On Feb. 6th, 2006, I reported here what it was like to see the galley of NO GOOD DEEDS. Today, a year and a week later, I received the final copy of WHAT THE DEAD KNOW. Ten years in, book #12 and, yes, it’s still thrilling. Also terrifying. But mostly thrilling.
A young author of my acquaintance saw his pages typeset for the first time recently, and asked if it was normal to be excited. Yes, I think so. In fact, I think it would be quite depressing to be jaded about it, ever. The transition still seems magical to me, almost as if elves had absconded with one’s pages in the night and returned with the promise of a finished product. Or, to quote a favorite Sondheim lyric: “Look, I made a hat/Where there never was a hat.”
Another review, Booklist, arrived on the heels of the book. Now Booklist has never been particularly kind to me. It has compared Tess, unfavorably, to Nancy Drew and said of TO THE POWER OF THREE: “[T]he book derails from mystery into pop sociology. For Lippman fans only.” So I count it as a victory that the the review is positive, with only a quibble about the ending. I expect I will see more such quibbles and all I can say, without being spoiler-ish, is: Um, have you been paying attention to the news lately? But, really, it’s very blurbable, although I’ve already forgotten all the nice adjectives.
Finally, the mail also brought news of a hat trick — for the third year in a row, one of my stories has been chosen for inclusion in the the Best American Mystery Stories, with Carl Hiaasen as guest editor this year. “One True Love” was written for the MWA anthology, DEATH DO US PART, and it’s a story (and character) of which I’m particularly fond. TMP visitor/eponymous blogger Nancy Nall has noted that women in my fiction often behave very badly and, well, true dat, as they used to say on THE WIRE.
Hat tricks, first times, criticisms you can’t quite forget, things that never get old, things that get old fast, the pleasures of craft, the daunting nature of trying to do a thing again and again and again — in other words, it’s a Baltimore snow day, so anything goes.
“… although I’ve already forgotten all the nice adjectives.”
Sounds like we have a couple of things in common here, Laura. Yes, I still get excited about every stage of this game. The editor’s comments, the galleys, the ARCs, the final book. But I also have this tendancy to skim right past all the good stuff in a review, and then committ to memory everything after the word “but.”
Congrats on inclusion in Best American Mysteries!
YAY hat trick!!!
First of all, congratulations, Laura, on the final copy of WTDK (seems to me getting that or galleys would be pretty darned thrilling!). Twelve books in ten years is quite an accomplishment, too!!! And your story being chosen has to be a thrill. By Carl Hiassen… woo hoo!
I’ll comment on pleasure of craft: I worked this morning revising my first chapter of the neverending novel (never finished, I should say, as of yet) and feel so energized having done it. Days like this tell me on the right track, moving forward, toward my goal. Time will tell if anyone else feels like it’s any good, but the feeling of doing it and the satisfaction is good enough for today.
Laura, I enjoy all your books, but I’m especially looking forward to the new one because I remember the disappearance of the Lyon sisters so clearly. Can’t wait to see what you’ve grown from that seed of a story. Something unique and quite distant from the actual events, I’m sure.
I’ve only had the galley experience twice so far (note the optimism), but I’m sure I’ll never be jaded about it. I will also never tire of receiving e-mails from people who have read my writing and liked it enough to want to tell me. The first book has been out almost a year, but those e-mails are still trickling in, and every time I see one in my inbox, I get excited all over again. Who needs bestseller lists? Who needs scads of advance money? I’ve got mail!!
I remember getting my first ARCs. I ran around to all my friends going “Look! Look! I’m in print!” And those were just the ARCs. When the first printed copies came… Well, from the humble level where I started out, the first batch were… um… How shall I put this? Ragged? Anyway, it didn’t matter. They were the first copies. I took one out of the box and danced around laughing hysterically.
Then I emailed a friend of mine whose book came out a few months earlier and asked, “Did you do that?” He said since he debuted in hardcover, he got the book jacket first and slid it over another hardcover book to pretend it was his.
Congrats!
Regarding Sandra’s comment about mail, can I ask all of you authors a question? I’m a dedicated reader and have often felt the urge to write to a writer who moved me, but I always hold back (maybe I’ve read too much John Irving). So my question is, honestly, how do you feel about letters from readers?
Linda, I can’t imagine why any writer would be less than thrilled to receive a fan letter! I have printed and saved all the e-mails I’ve received from readers. I love them. I appreciate any reader taking the time and trouble to write to me. It’s a lovely thing to do. So do it, absolutely!
A person can never read too much John Irving.
Speaking only for myself . . . I love getting e-mail from readers. I try to write back to everyone, too, although it sometimes slips through the cracks.
Meanwhile, re: the Lyon sisters. It’s true, WHAT THE DEAD KNOW was inspired by my memories of those two girls, going to the mall and never coming home. But, of course, the moment I decided to have a woman show up thirty years later and claim to be one of them . . . and moved the story to Baltimore . . . and created the Bethany family, with the counterculture dad and his craft store, and the vaguely dissatisfied, never truly rooted mother . . . well, all I can say is that I hope the Lyon family will understand that it’s not meant to be their story, or exploit their tragedy. I’ve worried about this quite a bit, actually, and tried to find a way to talk about the book’s inspiration without being crass or disingenuous.
What really interested me, re: a 1975 disappearance, was trying to craft a mystery that couldn’t be solved via forensic science. Big tip of the hat to Jan Burke, who helped me time and time again.
I also enjoyed visiting the 70s again, along with two years that were seminal in my own life — 1983 and 1989. One chapter in the 1989 section, as it happens, drew quite heavily on a journal I kept while in Mexico that year. (I lived in Cuernavaca for three months, studying Spanish as part of a fellowship for American journalists.)
On one of my Friday wanderings through Barnes and Noble, I discovered a small book, a memoir written about the author’s life in the 1960′s. I checked a few pages to see if it was something I would enjoy then I smiled all the way to the cashier. I read it over a weekend and googled the author, discovered she was a writing teacher at a university in Virginia and wrote her an email letting her know how much I enjoyed her book. Before stumbling across her book, I didn’t know she existed. She wrote me back to let me know that mine was the first fan letter she had ever received.
Jackie, that was a lovely thing to do.
And Peg, good luck with your novel. I hope you finish it one day, so you might experience some of these milestones firsthand.
Laura, all fiction writers take inspiration from real life events. What choice do we have, after all? Real life is all we’ve got. From what I’ve read about WTDK, the story has little in common with the actual case beyond the initial disappearance of two sisters. Sadly, missing children are not rare, and even cases of siblings who go missing at the same time are not unusual. What interests me is where you’ve gone, through your imagination, from that initial inspiration. I never for a moment thought you had tried to write the real family’s story, and I doubt they would think that either. I don’t think you should feel compelled to talk about the Lyon case unless someone asks you about it specifically.
The flip side of the “ripped from the headlines” comment is that once the book’s out, maybe the Lyon sisters’ disappearance will get even more media coverage, and perhaps a resolution may be in sight.
Although if anything, WTDK’s bare-bones story bears equal resemblance to the Leslie sisters, who disappeared the year before in Arizona.
When I (briefly) took a class in TV scriptwriting, the teacher — a “Law & Order” staff alum — required us to comb the papers every day, and then clip the ones we thought we could use as the basis of stories.
So I asked, “So you’re asking us to, quite literally, rip our stories from the headlines?” She scowled.
I dropped the class shortly thereafter.
And I’ve never even heard of the Leslie Sisters. Off to Google. Well, first off to the grocery store, then Google.
Congrats, Laura, on the hat trick *and* the new book — can’t wait.
I got my first set of galleys the day before Left Coast Crime, and I think I just stared at them in awe for an hour, then danced around. Of course, the cover had changed between the galleys being ordered and arriving here, but seeing that St. Martin’s label on the box is just about the best thing since chocolate.
Thanks, Sandra. I’m trying to walk the fine line between not denying it, but not over-emphasizing it.
I’ve always been uncomfortable with the phrase “ripped from the headlines” because it suggests a hasty attempt to exploit something fresh in people’s minds. (It also connotes that there’s not a lot of imagination involved.) I first saw this phrase in connection with my work with Every Secret Thing, which was kind of mind-boggling. For one thing, the inspiration was clearly the Bulger case — not so much the murder, but the judges’ decision re: the two young killers and their release — that motivated me, and my novel appeared three years after the judge’s ruling, almost ten years after the actual crime.
Almost every novel I’ve written has been inspired by a real-life case, starting with Butchers Hill — the only novel drawn from a case I actually covered. In some cases, the original story may be so obscured that no one would make the connection. Still, it’s there.
Still, I worry. It’s my nature.
Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love those anthos more than Best Short Stories actually.