Category Archives: Michelle Gagnon

Wagging the Dog

Posted on by

by Michelle Gagnondog tail

I recently heard from a friend who has written a number of critically acclaimed but only moderately successful standalones. Her agent is pushing for a switch to a series character. Another friend’s publisher wants him to do the opposite, abandoning a series for standalones (the Harlan Coben model). A third is working on a YA novel, since apparently that’s all that’s selling these days.

As I hung up the phone, I thought about the tail wagging the dog. The advice that’s always offered at conferences is, “Don’t try to chase trends, just write the book you want to write, as well as you can write it,” (or some variation therein).

But that’s not always possible. Everyone from agents to editors has a say in your next book. Sure, you can give them the brush off, but then there’s always the risk that they won’t be excited to shop that manuscript, or market it if it is slated for publication.

For writers, this can serve as a real wake up call, especially since occasionally the advice you’re receiving stands in direct contrast to what was offered by the same source months earlier. I might be mistaken, but at times it seems as though no one has any idea what will sell in this marketplace. I know a lot of writers who are racing around trying to figure out which project they have the best chance of selling, especially if they’re writing it on spec. Which is perfectly understandable- devoting months or years to a manuscript that doesn’t sell is incredibly disheartening (and I speak from experience). Moreover, for writers who rely entirely on their books for income, the prospect of not getting another contract is downright terrifying.

For the first time recently, I received some negative feedback on a synopsis I’d submitted for my next book. All legitimate concerns, I realized as I re-read what I’d written. However, the suggestions offered for the direction the book should take didn’t sit well with me; that wasn’t the book I wanted to write. In the end, after some brainstorming, we came up with a solution that (hopefully) makes everyone happy, but I’ll confess that I did experience a moment of panic. In the past I’ve worked as a writer for hire; most of my freelance articles were written for money, not for love of the subject matter. The thought of doing the same for a novel, committing months to a project I just wasn’t that excited to sit down and write, was nervewracking. But then again, to have that manuscript rejected would have been far worse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Join us on Sunday, July 19, when Julie Kramer, thriller author of MISSING MARK and STALKING SUSAN will be our guest blogger.

Clutter Hound

Posted on by

by Michelle Gagnon

I want to start by apologizing for my missing post last week–especially since, as many of you know, there was a Flort on the line. Any and all complaints should be directed to customer service at Astound.net, thanks to their annoying habit of lying repeatedly about sending a cable installation team to my house when no such team ever materialized (and rest assured, I sat on the porch and waited for hours at a stretch). It is truly astounding how bad their customer service is, which I’m guessing was the inspiration for their brand name.

But that’s all in the past, and I’m pleased to announce that not only am I back online and able to follow critical breaking news such as the Michael Jackson memorial service and the Palin resignation, we also have a Flort winner!
untitled.jpg

Congratulations to Basil, whose used the IKEA product “UPPTACKA” as the inspiration for his coming of age story about a boy and his llama (the mountains are not as lonely as they seem).
I still laugh every time I read that, which makes it worth the cost of shipping a Flort to Alaska.
Honorable mentions are in order for James Scott Bell, Rob, Sue Ann Jaffarian- heck, you all did me proud, that was a fun exercise.

This week I’m still recovering from a truly brutal move, with highlights ranging from my husband coming down with norovirus, a painter nearly taking a header off my roof, my contractor losing my car keys (who puts a set of keys on the roof of a car, then drives off?) and other assorted dramas.

One thing that struck me, as I sifted through a drawer I haven’t looked at in years, is the amount of clutter I’ve managed to accumulate. I have stacks of notebooks filled with notes from conference panels, classes, and the worst: page after page filled with ideas. After hearing Annie Lamott admonish an audience of writers once to “always carry a notebook, otherwise you’ll forget all of your good ideas,” I got in the habit of keeping a steno pad in my purse. And yes, I diligently jot down things that occur to me, whether they be seemingly brilliant three AM inspirations or something that struck me in line at Walgreens.

But the truth is, not once have I glanced back at and/or used any of those ideas.

So what do I do with these books? Are they worth saving, on the off chance that someday my idea pool dries up? Will I find anything worth using? Or will all these books just continue to sit in a drawer gathering dust? I’m wondering if I’m the only clutter hound out there…

IKEA: A Veritable Treasure Trove of Titles

Posted on by

by Michelle Gagnon

So I’m moving this week, which means that this post will be brief- as I type, I’m also packing boxes one-handed (I’m considering adding that newly acquired talent to my official resume).images

It also means that I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time at stores that I have a love/hate relationship with, like Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond, and…yes…IKEA.

While wandering the aisles the other day, lost once again in “Home Organizing” and unable to find the exit, I was struck as always by the product names. Where other than IKEA can you purchase a Godmorgan, and at such a reasonable price?

So I propose that today’s post be more of a writing exercise. I’ll provide the names of IKEA items, you provide a brief summary of what a book entitled that might be about. Here are some examples to get you started:

  • FLORT: A hilarious coming of age story about a high school girl with an odd affliction, and how it impacts the boys she develops crushes on.

  • MANSTAD: Based on the true story of a Crimean War prison break, and the men that history forgot.

  • KORT: An eye-opening and heartrending look at the American judicial system, as viewed by today’s hottest slam poets.

I’ve listed some options below to get you started, but feel free to choose any item from the IKEA product line for inspiration.

SUMMERA

GRODBY

ANNO SENALA

I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with. In fact, I’ll send the best entry their very own Flort- how’s that for incentive?

Why I Love My Television

Posted on by

by Michelle Gagnonedie falco

So I became engaged in a heated debate the other day with a group of friends over the relative merits of television. One friend was a holdout who was caught by surprise with the recent switch to digital- she’d never owned a cable box, and didn’t care to start now. I thought that was a shame, and said so. And here’s why: Hands down, I think some of the most interesting stories are being told on television. A series opens up the possibilities of a much broader story and character arc than any film, in my opinion. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t some great movies out there, but I think some of the current TV programming beats the majority of films hands down.

Here are my favorites:

  • Nurse Jackie: Granted, there have only been two episodes thus far, but wow. I have a hard time imagining a movie studio greenlighting a project like this. Edie Falco proves there’s life after Carmela Soprano, the supporting cast is great, and I can’t wait to see what happens. It’s the most caustically funny comedy out there right now.

  • the wire The Wire: Season after season this series paved new ground. I think it was the best police procedural ever made, and that includes Homicide, in which to be honest my interest waned halfway through.

  • Deadwood: Shakespeare in the Wild West. Swearengen was one of the best villains ever written, complex, smart, funny- he stole the show season after season. It’s a shame this ended so soon.

  • Mad Men: It makes one yearn for the days of three martini lunches. A brilliant portrait of life in America at a time when everything was about to change.

  • United States of Tara: An Emmy is almost a given for Toni Collete in this role that allows her to chew the scenery. Roles like this for women of a ceUS Tarartain age just don’t exist in film anymore. And Diablo Cody proves that Juno wasn’t a fluke, she’s a major talent.

  • The Tudors: The trashiness is leavened by the period costumes and fine acting of Jonathan Rhys-Meyers.

  • The Shield: Dark, gritty, and one of the best and most realistic endings to a drama ever televised.

  • It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: This show is so weird and out there I can’t get enough of it. You so rarely see cannibalism explored in two dimensions, alongside race relations, white guilt, and character so completely devoid of any sense of humanity.

Note that all of these air on cable networks- my argument for investing in a box over an antenna. Granted, there’s a lot of trash out there, but there are some true gems as well.

So I’m curious to hear what everyone’s current favorites are- there are many I haven’t listed here that are mainstays on my TIVO, but these are the ones I rush to see when they’re on.

Bacon-wrapped Innovation

Posted on by

by Michelle Gagnoncreme brulee guy

Bear with me, in this post there are going to be some metaphorical leaps and truly questionable analogies. I partly blame an excellent roundtable discussion by the JungleRed crew on “weeding someone else’s garden,” both literally and figuratively.

That post was on my mind when I went to my monthly book club meeting last night. Now, I love my book club for many reasons- it forces me out of my reading comfort zone (especially when it comes to non-fiction, which research aside I rarely read willingly), and also because I usually return home with some fascinating new bit of information. Last night was no exception.

One woman was complaining about a strange-let’s call it a compulsion- that her husband has developed. At 10:30 at night, he’ll suddenly get a message on his Blackberry and will run for the door, yelling, “I’ve got to go. He’s on 24th and Mission.”

Sounds suspicious, right?

Well, it turns out that her husband is a religious follower of the bacon-wrapped hot dog guy. That’s right, there’s a guy in San Francisco who operates a guerilla (read: unlicensed) food cart, selling bacon wrapped hot dogs. He moves constantly, staying one step ahead of the authorities (hopefully)–and people find him thanks to frequent Twitter updates.

This story struck me on many levels. First, how on earth is it possible that I’ve lived in a city for over a decade and had no idea that we even had street food vendors, never mind ones who sold bacon wrapped hot dogs? After further investigation, I discovered that the bacon wrapped hot dog guy is not alone. There’s a muffin man, a creme brulee guy, and a “magic curry cart.” Even one of my favorite restaurants, Chez Spencer, has a cart. This is critical, potentially life changing information.

magic curry cart This discovery also marks the first time I fully understood the point of Twitter (please don’t jump all over me, tweeters- I just hadn’t grasped any practical applications until now). The vendors post where they’ll be appearing, and followers flock to that intersection for $1 chai and amuses bouches. Genius.

When interviewed, a few of the vendors explained that thanks to the recession they lost their high end restaurant jobs, or couldn’t get one in the first place. So, rather than give up on their passion, taking jobs in telemarketing or retail, they decided to branch out on their own. It’s a lot of work, the margins are slim, but they’ve each managed to build up a steady and devout following (my friend’s husband apparently has many cohorts who share his obsession for the food carts- a tweet goes out, and they all flock to the nearest one. It’s become an impromptu party for them).

I found their commitment and creativity inspirational.

Okay, brace yourselves for the leap.

I spoke with my agent yesterday. He returned from BEA somewhat disheartened- apparently all anyone was talking about was the downturn of the industry, the plummeting sales. And when sales are down, acquisitions are down, which creates a self-fulfilling death spiral. Editors are even more overburdened than usual; if they still have a job, chances are they’ve picked up numerous projects that were initially acquired by laid-off colleagues. There were fewer vendors at fewer booths, and as opposed to previous years the air was heavy with doom and gloom (although whether or not that is a deviation from the norm is largely a matter of opinion).

Which is exactly what the restaurant industry is experiencing. Fewer customers, smaller margins, a sharp downturn. Maybe the publishing industry should take a lesson from the street vendors- when times are tough, it’s time to innovate. Maybe that means authors take advantage of something like the new Scribd publishing program we’ve discussed in earlier posts. Maybe it means eliminating remaindering and starting with smaller print runs, or figuring out a way to build support for new authors by tapping into the popularity of more established ones. Heck, maybe we should start wrapping our books in bacon. Adapt or die, as they say. And while you’re doing it, you might as well eat well.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I just got a tweet. The Korean Taco guy is a few blocks away, gotta run…

And special thanks to Cym Lowell for providing a link to this article on food cart vendors nationwide. I’m trying to convince my husband to visit DC so we can try the mango lassi popsicles.

Show and Tell

Posted on by

by Michelle Gagnonpot stove

Last week Joe had a great post about figuring out where your story actually begins. I’m in a group that posts online excerpts, mainly of first chapters, and today I thought I’d discuss something that seems to crop up again and again in those posts.

The old nugget, “Show, don’t tell” relates to exposition; ideally, you want to limit spoon-feeding your reader, watching out for adverbs that drive home what a character is thinking and feeling. But what should also be taken into account is that you don’t need to “show” your reader everything either.

Here’s an example:

“I went into the kitchen and grabbed a pan. I put water into the pan and placed it on the stove. Then I added the seasoning to the water. After the water boiled I placed the noodles into the water.”

Now, I think what the writer was attempting to do was build suspense; the problem with this passage is that unless you’re writing a cookbook entry on how to prepare pasta, this is way too much information. By the time I got to the third sentence, my eyes glazed over. It’s a common error. Where it tends to crop up most frequently, I’ve found, is with entering and leaving a room: “I turned the knob, opened the door, and stepped inside,” rather than just, “I went inside,” for example.

There are other ways to build suspense with a passage like this. For example, “She put water on the stove to boil. The doorbell rang. When she answered it, she found the UPS man standing there with a package. Could this be what she was waiting for?”

So…the water is still on the stove, set to boil. The heroine has apparently forgotten about it- but the reader hasn’t. If you consider how you go about your day, many of your actions are automatic. You don’t think through every step of putting on a pair of pants, walking across a room, or turning on your car; neither should you walk a reader through those steps (unless it’s critical to illustrate a character struggling to accomplish those tasks).

I prefer to start a story by dropping the reader into the middle of an action or conversation, forcing them to do a little work to catch up. After all, when it comes to eavesdropping (not that I ever do that, of course), the point when your ears perk up is not at the initial hello, but when something really juicy comes out. That’s what you want to begin with. Assume that the reader will figure out the parts you’re not telling them outright- engaging with a book should require a little effort, after all. You want them to wonder what the character is thinking, and what they’re going to do next. I want to know what’s going to happen with that boiling water- but assume that the rest of it, whatever isn’t critical, is a given and not something I need to know. For that, I’ll buy a cookbook.

Coming up on our Kill Zone Guest Sundays, watch for blogs from Sandra Brown, Steve Berry, Robert Liparulo, Thomas B. Sawyer, Paul Kemprecos, Linda Fairstein, and more.

Never Look Back

Posted on by

by Michelle Gagnon

Yesterday, Joe discussed knowing where you’re headed before getting started. I received an email from a college friend this week who’s writing his firstnever look novel, and he asked me a few questions about my process. I thought I’d share some of what I said in reply. Of course, there is no one “right way” to write a book; everyone has to find his or her own path. But after hammering out four books, I’ve learned what works for me.


1) At what point do you seek formal feedback, rather than just cranking it out?

I don’t show my work to anyone until I’ve completed two drafts. And then I send it to my “Beta readers,” 5-7 people whose opinion I trust. What I’ve discovered, however, is that they’ll all like different aspects of the story, and they’ll all criticize different aspects. I always take that feedback with a grain of salt. If more than one person is saying the same thing, I know it’s time to go back and figure out where I went wrong.

In Boneyard, one of my readers was so taken with a character in the initial chapter, she felt strongly he should be incorporated into the rest of the storyline. I had fleshed out that character fairly well, so that when something happened to him, you’d fear for his well-being. But ultimately, he was a device to kickstart the plot. Think of it as the garbage men who find a body in a dumpster in the first five minutes of Law and Order. You don’t expect to see the garbage men help track down the killers, or try the accused–they’re there to find the body, then they’re gone. Same with this character. No one else had that comment, so I chose to limit him to that opening chapter.


2) Do you counsel quantity (ie, getting more on paper) over quality (tweaking sentences) early on?

In my opinion what separates published authors from people who have been working on a book for years without completing it is this: never look back. I don’t start editing–at all–until the entire book is written. A lot of people get fifty pages in, then go back and start editing chapter one. The danger in this is that while you might end up with a perfect first fifty pages, by the time you finish those there’s a good chance you’ve lost the thread of the story.

It’s also discouraging to suddenly realize you’ve spent three months on fifty pages, and another three hundred and fifty remain to be written (of course, that’s discouraging whether you’ve stopped or not–I call it the “interminable middle”). I never even re-read what I’ve written until I’ve finished the first draft. (I also spend most of that draft thinking that what I’m writing is the worst junk ever committed to page. But I forge ahead, because I know the next draft will be better.) And then when I do go back, the bones of the story are in place.


3) When does it help to have a literary guide (agent? editor? coach?)? How do you get a good one to take you seriously?
Start the agent search only when your manuscript is as absolutely perfect as it’s ever going to be. That means a minimum of three drafts. And after completing each draft, put it away for a month before looking at it again. That gives you a fresh perspective.

Resign yourself to the fact that the agent search might take months- not always the case, but frequently enough that it’s good to be prepared for it. And not hearing back right away doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be rejected. My first agent asked for an exclusive on the full manuscript right away–then three months passed. If I had to do it over, I’d probably call after a month and ask if it was all right for me to submit to other agents. In the end it worked out for me, but I was gnawing my nails to the quick that entire time. A month is more than enough time for an agent to have an exclusive.

Begin by querying your 3-5 top choice agents, always making sure that a) they’re currently acquiring manuscripts, and b) they represent the kind of work you write (these seem like givens, but you’d be surprised). There are a lot of good books on querying an agent (my favorite is Noah Lukeman’s “The First Five Pages”). Your query letter needs to be perfect, as do your first five pages, since that’s what an agent reads to make a snap judgement on your work. I loved what people were saying yesterday about switching the second chapter with the first. About a year ago, I read a tremendous manuscript written by a friend. And the entire first chapter I was yawning-not good for a thriller. It was all back story: how the protagonist got his job, where he went to school, his mother’s medical condition…then, scene two kicked in. The main character picked up a woman home at a bar, was accosted in his apartment by Russian mobsters, was threatened with blackmail and suddenly boom- we were off and running. Telling too much at the outset is a common mistake. Bear in mind you have 100,000 words to develop your characters, so there’s no need to overdo it at the outset. (By the way, this excellent book- FREEFALL, by Reece Hirsch- found representation and will be published next year).

Your agent shops the manuscript to editors. Very few publishers accept unsolicited manuscripts these days.
Getting an agent is hard. My best advice would be to go to a writing conference that good agents are attending- a face to face meeting goes a long way toward getting you out of the slush pile. Incidentally, Thrillerfest is hands down one of the best for finding an agent for a thriller- I can’t think of another conference that gathers forty top agents in one place to hear pitches. Well worth the investment if your manuscript is ready.

4) Not a question but an observation — I can’t seem to help harvesting the real lives and personalities of friends and acquaintances. Ringing in my ears is Elizabeth Gilbert: “Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Tell the truth.”

I suppose my personal life infiltrates the storylines in some places–but it depends on what I’m writing. For the screenplay I’m working on right now, my co-writer and I are drawing heavily on our life experiences. But for my series, much of it is pure creation-I’ve never defused a dirty bomb, chased down a suspect, or done many of the other things my characters do. I just imagine what it would be like, basing it on research and discussions with people who do those sorts of things for a living. So the old, “write what you know” has never been something I strongly adhered to. Otherwise I’d write about sitting alone in a room typing day after day. And trust me, that is rarely exciting.

Circumstances Beyond Our Control

Posted on by

by Michelle Gagnon

I just handed in the final page proofs for my next thriller, which is always an exhilarating/terrifying moment for me. Exhilarating because I’m finally completely done with the book. And terrifying because from here on out, it’s beyond my control. I have to keep my fingers crossed that the myriad small changes I made are inserted into the final manuscript (since the final few drafts are actual paper copies that get mailed back and forth, sometimes things slip through the cracks. Sad but true, and the best argument I can see for switching to electronic editing across the board).

In line at FedEx, I started thinking about all of the things that are beyond our control as authors (many of which people assume we do control). Here’s my list:

Covers: I always fill out a lengthy form detailing characters, scenes, and plot points. I attach images that I think would look great on the cover, forward jpgs of covers that I loved from other people’s books, and pitch a few concepts. Now, so far I’ve been fortunate enough to receive covers that were vastly superior to anything I could have conceived. But still, there are always a few little things I’d prefer to change. This time, after some back and forth my publisher incorporated a few of the changes I requested into the final design. Here’s the original:

gatekeeper one

I felt the background color was too drab, and all of the text was at the bottom, so you barely noticed anything above the center of the page.

Now here’s the final version:

gatekeeper cover3

Better, right?

Typos: I’m not saying I’m perfect, but occasionally glaring typos appear in the text that were in no draft of the manuscript I submitted. My book club read The Tunnels, and when I walked in for our meeting three people shouted out, “Page 67! What happened there?” Half of the night was consumed by a discussion of some of the typos in the book. Somewhere between my final edits and the typesetting process, new typos appeared. Again, beyond my control (also the reason why I never crack the spine to read the final product. I have never once read one of my books after mailing off the line edits, because if I spot a typo it drives me nuts).

  • Missing Pages: I received emails from a few people who purchased Boneyard, only to discover that fifty pages were missing from the middle of the book. After talking to other authors, I learned that this is not that unusual. A glitch at the printing plant can ruin a whole batch of books. Fortunately, publishers are wonderful about shipping out a replacement copy, if it ever happens to you.

  • Print Runs: This can be make or break for an author. Say your initial print run was 20,000 books. Sell 15,000, and your book is a success story. But if the publisher printed 100,000 copies, and you sold 15,000, your book would be considered a dismal failure and you would be facing an uphill battle to get the next one published. Not fair, right? But as an author, you have no say in whether your print run is five thousand books or five million. You have to just keep your fingers crossed that your publisher’s sales projections are right.

I will say that in book publishing, I still have far more control than I ever did as a magazine writer. Back then, I’d hand in an article and six months later, something came out with my name on it that was virtually unrecognizable.Not always, but frequently enough to be depressing. In book publishing you are definitely allowed a firmer hold on the reins.

Off the top of my head, this is what I came up with (my brain is officially mush after spending the past week muttering sentences aloud over and over again). But I’d love to hear of more circumstances beyond our control, if they occur to you.

Sunday Writing School

Posted on by

We’re having another one of our periodic Sunday Writing Schools today at the Kill Zone (See the link to our inaugural school).

Here’s how it works: We post a couple of writing-oriented questions that we’ve collected over the weeks, and do our best to answer them. Readers can post more questions in the comments. Feel free to chime in with your own opinions, including snarky ripostes to our advice. This is basically intended to be a free-for-all exchange of ideas about writing, not a serious-minded Fount of Wisdom.

We’ll just have some fun.

The first question in the mail bag is from Win Scott:

Q: I know some writing books say not to use prologues, but I need to open my story with an event that precedes the main story. This event is also much more dramatic than my first chapter, and it lays the groundwork for everything that comes next. Can I use a prologue in this case?

A. [From Kathryn]: I’ll admit my bias here–I don’t like prologues. I think they’re old fashioned, and you risk turning off screeners if you use them. Readers don’t care when you start your story, so why not make your Prologue your “Chapter One,” and then turn what was your first chapter into a “forward flash” in time? You can add a date-anchor at the beginning of the chapter to orient the reader in time. I’ve seen many thrillers use this technique, and the effect is much more immediate and dynamic than if you use a prologue.

But that’s just my two cents. I’ll let the other Killers chime in.

Here’s a question from Joy F.

Q. What are some methods of getting over writer’s block?

A. [From Joe] Getting the juices flowing can be tough sometimes. We all experience it. Here are a few tips that might help. Try writing the ending first. Consider changing the gender of your character or the point of view. Tell the story or scene from another character’s POV. Just for grins, switch from third person to first or vice versa.

You don’t have to keep the results of these exercises but they might boost your imagination and get you going again.

(If you would like to ask other questions today, feel free to add them in the Comments. We’ll answer them there.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Coming up on our Kill Zone Guest Sundays, watch for blogs from Sandra Brown, Steve Berry, Robert Liparulo, Paul Kemprecos, Linda Fairstein, James Scott Bell, Alexandra Sokoloff, and more.

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself

Posted on by

by Michelle Gagnon pig

For the past few weeks I’ve been recovering from a cold. It was a nasty one- I rarely get sick, but when something manages to overcome my immune system, it’s generally a humdinger. On Monday night I was out to dinner with friends, still coughing.

At the first wheeze, the woman sitting next to me paled and slid away. “Have you been checked yet?”

“For what?” I asked innocently (I should clarify: I’ve been on a bit of a news blackout for the past few weeks. Between being ill and dealing with page proofs, current affairs fell by the wayside).

“Swine flu,” she said.

Now everyone slid a few inches away. I’d seen a headline about swine flu, guffawed at the bizarre name, and promptly forgot all about it. “It’s coming from Mexico, right? I haven’t been to Mexico.”

“Oh, it’s here now. Cases in Marin, the South Bay.”

“I heard they closed the airports overseas,” another friend interrupted. “A friend of mine was trying to fly out for their honeymoon, and the entire E.U. is refusing planes from the United States.”

“Really?” I said. At first, this had seemed funny. But now I was overly aware of the constant tickle in my throat. “But I’m not sick anymore, so even if I had it, it’s gone now, right?”

“Walking pneumonia.” My friend said solemnly. “You seem fine, then in a week you’re dead.”

“And it’s killing healthy people our age,” another friend agreed. “They’re saying it could be the next Spanish flu.”

Now as you can imagine, all of this was very disconcerting. The SARS scare and avian flu had barely been blips on my radar: probably because at the time, I hadn’t been ill (and let’s be honest: avian flu sounds bad, but “swine flu” sounds positively vile, like you might suddenly sprout a snout).

Living in California, we’re frequently told that we’re ground zero for potential pandemics thanks to constant traffic from Mexico and Asia. But despite that, I always blithely assumed that me and mine would remain unaffected.

The mention of Spanish flu put it in a whole different league for me, however. My grandmother lost two siblings during that pandemic, and to her dying day discussed it in hushed tones.

So I ended up leaving dinner, heading home and going online to read everything I could about swine flu.

Good news: half of what was discussed at dinner was not true. Flights from the U.S. to Europe are continuing without pause (although a flight from Mexico to London resulted in all passengers being examined). Not only that, but U.S. citizens aren’t even being told to change travel plans to Mexico.

The whole incident got me thinking about fear, however, and the ways we sow panic amongst ourselves. 14 swine flu cases have been confirmed in the U.S. as of the time I’m writing this, with one fatality. The normal, run-of-the-mill flu kills about 36,000 Americans a year. So why this fear? Does the media create it to fill air time and drive up ratings? Why is the mere mention of a “pandemic” enough to send us heading for the hills? Some of my friends are debating keeping their children out of school. A local parent sent out an email detailing how we should be washing our produce in a diluted vinegar/bleach solution. One friend has even considered dropping everything and going to a relatively unpopulated area until sometime after May 6th, when apparently if all goes well, the worst of the danger will have passed.

Recently Philip Alcabes, the author of a book entitled, “Dread: How Fear and Fantasy have Fueled Epidemics,” was a guest on The Daily Show. He claimed that most of the threats we get all worked up over are meaningless in comparison to the much more real daily dangers we face. For example, in San Francisco it’s statistically far more likely that I’ll be hit by a car than die of swine flu (it’s not a great city for pedestrians. We’re working on it, but if you visit, look both ways before crossing the street. Even on one-way streets. Seriously.) Getting hit be a car doesn’t sound as scary as swine flu, though, does it?

So I made an appointment with the doctor to get checked out (if nothing else, this cough is driving me crazy). Fingers crossed, I won’t grow a snout.

So what do you think? Much ado about nothing, or should we head for the hills?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Coming up on our Kill Zone Guest Sundays, watch for blogs from Sandra Brown, Steve Berry, Robert Liparulo, Paul Kemprecos, Linda Fairstein, Oline Cogdill, James Scott Bell, and more.