text all day on the computer screen.

But I have to admit, there are some real advantages to e-books, particularly the Kindle. For example, when I heard that Kindle lets you increase the text size, I thought—“Okay, this is a winner.” Me and a silent majority of over-40 presbyopic-somethings, we’re yearning for text that is ten feet tall!

Plus, the Kindle promises that its “revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper.”

I will definitely give the Kindle a trial run (probably by giving it to someone close as an Xmas present).

Meanwhile, I’m interested to hear from folks who have tried the Kindle. What’s the reading experience like? Authors, have Kindle sales boosted your audience?

Dreams and your writing

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Robert Louis Stevenson is said to have come up with the plot for Dr. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde during a dream.

I may never hatch the Great American Novel in a dream, but I recently discovered the importance of dreaming to my creative process.

I’ve always been an on-the-nose dreamer. There are few hidden messages in my dreams. If, in my day job, I’m trying to solve a gnarly problem related to the worldwide web, I will dream of battling a giant spider web (get it?). If in real life I’m trying to stop eating sugar, I’ll dream about diving into a pint of Chunky Monkey. And so on.

My dreams, while challenging, invariably end on an upbeat note. I may spend the night outwitting shotgun-toting bad guys, but somehow, the dream always ends with my escape. I’m quite the REM-state John McClane, with the requisite nine lives.

But then came the day when I temporarily stopped dreaming, thanks to the Happy Blue Pills. And all of a sudden, it became much harder to get the creative juices flowing. The words came more slowly. I had no energy for writing.
At the time, I had no idea what was causing my writer’s block. I was getting plenty of sleep, right?

Then one night, I forgot to take the sleeping pill. That night, I dreamed for the first time in weeks. And for the first time in weeks, I woke up thinking about my story. And I began to write.

Phew! It seemed miraculous. That was the morning I poured all the little blue pills down the garbage disposal.

I did a little research, and found little hard data to back me up on this, but my theory now is that nocturnal dreaming is essential to the creative process.

So I’d like to know from other writers and creative types: do you dream at night? A lot? Do dreams help you solve story problems directly, ever? Do you dream in color (which used to be considered the hallmark of creative people)?

Could we cope with really hard times?

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From North Carolina recently, my daughter reported seeing men with baseball bats at fuel-starved gas stations. They were patrolling the lines of automobiles, preventing interlopers from cutting in.

Evidently a hurricane or a pipeline breakdown had disrupted energy supplies to certain areas of the southeast, and suddenly there seemed to be no gas for sale anywhere. To cope with the fuel shortage, my daughter stayed over with friends on campus to avoid driving; her manager at work had to send a vanpool to pick up the company’s workers. The city seemed to come to a standstill, she said.

And that was before we heard the news that the banks had run out of money.

So I’ve been speculating: if we were to have a real economic depression, how would today’s America cope? Most cities reportedly have a two-to-three day supply of food on hand. In the event of a severe disruption to the food supply, those baseball bats would come out again in a hurry.

According to some old timers I’ve spoken with, today’s America is less self-sufficient—and therefore less ready to cope with a depression—than it was eighty years ago. Back then, back yard vegetable gardens were plentiful, and many rural homes had a barn and a few chickens. To a generation raised on Starbucks, McDonalds, and WalMart, real deprivation would come as an ugly surprise.

But perhaps we have hidden resources. I can visualize ways that technology would push dramatic new responses to a crisis. Maybe instead of bread lines, we’d have “flash mobs” at grocery stores. They’d converge on a store, clean it out within seconds, and disappear. Then the government would bail out the grocery chains because they’re “too big to fail,” and life would move on.

In any case, the 24-hour news cycle would never stand for a prolonged depression. After a couple of weeks, hardship stories would get “old,” and we’d be back to discussing Paris Hilton’s next presidential campaign.

Or maybe we’d just get bored with suffering and ignore it for a few years, the way we generally do with war and poverty. And life would go on, only things would be much harder than before.

Any thoughts on how the technology generation would cope with a depression? Creative ideas, please!

A KILLER WORKOUT is out today in bookstores!

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Today marks the official debut of A KILLER WORKOUT in bookstores across the country. It’s a brand new adventure for the series heroine, Kate Gallagher. In this story, our intrepid reporter heads for a boot-camp style exercise retreat to do a little downsizing on her butt, only to wind up sugar-crashing it in the middle of a gruesome crime scene. She soon discovers that exercise can really be murder!

To celebrate the launch, I’ll be at Bouchercon this weekend, meeting and greeting readers and booksellers. I’ll also be teaming up with my fellow Kill Zone authors Michelle and Clare for an author’s karaoke event on Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m. But don’t worry, we won’t be singing (that would really be a crime, at least in my case!). We’ll discuss all aspects of a blog tour, from brainstorming niche blogs that might serve as hosts, to tailoring content, to building traffic that translates into sales. A few members from the audience can present their elevator pitch and we’ll help them craft some ideas.

Oh, and by the way, if you’re in the general Santa Barbara region today, Tuesday, you can catch me on the radio at 8:47 a.m. on KZSB Radio, AM 1290. My host will be the wonderful Baron Ron Herron.

Stay tuned!

Ripped from the headlines

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Nurse Kills Patient Over Grudge
That headline grabbed my attention a couple of years ago when it appeared in newspapers. Here’s the story behind it: a nurse in a plastic surgery office was accused of killing a patient following a plastic surgery procedure. It turned out that the victim had stolen the nurse’s boyfriend 30 years earlier, when both women were in high school. So this was the nurse’s way of getting some long-overdue payback.

Talk about revenge being a dish that is best served cold.

That passing headline spawned an idea that stayed with me and eventually emerged as a subplot in one of my Fat City Mysteries (I won’t tell you which one, although you probably won’t recognize it in its fictionalized version). Here’s a link to the original article.

I was particularly struck because the story underscored how powerful our emotions can be, especially when we’re young. Who would have thought that a jilted girlfriend would actually murder the “other woman” who happened to turn up in her medical care, thirty years later? In addition to fueling a subplot for my story, the article also made me start reflecting on what was to become one of the themes in my book: jealousy and revenge. To write the story, I had to cast back on my own life experience to flesh out the character of the young person who would turn into a murderer.

I’m one of those people who was utterly miserable during middle school and early high school years. I was withdrawn, and had trouble making friends. There was a group of “mean girls” who made my life a living hell, especially in gym class. I think I can remember every joke they made at my expense, and every slight that was directed my way. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I met any of those girls today. Probably nothing. But during the writing of this particular story, I made a conscious effort to dredge up those old feelings of rage and humiliation. The process helped me be able to see my fictional murder from the killer’s point of view. That was important, because I feel that in most murderers’ minds, their acts of homicide are justified. The victim has wronged him or her, and deserves to die.

I always try to get into my killer’s head, sometimes to the extent that I wind up empathizing with him. The killer may have used the wrong solution, but the homicide must seem justified, at least from that character’s point of view.

So I’m wondering to what extent other writers identify with the killers in their story? Do you have to tap into certain strong and scary feelings to portray the role authentically, the way an actor does? Do you want the reader to identify with the killer in any way, or at least find him sympathetic in some strange way?

Do tell.

Writers who do way too much

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Note: Sorry for missing my posting day last week. For the explanation, see Phase Three, below.

Everywhere I go, I hear it: Authors are cutting back on book promotion.

At conferences and on blogs, I hear published writers announcing that they are “scaling down” the time and dollars they spend flogging their books. They’re chopping their advertising budgets, attending fewer conferences, and abandoning blogs. In extreme cases, they’re even turning down contracts for new books—which guarantees that you won’t have to do any promotion.

In a world where most authors get little promotion budget from their publishers, some writers who previously spent tons of time “getting the word out” about their books are becoming more like Greta Garbo. They vant to be alone. Alone, in the company of their word processor.

I call this process the Quitclaim Syndrome. The syndrome usually progress in the following phases:

Phase One: Writer gets published, then spends first year in a giddy travel/networking/book signing spree.

Phase Two: Writer spends so much time promoting Book One that s/he risks falling behind schedule on producing Book Two, but manages to make the deadline by dint of superhuman effort. By now, Writer has spent more money on promotion than the combined advances for all the books, which haven’t even been paid out yet. Royalties are hiding somewhere in a La-La land called FutureWorld.

Phase Three: Writer begins to experience the physical tics of over-multitasking: chronic fatigue, self-medication therapies gone wrong, and desk rage, if she has a day job. Medical intervention may be required. Writer is so exhausted that she plans the promotion of Book Two with a more realistic—even jaundiced—eye. Kind of the way a guy regards the prospect of paying for a fourth or fifth failed date in a row. What’s this worth to me? he asks himself. For way less money, I could have more fun sitting at home on the couch with a beer and a copy of Debbie Does Dallas.

Phase Four: Writer reaches a fork in the road. To continue breathless promotion efforts, or not? Whereupon Writer either A) keeps promoting herself, but not nearly so breathlessly, or B) stops most promotion efforts except for the bare necessities.

Phase Five: Writer returns to more isolated, less frenzied writing schedule, and greater productivity.

Is anyone else seeing this as a trend? Is frenzied book promotion just not worth the effort as much anymore, because the costs are too high and there’s not enough payoff in terms of book sales? Does the whole thing interfere too much with the time it takes to write?
Thoughts?

As a writer, do your characters invade your “real life”?

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“Careful, dear. You’re acting like your character.”

That was my husband’s warning to me last week, after I survived a risky (and slightly smelly) stand-off with a mentally challenged dude on board a tram in Portland. For the roily details, see last week’s post, Too close for comfort.

I escaped from that little adventure with nary a scrape. In fact, I ended the episode with a thumbs-up sign and a jaunty little wave; but seriously, my part in the encounter was stupid. I could have gotten my ass seriously kicked by that guy, or worse.

All of which got me to thinking: To what extent (if any) does our writing affect our choices and actions in “real life”? Is there a bright red line that is never crossed between fantasy on the page and reality? Or do you find that there is ever any psychological “page-bleed,” as they say in the publishing world?

In my case, last week’s tram episode was completely out of character for the “real me,” Kathryn Lilley. Ever since I was an adolescent, I’ve always been a shy, retiring soul. I’ve traditionally avoided eye contact with strange men, much less interaction. In the past, I would never have tried to remove a mentally disturbed person on public transportation. (And let’s be honest—what I did was supremely stupid. I’ve been told by a number of Herman Munster-sized, macho-macho guys that the only reason I’m alive today is that I’m a woman, and that I stayed utterly calm throughout the encounter. Seriously, my heart rate didn’t even increase. I have no idea why.).

But ever since I started writing the Fat City Mysteries, I’ve found that I’ve been getting deeper and deeper into the emotions of my main character, Kate Gallagher. And now, I’m like one of those actors who stays “in character” between shooting scenes of a film. In many aspects of my life, I find myself coming up with quicker ripostes, more assertive actions—bottom line is, I’m acting more like Kate.

So my question is, is this experience a unique and unhealthy response to getting too deeply involved in the writing or characterization process? Have the rest of you experienced anything remotely similar?

But just as a reassurance to myself, I have made a solemn vow—no matter how much Kate Gallagher inhabits my thoughts and feelings, going forward, I will never, ever again attempt to toss someone off a tram.

It can be way too hazardous to your health.

Too close for comfort

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So Clare regaled us with the best and worst of Australia yesterday.
My vacation tale is a bit more raw-edged. Over Labor Day, I nearly wound up as road kill at the hands of a schizo. Make that tram kill, since I was on a train in Portland at the time.

Here’s what happened: We were in Portland so that my daughter could attend an anime convention. Anime, as you know if you’re from any planet in the galaxy, is the world of animation. Basically, an anime convention is like a weekend-long Halloween party—everyone gets dressed up as their favorite characters.

So while she was romping around dressed as some kind of warrior princess, I spent the weekend taking in the sights of Portland. And for the most part, Portland is a lovely, charming city. But during my day-long walking tour, there seemed to be quite a number of homeless people around. And they were, how should I put it, extremely…loud. At one point I said to an acquaintance, “Maybe it’s because we never walk in LA, but don’t a lot of people seem to be shouting here?”
For example, one lady I called the “Sun Worshipper” because she threw her head and arms skyward every time she stepped into a patch of sunshine, and let loose with a holler. A hell of a holler.
Other shouters were the types you’d cross the street to avoid.

And finally, there was the guy I encountered on the train. I’d stepped onto the train—called the MAX—because I was too exhausted to keep walking. But then the train didn’t move for a while—God knows why.

While the train was stopped, a homeless-looking (and smelling) man grew increasingly agitated. He was pacing, shouting and air-boxing.

Now here’s something you should know about me. I attract crazies. I attract shizos on the street like people who don’t like cats attract every feline in the house. I’m like the Doctor Magneto of madmen. Why? I have no idea. My husband claims it’s because I’m too engaging, outgoing, and I never mind my own business. And he may have a point.


Take the guy on that tram in Portland. When I sat down, he was doing little circles around and around the middle of the tram. Each lap of his circle brought him closer to me. Sitting next to me were a couple of elderly ladies, and they were getting quietly nervous. Meanwhile, the guy kept trying to make eye contact with me. And his shouts were getting louder.
Finally I said to the ladies, “I think you’d better move to the front of the car.” Which they promptly did.
It was my next move that got me in trouble. On the next lap of this guy’s ranting orbit, I stood up, stepped toward him and said, “Now would be a good time for you to step off this train.”

For a second he stopped air-boxing and stood there, dumbfounded.

So I repeated, “Now’s a good time to leave the train.”

That’s when all his anger returned, only this time, it came back as a Category Four hurricane. And I was New Orleans.

There was a sheet of Plexiglass between us. He kung fu kicked it with tremendous force, right where my face would have been if it hadn’t been for the Plexiglass.

It’s amazing how alone you can feel when you’re in a crowd and someone is going after you. Everyone simply sits, silent and frozen, like spectators watching something on TV.

Even I felt like a spectator. I stood there, watching this guy pummel the Plexiglass, screaming at me. I wondered what it was going to feel like when his foot or his fist made contact with my flesh.

But then something miraculous happened.

He stepped off the train. And then the train began to move, and the door closed.
He continued to beat the window of the train. He pulled up his sleeve to show me some kind of tattoo. It looked like something religious, or maybe it said “Death from Above.” I couldn’t tell.

The fact that the train was leaving without my attacker put me in a decent mood, so I gave him a thumbs-up for his tattoo. Then I waved good-bye as we pulled away.

After the action was over, it was funny how convivial and chatty everyone got all of a sudden. One guy asked me why the man had taken out after me like that. I said, “I don’t know, I just have that effect on men.”

But one thought stayed with me during the entire episode (besides not giving instructions to crazies–that one I’ve totally learned). I decided it would be a good idea to carry some kind of weapon.

Not a gun—too lethal, and way too many sticky gun control laws. Not even a knife, I think. No, I’m looking for something disabling without being deadly. Anyone have any good ideas about that?

Anyway, next year for the anime convention, I’ll satisfy myself by donning an electric-blue wig and fake sword to play-act the warrior princess. Becoming one in real life is way too hazardous to one’s health.

Confessions of a true-crime TV junkie

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Note: Leave a comment on the blog through Wednesday to qualify for our $50 gas card prize! We’ll draw the winning name out of the hat!

I’ll admit something straight away: I’m addicted to true-crime TV shows.

My TiVo never misses a taping of America’s Most Wanted. I get a rush of adrenalin whenever host John Walsh announces the capture of another “dirt bag.” When he profiles the nasty dudes who are still at large, I study their pictures and video, trying to memorize their features. My only problem is that I actually have a lousy memory for both names and faces, so if I ever spot anyone on the lam in my hometown, which is known for its beach volleyball and beer bars, it’s possible I’ll be fingering, not an America’s Most Wanted, but an America’s Most Wasted Party Animal.

Another one of my absolute favorite shows is The First 48. The show follows homicide detectives during the critical first 48 hours of an investigation. It shows the gritty reality of their routines, and their race against time to find the suspect. The best part of the show is the interrogations. I have to admit I’m always amazed by how easily some of the bad guys confess. If I were a killer (and don’t worry, it’s not in my game plan), I’d be one of those who “lawyer up” and never say a word to the cops.

These true-crime shows fascinate me because as a mystery author, I needto know what makes both sides tick—the criminals and the crime fighters. And I’m always fascinated to learn how real homicide detectives work. What is it, exactly, that makes them able to crack a complicated case with few clues to go on?

In an attempt to find the answer, I once made a pilgrimage to Hollywood, where LAPD Chief William J. Bratton was signing a book of photos for which he had written the foreword. I bought the book, got his signature, and then waited patiently for the Q&A.

Then, I raised my hand.

“What is the major quality that distinguishes a great homicide detective?” I asked. “How are they special?”

The Chief spent a moment considering. Then he said, “The really good ones look at a room differently than you and I do. They can simply see more—the crime, the layout, and how it must have happened.”

Ah, that’s it. A different type of sight—that’s the key, according to Chief Bratton. I wonder how that special vision affects the everyday life of homicide cops. They must see less of a safety zone around the average person’s life than we do. They’re too used to seeing that zone violently assaulted. They’ve got cop’s eyes.

I’ll never be able to “see” the world exactly the way a homicide cop does. But I’ll keep trying. And that’s just one of the reasons I’m a crime show junkie.

How about you—as writers, how do you study real crimes to inform your fictional ones? Have you found any shows or sources to be particularly useful? Anything you can share with me? I’m on the prowl for my next true crime fix.