RESEARCH, HUH?

by Stephen Jay Schwartz

Yes, I'm still writing blogs about research. But this one serves a greater purpose.

I've got essays in two books out currently.

The first book is the new edition of the NOW WRITE! series, called Now Write! Mysteries. The book features essays from loads of outstanding mystery authors and each author includes a set of exercises designed to give the reader the opportunity to learn the skills discussed in the author's essay.

I've attached a link to my contribution, so you can get a sense of how the book works. I haven't really given anything away that cannot be found by clicking on the "Look Inside!" button on the book's Amazon page.

Some of the many talented authors in the collection include Aileen G. Baron, James Scott Bell, Rhys Bowen, Rachel Brady, Robert Browne, Rebecca Cantrell, Reed Farrel Coleman, Deborah Coonts, Bill Crider, Meg Gardiner, Gar Anthony Haywood, Harley Jane Kozak, William Kent Krueger, Robert S. Levinson, Sophie Littlefield, Tim Maleeny, Christopher Moore, Kelli Stanley, John Lutz, Louise Penny, Lorenzo Carcaterra and many, many more. I apologize for not including every contributor; the names themselves would fill a book.

The NOW WRITE! series includes other notable publications, such as Now Write! Fiction, Now Write! Nonfiction, and Now Write! Screenwriting.

The books are edited by Sherry Ellis and her niece Laurie Lamson. Laurie took over finishing the new book after Sherry passed away unexpectedly last year. It was a terrible loss to our community. And I'm honored to have been part of her last creative effort on this planet.

The other book I'm in is called WRITERS ON THE EDGE: 22 Writers Speak About Addiction and Dependency.

My essay here finally answers the big question I get when I'm on panels at conferences. The question: "How the hell did you do your research for Boulevard and Beat?"

When I don't want to get into the specifics, I go with the answer I have in the Now Write! series. I discuss the passion I have for boots-on-the-ground research, how I love to meet and interview people and learn the details of their lives.

When I get down-and-dirty, I talk about the struggles I had with my own sex-addiction, how I went to twelve-step meetings and marriage counseling and therapy and took a potentially life-threatening problem and turned it into something life-affirming and creative. My essay in this book is open and honest and, ultimately, uplifting. I discuss the things I did, how the addiction began, how it affected my psychology, my relationships, my marriage. It's the most personal discussion I've had on the subject. I was actually reluctant to write the piece, but the editors, Diana M. Raab and James Brown, convinced me that my experiences should be shared with others who might be struggling with their own addictive behavior. After all, it's Twelfth Step stuff - helping others along the path to their own sobriety.

All the essays in the book are fabulous. The authors speak from their hearts and I admire them for the vulnerability they exhibit.

The book also features a forward by Jerry Stahl, author of PERMANENT MIDNIGHT.

For those of you in the Los Angeles area, we will be launching the book from Book Soup on Saturday, February 25, at 4:00 pm.

That's it for now, folks.

She's All That

By Stephen Jay Schwartz

It’s time to give props where props are due. This, to my supportive and enthusiastic wife, Ryen.

She’s all that. And more.

The more is something I never would have guessed when I met her twenty years ago at that Hillel dance in college. She was such a cutie then, cute as a little button. And exactly my type, with her long, long blond hair, her great smile and bright blue eyes and thin, petite body. Features that she’s kept to this day. I have to admit, what grabbed me first were her looks.

I knew she read a lot, but I also knew she read the kind of novels I didn’t read, like…historical romance. And she watched a lot of television, which wasn’t really my thing, since I had just come out of film school and was buried in the Gigantic Technicolor Epics of World Cinema.

Her background, however, would sneak up and save me.

Years into our relationship I began working as a development executive in Hollywood. Soon I was reading two screenplays every night after work and fifteen to twenty on the weekends. We got married, and I realized that if we were going to make this relationship thing work we were going to need to find a way to reduce the workload. The way I had it figured, if we split that “weekend” read between us, with the two of us reading Friday night and all Saturday day and night, we’d have Sundays off. I gave her screenplays to read and asked her for a verbal synopsis, or pitch, of each screenplay. If the screenplay was good, or if the subject matter seemed appropriate for the film company that employed me, I would read it myself. Before long she became my “ghost reader.”

And we had Sundays off.

What surprised me, however, was that she was really, really good. From the start. No learning curve. Her sense of dramatic escalation, plot, character and dialogue stood out as something exceptional, something I rarely saw, even though I was surrounded by people whose job it was to analyze and develop story for films.

When I wrote BOULEVARD, Ryen read every word, sentence and chapter behind me, every night. She found the subject matter disturbing; this wasn’t the kind of stuff she liked to read. But she got it. She knew where I was going and what I needed to do to get there. And when I pulled punches she caught them. When I skirted the darkness she turned me around to face it.

I’ve never encountered anyone with such a natural sense of plot. And I think a lot of it came from her total immersion in television as a child, combined with her addiction (and that’s what it was – I bet you didn’t think I could get the word addiction into yet another blog!) for historical romances. Both forms of storytelling adhere to specific formulae regarding primary plot development, subplot development (usually a romantic plot-line), plot points, and standard three (sometimes four) act structure. Ryen didn’t know any of this. But she knew all of it. She knew it so well she didn’t have to think about it.

And so I’ve discovered that my wife is not just a supportive mother to our two young boys, whom she home-schools. She is not just a sensitive and understanding partner who endures the dramatic mood swings of an over-anxious writer. She is not just the perfect cheerleader to my occasional touchdown pass, or the chummy grade-school coach who’s there to pick me up when I fall. The girl is all that. And more.

Was it fate, then, that the young girl I met at the Jewish dance would turn out to be the brilliant, natural story editor I would need in order to find success as a novelist twenty years later?

I need her now more than ever. As I drown in the research of my second novel, as I write and rewrite scenes and chapters that will never see the light of day. I depend on her to review, organize, and focus my thoughts into coherent lines of plot and real-life characters whose dilemmas demand real-life empathy.

But don’t think it’s easy. She’s got her opinions and, by God, she’s always right. If you think it’s tough receiving criticism from your friends, try getting it from your wife. All…the…time. I put my foot down recently when she suggested that I correct the spelling of “labridoodle” in my bio. “It’s spelled with an ‘a’,” she said. “Labradoodle.”

“It should’ve been spelled with an ‘i’ to begin with,” I insisted. “It’s a made up word anyway, for a made up dog, a Disney dog, a dog that consists of parts of dogs that should never have been combined. Labridoodle is cuter and it’s the way I choose to write this silly new word to describe our silly new dog.”

But she won’t let it go. For my labridoodle “win” I have to give her a two-page rewrite on the sex scene I’m writing for my next book, because the scene reads, “too cute, too silly, too…Disney.”

We spent most of last weekend tearing apart my next book’s plot, again, and rebuilding it into a story worth telling. It was a painful and humbling experience. She took the inspired mish-mash I had and gave it direction. I would lend her out to every writer I know, but I’m afraid she’d kill them. She delivers brash bullets of truth. She tears my heart out and feeds it to the demons she keeps in her tote bag, with her sharpened pencils and antibacterial hand gel.

The girl’s an ego-killer. But she wouldn’t do it if she didn’t care, if she didn’t want my work to be the best it could be. And, shit, it works. She’s got something, man. Something that eludes me. I’d be a fool not to listen.

So, Ratis, who do you turn to when you want an honest, intelligent perspective on your work? Who watches your “blind side?” Is it your editor? Spouse? College professor? Another writer? A workshop?

Murderati Anonymous

by Stephen Jay Schwartz

When JT asked what title I would like under my name on the Murderati blogsite she suggested The Newbie, since this had been her title when she first came onto the blogging scene. She also suggested “The Newcomer,” which jumped out at me since it ties directly into my novel, BOULEVARD, a crime thriller set in the world of sex-addiction amidst the dark, present-day streets of Los Angeles. The protagonist is a sex-addicted, LAPD Robbery-Homicide detective.

I’ve done a lot of research on the subject of addiction. I’ve read David Sheff’s “Beautiful Boy,” Nick Sheff’s “Tweak,” Marilee Strong’s “A Bright Red Scream,” William Cope Moyer’s “Broken,” William S. Burroughs’ “Junky,” most all of the texts by Dr. Patrick Carnes (the preeminent researcher in the field of sex addiction), Lauren Greenfield’s documentary film “Thin,” Nikki Sixx’s “The Heroin Diaries,” Augusten Burroughs’ “Dry,” as well as many other novels, memoirs and textbooks on the subject of addiction. The compulsion and addiction topics I’ve studied cover the gamut: Meth, crack, heroin, speed, nicotine, alcohol, anorexia, bulimia, self-abuse (cutting & burning), over-eating, workaholism and sex addiction. I’ve done a lot of “boots on the ground” research as well, attending meetings and interviewing addicts, narcotics officers and health professionals. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on the subject of addiction, but I’m certainly well-informed. One of the things I’ve learned through my research is that the Twelve Step meeting is a wonderful place to heal.

In the world of addiction, the phrase newcomer refers to someone who is new to the meeting. The newcomer arrives raw and wide-eyed and terribly vulnerable. He stumbles into the meeting searching for guidance or empathy or both.

He takes a seat among old-timers and veterans who view his sudden presence with trepidation. Is this kid going to make it? It’s his first day and it’s going to take a lot of one-day-at-a-times before he achieves even an inkling of serenity. Is he going to have what it takes to keep coming back?

The veterans know how hard it is to follow the path. They know the challenges, and they know that the newcomer will invariably make mistakes along the way. There exists a strange, symbiotic relationship between veteran and newcomer. The veteran often forgets the wild, out-of-control feelings he had when he first started recovery. The group encourages the veteran to listen to the newcomer’s voice so that he might recapture the sense of overwhelming excitement he had when he first started working the program. When he realized that there was, in fact, a path to follow.

Is it appropriate to compare the veteran Murderati authors to a room full of addicts? They seem like a crowd that can take some ribbing. And, while I am making a bit of a playful comparison here, I don’t want to make light of addiction. Too many families have been broken, too many loved ones have been lost. So I hope the readers of this blog take what I am saying in the spirit in which it was written.

The metaphor works. Here I am. New guy. Friggin’ excited as hell that my book is being published. Happy to discover there’s a recovery process from the painful years I’ve spent writing in dimly lit rooms and cafes, separated from my wife and kids, adding five, six, seven hours to the end of each day at the office. I might wonder, what does recovery look like for me? How does one recover from a lifetime of anticipation?

Here in this room I see a path. Every one of these authors was once an unpublished writer. And then, every one of these authors became a newcomer.

My recovery process has already begun. It began when I got the phone call from the guy who would become my agent. When the book sold, a month later, I could feel my feet planted firmly on the ground. Then came nice little moments that felt like thirty, sixty and ninety-day chips; selling the audio rights, selling the Italian language rights, executing my editor’s notes, seeing the first page proofs, the copyedit proofs, the ARC. Seeing my book available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I’ve had a year of “sobriety” from the anxiety of not-being-published and the book isn’t even out yet. Being invited to join the Murderati authors is like receiving my one-year chip and a cake all at once.

The Twelve Step meetings work because their members share the experiences that define who they are. Experiences that define them as alcoholics, or tweakers, or sex addicts. Or, as in this room, the experiences that define them as writers. They share so that other writers will see how difficult the path is for everyone, not just for the unpublished writer, or for the newcomer.

Part of the job of the newcomer is to share his First Step. The First Step is a public recitation of all the crazy shit that happened to him, and all the crazy shit he did as a result of the crazy shit that happened to him, and how all of this emerged as his addiction of choice, and how all of that eventually led him to the room he’s in now, sharing his First Step. I think I can say that my addiction of choice is writing. It has led me to this room. And writing isn’t a bad thing. But it can certainly be an addictive thing, and a compulsive thing. Not to say that I haven’t had other addictions or compulsions that have complicated my life. I’ve had my share.

In future blogs, as part of this “Author’s First Step,” I will share my experiences about how I got published. I’ll relate my story, which is different from Brett’s story or JT’s story or Rob’s story. And it will be different from the stories that other writers will tell after me, other newcomers who join Murderati in the future.

I was fortunate—I published my first novel shortly after I finished writing it. And because of this it might appear that I haven’t experienced much rejection or failure. But I also spent twenty years working in the film industry and much of that time was spent writing spec screenplays that never sold. Now as I look back on it, each of those screenplays was a stepping-stone to the novel, to Boulevard. Each and every one of them gave me the thing I needed to be what folks in the film industry call an “overnight success, twenty years in the making.” And there’s still so much more to achieve.

As a newcomer I think it’s important to share some of these experiences with the Group to underscore the fact that there are many paths to success, and a lot of them look, at first glance, like failure.

Blogging is a lot like sharing, which is the Twelve Step term used to describe the process of talking about one’s daily struggle. Sharing personal stories, telling them to the room. Sharing is important not because we like to hear ourselves talk, or that it feels good to talk and be heard, but because when we share our struggles we open ourselves to others who are facing similar challenges, and it reminds us all that we are not alone. We are a community. We, at Murderati, are a community of writers. I was not published—I struggled—I was rejected—I struggled—I tried I tried I tried—I was published. The stories I heard from other writers along the way gave me the strength to continue, all the while knowing in my heart that I would someday succeed, providing that I always wrote, listened carefully to feedback, and did what was necessary to improve my work, one word, one sentence, one paragraph, one chapter, one draft, one day at a time.

I’ve considered some of the topics I plan to talk about in future blogs: The Joy of Research, How to Find a Book Agent, How to Find a Film Agent, The Development Process in Hollywood, Adapting a Novel to Film, Creative Visualization, Story Analysis Using the Writings of Joseph Campbell. There are also subjects I find close to my heart, subjects that have influenced my style as a writer. One I’m looking forward to exploring will be called Kerouac, Jazz and the Art of Spontaneous Prose. And there will be plenty of playful, silly blogs, after I learn to chill out a bit, when my friends remind me not to take myself so seriously.

To finish off the Twelve Step allegory, I’ll throw out a few interesting commonalities:

It’s helps to have a sponsor. I’m lucky because I feel like I’ve walked into this room with three caring sponsors: Brett Battles, JT Ellison and Tess Gerritsen. Brett and I met in college. We lived in the same dorms, went to the same parties, had many of the same classes. I lost touch with him for twenty years, until just recently when I found him on the Murderati blog site. He’s become a good friend again and he’s helped me prepare for the things I expect to encounter as a published author. He also gives wonderful tips, like “Always ask a person how to spell their name when you sign their book.” For my part, I introduced him to the best writing café in Southern California. Tess has also been there from the start, from the day I sent her a blind e:mail asking for advice on how to get an agent. She gave me help that made a difference, and then she read my galley and gave me an amazing blurb, one that continues to make a difference. And then there’s JT, who has been a vocal supporter and who gave me the official invitation to join the Murderati authors. All three have given me blurbs and advice and support. I couldn’t have found better sponsors.

A few other Program phrases jump out as I write this…

Just Show Up. Just show up to the meeting, even if you don’t feel like going. Just show up to your computer. Even if you don’t feel like writing or if you don’t think you have anything to say. Rest your fingers on the keyboard. Close your eyes. Tap, tap, tap.

Keep Coming Back. To the story. To the page. To the computer. Don’t give up. Don’t stop the process. Finish the book.

And, though I’m not very religious, I’m growing more spiritual as my days grow shorter. I’ve come to see that the Serenity Prayer applies to just about anything that challenges me:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference…

Thanks for attending Stephen’s Friday meeting of Murderati Anonymous. Keep coming back.