EVERY DIRTY JOB THAT COMES ALONG

By Gar Anthony Haywood

Because then-President Ronald Reagan made it famous by appropriating it for a "no new taxes" speech to the American Business Conference in 1985, most people think . . .

. . . is the greatest line Inspector Harry Callahan of the San Francisco Police Department ever uttered.

But I beg to differ.

Clint Eastwood has snarled a lot a memorable things over the course of the five films in which he's played the iconic Dirty Harry (DIRTY HARRY, MAGNUM FORCE, THE ENFORCER, SUDDEN IMPACT and THE DEAD POOL), but in my opinion, as meaningful snippets of film dialogue go, his "make my day" line doesn't hold a candle to the one he dropped, more than once, in MAGNUM FORCE:

"A man's got to know his limitations."

While the "man" Harry was talking about was his two-faced supervising lieutenant (played to hair-raising perfection by Hal Holbrook), his statement could have applied just as easily to writers as policemen.  Because the writer who's constantly working beyond his limitations --- which is to say, outside the boundaries of his innate strengths --- is probably not writing very well.

"Limitations?" you say.  "I don't believe in limitations!"

And that's understandable, of course.  Who among us wants to think that there are things we would like to write that we can't?  Things, in fact, that we may be ill-suited to ever write particularly well?  Such ideas run counter to everything we've ever learned about the power of positive thinking and the indomitable creative spirit.

Still, I think there's something to Dirty Harry's declaration.

One of the most common fears we professional writers have is that an unpublished novel from out of our past will someday be discovered and published, to great critical abuse, after we're dead.  Something we've determined should die unborn will instead be dredged from the depths of our effects and made public the moment we've been lowered into the ground.  It's a terrible thought, isn't it?  And yet, I don't happen to have this particular concern.  I don't have it because none of the dozen or so novels I attempted to write, prior to finally publishing FEAR OF THE DARK, would add up to 200 pages.  FEAR OF THE DARK was the first novel-length manuscript I ever completed; all the others petered out and died after two or three chapters.  (And this is a very good thing, people, believe me.  They were all dreadful.)

There were many reasons for all the false starts: lack of skill, preparation and commitment chief among them.  But one of the main reasons most of these novels died on the vine was that, in each case, the realization inevitably dawned on me that I was trying to write a book I was not equipped to write.  It was not my book.  Instead, it was a book outside my realm of competence: too big, too complex, too far removed from my particular life experience.

I loved spy novels, so I tried to write spy novels.  I enjoyed comic westerns, so I tried to write a comic western.  Science fiction, horror, coming-of-age melodramas --- if I read it and loved it, I tried to write it, and almost always with the same disappointing result: an unreadable, unconvincing manuscript.  Only when I set my sights on FEAR OF THE DARK --- a classic, hardboiled private eye novel that fit right in the groove of my interests and skill set at the time --- did I write and finish a book that felt like my very own.

Did I do the right thing in pulling the plug on all those other manuscripts, rather than soldier on to each one's ultimate conclusion?  I think I did.  I could have done a ton of research to fake my way to the very end of one or two, sure, but I don't think that would have accomplished much, because it wasn't just an insufficient knowledge of the material involved that made me the wrong person to be writing these particular books.  It was the fact that I had little or no personal perspective on them; I was a foreigner trying to write a book only a local could really do justice to.

I know this all sounds like an argument for that tired, age-old piece of advice that says a writer should only write what he knows, but that's not what I'm suggesting at all.  What I am suggesting is that, just because you can learn all there is to know about something and then write a book about it, that doesn't mean you should.  How well suited you are to write a given book doesn't begin and end with how well informed you are about its subject matter.  There are other qualifications to consider as well, such as:

• Insight
  
  What insight, based upon your own personal or professional experiences, do you have into the material?  Will you be writing from the inside looking out, or from the less advantageous perspective of an outsider trying to peer in?
  
  
• Passion
  
  What reasons do you have to be passionate about this book?  What makes it one you need to write, rather than one you'd simply like to write?
  
  
• Motivation
  
  Have you decided to write this particular book because it appeals to you artistically, or are you simply chasing the dime?  Would this still be your project of choice if all commercial considerations were set aside?
  
  
• Confidence
  
  Is this a book you can write with a level of confidence the reader can actually feel?  Or will your self-doubts regarding your command of the material, regardless of how much research you've done, be noticeable on every page?
  
  
• The Fun Quotient
  
  Yes, writing is work, and it's not supposed to be all fun and games, but a book that's well-suited to your talents and interests should, on some level, be enjoyable to write.  If, instead, you find writing it feels like a daily stint on the San Quentin rock pile, you may very well be writing somebody else's novel, not yours.

In baseball, they call the area around the plate in which a pitched ball is most likely to be pounded by a given batter his "wheelhouse," and I believe all writers have wheelhouses of their own.   That's where your best work lies.  Over time, as you grow as a writer, your wheelhouse grows naturally right along with you, broadening the range of material you can write reasonably well.  But unless you're one of those rare genetic mutations who are capable of writing anything they choose with equal brilliance, there will always be books that reside outside your wheelhouse, and those are the ones you'd be better off leaving alone.  Taking a swing at them instead --- to run with my baseball metaphor just a little while longer --- is more likely to earn you a strikeout than a homerun.

There's a published author of my very casual, online acquaintance who does a great deal of crowing about the diversity of his work and his determination to write in and across all genres.  It seems he's intent on writing any book, for any market, that suits his fancy.  From an artistic point of view, this sort of blind ambition may be admirable, but as a business plan, I think it's a disaster, because it's based upon a rather vain assumption of professional infallibility that few, if any of us, can honestly claim.  Anyone less than a literary phenom, in fact, following this guy's formula, is going to write some books that work and a lot more that don't, and surely life is too short to be wasting time writing the latter just to flaunt one's disdain for boundaries.

Let me state for the record that none of this is meant to imply that a writer shouldn't always try to stretch himself, or make a constant effort to avoid being pigeonholed.  Versatility is a wonderful thing.  I am, however, suggesting that smart authors assess their strengths, weaknesses and comfort level with certain types of material, honestly and accurately, and prioritize the things they write accordingly, for their best possible chance of success.

And they don't much care how much credit they're given for being someone who can write anything they damn well please.

Questions for the class: Name an author you love to read, but wouldn't dare attempt to imitate, for the reasons I've stated above.  Or instead, make an argument for why you think no kind of book should be off-limits to you.

(FINAL NOTE: The title for this post is another favorite outtake of mine from one of the Dirty Harry movies, this one from the titular DIRTY HARRY.  It's Harry's answer when he's asked to explain how he came to get his nickname: Because he always seems to catch "every dirty job that comes along."  Which, if I were a cynic, I might say is often the writer's lot in life, too.)

there is joy

by  Toni McGee Causey

I can tell you up front, I know no secrets about writing. I had sort of hoped that, by this point, I would have found the mysterious code, the secret handshake, the door in the back that opens with just the right combination of knocks and pauses. There may be such things; I don't know them.

I've thought about that a lot this last year. When I knew that I was going to write something else besides a Bobbie Faye novel, I felt a sense of exhilaration, followed almost immediately by a sense of terror. I'd been hostess to that set of characters for almost seven years, at that point. It was a bit like growing up with the same friends, going to the same school, living in the same house in the same small town; at some point, you yearn to see what the rest of the world is like.

That series started off as a script, and then after deciding to adapt it to a novel, I had to work long and hard to break myself of a bunch of script-writing habits and re-learn how to write fiction. The whole ability to show internal thoughts? wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Seriously. That was a trip and a high after years of having to keep everything external and yet somehow physically convey the internal, or use dialog, without getting to dip even a toe into the interiority of a character. (The exception, of course, is voice-over, and I'm not a fan. I think it shows a weak script, most of the time.)

It was time for a change, though, and the problem with suddenly having that freedom is that there were too many options. 

For the first couple of months, I thought I'd develop something funny, since that seemed to be my "niche." The oddity about that as my niche is that it's really not what I first loved to write. Everything I'd written in the early script years had been very dark, psychologically. The humor was something I didn't think I could write. Oh, I was a natural smartass, and I learned early on to curb that online (bit me in the ass a few times, it did)... but conveying humor on paper? I hadn't really planned on it, and yet, my screenwriting agent at the time felt like I should give it a try. [And that script still gets calls, almost 14 years later. It's been optioned and re-optioned. I refer it as the script that refuses to die.] 

Funny became my bailiwick. I loved it, it was a joy to get letters from people who were going through really crappy days or months, and learn that I'd helped them through it. There's just nothing quite like that feeling, when you read those letters. So I thought I'd do that again, just set in a different world.

I brainstormed the world, had the characters, and tried to write. And a frustrating thing happened: it went dark. Not just a little dark. Not like mildly slate gray when you were aiming for the whitewash of dawn. It went very dark. Bleak in places.

The story and I had a talking to--a come to Jesus meeting if you will. It seemed to agree to shape up, to do what it was told, so I would throw out the pages and start over, and try to go back to the lighter side. It curved on me, swerving back. Nothing I did worked.

I got a lot of well meaning advice at the time about sticking with what I was known for, keeping my fans happy, and so on, and every single bit of that is valid. People who have built amazing long-term careers said these things to me, so there was no doubt they were speaking from experience.

And the more I tried to pretzel that story, the more miserable I was. I sort of hated writing there for a while. In fact, we kinda broke up. I didn't mention it here, but I had started to wonder if I was a writer, you know? I couldn't get that damned story to work, and I couldn't leave the idea behind. It had grabbed me by a chokehold and I was squirming away. 

It was back in October and early November when several friends said a few things to me. I would like to think it was provenance, fate. I hope it wasn't because I was whining incessantly. [I was whining, people.] 

That's when I had the realization that I hadn't gotten into writing to do just one thing. I get bored easily. I hadn't become a writer because I thought I'd be famous. (The Naked Cowboy is famous. These days, you can do the stupidest thing on the planet, and be famous. Thinking you're going to write a book, one among hundreds of thousands and suddenly be famous? Not likely.) And nobody sane gets into writing for the money. Just look at the flux publishing is in today--nobody really knows what the hell is going to happen two years from now. Two years ago, e-readers were the clunky dim future and nothing worth worrying about. Now? The percentage of ebook sales is rising, fast, and there are all sorts of quakes ripping through the industry. It's going to change by next month, and definitely by next year, so writing for the money is fairly laughable. The majority of writers either have a job to support them, or are lucky enough that a spouse can handle the bills while they toil away, hoping to create something that will sell.

So, then, why the hell write?

Because I can't not write.

I quit fighting the story.

If it was going to go dark, then fine, we'd go dark. If it wanted to be told in first person, then dammit, we'd do first person. (Scared the living hell out of me, that one did. I had never written a first person story. Ever. Thought I never would.) If it was going to break my heart a dozen times over how hard the main character's life was, well, then, fine. 

I would simply tell the story.

And it started working. 

I'm here at a point in the story where today felt like I was carving each word out of my own skin, syllable by bloody syllable, because the scene was painful. People lose things, in this scene, that cannot be recovered. It changes everything for them in this story. And as painful as it was, as scared as I had been to go here, I have to tell you, I sat back at the end of this day, and there was joy.

I am so grateful I didn't listen to the peer pressure of doing the same sort of thing I'd done before. I will go back to lighter stories--I have another one I already know I want to do, eventually. But I am so grateful that my friends--several 'Rati members included--encouraged me to go with my instincts. I can't write that to you as someone who sold this thing--I've held it back, with the blessings of my agent--because I didn't want it out there until it could be a whole book. If I do it right, if I pull it off, it will be heartbreaking, but the end will be worth it. So when I tell you that there is joy, it's a joy of the writing. There is no other reward, here, than that, because everything else is fleeting. 

The first couple of years of being a writer, there is so much pressure to promote. No one really knows what works; it's all a guess. I've tried a lot of stuff, because people said I needed to, and some of it might've helped, and a lot of it was completely useless, as far as I could tell. The first couple of years, you spend a lot of time suddenly caught up in the spin cycle of publishing--writing as fast as you can, sending things off, getting the next book started or the next proposal done, proofing copy edits, writing a bit more on the current one, starting up promotional stuff, proofing the galleys, frantically writing more of the next one, trying to squeeze living and family in there, having very little time to breathe, much less enjoy.

None of it matters more than the work.

At the RWA conference last year, I went to an early morning no-holds-barred chat giving by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. (She's got a gazillion NYT bestsellers under her belt and is gorgeous and nice. You kinda want to smack her for being perfect, except she's funny and disarming and you end up liking her a lot before you know what happened.) She said a lot of useful things, but at one point late in the hour, she said, "Whatever you do, protect the work. The work is all you have."

There is a joy in that. I honestly know that I am writing far far better than I did before. Everything about how I write has changed with this book. That part is neither better or worse--just different, I suppose. What's important is that I didn't keep thinking, "Well, I should do it this way or I should do that other thing, because that's what's expected." Instead, I said, "What does this story want to say?"

I love what I do. I am so incredibly grateful I get to do it. I may never sell again, and I will be bummed, if that happens, but I'm here to tell you that this part? This writing what is gut-wrenching and honest and letting the story stay true to itself?

Pure joy.

Sometimes, it's going in the complete unexpected direction that will break you free of the chains, and bring you joy.

And speaking of joy, I could not end this post without giving you the Jane Austen Fight Club. 

What brings you joy, my friends?

(By the way, I'm woefully behind on updating my website, through no fault of my excellent webmistress, Maddee, so if you want to follow me, it's easier to find me on Twitter or Facebook.)

Friends, again... meet Alafair Burke

by Toni McGee Causey

One of the very best things about being a member of a blog like this is that we occasionally get to interview really cool people... and sometimes we get lucky and get to interview other members of the blog. I was particularly thrilled when Alafair Burke joined us here at Murderati, as I'd been a fan of her work and had heard great things about her, but it was a special kick to get to interview her on the occasion of her newest book which is about to appear in the bookstores, titled 212.

First, if you haven't really met Alafair, you should know that (and this is directly from her website) she is a former deputy district attorney, and now teaches criminal law at Hofstra Law School. She's got a fascinating background in law as well as literature, and if you haven't checked out her website, you're missing a treat.

The other really really cool thing about being a member of this blog is that I occasionally get to read my fellow blogmates' books ahead of their drop dates. And yes, I am going to be all gleeful and smug about it, because, dayem, they are fine writers and I'm immensely lucky just to be a part of this group. I couldn't wait to get my paws on Alafair's latest, and I have to tell you, it showed up in the midst of great personal upheaval (my father-in-law was in hospice at that time, and we knew the end was near), and I feared my concentration would be nil...  and instead, I was utterly captivated. (Check out the video... and the excerpt for 212.) 

This story is not just ripped from the headlines, but it digs deep into those headlines and exposes the kind of ramifications few in-depth exposé's could even hope to reveal. In an age when newspapers are glib about how politicians hire expensive call girls and in a day when those very same call girls can later become on air personalities, we've become accustomed to reporters just barely skimming over the reality of how deadly and compromising that particular crime actually is. In 212, Alafair explores the ramifications of two intersecting crimes--politicians hiring escort services and online stalking--and shows not only the harrowing results, but the determination of good people who are trying to find the truth, trying to make a difference. Her detective, Ellie Hatcher, is a stand-out, memorable woman you're going to want to know as she battles her way through lies and deceit to try to stop a killer from striking again, even in the midst of personal risk to her own career to do so.

I couldn't put the book down. 

Alafair's got a lot of information up on her site, but I got the chance last week to ask her a few more questions:

1) You write New York as someone comfortable and familiar with the city, like it's a second skin. I know you've lived elsewhere growing up, so tell me about your impressions of New York when you first visited or moved there... and how those first impressions changed (or were validated) after you'd been there for a while.

I first visited New York during the Son of Sam year of 1977.  My father's friends told of us tales of carrying mugger money around - small bills in a fake wallet to hand to the muggers instead of the real stuff.  Then as an adult, I came here as a tourist, staying most in midtown, seeing broadway shows and museums, and dining at restaurants I saw on Sex and the City.  Now that I live here, I rarely go to those kinds of places and am annoyed when I do.  The places I cherish are little neighborhood spots that would have surely underwhelmed me as a tourist looking to take in the "Big Apple." 

2) Was there a defining moment when you felt more native New Yorker than not? What was that moment and how did it affect your perception of yourself? Your vocation?

The defining moment was more like a two-stage process.  I remember standing in the TKTS line (discount theater tickets) at Times Square when I first moved to the city.  I looked up at the lights and signs and thought, "Wow, I really live here.  I'm even insider enough to buy discounted tickets."  Within a year, I dreaded the thought of walking through Times Square with all of those skyline-gazing tourists blocking the sidewalk.  There's a superficial roughness to New Yorkers that I understand now, but once you scratch beneath it, the people in this city are about as goodhearted as people can be. 

3) You've chosen two professions which aren't exactly known to be easy on a person's schedule, often costing hundreds of hours of late night work to stay caught up. What enticed you about becoming an attorney? Similarly, what enticed you about becoming a writer? How are the two similar? Different? If there was one way you could prep better for each vocation, what would that be?

When I went to law school, I didn't know whether I wanted to be a high-priced entertainment lawyer putting together deals at the Ivy or a civil rights lawyer working for the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Given my lifetime fascination with crime, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that I had a real passion for criminal law.  I worked as a prosecutor for five years and was motivated to write by the stories I saw unfold there.  I thought I'd seen a side to the criminal justice system that wasn't frequently portrayed in crime fiction.  They both require an ability to tell a story and incredible discipline, but writing requires a different kind of creativity that find liberating and sometimes incredibly frustrating.

4) In several of your posts and elsewhere, you've shown a sly, wry sense of humor that we all enjoy. What's the zaniest thing (legal) that you've done that you can admit to us?

Oh lord.  I'm ashamed to admit that my craziest act was completely accidental. I went to a different branch from my usual gym.  This was back before I could afford a gym that gave you human-sized towels.  All they had were these little hand-sized things.  I was wondering around the locker room searching for the shower stalls, walked through a door, and wound up in the free-weight room. Warning: some locker rooms have multiple exits.

5) What is something that people who meet you for the first time are most surprised to learn about you?

I have really low-brow taste.  I like bad movies, pop music, and hot dog carts. I'm also very handy.

6) In your new novel, 212, coming out March 23rd, NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher is drawn into a case that you've described in your acknowledgements as inspired by recent headlines: politicians, escort services, innocent by-standers, cover-ups and downfalls. You've created a vivid, layered world where nothing is obvious and you keep us riveted all the way through as Ellie has to peel away layer after layer to try to find the truth before it's too late. Tell us a little bit about Ellie, 212, and your process--how you chose this particular type of headline and why you wanted to investigate the ramifications.

Ellie Hatcher is an NYPD homicide detective who, like me, finds herself working in the same field as her father and tries to avoid the inevitable comparisons.  Also like me, she grew up in Wichita, Kansas when a serial killer was active, stalking, torturing, and murdering children and women.  Unlike me, Ellie's father was a cop who spent his life hunting that killer until he was found shot in his own car. Labeled a suicide, her father's death has never been resolved for Ellie.

The cases in 212 were inspired by a few real-life stories.  For years I've been pulling at threads of stories inspired by Neil Goldschmidt, a former governor of Oregon who admitted in 2004 that he had what he termed an "affair" in the 1970s with his then-14-year-old babysitter.  Many people in Portland were accused of knowing about the abuse and assisting the cover-up, including a man who subsequently became the Multnomah County Sheriff.  I'd been reluctant to write about the case immediately.  Portland's a small place.  I worked with Goldschmidt's stepdaughter at the DA's Office.  I worked closely with a law enforcement officer who was implicated in the cover-up.  But the story of a man who'd done so much good in public life rationalizing a so-called "affair" with a child -- and my imagined story of the woman that child came to be as she grew up in the shadow of his political ascension -- kept pulling at me.  More than five years after the scandal, my hope was to pursue a fictional story inspired by the real one.  Using the role of the internet in the modern sex industry, I found a fresh angle.

7) On the lighter side for a moment, what's your most unusual hobby?

Maybe this goes along with my lowbrow taste, but I really like karaoke.  And not in a hip, ironic way, but in an earnest American-Idol loving, Glee-watching, sing-your-heart-out way.  I think every book conference needs a karaoke session. Wouldn't that be great?  At Bouchercon, the playlist could be made up entirely of crime-related songs.

8) And... finally, if you only could choose five words to describe yourself for posterity, what would they be?

Loved.  Was loved.  Appreciated both.

Alafair is hosting a really cool offer for a mystery gift for everyone who pre-orders 212 before it hits all of the bookstores on Tuesday, March 23rd -- which means, you only have a couple of days left to take advantage of this terrific opportunity!

Meanwhile, tell me what ripped-from-the-headlines story you'd love to explore a bit more about? Is there a story you felt the press should have investigated more thoroughly? In this age of giving starlets 24/7 coverage if they hiccup, do you feel like we're glamorizing everything that should be news? Or do you feel we're getting into the gritty depths like we should?