THEY DON'T KNOW HOW WE DO IT

by Gar Anthony Haywood

Several months ago, I wrote a guest post for Timothy Hallinan's fine blog regarding the "writer's process."  Those last two words are in quotation marks because, as all of us here clearly know, there's no such thing as a singular "writer's process."  Every writer's process --- his way of getting words on paper so that they form a publishable manuscript --- is different.  Asking me to describe "the" writer's process is like asking all the Iron Chefs how to make a soufflé with the expectation of getting only one answer.

Anyway, one of the areas I touched upon in my post for Tim's blog (Tim's one hell of a writer, by the way; his novel THE QUEEN OF PATPONG is not to be missed) was where we writers get our ideas.  Big surprise that, huh?  Because that's always the first thing readers and others who don't write for a living want to know: Where the hell do we find all those incredible stories?

The question is usually posed as if the answer must be some deep, dark secret.  I think what the people who pose it are generally envisioning is a vast network of hidden depositories --- lockboxes that only we writers know exist --- in which Great Ideas are kept.  We surf to the Great Ideas website, login using our writers-only password, find a lockbox nearby and then slink off under cover of night to open the box and withdraw the Great Idea inside.

Voila!  Our next book is practically in the can!

(Oh, if it were only that simple. . .)

Naturally, there is no such network of lockboxes.  There are no hidden Great Ideas.  All our Great Ideas are right there out in the open for anyone and everyone to see.  Here's how I explained what I mean in my post for Tim's blog:

A Non-Writer and a Writer are walking down the street.  Both take note of a mismatched pair of running shoes dangling from their bound laces over the back of a vacant bus bench.

The Non-Writer thinks (if he or she thinks anything at all):

"Hmm.  That's funny.  I wonder what that's about?"

The Writer thinks:

"An all-clear sign left by one criminal conspirator for another."

"A poor man training for his last marathon before cancer takes his life has just boarded a bus and left his only pair of running shoes behind."

"A grifter's wife, throwing his worthless ass out again, has just tossed his clothes out of the window of their fourth-floor apartment, starting with shoes she's been careful to tie up in mismatched pairs just to twist the knife."

You see?  And none of this is particularly deliberate.  It just happens.  It's how our minds work.  We see or read something that piques our curiosity and runaway extrapolation occurs.  Mind you, it isn't always great extrapolation (as the three examples above probably indicate), but every now and then, something genuinely wonderful results from it.

So where do I get my ideas?  Everywhere.  The thing is, they're only "ideas" because, as a writer, I'm able to perceive them as such; what the Non-Writer dismisses as mere background noise I latch onto as seedlings that could grow stories in a hundred different directions.

Go figure.

I was thinking about all this yesterday during my thrice-weekly bike ride to the gym, because I caught myself finding Great Ideas in damn near everything and everyone I encountered.  Such as:

• Two police cars, one unmarked, the other a black-and-white, splitting off to cruise my 'hood in two different directions.

My first thought: Watch one of them pull me over.  On my bike.  Always trying to keep the Black Man down.

(Well, okay, this wasn't a Great Idea, it was just paranoia.  And no, neither cop gave me a second look.)

But my NEXT first thought was:

They're after the wrong guy.  Somebody's called in a false report, claiming they've witnessed a crime that never actually occurred, because. . .

• A long line of cars waiting at a Metro line rail crossing for a train that, it seems, is never going to come.

My first thought: Persons unknown have hacked into the Metro transit system, and this harmless traffic snarl is just a dry run for. . .

• Two old men, one at least twenty years older than the other, circling a car for sale sitting in a dry cleaner's parking lot: a classic, perfectly restored '64 Chevy Malibu.

My first thought: They're father and son, and the son intends to gift the car to the old man because it reminds them both of the son's mother, who. . .

• A homeless man stretched out on the sidewalk, unkempt but totally coherent, lighting a cigarette with theatrical flair.

My first thought:  This is a goddamn shame.  Exactly how and when did homelessness become something undeserving of America's outrage?

(But I digress.)

My NEXT first thought:  He learned to light a cigarette like that in Europe as a young man, when he served as a valet to. . .

• A pair of ornate, wrought-iron gates, flanking a quiet residential street;  open now but clearly once intended to close off the sidewalk on both sides to unwanted visitors.

My first thought:  Those gates weren't meant to keep people out.  They were meant to keep people in.  During World War II, this street led to a private hospital, where a former surgeon in the U.S. Navy was conducting secret experiments on. . .

And that's how it goes for me, all day, every day.  Springboards for stories are everywhere.  My wife sees a car at the curb, coated with dust and sporting a windshield crawling with parking tickets; I see the corpse going to rot in the back seat, behind the tinted windows that only days ago had served as a curtain for the last sex act the deceased will ever know.

Most of these Great Ideas of mine are anything but, and I forget about them as quickly as they come to me.  But some stick.  They grow and gather momentum, almost of their own volition, until I'm too drawn in to do anything but massage them into a full-blown narrative or die trying.

So there you have it: My answer to the dreaded "Where do you get your ideas?" question.  I don't go looking for them; I just stumble upon them, my writer's intuition (think of Superman's X-ray vision) enabling me, countless times a day, to see beyond the hard outer shell of something ordinary to the infinite and extraordinary possibilities lurking within.

But hey --- if anybody wants to create that secret network of idea lockboxes?  Sign me the hell up.

Questions for the class: Readers, what's the best answer to the "Where do you get your ideas?" question you've ever heard?  And writers, I'm not going to ask where and how you get your ideas --- that would be too easy.  But I am curious to know how often you come up with one too good not to keep.  Once a day?  Twice a month?  Exactly how efficient is your own personal idea-generating mechanism?

What Is This Thing They Call Book Writing?

JT Ellison

The word counts are creeping up. Creeping, not blazing a trail through the white space, but plodding, slowly, as if they are weighed down. This isn’t writer’s block. This isn’t lack of enthusiasm.

It’s starting a new book. As my favorite warrior philosopher, Lao Tzu, said:

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Now what’s funny, I needed to look this quote up, because I’m still suffering from tour brain, AKA book release malaise, and I couldn’t get it right in my head – I kept saying a thousand steps, not miles, and knew that wasn’t right. When I looked up the quote, I saw a caveat I’d never noticed before.

Although this is the popular form of this quotation, a more correct translation from the original Chinese would be "The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one's feet." Rather than emphasizing the first step, Lau Tzu regarded action as something that arises naturally from stillness.

“…Something that arises naturally from stillness.”

Isn’t that the perfect allegory for the beginning of a new book? Heck, any new venture, creative or otherwise, starts from that moment of stillness. If you want to get all weighty, we can get into the chicken or the egg argument. This is a cause and effect concept in a writer’s life… At what moment have you set out on your journey of a thousand steps?

Now that I’m a bit more self-aware as a writer, these thoughts enter my consciousness often. What is the exact moment when I have an idea, a spark, that will grow into a story, and thus into a book? And at what point does the beginning really begin? At what point do you shatter the stillness and take the first step? Is it a mental journey first, or purely physical?

To be honest, the writer’s entire journey is fraught with peril, but the most dangerous moment is writing those opening few pages, when you’ve got an idea, one that you think you can sustain for another 399, characters who are living, breathing entities in your head, plot points that race toward the page like a wave through your mind, notebooks filling with chicken scratch, character names, dates, places, ideas. And you have those moments of sheer fright, when you realize you can't remember how to start a book.

So can you say you’ve started writing a book when the idea is formed, or must you wait until those first few words go down on the page?

“Try not. Do.” ~ Master Yoda

There is an offshoot of Hinduism and Buddhism known as Taoism. I fancied myself a Taoist back in college. I was very into the philosophical then, a full-circle I’m enjoying now. And while I studied the Tao-te Ching, the Taoist handbook, if you will, I didn’t truly understand the words. How could any nineteen-year-old who hadn’t experienced suffering understand? Truly, in order to appreciate what you have, you must have experienced the loss of what you desire. That tenant has its roots all over the canon – it’s better to climb the mountain than start at the top, etc. – because it’s the truth. You always appreciate something you work for more than something you’re simply handed, and suffering, at all levels, makes us who we are.

Now, though I’m hardly a scholar, more an enthusiast, I am experiencing bits of enlightenment, especially when it comes to appreciating life and the creative process.

They say the more you talk about Taoism, the less you know. I reveled in that phrase when I was nineteen, feeling so mysterious and noble. It’s true, though. One poem in the Tao-te Ching describes the Tao like this:

The Tao is like a bellows:
it is empty yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
The more you talk of it, the less you understand.

The Tao, to me, is writing. It is looking into that empty space in the bellows—the empty, yet infinitely capable space—and seeing the sparkly mist of words that will build the house that will shelter your story.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small. ~ Lao Tzu

For once, I can pinpoint the exact moment the bellows filled with air and this new book began. It was January 27, 2011, at about 9:45 AM central time. I was on a marketing call with my agent and editor. We came out of it with an idea, one that morphed into an emailed paragraph by 10:09 AM, and another call with a full-fledged endorsement from said agent and a hearty “write the proposal” by 10:20. I found a title and perfect epigraph, wrote the proposal, which was submitted February 8^th, which the agent loved, sent it to my editor, who helped tighten a few points down, and it was thus accepted the 18^th.  We changed the title to the what I know is the final one on February 24^th, I turned in the Art Fact Sheet March 10^th, and by the end of the day March 14^th, I had 1602 words.

Boom goes the dynamite.

It took 45 days from concept to words. And when I say concept, I mean it—when the phone rang on January 27, I had no idea what this story was. None.

I look at those 45 days with some chagrin and teeth gnashing, because I wanted to get started sooner, but had to do all the promotion and touring for the release of So Close, copyedits and AAs for WHERE ALL THE DEAD LIE, write a short story, and continue plotting world domination. There was work being done on the new book though. Research being collected, books being read, thoughts coalescing, Scrivener files filling up with light bulbs.

Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens. ~ Lao Tzu

In other words, the journey has begun.

But I’m feeling rather Taoist about the content of this book. I’m just not ready to talk about it. A few people know what I’m about right now, but I want to wait to get into the gritty.

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~ Lao Tzu

I want to be a good traveler with this book. I’m feeling very protective of it. There are good reasons for that, reasons time will reveal. But for now, I want to enjoy my secrets.

For my fellow writers – when do you feel the journey begins?

For my fellow readers – which came first – the chicken or the egg?

And for all – what’s your favorite philosophical quote?

Wine of the Week: Now, don't everyone pass out all at once - this is only the second time in 5 years I've done this varietal: Red Tree Pinot Noir. It's light, fruity, and perfect for getting back on the wine badwagon after food poisoning. : )

The Mystery Bookstore

By Brett Battles

(Ingrid, Bobby and Linda at the front counter of the Mystery Bookstore)

On Tuesday, word spread across the Internet about the closing of the Mystery Bookstore in West Los Angeles.

The news hit me particularly hard – as I’m sure it did for most L.A. based authors. The Mystery Bookstore has been our “local”, to use pub terminology, the place we think of as our home store. Every single one of my books so far has had its launch signings there. In fact, until the announcement, my upcoming March release of THE SILENCED was also to have its launch signing there. But, sadly, is not going to happen now.

But this post is not an obit for this fantastic store. It is a remembrance and a flickering candle that maybe this is not the end.

Those of you who have been to the Mystery Bookstore know that its strength is its incredibly knowledgeable staff headed by Bobby McCue and Linda Brown. Tell any of the employees there what kind of books you like, and you’ll get recommended more choices than you know what to do with. They are just that good.

The thing that has been most important to me, though, is the store's support, not just of myself, but of the whole mystery and thriller community.

But, if you’ll allow, a quick memory…

The first time I walked in the store was right after New Years, six months before the release of my first novel, THE CLEANER. I was a nervous first timer, and I almost left without introducing myself. Thankfully, I did. Bobby and Linda were immediately excited for me, and told me to make sure my publicist at the publisher contacted them about a launch signing. We talked books, and the industry, and the community. I didn’t walk out of there, I floated.

(My daughters and I at my very first signing at the Mystery Bookstore.)

I can’t tell you how many authors I’ve met because of the Mystery Bookstore, both in person and through recommendations, but it’s a lot. And the wonderful readers I’ve met, too, the true backbone of the community, happened because of the Mystery Bookstore.

To think the store won’t be there after January 31^st for me to drop in on is incomprehensible.

Yesterday, I took a break from the book I’m working on, and drove over to the store. Bobby wasn’t in, but Linda was there, as was Pam who owns the store with her husband Kirk. Since purchasing it, they have been as diehard supporters of the genre and of me as the rest of the staff have been, and I know they have worked tirelessly to try to make things work.

I could see the strain of the decision in Pam’s face. I could hear it in her voice. This was not something that came easy.

I knew this wouldn’t be my last time at the store before it closes, but it would be one of them. I expected it to be a sad experience. But, on the whole, it wasn’t . Yes, they are closing, but all hope is not lost.

Pam and I talked for, I don’t know, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, and I learned that they are still trying to figure out ways to make the store live on. No, not as it currently exists. That’s over. As Pam said, and I won’t get this quote correct, the business model for the independent bookseller just doesn’t work anymore. At least, not in their case, and I have a feeling not in most.

But given that, she also thinks that doesn’t mean a viable model can’t be found. She and her husband Kirk have been racking their brains to come up with creative solutions. To that end, author Lisa Lutz, has grabbed the bull by the horns, and has been trying to come up with some ways to make things work. I’m told in the past 48 hours, she and Pam and Kirk have been trading ideas, and looking for alternatives. If you haven’t already read what Lisa has posted on her own blog, you’ll find it here. 

I told Pam that I was going to blog about the store today, and she said to let people know that this is hopefully not the end, and that if anyone, ANYONE, has ideas that might help them find a viable way in this new book world order, to let them know.

Who knows? One of us may have a solution that will not only help the Mystery Bookstore today, but other of our favorite bookstores that may be facing now or will face in the future similar issues.

Also, if you are in L.A. on January 31^st, there will be a party at the store that starts at 6 p.m. I’ll be there. I know a lot of other authors (including some here at Murderati) will be there, too. Join us, and let’s celebrate this icon of our community.

One last thing…

So this is how wonderful the Mystery Bookstore is. As I was talking to Pam, Linda was helping a customer who was looking for books for a friend that were similar to a certain author. He walked out with a copy of my first book thanks to Linda. And she didn’t do that because I was there. She would have done it anyway.

That’s all. No questions today, but solutions are always welcome.

LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS

By Brett Battles

I seldom do interviews here at Murderati. Okay, that’s a lie. I have never done an interview here yet that I can remember. But when I looked at the calendar and saw that a book I really love by a very good friend of mine was coming out this month, I contacted him and asked if he’d like to share some time with us. So today I bring you the immensely talented Tim Hallinan.

Tim writes a series of thrillers set in Bangkok. His main character is Poke Rafferty, a travel writer who has created a new life with a patched together family that have come to mean the world to him. Rose, a former bar girl, is the love of his life, and Miaow, a girl who spent her first several years on the street, is the adopted daughter he will do anything to protect. If you have not picked up one of this books (A NAIL THROUGH THE HEART, THE FOURTH WATCHER, BREATHING WATER), you need to do so now. They are, quite simply, outstanding.

Tim’s latest is THE QUEEN OF PATPONG, and it is…well, you’ll quickly see what I think about it. Let’s get started:

THE QUEEN OF PATPONG has just been released. First, congratulations! Now down to business. The book is a very ambitious work in which you've done something that many writers would have balked at even trying. The fact that you not only pulled it off, but pulled it off in a way that has helped you create one of the best books of the year (my opinion) is an amazing achievement. Did you ever have any doubts as you were writing this story?  How did you overcome them?

Well, thanks for being so nice about the book, and thanks also for the great blurb. 

It’s easy to blurb a book that I love. So…doubts?

I was all doubts.  My doubts were so deep-seated that when I turned the book into William Morrow I more than half-expected them to reject it. 

I was worried about two things.  First, and less of an issue, was the way I was screwing with the thriller form.  The first 30,000 words set up a thriller in an efficient way.  Probably gives the reader the expectation that he or she is in for a fast-moving, tightly focused wham-bam story.  A nightmare figure from Rose's life as a bar girl suddenly materializes, placing the family under physical threat and also revealing up all sorts of emotional fault lines among them: Rose has lied about her past; Miaow, on the verge of becoming a good little bourgois in her fancy school, is horrified that her mother's life as a prostitute is reasserting itself; and Poke is finding that there are some secrets he may not be able to accept.  So the action intensifies and the emotional conflict comes to a boil and just the family is on the verge of flying apart, Rose sits them down and says she'll tell them what happened. 

And the reader turns the page expecting the story to continue and instead finds himself or herself in a dusty little Thai village a dozen years or so earlier as an awkwardly tall, tremendously shy teenager named Kwan, which means “Spirit,” spends her last hour in the life she knows, because she's just about to learn that her father has contracted to sell her into prostitution.  That's the beginning of the longest section of the book, almost 45,000 words, as Kwan runs away to Bangkok, goes to work in a bar, is befriended and betrayed, and gradually reassembles herself as Rose, the worldly woman whom Poke fell in love with and married, and who quit the bars to be with him and Miaow.  When this section is over, we've learned where Rose came from and why she is what she is.

That was definitely taking a chance, but it worked out beautifully. In fact, I could have read even more of Rose’s story. And your second worry?

In one word, women.  This part of the book takes place in a world of women, and I've always been nervous about writing women.  I wrote eight published novels before I had the nerve to put two women in a room without a man present, and that scene was as short as I could possibly make it.  And there I was in QUEEN, not only writing women all over the place, but women at an intimate juncture of their lives.  It's a story about female friendship and enmity and trials.  The men in the story are mostly customers, faceless, like walking ATMs.  They're just shadows – the characters are all women.  Scared me to death.  I can't tell you how many times I almost junked the whole book.

It's funny.  When I started that section I had no idea how to tell the story – and then, out of nowhere, one character threw a sapphire earring to another.  And the whole story of those earrings came to me as a single piece, and it helped me lead Kwan into this strange new world where she would be merchandise and where everything has a price and where there's no way to tell what's real and what's an imitation.  Writing is the single most interesting process I know of.

One other thing that scared me about this section was that I had to do it right – it couldn't cheapen what the women go through.  I'm part of a small group that tries to keep at least some girls out of the sex trade by paying their families to maintain them in school rather than selling them down to Bangkok.  The very day I started to write the Rose section, I got a long e-mail with a picture of a 16-year-old girl whose grandmother had been going to sell her until the local school teacher got wind of it and called one of the other people in the group.  And they went up north and had a sort of intervention, and grandma accepted the offer, and the girl is still in school.  The photo broke my heart, and the intervention went straight into the book, where it happens to Rose (or Kwan, as she's called then).  Knowing what that little girl was almost  put through made it extra-important for me to try to get things right.  And I kept remembering a quote from David Sedaris: “Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.”  So I decided that if anyone was going to read this book looking for titillation, I was going to make it very difficult for them to find it.

Anyway, after the long section/novella about Rose, we're suddenly jolted back into the present and the world of the thriller, through a long action scene that I will say with complete immodesty is the best action scene I ever wrote.

This is your forth Poke Rafferty novel - and in my opinion, the best so far (which I seem to have gotten into the habit of saying after each book you finish) - is there anything you set up at the start about Poke, Rose, Miaow and the others that you wish you'd done differently now? If yes, what?

No.  In my first series, the Simeon Grist PI mysteries, I wrote Book One, and three weeks later I had a three-book contract.  I was stuck with everything in the first book, including some unsatisfactory relationships and a few crappy ideas.  That series lasted for six books and I kicked myself a dozen times, every time I wrote a new one, about the decisions I'd made in the first.

So before I did anything with the Poke series I wrote a whole novel, Bangkok Tango, just to make sure I'd asked myself all the questions that seem so obvious later.  The mistakes I made in Bangkok Tango surfaced in the second book, A Nail Through the Heart, which was the first one I submitted for publication, and I was able to fix them as they arose.  If I ever write another series, which I doubt I will, I'll write another “drawer book” first to get the kinks out.

And I've cannibalized Bangkok Tango for everything that was good in it.  I feel like one of those guys who rips copper wiring and wooden molding and hardwood flooring out of old buildings.  Poor old Bangkok Tango has been stripped pretty bare. 

Well, it served its purpose. Don’t know if I could write a book knowing ahead of time that it was just going to go into the drawer. But what a great idea. So is there anything you did set up in the books that did come out that has paid off unexpectedly in later novels?

You know how it is.  Everything pays off eventually.  Probably most conspicuous is the street kid named Superman who took care of Miaow before the books begin and who's a main character in the first book, A Nail Through the Heart.   I got hundreds of e-mails asking what happened to him after the end of Nail, and two books later, in Breathing Water, when Poke came up against the most powerful people in Thailand and I wanted to show the other end of the scale – the most powerless people – there Superman was with his army of street kids.  And in The Fourth Watcher, a very shady former CIA guy, Arnold Prettyman, takes Poke to a bar where old spies hang out.  A bunch of those superannuated spooks will be Poke's main allies in The Fear Artist, which might be the next book. 

Sooner or later, everything seems to come back.

So I guess that semi-answers the what’s next for Poke question…well, sort of. But that brings up a larger view question…since this is a series, I’m wondering if you have an end point in mind? Not so much as the plot of the last novel, but an idea where Poke, Rose and Miaow end up when you’re done. Is this something that you think about? Or maybe you haven’t even let your mind go there yet.

I'd like to write this family until Miaow gets married.  And then, who knows?  Maybe I'll write a much older Poke and Rose, enduring the perils of thrillers and empty-nest syndrome at the same time.  Maybe they'll split up and Poke will have to deal with being alone.  I have no idea, but I want to stay with them.

One thing I hadn't realized about the series until I got to the third book was how much attention Miaow was going to require.  Children change all the time.   In four books she's gone from being a former street child who still can't believe she has more than one pair of shoes to a burgeoning teen who's desperate to leave her old identity behind and  be more like the kids in her semi-snotty school.  My God, she's got a budding boyfriend now, a stuffy little Vietnamese 12-year-old who has no idea what he's getting into.  As much as I've loved everything about writing these books, Miaow has been a total gift of the universe, a joy to write from start to finish.

In addition to THE QUEEN OF PATPONG, I understand there are some exciting things happening with your first series, the Simeon Grist books. First can you give those of use who are not familiar with them the quick low-down on what they’re about, and then share what’s going on?

Odd you should ask.  This hardly looks prearranged at all. 

Simeon Grist is a Los Angeles private eye with a useless string of UCLA diplomas; he stayed in college because he knew how they graded people in college but he wasn't so sure how it worked in the outside world.  He finds his vocation by accident when someone throws a friend of his then-girlfriend, Eleanor Chan, off the roof of one of the UCLA residence halls and Simeon solves the case.

There are six books in the series, which one critic called “One of the great lost series of the 90s,” which I guess is a compliment.  They qualified for cult status by getting great reviews and zero sales. 

The first two books series, The Four Last Things and Everything But the Squeal, are now available on Kindle for the – are you sitting down? – amazing price of $2.99.  That's practically cheaper than free.  And I'm writing Simeon again right now, for the first time in fifteen years, but in a book that's very different from the first six. 

But if I have a message here, it's that everyone in the world will approach life differently – be taller, happier, better looking, richer, more popular, sexier, and more like the person in the world they most idolize – if they buy and read The Queen of Patpong.  And I can say that completely impartially.

_____

Thanks so much, Tim, for stopping by! Just wanted to tell all of you again how fantastic Tim’s new book is. Seriously, it is stunning, and, as far as I’m concerned, a must read. Tim mentioned above that I provided him a blurb for the book. Here’s what I said:

Queen of Patpong is simply outstanding. Compelling, heart-wrenching, and oh so satisfying. I didn’t think there was any way Tim Hallinan’s Bangkok Thriller series could get any better, but it has. Hallinan has once again proved to me why he is one of my all time favorite authors.

I meant every word of that.

If you have anything you’d like Tim or any comments you’d like to make, go for it! I’m traveling today, so I’ll check in when I can, but Tim will be in and out. Otherwise you can learn more at Tim's website.

Slow

As you may or may not have noticed, I wasn’t around much last week, I was on vacation in the lovely mountains of North Carolina (folks from out West are asked to hold their “you call THOSE mountains?” remarks for the time being).

It was a bit of a departure for me, since vacations for the Rhoades clan have traditionally involved a lazy week at the beach.  But we had a free place to  stay at my folks’ condo on Beech Mountain, so we decided to seize the opportunity.

I've often observed that there are marked differences between the type of folks who like to vacation in the mountains and those who vacation at the beach. As I wrote a few years ago:

• Mountain people are on the move: up the trail, down the slope, across the rock face. Beach people have to be reminded to turn over periodically so that the sunburn is evenly distributed. When they do move, beach people prefer an aimless ramble along the shore rather than a brisk hike up a steep slope.
• Mountain people are into gear: backpacks, boots, bikes, skis, etc. Beach people tend to regard shirts and shoes as an imposition.
• Mountain people love the breathtaking vistas of peaks and valleys. The peaks and valleys that appeal to beach people are covered (barely) by Lycra and Spandex.
• Mountain people experiment to get the right ratio of nuts to raisins in the trail mix. Beach people argue over the perfect Margarita recipe.
• Mountain people like freshly caught trout grilled over an open campfire. Beach people like shrimp broiled in butter or deep fried, especially in Calabash, N.C. (aka Arteriosclerosis-by-the-Sea). And don’t forget the hushpuppies.
• Mountain people are exhilarated by the smell of clean, crisp air. Beach people get all misty-eyed at the scent of Hawaiian Tropic or Banana Boat.
• Mountain people throw logs on blazing fires. Beach people rub aloe vera on blazing sunburns.

This is not to say I didn’t have at least some time to be indolent. We spent a day lounging by (and swimming in)  lovely, cool Wildcat Lake in Banner Elk:

And I watched a few sunsets from the deck:

But there was also plenty of walking, to places like the Wilson’s Creek Overlook on the  Parkway, which you reach by a trail that closely resembles a stone staircase  3/4 of a mile long, but which rewards you with this view: 

 

Or the hike to Linville Gorge:

 All in all, though, it was a chance to live a little more slowly. I still did a lot of the things I do every day, like check e-mail, but with every one I made myself answer the question, “do I really need to respond to this today?” With a very few exceptions, the answer came back “nope,” as I closed the lid on the laptop. Very liberating, that. I recommend it.

I got less writing done than I’d planned. But that was okay. I wrote when I wanted, and I got a clearer vision of where I wanted the book to go in its last act. A long walk in the mountains  will do that, when you’re not gasping for breath and hoping those spots in front of your eyes don’t mean you’re about to have some sort of aneurysm.

I also got a lot less reading done than I usually do on vacation. I’m typically pretty cocky about the number of novels I can burn through while lying on the beach. This time, I got exactly two read (Brad Thor’s STATE OF THE UNION and Ian Rankin’s A QUESTION OF BLOOD, if you’re interested). But I thoroughly enjoyed them both.

Which caused me to reflect: what the heck is my hurry when it comes to reading, anyway? Even with books I like, I tend to be constantly checking where I am in relation to the last page, eager to get to the end and go on to the next book in the TBR pile. And why brag, as i've been known to do, about how many books I read in a week off? Since when did reading become competitive for me?

When considering the question I came across this article on the "Slow Reading" movement. Seems that I'm not the only one to ask the question, "what's your hurry?" when reading. "Mostly," the article says, "the 'movement'  is just a bunch of authors, schoolteachers, and college professors who think that just maybe we’re all reading too much too fast and that instead we should think more highly of those who take their time with a book or an article." The idea goes all the way back to philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, "who in 1887 described himself as a 'teacher of slow reading.” Slow reading, the theory goes, increases comprehension and enjoyment of the text. It's hard to do in this high speed, hyperlinked world, but now that I'm back to that world  after a week of living slowly, I think I'll try a little slow reading. I know life's short and work often demands speed.... but what's the use of hurrying through your pleasures?

'Rati, what say you? Anyone for some slow reading? Or do you do that already?