One Blog Closes, Another Opens

After thinking about it long and hard I have decided to close this blog. As those of you who have followed it know I haven't posted much in the last few months. That's because I made this blog too restrictive in what I was blogging about. It's difficult enough to write a novel without also having to find something to blog about that one particular writing project on a regular basis. I was unable to make the format work.

I'm beginning a new blog with a more open focus. Instead of focusing on just one particular type of writing, i.e: a novel, I'm opening up my new blog to the different types of writing I do, both fiction and non-fiction, all formats. I'll also blog about books I read and authors I like. Just tonight I blogged about short story writing and reading Erskine Caldwell. If you're interested check out http://mywriterslife.wordpress.com/. I'm fairly certain I won't run out of topics.

Where Have I Been?

For the past few weeks I have not blogged about my novel. Why, you may ask, was I not blogging? The answer is simple: I wasn't writing. Can't blog about writing if I'm not writing. The obvious next question is, why was I not writing? The answer to that is a bit more complicated. Well nothing is really ever simple, is it?

The immediate answer is that I was busy distracting myself with other things, i.e.: facebooking, Myspacing, worrying about trivial matters (too many in number to list here). Why was I distracting myself with other things? Now that's the real question, leading to the real answer. Fear of success is probably the main reason; there are probably a whole slew of secondary reasons as well but I won't get into that here.

I've developed some pretty good avoidance strategies for not accomplishing the things I want. Keeping myself busy with minor things that I pretend are major is the main way I do it. I've done this so frequently in the past that  I should have seen it sooner. Now that I've realized I'm using this particular strategy again I can stop using it and get back to writing. I'll have to check myself much more frequently to ensure that I don't backslide; this is something like being a recovering alcoholic. I wonder if there's a twelve step program for underachiever's...Underchievers Anonymous? The writer as self-psychoanalyst.

What I'ld like to do, if you'll all allow me, is to ask for a reset of sorts. I want to start this blog over from today. In other words in 365 days from today I will have a finished novel. No avoidance, no stopping, no excuses. I realize this is a lot to ask. I started this blog several months ago with the same premise and the same promise...to have a completed novel in 365 days. I also realize that once you break a contract, a verbal committment or a promise people no longer trust you. This is with good reason; you've let them down. It's an issue of trust. I will probably lose readers. However if you stick with me I will have a finished novel a year from today...promise.

I will have some things to post within the next few days (my plan is to post every two to three days at the longest) about my restarted process.

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Bill Browning, writing from Starbucks/Ansley Mall, Wednesday, 16 June 2010...365 days and counting.

Deconstruction of a Novel

It's been a few weeks since I've posted. I've been busy working on my novel and deconstructing Robert Crais' novel L.A. Requiem.

I've gotten only a little further with my novel but the process of deconstructing someone else's novel was very interesting and instructive. I was able to gain some insight into how Mr. Crais put together his novel, how he created tension and suspense, basically the whole nine yards of novel construction. I believe that I've gained so much insight into the writing process that I'm now deconstructing James Lee Burke's Black Cherry Blues and will do the same with Robert B. Parker's early Spenser novel Looking for Rachel Wallace after I finish with Mr. Burke's book.

*   *   *   *   *

I've included two links to reviews for Henning Mankell's The Man from Beijing. The New York Times review is lukewarm; the Washington Post review is more positive. I am reading the novel, a mystery in which a mass-murder has occured in the fictional Swedish town of Hesjovallen. The Man from Beijing is not Mankell's best work but I'm enjoying it none the less.

The New York Times Review:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/books/review/Peed-t.html

The Washington Post Review:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/09/AR2010040904973.html

Below I've also included a review, from the Los Angeles Times, of Robert Crais' The First Rule.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/11/entertainment/la-et-book11-2010jan11

To Blog or Not to Blog...To Write or Not to Write. It's Hard Doing Both!

I haven't been blogging in over a week because I've been using all my spare time to write my novel. Because of this I'm feeling guilty about not blogging regularly. I can certainly find things in my life to feel guilty about but this one is making me feel more guilty than most. So I'm going to try blogging every other night about my novel. I'll see if that works.

I'm progressing into chapter two without having finished chapter one. But chapter one is almost complete and I pretty much know how it ends so I'm not messing anything up by beginning chapter two early. At least I hope I'm not.

Not much else to write about my novel tonight so here are a couple of good links. Are you looking for some good online writing classes? Like anything else check this out to your satisfaction before progressing but I recommend (at least taking a look at) Gotham Writer's Workshop online, http://www.writerclasses.com/. Writer's Digest magazine also presents online writing instruction at http://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/retail/ . Again I say check these out thoroughly and to the point that you're comfortable before paying for instruction. In fact that's probably a good rule for anything in life, i.e.: use someone else's recommendation as a starting point and then do your own research. I'm planning on taking classes from both later this year when I have a little more discretionary income.

Book Review Links:

Here's an interesting piece about Mark Twain from the USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2010-04-20-twain20_CV_N.htm

And here's a link to a review of Jennimae & James: A Memoir in Black and White. It's an interesting story of the relationship between a white mathematician and his uneducated African-American housekeeper.
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2010-04-22-newmanrev22_ST_N.htm

Finally, do you like history? Think Teddy Roosevelt played an interesting role in American history? Then read The War Lovers by Evan Thomas...and the New York Times book review I've linked to about Teddy Roosevelt. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/books/review/Steel-t.html?ref=books

Till next time.

Bill Browning. Sunday, 25 April 2010.

Why write? It's better than parking cars...and you get to work inside.

You ever write anything and realize, after spending a fair amount of time on it, that it's total garbage? I did that tonight. I wrote a long blog entry about my motivations for writing. I then read it and realized that if I were reading someone else's blog I would think the writer was a complete jerk. "Pretentious crap" is the name of the discard file I put that particular piece of garbage into.

So what are my motivations for writing? To be able to communicate with others on a level that affects them emotionally is my number one reason. I love to tell stories that cause people to feel something. It usually means you're connecting with them. I also enjoy reading books that cause me to have an emotional response, joy, sadness, etc. I think that all this points to a basic human need, connection to other people.

To create is another. To create a story from nothing is a difficult thing; I know, I'm in the process of doing it. To create a good story from nothing that then gets you all sorts of positive feedback, attaboys and woot woots (where did that expression come from?) is probably close to a miracle. I'm aiming for the miracle. I'm mentioning that in case I haven't been clear on the issue.

Being able to earn my living as a writer would be a pretty good thing also. I have no illusions that a writing life would be any simpler or easier than any other kind of life. Writing is just as difficult a way to earn a living as anything else you choose to do. In my case though I seem to have some talent for it and it's what I want to do so I'm going for it.

So those are some of my reasons for writing. I'm sure if you asked a hundred other writers to explain why they write you'ld get a hundred different answers. In fact there are probably as many reasons for writing as there are writers...that comment was pretty zen wasn't it? Bill, the master of insightful writing.

That's all I've got for tonight. More tomorrow.

Bill Browning, writing from Starbucks/Ansley Mall. Tuesday, 13 April 2010.

Can Annie Hall Make Me a Better Writer?

Writing this blog is far harder than writing my novel. On the days I blog I try to think of something interesting to write and have a difficult time doing that. So I plod on. This blog will be as much a learning experience as writing my novel is.

I'm midway through L.A. Requiem. Great book; it's probably one of Crais's best if not the best of his Elvis Cole mystery series. Read it...it's great. I'm also dissecting it, per my last blog, and I'm getting a lot of good info about putting a novel together. I'm hoping that doing this does not put me behind on finishing within the year but we'll see how that turns out.

The novel itself continues, slowly, but it continues to grow and take shape. Sort of like the Frankenstein monster, "It's alive," although it really isn't a monster. It's just a novel that sometimes drives me crazy in the process of writing it.

Thought for the night: does anyone remember Woody Allen's riff on relationships from Annie Hall? You don't? Well you've come to the right place to hear about it. Warning: I've bored many a past girlfriend with quotes from Woody Allen movies. However I love Woody Allen's films and stand unafraid of spreading ennui so here goes. Woody starts by telling a joke at the end of Annie Hall about his uncle who thought he was a chicken. People would continually ask his family why they didn't have the uncle committed. The answer: "Because we need the eggs!" Woody then goes on to draw parallels with relationships, i.e.: in most cases they don't go anywhere, we are mismatched with the person we're with and, in the end, we get nothing but pain and heartache (I'm paraphrasing). So why do we continue having relationships? You guessed it...because we need the eggs. Well damn son, writing is just about the same thing. We agonize for hours over a line or two, we read other authors who make us despair of ever writing anything that's good and we convince ourselves that no one will ever want to read our finished book (or short story, poem, etc). So why do we continue writing...

Bill Browning, writing from Starbucks/Ansley Mall. Monday, 13 April 2010.

A Way to Learn Novel Crafting

I was thinking yesterday of books on writing technique. Specifically I was thinking of those I've read in the past and remembered a technique I once read about in Lawrence Block's Spider Spin Me a Web, his book on writing a novel. I recall that he mentioned a technique in which you deconstruct someone else's novel by writing a synopsis of each chapter on index cards. You might also mention the characters introduced in each chapter and then the story points introduced in each chapter (I might have added some of these myself; I can no longer find my copy of the book). In this way you can see how the novel was constructed. Not a bad idea, I think. Time consuming but not a bad idea. So I'm doing it with Robert Crais' L.A. Requiem. I am reading the book at the moment anyway. I'll let you know how it works out.

Bill Browning, writing from Starbucks/Ansley Mall. Thursday, 8 April 2010.

Prologue, Chapter One...and Reading

I've finished my prologue. I agonized over it for a few days but finally got something I can not only live with, I think it's good as well. Too bad you don't get to see it until the book is published! I can now concentrate on Chapter One.

I've been reading Robert Crais' L.A. Requiem, one of his Elvis Cole mysteries. It's later on in the series but, in my opinion, one of his best. Cole and his partner, Joe Pike (the strong and silent sidekick, but as strong and silent sidekicks go, Joe Pike is pretty well written; not at all a caricature), are hired by the father of an ex-girlfriend of Pike's to find her. Seems the ex-girlfriend has gone missing and no one knows where she is. I'm about a third of the way through the book and am enjoying it, even though I've read it previously.
Crais' mysteries are among my favorites. I also like reading, and I've said this before (yes, I can repeat myself to the point of boredom), James Lee Burke and early Robert B. Parker , both of whom I'll be reading after I finish L.A. Requiem.

Reading other mystery writers, especially current mystery writers is fairly important, I believe. Doing so shows you what's selling to the publishing houses and also gives insight, to me anyway, into how good stories are put together. I need to do a lot of work on story structure, my weak point. In fact I'm planning on taking Robert McKee's Story Seminar the next time it is held in either New York or L.A. If you don't know what Story Seminar is just go online and Google "Robert Mckee Story Seminar." Or rent the Nicholas Cage movie Adaptation in which Cage plays screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. It is the story of Kaufman himself adapting Susan Orlean's Book The Orchid Thief...which became Adaptation on screen. A little confusing but fun; and in the film Kaufman attend's McKee's class. Enough of that. Just go look it up.

I have to be careful about reading the work of others, however, because I can come away feeling completely inadequate to the task of writing a novel. James Lee Burke is arguably one of the best mystery writers of the last twenty years. I can read him, think that I'll never be able to write like him and then do nothing until I manage to remotivate myself a few weeks later. And a "few weeks" is the fast turn around time for me. It could drag on longer. Dangerous.

Towards the end of developing my skills in crafting a good story, or just writing a book that makes sense, I'm reading Scene and Structure, a Writer's Digest Book. It seems like a pretty basic book but will probably help me since I'm at the basic level in both scene and structure. I'll talk more about the book as I get further into reading it.

More later.

Bill Browning, writing from Starbucks at Barnes & Noble/Buckhead. Monday, 5 April 2010.

Writing and Reading

I haven't blogged in the last few days because I've been writing. I don't have anything to share yet;  besides I have to keep some things back. I'll want you to buy my book after all.

I've been finishing up my prologue, which I mistakenly referred to as Chapter 1 in my last posting. I'm also beginning Chapter 1. It's still slow going but I'm getting used to the rhythm. Writing is becoming a more natural feeling process for me. I suppose that's what happens when you do anything repeatedly and over time. You just become more comfortable doing it. What was once outside of your comfort zone becomes a part of your comfort zone. This is happening with writing for me.

I'm also re-reading some of my favorite mystery authors. I just started (for the second time) Robert Crais' L.A. Requiem. Crais is one of my favority mystery writers. His Elvis Cole character is engaging and funny (OMG, I sound like a book critic) and his dialogue is spot on and snappy. Crais seems to have picked up the wise-cracking detective genre where Robert B. Parker left off when Parker's Spenser novels went from fun to formula.  After L.A. Requiem I'll be re-reading Parker's Looking for Rachel Wallace. This is one of my favorite Spenser novels and arguably the best of the series.

I'm trying to get on a regular blogging schedule every day. I've been writing every day, which is good. Because of that however, I've been neglecting my blog. Hopefully I'll get that straightened out soon.

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Bill Browning writing from Starbucks, Ansley Mall. Wednesday, 31 March 2010.

Back to Writing

Where have I been the last five days? Learning a couple of new tours; did I mention I give tours of historical homes/areas in Atlanta? Odd thing for a New Yorker to be doing but I've been in Atlanta for twenty years and now know it much better than the city I was born in. So that's how I make my living...giving tours. Anyway I have not been able to write due to the fact that I've had to memorize two fairly complex tours in a short period of time. This is where my acting skills come in handy; did I mention I trained as an actor?

The good news is I'm  now close to having those two tours down and it's back to writing. So there isn't much blog tonight. Just wanted to let you all know I'm still alive, kicking and writing. More tomorrow.

Bill Browning, writing from Starbucks at Ansley Mall, Atlanta, GA. Thursday, 25 March 2010.

First Chapter Redux

I've completely reworked the opening chapter for my book. I'm posting an excerpt below. It is the murder set up in much the same way that Law and Order shows you the crime in the first few minutes and then tells the story of the detectives solving the case. The commission of the crime itself is not in my my posting (you can read that in the published version, hopefully) but you will read what happens just befor the murder. It is not really a full chapter but more a lead in to Chapter One. I welcome any feedback you are inclined to give.

Monday, February 9th, 11 PM


John Reinke was walking his date home down 2nd Ave. past bars with solitary drinkers and couples
coming and going, convenience stores with Asian shopkeepers sitting behind counters overcrowded
with items you didn't need, an all-night diner or two, closed laundromats and the entrances to second
and third floor apartments.

There was the usual army of homeless asking for handouts. Some of their stories were elaborate and
well-thought out backed up by “documentation” that almost looked real but wasn't. Like the fake
minister who had done great things for the needy of his church and proved it to you by opening up
the cheap fake leather notebook he was carrying and showed off the photo copies of the newspaper
articles written about him. If you looked closely you could see the lines where the banner from the
New York Times (or the Post or Newsday) was pasted over a photo of him and a fake article about his
good deeds. If you could put on a good show like this and could tell a good story as well you made
money. Others who did not have the talent, the patience, the intelligence or were just too strung out to
put together an act that would draw you in usually went away empty handed. Panhandling, like
anything else in the great city, was highly competitive. Only the strongest survived.


John and Molly tried to ignore them all. That was what you did if you wanted to retain your sanity
and get anywhere close to on time. They had both learned this quickly after moving to the City a few
years ago, he from North Carolina wanting to become a successful actor, she from Westchester County,
geographically close but culturally light years from where she now lived.


It was a crisp,clear late winter night. The kind of cold that focuses you and makes you more aware
of everything around you. The people, the lights, the City itself were more sharply defined and John
loved it. John loved the weather, the City, it's people and places in a way that natives usually don't. His
love for New York was the kind of love that only people from someplace else experience. He had
arrived two years earlier and had sworn, after having been in New York for only a few weeks, that he would never leave, never live anywhere else. New York was the most exciting place he had ever been
or could imagine ever being. His acting career was just taking off so there was no reason for him to
leave. He would be here forever. Forever, for John Reinke, was not to be too much longer.

More tomorrow.

Bill Browning, writing from Starbucks, Ansley Mall, Saturday, 20 March 2010.

First Chapter Breakdown

I've spent the last three days writing my first chapter. Finished around 1 AM this morning. I woke up and decided to reread it with a fresh eye. OMG, it's terrible. I've read some bad writing in the past but my first chapter was really bad. I scrapped it and am starting over. It's going to be a long haul.

I never realized that writing fiction could be so difficult. I write fairly intelligible and fluent non-fiction (yes, that was a pat on my own back). Fiction writing, however, is not even close to being the same discipline. I'll keep going however, putting one word after another until I have a novel...or just a long string of words.

Bill Browning, writing from Starbucks in the Ansley Mall, Atlanta. Sunday, 14 March 2010.

Three New Back Stories

I have three more back stories for my characters.

Stanley (Stan) Sarnicki

47 years old, born on August 19, 1962. Street smart. Went to high school on Long Island with Tom McDermott. U.S. Marines after high school, no college. Never married, but lots of girlfriends. No children.

Alcoholic and wildman. Stan always has one foot out the door of the NYPD due to his unorthodox detective methods and off-duty behavior that is potentially embarrasing to the police department.

Overweight but you still wouldn't want to face him in a fight. 6',2" tall. Brown eyes, blond hair. Raised Catholic but has not practiced since childhood. Mother still alive and living in Brooklyn. Father ran off when he was eight years old. Has the unfortunate habit of dating unstable women. He entered the police academy the same year Tom McDermott did.

He lives in the Polish section of Brooklyn (not with his mother). Even though he is a wild card he is extremely loyal. If you're his friend he will always have your back.


Lieutenant Randall Griffin, Head of Detectives, 6th Precinct

Tom and Stan's commanding officer. Born on February 5th, 1975. Comes from a rich family. Always trying to prove that his family background does not prevent him from understanding "the street." 5' 9" tall. Dark brown hair, brown eyes. Can be a little too strict with the rules; tries as much as possible to play it by the book. This is partially due to his fear of getting into trouble with the NYPD heirarchy.

Philip Constanzo, aka "Philly No Knees", aka "The Butcher of Bensonhurst."

40 years old. Black hair, blue eyes. 5', 6" tall, built like a tank. Extremely powerful physically. Don't underestimate his intelligence however. There is very little that he misses. Thinking he's dumb can prove fatal. Picked up the mob nick name "Philly No Knees" because he was knee capped by three members of a rival gang when he was twenty five. He now walks with the assistance of artificial knees. He picked up the nickname "The Butcher of Bensonhurst" because of his engineering of the extermination of a rival gang in Bensonhurst (Brooklyn) when he was twenty seven. Has a reputation for extreme violence. He was a hit man and is now in control of his own sub mob.

He's married with three children, a son and two daughters.


I'm not planning on writing any more back stories for my novel unless one of my other characters turns into a major character.

Bill Browning, 9 March 2010, writing from Starbucks, Midtown Atlanta.

A Few Thoughts

No writing notes today, just some ruminations on a fairly famous writer.

Sometimes I think I'm the only person of my generation (I was born in 1952) who has never read Jack Kerouac's On the Road. I know that this is undoubtedly not true but whenever I speak to one of my other writer friends or just people of my age who read a lot, it seems that if the subject of Kerouac comes up, they've read him.

I began thinking of Kerouac yesterday while doing my laundry. The laundromat I was in had an old issue of Smithsonian magazine (September 2007) in which there was a piece about Kerouac written by Joyce Johnson who, at the time On the Road was published, had a relationship with Kerouac. He was an interesting character. He achieved astounding literary fame and then retreated from the literary life and his friends. Not long after his famous book was published he moved into a home in Northport, New York (not too far from Huntington, NY where I once worked in a bookstore) to care for his mother. He was also hiding from his celebrity status. It's strange that so many successful authors have done this, J.D. Salinger being the name that immediately comes to mind. Kerouac also drank heavily and passed away on October 21, 1969 from an internal hemorrhage which was the end result of the cirrhosis he had developed. He was living in St. Petersburg, FL at the time of his death.

Kerouac's story makes me wonder about the nature of the creative process and how it relates to the personality of the writer. In what part of the personality does creativity come from and what makes someone retreat from literary success, or any other kind of creative success, after it is achieved? I don't have anything to add in terms of understanding this process, at the moment, or Kerouac. I should just go ahead and read him. I'll start with On the Road and move on to Dharma Bums from there.

Bill Browning, Atlanta, GA, Sunday, 7 March 2010.

Back Stories

I did not get up early this morning to write. Sigh! I was just too tired and slept through my alarm.

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Below is what I have so far in terms of back story for my characters. I had more than this one back story written but was not happy with most of them and am in the process of rewriting.

Thomas (Tom) McDermott.

47 years old; born on November 12, 1962. Intelligent, streetwise, 5', 11". Dark brown hair just beginning to gray, blue eyes. NYPD Detective assigned to the 6th Precinct, Greenwich Village, Manhattan. 48 years old. Raised Catholic, now on the fence about it. Entertained the thought of entering the priesthood earlier in life. Explored the seminary but ultimately decided against it. He now attends mass occasionally but can't decide to either leave the church completely or get back into it. His ambivalence about his religion is a direct result of what he has seen and had to do as a policeman.
He was raised on Long Island in Smithtown. He now lives alone in an apartment in Queens. Tom is separated but not divorced. His wife is Lisa, a practicing Catholic. Two daughters, Margaret, 16, rebellious, in high school and Barbara, 19, away at college, more conservative than her sister, also a practicing Catholic like her mother.
Tom served four years in the Army directly out of high school. He then attended SUNY Stony Brook (the State University of New York at Stony Brook); earned a bachelor's degree in history. Tom entered the police academy at 28 years old.
He drinks regularly but not heavily. He is in moderate to good physical shape but not great shape. He could lose a few pounds. He has just started lifting weights and running but does not do it regularly.
He is reserved but not too much so. He likes Italian and Mexican food best. He enjoys older, i.e.: 1940s and 1950s, movies. He also likes modern horror movies but will pretty much see anything. He will also see any movie with Sandra Bullock. When he reads he reads history. He can't stand reading police mysteries; he thinks they are not very accurate. Besides he lives that life everyday. His favorite music is Jazz. His mother is dead and he is estranged from his father, a hard drinking Irishman.
He does not want to go any further up the chain of command in the NYPD and is happy where he is. He believes that too much compromise is involved in becoming a "boss" and prefers to do detective work.

I'll have more tomorrow.
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Bill Browning blogging from Starbucks in Midtown Atlanta, Friday, 5 March 2010.

What I'm Thinking

Just a few thoughts on writing tonight. Writing is hard work, it's difficult and it's frustrating. There are times I sit staring at this laptop screen wondering what I'm going to write next. I wonder how I'm going to write something that will make sense and help my novel move forward. I want to scream, I want to cry (well maybe that's a slight exagerration), I wonder why I continue writing. At the same time writing is extremely rewarding when it is flowing smoothly. Getting a good dialogue down on paper is a great high. Putting together a few good paragraphs is a feeling that I can't aqdequately describe (yet); it's one of the best feelings that I have ever had. I think, "hey, I've written something that really is good." So that keeps me going. That keeps me waking up every morning before I have to get ready for work so that I can write.

And yes, I wake up early every morning to write. I get this from Brett Easton Ellis. I read an interview he gave once where he stated that he woke up at 4 AM in the morning to work on his first novel. He had to do this because he still had to hold on to a regular job. I try to do the same thing. I'm afraid, however, that I don't always manage to get myself out of bed at 4 AM. But I try.

So what really motivates me to write, to want to be published? Those are two different questions and I'm still exploring my motivations so I don't yet have complete answers. Here's what I have so far. I have always had a talent for writing. When I was younger I found it much easier to explain myself through writing rather than through verbal communication. So I like to write. I seem to have some talent for non-fiction writing. Fiction writing is a little harder but I still am fairly good at some aspects of it as well, dialogue for instance. I seem to have a good ear for natural sounding dialogue and can put it to paper fairly easily. Other aspects of fiction writing don't come as easily to me, story structure and plot for instance. I'll speak of those some other time. So writing fulfills a need I have to communicate well. Possibly also to tell stories and communicate information: while I was employed as a bank fraud analyst I regularly had to explain via email, clearly and concisely, how I arrived at certain conclusions regarding fraud, missing deposits, etc. And I was pretty good at it.

To be honest I also like to hear people tell me how they liked something I've written. And that brings me to why I want to be published. I want to not only write for myself, or a small group of readers, I want to tell stories that thousands of people want to read. That's the real high. Knowing that you've written a novel, a novelette, a short story that readers like and relate to and want more of.

I think I should stop here. This post is a little more unfocused than I like. Tonight most of it is coming off the top of my head. I also want to put in a little more work on my book.
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Tomorrow I'll post some of my character's back stories.

Bill Browning, writing from Starbucks in Midtown Atlanta, Thursday, 4 March 2010.

What I'm Doing...and a Few Thoughts on Writing

Tonight I'm working on back stories for my main characters. I should be done in a few days and will post them this coming Friday, or at least those I've finished. Back stories are fun...and easy. You don't have to worry about style or grammar since they won't make it into your novel. I'm having a good time with this.

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Writing, I think, is a lot like cooking. Cooking is my hobby. Having some knowledge of what foods go together or training in cooking usually helps. And by training I don't necessarily mean going to a cooking school. Few of us can afford that. Mom, aunts, older siblings can all teach you how to cook, assuming they know how themselves. In my case I learned some things by watching my dad cook. His repertoire was limited but what he cooked was good.

In cooking you get your ingredients, mix them together and hopefully come up with something tasty. If you mix together mismatched ingredients however you get something that sucks. I've done that lots of times.

Writing, at least fiction writing, is similar. You get your ingredients, i.e.: characters, settings, plot, and mix them together. Hopefully you've chosen your "ingredients" wisely. If you have you will end up with a well written story that people want to read. However, if you choose those ingredients badly, and there are lots of bad, boring or terribly written stories out there, than you get a bad short story, novelette, novel, etc. And like cooking a little training, self or otherwise, doesn't hurt. I've taken writing classes taught by published authors and have also read lots of books about writing. Writer's Digest is a good source for those books. Some folks have a natural ability to write fiction. Most of us, however, need a little guidance and training. Enough of that before I get boring.

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I just finished reading Henning Mankell's Faceless Killers. I spoke of this book a few days ago. Mankell is a pretty good Swedish mystery novelist. His novels are published in the U.S. in translation from the original Swedish. They were also translated by someone who speaks British English and not American English. Even so if you can get past all that reading Mankell is a treat that any reader of hard boiled detective fiction will like. I recommend him highly. You can get his books at any major (or minor) bookseller. And that brings me to my digression for the evening. I like the chains. In fact I worked for several years at Barnes & Noble in New York City; it was a great job. The reason I like the big chain stores is because they can carry midlist authors that the smaller stores can't simply because of space and financial limitations. They have a selection unparalleled by independent booksellers. There are plenty of authors who probably would not have made it without the chains to stock and sell their books. That being said I also like independents and have a great deal of respect for anyone with the guts to open an independent bookstore, especially in the current economy. In addition independent booksellers can usually provide a service that chains usually don't. That service is knowledgeable booksellers, people who can recommend titles better than most chain store employees.

I know it sounds like I'm riding the fence on this issue but I'm not. I think there are many positives to both chain and independent booksellers. I'm sure there are plenty of folks who disagree with me on that. I'ld love to hear from you if you want to comment.

That's all for tonight. I'll be back tomorrow with more.

Not a Day for Writing

I just finished moving furniture and I'm exhausted. If I were to write anything, other than this short post that is, it undoubtedly would not make a lot of sense. To be honest not making sense had never stopped me in the past but for tonight anyway it will. More tomorrow.

I took the last two days off from writing, either my novel or my blog, due to being under the weather. It's now time to get back to work. I'm going to include a bit of my writing (from my novel) every Friday. Because I did not blog yesterday I'm doing it today. The following is an exercise I did to get my creative juices flowing. I was stuck and so I wrote some dialogue and explanatory prose that I might be able to use in my novel. It is my two main characters, Tom McDermott and Stan Sarnicki, NYPD detectives, discussing the questioning of Derek Munch's (the murder victim) friends, family and neighbors. Here it is:

I was exhausted. Stan and I had split up and canvassed all of Derek Munch's neighbors, friends, family, girlfriends old and new, parents and his one surviving grandparent. We spoke with his shrink and his dentist, the guy he bought his morning coffee from, the girl who cut his hair, anyone who knew him. We would even have spoken to his cat but she wasn't talking. And we had nothing, not as far as I could tell. We were back to square one and no one was happy, not us, not Lt. Jackson, not the mayor. It was a hell of a day.

"Somebody knows something, someone's holding out on us" I said, more to myself than Stan or anyone else within listening distance.

"You think Tommy? Geez, I've got a genius for a partner."

I ignored his sarcasm; he gets like that when he's tired...or frustrated. Confronting it only makes it worse. I've made that mistake too many times.

"Stan, we need to go back out tomorrow and start all over again. Talk to everyone again. One of them knows who killed Munch. He or she may not have helped the perp but they know who he is. And they'll break sooner or later. Somebody's got to crack."

"At the moment I don't want to think about it or talk it out. I've got a headache, I'm tired and I'm frustrated." Confirmation of the state I thought he was in...Tom McDermott, genius detective. "Let's go have a beer at Pete's."

A "beer" at Pete's for Stan usually meant five or six beers, plus shots. When Stan got his load on all the demons he kept tightly locked up in a back room buried deep in his psyche came screeching out, causing the kind of havoc you never want to see. I had seen it far too often. This was shaping up to be a long night.
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Let me tell you who I read when I read mysteries. James Lee Burke is my favorite. He writes very literate mysteries, featuring Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux. Robicheaux is a detective with the Iberia Parish (Louisiana) Sheriff's deparment and an ex NOPD police officer. I recommend all of Mr. Burke's books. I don't think he's ever written a bad one.

I also like all of Raymond Chandler, most of Robert B. Parker's Spenser series and Robert Crais' Elvis Cole mysteries set in Los Angeles.

Of course there is only so much you can take of the wiseass detective genre so I also read Michael Connelly, especially his Harry Bosch novels. Harry Bosch is an LAPD detective and Mr. Connelly's novels can be fairly dark. I've also recently been reading David Fulmer's books. Mr. Fulmer has a few different mysteries but I like his Valentin St. Cyr series the best. They are set in the New Orleans of the early 1900s, specifically the red light district known as Storyville. They are full of period detail that make you believe you are actually in turn of the century New Orleans. If you read Mr. Fulmer I recommend staring with Chasing the Devil's Tail.

I'm taking the night off. I've been sick and haven't written today. More tomorrow.

I still don't have all my characters in place but I spent a few hours tonight writing dialogue, more as practice than anything else. Some of it actually turned out to be pretty good. Dialogue is my strong point, especially if it's dialogue between cops. I'll post some of it this Friday (the best of it). I may start posting excerpts from my writing every Friday until completion.

I'm exhausted and don't have much to write tonight. I'll have more to talk about tomorrow.

Bill Browning. Posting from Starbucks, Ansley Mall, Atlanta.

I'm writing, or trying my best to concentrate on writing (obviously I'm not doing that at the moment). I'll have more on writing tomorrow.

When not writing I'm reading Henning Mankell's Faceless Killers. Mankell is a Swedish mystery novelist. His protagonist is Ystad police inspector Kurt Wallander. An elderly farmer and his wife are murdered in their remote Swedish farmhouse. Inspector Wallander must find the culprits and is not having an easy time of it. Mankell writes compelling thrillers and in Faceless Killers throws in a depiction of anti-foreigner prejudice in Sweden. This is the first of Henning Mankell's mysteries translated into English. I am looking forward to reading his others. You might want to take a look at his books.

I wrote my novel's last chapter a month or two before beginning this blog...and then stopped. I call writing my last chapter first "doing a Margaret Mitchell." Margaret Mitchell wrote the last chapter of Gone With the Wind before she wrote any other part of the book. So she had her ending in sight. This is what I'm trying to do and will see if it works for me.

In addition because I stopped writing a month or two ago for no apparent reason other than procrastination I was looking for a way to motivate myself to write every day. This blog will hopefully serve that end. I've announced that I have one year to complete my book. I did this online so technically it is in front of the whole world (even though I'm convinced I will have only three readers). So if I stop writing now it is potentially embarrasing. More tomorrow.

This is the first day of my countdown to finishing my first novel. I'm giving myself 365 days to complete my book. My story is a murder mystery set in New York City. Writing what you know is a piece of advice that almost all writing teachers will give you. I'm following that advice. Writing a novel that takes place within the cultural milieu of New Orleans or involves the internal workings of the LAPD would be interesting and fun but I have no direct experience of The Big Easy or the Los Angeles Police Department. I was born in Brooklyn and lived there, in Queens and on Long Island until I was thirty eight. So I'll write about places I know and organizations I have some knowledge of.

I'll blog about my writing process, what I'm doing in terms of developing my technique and which authors I'm reading. Occasionally I will post excerpts from my book and include any random thoughts that seem to be relevant. I'll also, on a regular basis, throw in thoughts and ramblings that aren't relevant. I tend to digress. I know this about myself...I've seen me do it.

Right now I'm struggling with my outline. I'm trying to get it done quickly (but not too quickly) so that I can get down to real writing. To recap my story is a murder mystery set in New York City. The murder takes place within the acting community and the NYPD investigates. I've trained as an actor so I'm staying pretty close to home here. My experience of the NYPD is a topic of discussion for another time. I'm also trying to get my main characters in place. That is not as easy as it sounds.

Please post any feedback, comments, etc. that you feel appropriate. I always appreciate criticism. Okay, to be honest I may curse you silently but on this blog at least you'll get nothing but gracious thanks.

So here we go. 365 days to a finished novel and counting...

Bill Browning, posting from Starbucks, Midtown Atlanta, evening of 18 February 2010.